Bah. Spanish.

October 27, 2009

Location: Cuenca

Weather: Moderately cloudy, cool

Nothing much seems to have happened in the last week. It's all been re-adjusting to city life and school with the other half of the group back with us.

It's wonderful to have mi prima, Antonia, walk with me to school every day. My Aunt Olga lives on Paseo de los Canaris, the next street from me, so it's perfect. Walking takes about 20 minutes. It would take much less but a wicked hill on my street, Cacique Chaparra, knocks the breath out of me. I can feel myself adjusting to the altitude. This week I'm not nearly as out of breath at the top of it. The other challenge is simply crossing roads. I know I've discussed that in the past. I never get sick of walking by the incredible mountains in the historic district.

School is the same, mas o menos. Sometimes, I just want to cry in class—and then I do. I've never broken down quite so much in public as I have in that class. Just the fact that Jess, Kara, and Brittany have all had literally years of Spanish under their belt leaves Shannon, Megan, Angela, and I to stare at each other in white confusion at the jumble of syllables mumbled from the others.

Today, our professor sent us down the street to a building that used to be a convent, which is now a museum (where my cousin Letty works, who is, by the way, the only black I've seen in Cuenca so far) to interview the curator for our Day of the Dead projects. Mine is comparing how other South American countries celebrate compared to Ecuador. In the poorest Spanish she'd probably even heard, I muttered a shockingly simple question, and she answered—after I'd repeated it a few times in different orders.

The few words I did understand helped me piece together what I thought she was talking about, which was later confirmed by Brittany. The curator, a striking woman, was dressed monochromatically in all dark brown and had constrained her black hair into a solitary knot above her pointed brows. Her deep raspy voice explained to us how Ecuadorians use herbs to keep away bad spirits, how they believe the spirits of the dead would watch over them, and how the graves were visited and cleaned every year. I thought she vaguely resembled a bruja.

Return from the Galapagos

Journal #15

October 21, 2009

Location: 45 minutes north of Peru, on the road from Manchala to Cuenca

Weather: Cloudy, pleasant

The last two days off the boat have been very sad and very difficult. The sound of waves and glorious sun of the Galapagos is replaced with blaring car horns and gray skies of the coast. The week of the Galapagos was one of the happiest weeks of my life. New experiences occurred every day in such rapid succession I hardly know where to begin to describe them. I laughed more than I have in months and months until my stomach hurt and tears were streaming down my face. I am a firm believer that the sun was the cause of my happiness. I was warm, in my bathing suit for 75% of the trip, and toasted to perfection on the top of the boat. Needless to say, saying goodbye to the crew of the Golondrina was difficult.

A quick breakfast was followed by packing. None of my clothes were totally dry. Everything is caked in salt and sand, all sticky with sea water and sweat. I've never been so dirty all the time. It was lovely. Despite the fact that I missed having my hair clean and straight, I didn't mind letting it dry in the sun and the wind until it was a lion's mane around my head. I was too busy enjoying the stunning scenery to really mind. Now, two days later, I'm sure my clothes are perfumed with mildew and unrecognizable. Now, I care. I'm grumpy. I want clean underwear, dang it.

Machala was a bit of a disappointment. The filth and unorganized layout of the city was especially noticeable after clean Quito and homey Cuenca. Machala made me want to wash myself in bleach.

The banana plantation we visited today was interesting. I dislike bananas to begin with, but, since Machala is the banana capital of the country, and I can appreciate the process. The bunches of bananas are wrapped and separated to avoid bruising and damaging. Why? Because we Americans won't buy bruised bananas. It seems so silly when you see the piles of green bananas lying in wait to be shipped off to factories where they'll be smashed and put into other foods instead of being sold in grocery stores, simply because of a tiny mark.

The bananas are cut from their large stems, which are nearly as tall as I am, then washed, cut into the perfect bunches you see in the store, stickered, packaged, and shipped off to Beuhler's, where my mother likes to buy them green and crunchy.

The shrimp farm was what really surprised me. I am not such what I was expecting, but the large, square ponds were not it. The pools are emptied every few weeks after the shrimp have been fished out with nets. The pools we visited were scheduled to be fished that night, so we got to see the live shrimp, pulled straight from the water. They're nearly as long as my hand, and look like the most ridiculous, alien-like creatures with their bulging eyes and grey exoskeleton.

Still catching up on the Galapagos. Such a procrastinator...

October 18, continued...

Today was our last day full on the islands. We went to climb Prince Philip's 372 steps on Bartolome to the top of its extinct volcano to look out over the bay at pinnacle rock. It was a hard hike, but worth it. Besides the lovely view, I can feel my legs and buns turning to steel more each day.
The pumice stones here are so light, I could life a boulder without straining. Okay, maybe it wasn't a boulder, per say, but a very large rock.
A bit of snorkeling along pinnacle rock was very productive. So many starfish of all sizes and colors cover the ocean floor. The water is freezing, but so clear and blue. The blue and white spotted box fish, the parrot fish, and the rainbow of unknown fish are everywhere. I don't even know where to begin looking when I'm under water. Cholo came and swam with us and spotted several sharks. One, a white-tipped, I believe, swam under the shelter of a rock, but Cholo stuck his whole leg in to scare him out. It swam so close to me, I could have reached out and touched it. The same thing happened again as I was swimming around a large rock jutting out of the water. A shark came up right behind me before sliding away into the shadows below me. I have swum with sharks. Kind of crazy.
The afternoon was spent in a mangrove, looking at shore birds and their nests, as well as sea turtle mating grounds. We were “lucky” enough to see two of them “copulating,” as Fassi regularly says.
The very best part of the entire day was when, while I was ready the Odyssey and lamenting over how we didn't get to see dolphins or whales, the captain stopped the boat and yelled for us to come see the whales. They were pilot whales and were far away, creating fountains with their blowholes. Gradually, they came closer to the boat. I think we counted five of them, all swimming so close to the Golondrina, we could have leaned over to touch their scarred backs as they dove along side us, spraying us with their misty exhales. How do I describe to you the sheer joy of seeing the huge, satin shapes gliding beside us? I can't. You simply have to experience it yourself.


October 19, 2009
Location: Santa Cruz
A cloudy morning hike at 5:30 to see lazy iguanas dragging their bodies across the red rocks was our last taste of these stunning islands. No one said much as Fassi gave us one last lecture on the copulating habits of the reptiles and mammals. We saw a very pregnant sea lion, whose bulging stomach was twitching from the pup inside. He also said that the cove where we were visiting was once a very popular snorkeling location. That stopped after two very idiotic tourists were attacked after they'd irritated sharks.
I am so excited about returning to Mama Isa in Cuenca, but for more than the washing machine and my huge bed. Traveling along the coast is tiring. Familiarity with anything is rare in a foreign country and I know I can find it again back “home” on Cacique Chaparra. The Golondrina is stilly really where I'd love to be.
Fassi brought us to the air port before saying ciao and hugging us all. “Ciao, Blue Booby,” he said to me, pinching my cheek fondly. “Travel safely.” The nickname “Blue Booby” came from the first day on the ship when I strapped on pastel flippers in the dinghy and Fossi (“Guapo”) and Alberto (“Cholo”) laughed and told me they were the exact color of the feet of the Blue Footed Booby. From then on, I was rarely called by my name but rather by the name of the waddling shore bird.
Our flight back to the mainland was uneventful (except for the screaming toddler on the other side of the aisle, which makes me repeat, once again, that I never want children). Guayaquil was the same as we left it the previous Monday: cloudy and loud. We returned to the Macaw for the evening and regrouped with our other half. I was thrilled to see Antonia, my honorary cousin, and Sara, fellow Tom Bomb groupie, again. We took a walking tour of the city, which is gorgeous along the coast. Parks line the water side and are filled with fruit trees and ice cream stands (paradise, obviously). We walked up the 444 steps to where the oldest part of the city is, then climbed a few more to overlook the city from a lighthouse at the peak.
I am going to have killer legs by December 13.
Near the Macaw is a mall so I went to load up on Double Chocolate Oreos and dark chocolate. And chardonnay. Quite a combination, let me tell you.
A bunch of us sat on the roof of the hotel drinking wine and comparing the two Galapagos trips (“Did you see the jelly fish?” “No, but I felt one!” etc.). Quite a bit of drama had occurred in a short period of time due to 7 full days without being able to escape to our happy places. We non-dramatic ones tried to ignore it on overlooking the city but even that proved too difficult. Everyone is at their wit's end and incredibly grumpy.
Fortunately, that was almost solved with a bottle of Chardonnay, a few packs of bears, and a lovely evening on the roof of the Macaw. No matter how grumpy one is, one cannot remain so after consuming white wine. ...Or so I hear.