Chapter 9: Mi Paragua, Mi Espada

   In Ecuador you have to be prepared for anything. This is especially true with the weather, which is rarely predictable. In the morning and at night its usually a bit cooler, cold enough for jeans and a sweatshirt. By noon the sun is in full force which means stripping off the sweatshirt, having a good pair of sunglasses at the ready and applying sunscreen to all exposed skin. If I don't put sunscreen on before I leave in the morning, its okay because I keep a bottle in my backpack at all times. About once a day here, sometimes twice, it rains here in Cuenca. Just in case I always keep my umbrella packed on the side compartment of my knapsack.  As the Boyscout motto goes, "Always be prepared", turns out that was good advice.

   Now when I first packed my umbrella along I was thinking only of staying dry. Fairly quickly it could serve another purpose: portection or more so peace of mind. In one of Robert Ludlum's novels ( I cannot recall which, possibly The Materese Circle) the main character talks about how he always keeps a roll of quarters on his person to clutch on dark nights. For him its both a peace of mind and a necessary precaution living as a spy during the cold war, when no one was truly trustworthy. For me my umbrella is both a good weight in my hand while I'm walking as well as a way to stay calm in the city. I like to imagine that its a sword or in spanish "espada"even though in reality it is a small umbrella, maybe a foot long at best.

   I like espada as a word a bit better than the word sword. The english word sword looks a bit like someone took "word" and slapped an "s" in front of it saying, "That'll do!" And it gets the job done and makes for the butt of a classic joke on SNL involving Sean Connery, but that's it. For me, espada not only gets the job done, but also the syllables which make up espada invoke a series of actions as it is uttered. Each of the syllables come together to create a full action. "Es"-it sounds soft like a swift lunge, "Pa" the feint, and "da"the strike with the weapon.

   But anyway, I had never really lived in a big city 'til I came here ( this is probably where my mom is lamenting that we should have stayed in Milwaukee. Well maybe that would have prepared me for living in a city, but had we not moved I wouldn't be the person I am and either way this is a completely foreign city) so I didn't know some of the in's and out's of city living. Such as proper procedure for hailing a city bus: arm up and extended; or how much trickier it is crossing streets that are congested with traffic: there are two great methods that can be employed for crossing the street- playing frogger or being extremely cautious. I usually prefer the second method. No one told me there would be people that sleep in their cars at night. Lots of people did advise me that the city is dangerous which meant for the better part of the first week I became afraid of the dark. I would do my best to get home by sunset. On the few nights I left later, my umbrella/paragua became my sword. And you know what? That made me feel a lot more safe. They also advised us that when walking anywhere to walk with purpose, that turns out to be something I excel at.

Interlude 3: David Byrne Sightings

  Here in Cuenca I've seen all walks of life. I mean, its a big city, of course I have. For example on my walk to class the other day I saw a young businessman while I was waiting for a green light at a cross-walk. He looked to be about my age, wearing a pinstripe suit that looked a tad too large on him. He looked a bit like David Byrne at a Talking Heads concert in the 80's. The only thing that seemed to fit was the soft leather briefcase he carried at his side. The way he was carrying the briefcase made it seem that he'd grown to respect his tool-of-the-trade in  his short time in the business world. And I liked that: the slightly over sized pinstriped suit, the reverence for the briefcase, and more so the universality of being thrust into a business or professional world when you still look and feel a bit too young to be there. Thrust into a world of suits, coffee and cigarette breaks, cut-throat negotiations and rapid insincere name dropping when you still look a little young for the razor blade and a little out of place for the world of 5 o'clock shadows.

Talking Heads
Girlfriend is Better

Chapter 8: The Road to Ingapirca

  Half-awake, we bumped and roiled in our small van. Five rows of seats, a driver and a tour guide were all we had. The road zig-zagged up along the moutainside. We passed a pickup truck who's only cargo was 3 energetic golden retrievers. Some of us worked on homework despite the state of the road, some listened to music, and still more improbably others were able to sleep. As we rose higher and higher our surroundings and the road itself became cloaked in the gray clouds.

   We emerged from the clouds to find ourselves on a steep incline in the middle of a small town. Our tour guide said we'd be getting out for a short tour of the market. They had everything from giant gourds to tree tomatoes(good for juice) to a man peddling ladles. At one point there was a full pig roasting on a spit. Our tour guide pointed out all the most interesting aspects of the market, then it was back to the van.

Hillside town's market

  We took another bumpy, pot-hole filled road for ten minutes 'til we reached the Incan ruins of Ingapirca. The site of Ingapirca isn't as immense as the royal refuge of Machu Picchu, but it is still a breathaking sight to behold especially since its high up in the mountains overlooking everything. There's a pack of 10-12 llamas that graze in the overgrown grass of the ruins. The guide said the llamas essentially function as the lawnmowers of the ruins. Ingapirca has about 8 different important sites to stop and gaze at. There's a recreated habitation, an ampitheater, rocks with holes drilled in to fulfill astronomical purposes, and a large circular structure toward the end of the cliff with stones that looked green from their ancient copper coating.

Our ever knowledgeable tour guide filling our mind with facts

The Lawnmowers at work

Green copper stones and agave plants on the hillside

   We saw the entirety of the premises then commenced a hike down and up a valley with a river running through it. Before we got too far into the hike our guide stopped us to show us a cliff face that looks quite like an actual face. At another point during the hike Sarah and I were a bit behind the group since we had stopped to take silly pictures with the scenery(one of which is now my banner). We were walking briskly to catch up with the group and accidentally startled a cow. The cow began to charge us, my life flashed before my eyes in that instant, but the cow was on a rope and we were far enough out of its range to be okay. We waited for a few moments for our hearts to start beating at regular paces again then inched passed the cow bit by bit. As soon as we were past the cow we giddily laughed at the situation and also at the ridiculous amount of distance we still had to cover to catch up.

Face in the rock

Sarah and the river

Me and the river

Sarah and the cow that charged

   Up and up we climbed, stopping every once in awhile to catch our breath and take in the amazing environment. Up on an enourmous boulder we found our companions cheerfully eating lunch so we joined them. Man-oh-man, food has rarely tasted so good as after that hike and charge from the cow. The food was cold, but I didn't mind one iota, mmm those papas fritas: yum, that cut of steak, and om-nom those stir-fried rice and vegetables.

                                                                             = = =

  Our guide said there would be one more stop before our return home. The stop was a beautiful church. The only problem with the beautiful church was that whatever jerk had planned the construction decided a wonderful place for a church would be the side of a cliff. The stairs seemed to have been designed by a drunken MC Escher, winding up and up, and coming to odd junctures. I'm mostly so jaded because I was very tired at this point and not ready for scaling more buildings and such. Jaded and tired I still made it up to the church's entrance and even further. It was a sight to see for sure and instant vertigo to beholden. It was another adventure filled day.

The Church on the cliff

The awesome yet vertigo inducing vista from the cliff-church

Chapter 7: Street Clowns and Stolen Tours

  On the way home from class today(two weeks ago now) I got to see some of my first street clowns of Ecuador. I arrived at the corner of the crosswalk and noticed a girl with an interesting green and orange outfit with a shaved head and only bangs. She slipped an orange rubber nose on and began to flip her bowler hat over and over, making it dance between her hands. I marveled at her skill and glanced at the light, waiting for it to change. Across the street, near the stopped cars, there stood a man in the perpendicular crosswalk juggling clubs for tips.

   Later in the day six of us met up to explore some local Incan ruins in town. We saw them on the map and it looked like it wouldn't be too hard to find. We found the ruins alright, but it turned out that you had to enter the museum to get to the ruins out in back of the museum. We walked in and were waved over to the information desk. The man behind asked us in Spanish, "Are you from CEDEI(our university here)?" We answered yes, but were quite confused as to how he knew. We decided it was because we were in a group and we were all obviously gringos. They told us to just wait a moment, so we waited while they fetched a tour guide, which was nice of them, but really we just wanted to see the ruins outside. An hour into our interesting, yet arduous tour through the museum, in which we learned about a variety of indigenous tribes from all over Ecuador throughout the ages, we discovered we had been in the right place at the wrong time and stolen another group's tour reservation. They joined us for the rest of the tour, though for the duration we had a fit of giggles at the thought that we had managed to steal a tour. At the end of the tour the guide brought us outside and we did get to see the Incan ruins we had been seeking since the very beginning. They were pretty neat, and there was a botanical garden with a large collection of diverse plants.

Incan Ruins, y'all!

Gotta have designated rest zones in your ruins!

Our band of tour stealers

Plants 'n Ruins 'n Stuff!

Chapter 6: South American Pottery Class

Today after class we visited a potter. To get to the potter's workshop we took cabs, which was slightly exciting since that was our first time taking taxis while in Cuenca. When we arrived the potter gave us a quick tour which consisted of the shop in front, the kiln, the pit where they mix earth into workable clay and also a small room filled with dozens of fired, but unpainted works.

Potter demonstrating, me in the foreground

  Throughout this tour it was quite evident that the potter was very skilled at his job.  This was even more clear when he demonstrated how to make a vase from a lump of clay on the wheel. The wheel was manual, one foot rested on a bar while the other kicked the wheel into motion. As the foot created the motion, the potter then used his hands to deftly mold and shape the clay into beautiful figures.  As he worked he explained the process to us in Spanish. He made it look so easy.

Ross and Mary trying their hand at ceramics

Look! Here it seems as if I know what I"m doing! what an illusion!

   But he wasn't just explaining the method to us for explanation's sake. Once he finished with his lump it was our turn to take to the wheel. One by one we sat down at one of the two manual clay-working wheels. We made semi-beautiful things and made fools of ourselves, and had an awesome time. Did I mention that while all of this was happening there was a motley crue of animals running around? Well, there was. As I counted there were two to three dogs, one cat and one friendly parrot. There might have also been some chickens in the back, because someone was shouting about the dogs attacking them at one point, but I didn't see them. The parrot was definitely my favourite. He didn't fly much, I think because one of his wings was broken, but he hopped and sucttered about nudging our shoes exploratorily and bending his head asking to have it scratched. He was great.

Ross acting like a pirate with the parrot, Isaac caught off guard

  Once we had all at least attempted to create something (mine came out looking like a toothpick holder) we returned to the university where we acquired our cell phones for Ecuador. Now we would finally have the ability to contact each other when needed. The phones were mostly of the old durable Nokia model, so we wouldn't really have to worry about breaking them, only losing them. Before going home for the day a group of us went to a comfortable cafe around the corner from our university called La Cigale. We had a snack of chips and guacamole and a beverage of our choice. I had mint tea, others had coffee, and two had beer. It was a good way to wind down after a fun day.

Chapter 5 part II: Learning to Walk to School and How to Make Empanadas

My first morning in my host family’s house, I slept in ‘til about 11.  I awoke to find Lupe had prepared me scrambled eggs with juice. As I ate she told me that we would be taking a walk to CEDEI to show me the route I would be taking every day.  A street or two into the drive we happened upon my host-mom’s son in his car, he said why not have him drive us there and we could walk back? We decided that was a good idea and into the car we all piled. The streets seemed to whip by on the way there in the car, I was a bit nervous I wouldn’t be able to navigate my way back by myself when I had class. He dropped us off at the university and we started our trek back to the house. 

Lupe made it clear that the route was for the most part “Al recto” or straight down the road.  And straight the route was, my route to school has two turns to it and otherwise is completely on the same road the entire time. Nonetheless the walk takes about 30 minutes to make; Lupe assured me that if I walked quickly the walk could take as little as 20 minutes, 15 if I really walked with purpose.   One the way back we stopped by the ice cream shop to get an ice cream for me and Sebastian.  I had a flavor called “Amor Bruja”, Lupe and the shop keeper assured me that it would be tasty, which didn’t really solve what flavor it was. I think it turned out to be a mixed flavor of fruits, swirled chocolates and vanilla ice cream. Delicious. 

Park on my walk to school

We got home and Lupe started to prepare lunch so Sebastian and I went into the front of the house to play basketball. He taught me a game kind of like Around the World called Reloj. The object was to go around the entire “clock” face making each shot as you went, for each shot you made, your opponent goes back one spot until he is at the first place and then stays there until a shot is missed by the opponent. After a bit we took our game over to the park a street over to play on an actual basketball hoop, which was a disadvantage for both of us.  Lunch was good, but sadly I cannot remember what exactly we had. It was some sort of mix of a bowl of soup, rice, meat and a wonderful juice. After lunch I took a nap in my room through a thunderstorm. I woke up and wandered downstairs to find out that we were going to make empanadas for dinner. Not only that, but Lupe was going to show me how to make them.

Do I remember the recipe? No, not precisely.  It was the usual mix of ingredients that go into dough, yeast, flour, sugar, yada, yada. All ingredients were put into a large bowl, whisked together, then the liquids were added and we kneaded the dough into an actual viable dough-y shape. Once it was to a state that Lupe found acceptable she gave me and Sebastian a rolling pin to start thinning it out. You might be used to rolling out dough for sugar cookies or snicker-doodles or whatever, but this is a horse of a different color. For empanadas, the dough needs to be rolled thin, very thin, like almost paper thin. Once you’ve reached the desired thinness, then you take a circular object, such as a wine glass and use it to cut out a shape for the empanada. Peel away the extra and put in back into the dough pile. Take a bit of filling, we were using a cheese filling and a banana filling, and put it in the center of the empanada.  Now comes the tricky part. Fold the thin dough in half, making a crescent shape. This is all I did for the first few, not realizing I was missing a whole step. Lupe pulled one out of the boiling oil that had popped unsealed and showed it to me with a stern look on her face, I apologized and we both laughed.  Sebastian’s dad arrived and showed me that I still needed to seal the empanada shut. The sealing process entails making little folds along the edge and pinching as you go.  When finished the edge should have an almost elegant kind of braided design, one or two of mine came out looking presentable. Whether presentable or not, they were all darn tasty. Scrumptious even. I especially liked the banana ones, Sebastian’s dad told me that I should take the recipe for banana empanadas back to the states and open up a store and then I’d be rich. I think he might have an idea there.

Interlude 2: Cultural Universality

  Okay, I want you to sit for a second and ask yourself what you believe to be the most universal of cultural experiences. Those things that not only you experience, but also people around the world experience every day. Think hard, I'll give you a minute or two to ponder...Okay, have you thought of at least one thing? Good. I bet you've come up with some interesting answers.  Perhaps riding bicycles (that's probably up there), or eating meals together as a family(I could go either way on that one, I feel like that depends too much on the family in question), or even going to church, or walking a dog, or driving to work every morning. I think these are all good answers, but I've come to find that one of the most universal things right now is something completely other.  It seems that no matter where you go in the world, it is not possible to escape the Party Rock Anthem. Yes, I'm talking about the Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO. Whether you're in an airport, listening to the radio, walking on the street and happen to hear a stereo blasting, in the club, it doesn't matter: it is everywehre. Against all odds, LMFAO has truly created an anthem to unify the world.

LMFAO
Party Rock Anthem






edit: I just noticed they do a bit of 20's Charleston at one point in the video, awesome

Chapter 5: Roadblocks and Cuenca

So first off I´m going to apologize. Why you ask? Because I neglected to write much down directly after/during our trip to Cuenca and during the rest of the weekend that followed. The reason was it was kind of a crazy mix of everthing all at once, we were tired from traveling and slightly apprehensive about meeting our host families. I´ll tell you what I can remember but it might be more fragmental than usual.

First thing was we left the Hacienda we had stayed two nights at early in the morning. I feel like all of our departures have some innate need to be as early as possible. That morning in particular I could see the need as the drive ahead of us was going to be 8 hours long. We split the drive into two four hour blocks, one on each side of lunch. The first part of the drive was fairly uneventful until we reached the town of Alausi. There we got lunch at a small restaurant that had a special where you pay two dollars and you get a large bowl of soup and a plate of rice, beans and meat. It was a pretty good deal and then we set out to stretch our legs and explore the town before we hit the road again. We found one of the first Panaderias that we tried in Ecuador, I tried my first south american donut. The donut was a bit stale, not glazed and more bread like than I was accustomed to, but otherwise it was pretty tasty, especially so with the frosting. We followed one street as to its terminus that led to a steep set of stairs which we climbed to find a neat lookout over the rest of the town. There was yet another giant statue on the opposite side of town of the Virgin Mary which we didn´t get to see closeup but it looked neat from afar.



    Our bus winded on and on after Alausi, snaking through the mountain roads. Two hours in we took a bathroom break at the very first chapel ever built in Ecuador. It wasn´t fancy and I liked that about it. The rest of the drive was smoother and I fell asleep listening to music in my seat. I awoke to find that we had stopped, no we had not arrived yet, but rather there had been a small rockslide on the mountain road that we were driving on. We had to wait for about twenty minutes as a few of the drivers including our own made the road driveable again. In the meantime this huge cloud kind of glided next to use covering the giant ravine/valley to our side. It was about level with the road to the extent that it seemed viable that we could jump out and land on the cloud, yes I know that doesn´t actually work, but damn if it did that would have been so cool.

  The approach to Cuenca an hour later was incredibly exciting. It just kind of appeared out of nowhere, parks, buildings, churches all in front of us on that sunny afternoon. I know I was scared to meet my host family, I don´t know about anyone else on the bus. What if they didn´t like me? What if I couldn´t communicate? We climbed the stairs to our new university and were seated in a medium sized room with the host family coordinator Dunia. One at a time she called the next person to leave the room and meet their host family as if it was an elaborate game show. My name was called and I got to meet my host mom Lupe, her son and his wife(they´re in their thirties) and their son Sebastian. It was overwhelming, but they all seemed quite nice. We were given fruit, drinks and snacks and given some time to mingle. That mingling time went by in a blur, but I got to try my first granadilla which my host family taught me how to eat. Granadilla, for those of you who have never had one, are kind of yellowish orange in color and kind of pear shaped. They are related to the pomegranate, and if they´re not then they´re eaten in a somewhat similar way. First you use your finger to crack into the inside, the inside if full of sweet gooey crunchy seeds that you can then either suck out or use a spoon if you´re feeling a bit more civilized.

  (hmm I guess I´m remembering a fair amount)


My host brother then drove us all to Lupe´s house where I got to settle in. They showed me each different room, let me take it all in and showed me my room and how the shower worked then gave me space to unpack and take a rest for a bit before dinner. I came down a bit before when I thought dinner might be and everyone was getting ready and kind of heading for the door, which for me was enormously confusing as I assumed we were having dinner at the house. I asked Lupe where we were going and she answered that her sister had invited us to dinner at her house. Her sister´s house was nice and full of relatives all eating. I was shy at first          around so many new people when I was still kind of in shell shock. Dinner was delicious, it was this kind of stir fry with rice, various vegetables such as peas and then chicken and eggs mixed in. On the side was a small plate of broccoli and a cup of coca cola(coke is pretty popular down here). As I ate I became a little more comfortable and listened to the family and some of their jokes, I could only pick up on some of them. I learned the word ¨chendo¨ which is basically a joke.

Once everyone was finished eating half of the family all gathered around an ipad to play ¨Who Wants to Be a Millionaire¨ in Spanish while the other half started playing dominoes at the table. After mustering a bit of courage I went over to the ones by the ipad to investigate, they welcomed me over and had me help out. They were quite impressed when I knew quite a few answers, like that Zeus was the god represented by the planet Jupiter. I ended up staying longer with Sebastian to play with the ipad with the others while Lupe went home early.  When we did leave it was pouring outside. We scrambled to get into the car in the rain. I got to try out using my keys to the house as the rain poured down and we all got soaking wet, I was laughing: I thought it was pretty fun.

     When I got in, Lupe was worried about me being wet, but I said it didn't matter and I was grinning from ear to ear. Before bed they showed me how my TV worked, its a small little one with no remote and the stations come in depending on the direction of the rabbit ears. I found a channel that came in fairly well that was playing what Lupe told me was a fairly famous Mexican comedy. It seemed to me like the Mexican version of Billy Madison, but 20 or 30 years earlier. I washed up, turned the light off and crawled into bed falling asleep to the sounds of the river running in the background.

  -----------------------------------------------------------

I've decided I'm splitting the weekend's adventures into two parts since this is fairly long already, so expect part two in the near future.

Interlude 1

  The clouds here in Ecuador, I believe they have personality.  I´m pretty sure they´re default state is sneaky. These clouds are the epitome of sly. Turn your back for maybe an instant and whoosh! they´ve surrounded the valley or city like a band of silent ninjas. Maybe its because we´re up higher to the sky here, but I like the clouds here, I feel a bit more connected to them. Although they obscure vistas at just the wrong times, they´ve got spunk. Without the sneaky clouds here in Ecuador, it just wouldn´t feel quite as magical.

(A glimpse of those sneaky clouds and the valley of the giants)

  Also I feel like I could have called my blog ¨In the Valley of the Giants¨ since this country is brimming with valleys and mountains which just dwarf you so entirely. You know that scene in Jurassic Park, when they first arrive on the island and are just in utter awe of both the tropical locale and the colossal creatures running around? Driving through Ecuador feels like that almost continuously. Every time we go some place or see something one of us will say ¨We should just stay here. It can´t possibly get any better than this.¨  But it does get better or rather our amazement has yet to run dry.

Chapter 4: In the Valley of the Giants

  The next day began with me and Ross waking up late for breakfast.  We hurriedly got dressed and got to the dining room as quickly as possible.  By this point the group was used to Ross and I being a bit tardy for meals and such so they weren't too worried, but they did say that had we slept any longer we would have missed breakfast completely. That would have been a bummer. Our meal consisted of four slices of warm bread per person on a little tray with jam, scrambled eggs and a slice of ham.  The waitress also came around to ask if we wanted tea, coffee or a variety of juices. I thought one of the juices she said was pronounced "wana-wana", in reality the juice in question is called "guayabana": for reference it rhymes with menomena. The rest of the table gave me a very strange look, they asked what I ordered.  I said, "Wana-wana", they all laughed, but I still got the right juice so it worked out in the end.

                                        (Here's a cow we met, cuz I thought you all might like her)

  After breakfast we ran to the back of the hacienda to take turns on the rope swing we had found the previous afternoon.  You don't know the meaning of a good workout 'til you've been on a rope swing at altitude. It was exhiliarting and exhausting at the same time.  Once we were all suitably out of breath it was time to get onto the bus for a day trip to the nearby towns of Patate and Baños.



  In Patate we were dropped off in the city center by the plaza.  We were put into groups of tow to three people with sheets of questions to ask the people of Patate about their town. The questions ranged from the origin of the town's name to the population size, to the most important building in town. I was paired with Kaelyn and Isaac, I think we were all a bit nervous to go up to random people, but there was a sizeable crowd of people in the plaza due to a middle school science fair so we had our pick of people to question.

  We talked to kids, we talked to adults. Some people were helpful, some less so, but everyone was friendly.  Well, except when we asked some boys at a booth a few questions and their teacher came over to yell at us.  He made it clear that they were supposed to talk about their project, not random things.  So we asked them about their project and learned they had done a bit of research on the difference between organic pesticides and manufactured pesticides.  It was pretty interesting. Another group of middle schoolers had a project that tried to prove that music helped the growth of plants.  Kaelyn thought that was a ridiculous idea, but Isaac and I informed her that the sound waves do in fact interact with the plant's to promote cell growth. We ended up finding almost all the answers and met some very interesting people by the end of the hour.

  We arrived in Baños about 20 minutes later after passing the a crew excavating the pumice from the last time the volcano had gone off.  WE had lunch at an international restaurant run by an Italian man with a pony-tail.  The restaurant felt like it would have fit in just fine with the locales of Court Street in Athens. It was quaint, and cozy with board games and books to read while you relaxed or ate.    When I say it was international, it was quite international- They had Mexican, Italian, Hindu, Thai cuisines and more.  Each meal came vegetarian, but you could request beef or chicken if desired. I had two triangle enchiladas with pinto beans on the side and also salad. Isaac and Ross had Thai noodles, I tried a bit, they were quite tasty with a lightly spicy peanut sauce.

   Again when we returned we had time to rest, but did I? No, no I did not. We went for a walk. We found the pool which was not open for swimming, but it was indoors and that whole building seemed very nice with little rooms for massages and a small amount of workout equipment. Hmm, now I'm a little fuzzy, we might have walked down the path to say hello to the cows or the horse...or we might have played with Shoes for a bit.  I forgot to mention him before, Shoes is this very old bulldog that lives at the hacienda, he had a bit of a hard time walking and breathing, but damn he was cute.

  For dinner I had Seco de Pollo, which was very flavorful. Basically Seco de Pollo is a type of chicken basted in a light sauce, all though the name infers that it is a dry chicken..We were all tired after dinner but still excited by our surruoundings so we went star gazing for a bit.  Amazingly, for the first time during our trip th stars were magnificently visible.  Sadly the volcano was not.  We sat in the darkness talking about Harry Potter, the stars and life.

  Did we go to bed after this you ask? Clearly we must have after such a day full of activities, but no again we did not. Isaac came over to our room with his Ukelele. We howled and yowled, strummed and clapped our songs and rhythms like crazy men.  By the end were fairly decent at playing Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend, Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners and one more I cannot remember. I think we kept the whole hacienda awake for awhile, but we didn't care, it was too much fun.  We've come up with a a bunch of ridiculous band names for ourselves so far which include: Humboldt y Las Fantasmas, and The
Singing Gringos.

Vampire Weekend
Oxford Comma