Nariz del Diablo

Mike arrived on Friday after a fine flight from Boston. I was very happy to see him. In Quito on Friday we ate a bit, then played cards before heading to bed. On Saturday we woke up early and headed for Riobamba...we spent most of the afternoon with my host family, but also checked into our hotel and rested a bit. In the evening we played cards with Veronica and Paco, then headed back to the hotel on the early side.

Sunday was the big adventure on the train to Nariz del Diablo. I did this trip with the Experiment 7 years ago, although I hardly remembered any of it. We woke up at 6 AM, got to the train at about 6:20....lots of tourists were already on the roof. We got a spot on the left side...it was cold and raining. The train left at 7 and for the first hour and a half it was very damp and cold. The sun eventually came out though, which was excellent. The train went through Guamote on the way to Alausí, then continued a bit further to the Nariz del Diablo (Devil´s Nose) before turning around and going back to Alausí. Mike and I ate lunch in Alausí...then headed back to Riobamba on the bus (which was twice as fast and one seventh the price of the train). Mike got a seat in the very front of the bus, right next to the driver. I was near the back next to a chatty guy from Machala (on the coast). Back in Riobamba, we showered and had dinner at my host family´s house: chicken soup with mote, homemade fritata (with pork and plantains), bread, cheese, coffee, tea. We played cuarenta in the evening, Mike and I versus my host father and Paco. We lost 2 games to 1.

Today we are just chilling in Riobamba....here are some pictures from yesterday!



Mike on the roof of my host family´s house in Riobamba


Mike on the train in Guamote


Roof riding on the train



View from the train near Nariz del Diablo


Mike and David in front of Nariz del Diablo

Guayasamín

I have been in Quito since Wednesday, and I haven´t done all that much. I´ve mostly been hanging out here in Mariscal Sucre (aka center of the gringo universe). After writing my last blog entry on Wednesday, I went and had lunch. My stomach wasn´t feeling super well, but for some reason I still decided to eat a set lunch at a small local place: spicy cheese soup followed by breaded and pan fried calves liver (like milanesa or schnitzel but with liver), salad and rice, and tree tomato juice (which I don´t like). In the end the meal wasn´t too bad, and I actually felt better after eating that. Go figure.

I met up with Tamie in the afternoon on Wednesday, did lots of errands with her, then eventually had dinner at a fondue restaurant which was delicious. We stayed at Crossroads Hostal right in the heart of gringolandia, which was kinda noisy. Tamie didn´t mind though since she never actually slept. She had a very early flight and ended up leaving the hostal at 2:30 AM to go to her friends house, and then to the airport. On Thursday I decided to switch hostals, and now I´m at a place called Loro Verde which is pretty good and on a quieter street.

On Thursday I hung around most of the day doing not all that much, then decided to go to the movies in the evening. There wasn´t much good playing that I hadn´t seen, so I decided to see Crash again. I don´t think it was as good the second time, but still pretty powerful. It was hard to tell how the Ecuadorans reacted to it...I feel like many people might have missed some stuff...lost in translation perhaps.

This morning, while eating breakfast at the Magic Bean (Super gringolandia), I ran into Jamie, who I met in the jungle back in February. She and her friend Liz are in Quito for a few days, so in the late morning we headed to La Capilla del Hombre and the Fundación Guayasamín in the northern part of Quito.

I had been to both of these museums before, but I wanted to go again. The Capilla del Hombre is a really cool museum, planned by Guayasamín before he died in 1999 and dedicated to humankind. A really cool place, where we had a very nice (free) tour. I even got to take pictures (without flash).







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After the museum I had lunch at a nice place overlooking the city, then we headed back to Mariscal where we ran into a Swiss girl who I had met twice before (at Black Sheep Inn and then again in Tena). We went to a cafe called Xocoa which has really good chocolate desserts and drinks. I had an iced chocolate which was amazing...the three girls left this afternoon to go see The Da Vinci Code, which came out here today. I am killing time right now, heading to the airport in an hour to pick up Mike! Hooray.

That´s about all for now, I´ll be back in the USA 3 weeks from today!

Return to the jungle!

Last week I spent a few days in Riobamba, where I discovered (thanks to my host family) Helados San Francisco. This is a very small hole-in-the-wall ice cream place in Riobamba that sells little ice creams on a stick....basically popsicles, but some with real cream and some with just water. They cost 20 cents each. On my first visit I tried a helado de taxo (a type of passion fruit) and chatted with the owner, who told me Helados San Francisco has been there for 45 years. After I finished my first ice cream I moved on to mora (blackberry). This was even better. I told the owner that I´d be back the next day.


For the rest of my time in Riobamba I hung out with my host family, did a few errands and went back to Helados San Francisco. It was beautiful weather, and I took this picture of one of Riobamba´s main plazas.

On Thursday I headed back to the Tena...the 5 hour busride was uneventful, and I got off the bus right at Shangri-La Cabins. My amigo Dave Axelrod (a junior at Tufts who I met at Black Sheep Inn) is now working as a volunteer at Shangri-La, and Thursday was his birthday. It was nice to be back at Shangri-La and see everyone there, I ended up staying there for two nights. On the first night I played some excellent games of shithead with Dave and some funny American girls....the birthday celebrations didn´t occur until Friday night though, when I headed out with Dave, Britt(another volunteer) and several friends from Shangri-La to a concert in Puerto Napo. The concert was supposed to begin at 8:30, but the first group didn´t even arrive until midnight, and then the second group didnt come on until 2 AM. It was a fun and interesting night...funny contests on stage, plenty of drinking (although I didn´t drink too much), more dancing...I was back in bed at Shangri-La at 4 AM.

On Friday I found out that I have been accepted as a leader for an Experiment in International Living trip this summer to Costa Rica. I´m super excited. Over the weekend I spent a fair amount of time working on forms that I had to send them...on Monday I sent a big fax to Vermont.


On Sunday I did some work on forms in the morning, then headed to Eduardo Jr´s girlfriend´s house where much of Eduardo´s family was also present. I bought ingredients to make fudge, which I did, then we left it in the refridgerator while we all went swimming. I went with Eduardo, Rosalia, Amandina, Eduardo Sr. and lots of siblings and cousins to La Isla, which is a nice beach on the Rio Tena, only a 15 minute walk from downtown Tena. The river was very nice, as was the late lunch of popcorn and french fries. IN the evening, I went back to the house where we ate fudge (see picture) with peanut butter, then played cards (cuarenta, I lost)

On Monday I went back to visit Shangri La in the afternoon...it was afetr lunch, and Dave and I were playing cards while Jose and Luis were resting upstairs...suddenly Luis shouted ´guatusa!!´and he and Jose started running down the 347 stairs to the river below....we looked down and saw some people from the Quichua village (and their dogs) chasing an animal, which was swimming down the river. It turned out to be a guanta, not a guatusa (both are members of the rodent family, bigger than a guinea pig but smaller than a capybara)...I went down to the water soon afterwards with Elizabeth and Olga. I got down in time to see Jose JUST miss catching it...it somehow escaped all 8 people and 3 dogs though...I was kind of glad, I felt kind of bad for it. It would have been eaten. Down at the beach we swam for a while, Dave came down to the water too, Shangri-La is a beautiful place.


In the evening I headed back to Tena, taking several pictures of Olga and Jose in the back of the pickup truck. This one came out pretty well.

On Tuesday I left in the morning for Papallacta, some hot springs on the road between Tena and Quito. I got to Papallacta in the afternoon, and spent time chilling in the hot springs, both in the large complex (Termas de Papallacta) and my hostal, which had a very nice small pool. It was wicked cold at night, so my solution was to head to the hot pool before going to sleep, which worked pretty well. Papallacta is a nice but remote place, but it was easy to catch a bus to Quito this morning. Now I am in Quito, back in the same internet place where I first wrote back in January. My friend Tamie (who was in Guayaquil with me) is flying in today, then leaving tomorrow. Then Mike comes on Friday!! Sweet. That´s about all for now, I´ll be back in the USA in less than 4 weeks! (but only for 14 days)...chau




Termas de Papallacta Hot Springs


View of Papallacta Village from the road to the hot springs

Canoa Food (and Drink) Pictures

Fried calamari at Bambú

Shrimp, Avocado and Grapefruit Salad at Coco Loco


Pancake toppings at Coco Loco: Fruit salad, lemon, sugar, homemade melon jam and the famous lemon curd.


Mark and his chicken sandwich at Coco Loco


Camarones al ajillo at Genesis Restaurant, served with rice and patacones,



Candice samples the homemade maracuya curd


Tropical drinks at Bambú: Maracuya with rum, Piña Coladas, Caipiriñas





Leticia with drink at Bambú

Maracuya Curd

Today I decided to have lunch in the Northern Hemisphere. This took place in Pedernales, a nice stopping point between Canoa and Santo Domingo, where I returned to today. Although it was hard to leave, I had to do it eventually, so I boarded a northbound bus from Canoa this morning at about 10 for the 2 hour ride to Pedernales. We crossed the equator just before arriving. In Pedernales I had to change buses to get to Santo Domingo, and even though a bus was about to leave, I wanted lunch. I had a pretty decent meal of vegetable and cheese soup, a plate of rice and good chicken, and a maracuya juice for $1.50. When I was finished, the bus for Santo Domingo still hadn´t left...I guess this is an advantage of the slow process involved with any bus leaving any bus terminal. Usually the buses will wait for you!

I got to Santo Domingo at 4 o´clock, checked into the same hotel I stayed at last weekend, showered after the hot bus ride and now I´m at an internet place while drinking a strawberry yogurt smoothie. Tonight I am hopefully meeting up with friends for dinner and then tomorrow I am heading back to Riobamba...wish me luck in the cold.

Back to yesterday though....actually back to Friday....after posting the pictures in the blog entries for Canoa and Santo Domingo, I headed to the mercado central in Bahía and did some errands for Rika...I bought 3 grapefruits, 2 avocadoes and 6 maracuya (passion fruit) all for 1 dollar. Rika had asked me to get the grapefruit and avocado, but the Belgian girls and I had decided to buy the maracuya. Rika, who serves homemade lemon curd with all the breakfasts at Coco Loco, casually mentioned that it could be made with any acidic fruit...for example, maracuya. Leticia, who loves maracuya even more than me, jumped at this idea. Somehow we convinced Rika to give us a cooking lesson and teach us to make maracuya curd.

Yesterday, after lunch, we got our cooking class. I was sworn to secrecy regarding the exact recipe, but I can say that the curd came out delicious. For those of you back at home, hopefully I can make some curd for you guys to try. I think that we wouldn´t call it curd in the US....we´d probably call it custard. Like what´s inside a lemon merengue pie. To make the maracuya curd we still used some lemon as well, but the taste overall had a great maracuya flavor. We had it for breakfast this morning.

Last night was my last night in Canoa...as usual we had cocktails at happy hour at Bambú...and as usual they made me nice and tipsy. For some reason we didn´t get to play any drunken ping pong though...oh well. After some drinks and a beautiful sunset, we eventually headed to dinner at a place called Genesis, where I had encocado de camarón one last time....excellent.

Canoa

I arrived in Canoa on Monday afternoon after a hot and not so comfortable bus ride. The ride was at least improved when I bought some homemade pan de yuca, fresh from the oven, from a vendor on the bus. I arrived at about 4:30 PM and walked down to the beach...before long I had found Coco Loco hostal, a new place owned by a couple from Belgium and Holland. Shelley and Mark were already there, and a dorm bed was reserved for me.

Canoa is a small touristy town on a beautiful beach. The hostal I am staying at is right in front of the beach which is excellent. There is very good food at the hostal, including great breakfasts with homemade lemon curd and homemade soups for lunch. There are also 9 6-week old puppies, which makes things very fun. It´s a puppy infestation. At other places in town there is seafood...really good shrimp, fish, calamari. Overall pretty awesome. I spent Tuesday through Thursday with Mark and Shelley. We swam, read, threw frisbee, played lots of Risk (along with Rika and Frans, the owners of Coco Loco), hung out. Very relaxing...the ocean is really great. Nice waves, sandy bottom, warm water, no jelly fish. Right now Canoa is super small, but there´s definitely a fear that it could and maybe will become more like touristy towns like Atacames or Montañita in Ecuador, or places like Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Currently it´s still a small fishing village.

Canoa is just north of Bahia de Caraquez, a small city on the coast...I am in Bahia right now to use internet, and I came here on Tuesday too...to get here involves a 15 minute car/bus/pickup ride followed by a 10 minute boatride across the bay. Mark and Shelley left today, and I was planning to leave today too. Last night, however, I decided against it.

I am currently staying in a town where I have my own room at a comfortable hostal on the beach, I eat breafasts of homemade crepes, fresh juice and fruit salad, lunches of homemade soups and bread, dinners of coconut shrimp and fried plantains. At happy hour at the bar down the road, I can drink my fill of banana daiquiris or caipiriñas or whatever and play ping pong and snack on fried calamari. At the beach I can swim for hours in the perfect water, lay in the sun, throw frisbee or relax in my hostal with the hammocks, puppies, Risk, etc....all of this for less than 15 dollars per day! As Evan would say, Canoa is cheap and best. Staying a few more days sounds like a good idea...



A view from the balcony of my hostal


Mark and Shelley on the beach


Hostal Coco Loco


Who´s cuter?


Sunset in Canoa


Happy Hour at Bambú´s bar with Shelley, Mark, Frans, Rika, Candace and Leticia

Swimming in Santo Domingo

I had been planning to leave Santo Domingo last Saturday, but instead decided to stay an extra day in order to visit a river with some of my friends on Sunday. The plan to go to a river and swim was discussed with several of the girls I had met in Tena, but in the end I just ended up meeting up with Wendy. She brought along her boyfriend Fabricio and her friend Maribel. The four of us met at my hotel at 2 PM and then headed off on a bus for the 20 minute ride to Los Piramides, an area with several swimming holes in different rivers. The bus brought us only as far as the town of Julio Moreno, and from there we jumped on the back of a pickup truck for the rest of the ride to the river. I took this first picture in the back of the truck, Wendy is on the right and Maribel is on the left. The road was really pretty...through rolling hills with sugar cane and banana trees. Los Piramides is east of Santo Domingo, in the Andean foothills.



The river was very crowded since it was Ecuadoran Labor Day Weekend...the water was great though, and we had a lot of fun. Wendy and her friends are real cool so it was fun hanging out with them. We ended up hitching a ride back into Santo Domingo with some teenagers in an SUV type vehicle. I had dinner with Maribel at a cheap parrilla place...really good grilled steak, rice, beans and plantains. Food on the coast has better flavors overall. We were all gonna go out on Sunday night, but that ended up not happening. I left on Monday morning after a really good breakfast of humitas with sugar, coffee and blackberry juice. I was headed for the coast, to Canoa, to meet up with Mark and Shelley, friends I met at the Black Sheep Inn. That will be in the next entry.