USFQ and La Selva (part 1)!

Here are some things that I've been meaning to post but haven't:

My courses here at USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito)

Mondays/Wednesdays/ Fridays	Tuesdays	Thursdays
11h00-11h55: Genero y sociedad	10h00-11h25: Introducción a la Cultura Ecuatoriana	10h00-11h25: Introducción a la Cultura Ecuatoriana
13h00-13h55: Política Latinoamericano y su pensamiento	11h30-12h55: Literatura global	11h30-12h55: Literatura global
15h00-17h00: Work at APDH (only Mon/Wed)	14h30-16h30: Etnografía	14h00-16h55: Técnicas Básicas de Pintura

Only in Ecuador...

• will you can find guards with guns
• buy KFC and get rice and beans along with your chicken
• are there no public libraries
• you get a five day weekend for Dia de los Muertos
• due to the high altitude will you party hard one night and wake up the next and feel gassy all day

Only in USFQ (my school here)...

• Would you have your classes canceled in order to celebrate the 22^nd anniversary of the school with champagne and a live band
• Are there tiles EVERYWHERE, which is convenient because it rains almost everyday so the odds of me falling are pretty good :)
• This past week we had pirate week, yeah I like to dress-up as much as the next person but this was quite the experience, heres the link to the school's blog where you can see the events/flyer for this event:
  http://usfqecuador.blogspot.com/2010/10/celebracion-piratica-san-pancho.html

  



Yup we had a sunken boat in the school's
pond and there was a zipline that people got
on to go from one side to the other.

 

There were various activities,
this was a skit that a group did,
not sure why but it was great.



Viaje al Oriente

Octobre 30th:

7h30: Got to Quicentro (meeting place to board the bus)

8h45: Stopped to take a pic infront of Antisana

 

Antisana



9h00: Papallacta, it was great to get into the hot springs. We also played a couple name games with the IPSL students, Duga family, and Ecuadorian students that were joining us on this trip. 

12h30: We stopped at Baeza to have lunch and Natalia (director of our program who was on maternaty leave), husband, and her less than 3 month baby girl joined the group.  

14h30: Llegada a Huasquila! We got keys to our cabins, bri and Hannah were my roommates, and this hostal was GREAT! We had hot running water, great water pressure, a hammick, towels, and a great view of the mountains to look at everyday. 



15h30: Walk through the jungle. Our guide explained that we were going to through la selva secundaria y primaria and the difference is that the secondary jungle has been destroyed by humans but is being  reforested, so at times its harder to walk through because there are small plants that are growing. Unlike the primary jungle, where humans haven't destroyed and so the trees are huge and prevent sunlight from coming in and letting smaller plants grow. We saw some vines, the Dugaditos got to swing on them, went through a waterfall, learned about some cool plants, and went through a cave.

 

Vines, these were tiny campared to those
 you can find deeper into the jungle.




This was the waterfall that Hannah
and I went through (its brings
good luck we were told).



  

This was one of the coolest plants we learned about, its called sangre de dragon and our guide
told us that its acts like toothpaste, heals cuts/scars, stops itching, and other remedies.

This cave got smaller, there wasn't alot of light, there were bats, and at one
point we were told not to tough the walls because there was a big spider there.
However, since most of us didn't have flashlights we still did.



Stew and the Shaman (behind him).

19h00: Got back, showered (this shower felt great, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they had shampoo and conditioner for us seeing as I forgot to bring some). Then we had dinner which started with a brindise from the owner of the hostal and some special pina coladas. Afterwords Steward volunteered to be cleansed by a Shaman, which was totally different than the curandera we saw in Otavalo. The lights were turned off, Stew sat on a stool, didn't have to take his clothes off, there was some smoke involved and wacking with leaves accompanied by music that was being played by 2 other people, and then sucking or perhaps blowing smoke into Stew's hands.

 

 

October 31st:



7h30: Breakfast, which involved pancakes!

8h30: Arrived at Puerto Ahuano and went on a canoe through Rio Napo  until we got to el Centro de Rescate Amazoonico. This place was so cool, and humide! Here are some of the animals we saw:

Loros!



Tucan!



 

Caiman (type of alligator)



  

 

Capuchino monkey! They were so cool, but a little crazy too :)
At one point one of them stuck their hand out and tried to take
someone's camera.

Woolly monkey that was also out of a cage and was just chilling as we passed by on the trail.

Spider monkey! This was the best picture I could get because if you look
at where his hands are the fence had really small holes...but I feel in love with
this type of monkey, you can say it was love at first sight :)

We were walking through and someone pointed out that there were turtles on the path
doing the dirty (thats another way of saying they were having sex) and sure enough they were.

12h00 Lunch at Selva Viva

13h30: We went swimming in el rio Arajuno (I started to have an upset stomach so I got out of the water and decided to go for a walk around the edge of the river with Hannah.)

(on the way to our next destination we saw the deforestation started during the ex president Lucio Gutierrez with his plan of creating another international airport in the city of Tena, it was pretty depressing to see)

We were told that this project was stopped half way because Lucio left but it seems like Correa is planning on finishing the job, which would create jobs but Ecuador is a small country and there really isn't a need for another international airport, especially not near the Amazon where the biodiversity could (would) be hurt.

15h30: Arrived at Museo de la Comunidad de Chichico Rumi where we got to see more animales and learn about several animal traps, quite interesting.



Anaconda! We asked why they had it's mouth taped and we were told that they did it because if not it would try and bite them whenever they went inside to feed him, or her we didn't ask its sex.  



Un tigrillo, Our guide went inside and played with the tiger and I was a little jealous.

The sign says "Trap for fish (big)."

The Capibara is the biggest rodent in the world!! 

19h00: Arrive in Tena and have free time to walk around before we had dinner. I still wasn't feeling too good, and I think it has to do with the altitude changes (it takes awhile for me to feel it, but when it does I know it because my stomach starts to act up...if you know what I mean). So after having a few spoonfuls of food I was FULL and my new friend Noah helped me finish my food :)

19h30: Arrived at the hostal (it had started to rain on our way back) only to find out that the power had gone off, and so we went to our cabins with one headlamp and were completly drenched when we got in. Let me tell you, when it rains in the Amazon...it RAINS! We then had company, Dita and 2 Ecuadorian girls came over and we tried to learn to play an Ecuadorian game called cuarenta (forty) but half way into it had to stop becuase the deck was not complete. I can't remember how MASH (a game we gringas had played during middle school) came up and we started to teach them how to do it, we had fun bonding over this :)





I was drenched!





Valle de los Chillos, Otavalo, y Mindo!

Lots to write about, I don’t know where to start! First of all I feel like I have to start off by saying that I have been unable to blog becuase of the fact that I not only forgot my password to get on and write, but when I asked to reset it I was sent a link to my e-mail, which would have helped BUT I had been having problems getting into that...long shorty short I had to reset both passwords. I know, I know, I will try and remember both from now on. Anywho here is a quick summary of what I have been up to:

September 5^th :



Balneario de termas en La merced



My friend Alex invited me to go to her host family’s house in the country (valley). We had a great time there, and ate A LOT, but it was soo good. Her host dad’s father apparently helped found the whole village, which is located in El valle de los Chillos. The valley is next to Volcan ilalo which is so cool because there are hot springs that people are able to go to. In fact, there are some houses that have a direct pipe line to the springs so that their pools can be filled with the aguas termales and of course Alex’s host dad got this perk. We spent the day in the pool and then went on a tour to the public pools that is filled with the thermal water.

September 10^th:



Rest stop with an amazing view of the lake and mountains



We left USFQ around 1:30pm and headed to Otavalo which was a drive, but not too bad (about 2 ½ hours). On the way there we did a couple stops. The first was a rest stop with a great view a lake ? We took pictures, bought snacks, and I paid 25 cents to use the bathroom. Now I don’t think this is TMI (too much information), the reason I tell you this is because there I was doing my deed when in comes a spider into my stall! I got up and left, but once I collected myself I decided to go back for a picture of the perpetrator and here it is:



Yup, thats him all right.

Next on the agenda was a visit a Nanda Manachi who demonstrated how to make flute ?, and played a variety of instruments for us. We then went to the hotel and had a big dinner (we each had a whole fish!). Then we got to go see a curandera (kind of like a healer) which was amazing to watch, it involved some of the same things that a curandera might to in mexico, but there were also differences. The similarities involved the use of a candle that was rubbed all over the person and then burned to see what was wrong with the person, in this case Nicole, and in both cases you get to be “hit“ with flowers & plants, you can‘t take a bath for about 2 days. Now a difference was that Nicole had to take her clothes off, except for her bra and underwear, but now that I really think about it I think this does happen in Mexico but its for like really intense cleansings. In both cases there is the use of an egg (however they used 4 and never broke them), the put alcohol into their mouths and spat it at the person getting cured, but the difference would be that the women also used a candle while she spat, which created flames that were shot at the direction of the person getting cured.

Yup all this was just for me.

It took the man about 8 minutes to make this instrument.

September 11^th:

This was a very busy day, we started off by going to el Mercado de animales where we saw everything from dogs, cuys, sheep, etc. I also got scammed, a man was there asking for coins, which he was going to “give back” after he “cured” you. He warned me to be careful because he saw that I had given a man a picture of me, and he had done something to it (I think he said this man had buried it in a cemetery). Our guide, Ceasar, later told us that the man, unlike the curandera was not trained in the field of healing, which is why he was not legit. We then hit el Mercado de frutas where I bought a nice jucy watermelon, ummm was it good….We then walked down to the town square on our way to the Mercado de aresanias where I sorta went crazy buying things. We then headed to eat at ? Which is a place that Cesar and his family run, his father demonstrated to us how they make scarfs, and gave us a lot of insight as to how the indigenous people are always trying to find a way to assert themselves politically, musically, culturally, etc. into this world of globalization. However, there was one thing that he said that made me really think about what globalization and the cons that come with the pros. Cesar explained to us that there was a period of time when traditional music was captivating a lot of interest and indigenous people were able to make a profit from selling their music, but he said this changed, and in an attempt to keep up with the new trends there are indigenous people that have decided to use traditional instruments to make reggeton, beatles songs, pop, etc. He said that this seems to work, and I guess its good, but at the same time I can’t feel like its wrong. I mean its not wrong that they make a living from their trade, I just feel like its one of those sad truths that in order for them to be able to continue making a living they have to now look to main stream music. I asked him if this brought tension between different indigenous groups, and he said of course, but that at the end of the day it comes down to individual indigenous groups decided to try and build a bridge with the outside world and evolve OR decide that they want nothing to do with the outside world and live in the Amazons (which do exist). Next was Parque Condor, where we got to see all these cool animals up close. However, I think we all felt a little guilty because some of the birds had strings and would try and fly but they would only get so far. However, we were told that all these birds were brought in, and most were brought up with humans (even though its illegal to have them as pets) and hence they would die if left on their own. Then we were on the road again, and off to see this sacred tree, el arbor sagrado de Pinllu, and the story goes that the tree is the novio that asked to be struck by lightning after his novia was struck by lightning and turned into the lake.

This was the scammer that said he was "healing" me.

Me, Hannah, and Dita at the mercado de artesanias in Otavalo

This is the arbol sagrado Pinllu that is said to be this man that was struck by lightning and then made into a tree, but only after his novia had been transformed into the lake.

September 12^th:

La cascada de Peguche

Once again we were up and at dinner around 7:20ish am and soon enough we were on our way to la cascada de Peguche (waterfall of Peguche) which was beautiful. Then we headed to la laguna de Cuicocha, which is a lake that is on Cotacachi, a volcano. The story is that the tip of the volcano sunk in and then after a period of time water accumulated and made the lake. Then the volcano erupted the lava created two small islands on the top of the creator, the water was calm and clean and we got to go on a paseo de lancha (boat ride). Once again we got on the bus and headed to a place to eat in Cotacachi, and after words we were able to go to another market and a strip where there was a lot of leather being sold, and I decided to restrain myself from buying things that were for me, which made me feel good because I had a significant amount of money at the other markets…not sure how it happened.

 creator, islands, lancha,

I had to get closer, which meant getting really wet but it was so worth it.

This is the laguna de Cuicocha which is on the creator of a volcano...que paisaje!

We got on a lancha and went around the two islands that are in the lake.

September 18:

Well this was another fun filled weekend, however due to serveral reasons (chuchaqui? lol) some people didn't make it to this trip but no worries...we are going to go back soon. Mindo is about a 2 1/2 hours bus ride, which cost us $4 roundtrip, and the hostal that we stayed at was GREAT (Casa de cecilia) the lady there was so kind and helpful to us, and the rooms were $6/night. The lady there arranged for a taxi to take us tubing and then ziplining for a total of $16! Tubing was fun, but the best part was definetly ziplinging. There were 13 lines we went through, and we were able to do a tricks, the options were superman or mariposa and both involved going down the line with a guide, which is why we were only allowed one trick per person. The views were incredible, and although I got a bruse from my harnest, I definetly want to do it again. I am embaressed to say that I did break the first and most important rule...they said never, to ever put your hand infront of the line because of the fact that it would get caught by the pulley. That said, I started to spin and put my hand infront, the glove that I was wearing got caught in the pulley, I stopped, glove fell, I was pulled in, and then the guides had to try and find my glove, and once they found it there was a pretty big hole on the thumb of it, so if my fingers were longer (even just by a little bit) I probably would have gotten really hurt. But other than that it was a very successful activity.

September 19:

Once we got up we decided that due to time, and money, we would only do one activity: waterfalls. The place we went was about a 20 minute taxi (it was actually a truck) ride from our hostal, and we had to take a teleferico to get to the otherside. It was pretty great to get into the cold water after we had hiked so much, Sarvie and I didn't bring bathing suits because we thought we weren't going to want to getin, but we decided to get into the water at the last cascada that we went to while we watched some of our friends jump off a cliff. Anywho here are some pictures of that weekend.



The lift that took us to the waterfalls.



Me doing the mariposa.

La cascada,  you can sorta see the ledge that people jumped from.