Dead, Canadian, or Ecuadorean?

What up y’all, it’s been a bit since the last blog, my deepest heartfelt apologies (yes, I have one, and I'm occasionally sorry for some things), but I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the flu in Ecuador this week, as has Mike - a day behind, so he’s just on the road to recovery, but the good news is the worst is over, knock on wood... 

Lake Zorrocucho

So without further adieu...  So last Saturday, we decided to explore el Cajas National Park, which happens to be the second most-visited place in Ecuador other than the Galapagos islands, which we will be heading to in August as soon as our friends (who are hopefully following the blog - get in touch with us to make more concrete plans - you know who you are) arrive. Our excellent and knowledgeable guide Adrián took us, along with a handful of others, into the beautiful park, with altitudes up to 13,000 ft. on the páramo, or high-altitude grass/scrub lands.

It is dotted with nearly 800 chilly lakes, lagoons, and marshes, and is a major area for bird-watching and good hiking, but you need a good pair of rubber boots as it’s muddy.  The name cajas most likely comes from the word caxas, which means cold, in the indigenous language Quechua spoken here.  We did see lots of large hummingbirds and lots of pretty and exotic flora, but skimpy on the wildlife.

The exception is the alpacas, llamas, and guanaco(the cross of the two) that are being reintroduced into the southern highland park after being driven to near extinction.  The exotic member of the camel family, the vicuña, is only to be found in the higher elevations in the north like in Cotopaxi National Park.  There are puma that do live in the park, but they are elusive and need special equipment to monitor their movement. 

Lama says you will receive a warm sweater on your deathbed

We had a good hike around one of the lakes, lake Zorrocucho(fox-den), with the original German brewery that served Cuenca, until the invention of the car, which then meant they could brew in Cuenca.





We then headed up to the highlands, where the park is traversable on a two-day hike that forms part of the east-west Inca trail, which we walked part of, around several lakes and streams.

Tres Cruces

Starting there, one can see the tres cruces(three crosses) that represent the 3 levels of the Incan belief system, the cosmos, earth, and underworld.    

Charismatic Pensive Guy

Thank goodness it was mostly downhill, it was some serious work with some seriously thin air, and it rained – a lot.   It was worth it to see the change in flora and fauna as we dropped in altitude.  





















After that, we relaxed and had a good trout meal from locally raised trout, which was brought in from Canada back in the early-mid 1900s.  It did wipe out a local native fish, but the local people prefer it as it was a fish no one liked to eat.

 After all of the hiking we did, Sunday, we kept it simple and stayed around town, the town was a zoo as Guayaquil Barcelona(yes they stole everything from the Barca team), the best soccer team in the Ecuadorean league, came to town, along with almost 15,000 fans, to clinch a spot in the finals against Cuenca Deportivo, and the town was turned upside-down for a couple of days with Guayaquil soccer hooligans or monos(monkeys), as the Cuencanos would say.  And yes, Lexy, I got you a soccer shirt…  Cuenca won, but Guayaquil still qualified as they kept the game close.  (Goals scored -  for and against - matter in the scoring system)  The festivities lasted until Monday, let’s put it that way…  We’ll go to a game or two, but not that one.








 So we took a simple bus tour around the city to get an overall idea of the what there is to offer and go back later and see things we found interesting.  

Not-colonial, but

Pre-Incan Ruins

The highlights were the main cathedral, the beautiful colonial buildings and many well-preserved facades, the pre-Incan ruins, and we had a nice panorama of the city from the Turi church and scenic overview. 

View from Turi

            So then I got sick, then Mike got sick.  Good times…  Last night the University threw a dinner for the visiting students and professors, it was amazing, and all prepared by the head of the Gastronomy dept.(probably better than the one prepared by the gastroenterology dept.) with all locally grown and organic food.  (free-range, cage-free fruits and vegetables, Mom ;-)  It was in a friend’s words, life-changing…  Anyway, this weekend, we’re gonna try to check out some local towns like Chordeleg, Gualaceo, and Sígsig, which supposedly have great markets, ‘cuz my house needs more art and ceramics, uh, yeah…  I’m also ready for some hot springs, they are just outside of town, and I need to relax from vacation ;o)  Once again, sorry for the delay, and finally, it doesn’t look like it’s about to rain constantly here, so the sun is out, and I’m going running, or slow jogging, anyway along the river, maybe avoiding passed out people, we’ll see.  Take care, mi gente, and paz afuera (peace out) and palabra a tu madre(word to yo’ muthah’) – bad Spanish, don’t use that, it’s poor Spanish teacher humor. 

Cuencanos... for a while anyway

The view from the Balcony

Hey everybody, I hope you all had a great 4th of July celebration, can't say there was much here by way of celebration!  We've had a busy week getting into the swing of things with the apartment and our new daily life.  After Quito it was a breeze after the big 40 minute flight.  It was that or a 10-12 hour bus ride up and down mountains.  I'll take the flight anyday, thank you...  Cuenca is in the southern highlands, and is in a valley surrounded by mountains.  Three rivers run through it, the one directly below us and along which is Rio Tomebamba - the name of Cuenca during its Inca days.  It's very hilly, so we get our exercise, and it's at altitude, some 8200 feet. Everything is a workout...

It's a UNESCO World Heritage site, as it's got countless buildings in the Spanish colonial style.  Cuenca's got roughly 600,000 people in the area, 4000 of which are American or European here for a change of pace and/or retire.  We've been pretty successful getting situated where important things are located like the supermarket and local fresh market for fruits and veggies, and where the best prices are, but we're always looking to do better.  They use the dollar, including the coins, but it stretches much further here, as we can see by the number of gringos running around here.  Most are older, with a few younger escapees and college students mixed in.

Our apartment is on the top floor, and is in a beautiful modern building overlooking Cuenca.  It’s exactly what we thought it was going to be when we booked it, unlike last year’s Buenos Aires apartment.  It had a few interesting and unpleasant surprises, that being an unfinished bedroom wall, indoor snowfall, and our wacky/eccentril landlady Ines.  We even have extra room for when some friends arrive in August.  

Overall we've been lucky, although there have been a few glitches.  Today, the tank-less water heater decided to take the day off - nothing like cold showers to start the day.  Anything else to complain about isn't worth mentioning, as they are common necessities for us but less common here...  We are graced by a large group of ladies(and 2-3 dudes) that workout daily at 8 in the evening on the basketball/soccer courts below and do some sort of mix between aerobics and Zumba.  So we have an hour of tropical dance music at dinnertime. It's been 65-70 everyday, and 50's at night, with periodic light rain now and again(you always need your umbrella handy), it's been really comfortable.

El Rio Tomebamba 

We live about 25 minutes walking from school, or about a mile and a half, a nice walk along the river, minus the cars, trucks, and buses.  It's like a game of Frogger trying to cross the busy streets here...  Cars first, pedestrians second.  I did see another guy, who was definitely passed out and not dead today sleeping in the park next to the busy road...  Wherever it falls, there it shall remain... at least until he wakes up, ha!

The class we're taking at the University of Cuenca is called the Latin American Reality, which analyzes the current political and economic situation in Latin America from various perspectives.  This also includes some of the historical and political events that have shaped the way the current situation presents itself.  We're also going to be talking about the historical and cultural aspects of the peoples here as well.  It's an interesting class, it brings a lot of information together that is new to me, and gives a more worldly perspective to how events have unfolded and their consequences.  The professor a very nice lady who is a published author and journalist from Cuenca named Gladys Moscoso.  

La Universidad de Cuenca

The university itself is nice, there are various cafeterias to eat in, but we prefer the law department one as it has the best food options.  A full meal runs between $2 and $2.50, which is about the going rate anywhere for a full meal - meat, rice or yuca(starchy root kind of like a potato), and veggies.  We did find out a cultural lesson which is that apparently you never use your hands to eat empanadas(meat-filled turnovers).  We got stared at with a few smirks, and by the way, that also includes eating their sandwiches with a fork and knife, which we've noticed a lot.  Whatever.  It reminds me of the "Pledge Drive" Seinfeld episode where Elaine's boss Mr. Pitt eats his candy bars with a knife and fork, and George reinforces it by saying that's what high society people do...  Funny thing is that they serve salchipapas(cut up hot dog with fries) without utensils over in the philosophy cafeteria.  Must be low class people over there.  It includes us too, hecks yeah!

Llama or Yoda?

So yesterday we celebrated the 4th with going to a gringo restaurant called the Inca Lounge and had a marginal burger - honestly it tasted like it had alpaca meat mixed in(a little gamy), which I've had in previous trips to Peru...  It was accompanied by the beer of preference here - Club, and then we tried their brew that they just started selling made by some people up north in the jungle.  It was honestly the worst beer I've ever had, a pale ale with just a nice finish of stale cigarettes, and I'm not picky.  We told them about it, and they agreed, and subsequently charged us for them.  The customer loses.  Oh well.  I shall bash them wholeheartedly on the restaurant/bar review.  Stupid gringos, oh wait...


We've been around town a bit, down to the main Plaza Calderon, but haven't ventured much more.  We have 3 day weekends, so tomorrow it's time to explore the town and it's surroundings, there is a bus that gives a nice tour of it all, so we'll start there.

La Plaza Calderon

This weekend it looks like we're going to try to visit the Cajas National Park which has hundreds of lakes and rivers, as well as beautiful jagged cliffs.  There are also wandering llamas and alpacas there and some good bird viewing.  After that, it's off to Ingapirca(means Inca stone wall) to see some Incan ruins.  The books says its no Machu Picchu, but it should be interesting.  Tidbit for today - Panama hats are from Ecuador.  Ecuadorean Panama canal workers wore them, but they're from here, called sombreros de paja toquilla, made in Cuenca.  Not my style, though.

Straddling the Hemispheres and Haggling in Otavalo Market

Monument to Equatorial Line 

 Yesterday we managed to grab the Quito bus out to the little pueblo La Mitad del Mundo which has a monument dedicated to the Equatorial line, the site where it was first said to have been located, although in reality it’s 200 meters off.  All things considered, it’s pretty darn close for what they had to go with back in the day, which was a protractor, duct tape, and a kerosene lantern.  O.k., I made that up.  It’s got a tower to go up and view whatever you might see, but we declined.

Inti-Nan Real Equatorial Line

We then headed on to Inti-Nan, a museum actually on the Equator nearby, which houses some cool gimmicks that you can do given the magnetic activity, like the which way the water drains, clockwise in the southern hemisphere, counterclockwise in the north.  We couldn’t balance the egg on the nailhead though.  Also they have some shrunken heads(cabezas reducidas) from an indigenous group that used to do it up until 50 years ago.  We volunteered for shrunken bellies, but they weren’t as amused as we were.  Last night we hit a plaza for some nightlife called Plaza Foch, full of people celebrating Ecuadorean pride week, and suffered through some group singing songs I never wanted to hear again from the ‘80s/’90s like 4 Non-Blondes and Alanis Morissette, but a few drinks helped kill the pain.

Shrunken Heads!

Volcano Imbabura near Otavalo

Plaza in Otavalo

Today we grabbed a cab and headed out to Otavalo, a town about 2 hours from Quito that houses Ecuador’s largest outdoor market, a shoppers’ paradise, but we took it easy since we’ll have to lug that crap everywhere.  The landscape views surrounding the town were breathtaking and I took a lot of video and photos for class since we teach about it, and it was fun to mix it up with the local people, haggle for textiles and paintings, and see some crazy stuff they eat that you couldn’t pay me to.  Mike about hurled when he saw the huge larvae that people fry up and munch on.  This evening, we grabbed what I guess may be the best meal of our trip at the restaurant El Achiote near our hotel.  It rivaled last year’s Argentinean dining experience.  Tomorrow we leave at the crack to the airport to fly south to Cuenca, where we will be renting an apartment and studying for the next 5 weeks before hopefully traveling to the Galapagos islands.  Tomorrow Spain plays Italy for the European Cup final at 1:30, so we’ll go out and watch that after we settle in.  Viva Espana!    

Larvae - Que Rico!

Textiles

Our favorite word of the trip is that there is a town called Jipijapa (hippyhoppa), which is used in a Spanish language tongue-twister which I thought was just a made-up word.  It has replaced Jujuy!(who-huy) - a town in the north of Argentina that sounds like a hooray sound from last summer as the word of the trip.  It amuses us simple folk, what can I say, other than... Jipijapa!

Quito Invasion

Um, sleeping?

Que tal ‘yall?!  Look, I slept in the park last night! Mike and I got here to Quito, the capital, last night and a quick little taxi to the hotel.  We had a pile of Colombian food for dinner with their favorite liquor Aguardiente, which they drink with lime and salt - which has a minor anise flavor, really good with the lime considering I hate black licorice! The hotel is run by some very wacky and interesting German people - Klaus, Jesse, and Hubert, lots of them have escaped the rat race and deposited themselves throughout Latin America, just so you know - and run hotels.  Already there are several major bonuses for us.  One is they use the dollar, and even quarters, and use the dollar coins all over the place...  Second is that they use our outlets and electric currency.  Today we did the touristy city thing.  We visited the oldest Gothic basilica in Latin America also covered with gargoyles using natural fauna - iguanas, jaguars, turtles, and monkeys.  We visited el Ejido park where we learned they bet huge money - even their houses, on pickup volleyball.  Oh, and may have seen the guy above either dead or passed out, not sure - it was 10 a.m. ...

La Basilica de Quito

El Panecillo Monument

We saw another impressive church -  the most elaborate church I’ve seen, called la Compania de Jesus, filled with the walls and ceilings covered in gold - Everything!  We also strolled by the Palacio del Gobierno - Governmental Palace located on the Plaza Grande - main Plaza.  Apparently Prez Correa missed my text and booked a visit with the president from Belarus, so we didn't hang.

We then went up to the top of one of the mountains Comun - on el Teleferico or tram for an impressive view of the city and the surrounding countryside.  I’m still trying to catch my breath, 4100 meters up.

View of Quito from the Teleferico

The ride up the Teleferico

Quito and the surrounding landscape

Lastly we stopped in for the fastest guided tour ever about the pre-Inca history at the Museo Nacional de Cultura since we were short on time, 25 minutes, I think we got it all... We tried their empanadas today - Chilean style, not as good as Argentina, and bolon - a green plantain mash with cheese in the middle.  That was good...  And blackberry juice - Yeah Raquel! Tonite it was Chinese food at a Chifa - most common ethnic food here. Tomorrow it’s off to straddle the two hemispheres at La Mitad del Mundo and Saturday we head to Otavalo for the country's largest market. Head to toe in baby alpaca fur, hecks yeah!