Chapter 14: Saraguro

  7:00AM. Hiking pants. Hiking shoes. Hiking Shirt. Scarf. Water-proof jacket. 3 hours on the bus. Let's go climb something! 5 miles into the beginning of the trip, rest stop for gas and snacks. Loaf of chocolate bread, yogurt, chocolate amor wafers; back to the transportation vehicle. The staccato beats of the morning travel routine all around me, but smooth tranquil rhythms of Sufjan Steven's album "Feel the Illinoise" on my headphones. Stop for vista. Tour guide says on one side you can see the Andes Mountain range, the other side its possible to see the Pacific Ocean in the far distance on clear days. I'm calling bologna on that one, there was not a cloud in sight and no matter how far on the horizon I searched, I saw no horizon. So bologna. Bolgona I say! The Sufjan Stevens record ended. Album switch. This time to Seawolf's "White Water, White Bloom". Songs about Orion the hunter, lost love and glowing grass in the moonlight mixed with winding Andean mountain roads.

   We arrived in Saraguro, dropped a few of our things in the hotel then reloaded ourselves onto a different bus. This bus was especially different because it had wooden benches in open air aside from a tin roof to shelter the benches from rain. The benches were not very comfortable in the least and the road was bumpy. We stopped talk about an Indian dwelling. For the second leg of the open air bus ride we were allowed to climb onto the roof of the bus to sit up top for the duration of our travels. Surprisingly the roof made for a much smoother ride. The only obstacle was watching out for hanging branches that could hit faces or swipe cameras out from wayward hands. We disembarked from the tin roof and began a hike to end all hikes. Only our guide truly knew where we were going, the path was narrow, the scenery was beautiful and the clouds were scant in the sky. The whole hike reminded me of hiking through the Grand Canyon, complete with vertigo and the adrenaline. Since I know it was on the top of everyone's mind: yes I peed off the side of the mountain, you're welcome.

   Lunch was two hamburgers with papas fritas and mustard, either I was starving or I have rarely had hamburgers of similar caliber, so so good. After a break and lunch we set back the other way. The pressure had dropped during our break and those sneaky ecuadorian clouds had set in. We kept hearing thunder louder and louder as we hiked, it seemed to be approaching us, yet I did not see any lightning. We layered up with raincoats and scarfs and started hotelwards. It was a successful hike all around.

   We had a chance to rest for awhile, I took one of my best naps of this entire trip. I had some sort of dream revelation, but sadly I cannot recall what the revelation pertained to. By 7pm it was pitch-black outside and freezing. Before dinner we stopped at an indigenous textile workshop. They used large wooden looms to create intricate patterns and many shapes. They demonstrated the technique for us, showing how the pieces slide together to create a new line in the growing cloth, the worker's feet manouevering through the pedals to coordinate the next type of yarn to be used.

   Dinner was at a small family restaurant where we sat on long benches and at grey beans, rice, squeaky cheese, and chicken soup. After dinner we were treated to an Andean music demonstration. The players included a flautist, a percussionist, violin and guitar. They played and we danced about in a circle. Three songs later they asked us if we had anyone who could play music in our group. We elected Ross. Autumn, Isaac and I joined him in fumbling our way through a few songs. We started with Oxford Comma but couldn't remember one of the verses so we switched to first "Jolene" by Ray Lamontagne and then "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying" by Belle and Sebastian. The Ecuadorains said although they couldn't understand the words, the music was beautiful and we put a lot of energy and feeling into the songs.

  The rest of the evening was spent sitting by our hotel's outdoor fire sipping Pilsener's. Pilsener is not a superb beer, but sometimes all you need is a crappy bottle of beer, a warm fire and good conversation.

                                                           ---

The next day the sun struck with a vengeance, it was hotter than hot. Any humidity in the air was instantly evaporated into the clouds miles above our heads. We took another hike, shorter this time, only 15 minutes or so to a small clearing where two women had set our blankets on the ground for a ritual. We spent the next hour or so participating in said ritual. It was interesting, to say the least. 

Ray Lamontagne
Jolene


Belle and Sebastian
Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying

Chapter 13: Cuenca day festivities

   Here in Ecuador each city has a day celebrating its anniversary. For Cuenca, that day is April 12th. The entire week surrounding Cuenca day there are festivities throughout the city with the biggest, loudest things happening on the twelth. I didn't really get to experience much of the festivities except for Thursday the twelth, partly because we had a mountain of homework throughout the week, and partly because we were busy with other activities-they sure know how to keep us busy here.

  My host mom had been telling me all about the events that were happening each day, trying to psych me up. I think wednesday night I came home at 7pm, as soon as I crossed the threshold of the house Lupe berated me saying, "Why aren't you in Parque Calderon right now?!" I explained that I had way too much homework to celebrate. She sighed, but we both took solace in the fact that I'd be able to see everything happening the next evening.

   On my to my afternoon class Thursday there were already stages being set up in any open space in the city. After our class, our entire group went in search of food. I stopped our gringo procession when I saw a café sign advertising waffles! We went in to the café, it was a cozy french place right off of the main plaza. I ordered a nutella waffle with a chocolate-banana milk shake, because why not? The milkshake was delectable and frothy ( Spanish word for foam/froth is "espuma" for the curious), but the waffle was not as exciting as I hoped it would be. Yes it was smothered in a thick layer of hazelnut-goodness, and there were little strawberry shavings, but the waffle itself was reminiscient of a freezer waffle while I was expecting something on par with a Belgium waffle or one that my real mom makes ( she makes the best waffles you guys). In the end the toppings completley made up for the lackluster texture of the waffle.

   When we left the café it was starting to get dark, but still it wasn't quite time to start the festitivities so we wandered the streets for a bit. When we returned to the plaza a sizeable crowd had already started to form. Right away we found two bands, one from the military and one from the Cuenca police force. Oh man, those bands could play! They had horns, bass guitars, acoustic guitars, percussion and they put some soul into that music. I have never seen military bands cut loose so creatively, I mean in the US the police and military usually play solemn affairs or John Phillip Sousa. This was salsa, this was alive. You could dance to it. I think I was dancing to it.

   We ended up finding two of the girls from the Spring Semester group in the plaza. They said that no one else from their group had wanted to come out and play. They also informed us that at each of the corner tents of the plaza they were giving away small servings of Canelazo which is very similar to a hot tottie or a hot apple cider. We acted on this news quickly, wow it was warm and tasty!

  While waiting on the corner for some of Isaac's friends to meet us I decided to buy a scarf. Mary and Emilie helped me pick a cool purple and green one. I had a picture of myself in it, but I no longer have that picture in my possession. Why is that you ask? Well I ended up splitting off with Zoe and Teresa (the girls from Spring Semester) we went to get more Canelazo and see some of the street acts. We saw fire jugglers which made me think of my friends Hannah and Katie back home who can fire hula hoop. At one point we tried to forge our way through a thick crowd by the time we reach the other side I realized that I no longer had my camera in my jacket pocket. I called Zoe and Teresa and told them what happened. I followed the primary rule of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and didn't panic. It turned out that Teresa had also lost her cell phone. We retraced our steps to no avail, our electronics were gone with the crowd. We got some more Canelazo to recharge our spirits then went to see a mime act which Zoe voluteer me for. It was tremendously fun, three other men and I did a little choreographed kung-fu-clown routine complete with a pelvic thrust. I definitely received the biggest round of applause of the four of us, either for putting on such a good show or for my wonderful red hair.

  We rounded out the night by watching some dancing to a traditional Andean band complete with a charango player. Then we bought a few Pilsener's and sat on the steps of the Cathedral and relaxed and talked and sipped our cheap beers. It was a damn near perfect night. What about losing our things you ask? Well, yes that happened, but they didn't take my health, wallet, ipod nor journal. Sure I miss the pictures I did get a chance to rip onto my computer. And the camera, I miss the camera a bit, we went through a lot together, that camera and I, but in the end it was just a camera. There were still good spirits surrounding us and adventure to be had. Don't get me wrong, we were definitely a bit more cautious after that, but nothing else happened that night and we had a great time.

Interlude 4: Los Gringos vs Las Panederias

There is something about cheap delicious bread that is just irresistible. There are so many varieties of bread: white bread, rye, wheat, fruit bread, cheese bread, sour dough; the list goes on. If you just audibly went "meh" instead of "mmm", you sir or madam, are a liar. Here in Cuenca we have found a deeper love and understanding of bread. Do we eat bread or pastries 3-6 times a day? Yes, and I am in no way ashamed of that fact. There is a panaderia on almost every corner and bread is fresh throughout the day for about 20 cents. In the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Scott affirms his love of bread saying "Bread is probably my favourite food, I'd eat it every day if I could!"

  His grilfriend Ramona replies, "You'd get fat."

                                   "What?"

                       "Bread makes you fat"

That may be so, but I'm pretty sure we walk enough that it all evens out in the end.

Chapter 10: Return to the Potter's and Moliendo Café

  The second time we went to the potter's we were given a piece of pottery to smooth with a stone. For some people it was the one that they had created the week before, for others such as myself it was a generic piece, which I was completely happy with since mine hadn't been much of anything at all. The process was incredibly similar to sanding wood except the clay wasn't as cooperative. No matter the cooperativity of the clay, it was a super calming repetitive action. Have you ever done a repetitive, mindless action for a long period of time? You are able to let your mind wander aimlessly, forming an almost zen bond with your activity. Once my small pot was suitably smooth I was able to use a pen to etch my initials in the bottom and a design around the outside. I engraved an octopus on one side and a T-Rex on the other.

  When we finished, wow, we were so hungry! Ross, Emilie and I went to a Colombian restaurant called Moliendo Cafe that Emilie knew about. Everything on the menu looked amazing, but I didn't want to ruin my dinner so I got an Arepa with pulled beef and peas and carrots. An Arepa is a type of corn tortilla, a bit thicker than the tortillas that we use for tacos in the states. Oh man, was it good. Sadly I didn't take any pictures, I really should have. Ross had a large platter with a fried egg, baked beans, bacon, a sausage, rice, and an avocado. Apparently that's a fairly common meal in Colombia which I was surprised about for two reasons: a) it seemed incredibly similar to what cattle drivers would eat in the Southwest of the United States and b) my dad's best friend is from Colombia yet on the whole I hadn't heard him talk about a meal like this being common in Colombia. We also had Milo with dinner which is like Yoohoo! milk, but better.

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.

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

Chapter 3: Hacienda de Fantasmas y Plantación de Rosas

  The third day of our trip started early.  We collected our luggage and piled back into the bus.  Halfway through our ride to our first stop it started to rain, which made me realize I shouldn't have had the cup of tea with breakfast. I really had to pee. Eventually we arrived at the rose plantation, where they both grow a variety of roes and also cut them in preparation for shipment around the world. I took a multitude of pictures of the roses as we took our tour. I will put those pictures up here as soon as possible, check back!

   A little ways down the road from the rose plantation there was an hacienda hotel that we got to take a tour of, surrounded by gigantic Eucalypti trees.  walking up to the hacienda felt like approaching a house from a fairy tale. Everything about the house was...amazing. The place was built in the early 1500's and renovated since then. Weddings are held there and they aren't incredibly expensive either from what our tour guide told us. The kind of crazy thing was that although it was a very historic building, they had no problem with us touching anything or sitting on any of the chairs and such. Possibly because its been renovated and operates as a hotel now, but it was odd as that was a completely different protocol to the one usually found in historic sites in America.

                            (The Haunted Hacienda, I wanted to get a shot of it without the bus, but alas)


   After a lengthy tour of the grounds they served us fresh hot chocolate that was delectable. While resting for a bit our tour guide told us stories about how the hacienda is supposedly haunted. For example multiple guests have reported hearing heavy military boots walking by the bathroom in the middle of the night, even though there was no evidence of anyone being there. After consuming our wonderful chocolatey beverages and listening to ghost stories, we discovered a bust of Alexander Humboldt upstairs.  Apparently he stayed at the hotel once upon a time and is also a fairly important figure in South America, though I'm not entirely sure why.

                                                         (His Humboldt-ness)


  Lunch was fresh vegetables and potatoes and fresh cheese at a small place with its own garden and pastures for goats and llamas.  The establishment was run by a small group of Saraguran indigenous people. The hostess brought us outside when we had finished eating to show us how to make tints for dying cloths. There are small round bugs that live on cacti similar to potato bugs. You squeeze them to release a red tint, then add lemon juice to change the color. Before leaving they showed us a cultural dance that we got to be participate in. It consisted of marching around in a circle to the beat of a bass drum with bells clad on our shins.

   With our tummies full and our bodies tired from dancing we set off for our hotel that was about an hour away. The hotel was also an old hacienda, on the side of a huge valley.  In the distance on the rare occasions when the clouds part, you can see Mount Tungurauwa, the nearby volcano.

  Dinner was a three course meal of more Queso de Locro, chicken with fresh vegetables, and a chocolate mousse for dessert. For two hours after dinner we played mafia in Spanish so we could practice our Spanish and also so our bus driver could be included.  It was a ridiculously fun time: I pretended to be a private investigator, fireman, and lumber jack in different rounds.

   In each room of the hacienda there was a lit fireplace in the corner, but ours had died out by the time we got back. We tried relighting it, to no avail. Even without the fire we all sat around on two beds, completely exhausted, talking about nothing and everything.