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Published: March 4th 2011
As the senses shift from first week sharpness to a second week lived-in stability, some of the minor details go unheeded, and thus unrecorded. The time since Sunday is all about shifts. The first week was dipping a toe into a foreign culture, focused on each minute detail and cultural difference. Now a pattern of stability has set in, and at the same time, almost immediately a hunger for less stability.
Sunday was the first excursion out of Cuenca. At 8am I walk downtown to the meeting place for the tour (set up through the Simon Bolivar Spanish School) to Ingapirca. $40 for an 8am to 4pm road trip. I prove to be the youngest of the tour crew, which includes a 50ish Colorado software engineer named with Bob with a love of mountains and ruins, a retired Norweigan school teacher named Frederick who complains somewhat frequently that the family he's staying with doesn't feed him and that no one in this country uses salt, an Ecuadorian couple down from Quito, a 50ish American female psychologist and a 65 year old woman from Vancouver Island, who has the vocal air of an NPR host matched with a tendency to never shut up (but of course later complains about some faceless figure she's met who will "talk your ear off." It's always the talkers who point out other talkers.). We're led by Italian/Ecuadorian tour guide Juan, who I would mistake for 25 if not for the grey hairs peeking out from his cap, and a nameless local driver who would make a great "Thug #3" in a movie.
As the van gets out on the highway, I feel lucky to sit next to Bob, who I end up liking very much, and away from Vancouver Island. Juan turns out to be an excellent tour guide as well, personable and humorous and packed full of cultural info (example: "We have 185 churches in Cuenca. You can imagine how Catholic we are.") The scenery as we head southwest is a mix, microscopic "towns" with hatted dwarf women carrying ginormous sacks along the side of the road, and picturesque, hill-cradled towns with San Francisco-style tiered homes that speak of serenity. Cows, the occasional pig and road dogs dot the highway imagery. Our first stop is an ancient church, accessible high up only through a windy back road, literally built into the mountain. The Church of the Morning Dew took 50 years to build, starting in 1891. Its limestone pillars surround pews facing the mountain, whose craggy face constitutes the back wall of the interior of the church. People pay $20,000 to be buried here. There are stairs around back which hold stations of the cross where people use to climb with their own cross to engage in self-crucifixion. With Juan's encouragement, tour members start snapping pictures in the church as worshipers stare with 'what the fuck' expressions. I stay behind the pews and try not to bother them, as this is their place. Climbing back down, fireworks burst far off in the hills (God loves a good fireworks display), and the church's speakers blast out some holy organ music that I have to admit, staring back at the church, makes for a pretty striking living portrait. A woman outside is frying up chickens with a cooler of coca-cola, which I guess is what you want after your weekly holy experience.
Next stop is the town-whose-name-I-never-caught and it holds the second largest open air market in Ecuador (next to Otovalo's in the north). Legions of hatted dwarf women in their colorful skirts and button-up sweaters crowd the market with the almost equally short men. Sacks of grain, more types of corn than I count, clothing, hats, toys and tools litter the first part of the market, which ends up extending for, by my count, 6 twisty-turny blocks. Fruits I've never seen before (but avoid eating out of paranoia) look intoxicatingly fresh. Tables in the hot sun are stacked with two-foot piles of fish. Sausages and slabs of meat are everywhere. As we saw with some of the micro-towns, women stand next to expired pigs, armed with giant blowtorches, slowly roasting the outside of the pig hide, turning it crispy for immediate sale and eating. In back of every food stand, plates of meat are sizzling and stews boiling. The last part of the market (skip the rest of the paragraph vegetarians and animal lovers with soft stomaches) is the live animal market. Endless sacks of guinea pigs, baskets of chickens, roosters running around, and crowded baskets of puppies (I consider buying all the puppies as I don't wan't to consider if the puppies are food or pet) pack the end of the market. An eyeful, and then we're gone.
Last is the stop at Ingapirca, which is, by some accounts, billed as a mini-Machu Pichu. Mini indeed. By immediate sight alone, it's a spectacularly unimpressive structure, maybe the size of a football field in total, with only two actual structures beyond the walls of stone blocks. Fortunately Juan gives a great backstory, letting us know about the history of the Incas, the Inyari and Spanish, the wars and betrayals. In the one small home whose interior measures about 8 ft by 6 ft, we're told that the bed (a raised stone less than the size of a single cot) would generally sleep eight people (polygamy was fine then). Ecuadorians are short, but that's brutal. In one square, we're told that soldiers slept toboggan-style with 300 packed into tiny confines. When we get up to the main structure, there's a gathering inside of orange and white clad hindus, all spread out on their yoga mats listening to some holy man occasionally chant into a PA system. Hindu guards bar the entrance, pissing off some of the Ingapirca visitors. For about five minutes I witness a Spanish yelling bout and wonder if it will escalate. Apparently other paying visitors can't pollute the Hindu's touch with spirituality. Twenty minutes later they're done though and our group starts heading in as the hindus (Juan says they're from all over - Guatemala, etc) pack up, some of them stopping to offer awe and praises to the holy chanter. I pass the line waiting to meet him. The views are great, the history good and I got to sit in the throne of the former king, so, all in all, a good experience. I also fell in momentary love from afar with one of the hindu yoga worshipers, but since she speaks no English and is part of a cult, I realize it will never work out and I move on.
After a short trip to the museum we head to a little backwoods inn for lunch. The inn has to have the most slippery floors ever seen by paying customer. It's like the wood has been treated with grease on purpose and we're all supposed to fall and break a limb. But we get to the table safely. The place is beautiful and after a reasonably full day, a couple of Pilseners, quinqoa soup and tasty lamb hit the spot. I head outside and a dirty faced child emerges from around a corner. I say "hola" but we just stare at each other for about a minute. In my head it's a Time Life photo.
We're back to Cuenca in the early evening (away from Vancouver Island!) and after a bite at Cafe Austria (seemingly the only place open for dinner late on Sunday).
Monday is when this experience shifts into a routine. I check out of the Barranco hostel and head over to the Apart Hotel, about six blocks away directly on the river, to move into my semi-permanent residence while in Cuenca. Carrying the giant backpack and two other bags, heading uphill in the hot sun, I look like I walked in from the jungle. I'm put in a studio on the top floor, accessible by a wooden spiral staircase, with direct access to the roof above, which offers killer views of the river and south section of the city. They set me up with a mini-fridge, microwave, blender, huge hot plate with gas tank, plates, pots, and utensils. For $300/month, not bad. Plus there's daily maid service. I feel very comfortable immediately. But in the midst of my by now extremely extended vacation (ticking back to last May), I now have an obligation - the first day of Spanish class. After unpacking and showering, I show up at school and meet Santiago, my new teacher. He's a skinny 25 year old guy, dresses a bit hip and has that slight arrogance many 25 year olds have. (For readers that went to Manchester High, he physically resembles a grown up Eric Bernstein) I think he's disappointed he didn't get some hot foreign chick he could woo with his Spanish ways, but he's friendly enough. I get a photo-copied text book, a video game swag notebook and we head off to the mini-torture room for our one-on-one lesson. (Torture room because the small table, single chair and tight confines suggest, at the least, interrogation) I generally rock on the first day of any new language class and today is no different. It's days 3 and 4 which start to make my head hurt. Four hours of class per day...I haven't done this in 15 years. I'm almost put out when he gives me homework, thinking "but...this is my vacation" but I accept it's a school and studying must be done.
On a day of new routines, I decide to add another one by hopping in a cab and heading to the SuperMaxi supermarket. Once there I realize I have no idea what intersection my new hotel is on. The closest I can come is "it's next to the river." Dismissing that problem for later, I grocery shop like it's going out of style, picking up water, $3.50 six packs of Pilsener, tons of fruit (soon to be cleaned just in case by soaking it in grapefruit seed extract), a few boxes of tea, chicken and enough other goods to total $90. All but four bags fit in the giant backpack and I grab a cab, telling the driver the place is by the river and near Calle Larga. We actually end up right in front of my place and I tell the driver "aqui" because I don't know the word for stop. He nods and keeps driving. I keep saying, with more urgency, "Señor! Aqui!" and try resorting to French "Arrete!" but it's no use. He drives another six blocks without listening to me. I get out, load up, and hoof it back to the hotel, loaded with two tons of groceries. And the five flights of stairs are magic by the time I get there. But it feels good to have groceries. Plus I like when Marcos the hotel employee calls me Señor Grant.
On Tuesday I stayed after class for a free demonstration on how to make two local alcoholic drinks (hot and sweet). The class was mostly seniors and I made them laugh when the hostess handed me a bottle of white rum to examine and I said "gracias," got up and left the room. Suddenly I was Steve Guttenburg in "Cocoon". On Wednesday I shaved the beard, bought a frying pan and hunted for pepper (no success). Today I stopped at the Inca bar after class and gobbled some tacos.
And that's pretty much been the week. I sleep in until about 9am, when the world's most hyperactive rooster decides to start yapping, I read, make breakfast/lunch, drink tea, study Spanish, head out to Calderon square to sit in the sun and watch people for awhile, take four hours of Spanish (though I could have killed Santiago when on day two he assigned me 65 Spanish verbs to memorize for homework), come home, make dinner (note: having never used a hot plate before, I didn't realize the high setting and the low setting are both high - maybe it's just this one - and trying to cook everything on high is a new challenge), do my homework, read and go to bed. It feels like a routine, like regular life and there's the conflict. I love my apartment (aside from mr. rooster and the mini-fridge which loudly hiccups every hour or so), the views of the city and hillsides are stunning (sunsets particularly), the people watching in the park, the fact that I saw the Ecuadorian Charles Bronson chilling at a hair salon, the leisurely reading time and the general comfort of Cuenca. Carnivale is starting this weekend and people are ramping up - they throw water balloons at unsuspecting pedestrians, from street level and balcony. Today I saw a few people who were near misses and apparently gringos are prime targets. But the Ingapirca trip and the upcoming hike in Cajas National Park (this Saturday) have the adventure juices and wanderlust gearing up. There's a week in Quito at the end of the month, my two weeks in the rainforest at the animal sanctuary are confirmed for April and Galapagos will happen the first week in May, but I'm not sure I'm content to hang around Cuenca for the rest of March. So, I'm looking at heading up to Banos (hot springs), Puyo (rainforest hikes) and Tena (white water rafting if I can get up there next Wednesday) towards the middle of next week to pack in as much as possible. Since my Spanish will not be fully conversational before I leave, and because most foreigners fall into two categories - retired and fresh out of college (excluding business trippers) - I'm leaning towards venturing out of the area as much as possible. Leave for a week, come back and rest and write for a week, and repeat. I'll figure it out by this weekend. It's not like it's an actual problem.
Anyway, I'll leave you with some random bits.
From Juan the tour guide: There's an Ecuadorian tradition that says a woman can not enter a new home until the man enters first. The problem is many of these guys go off overseas (to America primarily, Spain second) for many decades to make money to buy the homes. The home is bought but the guy doesn't return for so long and the woman can't enter. If she does, he's absolutely pissed, even though he, in most cases, already has a new family in the overseas country. So, there are a bunch of empty new homes in certain towns.
From Santiago the racist teacher when asking me about our president, after I answer that he's doing some good and some bad: "Well, and he's black."
The Hunger Games trilogy: holy cow that's a dark third book, but still credit to the author for not keeping it
Harry Potter light.
I promise I'll find a cafe to get some new pictures up soon, mostly from the Ingapirca trip, including mounds of dwarf women!
Random Quotes from Books I've Been Reading:
Lethem's
They Live quoting the main character Nada: "By forty you have the face you deserve."
Lethem again: "If Shakespeare had written
The Lord of the Rings, its title would have been
Gollum.
McCarthy's
Suttree: "Somebody has been fuckin my watermelons. ... It's about too late to do anything. He's damn near screwed the whole patch. I don't see why he couldn't of stuck to just one. Or a few."
C.S Lewis: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
Until next time,
xo
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Beth
non-member comment
Great post
I loved this post. Lots of good stuff in it that made me smile. Santiago sounds like quite the character. "By forty you have the face you deserve." awesome quote!