Cotacachi

So this weekend we decided to stay close to home and only took a Saturday trip. After much deliberation and watching Eddie Murphy and Asineal Hall’s “Coming to America” we decided on Cotocatchi; a small indigenous town just outside Otavalo. As a side note DVDs here are all pirated and there are done extremely well and extremely cheep. SO well they even make sure to copy the anti-pirating at the beginning of the movie! Most movie stores sell their movies from $1.50-2. Pretty good! So we set out at about 9am yesterday on an amazing drive North on the Pan-American Highway that passes through a number of Countries on the West Cost of S. America.

The drives here are beautiful and the bus rides are worth so much more than they charge, (which is generally $1 an hour,) You would have to pay 40 or 50 or even more in the US to see the kind of landscapes, colors, plants, towns and people. We arrived in Otavalo, got some lunch and pie all amounting to $6.50 (large helpings) and we started looking for a cab to Cotacachi a 15 min ride. On the way we saw the end of a wedding where after the pictures outside the church they bride and groom got into a pick up truck traditionally decorated as any wedding party car would be, except it was a pick up. Otavalo is full of little indigenous people who will hip check the heck out of you if you get in their way. If we were playing hockey a little 70 year old 4-foot nuthin grandma would have thrown me over the boards! The first cab we found we asked for a ride and he said yes, but when we asked how much he looked at us so confused and started saying “no… no no no” we then were as confused as he was and asked again how much? He replied, “Uhhh, I cant take you I’m from Ibarra,” a city north of Otavalo. “Ok….” We replied and walked away still puzzled and laughing. We then picked up a cab that also contained the cab drivers son and wife, so all seven of us, the 3 Ecuadorians and 4 gringos packed in and headed to Cotocatchi. $5 and 1 mins later we arrived on a street made up of only Leather shops.

A whole street devoted to pissing off green peace and animal rights activists! They made everything you could make out of leather and much much more and though the deals were unbeatable, I retrained my Twohig shopping gene and walked away from wallets, briefcases, baggage, slippers and saddles. If only I had a horse! Next we went to Cuicocha, a Volcano surrounded by a lake south of Otavalo and took a $1 tour around the lake. Then I played with a baby llama and we hopped on a bus and headed back to Quito. You don’t actually need to go to a bus station to pick up a bus, you can stand on the side of the highway and pick up anyone that drives by, by just pointing at them.

On a side not a number of us were featured in the last Universidad de San Francisco de Quito news paper in an article labeled “Tan cerca pero tan lejos” (so close yet so far) The article describes the distance between USFQ nationals and us gringos, but as you can see in the picture most of the blame is set on the gringos. PS the picture was taken the first week of school, yet the article came out last week, we obviously would have not integrated by the first week. Oh well you know the liberally media! It didn’t bother me too much because most of the people I go to school with are really Ecuadorians, they are gringos who actually can speak Spanish, are really rich and snobby, want to live in California and be trendy. I was just happy to get a half page photo! Soooo yea hope all is well back home! I love and miss you all see you soon!

Life's a Beach!

So last weekend we gave ourselves a little vacation from service, school, and hiking though the jungle and took a nice little trip to Atacames in the province of Esmeraldas. It was awesome. I don’t know how many trips I have deemed awesome but that just tells you, you can't get bored traveling here in Ecuador and I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone! Kendra and Colen went a little earlier than Zac and I and our bus rides could not have been any more different. Zac and I called a couple agencies to find out the bus schedule and we headed off to the station.

Unfortunately, Ecuadorians have a tendency to tell people what they want to know even if it is 100% totally incorrect, so beware! We arrived at the Trans-Esmeraldas station to catch the 6.15 straight to Atacames, but before we bought out tickets I made sure to ask the woman behind the desk if it was really going to Atacames, "No," she said. My heart sunk, of course! "Not until 11.15 and 11.30." "At night?" I asked "Yup." "So there are no buses to Atacames tonight until 11?" "Yup" (Literal translation.) She old us to go to Terminal Terrestre which is in Old Town because they leave about every hour from there. Little did I know that again someone was telling us what we wanted to here.

Zac and I jumped in another cab and though it took 30 mins, (because when the Spanish conquered the Incas and set up a traditional colonial city, they did not account for massive mounts of traffic,) It was only $1.75 try to find a taxi anywhere in the US for that! Again, no buses left for Atacames until 11, we checked all 4 companies that go to Atacames and heard the same thing. Let me tell you, know what you are doing before you enter a big station in Ecuador, no one helps you nor cares where you are going but they all want you to get on their bus, no matter where you are going. "?A donde van?" (where are you going?) said a little man, "Atacames" we replied "O we're going to Guayas (Guayaquil) we'll drop you off" At this we proceeded to walk away because Guaya is about 12 hours from Atacames. We finally decided to just take a bus to Esmeraldas the capital of Esmeraldas and take a cab from there to Atacames because its only 45 mins. We left immediately on the 7 a clock bus for a 6-hour bus ride... We didn’t get to Atacames until 4 in the morning; 9 hours.

Because of the heavy rain this "winter" here in Ecuador the Costa was cut off from the Sierra by bus for a while and still has not recovered. Many mudslides and bridge collapse have made it very difficult to travel on the roads, but hey! its part of the adventure right? We drove about an hour and a half NW and then stopped. The road was closed. You'd think if anyone should know it would be the bus companies. We had to turn around, drive another hour and a half until we passed Quito and drive around it and passed through Santa Domingo de Los Colorados where the natives use a seed to make a hard red paste they put in their hair and this is why they are called the Colorados, (colored.) The first half of the trip they played Mel Gibson’s Apocalypse, which is about a young native man who is captured but some Aztec/ Mayan type bounty hunter to be sacrificed for the Gods and then escapes to save the rest of the family. The movie totally lacked plot or any type of twists, but it was hilarious because they speak a native language the whole movie so it had to be translated into Spanish, but all of the voices were done by one guy; the guys the gals and the little kids. It was hilarious! I LOL-ed.

Esmeraldas has a very unique history; during the slave trade in S. America a ship full of Slaves straight from Africa was sailing through the pacific Quito close to the shore and sank. The slaves swam to shore and created their own colony. Because of its distance from the cities, the defenses of the newly freed slaves, their good relations with the surrounding indigenous populations and their own ability to govern and make deals with the Spanish they established their own small state for a period for time. They had their own nobles that would travel and negotiate and their ancestors live on today all along the cost of Esmeraldas, so the majority of the population is Afro-Ecuatoriano.

So when we arrived in Esmeraldas, not a city by the way, more like a couple streets, it was dead. The only person out was some old dude who looked like he was falling asleep, I don’t blame him. We got our cab and arrived at 4 in the morning. We knocked on the girls’ door and passed out after some uncontrollable laugher from them. Three hours passed and we woke up to beach it! The two days we spent there were amazing, it was so hot and there were big waves to body surf in and people walking up and down the beach trying to sell you everything, you'd think it might become annoying but you get used to it, although you're better off wearing a "No Gracias" sign, and even though there was an army of plastic bags in the water it was so nice to swim. At night we just hung out in the hammocks and threw back wine and beer. A great weekend and I'm sure you'd all like to know the ride back was only 6 hours. I miss you all and hope all is well! Saludos!

Amazon Adventure!

So this weekend was freakin' supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. In laymen's terms it was sicky sicky gnar gnar. A wonderfully exciting and awesome weekend indeed! So we had our IPSL trip and we went to the Huasquila area which is a little over an hour away from Tena; 5 hours on the same Cliffside Amazonian "roads." We stayed at this hacienda turned hostel that was beautiful! Surrounded by selva, or jungle on all sides it was hard to believe what we were seeing every morning when we woke up. Zac and I stayed in our own cabin; thatched roof, hammok, and complete with a lot of huge ass spiders. The first day after our horibly uncomfortable yet amazing drive we went our our first hike. *Authors note; never travel on Ecuadorian mountain roads if you have a week stomach, 1 lane is indefinitely under construction and there is no one to direct traffic so many times you come face to face with a large truck or bus while rounding a corner that lacks any sort of guard rail. It makes for an exciting trip. So right after we arrive we threw on our much needed rain boots and headed down the road a mile or so learning about a few medicinal and artisanical plants to a small group of houses where our guide, Jose's daughter lived for a small lesson on the life and work of an Amazonian Quichua artisan. We all made our very own bracelets, some looking better than others, mine looking not so nice, though im quite fond of it. After walking back we dined and promptly retired because day two was no walk in the park... it was in the jungle. What a walk it was! We walked through the former hacienda across a field all the while Jose and his fellow guides were instructing on us on the proper application and harvest of all the medicinal plants whose purposed range from snakebites, machete wounds, diabetes, tumors, mosquito bites, fatigue, and an unhealthy spirit. We entered the jungle not knowing what to expect and immediately we were in the thick of it. Fo real dog I mean the thick of the Amazonian Jungle. No joke. Vines all up in your face, bugs, mud, and insects galore. The leaves bigger than people and what they called the path was no more than the only area that we could get through without crawling on our hands and knees! We took a short break to swim in a huge waterfall and proceeded down the river tasting and trying all sorts of plants and vines that Jose and his Lowland Quichua relatives have been using for thousands of years instead of hospitals and continue to choose local medicine and religion to heal themselves instead of modern medicine. After a little of ceremonial war paint we hopped into a cave that in some places was no bigger than an entrance to a doghouse, not to mention filled with bats and cave spiders, some bigger than my hand! After the cave we poured the water out of our boots and found our way out of the jungle to walk back to the hostel. The 3rd day was no less exciting because we headed off to the AmazOOnica which is an island between two rivers that houses rescued animals and gives them a safe home as well as teaches hunters who survive on the animals how to conserve and domesticate some species. They had everything and more! Parrots, macaws, all sorts of monkeys, an anaconda, jungle cats, turtles, caimans, ect ect. We walked all over the island observing the animals that were in and out of cages depending on their status. Some can be released back into the wild but others; because of their dependence on human sin their early life will remain at the sanctuary. We took an amazing long Amazonian canoe there and to our next destination and the trip made me miss being home and on the water during the summer. They looked like really long Dories. I was inspired, it was a sign, so mom, this summer im going to fix up the dory and find a motor for it and get it out of the back yard! Yeay! We crossed over into the Napo river which is a major vein that runs into to the Amazon, then landed opposite from where we shoved off and got back in the van which was waiting for us. Since it was carnival, known to you gringos back home as Martigras or Fat Tuesday, there were celebrations all over Latin America but here they do it a bit different. In Ecuador there are huge battles, water, fruit, flour, foam, eggs, flowers; they throw everything at you. No matter where we drove there were kids waiting for us with home made pvc water cannons and buckets full of ammo. Being that its 80 degrees here we would travel with the windows open and out of the bushes would jump little boys and girls nailing us through the windows with water soaking us and our driver, it was awesome and a good way to cool off! We stopped at a locally and independently run Quichua museum full of great stuff but mostly animals and medicinal plants, some hallucinogenic, some for healing, some for killing others and yourself. Monkeys and little boys ran wild chasing each other jumping out of trees onto each other, it was something out of jungle book and I was jealous that they had such a free and awesome childhood, who doesnt want their own monkey!? I also got to try a little of the fabled Coca plant which is illegal in Ecuador but is well known for its production into cocaine in Columbia. You need pounds and pounds of the leaves to make 1 oz of cocaine, so what they had there was for medicinal purposes. Chewing the leaf give you energy and has been used by slaves and miners in S America for hundreds of years where food is short and 18 hr work days are mandatory. Next we drove to Piedra del Oro for a huge carnival party in the middle of the woods. Let me tell you.. the Ecuadorians know how to party! We drove up on this random road, parked and started walking; we had no idea what was in store for us. We crossed a bridge and were greeted by a dirt bike race, lots of mud, music, mud, foam, hundreds of Ecuadorians parting, mud, more mud, and some beer. By the time it was time to go we had been covered by foam and mud, it was like the pictures of woodstock. Mud monsters. We jumped into the river to wash off and we were on our way again. A great time. The last day was aother cavern and swiming day and luckely we found some water slides fed by water sucked out of the cavern, it was awesome! All in all, go tot he amazon, it kicks ass. Next week, im off to Huaorani Territory! Saludos!

Ecuadorian Churches are Gold

So yesterday Kendra and I went to El Centro, which is Old Town in Quito to check out all the dope colonial architecture. For those of you who have been living under a rock, or just don't know much about Ecuador, it has the lasrgest concentration of Colonial architecture in the world (I think this excludes parts of Europe where it all started.) As you will see in the picutres, the scale of the work is quite grand and they wernt messign around with the churches... I mean they aint no St Patricks on Main st Falmouth, but they are pretty nice I guess. One Church, La Compania, took 160 years to build and the inside, is all gold... all covered in gold leaf! Even though it was against the rules to take pictures, I did anyway I couldnt pass up the chance to take picutres of a gold church, comon! Today at school, I sought out a man I heard of who was a flyfisherman, obiously a gringo. To my suprise I found him; Bill Ross, and I talked to him for a while about places and fish here so hopefully I will do some fishing while in Ecuador! Saludos!

Ecuadorian Lynching, Valentines Day, And Pictures of my house

So First off I would like to say Feliz dia del amor y la amistad, because here in Ecuador we celebrate a day of love and friendship!
Next off to all you anti-globalization types out there such as myself, you will be happy to know that Western values have not taken over all of Ecuador. A few days ago in Otavalo, where you may know I went about 2 weeks ago, there was a lynching. Now don't start thinking this is a normal thing for all of Ecuador, but in some areas, Indigenous rule is over police law. The Otavalenos have 4 rules, one of which I cant remember, but they are as follows, do not lie, do not steal, work hard for what you have, and ------. The two men who were lynched 3 days ago were guilty of breaking the second rule. Now all of this may seem gruesome to some of you, so I say this, don't be so ethnocentric. The two Colombian men were found stealing from members of the community, so it is local custom to make an example out of them. Mind you when I went to Otavalo everyone I met was extremely, kind, gentle, and small, but when you break one of their cardinal rules you pay for it and you are made an example of. They don't have much so what they do have sure means a lot to them. Typically whistles are blown throughout the town to gather all of the citizens together, the offenders are then whipped with thorn vines, and set on fire int he middle of the town square. I know, it sounds terrible, but now you will never steal from an Ecuadorian Indigenous person. You may ask yourself, why didn't the police step in? Good question, but you try stopping a few thousand angry little men and women from taking justice for a cultural offense with only a handful of officers, it wouldn't work. Moving on I will be returning to Otavalo, but there is nothing to worry about, I'm not Colombian which is an offense in itself here, Colombia is blamed for all of Ecuador´s internal problems, and I wont be taking, ill be spending a lot of money.
So Ecuador received a package 2 days ago from my parents and grandparents, getting it into my own hands was a a true task. I received a notice saying that there was a package waiting for me at whatever place they all go, why they could not have delivered it to my house I could not tell you. So yesterday I took a taxi to the western part of Quito to the office and was shocked to find out how difficult and bureaucratic even the simplest of tasks is. Rightly so I had to bring two copies of my passport, but I did not know that until I got there, so I had to go across the street to get 2 copies, come back, having lost my place in line, get back in line, present my notice and two copies, sign some papers, only to pay a dollar and receive my number. Now think of the RMV... this is the office I was in, i waited for my name or number to be called behind a number of other gringos, and was finally escorted into the back room where the woman proceeded to rip open my package right in front of me in search of narcotics, firearms, or any other capitalistic forms of propaganda only to find baked goods and pair of shorts. I then had to leave the package to sign more papers, pay 8 more dollars, go back across the street to make more copies and then sign more papers. Finally I was instructed to go back into the package room, which was overloaded with packages from around the world, pick up my goods and I was free to go. The trouble is when I went back, my package was gone! Imagine my anger when neither I nor the worker could find my baked goods! Finally after a few mins of searching we came across the valentines day treats and I went on my way! I can surly say it was worth all the trouble, and i thank all of you involved in the 45 dollar shipping, baking, and love that I received yesterday. I have already eaten a whole bag of cookies by myself. Well I hope you all are enjoying the frigid cold as much as I am enjoying the warm sun, brownies, bread, cookies and candy here in the southern hemisphere! Here are some pics of my house!

My river name is Sapo!

Hello all, just as a prologue I want to say, to all those who do not enjoy my mis-spellings... too bad, Spanish has forever ruined my grasp on English spellings and grammar, so as long as you would like me to continue to study, you'll have to deal with my terrible orthography. Saying this lets move on to the body of my text; white water rafting in Tena.
After a 5 hour drive SEE of Quito through some of the most beautiful mountain paths I have ever seen. After driving through highlands for 2 hours we reached the edge of the famously fabled Amazonian Rain Forest. The Roads, most of them one lane because of landslides and constant maintenance, were all settled about 5 or so feet from the edge of the mountains we were driving though... one wrong turn and, Zip! you're gone! buhbye buddy. The roads were littered with crosses of those who had met that terrible fate going east into El Oriente. But hey, keep a positive attitide and you'll always be kept safe! Finally we arried in Tena at about 8 under an almost full moon, that lit up the whole mountain chain. becuase of the lack of affordable electricity in this region, there is minimal lights in the city if Tena, which is only about the size of Woods Hole... some city huh? We picked a random hostel and dropped off our gear to go in search of some provisions. Once our bellies were full we went off to bed, sober i might add, to rest up for the adventure that awaited us the following day.
We inquired about a day of rafting with a company called "The River People" whom I highly recomend if you ever make it to Ecuador. It is a Family business own by none other than a team of Irish imagrants who had decided to check out Ecuador and decided to make Tena their home. The parents, now retired from running the business, handed it down to thier Daughter and 2 sons, one Tim, our guide, dropped out of school at 13 to start working the river fulltime and has been, 7 days a week for the last 13 years. As you can see from the picture above we brought quite a large group and all piled up into the bus to our drop off spot. This was no normal rafting trip, we were not dropped of at the river, nay we were driven into the jungle, loaded up with our gear and then proceeded to hike a mud road a bout 3 km into the selva. This was no regular muddly path, this was a 3ft deep, 10 foot wide, up and down hill, slippery, dirty, glorious walk to the river. By the time we reached the river, a number of us, who decided to take part in ritualistic boyhood mud baths, needed to bathe before getting in the boats.
We got in our boats and proceeded down the Jondachi river wich eventually meets up with the great Amazon. Of course with my luck I was the first one to be tossed out of the boat, sitting in the front right position, I was caught off guard and rolled right out, with only a few minor scratches on my back and shoulder I jumped right back into my spot. The rest of the first half, though some of the toughest and most exciting rafting ive ever done, did not produce any other major wipe outs in our particular boat, though we did do some swimming though rapids, were airborn, and rafted under waterfalls. We stopped on the side of the river for a bit of lunch and were pleasently supprized to see the guides and saftey kayakers accompanining us flip one of the rafts over and wip out all sorts of goodies! We feasted on tacos, beans, doritos, cookies, pine apple, ect ect ect. After eating our fill we retuened to the boats to continue the class 4, 38 km stretch. It got harder an dmore exciting as we went on, blasting through huge rapids, riding on the front of the raft, bull style, getting thrown out and going through rapids with our eyes closed to find ourselves flying into a rock wall. One particular crazy mess started with one particular girl Jessalee falling forwards out of the boat, the guide Tim tried to throw her a rope bag, but missed and, being so distracted we forgot that we were in the middle of a huge rapid stretch, another girl coleen fell of the side, our guide then realized what a predicament we were in and proceeded to yell, "Oh shit oh shit, we're in deep shit!" the raft then folded in half causing zach and i to hold on to each other and hana and Kendra to smash helmets and then smash into me! After all was said and done we had more trouble recovering from the laughter than the mayhem.
We then continued to be thrown about, swim, jump off stuff, do flips, push eachother and the guide out of the boat, loose the boat, swim in waterfalls, and ofcourse in between, relax! After the 8 hour ride of my life we were met by the bus and of course beer! A photoshot comenced as cameras were ripped out of dry bags and we all swap stories of crashes and felicidades for finishing in one peice. Not one person was apposed to going back again soon. I have to say the rafting, the senery, the stories, and everything about Tena will be with me forever. Hope all is well at home I love you and miss you all!

Otavalo aka the reason why I came...

So this weekend we went to Otavalo, and it was awesome. Otavalo is known for its indiginous handyworks and extramly skilled artisans, oh yea and its dirt cheap prices! I only speant 95 dollars there and came out way on top with a hammok, an alpaca blanket, and chompa which is basically a gnarly zip up hoody, a cool fluite, an inca vs conquistador handmade chess set, 2 panama hats (which interesting enough were never made in panama, always in Ecuador), one for you dad, some jewelry for mum, a gnarly woven backpack, and a sweet duffle to hold it all! I probably forgot some stuff but everything I got was top quality. We shopped a few hours there working down prices and walking around Plaza de los Ponchos. You can check out Otavalo on the web, they have been famous for hundreds of years and have been recognized as an economical and cutural asset to Ecuador since the 50s. It was exactly the Ecuador I was looking forward to see. Everywhere you look there ar little indiginous men and women in the traditional clothing. They have such a strong heritage (Otavaleno and Quicha) that the men who sport tradtitinal long pony tails are the only group not forced to cut their hair in the military. They women all wear strings of gold beads that differ depending on their status in the comunity along with 30s style hats and traditional clothes. Here a link to Wiki for Otavalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otavalo . I hope you all enjoy the pictures and I miss you all hapy super bowl! If you click on the image you can see it in full size in all its glory.