Ecuador

When I awoke at Camilo´s this morning, I was on my last $4. The night before, dark and pouring rain, I attempted to gain access to my cash at the ATM across the street. No luck. Everything was closed, dark and creepy, so I retired to my hostal. (Later that eve Camilo came over and we ended up going to his apartmento instead).

This morning it re-surfaced. Sure, I had a place to stay so technically I wouldn´t have to sleep on the streets tonight. But being without money in a foreign country is more than a bit unnerving.

Camilo and I took a taxi from bank to bank, with no luck. I even tried the emergency card my Mom gave me. What kind of Banco International doesn´t take a Canadian cash card? Time was running out, and he had to get to class. I was on my own. I was carrying some things I was going to stash with the rest of my luggage at the Secret Garden Hostal in San Blas. Basically, I am walking down the street carrying two orange bags and a giant blowgun. As if I don´t attract enough attention as is.

I seemed to be in banking alley. One after the other, they were conveniently lined up. And one after the other, they all spit out my card and said something about not accepting the card. I visited more than a dozen banks, and no luck.

With $4, I could get to San Blas where I knew there was a bank, but there was no guarantee I´d be able to get any out. Then I would have too little money to get back to his apartment. For some silly reason, I left my travellers checks in my bag at his apartment. I had had no trouble getting money out in Puyo, the little jungle town. So why here?

I decided, upon my $2 taxi ride´s arrival in San Blas, to head straight to the secret garden to stash my stuff. Then, at least I wouldn´t have to be toting around a blowgun, anyways. I turned up Jose Antepara, and began walking the steeply inclined road up to the Secret Garden. Suddenly, a rattily-dressed, leery looking man spied me and came right for me, at an astounding pace, considering his age. Instinctively, I darted into the nearest shop, a small convenience-style shop. My heart racing, I peeked out the door a few moments later, to discover him still lurking there. Eeep! I waited another few, and no longer seeing him, I followed two clean-cut young men up the street.

Who knows, maybe he was one of those crazy-friendly types and just wanted to chat. But then he would have followed me into the shop, right? I guess I´ll never know, but I am sure following my instinct was the right thing to do; and in doing so I surely avoided trouble.

At the hostal, Brad, the Canadian manager, was not there and Chasqi, the guide who still had my trekking poles, had not dropped them off. Frustrated, and breathing heavily because the the altitude, I stuffed my crap in the corner under the stairs near the rooftop terrace. Mostly souvenirs and extra clothes, there was nothing of real value. Besides, someone could steal it; it couldn´t make my day any worse. I had no money, a broken watch, broken glasses, and was starvingly hungry. Go ahead, it would make my day. I was already broke, blind, hungry, time-less, and if I didn´t find a bank, homeless.

Walking down the street to my last hope, the Banco Pacifico, I fought an inner battle. I had only had two cups of coffee all day; and it was about 5 pm now. I had been awake since 8:30. Justifiably, I was quite hungry. Camilo had made breakfast, which was darling, but I didn´t like the meat (bologna?) in the hot grilled sandwiches, so I told him I was not hungry, and was content with the hot cafe con leche. I had just over $2 left. I knew I couldn´t make it to Camilo´s in northern Quito on that, anyways. Maybe if I found something to eat really cheap...

And there it was. Two women and a deep fryer sat in front of a little cafeteria. Crispy, freshly fried cheese empanadas, twice the size of one of my outstretched hands, glistened and beckoned to me. A quick check of the price; 40 cents. A true steal; it would be an entire meal. Before placing it and a napkin into a plastic bag, the shopkeeper, upon my "si", dusted it with sugar.

It was heaven in dough form. Light and yet crispy, the sugar gave it a taste quite similar to the beaver tails one finds at home, in Ottawa. It was the most delicious street food I´d ever tried, and if it wasn´t for transportation, I could live for days on that $4. Maybe being on your last few dollars in a foreign country, your next meal uncertain, adds a certain flavour that´s impossible to find elsewhere.

The Banco Pacifica was my salvation. I almost wept when the words "Now dispensing your cash" flashed across the screen. Victory was mine!

______________

Some city buses here in Quito beep out a tune. I never noticed it before. Some the same, some different, and for a reason that escapes me. Perhaps it signifies the destination. The funny thing is, one actually emitted "Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer" and it seemed to ridiculously out of place, that I laughed right out loud.

______________

Its now 9:45 pm, and the glow of my completely sucessful day flls me. What had started as a nightmare ended as a lofty dream. Tomorrow, at 8 am, Chasqui is dropping off the trekking poles. I found the money, bought a new watch battery ($0.45), new nose pieces for my glasses ($3.00), a duffel bag to leave all my souvenirs at the hostal in ($9.45), and I got 2 GB of photos put onto four cds ($16.00). I had dinner at the Secret Garden as well; coq-au-vin and french onion soup. Camilo had class till late and relaxing in the familiarity of the hostal was exactly what I needed.

I arrived at the Shuar village safely monday night, although the bus ride took forever and I arrived after dark. Just like in my nightmare.
Alone, after dark, in the Amazon. The darkness here is not like southern ontario, where in Toronto it is always light and even outside of Peterborough the ambient light somehow ensures a lack of complete darkness. In the Amazon, very few people have electricity- maybe enough to run one or two light bulbs. As a result, dark is dark. You can´t see a thing, it´s as if a curtain has been dropped in front of you.

Before the bus even pulled away, there was a native man at my side. I have no idea where he came from or how he got there, but suddenly he was there, hoisting my giant knapsack with ease. Another girl, maybe 10, materialized and picked up my day sack, leaving me to carry only my plastic bag with my rubber boots. It was bewildering but reassuring.

They took me across the road, where I inquired about a bathroom. It had been a long, bumpy ride. Wordlessly, but with a smile, the young girl whisked me across the road and through the forest. I could hear english near one of the houses and knew the volunteers were near.

Afterwards they picked up my stuff, and took me to where I was staying, my habitaçion. It was all a blur. Up some wooden stairs into a room without a door or window, then the disappeared as suddenly as they´d arrived. I was left alone, in a wooden room with two single beds made out of plywood and without mattresses. The door looked out of the family garden, the window, out over the soccer field. A quick scan with the flashlight revealed two giagantic spiders hanging out near the roof. Time for the mosquito net. I unfurled my sleeping bag, and hung my net from a beam I placed across the top of the two walls. I placed my knapsack in the corner and sat. It was completely quiet. It had all happened so fast. I had arrived, and now was sitting in a room in an unknown person´s house. Now what? It was only 6:30 pm.

I sat crosslegged on the bed and reached for my comfort food, sucretes, or frosted flakes. I could see stars and a giant red hibiscus tree out of the door; the clouds had cleared enough to allow the light of the stars. Nothing else to do, I decided I might as well sleep. I crawled into my sleeping bag, under my net, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

A knock on my "door" and an voice in English woke me, slowly. I attempted to drag my self from unconsciousness. I focused on the words. A girl was standing at my door. "Are you going to come down for dinner? It´s 7:30."

I mumbled something unintelligible as I attempted to clear the cobwebs from my mind enough to formulate an intelligent response. Anyone who knows me and has tried to wake me knows it´s quite the feat. "Umm, sure, that´d be great. Just let me change."

I found myself walking back downstairs, through the hole in the wooden floor with the ladder. The first floor had the main bedroom, where the family lived, and a door to the outside, with stairs. The kitchen, where I was headed, was a half level lower than the main floor, right on ground level. As I grew accustomed to the light emitted by a single bulb hanging in the center of the house, I saw that it was a dirt floor. A table sat in the corner, with benches on both sides. Another corner sported a stove top of some sorts, on a high wooden platform, with two burners. It was attached via a black hose to a canister of gas a few feet away. It looked like the same kind of coleman type stove we would take camping. A few banged-up, well used aluminum pots rested on top. A third corner seemed to be for clean dishes, dirty dishes, fresh fruit, and garbage, all stacked around each other. A group of bananas and plantains lay on the floor.

I sat at the table, where the other girl was seated with a bowl of dinner. A woman, obviously the mother of the house, smiled at me and asked me my name in spanish. She had a baby, a toddler really, and sat with him on her lap. She got up to fill me a bowl as well.

I looked at it. I don´t know what I expected amazonian food to be, but this wasn´t it. It was chunks of potato in a sort of chicken broth, thick gravy. Three minature bananas, cooked, sat on the edges of the bowl. Dinner was potato and banana stew. I started to eat. It tasted as bad as it looked. I gamely tried to eat, not wanting to insult my host. But after getting sick, I really did lack any appetite for this weird food. It was like eating a bowl of mush in mush, pure starchy carbohydrates. It lacked any real taste, and I was thankful for the (dirty) bags of salt and pepper on the table that one could take pinches of. The bananas were not very sweet, more starchy. I´ve read there are about 130 varieties of bananas down here, and they pretty much eat them all. They had a bucket of tea on the table, but it was made with some sort of plant I suppose, which gave it a light green colour. It was bitter and odd tasting.

The lady took the baby up the stairs, leaving us gringos (whites) alone. I said I really didn´t like it, and the other girl said "Oh, it´s pretty good today. At least there´s some kind of sauce!" Uh-oh.
Neither of us finished and we threw the rest to the dogs, which is what they do with leftover food down here.

Afterwards we headed over to the volunteer house, where everyone was hanging out. The house is elevated, and underneath was just beams and a table. Hammocks hung from the beams and gringos filled the benches, playing cards and drinking cervesa, or beer.

Some socializing later, I ended up back in bed, even more tired. Back to sleep.

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I awoke the next morning, Tuesday, starving. I was sure looking forward to breakfast! A quick trip to the baños (ban-yos, or bathroom) which was located across the soccer field near the volunteer house, and I was back in the kitchen. I smiled at the lady (a young woman who couldn´t have been much older than me), and tried to make small talk in spanish. Not entirely successful.

A bowl and a mug appeared in front of me. I stared, incredulously. Breakfast was five tiny, hot bananas in a bowl. They appeared to have been boiled in their skins and then peeled and served. They tasted exactly how they looked; like hot bananas, only very starchy and more tough then the ones at home. I sampled the mug. It was a cold banana drink; and tasted like she had mashed up bananas and put them in the cold tea from the night before. Which is likely exactly what she did. She sat at the end of the table, feeding the baby the banana drink. Holding a giant brown bowl twice the size of the little boy´s head, she poured the mash down his throat. He squirmed, cried, but ate. Chunks of yellow banana fell unnoticed onto his shirt.

After she left, we once again threw our bananas to the dogs and ducks, who hung out in the mud behind the house. Guiltily but happily, I thought of my jar of nutella, soda crackers, and half a bag of doritos stashed in my knapsack upstairs.

After breakfast we headed to the volunteer lodge, where we lounged for an hour before the Shuar got there, to organize the day´s activities. Splitting into groups, I decided to go help with the
mirador, or lookout; a house they were tearing down and rebuilding up on the hill that overlooked the the Rio Pastaza and some volcanoes in the distance.

The house, a wooden structure with a palm frond roof, as partially dismantled when we got there. We set to work finishing the job. Once the wet, rotting roof came down, we had real problems. There was a giant ant´s nest inside. Large, quite round, black ants came pouring out of the disintigrating palms, by the thousands. And we still had to drag the pieces of the roof away to various piles; a lot of the wood had to be reused.

I have never been more uncomfortable or close to freaking out ever. The ants were everywhere. They climbed up our boots dozens at a time, and every time we moved a chuck of roof they swarmed us. I had ants on every part of my body; some even crawled into my pants and I found one between my breasts. We often had 20 or 30 on us at any given time. If you squished them in any way, they bit. Hard. I actually undid my pants to flick them out. It was torture; I was losing my mind. As soon as you think you´d gotten them off of you, more had climbed up your boots. They swarmed the ground, making parts of it look like the earth itself was moving. Some of them tried to rescue the tiny white capsules I can only assume were eggs or larvae. We were continually stamping our feet and brushing our clothes in a futile effort to dislodge them. I can feel them crawl on my again as I write this.

An excruciating hour later, most of the ants had run away, leaving only hundreds, not thousands to bother us. But the plague was not over yet. Out came the tiny blackflies. Clouds of them. They went for our eyes; and often flew right in; blinding out until you stumbled around and flicked them out. Some went up my nose. Now we were swatting our clothes, stamping our feet, and waving our hands in the air, while still trying to get work done. We must have looked insane but at that point I almost was. Oh did I mention we found a tarantula in the stuff we were moving too? Peachy...

Eventually we quit for lunch and headed back down to our respective lairs. Lunch at my house was a chunk of cooked yucca (a root which is a staple of their diet; think of a yellow, very starchy, hard, a bit stringy potato.. sort of) and two chunks of some sort of very grey, almost blue, grainy potato. Completely tastless, somewhat dry, carbohydrates in a bowl, this time, no sauce . This is it; I am going to starve in the Amazon, I thought.

Things improved after lunch, I decided not to return to the mirador but stay in the lowlands helping Maria clear a garden. I used a machete to clear grass and leaves and we tried to burn the refuse, not easy to do as everything was pretty damp. I was kind of fun, easy work, just swinging the machete and raking the rest.

Dinner was yucca again, this time in a chicken broth. A bone with a little bit of skin attached was all the chicken we got, apparently they break it and suck out the marrow. Not for me...

Anyways, I have decided to take a proactive approach to the food situation. I am staying at one of the poorest houses in the village; everyone else eats much better. Some get cereal and coffee in the morning! So today in Puyo here I am going to pick up some vegetables and some dried pasta, and I am going to offer to cook a few meals for them. Give them a little taste of Canada, which they may appreciate, and keep me from starving. I worry about my blood iron levels (which tend to always be low, like my Mom´s, which makes me tired) if I don´t get any dark veggies or meat. I know food is supposed to be included- and it is, I guess- but a few dollars on food is not going to hurt and I want to do something nice for the family anyways. Everything we´ve eaten so far has come right out of their own garden; she spent all morning digging up that yucca that I fed to the dogs.

I don´t know if I want to stay a whole month or not. Apparently there is not much work to do volunteer-wise (there´s 16 volunteers right now). We´´ll see if I can study medicinal plants. Tomorrow I want to work in the garden with my host, see what they grow and how the harvest it.

Time to go. Love you all!

I am feeling better now and have decided today is the day I am leaving Puyo. Sorry I haven´t been writing much.. but things have been kind of hairy here.

Was lying on my bed watching an Arnold Schwartsenneger and Jamie Lee Curtis movie last night when I heard a comotion out my window. Some sort of street theater had erupted, same as the night before, and in a town of 24 000, about 130 people had gathered to see these two guys.

I audibly cursed myself for lying in bed watching a terrible movie. I could have stayed home for that... what did I fly 3000 miles for? It was dark out but with all the people and roving police officers I could feel safe. Not bothering with my hair or lack of makeup, I threw on a sweater and headed out the door.

I positioned myself at the back of the crowd, trying to observe the goings on without being noticed. Well surprise, surprise. It only took about 10 seconds. "Gringita!" the street actors had noticed me right away. I must have been practically glowing white.

They started rambling off in rapid fire spanish, and all I could ascertain was that they wanted me to get in the middle of the circle with them. I refused... I wasn´t going along with something I couldn´t understand. They persisted. Someone suggested I should donate $3 to the pot. Another person countered with something along the lines of "She´s Canadian! Make it five." The sad part here was that I was down to my last $2 anyways! The one place to cash travellers checks was closed.

I said a lot of "no, gracias" to all of their requests. They jokingly referred to me as ´leche´, or milk. In that crowd, I sure was. I was beginning to tire of the game. I pretended to slink along behind other people, which only made everyone laugh harder. I laughed, too. I may not have understood what they were saying or particularly liked the attention, but it was friendly nonetheless. They were just interested in me, and in having a good time.

After awhile, the furor died down. I was left in peace. I understood some of what was going on. They got the crowd to say ¨lights, camera, action¨before they did some things. Although my spanish is pretty terrible, I can understand more than I can speak.

A few minutes passed before I grew a bit bored of not understanding what´s going on... and I turned my attention to crowd watching. I started a game I like to play sometimes... find the hottest guy in the crowd. "But Sarah," my inner self argued, "you don´t generally find these ecuadorians very attractive!"

Nonetheless, I began to scan the crowd, selecting, watching, and discarding by turn. I was looking for a certain je ne sais quois.
Standing directly across from me, standing at the back, I found it. Him, I mean him.

He was perfect. He was so good looking in a non-ecuadorian way, I though perhaps maybe one of his parents were white. He had different features from most of the guys here. I can´t describe it. He had dark but clear eyes and dark hair, cut too short to really spike or style. He was wearing a dark, long sleeved shirt, and tan shorts, with running or other sort of casual shoes. A white shell necklace, the type that was popular at home five years ago, circled his neck. He had the look of a perfectly tuned athlete, and beyond that, was obviously a runner. He had those strong, lean legs, and tiny ankles, coupled with a strong, flat chest.

Perhaps, even while wearing shorts, a sweater, and my glasses, coupled with wild hair (that humidity has made it go uber-curly!) and no make-up, being a gringo made me bold. I decided to stare him down. Surely he had to have noticed me, it was impossible not too. But he seemed a bit aloof. Once I was certain I caught his eye but reconsidered. When the performers made their "gringita" remarks, he didn´t look my way. An amazing feat, since everyone was looking at me!

He turned and walked away from the crowd, climbing the stairs to a second floor apartment directly opposite the square, above a pharmacy. A surge of disappointment for this intruiging boy I would never meet. Pretending not to look, I could clearly see him move around the apartment, which was brilliantly lit with large windows. A moment later, he reappeared to join the crowd. Excellent.

I ignored him for the rest of the perfornance. Having plied the crowd with ample laughs and witty commentary, the actors were ready to rake in the dough. Instead of passing a hat or something as they do in Canada, they brought out wafers, like strawberry kit-kats, packaged in red shiny plastic, and began selling. I couldn´t see what other people were buying them for. "Gringita?" He came right up to me and I couldn´t refuse again. I gave him my last, very crinkled, american dollar.

Excited, he held it high, proclaiming, "The gringita gave me a dollar!" Pressing it repeatedly to his lips, he shouted something about using it to buy Marijuana, which the crowd, myself included, found halarious.

Soon it was all over, and the crowd, which I counted to be about 130 people (which, in a town of 24 000 at 10:30 at night is quite a feat- have you ever seen half as many people in a crowd in Peterborough, a town 3 times the size?) quickly melted into the night, in clumps of twos, threes,and fives.

Suddenly I realized I had won, it had worked. In the ten seconds where everyone was disappearing, mystery boy had not. He was merely loitering on the sidewalk, pretending not to have anywhere to go. His apartment was 20 feet away. The old dude, with no front teeth and a face like shoe leather, who had been talking to me during the entire show, suddenly grew annoying. He was pestering me, asking me something about where I was going to sleep? This was my window, and I wasn´t going to lose it. Firmly, I said "No, gracias" twice, and turned away. I wanted to be nice, but honestly, he was creeping me out.

He was standing on the sidewalk, body angled slightly away. I walked up to him. " Hola." I know I´m bold, but I just do what I want. "Hola", he replied. Damn my terrible spanish. Impossible to come up with something slick to say. I smiled. Introduced myself.
If I don´t know the words in Spanish, I´ll just say it in English. Its better than saying nothing. "Do you want to go for a walk?" and gestured down the street. "si". We tried to make small talk but he knows about as much english as i know spanish, which makes for a really quiet walk. We reached the first intersection.

"Which way do you want to go?"
"I don´t know, it´s your city."

Half spanish-english followed. I found out he´s 25, goes to school in Quito. Taking something engineering to do with oil, or petroleum. A very good career choice as most of the ecuadorian amazon is flush with oil. A very sensitive topic; the government feels it has the right to drill for oil in the middle of the land the Shuar, Waorani, Kitchua, and Aschuar have been living on for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. Most of the time, the native communities don´t even get enough compensation to build a proper school for their children. But that´s neither here nor there. I haven´t the linguistic capability at this point to get into and eco-political debate, and I am walking a quiet street with the hottest ecuadorian I´ve ever seen.

We come full circle to the park beside my hotel, which overlooks the city square. It may not have warm showers, but the view is unparalled. We sit on a bench to talk, I learn he grew up here in Puyo, and has two brothers, one older, one younger. I don´t ask about his mom, and he doesn´t mention her. Only his dad lives here. He asks me if I like dogs, he has a golden retriever. There´s a lot of "no enteindo" on my part, and laughing when we don´t know how to say what we want. I feel perfectly comfortable, as if the language barrier is a minor problem only. I can read his eyes perfectly.

I take his hand and we continue talking, sitting close. Something about him is very polite, gentlemannly. I must have given him an unconscious signal, as he leans in to kiss me. Under the rusty orange lights of the park, bored police officers and teenagers wandering the streets, a stray dog curled up a few feet away.

He stops and asks me if it is okay. What a sweetie. I smile and say yes. Its divine. We stop occasionally, to talk, and smile, before we once again find ourselves lost in the kiss.

I become wary about the PDA, and we leave the park, walking hand in hand, stopping to kiss in corners. We go back to my hotel, and I make him wait while I tidy my messy hovel.

A Claire Danes movie is on Fox, and we snuggle to watch. Its here where my writing skills shall become glossy, and for the first time in this epic story, I shall omit details. Suffice it to say that it was amazing although we didn´t go "all the way" for reasons I shall not elaborate on. And he´s even better looking without clothes.

Its getting late. He shyly asks me if he can stay, sleep here with me. Its not for convenience; his apartment is less than a minute away. He is very distinctly not a Western boy. He´s sweet and caring, and as much as my jaded soul will allow me to admit, I liked it. He must go back to Quito, to school, a manana, but wants to see me next weekend.

Sleep is a long time coming.

--

Its 630 when he wakes, and me in turn. He presses something into my hand. His white shell necklace. He wants me to have it. Brushing aside my curls, he fastens it around my neck.

Perhaps my 12 year old, romantic soul has reawakened. I swear I´m never taking it off.

I´m now in Puyo, Ecuador, having finished the tour yesterday, which was amazing.

But now I´m sick. I have been great all along, eating whatever (weird!) food they put in front of me, and being fine. But two days ago, all of a sudden, every time I smelt Ecuadorian food I felt like throwing up. For two days I could only choke down white rice and the occasional peice of fruit.

Last night I got to the capital city of Pastaza, Puyo, and hunted down the Italian pizza place. A ranch salad (oh who knew tomatoes, cucumbers and iceberg lettuce smothered in ranch dressing could be such an unbelievable delight to the palate!) and some pizza (I had been craving it forever!) with mushrooms and ham didn´t turn me off when I smelled it, that´s for sure. But two hours later, I´m back in the bathroom as my body rejects it, if you know what I mean. I took two immodium and fell into a troubled sleep , but this morning it was the same old, same old.

I was supposed to go to stay with the tribe today or tomorrow but I am putting it off a bit until I get better. At least here is a fairly big town and I can get things and/or help if I need it. I don´t think I want to go back into the rainforest until regain my health.

Right now it´s one thirty in the afternoon and I´m starvingly hungry. But every time I eat it ends in more pain. I know I have to go and hunt for more food, maybe some plain crackers and a banana. And more water. I´ve got to drink lots of water.

My one saving grace here, that has been helping me while I´ve been sick. Fox! The tv channel... most of the programs are in English with spanish subtitles. I watched Law and Order and One Tree Hill... and simpsons and american dad are on occasionally too. Gives me something to do at night while I lie in bed in pain.

Its suddenly stopped raining and has turned sunny and humid. Such is life in the Amazon!

Going out to find food...

Sarah

Ended up in Banos instead of Puyo to meet the guide with my trekking poles but he´s not here.

I´ve booked a downriver trip that take me from Banos to Puyo via biking, hiking, whitewater rafting and canoeing. It will take three days, includes lodging (camping), all food, the guide, all the equipment, for $40 a day. I couldn´t pass it up.

The land here is amazing. Banos, a town of 12 000, is poised on the rim of the Andes, and the road to Puyo plunges down into the Amazon basin. Apparently this trip is one of the most amazing, astounding things you´ll ever see, going from up in the Andes to almost sea level in the Amazon basin.

Last night, for $3, we took a volcano tour up to the top of this mountain. It was great fun. Once the bus left town, we climbed up to the roof (yes while it was still moving). Sitting on the roof was amazing-- this bus wound back and forth, the mountain on one side, and a gorge and the river on the other. Often, we´d shriek and duck as trees would come rushing at us, attempting to knock us off the bus. Great fun!

Gotta run. The tour leaves in five... they are just buying more food (for me).

Love you all!

Sarah