South American adventure

we have been so busy it has been difficult finding time to write. last week we had salsa lesson and the following night a friend from Germany Daniel that knows how to tango taught the large group of us tango. all of our lessons are in the kitchen which is more like the communal meeting place of everyone who lives in our casa. also on tuesday of last week i made bolas de verde with nellie which are cooked and mashed plantains shaped into a ball with cheese and onions inside and then fried. served with coffee by Hilda, a colombian woman who is a friend of the family that owns our casa, they were excellent. our dueño Pedro even came to tango with us. we just learned the basic step forwards and backwards but it was fun and i love the music.

wednesday night we made a chinese meal with jessie of noodles with soy sauce with carrots, cucumbers and onions, eggs and tomatos served with mani on top which are fried peanuts. we were so full we almost did not feel like dancing!

thursday was our last day of work last week because friday was the festival of the independence of Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. so friday morning we left at 7am and took a series of buses through Quitumbe, Latacunga, to Sigchos. It was midday and they told us the next bus would be the following day at 11am, so we decided to walk the 3 or so hours to the next town and try to find a hostal. while we were walking, a car came up and we asked if we could hitch a ride and they said they were only going about 2o more minutes but sure. while talking with them we discovered they are a wonderful family and they invited us to their house. we went and explored their large farm of chickens, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, fruit trees of all kinds, quinua, strawberries, and we hiked up the large hill nearby looking for mortiños which are like blueberries to make a drink colada morada but they were sparse so we just hiked around. the family name is Oña, the father Clever mother Pati, children Esteven, Daniel and Kati. Their grandmother lives in the country on this farm between Sigchos and Isinlivi. We had lunch  of the best chicken ive had in ecuador and dinner with them, sat around the fire talking until late and then they made our beds and we slept in a room with 7 beds and about 12 people, except for Al who got a room all to himself adjacent. We were up at daybreak with the roosters and the grandmother had breakfast served at 7 of cheese sandwiches and potatoes with a hot oatmeal drink and Clever offered to drive us to Quilotoa which was 2 hours away. this road was full of cows, sheep including the occasional black sheep and even llamas mating, engargado which means with full cargo on their backs. the only thing they asked was that we pay him gas money and we arrived at Quilotoa at 10am on saturday. we hiked down to the crater lake and had lunch then hiked back up because we did not want to hire a mule. around 1 we were weighing our options and decided to hike around the perimeter of the crater as fast as possible, the guide said 6 hours but we thought we could do it in less. we bought some snacks and departed to the right around the crater and found it to be very challenging, strenuous uphill some of the time on hands and knees like rock climbing.the views were gorgeous and we ended up making it back just in time to catch our 6pm car to Zumbahua. We checked in to a hostal, and went to the restaurant where everyone in town was watching the ecuador v. uruguay game which ecuador lost in the last minute and everyone was really upset. we had dinner and then fell asleep at 9pm. i woke up in the morning with a terrible headache and dehydration and jessie woke up the same so we went out and bought 5 liters of water that we started drinking right away and finished by early evening among the 3 of us. we went to Mass in Zumbahua which was the most profound faith i have seen yet in ecuador. there were no instruments but everyone was singing and it was standing room only for about the 50 of us that arrived last to this small chapel. we walked around town and ate fried doughs and empanadas on the street and i wanted to buy fruit but no stores had fruit because there is a big market day on Saturday that we had missed and the woman at one of the stores told me es imposible encontrar frutas hoy dia.  it is impossible to buy fruit on this day. so we took the 11.30 bus to Latacunga and bought mandarinas when we got there. we walked around Latacunga center and found a place with big bowls of crab soup with a whole crab on top for 2 dollars and it was so good but very messy. jessie told the waiter tengo verguenza! that she had shame that we made such a mess. we took a bus back to Quito and then the trole from Quitumbe which broke down and we had to hop ship to another trole until we got to Alameda but it was still light out so we could walk back to our casa. we have uploaded my photos to flikr so go to the album Quilotoa to see them. we got the address and email of the Oñas and they live in Quito not too far from us, so we are going to visit them and cook a large meal for them either this weekend or next. they were so kind to us we want to repay them a bit.

yesterday i did the first music with the children in CEA. i brought the guitar and sang En la selva la gran selva el leon duerme esta noche In the Jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight and also Mi Gallo and the children loved it, they kept saying otra vez! which means again again! i also taught one little boy the D chord on the guitar because he has a lot of interest, and he is behaviorally a bit challenging so i will use it as a reward for good behavior. the children were so cute asking me why i cant come in everyday and only monday and wednesday and i did my best to explain that i work in the clinic the other days. we handed out oritos which are small bananas and i helped a little one with his math addition homework. he had trouble deciding which number to carry to the next row and we worked on that a bit. yesterday afternoon i made copies of the signed letter for the eyecheckups that took me so long to complete and we handed it out to 10 girls in the 8th grade that hopefully will bring them back signed with 2 dollars so i can take them for their eyecheckup on friday morning.

yesterday after work i walked in the rain to the famed coffee shop Pepa de Oro which is behind the presidential palace cerca de Plaza Grande and bought a libra of cafe especial which was not expensive and it tastes so much better than cafe instantaneo. it is a strange cultural tradition that most ecuadorians do not drink real coffee but instant even though some coffee is grown here and much more in colombia which is not far away.

this morning i took 2 children to terapia de lenguaje, speech therapy and am working on my poster for the transmission of swine flu

chao!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:43 am and is filed under Quito. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.