Whew. We are in an internet cafe right now and my job is to write about yesterday, which seems like a week ago after the crazyness that was today (see Laura´s post about slug juice to see what I mean). Anyway, I´ll give it a shot.
We got up and took a taxi ride across Quito, which probably took 30 minutes at least...this must be the longest city in the world I swear to God, it goes on forever. We (mostly Laura) chatted with the driver the whole time about the differences between Los Estados Unidos and Quito. He was complaining about traffic but we told him that it´s just as bad in the Bay Area, if not worse. Also told him that I was a lawyer to which he exclaimed in spanish, ¨Ay...you must make at least 30,000 per year!¨ We told him that this was about right...but that we weren´t sure because I hadn´t started working yet. Hopefully he never learns the truth...
Anyway, then we arrived at the bus port which is nuts. People everywhere screaming destinations at you. So we made our way to the guy who was screaming ¨Otavalo, Otavalo, Otavalo¨because we were headed for Otavalo, you see. Anyway, the bus ride was pleasant enough, we met a spanish woman named Lydia who has randomly reappeared in our path TWICE since that bus ride...by now she feels like our relative and knows everything about our lives and vice-a-versa. The ride had lots of views of canyons and a snow-capped volcano in the distance. Very impressive.
We arrived in the small(ish) town of Otavalo and made our way with our packs on to our hostal which is called Hostal Chasqui. It is run by this great guy named Roberto who is over-concerned about our comfort at all times. For examle, yesterday he asked us if we had enough blankets...this was over-concern for two reasons. First, we have 3 beds in our room, each with 5 huge wool blankets on them and second, at night it only drops to about 55 degrees so its not even cold. Yet there he is, practically begging us to let him get us ´mas mantas.´ He´s a great guy.
Anyway, he advised us to go check out a local waterfall because it was about two thirty already and there wasnt time to do much else. So we started walking in the direction of the waterfall (la cascada in spanish). Very quickly we were the only gringos for miles around and walking through an area that was in pretty poor shape. Worst of all, for Laura, was that there were literally dozens of dogs (perros) walking around the streets. They were harmless but Laura is afraid of dogs and was literally crying at the slightest bark from the smallest dog. However, I will admit that she was brave enough to press on in the face of her greatest fear, so I was impressed. Eventually, after a nervous walk where we were convinced that every person was about to rob us at gunpoint, we made it to the entrace to the waterfall and things got much brighter and cheery. The waterfall itself was pretty large and the setting was breathtaking with mountains in the distance and perfectly blue skies against bright white clouds. In the end, it was worth all the worry and dog encounters and I think helped both of us to feel more comfortable walking around in cities where there are inevitably shady areas.
We returned by taxi and went out to a great seafood meal only a few blocks from our place. Shrimp ceviche which was excellent and meatballs and trout in a creolle sauce. Delicious. The food so far has been much better than I expected although the ketchup is shit. Its too sweet, so we both put salsa on our fries which come with almost everything here. I´m surprised you dont get ´papas fritas´with your ice cream here.
Today was 1,000 times more exciting and interesting than yesterday, but Laura wrote all about that so I won´t waste my time or yours talking about it. Suffice it to say that it was amazing beyond all descripion and it isn´t even dinner time yet. Our big decision now is whether we will sack up and take the bus all the way to Lima, which will include rides of 10 and 20 hours (several of them)...or if we should just take a plane which will cost a few hundred bucks...neither option seems very good but we will research it more tonight and let you know what we end up doing.
So as of right now we have no idea where we will be tomorrow, but we´ll let you know as soon as we can. Hope everyone is well. Adios para ahora.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Mike drank slug juice
WOW. Otavalo and the market is everything you would imagine. We went straight to the animal market at 7:30 because it closes the earliest and were greeted by hoards of Otovaleños with their live animals for sale. Everyone just stands around with their pigs on the end of a rope or holding their live chickens upside-down, or pulling guinnea pigs out of a sack. It was so crazy down there but really awesome. The Otovaleños wear a very traditional and formal dress, even when they are holding a muddy lamb in their laps: dark woolen skirts with beautiful embroidery, a ruffled white blouse with colorful flowers embroidered on the collar, their long dark hair pulled into a long braid wrapped with a colorful strap (men and women) and topped with a Panama Hat which is actually from Ecuador.
We then headed to the food market where we met this American guy who is now a tour guide for Baby Boomers in Peru. He had Mike try this drink called "emoliente" which is this crazy concoction a lady makes right in front of you: first she scrapes into a glass jar tons of slimy aloe vera from the inside of a leaf, then adds a little of liquid from about 10 different unmarked bottles that are various sugar concoctions and vitamins, then a little mollasses. Then she pours it back and forth into a tin cup as it slowly distributes the slimy aloe throughout the whole drink so by the end it resembles a thick snot (sorry). She hands it to mike in a giant jar and instructs him to drink it chug it without stopping or he´ll choke on the semi-liquid stuff that´s already halfway down his throat. He did it perfectly, of course, and acually said he like it! I of course opted to take pictures of it instead. Anyways, there was a huge textile market, fruit market, anything you could imagine and it stretched throughout the whole city. It was incredible.
Somehow we did all that and it was only 11:00am so we hopped on a bus to this tiny town called Quiroga where we were told to hitch a ride to a crater...so we climbed into the back of this guys truck and watched the mountains and volcanoes and villagers pass us by. We arrived at this huge lake inside a crater called Cuicocha, had a great lunch and then right as we were going to start the hike around the lake our Spanish friend Lidia pulls up in the back of a truck, hops out and joins us! Small world. The hike was beautiful and she entertained us with her dirty spanish vocabulary and stories about all her travels through Asia, Africa, Midde East, Europe, and now New Zealand where she is living. Mom... she was ashamed that the spanish I learned from you was so clean... she´s trying to remedy that.
Anyways, we´re in a cafe trying to plan some of our upcoming trip but I wanted to tell you about this great day while it is still fresh in my mind. I am loving it so far and and SO thankful to you mom for teaching me spanish because I don´t know how people get by here without it. I´ll post pics soon when the stupid connection works! I miss you so much, familia. And our friends who are out on travels of their own (ie: nick-- so jealous of your trip), hope you are having a blast.
We then headed to the food market where we met this American guy who is now a tour guide for Baby Boomers in Peru. He had Mike try this drink called "emoliente" which is this crazy concoction a lady makes right in front of you: first she scrapes into a glass jar tons of slimy aloe vera from the inside of a leaf, then adds a little of liquid from about 10 different unmarked bottles that are various sugar concoctions and vitamins, then a little mollasses. Then she pours it back and forth into a tin cup as it slowly distributes the slimy aloe throughout the whole drink so by the end it resembles a thick snot (sorry). She hands it to mike in a giant jar and instructs him to drink it chug it without stopping or he´ll choke on the semi-liquid stuff that´s already halfway down his throat. He did it perfectly, of course, and acually said he like it! I of course opted to take pictures of it instead. Anyways, there was a huge textile market, fruit market, anything you could imagine and it stretched throughout the whole city. It was incredible.
Somehow we did all that and it was only 11:00am so we hopped on a bus to this tiny town called Quiroga where we were told to hitch a ride to a crater...so we climbed into the back of this guys truck and watched the mountains and volcanoes and villagers pass us by. We arrived at this huge lake inside a crater called Cuicocha, had a great lunch and then right as we were going to start the hike around the lake our Spanish friend Lidia pulls up in the back of a truck, hops out and joins us! Small world. The hike was beautiful and she entertained us with her dirty spanish vocabulary and stories about all her travels through Asia, Africa, Midde East, Europe, and now New Zealand where she is living. Mom... she was ashamed that the spanish I learned from you was so clean... she´s trying to remedy that.
Anyways, we´re in a cafe trying to plan some of our upcoming trip but I wanted to tell you about this great day while it is still fresh in my mind. I am loving it so far and and SO thankful to you mom for teaching me spanish because I don´t know how people get by here without it. I´ll post pics soon when the stupid connection works! I miss you so much, familia. And our friends who are out on travels of their own (ie: nick-- so jealous of your trip), hope you are having a blast.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Viewing Airplanes from Above
I only have a few minutes to fire this off. First, just so you know the last post was made by me and not Laura...so the comment about knowing how the Incan statue with the huge penis felt should make a lot more sense...I hope.
Anyway, yesterday was our best day by far. We woke up and took a taxi to the ¨Teleferico¨ which is a huge gondola thing that they have that takes you up to 4,300 meters. That is 14,100 we later found out. The view was incredible. At the top we hiked for about 2 hours up to the base of a mountain peak with amazing scenery of wildflowers, birds, etc along the way. You will see the pictures...simply incredible. That will probably be the highest that we will ever be on Earth. We were both exhausted from the altitude until 30 minutes into our hike when a 80 year old man with a cane PASSED us on the trail...then we picked up the pace a little.
Ended the day with a great meal with three of our hostal-mates from England and Austrailia. Great people, good times. Now we are headed to Otavalo which is 2 hours north and has a famous open-air
market on Saturday (supposedly the largest in South America)! We will be in touch soon!
Anyway, yesterday was our best day by far. We woke up and took a taxi to the ¨Teleferico¨ which is a huge gondola thing that they have that takes you up to 4,300 meters. That is 14,100 we later found out. The view was incredible. At the top we hiked for about 2 hours up to the base of a mountain peak with amazing scenery of wildflowers, birds, etc along the way. You will see the pictures...simply incredible. That will probably be the highest that we will ever be on Earth. We were both exhausted from the altitude until 30 minutes into our hike when a 80 year old man with a cane PASSED us on the trail...then we picked up the pace a little.
Ended the day with a great meal with three of our hostal-mates from England and Austrailia. Great people, good times. Now we are headed to Otavalo which is 2 hours north and has a famous open-air
market on Saturday (supposedly the largest in South America)! We will be in touch soon!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
2 Days in Quito
We´ve been here for two days now and there is already a lot to tell. I´ll start at the beginning.
Yesterday we woke up at our hostal, Chicago Hostal. It´s a great place, with very friendly people, although the mattresses are soft and shaped like banannas so our back are a little sore in the mornings. We have free breakfast here consisting of a plain croissant-type roll, scrambled eggs, pineapple slices, and black tea. I should mention that our breakfast is served on a terrace at the top of the hostal, which is about 5 stories high and up on a hill so there is an awesome view of the city while we eat. This city is absolutely sprawling. It´s about 10,000 feet high nestled in between two giant mountain peaks. The city is only about 2 or 3 miles wide but it is incredibly long and buildings spread out as far as you can see.
After breakfast we headed out to walk around in Old Town which is the historical center of Quito with lots of restored buildings. This city is packed to the brim with people, noises, sounds and colors, but we´ve felt very comfortable and safe walking around. A lot of the streets have dates for names like ¨6 de diciebre¨ which, I think is when Quito gained its independence from Spain- the first of the South American cities to do so we were told. That was in 1809 so if you do the math, this year was their bicentenntial. Turns out that we arrived the day AFTER the huge celebrations for the bicentennial ended...oops. Oh well.
We started our walking tour at Plaza Grande, the main central square of Old Town and immediately took a tour of the nearby cathedral. We also so a few museums in the area, but more exciting was lunch. We had chicken-fried steak that was absolutely amazinga and apparently a local specialty. It was 20 bucks. We thought this was a steal but then today went for lunch at a place where we had corn soup (the corn here has kernels that are about 10 times bigger than our corn and its delicious), lamb chops, desert, drinks, and it was 4 dollars...total. So we learned our lesson that lunch should not cost more than 5 dollars per day.
Today we climbed up the nearby Basilica de Voto which allowed you to climb up like 6 different ladders to the top of the bell tower for another awesome view of the city. I rang the bell at the top which I think was illegal but who knows. We also hiked to the museum of cultural history where we saw tons of different carvings made by local people thousands of years ago. Many of them had men holding their weiners which was pretty funny. The highlight was a carving of a guy on his back holding his member that was about 15 times larger than it was supposed to be (I know how he feels)
. Anyway, we´ve done and seen much more but we only have so much time so that will have to do for now. We are having tons of fun and meeting lots of interesting people at the hostal. You´ll hear about it all later. Hope everyone is doing well!
Yesterday we woke up at our hostal, Chicago Hostal. It´s a great place, with very friendly people, although the mattresses are soft and shaped like banannas so our back are a little sore in the mornings. We have free breakfast here consisting of a plain croissant-type roll, scrambled eggs, pineapple slices, and black tea. I should mention that our breakfast is served on a terrace at the top of the hostal, which is about 5 stories high and up on a hill so there is an awesome view of the city while we eat. This city is absolutely sprawling. It´s about 10,000 feet high nestled in between two giant mountain peaks. The city is only about 2 or 3 miles wide but it is incredibly long and buildings spread out as far as you can see.
After breakfast we headed out to walk around in Old Town which is the historical center of Quito with lots of restored buildings. This city is packed to the brim with people, noises, sounds and colors, but we´ve felt very comfortable and safe walking around. A lot of the streets have dates for names like ¨6 de diciebre¨ which, I think is when Quito gained its independence from Spain- the first of the South American cities to do so we were told. That was in 1809 so if you do the math, this year was their bicentenntial. Turns out that we arrived the day AFTER the huge celebrations for the bicentennial ended...oops. Oh well.
We started our walking tour at Plaza Grande, the main central square of Old Town and immediately took a tour of the nearby cathedral. We also so a few museums in the area, but more exciting was lunch. We had chicken-fried steak that was absolutely amazinga and apparently a local specialty. It was 20 bucks. We thought this was a steal but then today went for lunch at a place where we had corn soup (the corn here has kernels that are about 10 times bigger than our corn and its delicious), lamb chops, desert, drinks, and it was 4 dollars...total. So we learned our lesson that lunch should not cost more than 5 dollars per day.
Today we climbed up the nearby Basilica de Voto which allowed you to climb up like 6 different ladders to the top of the bell tower for another awesome view of the city. I rang the bell at the top which I think was illegal but who knows. We also hiked to the museum of cultural history where we saw tons of different carvings made by local people thousands of years ago. Many of them had men holding their weiners which was pretty funny. The highlight was a carving of a guy on his back holding his member that was about 15 times larger than it was supposed to be (I know how he feels)
. Anyway, we´ve done and seen much more but we only have so much time so that will have to do for now. We are having tons of fun and meeting lots of interesting people at the hostal. You´ll hear about it all later. Hope everyone is doing well!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
We´re hanging out with popstars
We made it and are about to go out and enjoy Quito, but wanted to let you all know we are safe and feeling great. We also met a hugely famous Ecuadorian popstar in airport customs after watching hoards of girls and even men coming up to take pictures with him. I asked his friend who he was and he let me know by handing me a CD and saying "escuchalo" (listen to it) which we will do as soon as we can. Everyone was so distracted that no one even collected our customs tickets! His name is Fausto Miño so you can look up this dreamy ecuadorian if you´re interested. That´s all for now but, needless to say, Quito has been great starting in the first 5 minutes of getting here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
