Yeah...

So I'm starting to realize that this whole blog thing is turning into a once weekly sort of thing. I guess that's ok as most of the fun stuff that I want to talk about happens on the weekends. *shrug*

Well, this weekend is a little different as I didn't do anything really cool like go hiking in the rainforest again. I did have a day trip yesterday with my volcanology class but it was to a place called Cuicocha which I have already visited with my Kalamazoo group a few weeks ago. (its the volcano lagoon with the really cool islands in the middle, I'm sure that I talked about it at some point) I wouldn't have paid the $15 to go but it was a requirement for my class. Anyhoo, it would have been a fine time if it hadn't been for two things. Number one, that I only got 3.5 hours of sleep the night before (my fault, I know, but its just so hard to stop yourself from having fun and in all fairness we left at 6:30AM and I had to get up at least an hour before that). And number two that me and two of my other friends ended up getting stuck sitting outside of a closed museum for almost 2 hours trying to figure out what happend to the huge group of gringos that were just ahead of us. What happend was out giant group (filled 3 charter buses) split into two while half took a boat tour and the other half went to the museum. Well, there wasn't room on the boats for us and we missed to initial bus to the museum. So by the time we had walked up the hill the other group obviously realized that it was closed and went somewhere else. Where they ended up we may never know but we definately sat outside in the cold wind telling stupid stories hoping for everyone else to show up for quite a while. All in all, not a very productive day.

In other news due to today's national political elections, (Ecuador is voting to create an assembly to write a whole new constitution, my political science friends are in heaven) which are mandatory for all citizens, we have a wonderful thing here called the ley seca. In Spanish that means the dry law, AKA it is illegal to sell or consume alcohol in the country from last Friday at 12:00AM until tomorrow (Monday). As you can guess, we all went out and celebrated Thursday. It was my first time at a real dance club and it would have been a blast if I hadn't managed to pass out around 1AM. (I was NOT drunk) The best I can figure was I was dehydrated, but as I have continued to feel a dizzy from time to time over the past 3 days I'm thinking its something else. I think tomorrow I'm going to go see a doctor as my host Mom seems convinced I have a blood sugar problem. We'll see, all I'm hoping is that I'm not forbidden to eat sugar anymore because I'm not so sure I can survive this country right now without my oreos. :)

One more story to add to my random mix of happenings: Ever wondered what it would be like to be in Ecuador, home alone after dark, and in the bathroom when all power in the neighborhood goes out? Not so much fun and REALLY dark without even the street lamps outside to help. Thank God for my head lamp. hehe. But don't worry, it only lasted for about 5 minutes and I was just about to leave anyway, but let me tell you I was not very happy for those few minutes.

Now I sound pessimestic. Not everything that has happend this week has been bad, I swear. Its just that those little stories are more fun to share. I'll work this week on finding some happier ones.

This is a video of the birds calls that I promised you. I hope that it
is atleast interesting to those of you who are not science people.

And then we saw some birds…

Once again this weekend I went on a field trip out side of Quito. This time it was just a biology trip, sponsored by Kalamazoo College so it didn’t cost us any more money (hooray!) but only included the four of us biology program kids from Kalamazoo and the rest of my Ornithology class. It was a three day adventure to several different ecosystems of the country to go bird watching. We went to the top of a mountain (for all you science people the ecosystem is called the páramo, above the tree line), a cloud forest, several rivers, an even a patch of rainforest past the western boundaries of the Andes. That was my first time in the country outside of the mountains, and let me tell you it is much warmer being on the equator and not at 9,000 + feet of altitude. There are also more bugs and poisonous snakes in the lowlands. I was a little disappointed actually because we were supposed to camp on Saturday but because of the presence of too many snakes we were forced instead to sleep with only our sleeping bags in one big room on the cement floor. If I wasn’t so completely worn out I might have had more trouble sleeping.

As it was, we woke up at 4:30am on Saturday and 5:00am on Sunday in order to watch the birds at their most active point as the sun rises. Saturday was really cool because we hiked into the midst of a cloud forest and watched a giant lek (basically a place were all the males of one species come together to show off for the girls in the hope of getting lucky) of beautiful bright red Andean Cock-of-the-Rocks (in Spanish they are called gallo de la peña, which I think sounds much better). The noise was fantastic. You can watch the video but in order to get the whole experience imagine me literally sitting in the middle of the vegetation in the dark watching the sun get brighter and the birds get louder and more numerous. Surround sound as you’ve never heard it.

While we went with the purpose of bird watching, which we did at every possibility stopping the bus anytime anything big flew over head and seeing a total of 82 different species, there were plenty of other activities that kept me plenty entertained when the birds got tiring. For example our two guides were hilarious. See the picture above where the two guys in red are climbing the giant tree in the rainforest, and then realize that the guy farthest up is smoking a cigarette and is at least 60. They were also very fond of practical jokes, not cool in the middle of the forest when you think you’re getting attacked by some very large insect and its really just a guy with a stick and quick reflexes. While our bus was very ghetto and we spent way more hours than I can count driving it over the mountains we did manage to have a full blown dance party inside (and for some on top) of the bus on Saturday night just because we were bored. That same bus, however, did break down for about a half an hour on the side of the highway on the way home. I made friends with the nearby donkey on the side of the road. And for food I ate my very first, and hopefully not last, banana picked straight off the plant. It was sooo good. Also Kalamazoo College bought me a $4.83 filet mignon at the restaurant Saturday night that we also at breakfast and lunch at the following day. Needless to say it was not very good and I’m pretty sure it was the same meat that was in my breakfast on Sunday.

Yeah, it was a good weekend and while I didn’t get to shower for three days I somehow still came back cleaner than last weekend…

These two links are to videos that my friend Matt took of the shaman lady from Otavalo in action. Just watch and you will understand a little of what I was talking about in my entry earlier (umm, a week or so ago).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmnmd7LF1GA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OT6pxXv3mE

My first volcanos

Well, this weekend was definately an interesting one. It started out on Friday where I somehow ended up at my very first Ecuadorian house party. It was actually the birthday celebration of my host mother's cousin, who is only 25, and I'm still not sure what that makes him to me. *shrug* It was fun, but lasted past 3am. I also learned through a little bit of hands on experience that what we have been told about the stereotype that American women are "easy" is very true. I had no less than two guys giving it there best shot at becoming my Ecuadorian novio (boyfriend). Apparently there are a lot of people here who seem to think that the study abroad experience just isn't complete until you've dated an Ecua. We'll see about that one.

Okay, day 2: Saturday. The day was rather uneventful but the evening involved a very fun pizza party at one of my friend's house. He lives right next to the Quito airport (which by the way is in the center of the city). The entertainment of the night involved watching planes land and take off from his roof and trying to guess which ones will be loud enough to make the walls of the house shake. Some of those little planes surprise you. After the party some of us went to another of my friend's house to stay up all night in preparation for the following day's volcanology field trip. Basically that means we played lots of cards, watched a movie, and drank lots and lots of pepsi. (yes, I succeeded and did not sleep at all that night.)

On to Sunday. It begins at 3:30am when we met the rest of our class in Quito in order to climb into several 4 x 4 vehicles and begin the 1hour plus drive up to the peak of the volcano Guagua Pichincha which just borders the city of Quito. When we got up there it was very cold (I'm talking ice and a killer windchill) and very cloudy. In fact it was so cloudy that we could not see any of the promised sweet volcanic crater and very little of the sunrise that got us up so early. What we did get was very little oxygen and some eery views of jagged pointed rocks coming out of the fog that would make any horror movie's day.

Trip 2: still Sunday and only an hour after driving back down the first volcano. We next piled into two charter buses and continued to drive for more than 2 hours to volcano number two: Papallaka (spelling not sure on that one). This one is more in the jungle and was supposed to be nice and sunny and hot. It was: rainy and cold. However, after breaking open several volcanic rocks with hammers to satisfy our crazy professor, we went to this other location, I think on the side of the volcano somewhere. Next we proceeded to, for lack of a better word, bushwhack through, in, up and down this jungle river gorge. It was one of the most fun things I have done so far in this country as I got to climb through pristine bamboo forest where there existed no previous trail. The amount of mud that was stuck to my clothes could be measured in pounds. Well, maybe not quite, but we were really really dirty. It was great. Would have been a lot better with fewer people, but I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that more of our biology field trips will involve such activities. :)

Needless to say, by the time I got back on Sunday night I had little engery left for anything but taking a nice long hot shower and falling into bed. I love not having class on Mondays...

Cultural experience

First of all I would like to add as a side note that this blog is collection of my thoughts and activities that I want to share with all of the people that can’t be here with me. This being said I apologize in advance (or maybe not if it has already occurred) for any spelling or grammatical errors that exist in my writing. Anyone who knows me well enough will understand, and given that I have little time to put together each entry and even less time to edit them, I think it will just be what it is. :)

Alright then, as far as time goes I’m hoping to get my computer connected to the internet line here in my house so that I will be able to use it a little more freely. However, this is a slow process that has been discussed in my house for about two weeks now and although I do seem to get a little closer everyday, has not yet happened. Therefore in order to send emails or post pictures I must wait for those rare opportunities when I can get my computer a wireless center, then pray that is works (the one at my university doesn’t like to half the time) and do everything I want to before my battery dies. This is why I tend to write only every few days and often in large clumps, like now. Ah, the things you take for granted in Kalamazoo... constant, free, and fast internet.

The day to day life around here is settling in. I have found a local coffee shop, corner mini market, and figured out most of the major bus or walking routes to get to my friends’ houses. I also have finally got all my classes figured out (took me long enough). My weekly schedule is class only Tuesday through Thursday giving me a four day weekend. Now, whether or not I find productive things to do with all this free time is yet to be seen, but I think I’m still getting spoiled. Don’t be too envious though as I have class for 6 straight hours on Tues. and Thurs. and only get to eat lunch in the form of whatever snacks I can buy between classes (usually candy, coke and empanadas). Other than school I spend my time either wandering around Quito or Cumbayá (where my university is) with my friends or sitting in my room at home reading, maybe doing homework, and avoiding being attacked by my little sister. I have a feeling that by the end I will have read a lot of books. I did buy two new ones in Spanish today though, one of them being Harry Potter 3. It’s the small pleasures that keep me going at the moment.

I’m also attempting to pass the time by finding some trip to take every weekend. So far, not counting the first, it has worked. My entire group of 16 Kalamazoo kids went this past weekend to various indigenous pueblos to see the more traditional side of Ecuadorian culture. It was a treat to say the least. Somehow in less than 48 hours we managed to do all of the following things: view a beautiful volcano complete with small village and lake; leave one of our classmates at this location and waste 45 minutes collecting her again; get spit on by an old indigenous shaman (the whole process lasted over an hour and “eliminates evil spirits”); watch a horde of small children in rainbow masks dance, sing and fight with each other; go to a weekly animal market and step in lots of poop; shop for trinkets at the largest artesian market in Ecuador; go to a traditional weaving workshop; go to a traditional wood carving workshop; shop in the city of everything leather; and spend 2 hours at a volcanic lagoon including small boat tour around the islands. Not particularly in that order, and I could have very well left something out, but you get the point.

I think the shaman was the most interesting. Two of our classmates volunteered to strip down to their underwear and be healed by a long tedious process that involved lots of being spit on with alcohol and aromatic oils, at least a half pack of cigarettes, four chicken eggs, some amazing fire blowing skills (think candles + alcohol spit), several bunches of tied herbs, and a really big volcanic rock. Take all of these items, combine most of them together, (everything got cleansed with smoke and alcohol before being applied to the body) and try to imagine the other 14 of us sitting around watching and trying our hardest to be respectful and not break out laughing. Like I said a once in a life time sight, too bad I don’t have pictures of that one.

This coming weekend I don’t have any major trips planned but I do think that I’m going to spend Saturday climbing the Pinchincha Volcano for the first of my many field trips for my volcanology class. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Ecuador has a ton of volcanoes. I think on a clear day you can see at least three of them just from the city of Quito. The Pinchincha peak is actually right behind my house, or more appropriately if you keep climbing the hill that I live on for a long time that mountain becomes the volcano after the first couple of peaks. It gets confusing as I live right in the midst of the Andes and there are a lot of mountains. For all the complaining that I do that Mt. Pleasant is so flat you would think that I’d love it here. I do, but I have also discovered that walking up hills takes a lot of energy (especially in the Ecuadorian sun) and driving buses around the mountains takes a lot longer than it does without them. I think in the end I’m most fond of mountains from afar. ;)

Hooray!!! I have pictures and a video now! Enjoy. :)

I just got back from my first exploration out of the city of Quito. Some friends and I went to the small city of Baños which is about a 3-4 hour bus ride south of Quito still in the midst of the mountains. It is a well know tourist town because of its active volcano, beautiful waterfalls, and hot spring baths (hence the name). However, in our less than two full days there we did not have the greatest weather. It was cold and raining for half of the time and foggy for the rest. However, we didn’t let the weather get us down too much. Most of Saturday was just chilly and foggy so we took advantage of the lack of precipitation and purchased an afternoon tour to some of the best waterfall sites around. We rode in a chiva, which you may have heard of before as a well know Latin American party vehicle, but if not, a chiva is basically a bus with rows of seats, no doors and a roof on top that you can ride on. It was loads of fun and we even got the driver to play one of our CD’s of reggaetón music which helped to liven up everyone’s spirits. We saw lots of waterfalls of all sorts of lengths and sizes along with some really cool tunnels through the mountains (which we rode on top of the chiva for). There were some spectacular views of the clouds weaving through the higher mountains. It was rare when you could find the top of any mountain, and every once in a while it would appear out of the mist much higher than I would have guessed. Some cool views that you just can’t portray on a camera.
While on this tour we also got the chance to do two other things. One was ride as a group across this sort of large metal basket that is suspended across a great river valley. It was really high off the ground when you got to the middle of the valley (I can’t give you a number of feet because I have nothing to compare it to, maybe one really tall building). Everyone in my group did this because it was simply a go there and come back experience, plus it only cost a buck. (Our entire chiva trip by the way, of about 4 hours, cost a grand total of $5 US. I love this country.) But there was another adventure option during our trip of which I was the only one to do. It was a sort of pendulum bungie jumping thing off of a bridge over one of the rivers. I decided that it wasn’t high enough for me to freak out in fear of heights, and it was one of those things that I just felt I couldn’t pass the opportunity to try once. It was only $10, and soooo worth it. I don’t think it’s really possible to describe, just that it was thrilling and didn’t last long enough. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an adrenaline rush before in my life, I was practically high for the next hour! See the video below that one of my companions took with my digital camera, hence the crappy quality. Note to concerned family members and friends: Don’t be upset with me for being reckless, I mean when else would I be able to do that? That’s one of the reasons that I’m traveling all over the country, to take advantage of everything that I can.
Besides this fun afternoon, the rest of our trip was spent hanging out in town and eating lots of really cheap and really wonderful food. For example, on Saturday morning all 10 of us went to this small breakfast joint. For $2 a person we got juice, hot chocolate, bread and cheese sandwiches, a fruit bowl, and 2 scrambled eggs with ham. Way more food than most of us could eat at 9:30am, not to mention a fantastic deal. The funny thing is that the restaurant apparently realized this also because when we went back the following morning for more then had upped the price by $0.50 and taken away one of the items. I laughed because I know it was because of us and we decided to go and try our luck elsewhere.
Interesting sights of the trip: 1) on the way to the bus stop in Quito we walked by a guy dressed in a squirrel costume riding a bicycle and holding a flag that said no smog. Rather hilarious to behold, but also a bit pathetic because this city is very highly polluted and I doubt that one squirrel on a bike is going to make any difference. 2) In Baños I saw my first sight of cooking cuy (a type of guinea pig considered a delicacy in these parts) which I did not eat, and also a guy walking across the street with literally a half cow on his back. Like a butcher shop worker with out the butcher shop. I tried real hard to get a picture of that one but they guy was too fast for me.

p.s. I am having problems getting the video and pictures to work, but will try again later. Look for updates...