pictures

finally, some pictures. go to

http://360.yahoo.com/profile-u7s3VxA4b66JywAKRO8-?cq=1

and look at my photo album. does this work??? lemme know.

out of ecuador, with a bang

if you are reading this, and to be honest im beginning to suspect that you are not, you probably already know that we were in the town of baños not 15 minutes before a massive volcano erupted onto it. now i dont know if they covered the eruption extensively in the states (probably not, since there is Jon Benet to worry about, again) but its a pretty big deal here. people died - lost crops, livestock, and houses, and several towns, including baños, were destroyed. awful. and its all my fault. it is my fault in very much the same way it was my fault when my 9th grade math teacher, who shall remain nameless, because i forgot her name, came down with a terrific case of shingles and was out of school for 4 months. that was totally my fault because it was i who wished sadness and malaise upon her. it was i who didnt like doing my homework, going to class, or recieving 7% scores on exams. it was i who hated her because she was going to fail me, and told me so. so when she got sick and was out for months, and when we had an even meaner teacher who wound up, of course, failing me, it was all my fault.
its the same with volcan tungurahua. the whole time i was in baños i wanted it to erupt. i was dying to see lava. one night, when we went with a friend who hired a taxi to take us up a nearby mountain to get a direct view of the volcano, i actually chanted "la-VA la-VA la-VA!" i was hungry for it, just the slightest splash of red against the dark sky, maybe a little drop flowing (but not so quickly!) down the side of the volcano. so when, on the night bus from baños to loja, in southern ecuador, we looked out the window and saw, clear as aanything, the peak of the volcano with a brilliant red cloud, and orange spreading slowly downwards, over the sides i thought "well, not that much. lets not get hysterical." and then the next morning, when we heard the news i knew that once again, i had gotten what i wished for, and it was not good.
moral of the story: dont listen to me. ever. i dont mean it. you hear that, volcanoes and math teachers and the fates: Ignore.
unless, of course, i am talking about country borders. then you (especially you eh-cuador) should listen hard. hear this: it is unacceptable to leave the border customs office unmanned, yet rather open and with music blaring, for over 3 hours in the middle of the night. and its not only because there might be people who have taken an overnight bus to peru and need to check out of ecuador before entering peru and are exhausted and mosquito bitten, with no where to go as the bus driver has disrobed and fallen asleep in their seats. its not only for that reason at all. the very simple fact is, that if there is nobody manning the border into ecuador, than it is exceedingly easy for about 20 young boys carrying live upside down chickens by their throats to simply walk into the country. and that they did, wothout looking twice. it is quite possible that ecuadors population doubled that night, as surely more people passed through who i did not see. besides, hasnt anyone heard of bird flu??? paranoia, people. works like a charm every time.

eventually we made it past all of this into peru, which was, by the way, open. we took another endless busride to trujillo, where we discovered peruvian food (exquisite! really! everybody, RUN, do not walk to the nearest preruvian restaurant. there is one on 9th and 50th.) and visited ruins of chan chan, right in the desert. very very cool. i could go on and tell you what chan chan was but, though i am extremely knowledgable about many and most subjects, especially history, i simply havent the inclination.
one more night bus and we made it here to huaraz. way the fuck up here, surrounded by white jagged peaks, over 3000 meters. but, you chew on coca leaves to combat altitude sickness and its really quite nice. tomorrow we head off on a 4 day trek through said white peaks, complete with a burro to hold our stuff. though i am stunningly athletic, of course, i suspect i may not have the INCLANATION to complete the hike, and may have to ride the burro for the duration of the trip.

wish me luck.

monkeys and mud

ok, tena. tena is a city often referred to as a "gateway" city (yey working quotes!). this is because its at the edge of the andes just in the oriente, or jungle. this means big jungly leaves with andes in the background. the setting is beautiful - very dramatic, esp. if traveling in by bus from the andes, which we were. dramatic in a "glad its so pretty because it may be the last damn thing i ever see" sort of way. you know, cliffside roads, all unpaved, semi drunk (?) driver. i spent much of the bus trip trying not to cry. but, beautiful.

so, yeah, tena has the beautiful setting. but the city itself is somewhat of a letdown. we expected a lot, because everybody talks about how nice tena is. it turns out they mean nice in relation to other jungle cities, such as coca and lago agrio, which are supposed to be hell. but we havent been to those cities, or to any hellish ones, and were coming from pretty quito, so we were disappointed in the city.

but no matter. we found a lovely cheap hotel on a hillside right outside the city, with hammocks and views of the misty andes. sorry, but they really were misty looking. i guess its a jungle thang. the hotel was family run, which meant that no one was really staying there except the family, who had screaming kids running around the whole time. not ideal, but par for the course here in ecuador. still, they let us use their kitchen so we, finally, at long last, ate some vegetables....

(side note: vegetables are hard to come by here in ecuador. not in the markets, where they are bountiful and gorgeous, but in any place where food is prepared. in all but the most touristy tourist restaurant it is impossible to find any more than shredded iceberg lettuce. this lack of vegetables often becomes problematic, esp. in light of the fact that most meals are served with rice, potatoes, bananas, AND french fries. we often find ourselves tempted to drink local tap water just to regulate. a travesty. nothing bothers me more than poor cuisine. i dont care how that sounds- its true.)

(another side note: i know you wont believe this, but at present i am sitting in my lovely hostel here in baños, with free internet and great atmosphere. but: they are BLARING the soundtrck to moulin rouge, the remake, which includes bits of dialougue from the movie, which i wish not to be reminded of. its 8am. unbelievable.)

anyway, aside from cooking vegetables, we did 2 great things in tena, or right outside of tena. first we went to isla de los monos, which was great. it had a gorgeous white rock pool, jungle trails, a river to swim in, and monkeys EVERYWHERE. ive never seen a monkey not in a zoo before, and let me tell you: they are scary. they are like hairy aliens, and i dont trust them. my mistrust was justified by an unfortunate incident in which one of the monkies did something terribly inappropriate in anthony{s lap. please read his blog for details. i dont know why the monkey was in his lap in the first place, i find that troublesome, but i was in the pool at the time and am choosing not to worry about it. so other than spending time with our monkey friends, we swam in the pool and walked in the jungle with our friend who we had met that morning while booking our rafting trip. it was nice - a fun, informative day.

next day we went on said rafting trip. white water class 3. now we had done a rafting trip last summer, in revelstoke, british columbia, which was also supposed to be class 3, but it was very different from this trip. this trip was bumpy like crazy. people fell out of the boat. at one point, i was riding on the very front of the boat and a big wave came and knocked me on my back into the boat, feet straight up. i struggled to get back upright, as i knew that at the very moment our picture was being taken by the tour photographer, standing on a nearby rock. but the waves kept knoccking me backwards and i stayed that way, feet up and all. i would love to see that picture.

after rafting for a bit we stopped on a sandy area and walked through the rocks into this canyon type area, which was cool and green. there was all this "medicinal mud" around and we rubbed it on our faces and arms and legs, and washed it off in the river. i have noticed no difference in my skin tone or texture, except that now i have 3 pimples on my chin. medicinal my ass.

we rafted on and ate a lovely lunch and at 4 o clock, finished with a nice beer. thoughtful tour guides! that night we ate more vegeatbles and, the next morning, caught the 6 am bus to baños.

north

initially i had planned to blog every day. obviously thats not going to work. so my new goal is once a week. really, i should blog everytime i get somewhere new, to write about the place i was prior, but nobody needs to read all that (i.e. im lazy and the internet gets too damn expensive). so we´ll settle on once a week. lots of things will happen that will go unblogged (egads.) but, i will somehow manage to still consider them worthy experiences.

so, my lovely readers, here is what we have not discussed: otavalo, the hike to the waterfall, the andean peñas, quito part 2, tena, isla de los monos, white water rafting, and, the here and now: baños. ill start with otavalo, and i probably wont get much farther than that.

after i last blogged, we hung out in quito for a night, which i enjoyed. quito is big but pretty, has many modern conviniences but is still different enough from home to be interesting. everyone ive met on this trip has said the same ting about quito - "skip it - its just a city. big, dirty and scary". true. but some of us happen to like big, dirty, and scary. besides, its really not that dirty or scary. so anyway, we hung out, met up with vincent and some of his friends, who are very nice, and drank wine. yey wine! it had been awhile since i had wine. all the while we were thinking, of course, of moving to quito. but we do that everywhere.

the next morning was friday, and we set out early for otavalo to ensure we would find a hotel room in time for the big saturday market there. this is the big enchilada of markets, complete with seperate textile, produce, and live animal markets. its really quite bustling and colorful, and an exciting sight, especially (as my ecuador book points out) with the high mountains surrounding. the goods are quite tempting and i did go a bit bezerk, buying alpaca sweaters and beaded bracelets with wild abandon. in the end i had to buy a huge woven bag to attach to my backpack to carry it all. ugly american.

and at night, in otavalo it gets cold and there are a few peñas to go to. these are places where indigenous music is played. we found one which i suspect was a tourist trap, but was wonderful nonetheless. it had a roaring fire and this band that played andean music, which sounds like a cross between irish and colombian. it was still chilly, even with the fire so we drank warm canelazo, a drink for which i posted the recipe in a prior blog entry. it was nice sitting there, drinking the warm drink in front of the fire while listening to the live music. we liked it so much we went twice in a row. but this is why it was a tourist trap: on both nights, massive groups of french people were there, with one ecuadorian guide, doing god awful dances. 2 different groups. the dances were truly horrific. it was like night of the living dead, the way they were hopping about, limbs flying, scaring the bejesus out of everyone. they were shameless and they went on and on. the thing is, on both occasions there was an indiginous (otavalo is primarily indiginous. the indiginous wear long thick braids down the center of their backs, fedoras, and, at times, navy blue ponchos. they are highly regarded here, unlike the indiginous in our country for which it seems there is little regard, on the part of the government and all the auxillary Evils Who Determine Things, and they are overall a very friendly group. an example of the high esteem in which they are held here in ecuador, which is not a perfect country but does some things right, is that they are not required to cut their braid if they enter into the army. but then, maybe thats not such a big deal. maybe thats just the way it is and would be in any civilized place.) guide, who was leading all of these dances. it seemed, to me, that the guides were fucking with the tourists to make them look stupid, because the guides couldnt seem to stop giggling, on both occasions. heh. anyway, that was otavalo. oh, and there was a walk to a waterfall which was great cuz we got lost and scaled a mountain (ok, fine, hill) and came out on top of the waterfall so we sat there, at its very edge, on shiny rocks and the sun came down and the waterfall splashed us and we looked down and felt dizzy.

then, we went back to quito for a night where Not Much happened, except that i think i ate bad chicken and we paid too much for everything. the next morning we set off for tena, which is the gateway to both the andes and the jungle. do you really want to hear about tena right now? you must be exhausted or bored. and anthony keeps cutting his evil eyes at me, waiting for the computer.

here, now

it is shameful how long it has been since i last blogged. i am ashamed. in all fairness, its not really my fault. we have been here and there and as it turns out, the computers suck here and there. you know, dial up connections in places where the phones go out on the hour, broken keyboards with no question marks, and the like. but now, we are in quito, the reasonably modern capital of ecuador, and weve found a trendy little internet shop/cafe/bar, the type that i always try not to like, because they are so touristy and blablabla, but secretly love. actually, if there is any reason i dont like these places, its because they are typically expensive. but this place is cheap, much cheaper than on the coast or in Vilcabamba, half the price. also, food and laundry are much cheaper here too. plus you can actually find coffee here. drip coffee, not that cup of hot water and jar of colcafe (generic nescafe) that is served with a spoon everywhere else. ahhh, big cities. say what you will about them, and maybe it makes me an inferior traveler, but i love em.

we came into quito early this morning via overnight bus from puerto lopez, on the central coast. this overnight bus was a delight - we got the seats in front with extra leg room and they turned the blaring merengue off at about midnight, which is very nice considering it typically goes all night long on these busses. our last busride, from loja to guayaquill, was not so pleasant. puerto lopez is 10 hours from here. it is a grey fishing town which, frankly, became terribly boring after we had overstayed our welcome. kindly refer to anthony{s blog for a very accurate description of old puerto lopez, altho he did fail to mention the smell of sewage which permeated the whole town. before that, we were in montanitas, another beach town an hour south of puerto lopez, where we got a room with The Best Shower in the World. hot (but not scalding, a la hotel pichincha in cuenca) and with great water pressure. slightly troublesome, i suppose, was the smell of gasoline which filled the room when the hot water knob was turned. but still. great shower, better than at my parents house even. the rest of montanitas was nice too. we had some great ceviche from a street vendor (i know, i know..street food and raw fish is often an unwise combination, but it was cheap and delicious, and turned out ok), and some even greater fruity rum drinks from our favorite one man disco ball. again, kindly read anthony{s blog for an explanation.

so it was fun but the weather was really shitty. cold and rainy...yes it was! i know you dont believe me, as supposedly this country is on the equator and the equator is supposed to be hot, but i think they made all that shit up. judging from the fact that we were shivering on the coast, wearing our fleeces, i would say that the equator is a contrvied tourist attraction.

oh, in all my negativity i forgot to mention the highlight of our trip to the coast and, possibly, ecuador. the reason we went to puerto lopez was to see the whales. its their mating season, and apparantly they choose a spot 40 minutes off of puerto lopez via speedboat to do it. agencies all over town offer tours to go and see them on the way to Isla de la Plata, a national park dubbed the [Poor Mans Galapagos[ (no quotes on this computer - so much for big city modernity, apparantly people dont paraphrase here), which is filled with interesting birds. birds? you say. how interesting could they be? well, these ones have candy blue feet and nerdy, beady eyes, which they use to stare curiously at the humans who come to see them. but anyway. so we took such a tour and piled on to a speed boatand started off towards the island. i was enjoying the ride but anthony and vincent were getting wet and complained audibly, so the guide pulled down a protective plastic sheet, which we couldnt see through. we rode on for a while until an ecuadorian lady who was on the tour with us shouted "AY! que linda - que LINDA!!" laughing and clapping. the boat came to a sudden hlt and the crew pulled up the plastic sheath in a panicked rush and at first i didnt see anything but i heard anthony and vincents reaction "oh SHIT" and i looked in their direction and i saw it - a whale in mid breach, flopping backwards, its fins flying through the air. and then, at that moment, for the first and only time, the sun came out and the whale breached again and again. anthony and i climbed up to the top of the boat and stayed there as the boat rocked back and forth, gripping onto the guardrail and watching the whales, 2 of them now jump out of the watre again and again. the ecuadorian lady was up there too, and everytime the whale breeched she shrieked, "ay que LI-I-I-I-NDAA!". and it was.