Otavalo, Guayasamin, & Good-Bye

My last post for Ecuador is being written as I sit comfortably in my home in the US!
Despite the impossibility of recounting every great point of the trip, I do feel like Mr. Guayasamin and Otovalo deserve a few words.

Guayasamin is the most popular artist in Ecuador and we visited the museum that exists in his honor in Quito. He painted the suffering of the Ecuadorian people. The hands of his figures are my favorite part of his works. I bought one of his famous prints, the Mother and Child, but lost it in the airport during my four hour delay. I'm glad to have the pictures and experiences to remember at least.

Otovalo is a market situated about 45 mins from Quito. We visited one weekend on a tour and bought lots and lots of handicrafts and gifts. We visited a biscotti factory and scenic point on the way there and we visited a family who makes traditional musical instruments,the store of a family who weave carpets/ other products, and a waterfall on our way back.

Ecuador was a wonderful experience because of the people. It feels great to be back home, but I miss adventure already. Looking forward to the next one to come.

Thank you for reading and best wishes for your own pursuits :-).

The Amazon in Pictures

The Amazon in Words

My last days in Ecuador are upon me and I certainly feel a mix of excitement for return and sadness for leaving great adventures behind. It has been the great adventures that have kept me from posting with frequency and regularity.

Tuesday night was Ami's last night in Ecuador and we had an amazing dinner in Mariscal (the newer part of Quito). The food was delicious, the conversation was long and deep, and the bill was higher than any we've had in Ecuador! But we left happy that we had at least dined in elegance in Ecuador, where it costs about 1/3 of what it would cost in the US. We also left amazed at the experiences we have shared together in this short time.

We watched our first surgery together: a laproscopic cholecystectomy at Hospital Milital with Dr. Cadena's brother...the other Dr. Cadena. Both of them are phenomenal doctors; they share a kindness in their eyes and a professional, yet personal bedside demeanor that puts patients at ease. We were accompanied by 3 third year medical students, and we were really impressed by their attitudes. They were very humble, pleasant, and accepting; very chill and very helpful. Quite different from the stereotypical stressed third yr student in the US who has a prominent superiority complex.

We started our Amazon adventure the day after the surgery. The Amazon is really what has kept me from the blog...surprise, surprise - there are no internet cafe's in the Amazon. But there is an amazing assortment of wonders to keep one from even thinking about a computer.

From the Amazon, I wish I could bring back the stars as they lit up the night sky. Our canoe ride back from a "night hike" through the jungle has to be my favorite part of the trip because we drifted down the Amazon River and stared at the spectacle of the night sky. The stars were amazingly numerous and bright and the sky was crystal clear. The more we looked into the darkness, the brighter it became.
Ami and Kenny saw the same shooting star and were too speechless to make a wish. I remembered all the people in my life and made a wish for each one.

My second favorite Amazon adventure was swimming in the Cuyabeno River (which eventually feeds into the Amazon River). The water was warm and soft, and our tour guide assured us that the piranhas, cayman, anacondas, and giant fish did not swim in this part of the river. I was the first to jump off the boat, after the guide of course.

We walked through the jungle for 4 hrs on the first full day we were there. Ami was a real sport during this time because we were romping through mud and balancing on logs as we walked through water-filled areas of the forest.

I caught an anaconda, we saw baby cayman (two of them), an anaconda, a giant grasshopper, a tarantula, squirrel monkeys as they jumped from tree to tree and ate fruit, black sacky monkeys as they lounged lazily on trees, marching wasps, lots and lots of insects, parrots, and prehistorical turkey birds.

We also saw a different kind of animal while in the jungle - the machismo man. Our tour guide was a perfect case study of the machismo culture among Latino men. Although I am no expert, I have come to know the idea: a macho man who is all talk and no follow through. These are also the kind of men who beat and abuse their wives.
Our tour guide, whom Ami and I affectionately named Pendejo, kept promising us that he was going to show us "the most amazing thing ever," and was not able to find any animals in the end. He found some insects and showed us a cool Sable tree, but we only saw an anaconda because we followed another group, Kenny spotted the monkeys, Ami found the snake, and I caught the piranha. Our guide was busy preying on some other things during the tour...

I'm writing as we watch the Mexico vs. France World Cup game at Archie's, an Italian restaurant in Plaza de las Americas. France is losing by two points and I am eating pizza with extra Parmesan cheese - two things a French friend we made in the Amazon would not be happy about. She was awesome - she had been traveling Latin America for 4 months and she is the first French person I have met who does not like cheese - heresy!

Our tour group in the Amazon was great: we had a 20 yr-old German girl, a 21 yr-old 1/2 Columbian & 1/2 "American" guy, our French friend (28), Ami, Kenny, and me.

A great experience.

Ami just bought a month's worth of Malaria meds for $0.48...I bought mine in the US for $134...

Some of My Fave Pics

Thank you Kenny for taking the pics!!

2 Volcanoes in 2 Days

I talked to a man in the car for four hours straight today...

Our tour guide to Quilotoa was quite the talkative man. I sat in the front seat on the 4 hr car ride back from the volcano, Ami & Kenny passed out in the back seat, and I talked to our gregarious tour guide about everything under the sun: we talked about how erosion from the mountain drainage is the reason for the horizontal holes in the road, whether Japanese cars are better than American cars, how Ecuador has had 8 presidents in the past 11 yrs (one of which was an Ecuador-born Arab guy who studied at Harvard and then came back to serve as Ecuador's president and corrupt the economy of the nation to the best of his abilities...blew me away), about the dollarization in Ecuador (and how he thought dollarization, although ultimately not good for Ecuador, may have been the best alternative in the light of the uncertain political situation), how sheep were introduced into Ecuador by the Europeans, how the machismo culture is prevalent in the indigenous communities, how Ecuador's natives have become smarter in their business interactions, about baptism, the Bible, and the Quran, about Michael Moore's movies, about how the city of Quito is 45 miles long and only 4 miles wide in some areas, how only 10% of Ecuadorian medical students who go to public universities graduate, and so, so, so much more (4 hrs worth of so much more). Kenny bought original artwork from the woman who painted the picture herself, Ami rode a donkey back up the crater, and Kenny and I hiked back up our second volcano in two days. The crater lake is named Quilotoa because Quilo was the name of a native pricess and "toa" means "teeth." They called the crater lake Quilotoa because it was the native pricess always smiled (showing her teeth) when she went to the crater. It was a full day and we were absolutely eshausted when we got home. This weekend has been so amazing and I am so thankful for the once-in-a-lifetime opps!

To the top of Cotopaxi

Hiked to 4800 meters above sea level on Cotopaxi today. The last time this volcano erupted was in 1904 and it is now snowcapped. The hike was exilerating and the views were beautiful. The altitude made it hard to breath. We had tea, hot chocolate, and sandwiches at the 4800 m point. The black Patagonia coat I am wearing belongs to a Brazilian Japanese couple who came on the tour with us but who did not treck up the volcano with us because the wife got altitude sickness. It was the first time since school ended that I felt like I was really relaxing and enjoying myself. It was wonderful.