Saturday, May 28, 2011
Mindo
Today (5/25) was quite a day. First one where we really tried our wings. We were bold enough to leave the quaint town of otavalo where we were dropped off 4 1/2 days ago and where we intended to stay only two nights. There was just too much that needed to be done. Emailing, planning, hiking around a volcanic lake, and getting things straight back at the homeland. Out the nest and into a $2 bus ride with friendly ecuadorian moms, school children, and the wiser ecuadorian generation. Lucy H, a friend from the brigade and back in KY hopped in for the ride cutting out of a less than interesting internship oppotunity preferring to join us to go to the mita del mundo (middle of the world) for some crazy experiments. After the ride into quito, there is a station change bus 15 cents, and then a bus which dropped us off at the turn about just outside the monument. Skip that, unless for a few pics and head to the neighbors, the actual 0 degree latitude and take a cool tour. Confirmed from first hand experience, you can stand an egg on its peak, you cannot close your eyes and walk a straight line on the equator (we werent drinking that early), and water seems to suck rather than drain from a basin. Watch your drain next time you do the dishes, your water drains in a counter clockwise vortex. In the southern hemisphere however, it goes clockwise. The middle... Straight down. Thanks Coriallis. 2 miles away from the middle of the world is a place called pululahua, a farming community based in the crater of a volcano. It is a national reserve for the indiginous peoples, but can still be visited. We found out though, upon arriving in a smalled truck taxi, that the experience lost impact after 2 when we arrived, because a blanket of clouds covers the basin leaving visibility no more than 10 feet ahead. A quick change of plans. Down the hill again in our camionetta. The cloud forests of Mindo was our next location on the itinerary. The only bus, just happening to pass us going the other way. Well than catch the bus! Chase ensues. After a crafty manuever involving hazard lights and cutting off the bus at 45 mph, we grabbed our packs out the truck and hopped on the bus (gus). An hour later we were dropped at the turnoff to the town of Mindo which to our surprise, was 2 more miles away. A passing two seater jeep with an ecuadorian and a spaniard was quickly behind us ready to stow our bags while we all 3 held on for dear life on the back. And so by the end of our first day out of the nest, we found ourselves flying free down the windy roads to our new town full of nature nuts, hammock swingers and avid birders, Mindo.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Ecuador
Today is our forth day in Ecuador and so far it has been great. The trip did not take too long as the flight from St Louis to Miami took only 3 hours and the one from Miami to Quito 4. Although we almost missed our second flight as Scott went to grab a coffee and came back only when everyone had already boarded. :-) I got very stressed out while waiting for him alone in front of our departure gate. Once we arrived in Quito everything went smoothly as there was the whole Shoulder to Shoulder brigade waiting for us. There are about 50 people on the brigade having all sorts of backgrounds going from physicians to biology or spanish students.
We spent our first day in Quito where we got to experience some Ecuadorian culture. The poverty is very present in Ecuador and therefore in comparing to the US the perception of safety is much different. It is necessary at all times to be aware of the surrounding and pay attention to what's going around. There are many people trying to sell all sorts of things on the streets and especially kids who dressed in traditional cloths have a lot of success with tourists. We were told to eat neither the food sold on the streets nor drink tap water as it is not purified and could make us very sick. The same applies to fruit as they were probably washed with not purifies water. We are good so far though :-)
Quito is a very grey city and to my mind not having many extraordinary touristy spots. We got to see a very pretty cathedral, a national museum along with a very nice and old traditional house so maybe we did not see everything...
From Quito the whole group drove to Santo Domingo which took about 5 hours. It is a city counting about 0,5 million people where the poverty is very present.
During the past 2 days we served two communities with medical services offering them the possibility of seeing and paying for it only 1dollar. The whole collected money is given to the community for projects related to for example local school or church. The way the Shoulder to Shoulder works is that on a given day the brigade arrives before 8am to a define place and sets up the whole clinic going from the registration, through the nurses' station, medical or pediatric visits, dentists and finishing off with the pharmacy where everyone gets their drugs. All sorts of people come to the clinic but the most common are women with kids. On the first day we saw about 200 people and today we got to see around 140. When working at the clinic there was even a girl who has never seen blond people that came to touch our hair :-) very funny. Everyone is very nice and we are having lots of fun hanging out with the whole brigade.
Scot here. Day 6 and we are on our way to cotacachi. Anna has roped me into blogging on the long bus ride. We have spent three days now in different locations working health clinics. Yesterday we helped the tsachila community an indigenous group known for their cool hair. Think red icing combed forward into a reverse italian hairdo. Top that with a ring of cotton balls and a rainbow skirt for girls and a striped blue and white (in respect of the anaconda and the tiger) for the guys. They know how to rock out to. In thanks of our help the kids did a traditional dance to the bamboo shaker, marimba, and a canvas drum. The shaman showed us his medicinal hut and explained the rigorous qualifications involved. Knowledge of over three hundred medicinal plants and an annual eight day trip on hallucinogenic tea. Needless to say, he was really laid back. The sad part is that due to smallpox and yellow fever, the community found itself at only seven in number long ago. Springing back, they are fighting the new intrusion of urban culture. At the end of the whole show we got to buy a few very unique handcrafted goods.
Today is May 23 and we are in Otavalo, a very nice little town having the biggest handcraft market in Ecuador attracting people form all over the world.
We got done with our health brigade on Sunday. We arrived together from a neighboring town Cotacachi which is famous leather goods. During the last days of the brigade we went to help a community living very high up in the mountains. It was very interesting as these people do not speak spanish but quechua and therefore we had to have double translators in order to help them and provide them adequate health care. These people almost do not have any influence of the western world, use water from a nearby lake and lack any access to modern medicine. Women wear their traditional outfits and look gorgeous. Everything n this town was very dirty and as a consequence of that most people did not have many teeth left past the age of 40...It was a very interesting experience. On the last day of the brigade we went to visit a pre-inca cite where for the first time we met some lamas! :-) I got spit on the face by one when trying to kiss it for a picture...ha!his breath did not smell nice at all but I was glad to wear my sunglasses which prevented me from getting everything on my face :-)
On Saturday we arrived to Otavalo where we are staying till Wednesday. We found a very nice hotel with wi-fi so we decided it was a great place to rest after these crazy 10 past ten days where we would wake up every day around 6h30 and go to bed very late as the whole brigade was always ready to party. Then we spent the whole Sunday resting and trying to figure out the rest of our trip. Another person from the brigade also decided to stay longer in Ecuador so we hang out, share meals and travel together.It is very nice. We try not to drink tap water and eat any fruit or rough vegetables that might have had some contact with non-purified water in order to not to get sick. So far so good besides small stomach aches. Our spanish is also improving as we are able to communicate pretty well when we unify our skills :-) Today we went on a 5,5 hour hike to Cuicocha where we hiked around a lake sitting in a crater of a volcano that erupted about 3000 years ago. It was very nice although I got sun burnt...so I am all red right now :-/ Though It was very hard to hike up as in high altitude there is not much oxygen. We also got our first experience with ecuadorian buses...it was not that easy to know where the bus was going and where we were supposed to get off...but all went well and we only paid 25 cents a person for the ride! Prices are extremely low in Ecuador which is very good for us :-) For example we had an amazing lunch yesterday for only 2$ including a big meal and a drink. We did not have a choice in what we wanted to order but in the size of the plate we wanted to get. It was going from 1.5 to 3 $. Very nice. Now we are almost sure about our itinerary. Tomorrow we are going to stay here one more night and then head to Mindo, then Mitad del Mundo to take a picture having one leg on the south hemisphere and the other one on the north one. Next Papallata with its natural hot springs and the jungle in Lago Agrio. So exciting. we are going to fish some piranahs, see pink delphins and hunt anacondas...yeah!
Here are the pictures we have so far uploaded on picasa as unfortunately the ipad did not let us do it directly on the blog or facebook.
https://picasaweb.google.com/anna.borowko/AnnaAndScottSTravels?authkey=Gv1sRgCKDeiY-eh-K8Pg&feat=directlink
We spent our first day in Quito where we got to experience some Ecuadorian culture. The poverty is very present in Ecuador and therefore in comparing to the US the perception of safety is much different. It is necessary at all times to be aware of the surrounding and pay attention to what's going around. There are many people trying to sell all sorts of things on the streets and especially kids who dressed in traditional cloths have a lot of success with tourists. We were told to eat neither the food sold on the streets nor drink tap water as it is not purified and could make us very sick. The same applies to fruit as they were probably washed with not purifies water. We are good so far though :-)
Quito is a very grey city and to my mind not having many extraordinary touristy spots. We got to see a very pretty cathedral, a national museum along with a very nice and old traditional house so maybe we did not see everything...
From Quito the whole group drove to Santo Domingo which took about 5 hours. It is a city counting about 0,5 million people where the poverty is very present.
During the past 2 days we served two communities with medical services offering them the possibility of seeing and paying for it only 1dollar. The whole collected money is given to the community for projects related to for example local school or church. The way the Shoulder to Shoulder works is that on a given day the brigade arrives before 8am to a define place and sets up the whole clinic going from the registration, through the nurses' station, medical or pediatric visits, dentists and finishing off with the pharmacy where everyone gets their drugs. All sorts of people come to the clinic but the most common are women with kids. On the first day we saw about 200 people and today we got to see around 140. When working at the clinic there was even a girl who has never seen blond people that came to touch our hair :-) very funny. Everyone is very nice and we are having lots of fun hanging out with the whole brigade.
Scot here. Day 6 and we are on our way to cotacachi. Anna has roped me into blogging on the long bus ride. We have spent three days now in different locations working health clinics. Yesterday we helped the tsachila community an indigenous group known for their cool hair. Think red icing combed forward into a reverse italian hairdo. Top that with a ring of cotton balls and a rainbow skirt for girls and a striped blue and white (in respect of the anaconda and the tiger) for the guys. They know how to rock out to. In thanks of our help the kids did a traditional dance to the bamboo shaker, marimba, and a canvas drum. The shaman showed us his medicinal hut and explained the rigorous qualifications involved. Knowledge of over three hundred medicinal plants and an annual eight day trip on hallucinogenic tea. Needless to say, he was really laid back. The sad part is that due to smallpox and yellow fever, the community found itself at only seven in number long ago. Springing back, they are fighting the new intrusion of urban culture. At the end of the whole show we got to buy a few very unique handcrafted goods.
Today is May 23 and we are in Otavalo, a very nice little town having the biggest handcraft market in Ecuador attracting people form all over the world.
We got done with our health brigade on Sunday. We arrived together from a neighboring town Cotacachi which is famous leather goods. During the last days of the brigade we went to help a community living very high up in the mountains. It was very interesting as these people do not speak spanish but quechua and therefore we had to have double translators in order to help them and provide them adequate health care. These people almost do not have any influence of the western world, use water from a nearby lake and lack any access to modern medicine. Women wear their traditional outfits and look gorgeous. Everything n this town was very dirty and as a consequence of that most people did not have many teeth left past the age of 40...It was a very interesting experience. On the last day of the brigade we went to visit a pre-inca cite where for the first time we met some lamas! :-) I got spit on the face by one when trying to kiss it for a picture...ha!his breath did not smell nice at all but I was glad to wear my sunglasses which prevented me from getting everything on my face :-)
On Saturday we arrived to Otavalo where we are staying till Wednesday. We found a very nice hotel with wi-fi so we decided it was a great place to rest after these crazy 10 past ten days where we would wake up every day around 6h30 and go to bed very late as the whole brigade was always ready to party. Then we spent the whole Sunday resting and trying to figure out the rest of our trip. Another person from the brigade also decided to stay longer in Ecuador so we hang out, share meals and travel together.It is very nice. We try not to drink tap water and eat any fruit or rough vegetables that might have had some contact with non-purified water in order to not to get sick. So far so good besides small stomach aches. Our spanish is also improving as we are able to communicate pretty well when we unify our skills :-) Today we went on a 5,5 hour hike to Cuicocha where we hiked around a lake sitting in a crater of a volcano that erupted about 3000 years ago. It was very nice although I got sun burnt...so I am all red right now :-/ Though It was very hard to hike up as in high altitude there is not much oxygen. We also got our first experience with ecuadorian buses...it was not that easy to know where the bus was going and where we were supposed to get off...but all went well and we only paid 25 cents a person for the ride! Prices are extremely low in Ecuador which is very good for us :-) For example we had an amazing lunch yesterday for only 2$ including a big meal and a drink. We did not have a choice in what we wanted to order but in the size of the plate we wanted to get. It was going from 1.5 to 3 $. Very nice. Now we are almost sure about our itinerary. Tomorrow we are going to stay here one more night and then head to Mindo, then Mitad del Mundo to take a picture having one leg on the south hemisphere and the other one on the north one. Next Papallata with its natural hot springs and the jungle in Lago Agrio. So exciting. we are going to fish some piranahs, see pink delphins and hunt anacondas...yeah!
Here are the pictures we have so far uploaded on picasa as unfortunately the ipad did not let us do it directly on the blog or facebook.
https://picasaweb.google.com/anna.borowko/AnnaAndScottSTravels?authkey=Gv1sRgCKDeiY-eh-K8Pg&feat=directlink
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