Beach Bums

In one word, Good Friday in Quito was strange. Thousands of people walk in a procession that starts and ends at Plaza San Francisco; the journey is a huge loop that takes several hours. When we first set up camp on the street to watch, the procession had not yet passed where we were, and there were people selling ice cream, toys, stools to sit on, hats ect. We bought a bit of street food - some fried plantain chips and some delicious little fried dough balls covered in sugar (i think they were called Chilenos). The atmosphere felt like we were getting ready to watch an exciting parade. However, as the procession neared, the street vendors disappeared, and the people slowly walked by, many not wearing shoes and almost all were dressed head to toe in purple gowns that held an unfortunate similarity to the KKK outfits. A very solemn mood settled over all of the observers.

 Some folks were quite serious about the self-penitence - one guy had a band of barbed wire wrapped around his bare chest and several men were carrying huge wooden crosses while dressed as Jesus.  The procession is pretty much the same thing the whole time, and, after about an hour of extreme melancholy, we had our fill. We decided to go find a few more snacks, which ended up being hand crafted coconut ice cream, and then headed back to the hostel to chill out for a bit while the procession wrapped up...

The next day we went a did a free walking tour of Quito. I don't know if it was typical or if it was because of the holidays, but about 50 people showed up for the tour. The tour took us through the Old Town of Quito, and in addition to visiting the central market, several churches and key plazas, we learned a bit about Ecuadorian history, and some interesting and brutal stories about their political history. While we took pictures of the presidential palace, their statue of independence, and other interesting architecture, our guide filled us in on the variety of ways that presidents of Ecuador have left office. One former President in particular had a particularly gruesome ending. He made a bunch of changes in Ecuador, some of them trying to curtail the power of the Catholic church in government. As the conservative Catholic population is fairly dominant in Ecuador, he was later forced out of office and then the country. When he tried to return and regain control of the country, he was jailed. A mob of Catholic youth stormed the jail and tied him to a horse and dragged him through the streets of Quito, before they burned his body in a park. She spent 15 minutes or so telling us other stories of presidencies that ended poorly.

Later that afternoon, already exhausted from walking around the city for over 4 hours, we had to head to the bus terminal to buy bus tickets for our trip to Manta the Monday after Easter. We took the hour and 15 minute trolley ride to the bus terminal - 25 cents fare each versus a 10 dollar fare if we had taken a taxi. We wanted to make sure that we got off at the right place so we asked a guy standing next to us which stop we needed. This turned into a pleasant 40 minute conversation with him and his family on the trolley - they were going to the terminal as well. In this time, we learned that he had 4 children, had been married for 28 years, that his 9 year old son is studying English, that his sister owns a boat on the coast and much, much more. Our new friend ended up escorting us to the proper booth so we could buy our tickets to Manta, and then he showed us which trolley to take to get back towards our hostel. After a long day seeing some of the most beautiful buildings in Quito and hearing incredible stories told regarding Ecuadorian history, the most memorable event of the day was probably our conversation with the man on the trolley. Random interactions with strangers at home can be pleasant, but somehow the sensation was magnified for me - being in a foreign country and speaking a foreign language.

On Easter morning, we attended a Catholic mass at Basilica del Voto Nacional. The church is beautiful and absolutely massive. 

Kim had very high expectations for the mass, especially the music. While the mass was lovely, the music was rather painful. The woman leading the congregation was approximately 120 years old and sang each song in an average of 5 keys; the organ often came in a few measures after she had already started singing, dropping out here and there. After mass, we decided to walk around and see if we could find anything open for lunch. The city was nearly deserted, even on the larger thoroughfares. We walked down to the commercial district and found a little restaurant that was open - gringo customers with gringo food, but pretty good. Afterwards we searched for cards for Kim to send to friends in the States, and we found some that Kim really liked at a booth in a park (same place they burned the liberal president), but as we had one more day before we left Kim wanted to keep looking before she made a decision. Easter was a pretty low key day for us, and as the rain started to fall we decided to head back to the hostel and relax. Some folks in the hostel had put together an asado, so we joined two Uruguayans, an Argentinian, a Peruvian, a Venezuelan, and a German for a nice little community meal and a great way to end our day.

For our final day in Quito we went and finished up all the business we had started. Unfortunately we discovered that the vendors don't set up shop on Monday - not sure if it was only a holiday thing or an every Sunday thing. On the other hand, we found some cards that Kim was very happy with and we found a cafe where we could drink coffee while Kim wrote some messages to her girlfriends. Afterwards, with some trouble, we found the post office and sent off our cards. We stopped at a bar that had craft beer and slowly sipped on a beer that was not a lager. I was even able find a new baseball hat as the one I brought with me was turned into a disgusting mess from my use of it on the farm.

We caught our bus to Manta with no problems, and it was thankfully a peaceful and uneventful ride to Manta. In Manta, we were immediately slammed by the heat and humidity - much the same as when we arrived in Cartagena. Looking to get to San Lorenzo, about 40 minutes south of Manta, we asked the bus driver where we could catch a bus there. He told us that they had one leaving in an hour, and that it was a 6 hour ride. Immediately confused, we thought we would take a taxi, but the taxi we hailed told us it would cost us 25 dollars. We decided to check out the other bus terminal down the street and see if we could figure out the proper bus. I was very thorough in asking for a bus to San Lorenzo near Manta, in the same region (Manabi), and asking how long it would take to get there. We were ushered onto a bus to San Lorenzo for 1 dollar (and it only took about 30 minutes). Apparently there is another San Lorenzo in another region... 6 hours away. Good thing we didn't get on the first bus!

A short, and very hot and sweaty, walk down the main road in San Lorenzo led us to Gringo on the Beach resort, where we made plans to volunteer for most of April. We met the owner, a gringo from Chicago - Dan, and our fellow volunteers - Romy, Vanessa, Lila and Lamia. Vanessa is from England, and she is in Ecuador with her boyfriend Sandro, who is from Cuba. Romy is from France as are the two sisters Lila and Lamia.

The hotel is right on the beach; we walk 3 minutes and we are in the Pacific Ocean. 

There is a pool at the hotel, a small soccer field, and a road lined with coconut and palm trees. Our main job is to work in the kitchen and serve any guests. The menu is pretty easy, a lot of it being typical fast food from the US - burgers, fries, hot dogs. Some of it is different as well - empanadas, salchipapas, gato encerado. The times of day vary, but we work between 5 and 6 hours a day for 5 days a week. When not working we have access to wifi, obviously the pool and the beach, and there is even a projector with DirecTV (lots of soccer, movies at night). Dan owns a spare boogie board, so I've gone out a couple times and tried that out. I drank a lot of salt water and got a little sun burned, didn't catch many waves. There is also a steep hike to the top of a rocky hill right on the beach with a lighthouse on top and a spectacular view of the ocean, especially at sunset.

The last 3 weeks here have been tranquil. Lots of time at the pool and the beach or just lounging in hammocks at the restaurant. The two French girls were only here for a few days with us before they left, so we didn't really get to know them well. Vanessa and Sandro are great, and Romy and I get along really well. It's been really fun getting to know everyone and sharing a few drinks in the evenings. There was a surf competition on the beach here this last week, and the judges and some surfers were staying here. Kim was really enjoyed these guests as most of the guys walked around shirtless.

Time feels like it is going slowly here, but in such a good way. The days are relaxing and laid back. Right now the hotel is mostly empty, I think there is one couple here, and Kim, the other volunteers and I have been watching lots movies and relaxing. We plan to stay one more week before traveling to the Galapagos Islands.

Here's to more time lounging in the sun!

Going going, back back, to Cali Cali

Halfway through our four weeks on the farm and we had settled into a nice groove. Matteo, our new friend from Italy, Kim and I were jamming out the projects that Erika had assigned us before she left for Bogota again. Matteo and I spent countless hours gathering dried plantain and banana leaves to use as mulch, and so I was able to practice my Spanish with him. I can't always say exactly what I want to say in Spanish, but usually I can make myself understood, which is more than enough to get by. We ended up talking about movies, and discovered that we have pretty similar taste in movies. Most of the time we had no problem communicating, but occasionally a movie would have a drastically different title in Italy and then there was little chance of me figuring it out once he translated it from Italian to Spanish. For example, he asked me if I had seen a movie called One Night of the Lion. Definitely not. He said it was about 3 guys and lots of crazy things happen. Still nothing. Una Noche de Leon? Si. We eventually figured out that this is a phrase in Italian that means to go out and have a wild night of debauchery and hedonism, and it was The Hangover.

Erika came back for our last week of work, which was just in time as we were down to peeling coconut all day for work (with a bit of cleaning here and there). We got to do some interesting things - Kim helped make coconut oil and Matteo and I made plantain flour. We sprayed some more shit solution on the coffee plants, and did a little more maintenance work with them before we packed up our stuff and headed back to Bogota. On one hand, our four weeks on the farm was very relaxing - I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, Get Carter, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. On the other hand, our host wasn't able to spend very much time with us at the farm, which takes away from the experience some. Of course, this isn't an indictment of our host - she has a young child to take care of. Rather, I think that she has her hands full with her son, and adding 3 volunteers to the list of people who are looking to you for direction and guidance is probably a bit too much to ask.

We made it back to Bogota with plans to catch a bus to Cali the next day. We didn't do much in Bogota last time as I felt like utter crap, and we didn't do much this time because we were tired from the farm and we wanted to get an early start to Cali. We did eat a nice lunch at a restaurant near the hostel, and then we participated in the hostel's BBQ dinner. We can't really be sure whether it was the BBQ, or something else entirely, but something did both of us in. 

The next morning on the taxi ride to the bus terminal I was suppressing a mild urge to vomit almost the entire way. Normally I don't get motion sickness. I hadn't said anything about it when Kim asked if my stomach was hurting as well. She was feeling the same. We bought tickets for Cali, a 10 or 11 hour bus ride, took some antacids, and prepared ourselves for what we thought would be an uncomfortable trip. It turned out to be much worse. I spent most of the ride with my stomach churning like a washing machine, and I was constantly dropping silent but deadlies (the guy behind me was not happy about this part). Kim was worse off than me. She does get motion sickness and had to run to the bus bathroom to throw up, which is really more similar to a port a potty as it doesn't flush. After the 3rd or 4th trip to the bathroom she looked at me and said, "We might have to get off this bus, I can't do this much longer." I considered that this option would have left us in some small town in the middle of the Colombian Andes, and I patted Kim on her leg and said, "You can do it. We can't get off the bus, it's not an option." 

We ended up having a reprieve from the motion sickness as we inexplicably were stopped for three and a half hours in the afternoon. Okay to be fair, we moved probably 5 miles in that time. But it did help Kim's stomach, and she took some motion sickess pills before we got going again and we didn't have anymore extreme gastrointestinal issues. However, the delay meant that we arrived in Cali at 1am instead of the projected 8pm. We also discovered that my phone was the only place we had the address of our hostel, and it was completely dead (to be fair the battery life issue on my phone isn't a new issue for us, just one we failed to anticipate and that was compounded by a shitty day).

I figured we could find a taxi driver who knew the hostel, or would have gps or a phone he could do a quick search to find it. Our taxi driver had never heard of it, and he had been robbed the week before so he didn't have a phone or gps anymore. This did wonders for Kim's anxiety, especially it being after 1 am, but that didn't stop him from doing his damndest to find it for us. He drove to a group of taxi drivers and asked them if they had heard of Caella or Caelling hostel (the name is Caelum, but we found that Spanish speakers have a difficult time pronouncing this even when reading it). One guy was able to figure out that it was somewhere on Ave 4n - a really long street stretching across a really big city. But a start nonetheless. We drove around on Ave 4n for a bit before he started asking other people on the street if they had heard of the hostel. We finally found help from a security guard at a hotel, who was running in and out of the hotel to use the internet to try and find our hostel.

Kim was able to connect her phone to the hotel wifi from the car, and we had a full address and a small map of the surroundings. I thought we were in the clear, but even with the address our driver was still pretty confused (this was a first for us in Colombia). After some more slow mo driving, Kim was able to successfully navigate the driver to our hostel once we found a big landmark that was on the small map on her phone. If you really know Kim, this is some superhuman shit. The same girl who couldn't find Pizza Hut in the town where she grew up (emphasis  on town, only one Pizza Hut), told a taxi driver how to find the hostel after a 15 hour bus ride and a stressful 45 minute ride through the late night streets of Cali.

We were let into the hostel, thankfully, and they hadn't given away our reservation so we had (very large and comfortable)  beds. The next morning we ate pancakes, provided by the hostel, and met some of the other guests.  Stuart and Lewis, two English boys from Leeds,  are maybe the two most charming people we've met so far. Gamal, from the US, has lived in Ecuador and now Colombia for nearly a decade. Gamal is a bit older than us, and he came to Ecuador in the late 90's with the Peace Corps, and he definitely has some interesting stories about his experiences in South America. We also met Alvaro, from Cali, who is the owner of the hostel. It was new for us to eat breakfast with the owner of the hostel, but  this was obviously not a unique thing at Caelum, as all the other people were quit friendly with him. After we ate, Alvaro gave us a map of the city and pointed out some of the more interesting places to go and see or eat (again, the owner, not his employee). We reluctantly decided to go for a walk about the city after eating a huge lunch at the hostel, and right as we both were ready to go it started pouring rain and lightning sounded so close it may have been hitting the streets outside the hostel. We took this as a cue to nap and relax at the hostel.

Talking with the Leeds boys, we found out that they had been at the hostel for over 2 weeks and they were so happy there they had worked out a deal with Alvaro to work for the next 4 weeks in exchange for a bed. They told us that Alvaro organizes trips for guests to go and see things in and out of the city, and that Alvaro will drive guests himself and then join the guests out to see different things. Kim and I  had already made plans to volunteer at a hotel in Ecuador, so we knew we had  to leave Cali in a few days to make sure that we could make it there on time. However,  it was sorely tempting to cancel our plans and just stay in Cali at Caelum until our visa ran out.

Our first night at the hostel there was a salsa teacher who came and taught a free hour long lesson at the hostel. Stuart and Lewis, Kim, myself and a few other people who joined a bit late all participated. It was very simple steps, I think Kim and I got them down pretty well over the hour. The English boys on the other hand were an absolute riot to watch. When done properly, even very difficult Salsa moves look fluid and easy, but our friends looked a bit like robots trying to stomp out Salsa. And to be fair, in case they find this blog and read it somehow, Stuart was much better than Lewis. But their slang and accents came springing forth anytime the instructor introduced something new. "Ah fuckin' 'ell mate! Ah juss got the last step down." or "Shite! Ah've lost it. Ah had it and ah've lost it!" At one point, I had to step out of the class because I was on the verge of hysteria watching and listening to them.

After the class we all sat around, drank a few beers and chatted. Alvaro and a few more people, I think mostly Alvaro's friends from Cali, joined us and we had a nice social evening but without too much going on. The next day Kim and I got out of the hostel a bit earlier and did our own walking tour of the city. It was interesting, but Kim really doesn't like sight seeing, and the city doesn't have too much that is spectacular to see unless you get a bit outside of the city. There is one really weird park, Parque del Gato, which is just 15 or so statues of cats, painted in different ways by different artists. After walking around for a bit, we sat down and had coffee, and then found a small place called Lulodka that had a delicious menu del dia - soup, salad, risotto and chicken cordon bleu.

That evening we sat in the backyard of the hostel and once again enjoyed the company of other travelers. The English boys kept bothering Alvaro to get the salsa instructor to come back because "ah really enjoyed that" and "she was really fit." Halfheartedly, Kim and I decided we would stick to our original outline and head to Quito for Easter weekend and then on the the beach in Ecuador just after. We purchased bus tickets to Ipiales, a town in Colombia right on the border with Ecuador. Purchasing tickets was a bit of a shit show - none of the companies run daily buses to Quito (hence our destination being Ipiales), and a lot of the companies only ran buses heading north back into other parts of Colombia. But, eventually, we did get our ticket, and our plan was to take a taxi from the terminal in Ipiales to the border, cross on foot (which is what we have heard buses make you do even if you have a direct bus), and then catch a taxi to the Ecuadorean city of Tulcan where we have read  there are frequent buses onto Quito.

But we still had one more day in Cali, our bus was to leave at 9:30 at night. We spent the day hanging out with the people we had met the past few days - ate lunch with Stuart, Lewis, Gamal and Alvaro. In the morning Alvaro took us to the local market, very reminiscient of Seattle's market, and we bought some fruit and meat for a BBQ that evening. Alvaro also introduced us to a medley of interesting fruits we hadn't tried before (and forget about the names, I have no clue). In the afternoon Alvaro took us up to the Cristo del Rey, a giant statue of Jesus on a hill overlooking the city. I asked Alvaro who was building all these gigantic Jesus statues and planting them all over South America, and he told me it was an Italian artist who did the one in Cali and the Catholic Church paid for it. Alvaro definitely knows a lot about his city.

We had the BBQ that evening (delicious choripan - sausage on a bun but Argentinian style), and as time got closer and closer for us to leave Kim and I were bummed about leaving and definitely not looking forward to a really long bus ride. The people we had met all of two days before also seemed genuinely disappointed to see us leave as well. It is rare to find this type of camaraderie and connection so quickly, but when it happens it gives you so much more energy to keep travelling.

Our bus left Cali more or less on time, and Kim and I were both able to fall asleep relatively quickly, albeit not very soundly. Sleeping on these buses is definitely better than sleeping on an airplane, much more leg room, but it is by no means comfortable. And our seats were right up in the front of the bus, so we got to listen to the music and serenading voice of our bus driver as he sporadically joined in on the music of his choice. It took us 12 hours to make it to Ipiales, we crossed the border as planned, and found a bus heading to Quito. In all we spent about 20 hours going from Cali to Quito, which was definitely exhausting, but not the worst thing ever.

We booked a hostel, Minka, in the Old Town of Quito with plans to see the procession on Good Friday (imagine a parade of people in purple KKK outfits), and to go to mass on Easter. The hostel is nice, very laid back. But having come from one of the best hostels I've ever been at, it seems a bit boring, with most of the people more interested in their phones or laptops than in socializing (of course I'm being a hypocrite as I'm typing this).

We went out to find some food last night, and we found a row of  street vendors selling fried fish and a local soup called fanesco. Deciding to share, we ordered one portion of each and sat down to eat. Very tasty food, maybe a bit on te salty side, but way more food than the two of us were going to be able to eat. On our way to the street vendors we walked through and around a large group of young people who you would lump into the stereotype of punk/skateboader or if you wanted to be political anarchist. They didn't seem threatening to me or to Kim, but halfway through our meal the police showed up on the street and shortly after a tear gas canister was spitting fumes that were wafting into the seating area for the street vendors. We were full, so when we felt our breath get a little peppery we decided to pay (US dollars - a bit strange after paying in thousands of pesos) and head back to our hostel. On our way out, I stopped to see what I could make of the ruccus. To be certain, I have no actual idea of what started the conflict between the police and the group on the street. But it reminded me of scenes you could see in Seattle - large group of "alternative" young people hanging about, maybe looking suspicious to some, but not doing anything malicious when the police show up and order them to disperse. The scene in Quito seemed to be wrapping up, I couldn't even tell if anyone was arrested, but we made our way back to the hostel safely and went to bed early as we were exhausted from the long day of travels.

It is Good Friday as I'm finishing this post. Kim and I will probably shower and then make our way out into Quito to find an ATM, a grocery store, and then try and find a good spot to see the festivities. Or rather, we've heard it isn't really all that festive, and some people are quite serious about the physical punishment part and so they choose to wear crowns of thorns or barbed wire, or even carrying crosses made of cactus. We'll find out for ourselves how it goes shortly.

We spent 10 weeks in Colombia. I absolutely loved it, far more than I thought I would. This was the general attitude I felt from a lot of other travellers - people heading south were spending far more time in Colombia than they had planned and people heading north were disappointed they hadn't planned enough time for Colombia. There is so much of the country that we didn't see at all, I'm already hoping to return someday. One guy at the hostel in Cali suggested that we could fly back to Colombia at the end of our trip and spend a little more time there. I have no idea what our budget or timeline will look like 8 or 10 months from now, but right now it is something I very much want to do.