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Published: April 8th 2011
It's Tuesday March 29 and I'm beyond ready to leave sickness behind and get on with the adventuring. I'm flying to Quito in the afternoon today to meet up with my Bay Area buddy Kimberly and spend a week in the northern country. I make a quick trip to the doctor who has been treating my foot, and while he's able to remove my stitches and agree the foot looks better, he doesn't have the results of the culture to tell me what second antibiotic I'll need. He tells me to call him at 6pm to find out. Oi. After a quick chicken sandwich and an absolutely awful tasting immune system boosting smoothie at Cafe Austria, I grab a cab to the airport and board my 40 minute flight to Quito. Fortunately I get a window seat and get to take in Quito from above during a sunny afternoon. I love the geometry of cities and landscapes as seen from planes. Sometimes it's hard to believe these structures weren't all planned with an eye in the sky. The farms and hillsides look like giant replicas of stained glass windows, clean and symmetrical, though sometimes with acute and obtuse angles and an oddly-colored pane. I'm aware that Quito, the capital, is the largest city in Ecuador, by size if not by population (I believe Guayaquil has a population of 3.5 million and Quito is closer to 3.2) but the overhead visual of the 50km long city stretching through the hill-sided valley is staggering next to the small towns and sparse populations I've been experiencing up until now. Quito looks like a monolithic slug made of multi-colored Legos straining to fill every inch of available land.
I grab a 25 minute taxi to Old Town, where the grey stone churches and vendor packed streets speak of a mix of old and new. A
DragonBall Z piñata again reminds me of my old company - there is no escape. I check into the Hotel Real Audencia, a dark but charming place right off the Plaza Santa Domingo. Love my room - nice little view out the back and the comfiest sheets and foursome of pillows I've felt in a while. It's so comfy I promptly fall asleep, awaking two hours late to call my doc. He tells me I need Ciproxina and I'm left wondering how to get meds without a local prescription. Oh well, I'll figure it out. I lounge until 9:30pm and then head back out to the airport to meet Kimberly (hereby referenced as KT). Taking advantage of my relative cab fee knowledge, the cabbie abuses me for $17 (should have been about $8). KT flies through customs and we're gnawing on an airport sandwich and catching up in no time. Cabbing it back to the hotel around 11pm, the dead and dark streets now are an ominous picture, something out of
City of God in my head. We check in, haul our own luggage up the four flights of stairs (thanks porter), check out KT's superior room view, which gives her a direct visual on the gorgeous stone angel decorating the high hill above the plaza (especially striking in the night mists), and call it a night. I sleep with Jane's Addiction and Johnny Cash in my ears.
Next morning we wake early to take advantage of the free eggs, juice and roll breakfast, taking in the panoramic views of the Santa Domingo square. After check out we're picked up by Happy Gringo tour guide Christian and start our drive out to the world's tallest active volcano, Cotopaxi. On a clear day you can see the volcano from the city, but clear days are few and unpredictable. We pick up one of the dwarf women who hawks her goods at the vendor station mid-way up to give her a ride to work. We have two minimally-inspiring stops on the way to begin our volcano climb. The Cotopaxi museum is an under-whelming little tourist stop whose best feature is a giant stuffed eagle and fox in battle pose. Lake Pumapungo is a flat lake in a sparse setting. We spend five minutes staring at the water and hop back at the car. At last we park at the departure point and start our planned trek to the first station. Looking up, you can see the snow-topped cap through the ever-shifting clouds. Given the altitude, we decide to take the zig-zag path up, which just requires a slow ascent that every 40 meters or so turns you into or away from the wind. It's chilly up here and I've packed lightly for this week - fortunately I have an Under Armour long-sleeved shirt under my thin sweatshirt (thanks Cousin Kyle). It quickly gets extremely chilly...hands in the pockets, brisk wind slapping the face cold. The altitude requires frequent quick rests and does tax the lungs a bit. Then the dark clouds move in and a stinging rain starts up, shooting cold bullets in our face. Oddly, this is the point where I'm loving it the most...though I'm not supposed to be over-taxing my wounded foot, I'm enjoying the elemental grind of this and I'm lost in dorky fantasies about how this must be how the Fellowship felt on the walk in the snowy mountains as they slowly made their way to Mordor. In my head I'm trekking to Mordor and it rocks. I stop periodically to take pictures of the dark red striations cut into the stone of the mountain, and looking above, you can see the icy glacier slouching down from the top. Fortunately just as the cold and rain as at its worst, the clouds clear up and give us a bit of sun and dryness. We make it up to the single house sitting at the top of the first station and shiver our way into warmth with a cup of tea, devouring the fruit and cookie snacks Christian hooked us up with. We pass on his suggestion to take pictures in the snow since we can't feel our hands. We take the slow, slippery-rocked straight way down and jump in the car, happy for the heater. Sufficient excitement for a few hours, enough to have me passing out happily in the car.
Back in Quito, KT and I walk a bit in Old Town, devouring decent ceviche and bad 70s crooner videos at a nautically-themed restaurant and miraculously we find a pharmacy that will just hand over Ciproxina without a prescription. After a decent wait, we manage to find a cab to Tumbaco, which is where the Campanur Ranch, our dwelling for the week, is located. Again, our ignorance of appropriate fees gets us charged more than double what it should be, but that's the last time for getting screwed by a cab. The drive is a frenetic little guy and obviously needs to be somewhere else but couldn't pass up such a lucrative fare. He drives like an expert maniac and is horribly distressed when his intended route is closed by police forcing him to backtrack many streets. In-between about 17 near misses, he franticly checks out his watch. I'll take an Ecuadorian cabbie over a U.S. one anytime - they're born into crazy driving here. When we get to the toll and I reach for money, he indicates he has it, turns back to me and shouts "Don't freak out!" which is just hilarious and we all crack up. Since no one in Quito knows the ranch and addresses don't exist for many places, we have to get dropped off at the SuperMercado Santa Maria (supermarket) and get a local cab (who all know the ranch). Campanur turns out to be absolutely lovely, a garden oasis of relaxation hidden out beyond the city streets. A stately two-story hacienda with a garden growing fresh fruits and vegetables is where the owner Betty lives. In front of the house is a grassy lawn with a small enclosure for seven ducks to swim and eat. The guesthouse to the side has three rooms on the first floor, a modest open-air gym on the second next to two cozy hammocks, and next to the guesthouse is a no-walled lounge with couches and fireplace. An avocado tree, fat with fresh avocados sits in front of the guesthouse. Betty is approximately 60-something years old (maybe 70), a short Ecuadorian woman who spent decades living in Patterson, New Jersey working for social services helping mentally and physically handicapped people become independent. She always wears a white head scarf and vaguely reminds me of a shorter version of a Bene Gesserit. Her personality is amazing - obviously a very spiritual person, she exhibits a joy about her in every moment, with one of those constant laughs that lifts up anyone around her. Her mother, still with us, lives on the second floor though we never get to meet her. Betty tells us Campanur is all about health and enjoyment. Her own personal secret to longevity is apparently drinking a glass of parsley juice every morning. Whatever she does, it works for her, as I've rarely seen such energy, strength and joie de vivre from someone her age. Benny, always with a blue bandana on her head, is the sweet and somewhat shy cook who lives on the property. These two act as the perfect combo of hosts, going out of their way and showing fervent concern that they're making sure your stay with them does not lack for any need. My only disappointment is that the ranch horses aren't on this property - they're off on a separate ranch, though apparently they're left out to run up into the mountain hills whenever they wish. Betty espouses that she'd just let them go if it was possible. Still, a great choice for a place to stay. We laze about the lawn and I'm happy to just watch the ducks. After a modest sandwich for dinner, we spend the rest of the night relaxing before an early bedtime.
The next day is the only one without a tour planned. I get up early, kick a soccer ball around and chat with the ducks. At 8am, breakfast is an omelette, rolls and fresh OJ. A ball of small tart-tasting, cherry tomato-resembling fruits is an extra joy. Campanur is also an English school. Right now, Betty employs a 20-something Pennsylvanian named Monica as teacher and there's only one student here, though supposedly more are coming. KT had inquired about horseback riding, so Betty has her niece and the niece's husband Osama come and pick us up to find some horses. The Campanur ones are still lost in the mountains, so an alternate ranch is found. Unfortunately when we get there the horses won't be ready for another 90 minutes so the couple give us a scenic driving tour, including a bumpy ride down an unfinished road ruled by dogs who force the cars to go around them, and a quick trip to a trout fishing property. By noon, KT, Monica and myself are on our horses slowly riding around the back trails of various properties, bypassing penned cows and horses and lush fields, and soaking in the sun on a bright day. I name my horse "Second Helping" because he eats constantly, at times ignoring my kicks and rump slaps. We don't get a chance to gallop with the horses, which is unfortunate, and the guide leads us back an hour and 15 minutes in, instead of two hours, but all in all, not bad for $15. Waiting for our ride, we watch a llama walk through the parking lot, try to ignore the rooster calls, look at the caged bunnies and watch the same llama have a conversation with a penned sheep dog. Monica is a pleasant person if prone to saying youthful, simplistic things like "I hate money." She's got a bit of the crunchy dreamer in her, that type of person that always tilts their head up and get wide-eyed when saying something, as if trying to infuse every brief statement with a sense of direct emotion and wonder, as if the only things worth expressing (or feeling) are those that speak simply of the wonder of the world. In the afternoon, there's hammock lounging and some reading. The rains come consistently in the afternoon, fortunately always after any activity we had planned. The rain makes for a gorgeously lazy environment. Benny's dinner that night, a meat dish with subtle pepper and slight bite, is immediately in competition for best meal yet in Ecuador. KT is asked if she wants lemonade and is surprised when Benny starts squeezing lemons to make fresh lemonade. Perfect. Over dinner Betty talks Ecuadorian fables and legends and the difference between city and country living. We get into minor life philosophy and discuss how it's harder to determine value when seemingly infinite options are available. Betty loves
Avatar and I suggest she check out Malick's
The New World. Earlier in the day, Betty had mentioned to me she plans on opening two additional English language schools in Tena and Puyo. She then asks me if I know anyone interested in being the teacher there or if I would like the job. Suddenly I have a job offer! I get kind of excited about the possibility before realizing that trading daily English lessons for free room and meals probably isn't a great long term career move. Still, if nothing materializes back in the U.S., there's an option down here. Not that it would be the same without Benny's food. At night you can hear birds in the distance - they sound like they're constantly playing castanets. But it also sounds to me vaguely like the sound of the lobstrosities in the second book of
The Dark Tower, with their "did-a-chick, dad-a-cham" sound. Lightning bugs dance around the property at night. I really like this place.
Friday morning after a bacon and scrambled egg breakfast KT and I take a cab into Quito that ends up being 30 minutes late for our tour due to a slightly late departure and the crappier than hell Quito traffic. Fortunately our spectacled, pony-tailed guide Gabriel is a cheerful guy who doesn't seem bothered at all. His English is better than Christian and he's a friendly, helpful sort for a bongo player. We make the two hour drive into the rain/cloud forest (depending on altitude and road sign) of Mindo, northwest of Quito. Windy roads cut along the edges of impossibly green mountains. We've chosen the adventure tour and our first stop is a zip line company high up in the green leafy hills. We quickly get our harnesses and helmets on and off we go. There are 13 different metal wires tied to trees traversing incredibly deep drops into the spaces between the forest-y hills. Before the first zip line, of course the sane person considers the decision to trust live and limb to this metal wire, a harness and one metal carabiner. But then you hook in, put your head back, kick your legs up and just go with it. And it's pretty damn cool. You fly across this expanse, looking down at the trees and water far below, at the mountain sights across both left and right and it's just fun. Occasionally for the faster lines you have to slow yourself with a gloved hand on the wire. The two guides hook and unhook at breakneck speeds, like monkeys born to the wire swinging life. On one line the guide who stays back shakes the wire so that you bounce high up and down. It's incredibly, goofily fun. A dorky smile is plastered to my face and I hear KT happily yell "This is just ridiculous" on her bouncy ride. In-between the treks between lines the guides point out seemingly every orchid we pass. There's something like 172 species of orchid just in Mindo. The zip lining goes quick but it's well worth the allotted time. Unfortunately my stomach is starting to bug me a bit. But it's off to the second adventure leg - tubing down a Class III river that looks constantly rough and rock-filled to me. Admittedly, after my prior conflicts with rocks, I'm a bit anxious about this tubing. I'm relieved when I see that we won't be in individual tubes, but in some Frankenstein multi-tube creation with seven tubes tied together. Two young kids, maybe 16 years old wearing just t-shirts and river boots, are our guides on this fast-moving river. I quickly want to write Cormac McCarthy-length odes to their river prowess. Like otters born to the water, they smoothly slip in and out of tube-boat in this never-ending progression of rapids, turning the boat so that we alternate front position, navigating us into and out of rock formations. KT and I just have to hold tight and pull the ropes up when we crash into a rapid swell, and to keep our feet inside the Franken-tubes. Simple in comparison but the power of the rapids makes it a challenging and really fun ride. No time to catch your breathe - just 20 minutes of shooting through this narrow, fast-moving river. After we change, we head up to a restaurant atop one of the mountains. The restaurant is a hummingbird mecca, with various species of the bird flitting about or resting on the feeders. We sit down in the gorgeous wooden interior and just watch the animals out of the windows. Psychadelic blue, long-tailed hummingbirds chase each other. A large pond of giant koi fish is at the bottom of the hill. A brown bushy squirrel jumps about. Gabriel tells us that many people come up here to see toucans, but it can be difficult to find them. Some bird enthusiasts will book rooms for a month or two and get up every day to find a toucan, some of them going away disappointed. He tells us he's seen one toucan here before and that's with him having formerly worked for the restaurant. So, of course, a long yellow-beaked, black-bodied toucan immediately shows up in one of the feeders and hangs out for the next hour. It's a nice touch. The few people there go a little goofy and take 40,000 pictures. During my trout with shrimp sauce lunch I remark on how the speed of the hummingbirds is amazing, especially as they react and chase each other and how their minds and instincts must be incredibly quick to process the needed movements that quickly. About five minutes later a hummingbird disproves my compliment and crashes at full speed into the window next to our table. He leaves an ugly slight smear on the window which mars the idyllic scenery a bit. My stomach isn't doing well by the time we leave, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the lunch since I started feeling ill before.
Thus beings the ride home from hell. I'm increasingly uncomfortable. My mouth is getting dry, I'm feeling dehydrated and started to have a little acid. I know something is just off. This increases the whole way back to Quito, where, as Murphy's Law would have it, we hit an unbelievable amount of traffic. I desperately just want to be back at Campanur cause I'm not doing well and can't focus except for the discomfort. Eventually Gabriel lets us out at a mall downtown, saying it's easy to get a cab here. We go into the thoroughly modern mall (sushi joint and KFC) so KT can get money, fail to get a cab due to the million other people hailing cabs and try walking around to the other side of the mall to find one. No luck the whole way and it's drizzling. Starting to feel like we'll never get a taxi and I've getting worse and worse. We circle all the way around back to the front and I jump a cab that's letting someone out. A local women tries to steal the cab from me (I might have killed her), but luckily the cabbie was cool about it and gave us the ride. Then we hit even more traffic. And more traffic. I'm worried about my insides making it back to Campanur still on the inside. We get out at the SuperMercado and wait in a line in the rain for another cab. Eventually we get one. I'm just dying. We're two minutes from Campanur and a lightning bolt strikes right outside the cab. I'm flash blind for about 5 seconds. KT, me and the cabbie are all shocked by how close that bolt was and start nervously laughing. We make it back to the ranch and run inside from the rain. I head for my room, thanking my stomach for letting me make it back here. About five minutes later I throw up five times in the sink. My insides are liquid. I take to my bed and end up staying there the whole night, getting up every 10 to 15 minutes to use the bathroom. I can't even keep water down. Just past midnight I throw up another five times. Ug. Horrible. I haven't thrown up from anything for over five years and I'm not fond of this reminder. Eventually around 3am I fall asleep. In the morning I'm too weary of my illness to go on the arranged tour to Otovalo, the biggest marketplace in Ecuador. Since I won't be of any use to anyone that day, KT agrees to go ahead on the tour despite reservations. I'm thankful she went as I'll be no company today and there's no need to ruin her day. Betty insists on taking me to the clinic and you can't really say no to Betty (try refusing food) so she drives me over there, where I end up with two different IVs and some cream for my foot. After 90 minutes there Betty drives me home with an IV still stuck in my arm. I sleep for a few hours and awake to Benny bringing me the prescribed diet of "bland" food which turns out to be white fish, potatoes and a yummy pasta-shell soup. I eat as much as I can and go back to sleep, sleeping the whole day. KT is back in the late afternoon with a great array of purchases - finger puppets, art, rain sticks, etc. There's a really tasty chicken patty and rice dinner that makes me feel 20%!b(MISSING)etter. Using KT's laptop, we sit by the fireplace and watch the Uconn/Kentucky NCAA Final Four game which Uconn wins, improving my health another 10%! (MISSING)I also finish rereading book four of George RR Martin's
Song of Fire and Ice series, prepping for July's release of book give. Health level raised 8%! (MISSING)Sleep.
In the morning I'm feeling back up to respectable levels and am ready for our next tour, heading out east to Papallacta, home of the hot springs. Gabriel picks us up in Tumbaco, saving unnecessary traffic and it's a reasonable hour plus drive out to the springs. KT and I expected something a bit more spa-like, but the hot springs are closer to, as she put it, a public pool. Still, it's fortunate we have a chill activity day. We pay the fee, change and get into the hottest of the pools, soaking up the heat for a few hours as we people watch. Let's just say some people need to plan their bathing wear better. The soak is nice though, and except that I forgot to apply sunscreen to the shoulders and back (ending up in a little burn the next day), it's a reasonable day. Unfortunately the actual spa portion of the area doesn't have any timely openings for massages so we go without. Lunch is an above average caesar salad (with chips of real bacon) and a bowl of decent quinoa soup. Then we're heading back to Campanur. KT and I spend the rest of the afternoon in the hammocks, chatting about religion and life and wondering if we'll get the standard afternoon rain. With no where to be, relaxing in a hammock may a perfect thing. I realize this whole trip is having the effect I wanted from it - I feel a calm, centered quality, an ease in relaxing without a jittery media-tethered appeal and feel pretty thankful for it.
It's Monday and the last tour day. Sadly it's also KT's last day in Ecuador. I realize my five weeks of relative seclusion (at least as far as conversation goes) do not have me at my most loquacious (though that's never been a very high level) and hope that my periods of silence or brevity haven't been too off-putting. Part of it is being relaxed, part of it was being sick before and during the trip and part of it is a growing sense that as I get older I have less and less to say and being reasonably ok with that. I'm very thankful Kimberly came to visit. So, we get on to our last tour by lucking out with a cab driver that doesn't know where he's going in Quito, making us 30 minutes late. Ug. Rodney the new tour guy is very accommodating. We jump in the van with Rodney and his driver and get a brief driving tour of certain portions of the city, making our way back to Old Town for drop off. Rodney starts showing us churches. The first is actually a monastery with only three monks in residence. We view a room with wall and ceiling paintings of saints suffering for their faith and an ornate, gold sculpture of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The bones of many bodies are beneath the floor and behind the sculpture. The second church has an ongoing mass and wooden floors creak loudly as we creep along the sides to take a look. Impressive stained glass fills the highest windows. The third church, a massive collection of gold design has Baroque influences and vaguely Muslim-ish symbols. Rodney tells us about the hidden passageways behind the wooden portions and how a fire decimated the church in the late 90s, requiring six years to restore. Oddly enough they left one saint pictured on the domed ceiling in blackface as a way to memorialize the fire. Odd and vaguely creepy. The confessionals don't protect the identities of the confessors. In the back, one painting depicts heaven and the opposite wall is of hell, with the various sins that land you in hell written over portions of the painting. In the bottom right corner a monkey is throwing up on a man's groin. KT and I don't catch which sin this represents. In one of the main squares a demonstration is going on. Quito is a really crowded big city. The 90 minute walking quickly concludes and we start the drive out to the equator monument "Mitad del Mundo." The monument looks like a big bowling trophy, with a small ball atop a narrow slanted pyramid. Rodney, whose knowledge and English are both excellent (he speaks so fast in English it's even a bit difficult to catch up to him), panics a bit when I bring up that the painted line in this monument isn't the real equator line (much later on, post-monument, GPS determined the true equator is up the road, not actually commemorated by marking). He makes up some blather about shadows and line thickness. We just go with it and have fun, taking pictures of ourselves straddling the equator line. We got to the top of the monument, look around, and descend through the various mini-museum levels. Then we wander around small shopping area before driving back to Quito and having a much easier time with the cab back to Tumbaco. In the early afternoon about 20 ducks from an adjoining property wander off and start rooting in Betty's flowers before she chases them off. It's pretty cute. KT and I end up Skyping our San Francisco friend Jeanine (who has the spirit of a younger Betty) for a while. Great to hear her laugh. Dinner is breaded shrimp, rice, plantains, fries and vegetables. We have great dinner table talk with Betty, Monica and Benny about Ecuadorian animals (I had seen a giant spider in my room in the morning), the psychosomatic qualities of health and Betty tells us stories about getting sick in the jungle and having a local tribesman wave his shirt at her, and by her telling, transfer his energy to her to the point where she immediately felt healthy again. A thoroughly enjoyable dinner chat. I get to watch the first half of the NCAA championship game in front of the fireplace (which Benny lights with a blowtorch hooked up to a gas tank) before KT has to grab her cab to go. Sad to see her go. Everyone else in bed, I sit outside watching the Gamecast stats until Uconn becomes champion (my team!). I listen to the sounds in the distance in my final night and then retire inside to consume Patton Oswalt's recent book in one sitting (love his mind, but it barely hangs together as a book).
In the morning I sleep in and Benny chides me for not eating breakfast. Unfortunately when it's time for me to get my taxi to the airport Betty isn't around so I don't get to say goodbye. Benny gives me a big hug goodbye and says "Please come back." It's really sweet of her and makes me wish I could. Despite all the various adventures, staying at Campanur has been the best choice of this week long trip. At the same time, I'm completely sick of Quito traffic and the crowded city and am looking forward to being in my apartment in Cuenca. It's an easy quick flight and I spend the rest of the day relaxing. Wednesday and Thursday are all about mild errands, rain storms, catching up on email and researching potential Galapagos trips and eating sushi on the banks of the river.
I have one more prep day and then on Saturday I'm taking that long bus trip back up to Banos and scooting over to Mera on Sunday for my two week stay at the Mera Animal Sanctuary. Hopefully I can get them to give me a monkey.
Until next time my word-enduring readers,
g
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Andy
non-member comment
Just learned what quinoa(s) are.
That was interesting just for the fact that u referenced McCarthy and Martin. And a fun read as always. I'll be harassing KT about more stories on this end.