Poudre Summer

Ok. This is the last post about Summer, I promise.

Another huge portion of my time this summer was spent up in the Poudre. Threatened by the High Park Fire (terrifying, by the way), I think I finally came to terms with how much this place means to me. I attribute some of my fondest childhood memories to the river and the forts and second breakfasts. How much I love the wall covered with Herb's accomplishments; the kitchen island counter where we have made countless cookies; the haunted bunkhouse. While it was abnormally quiet and eerie up there this summer due to the fire, I did manage to snap a few pictures, just none with humans in it (oops!)

I wish you could see the smoke better. 

Anyways, the cabin is still standing, and so is every other family property, for which I am super thankful and can't imagine life without it. 

And You Thought USA Politics Were Crazy...

The other day in literature class, we managed to go on a complete tangent and talk about the ex-Ecuadorian President Abdalá Bucarám.  President of the Republic for a short six months (1996-1997), this man is quite possibly one of the craziest people in all of Ecuador. After becoming the mayor of one of Ecuador's cities, he was found guilty of corruption (he stole a bunch of money from the government), and was promptly exiled to Panama. After 8 years abroad, he announced that he would return to Ecuador and run for president, and he told everyone that he would be giving his "big news speech" in the stadium at 10 in the morning. At that time, he was helicoptered in and jumped into the stadium via parachute to kick off his campaign. And they all elected him.

During his campaign, he refused to live in the Ecuadorian Presidential Palace:

Presidential Palace in el centro historico

And bought out two floors of Hotel Colon, which is two blocks away from my house. Why did he move? Because he wanted to live close to a soccer field. But get this, he and his family lived on one floor, his mistress on the floor below them... awkward.

The self-titled "loco" or crazy man, he was even found dancing at inappropriate times and no one really liked him once they realized what an idiot he was. So, the ENTIRE country took to the streets and protested, and as he was on his way out, Abdalá took even more governmental money and expensive presidential artifacts. He now lives in Panama, again.

But wait, it gets better. After he left, Ecuador had a total of THREE MORE PRESIDENTS IN 48 HOURS. First, the Vice President, Rosalía Arteaga became President.

Yay for a woman president! But within hours, the head of the Supreme Court judged that to be unconstitutional and took over for himself. Then, the military was not happy, so they kicked that poor guy out and put their own president into the office. August of 1998 was when Jamil Mahuad was officially elected and the political process was seemingly back to normal.

And now everyone is really upset with Rafael Correa and no one knows why he isn't being impeached as well. Well done, Ecuador. Well done.

Playa de Oro

This weekend the program had the opportunity to visit the Playa de Oro (literally translated as "beach of gold") community. After a red-eye bus ride to the coast and an hour long canoe ride up another river, we arrived at a community that was full of music and general joy. The history of this community is that the people were brought in from Africa and enslaved in order to extract the gold from the river basin. It was only within the last 10 years that the gold industry has subsided a little bit and the people can live semi-peacefully.

My tour guides for the community. They were so cute.

On Friday we hiked into the jungle, saw tiger footprints (?!), and ended up swimming in this laguna. It was so pretty.

After a quick hike back, we stopped at one of the rocky beaches and tried our own luck at panning for gold.

I was no good.

We also learned how to make sugar from sugar cane! It's a rough process, and takes a lot of energy and man power, but very interesting!

Friday night we had a huge compartiendo of music and dance, where we learned the traditional dance, Marimba, and a few other types of songs and dances used in different ceremonies.

They could all dance; we, the gringos, could not dance to save our lives.

Saturday we left the community and chatted with Papa Roncón, one of the men in Esmereldas who almost singlehandedly revived the Marimba. Another red-eye bus ride to return to Quito and study for exams and finish projects that are due this week.

Hope your weekend was fantastic!

Día de los Muertos

Traditonally in Latin America, November 2nd is known as Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. So, yesterday a group of us went to Calderón, a small town north of Quito that is famous for it's cemetery on Día de los muertos. After a little confusion about the bus system, we finally arrived, ate a quick lunch, and popped over to the cemetary:

Traditions include giving the deceased water and food (and guaguas de pan and colada morada) for their journey in the afterlife, adorning the gravesite with flowers and wreaths and trinkets, and cleaning the gravesite. It was really touching, actually.

It's nice to think that the indigenous community in Ecuador doesn't fear death, but rather celebrates it. There is no taboo around cemeteries or death or the afterlife like there is in the USA. 

After the cemetery, we wandered around town and found the carnival celebrating the day. There were HUNDREDS of vendors selling things like flowers, the traditional masapan trinkets, food, everything. Not to mention the carnival rides and ferris wheel. There was also a traditional dance show, which I took a video of but can't seem to upload it...

After our return to Quito, we all met up at Crepes and Waffles (the USA really needs this Colombian chain restaurant. SO delicious) for a surprise birthday party for our friend Tori.

They brought her a mini waffle, only after presenting her ID to prove that it actually WAS her birthday. Haha. 

Today we go to a small town in the highlands called Quilotoa, known for it's really great landscapes. Stay tuned!

Fútbol! and Columbus Day?

Last Friday, a few of us splurged on the $15 tickets to see the Ecuadorian National Soccer Team play Venezuela in a 2014 World Cup Qualification match. It was so exciting! After taking a quick 2-0 lead in the first half, Ecuador ended up winning the match with flying colors. I have never seen so much yellow, nor have I ever been covered in a rain storm of beer that fell from the sky when Ecuador scored a goal.

"Vamos Ecuatorianos, esta tarde, tenemos que ganar!"

And, to completely switch subjects, I live off the street called "12 de Octubre" and so, when the 12th of October passed, I was really excited to learn about its significance to Quito and to Ecuador in general. The park across the street from my house put up a ton of tents and had huge concerts on Wednesday night, and it was quite the gathering. Why October 12th? The only reason I understood is because on October 12, 1492, Cristobal Colón landed in the Bahamas and thus started the oppressive Spanish rule in most of Latin America. While the day was originally used to celebrate Columbus' arrival, it has since morphed into an activist day, where people all over the country fight for equality among the different groups and nationalities in Ecuador. Pretty cool. 

This is one of the main stages, set up with palm trees in the back. Bad picture, I know.

Rows and rows of tents selling things and trying to educate passer-bys on important things like water conservation and community activism.

San Clemente

This weekend the group went to an indigenous community called San Clemente, close to a city called Imbabura. It was really neat and a life-changing experience. The people, the food, the way of life, are all so interesting and so different than what I'm used to.

We started out the trip with breakfast at a place called "Café de la vaca" (the Cow Cafe) near this beautiful volcano called Cayambe. 

Upon arrival at the community we ate a huge lunch and chatted with the locals, who hand embroider all their blouses and shirts.

The rest of the day consisted of taking a history tour of the village (which used to be a hacienda with different huasipungos aka almost like slavery until the last 25 years...) and met our host family for the weekend. My friend Tawanna and I stayed with Theresa and Ramiro, and their three daughters Jessica (17), Evelyn (16) and Nayeli (4). 

The next morning we woke up at 5:30 to help make tortillas and milk the cow before breakfast. 

Then we each got the opportunity to till a field.

After tilling a field, we drove a little bit and then hiked to the top of a mountain to perform a special ceremony to mark the beginning of the fall solstice and planting season. The ceremony took place on top of the ruins of Incan ancestors. When the Spanish came into Ecuador and much of Latin America, they literally buried Native temples and other landmarks in dirt in order to erase the culture. So, while we were standing on top of a dirt mound, there was some sort of ancient ruin under all the earth.

After the ceremony we ate another huge lunch then hiked down and arrived at the community just in time for the Sweat Lodge ceremony in order to cleanse our bodies and our minds. There was singing and chanting and sweating and more singing, and was very liberating, albeit scary at some points because you couldn't breath.

Then, on Saturday morning we woke up and dressed ourselves in the traditional dress and went to make lunch with the rest of the community.

Preparing lunch with the llamas.

Lunch consisted of cabbage, corn, potatoes, pork, chicken, and salad. Plus some other tasty things

In order to cook all the food, the men of the community dug a huge hole in the ground, filled it with hot rocks and the food, then buried it all again. We danced on top of the mound for two hours, dug up the food, and feasted until we all fell asleep in the grass.

That night we had a medicinal chat with a local midwife with real life role play (birthing techniques are a lot more natural and look a lot more painful...), and then the local medicine man came to heal two lucky members of our group. How did he diagnose them? He took a live cuy (guinea pig) and shook it all over the volunteer's body until the cuy absorbed the sickness and died. He then skinned it with his bare hands and examined the cuy for signs of damage. It was really graphic and gross. Do I believe it? Not really, but it was an interesting experience.

Then we danced some more. 

Sunday morning we woke up and had a goodbye ceremony where our families gave us these beautiful scarves. Staying with the family was very nice and a great experience.

We then traveled to an ecological reserve called Cotacachi-Cayapas, which is a volcanic crater filled with water and surrounded by beautiful scenery.

We took a boat ride around the lagoon, complete with fake roses and all.

Not to mention the orange life vests were very flattering on everyone.

To end the trip, we visited the market town of Otavalo, known for it's street market full of things like alpaca sweaters, trinkets, and tapestries. 

It was a long weekend, but sure worth it. I hope you had a good weekend too!

El Centro Historico

Quito is a big city, but the original part of the city is called "El Centro Historico" and it has hundreds (yes, hundreds) of churches in the area, so it's very pretty and very old, colonial, has cool architecture, etc. Well, today I went to the Plaza Grande and toured a few museums and churches, because there's a huge festival going on and museum and art gallery tours are free. Live drum lines, music, dances, general fun-ness. It was very cool, and only a 5 minute bus ride south of my house!

This is the view of one of the churches/museums and the winged statue of Quito in the background. It's a landmark around town, and very pretty at night.

This is the big gothic church at the top of the hill that you can see from basically anywhere in the city. It is HUGE and really pretty.

The Plaza Grande, well part of it. It's a very pretty plaza that is the center of the Centro Historico.

Well, that's all I have for now. Have a good weekend!