Wednesday 2-25-09: Guest Lecturer

On Wednesday morning I was a guest lecturer at the Military Hospital and the PT students at the Universidad Católica were also invited to attend. The therapist that I´ve been working with was very interested in the way that I´ve been treatíng one of their patients (post-breast cancer lymphedema). Because this is something that I´ve had a lot of training in, she asked if I´d give a lecture and lab demonstration. Of course I said yes, this was a really awesome opportunity for me. I lectured some in Spanish and some in English with a translator for more detailed info, and did Q&A in Spanish.

Everyone was really interested and had a lot of questions. Britton came along and took these pictures for me, what a great husband. This had to be my favorite part of our trip!

Tuesday night 2-23-09: A city tour at night

On Tuesday night, René took us on a city tour of the Historic Center in his car. We stopped at
the Basilica (pictured here) as well as the presidential palace and several other churches.

About a mile´s walk east down our hill and through the city takes us to Parque La Carolina. (We had to take this picture of ¨Mac World¨along the way for our Mac-loving friends.) Parque La Carolina is a HUGE park with at least 20 soccer fields (the nation´s favorite sport), basketball courts, several playgrounds, bike trails, jogging paths, horseback riding, paddleboats and more. Yes, that is retired farm equipment that the children are playing on (reuse, recycle).

A lot of the street icecream carts around here are powered by what looks like a car or motorcycle engine. It smells like gas. I´m not sure what the icecream tastes like.

Within the park is an enclosed botanical garden with different types of atmospheres created in different areas. As usual Britton took some really great flower pictures. We were amused that all the signs in the garden were in Spanish and Braille but not English. Let us ponder...Do more English-speakers or blind people come to this park? Okay, I know, it´s probably some ADA type thing but this is not a city that I´d want to live in if I were blind. Did you see the side walks here??? I´m sure that a lot of those blue hearts represent pedestrians.

Next we walked really far up and up and up a hill to get to this art museum that everyone raves about and when we got there...it was closed. So we took a picture of the view and headed back home. Dinner with Yolanda and René as usual, yum.

Monday 2-23-09: Mitad del Mundo - Parte Dos

The weather on Monday was beautiful and we got back on the bus for the hour long trip to Mitad del Mundu again. This time we started with a trip to nearby ruins called Rumicucho. Built around 500 BC by the Quitu-Cara culture and used principally as a ceremonial site during equinoxes, this site has been pilfered by Ecuadoreans over the years. The ruins themselves are not extremely impressive but the views around them certainly are.

Next we went into the city and saw some native performances as well as a mock bull fight on stilts.

Around 1pm we went on a small tour to a volcano and hiked a bit around the top. Our guide took us to a great lookout point where you can see into the volcanic crater of the extint Pululahua (although it is now considered active based on the gases that it has been emitting for the past 2 years). The top of the volcano collapsed in ancient times and left a huge crater about 4km wide. Here about 40 families / 150 people have lived and farmed the extremely fertile land for the past 150 years. Yes getting the produce out is difficult but the mules help out.

As we stood at our lookout point, we could see the clouds coming in. Within 2 minutes we went from a perfectly clear view to absolute fog. We were standing in a cloud again.

We returned to the city and avoided a huge espuma (cream) fight by sitting on an upstairs balcony and eating empanadas and drinking cerveza (beer).

On the way out of town, we took a picture of a blue heart on the road. These are painted throughout Ecuador when an Ecuadorean dies in an accident on the road.

Sunday 2-22-09: A Parade in Amaguaña

On Sunday, our host family took us to a pueblo called Amaguaño, about 45 minutes south of Quito. We watched a parade that is part of the city´s carnival celebration. Most of the floats represented different countries in South America, Central America and Mexico as well as many different native tribes in Ecuador. About 25% of the Ecuadorean people are of pure native descent and speak Quichua as their first language, 65% of the population is a native/Spanish mix, 6% is of pure European descent, and the rest are mostly Afro-Ecuadorean or Asian. The cultural mix is interesting to watch as many floats included native tribes wearing various white-faced masks or sunburned-faced masks making fun of the arrival of the Spanish. The native costumes were very colorful and beautiful and are still seen in pueblos throughout the country on a daily basis.

It is popular to cover people in foam, called espuma, made specially for carnival which evaporates after a while but leaves behind a sticky colored residue. It is also popular to cover people in egg and then flour, this little girl is working the carnival, selling both products. We luckily avoided eggs but I was covered in a little flour and lots of foam.

Afterwards, we went to another nearby city for a HUGE lunch of typical Ecuadorean food: roasted pork, choclo (big corn), cheese, mashed potatoes, mote (bigger white corn), avocado and a little ahi (spicy sauce) to cover everything.

Next we stopped by René´s military club for a tour. It´s a really nice recreational facility with pools, spas, horseback riding, etc. René explained that there are several facilities like this throughout Ecuador as well as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and a few more countries. These countries have an agreement that the military personnel can travel to any of the countries and stay at these facilities very inexpensively.

Last they took us to the oldest cathedral in Quito, built by the first Spanish settlers.

Saturday 2-21-09: Saturday night, la Mitad del Mundo

This structure in the Mitad del Mundo marks the original spot where Charles-Marie de La Condamine made the measurements in 1736 showing that this was indeed the equatorial line. His expedition´s measurements gave rise to the metric system and proved that the world is not perfectly round, but that it bulges at the equator. (The line that we were standing on earlier is only about 200 meters away and is the equator that is marked now with military GPS.)

Saturday 2-21-09: La Mitad del Mundo

On Saturday, we woke up, grabbed some hot bread from the bakery down the street (this reminds us of the Krispy Kreme ¨hot donuts¨sign), and took the 60 minute bus ride to the ¨Middle of the World.¨

Here we took the tour and Britton did the obligatory blow gun trial. He hit the target but it bounced off, I guess I will be the hunter and he will be the gatherer, ha! (I will have to rotate this picture on a different computer). He and I were both able to balance the egg on the nail, a feat that they say is only possible on the equator... I think we have a project in the garage when we get back, Dad.

This house was built by a native tribe in the 1800s and is literally made of blood, sweat and tears along will some dirt and dried plants. And this guy is making the traditional wall hangings that the indigenous have been making for hundreds of years, he tells me he has over 100 patterns in his head!

Then we called the maid, Marta, who works at our house in Quito because she lives near here and invited us to come see her. In a few minutes she arrived in a car with her husband and son and we were on our way to her house in el campo (the country). It was a little unique to see the pigs, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs in her yard, all for food. She told us that it was her son´s 9th birthday and she was going to make a big lunch but first they needed to go sell chickens that they had bought live that morning, then ¨processed¨and were going to sell. She wanted us to wait at her house for her but I asked her if we could go, ¿porque no? (why not?). I thought we would be going to a market, it felt like we were in a different world when we actually went door to door selling chickens out of the back of her trunk. Wow! And I don´t like to touch the faucet after touching chicken, this is a whole other concept of sanitary.

We walked with one of Marta´s daughters to a market where we stocked up on cookies for the family. She made us a nice late lunch with her two daughters and one of her nephews came over. It was a regular day in the country with the fam.

When we left her house, we went to the city center where there was a nine piece band playing music while people danced the evening away. Then we headed back to Quito.

Friday 2-20-09: Quilotoa hike

On Friday morning we woke up to a beautiful day and just look at the view from our lodge with the snow capped Volcán Iliniza in the background! Awesome!

Ben really wanted to hike around the top of the the Quilotoa volcano, a trip made by very few because it is long and rigorous and involves actually having to use your hands and feet and a few scary moments along the way. Since the day just couldn´t be any more beautiful, we decided to do it.

The views were amazing and the exercise at that altitude was great. Inside the volcano was a steep drop and the most beautiful blue green water and outside the volcano was an even steeper drop and beautiful farming on the mountain sides. They farm land here is much steeper than we would attempt to farm in the U.S. Everywhere you looked, it was overwhelmingly serene and beautiful. We did run into a few children from the farms. They were herding pigs along with their dog. Yes, life is different here.

The complete journey around took 5 hours and we were exhausted toward the end.

No rest for the weary though, we had a quick snack and then did what most tourists do here, descend into the volcano all the way down to the lake on foot. Here is a picture of Britton and I down by the lakeside in the volcano. Then we used mules to get back out. There are not many tourists in this remote area and I think we were the only non- Ecudoreans (or at least the only gringos). We ran into another child herded sheep up the volcano, a typical Friday afternoon? It would have taken us forever to get out of that volcano on foot, the mule ride was scary but fun! We had a late lunch in Quilotoa and then headed back to Quito.