I´m Back

---

Well…well…well - those are the words, I am well. I returned from Quito with Susan on Monday the 16th. We had ended up taking care of a few errands and stuff like that in the PC office. I did my best to completely avoid the Director’s office. From here on out, I think I am going to take the approach of speak only when spoken to. Normally, I would not back down in a situation like this, but in this particular case, I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I recognize that there is nothing I can say or do, that will change anything. I am still dumbfounded at how everything played out - but perhaps that is part of life - shit happens all the time that makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever and it is how you avoid/deal with that shit that makes all the difference. In this case, I feel like I stepped in it with a brand new pair of shoes. It wasn’t the crusty kind that has been drying in the sun for a few days, it was the fresh kind that manages to squish its way up the sides of your shoes thereby forcing you to grab a stick and scrape that crap off. Now, what do you do with that stick? Most just toss it off to the side, I decided to give it back to the dog.

Enough of that - I returned to work on Monday afternoon and took care of a few minor things at the office, Jason (PCV from Tena) was at the office working on a project and I thought it would be good form to at least show my face. Jason is working on one of CODEAMA’s projects at the FRATES communities. Jason is helping specifically with a fish-farming project. It is a cool project, but will be a lot of work. I am more than content to “share” my counterpart with Jason in regards to this project. I am already overworked as it is AND, I have very little fish-farm experience. If you will remember, Jason and I collaborated on the Damn Dam project. He is a great guy and easy going. Jason is just one of those guys you would want on your team. He isn’t flashy, he has a great sense of humor, he is laid back and low key, and best of all….you feel like you can trust the guy with anything. That night, after dinner, Susan and Jason watched the new Sex and the City movie. I was way too worn out from the trip back to Puyo and my recovery from the depths of sickness, that I opted to forgo watching the movie - thus keeping my masculinity clearly intact. I can’t speak for Jason - I think he actually enjoyed watching the movie. You see, according to my friend Chris and his blog, if a man watches Sex and the City he must immediately watch Indiana Jones multiple times in succession to counteract the supreme force of femininity brought on by Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. Now I know what you are thinking, how does Jeremy know the names of the principle characters? Well…I just grabbed the DVD case and read them - that’s right, I didn’t know the names on my own - but to be honest, after typing these last few sentences into the blog, I took a break and….I watched the new Indiana Jones movie - one can never be too careful.

Tuesday, I did another Prensa page and I helped Bolivar prepare some CODEAMA materials for a trip he is taking to Bolivia. Bolivar is headed to Bolivia to participate in a symposium with the World Bank. CODEAMA is competing to get $20,000 for a micro-credit project that focuses on providing loans to families to increase business and income opportunities and avoid the need to send family members overseas to work. For my part, I had to prepare some photos and documents about the Water Fund to include in CODEAMA’s presentation.

Wednesday, I spent the day at the office getting my Environmental Education guide materials organized and I updated and backed-up all of my files. Sue and I were leaving for Catacocha that afternoon. Catacocha is in the southern part of Ecuador, about a 16 hour bus ride from Puyo. Whitney and Akul live in Catacocha and we planned a trip down there the last time they were in Puyo. The idea was to use this trip to work on our EE guide. Andrea was going to be coming down as well - as she is the 3rd member of the EE guide team.
The thought of taking a bus from Puyo to Ambato (2.5 hours), Ambato to Loja (11 hours) and then Loja to Catacocha (2.5 hours) did not seem all that appealing to me. One - I don’t sleep well on buses, two - I was still worn down from being sick, three - it is 16 hours of travel with few or no bathroom breaks. As it was, Sue and I took a 4:30pm bus from Puyo and got to Ambato around 7:00pm. We bought our bus ticket to Loja and then went to grab a bite to eat. We settled on a piece of pizza and a candy bar. I chose not to drink too much because I didn’t really want to have to pee in a bottle on the bus.

We left Ambato at 8:30pm. The bus was supposed to leave at 8:00, but it showed up late. No worries, what is a half hour when you are talking about a 16 hour trip? We soon discovered around 12:00am that it was freaking cold on the bus. They don’t have heaters and we were in the mountains at 10,000 - 12,000 feet. We had our jackets, thank god, but it was still bone-chilling cold on the bus. Other than the cold, the trip went rather smoothly. We actually arrived in Loja early, at 6:45am. So our trip took a little over 10 hours. I was pleased, because I actually felt moderately rested. We got off at the station and went to the restroom. We then looked for a place to eat. Our bus guide told us that the next bus to Catacocha would be at 7:30am. WRONG - in the time we spent wandering around the bus station we realized the bus was at 7:00am and that we missed it. The next bus would be at 9:00am. No worries, we were hungry and this meant that we could get a nice breakfast. WRONG - the only restaurants we could find were serving secos (rice and meat) - not what I had in mind for breakfast, nor Susan.

We finally found a place that had an a la carte menu and we were able to piece together something that resembled a traditional breakfast. Susan then went to a shop and bought some mittens - like I said, it was COLD. Finally, after killing some time walking around the bus station, we got on the bus to Catacocha. This ride was very uneventful and it was really foggy so there was nothing to see. The main problem was that the bus, for reasons unknown to us or anyone else, was going very slowly. It took us a good 3 hours to get to Catacocha.

When we got there, we were greeted by Whitney and Akul and they immediately remarked that our bus took a long time. You know what? That is the last thing you want to hear after being on buses all night and all morning. You don’t want to hear that the bus you took was not normal and that it should not have taken you sooooooo long - it kind of makes you feel like you got screwed - that somehow, somebody had it out for you. The bus “mysteriously” takes 30 minutes longer than it has ever taken before. Oh well, we were there and Catacocha was a cute little hamlet in Ecuador.

We dropped our stuff off at their apartment. The apartment was new for them. They had been living in a small one room place about a quarter the size of our place. Their new apartment was roughly as big as ours in Puyo. The biggest difference being that their shower has hot water and ours does not. So even though our place is newer and a bit nicer, theirs has better amenities. Anyhow, after the short tour of their place we went and got a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant across the street. The food was good and we spent the good part of an hour there just catching up.

After lunch they took Sue and I on a tour of Catacocha. The town is about 5,000 people and is literally situated on the top of a hill/mountain. We had a perfect day to be there, blue skies and warm. We spent the afternoon sitting on their rooftop throwing back a few well-deserved beers.

Andrea called around 5:00pm that day to tell us she was getting on a bus in Quito headed to Loja. That would put her in Catacocha around 10 or 11 the next morning. Seeing as how Susan and I had a long day, we opted to have a quiet evening at Akul and Whitney’s. We made grilled cheese sandwiches and watched a movie.

We lucked out that they had just purchased a new couch that folds out into a bed - this meant that we would have a comfortable place to sleep and sleep we did. The next morning we all took our time getting up and then had coffee while Akul made some eggs. Whitney was going to have to head into her office for a couple of hours so we decided to head to an internet café with Akul to do a little work and catch up on some e-mails.

Unfortunately, back home, I was missing my annual family reunion. I have now missed two in a row - this is nearly grounds for being kicked out of the family. Last year, Susan was able to make the reunion, because she was back in the States due to a death in her family. So technically, my “family” has only missed one reunion. It is probably all for the better that I was not there, because it has been nearly two years since I have swung a golf club and the Annual Big T tournament that my family has is a proving ground for making it into the big boys/big girls club in the family. I have yet to make it into the club and fear that had I been home to play I would have assured myself, through my poor play, a spot at the little kids table so to speak. So the bright side is that I get to put off my embarrassment for another year.

So Catacocha, Andrea arrived right on schedule at about 11:00am that morning. She was in good spirits and said that she was able to sleep most of the way - lucky girl. We ended up going to the same seafood restaurant for lunch again and then went to pick up another case of beer. It was as if we did day two in Catacocha as a repeat of day one. We walked around town, saw the sights, took a lot of pictures, sat on the roof and drank, made dinner at home, and then watched a movie and went to bed relatively early.

But alas, day 3 would prove to be a unique, fun, and interesting day in Catacocha. We got up, had some eggs again and then ventured down the hill out of town to the motocross track. We caught Catacocha during its fiestas so there was a lot going on in town including a motocross competition. It was another beautiful afternoon in Catacocha. The motocross competition was interesting. It started out with the peewee group (7-8 year-olds). This was a bit like watching peewee football, everything was in slow motion. The best part was watching the parents of the kids running around the interior of the track cheering on their kids. One mother in particular was fun to watch. She was very animated and apparently one hell of an athlete. She could run faster than her son was riding the motorcycle. I was impressed by this - all the time she had a camera in her hand and was taking pictures.

Like any motorcycle or car race, the most interesting parts are when there are wrecks. We saw quite a few during the morning. Nothing spectacular, just your average run of the mill hit a bump and fall sideways off your bike. You didn’t really know whether to laugh, cheer, or be worried. I took my cue from the Ecuadorians and said a lot of “ohhhhhhhhhs and ooooooooooooos.” By mid competition, Sue and I had seen enough so we told Whitney, Akul, and Andrea that we were going to head back into town and that we would meet them there. We headed back up the hill and managed to choose a poor route into town. We walked up a road that would make the biggest of hills in San Francisco look like a speed bump outside of an elementary school. I am not kidding, this road was probably a 60% grade. I was leaning so far forward I could nearly touch the road above me with my hands. Ok, so I am exaggerating a little bit, it is my blog and I get to tell it how I remember it.

We reached town sweating and thirsty. We got something to drink and then I hung out in the central park while Susan checked her e-mail. I enjoyed sitting in the park. Because it was fiestas, there were a lot of people in town and nothing is more enjoyable on a pleasant afternoon than sitting around in Catacocha people-watching. I think the people in Catacocha got just as much enjoyment watching me.

By 1:30pm or so, the rest of the group returned from the motocross competition. Sue and I got the full update on what we missed (not much). We headed to the market to get some lunch. Getting lunches in the markets in Ecuador can be a fun eating adventure. The food always tastes good, but you are never exactly sure of what you are eating. You just have to try to not think about it too much. I mean you recognize the rice and usually the vegetables, but the meat is always a mystery. However, for $1.50 you can’t really complain.

The previous day, while Akul and I were buying a case of beer we happened to notice that the store was also selling margarita mix with Jose Cuervo tequila. It was $22.00 and normally way out of our PC budget, but seeing as how there were five of us we decided that $4.50 a person for what would equate to two margaritas was well worth it. So, after lunch we bought the margarita mix and made some drinks. For some odd reason, Whitney, Andrea, and I thought that this would also be an excellent time to start working on the EE guide. Actually it worked out well. We worked for a few hours and then ended when we realized that Akul and Sue were drinking margaritas in the kitchen without us.

When the margaritas ran out, I went back to the store to get a mojito mix that we also saw there. The only problem, no mint in town. So, we just used the rum and made rum and cokes. At about this time we were getting a bit hungry. We made some more grilled cheeses, but that just didn’t cut it so Sue and Andrea went out to see what they could find. They came back with 3 pinchos (kabobs). Somehow while waiting in line at the street vendor’s that struck up a conversation with a drunk Ecuadorian who had lived in the States for a few years. He bought the pinchos for Sue and Andrea. In no time we devoured them and decided that we wanted more. I agreed to go get 5 more. As I was waiting in line at the vendor’s, the same guy struck up a conversation with me and he proceeded to buy my pinchos for me. Nice guy - too bad he was really drunk and will at some point realize that he spent $4.00 buying pinchos for people he doesn’t know. $4.00 here is a lot of money - half a day’s wages for the average person.

After our snacking and drinking we decided to head into town to a baile (dance). Wow - this was an experience and a half. When we got there it was just a bunch of people sitting on plastic chairs listen to an announcer talk about Catacocha and the newly elected Queen. After that a two-man guitar team played a few songs - but were unable to get people to move out of their seats. We ran into a couple of Whitney and Akul’s Ecuadorian friends. They had some type of cheap alcohol with them. I don’t remember the name, but I would equate it to Boone’s on steroids. It was clear, sweet tasting, and about 80 proof. We all drank their bottle in no time and then felt compelled to buy another one to share with them. That bottle was finished in minutes. No we are not a bunch of drunks, keep in mind that there were about 10 of us sharing.

When the two man band ended, another guy took the stage and started singing. The music wasn’t too bad and it was enough to pull a few middle-aged Ecuadorian women onto the dance floor - or in this case, the street. In no time, they had motioned for Andrea to join them. After that is was the waterfall effect and we all hit the dance floor. We ended up dancing for about 3 straight hours. The our group of 5 gringos and about 10 Ecuadorians was in the center of it all. The women kept buying alcohol and sharing shots with us. I lost count at a number I do not wish to share publicly. It was a crazy dancefest that we had and admittedly, was one of the more fun nights that I have spent in Ecuador. After nearly every song, the singer would talk about Catacocha, the newly elected Queen, the fiestas, and then he would give a shout out to Peace Corps and thank us for being there.

I do remember at one point, Susan and Andrea taking a break and the three of us agreeing to not drink any more shots. Yeah, that worked for about 2 minutes until I was offered another shot by this overly aggressive 40 year-old, Ecuadorian, street-dancing, gringo-loving, mother of two. You just can’t be rude and decline. Luckily, and for some odd-reason, the group always kept the bottles in the center of our dance circle. This led to many dance moves that ended up knocking over bottles and thus sparing everyone another round of shots. That was until, someone bought another bottle to take its place.

Our group was the main attraction, even the Queen and her court ended up joining our dance party. I mean why not, we were the coolest.

Finally at 3:00am we left and went back to Whitney and Akul’s. We all fell asleep rather quickly. The next morning wasn’t as cheery as the day before. Andrea woke up at 7:00am all happy claiming that she wasn’t hung over at all. Then she realized she was still drunk and that just depressed her. I wasn’t feeling too bad, Sue was ok as well. Akul was hurting as was Whitney. So, leave it to the “older” volunteers to handle their alcohol and show those young ones a thing or two. No, in reality, I think we were all in about the same state of mind - completely worn out and in a bit of a fog from the night before.

Later that morning we went to the other side of town to watch the annual road rally. What an event. The cars are some type of small Suzuki hatchback that they don’t sell in the States and the course is basically a 2-3 mile loop around town. The crazy part is the complete lack of safety for the participants and the crowd. You could have stood right on the curb at a turn. The drivers and the guy in the passenger seat did have helmets on, so I guess that they had some safety in mind.

Ironically, the best place in town to see the race was the cemetery. So we, along with about 200 other people went to the cemetery (which was on a big hillside) and picked out our own little grave spot to watch the race. All in all it was more fun than watching motocross from the day before. However, the sun was really intense, there was no shade, I was thirsty, and I was tired. So, as soon as the race was over, Sue, Andrea and I headed back to Akul and Whitney’s to take a make some grilled cheese sandwiches, watch a movie, and take a nap. As usual, the grilled cheese hit the spot. Eventually Akul and Whitney came back and had grilled cheese as well. Whitney then went to take a long nap, Sue and Andrea started a movie, I worked on the computer, and Akul started to make dinner - Indian Food - YUM!!!

We informally agreed to make that night a quiet and relaxing night of watching movies and shooting the bull. I think we all took full advantage as well. By 10:30pm we were in bed and fast asleep.

The next morning we went for a hike up to one of the mountains near town. The hike was nice. It took about an hour and a half to get to the base of the mountain. As we were crossing a field, we came across a huge tarantula walking across our path. I am not kidding, it was enormous. Akul put a dollar coin next to it so that we could take a picture to show its size, the problem was that the spider decided not to move away from the coin. A dollar is a lot to just walk away from, so I grabbed a short stick and tried to move it away. It reared up on two legs and went into attack mode. I swatted at it again and it latched on to the stick - we all freaked and I managed to throw the stick directly towards Akul - so he really freaked as the spider landed inches from him. No worries though, 5 PCVs were able to out maneuver and outwit said spider - though it took us a while. Akul got his dollar back and all was well.

We finally made it to the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, the way up was blocked by a large pasture with a herd of cattle. I didn’t think I would ever be scared of cows munching on grass, but I was. We tried to work our way through the herd and a couple of bulls, one young, one old, decided to get a little aggressive. This sort of spooked us a bit so we chose another route around the herd. We attempted to hike up the mountain, but were deterred by thick and prickly underbrush that prevented any passage without risking serious bodily harm and a certain end to whatever clothes we were wearing. So, we opted to turn around and head back into town.

About halfway back it started to rain. Sue and I were the only one with jackets, so it wasn’t too bad for us, but the others were really cold. Not much worse than a cold rain on a cool day when all you have on is jeans and t-shirts. When we got back, we all changed, took our clothes to the laundry to get cleaned and dried, and then made….you guessed it….grilled cheese. I can’t explain it, but for some odd reason, grilled cheese was the theme of the trip. It was as though we all had been secretly craving them for months (admittedly, I always crave a good grilled cheese - it was a staple of mine back home).

That night, we walked around town, just to see what was going on, not too much, then made dinner and spent the rest of the night talking life, politics, Peace Corps, and anything else that came to our mind. I finally bowed out of the conversation when it turned to talking about race issues in the States. I was uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. You see I find it hard to comment on the black experience or the Latino experience in the States, seeing as how I am Caucasian - I have no concept of what it means to grow up facing the challenges that they face. So, I generally accept their perspective and accept the fact that more often than not, Latinos and blacks have a harder go at things simply because of their race - it is not fair, it is unfortunate, and it is a dark reality that we have in our country. For a Caucasian to say otherwise is just ignorant in my opinion.

So the next morning, our last in Catacocha, we all went to ride the zip-lines just out of town. There is a business that just started in Catacocha and they have a series of 6 zip-lines set up on a mountain side over the canopy. It cost $5 a person to do it, and it was worth every penny. We had a blast zooming over the forest. It really makes me want to install one at our family’s cabin in Maryland. I mean why not? We need a good way to get back and forth over the small river that runs there, why not do it in style?

After doing the zip-lines we returned to town. Sue and I packed up our stuff, we had lunch, and then we grabbed a bus back to Loja to begin our long journey home. Oh and what a long journey it was. The bus back to Loja was even slower than the one we took from Loja to Catacocha. It took an hour longer than “normal,” whatever “normal” is. We got to Loja just in time to get on the 6:00pm bus to Ambato. This bus was comfortable and not very crowded. Although it seemed to stop every 10 minutes or so to let someone off. By the time we reached Cuenca - around 12:00am we were the only ones on the bus. The bus stopped by the side of the road and stayed there, not moving, for 15-20 minutes. Sue and I were a bit worried. Finally, another bus pulled up beside ours and we were instructed to get on it. The bus we were on did not want to go all the way to Ambato with just Sue and I on board. So, we obliged and got on the other bus. It wasn’t crowded, so we were able to spread out a bit and get comfortable. The problem, again, was that it got really cold - so cold it really prevented you from actually trying to sleep.

On our approach to Ambato, we were told to get off the bus, not at the station (as we had planned) but on the side of the road where the buses to Puyo and Banos pass. We really didn’t feel like getting off there in the dark, but were somehow forced off the bus. So, we hopped off, along with two other people who were headed to Banos. Amazingly two buses were stopped on the other side headed to Puyo and Banos. The bus to Puyo apparently didn’t see us waiving so it pulled away without us. We got on the bus to Banos and were hoping that we would get there in time to catch that first bus.

The bus gods were smiling on us - our bus driver, went past the Banos terminal towards Puyo just to try and catch the other bus for us, which he did. We then got on that bus knowing that Puyo was only an hour away. All this time, we realized that because we hopped from bus to bus, we never really got a chance to use the bathroom. Oh man, we were at critical mass. Luckily, they opened up the bathroom on the bus - something they RARELY do.

We arrived in Puyo at 8:00am and were at work by 9:00am. Yes, work, we had been away for nearly a week and we had a lot to get done. When I got to work I chatted with Bolivar. He informed me that CODEAMA got first place at the World Bank conference, and thus won the $20,000 grant. That is awesome news for CODEAMA.

I spent most of the day working on the next kid’s page and catching up on e-mails and other office details. Jason was again in town, as was Marcie from Macas. So after work, I had them over for some Mexican food - delicious!!!

The next morning, Jason and I got up early to head to the FRATES communities. He was heading to La Libertad to give some surveys to the people there about fish-farms and I was headed to Vencedores with Fanny to see her give a presentation for our Global Pediatric Alliance project. The river by Vencedores was running really high so we had to wait for a community member to come unlock the canoe and take us across in the canoe. Normally, I would have waded across, but since Fanny wasn’t going to do that and the canoe was there, we opted to just take it. Fanny gave her presentation and I chatted with the school teacher there about giving the next of my presentations for the school kids. I got it all planned for next Wednesday.

After Fanny’s presentation we went to head out of the community and realized that the canoe was locked up on the other side of the river and the person with the keys was now in Puyo. So, we opted to walk along a trail to another community 30 minutes away where there was a bridge. I was wearing my rubber boots, so negotiating a muddy jungle trail was no problem. Fanny, on the other hand, was wearing designer sandals. Now come on Fanny, you grew up in those communities, how could you make such an error? Actually, we had a good laugh about that. Finally, we reached the bridge and subsequently, the road. I still had to go to La Libertad to give a presentation to the kids there. I had been planning on giving the presentation two weeks ago, but that is when I fell ill. So, today was my day.

The kids were supposed to be in school until 3:00pm so I figured that I would be spending most of the afternoon in La Libertad waiting for them. As good luck would have it, when Fanny and I showed up at 10:30am, the kids were back from school (it had been cancelled - ironic since it was also the supposed to be the last day of classes before their summer break). So, I gave my presentation and managed to catch a passing car. This put me back in Puyo at 12:30pm instead of my anticipated 6:30pm. There is nothing like gaining 6 hours that you never thought you would have. I was able to finish up my kid’s page for the week and get some other vital CODEAMA stuff done.

Friday was a nice and relaxing day at the office. Bolivar was in Quito at a workshop, so it was just Karina, Juan Carlos and I. I spent a good part of the day writing up a grant report for Mary (Global Pediatric Alliance). The report had to be in English and I am the only one in our office who can manage that. I also worked on a memo to Bolivar and Karina about the rest of my time in Puyo. If I do training for the next group of volunteers that will be coming in February 2009, then I only have 6 months left at CODEAMA. I want to make sure everything is planned out and that they understand exactly what I will be doing. I also want to talk to them about the amount of work they have heaped on me. I stopped performing the role of PCV when Andrea left to take a job in Quito and I took over her responsibilities. I did this: 1) Because I didn’t know any better 2) I respect CODEAMA and want to help 3) Because I thought it was going to be short term. I have now since realized that I am a project coordinator at CODEAMA. My role should be to provide tech support and help give training. This role needs to be re-established, especially if Peace Corps puts another volunteer here to replace me.
That afternoon, Sue, Matt (volunteer in Puyo), Marcie and I went to one of the bars in town that overlooks the river. We had the famous Puyo dish of dump-truck ceviche (volquetero) and a few beers. It was a great way to end the work week.

Poor Marcie is discovering that a lot of her work is in Puyo. Her counterpart is Servicio Forestal Amazonico (SFA). They are based in Macas, but have an office in Puyo. Interesting enough, they are also part of the Water Fund project. Marcie’s counterpart wants her in Puyo for at least the next few months so that she can help collect and analyze GPS and GIS data on the farms located in the watershed that provides Puyo’s drinking water. This was data that they were supposed to have had done a year ago. Needless-to-say, the other players in the Water Fund are not too happy with SFA because we can’t move forward until we have that data.

So, it looks like Marcie, Matt, and I will be collaborating on that project and it unfortunately means that they will be spending even more time in my office. I am all about sharing office space, but it really throws off the dynamics and changes my experience at CODEAMA. Volunteers are generally not supposed to work out of the same office for the same counterpart, on the same projects. I will keep you updated on how this all pans out.

Saturday, I spent most of the day relaxing. Though in the morning I did run over to Matt’s to get my bike back (biking and running in one day - great exercise). I also did some work on our roof-top garden and compost pile. I replanted some basil and mint and transplanted some tomatoes that were voluntarily growing in our compost pile. I give everything about a 20% chance of survival. I seem to be better at growing vines and weeds than I am at growing vegetables and herbs. Admittedly though, I really don’t give the garden or compost much thought. I aim to spend the next six months being serious about it though.
Saturday night, Matt and Marcie (who is staying at Matt’s while she is in Puyo) had us over for dinner. We had pasta with fresh pesto sauce. Matt made the pesto with spinach instead of basil and it turned out great. I am now excited to make my own pesto with spinach.
Sunday was spent much the same way as Saturday. Though instead of working on the garden, Sue and I went to the local market to buy our produce for the week. I also finished typing this blog. The plan will be to take a jog later this afternoon and hopefully watch a movie or an episode of the x-files.

Peace,
Jeremy

---

Photos

Catacocha
The town of Catacocha

Andrea Again
She just has a way of finding herself in a lot of pictures.

Taking the bed with you
This woman was in Catacocha - this is her version of an RV.

The Spider
Yes, this is the tarantula we found on our hike.

The pasture
This was the pasture below the mountain we attempted to hike. The cows and bulls in this field did not take to kindly to us.

The Mountain
We tried to get to the top of this mountain, however, we were waylaid by thick undergrowth and a general feeling of not really caring whether we got to the top or not.

Fanny in Action
This was from the workshop Fanny did in Vencedores. The topic: pregnancy. Obviously, I had a lot to add to this conversation.

Comments

[stacey]

Do you have a lot of issues with teen preganancy there? stacey