UPDATE!!

I seem to start every blog this way, but MAN ALIVE! it´s been too long. Time for a quick, abbreviated (kind of) update, in bullet form (without pictures, because trying to upload on this Bolivia internet is just not gonna happen).

Ecuador

*Moved off the farm, back to Quito for a week to struggle through my 30 pg monografia and 25 min presentation (all in Spanish, of course).

*Turned in, presented, survived (barely) and headed straight to the beach for one last hoorah with CIMAS friends (and Ecuadorian love interests ;) ).

*2 days of doing nothing but eating, drinking and laying around the lovely little beach town of Conoa.

*We say our goodbyes to aforementioned CIMAS friends and Ecuadorian love interests and Laura and I head north to Muisne to see the mangroves (VERY cool and special). On the way, stop over at another beach, Mompiche (is that what it´s called) where we sit, eating breakfast, when two beautiful, local surfing brothers come up and ask if we want to go see a black sand beach. We say ¨why not?!¨ and follow said beautiful brothers down the beach, through a forest, down a trail and onto another beach where the sand was completely black, the sky perfectly blue and the ocean strikingly green. It was quite a sight to behold. Chilled at the beach with the brothers for a bit, swam in the ocean, watched them surf then decided to peace out back into town for a mid morning piña colada and to find someone with a boat to take us to look at the mangroves and then over to Muisne.

*Spend a couple days in Muisne, take another tour of the mangroves, I learn how to drive a motorcycle, visit a very cool local nonprofit and chat about conservation of the mangroves and other community projects that they do, get $2 manicures in the house of some lady, eat ceviche de camarones and then catch a bus back to Quito.

*Arrive in Quito at 4 in the morning with no place to go, get in a taxi who takes us to a 24 hour seafood buffet, hazily remember drinking tea, sleeping for a couple hours in the booth, getting more and more sick, deciding to call Mr. Ecuador to see if I can stay with him a while, Laura books impromptu Galapagos trip, I sleep on his couch for the next week and a half with a fever and tonsil infection, trying to figure out next move.

*Book ticket to Buenos Aires!!!!!!!!!!!!

Argentina

*June 23: Quito-Lima-Buenos Aires. Get into BA without a clue in the world. Wander through the airport, have to pay a surprise $140 for a visa (thanks, America), change the cash that I have for pesos, somehow find a bus, don´t have coins to pay the bus, some guy pays my bus fare... 2 hrs later arrive in el centro.

*Somehow manage to get off the bus in the right place, find the hostel that was reccomended to me by Bricey-poo, check in, put my stuff in my dorm, go on the internet, meet the girls from my room, go to dinner at (what seemed at the time to be) a REALLY fancy restaurant, contemplated the stark contrast between the two South American capitol cities that I had just jumped between, ate delicious steak, drank delicious wine, went to a tango show, got home at 4, collapsed into bed, IN LOVE WITH BUENOS AIRES!

*End up staying in BA almost 2 weeks, meet really incredible fellow travelers, fall in love with the staff, buy some new jeans and shoes (hiking boots and farm jeans just don´t cut it in BA), go to a salsa club, take a tango lesson, eats lots of steak and drink lots of wine, couchsurf for the first time, make friends with a hippy artesana, wander through ecological reserve, meet Brice and fam for drinks.

Uruguay

*Day trip to Uruguay with Brice and fam, sleep through alarm, miss first ferry, have to buy another ticket, be really mad at myself for being so stupid for wasting time and money, drink coffee, get over it, get on ferry, arrive in Colonia, can´t call Brice, change money, go to locutorio to call Brice, can´t figure out what I have to dial, army of remarkably unhelpful staff do little to nothing to help, remarkably incompetent staff member #1 tries to help, calls some lady in Mexico 3 times, I never call Brice, I have to pay for the calls to Mexico, walk outside, sit in the park, want to cry, look up, see Brice´s mom, hang out with the Burgess´, all musuems are closed because Uruguay semifinals are on, spend 3 hours in Uruguay, hear some class Brice baby stories, go back to hostal.

Argentina

*Finally decide to leave BA, new English friend Nick and I head north to Puerto Iguazú to see some badass waterfalls (24 hr bus journey) , stay in hostel with only dogs, no other people, make pizza, drink wine, meet up with other English friend, drink more wine, head to waterfalls, walk around, run into other English friend again, stand at the edge of the world, take train to Devil´s Throat, get really wet, walk around a lot, take lots of pictures (coming soon) return to town, eat delicious Asian food, go to bed, wake up, wait in line for ATM for 1 hr, go to bus station, buy bus tickets to Córdoba, run back to hostel to get stuff, buy bus snacks, eat ice cream, bus to Córdoba (another 24 hr bus journey), give Nick a wet willy, listen to a really funny podcast, get off the bus (3 hrs late)

*Taxi to Brice´s apartment, get buzzed in, go upstairs, brush my teeth, shower, go to Alta Gracia with Brice and friends, buy a ring, go into a Jesuit estancia, Brice and I set off the alarm in the musuem because we touch an exhibit, Brice buys obnoxious bird whistle, annoys everyone a lot, go to Che´s house, buy some postcards, go back to Córdoba, meet up with Nick

*Drink lots of wine, take ¨city tour¨of Córdoba, drink more wine, watch How I Met Your Mother, meet scary racist Southern girl/friend of Brice, go to cool art musuem, eat giant hot dog, boogy down for Brice´s birthday, watch Spain win World Cup on ¨Superbowl Sunday¨, have awkard skype session with Nick´s sister, go to casino in Carlos Paz for the first time, go to chocolate festival in weird German village outside of Córdoba, Brice buys a green belt, eat some schnitzel (??)

*Try to decide where to go next, go to bus station and ask for schedules and fares to 1000 different places, decide to go to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, buy ticket, Brice buys ticket to Iguazú, goes to bus station, comes home because there was a strike, we go to bus station together in the evening, say our goodbyes, I find out my bus is late and will miss its connecting bus in Jujuy, incredibly helpful bus man refunds my ticket, walks with me to other bus company, buys me another ticket, I buy a Salami sandwhich and Diet coke, get on the bus, eat my sandwhich, listen to about 5 episodes of This American Life and Savage Love, wake up outside of Jujuy, it´s snowing, my bus is late, one guy tells me I missed my connecting bus, another guy tells me to wait a while, I drink some coffee, try not to freeze, go back an hour later to see, they tell me the bus is waiting a little bit outside of town, I walk to the bus, some French dude´s girlfriend took my window seat, a dirty hippy sits in front of me and smells up the bus, plays us some Bob Marley on his guitar, leave Argentina

Chile

*Get dropped off to enter Chile right outside of San Pedro, wait in long line in the middle of the desert, get really cold, walk into town with a group from the bus, Irish Michael adn Irish Fiona both happen to have reservations at the same place, I don´t have reservations, I walk around town, everything is full, feel like Mary, think I find a hostel, put my stuff down on ¨my¨bed, like 75 Korean guys come in and tell me I´m in their bed, they overbooked, nice man from hostel walks all around town with me, still can´t find a place, finally find a place for 26.000 chilean pesos (!!!!), no hot water, no heat, single room, I eat pizza by myself, meet up with man from hostel, go to little bar to get drinks, meet Chilean Thomas who is going to UBC for is PhD, fall in love a little bit, talk about alternative development projects, how we want change the world, drink some beer, listen to a guy rock out on the harmonica, I walk home and go to bed

*Wake up, try to pay for hostel and check out, credit card machine doesn´t work, don´t have enough cash, go to take out money, all 5 ATMs in town are out, I only pay part of my hostel and leave, go find Michael and Fiona, find another, cheaper hostel, freak out because we don´t have any money, book a tour (with no money), Michael pays for everything for me, buys Fiona a ticket out of town, we walk around town with no money, in the middle of a sand storm, it´s cold and miserable, run into Dutch kids from the bus, they haven´t eaten at all that day because they don´t have any money, we use the rest of Michael´s money to share some pizza, ATMs start working, I pay my debts, drink some celebrartory hot chocolate, try my first Pisco sour, go home, there´s not water, no electricity, go to bed.

*Wake up, pack up, pay up, show up in town to start the 3 day tour of the salt flats, eat breakfast, meet Emma, Nathalie, Johnny and Joaquín, head to Bolivian border, it´s really cold and windy, everyone else gets a quick and easy stamp, American Johnny and I get our passports put in a very unofficial envelope made from a peice of printer paper and staples for the driver to hold until we get to Uyuni, get into the jeep, roll out to the first lagoon, it´s too windy and dangerous to go any further, jeeps have gotten their windshields blown out by the sandstorm, the 6 of us chill in an unheated basecamp for 12 hours until they tell us we can´t go today, eat some instant mashed potatoes for lunch, get shown our beds, get into bed with every article of clothing we own, try to stay warm, eat dinner, go back to bed, decide that we´re going to have to spoon to make it through the night (-20 C, no heat), pick survival spooning partners and set in for the longest, coldest night of my life.

Bolivia

*Wake up, eat breakfast, are told the storm has slowed and we can go, I go to take a picture, my battery has frozen, other battery is dead, I´m without a camera for perhaps the most beautiful sights I´ve seen thus far, feel a little grumpy from the cold and not having a camera, look at lots of pretty lakes, flamingos, llamas, drive all day, end up at Salt Hotel in the middle of nowhere Atacama desert where everything is made out of salt and only the private rooms come with toilet paper (welcome to Bolivia), are warm, eat dinner, drink really terrible Bolivian wine, charge my battery, now my camera doesn´t work, feel a little heartbroken, go to bed.

*Wake up at 5 am to roll out to see the sunrise over the Salt Flats, head out, car trouble, driver Edwin makes up for lost time, passes all the other jeeps, we turn up at the middle of a vast salty desert just in time for the sun to pop over the horizon, still don´t have a camera, in awe of the Salt Flats, haven´t been able to feel my toes for a week, take some cheesy Salt Flat pictures, go to awesome island of cacti in the middle of the salt flat, eat pancakes (!!!), take more pictures (well, I don´t, of course), then head to see more salty things, a llama and salt museum, a place with lots of flags, ended up in the shit town of Uyuni, ate lunch at Edwin´s house, went to train cemetery (wayyyyyy cooler than it sounds), played on rusty old trains, went back to town, ATMs were not working, reserved bus tickets, went to try and find/change money, team scrounged up enough for me to pay the $130 for my visa, Johnny and I go to get the visa, they won´t accept my bills because they are slightly torn, I walk all around town trying to find other money, finally get my visa, eat some pizza, get on janky bus and sleep the entire bumpy 7 hrs to Potosí.

*Arrive in the highest city in the world (15.000 ft), Potosí at 2 am, all six of us still together go to our hostel, I take a shower and change my clothes for the first time in a week, feel warm for the first time in a week, wake up at 8:30 for breakfast and mine tour, put on hard hat and mining clothes, rubber boots, but presents for the miners (coca leaves, alcohol, cigarettes), head to the mountain, walk through the mines, get really freaked out and claustorphobic, learn about the really heartbreaking history of the colonization of Potosí, it´s rapid rise and then decline and the exploitation of the Indigenous people and African slaves in the mines, decided I never wanted to be a miner, chilled out in Potosí and watched documentary about the mines.

*Sleep in, wake up, go on internet, walk around town, sit down on bench in front of a church, Bolivian dude comes up and starts talking to me, I go walk around with him and his friends, drink some chicha, he tells me we´re in love, offers to send 20.000 1/2 llamas (one baby llama), 2 condors and 15 desert gazelle-like animals to my parents in Oregon for my hand in marriage, we eat some volcano soup that has a burning stone in the middle, drink some Bolivian beer, I peace out back to the hostel to meet up with Michael and Nathalie and we set off for this giant tower that´s like a mini space needle, walk up like 10 flights of stairs (which is quite a feat at 14,000 ft), climb up a little ladder into a trap door and then find this really nice restaurant on top! Eat cheappppppppp food, have a banana split, talk about how much I could never live in the desert, walk home, catch bus to Sucre, drink a lot of water right when I get on bus, have to pee really badly for the following 3 hr bus ride, get mad at myself for doing that, luggage compartment door under bus pops open while we´re driving, about an hour later driver gets off and closes it, I wonder if I will have a backpack when I get off bus, arrive in Sucre

*Nathalie and I go to our hostel, Emma and Michael to theirs, we decide to meet up at Pizza Napolitana, N and I get there and wait for an hour, finally order and go home to our dirty, loud, obnoxious hostel, move out first thing next morning into E and M´s hostel, find out they went to a different Pizza Napolitana and waited for us, laughed out loud, went to Mirador, ate a veggie sandwhich and coffee milkshake, got sunburnt, felt incredibly happy, in paradise, walked around, bought a hairbursh with the handle in the shape of a naked woman, ate a candy apple, gushed about how cheap everything in Bolivia is, went home, went out for fajitas, hit up happy hour, went to a club, dancing with 4 or 5 Bolivian men who came up to about my belly button, got in a fight with some Bolivian girls who didn´t know how to wait in line for the bathroom, went to bed.

*This brings us up to today! Today, I did nothing. And then I did more nothing. Then I spent a ridiculously long time writing this blog entry. Then I´m going to go to dinner with Emma, Michael and Nathalie as we´re about to go our separate ways, then Nathalie and I will head to our night bus to Cochabamba where I wanna see me some dinosaur footprints!! There are many pictures to post (and darling Michael took a bunch of pictures for me/of me at the cool places ande then transfered them all to my memory card so I have photos to show for my time).

I´m sure I´m missing out on some things, but this is a little overview of what I´ve been doing with my life in the past 2 months or so. I have about 3 weeks left of travelling (and not very much money) and I still have to go to Cochabamba, La Paz, Copacabana, Isla del Sol, Cusco, Macchu Pichu, bus all the way up Perú and spend a couple days at the beach with Mr. Ecuador, get a nice, golden tan to bring home with me, go back to Mindo to say goodbyes, get a new Censo, visit both my host families and go home! I have a lot more to say on that topic (the going home piece) but I´m going to save that. Just know that I´m just about jumping out of my skin knowing that I´m going to be back in the NW and see all of my favorite people in a few short weeks. I wouldn´t do it a day earlier, but when the 16th of August comes, I´ll be a happy girl. In the meantime, I´m going to continue enjoying the life of a traveller in South America, picking up all sorts of great new friends here and there, swapping travel tips, seeing some of the most incredible sights and not knowing what each new day is going to bring (this is kind of the lifestyle I was made for, I think).

Love you all so so so much and can´t wait to show off my pictures of all of my cool adventures! Can´t wait to give you all great big squeezes, sooner or later.

Big wet sloppy kisses from Bolivia!

mt

My miss list

As my time here in Mindo wraps up (my how time flies!) I've been making a mental list of all of the things that I love, and therefore will miss, about this precious little town and I thought I'd put them in blog form...

1. The way the dirt road to the farm sparkles with fireflies on dark nights
2. Personal cheese pizzas for $1.20
3. Drinking Pilsener and people watching outside of our favorite pizzeria
4. Knowing almost all of the kids in town and having them swarm around me as I walk through town
5. The way that Tessa, the only dog I've ever loved, follows me into town and sits at my feet at the internet cafe
6. The coco and chocolate ice creams that we eat every single day!!
7. Being friends with a bunch of Mindeños and not feeling like just another gringa tourist.
8. Watching the stray dogs in town and trying to guess whose mom/dad/brother/sister/cousin they are, especially of the dogs on the farm
9. Sitting outside on the deck outside my bedroom at night and listening to Death Cab's "Passenger Seat" and dreaming about the Pacific NW
10. Family breakfasts
11. Thursday night Cuban Song dance classes with the chicos
12. Vegetarian sandwiches and brownies at Chocolarte
13. Sore muscles and tan arms from mornings spent shoveling, hauling and sowing
14. Yelling curse words in Spanish and making up translations for favorite English curse words
15. Eating delicious, vegetarian, home made food after working all morning and getting really hungry and drinking lemonade made from the lime trees in the yard
16. Bathing in the river
17. Conversations that revolve around different types of hummingbirds, butterflies, medicinal plants and birds (including, of course, demonstrations of their birdcalls)
18. When Cristina speaks English :)
19. Drooling over the artesanias in town, and buying too much
20. My sweet little black and white bodyguard/ shadow that follows me from the farm and around town
21. My cockroach friend that lives on the toothbrooth shelf in the bathroom
22. The fact that you can build any and everything from the guadua bambu that grows everywhere
23. How all the stray dogs in downtown (and by downtown I mean the one main street of Mindo) look like they have the same wiener dog dog with different mutt stray dog moms


I know I'll think of more, but for now.... :))))

Wuv wus

These days

These days…

Well it’s certainly been awhile since I’ve written, and for that, I’m sorry. So much has happened that I feel like I can hardly even keep up myself! But let me try…

These days, we’ve been coming along on the farm… still working every day to prepare the land, get compost and just recently, we even started some seedlings! We have almost all 7 beds finished minus a shit load of shit (pardon my French), cow shit to be exact. Today we trekked to a neighboring ranch to gather cow poop for manure for the beds. It was a sticky and stinky process, but so worth it for the delicious veggies that will be happily growing there in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, the rest of this week will be spent carrying caca de vaca but… such is life on the farm, and lucky for us we happen to have a river in our backyard to bathe and splash around in after rolling around in poop.

In other news, my project at the school is going… well, it’s going. Challenging not only because of the language or the kids, but also due to some issues with my support system on the other end of it. What’s been really challenging here for me is how much I have to rely on other people for the project to not only go smoothly, but realistically, to function at all. It’s wayyyyy trickier than I had really anticipated to try and conduct a room full of kids, doing art projects supposedly with the theme of environmental awareness and conservation. I am lucky if I leave the school at the end of the day feeling like I have accomplished any one of those things. But, in the end, I really love doing it. It seems that whenever I’m feeling like I’m in wayyyyyyy over my head, driving blind, doing more harm than good, some kid comes up to me on the street, grabs my hand and asks excitedly “when’s the next puppet making class!??!”. And I mean, they keep coming back, more or less of their own accord (classes aren’t until 3 hrs or so after they get out of school) and love to have the opportunity to run around, draw, paint, make puppets and dance. So that’s enough for me, I guess. It’s quite an experience, I can tell you all that much.

And the weekends are another story altogether… they continue to be packed with fun and adventure, especially because I’m living in such a truly amazing place. One of the first weekends Kraig came to visit and a friend (who I met at our weekly Cuban dance class and is also a bird guide here in Mindo) took us canyoning for free!! This involved taking a truck into the woods, hiking along the river, an Indian Jones-style river crossing, climbing basically straight up for about an hour and finally making it to the top of this beautiful waterfall. At the top, we strapped on the borrowed helmets, harnesses and karabiners and proceeded to jump down a 100 m waterfall. No big deal. Other than that, there’s also been a weekend in Quito, one in Otavalo and a couple more in Mindo with visitors. This weekend, Kraig came back (it’s a hard place to stay away from) with Jessica. We happened to run into some other friends from Quito who were visiting for the weekend, so we all came back to the hostel and hung out. On Saturday, we went up to the canopy with our Mindeño friend, Mauro, who led us through the forest to this amazing waterfall called “La Reina” or “the Queen”. This involved a ride in the back of a pickup truck up about 30 or 45 minutes, a ride in a rickety little cart through the clouds above the treetops and a decent hike through the forest to a magical stairway up to the majesty that is La Reina. Because this is the rainy season in Mindo and it consistently downpours every day for an hour or more, I decided to leave my camera. But again, you’ll just have to trust me when I saw this was something straight out of a storybook. Yesterday, we woke up to catch the 6:30 am bus to Quito where we took another bus to the valley of Tumbaco, just outside of the city and met up with another friend, Anna. She and her host sister took us to this adorable little hippy market where we wandered and bought things and got the makings for a delicious picnic. From there, we met up with her family, got in the back of a refrigerator truck and drove up and up and up until we could see all of Quito and the valley and probably all the way to Mindo, and where her family has a little piece of land where they grow corn and beans. I helped her sisters pick 3 huge bags full of “choclos” and then we made a fire and cooked them up right there. We also munched on the homemade bread and cheese, aji, avacado and basil sandwiches, made from the our compras from the market that morning.

Seriously… my life feels like a dream. I’m so happy to be romping around in the great outdoors for the majority of my days, be it working on the farm, repelling down waterfalls or cooking corn on the top of a mountain. I am a woman of the Pacha Mama (Quichua for Mother Earth) and I’m loving every minute of it!!

In the next 4 weeks, I have a 30 page paper to write in Spanish, then I’m free to explore the rest of this GIANT continent. Plan are still in the works for how I’m going to see as much as I can in the 2 ½ months that I have to travel, but recently I’ve been thinking again of going the WWOOFing route in Argentina or Chile or Bolivia. To be honest, the idea of 2 ½ months of travel right now seems exhausting, but I think that’s just because of how I’m feeling right now, and I might change my mind before then. If anyone has ideas or travel tips for South America, feel free to shoot them my way! I’m interested in finding creative alternatives to the usual road more traveled, but we’ll see.

Anyways, I have tons and tons and tons of pictures to share so I’m going to work on putting those on Flickr and will try and do a better job of keeping this baby updated for the rest of my time here in Mindo.

Lots and lots and lots of love from the middle of the world!

Maria-Teresa

Flores!

Vacas!
Amigos!
Mas amigos!
Naza!

kiss kiss kiss

Update!

Hello all!

It´s been a while since I last checked in, and boy have there been a lot of changes in my life. I finished up my ten week stint studying Spanish in Quito and after some tearful goodbyes to friends and family, set off on a Spring Break adventure to see the rest of the country. A handful of us boarded a night bus to Cuenca, a beautiful city about a 10 hr bus ride to the south of Quito. We stayed there for a couple nights, walking around the beautiful cathederals, picnicking by the river and exploring the University scene. It´s a really neat city and very different than other cities that I have visited in Quito, reminding me much of Berkeley or Eugene, as there are a ton of trees and it definitely has the college-town feel to it. Very nice. From there, we took another night bus to Guayaquil where we caught yet another bus and arrived in a city on the coast called Bahias de Caracas at 5 am. We caught a rickity little ferry in the pitch black to San Vincente where we took a 30 minute cab ride and finally ended up at our final destination of Conoa. We spent a few full days laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean and drinking Pina Colados and then took another day long voyage back to Baños where we met up with some couch surfers and went rafting and did some more relaxing. It was a delightful little break from my incredibly stressful and full life (joking) but already it seems like a lifetime ago!

And now, here I sit, not 3 weeks later, in a little internet cafe in Mindo, a little town of 3400 people situated an hour and a half nw of Quito in the Ecuadorian cloud forest! Now my days consist of waking up, eating the delicious breakfast that has been prepared for me, working on cultivating a little plot of land, eating more delicious, healthy, vegetarian food and finding my place in this community. The next 2 months or so of my life here in Ecuador will be just this. For my internship, I spend half the time learning about this project of organic gardening and community living, and the rest of the time I have to come up with a project within the greater community of Mindo that will serve the needs that I am learning about by talking to various town officials, shop owners and people I meet on the street. Every minute of every day is a learning experience. After a 2 hr or so chat yesterday with a town official, Laura and I were feeling worn down, hopeless and small as ever. After hearing about the multitude of problems facing this one tiny town and the staggering lack of social services and other resources available, it seemed as though all of our project ideas were silly, if not flat out stupid. The problem that we face as "interns" with only 2 months to try and integrate ourselves in this community, build relationships and trust with the people who live here and try in whatever way possible to lend, at the very least, our time and energy to whatever we can, is just that... what could we possibly do and who are we to think that we can bring about some sort of change? What do we know about what it is like to grow up here and face the problems that stem from the most basic of every day experiences? We returned to the farm exhausted and discouraged. Fortunately, our support system at "home" is already one of the best that I´ve had. Cristina sat us down and explained to us that of course there are problems bigger than any one of us there, but what is important is to carry on like we are doing, building relationships and doing research and then implementing our various projects and to realize that even if only 1 or 2 people experience some sort of change or realization, then our time and effort has been totally worth it (not to mention, of course, all that we have and inevitably will learn ourselves, which is undoubtedly more than anything we could ever ´teach´). While this doesn´t make our jobs any easier, it certainly helps to put it in perspective and make it a little more manageable. So we continue to develop our ideas and soon I´ll have a better, clearer idea to share with ya´ll.

But for now, I just have my body, happy and sore from hours of working the land (what a great expression) and itchy from the endless stream of mosquitos and countless other biting bichos, and my mind, racing constantly, soaking in all the Spanish that it can possibly hold and the stories and conversations from my new neighbors. Boy oh boy!

I can´t wait to share more as this experiences unfolds and somehow find a way to upload pictures, although it might be a little tricky.

Love to all on the home front a beyond!

MT

Baños!!!

Hola!

Here are some pictures this past weekend... the second to last of the quarter. Eek!

We stayed at an adorable little hostel in the heart of Baños, a small town at the foot of Volcán Tungurahua (which is an active volcano, btw) that draws hoards of tourists due to its natural hot springs, amazing hiking and all sorts of adventure sports.


Here's the view of the church from the rooftop terrace at our hostel. I had a fun time playing with some shutter speed business...




The next day, we ate breakfast on the rooftop and then rented bikes ($5/ day) and set off on the 17 km, mostly downhill trek to see some waterfalls. About 10 minutes in it started to DOWNPOUR, literally to the point that I couldn't see anymore. We pulled over for a little bit, regained our (very wet) composure and continued on down the mountain. We ended up at Rio Verde and hiked down a very steep hill to see the grande finale cascada, Pailón del Diablo, where we crossed a rickety bridge and ate some snacks.



After enjoying the incredible view, we hiked back up, ate some empanadas and climbed into the back of a truck for a ride back up to Baños with some German kids and a guy from Texas.



When we got back to the hostel, we found that we had a new roommate named Matthieu, from Canada. We all decided to cook dinner together in the hostel, so we bought some groceries and made spaghetti (again). The rest of the night consisted of drinking beer and playing cards with a bunch of the other people staying at the hostel and then eventually going to a bar close to our hostel. It was good times with fun people from all over the world, traveling in Ecuador for about a hundred different reasons. I think that we finally got to bed at about 5 or so, but Marcy and Kraig had both gone to bed earlier, so were ready to go a lot earlier than I was. But I didn't want to miss out on anything, so I dragged myself out of bed after way too little sleep, and after about 3 cups of instant coffee, was ready to roll once again.

Sunday was pretty low key. We just hung out with our new friends, ate and walked around Baños and bussed back late last night.

Here's Marcy and Ignatio, from Buenos Aires, playing chess on the roof of our hostel.




So that was my weekend, in a brief and not very well-said nutshell. Tomorrow we leave for our last school trip to Tena, a town in the Amazon. After that we have one more weekend, finals week and then Spring break! I cannot believe how fast this quarter has flown by. It's unreal that I already have to think about saying goodbyes to fellow CIMAS kids who are going back home (Marcy :(( ) and my wonderful Ecuadorian family and get all ready to move to a different place.

Which reminds me! Life update for anyone interested... As many of you know, I had originally intended to stay on with CIMAS for the Local Development and Social Change, but as this quarter has progressed, I've realized that I will get a lot more out of this next quarter by taking advantage of the opportunity to have an internship outside of the classroom and the city where I can live in a community, speak BASTANTE Spanish all the time and really learn what it's like to be a part of a community-run, grassroots development project. Where exactly I will be next quarter is still a little up in the air. A friend Laura and I are pushing to be able to live in Mindo at the hostel where we stayed where they are in the process of starting up an organic gardening/ food security project within the community of Mindo. It sounds like a really cool project with some really cool people that involves community sustainability and farming/ gardening classes, but also the opportunity to work with the community, in the schools and for the parks to collaborate and develop other projects as we go. I can't imagine a better learning experience for myself. And even if this particular project doesn't work out, this is the basis for any of the internships that I could have for next quarter, and I know that anywhere I go I will learn so much. I will keep posting updates as I find out more (hopefully next week because the internships are supposed to start the week after Spring break) and hopefully will have lots more exciting things to share in the coming months.

So exciting! Besos to all. I miss your faces.

MT

oh! and guinea pigs!

Forget to mention i "ate" guinea pig for dinner last night! My family tried to trick me and tell me it was chicken, but I wasn't having it. I had a tiny little bite to say that I did but also to not be rude. I explained to my family that it was like eating my pets... like Lukey and Andy jajajaja. They are a real delicacy here and cost $15 a pop! And they're disgusssssssssting. Really rubbery, not a lot of meat and a bunch of tiny little guinea pig bonesssss :((( I'm sorry Elmer and Skamper. Please forgive me...

The Cloud Forest! Guayasamin! Guinea Pigs!

So I've been epically slacking at this blogging business. And since I keep starting posts and then not finishing it means that one big giant post is in order. And this will be it. The past couple weeks have been chalk full of fun adventures, Spanish papers and of course, lots of starch. Where to begin....

I survived my trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon but unfortunately didn't take any pictures! We took a tour of the Lago Agria and Coca, which are right near the Colombian border and are home to a bunch of drill sites and piscinas of petroleum waste. It is absolutely horrifying and disgusting. If you haven't already, you should check out a new documentary called "Crude" which goes into the very same places that I saw last weekend and shows the damage done to the land and the health of the people living nearby by Texaco/ Chevron and now PetroEcuador. I really wish I had pictures to show because there is no way that I can possibly convey the horrible things that I saw in my limited and not very imaginative vocabulary. That's why I love photography! I do have plans to return with a couple others who didn't get to go so I will make sure to snap a bunch then. But until then, go watch "Crude" because that's literally the exact location of the things that I saw. Any maybe walk to the movie store instead of driving...

This past weekend was far more relaxing and enjoyable in a different sort of way. On Thursday night we went out to some bars and then Laura and I went back to Marcy's house to sleep for a couple hours and wake up muy temprano to catch a bus to Mindo, a tiny little town in the Cloud Forest. We arrived, in a group of 6 including our new friend Juan Carlos who Laura and I stayed with in Esmereldas for Carnaval, and got some delicious breakfast. Unfortunately, my body decided then to let me know how unhappy it is with the lack of nutrients (specifically fiber) I've been receiving. I can't decide if it's better than the opposite problem, but either way, it wasn't especially fun. One really great thing that I've discovered about traveling is the unique closeness that is cultivated among fellow travelers (ie. we talk about our poop a lot) jajaja. ANYWAY I ate a few bananas today so I should be fine, in case you were worried.

After breakfast we called up some guy that was a friend of a friend of a girl in our group from Bellingham who had just opened up a hostel in Mindo. We hiked the 15 or 20 minutes down a dusty road, over a river and into the forest to find the place nestled among an astounding array of fruit trees, tall jungle grass, tropical flowers and an breathtaking garden... and we were home! Patrick, one of the owners of the place, set us up with some rooms and then brought some delicious fresh squeezed lemonade which we sipped leisurely while relaxing/reading/recuperating in the forest air on the big covered deck right outside our rooms. We laid around for a couple hours then decided to get our ziplining on. This meant buying tickets from Patrick and hiking a few miles up the mountain to the canopy. Here we were greeted by a couple guides who helped us get all harnassed up, gave us a quick (and I mean quick) safety talk in Spanish and essentially pushed us off into the clouds. It was pretty incredible to soar above the treetops through the clouds upside down. Whoooooooo!! After we finished, we hiked back down to town, ate some crappy Mexican food and returned home to drink beer, play cards and crash early.

The next morning we woke up to a delicious breakfast in our hostel with real coffee (!) and then set out down the forest path to the river not far from the house where we went for a quick dip and got eaten alive by mosquitoes. We then headed into town for lunch and caught a ride in the back of a truck up the mountain once again (but a few km further this time) . It was just starting to rain when we were in the truck and by the time we got up there it was pouring! We hopped into a rickety little cart on a cable and crossed through the clouds once again. On the other side, we hopped off and set off to see some waterfalls. By this time, we were all hiking in our bathing suits, soaking wet from the rain, and running down the trail because we realized we only had an hour before the little cart stopped running for the day. We got to one waterfall and went swimming in the pouring rain. It was incredible and yet another moment in time that I wish I could document, but for the sake of future photos I left my camera in its plastic bag inside my t-shirt inside my surprisingly waterproof timbuk2. But again, just trust me, it was dreamy. After a quick swim, we ran back up the trail through the thick warmish rain and thunder storm. It was soooo good for the soul to be in the woods in the rain, running and frolicking about, but there are still 6 other waterfalls that we didn't get to see, which means that a return trip is definitely in order (as if we need an excuse). We got back in time to catch the tram back across and then hiked down, catching a ride for the last little bit of the rainy walk. In town, we bought some groceries and headed back to cook up a delicious spaghetti dinner. Turns out it was Patrick's birthday and they had some people over, including the girl who had given us a ride down the mountain who turns out to be from the bay area and a UO alum. Crazy stuff.

The next day we had another leisurely breakfast, visited a potential internship site in town, ate the world's most delicious veggie sandwich and then hopped a bus back to reality (mas o menos).

Since this is week 8/10 of the quarter, things are starting to get a little crazy. Today we got to hang out with some middle schoolers and help them "practice their English" which really just meant we played a massive game of soccer. It was really fun. Then we visited the Fundación Guayasamin. Que increíble!! If you are not familiar (which I wasn't before coming to Ecuador) with his work, you should definitely check it out. Oswaldo Guayasamin was an Indigenous Ecuadorian painter and sculptor who lived in Quito. He died in 1999 and they have converted his houses and property to a big museum of his art collections and his own paintings and sculptures. There aren't words enough to describe the feeling of looking at these paintings up close, in person. Here's a quick little wikipedia link if you want some more info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswaldo_Guayasam%C3%ADn and here are some pictures that I took of the paintings. Of course it's not the same as seeing them in person, but here's a little taste...







Oh, and here's a picture of the new piercing that Laura and I got. Whoops! jajajajajaj

Anyway, sorry if this post is a little scatter brained. It's taken me a few days to get it written. If you want to see pictures from Mindo (and there's lots) check out my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsenecal/

I have more to say and more to share but it's gonna have to wait for another day.

Love to all!

MT