al infinito, y más, allá!

For those who didn't catch the title reference (e.g. anyone not born in the 90's), this is Buzz Lightyear's famed line recited while stuck in Spanish Mode in Toy Story 3.  Today marks one month of my stay in Quito and the past few weeks' series of adventures tells me that at this rate the discoveries are only getting bigger.  This weekend I've literally reached new heights.

After hopping on and off a total of four buses after class on Thursday, two friends and I finally wound up at this weekend's destination two hours north of Quito: the not-quite-world-famous Otavalo, known for its Saturday markets.  As it turns out, the shopping neared the bottom of weekend highlights, and at the summit of the list were a series of crater lakes and volcano hikes.  We arrived toward the tail-end of the festival of Yamor in Otavalo, a two-week celebration of what seemed to me to be music and..corn?  I am adding the significance of the festival to the list of things I never fully understand...

On Thursday evening the three of us just ate our avocado and queso fresco sandwiches on the roof of our hostel overlooking the city at nighttime, followed by a record-length 1.5 hr-long round of Egyptian Ratscrew.  Friday morning, we feasted on a breakfast of coffee, fresh juice, eggs, and cheese-with-bread for a solid $1.50 pp, and found a cab willing to drive us the half hour outside of the city, up rocky roads to the base of Cerro Fuya Fuya and the crater lake Mojanda for $10.  On our left there was a crystalline lake surrounded by mountainous peaks.  To our right, a tall cliff.  At the top we would reach 4,276 m--over 14,000 ft.  The only sign of human life was an idling blue tour bus.  As for the rest, the world was ours!  

View of lake Mojanda from FuyaFuya

Although it took a good half hour to find the trail (errr, a trail), the ascent was well worthwhile.  As it turns out we took the steep route, gaining altitude faster at some parts on all fours.  While I didn't admit this to my buddies, who have been running and/or otherwise been keeping active while in Quito, this was some of the toughest hiking of my life.  Granted, I've only ran one time while living in Quito, if we can call my 5-minute spouts "running," but my heart has never pounded so hard after only a few paces.  It's invaluable having travel buddies who, at points when I would contentedly claim, "wow, this was great!  Time to head back," they say, "I wonder what's over that peak over there."  We would then proceed to backtrack half an hour, slipping on the dew-covered grass, only to start another ascent from a different angle, catching views I wouldn't have thought to pursue.  My first instinct when they make these suggestions is "NO," but by now I know that saying "yes" is a habit I plan on keeping this semester, regardless of my whiny body.  And, of course, little frustrations seem to shrink to nothing at the end--it's always worth it to say yes.  It helps that, from them, I hear no complaints, no sore muscles, no hunger, only a thirst for more vistas, a sense of curiosity of that species of bird, a further inspection of the land type called "paramo," where grasses reign and some of the weirdest, surprisingly colorful plants flourish amongst the rocks.  I have never seen anything like this.  

At Fuya Fuya, there are two peaks--one of which you ought to have mountaineering equipment, and the other you can make it in sneakers.  In our sneakers, we accidentally pursued the wrong peak, scrambling over rocks as far as we could before exhaling and enjoying the view, as clouds rolled in and covered the view of the snow-capped volcano in the distance.  Fresh, albeit thin, air.  After dropping back down and meeting the "real" trail, we joined it and started chuggin' along, running into a group of touring expeditioners and passing them to the next peak.  I am not the one with the binoculars (although I'm sure she appreciated the sight much more than I did), so all I can say is that we saw some pretty big birds, and occasionally caught sight of hummingbirds.  On our drop back down, we heard some strange, large noise that wasn't quite wind, wasn't quite thunder.  Uh-oh.  That'd be the sound of rain on the faraway lake.  We had at least another km to go when it hit us, lightly.  It's all good, as we got to see bolts of lightning above the lake and thunder crack from all around, although it would have been a better idea to prepare for a ride back to Otavalo before waiting under a sign for 20 minutes.  Damp and frigid to the bone, needless to say the hostel shower felt damn good.  

A friendly, but pre-hired, taxi driver who called us a cab from the lake told us that there was a music festival going on in Otavalo.  This led to a pleasant hunt on foot for a high school that turned out to be across the city.  Otavalo, unlike Quito, is inviting to nighttime strollers, with its tiled sidewalks and street entertainers.  It's a cute place.  We met up with our night of traditional Ecuadorian music, where everyone else in the outdoor arena sang along to songs we'd never heard before.  I've never been into showy singer-entertainers who spend their time on stage encouraging the audience to clap their hands, so the first couple of women who repeatedly yelped "SI, SI SI SI! Donde esté la gente mas feliz?" received a less-than-feliz reaction from me.  However, for every mediocre singer there's a funky band with a maestro who knows how to tear shit up on the guitar.  The final group was a trio of matching men, and if you've ever tired from rock groups from the US, try Ecuadorians for a reinvention of the guitar.  

A vendor claiming these bugs heal ailments. Just cut'n'rub.

The Saturday market was, sure, big and stuff.  Vendors of fruits and vegetables, shoes and backpacks, artisan jewelry and paintings, and even animals for sale overtook blocks and blocks of road.  At Chichicastenango in Guatemala, the market really blew my mind, so maybe this time around the only reason I wasn't mindblown was the been-there, done-that sentiment.  I bought a pure Al Paca sweater that I later found out from my host mom is not real Al Paca (and was proven so by feeling her luxiously expensive blanket), but the whole bartering experience is a guaranteed sporty time.

We saw some other USFQ students, with bags and bags in hand, who claimed to have finished Christmas shopping in the one morning (ahem, in September).  One girl bought six little llamas dolls.  I'm enjoying the lack of STUFF of this trip, so apologies to all who don't receive knickknacks upon my return-- I'm just having too much fun without them!

Bobcat, or bird?

We taxi'd to Parque Condor in the afternoon, a reserve that only houses rescued or donated birds, from the most impressive birds of prey to some of the weirdest animals I've ever seen.  We saw the bird of Ecuador-- the condor, stretch out to almost its full wingspan (which can reach over 10ft!).  Our nonchalant timing was perfect, as we came just in time to see a bird show of more Ecuadorian folk with the coolest jobs ever.  Birdmen.  Owls, kestrels, eagles, more intricate species that I'd never remember, all perched on their forearms as they explained the bird's history and habits.

El Corazón del Imbabura

Amurrica!

We repeatedly ran into a group of 30 students from an organized program of another university, who met their tour bus outside the park after the show at a scheduled time.  We nixed the taxi and took the 5km walk back down to Otavalo, catching flocks of egrets take flight over the farmland, sights of a heart naturally built in to the side of a mountain, a view of San Pedro, where the annual swim across the lake would take place in the morning, and finally enjoying a pink sunset over the city of Otavalo as we made it back to the hostel.  I've grown more and more grateful of the fact that we've done this on our own.  I was nervous to come to Ecuador sans program (how would I ever make friends??), but the ability to acknowledge and pursue the activities I am interested in, and do so on our own planned scheduled based even on nothing more than hunches, is an incredibly empowering feeling.  Especially when the whole weekend probably cost less than their bus ride.  Wanna see condors this afternoon?  Hey, sure.  Wanna walk the hour home? Sure, why not? 

Saturday night we found another music festival, this time with a dancing crowd.  We added our rhythmless hips to the masses, and baile'd for hours.  I happily accepted a few Ecuadorians offers, and soon I was being twirled by a man at least three times my age.  Aside from the fact that I stepped in a huge pile of human poopie and had to spend half an hour late at night back at the hostel scrubbing my sneakers armed with nothing more than pieces of paper folded into a scrapey-tool, it was a great night.

The other side of Cuicocha

Sunday: a casi-4-hr walk around the more well-known hiking spot of Cuicocha, another crater lake whose surrounding mountain-parts have a clear path along their peaks.  I found that my patience has grown at least a teensy bit, as the breathtaking view trumped any budding annoyance as we stopped every time there was a bird noise so my bird-loving friends could label them as a long-nosed flower-piercer or whateverthefucktheywere.

 Back to Quito.. for now.