I celebrated Christmas Eve with my neighbors and some of their relatives. We cooked a large meal and all just hung out and enjoyed each other’s company. On Christmas Day, BA had a celebration for the kids. They played games, brought in some clowns to paint faces and dance, had a creepy little kid pageant, and gifted toys and candies to all the kids in town. It was fun to see how excited the kids were to run up and accept their new toy. I left the celebration a little bit early to go to the airport in Guayaquil to meet my parents. Their plane got in with no problems and it was GREAT to see them. That night we got a shuttle to Guayaquil and stayed the night in a hotel with AC and hot water…glorious.
The next morning we headed back to the airport to rent our car when my dad realized that he had left his super cool tourist hat (with a flap in back to prevent neck burn) in the hotel. Well of course we couldn’t leave such a treasure behind, so we got in the car, stalled and sputtered our way out of the airport parking lot (just working out the stick shift kinks) and weaved our way through the busy streets of Guayaquil back to the hotel. My parents stayed in the car double parked in front of the hotel while I ran in to get the hat that was supposed to be waiting at the desk for me. Well, I got inside and the lady at the desk told me that they had not found the hat but that I could go upstairs and double check if I wanted to. Thus, I was escorted upstairs and waited for a while for the head housekeeper lady to show up and let me in the room. As she let me in, she told me that she had torn apart the room looking and had not found anything. Well, I walked in, reached up on the shelf in the closet where my dad said that he had left the hat, and lo and behold found it. Turns out that Ecuadorians are quite short and the shelves in the closets are quite high. As I walked out of the elevator, my mom was walking into the lobby to tell me that my dad had just received a ticket for double parking and that I had to go talk with the police officer since he couldn’t speak a word of English. I got outside, my dad had already driven off to ´go around the block´ and the officer was the next intersection down. I chased down the cop, broke out my best whiny Ecuadorian voice, and asked what the problem was. Turns out he just wanted my dad to move the car and had not given him a ticket, alas the language barrier. So I went back to the hotel where my mom was waiting, gave her the scoop, and we waited for my dad to come around the block. Well, we waited and waited and walked around looking for him parked somewhere and waited some more, and finally after about a half hour I made my way back into the lobby to beg to use their phone to call my cellphone which I had left in the car. The hotel workers were quite amused that the crazy white girl was back again and when I said that I had lost my father, they were more than willing to let me use the phone. My dad answered gruffly, telling me that there was no just driving around the block in Guayaquil and that he would be there in a few minutes. We waited some more and then finally saw him coming and hopped in the car. And that was how the trip in Ecuador began. After that little snafu, we decided that my dad had lost quite a few points for forgetting his hat and thus the game of points during the trip began. I of course had won quite a few points since I found the hat and made sure my dad didn’t get a ticket. We also decided our roles for the trip, my dad: the driver, my mom: the tour director, and me: the translator.
We left Guayaquil and headed out to the good ole BA. Because of the little holdup in Guayaquil we arrived a lot later than I had told my neighbors so they were quite worried but had a nice big meal waiting for us. It was my parent’s first Ecuadorian meal and they liked it, but couldn´t finish because it was so much food. After, we walked around and saw all the different plants and fruits that are growing right by my house, chatted, and hung out with people at my house. The next morning my mom and I made lasagna to share with my neighbors and then we went into Bucay and Cumanda to show my parents around. We got back just as the lunch was ready to come out of the oven and enjoyed delicious lasagna with my neighbors and another volunteer who came by to visit. (The Ecuadorian men chose to eat it accompanied with rice.) After, I took my parents around to meet my old host family (they were on their best behavior) and my friend Monica. Everyone was super nice to my parents, but it was difficult to keep translating back and forth. On our way back to the house we went through the park and I told the kids to follow because my parents had brought candy. Within a few minutes, my house was surrounded by children waiting for candy; it was like trick-or-treat on Halloween. Then, the family that lives one street over from my house showed up with a sloth hanging on a large branch. Apparently Wilmur, the husband, had found the sloth out in the farm where he was working and had brought it home with him. It was not a happy camper but I did end up touching it. I asked them where they were going to let it go, and they informed me, only half-jokingly, that he was going to be dinner (I never did get a straight answer when I got back, if they had eaten it or not).
The following morning, Wednesday, we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to the BA, and headed off to Cuenca. They were doing some road construction so the trip wasn´t as quick as it should have been, but it was still fairly painless. We arrived in Cuenca just in time for lunch and parked where the guidebook told us there was a good restaurant…turns out the place had moved and the guidebook was out of date. We wandered around for a while trying to find another place to eat and stumbled upon a place that another volunteer had recommended. It was probably the best meal that I have had since being in Ecuador. After lunch, we checked into the hotel, and then walked around Cuenca taking lots of pictures. In the process there were a few incidents and forgotten items that called for some major point deductions.
The next morning we decided that we had seen enough of Cuenca and got back in the car to head to Riobamba. We didn´t have a hotel booked so we wandered around Riobamba for a little bit deciding if we should stay or not when we found a travel/adventure guide that suggested a hotel and a lake that we should visit in the morning. The hotel ended up being super nice. We walked around Riobamba that night and saw their ´fabulous´ Christmas lights display. They managed to turn a beautiful square with fountain and church into the most cheesy, commercialized light display ever, there was a blow-up doll nativity scene, a handful of Pooh Bears, Barneys, Mickeys and Minnies, some Smurfs, and a few Santas scattered throughout the square underneath strings and strings of neon flashing Christmas lights.
On Friday morning we left Riobamba and got on the road to see Quilotoa Lake. We were told that the lake was located off the highway a little bit but shouldn’t take more than an hour to get there. Well that was a completely false statement. Most of the way the road was narrow and gravel, curving up and down through mountains and valleys, and took a little under two hours. It was super pretty scenery the whole way but we just wanted to get there already. We finally got to the park, got out of the car, climbed down a path cut through rocks, and emerged in the middle of a crater. It was gorgeous. The lake had blue green water and was in the middle of absolutely nowhere and really was just a large hole where a crater had crashed millions of years ago. I hiked a little further down the trail to get a little closer and on the way back realized that we were at a very high altitude. We ate a nice lunch, and got back in the car to head up to Otavalo. This drive took forever because we were in the middle of rush hour in Ecuador, which means a bunch of large, heavy trucks that go really slow and are hard to pass. But we finally made it to Otavalo and the cute little hacienda where we were staying for the night. We had a late dinner and then crashed.
We got up the next morning and explored the hacienda property; they had some gardens, some llamas, and a couple peacocks. After, we drove up to Cotacachi, famous for its leather goods, and bought some fun leather stuff. Next was the market in Otavalo. It stretched for block after block and had tons of textiles, paintings, hats, and food. We wandered around for a while and when we had had our fill we got back on the road to head to Quito. On our way we kept getting stopped by boys or men dressed as women, blocking the roads with rope or dancing in the street and on the car, and asking for money. We assumed it was something to do with New Year´s Eve (which was that night) but didn´t find out what until later in the trip. (Turns out they were acting as the Old Year´s Widows who were asking for donations since the Old Year was gone.) Thus, our drive in the middle of Old Town in Quito was quite stressful as we tried to find a parking garage and maneuver the one-way streets and steep hills, all the while trying to not run over the men in drag dancing all over our car. After we got the car situation taken care of, we walked around beautiful old town for a while and then got in a taxi to head out to the newer part of town where there was a huge street party. There were thousands and thousands of people walking up and down blocks and blocks of this one street, there were food vendors, concerts, and floats/dolls (representing the Old Year) that were going to be burned at midnight. After an hour or so we decided to head back to old town, and had a difficult time finding a cab back, as they didn’t want to drive through all the traffic and the men in drag. Finally we got a nice guy to take us back and we stopped for dinner in a fancy hotel. After the best salad ever, we headed back to our hotel to watch the New Year arrive from the balcony. There was a family on the street below us that had made a bunch of old year dolls and were burning them, dancing, and drinking; it was fun to watch.
On New Year´s Day first thing in the morning we changed hotels…the first one apparently had lumpy beds (I guess that doesn´t fly with the old folks), and checked into this super fancy little bed and breakfast type place. We booked a cheaper room that had a narrow staircase, but when we got there they had apparently taken pity on us and we were upgraded to the fancy suite…awesome. After, we walked around Quito and used the guide book to see all the sites. We saw lots of churches, statues, old parks, and buildings. We even decided to tour Ecuador’s equivalent to the White House. It was nice inside but there were a ton of display cases showing all the random gifts that President Correa had been gifted by the various countries that kind of detracted from the fancy rooms. We even got our picture taken and printed out for us as a complimentary ´hey you visited the palace´ remembrance. We spent all day walking around and then decided to take a late afternoon rest in our little hotel and were then greeted by the other two couples that were staying there, after a long, mandatory conversation, I decided that I don´t like being a tourist.
The next day was Monday, and we left Quito and headed to the coast. The first part of the trip was a breeze, the road had just been redone; it was four-lanes and quite an engineering feat as it wound its way down and out of the mountains. Once we were out of the mountains and on the coast, we came to a fork in the road. There was a sign pointing down a pothole covered road to our destination and a sign pointing down a brand new road to a town quite north and out of the way. We chose the pothole road to our destination….wrong choice. It was about 30-40 km through some hills of pure potholes and took almost 2 hours to make it through. Once we got out of the worst of it, we stopped at a gas station to get some snacks for lunch (as our tour director was not pulling her weight by packing up some nice sandwiches to eat when the going got tough) and the attendant told me that we should have taken the other road. Apparently even though it is out of the way a lot further north, it is still a lot quicker...so that explained why all the random people we saw in the little villages along the way looked at us like crazy aliens. Right at dusk we finally made it to the beach and the little town of Puerto Lopez. We had a nice seafood dinner, and then went to bed.
In the morning we went out to find a tour to take us to Isla de Plata. We got lucky with a tour guide that actually worked for the Park Service of the island. We took an hour boat ride out to the island and arrived in more or less a desert. We began by hiking up a hill and a bunch of stairs to get to the main part of the island where all the paths break off. We decided to take the trail to see the blue-footed boobies and the magnificent frigate birds. We saw tons and tons of teenage and baby boobies and quite a few adult boobies too. We heard the mating calls, the male boobies make a croaking sound, and the female boobies make more of a whistle. We saw a bunch of single male boobies hanging out on a ledge that we dubbed the singles bar. And we saw tons of frigate birds in nests that were learning to fly. It was super cool to watch them try and take off, then soar around for a little bit, before heading back to the nest. After a couple hours on the island, we headed back to the boat, ate some lunch, and then drove around to a cove to snorkel. I had never really snorkeled before and it was awesome. We saw angel fish, clown fish, tiger fish, some bigger fish that I don´t know the name of, and a ton of random smaller fish. And there was lots of different colored coral. It was super cool and they finally had to call me out of the water so that they could leave. We took the boat ride back to the main land, showered, and then stuffed ourselves full of more seafood.
In the morning, we made the trip back to Guayaquil. Along the way we stopped for some delicious mangos (as it is mango season right now) and made it back around noon to turn the car in. Then we got a shuttle back to the same hotel where we had had the hat snafu (I think they remembered me). After, we walked around Guayaquil a little bit, and saw the iguana park. It was packed with iguanas and pigeons, kind of a disgusting combination. It was also home to the only wild squirrel that I have seen in Ecuador. The Ecuadorians were not at all impressed by the iguanas but could not get enough of the squirrel…pretty entertaining. For dinner we took a taxi out to a nice Italian restaurant and got our pictures taken because dad had ordered their famous seafood pasta…he even got a bib put on him.
The next morning we just hung out in the hotel with American TV and WIFI…awesome. We got a shuttle to the airport at noon, checked my parents bags, and then they walked me over to catch a bus to the terminal to head back to my site. It was hard to say goodbye but it was a super fun trip and so great to see them. Like everyone in my site kept saying over and over, hopefully they will come back and visit again!
Here are some pictures from BA around Christmas-time: https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/Holidays?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKs-eiXusWfWw
And here are a ton of pictures from my parent´s visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/MomAndDadSVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiKgdaH7OHOnwE
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