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
Monday, December 26, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
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.
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| Crabs befriending iguanas |
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| Sea lions are the best |
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| Can you tell which is rock, which is iguana? |
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| Same question, applied to giant tortoises |
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| proof that dinosaurs existed |
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| Pelicans, sea lions, and boobies are all excited for the leftovers at the fish market |
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| Sea turtle rape. I mean,"mating" by multiple males |
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| Blue-footed Booby! |
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| Frigatas! |
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| 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.
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| $5 hostel in Mompiche, 5 steps from the shore |
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| All ours |
I took the >8hr bus journey to the lovely Cuenca in southern Ecuador, visited Incan ruins, went to a Panama hat museum.
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| Mimicking "la Cara del Inca" |
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| Cuenca is known as the cultural capital of Ecuador |
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| National park Cajas, before the lightning and thunder settled in |
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| 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.
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| Not a seat unfilled at el Estadio Olimpico |
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| Got lost and accidentally climbed that hump. Huff puff |
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| The world is your oyster |
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| 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:
Saturday, November 12, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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| if Quito didn't exist, this terrain would extend for miles and miles |
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| Sharing the road with some asses. (look at the rope on the left) |
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.
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.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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!
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!
Friday, October 14, 2011
photo tour
Now I'm only a week behind!
Too much talking lately, pictures do it better:
The competition was tough for the bebe del día award:
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.
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. |
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| 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. |
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| Rolls of what seemed like receipt paper were distributed to act as makeshift streamers. Bombs of the tricolor exploded in the crowd. |
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| 15,406 feet above sea level! Highest I've ever been. |
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| Making friends along the way. |
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| more páramo! My favorite landscape. |
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| Quito in the faraway distance |
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| Caracara circling the summit |
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| the páramo princess lays to rest on a bed of moss |
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| Cityscape |
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Into the wild
September 30 - October 3 I spent the weekend in the Amazon rain forest. For sheer laziness, I'm stealing the intro written by a biologist:
"The Tiputini Biodiversity Station is a logistical marvel. Off the grid and located deep in the Ecuadorean Amazon, it was built in the mid-1990s as part of a partnership between the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Boston University to support in situ tropical ecology research and education. From its position on the Río Tiputini, along the margin of Yasuní National Park, the camp occupies a strategic vantage point for keeping tabs on a major artery of access to the park, which is the largest reserve in the amazingly biodiverse western Amazon."
As far as the rest goes, I'm mainly stealing poorly written bits from my journal, so bear with me. And, since my camera decided not to function only during those four days, the pictures are stolen from friends of mine who came on the trip.
Friday morning:
Up at 4:45am, and many different modes of transportation later, including a walk, taxi, 20-min flight, taxi, motorized canoe for 2 hrs, chiva (doorless truck with benches) for 2 hrs, boat for 2 more hrs, at long last we arrived to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station at 4:30pm, amidst thunder booming, cannon-like, through our bones, lightning filling the sky, and rain bringing the group of us huddled together in the back of the open boat.
The university offers 4-day opportunities to its exchange students to visit TBS. I came in a snug group of 6, including my one birding friend who noted 20 life-birds (the first time seeing a certain species) within the first day. This probably equates 50 life-birds decorating the journey for me, but I actually ahh'd at probably 6, including a few pairs of blue-and-yellow macaws. Apparently macaws are hunted to sell as pets in the States and Europe, and their illegal smuggling through the airport means only one of every 10 scarlet macaws actually makes it to the pet store. The rest die along the way, wrapped up in tape or otherwise mistreated en route. Most likely, the more awesome the creature, the crazier its journey to the store. Just a little food for thought.
Back to the jungle.
Upon leaving the plane my nose was happily greeted by a wave of thick, warm air. The air in high-altitude Quito is thin, my Kleenex tissues are often a bit bloody, or otherwise filled with some black gunk from the pollution (sorry, guys). The extra moisture in the air was much welcomed, and even the heat was a welcome change.
The first thing I noticed when disembarking from the canoe was the sudden swarm of bugs. What a foreign sight, especially since Quito is virtually barren of ants, mosquitoes, spiders, even.
We really roughed it with the jungle fare--pizza, pancakes, tofu for us snobby vegetarians, and other unmentioned gringo-friendly meals. There were a bunch of other kids from an SIT Tropical Ecology study abroad program there. Their itinerary for the semester includes one week in the cloud forest, one in Galapagos, and one here, along with a project of their own (internship w/ the indigenous, environmental work, etc). It all sounds amazing, but having taken one peek at the pricetag back in March makes me think I can do all of that with thousands to spare! Plus there's some sort of satisfaction in doing it all on your own, anyway.
At 8:32pm, the four of us chicas sharing a cabin were scibbling away in our respective bunks, recording the adventure that had yet to even begin. Buenas Noches.
Rise and shine at 6am. The rigidly set feeding schedule (a bit zoo- or prison-like) had us at the table at 6:30am, noon, and 7pm. We started our morning hike with Jose, my future husband, who proceeded to guide us through all of our explorations that weekend. All of the trail names were named after animals or interesting plant species seen on the trail. We headed out on Anaconda toward a laguna, where an almost jokingly picturesque canoe was left ready to be borrowed and returned. I am directly pasting a post made by Lisa, the madwoman/angel who kept a record of our sightings and/or interactions. It's a bit bird-heavy cuz, well, to each his own, but hohhh man this place was "llena de vida."
Birds
Friday, 9-30-11
Mammals
Reptiles/Amphibians
Caimans
Pitt viper
Tree runner (lizard)
Sapo de riñuelo
Emerald tree boa
Insects
swarms of “confetti”-like butterflies (yellow, white, light green)
Blue morpho butterfly
blue/black/white butterfly, red on outside of wings
green/black/white swallowtail-like butterfly
tarantula
araña loba (wolf spider)
molting grillo
conga ants (bullet ants)
very pretty dangerous centipede
araña tejedora (weaver spider)
araña scorpión
banana spider
Plants
white hollow mushroom called pena de diablo that only lives 1 day
El jardín del Diablo: tree with lemon ants
arbol de tisa, hueso de muerte (fungus on particular tree)
coca
curare: poisonous vine, wood used to make poison darts for blowgun
plant that causes hives/welts
plant that turns your tongue blue
palm used to make our bracelets
rubber tree
matapalo
In the afternoon we headed up 40m worth of stairs to the top of a looking tower, but instead of watching monkeys choose the trees in which they'd rest for the night, we got swarmed in "bichos," aka pesky bugs who enjoy swarming more than actually biting or stinging. I did, however, get stung by a sweat bee, and joined a few of the girls who descended early on the solid ground. Even though my bugspray shower was working, I can only dedicate a certain amount of time being fascinated by far away birds. Sorry fellas.
We embarked on a nighttime boat ride to meet the nocturnal folk. Forever-more-manly Jose flashed a floodlight into the darkness on the sides of the river, and we were met by reflecting night eyes, staring at us from the sidelines. The lamp scanned treetops, river, shoreline, and managed to catch even the tiniest brown bird from across the river. We saw caimen slipping into the water, finally catching sight of one on land. We crept the canoe closer, and in its default move to disappear into water to hide, the caiman trapped himself between the boat and the sand. Gotcha. Silver eyes. Nostrils peeking above the water. A looong mouth. Teeth.
Jose managed to do this again with another guy, much smaller this time. He hopped out without a second thought and snatched'm. We proceeded to take cheesy pictures as we passed the unhappy amphibian around.
The animal wonders continued, but for much of this my eyes weren't following the light. Head tilted back, mouth open at the incredible starscape. Again, compared to smog-central Quito, this was unreal. This far south we see a different set of stars than the usual Orion's belt of Massachusetts. Here there's virtually no human activity-- not even roads reach the Tiputini Station. Ohh, so that's what the rest of the universe should look like.
In the morning it was off to the puentes, a series of four bridges connected by platforms on high trees. Geared up in harnesses, we were instructed to hook our carabiners to steel cables that run along the thin bridges as we bounce along, only to act as insurance to protect our precious gringo lives. The bichos found us once again, this time bringing their waspy friends along.
To return we took what Jose called a secret trail, which apparently only he could see/navigate. To us it just looked like, well, jungle. He grew up further east in the Orient. His mother, he joked, would slap him with a spiney plant (that he proceeded to test on us, giving everyone minor ((and some, major)) hives) when he was lazy. This only goes to show that the rain forest wasn't just learned as a job, but this is the homeland, man.
We ate a piece of coca leaf (yes, as in cocaine) that the indigenous folk use here as a stimulant (no, as in caffeine). We also ate a piece of a liana that is used to make curare-the poison in poison darts! The Huaorani tribe would (still do?) scrape the bark from the vine, prepare the yellow flesh inside by reducing a tea-like substance over a fire. What remains is a thick liquid into which they'd dip pieces of palm stalk. Voila. Then they'd aim for the trees. Soon, however, the monkeys got smart. They'd pull out the darts before the poison could settle in their systems. But alas, the human race prevails. The tribe began to perforate the palm, ensuring the "dart" would break off halway, leaving the curare to seep in its furry victims. This leads to sleepiness, peepeeness and poopiness, until the monkeys finally drop from the treetops to the dirt.
But, I digress. Continuing on with things we put in our mouths:
We spent two minutes "masticando" the inside of another plant with the group, unsure of its consequence until we spat to the ground. Expecting numbness or a strong flavor, we lol-ed when we looked at each other, surprised to find our mouths were completely blue. We now have a picture of 6 gringos sticking out blue tongues.
Lemon ants-yum yum! The other vegetarian in the group said "but I'm a vegetarian," until I licked my finger, stuck it in the branch, and snagged only a few specimen. Certain trees have these little packets in the bark of their branches which the ants like to call home. In exchange, the ants "clean" the entire surrounding area, their formic acid killing every other plant in a 10ft radius. A true symbiotic relationship indeed. This also makes for a quick, easily recognizable, lemony snack!
To the right is an example of the many trees that looked like they were cut'n'pasted from Avatar, sprawled across the rain forest. A milky liquid runs like blood from its trunk when you make an incision, and the roots are so high and grand above the ground they can run for over a kilometer. Apparently the soil in the Amazon is really poor-- only the top 14-23 cm has nutrients for plants because, although there is plenty of organic matter on the ground, the humidity and sheer quantity of plants makes for very quick nutrient uptake. Therefore, these roots take advantage of the top, meanwhile giving the tree the necessary stability. These guys never fall over.
A similar-looking tree bled white as well, but this is the "arbol del condon," as Jose said. The sap dries into a gluey substance, or latex. Ha!
We crossed matapalo's path (literally, a trail named Matapalo) a few times-- this is a parasitic vine that begins growing alongside a tree, slowly wrapping fully around, sucking out its nutrients. The fully grown tree dies, and we're left with a hollow casing, apparently climbable from the inside.
For a good ten minutes on the path, we walked alongside a massive army of ants (a small horde, says Jose, would have 400 million of these 6-legged citizens). Their neatly organized army, carrying cargo at the time, is capable of attacking and consuming snakes and rodents and frogs, together as one organism.
Bullet ants, the biggest in the world, are capable of giving 12 hours of excruciating pain to its victim in one bite. Jose identified a regular-looking tree and instructed the boys to give it a few good kicks to the truck. Out spewed a handful. A small army has 200 of these babies.
In the middle of the path, a pit viper. One of the Amazon's deadliest. He was a little guy, curled up. Aaw, cute.
Floating in life jackets down the river sounds lovely, but every potentially cool animal was "just a bird"- haha, sorry my dear birding friend. We all instantly fell into a vicious cycle of having to pee, not swimming to keep warm because we had to pee so much, thus feeling more cold, thus having to pee even more. I don't know how it happens, but sometimes it feels like the body expends a disproportionate amount of energy warming the bladder. So then, idiot, why didn't you just pee, you ask? Well, apparently there are what were described to me as "little fish" but what I believe is a parasite who, attracted to the stream of pee, swims up your urethra and hooks on.
After an hour, the boat was flagged, we hopped on, pulled over at the nearest sand bank, and really got to know each other as us girls clustered up, squatted, and probably stepped all over each other's pee. Hey, it's the jungle. Hygiene doesn't matter..right?
Huddled for body warmth on the way back. Damn you, skinny friends.
AND TO THE GRAND FINALE. Let's just say the nightlife was wild. Here are the highlights of our creepy-crawly night crawl, stolen from a few friends whose cameras didn't decide to break just for the journey:
Armed with only a dim bulb from a dying flashlight (someone's extra, as I'm the genius who didn't bring a flashlight to the rain forest), I relied on the strong, heavenly flashlight of the girl in front of me to see where to place my feet in front of me. All else was black. Even when the beam of light wasn't directed at the many species of crap-your-pants spiders that we saw, I could feel the life teeming on either side of me, not to mention up, down, behind... Just knowing that there was a whole different crowd roaming the rain forest at night--from the treetops to bushes, to the soil at boot-level, was enough to make me reevaluate my comfort level. There were critters waiting patiently for their prey to take the wrong step, or critters actively prowling for someone slower, smaller, yummier. I don't know what was to my immediate left, and I could only assume that flapping noise was just a bat. While walking, I felt like I flew back in time, emotionally, to when I was five years-old. I used to be sure that since I couldn't see what was in my closet, it was ET, or that creepy ventriloquist from Goosebumps.
This fear of the dark, since then, has been completely lacking in my life, sketchy men in sketchy neighborhoods aside. I was severely uncomfortable at the time, but rational enough to think: okay, this is the coolest thing I have ever gotten the opportunity to do. So, I shut myself up and started to let the spook run through me.
After all, even the cutest jungle animals, like the monkeys and the tamarinds and the capibaras, exist at night, too. Nobody ever thinks about that. Those guys are into daytime and all, but they're not afraid. What's fear when you live in the wild? It's just time to go to sleep, and ignore the other world that passes while the sun is down. Okay, maybe I wasn't exactly in the mindset of a 5 year-old, this may have been a bit too...meta.
Of all of my experiences so far in this country--from mountaintops to music festivals, hospitals to home life, fútbol games to forests in the clouds, I never learned to appreciate an area and a way of life like I did in Yasuní. Granted, I couldn't imagine living longterm in a place where your clothes can hang for hours and remain soaked, the handsoap, shampoo, and conditioner all come from the same bottle, and your closest friends have multiple legs, but this was a glimpse into a world filled with life at every crevice, a world that never sleeps, a world where humans don't reign.
The craziest part of all, though, is that the Yasuni region of the rain forest is in danger, and we are the bad guys. The most informative websites aren't written in English, but check this out:
http://www.sosyasuni.org/en/index.php
I heard an analogy that equated the potential construction of a road through this natural haven to slitting an artery in a human body and letting it bleed. To think that conservation efforts to prevent oil exploitation in one of the few remaining untouched locations on the planet might not prevail is sickening.
"The Tiputini Biodiversity Station is a logistical marvel. Off the grid and located deep in the Ecuadorean Amazon, it was built in the mid-1990s as part of a partnership between the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Boston University to support in situ tropical ecology research and education. From its position on the Río Tiputini, along the margin of Yasuní National Park, the camp occupies a strategic vantage point for keeping tabs on a major artery of access to the park, which is the largest reserve in the amazingly biodiverse western Amazon."
As far as the rest goes, I'm mainly stealing poorly written bits from my journal, so bear with me. And, since my camera decided not to function only during those four days, the pictures are stolen from friends of mine who came on the trip.
Friday morning:Up at 4:45am, and many different modes of transportation later, including a walk, taxi, 20-min flight, taxi, motorized canoe for 2 hrs, chiva (doorless truck with benches) for 2 hrs, boat for 2 more hrs, at long last we arrived to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station at 4:30pm, amidst thunder booming, cannon-like, through our bones, lightning filling the sky, and rain bringing the group of us huddled together in the back of the open boat.
The university offers 4-day opportunities to its exchange students to visit TBS. I came in a snug group of 6, including my one birding friend who noted 20 life-birds (the first time seeing a certain species) within the first day. This probably equates 50 life-birds decorating the journey for me, but I actually ahh'd at probably 6, including a few pairs of blue-and-yellow macaws. Apparently macaws are hunted to sell as pets in the States and Europe, and their illegal smuggling through the airport means only one of every 10 scarlet macaws actually makes it to the pet store. The rest die along the way, wrapped up in tape or otherwise mistreated en route. Most likely, the more awesome the creature, the crazier its journey to the store. Just a little food for thought.
Back to the jungle.
Upon leaving the plane my nose was happily greeted by a wave of thick, warm air. The air in high-altitude Quito is thin, my Kleenex tissues are often a bit bloody, or otherwise filled with some black gunk from the pollution (sorry, guys). The extra moisture in the air was much welcomed, and even the heat was a welcome change.
The first thing I noticed when disembarking from the canoe was the sudden swarm of bugs. What a foreign sight, especially since Quito is virtually barren of ants, mosquitoes, spiders, even.
 | |
| Funky lizard outside the cabin |
At 8:32pm, the four of us chicas sharing a cabin were scibbling away in our respective bunks, recording the adventure that had yet to even begin. Buenas Noches.
Rise and shine at 6am. The rigidly set feeding schedule (a bit zoo- or prison-like) had us at the table at 6:30am, noon, and 7pm. We started our morning hike with Jose, my future husband, who proceeded to guide us through all of our explorations that weekend. All of the trail names were named after animals or interesting plant species seen on the trail. We headed out on Anaconda toward a laguna, where an almost jokingly picturesque canoe was left ready to be borrowed and returned. I am directly pasting a post made by Lisa, the madwoman/angel who kept a record of our sightings and/or interactions. It's a bit bird-heavy cuz, well, to each his own, but hohhh man this place was "llena de vida."
Birds
Friday, 9-30-11
- Brown-chested martin
- White-winged swallow
- Bat falcon
- Black vulture
- Southern rough-winged swallow
- Osprey
- Cattle egret
- Yellow-rumped cacique
- Lesser kiskadee
- Blue-gray tanager
- Yellow-browed sparrow
- Sungrebe
- Ringed kingfisher
- Tropical kingbird
- Blue and yellow macaw
- Amazon kingfisher
- Cocoi heron
- Slate-colored hawk
- White-banded swallow
- tinamou (species?)
- Common piping guan
- Russet-backed oropendola
- Speckled chachalaca
- Scarlet macaw
- Hoatzin
- Black caracara
- Greater kiskadee
- Greater ani
- Lineated woodpecker
- Red-capped cardinal
- Crimson masked tanager
- Rufescent tiger heron
- Orange-winged parrots
- Scale-backed antbird
- White-fronted nun bird
- White-browed purpletuft
- Blue dacnis
- Yellow-bellied tanager
- White-lored euphonia
- gilded barbet
- Bare-necked fruit crow
- White-throated toucan
- Ladder-tailed nightjar
- Rufous-bellied euphonia
- Red-bellied macaw
- Black-fronted nunbird
- Buff-throated woodcreeper
- Olive-faced flatbill
- Eastern wood-pewee
- Spotted sandpiper
- Cobalt-winged parakeet
- Striated heron
- Amazonian white-tailed trogon
- Red-throated caracara
- Roadside hawk
- White-necked jacobin
- hummingbird (species?) on nest
- trumpeters
Mammals
- Pink river dolphin
- Common woolly monkey
- Long-nosed bat
- other kinds of bats (species?)
- Amazon red squirrel
- Agouti
- Spider monkey
- Squirrel monkey
- Howler monkey (heard)
- Red-mantled tamarinds
- nocturnal monkey
- 2 tapirs
- capibara with 2 babies
Reptiles/AmphibiansCaimans
Pitt viper
Tree runner (lizard)
Sapo de riñuelo
Emerald tree boa
Insectsswarms of “confetti”-like butterflies (yellow, white, light green)
Blue morpho butterfly
blue/black/white butterfly, red on outside of wings
green/black/white swallowtail-like butterfly
tarantula
araña loba (wolf spider)molting grillo
conga ants (bullet ants)
very pretty dangerous centipede
araña tejedora (weaver spider)
araña scorpión
banana spiderPlants
white hollow mushroom called pena de diablo that only lives 1 day
El jardín del Diablo: tree with lemon ants
arbol de tisa, hueso de muerte (fungus on particular tree)
coca
curare: poisonous vine, wood used to make poison darts for blowgun
plant that causes hives/welts
plant that turns your tongue blue
palm used to make our bracelets
rubber tree
matapalo
In the afternoon we headed up 40m worth of stairs to the top of a looking tower, but instead of watching monkeys choose the trees in which they'd rest for the night, we got swarmed in "bichos," aka pesky bugs who enjoy swarming more than actually biting or stinging. I did, however, get stung by a sweat bee, and joined a few of the girls who descended early on the solid ground. Even though my bug
We embarked on a nighttime boat ride to meet the nocturnal folk. Forever-more-manly Jose flashed a floodlight into the darkness on the sides of the river, and we were met by reflecting night eyes, staring at us from the sidelines. The lamp scanned treetops, river, shoreline, and managed to catch even the tiniest brown bird from across the river. We saw caimen slipping into the water, finally catching sight of one on land. We crept the canoe closer, and in its default move to disappear into water to hide, the caiman trapped himself between the boat and the sand. Gotcha. Silver eyes. Nostrils peeking above the water. A looong mouth. Teeth. 
Jose managed to do this again with another guy, much smaller this time. He hopped out without a second thought and snatched'm. We proceeded to take cheesy pictures as we passed the unhappy amphibian around.The animal wonders continued, but for much of this my eyes weren't following the light. Head tilted back, mouth open at the incredible starscape. Again, compared to smog-central Quito, this was unreal. This far south we see a different set of stars than the usual Orion's belt of Massachusetts. Here there's virtually no human activity-- not even roads reach the Tiputini Station. Ohh, so that's what the rest of the universe should look like.
In the morning it was off to the puentes, a series of four bridges connected by platforms on high trees. Geared up in harnesses, we were instructed to hook our carabiners to steel cables that run along the thin bridges as we bounce along, only to act as insurance to protect our precious gringo lives. The bichos found us once again, this time bringing their waspy friends along.To return we took what Jose called a secret trail, which apparently only he could see/navigate. To us it just looked like, well, jungle. He grew up further east in the Orient. His mother, he joked, would slap him with a spiney plant (that he proceeded to test on us, giving everyone minor ((and some, major)) hives) when he was lazy. This only goes to show that the rain forest wasn't just learned as a job, but this is the homeland, man.
We ate a piece of coca leaf (yes, as in cocaine) that the indigenous folk use here as a stimulant (no, as in caffeine). We also ate a piece of a liana that is used to make curare-the poison in poison darts! The Huaorani tribe would (still do?) scrape the bark from the vine, prepare the yellow flesh inside by reducing a tea-like substance over a fire. What remains is a thick liquid into which they'd dip pieces of palm stalk. Voila. Then they'd aim for the trees. Soon, however, the monkeys got smart. They'd pull out the darts before the poison could settle in their systems. But alas, the human race prevails. The tribe began to perforate the palm, ensuring the "dart" would break off halway, leaving the curare to seep in its furry victims. This leads to sleepiness, peepeeness and poopiness, until the monkeys finally drop from the treetops to the dirt.
But, I digress. Continuing on with things we put in our mouths:
We spent two minutes "masticando" the inside of another plant with the group, unsure of its consequence until we spat to the ground. Expecting numbness or a strong flavor, we lol-ed when we looked at each other, surprised to find our mouths were completely blue. We now have a picture of 6 gringos sticking out blue tongues.
Lemon ants-yum yum! The other vegetarian in the group said "but I'm a vegetarian," until I licked my finger, stuck it in the branch, and snagged only a few specimen. Certain trees have these little packets in the bark of their branches which the ants like to call home. In exchange, the ants "clean" the entire surrounding area, their formic acid killing every other plant in a 10ft radius. A true symbiotic relationship indeed. This also makes for a quick, easily recognizable, lemony snack!
A similar-looking tree bled white as well, but this is the "arbol del condon," as Jose said. The sap dries into a gluey substance, or latex. Ha!
We crossed matapalo's path (literally, a trail named Matapalo) a few times-- this is a parasitic vine that begins growing alongside a tree, slowly wrapping fully around, sucking out its nutrients. The fully grown tree dies, and we're left with a hollow casing, apparently climbable from the inside.For a good ten minutes on the path, we walked alongside a massive army of ants (a small horde, says Jose, would have 400 million of these 6-legged citizens). Their neatly organized army, carrying cargo at the time, is capable of attacking and consuming snakes and rodents and frogs, together as one organism.
Bullet ants, the biggest in the world, are capable of giving 12 hours of excruciating pain to its victim in one bite. Jose identified a regular-looking tree and instructed the boys to give it a few good kicks to the truck. Out spewed a handful. A small army has 200 of these babies.
In the middle of the path, a pit viper. One of the Amazon's deadliest. He was a little guy, curled up. Aaw, cute.Floating in life jackets down the river sounds lovely, but every potentially cool animal was "just a bird"- haha, sorry my dear birding friend. We all instantly fell into a vicious cycle of having to pee, not swimming to keep warm because we had to pee so much, thus feeling more cold, thus having to pee even more. I don't know how it happens, but sometimes it feels like the body expends a disproportionate amount of energy warming the bladder. So then, idiot, why didn't you just pee, you ask? Well, apparently there are what were described to me as "little fish" but what I believe is a parasite who, attracted to the stream of pee, swims up your urethra and hooks on.
After an hour, the boat was flagged, we hopped on, pulled over at the nearest sand bank, and really got to know each other as us girls clustered up, squatted, and probably stepped all over each other's pee. Hey, it's the jungle. Hygiene doesn't matter..right?
Huddled for body warmth on the way back. Damn you, skinny friends.
AND TO THE GRAND FINALE. Let's just say the nightlife was wild. Here are the highlights of our creepy-crawly night crawl, stolen from a few friends whose cameras didn't decide to break just for the journey:
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| Saw this weaving spider shoot to a trapped moth at lightning speed, wrapping it up in a cocoon within 20 seconds. He returned to his neutral state, upside-down, in the middle of his enormous web. Video to come. |
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| Triple threat: venomous centipede, wolf spider, and just out of the picture, to the right, a bullet ant. |
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| The top half is the "used" body of this molting insect. |
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| I don't even remember his story but he was BIG |
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| Green tree boa constrictor. The guide was excited, as this was his second time in 4 years seeing a boa |
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| Y'all already know who this is... |
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| Scorpion spider, and that's a biiig tree |
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| Banana spider |
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| Our guide threw down a headlamp for a bit of perspective. This toad is BIGGER THAN YOUR HEAD. |
This fear of the dark, since then, has been completely lacking in my life, sketchy men in sketchy neighborhoods aside. I was severely uncomfortable at the time, but rational enough to think: okay, this is the coolest thing I have ever gotten the opportunity to do. So, I shut myself up and started to let the spook run through me.
After all, even the cutest jungle animals, like the monkeys and the tamarinds and the capibaras, exist at night, too. Nobody ever thinks about that. Those guys are into daytime and all, but they're not afraid. What's fear when you live in the wild? It's just time to go to sleep, and ignore the other world that passes while the sun is down. Okay, maybe I wasn't exactly in the mindset of a 5 year-old, this may have been a bit too...meta.
Of all of my experiences so far in this country--from mountaintops to music festivals, hospitals to home life, fútbol games to forests in the clouds, I never learned to appreciate an area and a way of life like I did in Yasuní. Granted, I couldn't imagine living longterm in a place where your clothes can hang for hours and remain soaked, the handsoap, shampoo, and conditioner all come from the same bottle, and your closest friends have multiple legs, but this was a glimpse into a world filled with life at every crevice, a world that never sleeps, a world where humans don't reign.
The craziest part of all, though, is that the Yasuni region of the rain forest is in danger, and we are the bad guys. The most informative websites aren't written in English, but check this out:
http://www.sosyasuni.org/en/index.php
I heard an analogy that equated the potential construction of a road through this natural haven to slitting an artery in a human body and letting it bleed. To think that conservation efforts to prevent oil exploitation in one of the few remaining untouched locations on the planet might not prevail is sickening.
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