Since Ace last wrote, we´ve finally managed to get ourselves to leave Ecuador.
From Cuenca we made the 7 hour bus ride south to our lovely little Vilcabamba. We stayed there for two nights, stocking up on good books at the excellent book exchange and getting in a brief visit with Norie and Richard at Garden of Paradise. From there, we took an 8 hour bus ride south to the little-known border crossing at La Balsa, Peru. Every hour on the bus brought us into more humidity and higher temperatures. You could tell they don´t get many foreigners in those parts from the flocks of kids following us around and staring during the breaks the bus took! From the southernmost part of Ecuador I knew we would take a camioneta trip (a sort of shuttle bus) over the border. I apparently hadn´t read the info very well, as what I was expecting to be a 5 minute shuttle turned out to be an hour and a half on a wooden bench jolting over an extremely remote, extremely bumpy dirt road! My butt suffered grievously, but we eventually made it to the little bridge that led over the river that formed that section of the border. We found the crossing pretty hilarious- there was absolutely no security, and when we wandered into the little shack before the bridge looking for our stamps, the border guards seemed a little surprised to be disturbed from their dirty magazines and computer games. My first impressions of Peru were that it´s really hot, friendly, cheaper lodging and food, more expensive buses, more burros, more people littering. It´s hard to really compare though, as we didn´t go into the jungle at all in Ecuador, and that´s all that we´ve seen in Peru so far. Just for the kicks, I estimated our bus hours in Ecuador- 73 hours!
It had been a long day, but we still had a ways to go. No buses ran through that area, but we were lucky enough to find a driver that was going home to the next town for the night anyways and therefore didn´t brutally rip us off. Two and a half hours later we arrived in the first decent sized town, where we caught yet another car into Jaen. We got dropped off at a cheap hotel ($8 for the night) and collapsed.
The next day was a very long bus ride east (10 hours), but fortunately the bus was much comfier than any we´d ridden in Ecuador. We stayed in Tarapoto and prepped ourselves for one more long day of travelling by bus (7 hours over a bad dirt road) when we had a glorious surprise. We picked up a rather outdated copy of Lonely Planet at a book exchange, and apparently since the time they printed that nasty dirt road had been paved, cutting our trip down to a windy 2 and a half hours! Probably the first and only time that anything has ever taken less time than expected in Peru.
We arrived in Yurimaguas, quickly bought hammocks, water, and fruit, and rushed down to the dock, hoping to catch a boat bound for Iquitos that day. Unfortunately we discovered that the only boat leaving that day was so full of livestock that there was no room for people. However, a nice large boat was leaving the next day, so we reserved a cabin on the boat and settled into a hostel for the evening. When checking out the boat we got stuck in the first of many torrential downpours and impressive displays of lightning and thunder!
The next morning we went to the boat first thing, even though it wasn´t scheduled to leave until 2 (it actually left about 4). Good thing we did, as pretty much all the good hammock spaces were filled by 10. We staked out a good spot and got settled in with our books and snacks. The next two nights and three days were spent mostly swinging in our hammocks, reading our books, and making trips up to the top deck to watch the sunsets and enjoy the breeze. We met some other travelers on the boat and were very happy to have some friends to play cards with. The trip was much more comfortable than expected- there were showers, the food provided didn´t make us sick, and our little cabin was actually cool enough to sleep in comfortably at night. We were really glad we´d sprung the extra cash for the cabin, as the boat was really packed (absolutely zero personal space in the hammock area) and it would have been quite stressful to try to keep an eye on our stuff 24 hours a day.
We were thrilled that we arrived in Iquitos in the morning on Christmas Eve- the boat was pleasant, but I definitely didn´t want to celebrate Christmas on it. We found a hostel, took a nap, and explored the muggy, noisy jungle city that is Iquitos. We found a nice steak house restaurant and splurged on a nice Christmas Eve dinner with our friend from the boat, Benedict, then met up with the two British girls from the boat for drinks. The central square was absolutely packed with people buying snacks and fireworks, listening to music, and taking rides on the mototaxis rigged up to look like Santa´s sleigh. You couldn´t help but pity the poor Santas sweating through their red coats in the crazy humidity. The main celebration here is Christmas Eve- families hit the streets to party and count down the minutes until midnight, when they light off fireworks, New Year´s Eve- Style. On Christmas Day we booked a budget jungle tour, then took a boat to the nearby Butterfly Farm where we got to see gorgeous butterflies, a jaguar, an ocelot, monkeys, and the world´s most adorable baby sloth.
Sunday was the start of our jungle tour. We got up early and met our guide, Adrian, and our absolutely adorable fellow traveler, Noa. We road towards Nauta for about 2.5 hours, where we caught a boat for another 2.5 up the Amazon and to our remote little camp. We got settled into our room in a traditional little building built on stilts with a thatched roof. There was no electricity, but it had hammocks, mosquito nets over comfy beds, pit toilets and the river to bathe in- all we really need. We went on a short walk just outside of the house and saw birds, monkeys, and leaf-cutter ants in just a few minutes. After lunch and a nap in our hammocks, we hopped into the canoe and Adrian took us to a nearby area where the dolphins like to hang out. Lucky for us, they were there, and we got to watch pink and grey dolphins swim around us. We all hopped in the water for a swim, then headed back for dinner followed by a night walk in the jungle, where we spotted tree mice, tarantulas, snakes, and more. It was a bit spooky, but quite fun. While getting ready for bed, we heard a racket down by the dock, so Noa, Ace and I walked down to check it out. We found a poor little sardine who had jumped INTO the canoe and was flopping around unhappily. Ace put him back in the river and we felt proud of ourselves for saving the dumb little fish, until the next morning when Adrian told us they had filled half a bucket earlier that morning with more fish who had hopped into the boat. Yeah…there´s a lot of fish in that river. We spent Monday morning on a long walk through the jungle, where we spotted sloths, monkeys, iguanas, and lots more. The afternoon and evening were spent piranha fishing (using the unfortunate fish from that morning as bait). It was really fun, as we were getting bites every 30 seconds or so on our little branch-and fishing line fishing poles. We probably caught about 25 piranhas and 5 catfish between the 3 tourists and two guides. Night fell, and we headed back towards the camp to fry up our piranhas for dinner. About halfway back, I heard Noa scream and everyone turned around to see what had happened. By the light of our headlamps we saw a new piranha flopping around in the bottom of the canoe- it had hurled itself into the moving boat! By the time we made it back to camp, Ace had been pegged by another piranha and I by a catfish. I never knew fishing could be so easy!
Our last day, we went on one last jungle walk and saw some porcupines, among other things. On the long trip home the sky opened up and we got another good tropical thunderstorm show. We spent the rest of our day catching up our journals, itching our mosquito bites, and washing our disgustingly sweaty clothes.
Today we´ve been getting ready to head out to the Amazon Rainbow community. We´ll head out tomorrow and stay for two weeks. It should be exciting, as we don´t really have any idea what we´ll be doing. All I know is it´s a hippy community in the middle of the jungle where everyone cooks, gardens, and works together and lives off the land. We also found time today to visit a manatee rescue center, where I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of getting to hang out with manatees! I got to feed them and scratch their bristly little noses. Amazing. After that, we headed a little further up the highway to Cuistococha, a nature reserve where you can check out the zoo and swim in the lake. It was a lot of fun.
That´s it for now- stay tuned for what it´s like to live on a commune in the middle of the Amazon jungle! Lots of love!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Christmas in the jungle
Since Ace last wrote, we´ve finally managed to get ourselves to leave Ecuador.
From Cuenca we made the 7 hour bus ride south to our lovely little Vilcabamba. We stayed there for two nights, stocking up on good books at the excellent book exchange and getting in a brief visit with Norie and Richard at Garden of Paradise. From there, we took an 8 hour bus ride south to the little-known border crossing at La Balsa, Peru. Every hour on the bus brought us into more humidity and higher temperatures. You could tell they don´t get many foreigners in those parts from the flocks of kids following us around and staring during the breaks the bus took! From the southernmost part of Ecuador I knew we would take a camioneta trip (a sort of shuttle bus) over the border. I apparently hadn´t read the info very well, as what I was expecting to be a 5 minute shuttle turned out to be an hour and a half on a wooden bench jolting over an extremely remote, extremely bumpy dirt road! My butt suffered grievously, but we eventually made it to the little bridge that led over the river that formed that section of the border. We found the crossing pretty hilarious- there was absolutely no security, and when we wandered into the little shack before the bridge looking for our stamps, the border guards seemed a little surprised to be disturbed from their dirty magazines and computer games. My first impressions of Peru were that it´s really hot, friendly, cheaper lodging and food, more expensive buses, more burros, more people littering. It´s hard to really compare though, as we didn´t go into the jungle at all in Ecuador, and that´s all that we´ve seen in Peru so far. Just for the kicks, I estimated our bus hours in Ecuador- 73 hours!
It had been a long day, but we still had a ways to go. No buses ran through that area, but we were lucky enough to find a driver that was going home to the next town for the night anyways and therefore didn´t brutally rip us off. Two and a half hours later we arrived in the first decent sized town, where we caught yet another car into Jaen. We got dropped off at a cheap hotel ($8 for the night) and collapsed.
The next day was a very long bus ride east (10 hours), but fortunately the bus was much comfier than any we´d ridden in Ecuador. We stayed in Tarapoto and prepped ourselves for one more long day of travelling by bus (7 hours over a bad dirt road) when we had a glorious surprise. We picked up a rather outdated copy of Lonely Planet at a book exchange, and apparently since the time they printed that nasty dirt road had been paved, cutting our trip down to a windy 2 and a half hours! Probably the first and only time that anything has ever taken less time than expected in Peru.
We arrived in Yurimaguas, quickly bought hammocks, water, and fruit, and rushed down to the dock, hoping to catch a boat bound for Iquitos that day. Unfortunately we discovered that the only boat leaving that day was so full of livestock that there was no room for people. However, a nice large boat was leaving the next day, so we reserved a cabin on the boat and settled into a hostel for the evening. When checking out the boat we got stuck in the first of many torrential downpours and impressive displays of lightning and thunder!
The next morning we went to the boat first thing, even though it wasn´t scheduled to leave until 2 (it actually left about 4). Good thing we did, as pretty much all the good hammock spaces were filled by 10. We staked out a good spot and got settled in with our books and snacks. The next two nights and three days were spent mostly swinging in our hammocks, reading our books, and making trips up to the top deck to watch the sunsets and enjoy the breeze. We met some other travelers on the boat and were very happy to have some friends to play cards with. The trip was much more comfortable than expected- there were showers, the food provided didn´t make us sick, and our little cabin was actually cool enough to sleep in comfortably at night. We were really glad we´d sprung the extra cash for the cabin, as the boat was really packed (absolutely zero personal space in the hammock area) and it would have been quite stressful to try to keep an eye on our stuff 24 hours a day.
We were thrilled that we arrived in Iquitos in the morning on Christmas Eve- the boat was pleasant, but I definitely didn´t want to celebrate Christmas on it. We found a hostel, took a nap, and explored the muggy, noisy jungle city that is Iquitos. We found a nice steak house restaurant and splurged on a nice Christmas Eve dinner with our friend from the boat, Benedict, then met up with the two British girls from the boat for drinks. The central square was absolutely packed with people buying snacks and fireworks, listening to music, and taking rides on the mototaxis rigged up to look like Santa´s sleigh. You couldn´t help but pity the poor Santas sweating through their red coats in the crazy humidity. The main celebration here is Christmas Eve- families hit the streets to party and count down the minutes until midnight, when they light off fireworks, New Year´s Eve- Style. On Christmas Day we booked a budget jungle tour, then took a boat to the nearby Butterfly Farm where we got to see gorgeous butterflies, a jaguar, an ocelot, monkeys, and the world´s most adorable baby sloth.
Sunday was the start of our jungle tour. We got up early and met our guide, Adrian, and our absolutely adorable fellow traveler, Noa. We road towards Nauta for about 2.5 hours, where we caught a boat for another 2.5 up the Amazon and to our remote little camp. We got settled into our room in a traditional little building built on stilts with a thatched roof. There was no electricity, but it had hammocks, mosquito nets over comfy beds, pit toilets and the river to bathe in- all we really need. We went on a short walk just outside of the house and saw birds, monkeys, and leaf-cutter ants in just a few minutes. After lunch and a nap in our hammocks, we hopped into the canoe and Adrian took us to a nearby area where the dolphins like to hang out. Lucky for us, they were there, and we got to watch pink and grey dolphins swim around us. We all hopped in the water for a swim, then headed back for dinner followed by a night walk in the jungle, where we spotted tree mice, tarantulas, snakes, and more. It was a bit spooky, but quite fun. While getting ready for bed, we heard a racket down by the dock, so Noa, Ace and I walked down to check it out. We found a poor little sardine who had jumped INTO the canoe and was flopping around unhappily. Ace put him back in the river and we felt proud of ourselves for saving the dumb little fish, until the next morning when Adrian told us they had filled half a bucket earlier that morning with more fish who had hopped into the boat. Yeah…there´s a lot of fish in that river. We spent Monday morning on a long walk through the jungle, where we spotted sloths, monkeys, iguanas, and lots more. The afternoon and evening were spent piranha fishing (using the unfortunate fish from that morning as bait). It was really fun, as we were getting bites every 30 seconds or so on our little branch-and fishing line fishing poles. We probably caught about 25 piranhas and 5 catfish between the 3 tourists and two guides. Night fell, and we headed back towards the camp to fry up our piranhas for dinner. About halfway back, I heard Noa scream and everyone turned around to see what had happened. By the light of our headlamps we saw a new piranha flopping around in the bottom of the canoe- it had hurled itself into the moving boat! By the time we made it back to camp, Ace had been pegged by another piranha and I by a catfish. I never knew fishing could be so easy!
Our last day, we went on one last jungle walk and saw some porcupines, among other things. On the long trip home the sky opened up and we got another good tropical thunderstorm show. We spent the rest of our day catching up our journals, itching our mosquito bites, and washing our disgustingly sweaty clothes.
Today we´ve been getting ready to head out to the Amazon Rainbow community. We´ll head out tomorrow and stay for two weeks. It should be exciting, as we don´t really have any idea what we´ll be doing. All I know is it´s a hippy community in the middle of the jungle where everyone cooks, gardens, and works together and lives off the land. We also found time today to visit a manatee rescue center, where I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of getting to hang out with manatees! I got to feed them and scratch there bristly little noses. Amazing. After that, we headed a little further up the highway to Cuistococha, a nature reserve where you can check out the zoo and swim in the lake. It was a lot of fun.
That´s it for now- stay tuned for what it´s like to live on a commune in the middle of the Amazon jungle! Lots of love!
From Cuenca we made the 7 hour bus ride south to our lovely little Vilcabamba. We stayed there for two nights, stocking up on good books at the excellent book exchange and getting in a brief visit with Norie and Richard at Garden of Paradise. From there, we took an 8 hour bus ride south to the little-known border crossing at La Balsa, Peru. Every hour on the bus brought us into more humidity and higher temperatures. You could tell they don´t get many foreigners in those parts from the flocks of kids following us around and staring during the breaks the bus took! From the southernmost part of Ecuador I knew we would take a camioneta trip (a sort of shuttle bus) over the border. I apparently hadn´t read the info very well, as what I was expecting to be a 5 minute shuttle turned out to be an hour and a half on a wooden bench jolting over an extremely remote, extremely bumpy dirt road! My butt suffered grievously, but we eventually made it to the little bridge that led over the river that formed that section of the border. We found the crossing pretty hilarious- there was absolutely no security, and when we wandered into the little shack before the bridge looking for our stamps, the border guards seemed a little surprised to be disturbed from their dirty magazines and computer games. My first impressions of Peru were that it´s really hot, friendly, cheaper lodging and food, more expensive buses, more burros, more people littering. It´s hard to really compare though, as we didn´t go into the jungle at all in Ecuador, and that´s all that we´ve seen in Peru so far. Just for the kicks, I estimated our bus hours in Ecuador- 73 hours!
It had been a long day, but we still had a ways to go. No buses ran through that area, but we were lucky enough to find a driver that was going home to the next town for the night anyways and therefore didn´t brutally rip us off. Two and a half hours later we arrived in the first decent sized town, where we caught yet another car into Jaen. We got dropped off at a cheap hotel ($8 for the night) and collapsed.
The next day was a very long bus ride east (10 hours), but fortunately the bus was much comfier than any we´d ridden in Ecuador. We stayed in Tarapoto and prepped ourselves for one more long day of travelling by bus (7 hours over a bad dirt road) when we had a glorious surprise. We picked up a rather outdated copy of Lonely Planet at a book exchange, and apparently since the time they printed that nasty dirt road had been paved, cutting our trip down to a windy 2 and a half hours! Probably the first and only time that anything has ever taken less time than expected in Peru.
We arrived in Yurimaguas, quickly bought hammocks, water, and fruit, and rushed down to the dock, hoping to catch a boat bound for Iquitos that day. Unfortunately we discovered that the only boat leaving that day was so full of livestock that there was no room for people. However, a nice large boat was leaving the next day, so we reserved a cabin on the boat and settled into a hostel for the evening. When checking out the boat we got stuck in the first of many torrential downpours and impressive displays of lightning and thunder!
The next morning we went to the boat first thing, even though it wasn´t scheduled to leave until 2 (it actually left about 4). Good thing we did, as pretty much all the good hammock spaces were filled by 10. We staked out a good spot and got settled in with our books and snacks. The next two nights and three days were spent mostly swinging in our hammocks, reading our books, and making trips up to the top deck to watch the sunsets and enjoy the breeze. We met some other travelers on the boat and were very happy to have some friends to play cards with. The trip was much more comfortable than expected- there were showers, the food provided didn´t make us sick, and our little cabin was actually cool enough to sleep in comfortably at night. We were really glad we´d sprung the extra cash for the cabin, as the boat was really packed (absolutely zero personal space in the hammock area) and it would have been quite stressful to try to keep an eye on our stuff 24 hours a day.
We were thrilled that we arrived in Iquitos in the morning on Christmas Eve- the boat was pleasant, but I definitely didn´t want to celebrate Christmas on it. We found a hostel, took a nap, and explored the muggy, noisy jungle city that is Iquitos. We found a nice steak house restaurant and splurged on a nice Christmas Eve dinner with our friend from the boat, Benedict, then met up with the two British girls from the boat for drinks. The central square was absolutely packed with people buying snacks and fireworks, listening to music, and taking rides on the mototaxis rigged up to look like Santa´s sleigh. You couldn´t help but pity the poor Santas sweating through their red coats in the crazy humidity. The main celebration here is Christmas Eve- families hit the streets to party and count down the minutes until midnight, when they light off fireworks, New Year´s Eve- Style. On Christmas Day we booked a budget jungle tour, then took a boat to the nearby Butterfly Farm where we got to see gorgeous butterflies, a jaguar, an ocelot, monkeys, and the world´s most adorable baby sloth.
Sunday was the start of our jungle tour. We got up early and met our guide, Adrian, and our absolutely adorable fellow traveler, Noa. We road towards Nauta for about 2.5 hours, where we caught a boat for another 2.5 up the Amazon and to our remote little camp. We got settled into our room in a traditional little building built on stilts with a thatched roof. There was no electricity, but it had hammocks, mosquito nets over comfy beds, pit toilets and the river to bathe in- all we really need. We went on a short walk just outside of the house and saw birds, monkeys, and leaf-cutter ants in just a few minutes. After lunch and a nap in our hammocks, we hopped into the canoe and Adrian took us to a nearby area where the dolphins like to hang out. Lucky for us, they were there, and we got to watch pink and grey dolphins swim around us. We all hopped in the water for a swim, then headed back for dinner followed by a night walk in the jungle, where we spotted tree mice, tarantulas, snakes, and more. It was a bit spooky, but quite fun. While getting ready for bed, we heard a racket down by the dock, so Noa, Ace and I walked down to check it out. We found a poor little sardine who had jumped INTO the canoe and was flopping around unhappily. Ace put him back in the river and we felt proud of ourselves for saving the dumb little fish, until the next morning when Adrian told us they had filled half a bucket earlier that morning with more fish who had hopped into the boat. Yeah…there´s a lot of fish in that river. We spent Monday morning on a long walk through the jungle, where we spotted sloths, monkeys, iguanas, and lots more. The afternoon and evening were spent piranha fishing (using the unfortunate fish from that morning as bait). It was really fun, as we were getting bites every 30 seconds or so on our little branch-and fishing line fishing poles. We probably caught about 25 piranhas and 5 catfish between the 3 tourists and two guides. Night fell, and we headed back towards the camp to fry up our piranhas for dinner. About halfway back, I heard Noa scream and everyone turned around to see what had happened. By the light of our headlamps we saw a new piranha flopping around in the bottom of the canoe- it had hurled itself into the moving boat! By the time we made it back to camp, Ace had been pegged by another piranha and I by a catfish. I never knew fishing could be so easy!
Our last day, we went on one last jungle walk and saw some porcupines, among other things. On the long trip home the sky opened up and we got another good tropical thunderstorm show. We spent the rest of our day catching up our journals, itching our mosquito bites, and washing our disgustingly sweaty clothes.
Today we´ve been getting ready to head out to the Amazon Rainbow community. We´ll head out tomorrow and stay for two weeks. It should be exciting, as we don´t really have any idea what we´ll be doing. All I know is it´s a hippy community in the middle of the jungle where everyone cooks, gardens, and works together and lives off the land. We also found time today to visit a manatee rescue center, where I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of getting to hang out with manatees! I got to feed them and scratch there bristly little noses. Amazing. After that, we headed a little further up the highway to Cuistococha, a nature reserve where you can check out the zoo and swim in the lake. It was a lot of fun.
That´s it for now- stay tuned for what it´s like to live on a commune in the middle of the Amazon jungle! Lots of love!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Cotopaxi and Beyond
I will preface this entry by saying that it is very long, and possibly full of errors since I am currently on a word processor that lacks correctional functions in English, so my apologies in advance. However, the bulk of it is about climbing Cotopaxi, a popular Ecuadorian volcano, so I thought that was worth the space. Happy Reading!
Since leaving Cuenca, we have had quite the adventure: Cotopaxi! To start with, we took a beautiful trip up to Las Cajas, a national park outside of Cuenca. The point of this was to acclimatize our bodies to higher altitude as much as we could. After climbing a peak in Las Cajas, we had to come to Quito in order to arrange a guide for our trip up the mountain, so we took the eight-hour trip from Cuenca to Quito, and once everything was all booked, we climbed Pichincha, a mountain just outside of Quito. (You have to take a cable car from the city in order to start the hike.) Not having any food, however, we decided to turn back just a little before we reached 4,700 meters. Through this process, we didn’t feel light-headed or dizzy, signs of altitude sickness, so we figured we were generally ready for Cotopaxi.
Next we left Quito. We could have stayed in the city and gotten a free ride (saving us two dollars) to Cotopaxi National Park, but we wanted to try to acclimatize ourselves further. So we hopped on a bus and found the cheaper of two hotels near Cotopaxi, which was just off of the highway. Not being at a high altitude, however, we wanted to go to a nearby lake to hike around a bit in order to be sure we were acclimatized. Just after checking in to “Hotel El Turista,” we hired a driver to take us up to the lake. However, this 25-minute drive cost us about 30 dollars! Plus, the lake was actually much lower than any of the mountains we had previously climbed, and to make matters worse, we were only there for about 45 minutes before we walked the entirety of the lake. We wanted to stay a little longer, but I was getting pretty tired, and it was just starting to rain. Feeling a bit frustrated at the high cost of the driver, the low-ish altitude, and the short amount of time we were there, we begrudgingly told our driver that we would like to head back.
For the remainder of the day, we read, wrote in journals, and listened to podcasts, and had a chance to talk with our hostess for a while. At first we really liked her. She seemed to relate with us about how other businesses tend to rip foreigners off during their travels in Ecuador, and we were glad that we didn’t stay at the other hotel that was twice the price. Before long, we realized that we wouldn’t have enough food for breakfast in the morning, so we let her know that we would like her to cook some for us. Having talked with her a bit, we trusted that the price wouldn’t be too extravagant. (She mentioned that the price for a meal should be no more than three dollars per person in a previous conversation.) Little did we know that this breakfast would cost us 5 dollars each.
All this aside, we were still excited to get up the mountain. Our guides picked us up at the hotel and drove us up to the Cotopaxi restaurant where we would put on all of our cold-weather gear and eat some lunch (cookies, chips, and soup). At this point, getting to know our group was really fun. There was Michael, a Korean-American working as a lawyer in Korea; Greg, a well-traveled consultant of multiple talents working for the pharmeceutical industry; and a Swiss guy (whose name I obviously forgot) working in Quito with a Swiss engineering firm. After we get geared up, we drive to the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain and start to make our ascent up to the refuge (just over 4800m). The weather up the mountain wasn´t great. In fact, it was snowing fairly hard on us. Our guide, wanting to get us out of the weather as soon as possible, kept us at a steady pace up the mountain. By the time we got to the top, we were sufficiently out of breath and ready to set down our heavy packs.
Once at the refuge – a building large enough to house maybe 70 people or so – we claimed our beds and sat down for hot tea and dinner. We got to know our group even better, and it was here that an adjascent group of two Americans started talking to Kait; they let her know that they were working at a school in Quito that had just lost a literature teacher and were looking for another. After some discussion, Kait and I decided that I should pursue this opportunity, but more on that later.
At about 6:30 or 7pm, we crawled into bed (after I snuck out to take some night shots of the refuge and of nearby city lights). I, well aware that 7pm was REALLY early to try to get some sleep, just lay there sleepless for a very long time. Before long, I noticed that my left nostril had decided to close, exactly the opposite of what anyone would want in a high-altitude, air-thin environment like that. Naturally, I developed a small headache that grew into a very large headache which further prevented me from sleeping. For hours and hours, it went like this. After a while, people started stirring, and I asked Greg what time it was. He told me that it was almost midnight, the time we were supposed to get up to start getting ready for the ascent to the summit. I decided that there was no point in trying to lay there the extra 10 minutes, so I started to get up.
Almost immediately, I felt abnormally hot and a bit dizzy. It was here that I was almost certain that I had altitude sickness. Fighting this feeling, I made my way downstairs, first to the doorway where I could get some fresh air, and then eventually to the table where I could feebly attempt to eat something in order to have some energy. One of the symptoms of altitude sickness – if not the tell-tale symptom – is a lack of appetite, and despite my best efforts, I could hardly eat anything. Once Kait joined me downstairs after a long absence from the table, she alerted me that she didn´t feel too well either. At this point, I was still feeling dizzy and my head was pounding, but I knew I had to put on my gear. Against my body´s will, I managed to rig myself up, and before long – and after some help from the guide with our clampons (spikey clamps that fit to the bottom of the boots) – we were outside and ready to go.
Being a bit behind the other groups out of the door, we told our guide that we would be happy to take it nice and slow. Greg, an experienced climber (who, anecdotally, had just come from the Galapagos, a very low elevation) told me that he had overcome these symptoms before just be being in the fresh air. Heartened, I hoped this would be true. I let Kait be ahead of me and behind the guide on the way up because she had been having problems breathing the night before, and this was instantly what she started feeling as she started up.Also, I was suffering from a bad stomach ache as well as unusual overheating, the kind associated generally with nausea, so it was clear to me that my body wanted to throw up, but I just couldn´t get it to. Other groups passed us until I was sure that we were the last of the people who had decided to leave the refuge. Our guide, the most kind, encouraging human being alive, was saddened by our agreement that after only 30 minutes, we were ready to throw in the towel. The decisión was originally Kait´s, but I knew that I wouldn´t likely make it much further – or that at least I wouldn´t feel very good at all if I did. Kait suggested maybe that I tag along with another group, which I could have done, but I knew I would have slowed them down and that I essentially wouldn´t be able to turn back if I needed to without making the whole group turn back. So we headed back to the refuge.
Once there, I started to strip my shell clothes, and get ready for the sweet embrace of sleep, but before I could so much as hit my head to the non-existant pillow, I felt the urge to do what my body had been waiting for. So I urged Kait to hand me my boots, and I headed downstairs and out the door. I remembered thinking how amazing it was that the human body seems to somehow know when it is okay to throw up and when not to because it took maybe two full minutes to get my boots on and out the door. Then it wasn´t even five seconds later that I was re-tasting the cookies and soup that I had had for lunch. After doing this three times, I left the freezing (literally) cold air and crawled into bed. After ensuring we would be warm enough, Kait and I fell asleep for a few hours. We were later awakened at what must have been four or five in the morning by people returning from the trip; these were the ones who did not get sick.
I knew that they had returned way too early, and I began to wonder why. After a few minutes of much motion, shedding of gear, and settling into beds, I overheard a non-sick climber tell a sick one near us that since so much fresh snow had fallen on the mountain, the guides decided that nobody should traverse the more dangerous parts that started about 800 meters from the summit. Although I felt bad that no one could make it, I somehow felt a little better that since I and Kait couldn´t make it, there was some kind of universal justice in the fact that no one else could either.
Kait and I soon woke up, and I went outside to take some pictures of the rising sun over the landscape. (I guess the same view I was photographing had been shown in the film Baraka). A little later, the sun was well up, and it was a beautifully clear day, a large change from the previous day, so we were glad that at least we were able to get some clear shots of the surrounding landscape before we left.
Before long, we were down the mountain, and then in Quito…again. We actually wanted to go to Latacunga for the night, but we decided that it would be better to try to apply at the school with a missing teacher. So I emailed the school promptly upon arrival on Sunday, and I got an interview at the school even though the position had already been filled. (I was applying for 2011-2012. The interview went very well, and I have high hopes for working in the school. With an International Baccalaureate program, it would be excellent learning experience for me. So far nothing is for sure, but the interviewer seemed very positive, so we´ll see.
Now, Kait and I are back in Cuenca. Since I had to call schools (that I have recently applied to), we decided to stay in a place that could at least guarantee decent internet access. We actually wanted to be in Vilcabamba by now, but it does not have decent internet (it is very rural), so we will make it there tomorrow. After that, we will be able to start traveling to Iquitos, Peru, the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road. We will travel a few days into Peru, and then we will take a boat up the Amazon river for about 3-6 days (but hopefully only 3!)
Since leaving Cuenca, we have had quite the adventure: Cotopaxi! To start with, we took a beautiful trip up to Las Cajas, a national park outside of Cuenca. The point of this was to acclimatize our bodies to higher altitude as much as we could. After climbing a peak in Las Cajas, we had to come to Quito in order to arrange a guide for our trip up the mountain, so we took the eight-hour trip from Cuenca to Quito, and once everything was all booked, we climbed Pichincha, a mountain just outside of Quito. (You have to take a cable car from the city in order to start the hike.) Not having any food, however, we decided to turn back just a little before we reached 4,700 meters. Through this process, we didn’t feel light-headed or dizzy, signs of altitude sickness, so we figured we were generally ready for Cotopaxi.
Next we left Quito. We could have stayed in the city and gotten a free ride (saving us two dollars) to Cotopaxi National Park, but we wanted to try to acclimatize ourselves further. So we hopped on a bus and found the cheaper of two hotels near Cotopaxi, which was just off of the highway. Not being at a high altitude, however, we wanted to go to a nearby lake to hike around a bit in order to be sure we were acclimatized. Just after checking in to “Hotel El Turista,” we hired a driver to take us up to the lake. However, this 25-minute drive cost us about 30 dollars! Plus, the lake was actually much lower than any of the mountains we had previously climbed, and to make matters worse, we were only there for about 45 minutes before we walked the entirety of the lake. We wanted to stay a little longer, but I was getting pretty tired, and it was just starting to rain. Feeling a bit frustrated at the high cost of the driver, the low-ish altitude, and the short amount of time we were there, we begrudgingly told our driver that we would like to head back.
For the remainder of the day, we read, wrote in journals, and listened to podcasts, and had a chance to talk with our hostess for a while. At first we really liked her. She seemed to relate with us about how other businesses tend to rip foreigners off during their travels in Ecuador, and we were glad that we didn’t stay at the other hotel that was twice the price. Before long, we realized that we wouldn’t have enough food for breakfast in the morning, so we let her know that we would like her to cook some for us. Having talked with her a bit, we trusted that the price wouldn’t be too extravagant. (She mentioned that the price for a meal should be no more than three dollars per person in a previous conversation.) Little did we know that this breakfast would cost us 5 dollars each.
All this aside, we were still excited to get up the mountain. Our guides picked us up at the hotel and drove us up to the Cotopaxi restaurant where we would put on all of our cold-weather gear and eat some lunch (cookies, chips, and soup). At this point, getting to know our group was really fun. There was Michael, a Korean-American working as a lawyer in Korea; Greg, a well-traveled consultant of multiple talents working for the pharmeceutical industry; and a Swiss guy (whose name I obviously forgot) working in Quito with a Swiss engineering firm. After we get geared up, we drive to the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain and start to make our ascent up to the refuge (just over 4800m). The weather up the mountain wasn´t great. In fact, it was snowing fairly hard on us. Our guide, wanting to get us out of the weather as soon as possible, kept us at a steady pace up the mountain. By the time we got to the top, we were sufficiently out of breath and ready to set down our heavy packs.
Once at the refuge – a building large enough to house maybe 70 people or so – we claimed our beds and sat down for hot tea and dinner. We got to know our group even better, and it was here that an adjascent group of two Americans started talking to Kait; they let her know that they were working at a school in Quito that had just lost a literature teacher and were looking for another. After some discussion, Kait and I decided that I should pursue this opportunity, but more on that later.
At about 6:30 or 7pm, we crawled into bed (after I snuck out to take some night shots of the refuge and of nearby city lights). I, well aware that 7pm was REALLY early to try to get some sleep, just lay there sleepless for a very long time. Before long, I noticed that my left nostril had decided to close, exactly the opposite of what anyone would want in a high-altitude, air-thin environment like that. Naturally, I developed a small headache that grew into a very large headache which further prevented me from sleeping. For hours and hours, it went like this. After a while, people started stirring, and I asked Greg what time it was. He told me that it was almost midnight, the time we were supposed to get up to start getting ready for the ascent to the summit. I decided that there was no point in trying to lay there the extra 10 minutes, so I started to get up.
Almost immediately, I felt abnormally hot and a bit dizzy. It was here that I was almost certain that I had altitude sickness. Fighting this feeling, I made my way downstairs, first to the doorway where I could get some fresh air, and then eventually to the table where I could feebly attempt to eat something in order to have some energy. One of the symptoms of altitude sickness – if not the tell-tale symptom – is a lack of appetite, and despite my best efforts, I could hardly eat anything. Once Kait joined me downstairs after a long absence from the table, she alerted me that she didn´t feel too well either. At this point, I was still feeling dizzy and my head was pounding, but I knew I had to put on my gear. Against my body´s will, I managed to rig myself up, and before long – and after some help from the guide with our clampons (spikey clamps that fit to the bottom of the boots) – we were outside and ready to go.
Being a bit behind the other groups out of the door, we told our guide that we would be happy to take it nice and slow. Greg, an experienced climber (who, anecdotally, had just come from the Galapagos, a very low elevation) told me that he had overcome these symptoms before just be being in the fresh air. Heartened, I hoped this would be true. I let Kait be ahead of me and behind the guide on the way up because she had been having problems breathing the night before, and this was instantly what she started feeling as she started up.Also, I was suffering from a bad stomach ache as well as unusual overheating, the kind associated generally with nausea, so it was clear to me that my body wanted to throw up, but I just couldn´t get it to. Other groups passed us until I was sure that we were the last of the people who had decided to leave the refuge. Our guide, the most kind, encouraging human being alive, was saddened by our agreement that after only 30 minutes, we were ready to throw in the towel. The decisión was originally Kait´s, but I knew that I wouldn´t likely make it much further – or that at least I wouldn´t feel very good at all if I did. Kait suggested maybe that I tag along with another group, which I could have done, but I knew I would have slowed them down and that I essentially wouldn´t be able to turn back if I needed to without making the whole group turn back. So we headed back to the refuge.
Once there, I started to strip my shell clothes, and get ready for the sweet embrace of sleep, but before I could so much as hit my head to the non-existant pillow, I felt the urge to do what my body had been waiting for. So I urged Kait to hand me my boots, and I headed downstairs and out the door. I remembered thinking how amazing it was that the human body seems to somehow know when it is okay to throw up and when not to because it took maybe two full minutes to get my boots on and out the door. Then it wasn´t even five seconds later that I was re-tasting the cookies and soup that I had had for lunch. After doing this three times, I left the freezing (literally) cold air and crawled into bed. After ensuring we would be warm enough, Kait and I fell asleep for a few hours. We were later awakened at what must have been four or five in the morning by people returning from the trip; these were the ones who did not get sick.
I knew that they had returned way too early, and I began to wonder why. After a few minutes of much motion, shedding of gear, and settling into beds, I overheard a non-sick climber tell a sick one near us that since so much fresh snow had fallen on the mountain, the guides decided that nobody should traverse the more dangerous parts that started about 800 meters from the summit. Although I felt bad that no one could make it, I somehow felt a little better that since I and Kait couldn´t make it, there was some kind of universal justice in the fact that no one else could either.
Kait and I soon woke up, and I went outside to take some pictures of the rising sun over the landscape. (I guess the same view I was photographing had been shown in the film Baraka). A little later, the sun was well up, and it was a beautifully clear day, a large change from the previous day, so we were glad that at least we were able to get some clear shots of the surrounding landscape before we left.
Before long, we were down the mountain, and then in Quito…again. We actually wanted to go to Latacunga for the night, but we decided that it would be better to try to apply at the school with a missing teacher. So I emailed the school promptly upon arrival on Sunday, and I got an interview at the school even though the position had already been filled. (I was applying for 2011-2012. The interview went very well, and I have high hopes for working in the school. With an International Baccalaureate program, it would be excellent learning experience for me. So far nothing is for sure, but the interviewer seemed very positive, so we´ll see.
Now, Kait and I are back in Cuenca. Since I had to call schools (that I have recently applied to), we decided to stay in a place that could at least guarantee decent internet access. We actually wanted to be in Vilcabamba by now, but it does not have decent internet (it is very rural), so we will make it there tomorrow. After that, we will be able to start traveling to Iquitos, Peru, the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road. We will travel a few days into Peru, and then we will take a boat up the Amazon river for about 3-6 days (but hopefully only 3!)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
A farewell to Cuenca
It´s almost time for us to say goodbe to Cuenca- it´s hard to believe almost a month has gone by already. It´s been a good one- Ace´s Spanish has improved a ton (mine too, I hope), I loved my volunteer work, and we´ve met a lot of really lovely people.
Ace has plowed through ALL the Spanish tenses in four weeks- something that took me, oh, I don´t know, about five years. I’ve been taking a few hours of classes a week, too, and have done some good reviewing of all the grammar I’ve forgotten.
My schedule of wild animal refuge two days a week, street dog rescue shelter/vet clinic two days a week has been great, too. Some highlights of the wild animal refuge were getting to hang out in cages with monkeys (and hold little baby Jacobo) and hand feed baby deer and ostriches. And, of course, watching Ace get charged by an enraged llama! As hard as he tried, Felipe (the llama) wasn’t all that threatening. The clinic was amazing, too. On my first day, I went with one of the vets to pick up a dog that had been called in by a neighbor. It was a tiny little puppy living in a home where he had been horribly abused. I have never seen anything as wild or as angry as that tiny little abused puppy- we had to tie his mouth shut to keep him from biting us, and I was still afraid to pick him up. For the past three weeks, he’s continued to be extremely aggressive, but yesterday when I visited the shelter I saw him snuggling other dogs, and he was even jumping up on my legs wanting to play! It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. I’ve also been able to observe surgeries and lots of other vet stuff. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m thining seriously about trying to get into vet school when we return home, which is pretty huge for me! I’ve pretty much spent my whole life wondering what I should do as a career without any leads whatsoever. Yay for direction! Thank you Cuenca!
Since we were staying here for a while, I decided to contact some of the people living in Cuenca on Couchsurfing and see if anyone wanted to hang out. I sent out a ton of messages, since I hadn’t gotten a lot of replies in the past. Surprise! Pretty much everyone wrote back. People are so warm here. We had 10 or so Couchsurfers over to our hostel for a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, which was really fun. Ace and I spent the whole day cooking as close to a traditional feast as we could- two whole chickens (they have turkey here, but it’s really expensive), mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, apple cider, empanadas (a little touch of Ecuador), Mom’s yummy candied walnut salad, and an apple berry cobbler. The gravy was the only thing that totally bombed, which I was ok with. Plus, our guests were all from different countries (five Ecuadorians, two Spaniards, two Belgians,and a Brazilian), so they didn’t know what they were missing ! We’ve gotten to hang out with Roos and Kathleen, the two lovely Belgian girls, quite a bit. We went to Baños (a nearby village with really nice hot springs) two weekends ago, and on a waterfall hike last weekend. We also have gotten to hang out with Claire-Marie and Pepo a few times. Claire-Marie is a French girl working in a charitable foundation here, and Pepo is a rad Ecuadorian guy who is working on making Ace a thumb harp Lots of good people here.
We´re looking to keep pretty busy our last week- going salsa dancing with Kathleen , Pepo, and Claire-Marie tonight, going to Pepo´s family´s property to help with the house-building effort on Friday, going to my Spanish teacher´s family barbecue on Saturday, and going to Cajas national park on Sunday. Enshallah-ojala. Oh yeah, and studying and working too :)
We haven´t really plotted out exactly what´s next, but after seeing Roos´photos of climbing Cotopaxi, we decided we can´t leave Ecuador without doing it. So after here it´s back north to prepare and acclimatize to the elevation, hiking a rad glacier-covered volcano (with professional guides and good gear, no worries!), then baaackkk south (again) towards Vilcabamba and on to Peru. We´re thinking we should be in Iquitos, Peru by Christmas so we can either enjoy a magical hippy Christmas on the Rainbow Community farm or be out in the jungle spearing pirahnas and cooking them over the fire for our Christmas dinner. Or something like that.
Lots of love to all of you back home. We love and miss you, as always.
Ace has plowed through ALL the Spanish tenses in four weeks- something that took me, oh, I don´t know, about five years. I’ve been taking a few hours of classes a week, too, and have done some good reviewing of all the grammar I’ve forgotten.
My schedule of wild animal refuge two days a week, street dog rescue shelter/vet clinic two days a week has been great, too. Some highlights of the wild animal refuge were getting to hang out in cages with monkeys (and hold little baby Jacobo) and hand feed baby deer and ostriches. And, of course, watching Ace get charged by an enraged llama! As hard as he tried, Felipe (the llama) wasn’t all that threatening. The clinic was amazing, too. On my first day, I went with one of the vets to pick up a dog that had been called in by a neighbor. It was a tiny little puppy living in a home where he had been horribly abused. I have never seen anything as wild or as angry as that tiny little abused puppy- we had to tie his mouth shut to keep him from biting us, and I was still afraid to pick him up. For the past three weeks, he’s continued to be extremely aggressive, but yesterday when I visited the shelter I saw him snuggling other dogs, and he was even jumping up on my legs wanting to play! It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. I’ve also been able to observe surgeries and lots of other vet stuff. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m thining seriously about trying to get into vet school when we return home, which is pretty huge for me! I’ve pretty much spent my whole life wondering what I should do as a career without any leads whatsoever. Yay for direction! Thank you Cuenca!
Since we were staying here for a while, I decided to contact some of the people living in Cuenca on Couchsurfing and see if anyone wanted to hang out. I sent out a ton of messages, since I hadn’t gotten a lot of replies in the past. Surprise! Pretty much everyone wrote back. People are so warm here. We had 10 or so Couchsurfers over to our hostel for a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, which was really fun. Ace and I spent the whole day cooking as close to a traditional feast as we could- two whole chickens (they have turkey here, but it’s really expensive), mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, apple cider, empanadas (a little touch of Ecuador), Mom’s yummy candied walnut salad, and an apple berry cobbler. The gravy was the only thing that totally bombed, which I was ok with. Plus, our guests were all from different countries (five Ecuadorians, two Spaniards, two Belgians,and a Brazilian), so they didn’t know what they were missing ! We’ve gotten to hang out with Roos and Kathleen, the two lovely Belgian girls, quite a bit. We went to Baños (a nearby village with really nice hot springs) two weekends ago, and on a waterfall hike last weekend. We also have gotten to hang out with Claire-Marie and Pepo a few times. Claire-Marie is a French girl working in a charitable foundation here, and Pepo is a rad Ecuadorian guy who is working on making Ace a thumb harp Lots of good people here.
We´re looking to keep pretty busy our last week- going salsa dancing with Kathleen , Pepo, and Claire-Marie tonight, going to Pepo´s family´s property to help with the house-building effort on Friday, going to my Spanish teacher´s family barbecue on Saturday, and going to Cajas national park on Sunday. Enshallah-ojala. Oh yeah, and studying and working too :)
We haven´t really plotted out exactly what´s next, but after seeing Roos´photos of climbing Cotopaxi, we decided we can´t leave Ecuador without doing it. So after here it´s back north to prepare and acclimatize to the elevation, hiking a rad glacier-covered volcano (with professional guides and good gear, no worries!), then baaackkk south (again) towards Vilcabamba and on to Peru. We´re thinking we should be in Iquitos, Peru by Christmas so we can either enjoy a magical hippy Christmas on the Rainbow Community farm or be out in the jungle spearing pirahnas and cooking them over the fire for our Christmas dinner. Or something like that.
Lots of love to all of you back home. We love and miss you, as always.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Daily life in Cuenca
It's been very nice to "settle down" for a month in one particular city for a while. I have been keeping myself quite busy by attending Spanish classes, which are about a 5-minute walk from the hostel. I feel like I have been progressing well during my time here, mostly because I have been studying like crazy. Getting the most out of the lessons this month has definitely been my top priority. My teacher is very intelligent, and he generally likes to talk with me about Ecuadorian, world, or U.S. politics. Today we talked about such light, breezy topics as the controversy over the mosque going up in New York and the war in Iraq; this was after we talked about why Ecuador is an ungovernable country (my teacher's opinion).
Kait has been volunteering at the animal refuge, a place outside of the city that has all kinds of wild animals that they are rehabilitating. I haven't been there yet, but I will go this Wednesday on my "day off" from classes. (I arranged with my teacher to add those hours on to a different day.) She also just found another refuge located here in the city where she will be volunteering for two days per week.
The weather here has been quite rainy throughout our entire stay here. I guess it is supposed to be like the Corvallis of Ecuador in that it rains a lot, and the weather is just as unpredictable by the week as it is by the hour.
We do enjoy, however, going to the nearby food market, a large indoor warehouse sort of building with two stories - raw produce and meat on the ground level and cooked food and fruit blends on the top. This is a nice way to get out of the hostel and eat some good food. I personally enjoy the roast pig that they have in one section of the upper level. Once you come up the stairs, you immediately see about seven whole, roasted pigs sitting out on the counters waiting for you. The vendors serve the pork on a bed of rice or some kind of cooked corn mixed with vegetables. Yum!
To get out over the weekend, we went to our nearest ice cream/coffee shop and sat for a while to study. After that, we found the local shopping mall (wherein could be found a cinema) to watch a nice romantic action movie. Other than that, we have been keeping pretty busy by cooking for almost every meal, studying in the hostel, reading our newly purchased books from a nearby English bookstore (a rare thing in Ecuador) and just getting to know the city.
Hopefully next weekend, we will take a trip to Cajas National Park and we'll let you know how it goes. We wanted to go this weekend, but the weather was so rainy that we decided to stay in town.
Kait has been volunteering at the animal refuge, a place outside of the city that has all kinds of wild animals that they are rehabilitating. I haven't been there yet, but I will go this Wednesday on my "day off" from classes. (I arranged with my teacher to add those hours on to a different day.) She also just found another refuge located here in the city where she will be volunteering for two days per week.
The weather here has been quite rainy throughout our entire stay here. I guess it is supposed to be like the Corvallis of Ecuador in that it rains a lot, and the weather is just as unpredictable by the week as it is by the hour.
We do enjoy, however, going to the nearby food market, a large indoor warehouse sort of building with two stories - raw produce and meat on the ground level and cooked food and fruit blends on the top. This is a nice way to get out of the hostel and eat some good food. I personally enjoy the roast pig that they have in one section of the upper level. Once you come up the stairs, you immediately see about seven whole, roasted pigs sitting out on the counters waiting for you. The vendors serve the pork on a bed of rice or some kind of cooked corn mixed with vegetables. Yum!
To get out over the weekend, we went to our nearest ice cream/coffee shop and sat for a while to study. After that, we found the local shopping mall (wherein could be found a cinema) to watch a nice romantic action movie. Other than that, we have been keeping pretty busy by cooking for almost every meal, studying in the hostel, reading our newly purchased books from a nearby English bookstore (a rare thing in Ecuador) and just getting to know the city.
Hopefully next weekend, we will take a trip to Cajas National Park and we'll let you know how it goes. We wanted to go this weekend, but the weather was so rainy that we decided to stay in town.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Weeding in Paradise
After returning to civilization, we were at a bit of a loss of what to do. We knew we wanted to settle down somewhere for a month so Ace could take Spanish classes, and we knew we liked Cuenca when we passed through. We also knew there was an animal refuge there that might be fun for me to volunteer at while Ace studied- the problem was that the only info we could find on the refuge was through a volunteer agency that wanted me to pay them several hundred bucks to work for free, and that the office would be closed for the next 4 days anyways due to Dia de los Santos and Cuencan independence day.
We were wandering around Vilcabamba aimlessly when we bumped into the two men who came to look at purchasing El Condor when we were up there. We chatted a bit, and they mentioned they´d just been out to another farm that accepted volunteers, and invited us to come visit it with them the next day. We agreed and went out to Garden of Paradise the next day, where the two very interesting owners invited us to stay with them through the holidays starting Monday. We agreed and headed back to our hostel, where we discovered that the 30ish American guy staying next door to us had just bought a farm and was accepting volunteers. We had a fun Halloween evening eating fries and drinking beer at the local expat hangout with him, his twin brother, and some other of his friends. Yay networking!
The next day we headed out to Garden of Paradise, where Norie and Richard put us up in their beautiful guest quarters. I won´t even get into the missions of the anti-nuclear activist/archealogist/bestselling author/motivational speaker/ multilingual owners or the many things the future will hold for their property…their website will tell you all about it if you´re interested!
http://www.gardenofparadise.net/Garden_of_Paradise/Garden_of_Paradise.html
We spent Monday through Saturday there, sanding railings, digging trenches, watering countless trees and plants, weeding, and more. We had a lot of fun conversations and good meals cooked together, but the highlight for both Ace and I was definitely getting to edit the first half of the book Norie is currently working on. So cool! On Thursday we went into town and made some phone calls. I did manage to get a hold of the animal refuge on my own, without the expensive middle man- yay!
On Saturday morning we said “goodbye for now” to Norie and Richard and took the extremely curvy 6 hour bus ride back up to Cuenca. Fortunately, the bus driver was much less insane this time and we weren’t fighting back nausea for the entire trip like last time. Once in Cuenca, we set about looking for a decent hostel that would cut us a good deal for a one-month stay. After checking out a bunch, we ended up at La Perla Cuencana, a cozy little family-run place with a kitty, kitchens, internet, and one decent shower with gives hot water (as opposed to the other 5 freezing cold showers). We’re keeping that hidden-away jem as our little secret.
We’re settled in very happily here now. Ace started his classes today (he’ll be doing 10 hours a week of private lessons in the mornings, and hopefully volunteering with me on Wednesdays) and I’ll start my 4 hours a week of after-volunteering lessons tomorrow. I’ve been out to the refuge twice now, and am really enjoying getting to know the wonderful owner and his family and getting to get up close and personal with so many amazing animals. I haven’t felt super useful, but hopefully that will change as I learn more and am able to take on more tasks on my own.
We were wandering around Vilcabamba aimlessly when we bumped into the two men who came to look at purchasing El Condor when we were up there. We chatted a bit, and they mentioned they´d just been out to another farm that accepted volunteers, and invited us to come visit it with them the next day. We agreed and went out to Garden of Paradise the next day, where the two very interesting owners invited us to stay with them through the holidays starting Monday. We agreed and headed back to our hostel, where we discovered that the 30ish American guy staying next door to us had just bought a farm and was accepting volunteers. We had a fun Halloween evening eating fries and drinking beer at the local expat hangout with him, his twin brother, and some other of his friends. Yay networking!
The next day we headed out to Garden of Paradise, where Norie and Richard put us up in their beautiful guest quarters. I won´t even get into the missions of the anti-nuclear activist/archealogist/bestselling author/motivational speaker/ multilingual owners or the many things the future will hold for their property…their website will tell you all about it if you´re interested!
http://www.gardenofparadise.net/Garden_of_Paradise/Garden_of_Paradise.html
We spent Monday through Saturday there, sanding railings, digging trenches, watering countless trees and plants, weeding, and more. We had a lot of fun conversations and good meals cooked together, but the highlight for both Ace and I was definitely getting to edit the first half of the book Norie is currently working on. So cool! On Thursday we went into town and made some phone calls. I did manage to get a hold of the animal refuge on my own, without the expensive middle man- yay!
On Saturday morning we said “goodbye for now” to Norie and Richard and took the extremely curvy 6 hour bus ride back up to Cuenca. Fortunately, the bus driver was much less insane this time and we weren’t fighting back nausea for the entire trip like last time. Once in Cuenca, we set about looking for a decent hostel that would cut us a good deal for a one-month stay. After checking out a bunch, we ended up at La Perla Cuencana, a cozy little family-run place with a kitty, kitchens, internet, and one decent shower with gives hot water (as opposed to the other 5 freezing cold showers). We’re keeping that hidden-away jem as our little secret.
We’re settled in very happily here now. Ace started his classes today (he’ll be doing 10 hours a week of private lessons in the mornings, and hopefully volunteering with me on Wednesdays) and I’ll start my 4 hours a week of after-volunteering lessons tomorrow. I’ve been out to the refuge twice now, and am really enjoying getting to know the wonderful owner and his family and getting to get up close and personal with so many amazing animals. I haven’t felt super useful, but hopefully that will change as I learn more and am able to take on more tasks on my own.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
El Condor - WWOOF site
Today we find ourselves in the middle of Vilcabamba, the village from which we springboarded to El Condor. After 10 days straight on the farm, we have arrived back here with pleasure in seeing other people, stomachs poised and ready for good cuisine, and an appreciation for our experience on the farm.
Although the work we did there was by no means easy, we can´t say that we did enough work to feel the full brunt of "pure" farm living. To start with, we were the only people consistently staying the night on the farm and remaining there through our 10-day stretch. The only other person that we really had contact with was a kind man by the name of Vicente, the caretaker of the farm. Apparently, the owner of El Condor recently passed away, and his two sons are living in the U.S. and attending university in a coastal city of Ecuador, so Vicente is the only one attending to the farm and the animals on it. He takes care of nurturing seedlings to be planted (like coffee, broccoli, alfalfa, and others), and he maintains the amount of plants already there. He uses the alfalfa and corn grown there to feed the chickens and guinea pigs that he has been raising.
We arrived on a Thursday, and while there, we helped do a few things on the farm; principally, we helped by arranging bovine fertilizer (cow poo) into piles along a very steep hillside where the (pregnant) cows had been grazing. Although the work wasn´t too hard by itself, going up and down a steep hill with full buckets of fertilzer proved fairly tiring after a couple of hours. Focusing on not touching my face with my gloved hand was definitely a mental difficulty. Other tasks included weeding thickly grown plants from the coffee patch and the upper garden with shovels and helping to mend fences with bamboo. However, on the whole, we can say that we probably had more free time than we did work time. We filled this mostly by studying our Spanish books on the porch or in the dining room and preparing/collecting various kinds of food.
Anyways, Vicente was there roughly every other day - or less - during our stay there, which was nice because we had days where we were free to simply sit and ponder about what hard, physical, farm labor SHOULD be like. His absence did, however provide an obstacle or two during our stay there.
Usually with WWOOF organizations, it is expected for them to feed the volunteers (us) during the stay there, but seeing as how they only offer foods that they grow on the farm, we made sure to bring in whatever extra food we would need from the stores in town. Anyways, after we had exhausted our two loaves of bread, avocado, and other staples(a few days in), we were primarily left with lentils, beans rice, and potatoes, as well as a few veggies we still had left. By this time it was Sunday, and we had already prepared and eaten a few of the foods just mentioned earlier in the week. We anticipated Vicente to come back on Monday to take down our shopping list so that he could run into town with his motor bike and buy us a few more staples on Tuesday to last us the week.
Long story short, he did not show up when we thought he would, and we ended up eating nothign but lentils, beans, rice, and potatoes for longer than expected, which had gassy results for both of us, as you can imagine... Once he delivered our food, however, we were unusually ecstatic about simple things such as german pancakes and toast; I never thought something so simple as toast would give me so much pleasure in life.
I would say that the things we enjoyed most were picking blackberries (and making an improvised cobbler out of it), collecting oranges and bananas for fresh juice and smoothies, hiking around just for the fun of it, witnessing inexplicably beautiful sunsets over the Andean mountain range every evening, and having a perfectly stress-free 10 days where all we really had to worry about was feeding ourselves (and the critters) and bathing, in that order. We are really glad to have had such a unique experience in Ecuador, and we can´t wait to have more similar experiences at WWOOF organizations in other countries as well.
For now, though, the rough plan is to travel to Cuenca tomorrow where I will start attending a language school for a month, and Kait will explore volunteer opportunities. We have already found very promising prospects on both of these fronts, so we are excited to see how things work out. Wish us luck!
Although the work we did there was by no means easy, we can´t say that we did enough work to feel the full brunt of "pure" farm living. To start with, we were the only people consistently staying the night on the farm and remaining there through our 10-day stretch. The only other person that we really had contact with was a kind man by the name of Vicente, the caretaker of the farm. Apparently, the owner of El Condor recently passed away, and his two sons are living in the U.S. and attending university in a coastal city of Ecuador, so Vicente is the only one attending to the farm and the animals on it. He takes care of nurturing seedlings to be planted (like coffee, broccoli, alfalfa, and others), and he maintains the amount of plants already there. He uses the alfalfa and corn grown there to feed the chickens and guinea pigs that he has been raising.
We arrived on a Thursday, and while there, we helped do a few things on the farm; principally, we helped by arranging bovine fertilizer (cow poo) into piles along a very steep hillside where the (pregnant) cows had been grazing. Although the work wasn´t too hard by itself, going up and down a steep hill with full buckets of fertilzer proved fairly tiring after a couple of hours. Focusing on not touching my face with my gloved hand was definitely a mental difficulty. Other tasks included weeding thickly grown plants from the coffee patch and the upper garden with shovels and helping to mend fences with bamboo. However, on the whole, we can say that we probably had more free time than we did work time. We filled this mostly by studying our Spanish books on the porch or in the dining room and preparing/collecting various kinds of food.
Anyways, Vicente was there roughly every other day - or less - during our stay there, which was nice because we had days where we were free to simply sit and ponder about what hard, physical, farm labor SHOULD be like. His absence did, however provide an obstacle or two during our stay there.
Usually with WWOOF organizations, it is expected for them to feed the volunteers (us) during the stay there, but seeing as how they only offer foods that they grow on the farm, we made sure to bring in whatever extra food we would need from the stores in town. Anyways, after we had exhausted our two loaves of bread, avocado, and other staples(a few days in), we were primarily left with lentils, beans rice, and potatoes, as well as a few veggies we still had left. By this time it was Sunday, and we had already prepared and eaten a few of the foods just mentioned earlier in the week. We anticipated Vicente to come back on Monday to take down our shopping list so that he could run into town with his motor bike and buy us a few more staples on Tuesday to last us the week.
Long story short, he did not show up when we thought he would, and we ended up eating nothign but lentils, beans, rice, and potatoes for longer than expected, which had gassy results for both of us, as you can imagine... Once he delivered our food, however, we were unusually ecstatic about simple things such as german pancakes and toast; I never thought something so simple as toast would give me so much pleasure in life.
I would say that the things we enjoyed most were picking blackberries (and making an improvised cobbler out of it), collecting oranges and bananas for fresh juice and smoothies, hiking around just for the fun of it, witnessing inexplicably beautiful sunsets over the Andean mountain range every evening, and having a perfectly stress-free 10 days where all we really had to worry about was feeding ourselves (and the critters) and bathing, in that order. We are really glad to have had such a unique experience in Ecuador, and we can´t wait to have more similar experiences at WWOOF organizations in other countries as well.
For now, though, the rough plan is to travel to Cuenca tomorrow where I will start attending a language school for a month, and Kait will explore volunteer opportunities. We have already found very promising prospects on both of these fronts, so we are excited to see how things work out. Wish us luck!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Banos and Cuenca
I’m afraid the Oregon weather has followed us. Since we left Latacunga after travelling the Loop we’ve been plagued by rain.
Our next stop was Baños, a smallish city in a gorgeous, lush area with tons of waterfalls. It’s pretty touristy, and lots of people end up spending quite a bit of time there doing all t he fun adventure tourism there is there- bungee jumping off bridges, rapelling down waterfalls, ziplining, horseback riding, etc. We thought we’d do the stuff on the ground first, and got in one really beautiful hike on the mountain above the city. Along the way, an ancient woman with a bundle of sticks on her back came along us on the path, gave Ace a huge grin, and said something along the line of “well hello gorgeous, where are you from?” We spent the evening in the very popular outdoor thermal baths that the city is famous for. Glorious.
The next day we went for a bike ride along bright green mountains and above a river in a canyon with tons of waterfalls dropping in to meet it. The rain caught up with us about half way, though, so we caught a bus back. The rain was showing no signs of letting up for a day of ziplining or canyoning , so the next day we caught a 6 hour bus ride South to Cuenca.
We’ve seen a lot of lovely villages so far, but Cuenca is definitely our favorite city. It’s charming in a very colonial way- lots of old cobbled streets, restored historical buildings, etc. Unfortunately our first evening there, I got a pretty brutal bout of what must have been food poisoning. I had a pretty rough night and woke up with a fever the next morning. Fortunately the hostel had a lounge and movie room, so I spend most of the next day watching movies while Ace took care of me :) The next day I felt much better, so Ace took me to a museum he’d seen the day before where we got to scope out shrunken heads. Cool. There was also a beautiful garden and bird area and the most adorable little baby llama in the world. The rain continued, so we took a bus to another outdoor thermal pool- who cares when it’s cold and rainy if you’re ear-deep in a swimming pool full of perfectly toasty bathwater?
Today we said goodbye to Cuenca and took the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, then caught our connection to Vilcabamba, our home for the next few weeks. One thing that continues to amaze us is that although we’re travelling between major cities right down the center of the country, we’re still winding about mist-shrouded volcanoes, bouncing through remote villages on unpaved section of road, and hurling around the most unbelievably curvy roads we’ve ever ridden. I spend the entire ride today with my eyes closed trying to sleep as I knew I’d throw up if I looked out the window- a shame, as I’m sure the scenery was stunning. Vilcabamba greeted us with a classic tropical downpour, which actually felt pretty good as we were still pretty woozy from the ride. We found a room at the lovely Rendez-vous hostel, a French-run place with gorgeous gardens and a cute pudgy cat. We got our groceries to take up to the farm, including such essentials as wine and dark chocolate, and we’re ready and excited to make the trek to El Condor, our first WWoofing farm, tomorrow. We’re really glad we’ll be staying in this area for a while- it ‘s small, laid-back, and fairly tropical here- absolutely lovely. We’ll be away from the internet on the farm, but will fill you all in as soon as we get back!
Our next stop was Baños, a smallish city in a gorgeous, lush area with tons of waterfalls. It’s pretty touristy, and lots of people end up spending quite a bit of time there doing all t he fun adventure tourism there is there- bungee jumping off bridges, rapelling down waterfalls, ziplining, horseback riding, etc. We thought we’d do the stuff on the ground first, and got in one really beautiful hike on the mountain above the city. Along the way, an ancient woman with a bundle of sticks on her back came along us on the path, gave Ace a huge grin, and said something along the line of “well hello gorgeous, where are you from?” We spent the evening in the very popular outdoor thermal baths that the city is famous for. Glorious.
The next day we went for a bike ride along bright green mountains and above a river in a canyon with tons of waterfalls dropping in to meet it. The rain caught up with us about half way, though, so we caught a bus back. The rain was showing no signs of letting up for a day of ziplining or canyoning , so the next day we caught a 6 hour bus ride South to Cuenca.
We’ve seen a lot of lovely villages so far, but Cuenca is definitely our favorite city. It’s charming in a very colonial way- lots of old cobbled streets, restored historical buildings, etc. Unfortunately our first evening there, I got a pretty brutal bout of what must have been food poisoning. I had a pretty rough night and woke up with a fever the next morning. Fortunately the hostel had a lounge and movie room, so I spend most of the next day watching movies while Ace took care of me :) The next day I felt much better, so Ace took me to a museum he’d seen the day before where we got to scope out shrunken heads. Cool. There was also a beautiful garden and bird area and the most adorable little baby llama in the world. The rain continued, so we took a bus to another outdoor thermal pool- who cares when it’s cold and rainy if you’re ear-deep in a swimming pool full of perfectly toasty bathwater?
Today we said goodbye to Cuenca and took the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, then caught our connection to Vilcabamba, our home for the next few weeks. One thing that continues to amaze us is that although we’re travelling between major cities right down the center of the country, we’re still winding about mist-shrouded volcanoes, bouncing through remote villages on unpaved section of road, and hurling around the most unbelievably curvy roads we’ve ever ridden. I spend the entire ride today with my eyes closed trying to sleep as I knew I’d throw up if I looked out the window- a shame, as I’m sure the scenery was stunning. Vilcabamba greeted us with a classic tropical downpour, which actually felt pretty good as we were still pretty woozy from the ride. We found a room at the lovely Rendez-vous hostel, a French-run place with gorgeous gardens and a cute pudgy cat. We got our groceries to take up to the farm, including such essentials as wine and dark chocolate, and we’re ready and excited to make the trek to El Condor, our first WWoofing farm, tomorrow. We’re really glad we’ll be staying in this area for a while- it ‘s small, laid-back, and fairly tropical here- absolutely lovely. We’ll be away from the internet on the farm, but will fill you all in as soon as we get back!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Quilotoa Loop
Kait and I just finished the Quilotoa Loop, which starts and ends in Latacunga. At first, we we had to choose between two different paths to take: starting in Quilotoa, or starting in Isinliva, a small, 80-person town with only one hostel. Being that Quilotoa, with it´s massive crater lake, was the main attraction of our trip, we decided that we would start in Isinlivi, leaving the best for last.
To prepare for our trip, Kait and I generally agreed that it would be easier to condense our massive backpacks into one (and leaving the other bag in Latacunga at the hostel) due to the fact that we would be doing quite a lot of hiking. Unfortunately for me (the one who decided to carry it), it was actually heavier with both of our "essentials" than with all of my stuff alone. Next time we will pack much less. Anyways, after leaving Hostel and Cafe Tiana in Latacunga, we started on our two-hour bus ride to Isinlivi.
Now normally bus rides are nothing of particular interest to us; usually we try not to get too hot or nauseous while taking the necessary-but-generally-unpleasant trip between two places. This ride, however, was much different than any others that we have taken. Once we were on the bus for 30 minutes, we began the ascent into a vast network of mountain-top farmlands that continued unceasingly for the rest of our trip. For miles and miles, we could see that nearly every square inch of hilltops along the bus route were covered in farms, and particularly beautiful was that each individual segment of farm was a different color than the next. This combined with excellent views of nearby volcanoes with their peaks in the clouds made for one of the most beautiful bus rides (if not THE most beautiful) that we have taken. To make things even better, we met yet another awesome Canadian named Danny on the bus who ended up coming with us for the entire Loop.
Before too long, we arrived in Isinlivi, and stayed at a hostel called Llullu Llama, a hostel run by the same people that run the Hostel Tiana in Latacunga. Once we arrived, we found a Dutch couple volunteering to run the hostel as well as teach a few subjects at the local high school. After taking in the view of a gorge from a nearby peak, Danny, Kait and I decided to have a few beers before dinner, both of which were excellent.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast provided by the hostel, we immediately began our hike into the valley using a ridiculous set of instructions explained in broken English provided by the hostel. An example of one description was “Start going up when the wáter comes to the edge.” After only getting lost for part of the way – nice farmers helped us get on track – we eventually heade in the direction where we needed to go. Unfortunately for us, after traveling for so long at the bottom of the valley, we eventually had to go up… Normally this would be no problem, but I, with my 40-pound pack on my back, was dreading it, no matter how much it needed to be done. So up we went, and I, sending Kait and Danny ahead of me, took baby steps up to the top, stopping when I could to catch my breath. After what felt like 30 minutes of this, I finally caught up to Kait and Danny at the top where there was a road that would take us to our next stop: Chugchilan. Before that, though, we descended once again near the bottom of the valley to a very small village where we rested a bit, and learned that we, once again, had to climb an even steeper, longer hillside than before. After we all recovered from the shock that I did not collapse and fall down the hillside, we continued along the road (which was still generally uphill) and eventually made our way to our next hostel, The Cloud Forest Hostel in Chugchilan.
After consuming much-needed food and soda, we rested for the night and planned for our next trek to Quilotoa. All of us agreed, however, that with my idiotically heavy backpack, I should not nearly kill myself for two days in a row, and therefore we planned to take the next leg of the loop, the hardest leg, by horseback. So early in the morning after breakfast, we met our guide and got on our three trusty steeds. Our guide, a silly man who kept asking us if we were single or not, kept us going fast along the road to Quilotoa. (He would whip our horses for us; apparently he was in a hurry.) Danny´s horse, however, was a grumpy mother who, once whipped by the guide´s rope, would buck just enough to make things fairly uncomfortable for her… I couldn´t help but laugh just a little… My horse was a very smart one who, upon hearing faster horse hooves behind her, would speed up, likely out of a fear of being whipped, so I was always in the lead. I liked to think I actually had some control over the horse, but she basically just responded to the guide´s sounds behind her.
After a very short two hours, we made it to Quilotoa, got off our horses, checked in to our hostel after bartering to get a cheaper price, and promptly made our way down the crater´s rim. After a beautiful hike downwards, we found a cheery old guy at the bottom who was eager to sell one of us a horse ride with his horse back to the top for the same price as our room for the night. After declining, we made our way back to the top in an hour less than the guidebook said it would take. (We were quite proud of ourselves about that!)
Then we stayed the night, hiked along the road to Zumbahua to catch a bus back to Latacunga. The road hike was nice, but at the end of it, we were all really tired and ready to recharge our batteries, so we ate lunch, and caught a bus back here without incident. We are happy today, after all that hiking, that we have a chance to rest and get ourselves in order before heading to Banos, a city two hours south of us. Once there, we will likely do some trekking, visit some thermal baths, and possibly some other adventure tourism if it looks good.
To prepare for our trip, Kait and I generally agreed that it would be easier to condense our massive backpacks into one (and leaving the other bag in Latacunga at the hostel) due to the fact that we would be doing quite a lot of hiking. Unfortunately for me (the one who decided to carry it), it was actually heavier with both of our "essentials" than with all of my stuff alone. Next time we will pack much less. Anyways, after leaving Hostel and Cafe Tiana in Latacunga, we started on our two-hour bus ride to Isinlivi.
Now normally bus rides are nothing of particular interest to us; usually we try not to get too hot or nauseous while taking the necessary-but-generally-unpleasant trip between two places. This ride, however, was much different than any others that we have taken. Once we were on the bus for 30 minutes, we began the ascent into a vast network of mountain-top farmlands that continued unceasingly for the rest of our trip. For miles and miles, we could see that nearly every square inch of hilltops along the bus route were covered in farms, and particularly beautiful was that each individual segment of farm was a different color than the next. This combined with excellent views of nearby volcanoes with their peaks in the clouds made for one of the most beautiful bus rides (if not THE most beautiful) that we have taken. To make things even better, we met yet another awesome Canadian named Danny on the bus who ended up coming with us for the entire Loop.
Before too long, we arrived in Isinlivi, and stayed at a hostel called Llullu Llama, a hostel run by the same people that run the Hostel Tiana in Latacunga. Once we arrived, we found a Dutch couple volunteering to run the hostel as well as teach a few subjects at the local high school. After taking in the view of a gorge from a nearby peak, Danny, Kait and I decided to have a few beers before dinner, both of which were excellent.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast provided by the hostel, we immediately began our hike into the valley using a ridiculous set of instructions explained in broken English provided by the hostel. An example of one description was “Start going up when the wáter comes to the edge.” After only getting lost for part of the way – nice farmers helped us get on track – we eventually heade in the direction where we needed to go. Unfortunately for us, after traveling for so long at the bottom of the valley, we eventually had to go up… Normally this would be no problem, but I, with my 40-pound pack on my back, was dreading it, no matter how much it needed to be done. So up we went, and I, sending Kait and Danny ahead of me, took baby steps up to the top, stopping when I could to catch my breath. After what felt like 30 minutes of this, I finally caught up to Kait and Danny at the top where there was a road that would take us to our next stop: Chugchilan. Before that, though, we descended once again near the bottom of the valley to a very small village where we rested a bit, and learned that we, once again, had to climb an even steeper, longer hillside than before. After we all recovered from the shock that I did not collapse and fall down the hillside, we continued along the road (which was still generally uphill) and eventually made our way to our next hostel, The Cloud Forest Hostel in Chugchilan.
After consuming much-needed food and soda, we rested for the night and planned for our next trek to Quilotoa. All of us agreed, however, that with my idiotically heavy backpack, I should not nearly kill myself for two days in a row, and therefore we planned to take the next leg of the loop, the hardest leg, by horseback. So early in the morning after breakfast, we met our guide and got on our three trusty steeds. Our guide, a silly man who kept asking us if we were single or not, kept us going fast along the road to Quilotoa. (He would whip our horses for us; apparently he was in a hurry.) Danny´s horse, however, was a grumpy mother who, once whipped by the guide´s rope, would buck just enough to make things fairly uncomfortable for her… I couldn´t help but laugh just a little… My horse was a very smart one who, upon hearing faster horse hooves behind her, would speed up, likely out of a fear of being whipped, so I was always in the lead. I liked to think I actually had some control over the horse, but she basically just responded to the guide´s sounds behind her.
After a very short two hours, we made it to Quilotoa, got off our horses, checked in to our hostel after bartering to get a cheaper price, and promptly made our way down the crater´s rim. After a beautiful hike downwards, we found a cheery old guy at the bottom who was eager to sell one of us a horse ride with his horse back to the top for the same price as our room for the night. After declining, we made our way back to the top in an hour less than the guidebook said it would take. (We were quite proud of ourselves about that!)
Then we stayed the night, hiked along the road to Zumbahua to catch a bus back to Latacunga. The road hike was nice, but at the end of it, we were all really tired and ready to recharge our batteries, so we ate lunch, and caught a bus back here without incident. We are happy today, after all that hiking, that we have a chance to rest and get ourselves in order before heading to Banos, a city two hours south of us. Once there, we will likely do some trekking, visit some thermal baths, and possibly some other adventure tourism if it looks good.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Quito and Otavalo, Ecuador
So far so good! Ace and I arrived safely in Quito after 23 or so hours of travel. We missed one flight but were put o n one leaving an hour later, so made the rest of our connections.
We stayed in a friendly little Ecuadorian-run hostel named Chicago Hostal for $16 total a night . We spent our first full day in Ecuador exploring Quito, walking all around and between the old city and new city. There were a few lovely examples of colonialist architecture, but other than that I was a little surprised by the city- I was expecting something a little more Cosmopolitan, I suppose. The people are wonderful, though- friendly, always ready to offer good advice, and very patient with my Spanish.
The next day we grabbed a bus to Otavalo, a village about 2 hours north of Quito which is famed for it´s Saturday handicrafts market. During our two nights there, we wandered around markets, took pictures, hiked around a cráter lake, and bought some cozy wool sweaters and hats for when we move to higher elevations. We´ve been surprised at how quickly it cools down at night here!
Today we cruised around the animal auction and market in Otavalo, then moved on to Latacunga, a smallish city about 2.5 hours south of Quito. We´re enjoying the lovely hostel Tiana here, which has everything a traveller could want- an $8 place to sleep, hot wáter, internet, a book Exchange, helpful staff and places to hang out and talk to other travellers. Tomorrow we´re excited to do a walking tour of the city and then take a bus to a nearby village to start our several day trek around the string of quaint villages, mountains and the cráter lake that make up the Quilotoa loop.
A major highlight of everything so far has been getting to speak so much Spanish. I´m having so much fun getting to remember words and learn new ones, but even better is getting to chat with the cab driver, ask for directions, make small talk with the street food vender, bargain…all without too much trouble. So empowering! Ace is studying every night and picking the language up astonishingly fast. The food has been cheap and plentiful, but i would have to say that the two main food groups here are meat and french fries. Can´t complain about getting a huge meal for $3, though, and the soups and fresh fruit juices are really nice.
That´s it for now- we´ll write again after we get back from the Quilotoa Loop. I´m trying to upload photos on shutterfly, but I´m afraid the fact that only two photos have uploaded while i type this is a bad sign. All our love to everyone!
We stayed in a friendly little Ecuadorian-run hostel named Chicago Hostal for $16 total a night . We spent our first full day in Ecuador exploring Quito, walking all around and between the old city and new city. There were a few lovely examples of colonialist architecture, but other than that I was a little surprised by the city- I was expecting something a little more Cosmopolitan, I suppose. The people are wonderful, though- friendly, always ready to offer good advice, and very patient with my Spanish.
The next day we grabbed a bus to Otavalo, a village about 2 hours north of Quito which is famed for it´s Saturday handicrafts market. During our two nights there, we wandered around markets, took pictures, hiked around a cráter lake, and bought some cozy wool sweaters and hats for when we move to higher elevations. We´ve been surprised at how quickly it cools down at night here!
Today we cruised around the animal auction and market in Otavalo, then moved on to Latacunga, a smallish city about 2.5 hours south of Quito. We´re enjoying the lovely hostel Tiana here, which has everything a traveller could want- an $8 place to sleep, hot wáter, internet, a book Exchange, helpful staff and places to hang out and talk to other travellers. Tomorrow we´re excited to do a walking tour of the city and then take a bus to a nearby village to start our several day trek around the string of quaint villages, mountains and the cráter lake that make up the Quilotoa loop.
A major highlight of everything so far has been getting to speak so much Spanish. I´m having so much fun getting to remember words and learn new ones, but even better is getting to chat with the cab driver, ask for directions, make small talk with the street food vender, bargain…all without too much trouble. So empowering! Ace is studying every night and picking the language up astonishingly fast. The food has been cheap and plentiful, but i would have to say that the two main food groups here are meat and french fries. Can´t complain about getting a huge meal for $3, though, and the soups and fresh fruit juices are really nice.
That´s it for now- we´ll write again after we get back from the Quilotoa Loop. I´m trying to upload photos on shutterfly, but I´m afraid the fact that only two photos have uploaded while i type this is a bad sign. All our love to everyone!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wrapping it up...
15 days till we leave for Greece! Ace and I are both starting to get excited. I could definitely stay in Istanbul- I love it here- but am really looking forward to everything to come. Since I know I’m leaving soon, I haven’t found new students to replace the ones that have drifted away (average shelf life for a private student seems to be about 3 months) and I’m finding my last weeks pretty light on work and pretty heavy on….waiting. I’m taking the opportunity to see my friends as much as I possibly can without seeming to lonely and desperate!
Today I worked out, then met a friend of a friend who’s new in town. She’s looking for work and I’m looking for someone reliable to recommend to my students when I’m gone, so that worked out nicely. She’s a Midwestern mom whose kids just recently graduated high school, so she’s seizing “the ten years between when they graduate and when they reproduce” to see the world Very cool. We chatted for a long time about students, making it as a tutor, and life in Istanbul in general, then I walked up the hill to Molly’s Café, where I’m now sipping a latte and admiring the very preggers café cat. On the way up the hill, I had the fortune to run into two very lovely street kittens on a doorstep. I stopped to say hi, and within a minute both were lounging in my lap. A Turkish guy stopped to play with the kitties- I figured he was more interested in my low-cut shirt than the kittens, and I got kinda bristly- but it turns out I was wrong, as he stayed behind to bat at a pamphlet with them when I walked off. It’s nice to be wrong sometimes! I caught another Turkish guy- this one maybe high-school aged- stopping to admire another batch of kittens in our rather tough neighborhood. He snapped a picture on his cell phone, then turned the phone around to show the kitties the picture and get their approval. Adorable.
I’m getting kind of antsy to start packing, cleaning, and giving away stuff, but I’m going to hold out for another week. Hopefully I’ll keep a bit busier this coming week- Friday is graduation at Ace’s school, so I’ll meet everybody in the suburb for that, then we’ll spend the night at Erin’s and hopefully mooch off Melissa’s apartment’s pool. Ace is finished with conventional classes and testing, and is now pretty much just babysitting the few students who are still coming to school. His stress level seems to be a lot lower now, though he’s still having to deal with a healthy dose of school drama, and he’s pretty darn excited to be done so soon. Apparently the school has run out of money (again) and isn’t paying the primary and kinder teachers, so our friend Anna, a kinder teacher, has stopped coming to school (as well she should). That means that the upper level teachers are covering in shifts, so Ace has been recruited to help with the kinders two hours a day several times this week. Aw.
Greece planning (the little bit I’m doing) is going well. We’re planning on spending two nights or so in Athens, then island-hopping around the Cyclades island group for the rest of our vacation, working our way south, then back north to Athens to fly back to Istanbul. The trouble is choosing which islands to visit- there are 200 islands in that group alone, and pretty much all of them are awesome! I’ve booked hostels for Athens and Santorini, the two places most likely to book up, and we’re planning on just going with the flow and finding lodging a night or two ahead of time for the other islands. I’ve also contacted some Couchsurfers, and we’re really hoping we’ll get to stay with someone in Athens or on some of the islands.
Wedding planning is going well- the big stuff is done, and the little stuff we can do from here is under control. I’m sure we’ll get swamped with to-do’s when we get home, but everything’s under control for now.
Ace and I were pretty set on doing our backpacking-wwoofing-couchsurfing trip from Ecuador to Argentina next year, but it looks like there’s a small chance things will change. Ace found a job posting for an international school in Bolivia, one which looks pretty reputable. It’s in the capital of Bolivia, which looks like a pretty pleasant place to live. I’ve gotten pretty excited about the idea of the unlimited open road next year, but financial stability and a home in Bolivia wouldn’t be too bad, either. It sounds like Ace is probably going to apply, and if, by a small chance, they’ll give him a decent contract and a week or two to fly home for the wedding….well, we’ll see.
Much love,
Kait
Today I worked out, then met a friend of a friend who’s new in town. She’s looking for work and I’m looking for someone reliable to recommend to my students when I’m gone, so that worked out nicely. She’s a Midwestern mom whose kids just recently graduated high school, so she’s seizing “the ten years between when they graduate and when they reproduce” to see the world Very cool. We chatted for a long time about students, making it as a tutor, and life in Istanbul in general, then I walked up the hill to Molly’s Café, where I’m now sipping a latte and admiring the very preggers café cat. On the way up the hill, I had the fortune to run into two very lovely street kittens on a doorstep. I stopped to say hi, and within a minute both were lounging in my lap. A Turkish guy stopped to play with the kitties- I figured he was more interested in my low-cut shirt than the kittens, and I got kinda bristly- but it turns out I was wrong, as he stayed behind to bat at a pamphlet with them when I walked off. It’s nice to be wrong sometimes! I caught another Turkish guy- this one maybe high-school aged- stopping to admire another batch of kittens in our rather tough neighborhood. He snapped a picture on his cell phone, then turned the phone around to show the kitties the picture and get their approval. Adorable.
I’m getting kind of antsy to start packing, cleaning, and giving away stuff, but I’m going to hold out for another week. Hopefully I’ll keep a bit busier this coming week- Friday is graduation at Ace’s school, so I’ll meet everybody in the suburb for that, then we’ll spend the night at Erin’s and hopefully mooch off Melissa’s apartment’s pool. Ace is finished with conventional classes and testing, and is now pretty much just babysitting the few students who are still coming to school. His stress level seems to be a lot lower now, though he’s still having to deal with a healthy dose of school drama, and he’s pretty darn excited to be done so soon. Apparently the school has run out of money (again) and isn’t paying the primary and kinder teachers, so our friend Anna, a kinder teacher, has stopped coming to school (as well she should). That means that the upper level teachers are covering in shifts, so Ace has been recruited to help with the kinders two hours a day several times this week. Aw.
Greece planning (the little bit I’m doing) is going well. We’re planning on spending two nights or so in Athens, then island-hopping around the Cyclades island group for the rest of our vacation, working our way south, then back north to Athens to fly back to Istanbul. The trouble is choosing which islands to visit- there are 200 islands in that group alone, and pretty much all of them are awesome! I’ve booked hostels for Athens and Santorini, the two places most likely to book up, and we’re planning on just going with the flow and finding lodging a night or two ahead of time for the other islands. I’ve also contacted some Couchsurfers, and we’re really hoping we’ll get to stay with someone in Athens or on some of the islands.
Wedding planning is going well- the big stuff is done, and the little stuff we can do from here is under control. I’m sure we’ll get swamped with to-do’s when we get home, but everything’s under control for now.
Ace and I were pretty set on doing our backpacking-wwoofing-couchsurfing trip from Ecuador to Argentina next year, but it looks like there’s a small chance things will change. Ace found a job posting for an international school in Bolivia, one which looks pretty reputable. It’s in the capital of Bolivia, which looks like a pretty pleasant place to live. I’ve gotten pretty excited about the idea of the unlimited open road next year, but financial stability and a home in Bolivia wouldn’t be too bad, either. It sounds like Ace is probably going to apply, and if, by a small chance, they’ll give him a decent contract and a week or two to fly home for the wedding….well, we’ll see.
Much love,
Kait
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Update from the ‘bul-
As far as day-to-day stuff goes, things are moving along well for us! I’ve been teaching the owner of a business on the Asian side, as well as one of his employees, 8-10 hours a week. Now his nephew (another employee) wants 8 hours on top of that! I’m pretty thrilled with my schedule now, as they’re all right after one another, and in the mornings. Double the hours at the business definitely makes the transportation time and costs less icky, too! They’re all great guys, too, really rewarding to work with. It has been so cool for me to get the opportunity to start working with absolute beginners and watch them grow. I know that everything they learned, they learned from me-a very cool feeling.
Ace is hanging in there with work- he’s been seeing some major improvements in his students’ classroom behavior, which is a definite triumph for him, even though they’ve still got a long way to go. He’s definitely on the countdown now, though, as his last week of teaching real classes is the last week in May. The three weeks after that are mostly testing and helping the students are behind.
The job hunt has gone through some major changes- the contract that Ace was working on in Honduras fell through, but we’re both perfectly happy with that. It’s definitely a blessing in disguise, as we were pretty worried about quality of life in San Pedro Sula as well as discipline and management problems in the school. Now he’s applying to one school in the capital of Costa Rica which is miraculously still hiring, which would be fantastic. We’re pretty excited about plans if he doesn’t find a school, either, though. If we don’t have any definite plans come the end of summer, we’ll take some more time at home, have more time to relax (or frantically prepare) as the wedding approaches, time to enjoy our little honeymoon, write thank-you’s together….all things we wouldn’t be able to do if he had to rush off to a school in August and fly home for the wedding. Then we’ll head off to do the travelling around South America that I’ve always wanted to do- a combination of backpacking and WOOFing. WOOF stands for Worldwide Organization of Organic Farming, and it’s a worldwide program that hooks small organic farmers up with travelers who are willing to work the farms for a few days or more in exchange for meals and a place to stay. Ace is really excited about the possibility of getting to learn some farming techniques, and we’re both really interested in the off-the-beaten-track experience of South America that we could get this way. After we got tired of being on the move (or start getting short on cash) we would either pick a good place to stop and find ESL jobs or Ace would accept a position with this organization that finds emergency International School teachers for schools that lose a teacher mid-year. We could end up anywhere through them, which could definitely be interesting! I’m hoping we’ll find a way to stay in South America, though, for the sake of our Spanish. If he does find a steady position this summer, though, these plans will just have to be scooted back till next summer.
Istanbul has finally decided to accept spring, and we’re really enjoying the sunshine and longer days. Tulips are blooming, the birds are muttering as usual (ok, we only have pigeons), and the neighborhood kids are graffiti-ing local buildings with chalk sunshines and dragging each other around on cardboard pulled from the trash piles until 11:00 at night. Last weekend was a three-day weekend, and we managed to get in a beautiful walk along the Bosphorous, hang-out time with several different friends, and walk with our professor friend and his students as they visited and discussed different statues around the city. We also discovered a park that’s pretty nearby that we didn’t even know existed- pretty excited about that, as my only problem with living in the middle of the city is the major lack of green. We’re excited to check that out again soon. Ace posted some spring in Istanbul pictures a few weeks ago, so check them out on our photo site if you haven’t yet!
Much love,
Kait
As far as day-to-day stuff goes, things are moving along well for us! I’ve been teaching the owner of a business on the Asian side, as well as one of his employees, 8-10 hours a week. Now his nephew (another employee) wants 8 hours on top of that! I’m pretty thrilled with my schedule now, as they’re all right after one another, and in the mornings. Double the hours at the business definitely makes the transportation time and costs less icky, too! They’re all great guys, too, really rewarding to work with. It has been so cool for me to get the opportunity to start working with absolute beginners and watch them grow. I know that everything they learned, they learned from me-a very cool feeling.
Ace is hanging in there with work- he’s been seeing some major improvements in his students’ classroom behavior, which is a definite triumph for him, even though they’ve still got a long way to go. He’s definitely on the countdown now, though, as his last week of teaching real classes is the last week in May. The three weeks after that are mostly testing and helping the students are behind.
The job hunt has gone through some major changes- the contract that Ace was working on in Honduras fell through, but we’re both perfectly happy with that. It’s definitely a blessing in disguise, as we were pretty worried about quality of life in San Pedro Sula as well as discipline and management problems in the school. Now he’s applying to one school in the capital of Costa Rica which is miraculously still hiring, which would be fantastic. We’re pretty excited about plans if he doesn’t find a school, either, though. If we don’t have any definite plans come the end of summer, we’ll take some more time at home, have more time to relax (or frantically prepare) as the wedding approaches, time to enjoy our little honeymoon, write thank-you’s together….all things we wouldn’t be able to do if he had to rush off to a school in August and fly home for the wedding. Then we’ll head off to do the travelling around South America that I’ve always wanted to do- a combination of backpacking and WOOFing. WOOF stands for Worldwide Organization of Organic Farming, and it’s a worldwide program that hooks small organic farmers up with travelers who are willing to work the farms for a few days or more in exchange for meals and a place to stay. Ace is really excited about the possibility of getting to learn some farming techniques, and we’re both really interested in the off-the-beaten-track experience of South America that we could get this way. After we got tired of being on the move (or start getting short on cash) we would either pick a good place to stop and find ESL jobs or Ace would accept a position with this organization that finds emergency International School teachers for schools that lose a teacher mid-year. We could end up anywhere through them, which could definitely be interesting! I’m hoping we’ll find a way to stay in South America, though, for the sake of our Spanish. If he does find a steady position this summer, though, these plans will just have to be scooted back till next summer.
Istanbul has finally decided to accept spring, and we’re really enjoying the sunshine and longer days. Tulips are blooming, the birds are muttering as usual (ok, we only have pigeons), and the neighborhood kids are graffiti-ing local buildings with chalk sunshines and dragging each other around on cardboard pulled from the trash piles until 11:00 at night. Last weekend was a three-day weekend, and we managed to get in a beautiful walk along the Bosphorous, hang-out time with several different friends, and walk with our professor friend and his students as they visited and discussed different statues around the city. We also discovered a park that’s pretty nearby that we didn’t even know existed- pretty excited about that, as my only problem with living in the middle of the city is the major lack of green. We’re excited to check that out again soon. Ace posted some spring in Istanbul pictures a few weeks ago, so check them out on our photo site if you haven’t yet!
Much love,
Kait
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted! I’ve been keeping really busy with work lately. All of the students studying in England and such are home for spring break, so there is lots of test prep to be done.
Last weekend I took a long weekend with two girlfriends and went to Plovdiv, Bulgaria (again). We did pretty much all the same things as last time. We stocked up on stuff at the grocery store that you can’t get in Istanbul (Easter goodies, different cheeses, cheap oatmeal, good beer), roamed around the pleasantly empty streets (there are twice as many people in Istanbul as there are in the entire country of Bulgaria), visited the local monastery (very crowded with people lighting candles for Easter), and enjoyed just roaming the cobblestone streets and munching on Bulgarian food. It was cool to be there for Easter- church bells were ringing and hundreds of loaves of sweet bread hung out in the central areas, waiting to be given out courtesy of some political party. As the only place you could buy return train tickets was closed for a 5 day vacation, we were a bit worried about getting back. We ended up getting tickets on an overnight bus, though, which was really good considering what it was. Reclining seats, personal TV’s, a bathroom…pretty much just like a plane. We all returned sleepily but safely with shiny new stamps in our passports.
Other than that, not much new…we’re still trying to figure out what we’ll be doing next year (ugh), I’m taking my weekly Turkish lessons and inching along, and we’re getting wedding stuff slowly checked off the list. I recently found shoes for myself and the bridesmaid’s dresses, and we’ve been working on our vows! Fun.
The weather has just turned nice, and the city is an entirely new place. Tulips are popping up everywhere, there are boxes of kittens all over the place, and Ace and I actually have a desire to leave the apartment! We’re excited to go check out the palace that we still haven’t made it to this weekend. Erin also has friends visiting, so hopefully we’ll get to take over guide duties some and have excuses to get out and about our beautiful city.
Much love,
Kait
Last weekend I took a long weekend with two girlfriends and went to Plovdiv, Bulgaria (again). We did pretty much all the same things as last time. We stocked up on stuff at the grocery store that you can’t get in Istanbul (Easter goodies, different cheeses, cheap oatmeal, good beer), roamed around the pleasantly empty streets (there are twice as many people in Istanbul as there are in the entire country of Bulgaria), visited the local monastery (very crowded with people lighting candles for Easter), and enjoyed just roaming the cobblestone streets and munching on Bulgarian food. It was cool to be there for Easter- church bells were ringing and hundreds of loaves of sweet bread hung out in the central areas, waiting to be given out courtesy of some political party. As the only place you could buy return train tickets was closed for a 5 day vacation, we were a bit worried about getting back. We ended up getting tickets on an overnight bus, though, which was really good considering what it was. Reclining seats, personal TV’s, a bathroom…pretty much just like a plane. We all returned sleepily but safely with shiny new stamps in our passports.
Other than that, not much new…we’re still trying to figure out what we’ll be doing next year (ugh), I’m taking my weekly Turkish lessons and inching along, and we’re getting wedding stuff slowly checked off the list. I recently found shoes for myself and the bridesmaid’s dresses, and we’ve been working on our vows! Fun.
The weather has just turned nice, and the city is an entirely new place. Tulips are popping up everywhere, there are boxes of kittens all over the place, and Ace and I actually have a desire to leave the apartment! We’re excited to go check out the palace that we still haven’t made it to this weekend. Erin also has friends visiting, so hopefully we’ll get to take over guide duties some and have excuses to get out and about our beautiful city.
Much love,
Kait
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
PodCasts
Oh, I almost forgot to mention my new discovery! I know I'm a few years behind on this, but I just started listening to Podcasts (the free radio-ish channels you can get through ITunes). They're AMAZING. I've been able to get an unlimited supply of absolutely fascinating history lessons, random funny quiz shows, interviews with intellectuals, cool stories told by average people, and fun mini-lessons on everything from how bail systems work to how carbon credits work. Ok, I know I'm a nerd, but I'm so excited- this makes all the time I spend cruising around Istanbul on the bus so much more interesting, fun and useful! Who knows, I may even end up being able to hold a moderately intelligent conversation about history, politics or current events one of these days!
Ace and I have both been busy bees lately. He is continuing with the endless stream of job applications, planning, and grading. He’s had some success with his students lately though- through a ton of hard work, he’s gotten some of them producing pretty decent 5 paragraph essays! Our friend Erin is taking her Model United Nations club to Russia next week for a competition- both cool and terrifying. I picked up yet another-also awesome- student in my area, and am probably going to be getting a few more hours with a former student- so I’m doing really well, and about to be doing even better. Hooray!
I’ve also been working on resumes and cover letters, as I found a job advertised online for an Online Writing Lab Tutor starting in August or September. It’s through SMARTHINKING, Inc.- a really reputable American company that provides online tutoring services to high schools and universities, and I’d basically be doing exactly what I did in the writing center. If I got the position, I could work anywhere from 9-35 hours a week (I think 10 or 15 would be plenty, though- don’t want to spend all day on the computer) from anywhere in the world with a reliable internet connection. So that would guarantee me at least some work at a decent wage while in South America next year! They look like they’re pretty choosy, but here’s hoping!
Last weekend I got to hang out with some new friends- a bunch of Americans working at various language schools. It was really great to find some people who are on similar schedules as me- it’s been hard knowing mostly high school teachers who are working hardest when I have free time! I’m planning to go on a weekend trip to Bulgaria with two of the girls soon Ace and I also had a Mexican food night at Anna’s on Friday, worked and celebrated Missy and Hussein’s birthdays on Saturday night, and lazed around the house all day Sunday. I cooked up a massive batch of super-veggie pasta sauce to keep us fed for those busy days. I also started up my Turkish lessons again- I know I don’t have that much time left, but I really feel like I should leave here knowing more than I do.
This weekend we’re looking forward to a scavenger hunt planned by a friend I met while subbing at the international school and yet another birthday (another teacher we met on the last Bulgaria trip). The weather is supposed to start looking up again this weekend, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to start exploring again- it’s just been too icky and cold lately to try to climb to any viewpoints or visit nearby cities or anything.
Anyways, things are good here-Ace is surviving school and squeezing in some fun on the weekends, and I’m getting more work and getting to spend more time with friends. Keep your fingers crossed for our future job prospects, please!
All our love!
I’ve also been working on resumes and cover letters, as I found a job advertised online for an Online Writing Lab Tutor starting in August or September. It’s through SMARTHINKING, Inc.- a really reputable American company that provides online tutoring services to high schools and universities, and I’d basically be doing exactly what I did in the writing center. If I got the position, I could work anywhere from 9-35 hours a week (I think 10 or 15 would be plenty, though- don’t want to spend all day on the computer) from anywhere in the world with a reliable internet connection. So that would guarantee me at least some work at a decent wage while in South America next year! They look like they’re pretty choosy, but here’s hoping!
Last weekend I got to hang out with some new friends- a bunch of Americans working at various language schools. It was really great to find some people who are on similar schedules as me- it’s been hard knowing mostly high school teachers who are working hardest when I have free time! I’m planning to go on a weekend trip to Bulgaria with two of the girls soon Ace and I also had a Mexican food night at Anna’s on Friday, worked and celebrated Missy and Hussein’s birthdays on Saturday night, and lazed around the house all day Sunday. I cooked up a massive batch of super-veggie pasta sauce to keep us fed for those busy days. I also started up my Turkish lessons again- I know I don’t have that much time left, but I really feel like I should leave here knowing more than I do.
This weekend we’re looking forward to a scavenger hunt planned by a friend I met while subbing at the international school and yet another birthday (another teacher we met on the last Bulgaria trip). The weather is supposed to start looking up again this weekend, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to start exploring again- it’s just been too icky and cold lately to try to climb to any viewpoints or visit nearby cities or anything.
Anyways, things are good here-Ace is surviving school and squeezing in some fun on the weekends, and I’m getting more work and getting to spend more time with friends. Keep your fingers crossed for our future job prospects, please!
All our love!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Things have smoothed out a bit around here this week. Ace got paid the wages the school owed him for the last two months, which is pretty exciting, even though I was excited about the prospect of having some weekday-morning movie festival and hangout sessions if he had to strike. We were also able to get all the info on our bills, so were able to do the math and figure out that we do indeed owe the landlady money- $10.33. She is displeased with this information, as she wants us to pay her $200, but we don’t really care. We’ll pay her what we owe her, and plan on pretty much ignoring her unless she comes up with any new info or arguments. So far, so good. Glad that’s sorted, at least for now.
I started with a new evening student yesterday, which I’m excited about. It’s nice to have some more work, and he’s going to be fun to work with. Plus, I can walk to his place, which is much closer than any of my other appointments. Good news. I’m still looking for another student or two, though- my evenings are getting a bit busy, but my mornings are still a little quieter than I’d like. It’s funny, I never thought I’d wish for the 9 to 5, but after two years of not 9-5ing, it’s starting to look really good. In Korea we were working evenings, which was ok, but put us on a really weird schedule. Also, I wake up feeling like being productive, and get antsy and grumpy if I don’t have anything to get me going first thing. Same problem here in Turkey- I certainly can’t complain that I’m working too much, but on weekdays where I don’t have a morning lesson I feel sluggish and end up moping around the house being lonely more often than I should. It’s gotten me wondering what I should do next year- if I should work at a language school or something in the daytime and supplement my income with private lessons, or keep doing what I am now. If I could find an exercise class or volunteering first thing in the mornings, that might do the trick as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see where we land for next year, anyways.
Other than that, nothing much new here. We’re looking forward to hanging out with some of Ace’s work friends this Saturday, and going to a Picasso exhibit with a Turkish friend and his girlfriend on Sunday. I’m pretty happy about that, as I feel extremely guilty for not taking advantage of all the art and music in this city. It’s nice just knowing it’s there, I suppose, but I’m not benefiting from it much via osmosis.
Oh, and our anniversary weekend was nice! It was a pretty long trip- about two hours from apartment to ferry to bus, then 3 hours on the bus. And Agva (our destination) is still technically part of Istanbul- unbelievable, right? The weather was grey but it didn't rain on us much. We hung out in our tiny little wood bungalow, played with the giant dogs roaming the area, and paddled a little paddleboat on the very muddy river. The hotel provided some really yummy food, we watched some good DVD's, and we played a lot of backgammon and GoStop (the card game we picked up in Korea). Before leaving, we went further up the road and took a peek at the Black Sea. It was nice to get away.
Not much news on the job front for next year, either- Ace is still sending out applications and calling schools, but no particularly promising leads yet. There are some job fairs in the UK and the US in a few months, and he may fly out to one or two of those if nothing comes up before then. That’s really late in the hiring season, though, so we’re hoping he doesn’t have to wait that long to secure something.
Lots of love from us both! Just 3.5 months more- we’re both starting to look forward to home.
I started with a new evening student yesterday, which I’m excited about. It’s nice to have some more work, and he’s going to be fun to work with. Plus, I can walk to his place, which is much closer than any of my other appointments. Good news. I’m still looking for another student or two, though- my evenings are getting a bit busy, but my mornings are still a little quieter than I’d like. It’s funny, I never thought I’d wish for the 9 to 5, but after two years of not 9-5ing, it’s starting to look really good. In Korea we were working evenings, which was ok, but put us on a really weird schedule. Also, I wake up feeling like being productive, and get antsy and grumpy if I don’t have anything to get me going first thing. Same problem here in Turkey- I certainly can’t complain that I’m working too much, but on weekdays where I don’t have a morning lesson I feel sluggish and end up moping around the house being lonely more often than I should. It’s gotten me wondering what I should do next year- if I should work at a language school or something in the daytime and supplement my income with private lessons, or keep doing what I am now. If I could find an exercise class or volunteering first thing in the mornings, that might do the trick as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see where we land for next year, anyways.
Other than that, nothing much new here. We’re looking forward to hanging out with some of Ace’s work friends this Saturday, and going to a Picasso exhibit with a Turkish friend and his girlfriend on Sunday. I’m pretty happy about that, as I feel extremely guilty for not taking advantage of all the art and music in this city. It’s nice just knowing it’s there, I suppose, but I’m not benefiting from it much via osmosis.
Oh, and our anniversary weekend was nice! It was a pretty long trip- about two hours from apartment to ferry to bus, then 3 hours on the bus. And Agva (our destination) is still technically part of Istanbul- unbelievable, right? The weather was grey but it didn't rain on us much. We hung out in our tiny little wood bungalow, played with the giant dogs roaming the area, and paddled a little paddleboat on the very muddy river. The hotel provided some really yummy food, we watched some good DVD's, and we played a lot of backgammon and GoStop (the card game we picked up in Korea). Before leaving, we went further up the road and took a peek at the Black Sea. It was nice to get away.
Not much news on the job front for next year, either- Ace is still sending out applications and calling schools, but no particularly promising leads yet. There are some job fairs in the UK and the US in a few months, and he may fly out to one or two of those if nothing comes up before then. That’s really late in the hiring season, though, so we’re hoping he doesn’t have to wait that long to secure something.
Lots of love from us both! Just 3.5 months more- we’re both starting to look forward to home.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Ace and I celebrated the three-year anniversary of our first date this week! We celebrated the day of by going out to a nice Korean restaurant…then leaving immediately when we saw the menu. 30 bucks for a bottle of soju (which is about 75 cents in Korea)! 65 bucks for a meal that cost us 5 when we were there! Ok, yes, we’re not starving students anymore, but still….we went across the street to some yummy Chinese food instead We’re celebrating the weekend by spending it in Agva, which is a Black Sea and river-front little town which is a favorite for Istanbullus who want to get away. It’s three hours away by bus- which is about how long it takes to even make it out of Istanbul. We’re renting a little bungalow in an area that’s not accessible by car- we’ll take a little cable car over the river to the facility. The weather isn’t supposed to be great, but we’re planning on huddling in our bungalow, watching DVD’s, hanging out by the fire in the lodge, and just relaxing. Should be great!
Things are pretty normal other than that- Ace is surviving work, and work is looking up for me. Things have been pretty quiet for me lately- I’d actually been getting a little bored- but I’ve gotten a few messages from people interested in starting soon. Last weekend we hosted our first Couchsurfers, which was great. For those that haven’t heard of it, Couchsurfing is a social network site like Facebook, but for travelers. People who are coming into your area send you a note asking if you’d like to meet up for coffee, hang out, show them your favorite places, and/or let them sleep on your couch. When you go somewhere, people do the same for you- kinda a “pay it forward” sort of hospitality mentality. You can build up a global network of friends in no time. We absolutely loved Kamel and Franck (from France) and hosted them for two nights. They spoiled us by doing our dishes and feeding us massive amounts of imported cheese and chocolate. Tonight we’ll have dinner with them again and saying goodbye, as they’re heading back home tomorrow.
We’ve been having some trouble with our landlady, which has been seriously stressing me out. We made an agreement at the beginning of the year that we’d give her 150 extra and she’d pay our bills. Our bills have been over the last few months, so we told her we’d be happy to pay anything she had to pay out of pocket- i.e. anything over the 150, as long as she could get us the receipts or records for the bills. She’s refusing to get copies of the receipts for us and getting extremely upset that “we don’t trust her”, and saying that we need to pay her any time any of our bills are over what she thinks is normal, no matter what the bill total is. I.E. if she thinks our internet should be $20 and it’s $50, we owe her $30, even if all the bills added together are still under 150. I.E., she wants to make a big profit off of us. None of this is in the contract! I thoroughly despise confrontation, but am also not willing to be taken advantage of. Sigh. I’m getting lots of nasty emails, too. This is one of the disadvantages of living abroad…due to the fact that I’m not familiar with the laws, the language, where to go for help, etc., I feel pretty vulnerable and helpless in these kinds of situations.
Wish me luck getting it sorted out…I’ll need it.
Other than that…not much! The wedding website is officially done, so check it out :)
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=7721822499807563
Lots of love to all of you!
Kait
Things are pretty normal other than that- Ace is surviving work, and work is looking up for me. Things have been pretty quiet for me lately- I’d actually been getting a little bored- but I’ve gotten a few messages from people interested in starting soon. Last weekend we hosted our first Couchsurfers, which was great. For those that haven’t heard of it, Couchsurfing is a social network site like Facebook, but for travelers. People who are coming into your area send you a note asking if you’d like to meet up for coffee, hang out, show them your favorite places, and/or let them sleep on your couch. When you go somewhere, people do the same for you- kinda a “pay it forward” sort of hospitality mentality. You can build up a global network of friends in no time. We absolutely loved Kamel and Franck (from France) and hosted them for two nights. They spoiled us by doing our dishes and feeding us massive amounts of imported cheese and chocolate. Tonight we’ll have dinner with them again and saying goodbye, as they’re heading back home tomorrow.
We’ve been having some trouble with our landlady, which has been seriously stressing me out. We made an agreement at the beginning of the year that we’d give her 150 extra and she’d pay our bills. Our bills have been over the last few months, so we told her we’d be happy to pay anything she had to pay out of pocket- i.e. anything over the 150, as long as she could get us the receipts or records for the bills. She’s refusing to get copies of the receipts for us and getting extremely upset that “we don’t trust her”, and saying that we need to pay her any time any of our bills are over what she thinks is normal, no matter what the bill total is. I.E. if she thinks our internet should be $20 and it’s $50, we owe her $30, even if all the bills added together are still under 150. I.E., she wants to make a big profit off of us. None of this is in the contract! I thoroughly despise confrontation, but am also not willing to be taken advantage of. Sigh. I’m getting lots of nasty emails, too. This is one of the disadvantages of living abroad…due to the fact that I’m not familiar with the laws, the language, where to go for help, etc., I feel pretty vulnerable and helpless in these kinds of situations.
Wish me luck getting it sorted out…I’ll need it.
Other than that…not much! The wedding website is officially done, so check it out :)
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=7721822499807563
Lots of love to all of you!
Kait
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Two weeks in India
Well, it’s hard to know where to start with the India trip- so much happened!
Well, I guess we can start by saying we were unbelievably lucky- things almost never go so smoothly in travel as they did for us on our two week vacation in Southern India. People were kind, lodging was decent and cheap, nothing was lost or stolen, transport was time-consuming but not too painful… really, I’d say our biggest inconvenience were buses and trains being an hour or our and a half late. No big deal. Plus we had a blast together
Overall impressions- I had heard so much about what an incredibly challenging country India can be- the overwhelming crush of humanity, the poverty, the scams, the chaos, the insane public transit- that I’d really prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, none of our experiences were anywhere near as overwhelming or exhausting as we’d expected- actually, not overwhelming or exhausting at all. Part of this might have to do with the places we picked- the south is generally known for being more laid-back and relaxing than the traditional tourist routes in the big cities and north-west.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time- not a cloud in the sky. The people were very accommodating, with the only even moderately bad experiences being with snippy auto-rickshaw drivers and hordes of kids (mostly in the rural areas) whose only English words involved asking for money. The kids saw us as walking wallets, for obvious reasons in a country where the minimum wage is about $2 a day. It was irritating after the 50th time in a row, but most of the kids cracked huge smiles and forgave us our stinginess when we offered to take a picture of them. We got lots of great pictures, as it seemed like every person we met asked for us to take photos of or with them.
The landscape in the areas that we visited was mostly very green and tropical. One of the biggest things that we realized on our trip is that we have to come back. India is such an enormous country, in size and cultural and geographical diversity, and we were only able to get a tiny taste of a few little dots on the map. Many of the lucky travelers that we met were in India for a month or several.
We started out in Cochin, a town in Kerala. The area is famous for its laid-back attitude, lush green landscape, and criss-crossing waters. We spent a night there recovering from the trip, eating amazing meals at local restaurants (we could both eat extremely well for $2 in the right places) and trying to get a feel for things. Then we took a local bus south about an hour and a half to Alleppey, right in the middle of the backwaters, where we stayed in a homestay on a tiny coconut and rice farming island and walked around, getting a feel for local life. We then took a super luxurious overnight trip around the backwaters in our own personal houseboat, with our own personal cook and driver. Amazing!
We then took an overnight train to Gokarna, a tiny off-the-beaten track town with stunning beaches. There was just enough tourist development for us to be able to eat well, use the internet and stay in a fun hostel- no more. The gorgeous Om beach was quiet and tranquil, and we spend one lovely day hiking between beaches and watching cows strut their stuff in the surf. We cut our stay in Gokarna a bit short to move an hour north to Goa, one of India’s bigger tourist areas. It’s known for stunning beaches, but most parts are more developed and touristy than Ace and I like. We headed up there because I was determined to be able to hit a market, which we did, and it was well worth it. I had a great time browsing bed covers , funky sandals, patchwork sari wall hangings and cushion covers. It was well worth the stop, but the next day we decided to move on to Hampi a day earlier than expected.
We booked an overnight bus, which turned out to be quite the experience- we shared a little sectioned off mattress in the back of a big bus. Our spot was just big enough for both of us to sit up and look out the window or lay down and try to sleep- as long as nobody tried to roll over. Most of India’s roads are in pretty bad shape, so we found ourselves suspended completely in midair, then slammed back down on the mat repeatedly on the 13-ish hour trip. Fortunately, we’re pretty great at sleeping, and we both felt surprisingly decent when we arrived in Hampi.
Hampi was our favorite- there’s really no way to describe the landscape- you’ll just have to look at pics on our photosite http://kateandace.shutterfly.com/ We spent a lovely three days, two nights here, scooting around between gorgeous ruined Hindu temples, exploring the amazing landscape, visiting monkeys, and getting blessed by the temple elephant. We then took another overnight train to Bengalore for our flight out. What we saw of Bengalore was pretty nasty- overall, a very dirty, charmless, noisy city- but that was expected. We managed to pass a really nice day there, though, as we’d booked a cooking class. We learned how to cook our favorites in the home of a lovely woman, then went to the grocery store to stock up on spices to bring back. We also watched half of a Bollywood movie in the theatre, something I’d really been wanting to do. We left halfway through, as the movie wasn’t in English and there were no subtitles, but I still got my fix of song-and-dance numbers.
On the trips to and from India, we had 16 hour layovers in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates. They actually turned out great- we had a lovely day exploring Sharjah on our way to India. Our overall impression was of a very clean, organized, quiet town. Everyone was super polite and the roads seemed extremely wide, quiet and empty after Turkey. On the way back we were able to take a short busride into Dubai, where we hopped on a bus tour and got to see the sights. We were pretty exhausted, but still really enjoyed getting to see the gigantic malls and hotels and wander around on The Palm.
A great trip- we can’t wait to go back and see more of this super interesting country.
Well, I guess we can start by saying we were unbelievably lucky- things almost never go so smoothly in travel as they did for us on our two week vacation in Southern India. People were kind, lodging was decent and cheap, nothing was lost or stolen, transport was time-consuming but not too painful… really, I’d say our biggest inconvenience were buses and trains being an hour or our and a half late. No big deal. Plus we had a blast together
Overall impressions- I had heard so much about what an incredibly challenging country India can be- the overwhelming crush of humanity, the poverty, the scams, the chaos, the insane public transit- that I’d really prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, none of our experiences were anywhere near as overwhelming or exhausting as we’d expected- actually, not overwhelming or exhausting at all. Part of this might have to do with the places we picked- the south is generally known for being more laid-back and relaxing than the traditional tourist routes in the big cities and north-west.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time- not a cloud in the sky. The people were very accommodating, with the only even moderately bad experiences being with snippy auto-rickshaw drivers and hordes of kids (mostly in the rural areas) whose only English words involved asking for money. The kids saw us as walking wallets, for obvious reasons in a country where the minimum wage is about $2 a day. It was irritating after the 50th time in a row, but most of the kids cracked huge smiles and forgave us our stinginess when we offered to take a picture of them. We got lots of great pictures, as it seemed like every person we met asked for us to take photos of or with them.
The landscape in the areas that we visited was mostly very green and tropical. One of the biggest things that we realized on our trip is that we have to come back. India is such an enormous country, in size and cultural and geographical diversity, and we were only able to get a tiny taste of a few little dots on the map. Many of the lucky travelers that we met were in India for a month or several.
We started out in Cochin, a town in Kerala. The area is famous for its laid-back attitude, lush green landscape, and criss-crossing waters. We spent a night there recovering from the trip, eating amazing meals at local restaurants (we could both eat extremely well for $2 in the right places) and trying to get a feel for things. Then we took a local bus south about an hour and a half to Alleppey, right in the middle of the backwaters, where we stayed in a homestay on a tiny coconut and rice farming island and walked around, getting a feel for local life. We then took a super luxurious overnight trip around the backwaters in our own personal houseboat, with our own personal cook and driver. Amazing!
We then took an overnight train to Gokarna, a tiny off-the-beaten track town with stunning beaches. There was just enough tourist development for us to be able to eat well, use the internet and stay in a fun hostel- no more. The gorgeous Om beach was quiet and tranquil, and we spend one lovely day hiking between beaches and watching cows strut their stuff in the surf. We cut our stay in Gokarna a bit short to move an hour north to Goa, one of India’s bigger tourist areas. It’s known for stunning beaches, but most parts are more developed and touristy than Ace and I like. We headed up there because I was determined to be able to hit a market, which we did, and it was well worth it. I had a great time browsing bed covers , funky sandals, patchwork sari wall hangings and cushion covers. It was well worth the stop, but the next day we decided to move on to Hampi a day earlier than expected.
We booked an overnight bus, which turned out to be quite the experience- we shared a little sectioned off mattress in the back of a big bus. Our spot was just big enough for both of us to sit up and look out the window or lay down and try to sleep- as long as nobody tried to roll over. Most of India’s roads are in pretty bad shape, so we found ourselves suspended completely in midair, then slammed back down on the mat repeatedly on the 13-ish hour trip. Fortunately, we’re pretty great at sleeping, and we both felt surprisingly decent when we arrived in Hampi.
Hampi was our favorite- there’s really no way to describe the landscape- you’ll just have to look at pics on our photosite http://kateandace.shutterfly.com/ We spent a lovely three days, two nights here, scooting around between gorgeous ruined Hindu temples, exploring the amazing landscape, visiting monkeys, and getting blessed by the temple elephant. We then took another overnight train to Bengalore for our flight out. What we saw of Bengalore was pretty nasty- overall, a very dirty, charmless, noisy city- but that was expected. We managed to pass a really nice day there, though, as we’d booked a cooking class. We learned how to cook our favorites in the home of a lovely woman, then went to the grocery store to stock up on spices to bring back. We also watched half of a Bollywood movie in the theatre, something I’d really been wanting to do. We left halfway through, as the movie wasn’t in English and there were no subtitles, but I still got my fix of song-and-dance numbers.
On the trips to and from India, we had 16 hour layovers in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates. They actually turned out great- we had a lovely day exploring Sharjah on our way to India. Our overall impression was of a very clean, organized, quiet town. Everyone was super polite and the roads seemed extremely wide, quiet and empty after Turkey. On the way back we were able to take a short busride into Dubai, where we hopped on a bus tour and got to see the sights. We were pretty exhausted, but still really enjoyed getting to see the gigantic malls and hotels and wander around on The Palm.
A great trip- we can’t wait to go back and see more of this super interesting country.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Looking Ahead
It’s been another good week-
Saturday my friend Erin and I hit the hammam (bath house)- my first in Turkey What probably would have been a pretty big shock a few years ago felt like old hat after my time in the crowded, all-naked, all-day baths in Korea. Overall it was a nice, relaxing experience, though we made the mistake of going to a pricey touristic one. We paid in a front, unisex area, then went into the women’s area. We were given little locking changing rooms for putting on the wooden sandals and towel, though I’m not sure why they bother, as the door was unfrosted glass. We were able to lock our stuff in there while we lay cooking on a giant, elevated, very hot stone under a beautiful domed ceiling and chandelier. After we’d cooked for what they deemed long enough (about half an hour) some very good-natured, voluptuous, panties-only-clad women came in to dump buckets-full of water over us and scrub all our dead skin off. The scrubbing was nice, though not nearly as tough as the ones I experienced in Korea- which may be a good thing. I’ve had moles scrubbed off my arms in Korean baths! After the scrub, the women took what looked like pillowcases with bars of soap in them, filled them with air, and somehow managed to produce giant heaps of soap bubbles which they mounded on us and rubbed in with a nice massage. The massage was great, though I think Erin had a pretty hard time keeping in the giggles in…sitting upright, with a large topless woman massaging your shoulders heartily while standing in front of you…you get the picture. We got a thorough rinsing, then were left to cook for a while longer on the giant stone. We grabbed our towels and headed out once we were ready.
The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful- Ace and I spent all day Sunday inside, getting started on looking for a job for Ace for next year. It’s that time- Erin has decided to stay, and is enjoying being courted (sometimes literally) by all of the principals of different English-speaking high schools in town, and Ace has decided to get cracking on applications for next year before the applications from the big international job fairs in the U.S start pouring in. We’ve decided on somewhere in South or Central America, but hadn’t narrowed it down much more than that, except for no to Panama and Venezuela- for obvious reasons. Ace has gotten five different applications in now- in Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, and…somewhere else. I can’t remember.
While researching schools, we came to the extremely unfortunate discovery that almost every international/American/Canadian school in South and Central America starts in early to mid-August- i.e., before the wedding. This is a problem. We did find two in Ecuador that start in September, so that’s a possibility- also, we’re hoping that there’s a chance that one of the others will be willing to hire him, then give him a week off to fly home and get married. If he applies to a million, in the 7 or so countries that we’re considering, someone has to be willing to do that, right?? Right? Oh lordy, I hope so. I’m trying not to freak out about it too much, but I’m a worrier. Sigh.
My work life is going pretty well- I started conversation sessions with a really fun new student, so that has been great. I’ve been a little frustrated with the super inconsistent hours and constant cancellations with students at one agency, and am considering taking on a new student on my own and reducing my hours with them. It’s a great place, but if a student cancels 30 minutes before the lesson, (which he often does), it just sucks for me. I hate to not be available when they decide they DO want me around a lot, but you really have to look out for yourself here. Things are in such a constant state of change.
That’s about it for now, I think. We’re getting ready for India- paying the landlady, doing laundry, researching the best beaches, etc. Only two days left! We’ll be in Kerala, Goa and Gokarna, and Hampi, in case you want to check them out. I’ll be sure to post pictures and a blog all about it when we get back in two weeks!
(oh, and Ace has been posting photos from our Turkey vacation last month on our site, in case you want to check those out, too)
XOXO
Kait
Saturday my friend Erin and I hit the hammam (bath house)- my first in Turkey What probably would have been a pretty big shock a few years ago felt like old hat after my time in the crowded, all-naked, all-day baths in Korea. Overall it was a nice, relaxing experience, though we made the mistake of going to a pricey touristic one. We paid in a front, unisex area, then went into the women’s area. We were given little locking changing rooms for putting on the wooden sandals and towel, though I’m not sure why they bother, as the door was unfrosted glass. We were able to lock our stuff in there while we lay cooking on a giant, elevated, very hot stone under a beautiful domed ceiling and chandelier. After we’d cooked for what they deemed long enough (about half an hour) some very good-natured, voluptuous, panties-only-clad women came in to dump buckets-full of water over us and scrub all our dead skin off. The scrubbing was nice, though not nearly as tough as the ones I experienced in Korea- which may be a good thing. I’ve had moles scrubbed off my arms in Korean baths! After the scrub, the women took what looked like pillowcases with bars of soap in them, filled them with air, and somehow managed to produce giant heaps of soap bubbles which they mounded on us and rubbed in with a nice massage. The massage was great, though I think Erin had a pretty hard time keeping in the giggles in…sitting upright, with a large topless woman massaging your shoulders heartily while standing in front of you…you get the picture. We got a thorough rinsing, then were left to cook for a while longer on the giant stone. We grabbed our towels and headed out once we were ready.
The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful- Ace and I spent all day Sunday inside, getting started on looking for a job for Ace for next year. It’s that time- Erin has decided to stay, and is enjoying being courted (sometimes literally) by all of the principals of different English-speaking high schools in town, and Ace has decided to get cracking on applications for next year before the applications from the big international job fairs in the U.S start pouring in. We’ve decided on somewhere in South or Central America, but hadn’t narrowed it down much more than that, except for no to Panama and Venezuela- for obvious reasons. Ace has gotten five different applications in now- in Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, and…somewhere else. I can’t remember.
While researching schools, we came to the extremely unfortunate discovery that almost every international/American/Canadian school in South and Central America starts in early to mid-August- i.e., before the wedding. This is a problem. We did find two in Ecuador that start in September, so that’s a possibility- also, we’re hoping that there’s a chance that one of the others will be willing to hire him, then give him a week off to fly home and get married. If he applies to a million, in the 7 or so countries that we’re considering, someone has to be willing to do that, right?? Right? Oh lordy, I hope so. I’m trying not to freak out about it too much, but I’m a worrier. Sigh.
My work life is going pretty well- I started conversation sessions with a really fun new student, so that has been great. I’ve been a little frustrated with the super inconsistent hours and constant cancellations with students at one agency, and am considering taking on a new student on my own and reducing my hours with them. It’s a great place, but if a student cancels 30 minutes before the lesson, (which he often does), it just sucks for me. I hate to not be available when they decide they DO want me around a lot, but you really have to look out for yourself here. Things are in such a constant state of change.
That’s about it for now, I think. We’re getting ready for India- paying the landlady, doing laundry, researching the best beaches, etc. Only two days left! We’ll be in Kerala, Goa and Gokarna, and Hampi, in case you want to check them out. I’ll be sure to post pictures and a blog all about it when we get back in two weeks!
(oh, and Ace has been posting photos from our Turkey vacation last month on our site, in case you want to check those out, too)
XOXO
Kait
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Kait's quiet mid-week projects
Due to a few cancelled and rescheduled classes, the last two days have been quiet ones for me; just one class (two hours) per day. It’s been nice- I’ve been left with lots of free time to do stuff I love. Yesterday I hopped on my usual 7:30 bus out to the Asian side, where a student picks me up at 8:45 for our 9-11 lesson. It’s a long bus ride, but I usually don’t mind: the scenery is mostly nice, I always get a seat on the bus, and I get to sit, listen to music or an audiobook, or snooze for a good chunk of time. We had a good lesson, and then I caught the bus back to Taksim, walked the 10 minutes home, and was done with my workday by 12:30
I was feeling Betty Crocker-ish, probably due to the lovely audiobook I was blasting from my i-Pod (Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”), so I ended up cleaning the whole apartment, doing three loads of laundry in our tiny washing machine and hanging them up to dry in front of the space heater, and undertaking a bunch of cooking projects. We had a bunch of potatoes and the gravy packets I’d brought from home, which amazingly survived the holidays, so I made baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salad. I also made my first ever batch of homemade applesauce, and it will definitely not be my last! I’ve been missing applesauce for two years…if I had only known that a handful of apples, some water, a bit of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon could somehow turn into one of the best things I’ve ever tasted! Seriously, it’s better than apple pie a la mode. Mmmmm. Bliss.
Ace made it home by six, and we had dinner and then I practiced my guitar (for the second time ever). I’m now able to fumble my way through three chords, and I’ve developed these weird, numb feeling spots on the tips of my middle fingers on my left hand from awkwardly pressing the strings so hard. It’s not unpleasant- it reminds me of music every time my fingers tingle. I found an amazing website, JustinGuitar.com, which has the most helpful video lessons- from “how to tune your guitar” and “how to hold your pick” all the way up to stuff so fancy I don’t even know what it means. It’s wonderful, and I’m so glad I have a (free!) teacher to keep me on track, even if he doesn’t know I exist.
Last night I dragged myself out of the house (it’s so hard for me to get out on icky winter’s nights, even when it’s unseasonably warm like it is here) to go to a Spanish Conversation session. It was great- a bunch of people that met through Couchsurfing, a travel and cultural exchange website I belong to, that meet up weekly to chat and drink tea. There were people of all levels there, from non-speakers to natives, and it reminded me both how much I know and how much I still have to learn. There were lots of good laughs, and I guess they usually go out for drinks (of the alcoholic kind, not the caffeinated kind) afterwards, though I left early. Hopefully I’ll be able to go again soon. While we’re on the Spanish subject- I also became a member of the local Spanish Cultural Center’s library, which I’ve been meaning to do forever. I now have access to tons of movies and books in Spanish, and I’ve been enjoying having something to read, especially as it’s so expensive to buy English (or Spanish) books from bookstores here. I’m inching my way through an autobiography right now, Memorias Prematuras, and while there are loads of words I don’t understand, I’m getting the gist of it. I think.
This morning I didn’t have any classes, so I allowed myself the luxury of lounging in bed till 7:30. I put my audiobook on and cooked up a massive batch of fresh tomato spaghetti sauce to freeze, wrote in my journal, and practiced some guitar again (that makes 3 times! I’m practically a pro now, right?) I daydreamed about stuff to put on the registry we’re starting to put together (mostly food-related), then finally headed out of the house. I finished the time-intensive task of figuring out a rough game plan for India and buying domestic flights and train tickets last week, but we still needed some medications for the intestinal afflictions that are almost sure to keep us debilitated for our two weeks in India.
I walked by “cat square”, the creative moniker I’ve given the open lot near our apartment where about 30 strays eat, play, and have their adorable little kittens. The “cat angel” was there, the guy that I always see pouring food and water, shooing dogs, and occasionally giving eye drops. I assume he’s also the one that built the plywood shelters the kitties love so much. He knows me by now, and nodded at me as I pet my favorite kitten. I want to ask how to help, but the language barrier is too great- I really should figure out some way to get around it, though.
I hit the pharmacy, where I said something eloquent like “I go India” and pointed at the appropriate vocab in my dictionary. Here, if you have a minor problem, you can skip the doctors visit and go straight to the pharmacist, tell him what’s up, and get your prescriptions from him. I left with two packs of medication for about $3.50. It’s kinda sad that I’m more afraid of getting sick in the U.S. with health insurance than I am of getting sick in Turkey without. It’s amazing how cheap medication has been in Korea and Turkey, and it really makes it real to me how obscene the profits that companies in the U.S. are making off our sick people.
I moved on to the gym, where I had a nice workout, then came home for dinner and a blog before the conversation class I’ll lead this evening. I’ve got it good.
I was feeling Betty Crocker-ish, probably due to the lovely audiobook I was blasting from my i-Pod (Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”), so I ended up cleaning the whole apartment, doing three loads of laundry in our tiny washing machine and hanging them up to dry in front of the space heater, and undertaking a bunch of cooking projects. We had a bunch of potatoes and the gravy packets I’d brought from home, which amazingly survived the holidays, so I made baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salad. I also made my first ever batch of homemade applesauce, and it will definitely not be my last! I’ve been missing applesauce for two years…if I had only known that a handful of apples, some water, a bit of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon could somehow turn into one of the best things I’ve ever tasted! Seriously, it’s better than apple pie a la mode. Mmmmm. Bliss.
Ace made it home by six, and we had dinner and then I practiced my guitar (for the second time ever). I’m now able to fumble my way through three chords, and I’ve developed these weird, numb feeling spots on the tips of my middle fingers on my left hand from awkwardly pressing the strings so hard. It’s not unpleasant- it reminds me of music every time my fingers tingle. I found an amazing website, JustinGuitar.com, which has the most helpful video lessons- from “how to tune your guitar” and “how to hold your pick” all the way up to stuff so fancy I don’t even know what it means. It’s wonderful, and I’m so glad I have a (free!) teacher to keep me on track, even if he doesn’t know I exist.
Last night I dragged myself out of the house (it’s so hard for me to get out on icky winter’s nights, even when it’s unseasonably warm like it is here) to go to a Spanish Conversation session. It was great- a bunch of people that met through Couchsurfing, a travel and cultural exchange website I belong to, that meet up weekly to chat and drink tea. There were people of all levels there, from non-speakers to natives, and it reminded me both how much I know and how much I still have to learn. There were lots of good laughs, and I guess they usually go out for drinks (of the alcoholic kind, not the caffeinated kind) afterwards, though I left early. Hopefully I’ll be able to go again soon. While we’re on the Spanish subject- I also became a member of the local Spanish Cultural Center’s library, which I’ve been meaning to do forever. I now have access to tons of movies and books in Spanish, and I’ve been enjoying having something to read, especially as it’s so expensive to buy English (or Spanish) books from bookstores here. I’m inching my way through an autobiography right now, Memorias Prematuras, and while there are loads of words I don’t understand, I’m getting the gist of it. I think.
This morning I didn’t have any classes, so I allowed myself the luxury of lounging in bed till 7:30. I put my audiobook on and cooked up a massive batch of fresh tomato spaghetti sauce to freeze, wrote in my journal, and practiced some guitar again (that makes 3 times! I’m practically a pro now, right?) I daydreamed about stuff to put on the registry we’re starting to put together (mostly food-related), then finally headed out of the house. I finished the time-intensive task of figuring out a rough game plan for India and buying domestic flights and train tickets last week, but we still needed some medications for the intestinal afflictions that are almost sure to keep us debilitated for our two weeks in India.
I walked by “cat square”, the creative moniker I’ve given the open lot near our apartment where about 30 strays eat, play, and have their adorable little kittens. The “cat angel” was there, the guy that I always see pouring food and water, shooing dogs, and occasionally giving eye drops. I assume he’s also the one that built the plywood shelters the kitties love so much. He knows me by now, and nodded at me as I pet my favorite kitten. I want to ask how to help, but the language barrier is too great- I really should figure out some way to get around it, though.
I hit the pharmacy, where I said something eloquent like “I go India” and pointed at the appropriate vocab in my dictionary. Here, if you have a minor problem, you can skip the doctors visit and go straight to the pharmacist, tell him what’s up, and get your prescriptions from him. I left with two packs of medication for about $3.50. It’s kinda sad that I’m more afraid of getting sick in the U.S. with health insurance than I am of getting sick in Turkey without. It’s amazing how cheap medication has been in Korea and Turkey, and it really makes it real to me how obscene the profits that companies in the U.S. are making off our sick people.
I moved on to the gym, where I had a nice workout, then came home for dinner and a blog before the conversation class I’ll lead this evening. I’ve got it good.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Back from vacation!
Ace and I just got home from a week-long Christmas/New Year’s vacation, which we spent traveling around to a bunch of different cities in Turkey. We’d originally planned to visit a few cities in the middle of the western coast and then work our way around to the southwestern area along the Mediterranean, but once we discovered it would be much easier to get our tourist visas for our India trip in Antalya (the capital city, more or less in the middle of the country) we changed our plans a bit.
We flew from Istanbul to Izmir on Christmas morning, then bussed straight down to Selcuk and Ephesus to visit the amazing ruins there They’re definitely the best I’ve seen in a long time- I’d say they rivaled the beauties I saw in Tunisia! We had a great Christmas dinner with a bunch of other travelers at our cozy hostel. We also bought our first kilim (beautiful flat-weaved Turkish carpet) at a neighboring shop. I’m afraid I may be feeling an addiction coming on…I’m already wondering where in Istanbul I might be able to find a good deal on some smaller ones. Uh-oh. The following morning, we bussed 3 hours east to the gorgeous mountainside covered with hot springs and a pure white, rock-solid coating of calcium (Pamukkale). It was pretty cool to climb up barefoot through the pools and what looked exactly like a bank of snow. It was another pretty big attraction, so we were able to find a nice hostel and plenty of transportation, even though it was the off season. Two of the nicest things about travelling in the off season- being able to bargain hotels down, and people-free pictures of places that are usually swarming
The next morning we bussed back to Izmir and caught a cheap domestic flight to Ankara, where we went straight to the Indian embassy with our paperwork and applied for our tourist visas. We weren’t able to pick them up until Thursday evening, so we had to stay in Central Anatolia for the week- no Mediterranean for us! While there aren’t a ton of attractions in the area, and there isn’t much tourist infrastructure in high season, let alone low season, it was really interesting to see some new parts of Turkey. We did manage to find a few really lovely museums, a cute village, more ruins, and we got to visit the Rumi’s tomb in Konya, which was really cool for me. However, by the time we picked up our visas in Ankara (success!!) we were pretty tired of buses- we were travelling at least 3 hours a day. We’d caught up on sleep enough for months, as it got dark pretty early and there wasn’t a ton to do at night- after our millionth game of backgammon we usually ended up giving up and going to bed at 9. So after our visit to Konya we decided to change our flight and come back a day early (Saturday). We’re both pretty happy to be home with tourist visas and India tickets secured!
It’s looking like a pretty average week for us- the high school is keeping Ace plenty busy, and he’s trying to get in a few workouts a week after work, too. I’m tutoring an average of 4 hours a day, but with travelling to and from the businesses, homes, and schools, I stay busy enough. It’s a good life Between tutoring and prepping, I’m attempting to keep up on my personal stuff- journaling, working out, and my rather feeble attempts to blog and study Turkish regularly. I’m also starting to plan for India- reserving overnight train tickets and hostels- as well as doing some wedding planning. We’ve gotten most of the big stuff done, and the next project is the registry- fun! We’re going to start up some Turkish lessons again on Thursday, I’ve been hitting up a really nice Cuban Salsa class when I have the time and energy, and I also have the guitar Ace bought me for Christmas waiting dejectedly for me to come and learn a chord on it. I’m sitting in Starbucks now, sipping a tea and enjoying some quiet time- my journal and India plans are calling, though, so that’s all for now. Love and peace to all our family and friends- and Happy New Year!
We flew from Istanbul to Izmir on Christmas morning, then bussed straight down to Selcuk and Ephesus to visit the amazing ruins there They’re definitely the best I’ve seen in a long time- I’d say they rivaled the beauties I saw in Tunisia! We had a great Christmas dinner with a bunch of other travelers at our cozy hostel. We also bought our first kilim (beautiful flat-weaved Turkish carpet) at a neighboring shop. I’m afraid I may be feeling an addiction coming on…I’m already wondering where in Istanbul I might be able to find a good deal on some smaller ones. Uh-oh. The following morning, we bussed 3 hours east to the gorgeous mountainside covered with hot springs and a pure white, rock-solid coating of calcium (Pamukkale). It was pretty cool to climb up barefoot through the pools and what looked exactly like a bank of snow. It was another pretty big attraction, so we were able to find a nice hostel and plenty of transportation, even though it was the off season. Two of the nicest things about travelling in the off season- being able to bargain hotels down, and people-free pictures of places that are usually swarming
The next morning we bussed back to Izmir and caught a cheap domestic flight to Ankara, where we went straight to the Indian embassy with our paperwork and applied for our tourist visas. We weren’t able to pick them up until Thursday evening, so we had to stay in Central Anatolia for the week- no Mediterranean for us! While there aren’t a ton of attractions in the area, and there isn’t much tourist infrastructure in high season, let alone low season, it was really interesting to see some new parts of Turkey. We did manage to find a few really lovely museums, a cute village, more ruins, and we got to visit the Rumi’s tomb in Konya, which was really cool for me. However, by the time we picked up our visas in Ankara (success!!) we were pretty tired of buses- we were travelling at least 3 hours a day. We’d caught up on sleep enough for months, as it got dark pretty early and there wasn’t a ton to do at night- after our millionth game of backgammon we usually ended up giving up and going to bed at 9. So after our visit to Konya we decided to change our flight and come back a day early (Saturday). We’re both pretty happy to be home with tourist visas and India tickets secured!
It’s looking like a pretty average week for us- the high school is keeping Ace plenty busy, and he’s trying to get in a few workouts a week after work, too. I’m tutoring an average of 4 hours a day, but with travelling to and from the businesses, homes, and schools, I stay busy enough. It’s a good life Between tutoring and prepping, I’m attempting to keep up on my personal stuff- journaling, working out, and my rather feeble attempts to blog and study Turkish regularly. I’m also starting to plan for India- reserving overnight train tickets and hostels- as well as doing some wedding planning. We’ve gotten most of the big stuff done, and the next project is the registry- fun! We’re going to start up some Turkish lessons again on Thursday, I’ve been hitting up a really nice Cuban Salsa class when I have the time and energy, and I also have the guitar Ace bought me for Christmas waiting dejectedly for me to come and learn a chord on it. I’m sitting in Starbucks now, sipping a tea and enjoying some quiet time- my journal and India plans are calling, though, so that’s all for now. Love and peace to all our family and friends- and Happy New Year!
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