Making a List, Checking It Twice

I'm a list maker.  Always have been.  And I know that something big is coming when I'm up to my neck in lists, and when I'm actually crossing things off of them!  The end is coming... It feels weird.  I'm ready to come home.  Not in the sense that I'm homesick, just in the sense that this trip seems to have reached its natural conclusion, and at this point I want to come back and start telling all my stories!  At the same time, it's hard to leave something that has become your normal, day-to-day life, and there is a lot that I will miss.  Among the things I have yet to do are a couple last minute trips.

Yesterday I got back from Baños, a town tucked into the mountains right alongside the volcano Tungurahua.  Baños has 2 reputations: Extreme Sports (bridge jumping, rock climbing, rafting, etc.), and Tourist Party Town.  Neither of those really interest me.  But it's also supposed to be a pretty area, and it's at the base of a volcano that's currently starting to erupt, so I thought it could be interesting for a day.  I got on the bus at 4:15am because Luke and I were both going the same direction and figured we could keep each other company on the 7-hour ride.  Everything went smoothly and I stepped off into a rainstorm in the early afternoon.  I decided to stop for some food and found a cute and funky little place with a sweet owner who gave me all sorts of tips for what to do in the town and how to do it.  She also made a fruit salad with all natural ice cream and little colored tube cookies on top, so that certainly helped!  I walked up the hill to a hostel she had recommended, where I got a room and took a 3-hour nap.  In my defense, I had practically not slept the week before.  But yes, 3 hours was probably a bit excessive...

One of the "activities" the hotel offered, like most of the hotels in Baños, was a nighttime bus tour on a chiva, basically an open-air party bus.  I had mentally declined when the lady at reception mentioned it to me, but when I finally got up from my nap I decided to stop being antisocial and give it a try.  Worst case scenario, it would only last 2 hours.  I had 2 more hours to kill before the bus would leave, so I decided to go find some dinner.  Now, a little backstory: while watching a video about Ecuador last spring with my mom, who was pre-screening it for her class, I learned, to my horror and dismay, that they eat guinea pig!  I was disgusted.  But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I was intrigued as well.  After I had been here for awhile, I had reached the point where I sort of wanted to try it, just to say that I did.  However, they don't eat it in the coastal region; we didn't have a chance to find it in Riobamba; I was in a group and we were all sick in Cuenca; and there was even a place in Galapagos, but the 1 night it was open when I was on that island, I had been invited to tag along for dinner with some new friends!  So, this was just about my last chance.  

I asked the hotel lady if there was a place that served it, and she said yes!  But it was probably out by now; I could try earlier in the day tomorrow.  Another guy staying at the hotel was on his way into the center of town, so he offered to show me where it was, and we were surprised to see that there were about 1 1/2 of them on the grill! (just don't ask how I estimated "1 1/2.")  I ordered a portion - I wasn't ready for a whole one.  For one thing, I wasn't that hungry, and for another, I don't think I could have handled it mentally.  But I was game for a piece.  I think it was a back leg, served over rice and potato with a little salad.  So I tried it. And it was weird.  Not bad, though. Salty, very flavorful.  The texture of chicken, but really fatty and greasy like pork. And there's this extremely tough leathery skin that you have to attempt to remove without shooting clumps of rice across the table (something at which I failed).  It was also kind of funny explaining to this guy that yes, I'm technically a vegetarian, but it's out of preference more than anything else, so this was still okay and I wasn't going to be smited or anything.  But I'm proud of myself for trying it, and delighted at the horror and disgust of the people I've told about it.  (Comments are welcome below!)

I went back and hopped on the Chiva tour, which blasted club music as it drove us up into the mountains.  We went to a lookout point where you can see the volcano when it's not cloudy, but it was cloudy and drizzling.  Which also meant the bonfire was a no-go.  So instead, they had a duo perform a little comedy routine, which was rather funny.  And I was tickled that I understood so much of it!  We came back and I met up with the guy from the hotel, his girlfriend, and a group of her friends.  Later on, I met a group from California who said they were planning to go biking along the Ruta de Las Cascadas the next morning, which had been my plan, so they invited me along.  I figured it couldn't hurt.  Well, I woke up feeling the effects of the puro, which just doesn't agree with me, even in small amounts.  I was going to find them and say I'd probably run into them later on along the route, but then I decided to suck it up and go.  So I waited around for them... a little after 9:30 i told the hotel lady I was going to find some breakfast and to please relay the message if they appeared.  My "20 minute" breakfast that I'd promised the lady turned into almost an hour (I totally dig the Ecuadorian sense of time!  It's so relaxing, and she didn't think anything of it), and they still hadn't emerged.  So I decided it was for the best, and I'd go alone, like I'd wanted to originally.  On my way out the door, I ran into them again and they explained.  I felt like I was an extra in Dude, Where's My Car?! 2.  "You know our friend Travis, who we mentioned?" he started, in stereotypical California surferdude accent. "Well, we lost him last night..."  "What?!?!"  "Yeah, he never came back to the hotel.  But he does this sort of thing a lot... He probably just got lost and found another hotel. But, we sorta have to go find him, so I don't think we're biking today."  After the concern wore off, it was really kinda funny.  And Baños is a small enough place that I'm sure they found him.

I went about halfway through the entire route - it's long and tough at times - but it was enough.  It's mostly biking along the interstate, with a waterfall and a viewing point every few kilometers.  But it's gorgeous along the bike path, winding through teeny towns that lie alongside the busy road, gazing up into green, majestic mountains.  I was starting to feel pressed for time, though, so I headed back, returned the gear, and made my way to the bus station.  On the way, I stopped and picked up some gooey fruit stuff (I have to ask what fruit it is) that's like a brick of fruit leather and really tasty, and a bag full of pieces of sugarcane.  I especially like the sugarcane.  It's great toy food!  The pieces are 1-2 inches long, and you chew and suck on it to extract the sweet, fresh-tasting juice from the tough, fibrous stalk.  And on the loooooong ride back home, it was a good way to pass the time.

Today was my last Sunday Lunch with the family!  It was a smallish affair, but a very nice time.  They made a vegetarian Christmas dish in my honor - a pasta casserole with a stripe each of red, white, and green sauce (tomato, ricotta cheese, and pesto).  And this morning, Pilar showed me how to make her version of tres leches cake.  The way she makes it, it's more like Cinco Leches con Durazno cake!  It was AMAZING!!!  I'm looking forward to making it at home, so all of you can feel free to invite yourselves over!

Tomorrow, after a couple of errands and prep-type things, I'm headed to the coast to go to Machalilla National Park.  I found a quote that seems to sum up one of the recurring themes of this whole trip, and one which I hope to carry with me now that I've begun to learn it: “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”  It's the journey, not the destination, that we remember and that leaves its mark on us.  It's time we all learned to cherish it and ourselves as we navigate through it.

Deja tus Huellas

The New Years custom here is to purchase an Año Viejo - literally, "old year," which in this case is a big piñata thing with really hard sides.  They can be anywhere from the size of a regular piñata to the size of a house.  I kid you not.  They are usually in the form of cartoon characters or well-known and well-loathed public figures.  A family will buy one, stuff it with firecrackers, and then light it at midnight.  The symbolism is that the doll represents all of the bad things of the previous year, and by burning it you rid yourself of all of that and welcome in the new year.  In practice, it's an excuse to blow something up.  But it does seem like a big part of the celebration: one of the biggest parties on New Year's Eve is in Salinas, one of the beach towns, and at midnight the whole beach is lit up with fireworks.

A couple weeks ago we went on another trip with the program.  I use the term "we" very loosely here: Luke didn't feel well so he didn't come; Amanda slept late and missed our departure.  So it ended up being me, Daniela, Janett, Luis, and Teresita, the Korean nun.  This sounds like the set-up to a really good joke...  But it turned out to be a good group.  We went to Puerto El Morro, a teeny little town along the estuary where you can see dolphins!  Very cool.  We ate fresh seafood overlooking the place it had been mere hours before.  Then we pushed on to Playas, another beach town.  I went swimming while the others relaxed for a little bit.  We ate empanadas and then came back, exhausted but happy.

The empanadas were good, especially after Janett explained to me that the "monos" (people from the coastal region) like to sprinkle sugar on their cheese empanadas - that brightened things right up!  One of my food addictions that is going to be hard to break back in the States, since it should be a regular food item everywhere if you ask me, is Yogurt Persa.  They use a base of the tangy, fresh-tasting European-style yogurt, add fruit or honey if you want (I usually order it natural, with nuthin'), and then buzz it up in the blender for a minute or two to make it the consistency of a milkshake; it's dreamy!  The classic here is to serve it with pan de yuca, little puff balls of bread made from yuca (aka cassava aka manioc aka tapioca root) and parmesan cheese.  It is one of the best snacks I've ever had!  Maybe I'll just have to open up my own franchise in Woodstock...  One of the food items I will NOT miss is the pop.  Sure, there's Coke and Sprite and the typical American stuff.  But there are also a couple brands of violently yellow pop that taste like fizzy circus peanuts.  And while going out for pizza one night with our urban regeneration teacher, we discovered a classic Ecuadorian "apple" flavored soda.  It's so "classic" that you can't find it in the cities anymore, just in the smaller towns.  After trying it, I wasn't surprised: it tastes like damp, stale carpet.  So maybe I'm just not very open-minded when it comes to pop, but I'll just go ahead and skip those in the future.

The latest addition to the Ecuador Bucket List: city-wide transportation difficulties.  M.O.: broken bridge along the main road in the neighborhood of Urdesa.  Fortunately, it is still walkable, so I could get to school.  But it cuts off Urdesa from the rest of the city, so to get in or out by car you have to go all the way around through the next neighborhood.  For example, when bringing projects to school, I can ride in a taxi for about 5 minutes to get there.  Now, it takes at least 20.  Add this construction detour to the wild holiday traffic and it's gotten pretty tricky.

The last night of classes we went out for dinner with the teachers.  (Another example of the traffic situation: it took Luke and me almost 90 minutes to drop something off at his house, drop something off at my house, then go to the restaurant which would be a 10 minute walk.)  Great food!  I think all of us ordered menestra (bean stuff with rice and some type of meat or fish) except one teacher, who shared a huge plate of meat with her husband.  Then two of the teachers and Luke and I went on to a funky little bar/restaurant along the road that runs along the base of the hill that contains Las Peñas.  It was a riot trying to take a group picture, between the waiter not understanding how to focus the camera, the flash making us all look orange and shiny, and the sans-flash photos finding movement that I'm pretty sure wasn't there.  Even though Luke and I will still technically be around for another week, it was a nice official close to the program.  Earlier that day, Janett had come up to us and explained that of course they will miss us, but we had truly left footprints on the program and with them.  She was deeply touched by us and the semester we spent there.  My cynical side was thinking that she could easily say that to all of her students, but it was so sincere and so spur-of-the-moment that I really do believe her.  I know that we've all been affected as well.  None of us had the earth-shattering, personal awakening, soul-finding experience that some study abroad students seek or find, but I'm convinced we've all started a process of change and personal growth that will profoundly affect us into the future.  There's a quote I've grown to love that explains that traveling is not about discovering a new place, but about discovering yourself within that place.  The inner process is much deeper and much more lasting than any outer process.  And for better and for worse, this been an Experience.  That's the best word I can think of to sum it up, and that's the most any of us could have asked out of the program.

The Beginning of the End

Phew!  I apologize that it's been so long since an update.  This cycle of classes was fun and there was lots to do, but there was LOTS to do.  I had exponentially more homework, and I really felt the loss of time.   We also squeezed in 2-3 tests and projects for every class in the last week, following the delayed midterm projects and tests from the week before... eesh.

Urban Regeneration was pretty fun - every class, we went somewhere on a little mini-trip.  Sometimes it would be to an area with a little park and a view of the river or the estuary, other times to a more urban or culturally-oriented place.  A couple weeks ago we went on a 'tour' of the south of the city.  There are some decent areas that just have shaky reputations because they're in the south, but there are also areas that are among the poorest in the city.  On the far side, right along the river, there are neighborhoods of houses made from sugarcane sticks with thatched roofs and no running water, where people live on welfare and whatever else they can find.  But in all honesty, the "south" of the city is one section, just like any of the others, that has a variety of levels of wealth.  For our final trip, we went to a place called Hogar de Cristo, which builds houses out of sugarcane to sell at very low prices to the poor.  It's really an interesting organization that seems to have done a lot of good for the city; and it was satisfying to visit a site that represents the social regeneration more than the urban regeneration.

We also went to the Mercado Caraguay, a huge market in a big warehouse where you can buy anything from fresh fruit and veggies, meat and fish, lentils and rice, to chicha and who knows what else.  By the time we got there (mid-afternoon) the fresh fish was practically sold out, except for a couple of whole albacore tuna as big as my dog.  The most interesting part was outside, where they sell fresh crabs.  Like, live crabs.  They're actually quite pretty - bright orange with purple.  They pack them like a jigsaw puzzle into a "brick" about 2 1/2 feet long by 1 1/2 feet wide and about 6 inches thick, all pure live crab.  The ones on the outside eerily wave any free leg or claw, and sporadically lift one or both eyes to scowl at the clientele (their eyes are on top of little stalks that fold down to the sides for easy stowage).  It was terrifying.

Last Tuesday evening we participated in the Posada at the school - a variety show of sorts, with one group doing a little choreographed dance, several people singing, and lots of people reading poems or Bible verses.  The MC was one of those types who shouldn't be allowed near a microphone, so I think the event went longer than necessary, but it was still nice.  Our group sang a couple of Christmas songs while I played flute!  It was well-received, and we had a good time.

It feels strange to be done with classes now, but it's a relief at the same time.  Towards the end, literature was interesting but much more reading than previous weeks.  And I started to get frustrated with grammar, since I was learning stuff that I felt was irrelevant, and the teacher and I seemed to talk past each other frequently.  But, it's over, and I'm putting the pieces together to start at UIC in January!