Guat's up, Antigua?

I must have temporarily forgotten that I had satiated my case of wanderlust after going to Ecuador, because I've found myself once again in Latin America--returned this time to Guatemala.  I´ll be here for a month, and will be welcomed back to Amerricah amidst a slew of fireworks on July 3rd.

New sights and new food for thought provided by Antigua, Guatemala.  I arrived planless, and remain so!  My only goal for this trip was to have one genuine and interesting conversation each day, making a stronger connection with someone, anyone.  I hadn't considered which language this person would be, but as it turns out internationals really have the most to say.

So, my few and cherished readers, let's get you up to speed.

• I caught a ride to Antigua from this photographer from the University of Miami who sat next to me on the flight from Atlanta.  He works full time snapping photos for the medical school, inches away from open-heart surgeries and abdominal infection operations, and has gone to Italy, New York, California, on business.  I couldn't think of a more fortunate position for someone who grew up in Guatemala.  Anyway, good thing he wasn't a kidnapper, although his friend drove like a crazy person in the maniacally-operated streets of Guatemala City, because now I can still accept his offer for me to visit him later in my trip, when he returns for a longer visit to Guate.
• I must address a syndrome of mine, more severe than traveler's sickness, but less bathroom-related.  On the first day of any journey, I get a strong WTF did i get myself into feeling.  In this case, it was a WTF am I gonna go in a country I've already been to, whose language I already speak, for a MONTH?  The trigger is the realization that nobody in a thousand mile radius is aware of my existence, or, worse, that some people are aware but generally the world doesn't give a shit.  Luckily, that really is a one-day reaction, and I've since been having a really lovely time.
• I can't tell if it's mold invading my nose in the room of my homestay, or asbestos from the peeling walls, but the bare bulb shedding dim light as I type is enough to tell me that I have everything I really neeed here.  Since Tuesday I've been staying with a Guatemalan family with three kids, whose eyes are glued to the TV at all seconds that the day has to offer.  The little zombies occasionally take a break to play a car-racing video game on the computer, but it's safe to say that this place, like Ecuador, is a very TV-oriented culture.  Books?  What are those?
• The agua caliente of the shower is actually caliente!  Life is filled with many pleasant surprises 
• Watched the Celtics at a gringo-bar owned by Bostonians, que suerte!  Met a bunch of chicas here to "learn Spanish."  This place, however, is probably the most effective way to *not* learn Spanish, with hostels filled with gringos, and Spanish schools reaching enrollments of 60 students.
• I don't want to talk about my 3 days taking classes to rewet my Spanish tongue, mainly because the experience was subpar and there was some drama with the director that you're better off reading about in my review of the school online!
• Antigua is beautiful, despite the fumes of the pimped out school buses transporting heaps of people through the cobblestone streets.  Colonial architecture, all walls pastel-colored and connected until the block ends.
• There are bajillions of travelers coming through Guatemala, and somehow everyone's Spanish sucks!  That's okay, they more than make up for the painfully wrong verb uses by having had fascinating lives.
• My first travel buddy here is a 36 y.o who I thought couldn't be older than 26, originally from the Philippines but has been living with her Aussie husband in Melbourne for 6 years.  She is what I'd call a real traveler, with strong knowledge from experience in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore etc., Europe, with highlights in Turkey and Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the States, including many of the best national parks and even Alaska!  She is just about starting her 10-week trip through central America.
• Apparently, in Singapore, you get the death penalty for having drugs on you, regardless of whether they are for consumption or for sale.  An Aussie got caught at the airport, and despite her insistence that they weren't hers, she is currently serving a life sentence.  Well, at least while court is in sentence regarding the death penalty.  The Embassy is freaking out, and the Aussie lawyers unable to do very much.
• Visited a cooperative that gave us a free tour, beginning at the pueblo whose school buuilding supports three schools--elementary school starting in the early  morning, middle school during the afternoon, and high school during the evenings.  Social workers from this NGO select kids based on their poverty and proximity to certain neighborhoods to take part in the Common Hope program, which builds a house for the family and supports the child from 1st grade until graduation.  They'd normally not make it through middle school.  We saw an example of the "house" built by CH--basically a 4 X 5 m room made out of plywood that has a collapsable  floor so the entire thing can be transported.  They build it in two days.  Around this house, given to the lucky, eligible family, are houses with tin roofs and most likely dirt grounds.  They use a system called sweat equity to prevent giving out free handouts.  Basically the family needs to work a certain number of hours 160-360 hrs, depending on the nature of the work, to get this house.  CH used to build before the hours are up, but families stopped working once they got what they wanted.  Education just doesn't take priority.  At another one of CH's sites, social workers must convince the Mayan indigenas of the importance of education.  It's part of the culture for 15 year-old girls to get married, and on top of that any time that their kid spends in school is time they aren't working on their farm.  Doctors at the CH clinic volunteer for one year. OMFG a whole year, unpaid, when doctors could be making so much!  Apparently they're in need of a new doc to replace the young guy from Massachusetts who left last week.  What an enormous heart, or something.  I don't know of a single person who could have that much potential income of a doctor and choose this life instead.  There are so many "mission trips" I've heard about while here, people in the medical field who work for a week and feed their ego by saving poor kids.  Stay a year!  Then I'll be humbled by your selflessness.
• Underestimations are awesome.  I've met people here who I might have originally written off, but with whom I've heard the most interesting perspectives.  I'm learning more and more that the friendliest, most traditionally relatable (same general age, outlook, etc) are worth trading in for conversations with people at different stages in life, and different locations.  Canadian perspectives on US politics, Amsterdam mother-daughter's commentary on Europe's route to catch up to the US in obesity, Guatemalan host mother's descriptions of the gringo invasion making property rental and ownership impossible for locals.  Behavioral economics and how our decisions are not really our own, life after marriage, all travelers "in transition," raw food diets, faulty education systems vs successful ones, and which cultures seem to do it right, corrupted governments feeding the vicious cycle of poverty, glue-sniffers refusing the opportunity to work in lieu of handouts, homeless on the streets next to children who in turn cannot play, young dudes vowing chastity for the lord, couchsurfing successes, etc etc etc etc beats staying in pajamas all day, although the Hunger Games was worth the hermit lifestyle.
• It's cool to hear the latino perspective on gringos.  We seem so silly.
• Beautiful handicrafts at the market, spending hours sending offers back and forth
• Previously I had no interest in visiting southeast Asia, but now, once the bountiful (lol) paychecks start rolling in I'll be happy to begin saving up for a trip to Singapore!  If anything, cuz even the descriptions of the food had me drooling.  Or maybe because dinner that night had left my stomach growling.
• I wish that the US would:
• create central social areas, like the majestic Parque Central, so members of every city have somewhere to just coexist and appreciate the ambiance of a community.

I'd love to continue these bullets, and I will, since I haven't even gotten to the most recent days, but this is not my computer and I don't know how paranoid this computer is being when it screams low battery at me.

Adios, chicos!

homeward bound

At the airport.  With a shrug, a security officer just let a little boy keep his scissors in his carry-on luggage.  I'm gonna miss this place.

I've been waiting five months for this to be relevant

Making memories! ?

Like every other study abroad blogger who started out diligently recording her experiences, as the semester has been winding down I've been off the radar. 

Not to say I haven't done a lot.  A few of the bigger trips included:

I spent a week in paradise in the Galápagos.

Crabs befriending iguanas

Sea lions are the best

Can you tell which is rock, which is iguana?

Same question, applied to giant tortoises

proof that dinosaurs existed

Pelicans, sea lions, and boobies are all excited for the leftovers at the fish market

Sea turtle rape.  I mean,"mating" by multiple males

Blue-footed Booby!

Frigatas!

Posing in the soft streetlight

I finally made it to the coast--the deserted and beautiful Mompiche, the lively Atacames with as many ceviche venders as big turquoise waves.

$5 hostel in Mompiche, 5 steps from the shore

All ours

I took the >8hr bus journey to the lovely Cuenca in southern Ecuador, visited Incan ruins, went to a Panama hat museum.

Mimicking "la Cara del Inca"

Cuenca is known as the cultural capital of Ecuador

National park Cajas, before the lightning and thunder settled in

Ingapirca, the somewhat unimpressive Incan ruins

I've attended two world cup qualifying games of the national team as they won first against Venezuela, next against Perú.

Not a seat unfilled at el Estadio Olimpico

I hiked Rumiñahui, a volcano overlooking underlooking one of Ecuador's Big Ten, Cotopaxi.  Oh, and happened to see a CONDOR (the nation's bird, with a ten-foot wingspan) nbd.

Got lost and accidentally climbed that hump. Huff puff

The world is your oyster

Thunder in the distance, all we've got is sunshine

 All of this only made me realize that the "time of my life"-type experiences happen when I wouldn't even think to bring my camera, within walking distance of home, in ugly buildings with poor lighting, in the rain, in otherwise mundane settings.  The bigger trips I've taken that outwardly seem to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity have been more frustrating and disappointing than anything.  This only makes me wish I had some way of recording the dinnertime jokes made with July, the empleada, about that handsome guard, the eye contact made with tired strangers as we'd stand squished up against each other on the nighttime bus home, teaching a teacher how to gracefully pick up American chicks (hissing, whistling, bad!), realizing at times I could relate more to one of the two Ecuadorian friends I've made here than all of my gringo friends.  But all of that just passes like this:

the ladies of ecuador

Staying in on a lovely Saturday night.  I've been filling this thing with weekend adventures, thus entirely neglecting the homefront.

So, just to give you an idea.

Living with a queen.  Disclaimer, if you are a relative of my Ecuadorian host family, I'm totally exaggerating and none of this is true and your mother/grandmother/sister/cousin is the best host mom ever.  God, I hope your English sucks.  If you aren't, here's a little glimpse into our world.  While the vast majority of Ecuadorians know the value of a dollar (four bus rides, half of a three-course lunch), others live a mile above the rest. 

Once, when she had her 10 sisters (11? 9?  whatever, once you're past nine children they stop mattering) over for a tea.  I was surrounded by such a gran cantidad of shoulder pads, delicate china, and dark lipstick that an alarm went off in my head to evacuate the situation.  In my escape, I couldn't help but feel as though this could have taken place in a different century, in a different country.  Think an English queen with some baronesses and chancellor's wives over for teatime. 

I've accepted that the conversation flows better when she's sharing with me the high value of her chunky gold rings, and how this bracelet she likes to wear to the beach during trips taken with her Foundation of Señoras who help poor children (aka have tea parties with each other), and that necklace she would never wear to the bank.  The other day she answered a question I didn't ask by explaining that a hair stylist would be coming to the house to do her hair that afternoon.  He is very famous, the owner of two peluquerías, but because they are on such good terms he comes all the way to the house to do her hair.  Oh, and he owns two peliquerías, too.  Very well-known.

While driving in her shiny new silver SUV, she remarks how that's the car she really wanted, oh, and if only she owned that one!  This car is so horrendous.  I couldn't really notice a difference between the multiple silver SUVs in question, but with a Japanese brand stamped on the hood of the car next to you, how could you possibly stand to be seen driving this awful American make?

Don't get me wrong, I am on great terms with my host mom.  She treats me very well, and we share many a-laugh on cute, light subjects.  It is only because there exists such a stark contrast between the life I am a part of and the life of the hundreds of thousands sans an SUV, nay enough money to keep their children from having to start their lives as street venders at age 8.  Really, I cannot be resentful of their wealth.  Her husband worked very hard to bring them to these standards, and every family has their problems, whether they be depressed children or a financial debt.

Yesterday I threw open my bedroom door in response to a booming, rich melody I heard from outside only to see my host mother... playing the accordion...really fuckin' well.  I couldn't help but laugh at how awesome this new discovery was.  She had started practicing the accordian when she was a little girl, and even though she hadn't picked it up for two years, there she was.  Her left hand had a mind of its own darting across the millions of buttons, her arm lifted open the air-filled folds of the huge instrument, and her right hand flew across the keys of the piano part.  Toe-tappin'.  All at once.  (Pictures to come!)

So the accordion wheezed its complex tunes and July and I swayed along.  I couldn't shake that smile.  As easy and tempting as it is to generalize in regards to character flaws and personality traits, you really never know about a person.  I love getting proven wrong in this respect, it's a nice kick off the high-horse.  So, mi querida Mechita, it's not your fault you have a nice life, and it's not my place to make judgments in response.

On the other side of the spectrum... Many middle- to upper-class families have what's called an "empleada," a live-in (or not) cook/maid/chore-doer who is usually from a lower class area (el campo, as they say).  July (joo-lee) is from la Costa, and due to the coastal accent and that snaggletooth that, over time, I now see as adorable, I had an impossible time understanding her Spanish.  I still probably only catch 60-70% of what she's saying, and in spite of the number of times I've thrown up my hands in surrender, laughing at my inability to understand what was said after five repetitions of the same simple phrase, I am improving.

She has this bewilderingly irrational thought process.  For the first time all semester, I requested pimienta to add to my soup the other day.  Her soups are always delicious, filled many a-time with potatoes, a large-kerneled corn called choclo, various veggies, and always a bucket or two of salt.  During my first few weeks here, I would wake up with a desert-dry mouth from the sodium consumed just at dinnertime.  So anyway, she passed me the pepper and scolded me for adding so much of an ingredient that is so bad for the kidneys.  You shouldn't use pepper at all, only a tiny pinch for things like salads, because it will ruin your kidneys.

What?

She showed me that she only uses three particular dried herbs for any given soup.  She passed me a bottle of one of these, and I uncapped it to take a whiff.  Hmm, unable to place what scent it was, I sniffed again.  Hurry! she said, Put the cap on or the scent will dissipate! 

Huh?

Toward the beginning of the semester, she told me that all things from China are bad... "como tu!!" Ja-ja-ja, she went, with an accusing finger directed at me.  Nah-UH, I responded to her racist statement, look at this mug, July, see?  Don't you like this mug? 

No, she said, it's bad! 

And she went on to point to a variety of things that were bad and coincidentally made in China.  Finally we agreed on a thing that she liked.  I flipped over the plate and it clearly read "Made in USA."  Hum, okay so maybe she has a point here.  At least I eventually helped make the distinction between China and Japan, and she agreed that okay, Japan is good.  But China is still really bad!

Another time I was told that I have to marry a "chino, porque eres china!"  ja-ja-ja!

In Ecuador, and probably most of Central/South America, anyone with squinty eyes is referred to as Chinese, because obviously that country sufficiently represents the entire continent.

My dear July.  Since I eat my meals by myself, of everyone in the family I spend the most time talking to the empleada, who is usually bustling around in the kitchen as I chow down.


Best for last.  Unhappy with my snail-pace improvement in Spanish, last week I began one-on-one lessons with Isabel at a spanish school near my house.  The usual format is 4-hrs intensive immersion in Spanish, but what with my real classes at the university, I see her for two hours a few times a week.  I already have lectures in my grammar class, so all I really need is to practice speaking, to gradually form sentences in my head without having to go UHH before every verb conjugation.  Okay, maybe that's not all I needed.  What I really craved was some sort of stimulating conversation--someone with whom I could speak animatedly about pollution, or who could tell me more about economic disparities, city planning, religion, political corruption, etc.

I got what I wanted, and now when I walk home from school I notice the men carrying heavy bureaus to loading trucks and the ancient woman sitting by her display of shoe insoles in a different light.  There's a skip in my step, if you will.

Back to Isabel.  Having grown up exploring the mountains near her home south of the city, she decided to pursue a degree in Tourism to become a tour guide in high-altitude climbs.  That same year that she graduated from college, she spent a night accompanying her brother as he drove a night-bus from Quito to a city ten hours away.  Usually she would just sleep on the bus, but this one night her brother asked her to come sit up front with him, as co-pilot, so that she could keep him company and they could converse.  So, at five in the morning, Isabel reached to secure her seatbelt when she heard a the unusually strong honk from her brother.  She looked up only to see the truck of a driver who had fallen asleep on the road swerve toward them.  The driver had woken up to the horn, and tried to salvage himself from drifting too far over.  His huge truck hit only one part of the bus--the front corner, and crushed Isabel's body against her chair.  She might have been able to throw herself to the aisle had her seatbelt not been secured, but that split second of time went to waste.  She told me that after the impact, she lifted up her hands, only to see a chunk of her palm that didn't come with the rest.  She deliriously picked it up, thinking "hey, that's me!" and put the meat back in her hand.  Eventually the doctors did use that same piece of flesh to sew it back into her, as shown by the square-shaped scar.  They took three hours to extract her body from the crash--the only person injured out of a full bus.  She waited another three hours in a clinic, covered in blood on a stretcher in the waiting room, before she was given medical attention by a surgeon.  Crowds of journalists snapped photos of her naked body, and those photos were in the papers for weeks. 

She ended up spending an entire year in the hospital, as her right leg was stripped of all of its 'carne' and as she was recuperating it grew so infected that it did not respond to medicine.  She couldn't leave the bed for over half a year, thinking every day that she'd never be able to walk again.

Dreams shot, the psychological damage was the worst, she said. 

But now, she's got this great job as a teacher and assistant director of a Spanish school, and seems to always be in 'buen humor.'  She can't climb mountains regularly, but she can walk well now, and even run.

The other day she showed me a video she took of a corrupt cop holding up a bus for a bribe of juice from the bus in front of them, but that's another story for another time.

things don't work and that's okay

OCTOBER 23, 2011

Okay, so maybe it seems like the uneven sidewalks are going out of their way to stub your toe, or the shower is laughing at you as its temperature switches between scalding and frigid at will, but Ecuador, you're getting the job done. 

This is a city of millions, growing every year, and everybody's out to make a dolla.  The pollution is bad but the nobody gives a rat's ass because the buses are all getting us from point A to point B.  Naturally as a foreigner, it's easy to see how much more smoothly things run in the States. 

if Quito didn't exist, this terrain would extend for miles and miles

On Friday, I accompanied two friends to a bike path that extends 50km over an old rail way.  We forked over $5 for rental bikes and were off!  I was irrationally expecting something similar to the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Amherst, which was converted quite successfully to a beautifully flat, paved bike path, with a spraypainted warning at every crack in the asphalt.  Instead I was greeted by a bumpy, gravel road that was always sloped in one direction or another.  We hit a beautiful valley after about an hour, and called it a good point to turn around.   At that point we were thirteen kilometers out, and mi amiga admits that her front tire is completely flat.  That's funny, the only other story I had heard about this path was from a friend who had to hitchhike back when her buddy's bike lost air.  So, our lil' trooper said she's fine, and vamanos!  We make it for a few kilometers, with the normally strong girl trudging along far behind, until she calls for a break.  We switch, and the rugby girl takes over.  A few more kilometers pass, when we see that the rubber from the tire has fallen right out of the rim--she had been riding on pure metal. 

Sharing the road with some asses. (look at the rope on the left)

Luckily we were at a crossroad where many a-car were passing, and we hesitantly began to wave down trucks.  A nice young guy pulled over in his Mazda Protogé and told us he'd go grab his truck and come back for us.  It was then that I told my buddies that this entire semester has just been filled with a series of losing and regaining faith in humanity.  People like him were the best type of ambassador for the country.

We waited 20 minutes, and naturally he never came back.  Ahem, nevermind then.

A few more people stopped for us, but they weren't heading in the same direction, or they offered tools instead of a ride.  It's okay, guys.  Let's just rough it out so we can get back before the sun goes down.

So it was my turn, and we only had a few miles to go.  At one downhill point, my hands turned to a pretty beet color from all the friction of the handlebars being propelled up and down by the metal-on-tierra action.  Within a hundred meters I saw that same car parked on the side of the road.  That nice young guy was probably chowing down some dinner inside.  The rest of the trip was a climb, slow and unrewarding, until we finally returned the bike to the rental lady.  She had an extremely unsurprised look on her face as I returned the broken bicycle.

Excuse the conspicuous analogy, but this bike sums up what I think of Quito.  The tire was broken, but the bike still went.

So, instead of anthropomorphizing the plumbing, I remind myself that this bipolar shower is still getting me clean, and the sidewalks, however uneven, support my weight alongside every car-filled road.  And, okay, maybe it's not the most effective method for the propane trucks to beepbeepbeep a horn that sounds like it belongs to Bozo the Clown to alert the neighborhood that it is passing through, but the tanks get distributed. 

Whatever works, man.

divine discomfort

Sometime last week I accompanied my language buddy, Ruth, to this hangout sesh at a radio station after classes.  She had gone once before, ensuring me that it's just a fun group sitting around and talking, listening to music.  Sure, I thought, time to branch out. 

As it turns out, we were two girls in a small group of 20-ish year-olds, sitting around round table, in a sound room.  Plenty of microphones to go around.  The DJ brought us on air, where we would be heard across the globe by anyone tuned in to the Internet station.  The topic was First Love.  Three of the boys, one sporting a Yankee's hat and a long tattoo down his arm, would be singing (rapping) about Love. 

The DJ told the world that they had an extranjera guest today and my brain said AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!

My mouth gave an introduction, I guess, and off the mic went to the next guy.

One by one they began to recount their first loves, or how first love is just an illusion, or how they've learned that being with someone for the sake of having someone doesn't compare to meeting that SPECIAL someone, etc.  Things were gettin' real.

The mic gets to me and my brain said AAAAAAAAAH!!!! and I handed it off to the next guy.

I have a hard enough time putting together a grammatically correct sentence in Spanish, let alone an intimate anecdote or a thoughtful lesson learned.  This was radio, here, there's no getting by on the cuteness of being a smiley foreign girl.  Needless to say I was sitting as though perched on a cactus. 

At some point Ruth told the world that Dios is everybody's love, first and foremost and forever after.  Oh! Huh.  I didn't know that about her.  And the rest of the radio agreed to some extent.  Huh.  Whaddya know.  Turns out this is a radio "limpia y diferente" (clean and different) that ties all subjects back to the "gracia de Dios."

Check out some daily Biblical verses on its site at:  http://www.rkmradioecuador.org/

So the uncomfortable atheist found a smile on her lips, and the group cheered as the mic came my way again.  WELL, I figured I'd never need to see any of these people again, and began to sputter out something about being 15 years-old and and and...  I looked back and forth between the kids in the room and the group of adults in the recording room, and found that they were all waving their arms madly at me.  One guy with long hair sneaked in and moved the mic closer to my mouth.  They hadn't heard a thing.

Well, too late!  Off to the next person! I motioned, swinging the mic away.  Booooo, they thought.  Suck it, I thought back.

My face returned to a normal color shortly thereafter, and my heartbeat followed suit.  My tail, however, remained under my butt for a long time after that one.  

More than bonding on a deep level, the majority of my interactions with Ecuadorians so far have made me feel emotionally and mentally itchy.  This is unfortunate, kinda, but not really.  Being uncomfortable is awesome!  Only in retrospect, of course. The reality is that nobody else gives much of a shit about you, one way or the other.  This is great news, as with this mentality being shy proves pointless and sounding stupid is a type of sound that you hear the loudest.

In this case, in retrospect, the kids around the table were cool, and I would have loved to make a few friends.  At the time everyone was just a terrifyingly intimidating Spanish Speaker, and the more fluidly they relayed their messages, the dumber I'd look when I opened my yap.

I'm very slowly but surely starting to react with an inner laugh instead of a sigh at my many points of discomfort.  When I first got here I used to think that my confidence would grow alongside my Spanish, but it's been nearly 10 weeks since I first moved to Quito and I ain't a whole lot better in respect to either.  I had chosen some arbitrary point in the future when I'd jump at the opportunity to interact with locals with a carefree smile, but this arbitrary future point is always going to be in the future.  I will always be making mistakes, I will always sound, to some extent, like a gringa.  It's only a matter of not letting the inner AAAAAAAAAH scare you into taking on a different perception of reality. 

Furthermore, this is Ecuador.  If you do end up sounding stupid, they will laugh at you.  But they laugh in the same way anyone from the States would laugh if a friend were to accidentally spray Coke on themselves from their straws.  HA! Ya fool!  The whole ordeal would probably take up two goodnatured seconds, and then would never be thought about again. 

It's only self-conscious little me, a week later, replaying in my head how I mistakenly used the imperfect tense when I should have stuck with the preterite.  Well, poco a poco, they say.


And with that, que Dios les bendiga!

photo tour

Now I'm only a week behind!

Too much talking lately, pictures do it better: 

The stadium was packed as Ecuador beat Venezuela in the first World Cup qualifying game for 2014

Fútbol chants in a yellow world. Our entire section worked together to unfurl the country's flag. 

The competition was tough for the bebe del día award:

She won.

..but he was cute too.

Doggy didn't take any notice of the police surrounding the field.  He went for a stroll on the field while the game was in play.

Rolls of what seemed like receipt paper were distributed to act as makeshift streamers.  Bombs of the tricolor exploded in the crowd.

 On Saturday we took a $3 taxi from my house to the telefériQo, the cable cars I had gone up at the my first weekend here to get a view of Quito.  This time around, however, we had given our lungs enough time to get used to the altitude.  Instead of stopping at the mirador, we continued on a tough hike through the páramo to the top of Pichincha. 

15,406 feet above sea level!  Highest I've ever been.

Making friends along the way.

more páramo! My favorite landscape.

Quito in the faraway distance

Caracara circling the summit

the páramo princess lays to rest on a bed of moss

Cityscape