Christmas Travelling (Part 1)

Decemebr 9th started with the end of my Fall semester. I presented my presentation on my visit to my placement in the Amazon, and then at 4:30pm, my friend Sarah and I boarded a plane to the town of Loja in the south of Ecuador.

I had been looking forward to that moment for at least a month prior and it was a fantastic experience. The thrill of a extremely stressful and challenging semester finally behind you is irreplaceable, and all that was in front of us were white fluffy clouds and the tops of volcanoes as we passed them from our lofty aerial seats. The plane ride in itself was like a glorious finale, one with incredible views of the cloud-shrouded Andes. Completely breath-taking! 

Not sure if this is Volcan Cotopaxi or Chimborazo.

We arrived in Loja, which was pretty uneventful and the next day we moved on to Vilcabamba. Vilcabamba is known for the longevity of its inhabitants, which most live to around 100 and some as high as 120 or 135. It is often called Valley of Longevity for this reason. Some people attribute this to the simplicity of their lifestyle, the mineral contents of the drinking water, the fruit, roots and herbs that have high levels of anti-oxidants, or the climate, which is warm with very little variability. Whatever the case, it was a very peaceful and relaxing place to be for the 2 and a half days that we were there. There was also a huge population of aging hippies and tourists, and because of this there were many funky restaurants and spas.

Th central square.

Garden in our hotel.

On the second day we were there, we went on a 6-hour horseback ride into Nacional Parque Podocarpus, which has a large diversity of plants, birds, and animals, much like the rest of Ecuador. This horseback ride was the first time I had been on a horse in a very long time, but my years of horseback riding lessons definitely came back. We even cantered a few times and last time I tried that, I fell off and was almost trampeled. However, the lessons I learned from that experience were definitely engrained in my head which made this ride very enjoyable.
The ride took us high above the Vilcabamba valley down into another little valley where two rivers merged. The vegetation changed dramatically throught the ride at our lunch stopping point, it looked similar to the Amazon.

Sarah riding ahead.

The view back into the Vilcabamba valley

River crossing

Beside the river where we ate lunch

After a lunch we headed back the way we had come, and also stopped at a waterfall, which is rumoured to take off 3 years of your life if you fully submerge yourself in it. It was glacier-cold so I didn't do it. I am also already mistaken for being younger than I am so I don't need the age decrease either...

Anyways, after an amazing day, I paid the price and was sore EVERYWHERE for a week afterwards, but especially my thighs. In an attempt to remedy this, Sarah and I went for a massage the next morning before we headed to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador and their historic old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent a few relaxing days there and on one of the last days, we headed out on a tour to Parque Nacional Cajas, a National Park that protects a threatened area called the páramo. This area is known as the tundra zone in the Andes and plays an incredibly important role as the beginning of the watersheds. In these areas, it is almost always raining or foggy and they have vegetation that acts as a sponge to soak up the water that falls here. This park is one of the few páramo areas that are protected. This one happens to be protected because of its size, the endemic species of plants and animals that are found here, and because it is the source of two major rivers that run through Cuenca. It also plays a historical significance because the area used to be a trade route for the Cañari people, and later the Incas (making up part of the Inca Trail). We also got to hike by some llamas, alpacas, and their hybrid, the huarizo. That happened to be the highlight for me becuase of my obsession with llamas. 

The first section we visited on the edge of the park, where we hiked around the lake.

Sarah and I

Llamas, Alpacas, and their hybrid, the Huarizo

LLAMA

The second area we visited, in the middle of the park (altitude: 4167m above sea level).

We went for a 2 hour hike in this section of the park. It was beautiful but we were drenched within 5 minutes.

There were many, many lagoons (made by glaciers) and polylepis trees on their banks

Drenched but having a blast!

In a fairytale polylepis forest.

The amount of water in this area was insane. It was like stepping on a sponge.

This was by far my favourite day so far. I could stay there forever, apart from being drenched and cold. Choosing pictures were also extremely difficult given how phenomenally beautiful the landscape was.

A few days later and after much travelling, we ended up in Salinas de Guaranda, a beautiful Andean town high in paramo, that is an excellent example of rural community development. It was an extremely poor community in the 1970s with thatched room huts, and now it is a thriving community that produces high quality cheese, chocolate, honey, salami, wool and reed products. We tried the chocolate, which was superb, and I bought a wool bag and toque among other things. The town also has high education and health rates, and the people were probably the friendliest I have met in all of Ecuador. There was much pride in the successes of their community and their products are sold throughout the country.

View of Salinas from our hotel, which was owned and run by the community.

Sarah and I then parted ways, she went to Quito to meet her parents who were flying in to visit her for two weeks, and I went to Baños, a tiny touristy town which is considered the gateway between the Andes and the Amazon, and on the slopes of an active volcano, Volcan Tunguraghua, which was erupting when I was there. I spent most of my time relaxing and eating excellent food, also what Baños is know for. The highlights were reading on my porch, getting a massage, going white-water rafting down the Rio Pastaza into the Amazon, and going out for delicious sushi in a new restaurant owned by a Canadian man (best sushi I have had in Ecuador so far).

Christmas lights in the central square in Baños

After a week in Baños, I headed back to Quito to spend Christmas there. I spent Christmas Eve with Sarah's family and we went out for a delicious and fancy dinner in Old Town, and I spent Christmas Day Skypeing and talking on the phone to most of my family. On Boxing Day I Skyped with the Christensen-side of my family during their Christmas festivities. Thanks to the miracle that is Skype, I was able to see and talk to almost all of my family even though I am a continent away, and thousands of kilometres. Even though I was and am very homesick, I am very grateful for all the love and support I have in my life.

Rainbow from the porch of my hotel in Baños

Now I am off on a night bus tonight (December 27) to spend a week on the coast, in Puerto Lopez... :)

Challenges

Some of your hardest days are when you learn the most.

I learned this lesson the week (November 30 - December 6) I spent in the Amazon to check out my community development placement for next semester. I lived in the Pueblo Kichwa de Rukullakta (PKR), in the community of Rukullakta, the largest of 17 communities under the organization of PKR. I will be working with them and researching how a community resists oil development, and I will be putting together a report on viable alternatives to oil development. PKR is utilizing organic, free-trade coffee production, and tourism (including the tourism of student volunteers like myself).

The week was confusing and difficult. This included:
- Living in a cement house with a tin room that leaked when it rained (every day)
- Eating rice and chicken everyday (it gets old after 1 day let alone 7 days or 3 months...)
- My Spanish wasn't great and people speak in a mixture of Spanish and Kichwa, the latter of which I know nothing
- Not having any idea what I was doing there. This stemmed from the fact that I a) didn't understand about half of the Spanish spoken to me and b) I came in with the idea that I wouldn't be imposing with what I wanted to do in the community and let them decide what I wanted to do. Now this would have worked great for a less organized community, but this community seems like a well-oiled machine and so they took it to mean that I didn't know what I wanted to do. Based on this, they planned my week to just be about learning about the community and what they are trying to achieve (showing the government that they can sustainably develop without oil production). Although this was fine and constructive, I really had to work hard to try and figure out what my role was going to be when I returned in January.
- Being Canadian. This has never, ever been a problem before, but because the government-hired oil company that they are resisting is Canadian, I met some hesitation as well as some outright opposition to my presence in the community. Most people were welcoming but a few members of the community definitely felt this way, even though it was conveyed in Spanish-Kichwa. I now know what it's like to be a travelling American...

I hit a definite low the day before I went home, where I felt so utterly useless and like a burden that I just started to cry. After that point, the day got better and I finally solidified what I was going to do for three months. It was almost like I had to hit rock bottom before things showed themselves to me... That day I learned the most. That day, December 5, was the day I learned that living in a community is never easy (not that I really thought it would be) and that you need to really be clear about what you hope to achieve. People are not going to tell you what to do, you have to figure it out for yourself. Now, whether this was their plan initially or not, it was an effective but difficult learning scheme that made me really question everything I had been taught in the semester I was just finishing. (There will be another post on my thoughts on community development soon, or in many posts in the next few months, because the questioning is always there.)

Regardless, I made a few friends, one of which is a student from France volunteering in the tourism section of the organization for 6 months. I also got to participate in the making of a traditional meal, play Ecuavolley (3-on-3 volleyball), and help in one of the steps of coffee making. The area that PKR is located in is phenomenally beautiful and diverse. I hope to scratch the surface on the Amazonian Kichwa culture and learn a lot about the strength of people.

The next three months (starting January 9th) will definitely be the hardest three months so far in my life, but they will probably be worth it in the amount I will learn and experience.

My room, also the best in the house

The two youngest kids in the house, out of 3, Wiñay (7) and Ichak (6).

Wrapping tilapia, fiddleheads, and palm hearts together in a palm leaf for grilling.

The view from the front door of my house just before a torrential rainstorm hits.

The Next Hardest Step

I am posting this blog post in order to document how I am feeling before I leave for a week in my community. I leave tomorrow morning. I am extremely nervous and am hoping, hoping with all my heart that I will be accepted and loved in the place I will spend 3 months starting in January. I fear that I will not be liked, and I fear my Spanish is not good enough. No. I know it is not good enough. I guess I just hope that I will feel I am welcomed and loved by the warm people that I met a month ago.

I am slightly sick, but this shouldn't be a problem as it is probably a direct effect from the pollution, the dry air, and altitude. Last time I went to the Amazon, I was starting to get sick and I got better as soon as felt the humidity. So here's to hoping I feel better.
The stress I feel right now is incredible. It is akin to the day before I arrived in Quito, when suddenly this trip was actually real, I was going, and there was no turning back. Much like now: I am actually going through with the most daunting part of this trip, I am going, and there is no turning back. I signed up for this and I have gotten this far, so I can't turn back now.

... But then there is the fear I feel with my insecurity. The fear I feel with not being accepted, or offending someone accidentally (because we have been told that people are easily insulted but quiet about it). I fear not understanding or not knowing what is going on. I fear a lot of things, and these things are relevant but things we all must overcome, all of us in the program. All of us at some point in our lives. Fear itself is the greatest obstacle.

I hope that I have enough strength and courage to guide me through these next 7 days, and I hope that I have enough faith in myself and the path I have chosen to continue down this road. I hope the next week brings new experiences and new friendships, but most of all, I hope this next week brings a new understanding. Because that is why I am here. To try and understand the world we live in hopes that I can, in turn, give something back.

Ah well... Here's to new experiences!

P.S. I may also be writing this to document how bad my English writing skills will be when I get back, because they WILL be atrocious... heck, my spelling and grammar have already become terrible due to my brain working in half Spanish sometimes.

Sometimes You Just Need a Vacation...

...And what better way to do it than camping on a beach! Yes, this is what a few friends and I did for our November “Reading Week” (November 3-6), which was really the first annual 5-day National Holiday for Ecuador (usually it is 3 days but the President changed it the month before). As soon as we found out about the vacation change, we decided we should all go to the beach, because we were lacking fresh air and wanted to shed the layers we wear everyday (you have to dress more modestly in the highlands). We looked for places to stay on the Coast for two weeks and EVERYWHERE was full because apparently on holidays, all the highland folk flock there. Luckily for us, on the way back from the Amazon, we managed to find a place that had just enough room for a few people tenting.

Three stress-filled days later, we packed our bags and headed to the bus station. Because we had found a place to stay so late, we managed to find only one bus company (out of at least 5) that had room for 7 more people, and the seats were definitely not together... I happened to be seated at the front of the bus with a giant TV in front of me, and everyone else was sporadically placed throughout the rest of the bus. We had all planned to sleep on the way there as the bus left at 11pm (on November 2) and it was a 5-6 hour drive, but none of us did. In addition to me worrying about my luggage (and purse on my lap) and whether it was being stolen, there was an excessively loud Spanish-dubbed Sylvester Stallone movie over the speaker and a man sleeping on my shoulder. Nevertheless, I did not sleep much. The others didn’t either because one of my friends had a couple making-out loudly beside her, another became claustrophobic, and another just couldn’t sleep. It was a wild ride, but we got into the town of Atacames (in the province of Esmeraldas) around 5:30am. We then hired a truck to drive us to our hotel just outside of Same (about an hour south, said: saw-may). The drive in the back of the truck was probably one of my favourite parts of the weekend: hair whipping in the warm, salty breeze and the black sky turning into a brilliant sunrise over the Pacific Ocean; the excitement palpable at being back on the Pacific Ocean and for spending a weekend in humidity and warmth.

We pulled into our hotel, Playa Escondida, at around 6:30am, and had to wake up the gate guard (we are sorry!!) to let us in. We then almost ran to the beach, but not before we were stopped in our tracks for interrupting a meditation session on the beach. This was our introduction to the 50-person yoga retreat that we were to share the facilities (sometimes not amicably) with.  

The main building (kitchen) at Playa Escondida

The yogis meditating on the beach.

The kitchen (left) and one of the hotel buildings (right).

Our camp site!!

  

After wandering around for a bit, we saw that people were starting to wake up and so we decided to go set up our tents. After that, a few people passed out in the tents, and the rest of us, including me, went exploring. When we came back, the yogis were eating breakfast which meant that we couldn’t until they were done (a theme for the rest of the weekend).

View to the left.

View to the right.

 

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, we explored the beaches, went wave jumping in the ocean, and laid in the sand or hammocks to read and sleep. It was fantastic to finally get a chance to relax, which I hadn’t had in more than a month. We also sipped on strong Caipiriñas (sugarcane alcohol, limes, and sugar) and beer. That night, we all went to bed early after an excessively long day.

The next day, we went into Tonchigue, a small fishing village halfway to Same, for a change of scenery. We spent a good hour walking and then hitch-hiking in (truck and bus combined). We then used the internet and called our families (there was no cellphone service at our hotel). Afterwards, Mike, Sam, Liam and I walked along the beach, ate lunch, and later we bought food and alcohol before we hired these weird motorcycles with carriages on to the back to take us back to our hotel.

Fishing boats and beach looking down the beach to where our hotel is.

When we got back, we made some friends with our tenting neighbours who were also from Canada but they have lived in Ecuador for over 20 years. On that note, our hotel owner, Judy, was also Canadian but has been living in Ecuador for 30 years. I also had a pretty weird and awfully red sun burn on my legs from the day before. This was because I was lazy putting sunscreen on my sandy legs, and then tanned for an hour afterwards, resulting with weird designs in the forms of burns all over my legs. I was also pretty white, being Canadian and all, and the sun is, wouldn’t ya know it, excessively stronger near the equator. I was dumb and am currently still paying for it with a crazy tan on my legs.

Later on that evening after dinner, we played some card games and met some more new friends. Around midnight, a few of us went swimming in the ocean, which was quite an experience with the moon shining overhead and little fishing boats twinkling on the horizon.

Eagle

More Beach

Posing in some caves down the beach.

Looking back from a cave to the beaches and Same.

 

On our last day, we hung out on the beach all day and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. My particular spot of choice was sun tanning on a rock with my new friend Sam (she was here from Canada visiting her best friend Mike), chatting and watching the waves roll in. The beach became quieter when the yogis left at noon, and we read in hammocks. The day was pretty uneventful but incredibly relaxing before we knew we had to get back to work on Monday. We took our last walk along on the beach at sunset, and ate our last delicious meal in the quaint, outdoor restaurant, before hiring a truck to pick us up and take us back to Atacames for our bus (which was another horrible night bus... remind me not to do those again). Overall, it was an incredibly relaxing weekend, and EXACTLY what I needed after and incredibly stressful month.

Sunset on the Pacific Ocean

Our group: Mike, Andrea, Me, Sam, Liam, Tara-Lyn, Brittany, and Lisa (our Austrian friend)