I would like to note that I think it is very good and efficient to eat all parts of the animals we kill for food. I credit my dislike (gag-reflex) of this food to my lack of exposure to it in the U.S.
The main course was most excellent Tamales de papas. They are mashed potatoes, cooked beef in peanut sauce, red peppers, and a piece of hard boiled egg all steamed together inside a palm leaf.
We had a fruit, babaco, for dessert. I believe that this is an Andean hybrid of a papaya.
Sooo from now on in this post I´m going to resort to the list-and-picture blogging so I can catch up to the present....Enjoy!
April 5- Palm Sunday: Outdoor Palm Sunday mass in the Plaza de San Francisco en Centro Historico.
- Night, procession and modern dance/music performance
April 10 -Good Friday: Crazzzzzzyy parade (I stole the pics offline cuz I didn´t bring my camera)
-Night, 10hr bus to Cuenca
We were one of the people crammed onto the sidewalk.
Between every dozen to a hudread purple people was a Jesus carrying a cross.
We saw a lot of these guys throughout the parade.April 11-Saturday: Checked into a convent and ate breakfast there. We were with an Ecuadorian friend who had connections to stay here
-Walked around downtown Cuenca.
-View overlooking Cuenca
-Random art museum and many churches
-Latin Music Concert with Art vendors right near by
-Back to the view overlooking Cuenca by night
-A church there was having a mass with a cool candle procession
-CUY!!!! (Guinea Pig)
We got to go back to the kitchen and see our cuy being cooked. Here is an interview with the chef :) Here she is describing how she prepares the cuy. The full interview included where the cuy comes from, age, species, different methods of preparation etc.
April 12 -Easter Sunday: woke up to nuns singing in the church across the courtyard
-Bus to IngaPirca where we sat on stools in the aisles for two hours cuz there weren´t enough seats and they let you do that in Ecuador...
We also missed the bus directly to IngaPirca so we were dropped off in some random town and flagged down a bus to IngaPirca from there. This second bus had a lot of indigenous people who live in the beautiful mountains around there and they (genetically) looked very different from the indigenous people one sees all over Quito.
-IngraPirca: The Best Incan (/pre-incan) ruins in Ecuador! We joined a tour group that consisted of people from Quito with a tour guide of indigenous decent.
Sun Temple
Our Cañari Tour Guide showing us where they beheaded people for human sacrifices (if i understood him correctly)
Sun temple. The actual temple was built so the sun would shine and light up those display areas behind me
Llama!! (I touched it)
-Returned to Cuenca and enjoyed a $1.50 Almuerzo. $1.50 Almuerzos are probably one of the best things here. For $1.50, you get soup appetizer, rice, chicken, small salad and fresh juice (dessert optional) with some variation. They usually are in really small restaurants, frequently family run, and the dishes never match. They are amazing.
- Hung out by the River in Cuenca and went to the Puente Roto art exhibit
-Slept at the convent again even though it was pretty much deserted and a little spooky. All the people visiting for Easter had left.
April 13-Monday: Bus to Cajas National Park. (we sat on the aisle floor again for an hour)
-Walked around the beauuutiful Páramo
-Started walking back to the information station. Started pouring rain. Some dudes picked us up and drove us to the information station that would have taken like 3 hours to walk to. Waited there to flag down the bus to Cuenca. After walking/waiting for about an hour, the bus passed us up. The information dude hooked us up with this other random dude passing through Cajas on his way to Cuenca. Hitched a ride with him. He was really nice and drove us exactly where we wanted to go and it was cheaper than the bus (and we had real seats)
-Museo Banco Central where we saw Tzantzas!!!! (Shrunken Heads) We got to the museum 1/2 hour before it closed and they werent going to let us in, but we told them we just wanted to see the tzantzas exhibit...so they let us in for free. It was a very well put together exhibit with cool lighting and displays. We saw 1 shruken sloth head and like 4 real shrunken human heads. We weren´t allowed to bring cameras but they more or less looked like this:
-Took a 8pm bus back and arrived in Quito 4am on Tuesday.
-Went to my 9am class on Tuesday :)
April 16- thursday night Mom, Dad, Colleen, and Mark arrived from the U.S. to visit me. I´m hoping that they will write about their visit and I will post their version for a different perspective. A quick run down of what we did though:
-Arrived, none of their baggage arrived
April 18- Friday: Rented a car, drove to Otavalo, visited some artesinos spinning thred and making dream catchers, tried to make friends with Pedro the anti-social llama at our hotel
April 18, Saturday: Market at Otavalo! Shopping! Bargaining!
Panama hats are made in Ecuador, not Panama.On the way back from Otavalo we stopped at this site on the Equator.
This is the fam at exactly 0 degrees lat.April 19, Sunday: I RAN A 10K RACE! w/ my host mom :) My time was an hour and 11 minutes which I´m okay with because
1. ive never run a race like that before
2. we ran it in Quito, elevation 9, 350 feet
-Centro Historico: Basilica, Panecillo, Plaza Grande, La Compania, Plaza de San Francisco
-Dinner with traditional music from different parts of Ecuador
In front of the Basilica. Please note the free T-shirt I got from the race :)
Those Gargoyles are actually endémic Galapagos birds!!! They also have tortises, dolphins, and a bunch of other special Ecuadorian animals around the cathedral.Going up the Basilica is pretty scary and dangerous. They don´t have nearly as many regulations as the U.S.
I can see my house from here!Virgin de Panecillo. This statue is on a hilltop and you can see it from almost anywhere in Quito.
April 20, Monday: Taxis that you can call were on strike...this held us up for a short while
-TeleferiQo and then hiked part of the way up Ruca Pichincha.
-I raced Mark up the first hill :) (I won but he´ll argue that the finish line was ambiguous.)
April 25, Saturday I had a class field trip to Mindo.
-Bellavista, a hotel/eco resort/research station where we saw at least 4 different kinds of hummingbirds. There were a LOT of humming birds zooming around us and I got to touch one.
-We went tubing. This means that 6 inner tubes were tied together, 5 of us sat in the gaps between the tubes while two guides steered us over some rocks and serious rapids. It was nutz.
-Some of us decided we wanted to stay the night.
April 26, Sunday: Hiked around the Cloud Forest to multiple beautiful waterfalls that we swam in.
We were in the Cloud Forest.
- Zip lining like I have NEVER done before...
This formation was called "Murcielago" or "Bat"
This is "SuperChica" or "Super Girl"Not pictured is "La Mariposa" or "The Butterfly" where I started facing the guide and then flipped up side down facing forward...
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