I swam with sea lions today!!

(To have been posted Sunday night... oops!)

Today our morning started out, as I’ve already told you, waking up an hour early. We ate breakfast at our hotel, Hotel San Vicente, and then made sandwiches to take with us on our tour of the Vocán Sierra Negra. They were tuna and queso fresco sandwiches. Not normally one of my favorites, but once we got to lunch time, they were great!
We left the hotel with our guide, Javier, at about 8 am. Turns out our group included the people that we came over on the boat with, the Brits, Katy and Simon, and the ‘intellectuals,’ Maria and José who live in Canada but are from Venezuela originally. We also picked up four more people from other random groups: three more Brits, Tiffany, Nicola (lovely British name) and Claire, and one American, Jenna, from Los Angeles. Together the ten of us and our guide went into the ‘highlands’ of Isabela Island to see one of the volcanoes that created the island, Volcán Sierra Negra. It was a little bit cloudy on the coast, but it was almost completely covered in clouds and mist inland.
The first part of the trip up the volcano was on horseback. It was a few people in our group’s first time on horses (including Slocomb) but everyone did very well. It was raining on the way up, so the path was extremely muddy. I felt bad for the horses, but I was very glad not to be climbing up on foot. At the first part of the trip, my horse decided to chill out alone between the groups which was fine with me. When we got a little further up, the guides wanted us to all stay together, which my horse wasn’t so cool with. He was quite figety and kept trying to go around the other horses. He even bit one other horse’s tail and tried to bite another’s neck. He got the nickname “demon horse,” which I understand. He was a great horse to ride, but he just wanted to be alone!
When we got to the top, we weren’t able to really see anything because of all of the mist and fog. We went over to a ‘parasitic’ volcano, Volcán Chico. The last time that the larger volcano, Sierra Negra, erupted was October 2005, but the last time Volcán Chico saw any action was back in 1979. Before that, there hadn’t been anything for many hundreds of years, so we could see the difference in the ‘old’ lava and the ‘new’ lava because the iron in the old lava had oxidized and turned red. We also got to see into the crater of Volcán Chico and the lava tunnels all around. The colors were incredible! Bright reds and oranges and some blues all surrounded by lots of black. There were even ferns growing inside the crater of the volcano, suggesting that they were among the first plants to arrive in Galapagos after the islands were created by volcanoes. It was also interesting because Galapagos is known for being a place with such great ecological diversity, but it all started out as lava fields.
We all had brought sandwiches for lunch which we ate in the rain under a tree. We did get to see a few little birds while we were eating lunch, but they were mostly more interested in trying to eat our lunch than in being observed or photographed. We were hoping that the weather would clear during our hike to Volcán Chico or lunch, but it didn’t. So we didn’t get to see the crater of Volcán Sierra Negra (the second largest volcanic crater in the world), but we got some idea of the scope. On the way down, we walked a little bit (about 3 km in the mud, good times!) around the crater. Even though we were going circularly, the circle around the crater was so large that it seemed like we were walking straight!! It was still raining and very muddy on the way down, and our guide was very determined to get down the mountain as fast as possible. There wasn’t anything to see, but it was still too fast for me. I kept being afraid that I would fall in the hurry or lose the guide who was so far ahead. I suppose he wanted to get to the next thing (snorkeling), but I guess I’m just not as fast a walker as our guide is.
That afternoon we went out to Concha de Perla to snorkel, just the six of us in our group: Maria and José, Katy and Simon, and Slocomb and myself. On the walk on the pier to the snorkeling sight, we came across a sea lion just chilling out on the pier. He didn’t want to move for us, but since sea lions can be aggressive, we scared him off onto a rock. It was Slocomb’s, Maria’s and Katy’s first time snorkeling, but it still went okay. Katy didn’t really go for it at first, and José didn’t stay out very long. But Slocomb, Maria, Simon and I, along with our guide Javier (same one as the morning), went all around the bay. We got to swim with a couple of sea lions, which was incredible. The sea lion we saw on land was so ungainly and awkward, but the one in the ocean was incredibly graceful and agile. Javier told us that when you are in a group, the sea lions try to come play with you. Apparently when you’re by yourself, they’re not quite sure what you are. Anyway, we got to play a little with the sea lion and see tons of fish. We even saw a manta ray and a starfish that was black and bright orange. Everything under the water was so incredibly colorful! It was still cloudy and cold, but we still had a great opportunity to see lots.
We came back to the hotel for dinner and to hang out. There is a hot tub, and Slocomb and I tried to use it. Unfortunately, the water heater wasn’t working, so it was really just a cold tub. I decided to take a hot shower instead... The hotel here is nice and cute, but not something to write home about, just like the food. Its plentiful and good, but nothing super exciting. Except for the tres leches cake last night for dessert. Yummy!!
This morning we left the hotel at 8:30 to go to Tintoreras Islet, an island formed by lava pushed up above the surface of the water by tectonic movement. The islet is the major breeding ground in this area for the marine iguana, and right now is the mating season, so it was absolutely crawling with iguanas. One of the first iguanas we saw was perched up on a rock like it was doing a push-up. It was so still and almost posed for our cameras. I guess either the animals are just used to people or they just aren’t that worried about us. We also got to see a few Galapagos penguins (which are the second smallest species of penguin, by the way) and sea lions. There is also a canal on the islet that is a great resting area for white tipped sharks, so we saw several of them asleep in the bottom of this shallow canal.
After walking around on the island for a little while, the boat took us out a little bit to snorkel again. There were tons of fish again and a bright purple starfish. We even saw a sea turtle, which I swam with (or near, I suppose) for a good five minutes. It was so graceful, and all of its flippers were so effective. I mean, I’m a pretty good swimmer, but you could tell which one of us was adapted to living in the water.
We decided that we’d had enough of Tintoreras, so we went back to Concha de Perla again to see if we could see anything else there. It was mostly the same animals and fish as yesterday, lots of damsel fish with their yellow lipstick. Simon got to see another turtle and got some underwater photos of it (very cool). Snorkeling is becoming one of my favorite activities because it involves the chill-ness of swimming, meaning no noise or business, with a bit of social interaction. We were all swimming closely together and pointing out the cool things that we were seeing. But it was still so quiet and relaxed. That also might have something to do with our group. Even though we come from three different countries and cultures, we have become friends very quickly. Also, everyone is so very interested in seeing everything that we can in this wonderful place. Maria and José and Katy and Simon really have been wonderful to travel with and have made this experience all the more special.
Anyway, we returned back to the hotel about 12:30pm for lunch and a rest before going back out to see more of Isabela. I was thinking about taking a nap, but the six of us ended up hanging out at the lunch table talking about history and politics until it was almost time to go.
This afternoon, we went to the giant turtoise breeding center here on Isabela Island. Because of the introduction of cats, rats, and dogs, there are a lot more predators for baby turtles here than before. Primarily, the center focuses on breeding and protecting new turtles. Their lives are extremely dangerous until about age 5 when their shells are hard enough to protect them from some of the predators. There are also many adults in the center (for breeding, obviously), but the national park service is working on restoring the wild populations. After the breeding center, we went further into the national park and ended up seeing three wild giant tortousies near the road!
Part of Isabela Island was used as a penal colony from 1946 to 1959, and one of the projects of the prisoners was to build a giant wall from lava rocks around their encampment. Even after a year of work, the wall was only a quarter finished, but they stopped work. Our guide told us that some of the rocks weighed up to 100 kilos (220 pounds) and that the prisoners had to carry them on bare shoulders because they did not have any other means of carrying them. Also, at the beginning, they were able to find the rocks nearby, but as time went on, they had to go farther and farther to find the stones. Apparently it was a brutal project simply designed to work the prisoners to death. And now it is an important reminder of the not so glamorous history of the Galapagos.
On the way back to town, we decided to walk along the beach in the national park area because it was so beautiful and pristine. Along the walk, we came upon an injured shark that had washed up on the beach. Simon was brave enough to pick it up and take it back into the ocean. Unfortunately, it had been out of the water so long that it was very disoriented when it got back into the water. It eventually started swimming away in the right direction, but we can only hope that it makes it.
We finished our walk back to the hotel in time to relax a little before dinner. At dinner it was very interesting because Maria and José ended up talking a lot to the French couple sitting near us. Besides the fact that Maria and José know so many languages (and feel comfortable using them when they are needed), it is interesting how many people from random places are here. Besides the several Brits we have met, there have been several people from France and even people from the Czech Republic. I suppose that Galapagos has the same appeal the world over.
Tomorrow we have to wake up early to go back to Santa Cruz Island (another heinous boat ride), but we’ll get to spend another day with our group before they head back to mainland Ecuador. Slocomb and I will be going to Floreana Island that day to do some more snorkeling. Our trip is already half-way done. We have seen so much already, but the time has really flown!

First day of Galapagos

Blog post - 12/12/09

I am writing right now from our plane to Galapagos. We got to sit to first/business class somehow; we are actually sitting in the bulkhead seats (row 1) in the front of the plane. Slocomb says its the first time he’s actually been comfortable on a plane.
We left Cuenca last night about 6pm in a full buseta, which meant that it was not nearly as comfortable as the previous two times we had gone to Guayaquil. Then, it was only us on the way to Guayaquil, and only two other people on the way back. Last night, there were five other people in the buseta. One of the guys on the buseta was from Chile, but spoke English very well. He used to work in port management, so that’s where he learned English. But after he found out that we spoke Spanish, we switched to Spanish (my preference because I need to practice!). Its not really offensive when people assume that we don’t speak Spanish; the reward is people’s faces when they realize we do speak Spanish.
Another person on the buseta was a woman from Cuenca who had known some of the CEDEI teachers from years past. She was very talkative (which was helpful for keeping the driver awake) and she did her nails while we were on the buseta. And when I say did her nails, I don’t just mean painted her nails. She glued on French tips, filed, buffed, and painted her nails on the buseta. Surprisingly, there weren’t any fumes (which was nice), and the filing/buffing wasn’t actually that annoying. I think it was because Slocomb and I knew we were on vacation, so the annoyances didn’t bother us. We entertained ourselves by making and eating sandwiches (which the nails woman commented on, saying, “Poor us, we don’t have any food!”) and by watching New Moon on my laptop. We found a bootleg copy (like every movie in Ecuador) that actually was in English. The audio wasn’t perfect, and there were a couple of times that I missed what they were saying, but it was good none the less. Also, hearing bachata and regeton on the radio the entire time might have messed with my listening skills. I still want to go back and see it in theatres again (because there were some moments that just didn’t look good on my little 13 inch screen) and because I kinda feel bad for buying a bootleg copy. Oh, well. When in Rome... one buys bootleg copies of movies...
Last week was a crazy week. It was our last week of school for the year, so we had lots to do. Jen (one of the other international teachers) wanted to help the kids make a nice present for their parents for Christmas, so we helped out with that because it was very labor intensive. We ended up making calendars decorated with the kids’ hand-print art work and also ornament balls with eight sides or so decorated by the kids. They turned out so well, but poor Jen was stressing the whole week trying to get everything done. As it turns out, we didn’t finish, but the national teachers are going to finish them with the kids and give them out next week.
I also had one of my graduate school applications due this week, which I finished and turned in on time, thank you very much. I’m a little worried because only two of the recommendation letters has been turned in, but hopefully my professor is working on it. UCLA (which is due the 15th) also recieved all of the stuff from me, but none of the stuff from my professors. I don’t want to hassle them about it because I know that its a crazy busy time of year. Luckily, the schools say that when the recommendation letters arrive doesn’t really impact whether or not the application is considered ‘on time,’ but I still want those letters to be there before they consider my application. I feel like I am a strong candidate based on my statement, transcript, and GRE scores (which I wish were better, but whatever), but the recommendation letters are a huge deal for applications. Oh, well. Its out of my hands now.
Also last week Slocomb and I found, leased, and moved into a new apartment. We had been thinking about moving for a while because we needed more space and our own space. Living with the Colomas worked out really well because they were able to show us a lot about Cuenca and living in Ecuador, but it was hard for Slocomb and I to go from living independently (with roommates, true) at Emory to being back in someone else’s house. It was a good experience, but four months was enough.
Our new apartment is gorgeous!! Slocomb doesn’t want us to put up pictures on the internet yet because he wants his family to see it first-hand when they come to Ecuador for Christmas. I will put up pictures in a couple weeks though. It is in the middle of town, which is really nice and convenient. It is very close to a lot of shopping, which is a lot easier that at the Colomas, which was at the top of a vicious hill. It was always a pain to walk up the hill with shopping or groceries, but since the new place is in the flat part of town, we don’t have to worry about that. It is on the fifth floor, but there is a new-ish elevator, which was incredible handy while we were moving all of our stuff. The huge advantage on the fifth floor is that we’re up away from a lot of the street noise, and we have an incredible view. From the living room and foyer, there are two walls of windows essentially, so we have an almost 180° view of the north and west sides of the city. To the north, we see the cathedral, which is half a block away. We can see all of the domes (there are three large ones, contrary to what a couple of guidebooks I’ve seen say), and the long wall. To the west, we see a good bit of the city and towards Cajas, the national park. We haven’t gotten to really experience the sunset because its been cloudy all of the evenings we were there, but I have a feeling its going to be a gorgeous one. On the tour that we took with CEDEI at the beginning of our time here, our tour guide took us to Plaza San Francisco and showed us the view of the cathedral of Cuenca (you know, the one you always see on postcards). Well, our view from the apartment is that view but better because we are above the buildings that block the view. It is incredible. The apartment building is just off of the Plaza San Francisco, one of the major open air markets in town. It is very convenient to be able to pop downstairs to buy things. It is very busy during the day, but everything closes up at sundown. There is plenty of light in the Plaza after sundown, but most of the ‘shops’ stay set up, so the view down to the Plaza isn’t really all that pretty. It is very Cuenca, in my opinion. All of the semi-permanent shops where you can (in the day time) find just about anything. It really is a wonderful location.
In our new apartment, we are about three blocks from the building where we take Spanish classes, so we can actually go home for lunch now before classes. We still have to take the bus to school, but I’m pretty sure we can get away with only taking one now instead of two (saving us about $20 a month). There’s a washer and dryer in the apartment, so that is really nice. And the owner of the hostal upstairs has offered to let us use the wi-fi for no charge!! We’ve had some problems with the hot water heater and dryer, but hopefully we can get those worked out soon. The hot water heater overflowed on Thursday when we turned it on for the first extended period of time. There was water all over the kitchen and into one of the bedrooms, which of course is carpeted. Our apartment kinda has that wet dog smell right now, but Slocomb is going to get some air fresheners and maybe a fan when he gets back from Galapagos on the 18th. Also, the dryer wasn’t blowing hot air the other day. We’re not sure if this is because the hot air runs on gas (because we turned the gas off after the hot water heater funness), or something else. Our landlord is going to bring in a technician to check it all out soon. And everything will be functional when Slocomb’s family arrives on the 26th. Or else...
We got the keys to the apartment on Tuesday, and moved all of our stuff on Thursday and Friday. Things are still very disorganized, but Slocomb is going to take care of a lot of the stuff when he goes back to Cuenca. And then when I get back after new year, we can finish putting everything together. Setting up an apartment takes a long time, especially when one of the inhabitants is going to be gone for almost three weeks. But it’s something very exciting to come back to.
At school this week, we spent a lot of time preparing for the special Christmas pageant that took place last night. Slocomb and I had to miss it because we had to leave for Guayaquil, but we did get to see the rehearsal yesterday. The whole school day yesterday was spent in the park (and I forgot my sunscreen, so I have intense sunglass lines right now) preparing. Unfortunately, we didn’t really plan ahead that well for the rehearsal. We all arrived in the park about 8:30, but the rehearsing didn’t start until almost 11. Bad idea when you have 110 kids. I brought books and coloring books (thank God!!), because I realized that if the kids were bored, it was going to be a lot harder to keep things in order. I learned that from my mom; bored kids are obnoxious/trying/bad kids. Another frustration was that two of the international teachers had to leave at 10:30, meaning that we were down two sets of hands. Also, two more international teachers decided they needed to leave at 12 - not really sure why. I think they felt that had too much to do before leaving Cuenca (today, I might add), so they decided to peace out early. Unfortunately, Slocomb and I were the ones who actually had to leave Cuenca yesterday and move the rest of our stuff from the Colomas to downtown. But we got roped into staying longer because the rest of the teachers didn’t want all of the international teachers leaving super early. What really made me mad was the unfairness of it all. I mean, I completely understand that the national teachers wanted us to stay, but it was obnoxious that it was okay for some of the international team to leave and others not too. I guess thats one lesson that I’m learning here in Ecuador: fairness rarely matters in real life. Which is a bummer, because I like fairness. But I’m on vacation now for another three weeks, so I’m not going to think about school.
One last thing about school, actually. We had our Christmas party on Thursday night at the director’s, Ximena’s, house. I think I’ve mentioned that we’ve been having power outages to try to conserve electricity in Cuenca (because all of the power is from hydroelectric sources and there’s not been enough rain to run them as much). Ximena’s power was supposed to be off from four until seven, but the power didn’t come back until almost 8:30!! That’s the first time I’ve heard about that happening; normally the power comes back right on time. Dinner, of course, got delayed as a result, but we just hung out and chatted for the first hour until the power came back. We also finished our secret santa exchange. I had Prisci’s (the first grade teacher) name, and I bought her a pair of silver heart earrings. They were really cute; I was tempted to keep them! Jen had my name, and she got me some earrings with real tiny flowers in them and a beautiful pink and purple scarf. She did a really good job throwing me off of who had my name; every day I got a little present with my name spelled “Lesli” on it (which is how they spell it in Ecuador usually so I assumed it was a national teacher). Very tricky, Jen! Slocomb got a new wallet from his secret santa, but I’ll set him tell you about that.
I guess this is the time for overall first semester impressions. Well, its different, especially the work culture. In the states, all of my work experiences were very supportive of their staff and very quick to solve any problems. In Ecuador, it seems much more like a solve your own problems at work kind of place. Which is fine, and works well for me, except when it comes to things like pay checks (we were almost a week late in getting our December paychecks - which was really hard because we needed to pay for our new apartment, etc). I have learned to be more independent and use the supplies I know I can get for myself fairly easily.
As for Ecuador in general, I have seen that people are very nice and very generous. People actually give money to people begging in the streets and people juggling at traffic lights. But people are also very self-interested. It seems very much like an every person (and family) for his/herself or themselves. In a place where there honestly isn’t enough to go around all of the time, this attitude makes sense. Even thought times are hard right now particularly, Ecuador is prospering. The attitudes just may not have kept up with the prosperity.
Thirdly, it makes a huge difference if you try to speak Spanish and are interested in the culture. When he’s feeling up to it, Slocomb almost always tries to talk to the cab drivers, usually about soccer. And it makes a big difference. If you get a cab driver talking, you usually have a much better cab experience - and sometimes pay less. People in Cuenca stereotype ‘gringos’ frequently, based on their previous experiences with them. And a lot of Americans - or estadounidenses I should say - come to Cuenca to see the sights of a UNESCO world heritage sights. Fewer are like us, who come to live in Cuenca, speak Spanish, and find out a little of what its like to be Cuencano. Yeah, we want to see the sights too, but for Slocomb and myself, the people are the interesting part. And when Cuencanos figure that out, it completely changes their relationship to us. We’re not going to stop being ‘gringos,’ but we have stopped being tourists.

What's up with us...

I am writing right now from our plane to Galapagos. We got to sit to first/business class somehow; we are actually sitting in the bulkhead seats (row 1) in the front of the plane. Slocomb says its the first time he’s actually been comfortable on a plane.
We left Cuenca last night about 6pm in a full buseta, which meant that it was not nearly as comfortable as the previous two times we had gone to Guayaquil. Then, it was only us on the way to Guayaquil, and only two other people on the way back. Last night, there were five other people in the buseta. One of the guys on the buseta was from Chile, but spoke English very well. He used to work in port management, so that’s where he learned English. But after he found out that we spoke Spanish, we switched to Spanish (my preference because I need to practice!). Its not really offensive when people assume that we don’t speak Spanish; the reward is people’s faces when they realize we do speak Spanish.
Another person on the buseta was a woman from Cuenca who had known some of the CEDEI teachers from years past. She was very talkative (which was helpful for keeping the driver awake) and she did her nails while we were on the buseta. And when I say did her nails, I don’t just mean painted her nails. She glued on French tips, filed, buffed, and painted her nails on the buseta. Surprisingly, there weren’t any fumes (which was nice), and the filing/buffing wasn’t actually that annoying. I think it was because Slocomb and I knew we were on vacation, so the annoyances didn’t bother us. We entertained ourselves by making and eating sandwiches (which the nails woman commented on, saying, “Poor us, we don’t have any food!”) and by watching New Moon on my laptop. We found a bootleg copy (like every movie in Ecuador) that actually was in English. The audio wasn’t perfect, and there were a couple of times that I missed what they were saying, but it was good none the less. Also, hearing bachata and regeton on the radio the entire time might have messed with my listening skills. I still want to go back and see it in theatres again (because there were some moments that just didn’t look good on my little 13 inch screen) and because I kinda feel bad for buying a bootleg copy. Oh, well. When in Rome... one buys bootleg copies of movies...
Last week was a crazy week. It was our last week of school for the year, so we had lots to do. Jen (one of the other international teachers) wanted to help the kids make a nice present for their parents for Christmas, so we helped out with that because it was very labor intensive. We ended up making calendars decorated with the kids’ hand-print art work and also ornament balls with eight sides or so decorated by the kids. They turned out so well, but poor Jen was stressing the whole week trying to get everything done. As it turns out, we didn’t finish, but the national teachers are going to finish them with the kids and give them out next week.
I also had one of my graduate school applications due this week, which I finished and turned in on time, thank you very much. I’m a little worried because only two of the recommendation letters has been turned in, but hopefully my professor is working on it. UCLA (which is due the 15th) also recieved all of the stuff from me, but none of the stuff from my professors. I don’t want to hassle them about it because I know that its a crazy busy time of year. Luckily, the schools say that when the recommendation letters arrive doesn’t really impact whether or not the application is considered ‘on time,’ but I still want those letters to be there before they consider my application. I feel like I am a strong candidate based on my statement, transcript, and GRE scores (which I wish were better, but whatever), but the recommendation letters are a huge deal for applications. Oh, well. Its out of my hands now.
Also last week Slocomb and I found, leased, and moved into a new apartment. We had been thinking about moving for a while because we needed more space and our own space. Living with the Colomas worked out really well because they were able to show us a lot about Cuenca and living in Ecuador, but it was hard for Slocomb and I to go from living independently (with roommates, true) at Emory to being back in someone else’s house. It was a good experience, but four months was enough.
Our new apartment is gorgeous!! Slocomb doesn’t want us to put up pictures on the internet yet because he wants his family to see it first-hand when they come to Ecuador for Christmas. I will put up pictures in a couple weeks though. It is in the middle of town, which is really nice and convenient. It is very close to a lot of shopping, which is a lot easier that at the Colomas, which was at the top of a vicious hill. It was always a pain to walk up the hill with shopping or groceries, but since the new place is in the flat part of town, we don’t have to worry about that. It is on the fifth floor, but there is a new-ish elevator, which was incredible handy while we were moving all of our stuff. The huge advantage on the fifth floor is that we’re up away from a lot of the street noise, and we have an incredible view. From the living room and foyer, there are two walls of windows essentially, so we have an almost 180° view of the north and west sides of the city. To the north, we see the cathedral, which is half a block away. We can see all of the domes (there are three large ones, contrary to what a couple of guidebooks I’ve seen say), and the long wall. To the west, we see a good bit of the city and towards Cajas, the national park. We haven’t gotten to really experience the sunset because its been cloudy all of the evenings we were there, but I have a feeling its going to be a gorgeous one. On the tour that we took with CEDEI at the beginning of our time here, our tour guide took us to Plaza San Francisco and showed us the view of the cathedral of Cuenca (you know, the one you always see on postcards). Well, our view from the apartment is that view but better because we are above the buildings that block the view. It is incredible. The apartment building is just off of the Plaza San Francisco, one of the major open air markets in town. It is very convenient to be able to pop downstairs to buy things. It is very busy during the day, but everything closes up at sundown. There is plenty of light in the Plaza after sundown, but most of the ‘shops’ stay set up, so the view down to the Plaza isn’t really all that pretty. It is very Cuenca, in my opinion. All of the semi-permanent shops where you can (in the day time) find just about anything. It really is a wonderful location.
In our new apartment, we are about three blocks from the building where we take Spanish classes, so we can actually go home for lunch now before classes. We still have to take the bus to school, but I’m pretty sure we can get away with only taking one now instead of two (saving us about $20 a month). There’s a washer and dryer in the apartment, so that is really nice. And the owner of the hostal upstairs has offered to let us use the wi-fi for no charge!! We’ve had some problems with the hot water heater and dryer, but hopefully we can get those worked out soon. The hot water heater overflowed on Thursday when we turned it on for the first extended period of time. There was water all over the kitchen and into one of the bedrooms, which of course is carpeted. Our apartment kinda has that wet dog smell right now, but Slocomb is going to get some air fresheners and maybe a fan when he gets back from Galapagos on the 18th. Also, the dryer wasn’t blowing hot air the other day. We’re not sure if this is because the hot air runs on gas (because we turned the gas off after the hot water heater funness), or something else. Our landlord is going to bring in a technician to check it all out soon. And everything will be functional when Slocomb’s family arrives on the 26th. Or else...
We got the keys to the apartment on Tuesday, and moved all of our stuff on Thursday and Friday. Things are still very disorganized, but Slocomb is going to take care of a lot of the stuff when he goes back to Cuenca. And then when I get back after new year, we can finish putting everything together. Setting up an apartment takes a long time, especially when one of the inhabitants is going to be gone for almost three weeks. But it’s something very exciting to come back to.
At school this week, we spent a lot of time preparing for the special Christmas pageant that took place last night. Slocomb and I had to miss it because we had to leave for Guayaquil, but we did get to see the rehearsal yesterday. The whole school day yesterday was spent in the park (and I forgot my sunscreen, so I have intense sunglass lines right now) preparing. Unfortunately, we didn’t really plan ahead that well for the rehearsal. We all arrived in the park about 8:30, but the rehearsing didn’t start until almost 11. Bad idea when you have 110 kids. I brought books and coloring books (thank God!!), because I realized that if the kids were bored, it was going to be a lot harder to keep things in order. I learned that from my mom; bored kids are obnoxious/trying/bad kids. Another frustration was that two of the international teachers had to leave at 10:30, meaning that we were down two sets of hands. Also, two more international teachers decided they needed to leave at 12 - not really sure why. I think they felt that had too much to do before leaving Cuenca (today, I might add), so they decided to peace out early. Unfortunately, Slocomb and I were the ones who actually had to leave Cuenca yesterday and move the rest of our stuff from the Colomas to downtown. But we got roped into staying longer because the rest of the teachers didn’t want all of the international teachers leaving super early. What really made me mad was the unfairness of it all. I mean, I completely understand that the national teachers wanted us to stay, but it was obnoxious that it was okay for some of the international team to leave and others not too. I guess thats one lesson that I’m learning here in Ecuador: fairness rarely matters in real life. Which is a bummer, because I like fairness. But I’m on vacation now for another three weeks, so I’m not going to think about school.
One last thing about school, actually. We had our Christmas party on Thursday night at the director’s, Ximena’s, house. I think I’ve mentioned that we’ve been having power outages to try to conserve electricity in Cuenca (because all of the power is from hydroelectric sources and there’s not been enough rain to run them as much). Ximena’s power was supposed to be off from four until seven, but the power didn’t come back until almost 8:30!! That’s the first time I’ve heard about that happening; normally the power comes back right on time. Dinner, of course, got delayed as a result, but we just hung out and chatted for the first hour until the power came back. We also finished our secret santa exchange. I had Prisci’s (the first grade teacher) name, and I bought her a pair of silver heart earrings. They were really cute; I was tempted to keep them! Jen had my name, and she got me some earrings with real tiny flowers in them and a beautiful pink and purple scarf. She did a really good job throwing me off of who had my name; every day I got a little present with my name spelled “Lesli” on it (which is how they spell it in Ecuador usually so I assumed it was a national teacher). Very tricky, Jen! Slocomb got a new wallet from his secret santa, but I’ll set him tell you about that.
I guess this is the time for overall first semester impressions. Well, its different, especially the work culture. In the states, all of my work experiences were very supportive of their staff and very quick to solve any problems. In Ecuador, it seems much more like a solve your own problems at work kind of place. Which is fine, and works well for me, except when it comes to things like pay checks (we were almost a week late in getting our December paychecks - which was really hard because we needed to pay for our new apartment, etc). I have learned to be more independent and use the supplies I know I can get for myself fairly easily.
As for Ecuador in general, I have seen that people are very nice and very generous. People actually give money to people begging in the streets and people juggling at traffic lights. But people are also very self-interested. It seems very much like an every person (and family) for his/herself or themselves. In a place where there honestly isn’t enough to go around all of the time, this attitude makes sense. Even thought times are hard right now particularly, Ecuador is prospering. The attitudes just may not have kept up with the prosperity.
Thirdly, it makes a huge difference if you try to speak Spanish and are interested in the culture. When he’s feeling up to it, Slocomb almost always tries to talk to the cab drivers, usually about soccer. And it makes a big difference. If you get a cab driver talking, you usually have a much better cab experience - and sometimes pay less. People in Cuenca stereotype ‘gringos’ frequently, based on their previous experiences with them. And a lot of Americans - or estadounidenses I should say - come to Cuenca to see the sights of a UNESCO world heritage sights. Fewer are like us, who come to live in Cuenca, speak Spanish, and find out a little of what its like to be Cuencano. Yeah, we want to see the sights too, but for Slocomb and myself, the people are the interesting part. And when Cuencanos figure that out, it completely changes their relationship to us. We’re not going to stop being ‘gringos,’ but we have stopped being tourists.

Slacking...

Obviously, I have been slacking on blogging, but here's a link to my photos from Otavalo.
Otavalo photos
We went there last weekend to celebrate my birthday and to shop for Christmas presents at the famous market.
More details to come later... When I finish my grad school applications...

Catching up...

(FYI, This was supposed to be posted on the 12th, but the internet has been really sketchy the past few weeks)

Okay, so I’ve been slacking on the blogging recently, and I’m sorry. We’ve had a lot of things going on these past few weeks (including me starting grad school applications), so I haven’t had much time to write. But here goes my attempt to make up for it.
Another note, we went to the beach two weekends ago, but I’ll write about that trip in a separate post.

Things in Cuenca
Ecuadorians have a special food tradition for All Saint's Day, which of course was November 1. All over the country people make and eat "Guaguas de Pan" (bread babies in a mixure of Spanish and Quichua) and Colada Morada (or Purple colada). The babies kinda reminded me of king cake at Epiphany/Mardi Gras, and the Colada was amazing! It was made from all different kind of fruits and is really complicated apparently. I'll have to try to find a recipe and make it, but a lot of the fruits can't be found outside Ecuador. Bummer...
November 3 is the celebration of the Independence of Cuenca, so there was a lot going on that weekend. We went out of town (to the beach... see other post to come) for most of the weekend, but we did get to see President Correa speak and some of the festivities on Tuesday night, including dancing and singing and lots of traditional Ecuadorian celebrations. It was the most tame celebration, because everyone had to go to work the next day. Apparently Thursday through Monday nights were pretty crazy in Cuenca, but we were out of town, so we had no idea.
Last weekend we mainly hung around town, washing clothes and doing other chores. Sunday for lunch we to Paute (a town about an hour and a half by bus from Cuenca) because they supposedly have the best hornado in the area. Hornado is essentially just pulled pork - and they pull it off the pig right in front of you. It was really good, but I think mainly because of the sauce - tomatoes, onions, and cilantro in vinegar. Hornado is also traditionally served with llapingachos, which are pretty much just fried mashed potato cakes. So good...
The bus ride to Paute was one of the more interesting aspects of the trip. In Cuenca, people are generally used to Americas (or white people) being around, so they might stare at you a little but not too much. However, I guess the people on the bus to Paute had never seen a white person before, ever. They stared at Slocomb and me like we had lobsters crawling out of our ears (to quote one of my favorite movies - A Christmas Story). It was quite uncomfortable. Also, the bus stopped about every 10 minutes or so to pick people up or drop people off on the way to Paute. It was weird because most of the people that got on after we left Cuenca stood in the aisle. Slocomb and I have learned to prefer the back of the buses because people are less likely to stand back there.
We finally got our uniforms for school on Friday, so I’m very excited about that. I don’t have any pictures yet, but it is essentially a black track suit with aqua sleeves and accents. We also have a grey t-shirt (i bought two) and polo shirt. I’m excited because it means I don’t have to wear my own clothes to school every day. At least two days a week, I have something else to wear!
Friday night we had dance class where Slocomb and I worked some more on dancing together. We essentially have a private class because none of the other international teachers want to take dance classes. We’re working on the meringue right now before moving on to salsa. Slocomb and I still need to work a lot more on our dancing because we have very different styles of dancing. Mine is mostly influenced by the ballet classes I took when I was young, meaning that I take small steps and try to be very light on my feet. Slocomb on the other hand played basketball when he was young, so he’s good with the footwork, but not so good with the artistry of dance. And then there’s the problem that I don’t exactly like to follow... but we’re working through that. Hopefully this week we’ll get some time to practice...
Party bus/tour (and aborted trip Thursday)
Saturday morning I went to a birthday party for one of my students. Apparently, he specifically asked that I and the national kindergarten teacher, Vero, come to the party. I was actually very honored, so I decided to go. Turns out that it was a good thing because there were about 40 kids there and only the birthday boy’s parent and grandparents in addition to a couple of teachers. Also, there is a new student in the kindergarten class who only speaks English, so I spent most of the time with him (since I was the only adult who spoke English). We all went to a movie - The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - and then to KFC for a small snack and cake. The movie was in Spanish, but either my Spanish has gotten really good (unlikely) or TMNT is the same in any language (more likely). It ended up being sort of like another day at school in that I was supervising lots of kids, but it was a lot better because I didn’t have to try to teach anything or be in charge. It was also fun to see my students in their ‘natural environment’ - meaning not in a classroom.
Today we went to the international food fair at the Mall del Río. They had food from all over, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Japan, and a bunch of other places. Interestingly, the United States table was all desserts. A lot of people think that there’s no such thing as traditional American food, but they could have had hamburgers or hotdogs or (even better) turkey and dressing and other sorts of Thanksgiving foods. Either than or the American-Eucadorians have figured out why Americans have such weight problems - the really traditional American foods are all cakes and pies!
We ended up spending a good bit (on Ecuadorian standards - $16) on food there, and everything was good except the paella. I didn’t think that it was that bad, but Slocomb (having lived in Spain and having eaten lots of real paella) thought it was gross. But it was a fundraiser for the cancer society, so it was worth it.
We walked around the mall a little bit afterwards, and it was all very similar to American malls (including the prices...). There weren’t any stores specifically that I recognized, but it was mostly clothes and toys and other quasi-luxury items. I don’t really plan on shopping there, but it was interesting to see.
After the mall, we went up to the University of Cuenca to meet up with some of our co-workers to play racquetball. Slocomb played with Pepe and Jonathan (who apparently used to play competitively)... Pepe is sick, so he was dragging a little bit, and it was only Slocomb’s second time playing racquetball ever, so Jonathan pretty much cleaned the floor with them. But its really good exercise and its always nice to hang out with our Cuencano friends.
I went swimming while the guys were playing racquetball. I only swam about 1200m - not a whole lot for me, but considering that I haven’t worked out really at all since we got to Ecuador, it was pretty good. Towards the end of my workout, there were these guys, probably about 20-ish who got in the pool and were horseplaying like crazy. The first indication of trouble was that they all dove into the 4-foot pool. Not smart. And then they were just swimming across the pool the short way (so opposite the lap swimmers) and getting in people’s way. One actually ran straight into me while I was swimming a lap. So I decided to intimidate them a little and swim a few lengths of butterfly (the international don’t mess with me stroke). They left me alone after that, and one of the other patrons told me that I was a very good swimmer. I haven’t really thought of myself as a good swimmer since I got to college because I’ve always been surrounded by friends who are better than I am (and working out with some of the swim team was bound to give me a complex), but I was definitely the best swimmer in the pool today. While it seems like a good few people swim for exercise, it was clear that no one had ever swam competitively. I guess when there are only one or two lap-sized pools in the city, swim team becomes somewhat impossible. Just an interesting cultural thing - in a town where people could definitely afford to participate in competitive swimming, they all pretty much prefer to play soccer. I wonder if I could make some money on the side teaching swimming... Not that I have the time...
That’s pretty much all that’s been going on recently in Cuenca. We also went to Playas during the long Fiestas de Cuenca weekend, but I’ll write about that in a separate post. We are also planning a trip to Otavalo (north of Quito - actually in the northern hemisphere) for my birthday in a couple of weeks. And we’re planning to have a big Thanksgiving party for our co-workers, mainly because I want to have Thanksgiving food and the only way I’m going to get it is to fix it! So lots of fun things coming up.
Funny kid story to make you laugh: There is this one preschooler who loves drinking water. Like loves it. If there’s not a cup handy, he will put his mouth straight onto the spigot out of the big 5 gallon jug and drink it that way (gross - and I’m trying to work on this habit with him). The consequence of him drinking all of this water is that he has to pee all of the time. So one time last week, he had a cup in his hand (probably because he had just had a bunch of water) and was literally 3 feet from the bathroom when he realized he had to go. I guess he didn’t think he could make it (or wasn’t aware how close he was to the bathroom), so I ended up catching him peeing into the drinking cup. I helped him to the bathroom and made him pour out the contents of his cup, but while I was flushing, he was already back at the water jug filling the cup up again!!! So I took the cup away and tried to explain to him that he couldn’t drink out of the cup that he had just peed into. He was quite skeptical of my hygienic suggestions, but he was okay once I got him a new cup. Lord only knows what he did with the new cup. Sometimes these kids crack me up...

Anecdotes from the weekend...

What has come to pass... Since last time...
I guess I’ll start from last Friday. That was the next eventful thing. Friday night Slocomb and I went to a Deportiva Cuenca soccer game with our friend Jonatan from school. We sat in the Tribuna section (meaning better than general admission but not super expensive), which meant that we were under the roof. It turned out to be a semi-cold evening, so I was glad we were sheilded from the wind. Before the game, Jonatan introduced us to a yummy burger place across from the stadium, so it was a very productive trip out.
The game was played against a team called Olmedo. I think that they are from near Quito, but I’m not sure. Every year in Ecuador, they play a tournament called the Cuadrandulares (groups of four - there are two groups of four). This game was the final of DC’s quadrangle, so they are getting to play the winner of the other quadrangle for the championship (this Sunday, I think). Anyway, it was a pretty important game. DC scored early in the first half, but right before the half, Olmedo scored. DC was awarded a penalty shot (which they made) in about the 75th minute, and Olmedo wasn’t able to recover, so DC won 2-1. Part of the reason that Olmedo wasn’t able to recover was because they were given two red cards (meaning that by the end of the game, Olmedo was playing with 9 players instead of the usual 11) and about 9 yellow cards (warnings). DC got two yellow cards as well, but no reds. DC also just out-played Olmedo. DC kept possession for most of the game, meaning that the goalie was on the other side of the field by himself, doing calethenics to keep warm! It was pretty funny to see that and it was a fun game to watch.
After the game, we met up with some of our other friends from school to go out for a little while. We walked from the stadium to the place we were meeting them, meaning that we walked a long way down Calle Larga where all of the clubs are. It was interesting because there were tons of people just outside on the street socializing and whatnot. Nothing sketchy going on; just a very vibrant street.
We went out with the student teachers from the University of Whitewater as well as Pepé, the music teacher. Jenn and one of her friends met up with us later too. When we got to the first club, they wanted us to pay a $5 cover and buy two drinks in addition. So, essentially it was a $10 cover. Not a big deal in the States, but when you only make $16 a day, a $10 cover is a bit expensive. So we went to this other place that we like, Once. But when we got there, they said they were having a private party. Pepé and all of the girls gave the bouncer a sad face, so he let us in. So we spent a few hours at Once, relaxing and hanging out. And the best part was that for 9 people, the bill was only $37. Woot.
This weekend we just hung out and did almost nothing. Which was really nice. We did some laundry and I cooked some chili. We did go out Sunday afternoon for lunch and to find some information about the biennial exhibition that’s going on in Cuenca right now (its pretty much just a huge art show). We normally don’t go into town on Sundays, and apparently no one else does either! The downtown was practically deserted! And we had to really search for a place to eat lunch because almost everything was closed. We ended up eating at this touristy place on the main square. It was pretty nice because they served traditional-ish Ecuadorian food but in a way more palatable to tourists than going to the market to buy the stuff. If I were just traveling to Cuenca, I would probably feel comfortable eating Ecuadorian food there. But since I live here, I’ll just buy it at the market for a quarter as expensive!
Yesterday was a long day. One of the national teachers at the school is out sick with and infection of some kind, so I spent a good bit of the day in her classroom helping out the student teacher. And I was back in that classroom today because Tami is still sick. Even though it is hard to be in the class all day with almost no break, it was really good because I think the boys in the class got a lot more used to having me around. I may try to be around more often just because it makes the class more responsive to me when I’m trying to teach if I been around not trying to teach.
One of the other teachers asked me today why I was spending so much time in the preschool classroom. I told her that because the national teacher was gone, I felt like it was our job as international teachers (meaning not in a classroom all of the time anyway) to step up and help out. I look at is as a team effort and also a reciprocal one. I have vacation days that I plan to take full advantage of and (maybe) some sick days too. So I hope that the other teachers will be able to help me out. In return, I’ll help them out when they are gone for one reason or another. The teacher I was talking to didn’t understand why I was inconveniencing myself for something that wasn’t strickly my job. I guess we just have a different understanding of what’s part of our jobs. Which is really frustrating. True, no one asked me to spend extra time in that classroom. But since I’m expecting them (the national teachers) to help me, I am obliged to help them. Also, I feel like the national teachers work really hard to start with. They are in the classroom for the whole day, while the international team only has an average of two or three teaching hours a day. And we have built in vacation days (which the national teachers don’t). So I feel in all fairness, we should pick up the slack when necessary. Anyway, rant about work ethic over.
Yesterday afternoon we went to one of our favorite restaurants in town, Moliendo Cafe. Not only do they have really good food, but they have wonderful Columbian coffee. And in a country where Nescafe is pretty much what people drink, real brewed coffee is an amazing treat. My Spanish class yesterday didn’t go very well (because everyone was tired and it was all about irregular verbs - uuggghhh), but its all good. I have class again tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll all have more energy.
Today we went to a Cuban restaurant next to the building where Slocomb and I have class. Its mainly just a burger kind of place, but the burgers were really good. They also have batidos (essentially fruit milkshakes that are very common in the Carribbean), which Slocomb says taste like real Carribbean batidos. Not sure how Slocomb knows what they’re supposed to taste like (except that he has a Cuban friend or two)... but whatever. We got to talking with the owner (well, Slocomb got to talking to the owner because I couldn’t understand his Spanish at all), and his is one of those really sad immigration stories. I don’t how when he moved to Ecuador, but he owns a restaurant, so its obviously been a good bit of time. But his family (wife and children) are still in Cuba trying to emigrate. He told us that on Sundays, when everything is closed and people spend time with their families, he just sits at home buy himself. And the saddest part is that his wife just had a baby. Back in Cuba. Anyway, Slocomb and I plan to go back to the restaurant (especially for the batidos). I’m hoping that we can become friends with him and spend time with him on Sundays so that he’s not all alone thinking about his family far away.
Anyway, on a happier note, Slocomb and I are going to Las Playas (a beach town about 5 hours away) this weekend. We have Monday and Tuesday off of school for the celebration of Cuenca’s independence (in 1820), so we’re going on Sunday and coming back Tuesday in time for the huge fireworks display planned). Anyway, here’s hoping we don’t get too sunburned.

Cajas

This past weekend, Slocomb and I went with some of the CEDEI study abroad students as well as the student teachers from Wisconsin to camp in Cajas, the national park about 30km west of Cuenca.
We started out Saturday morning (with a frustrating attempt to get a taxi - Slocomb called for one and since they have our phone number, they sent it to our house instead of the place where we were meeting Kelli and Johanna, the student teachers) a little late. But we drove out of town (to the west) and into Cajas.
The first place we stopped was called Tres Cruces (three crosses), and it commemorates all of the people who died trying to get from Cuenca to Guayaquil and vice versa. The altitude in Cajas is a good bit higher than in Cuenca, so the temperature can be frigid. And before reliable transportation and good roads (the current one wasn't finished until 1985), it was a very dangerous trip. Tres Cruces is also the highest point in Cajas, and you could definitely tell by the alititude and temperature.
Next we embarked on our hike. We each were provided with rubber galoshes, which actually came in handy. Cajas was formed by glaciers in the last ice age, and there are still a lot of lakes in the park. Also, we're moving into the rainy season, so the ground was very moist.
We saw lots of different species of trees and plants (almost no animals, strangely enough. Slocomb thinks that our speaking English scared them away). Part of the hike was through a Quinua forest, which was very surreal. The trees, even along the trail were so close together. It reminded me a little of Roan Mountain when the rhodedenerons are blooming.
The hike lasted about 3 hours (plus a stop for lunch). Our stopping point was (theoretically) the camp site, which was a small field above a large lake. We didn't hike all of our stuff in; the bus met us about 10 minutes away from our campsite, but we still had to pack all of our food and tents, etc., in the last 10 minutes). The site had no running water, so we were all on our own for bathrooms. Slocomb and I brought a 5L jug of water, which was really handy. We were both really thirsty because of the hike and the altitude. Everyone was jealous of our ingeniousness.
We spent most of the afternoon setting up camp and hanging out. Slocomb's and my tent had some issues (one of the tent poles appeared broken), but we got it worked out. I stayed at the site to chat with some of the other people, and Slocomb went down to the lake to fish. He only ended up catching one fish, but I'm pretty sure he had an awesome time.
We had pasta and soup for dinner, some of which we had to cook over the fire because the stoves weren't strong enough to make the water boil. But after we put the pasta water over the stove, it boiled very quickly. Slocomb and Ryan (one of the study abroad boys) were the fire builders, and the did an excellent job.
Pretty soon after dinner and cleaning up, I went to bed. I had a headache (from the altitude), so I had no energy. I'm not sure what all happened after that, but you can ask Slocomb.
We woke up quasi-early the next morning (as one always does while camping), and spent most of the morning doing breakfast and breaking down camp.
I guess it wasn't a very eventful camping trip, but it was incredibly beautiful.
On the way back to Cuenca, we stopped at the sanctuary of the Virgin of Cajas. About 20 years ago, a young Cuencana had a vision of the Virgin Mary in that spot, so now there is a large outdoor sanctuary there. I'm not sure how I feel about these appearances of the Virgin Mary, but it was an interesting cultural experience.
After that, Slocomb and I came home to rest and get ready for the week. And then the week started, and now it is Tuesday. How the time flies!

Random loose ends..

Slocomb's birthday was on the 29th of September, so we went out to a tapas place with our co-workers, Livia and Jen. We ended up running into Gamal (a former teacher at CEDEI school) as well, so we had a fun, chill evening to celebrate Slocomb's 23rd year.
The big birthday celebration was the trip to Quito, which is in another post.
Later on that week (October 1st) we went out with the other teachers at CEDEI School, just for an evening of relaxing. We went to this bar/club called ONCE (eleven or once, we're not sure), where we just relaxed for a few hours. It was fun because we were able to interact all as friends instead of having to worry about school stuff the entire time. There was also an interesting mix of Spanish and English being spoken all of the time. I'm not sure if any of us improved our English or Spanish skills, but my Spanglish is certainly a lot better now.
The next week (October 8 - right before our long weekend in Quito), the school celebrated Día de la Raza (Race - as in Ethnicity Day). Apparently this is how Columbus Day is commemorated in Ecuador. We left the school about 10am (so we only had about 2 hours of school) to go downtown to Parque Calderon where all of the marches, etc., take place. Most of the children were dressed in traditional costumes from around Ecuador (so cute). We had a musical presentation from most of the classes (segundo thru sexto), and then had a march promoting tolerance and equality. I marched with the preschool class (because they needed the most convincing to walk around the square chanting stuff), which was so cute. I guess they teach them very young here to get out and manifest for one thing or another.
That's all of the loose ends for now. I'm going to work on a post about this past weekend when we went back to Cajas to camp and hike. More to come later...

Quito

The next weekend (October 9-11), Slocomb and I went to Quito for the Ecuador-Urugay soccer game. If Ecuador would have won the game, they likely would be going to the World Cup. Unfortunately, Ecuador lost (2-1 on a penalty shot in stoppage time), and they lost the next game too. So they are out of World Cup contention. I guess I just gave away the ending, but the trip is still pretty cool.
We had Friday the 9th off of school to celebrate the independence of Guayaquil (in 1820, I think), which was really nice. I had been coming down with a cold, and Friday I was pretty sick. Unfortunately, our bus left for Quito at 10pm on Friday, whether or not I was sick. I spent most of Friday in bed, but managed to rally about 7:30 to pack and then go.
Once we got to the bus, we met some of the other people in our group going to the game. Most of them were male, about our age, and spent most of the weekend drinking. I guess that's the advantage of being in a tour group with a bus; you don't have to drive, and you don't even really have to be coherent enough to talk to a taxi driver.

Anyway, after some introductions, I managed to conk out for most of the trip to Quito (all 8 1/2 hours of it). I woke up every once in a while when we hit huge bumps in the road or when we would stop (about every hour) at a gas station so the driver could smoke or get more soda or something. Slocomb unfortunately didn't sleep much on the trip up to Quito, but he also wasn't sick.

(This is how I felt a lot of the time)

We arrived in Quito about 7am. We thought that we were going to go straight to the stadium, but luckily we got to go to the hotel first. A lot of people took showers, but I just took a short nap. Slocomb made use of the included breakfast.

In any case, we arrived at the stadium about 10:30am. On the journey between the hotel and the stadium, a local news crew came aboard our bus because they were doing a special about fans who had traveled a long way for the game.

(Our group being filmed by the TV network)

It ended up being a 3 or 4 minute spot on the Sunday night news, and Slocomb and I weren't in it. But we are in the archives of an Ecuadorian TV station somewhere. I also managed to learn one of the most important songs for the afternoon: "Vamos, Ecuadorianos. Esta tarde, tenemos que ganar!" (Or "Let's go, Ecuadorians. This afternoon, we must win). The other songs had a lot more words, so I didn't end up learning them.

(one of our new Cuencano friends, Nelson)

The gates to the stadium opened about 11:30, and we found seats with a bunch of the Cuencanos about noon. Then we only had to wait for five hours for the game to start. Yay!
I spent most of the afternoon in the tunnel between the gate/bathroom and the stadium because it was nice, cool, and quite there (and close to the bathroom). Slocomb spent his five hours making friends with the random people we were sitting next to (not the Cuencanos), sharing $2 liters of beer and playing drinking games. Interestingly, the stadium food (and beer) wasn't expensive (even on Ecuadorian standards). It was mostly traditional-ish food - salchipapas (hot dog and fries), other kinds of papas (potatoes) with random seasonings, and chifles (fried plantain chips). They also had hot dogs with tons of toppings that looked really good. I didn't end up trying anything because I was just too sick. I ended up eating a little of the trail mix that we brought and half a sandwich. And a lot of sprite.
The vendors at the game were also interesting to me. Many of them were dressed in indigenous dress. The beer vendors (almost all women) would go around with a basket full of beers (only Pilsener, the national brand), cups, and chunks of ice. When you bought a beer, they would cool down the cup with one chunk of ice (reusable, but not super sanitary) and then serve the beer with another chunk of ice. Also, the way that they poured the beers meant that a lot of the foam went up into the bottle (making the ice necessary to fill the cup). Not super efficient, but very interesting.

The game started about 5 (not sure what time it really was, but we'd been waiting long enough). When the Uruguay team came out, most of the fans yelled some less than polite things, but what do you expect? Also, there was much throwing of toilet paper in streamer fashion and also throwing things at the police. The vendors were very careful not to let the fans get a hold of the glass beer bottles, which was very lucky for the police. For more stories about the craziness of the fans, see Slocomb's blog.Ecuador scored a goal a few minutes into the second half. All was crazy. Everyone was yelling, many crying, hugging, and spraying stuff over the crowd (rain coat came in handy at this point). It was an incredible moment of joy for everyone in the stadium. But less than a minute later, Uruguay scored. And at the end of the game, Uruguay was awarded a penalty kick to end the game that they made. So the Ecuadorian goal was a brief moment of glory in an otherwise disappointing game. But it certainly was an experience.
After the game, we met up with my friend Robert from Emory who is studying abroad in Quito this semester. He wanted to take us to a place that had crepes and waffles, but it was already closed (probably because Ecuador lost). We ended up just getting pizza (because the stadium is in a part of town with a lot of American food - TGIFridays, Papa Johns, KFC, McDonalds - all with American prices), but it was really fun to get to see Robert.
We decided not to go out that night because I was still sick and Slocomb was dead tired. We essentially just went back to the hotel and slept until the next morning. We unfortunately left Quito about 9am, so we didn't get to see any of the city. I want to go back soon so we can spend time there.

The ride home was quite fun. We drove past Cotopaxi (the famous volcano) and got to see tons of the countryside.

(Cotopaxi with snow on top)

The whole trip we were on the Pan-American Highway (that goes all the way from Alaska to Chile). However, it wasn't like we were on the interstate. Its not a restricted access highway, so there were towns every few minutes and restaurants just along the roadway. We stopped in one town, Salcedo, because it is where everyone in Ecuador gets their ice cream. I'm pretty sure you can buy ice cream from Salcedo in Cuenca (at least 7 hours away). The turn off from the Pan-American highway into Salcedo has a statue of ice cream (sorry no pics). I got a mixed flavored ice cream that had vanilla, mora (mulberry) and naranjia (a very tart sort of orange thingie). Slocomb got avocado. They were both incredible.

We also stopped in another small town for lunch. I don't remember the name of the town, but it was memorable because of the huge statue of Jesus on the tallest point of the town.

(statue of Jesus near where we ate lunch)

The highway runs above the town, so we got to look down into the valley and see this huge statue.
Besides that, the trip was mostly just long. Very long. But it was worth it to get to see Ecuador play (and experience everything that went along with it) and to be able to see almost the whole sierra of Ecuador.

Trout.

There are some loose ends that I need to clear up, like the couple of weekend trips that I haven't written about yet. So here goes:
A few Sundays ago (Sunday, the 4th), we were having a leisurely morning around the house when Angel came upstairs to ask us if we wanted to go to Cajas for trout. I thought, "Wow, that's super random," but Slocomb thought it would be cool so we went. We drove south from our house and then west on Ordoñez Lasso until we got to Cajas. Apparently this is also one of the roads to Guayaquil, so it can be a little bit busy. Also, it was plenty curvy enough, so I'm not sure I'd like to take it in a big bus like those to Guayaquil.When I say we went to Cajas, I'm referring to one of Ecuador's National Parks that for some reason is known for having yummy trout. We didn't actually go into the park (it costs $10 per person) but we were about as close as possible without having to pay. We parked on the road outside this restaurant about 15-20 feet from the entrance to the park.
The restaurant that we went to was very busy and had lots of long tables (seating 10 people or more). It seemed as if it was one of those places where several groups would end up at the same table. Angel, Slocomb and I sat at one of the tables for six, but we didn't end up with anyone else with us.Angel ordered lunch for us: a block of queso fresco to share, a bowl of choclo (big, white, Ecuadorian corn), a trout and a side of rice and corn for each of us. A whole trout. With the head and the skin still on. It was a little intimidating to start with, but once I actually tasted the trout, I realized why Cajas was so well known for its trout. It was incredible, and I don't even like fish that much.

Since I've been gone...

Well, once again its been a while since I've written. A lot has happened in the last week and a half - including an impromptu trip to Cajas, the nearby national park, and a planned trip to Quito to see Ecuador play Uruguay. I'll update more about those two side trips later, but right now I'm just going to talk about the last couple of days.
Its has been an eventful two days in Cuenca. Yesterday, we woke up and went to school. I wasn't feeling very well, so once I found out that sick days were not the same as vacation days, I decided to go home and sleep for the rest of the morning (okay, so that wasn't very eventful). After I finally woke up (about 1:30pm), Slocomb got home from school. After a quick lunch, we had to head into town for my first Spanish class!
My classes are Monday and Wednesday afternoons, 3 to 5 pm, so we're probably just going to go straight from school to downtown and have lunch at one of the hundreds of restaurants there. Slocomb is planning to go with me a lot of the time because they have internet access and other nice things at the center downtown, so he'll be able to entertain himself while I'm in class.
Anyway, I'm in class with Livia, one of the other professoras at CEDEI school. She took Spanish in college, so she's more advanced than I am. However, its been seven years since her last Spanish class, so she says she needs to review a lot. She'll be reviewing and I'll be learning for the first time, so it could be interesting. I ended up getting placed into the second level (intermediate). I hope that's a good fit for me; I think that it is because of how similar Spanish grammar is to French grammar. So I know what structures to use; I just don't know how those structures are done in Spanish! We'll see how it goes. I understood everything in the first class, so I'm hoping that will continue.
My teacher's name is Eugenio, which seems easy enough until you try to say it in Spanish. So I guess one of the first things I'll have to work on for this class is how to say my teacher's name. Anyway, he is a professional teacher - he works in a secondary school in the mornings I think. He seems like a really good teacher.
We spent a lot of the class talking about saying hello and goodbye. Its actually kinda complicated in Spanish because they use like three different greetings all the time!! "¡Hola! ¡Buenos dias! ¿Como estás? ¿Que tal?" would all be an acceptable greeting from one person to the other. And then the other person would have to respond. Its complicated, like I said. Most people (me included) know that you just say, "Bien, bien, gracias. Y tú/usted?" to respond, but it was good to learn what people are actually saying.
Anyway, after talking a little bit about the differences between the two "to be" verbs in Spanish, that was pretty much my class.
Yesterday afternoon, a bunch of student teachers from the US arrived in Cuenca. They'll be working at the school for 6 weeks as part of their student teaching requirements. So I met them yesterday afternoon and then again this morning at the school. They all seem really cool and excited to work with us.
So a lot of this morning was spent getting them oriented to the school, meeting the national teachers, etc. I did have a really fun lesson with the kindergarteners about rain, but besides that it was mostly student teacher related stuff.
This afternoon I went and hung out at the CEDEI international programs office while Slocomb was having his class. I'm hoping to spend some of his afternoons in class at museums and other things he's not super jazzed about. We'll see. I just hung out on the computer today and did a little drawing. I'm hoping to get back in to practice drawing because there are so many great buildings and stuff to draw here.
Anyway, we went home after class just to turn around and meet up with two of the student teachers from the States who live close-by, Kelly and Johanna. We took them to the Super-Maxi to get shampoo and stuff and then we went out to dinner. It was really nice to have new people to hang out with. Not that the international team folks aren't awesome, but we see each other all the time. New people are nice. Another cool thing was being able to compare our Spanish levels. Most of them don't speak Spanish, so its really cool to be able to say to them, I didn't speak any Spanish 6 weeks ago, and now look at me! They all seemed really impressed. I was impressed too in doing my own comparison. I guess I shouldn't brag, but hanging out with non-Spanish speakers made me realize how far I've come in the past 6 weeks.
Anyway, that's the low down of the past two days. I'll post (hopefully tomorrow) about some of the other stuff that's gone on in the past weeks!

Sábado en Cuenca

Today we spent the day chilling in Cuenca. We woke up late, and I cooked breakfast while Slocomb did some of our laundry.
We met up with one of our co-workers from the school, Pepe Luna. I always say his first and last name because it sounds cool. Anyway, he's a professional concert violinist, but since the market for violinists isn't huge in a town of half a million people, he also teaches private lessons and works as the music teacher at CEDEI school. He's really good with the kids, but he happens to be a night person (like many musicians), meaning that the waking up at 6am isn't super fun. One night last week, he had stayed up all night composing and spent the whole next day at school wearing his sunglasses. Jen (one of the other international teachers) is already taking violin lessons from him, and I'm hoping to do so as well.
We went to his office (on Juan Montalvo, on the west side of the historic center) and met a couple of his friends who were hanging around. His office is decorated with tons of posters of Cuenca and its film and music festivals. It seems like the annual film festival is in December, so I'd like to have enough Spanish by then to enjoy it.
From Pepe's office we walked to Parque Calderón (or the Central Park) to meet up with another of Pepe's friends, Juan, who is a tour guide in Cuenca. He also happens to speak English (which Pepe is trying to learn). We all went to this vegetarian restaurant on the east side of downtown. We found out that Pepe thought that I was a vegetarian, not Jen, but we cleared that up. The restaurant was still really good, and I really want to go back to try some of their fruit and yogurt desserts.
After a leisurely lunch talking about troubles speaking Spanish and English as well as American politics, Juan wanted to take us to Turi, the "balcony of the city." When he first said it, Slocomb and I didn't know where he was talking about, but once he described it some more, we realized that we had been there the first night we were in Cuenca. We still decided to go because the view during the day and the company of two Cuencanos would be very different that our first trip there. The bus tour we took the first day in Cuenca was mostly tourists, and it was completely dark by the time we got there. The view was still beautiful, and I could point out a lot more of the city this time. Juan quizzed us a little, asking us, "Where is the airport? Where are the Inca ruins? etc." It was cool to be familiar with the city this time.The company was also very cool this time. We talked about Spanish and English swear words as well as other idiosyncrasies of the languages we speak. One of the most interesting things that we talked about was how much Juan and Pepe want to go to the US. Unfortunately (and we've heard this a couple of times), it is almost impossible for Ecuadorians to get even a tourist visa. One explanation I've heard is that lots of Ecuadorians want to come to the US to work, so they've taken advantage of tourists visas and just stayed. I think about how easy it was for Slocomb and I to get our visas to come here to work (after we got the paperwork from CEDEI); it seems a bit unfair that the visas shouldn't be reciprocated.
Anyway, having been able to see the some of beauty of Pepe and Juan's country, I hope to be able some day to show them the beauty of the US. But for now, I'm just enjoying getting to know some Cuencanos and hanging out in their city.

Trying to catch up!

I’ve been asked several times when I’m going to update my blog, so I guess two weeks of silence is enough... Unfortunately that means I have a lot to cover...
School has been going very well. Some days are better than others, of course, but I’m definitely settling in. My favorite class (not that I have one, but whatever) is probably the pre-school class. I teach art, science, and library to them, but that means we do a lot of coloring and reading books. There are ten of them total, but usually a few are gone for one reason or another. Its also a really boy-heavy class (Renata is the only girl), but that isn’t really as much of a problem as it could be. They learn so quickly; they are like little sponges!
The primero de basica (kindergarten) class is probably my hardest. There are 20 students in that class, and its also boy-heavy. There are also two children with vision problems (one with severe light-sensitivity, one completely blind) , and its really hard to try to work with them and the whole class. We’re meeting tomorrow with the special needs specialists, and they’re going to hopefully help us with how to work with them. The primero class has good days and bad days. Today was a good day, but yesterday was a bad day. I ended up having to sit them all down and give them a serious talking to. Maybe that’s why they were good today...
I also teach math to the segundo de basica (first grade). They are very well behaved for me, and their national teacher, Pris, is incredible. We are working on learning the names of the numbers in English mostly because they can add and subtract in either language and the answer comes out the same!
I also teach library to Quarto (third grade) and Quinto (fourth grade). Last week and this week we are working on short book reports. Most of the year, we are going to be working on reading comprehension and writing, so I thought a book report would be a good place to start. I let the kids choose their own books, and so many of them chose Dr. Seuss!! I guess silly pictures and fun rhymes have a world-wide appeal.

Anyway, enough about school. Outside of school, Slocomb and I have gotten to do several fun things, mostly on the weekends. Our school day is from 7:30-1:30, so we have all afternoon to do as we please (mostly nap). We usually have lunch out. You can get an almuerzo on pretty much every corner for $1.25-1.50. Almuerzos include soup, a main dish, rice, and fresh juice. And you totally can not make that big a lunch for $1.50.

On the weekends is when we’ve done a lot of our travel/touristy stuff. Last weekend we spent Saturday (the 20th) afternoon in the park near the river Tomebamba. We saw all sorts of things, like people playing fetch with their dogs,playing Ecua-volley (volleyball with a higher net and a soccer ball - ouch!),doing laundry,and other sorts of every-day stuff. It was a fun, very Cuencano experience.

On Sunday (the 21st), we went to Baños, a town about 20 minutes away from our house. The number 11 bus goes right by our neighborhood and then to Baños. We spend most of the day at the spa, Piedra de Agua for only $10. They had Turkish baths, several hot and cold tubs, and a nice large pool. On our way out of the spa, Slocomb spotted a large rock ridge that he decided had to be climbed. At first I was skeptical, but then I climbed up too and saw the beautiful view.Of course, Slocomb had to show off how tall he was.Towards dark, we walked up to the town square where they were having a market and went inside the church. Even in a town as small as Baños (probably a town of several hundred), the church was huge and ornate! The view when you walk out of the church was really incredible too.This Saturday (the 27th), we went to the Museo Banco Central, one of the best museums in town. Before Ecuador moved to the dollar, Banco Central was sort of like the Fed except that they sponsored cultural and social works in Ecuador. Now that they don’t have to worry about regulating interest rates or anything, Banco Central is mostly about the cultural stuff. So they have a great museum.
Part of the museum is the remains of Pumapongo, the center of the Cañari and then Inca city where Cuenca is now. It is clear why the Cañari built their town center where they did, because it is an incredible natural nodal site.
Also included in the museum is a bird preserve, with lots of birds native to Ecuador.
Yesterday was Slocomb’s birthday, so we went out for tapas with some of our co-workers. We were all a little surprised with how expensive the place was (the bill for 5 people was almost $50!!), but then we remembered that that was still really cheap in the grand scheme of the dollar. Its funny how quickly we’ve gotten used to how little things cost here...

Well, that’s a (very quick) recap of what we’ve done the past two weeks. Now I want to share a few anecdotes from the time...
We celebrated Slocomb’s and Pris’s birthdays at school last Friday. I volunteered to bring a cake (and I made a chocolate dessert too), so I went looking around for one. At Supermaxi (the Kroger of Cuenca), the cakes were about $10-$15. Not bad for a good size cake. I decided to keep looking though, because nothing really jumped out at me at Supermaxi. I went to Punto, this bakery very close to our house. I saw a chocolate and strawberry cake that looked quite good, so I asked how much it cost. The woman behind the counter said, “Siete dólores.” I wasn’t having a good Spanish day, so I stood there and thought myself, “Siete. That’s seven right? That cake can’t be seven dollars. Maybe its seventeen. No wait, that diecisiete, so its not seventeen. Whoa is that cake really seven dollars?” So I told her I’d take it. It was a really good cake too.
Next story: We decided we wanted to go to Quito to see the Ecuador-Uruguay soccer game (its a world cup qualifier), so we went to this travel agency that we knew had a package deal. After visiting the agency a couple of times and finally deciding what we wanted to do, we were chatting with one of the travel agent while the other one confirmed our booking, etc. She asked us, So where are you from? How long will you be in Ecuador? Are you working here?, etc. So we answered all of the questions, and when we told the travel agent that we were working at CEDEI school, she said, “My son goes there!” So of course she asked, “How is he doing? Does he behave and follow directions?” We of course said that he did (even though he is sometimes a little rambunctious), and laughed about how small a town Cuenca was. Then we said, actually, we’re in a hurry because we have to get to the parent meeting at the school. The travel agent apparently had thought the meeting was the next night, so she was realized she was in just as much of a hurry as we were! We got everything squared away and got to the meeting on time, but we were newly aware of how small a town Cuenca really is...
Third story: After leaving Banco Central on Saturday, Slocomb and I were both really thirsty. We walked up to the corner store (half of which are really just large windows where you walk up and tell the person working what you want. We just asked for two bottles of water, and then asked how much it was (make sure you always ask how much something is here before taking it!! They sometimes will raise the price after they’re sure you’re going to buy it if you don’t ask!). We paid, and then went on our way. We then realized that she had given us an extra quarter in change, so we went back to tell her and get the correct change. The woman’s reaction was so interesting! When we first got to the store, she wasn’t that friendly (probably thinking, oh, these obnoxious tourists), but after we gave the change back, it was like we had made her whole week! Slocomb and I together are pretty memorable (because we stick out like sore thumbs), but I’m pretty sure that the woman that the tienda will remember us for a long time to come.
Fourth story: A few minutes later, we caught the bus to go home. We were riding along when the bus pulls up behind a taxi and honks. And then the driver gets off of the bus. We were so confused with what was going on because then a guy got out of the taxi and then on the bus to drive the bus! We figured out what was going on because there had been a kid at the front of the bus helping with fares, etc, wearing the same hat as the bus driver. Okay, we figure, the bus driver brought his son to work with him. Then when the bus changed drivers, you could tell that the new bus driver was the kid’s brother. So dad and kid started out driving the bus route, and then dad and older brother switch off so dad can go drive the taxi. Maybe you just had to be there, but this town just cracks me up.
Fifth and final story: Monday was flag day in Ecuador, so to celebrate at school, we talked the flags of all different countries. I turned this into a lesson about colors with the kindergarteners, so I had the flags of Ecuador (yellow, blue, red), Ireland (green, white, orange), Kenya (black, red, green) and the US (red, white, blue). I held up the flags one by one, asked the class what country it was (they were stumped on Ireland but knew Kenya because we talked about Kenya in September), and asked what the colors in the flag were. They were doing well until we got to the US flag. I held it up, and one of the kids yells (loudly) out, “La bandera de Nueva York!!” (the flag of New York). Apparently the kids at school associate the US flag with New York. We’ll have to work on that...