Everything feels strange. I am a mixture of emotions about leaving Ecuador and going back home. Last week, the call from home was so strong that it almost hurt to think about it. This week, I’ve been slowly becoming sentimental and trying to soak in everything Ecuadorian while I can.

Last week home was all I seemed to think about. I could almost feel Pepper lying next to me in bed and I could almost taste my dad’s cooking. Talking to my family was almost torture because talking on the computer just didn’t seem to do it for me anymore.

But this week, while I still the same yearning for home, those feelings are a tiny bit on the backburner. This has been my own conscious doing, too. I don’t want to waste too much of  my Ecuadorian time wishing I was somewhere else – I’ll be there soon enough and though I couldn’t be more excited I know I will be leaving something extremely special and precious behind me.

For one, my host family. You canNOT imagine how incredible these people are. I have felt welcomed and a part of their family from day one – and that is by no means an easy feat. It’s awkward to be a living with a strange family when you do understand the language and culture. But in all my 4 months here I cannot find any faults whatsoever with them. Sure, they’re a family and they’re not perfect – like the sisters bicker at times. But you can tell how much they love each other. They have gone so beyond what they signed up for to show me a wonderful time and to make me feel completely at home. I can’t be happier and I am so thankful for them. I hope I can even convey to them even a fraction of how happy they have made me feel.

Even their extended family has been more than great. Especially the grandparents. There is this aura about them that makes me want to be around them all the time. When I hug mi abuela, I can just feel how genuine she is when she says she’s glad to see me. She has been one of my number one encouragers of learning Spanish and praising my efforts. And mi abuelo is a mixture of quiet ease, light teasing and intelligence.

These people are the salt of the earth and I know they completely mean it when they say I have to come back and visit and bring my parents with me. I hope that one day these two families who are so important to me can meet. And I hope that I keep up regular contact with mi familia. Who knows? Maybe when the girls are old enough, they will attend a university where I’m living…

I will be truly sad to leave them.

I also am going to miss all my students. Goodness, they are a hot mess. But they keep me laughing all day long (whether they mean to or not). Their eagerness to learn is contagious and I feel I have to keep up with them (which I believe is a good thing). Their curiosity is inspiring. And of course, their humor. I can’t even be mad at them long. They have this wit about them that I believe is beyond their years. They can take sarcasm as much as they can dish it out. I’ve never met a group of kids who are so enthusiastic about welcoming me into their classroom.  I could brag about them all day long and even though I always say how much they drive me crazy, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I will also miss the random kindness of people in this country and the patience they have displayed for an ignorant gringa like me. Overall, my experience with the Ecuadorian people has been very encouraging and welcoming and I have no complaints. I will miss the excitement of getting in a taxi, not knowing what kind of conversation I will have with the taxi-driver.

And of course, I will miss the beauty of the country. The immense patch-work mountains, the green fields dotted with cows, the purest beaches I’ve ever seen, the vast forests, the amazing amount of extraordinary animals… the list goes on and on. And along with experiencing the beauty, I have done many unbelievable things I never ever in my entire life thought I would do:  learning to surf, snorkeling with sea lions, bungee jumping, being able to [uhhh… “somewhat easily”] climb up to high peaks…

But even those feats of seeing and doing all that I did does not compare to how I’ve changed as a person. At home, I need to know what’s going on: when are we meeting, what are we doing, who is coming etc. I would become so irritated if I had to wait on someone. (Here we have what we refer to “gringo time” and “Ecuadorian time” – and even us gringos no longer constantly operate on gringo time – that might be a forewarning for you folks back home). Before I left, I knew that there would be plenty of things that were out of my control or even out of my knowledge. I told myself that I would just laugh when things didn’t go my way and tell myself that however it turns out, it’s always an adventure (siempre una aventura). Of course, that’s always easier said than done. But I believe that for the most part, I have truly put into action my motto. When I travel, or when dealing with problems at school my attitude has changed — my attitude is a much easier thing to change than the things around me.

I believe I was independent before I came to Ecuador, but I think I’ve had become even more so. I had no choice here – I didn’t know the language, the culture, how things “worked” or where things were but I didn’t ever expect anyone to hold my hand. I would ask around and I got things done. One of the most nerve-racking things I have done here is getting into a taxi by myself and telling the driver how to get to my home. But I didn’t let that stop me and by the end of my trip, I feel like pro. Before, the idea of living in the city or living by myself or living in another state made me feel somewhat apprehensive. I know I could do it but I had my reservations. Now, forget it. Living in another state sounds like a breeze – just by knowing the language changes everything. I have learned more about Ecuador by using my shoddy Spanish than I feel I have about my own country in my own language. This feeling that I can literally do anything, that I won’t let my inexperience or ignorance of something stop me, is so liberating. I feel like some Amazon woman. Bring it on. I got this.

I also feel like an Amazon woman because I am more self-reliant. That’s not to say that I didn’t have support here from mi familia, my KSU friends or people at school but… nothing is the same as your own family and your best friend. I have had to be my own cheerleader while here. I’ve had to tell myself that the stupid things I’ve done on a daily basis do not define who I am (and trust me, I’ve done a lot of stupid things here). No one else was around to say not to worry about it. I have tried to not let the small things get to me and I have forced myself to be positive – if I hadn’t, I think would have gone crazy. This also is liberating – I know that I can handle it out there in the big scary world because I don’t need other people to define who I am, I don’t need constant reassurance; I already know who I am. And ya know what? I kind like who I am, too.

I also realize how determined and stubborn I am. I have improved by leaps and bounds my Spanish – it’s incredible to think how I literally knew NOTHING when I came here and now I can carry on a conversation. Didn’t let my ignorance stop me there. I’ve been stubborn when climbing mountains – I, me, Lindsey, CLIMB. MOUNTAINS. To very high heights. I have never pushed myself so physically in my life. I’ve been stubborn in not letting my troubles get to me (which is not to say that I haven’t had my moments). I had a situation and later people would ask how things are going. I’ve had my doubts, complaints and frustrations but I think I was honest when I would answer: “Nothing has really changed but my attitude about the situation. Made things better.”  I don’t think I’ve ever pushed myself emotionally here. But as with all these other things I’ve learned about myself, I realize how strong I really am.

Of couse, this is only my perception. And only time will tell. Once I get back home, I hope these changes in me will still be there and will continue to improve.

I’ve also realized things about the people in my life. Missing my family has made me realize how much I love them and how wouldn’t trade them for the world (it’s a cliché, I know but I truly, truly mean it). I’ve also realized how blessed I am by hearing about other peoples’ families here. I don’t love my family because I have to, I love my family because I actually like them. I like spending time with them. I like how they let me be myself. I like how they encourage whatever is important to me. I like what kind of people they are – they’re intelligent, willing to learn new things, open-minded, very funny, and they care about people. Even if they were not my family I would say what wonderful people they are – they want to do the right things and they have raised me with their convictions, blessings and knowledge.

I also am so lucky because they are proud of me. When talking about graduation, I have realized that some parents are not as impressed with me and my friends’ accomplishments as my parents are about mine. I feel that in many, many ways my graduating is as much (if not more) a testament to my parents’ love, dedication and work in getting me to this point. Without them, I don’t know if I would be able to come back from a 4-month stay in another country (where I went with their blessing) and then graduate with all these great things I’ve accomplished on my resume. I am so blessed to have a family who shares this huge mutual love for each other.

I am also blessed to have an incredible best friend. It really is true what they say – “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” She has been a constant in my life and besides my family has been my main support in hard times. She is patient, kind, non-judgmental (a very important thing to have with girl friends), intelligent, someone I can turn to for honest advice (another thing that can be hard to find in girl friends), funny, incredibly fun, and best of all, she likes me for me. After ten years, she knows all my flaws and yet she still has struck around. Not only has she stuck around but she has been one of my number one supports, encouragers and someone who has cheered me up – an active participant in this relationship that knows that friendship is a two-way street. It’s a comfort to have someone who knows who you truly are and still wants to be your friend.

These things are the things I have been pondering over the last three, loooong weeks. These are the things that are in my heart as I go back home. Home. It’s such a powerful concept. Here I come to tank tops, flip-flops, and Southern cooking.

Saturday night – stayed at the ECE girl’s apartment so we could all ride to the airport together. We had to be at the airport at 4:30 so we ended up pretty much just staying up all night. I think I took an hour nap before we left. Got to the airport and then waited… and stood around with my heavy backpack and waited more… torture to wait when we were on our way to the most beautiful place in Ecuador (and quite possibly the world). I don’t even know how long the flight was – maybe 3 hours. Kevin got the window seat, I in the middle and luckily no one beside me.

Finally get on the island. It was the tiniest little open-air airport – we walked directly off the plane onto the asphalt. Then we waited some more.

On the shore of the island of Santa Cruz waiting...

Eventually we got our bus and then got on a ferry and then got on another bus, with waiting in there some. Eventually, we were off with our 19-year-old local guide, Fernando.

He took us to go see “The Twins” – 2 large craters that are very close to one another. They don’t know how they were formed. Basically they are these two large gaping holes in the landscape with trees and moss growing on the sides of the rock and deep down inside.

Looking to the other side of the crater

And when I mean large, I mean HUGE. We were somewhat surprised how the terrain looked on Santa Cruz. Didn’t look very tropical – instead it was almost like a green desert – low trees and large cacti. Sure felt like island weather though: very hot and humid.

Moss grows on lots of the trees during the rainy season

Next we walked down a short path covered in tiny, red volcanic rocks that took us to the Darwin center. To be honest, I didn’t really learn much at all about Darwin.

Huge catcus on the pathway to the Darwin Center

Instead, I learned about turtles. They had 4 types of turtle shells on display – 2 species of turtles; male and female. Males’ shells are shaped differently so they can mate. The shells are also formed differently because of their diet. The ones that have to reach higher to get food have a shell that allows their neck to extend longer.

Then we went to go see the massive, oooooooold turtles. These turtles were about as big as a semi-truck tire or something. Wrinkly skin on their faces, necks, tails and legs. You can guess how old they are by how big the designs are on their shells. We watched one move up the rocks and it was like something out of Jurassic Park – it just didn’t look real.

Carefree Carlos

They moved so ridiculously slow, even when they eat that it looked like a robot. We got so close that we could see him chewing on the leaves. We named him Carefree Carlos because we felt sad that he didn’t have a cool nickname like Lonesome George.

We're buddies now.

Then we went to go see Lonesome George. Poor guy. He’s the only species of his kind – the very LAST of his kind – and he’s about 150-200 years old. They don’t expect him to die anytime soon, either. Good gosh, talk about a long life span! They tried having him mate with 2 females that are similar to his species but to no avail.

Lonesome George and his lady friend

Then Fernando took us the place we would have lunch for the entire week. I’ll tell you what every day was – soup, juice, rice, meat with some sauce. Sounds okay but it was pretty terrible every day.

After lunch we had the day to ourselves to do whatever. Of course we had beaches on the brain – we were on an island!

The pier (notice the interesting horizon in the background)

We take a boat taxi to the “German beach” – nothing too spectacular – the pier had prettier water, but at least it was a beach. Very small.

After laying on the beach and wade in the calm water for a while we went back to the hotel. Kevin, Aaron, Athena and I stayed in 1 room – with 1 bathroom. Worked out well but goodness we learned way too much about each other.

A la playa!

After getting settled in our hotel we decided to go out (don’t ask me how I had energy after an hour of sleep). There’s only 2 bars and 1 club on the island so we went to the Lemon Club. It was a pretty chill place. Open-air place with pebble gravel for the floor. Tables and chairs that looked like tree trunks with Bob Marley playing and people playing pool. We had some drinks, talked with some of the Ecuadorians that were our main guides or organizers of the trip and danced a little. Got back at 11 and completely CRASHED.

Something weird happen today: I ran up 3 flights of stairs. Easily. No sweat. Piece of cake. Who AM I…?

Another weird but glorious thing: today is National Teacher Appreciation Day. All the public schools are out. We’re not but we did get a spa treatment today. I went upstairs to the Oven and they had turned it into a spa! I got a massage but you could pick also a facial or a manicure! Only in Ecuador… I could get used to this.

Obviously I haven’t written recently and I am sooo far behind on my blog posts. Ai-yi-yi. I still have to write about the 2^nd day in Mindo, the day we went to Otavalo, going salsa dancing, not to mention all the wonderful things I did and saw during Spring Break.

I have tons of assignments due for the university very soon so I’ve been working on those instead of writing my blogs, unfortunately. I probably won’t even get to writing some of them until I’m back in the States. So keep reading and be patient!

I’m trying really, really hard to enjoy these last two weeks in Ecuador but it’s hard. I have no more money. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. I have no more time – I’ve been working non-stop writing those KSU papers, not to mention grading my students’ papers in between tutoring and Spanish classes. I’ve also done almost everything on my traveling to-do list. The only thing left is Cotopaxi, which I’m going to splurge on the $15 train ride. We’re going to hike up the snowcapped volcano on Sunday (it’s the closest point to the sun in the world. Of course, I don’t have the skill or the equipment to get that high). I also haven’t built as many meaningful Ecuadorian relationships as I would have liked to, so there’s not many people I will truly miss (I most definitely will miss my family though).

Really, my heart’s already in the other hemisphere. I think anyone would feel this way regardless of how long they’ve been gone. Am I right? The last 2 weeks before you go back home – even if you’ve been gone a year – are always the longest, I suppose. I have loved being here and I have learned so much about myself and Ecuador (stayed tuned for that wrap-up entry). But I’m ready. So ready I’m going crazy. I guess you could also say I have senioritis. I’m allowed to have that, right? Even if I am in another country. Not to mention all the festivities that will be going on when I get home – graduation, graduation party, my aunt and grandma visiting etc…

ZGTMOLMon

Okay, I am OFFICIALLY super excited about Spring Break (Semana Santa), baby! I just bought buy my airplane ticket!

Semana Santa is Easter break where basically ALL of Ecuador has off of school. Gotta love those Catholics.

So here’s the game plan for my 2 whole weeks away from school: 7 days in the Galapagos Islands. There I will be seeing animals that you can’t see anywhere else (or that you can only see in a few places, depending on the animal). Also, most of these animals do not have natural predators so they are not scared of humans. It’s basically like an animal hippie commune.

Arial view of the Galapagos (Galapagos meaning "saddleback" in Spanish).

Come back Saturday. Sunday: rest, wash clothes, repack.

Monday: Leave for Baños, a city 5 hours away from Quito. Who know what we’ll all do there? White water rafting, hiking up the beautiful waterfalls, bungee jumping… you name it. I think only 4 of us are for certain going to Baños (Aaron, Kevin, me and Athena, the student teacher from Michigan).

Thursday: Athena and I take a bus to Cuenca, another 5ish hour bus ride (I have no idea what the rest of the folks will be doing). THANK GOODNESS Athena agreed to with me because I couldn’t go alone and I had my heart set on going. In Cuenca we will take a day trip to Ingapirca, the largest Inca site in Ecuador. The other day and a half will be spent exploring the city of Cuenca, named a UNESCO  World Heritage Trust site because of all the beautiful historical buildings. Saturday night we take our 1 hour (and $45) flight back to Quito.

Example of a colonial house in Cuenca.

Sunday I recuperate.

So needless to say, I won’t be on the internet for 2 whole weeks. Leave me love while I’m gone!

And after Spring Break, I only have 3 weeks left in Ecuador! (which I have mixed feelings about). I will be teaching hardcore those 3 weeks and 1 week my CT will not even be there. I also have to do all the final papers, projects and assignments for KSU because they are ALL due the Monday after I get back (crazy) and I refuse to do them when I’m home.

I am finally getting around playing writing-catch up and update the blog about Mindo, the cloud forest, before I go off for spring break and have to write about that, too.

We went the weekend of Feb. 20, the weekend right after we got back from the rainforest. I almost didn’t go. I know that some of the girls had been tossing around the idea to go but I hadn’t heard anything from anyone Friday night. Finally at midnight Elizabeth calls me and asks me if I want to go. At this point, I had already fallen asleep and waking up in 5 hours just didn’t sound very pleasant at the time. Luckily, Elizabeth convinced me. So at 5 a.m. I was running around trying to pack as best I can – I felt totally unprepared.

We go to the big bus station in Quito and settle in our seats for the 2 ½ hour bus ride. The first part was somewhat unsettling because this old country couple was practically hovering over me. I think I’ve mentioned this before: it doesn’t matter if there are seats or not. The bus will pick up people randomly on the side of the road and they will stand in the middle of the tiny little aisle. And let me tell you, our seat space is not big to begin with. So here I am trying my best not to squish Alanna, my bus buddy, while at the same time trying not to get my eye busted out by the swinging boobs in my face. Eventually they got off and I was able to doze in and out awhile, despite the 5 teenagers who were sitting behind us, playing their guitars and singing fervently (and making fun of us not knowing we could understand them).

We sooner or later we step off the bus on to a street made entirely of mud. We all kind of look at each other and ask, “What are we going to do?” We hadn’t really explicitly planned anything before hand. We just got on the bus (that’s half the battle) and we had prior knowledge from talking to folks about Mindo and then reading our Lonely Planet guide book. But actually knowing WHERE to go to do all the stuff we had heard about – we had no idea. We figured we’d just figure it all out after coffee. So we go to a little hole in the wall place to have a full “continental breakfast” – wonderfully salty eggs, soft, fresh break with jam and coffee with lots of sugar and milk. I think all of that for the 6 of us was $11. And the woman waiting on us was precious – completely sweet, helpful little old lady who keep smiling the entire time.

After breakfast we’re standing on the side of the road when this big Jeep comes sliding up next to us with a blond woman driving. “Hey, honeys,” she said, “Would you like to stay at my hostel?” Apparently, she was the owner of one of the hostels we had read about in Lonely Planet. It was $10 a night, with breakfast included and she would help us plan all the things we wanted to do. It was a small town and she would just call everyone. She would keep up a tab and we would just pay her at the end of the weekend. Sounded like a perfect deal. So we grabbed on to the outside of her Jeep and she took us down the muddy road, past the soccer field to her charming place.

Claudia's muddy Jeep

View from my hostel room (looking into the private guest house)

The place, called El Rocio, was tucked right off the road surrounded by lush, dark green vegetation. It was all wooden with a tin roof where moss and impatients grew. There was a deep porch, simple downstairs with tables and 2 upper levels. The 3^rd floor was a dorm-style large room where 9 American girls were staying. We stayed on the 2^nd floor where there were 3 bed rooms, each with 2 twin beds. On the 2^nd floor was also a small patio with hammocks.

The main floor of the hostel with some of the dogs (I think there were 6 total).

I must mention how this woman was quite a character – like something out of a movie. I wish I got a picture of her. Her name was Claudia and she was very handsome, in her later 30’s probably. She sprinkled her conversation with “honeys” and “sweeties” and we instantly liked her – she was just a very personable person. And we couldn’t help laughing when she would add colorful vulgar language every once in a while – it just seems almost strange with her sweet demeanor.

Once we dumped our stuff our rooms and got our keys we were off. We hopped onto the bed of the pick-up truck (our taxi) and went deeper into the cloud forest to go do zip-lining.

My awesome zip-line getup

Getting ready to zoom away!

That was in.cred.i.ble! They outfitted us to these heavy harnesses and helmets and set us up with our 3 guides. There were 13 lines where we were hooked up to these cables and flying overhead the trees at fast speeds. There’s really no other way to describe what a rush it was – so much fun.

Each line we did by ourselves unless you wanted to do something crazy – like the Superman or upside-down. It was kind of awkward to do either of those because you needed the guide help’s but they said they did it all

the time with all kind of people. For the Superman, you were harnessed so that your body was parallel with the cable and you spread out your arms. It was fun but more difficult than just sitting in your little harness – ya had to use your muscles to balance yourself and the harness dug into your stomach. I don’t even remember how they harnessed up for the upside-down but I believe that one was even more difficult. The guide kept telling me to just relax my muscles but it was easier said than done. It felt like I was going to fall out of my harness down, down, down into the trees. However, it was really cool to see the amazing scenery pass you but upside-down. Your mind seemed so confused about the view.

Liz zippin' down the line.

Group shot of the girls and the guides

Our guides happened to be cute and young so we decided to invite them to dinner later. We made plans to meet up later and then we headed on our way to our next activity – white water tubing.

When we got to the site by the river we realized what idiots we were. We had been hot and sweaty when zip-lining because sometimes we had to hike through the forest to get to each new set of cables. But the idea of taking off our clothes and wearing just our bathing suits just didn’t sound to inviting. But we were there and were just gonna go ahead and DO IT. We got in the water and it was incredibly, excruciatingly cold. Our guide (who was wearing a wetsuit vest, rain boots and then jeans, of all things) had us get in the floating devices which were this group of tubes all tied together and we were to sit in the little triangle the tubes made connected to each other.

Mindo Girl's Weekend Official Pic

He pushed off and we plunged into the icy water. Those poor guides – a group of 6 girls screaming at the top of our lungs, shivering the entire time. It was fun but it was hard not to think about how freakin’ cold it was. There were many smooth, large rocks in the river and our guide would maneuver around them – sometimes our tubes would just slide right over them.

Rollin' around in the agua

If that happen, you had to make sure to pick up your bottom, just in case. I don’t know how, but I accidentally hit the heel of my foot on a rock – I can’t tell you how much that hurt. Especially after the bruise formed and I had to walk on it. We would bounce up and down and the guide would purposely get us hit by the waves of the rushing water, just to tease us. After 30 minutes we came to the bank where our taxi-truck was waiting and we climbed in, shivering. We headed back to the hostel to change into dryer clothes.

Then we went to the frog concert. Our taxi driver let us off in this gravel parking lot and off to the right tucked in the forest was this beautiful construction made of glossy wood. Unfortunately, it was night-time and my camera just couldn’t capture how beautiful it. There were pathways with wooden handrails and steps leading down deeper into the forest. We followed the short pathway down until we came to a large hut.

A pathway around the place

The hut had a thatch roof and rows and rows of benches. Attached to the large hut was an open-air restaurant. No walls, just a thatch roof also. The place was on stilts and water surrounded it – perfect for housing all the frogs we were going to see. In front of us was a large pound, almost green with all the lily pads on it. There were little bridge pathways built around the pond that lead deeper into the surrounding forest. Past this pound was a small lake and around the small lake were beautiful little hostel houses. You could also eat on the lake. There were floating wooden platforms that had a table and benches nailed down. I don’t know how it specifically worked – the whole eating on that thing but I bet it would be fun just because the scenery was so beautiful. The entire compound was impressive and picturesque.

View of the pond

We all sat in one of the benches in the large hut and were given little glasses of red wine to drink while we waited for everyone to get settled. Then a man in his 60’s came out and started explaining to us about the organization and the conservation of the area and all the types of frogs that they have in the area. He was speaking in slow Spanish but it was so difficult to follow along. You have to use every ounce of concentration to listen to a Spanish lecture, which can be hard to do when you have all your energy. We had been up since 5 a.m. and as it was the end of the day, it was incredibly challenging to follow along. After him explaining all about the area and frogs etc. we all filed into a line and followed after him down the pathway going toward the pond and the lake.

The frog concert is called that for obvious reasons. There are so many frogs in 1 concentrated area and at night they all “sing.” On our little tour we took out our cellphones and shined them into the pond, the bridge, the pathways and the trees in the forest looking for frogs and toads. Our guide every once in a while would hold a frog by its foot and show us. We saw all types of frogs – large ones that puffed out their bellies, little tiny ones with slender limbs. Eventually we were completely enclosed by the trees where we couldn’t see the lights coming from the restaurant, even though we were very far at all from it. There, the guide showed us glow-in-the-dark bacteria. Tooootally cool. This bacteria grows on wood when it decomposes (or is it the bacteria that decomposes?) and it makes the wood glow bright blue in the dark!

Obvious enough for ya? (Sign we found at the frog concert)

After the frog concert we went back into town for dinner with the guides. We ate delicious pizzas at the same place we had for dinner. It was odd and humorous because the place was this tiny little hole in the wall. I think there were 3 tables inside the entire place. But in the corner of the restaurant was this nice, high-tech stereo sound-system blasting Latin dance tunes. We spent dinner conversing in a mixture of Spanish, English and charades which always makes for an entertaining time.

After listening to all that good dance music, we weren’t ready to go back to bed (believe it or not) so the guys offered to take us to karaoke place. We went into this tiny little restaurant that had a projector positioned to the wall where you could sing along to the words on the wall. With each song was a sort of music video playing in the background. However, each song didn’t have their own video so we saw the same sappy love scenes in a sunflower field over and over again. There were probably about 15 people in the place and they all kept singing these slow love songs. That would never fly in the U.S. The owner sung a few songs and this guy probably in his 40’s kept singing these very serious songs in a horrible voice – but he sang them with such conviction. Bless his heart, he was pretty interesting to watch. FINALLY, it was our chance to sing and we, of course, in the American style wanted to sing something not as sappy and more traditional (American) karaoke songs like “Hotel California.” We practically got boo-ed off. Everyone in the place kept looking at each other like, “Hurry up. You guys are horrible.” Whatever, we didn’t care. We thought it was all pretty funny.

After we sang we went to the discotec next door. This place had 2 small rooms, with a tiny disco ball in the corner, and a small bar in the other corner. There were probably 15 people in the whole place. As soon as we get there – and I mean as soon as we step through the door – we’re being asked if we want to dance. I must say, I love how Latin guys dance. They are not shy and they LEAD. They know what they’re doing. In the States I think there’s this stigmatism attached to a guy dancing well, that he must be gay or something. But in Ecuador, it seems EVERY guy dances (and LIKES to do so). And they dances wonderfully. It’s like they’re born with this innate skill. So even if you don’t know how to dance salsa, it’s okay because they are such good leads that you can learn quickly. I love it. We danced for a while, said good-bye to the guys and crashed at our hostel.

I decided to write a blog about all the random things in Ecuador that I’ve observed so far.

For instance what my kids wear. I don’t know why but everyday only a handful of kids wear jeans. The rest of the time it’s shorts for some of the guys or track/lounge/yoga pants for everyone else (the high schoolers wear a lot more jeans though).. They all wear sneakers like Vans, Keds, Converse or sometimes ballet flats. And it’s tons of Gap, Abercrombie, Hollister, Nautica… These kids go to the States ALL. THE. TIME. and buy their clothes there. Honestly, it is cheaper in the States but of course, not when you factor in the one $800 ticket it takes to get there.

It’s easy to forget about the wealth at the school just because for the most part, on a day to day basis, the kids seem like regular middle class kids like the ones back home. But then we find information like one kid’s dad owns Supermaxi, the Ecuadorian Wal-mart and another kid’s family owns Banco Pichincha which is like Bank of American here.

The cabs, restaurants, and movies are cheap. Clothes and shoes not at all. Payless sells their shoes for $50ish. We call it “Paymore” when we see it. My thin leather ballet flats are getting scuffed so badly from walking on the pavement all the time (and from being so clumsy) that I’m terrified they won’t last until April. I complained about this to Pablo but he said you can get leather cheap here up in Octovalo, where they make leather. Of course, he’s a man and so what does he know about cute shoes. He wears sandals in any weather. Eventually we’ll be getting up that way to Octovalo. Leather purses, anyone?

People tell us that Ecuador is a great place to learn Spanish because no one really has an accent here, like they would in Spain. That seems to be true but we have noticed that sometimes instead of saying the “v” sound, they say “b” instead.

As far as the people in the country that we come in contact with at the mall, shops, the taxi drivers etc. for the most part everyone is incredibly nice. Granted, you’re going to have a couple jerks anywhere you go but considering we know little of the language, our “nice people success rate” has been fairly high.

When Ecuadorians answer the phone they say “allo?” and when they say bye they say, “chao” – from my observations that is something used for someone familiar. You wouldn’t say chow to a taxi driver because you probably won’t see him again. And when you see someone you typically don’t say “Hola”, instead you say “buenas dias, buenas tardes, or buenas noches” depending on the time of day.

I’ve talked about the indigenous people in my earlier blogs but I don’t think I’ve explained how many there are around the city. You quickly get used to seeing them selling newpapers, lotto tickets or fruit but if you stop to think about it, it’s really interesting. It’s certainly something we don’t have back home – a group of people who wear the traditional clothes and keep their customs and practices while living in a metropolis. Even if jeans and sneakers would be more practical to wear.

As far as what people wear in the city, it’s pretty normal for the most part. If you really start to pay attention though you’ll notice this woman is wearing a sweater and jeans. The next woman is wearing a see-through shirt and the next is wearing a sun-dress. If you had to figure what the weather was like in Ecuador solely by observing what the people here wore, you would never know! I’ve brought many tank-tops with me here and the weather is perfectly fine to wear them. Back home, I live in them. But I feel a bit odd wearing them here in the town because you surprisingly don’t see many wearing tank-tops, even though I think it’s so hot outside during the day. I also don’t like wearing them because I attack a lot of attention without showing off my arms. I try to ignore it but Aaron always mentions all the looks I get – probably we all get. I just look the most gringo out of the bunch.

Also some of the women here have no qualms about showing off their stomach. No matter what kind of state it’s in, if you get my drift (no pun intended). They just let it all hang out. However, it some ways, it seems they are generally more conservative here. On very hot days in Georgia when everyone and their mothers would be wearing flip-flops, tank tops or sundresses, the Ecuadorians are wearing jeans and long-sleeve shirts. I finally just got the confidence to wear a tank top in public the other day (it was too hot not to).

Oh, and I suppose I’ve got to tell you about the besos. The kisses. It’s like in France where when you meet someone or see a friend, instead of hugging them you kiss them on the cheek. It can be awkward sometimes because people know that I’m American and this kissing does not usually come naturally to me but the Ecuadorians are so used to it so there’s this awkward pause when we meet. We bob our heads back and forth like chickens, both of us trying to decide to commit to the traditional greeting. During school days, my students just greet me and my CT by saying hi when they come into the classroom. But when I see them outside of school, like at events in the evenings at school, they do come up to me and kiss my cheek.

I’ve stolen a list from Anna about random things – in italics – we’ve noticed in Ecuador (and have added my own commentary:

• They call tape “scotch.” They also ask if they can lend you a pencil but they mean borrow – it’s because in Spanish there’s 1 word for both meanings.

• Ecuador runs mostly on hydroelectric power and has had electricity rationing due to a drought. Ecuador is one of the most green-conscious places I’ve ever been and I love it! It’s one of my goals when I go back home – follow the example of Ecuador (and the school).

• Teachers don’t make their own copies, they have people that run the copy room and do it for them. The school has 2 people that are in the copy center AT ALL TIMES. Can you imagine? They do whatever you need. It’s glorious. Back home, I felt like I needed a college class to figure out how to make copies for 180 kids in my TOSS placement.

• Students call me by my first name.

• Teachers are expected to show affection to students.  I have been hugged and kissed by a sixth grade boy (which I’ve mentioned). It gets some getting used to but now I love it. I can’t imagine having to go back home and not being able to love on 6^th graders.

• The drinking age is 18 and is not strictly enforced. I don’t have to worry about this but anyone that is student teaching high schoolers have to worry about whether or not they might run into their students while they’re out in Plaza Foch.

• The average income is $150/month. If you’re middle class or higher, it’s unheard of for you not to have a maid. I believe that the ECE girls pay $10 for their maid to come clean, do their laundry and cook for them every Friday.

• I practiced more Spanish at the club than anywhere. Or in taxis. Or in restaurants.

• To “tank” is to get gas. And you can’t pump your own gas. You have to wait in long lines for the man in the jumper to pump it for you.

• You have to order “agua sin gas” – meaning “water without carbonation.” They get their carbonated water from the springs that are all around Ecuador.

• Ma. is an abbreviation for Maria. And tons of my students’ names are Maria. Or Jose Ignacio. It can get confusing.

• There are a lot more opportunities for the uneducated, i.e. maids, taxi drivers, security guards, copy room people.

• Private school teachers make more than public.

• Cheese tastes like a farm. Well, this is more of Anna’s opinion than mine but I do I have say something about cheese here. The queso fresco (fresh cheese) is white, thick, wiggly consistency and it doesn’t really have a taste. I don’t really like it. The other option is this neon orange rubber-like cheese on your hamburgers that tastes kinda gross. I miss cheese so badly.

• Yogurt is liquid and delicious. They eat a lot of yogurt here. It’s like drinking a smoothie.

• A bag of M&M’s is more expensive than a bottle of rum. A bag that’s just slightly bigger than an individual one you might find in a gas station is $4. Liquor is very cheap here.

• The middle schoolers dress better than I do. It probably has to do with the fact that their families have more money than I do.

• Riding in a car is scarier than any roller coaster. That’s Anna’s opinion. I doesn’t bother me. Just make sure that you have a place to hold on.

• Tip is included on your bill. And you only tip about 10% here. I’ve heard that it seems presumptuous and condescending to tip more.

• Dine in restaurants are cheaper than fast food. It’s a big treat here for mi hermanas to eat KFC here. Pizza is very cheap though.

• Tampons are virtually nonexistent. Actually (and strangely), you can find them in the diaper isle.

(I am the birthday girl.)

On Wednesday, I walked out of my bedroom to walk down to breakfast and was met with 3 ladies singing happy birthday (mi madre y mis hermanas). It was so sweet; they were so excited for me. Then they gave me a very pretty wrapped little present which turned out to be earrings and a bracelette. The earrings are tagua which are nuts – LOTS of the jewelry here are made out of this material – they’re dangling painted purple earrings that kind of look like a bunch of grapes. The bracelet is about an inch wide made out of tiny, tiny little beads arranged in a zigzag design in shades of blues. Such pretty jewelry, exactly my taste, well-made and of course, Ecuadorian made. It was such a thoughtful gift.

I get to school and I’m practically attacked by my students giving me hugs and kisses (I’m going to miss that so much if I teach in the States). I’m met by Mary and Dani giving me birthday wishes. I go with Mary to the copier room and when I get back I find a happy birthday surprise letter from Scott. I love surprises and it was a good one.

Kevin later came in to wish me happy birthday and we were going to walk together to get a snack during long break. Well, then Jo is being really weird making me come back with her to the classroom so she can get something. Usually, during lunch or break we all go our separate ways; her with her friend, me with mine. So I thought it was odd but I just went along with it. So we’re all walking to the cafeteria to get a snack and I see a big group of my kids in front of me. Jo is yelling at them to hurry up, which I also thought was odd. During break, unless the kids are absolutely killing each other, we leave them alone.

So we go into the cafeteria and Jo says, “Hey, I think I hear Jime calling you in the other part of the cafeteria.” (The room is separated into 2 rooms with lunch line in the middle). Also weird. So I follow her into the room to be greeted by most of my students yelling, “Happy Birthday!” They threw me a surprise party!! Jo had brought a delicious cake complete with candle where they sang happy birthday in English and in Spanish. They even sang the song which is a tradition in Ecuador where they say, “Throw it in her face!” by luckily Jo and Jime discouraged this idea. I got to blow out my candles and make a wish. I got about a million more hugs and kisses from my students, some handmade cards and even one girl got me a little purse holder. I was so surprised and touched by it all.

I even got to leave school because it was my birthday. Okay, no that’s a huge lie. Right after school, Jime said we had to go because the girls were at home sick. Fine with me. I went home an hour early and took a long nap.

Afterwards almost all the student teachers (7 girls and Kevin) met at Mi Cocina for dinner. I ordered the chicken lasagna, sangria and brownie a la mode. Oh, it was all so delicious and I was STUFFED by the time we left.

So then Friday night, some of the girls took me out dancing for my birthday. But first Liz and I stopped at Los Hot Dogs – this little hole in the wall place where there is only outside seating.

Liz and I grubbin' it up!

They only serve cokes, French fries, hot dogs and hamburgers but it’s so good. I got a double with ruffle chip crumbles sprinkled on top – delicioso. And of course, wherever we go, we seem to make friend. And typically with men. So one of the guys working there started talking to us and asking us questions, “Where are you from? What are you doing tonight? Are you married? How old are you?” Our Spanish is much better than when we first arrived but it’s still terrible and many times very humorous to the Ecuadorian. But we don’t really mind; they’re very polite about it all. So we talk to him for a while with very little confusion.

The ECE girls call their taxi friend, Joel and we’re off to Plaza Foch. The entire night I think we went to about 3 discotecs – the plaza is just this huge section of the city that has rows and rows of restaurants, bars, and dance clubs. I danced with this very handsome guy but he was only 20 – gosh, I’m getting so old! Every time I go out dancing I always learn new moves and this time was no exception. He was teaching me and said that I was a very fast learner (As a side note: Liz and I have decided that the Ecuadorians are patronizing us. We hear about how good we dance, or how impressed they are with how quick we learn – umm… we’re really not that good with Latin dancing. Either they just have this idea that American girls are TERRIBLE dancer or they are just big flatterers.)

The last club we went to was sooooooooo much fun even though it’s always EXTREMELY crowded that sometimes it’s hard to dance. We danced for a little while and then we headed up to the 2^nd floor where we could take a breather. There, we stared talking to this Australian man – the normal stuff: what are you doing here? How long have you been here? Where are you originally from? Standard stuff but I LOVE IT. I love meeting new people from around the world and just stricking up random conversations with people. It’s so easy to talk to people here.

So we’re talking to this Austrian guy and this young girls comes up to him dressed in this tiny little red sequin dress asking for some Johnnie Walker and cursing up a storm. Turns out the girl was the Austrian’s best friend’s daughter who was 16! Good gosh. They keep getting younger and younger.

The next group of people we met were Ecuadorians. 4 men and 2 women – I think they were probably in their late 20’s. They were so incredibly nice! They kept teaching us new Spanish words and then laughing at us. I must say, we were pretty comical because our vocabulary is so lacking so things get lost in translation. While I might be articulate in English, I sound like a 1^st grader in Spanish. One of the words I wanted to learn was clumsy so I was pretending to trip everywhere. As a whole, the group just had this presence about them that was so warm, welcoming and fun.

Later we ran into of the girls that the ECE girls knew. She was incredibly sweet, too and we danced with her for a while.

Toward the end of the night, Liz and I started dancing with these 2 friends. As always, he taught me some more moves and we would talk a little bit during dancing (in Spanish). Later we talked to them in English and I found out that the guy I was dancing with was French! I had no idea (the music was really loud in there, in my defense). I was so excited because now was my chance to speak French where I at least sound like a 4^th grader. Specially because when I first got to Ecuador, I kept wanting to say French words instead of Spanish because French felt more natural to me. Well, here was my chance. And you know what? My mind was BLANK. All the words that would come to mind was Spanish! I finally got him to start speaking French and I was so excited. By the time I thought to myself, “Okay, I’m in the French mind set now” it was time to go. GRRR. I kept telling him, “I promise I know how to speak French.” It’s just been so long. I keep saying things like “Je regrette porque je sais francais pero es difficil ahora…” mixing the 2 languages.

When we left the club, Joel picked us up and took us to McDonald’s.

Saturday (which has nothing to do with my birthday celebrations) I met Mary and Dani to go to the open-air market in Quito. Ah, more shopping. I love the shopping here – they sell all these Ecuadorian-made things like alpacha sweaters, scarfs, gloves

You can't go to Ecuador without buying some EcuaPants!

. Tons and tons of jewelry ranging from $1.50 – $20 (the “expensive” stuff is typically real silver). Thin, beautifully woven scarves, the typical clothing of the indigenous people here – embroidered white linen blouses and dresses. Hand-made Andean flutes and other instruments. Brightly colored wooden masks (these are all things that are sold in Otavalo which I just remember I need to also write about!)

As I’ve mentioned before, I now am more competent with my Spanish. However, that does not mean I do not always run into problems. I bought few pairs of earrings from this really nice. I was feeling so excited because I was just chatting up with all the vendors saying things like, “How much is this? It’s hard to decide because it’s for my mom; I don’t know if she will like this. I like all of these – I don’t know which to choose. What is this made out of?” instead of just pointing to something and saying, “Cuanto?” Well, I was talking with this jewelry vendor who was asking me where I was from and the like. Then he went off to get me change and I was apologizing about it being difficult (change is always so hard to get; it’s so annoying!) and he was saying, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s part of the service” being so nice. I walk to the next stall and in a couple minutes he comes up to me and starts saying things in Spanish, very quickly. After a couple times I ask him to slow down. Some gringas next to me start laughing. The poor man must have repeated himself about 5 times but I never understood him. He said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay” – being extremely nice. To this day, I still have no idea what he was saying.

So we buy gifts for our friends, family and ourselves. I really want to write about what I got but ya know… I’m not. You’ll have to wait and just see yourself. I might have even gotten YOU something. But after last weekend in Otavalo (the largest outdoor market in Ecuador) and then this weekend, we were DONE. Done shopping, done searching for things, done haggling.

Afterwards, we meet Kevin for lunch at one of our favorite places Los Choris. They only have about 5 things on the menu and we usually only order of the 3 of them: papas fritas, chicken sandwich, or steak sandwich. The food is soooo delicious and cheap – specially if you split the HUGE sandwich with someone. Well, we order our food to find out that out of the 5 things on their menu they don’t have one important one – the French fries. Gotta love Ecuador.

Then we decided to go see a movie. We go to the theatre and buy our tickets in advance for Alicia en el País de las Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland). It didn’t seem logical to go back home so we decide to spend some time just around in Quito. We hit up our favorite music store, the ice cream shop, the outside vendors selling Ecuadorian soccer jerseys, and a pizza place before our movie.

Let me tell you about the movie theaters here. We cannot for the life of us figure it out but some movies (like Alice) come out the same time that it does in the States. Other movies, like Fame are going to come out soon but are practically on DVD in the States. It’s also funny to see the movies that are advertised to be in theaters soon in Ecuador but yet they’re already in the DVD stores in Ecuador.

While we’re waiting to go in the theater (you can’t sit until 10 minutes before it starts playing) we’re having a long involved conversation about movies and actors. We can’t figure out this actors name and start going through the list. Out of nowhere, the guy who has been standing next to us for about 20 minutes says the actor’s name in perfect, unaccented English. We busted out laughing because we’re so used to the people around us not really understanding us.

After the movie, Liz came over to my house – we were laughing because it felt like a sleepover in high school, where your friend comes to your parent’s house and we stay up whispering in the dark so no one can hear us.

We wake up early to go Jime’s parent’s country house in Cayambe. The girls are already there with the abuelos (grandparents) so it’s just the 4 of us in the 1 hour car ride there. Of course, the view is spectacular as always. Green mountains with many valleys and twisting roads.

We finally drive into this tiny little town and pull up to a gate. When we drive in, Liz and I are amazed – the fenced-in space is huge and there is ample space for the huge house, the play house, the playground, the large garden, and 2 smaller houses. Mi abuela comes out to greet us and give us hugs and kisses and she says in my ear “ohhh, la cumpleañera.” She then takes us on a tour around the place. The huge main house is actually 2 houses put together.

Only half of the big house

The first one is the one they use that has a dining room, kitchen, bathroom and 3 bedrooms all with double beds. The other side of the house they just re-did, with a living room, bar, a bathroom and 3 other bedrooms. On the side of the house is a huge patio with 2 picnic tables and in the corner under a small roof is the large clay domed oven, counter with sink and the large grill. And all around us, the view was of the Andean mountains that seemed so close. Liz and I just couldn’t get over the place. Mi abuela said that the place was her grandmother’s and that her sisters live on their own land down the street.

After Abuelita’s tour (that’s what the kids call her) Alberto takes us and the girls to Quitsato, which used to be an Incan ruin. The Incans set up shop there because it was one of the highest places of the equator – the closest to the sun. Now, there is a HUGE sundial created out of stones – looks like a big circle made out of cobblestones.

Me, the sundial and the Andean Mountains

There are also stairs made out of stones that you can walk up to see the sundial from below and to be in the highest point of the equator. When we went there, the guide told us all about the equator – which I’ve been learning a lot about. He also explained that on the equator is where you can see all the stars from both hemispheres – that’s why in the jungle we were able to see that multitude of incredible stars. Only on the equator, baby. After our short info session, all us girls climbed around on the rocks and stairs while Al took our pictures. We got to take in the scenery while there; it was beautiful (of course). We could see the large mountain of Cayambe and the surrounding Andeas. Below the mountains were large green cow fields spotted with trees and houses in the town.

Once we had gotten our fill of Quitsato, we went back to the country house. Jimena and Abuelita were preparing food while the girls dragged us down to their playground. Eventually, they called us up to the patio because the juice was made. I think I have found my favorite juice (and it’s hard to decide here where everything is homemade). Mora (blackberry) and guanábana.

This is what guanabana looks like.

Wikipedia says that in the U.S. we call guanábana “soursop.” It’s hard to describe the taste of this fruit; it tastes fresh but it’s a very strong fruity taste. It’s shell is bright green with porcupine spikes all around the outside. In the inside, it’s white. Here in Ecuador they have this as a favor in a lot of things like yogurt. So anyways, these 2 fruits are a great combination. And it was special because it’s difficult to make juice out of these 2 fruits because of the seeds.

Then Jimena offered us the sausage that was done grilling. She served it to us on soft wheat bread – ohhh, it was soo delicious. Like an Ecuadorian pigs in a blanket.

Mi familia grilling out.

We started helping her make shish kabobs – putting on the red peppers, chicken, mushrooms and onions. MMMmmm. I’m telling you it was perfect – one of my favorite foods. Overall on the grill was: steak, pork, grilled chicken, shish kabobs, black sausages, and regular sausages – tons of food!! On top of that, Abuelita had made roasted little potatoes with this creamy cheese sause (almost like sour cream), and salad with a vinaigrette (which was also nice because it’s rare that salads have dressing on them here). Everything was SO DELICIOUS. I ate myself sick. And to add to that, mi abuelo had me try Cuban wine and this Ecuadorian liquor called Espiritu del Ecuador (the spirit of Ecuador). It was made out of various fruits from Ecuador and it was very tasty. I said that it would be good with the mora and guanábana juice but I think he might have been a little indignant. He said he liked to taste it without anything else.

Our lunch was so much fun. We stuffed our faces like crazy and had interesting conversations in a mixture of Spanish and English. For the most part, Liz and I could keep up with everything and if not, Jimena or mi abuelo could help out. I didn’t know this at all until that day, but mi abuelo had lived many, many places in the States and told us all kind of interesting stories about when he was our age in the States. We also talked about Spanglish and had some funny stories about mix-ups.

After dinner, they brought out an orange bunt cake with vanilla frosting – once again, perfect. No chocolate cake. They sang happy birthday and I got to blow out my candle. After all that food, all of us were in a food coma and getting very sleepy. We kissed the abuelos good-bye and headed back home. It was a perfect day.

My birthday cake!

So far: best birthday ever. I’ve gotten a lot of love from both continents! A full update later.

The next morning after breakfast we went back to the same place we were the night before for another hike in the rainforest. Remember at the very beginning when we set out on this journal we talked about our rainforest get-up? Yeah, we finally got to sport those. I was wearing the pair of leggings I happened to bring with me to Ecuador with my black KSU t-shirt, and my borrowed black industrial-looking rain boots; I looked like I should be riding a horse or going on adventures with Indiana Jones.

Aaron, me, and Danielle in our awesome jungle gear

And let me tell you – it takes a secure person to be wearing leggings with your derrière hanging out in the jungle. Eventually it just got too incredibly hot that I had to take off the t-shirt and wear the tank top I had underneath. It was a big dilemma though. Do I take off the t-shirt and feel more comfortable as far as the temperature but risk being eaten alive by the mosquitoes? Because there were TONS of them around. I didn’t really get eaten very badly but others were a feast for the insects.

I’m going to be lazy and just give you a list of the things we saw in the rainforest:

• Bright orange roots – for some biological/scientific reason these roots are this color. They look like someone spray-painted them. Because the nutrients in the ground are so poor, these roots grow out farther as opposed to deeper.
  

  Many of the other roots were even brighter than this.

• We saw these huge tall, tall trees that use buttressing to carry the weight. By buttressing I mean that the sides of the trees flare out like 3 fish fins. Daniel said that guides and the local people would bang on the sides of these fins with thick sticks to signal other people very far away because the noise would carry so far. But of course, this is not good for the trees.
• We saw dung beetles. Very gross creatures. Daniel pointed out that while there are many, many animals in the rainforest we don’t see their poop thanks to these insects. Um, thank you…?
• We also saw this other insect that I can’t remember its name. I learned the real reason we have mosquito nets is not because of mosquitoes (most of the nets had little holes in them anyways) but because of this insect. It will bite you and somehow (I can’t remember specifically; dang it!) it will infect you so later you will have heart problems, I believe. Many locals have these problems due to these bugs. (Don’t worry; I would have known if I had gotten bit by one of these bugs).
• We saw huge, HUGE nests of marching wasps. They’re called marching wasps because when they are irritated they flap their wings inside their homes and it sounds like marching. This sound is a warning noise to their enemies.
• We also saw huge nests of termites. They will build a nest in the top of some tree and then make a long tunnel going down the length of their tree to the ground because they do not like sunlight.
• Another insect is some kind that lives in the ground – maybe a type of cicada? Yeah, I think that’s it. They live a very short life out of the ground. They spend most of their time in the dirt and when they’re ready to come out to mate they create these tubes made out of chewed up dirt – it looks almost like Georgia clay.
• Saw a seed pod that was probably just a little smaller than a regular-sized pillow.
• Saw red seeds about as big as a grape – these seeds are used as a dye in typical Ecuadorian food as well as for local’s ceremonies.
• Saw HUGE ants. And you could literally follow the line of them working with even bigger chunks of leaves on their back.
  

  Big ant

• Saw crazy, thick, long vines; kept looking for George (or Jorge, if you will).
• Saw another type of tree that had devised another way to hold their weight besides the fish-fin buttressing. Instead at the bottom of a skinny but very tall tree was many roots coming together to almost look like the top of teepee.
  

  Teepee-like bottom of the tree

• Saw a couple tarantula holes but we couldn’t persuade any tarantula to come out and visit. They don’t like strangers or noise so… they wouldn’t have liked us.
• We walked across a marsh on moss-covered logs – felt like something out of a movie.
  

  Crossing one of the rainforest's "bridges"

• Got our boots muy dirty in the thick mud.
  

  Breaking in the rainboots

• Saw a red flower that is used by the locals as a birth control and abortive. Apparently, they know a recipe where they make a birth control that lasts up to 10 years.
  

  Bright red flower (there were less bright colors than we thought there would be).

• Saw beautiful roots that looked like braided bread.
• Saw a big tree that has sap which they call “dragon’s blood” – I’ve seen this on a travel show! They use the sap on cuts, bruises or insect bites as a topical. You could see all these gashes and cuts on the sides of the tree which of course, is bad for the tree.
  

  You can see the dragon's blood dripping out of a cut -- and a termite tunnel, too

• Saw a tree that had this white powder on it – it’s used as incense all over Ecuador. In any church you go to in Ecuador, that’s what you would smell. We just swiped a little off the tree and could smell our finger – smelt like any incense to me; I’m not a big fan of it but others in our group thought it smelled wonderful.
• I can’t remember if we saw a frog or a plant that the locals use to go into a trance – maybe we saw both. But they use the wildlife to get closer to nature and basically get high.

Eventually we came to a point where our guide asked if we wanted to push ahead or go back. Some people had had enough of the jungle – the heat, the bug bites, the walking. Me, I could have kept going on and on; I was fascinated by all the things I was learning. But we decided to head back.

After our jungle hike, we had some down time. So what does a group teachers with downtime in the afternoon in the jungle do? We read. There were at least about 7 of us sprawled out on the deck chairs in the shade, or in the hammocks reading the books we had brought with us and drinking the lemonade brought to us. It was so relaxing and I’m sure we all looked a bit funny and nerdy.

Before dinner, Daniel took us out piranha fishing. We got high-tech fishing poles – tree branches with wire and a hook.

Me and my fishin' pole

We hooked our meat and threw it in the water. I must say, I’m no gifted fisher. 1) I don’t really get it. Probably because I don’t have the patience. It’s just boring and kind of pointless to me. But on the other hand, I’ve never fished for a creature who might bite my finger off. Also 2) I didn’t get any fish. Those damn things would steal my meat but I couldn’t reel one in. Daniel caught a strange Amazonian fish that looked sorta like a Bass. Kevin had so much fun when his group went fishing that we invited him along for our trip – I eventually gave him my pole and concentrated on my Pilsner. He ended up catching a piranha (on top of the 2 he had caught the day before).

After fishing we headed deeper into the lagoon for a ceremony. Kelly, the CM teacher who organized the trip and who is American, had recently married an Ecuadorian jungle guide, David. They invited the local shaman (this is the real deal, y’all – no tourist crap, here) to perform a blessing ceremony on their marriage. So all 5 boats from our lodge congregated at sundown at this one part of the lagoon. Kelly and David passed out big beautiful bouquets of flowers to everyone and we waited. The shaman didn’t show up. So eventually Kelly said to go ahead and take just the tops of flowers and throw them in the water as wishes.

All the wishes floating in the lagoon

Well, before dinner the shaman showed up. He said that he ran out of gas and had trouble getting to the lodge. He was an old man with leathered skin and wore almost a sort of cotton baggy dress. He wore a headdress and many, many necklaces around his neck. He asked us to not take any pictures and explained (with Daniel translating for us) that before he performed a wedding ceremony, him and his colleagues would drink a certain drink that would allow them to see certain things (maybe from that frog or plant we saw in the rainforest earlier). They would start drinking this at 5 and then at 8 perform the ceremony. During the ceremony, he explained that he was going into a trance and would be able to see the insides of Kelly and David – he compared it to how our doctors use X-rays to see inside their patients. He made Kelly and David sit together and the shaman took a bunch of plants in his hands and started shaking them around the couple while chanting. Then he said some final words and sent us off to dinner.

After dinner we continued to celebrate. It was a festive mood in the air – we had tapped out all the cerveza so we were enjoying what was left and milling around socializing on our last day of our trip. After dinner many of us ended up all playing games – we played this dream game (which is so much funny – I have to try it back home!) and a strategy game called Mofia. The lodge said that because all the cerveza was gone that we could try the moonshine that they had (not to be confused with the moonshine we tried in the Sionan community). This stuff was called punta meaning point (at first we thought it was called puta which is a mean word for a female so it was a hilarious mix-up). This stuff tasted similar to margaritas – muy bien.

At about midnight I dragged my feet to bed – I didn’t want this trip to end. Mary, Danielle and I talked to the other girls through the wall we shared with the other cabin for a while, letting the night linger on a little bit more.

The next day we got up early and left paradise.

Chao Cuyabeno!

I swear the birds were singing dirges our entire way to the buses. We got on our 2-hour-bus (not to be confused with our 8 hour bus ride) which looked like some creepy circus caravan – it was pretty hilarious and tacky.

Our bus dropped us off at the bus station back in Lago Agrio (the sad little oil town) and we were starving. We walked across the street to this tiny hole in the wall restaurant, looking for something decent to eat. Most of the food looked like it promised parasites. Eventually, I went with some of the other girls back to the hotel for the most wonderful cheeseburger.

Then we jumped on our next bus. The bus that took us from Quito into the rainforest was a dream compared to this one. It was much smaller and much more crowded. I was tired, dirty, my clothes were disgusting, I was tired of sharing my stuff for 4 days and I just wanted to be transported quickly to Quito. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack, I felt so claustrophobic in the bus seats and poor Kevin was my bus buddy. But eventually, he got my mind off it by playing games. Where the other bus was at night and just went directly to our destination, this one was during the day and we picked up other people at other stops. There were no seats for them to sit in so they would either sit on small little plastic stools in the aisles, stand or sit on the floor. I don’t know how they did it but they were like that all the way into Quito.

Another strange thing on the bus was the movie they played. Wrong Turn 3 which included topless women, a disturbed Neanderthal West Virginian serial killer and of course, lots and lots of horrible, disturbing gore. Apparently, a woman with 3 little kids gave the movie to the bus driver to play.

We had gone about 2 hours when our bus got stopped. The military made us get out of the bus and everyone had to show our censos and they searched our bags (just the ones we carried on the bus – not the ones stowed away). Then we stood on the side of the road for a couple minutes waiting to get back on. It appears that the government routinely checks these areas because we were close to Columbia and there are many guerrilla fighters and people trying to sneak cocaine into Ecuador.

Finally we arrived in Quito where Kevin treated us girls to a fancy Valentine’s dinner – McDonald’s. It was delicious (though still not as good as McDee’s in the States). Once I got home, I was so tired that I didn’t even have the energy for a shower. I just woke up early and dragged myself out of bed to take a shower and get ready for the teacher work day.

The sun rising up over the trees

The next morning, on Sunday, we got up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready for our bird watch. Us 8 girls climbed back into our boats we hadn’t left so long ago and headed toward the river.

First light came so quickly

It was a beautiful sunny morning but we could tell it was going to be a hot one – the cicadas were telling us so. We saw many birds and unusual plants – most of I’ve unfortunately already forgotten. I think that besides the McCaws, my favorite bird was a certain type of king fisher. They were small little orange birds that moved gracefully and quickly over the water. We also saw this bird who had a hooked beak which he used to catch snakes and fish with.

See the bird directly in the middle?

After about an hour and a half we went back to the lodge for breakfast. My thoughts as a fat kid on breakfast at hostels/hotels/lodges are: breakfast is always the best meal there. The reason being that 1) most breakfast foods I love, 2) there’s usually always bread, and 3) it’s usually not super weird so you know you’ll have to find something you like. Sure enough, I was right. Wonderful slabs of moisture simple bread, the best mora (blackberry) jam, butter (that’s right ACTUAL BUTTER), gloriously super-salty scrambled eggs and a different type of fruit each morning. I think I ate my weight in jam and bread the entire time I was there. All of us did.

Once we were done stuffing our faces (they encouraged us to ask for seconds) we got back in the boat and headed toward the Siona community.

One view of the community

The Siona community is the indigenous people that live in the rainforest (these are not to be confused with the indigenous people who live in the city of Quito or the Quichua who live in the mountains near Zumbahua). At the community we were given a demonstration on how they make their bread which is made solely out of yucca root. The young woman (they said she was 20) who showed us how to make it was our boat driver’s daughter, I believe.

First we were taken on a very short hike into a field of yucca plants. These plants are maybe 3 feet taller than me and are almost a white color. The branches are very smooth because they have to cut off all the smaller branches for it to grow properly. With a machete she gracefully hacked off these unneeded branches. She then cut off the major part of the plant and left about 5 inches to use as handles. The woman then allowed some of us tourists the chance to try and pull it out of the ground. First a girl (who I didn’t know) tried to pull it out, being given the advice “side to side lado lado.”  Next they had 2 guys try to pull it but that root still wasn’t coming out. So finally, the Sionan girl barely wiggled it and it came right out – of course we had to tease the boys the rest of the trip. Especially after we heard that all of this is considered the women’s work.

After we got enough yucca plant, she used her machete to hack off the brown rough outside layer to reveal the white insides.

Using her machete to cut off the bark of the root

Then she put all the roots in a string bag made out of palms and we walked to the “kitchen.” The kitchen is a hut with benches around 3 of the walls and in the corner is the fireplace – simply a square box with dirt in where they pile up the firewood.

She was going to show us how to make the yucca bread that they commonly eat, but before she could do that she had turn the roots into flour. She arranged the roots (which are about as wide and as long as my forearm) on a type of strainer – it looked like a table runner you would put on your dining room table, but it was made out of woven palms.

Getting all the moisture out of the roots to make flour

She hooked this strainer to a pole and wound the strainer around and around (sort of like how you would play with an old-school phone cord). You could see the moisture slowly leaving the strainer and being caught in a container on the floor. We were told that the leftover root-water is used to make a fish soup. After winding the strainer over and over again for a few minutes, she unraveled the strainer to reveal flakey flour – all the moisture had been completely strained out. It was very impressive.

Taking the flour out of the strainer

Once she had the fire at the right temperature, she put a circle-shaped flat dish on the fire and put the flour in the dish. Within a minute or two, the flour was cooked one on side and she was able to flip it over. It was amazing to watch how quickly it was cooked – and there was no need for any other ingredients.

She used half a coconut to flatten the flour

After she was done, we were all able to rip off a piece. It was white in color and had a fine bumpy texture to it, as if it was cooked on a finely woven piece of wicker. As far as the fast, I didn’t think there was much of any. It was good though, especially with a little honey. We learned that this type of bread is their main source of carbohydrates – they don’t eat any other type of bread made from grains.

Later, her mother and grandmother came in to … do whatever it is they do. I think sometimes we are as much entertainment to the locals as they are to us. Her grandmother was incredible to watch – I wanted to take her picture so bad but I didn’t want to be rude. She was around 88 years old with no teeth and had a face full of character. The 3 women were speaking their native tongue back and forth. Even the guides couldn’t understand them. We were told that the grandmother is the wife of the leader and founder of this particular community and they are very well-respected through the area.

When we were done observing in the kitchen hut we were given lunch which was brought from the lodge. It was a large pot of rice and chicken – typical Ecuadorian dish and very tasty. We took our china plats (no paper products whatsoever here – bad for the environment) and sat on the tiny bleachers facing the soccer field.

The soccer field

No matter where you go in Ecuador and no matter how poor or how limited resources are in a community, you will know 100% that you can find a soccer field somewhere in the town. This place was no different.

All us tourists sat around, eating, talking and trying not too exert ourselves too much energy – it was just so blazing hot. Some of us started to speculate about how the women here gave birth to their babies. One of the girls who speaks Spanish fairly well ended up asking. Apparently, the women here obviously don’t go to a hospital – everything is so far away – so what they do is tie a rope to the roof and the women practically tie themselves to it. As they said, they “let gravity do its work” and that’s about it. Sadly, and not surprisingly, the mortality rate is somewhat high.

A little later, one of the guides, Paul, invited us to partake of some beverages that his boat driver was offering us (the driver also lived in the community – he got the stuff from his house). It was an alcoholic drink made from fermented sugar cane and I will say, we were all a bit apprehensive about basically trying some Ecuadorian moonshine. It was actually pretty good – had a kick to it but was fairly sweet (as opposed to being revoltingly sweet).

By this time we were just listless with the heat. We got in our boat and as our guide, Daniel said, we “turned on the A.C.” There was no scenic route on the way back – it was all speed and wind.

Ahhh, the wind between our toes

We ran back to the lodge, threw on our bathing suits, grabbed some life vests and cervezas and went back in the boat. See, this time we were smart, getting the life vests – the Amazon’s equivalent of noodles. And this way we could float around, cooling off and drinking our Pilsners.

We had some down time after our dip and then we went back out on the boats to witness our second rainforest sunset. It’s practically impossible, but I believe that the second one was even more beautiful than the first. It must have been, too, because we counted 16 other boats on the lagoon.

I think this is my favorite pictures from the trip.

After the sunset, we had a pleasant dinner at the lodge – our Valentine’s dinner, if you will. The 5 of us English Ed. folks all sat a table and it felt like a little family dinner – we know each other so well now; almost too well.

Following dinner, we split up in groups once again. Our group was going on a night walk in the actual jungle. We rode in our boat for about 10 minutes till we banked on the shore in the pitch-blackness. We got out off the boat on to a pathway. Daniel gave us the instructions to be careful where we leaned or put our hands because insects were everywhere – grrrrrrreat. Way to make us not freak out. We were also told to be quiet. A pretty funny request for 8 girls – and 2, if not more, who are terrified of spiders, frogs and other crawly things. Like I say, siempre una adventura (always an adventure).

We hadn’t been walking in the jungle for very long when Daniel found a big wolf spider.

Wolfspider

It wasn’t as big as a tarantula but it was still probably about as big as the bottom of a regular-sized jelly jar. Maybe a tiny bit smaller. We also saw large praying mantises, big granddaddy-long legs (it’s apparently a myth about them being the most poisonous spider), beautiful-looking moths, a variety of small frogs and large toads. One my favorite things we saw was a type of tree frog.

Bummer that the photo's so blurry

Its coloring was mostly a shiny gray with a yellow-ish stripe on its back. On its sides were bright red dots – of course, red is a warning for other animals to stay away. The funny thing is, this type of frog doesn’t really have any poison like other tree frogs – it’s a fake! So those markings on its body are kind of like the “Cooch” markings on a fake Coach bag.

Daniel started calling one of girls in our group, Angie, “Spiderwoman” because she kept spotting so many spiders and insects. Her best find for sure was the scorpion.

Creeeeepy

Daniel said that it is really rare to see one of them and the kind we saw was very poisonous. He told us that the scorpions with the big claws did not have a lot of poison but the ones with the smaller claws – like the ones our scorpion had – is very poisonous. So it was creepy standing next to one. It got even creepier when another one suddenly crawled through Mary’s legs! Thank heavens for our rubber boots.

We didn’t make it very far down the path because there was so much to see in our small section – so many insects out at night that if you really, really thought about it, it would make your skin crawl. After about an hour, we turned back to the lodge and went to sleep.