Ecuador Map

After the last updated map let-down (I never explained the places visited, I'm sorry), I pledge to do better and quicker.

We didn’t volunteer in Ecuador, so no color code is necessary. You’ll notice I went ahead and included the location names right next to the map. Is this helpful or not?

32 – Tulcán – early morning of 2/22 – An all-night bus from Cali, Colombia took us to the border earlier than anticipated. We waited for the sun to rise to make for a safer border crossing into this small Ecuadorian town.

33 – Quito – 2/22 to 3/05 – We stayed with Eleana Figueroa (Ele), Joe’s family’s former foreign exchange student, her brother and sister in Quito. They have a nice apartment a little ways north of the city center. And they were INCREDIBLE hosts! Here Joe’s mom came for a week, also using their home as a central base for other travels. We were all impressed by the unique, beautiful churches and plazas, along with happening, hip neighborhoods Quito has to offer. Though polluted, Quito was a good place to be.

34 – Otavalo – 2/26 to 2/27 – We, including the mother, fell victim to Otavalo’s main tourist attraction—it’s lively, touristy market. Everything we owned ended up spewing forth soft alpaca accessories, minus our wallets, which weren’t spewing forth much at all. Juleen proved the master market negotiator of the three. A hostel situated amid the rolling green and rocky volcanoes, plus good pizza made the short trip even more pleasant.

35 – Riobamba – 2/28 to 3/01 – A traditional Ecuadorian lunch—fritada, mote, plantains, empanadas de queso, potatoes, fried whole corn kernels, salad, etc—with Ele’s family, followed by a light dinner of guinea pig made this trip synonymous with food. Meeting Ele’s fam was great too! We see where she got the great hosting skills.

36 – Baños – 3/01 – The few hours we spent here were not enough. Baños is a great traveler and adventurer hub with more than enough to offer, and an incredible setting with 360 degrees of steep mountainous terrain surrounding the small city to boot.

37 – somewhere within the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve – 3/06 to 3/09 – Seven hours in bus from Quito to the jungle frontier town of Lago Agrio. Three hours in a private van farther eastward. Two-and-a-half more hours into the Amazonian ecosystem in motor-powered canoe. We thus ended up at Jamu Lodge, quite a luxurious place given its environs. See the preceding blog for more info about what we did.

38 – Cuenca – 3/11 to 3/14 – Seventeen hours in bus from Lago Agrio got us to Cuenca, soon to be our favorite city of the journey. Incan ruins, great museums, a riverwalk, not to mention Ecuador’s staple beautiful plazas and churches, a happy gringo community—what’s not to love about Cuenca?

39 – Loja – 3/14 – The way out of Ecuador took us through Loja. Though there didn’t appear to be much to do in town (we were told the place to watch American sports is the bus terminal, for example—luckily we didn’t find the Purdue-Minnesota basketball game), it’s supposedly surrounded by national parks. We can attest to the pleasantly mild climate. Another night bus, this one with a border crossing into Peru, took us out of Loja and the country.

Ecuador Wrap-Up
It seems this country has a lot to offer. The fact that it’s smaller makes its distinct climates and locations much more accessible, which is a big plus compared to relative giants Colombia and Peru. It was also significantly cheaper than Colombia—another bonus. Though we didn’t volunteer, spending time with Ele, her family and Joe’s mom made the time substantive enough that it didn’t seem like we were lacking in the I-need-to-be-productive department; this has haunted Joe especially during previous extended traveling phases of the trip. In the end, we highly recommend the parts of Ecuador we saw (particularly Cuenca, Julie and Harold!), and we’re anxious to see more.

Welcome to the jungle!

“In the jungle. Welcome to the jungle,” as Joe would scream at the top of his lungs, attempting to sing a popular American rock song. Yes, we were headed to the jungle, Ecuador’s Amazon (the watershed, not the actual river) to be exact. We paid the bill, the steepest of our adventure, and took off. Heading east approximately ten hours in bus, plus 2.5 hours downstream in a motorized canoe, we arrived at our jungle lodge. Jamu Lodge was fully equipped with hammocks for Joe to enjoy his early mornings, hot tea, coffee, and chocolate for us to enjoy at any point of the day, and comfy mosquito net-protected beds!

Other than enjoy our few days of luxury, what did we do? We did all the typical jungle stuff. We took our canoe out into the middle of a lake that is home to piranhas, crocodiles, and snakes for sunset swims. We took a hike through the trees to admire monkeys, birds, and plants. We, unsuccessfully, went piranha fishing; apparently, it’s the wrong time of the year. We visited an indigenous group still living in the jungle. They demonstrated one of their typical cooking practices, using a root plant called yuca. In addition to getting to see their village, we visited the village Shaman. He was wearing his full regale, and, after talking about his training and tradition, he demonstrated the strength of jungle plants on a couple of our fellow tourists. Two tourists became victims to a jungle plant that supposedly increases circulation, but only after breaking their backs out into terribly itchy hives.

While all was interesting, the highlight was Joe The Biologist coming alive in our night hike. Eight of us were tightly in line, listening to every word that came out of our guide’s mouth. While Joe The Biologist, with his crappy flashlight in hand, was wondering off the path, searching for the never-been-seen-before insect or snake. His efforts proved not only to be quite the entertainment for me (Juleen), but it proved fruitful for the group. He was the sole person to spot a snake that night.

While alive with other life forms, our lives in the jungle were pretty sleepy. The insects were humming, owls were hooting, and the rest of our group was alive and well, enjoying the night, even the 60-ish Dutch couple. Meanwhile, by 9:30, we were fast asleep. Being in such close proximity with the seven other people comprising our group highlighted our different sleeping schedules, making us a little self-conscious as we turned our flames out right after dinner as theirs were just getting started. Our minimum nine-hour sleeping schedule hasn’t just made us uncomfortable in the Amazon; it’s been a re-occurring “problem” throughout the trip. When else has this problem manifested itself???

For two examples, we need go no further than tonight and last night! Last night when our couchsurfing host kindly invited us to go dancing our first question was when will he go out. Upon hearing the 9:30 departure time we declined. We were sleeping before he left. Finally, we are presently struggling, as we wait for our night bus to leave at 11pm! The only way to stay awake, I guess, is to write a blog…

A good meal lost in the Moore's basement

Before, when I, Joe, thought of guinea pigs I could only think of the pet guinea pig (or hamster—who knows the difference between those terrible pets anyway?) my sister had when we were growing up. A little while, probably just a few days, into its existence at our house, it went missing. Months later we found it. Underneath our old, scraggly basement couch we found a familiar looking and familiar smelling dead pet guinea pig. After our last few weeks here in Ecuador none of us will think of guinea pigs, or cuyes as Spanish-speakers call them, in the same way.

This monumental transformation of our perceptions of this small, measly rodent started because my family had a foreign exchange student. She was Ecuadorian and came to stay with us during my first year away at college. I didn’t get to know her too well, but a few stories surfaced from her time in the States and made their way to me. One of the most entertaining stories of Eleana, details her going to a friend’s house for dinner and offering to cook up the family’s pet for dinner. You see, in Ecuador and Peru (and apparently other southern South America countries too) guinea pigs don’t have assume a throne of a plastic cage w/ a spinning wheel. They instead sit atop one’s royal dinner (or likely lunch) plate, ready to be consumed, paws and all.

Eating guinea pig, or cuy, dates back further than modern-day Ecuadorian and Peruvian omnivores. Supposedly, according to Juleen, the Incans were enthralled with eating cuy, placing some spiritual significance in consuming the rodent. For more on this part of the story, let’s go to the source herself. Here’s Juleen.

Well, being the Incan expert that I am, I googled it. Here is what I found, “The cuy has a place in pre-Colombian Inca tradition. Consumed only by the nobility or used as a sacrifice and a means of foretelling the future via the entrails.”

So, in pursuit of Incan bliss, we followed not the trails to the ancient civilization’s sites, but the faint sounds of cuy that give the guinea pig their Spanish name. Our first encounter with the royal rodent occurred at an animal market in Otavalo, Ecuador, a few hours north of Quito. Among other animals, the predominantly indigenous capitalists maintained a thriving cuy trade. Sellers had baskets full of fluffy-haired guinea pigs. Buyers went around grabbing the necks of the cuy, testing the meatiness of the animals, throwing them into a rice sack if they met the mark.

Okay, we can handle the cuy exchange. That’s not too hard on the eyes, nor the stomach. But could we handle cuyes cooking as they rotate above a charcoal grill? Unlike the familiar rotisserie poultry, the cuy comes with head, paws, and, well, everything attached. No polite de-animalization of your lunch here. Still we survived.

The logical next step of our cuy-based Incan investigation is the climax—eating the darn thing. Why else would we have stopped at the road-side rotisserie cuy vendor? Eleana’s father was anxious for us to try the cuy, of all Ecuadorian meals his favorite. And so we stopped the car, bought a whole cuy (very crisp, please, he asked) to go for $15. Wrapped in a plastic bag that hid the sight but not the rich smell, we headed towards Eleana’s hometown in Riobamba, three hours south of Quito.

Finally, that evening the time had come to eat like kings, or, more appropriately, Incas (meaning kings in the indigenous Quechua tongue). Juleen wasted no time in putting her portion of the cuy to waste, eating the rodent like the pig she is. Joe, as he is inclined to, politely and nimbly picked the small pieces of meat off of the small bones. Denise, Joe’s mom, even took part in the cuy-tasting fiesta, eating a few bites. The climax within the climax of this story? Juleen boldly and indiscriminatingly chomping the cuy’s hind-leg paw. She reports that it was a delight, particularly the discernible crunch of the fingernail. Joe reports that he has assumed a spot atop a throne, albeit figurative…and imaginary.

Now, all familiar with the Moores’ sad pet guinea pig tale, we can’t help but think differently about guinea pigs. Never again will we let such a useless pet go to waste. And, having done the important part and eaten like an Inca, we plan to continue our Inca quest right after our Amazonian adventure that starts with a 11pm bus ride tonight!

Colombia Map Update

In this post you get even more than a map of our Colombian adventures. Hard to imagine anything better, I know.

For the recent February celebration we went to a volcanic mudpit. A unique experience--the first "touristy" tour we've gone on and the first time we've immersed ourselves in mud. The incredible buoyant feeling left us giddily suspended in the viscous liquid. I, Joe, struggled mightily to move. Juleen did too, but less than I. But then again Juleen is better than me at all things done in water.

Picture above of us with our CouchSurfing friends--Tonio (French) and Sophie (British). Notice in the background the stairs up the hill that lead to the mudpit. We're in that very mudpit in the picture to the right.

But, back to the present...

In two hours we board a border-bound bus. We're taking the 7:30pm Transipiales bus the ten to eleven hours to the border town of Ipiales. You've heard great things about the company, right? Yeah, me too, like they have bathrooms on their buses.

Once there, in Ipiales, we take a taxi a few kilometers to the actual border, hopefully with the sun illuminating our way. Cross. Take an Ecuadorian taxi a few kilometers, then board an Ecuadorian bus to Quito. Were the trip to Quito another ten hours, I'd think this adventure almost a palindrome, with the border crossing in the middle. Luckily it's a cool five hours.

Plan is to stay with my family's former Ecuadorian exchange-student, Eleana, in Quito. My mom gets in for a week of Latin America on the 24th. No plans concerning Ecuador after that.

Colombian map below. Description of each site coming soon...

Living the OT dream!

For four great weeks, I led the occupational therapy dream! I was given the opportunity to rotate through several different settings, providing occupational therapy services and stumbling through Spanish. Here are highlights:

A couple mornings a week I went with a health clinic team to visit individuals with disabilities in the mountain-side communities. Seeing their living conditions and experiencing the adversity they deal with was a humbling, to say the least. The house pictured is where a young man of 26 years lives with his mom. He was the victim of a gun shot wound, years ago. Expanding my skill-set, I made him custom wrist supports to increase the function in his hands. This was a new experience for me as the splints were made out of plaster material. I must admit, I was proud of the product (see picture). While he was unsure of their benefits, we agreed that he’d give them a try for a while.

I also helped a new occupational therapist at a community program for kids who are deaf. A primary role at the center was speech therapy; however, many kids who are deaf or hard of hearing need assistance in regulating their sensations (which is where OT comes in). Since she was a new therapist, I provided more consultative services, making cheat sheets about treatment ideas for kids displaying different characteristics. See picture of the new therapist treating an 8 month old.

Another program took place once a week. A bus load of older adults (from the mountain-side communities) have a day of free services at the organization. Services I saw included: medical attention (including free meds), dental care, hair cuts, free food!, social activities (such as Bingo), respiratory therapy, physical therapy, and, while I was there, OT! I must admit, I loved helping with Bingo, but I was able to provide some one-on-one advice too. My highlight was working with wound care. A man (see photo) had a lower-leg burn that has been healing for 13 years. I’ve seen therapists complete wound care, but it was my first experience leading such an effort.
Alright, I’m writing too much. I also worked in two schools. Some OT was provided in groups and some individually.

In all, it was an incredible month for me.

I want to return.

Busting Our Butts in Bogota

A month ago we promised that all, with the start of our volunteering, would no longer be fun and games in Bogota. Admittedly, we had lived it up up to that point—partaking in the Colombian all-night party, i.e. rumba, albeit a version that ended at 12:30 instead of 6:30am; being tourists; getting whipped in tennis (it was my first time on a clay court!); enjoying microbrews at the Bogota Beer Company; and, generally, letting ourselves be spoiled by Juliana and Diego and their two maids. Though we have found time for a bit of fun and a few games (of futbol) since, the past few weeks have corroborated our claim. But, if it hasn’t been all leisure, what have we been up to?

Among the two of us, Joe has had less on his plate, except at lunch, so we’ll start with him. He…okay, I’m switching to “I”; the third person feels funny. My primary responsibility has been to take over various teachers’ classes, presenting lessons on environmental topics. I spent most of the time discussing climate change—what it is, what it’s caused by, and what are some things we can do to limit our “carbon footprint”. Interestingly, I’ve had the opportunity to have this discussion with a wide range of age groups. In the end, though I felt like an actor in front of them, I enjoyed the third-graders most. The oldest girls were fun, too, but for a different reason, and the middle school-aged girls were, well, interesting. And, yes, I meant to put “girls” back there. Santa Pachas is an all-girls school, pre-kindergarten through high school. When it comes to single-sex education, I concede, I was biased to begin with, having gone to the all-male Wabash College. I am now further convinced that single-sex education can be a great thing, and perhaps an even better thing in primary and secondary schooling.

In addition to the teaching, I led discussions of environmental topics within a conservation club on Fridays, and I worked with the woman in charge of professional development at CASFA, the younger, less successful version of our main workplace, Santa Pachas. A better introduction to this school, reminiscent of my former teaching grounds in Chicago, is in order.

CASFA serves a different class of student than Santa Pachas, and I mean class in the socioeconomic sense. Located farther up the mountain, part of the poorer, northward urban sprawl of Bogota, CASFA’s loud, painfully urban environs provide quite the contrast to the lush, tranquil campus of Santa Pachas. And it’s not just a difference of setting; the resources of the average CASFA student pale in comparison to the relatively affluent Pacha chica. Sadly, as is too often the case, the quality of the instruction within the two schools is, at least for the moment, directly correlated with the financial resources of the institution and its clientele. (Pachas does nobly provide financial support to its younger sibling, CASFA, to help curb the gap.)

Juleen and I spent our Thursday’s at CASFA, struggling with the disparity. Those Thursdays provided a few headaches, and they provided substance for the recommendations I ultimately gave to the school´s professional development coordinator. Impressively, she received all of my ideas graciously and encouraged me to provide more.

That´s what I have been up to. While not leisurely, it’s been great (most days) to have something to do and to feel productive again. It had been a while.

And Juleen has been even busier than I. Her story and relevant pictures are on their way. Right, come back soon.

We discovered El Dorado!

We have uncovered the Legend of El Dorado (meaning “the guilded one”) in Bogota, Colombia! Once a bird told the Spanish Conquistadors, that the indigenous threw an abundance of gold into a lake as offering to mother earth… the legend began. Was it a lost city? What kind of gems existed? Where was the gold? The legend taunted “gringos”.

Expeditions by Europeans led them through the Amazon and parts of South America in search of El Dorado throughout the 1500s. In 1638, the truth came out. Turns out, the El Dorado myth originated with an indigenous chief who covered himself in honey, then gold dust! He was then rowed out of the middle of Lake Guatavita, just outside of Bogota, Colombia, and jumped into the lake. In addition, gold figures were thrown into the lake as offerings.

Knowing the truth, our search for El Dorado was easy. First, we took a day trip out to Lake Guatavita. We did a group hike up to the lake! Yes, all 40 of us were hiking up the skinny trail in a single-file line. Along the hike we heard the not too surprising story of different groups of Europeans trying to drain the lake to get the goods for years. Formerly, the water level was up to the rim (where we were standing). Now, however, the water level is significantly lower. Despite these drastic efforts, they never got down to the gold and never found the El Dorado...

We did!

A weekend later, we visited the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum) downtown Bogota. The gold was impressively on display for all to enjoy. If only the Spanish Conquistadors could have seen the display of gold. It was incredible.