Waiting for the bus

Cusco Forever

Ecuador Dreaming...

Welcome to the Jungle

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve - Ecuador

Wishful Thinking

In Cusco

To Papallacta, with Love

View from Cotopaxi

First Attempt

We woke up to lightly falling snow - and more cornbread. By the time we finished breakfast, the weather had improved, so we packed our things, locked them to a bunk, and set off with waterbottles and cameras.

The trail rose quickly, and before long I was stopping to rest every 10-20 steps, my body struggling to adapt to the diminished oxygen. Loose rock skree turned to jagged boulders, and we slowed even more to pick our trail across the volcanic debris.

After crossing two small snowfields and losing - then finding - the trail, we looked up at the steep scramble ahead of us and decided we'd be better off with limbs intact for Cotopaxi. With just 200-300 vertical meters between us and the summit, we turned around and headed "home" to reheat the forgotten pasta and play a game of chess.

The Road to Iliniza Norte

April 4, 2007 Nothing can really go wrong after a breakfast like the one we had with Rodriguez. After our morning feast, our host drove us to an empty trailhead in the misty páramo. We began hiking, and within minutes a solitary Andean fox, or lobo de páramo, crossed our path and disappeared into the brush. A few minutes later he reappeared and watched us as we made our way up the rutted dirt road that served as the trail. The lower section of the park - maybe around 4,000 meters altitude (about 13,125 feet) - is used to raise bulls for the ring, and as we climbed we passed a few trucks, and several bulls and calves calmly chewing their cud.

We took regular breaks as the trail steepened, needing every opportunity to hoard oxygen as the air became thinner. We saw few other people on the trail - one group of Europeans descending with a guide, and three teenage boys on horseback on their way to check on the refugio. When we arrived after a few hours of hiking (and just as the rain started to fall), the boys were there, sweeping, mopping, and washing dishes.

Inside the one room hut were several bunk beds, stacked three and four high and holding bare mattresses, dingy and sagging. A row of hooks graced the wall. A kitchen alcove held gas burners, a sink with real running water, and an assortment of dented pots and pans and beat up plastic dinnerware. A fiberboard counter separated the kitchen from the sleeping area, and a single shelf along one of the walls was lined with stools, providing a place to eat. Stored in the kitchen cupboards was a bag of rotten fruit, an open sack of dried pasta, and an assortment of tea.

We hung our wet jackets, laid out our sleeping bags, and crawled in, hoping to warm up before lunch. We were practically snoring as the caretakers prepared to leave. They collected our park fees and handed us a damp box of matches, wishing us luck. Neither of us stirred again until almost 5:00 p.m., when the rain finally stopped and TP rose to asses our surroundings. When I could finally be coaxed out of my cocoon (even by the equator, it´s cold at 4,600 meters) we went to investigate the area, searching for the nearby crater lake. After a 15 minute traverse, we realized we'd missed lunch and returned to the hut for sustenance.

Down to our last 4 matches, we finally lit the stove and heated our dinner and water for tea. A container of pasta, designated for our evening meal, sat untouched and forgotten in Rodriguez's refrigerator while we made do with canned pork and beans and a pile of cornbread from the market in Latacunga. Fed and watered, we were back in our sleeping bags by 8:00 p.m.

Home Alone

April 3, 2006 - After waking up in before dawn in Chugchilán – a remote mountain town in Ecuador's central Andes – and retracing our steps back along a windy dirt road through Quilotoa to retreive my forgotten journal, we headed north to El Chaupi. We arrived in the small, dusty town off the Pan American highway with our hopes set on the Hacienda San Jose del Chaupi, and walked the remaining 3km out of town to the working farm and guesthouse. The farm was well situated at the base of the Illinizas – twin 17,000 foot peaks we planned to climb the next day.

We reached the farm around noon, feeling as though we had a whole day behind us, and ready to settle in and maybe indulge in some high quality napping. After waiting on the porch for a few minutes, and warding off three large and excited dogs, a small woman in knee-high rubber boots and overalls came to let us in. A note posted to the side of the front door informed us that if the owner was not at the farm, the caretaker (Juan) would call him so he could return and welcome us personally. We set down our heavy bags, took off our boots, and made ourselves comfortable in the well-appointed but empty living room.

Thirty minutes went by, then forty, and I finally became restless and stood up to wander around. A bulletin board held postcards, trip information, and a hand-written note asking us to make sure the dogs didn't follow us if we left the farm, as they were liable to get lost in the mountains. If necessary, the note read, we were to use a stick to discourage them. However, the note entreated, San José del Chaupi encourages kind treatment and respect of all animals.

I continued to explore, peering down the hall to the vacant guest rooms and making my way back through the dining room. On a cupboard, yet another hand-written note invited us to help ourselves to the breakfast supplies within—eggs, tea, coffee, and chocolate. The refrigerator held butter and cheese, and we were invited to ask Juan, the caretaker, for fresh milk. After boiling water for tea and chocolate, I returned to the living room to wait.

After another 45 minutes with no sign of our host, we decided to head into town and pick up supplies for the next day's hike before the rain made its daily appearance. First, we checked in at the barn to inquire if Rodriguez, the owner, was expected any time soon. The same rubber-boot clad woman came out to greet us.

"He'll be back in a few hours."

"A few hours?" I confirmed, "would it be better if we found a different place to stay?"

She shrugged. "If you want."

We still held high hopes for the place, so we returned to the main house, piled our bags neatly in the corner, and walked to town, accompanied by the most energetic of the three dogs. He'd apparently figured out the stick trick, and followed us from a distance of 50 meters. Stocked up on tuna, Tupperware, and pasta—plus crackers, chocolate, and snacks—we returned to the Hacienda and set to the kitchen. As we sat down to eat, Juan the farm caretaker finally showed up. Rodriguez, the owner, would be back tomorrow morning he said, and would bring breakfast—wait just a moment, he'd call him now to let him know we were here. I sat back down to my pasta, and when I returned, Juan had left. We would have the Hacienda to ourselves until the next day. Eventually, we picked out a room, made the bed (another handwritten note told us where to find the sheets) and finally took that nap.

The next morning, Rodriguez was back and preparing breakfast. After we packed for our hike, we sat down to fresh rolls, fresh juice, and fresh (really fresh!) milk from his cows. The meal was rounded out with scrambled eggs, butter and jam, and plus coffee, tea, or chocolate. After breakfast, Rodriguez drove us to the trailhead and wished us luck.

Contact Hacienda San José del Chaupi:

Website: http://www.hostal.biz/sanjose.html
Email:mailto:farget@hostal.biz

Lodging, including continental breakfast, starts at $10 pp. Rodriguez can also provide transportation to several trailheads and points-of-interest in the area.

April 2, 2007

We woke up early for breakfast, yet another family-style affair at our hostal (albeit with less conversation and more bleary-eyed stares). Thus fed, we were ready to attack Laguna Quilotoa.

Following my book´s suggestion to allow 5-6 hours to hike the lake´s perimeter, we estimated we would be done in 5, if not 3. Just the same, we worked an extra hour into our plan. I penned a note to leave at my friend´s homestay across the street, arranging to meet for lunch, and then brilliantly left the note - and my journal - on the table and went off to hike. Within a kilometer or two, I realized my mistake but decided our best bet would be to make good time on the hike and be back before she returned from Quito.

The scenery was fantastic. For most of the hike we were perched on the crater´s edge, the mineral rich lake shimmering 100 meters below us to our left. To our right, the trail pitched steeply into the rolling countryside. In calculating our ETA, we didn´t anticipate the cautious pace we would have to take, picking our way along the narrow rim of the ancient volcano, nor did we estimate TP´s altitude sickness after leaving sea level just two days earlier and jumping straight into a strenuous hike at 3,800 meters.

Despite crippling hunger on my part and a bad headache and nausea on his, we managed to complete the trail in 5 hours, 15 minutes. As we passed my friends homestay, she ran out and grabbed us, and we had the privilege of being the very first customers at her host family´s new restaurant.

Nothing Foolish

April 1, 2007 - After waking up entirely too early (TP lied to me about what time it was...I suppose he can call it his April Fool's gag, although he didn't think to use that excuse at the time) and consuming a pile of pastries, we stopped by Moggely Tours the moment they opened to book our Cotopaxi trek and try on climbing gear. That done, we busted out of Quito by about 11:30, determined to reach Quilotoa before dark. As we neared our destination, the mountains became progressively higher, the buses progressively smaller, and the roads worse.

Our first bus, caught on a street corner near the station (saving our cab driver the trouble of going all the way into the terminal proper) cruised down the Pan-American Highway and stopped at yet another street corner, this one in Latacunga. I woke up, disembarked, and collected my travel partner´s bags, only to watch the bus take off, him still aboard and making his way towards the door. He was let off up the hill, and after reconnecting 5 minutes later, we made our way back to the Pana, stopping for a snack, and caught the next bus to Zumbahua - with 25 cents worth of sugar cane to entertain me, and (equally entertaining) to make my travel partner roll his eyes and shake his head at me.

The landscape took on a less familiar form as we climbed further into the mountains, the entire region nearly twice as high as any mountain in the Eastern United States. We passed old women herding pigs along the side of the road, and llamas/alpacas would take a break from grazing to give us a curious look as we rumbled by. Herds of sheep in this primarily indigenous area were invariously sheparded by shy-looking young girls (12-14 years?) wearing black loafers or low heeled shoes, knee socks, and calf- or knee-length velvet skirts with hundreds of tiny pleats. Several shawls would be wrapped around their shoulders for warmth, and their long black braids, often reaching to their mid-back or hips, may be topped off with a dark felt fedora, complete with peacock feather or coordinating bow. Once, the bussed stopped so a rider could get off and shout down into a ravine - for at least 10 minutes - although I never figured out what he was calling for. Another companion, perhaps, or a pick-up or delivery.*

Exiting the bus in Zumbahua, it's final stop, we quickly found ourselves talking to the only other gringo in sight, a Frenchman from Paris. Going the same direction, we arranged to split a ride and climbed into the back of a pickup. The bed of the truck was surrounded by a rail, about chest high when standing. Lengthwise, the truck was split in half by a two-by-four, also at chest height, running from the cab to the tailgate, and we stood leaning against this and chatting for the duration of the 30 minute trip to Quilotoa. We were surprised to find the road paved so far off the beaten path, but it was smooth, except, oddly, for a terrible section in the middle of town.

We continued through the stunning Andean countryside, past numerous farms and the usual assortment of grazing animals, our rout almost perfectly flat across the high plateau, but surrounded on all sides by peaks and rises. Our driver stopped on more than one occasion to see if we were warm enough in the wind and to offer us seats in the cab, but we were enthralled by the surrounding vista. Every inch of the land was in use, the hillsides a patchwork of crops until they reached angles of nearly ninety degrees and hardened into barren, rocky crags. A deep canyon angled its way across the plateau, smaller channels splintering off in every direction.

Finally we arrived in Quilotoa, and after bargaining for a better price on a room, wandered up a couple hundred meters for a first glance at the laguna. We followed its perimeter for a time, then headed back to the hostel to finish our evening with a family style dinner in the hostel's fire- warmed, concrete living/dining room. A hen wandered through the room, pecking at spilled popcorn and seemingly unnoticed, most of the time, by the cat curled up near the wood stove. I practiced my new language skills on a patient Spanish family across the table. TP was impressed with my verbiage, but I was glad that the two sisters had studied in the U.S. (one in Cle Elum!) and could set me straight every few minutes when I lost track of the conversation.

*Throughout both Nicaragua and Ecuador, I've seen countless farmers and vendors transporting their goods via bus or public transportation. Yesterday, on my way to school, I stood next to a man carrying two large buckets of raw shrimp. I have not yet been on a bus with live chickens, but I´m very much looking forward to it. I did see a bus in Nicaragua with the rooftop storage space taken up entirely by live, full-sized, heavyweight pigs, grunting somewhat urgently.

Saturday, March 31

8:30 p.m. - Greet Travel Partner #1 at Quito Airport with ridiculously large bouquet of tropical flowers. As it turns out, Ecuador is a major flower exporter, and a dozen roses can be purchased for all of $2.00. I decided to be slightly less cliche and go for the $4.00 monstrosity. Travel Partner #1 can't spot me behind the bouquet.

9:00 p.m. - Return to hotel, introduce Travel Partner #1 (henceforth referred to as "TP") to large quantity of strange and exotic fruit (granadilla, pitahaya, and maracuya, or passion fruit)

* * * * *

When I first visited the grocery store upon arrival in Quito, I think I counted 9 different kinds of fruit I'd never seen before. On further inspection, I may have found more as different fruits have rotated through the store, and as I've discovered them hidden with the vegetables and spread throughout the produce department.

My favorite so far is the pitahaya, a thick-skinned yellow fruit covered in rubbery, pyramid-shaped bumps. Slice it open and you find soft, translucent white flesh filled with tiny black seeds, and vaguely reminiscent of a kiwi-fruit in both flavor and texture. The fruit of a certain type of cactus, it ranges in size from about 5 inches long (like the first several I tried) to about 3 inches (all I can find of late).

Last Week´s Crazy Schedule

Saturday, March 31

• Greet Travel Partner #1 at Quito Airport

Sunday, April 1

• Buy and eat large quantity of pastries
• Try on hiking gear in Quito for upcoming Cotopaxi trip
• Quito to Quilotoa (via Latacunga and Zumbahua)

Monday, April 2

• Hike perimeter of Laguna Quilotoa
• Quilotoa to Chugchilán

Tuesday, April 3

• Chugchilán to Quilotoa (on the 4:00 am bus, to pick up my forgotten journal)
• Quilotoa to Zumbahua
• Breakfast
• Zumbahua to Latacunga
• Latacunga Market
• Latacunga to El Chaupi

Wednesday, April 4

• Hacienda San José del Chaupi to trailhead for llinizas
• El Refugio, Illinizas

Thursday, April 5

• El Refugio to Illiniza Norte (attempted summit)
• Illiniza Norte to Hacienda San José del Chaupi
• Hacienda San José del Chaupi to Hostel Valhalla

Friday, April 6

• Hostel Valhalla to Refugio José Rivas (Volcán Cotopaxi)
• Sleep (until midnight) at Refugio José Rivas - 4800 meters

Saturday, April 7

• Awake at midnight
• Eat breakfast
• Refugio to attempted summit of Cotopaxi, beginning at 1:00 am
• Return to Refugio
• Return to Valhalla
• Return to Quito
• Sleep
• Eat
• Sleep
• Sleep more

* * * * *

Details to come, I promise.

Textiles and Beyond

The textile-and-tourist-goods section went on forever as well: rows and rows of weavings, tapestries, seed jewelry, silver, indigenous instruments, pottery, and more sweaters, ponchos, and tableclothes than I have ever seen in my entire life. Tiny woven change-purses sold for 50 cents each - my friend brought five to distribute as gifts when she returned to Holland. Jewelry started at $1 (before the bartering), hand knit alpaca sweaters at $10, and ponchos could be purchased for between $10 to$15. My money flew out of my hands. I bought 2 bracelets of tagua nut (totalling $3), a necklace, a tablecloth for my mom and a smaller one for myself, a poncho, a sweater, and a couple other gifts.








After lunch, my friend and I met up with two other students from the school - one who had come up from her volunteer project to see us for the day, and one who had already done Otavalo and didn't need so much time to shop. The four of us wandered around the market a little longer, and then headed out to see the Laguna de San Pablo, recommended in my Moon Guide as a good place to meander around for a day from town to town. We took a taxi and were dropped off in an small parking lot, empty save for a several stands selling textiles and jewelry, and an old women who came up to us for money. We walked down the highway, and after peering between a few concrete shacks at the lake beyond, we were waved into the backyard by a couple women sitting by the side of the street. We walked between the shacks and came face to face with a slender bull - who looked at us with disinterest and sauntered off to chew his cud. My friend Daan found some sheep to harrass, and we took pictures until the bull noticed us again and started jogging over to say hi.









Moving on, we came across an woman tending her pigs, some boys laying in a field, and a dead dog at the side of the road. When the sky threatened rain, we walked back to our parking lot, prepared to take shelter in the restaurant across the street, and waited for our taxi to return.

Up North

This weekend I crossed two big items off of my Ecuador must-do list: the Otavalo Textile Market, and Laguna Cuicocha.

My friend and I started our weekend in Otavalo on Friday night at a clean, friendly, $4/night hotel (with hot water!) and woke up at 7:00 am to hit the animal market. This was something from another time. Our hotel was only a five minute walk from the market, and after 3 minutes we began seeing Otavaleño men and women dragging pigs and piglets squealing up and down the street on the way too or from the market, and only a 5 minute walk from our hotel was the market, a large field with people and animals milling about in a sort of semi-controlled chaos. It had rained all afternoon and evening, and farm animals have never been great about controlling their bodily functions, so the market was a pit of mud, dung, feet, and hooves. Many of the women walked barefoot in the muck to protect their shoes.

Men and women of all ages held groups of pigs or goats at the end of short ropes, the buyers and sellers bartering at full force. We pushed through the crowd, stepping over ropes and running into several other wide-eyed gringos as we made our way to the other side of the field. As we chatted with a Otavaleño woman trying to sell us fajas and cintas (traditional woven hair-ties and belts), a large pig got loose and ran screaming through the crowd, dragging its rope and a short fencepost pulled from the ground. Once he was subdued, we climbed a short rise for a safer vantage of the entire market. To our right, we could see the pigs and goats we´d nearly tripped over, and to the left, cows, bulls, and a single llama pulled at their ropes. Behind us were several stands selling coffee, empanadas, chicken, and rice.

The women wore long, woolen wrap skirts in dark blue, green, grey, or black (and sometimes with pinstripes). Into their ankle lenth skirts they tucked satiny white shirts with ruffles and flounces as well as embroidery, sequins, or beading. Their hair was worn long and braided, tied back with a strip of colorful woven fabric, and many also wore wool shawls or ponchos around their shoulders, sometimes tied to hold a baby or a small child. Around their necks were stacks of gold colored beads, and the entire look would be topped off with old-fashioned fedora. On younger women, any of these items may or may not be replaced with jeans or a store-bought sweater. The men wore jeans and either black rubber galoshes or cowboy boots, and were as likely to wear a leather jacket as a dark wool poncho. They too wore their thick black hair long and braided, and went bare-headed or with a felt fedora or leather cowboy hat.

After the animal market, we dropped off a couple things at our hostel and made our way to the textile market. It was about 8:00 am, and up and down every street vendors were setting up their stalls and pitching their wares. The Saturday market had taken over the entire town, and we had absolutely no idea where to begin. We headed away from the center of town, hoping to find an outer edge of the market. The farther we walked, the more the market seemed to be geared towards locals rather than tourists. We came across stands selling heaps of identical black high tops or the flat white espadrilles favored by the Otaveleño women, and stalls selling nothing but plastic containers or other household goods. Every now and then, a vendor would walk by announcing his wares: "papel higiénico," (toilet paper) or any number of other hygienic or household products. Once we reached the produce section, we turned around and headed for the textiles - the center of the market, geared more towards tourists (or, entirely towards tourists) - to spend our hard earned cash.

Coming Soon:

• The Textile Market
  
• Laguna Cuicocha
  
• Cárcel de las Mujeres

Morning Health Bath

The hostal I stayed at in Baños (Hostal Plantas y Blanco) featured "morning health bath" as one of its services, and on our second morning there, my friends and I decided to try it. We woke up early and donned our bathing suits, expecting a sauna or steam room, or maybe a hot tub with water piped in from Baños' prolilific hot springs.

We arrived as scheduled, and after hanging our towels and outerwear in the changing room, we were led into a concrete and tile room lined with several wooden stalls. Each stall was less than one meter square at the base, and rose to a height of about four feet. Within each was an adjustable seat, and had a hinged wooden door reaching from the floor to the top of the stall. After we had each taken a place in a stall, our "technician" (assistant? guide? health bath guru?) showed us each how to adjust the steam vent and shut us into our individual boxes. At the top of each door was an additional wooden panel with a half-circular cut-out for your neck, and these were slid back so we were completely enclosed in our personal steamrooms, only our heads sticking out as though detatched from our bodies.

After about 5 minutes of poaching, I started to wonder how exactly I was going to last the 40 minutes alotted for the "health bath" without getting bored. My friends, although less than 2 meters away, were out of my line of site, so we couldnt even make faces at eachother or raise our eyebrows the strange contraptions we´d found ourselves in. Suddenly, the technician was up and out of his stall, and releasing us from ours. We were led to a series of running faucets near the floor, each releasing a steady stream of icy water into a plastic bowl, dousing a folded towl. The technician demonstrated how we should use the towls to rinse - first up one leg, then the next, progressing to both legs, both arms, and the back. Just before our teeth began to chatter, the faucets were turned off and we were led back to our cells. We repeated this process three more times, but after the third, our technician led us each to a small tiled tub, slightly less than a meter square. The tub dipped to about 8 or 10 inches deep in the middle, curving up in the front and back. We were each seated in a tub - full of the icy water we were becoming accustomed to, and shown to massage our stomachs just so. After a few minutes, the technician returned, splashed us each with the icy water for 30 seconds or so, and let us back to our boxes.

After cooking for a few more minutes, we returned to the plastic bowls, repeated the rinsing process, and this time had our plastic bowls dumped over our heads before returning to our cells. Finally, after five more minutes of poaching, we were released from our boxes one at a time and hosed down - maybe even pressure washed - with what may have been a recommissioned garden hose and sprayer. Finished with our "spa treatment," we changed clothes and floated off to breakfast.

Hardcore

Just to prove how hardcore I am, I went running yesterday - at an altitude of 2,850 meters (9,300 feet) - in the pouring rain.

When I first arrived in Quito, it was difficult to walk more than a mile or two without wanting to rest. I was tired all the time - although maybe that was my cold talking. Now, I only feel the altitude when running or hiking (although I still go to bed by 10:00 p.m. every night) and every time is slightly less painful than the last.

New Friends

My first full day in Ecuador, two people offered to be my friend. I had gone back to my hostel for dinner around 8:00 pm, not wanting to be out wandering around Quito any later. The hostel restaurant was busy, and it took about an hour to get my food and another hour to get the check, but I had my guidebook and took the time to plan out my must-sees for Ecuador. From time to time, the waiter stopped by, briefly, to chat. He had lived in the US - partially in Washington DC - and spoke English.

After I had finished my meal and was waiting for the check, an Ecuadorian woman in her early twenties sat down as though I'd known her forever and started talking as though she wanted to be my new best friend. She peppered me with questions and lamented about her life. Where was I from? She lives here. She's sorry, but her heart hearts. Why? "Mi vida." Her best friend is from Holland, do I have any other Ecuadorian friends? Oh, she's the first? Here's a picture of her best friend from Holland. She's from the coast - I should call her sometime and she'll take me there. I should teach her English, and she'll help me with my Spanish.

This was all covered mostly in Spanish, with her occasionally attempting to speak in broken English and me continuously begging her to repeat what she said, again, and slower. Finally, she ran out of things to say, and gave me her phone number. I gave her my email address, and she left, saying she would be waiting for my call.

After my new best friend left, the waiter came by to see what I was doing later that evening, after he got off work. I told him I couldn't make it out that night, but we met the next day for lunch. He looked like a young, Latino version of Dr. Dreamy, but he turned out to be one of the most annoying people I've had to spend an afternoon with. He quizzed me about religion, bragged about the times he'd been arrested in the United States, and every so often he would break out with some radio-announcer type catch phrase in the middle of a sentence or conversation. I won't be calling him anytime soon, and I decided not to call my other new best friend either - I don't think she was quite all there.

* * * * *

Lest it be thought that I'm too negative, whiney, or simply incapable of keeping friends, let me reassure you that you will soon find several posts about the fantastic friends I've made at school and the adventures we've taken in the last several weeks. In addition, I apologize for the long delays between posts lately (hey, if I just hang out in the internet cafe all day, I won't have anything to write about) and I promise several new updates this week and next.

Parents

The problem with traveling with parents (or maybe just with my parents), is that through their worries and precautions you discover so many more things to be afraid of. My dad won't touch an uncooked vegetable from the time he lands in a developing country until his plane touches down on first-world soil. They carry IV bags and an IV in case bad food poisoning or a stomach bug causes life threatening dehydration.

And then there are the tropical diseases they know everything about. Consider Chagas' disease. (1) Present throughout much of South and Central America, Chagas is caused by a parasite (typanosoma cruzi) transmitted by the nocturnal "kissing bug" (so called because it usually bites near the mouth). The "kissing bug" is found mostly in coastal areas, and often lives in the thatched roofs of rural huts. After dropping from the roof during the night, the bug bites a person´s face, drinks a bit of blood, and defecates in or near the open wound. (2) The parasite, present in the feces of an infected bug, then enters the bloodstream through the open bite wound or through mucous membranes such as the eyes or mouth. The likelyhood of infection is increased when the sleeping person scratches or rubs the infected feces into the eyes, mouth, or bite wound. (3)

During the acute phase of Chagas´disease, lasting for a few weeks or monthes after infection, one of two things may happen: you may be completely symptom free, or you may have a variety of symptoms, ranging from mild to severe, including - but not limited to - nausia, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, headaches, etc. The symptoms usually fade away on their own. Unpleasant, yes, but the chronic phase, during which you have about a 30 percent chance of developing the following complications, is what you should worry about. Cardiac complications of Chagas' disease may include an enlarged heart, changes to your heart rate or rhythm, heart failure, or cardiac arrest. Intestinal compications may include an enlarged esophagas or colon. (3)

Of course, also widespread in parts of Latin America - and present on other continents as well - is leishmaniasis. Also a parasite, Leioshmaniasis is transmitted by sand flies. There are two types. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, which affects the skin, and visceral leishmaniasis, which affets the internal organs.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis causes skin sores, appearing within a few weeks or months of infection. The sores may or may not be painful, and may change in size and appearance over time, often appearing with a raised edge surrounding a central pit or craer, and may be covered with a scab. If left untreated, the skin sores will eventually heal, although this may take months or years and leave considerable scarring. Rarely, untreated cutaneous leishmaniasis may spread to the nose or mouth, causing additional sores on the mucous membranes (mucosal leishmaniasis).

Visceral leishmaniasis usually appears withing months (and occasionally years) of infection, and may cause fever, weight loss, and an enlarged spleen and liver. Left untreated, visceral leishmaniasis can be fatal.

* * *

My parents flew home two days before I came to Ecuador, but they left me with their legacy (and their prescriptions). The quantity and variety of "just in case" medication I'm carrying is enough to give me nightmares. I have three types of antibiotics: Cipro, one for skin infections or infected cuts, and one to take if I get, for instance, pneumonia. I have two types of anti-nausia pills, two types of anti-malarial pills, antibacterial gel AND wipes in case of minor injury, band-aids, vitamins, and probiotic pills to replenish my intestinal flora when the antibiotic wipes it out. (Okay, the probiotics and the vitamins were my idea, but still.)

Of course, my first day in Ecuador I woke up with a cold, and nothing to do about it except compain. But if it turns into pneumonia, I´m set.

Sources:

1. Dad, M.D.

2. Moon Handbooks Ecuador. Julian Smith, 2005. Page 410

3. Chagas´Disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control and Information; Division of Parasitic Diseases.

4. Leishmania Infection. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control and Information; Division of Parasitic Diseases.

The Way I Roll

I woke up at 4:30 am to catch a too-early shuttle to the airport in Managua. I arrived at the crack of dawn, grabbed coffee and a snack (I still had 3 hours before take-off), and went to check in for my 8:50 flight to Quito. Right away, an airline employee guarding the line told me to come back at a quarter to seven - they weren´t yet serving my flight.

I went back to the food court, had another cup of coffee and a second breakfast, and started planning my time in Ecuador. I wanted to head strait up north, to Ibarra, after landing. I figured I would have plenty of time in the next three months to explore Quito - I should see something different before school started.

At 6:55, I returned to check in for my flight. This time, the man guarding the line glanced at my reservation and sent me strait to Ticketing. Confused, I stood in line for a few minues, and then returned to stammer in broken Spanish that I already had a ticket, I needed to check in. Only then does somebody bother to tell me that my flight has been cancelled. Because that´s the way I roll.

The last three times I´ve flown, I´ve had either a cancelled flight or a missed connection. Returning home from Mexico on New Year´s Eve, my connecting flight from Houston to DC was cancelled, and I´d been rescheduled on an earlier flight - one that would leave Houston two hours before I arrived. I ended up spending New Year´s Eve alone in a hotel room. On my way to Nicaragua, I sat on an airplane in Baltimore for over an hour while it was de-iced, then sprinted across the entirity of the Atlanta airport to arrive at my gate two minutes after boarding was closed. Did they hold the flight two extra minutes? I can dream. They re-routed me through Miami, six hours later, where I almost missed another connection. I arrived in Managua exactly 7 hours late, and completely frazzled.

However, unlike the usual cancelled flight experience - where they reroute you, give you a barely sufficent meal voucher, and release you to airport purgatory - LACSA rerouted me and drove me to the Best Western across the street. There, I had a buffet breakfast with a variety of tropical fruit, a buffet lunch with a large selection of comida tipica, not to mention free internet access and a complimentery 3 minute international phone call. After eating breakfast and checking my email, I swam laps in the pool and laid in the sun until lunchtime, and then returned to the airport for my rescheduled flight. (Continental, Delta, are you listening?)

Of course, when I got to the airport and checked in with the airline I'd been switched to (COPA) they informed me that I would be flying standby, as they had a full flight and their own customers were a priority. Nevertheless, I got on the plane and arrived in Quito at 9:45 that night. Too late to hop a bus for Ibarra, but my hotel had hot water, and what more can you ask for, really?

Volcán Concepción

The hotel that had arranged the guided hike to Volcán Maderas was not offering trips to Concepción during my time on Ometepe. The volcano had been grumbling a little bit, and had vomitó un poco the week before. (In Nicaragua, the word vomitar, meaning "to vomit," "to throw out," or "to disgorge," is sometimes congugated to describe an eruption. I think this is fantastic.) I got lucky, however, the guy working the front desk at the hotel introduced me to another woman trying to arrange a hike to Concepción at the same time. She had met a guide while walking on the beach earlier in the day, and we arranged to climb the volcano with him. Because of the recent volcanic activity, tourists were not allowed to climb past 1000 meters in elevation (Concepción is 1,610 meters, or 5280 feet). Our guide told us that he would not take us any higher than this, and that we should not ask him to.

The tour started at 5:00, when I met the two other hikers (one Columbian and one Swiss) and our guide to take public transportation to the start of the hike. The bus showed up at 5:30, and after a bumpy 15 minute ride we set off down a dirt road toward Concepción. We passed the mandatory pigs and chickens, rows and rows of banana and plantain trees, and several campesinos on horses or donkeys.

The road turned into a path and started to climb. After about a mile, we reached a small hut with a few benches outside, cobbled together of sticks and wood from the surrounding land. A 35-40 year old Nica man stopped his work and came to join us, and he and our guide began to tell us about their workers' movement and the new organization of guides and others in the tourist industry on Ometepe. They are standing up to the hotels, demanding better treatment and better pay, and they go to trainings once a month to learn how improve their interactions with tourists and better perform their work. Things are much better now, they said, since they have organized; but there is still a lot to be done. After some time we left and continued our climb, eating bananas given to us by our host.

We kept hiking - the trail getting steeper and rocky - and taking long, frequent breaks. At about 600 meters, I started to worry that if we kept taking long breaks like this, we would end up hiking down in the heat of the day - what we woke up at 4:30 am to avoid. At our next break, at 750 meters, I asked the time. It was only a quarter to eight.

After more climbing and more long breaks, we reached 1000 meters to find the lake below shrouded in fog. We walked a few meters further to find a place in the shade to wait, and relaxed on a flow of lava rocks from a past eruption. After an hour, there had been no change in the mist below, so we began our decent, stopping frequently as the clouds shifted and the views improved.

After the hike, I split with the group, the rest returning to the hotel while I made my way to Altagracia to meet my parents. I asked when the bus would come, but the guide told me that the bus wouldnt come for half an hour or more, and that it was less than a kilometer walk. I confirmed his directions, making sure I understood, turned down an offer by a 12-year old boy to take me there on his bike, and started to walk. I hadn´t walked more than 100 meters when the bus pulled over to pick me up. I sat down, and after about a half kilometer, the driver waved me up, pointed at my hotel (I hadn´t said anything more than "gracias" when he picked me up), and seemed a little suprised when I asked the fare.

Volcán Maderas

My first night in Ometepe, I arranged to climb one of the island´s two volcanoes with a guide from a nearby hotel (the place I was staying was a little too barebones to have a guide - although we did have a scorpion in one of our rooms).The trip to Maderas began at the hotel at 7:30 a.m. The group consisted of two couples (one from Canada and one from New York), two guides, and myself. We drove for about a half an hour down a dusty, potholed dirt road, and parked at the Finca Magdalena, where we paused to use the restrooms and fill up our water bottles.

We left the farmhouse and started hiking, climbing gradually at first through low farmland, passing coffee plants and then cacao trees. The trail very quickly turned into a steep hike through thick forest. We passed howler monkeys and blue jays, and stopped to rest at an ancient petroglyph.

Distance was marked at every kilometer, and it was supposedly only 5km from the farm to the lake, but it seemed much longer. The first two kilometers were steep, and I was sweating buckets, but the trail was fairly solid and well maintained. The second half of the trail was just as steep, but a slippery slog through ankle deep mud. I had made the mistake of wearing a white shirt, thinking it would be cooler in the heat. The shirt was ruined by the end of the day, and I could not for the life of me figure out how I would get down without breaking my ankle.

As we headed towards the crest of the volcano, our guides gave us a choice: the hard way with a view of the crater and lake, or the easy way, without a view. We chose the hard way, and he wasnt kidding. Aerobically, we werent working any harder than we had been all along, but now the trail had disintegrated and was half trail, half bushwack. Within 15 minutes, we reached a bald patch of rock and could look down a the crater lake below. It was somewhat unstriking - it looked more like a bowl of pea soup than a cool mountain pond you would want to swim in - but we climbed down just the same.

My guidebook had promised me icy-cold water filling the basin, but what we found was lukewarm, muddy bathwater. You had to squelch through several steps of goo just to reach the water, and nearly halfway across the laguna, I could still reach down and touch the bottom with my hands as I swam.

The way back down the mountain was not as treacherous as I expected, although I did have a few near misses on slippery, mud covered rocks. When we got to the bottom, we had to wait about an hour for the hotel vehicle to come and pick us up, so we hung around the Finca and watched backpackers and hippies mill about.

I returned to the farm the next day with my parents, thinking we might tour the coffee operation or just have lunch. The bus let us off along the main road, about a kilometer from the Finca. We walked up the long drive, watching the campesinos harvest plantains and deliver them, on horseback, to a waiting truck. Several locals were walking up or down the driveway as well, and after a few minutes my mom glanced back to see a machete in the hand of the campesino walking a few meters behind us. I looked around, trying to get a better sense of our situation, but after about 100 meters he turned into a row of trees and returned to work.

We wandered around the farm/paradise, side-tripped down dirt roads and trails to see more petroglyphs in the area, and returned to the large farmhouse in time for some of the best food I´ve had so far in Nicaragua: it was all comida tipica - roasted chicken, rice, beans, and salad - but the farm fresh chicken hadn´t been cooked to a point beyond recognition, like most I´ve encountered in Nicaragua, and the salad consisted of more than just cabbage and beets.

We finished lunch just in time to sprint down the driveway to wait for the bus, which came - depending on who you asked - at either 1:30, 2:00, 2:15, 2:30, or 3:30. Everyone wanted to help, but no matter who I asked, I never heard the same answer twice. We waited for about 45 minutes or an hour - watching pigs and chickens foraging at the side of the road, and a dog waking up every now and then to bark and chase the pigs as they wandered by - until the bus showed up at around 2:45.

Imágenes de Ometepe