Nocturnal Quito and Nike We Run

This weekend I was sick and didn’t do a whole lot, but there were still a couple significant events that happened: Friday night we had another field trip into Colonial Quito and Saturday we had our Nike 10k race.

It was cool to visit the historic part of Quito again and it was a different experience at night. The old city has a lot of charm and the buildings date back to the 1600s. We started off with carriage rides through the plazas and historic streets. I sat up front next to the driver who had trouble getting the skiddish horse under control. He was interesting to talk to and kept swearing at the horse. There were a lot of people taking pictures when we rode by and I couldn’t figure out whether they were photographing the horses or the gringos. There aren’t many carriage rides here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking pictures of us.

For dinner we went to Café Mirador, a really nice restaurant in the heart of town. Before eating we climbed up to the roof to Vista Hermosa and saw a beautiful panorama of the city. I’m really starting to like Quito and it’s cool to live in a historical city like this. In the restaurant everything looked good on the menu, but I ordered a type of spicy steak. It’s good to have meat when I get the chance because Ecuadorian cuisine tends to be carb loaded. (Seriously, we’ve been served rice, noodles, and potatoes before.) When I asked for the steak to be medium I was warned by the NILI staff that meat is cooked really rare down here. I decided to go for three-quarters, but the steak still came back pink and bloody on the inside. This was suprising at first, but I didn’t really mind. I know throughly cooked meat is empasized in the US, but I think there might be more risk back home with our mass produced feedlot cattle. If the organs and scraps are safe to eat here, the cows are probably safer too. At least, I hope so. The steak was delicious though, and the texture reminded me a lot of sashimi (raw fish sushi).

Afterward we drove up to El Panecillo, a hill in South Quito with the famous virgin statue that overlooks the city. We hiked around the park and admired the 150-ft structure (same height as the copper part of the Statue of Liberty). Later I learned that it was based off of a smaller statue and made from 7,000 pieces of aluminum. It’s possible to go inside the statue, but it was closed by the time we got there. The Madonna is really iconic in Quito and it was cool to see it up close.

Saturday we had our 10k race and I still wasn’t feeling well so I rested all morning. I hadn’t really run in two weeks and I was a nervous with being sick, but it turned out to be an awesome experience. The race was part of the Nike We Run series, which took place in 16 cities around the world with about 142,000 runners. A few of us decided to run it last month after seeing ads and promotions all over the city. Since we signed up early, the cost was only $15 and we got a Nike Dri-Fit running shirt that was flourescent yellow.


Above: Before and after the race! (Photos from Jen's camera)

We knew we arrived in the right part of town when all we could see were people in these bright yellow shirts. There were runners all over the place, warming up and stretching so we joined them until everybody lined up at the start. Quito was set to have 6,000 runners and the area was packed. It’s funny because there were no public bathrooms by the starting line and in countries like Ecuador public urination isn’t looked down upon. (There were a ton of people using the walls and sides of vehicles in the dimly lit streets.) But other than the lack of bathrooms, the race was really well put together with a good route and hydration stations. Thad and I ran together and we didn’t see any other gringos. There were hundreds of people watching and cheering from the sidelines and we even got some cheers in English like “almost done” and “good job”.

Running is interesting at high altitude and I’ve grown to really like it. At higher elevation there is less atmospheric pressure and therefore less oxygen to breathe (up here it’s about 2/3 of sea level). The body has to increase a bunch of functions for the brain and muscles to get enough oxygen, and this makes endurance activities difficult. But ironically since the air is less dense, it is easier to run short distances. With sprints I feel really explosive, but long runs can be really draining, and this contradiction is still mindblowing for me. The race site was 9100-9200’ elevation, but by now we are pretty well acclimated. Our running pace tends to be slower this high, but we still broke an hour (59:13) which I was proud of for how I was feeling.

(Here's a historical note for people who like trivia: The idea of altitude preformance was discovered after the 1968 Mexico City Olympics (held at 7300’ elevation) when the endurance times were below average and all the short distance and jumping records were shattered).

Well that’s about it for the weekend. Sunday I went to church with a group and relaxed for the remainder of the day. I’m still feeling sick today, but I’m trying to rest up. I want to be healthy for this coming weekend, which is a five-day break. (Next Tuesday and Wednesday are national holidays, and Correa decided to designated this Monday off as well.) Thad and I want to do more hiking and we’re planning to head back to into the Andes. But this week is the last week of our third block, so I have to focus on school before I get my head in the mountains. Hasta luego!

Mindo

Wow, I have been getting behind on writing! I still haven’t written about the weekend yet, and there’s already other stuff happening. Anyway, I’ll try to catch up and I’ll start off with our trip to Mindo. Josué, Thad, and I wanted to do something fun this weekend, so we decided to return to the small touristy town, which is about two hours out of Quito. We had a brief stop there after our Santo Domingo trip and this was where we visited the amazing chocolate factory. There are a lot of outdoor things to do in Mindo and it is world famous for bird watching.

After class on Friday we packed our stuff and headed out. I’ve never been much of an ultra light packer, but in my 1000 cm3 Camelbak, I managed to fit a weekend’s worth of clothes and toiletries, along with my water filter, two liters of water, three oranges, and a jar of peanut butter (the only food I had left in my room). I was definitely proud of this packing job and the peanut butter turned out to be a good idea.

Every source on the internet said there was only one bus company direct to Mindo, but all of the locals told us otherwise. They said we could catch a bus every thirty minutes from the nearby terminal and this sounded good. However, we realized that these buses weren’t direct when we were dropped off in the dark at the crossroads about 5 miles out of town. A couple of locals told us to wait for a ride, and soon enough a small pickup truck with blasting salsa music turned at the intersection and offered us one. We hopped in the back and realized we picked the craziest driver. He sped down the winding road recklessly, passing other cars while we huddled in the back against our backpacks. Everyone in the cab was chain smoking and halfway down the hill the truck stopped so everyone could light up again. We were relieved when we finally pulled into town.

Finally we got to our lodging, which was at the chocolate factory, El Quetzal. The place is also a café and hostel and this turned out to be one of the best ideas ever. Our room had great beds and hot showers, and the whole place smelled like chocolate. That night we grabbed dinner in town (huge plates of food for $4) and we returned to relax with a brownie afterward. They were the best brownies I’ve ever had and our teacher always refers to them as the best in the world. Everyone raved about them in the guestbook and they are unexplainably amazing. We ended the night on a sugar high and had some good guy time. Haha, what happens in Mindo stays in Mindo.

Saturday morning we woke up and enjoyed an amazing free breakfast. My pancakes came with ginger syrup and tasted like donuts, and I also had a plate of fresh fruit and a batido de papaya, a fruit drink mixed with milk. Afterward we hit the town and found a travel guide to give us suggestions. There we hired a ride up to the hiking trails and were able to enjoy the outdoors with a variety of activities. We descended a steep slope, hiked along the river, saw some cool plants and wildlife, and went swimming under a waterfall. There was even a concrete waterslide in the middle of the jungle, and whoever had the idea to build that was a genius. But there was a sign in Spanish that instructed people to grab their feet and that confused me. I soon realized why when the slide went fast and momentum brought me on my back during the ten-foot fall into the river.



Top Left: Jungle Waterslide. Right: Our swimming spot.
Bottom Left: Leap of faith! Right: Josué going for it.

My favorite part of the day though was ziplining (in Spanish they use the English word ‘canopy’). There are huge canopy outfits in Mindo, but they are packed full of tourists and for this reason we decided not to do them. However we were lucky to find a privately run canopy in the middle of the jungle, which only charged $3 per run. It included a running leap of faith over a cliff that was super awesome, and the lines took us back and forth across a valley. I ended up doing it three times and the guy running it was super cool and didn’t charge me for the last one. The equipment was a lot less professional than ziplining outfits, but was still really safe to use. I think most ziplines go way overboard in safety measures for insurance purposes.

Afterward we each bought $1 chicken kebobs and fresh squeezed orange juice from a vendor at the trailhead. We were going to go tubing in the river, but once it started to rain we returned back to the hotel. There we split another brownie and found some more cheap food in town. We decided to relax and found a spa to get massages. Josué and I split an hour for $15 each and that turned out to be great. I was so relaxed I almost left without paying. (The masseuse was an American from Washington and I was surprised when I found out that her boyfriend’s family lives on my island and she travels there all the time. What a small world!) That night we each got another brownie with ice cream and mixed them with the peanut butter I brought. That was seriously the best dessert I’ve ever had! Pretty much in a nutshell our trip consisted of adrenaline and sugar highs.


Left: El Quetzal. Middle & Right: Enjoying Amazing Dessert!

Sunday we woke up and went tubing early in the morning. The cost was only $6 each and this included transportation to the top of the river. The tubes were tied together in a honeycomb shape and included two guides who rode with us and steered our makeshift raft. I was surprised how many huge rocks there were in the river, but we still were able to go through some class II and III rapids on our way down. A couple times we got stuck and the guides jumped out to move us.

Afterward we relaxed for the rest of the day and bought our return bus tickets, which was a good thing because we were running low on money. After paying the hotel for our room and brownie tab, we were left with about $8 combined. In our quest to find the cheapest lunch, we found a section of town that served cheap lunches to locals, and for $2.25 we each got a bowl of cow’s hoof soup, a plate of rice and meat, and a glass of juice. Sadly, we couldn’t bring any brownies home, but after our final bus transfer we made it back to campus with 31 cents to spare. Talk about cutting it close!



Top Left: Before the game. Right: Roommates.
Bottom Left: Cheering on the Liga. Right: Game action.

On Tuesday a group of us went to watch a local soccer game between LDU Quito (the local team known as the ‘Liga’) and San Felipe de Chile. This was part of the South American Cup, an annual tournament between the best pro teams in the continent. A few days before, the Liga lost to the Chilean team on the road and this was played on the day of the miner’s rescue. I imagine there was a lot of emotion involved when they pulled the upset. But at the game we went to, the Liga gave them a 6-1 beating and it was a lot of fun to watch. Also, our tickets were only $9 and we could sit near the field! The crazy section of the stadium (known as la muerte blanca, the white death) was so fanatical and passionate and I want to watch another game from there. Yoan and I were originally planning on being there until we decided to go with a bigger group.

Finally, yesterday (Wednesday) we had a field trip to La Capilla del Hombre, a local art museum that showcased the work of Oswaldo Guayasamin who was a humanist and expressionist influenced by Picasso. He worked to promote peace and indigenous rights and he reflected the hurt of misery of humanity in his artwork. The paintings were impacting and we learned about the history behind them. There were also some powerful quotes, one of which has still stood out to me: “I cried because I didn’t have shoes, until I saw a child who didn’t have feet.” On a lighter note, we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant afterward that had amazing food and served habañero sauce. I ordered the biggest burrito I’d ever seen, and the ‘Super Machote’ was 50 cm (20 in) long and extremely delicious.


Above: El Super Machote!

Later there was a two for one deal at the cinema so a group of us went to see Piraña 3D (Piranha 3D). I was expecting to see a good horror movie about piranha attacks (a good thing to see before travelling to the Amazon), but the movie turned out to be kind of a joke and was more about teens partying over spring break. I found it sad that other cultures get their view of US youth culture from media like this.

Well that’s the gist of what went on the past few days. I also added some more pictures to my Andean Adventures album on Facebook. I will try to not get too far behind on blogging in the future. Hasta luego!

Miscellaneous Week

I’ve gotten in the habit of only blogging about the weekends because it feels like there’s not a whole lot of stuff happening during the week. It’s usually just the same old routine, but there’s usually cool and interesting stuff happening. I’ll try to put something together for this week.

One interesting experience that happened this week was getting a haircut on Tuesday. My hair has been getting longer so I decided to go for it in the spur of the moment while we were down in Carcelén. I was expecting the worst to happen, but the haircut actually turned out well. I was proud of myself for explaining what I wanted in Spanish, and as my parents know, this is something I don’t like doing in English. And the best part: it only cost $4! The haircut included a trim with a straightedge razor, which I admit was slightly nerve-racking.

My hairstylist, Fernando, was an interesting dude though. He lived in Spain for a while and got his hair license while he was visiting England. (He said he couldn’t speak English very well, and the only English word he used was an expletive when he nicked me with the straightedge.) He was really nice and we talked a lot, but I could tell he was gay with his hair and earring (a sign in Ecuador). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with this, but I had to think about the cultural implications afterward. I asked Josué what it meant when he conversed with me in the second person, and apparently this showed that he felt really comfortable around me. I then asked what it meant when I referred back with the same pronoun, and found out this was a way of showing that I felt really close to him as well. Great. The tú/usted pronoun difference (two different ways of saying "you") in Spanish is really important in distinguishing close relationships with professional interactions and discernment can help keep space between yourself and another person. I totally knew this beforehand but wasn’t thinking. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Fernando where I lived.

Another interesting event was a concert last night (Wednesday). It was a strings ensemble of baroque music that played Vivaldi’s Four Seasons among other pieces. Jenna (a NILI student) was offered a bunch of free tickets from the school she helps at so a large group of us decided to go. It was a really good event and I love capitalizing on whatever free opportunities come about. The music group was a travelling ensemble from Korea and we found it weird that they spoke to the crowd in English. I tried translating for Gustavo, but even us gringos had trouble understanding the non-native speech. Afterward a few of us were dying of hunger so we made a late-night food run downtown.

One activity we tend to do a lot is going to the nearby mall. It’s not too far away and we usually split a taxi since they are cheap in Quito. Today (Thursday) we decided to go shopping and I ended up buying a shirt. I love how South American sizes are more slender, and I found a t-shirt kiosk that only had size differences with the height. Score! The shirts were all $16, but some of the styles were half off. I paid with a $10 and ended up getting change back in nickels. We also stopped at Sweet & Coffee, a popular coffee shop that has good drinks and desserts. They have really good prices and their large frappachinos are only $2! I dumped off my nickels on the cashier and eagerly awaited my drink. However, it was strange today because Josué ordered a type of cappuccino and they gave my drink to him with his order. I ordered a new flavor (cacao) but it didn’t look the same and we thought it was meant to be mixed with his drink. We soon found out we were wrong and ended up sharing the drink (a dizzying concoction of cacao frappachino with a double cappuccino shot and two packets of cane sugar). Needless to say, I will probably be up late tonight.

This weekend I am really excited because the NILI guys (Josué, Thad, and me) are heading back to Mindo. It’s a touristy town in the cloud forest about 2 hours away with a lot of fun activities like hiking, biking, rafting, and zip lining. This is where we went to the butterfly exhibit and chocolate factory at the beginning of the trip and we’ve wanted to head back. We are actually staying at the hostel that is part of the chocolate factory so that will be awesome. It will be really good to get out of Quito now that the political situation is pretty much all straightened out.

Another thing that will be amazing: a few of us are going to a South American Cup game on Tuesday! The Copa Sudamerica is an annual soccer tournament for pro teams, and last year LDU Quito won it all. However, this year they lost their last game to San Felipe, the Chilean team that they are playing again on Tuesday. It was an interesting game (I reported on it for a news article in class), and while San Felipe is a younger team, they fought a lot harder. I imagine the motivation had a lot to do with the rescue of the Chilean miners on the same day. But Tuesday’s rematch will be an intense game, and Yoan warned me not to go unless I plan on jumping and screaming the whole time. Heck yes.

Anyway, our classes have been going great and we just started a new block this week. We are in the classroom three hours a day, but the good thing is each class only lasts for three weeks. The first two class blocks were Advanced Grammar I & II and now we are in Advanced Conversation. It is a good class so far and we talk about a lot about cultural topics and current events. I am learning that I need to become less of a procrastinator, as the workload gets bigger because it is harder to put off work that has to be done in Spanish. I especially realized this with a 4-5 page paper that I didn’t do until the day of on Tuesday. I really need to work on procrastination and I should probably start by getting to my homework tonight. Anyway, hasta luego!

Ecuadorian Homestay

My Ecuafamilia.

Things have gotten a lot better politically since I wrote last. I don’t know everything that’s happened, but the streets are back to normal and we’ve been able to leave campus. Also last week, president Correa and the Ecuadorian parliament modified the new law so the government could give the police and armed forces a salary increase. I still don't completely understand last week’s situation though.

Anyway, this weekend for a cultural activity we moved in with an Ecuadorian family to observe what a home setting is like. Friday night I met my Ecuadorian parents and carpooled to their house with Amy and Josué (two other NILIs) who were living with families close by. Nine of us shared a small four-door sedan, and while I was lucky enough to sit in the front, my only available space was occupied by a 5-year-old who sat on my lap. After we arrived I found out that I had three siblings: Eduardo, Luis, and Christina who were 26, 22, and 18 years old. It’s interesting in Latin cultural how close families are and it’s the norm for children to continue living with their parents, even after they are finished with school and working. The house was a small concrete structure, but it was comfortably made into a two-story home. I realized that they lived in the same area as Gustavo’s church, which is a rough part of town, and I heard some terrifying stories about this from Miguel, my Ecuadorian dad.

Instead of doors in the house there were hanging rugs, but this didn’t bother me at all. Also, I was warned to watch my head every time I went up the stairs, because there was barely any clearance. Oh yeah, another thing I was warned about was the size of the shower. The ceiling was my height and the spigot was about shoulder level. But that wasn’t the worst part. There are many ways to heat water and one of them happens to be with electricity, complete with wires and electrical circuits in the shower. With my height I could smell the electric current and hear buzzing, and without thinking I touched the spigot and was shocked. This combination made me really nervous, so I squatted the whole time to stay away from the electricity.

Saturday morning we went to a downtown market, which is a weekly family tradition. This was similar to the market we went to for our field trip and there was just about every kind of natural food imaginable. I asked a lot of questions about unfamiliar foods and saw a lot of interesting stuff. The meat section was filled with organs, heads, tongues, and hooves, but it’s cool how every part of the animal gets used up. It was also interesting to see my family purchase chicken. The poultry were all completely intact for the vendor to gut after each purchase, and the head, feet, and organs are all brought home as part of the deal. The head and feet are especially popular in chicken soup here.

For lunch we went over to the seafood section and bought a bunch of cangrejo, a type of small tropical crab. Crabs down here are cooked in a soup with vegetables, peanut butter, and verdes green bananas. (There are at least six different types of banana here). There were no tools to remove the meat so we used our teeth along with a big mallet on the table for the claws. It was weird to see the crabs served floating in a bowl of the brown liquid, but they were really tasty. Similarly my family thought it was weird that we just cook crab in salt water.

On Sunday mornings Miguel and a few others from his church have a really cool routine: they climb the nearby mountain to spend some quiet time and pray. I decided to tag along and it turned out to be a really neat experience. We left the house at four in the morning and after meeting up with others, we hiked for over an hour until we reached the top. We had an amazing view of the city and could see a lot of other mountains as well. From where I sat I was able to watch the sunrise next to Cayambe, Ecuador’s third-highest peak. (I didn’t have my altimeter with me, but I guessed our elevation to be between 10-11,000’.) On the way down, Miguel showed me a bunch of medicinal plants that are used to help the stomach, lungs, kidneys, liver, and a lot of ailments.


Left: Approaching the Summit. Right: View of Quito and Cotopaxi

Overall, I learned a lot about the culture: things such as you don’t take your shoes off or dress casually in an Ecuadorian home. Another thing that stood out: I was really hungry one night and I ate my dinner fast. I then apologized and said that I’m used to eating fast at home, but Miguel’s response was profound: “I used to eat fast too, until I realized how long it took for my wife to make the food.” That comment has stuck with me, and all together this weekend was really nice. I definitely want to see their family again before I leave the country.

Sorry for going so long in between blogs. This week has been somewhat uneventful following the attempted political coup. But things are starting to pick up again, which is nice. I’m excited to get back to more adventures over the weekends. Anyway, hasta luego!

Political Situation

Police riots, Military intervention (Reuters Images)

Saturday Update: Due to the political sensitivity of the situation, I removed my opinion from the description below. I want to play it safe as a blogger and I even double checked all the information with AP and Reuters news sources. (But feel free to contact me privately if you want to know more.) Overall things are starting to get better for the country, but here is a brief synopsis of what happened on Thursday.

Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, signed a new law that cut police benefits and it angered them. When he was speaking at the police barracks in Quito yesterday, he was roughed up and tear gassed and sent to the hospital. The police officers across the country then went on strike and rioted, shutting down the airports and blocking highways by burning garbage and tires in the streets. With no protection, there was looting and violence in the city and we were confined to campus for our safety. Anyway, with Correa at a hospital downtown, the police took over the building and held him captive for 12 hours. The military assembled to rescue the president later and it involved a violent street battle with the police. We all watched the dramatic rescue on live television, and the guy filming it was hiding on the streets with a handheld camera. Finally, a speeding SUV emerged from the building and brought the president to a town square full of supporters where he made a speech. Now Correa is a hero, the country is under martial law, and it is uncertain what will happen with the police. Anyway, here is a good article from the Associated Press. (Thank you Matt Drudge.)


Rescuing the president, Police barricade, Ecuadorian support (AP Images)

On the lighter side of things, I said I would blog about some more happenings, so here are a few more events that took place this last week:

Fruit Market: Our field trip this week was to a big fruit market where we studied certain fruits. Mine were the tuna (cactus pear) and the carambola (starfruit). It was really interesting to see so many different fruits and vegetables in one place, and I realized that there are so many tropical fruits that I’d never even heard of before. (Some are incredibly delicious while others have the foulest smell you can imagine.) I also found a new favorite word: la yapa, Quechua slang for a free gift of food. Serrano Spanish (spoken by people in the Andes) uses a lot of indigenous slang and the locals are surprised when they hear us gringos using it. Anyway, I found that when I made a purchase and asked for a yapa the vendors would laugh and hand me some extra fruit. Score!

I was even able to try a really spicy ají (pepper) that the vendors warned us about. They were surprised when I asked to sample it, but their reactions were worth it. I even bought a few to take back because few of us want to make some good hot sauce. Ecuadorian food tends to be bland, and apparently Peru is the country with the spicy food. It’s been interesting to learn the differences in South American food culture. For example, the Colombian students today went to a meat market and bought cow’s lungs, which are a delicacy for them back home. Earlier they were draining them on the clothing line (a funny site to see next to the wet clothes) and later they had a little gathering with fried lungs and intestines (delicious) along with plenty of salsa music.

The Basilica: Last week our field trip was to the Quito Basilica, which is the largest Gothic church in both North and South America. We were surprised when the caretaker invited our group down to the catacombs, and that was the first time our program has gone down there. Below the ground there were thousands of tombs in the walls and many of them were lavishly decorated. No creepy bones though. We were also allowed to go down to the tomb of Ecuador’s political leaders, which is extremely rare for tourists to visit. Afterward, we climbed all the way to the top of the towers with small stairways and sketchy ladders, and that was really cool. On the high parts, we had fun taking pictures of ourselves hanging off the side. Here are some pictures.




Also, here's an update on the dump: the kids have been a lot better. Coming back the second week I thought they weren’t going to like us, but they all ran up and gave us hugs. This is our volunteer service project that we are going to do every Tuesday. The last two weeks have been more structured and we have been organizing activities instead of just being thrown into chaos. It is a lot of fun, but it continues to be a teaching challenge.

Finally, a few of us decided to do a 10k race later this month. It’s part of the We Run Nike series that will take place in 16 cities around the world and have 142,000 runners. It’s in downtown Quito and it will be pretty sweet to run a 10k at almost 10k elevation. I’ve been starting to run more here (which has proved to be a challenge at high altitude), but it at least gives me something to do on campus. I hope the political situation gets better because I don’t want to be stuck here for too long. It’s one thing to not have class, but it’s another to not be able to travel. Anyway, hasta luego!