ecuador.... in short

of course those of you who know me realize thatïn short¨is a relative term. And you also realize that I am a terrible typist on an american keyboard, so of course, you will forgive funny mistakes like umlots for quotations...

So I arrived in Ecuador on January 1 after a long day. I had a wonderful stay in Quito in a hostel called the Secret Garden where I met some great people to roll around with for the better part of the week. My spanish lessons went well in Quito and I am now comfortable chatting with anyone about my travel, slightly fluent (haha) when discussing my work and still at a loss if I do not know the context of the conversation.

Quito is home to many churches and I went and saw many of them. Beautiful structures that cannot possibly fill on sundays... there just ae too amny to believe that they are ever full! In the basilica I found myself alone with my friends and almost sang amazing grace just to hear the cathedral´s acoustic capability but just as my friends had me convinced to do it a tour group came through. So we climbed the stairs to the bell tower and looked down 279 meters to the bottom. dizzying and lots of ladders. flip flops not recommended for this.

I met with Lynne and Bill and they graciously connected me with wonderful people in Ecuador and most importantly gave me some sense of grounding in this country. I traveled to Otavalo on Jnauary 8 where I stayed with Mimi and Jim in their lovely house in casa mojanda. After a month of enormous cities this was the breath of fresh air that I needed. Otavalo is a market town for indigenous artisans and the market was incredible. The downside of six months of travel is that I really cannot buy things because I simply do not want to haul them around.

I Otavalo I visited a shaman recommended by John and Lynne... and in the end it turns out that Mimi and JIM are god parents to the shaman´s grand-daughter. I had two days of "cleansing" which involves a lot of chanting and prayer as well as some process involving my bare skin and stinging nettles. If I sound at all sarcastic here, I do not mean to. It was a deeply moving experience and I felt grounded and a strong sense of well being as I left.

The feeling of well being was short lived however, as I soon fell ill. I am not one for anti biotics but when lab tests revealed a healthy colony of parasites I was all for the kill pill. There is a time and place for everything and in ecuador- or south america in general- I might be more likely to use pharmaceutical technology!

Only part of my stay was at casa mojanda and for the illness phase I actually was in town at Riveria Sucre... a clean very friendly hostel. On my first day there I met a group of 16 people who were down from Seattle... all associated with Pike´s Place Market. They were kind in my days of sickness AND they served an even higher purpose. They were people to do things with. As a solo traveler I am limited in the things I can do and guides tend to like groups better than singles. So I latched on to these fine folks for a few excursions around Otavalo and hitched a ride in their mini van to the beach.

We arrived in Atacames on January 18th. I cannot describe the heat that I experienced there! It was raining but I couñld stand still in the rain and break a sweat! There was some fun swimming and the folks from Pike´s Place proved a high spirited group of fun havers! Atacames is a tourist town empty of tourists except for us so it had an eerie twilight zone feel to it. It is also where I discovered that it can take a few days to lñeave a place because figuring out bus logistics on the slowest interwebs I have ever used... ok the slowest since somewhere around 1995... it took an enormous effort but by Thursday I was on my way to Mompicci to catch a bus to Canoa. Wouldn´t you know that after all that ewffort, I find out you cannot catch the bus from Mompicci to Canoa. And where atacamas was hopt, I could escape to our shady grotto of a hostel, waiting and figuing things out in Mompicci involved wading through sticky stinky mud with a nice hot mist coating me!

However, since I have the blessing of st christopher as well as several other talismans, I did meet up with Tori and John who were also on a quest for Canoa. The three of us got on a bus that dropped us in tres vias. a town of five buildings, possibly more dogs than people and certainly more chickens than people. We were assured that a bus would take us to... chamanga where we would find transport to... pedernales and then into canoa. After an hour of watching chickens cross the road, but failing to interview them as to why, a bus did indeed pick us up and take us to chamanga. In chamanga we were hurried off the bus and onto this open cart safari like vehicle. The fare was collected by a young kid who climbed around the out side of the bus to collect from us. Lots of cows were also on the road to pedernales. In pedernales we happily boarded a real bus again and in a few hours time arrived at Canoa.

Canoa is idyllic. It is a town of about 6 blocks on one street and housing along four other streets behind. There is no ATM so you have to take a bus to get money, but it is also incredibly comfortable and filled with laid back surfers. And SAFE, which I love! There is certainly an ex-pat population that is small enough to work really well with the locals. I met this super sweet couple of artists from Colombia and chatted with them quite a bit over the course of five days. They travel and make art and sell it. sounds lovely... if you can make art.

At the hostel Coco Loco I met Maggie Mae and Mariah from Vermont and New Hampshire down in Ecuador for a little surf adventure. These two ladies were just wonderful companions for the week. We swam, ate and walked together. I appreciate them allowing me to be a part of their vacation. Someday I hope we visit one another in the states.

Maggie Mae and Mariah were headed to Otavalo and I was about to begin my next day or two of planning a bus journey south. This one seemed harder than the last and in the end I decided it would be easier to ride the bus to Quito with the girls and do something from there. I was not meant to go to Montanita. However, I remembered Tomas telling me about a ferry to Patagonia. A quick Skype call to him and some time on the computer and before you know it I booked a flight to Patagonia and the ferry to Puerto Natales.

here I am waiting to catch the ferry tomorrow. If all else fails and you cannot find the bus route... why not go to patagonia?

I will arrive in Puerto Natales on Feb. 1. I should be better about more frequent shorter updates.

in joy,
aly

with burning eyes and beating heart...

Hola Mis Amigos,

I am suffering through an unfamiliar keyboard to give a little update.

After a somewhat exciting new years eve, I left Medellin to fly to Quito. Spent about an hour with immigration in a blazingly hot room all to discover that I AM a nice person and it was just a computer error and I was free to leave the country... whew because this was where I discovered my spanish is limited to things I am familiar with not interrogation!

My time with Wai and Paula in Medellin was so lovely and I am so appreciative of their sharing the apartament with me and the fact that I had a room with a killer view and an incredibly comfortable bed. ah some nights it was pure liss to lie down!

I enjoyed the smaller town of sabaneta very much and will look forward to seeing my friends again in May. In the meantime some highlights were:
an impromptu concert in the park. If Twitter were happening here I would say that a tweet went out for all musicians to gather in the park but I know it was something more organic than that as this is not twitterland. Guitars, flutes, drums and vocalists... a stand up bass. it was pretty awesome.

Wai and I went out to a bar where there were dancing horses. pretty cool. I also got to pet a cow there. The cow got to lick wai.

Later that same night we went to a place where there was much sunging, employees were in costume, lights were sparkling and decor was decidedly strange. There were dancing midgets at this place. Half way through our half bottle of rum the colombian equivalent of a neil diamond imersonater arrived and started crooning. He came and sat on Wai´s lap singing to him. I was too close for a photo. It was a riot. very surreal.

Wai Paula and >I had a trip to the exploatorium and the aquarium that was also quite fun.

NYE I made dinner at the house. went out for a mdnight drink and came home fairly early. Not sure when the bullet came whizzing through my window but it was next to the bed in the morning and my book was damaged. I did not wake up as it is common to have explosive fireworks throughout the night during the holidays. the bullet missed the window glass but came through the window frame. Downstairs there was a lot of glass as it it the actual window. Strange way to start the new year. Better though than last year. it would be tough to be worse than last year.

Now through the immigration mess and into quito. Thankfully I was met at the airport and delivered after a terrible day into a hopstel that smelled bad, had no windows, my pricçvate bath was shared and filthy. I cliosed the door. took a breath and thats when it hit me that there was a bullet in my room, immigration hassled me and I was all alone in quito. Then came the tears. :)

Fortunately I was able to switch to their other hostel and had a somewhat better room for the night. with internet (did I mention no internet?) I immediatyely called sarah lucy miller and felt much better. I also decided I needed to wear my Belive in Yoursaelf necklace in addition to my BGI sundrop. Thanks LIbby for the support!

Found a new amazing hostel in old town and moved the next day. The secret garden has wonderful dinners and breakfasts on a roof top terrace, the feel of community is delightful and I stayed here for five days while I took more spanish. Met some lovely under twenty-five year olds (you all know how I am !) and rumbled around with them for a few days. Today we all go separate ways and are all in the internet cafe catching up.

We went to the Mitad del Mundo and then the real equator museum. Very fun in the museum. I gotr a diploma for successfully balancing an egg on its end on the equator. Kate did as well. Must be the oregonian advantage! lets see, we also watched water drain in different directions on either side. cheesy cheeky fun!

I am off to Otavalo today... am excited that the next part of the trip is beginning. Many thanks to Zac for the connection to his family here. wonderful dinner last night and new friends to meet this week.

love to all...
aly