Sunday, November 28, 2010

We Go To The Amazon

You may recall that I last left us at the hostel in Quito drinking wine and sharing stories. Fortunately we didn’t have to fly out to Lago Agrio until 10 a.m. the next morning because that wine drinking and story-sharing lasted until nearly midnight.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, got checked in, found our gate and waited for our flight to be called. About the time our plane should have been boarding, an announcement was made over the speakers, after which people lined up at the gate next to ours and began walking out to a bus. Trying to understand anything said over a speaker while I'm waiting in an airport is kind of like me trying to understand why Dean thinks he needs to save used staples in a pumpkin shaped cookie jar. It's impossible.

Maybe the whole speaker system is intentionally designed to be unintelligible. I guess I can see the logic behind that.  If passengers actually understood there was a better chance they would receive a free onboard meal than that they would make their connecting flight, it would very likely put airport personnel at risk for being pelted with Cinnabons.  

Anyway, when that announcement at the Quito airport was made in Spanish it was pointless for me to waste my time trying to figure out what had been said. Even if I did say “Como?” I wouldn’t know what the person said in response. There were about four people left in the gate area (besides us) when Dean said, “doesn’t that bus say Lago Agrio? Isn’t that where we’re going?” Apparently in the 50 or so minutes we'd had our boarding passes, the gate number had been changed and that was our bus.  We quickly grabbed our backpacks and got our little butts on the bus, which took us to the plane, which we boarded, and which flew us to Lago Agrio, the beginning of our Amazon Adventure.


We were met at the Lago Agrio airport by a driver who helped us load our backpacks into a van. 



A couple from Switzerland and a woman from Germany had opted to ride the bus from Quito, all night, to meet the van. I think they were hoping to take a nap on the way to the reserve – until they realized they were going to be stuck in a van with nine American motormouths. Poor things.


Along the way to the reserve we saw the pipelines transporting the oil which is produced in the Amazon region of Ecuador.
 
For a documentary look at the consequences of oil development in Ecuador you can rent this movie. I haven’t seen it yet but Abby and Jorge have and said it’s worth watching. They actually met and talked to one of the lawyers from the movie in a hotel elevator in Quito.

A two hour bus ride later, when we arrived at the entrance to the reserve, we were hot, sweaty and hungry. We were all wishing we had brought snacks with us and hoping dinner would be served soon after we got to the lodge. We didn’t need to worry. They fed us. They fed us well.

After lunch, still hot and sweaty but with full bellies, we began our Amazon adventure by climbing into motorized canoes.


We were divided into two canoes – six visitors plus one guide in each. You will notice that six of the group enjoyed the Cadillac of canoes with individual, padded seats while the rest of us were in an old, less stable canoe (that’s my excuse for blurry photos anyway), with hard, wooden backs and butt cushions that kept slipping. We donned our life jackets (which we never saw again the whole four days we were there), turned our cameras on, settled in, and were “driven” down the river.






All food, supplies, visitors and employees go in and out in these canoes. As it turned out we were especially lucky because just the week before, the water levels had dropped so low that tours had to be cancelled. It had just rained the weekend before our trip, bringing the water level up high enough to get people in again. Even then, the water was still six feet or so below where it normally was for that time of year.


A two-hour canoe ride later we were there!






Still hot, still sweaty but filled with the sights and sounds of the Amazon, we were met by a wonderful man holding a tray of fresh juice.



 It turned out that each afternoon when we returned from an excursion in the canoe, that wonderful man was always there; always smiling and always holding a tray of nice, cold juice.

Thirsts quenched, we unpacked in our cabins


and then had a couple of hours to kick back and relax.  We swung in hammocks, played cards,


walked around the camp, and since it’s important to drink lots of liquids when you are sweating as much as we were, had a cold one ... or two.




Just as it was getting dusk we loaded back into the canoes and were taken out onto Laguna Grande. We sat silently in the canoes, listened to the sounds of the Amazon, and watched the sun set. It was breathtaking.


Two of the three nights we were there we went out on the lake to watch the sun set. Each night it was different and each night it was magnificent.

The great food we’d eaten at lunch continued at dinner. Since everything has to be brought in on canoe I didn’t expect gourmet meals. I expected canned food or sandwiches and little variety but boy, was I wrong. Every meal was delicious. There was home baked bread every day. There was fresh juice every meal. There was fresh fruit. There was the best cheese ever. There was coffee. There were desserts. And there were seconds for anybody who wanted them. We had everything from fried rice to fish (which I ate!) to beef stroganoff. And even though we had to wipe the dripping sweat from our faces in between spoonfuls, each dinner began with a homemade hot soup.

After dinner the first night (and each subsequent night), the guides went over what they would be showing us the next day. The first order of business was water.  Our guide pointed to a huge bottle of water on the counter in the dining area and said, “fill your water bottles from here.  The water in the bathrooms comes from the lake so don't even use it to rinse your toothbrush.”  Oops.

The next day’s adventure included a visit to an indigenous community and a demonstration turning manioc root into an edible “tortilla”. But that will be another post…..another day…..

For more photos of our first day you can click here.



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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

It’s Not Only Turkeys That Are Stuffed

Helllooooooo ……. Is anybody out there? Anybody? Anybody at all?  ....... I was afraid that would happen. That’s okay. I talk to myself a lot. I’m used to it. Or I’ll just pretend like I’m talking to my computer. I do that a lot too.

I have been busy tunneling through the mountain of tissues that have piled up around me during the last 10 days. And let me tell you; it’s hard work to tunnel through tissue with a body bloated and sloshing from gallons upon gallons of tea. And it takes alot of time. So I haven't been very productive recently. If I’m not on the couch, I’m making and drinking tea. And if I’m not making and drinking tea, I’m in the bathroom because I just made and drank a lot of tea. And then I make more tea and well, you know…back in the bathroom. While I’m doing all that I’m blowing my nose. And when you’re drinking as much tea as I am, you don’t want to do a lot of nose-blowing or sneezing unless you’re making regular trips to the bathroom. I’m just sayin’. When I’m not at home lying on the couch, blowing my nose, drinking tea, or you know, in the bathroom, I’m at work pretty much doing the same thing. Except for the couch part. The good thing is, the walk down the hall to the break room to get more hot water for more tea and subsequently, more walks to the bathroom, is much further than at home so at least I’m getting some exercise.

I’m pretty sure I’ve left a goodly portion of my brains in those tissues. I cannot believe the human body can produce as much snot as mine has over the past 10 days. There just has to be something else blowing out of my head and all I can come up with is my brains. I’m sure I’ve lost some grey matter. I have a suspicion that I am currently not the sharpest carving knife in the drawer. I’m a pumpkin pie without the whipped cream. I’m potatoes without gravy. I’m a turkey sandwich without the cranberries. Lately Dean’s been giving me “the look”. The sympathetic, slight head-shaking, “I love her but jeeze, she’s an even bigger dork than usual” look. So writing this post is probably not the smartest move I could make. But as I said, I’m a lemon pie without meringue.

However, even with only partial brain power I’m going to get back on the horse, so to speak. I’m getting my sticky fingers typing again so I can wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving spent with your families. Dean and I are on our own for Thanksgiving this year. Leslie’s with Ryan’s family and Abby is cooking her first ever Thanksgiving dinner in Ecuador. It’s probably better that we are on our own because nobody should be forced to listen to my incessant nose-blowing. Nobody other than that special someone with whom I share that myriad of honks, toots, puffs, snorts, creaks, pops, and aromas unique to each of us. We will roast a turkey and I will bake the required pumpkin pie. We’ll have homemade dinner rolls and our traditional cranberry/whipped cream salad (which I am sharing with you below).  And I have plenty of boxes of nice soft tissues. We are ready.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING everybody! May the only snorting and blowing you hear be from laughter and cooling your food.

Cranberry Salad
(from my sister)


Ingredients

2 cups chopped cranberries
1 cup sugar
7 ounces crushed pineapple (drained—save juice)
7 ounces mandarin oranges (drained – save juice)
¾ cup juice (from saved pineapple/mandarin oranges)
2 packages unflavored gelatin
1 cup sour cream
1 cup coconut
1 cup whipped cream

Heat ¾ cup juice with unflavored gelatin

Mix with sugar, cranberries, pineapple and mandarin oranges

Fold in: sour cream, coconut, whipped cream

Refrigerate

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Monday, November 8, 2010

There Was Wine, There Was Wonderful Food and There Were Songs

The afternoon after the wedding we stood in the hotel parking lot and said goodbye.  Abby & Jorge were driving Leslie & Ryan to Guayaquil so they could fly home Monday morning and we were leaving for our adventure in the Amazon. There were some tears and some sobs. Actually, there were so many tears and so much sobbing that Dean felt the need to whisper to Leslie, before you moved back to Wyoming, Mom cried every time after you and Ryan and the kids left too.”  I suppose Leslie may have been feeling bad that I only gave her a quick hug goodbye while I made an idiot of myself over saying goodbye to her sister, but I'll bet she wasn't sad when she realized she would not be the one sitting in a truck for a three-hour drive covered in mother snot. After the goodbyes were said, as is required in Chapter 15 of the Encyclopedia of Mothering, I stood alone by the front door of the hotel, waving that final wave, as the four of them drove off.

A bit later, once I'd wiped the snot off my own face, the “Amazon Tour Group” headed to the Manta airport and we all flew to Quito.


Since our tour to the Amazon didn’t begin until Tuesday, we had Sunday evening and all day Monday to explore Quito.  As is our custom, there was a lot of this ...  












and this.


But we also did a fair amount of walking because as everybody knows, if you walk, even just a little, when you increase your daily calorie intake by a factor of ten you will feel much less guilt. We decided to walk to La Basílica del Voto Nacional. On our way to the basilica we stumbled upon a local indigenous festival.




 We had to make a decision. We could listen to live music ...


buy handcrafted items ...


watch dancing ...


and eat food ...



... or we could continue walking to go see an old building.  It was a slam/dunk for some of us.  We stayed. But about half the group continued walking.  Pretty soon the walkers returned looking a bit bedraggled.  Quito is 9,000 feet high and once they left the festival the walk to the basilica was all uphill. So as it turned out, nobody saw it.  Of course, now that I’ve actually gone on the web and looked at photos of the basilica I should probably describe it a bit more respectfully than just an old building. It is definitely a magnificent and grand old building.

The food at the festival looked amazing and I really, really wanted to try some. I was so, so tempted. I’d walk by a booth, sniff, drool, and mentally weigh the odds of that food playing havoc with my sensitive American intestinal system. The only thing that kept me from eating it was the fear that my seat on the plane the next day might be the seat in the bathroom. And airplane bathroom etiquette states in no uncertain terms that you should not be a bathroom hog.

We stayed at the festival until late in the afternoon, listening to the music, watching the dancers, and spending money at the booths. Then we walked back, ate more, and of course,


drank more.


And then,


we happily stumbled to bed, slightly pickled, in excited anticipation of our trip to the Amazon the next day.

While you wait for me to write about our trip to the Amazon, pour yourself a glass of wine ... or two ... nibble on some plantain chips and play some music as you look at more photos of the festival by clicking here.  And if that's not enough for you, you can watch one of the festival dances hereYou'll almost think you're there ... I wish I still was.
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Monday, November 1, 2010

Not Every Witch Wears a Pointy Hat

I need to take moment in between my Ecuador trip posts to go on a mini tirade about Halloween. Let me begin by saying up front -- I hate Halloween. I don’t have a problem with the candy. I love Snicker bars and licorice almost as much as Dean loves the bag of chocolate chips I keep trying to hide and he keeps finding. And I don’t have a problem with trick or treating. Trick or treating is a bit like eating potato chips. You can’t stop at just one … or to put it in Halloween terms … there’s always another porch light calling your name. I say this from personal experience. When the girls were young we lived in Rock Springs and I was the parent who took them trick or treating. Every year we were out there, together, through blizzards and howling winds and sub-zero temperatures while Dean remained stoically behind in a cozy, warm house handing out the candy. In Rock Springs we didn’t need the Farmer’s Almanac to know when winter would begin. We knew it would begin on Halloween night. Always. And no matter what the weather was, when we were out there trick or treating, those porch lights drew me toward them just the way my cat is drawn to a fly buzzing on the patio door. “Come on, girls. Just one more block. This block has FOUR porch lights on! If you walk fast the shivering will stop and the snow will barely stick to you.

I don’t hate Halloween for the sick stomachs after gorging either. And I don’t hate Halloween because it afforded my girls the opportunity to hone their skills in lying in order to prevent my discovery of the candy they hid and which lasted all the way til Easter. I hate Halloween because when my girls were in elementary school, every year there was a Halloween Costume Parade Day where the kid wearing the best costume won a prize, and I couldn’t (and still can’t) sew. I told my girls they had to use the wrinkled and mashed dresses, hats and shoes that were crammed in the dress-up box for their costumes because “that’s what I had to do when I was a kid” and if it was good enough for me it was good enough for them. In reality, the pressure of even attempting to sew a dinosaur costume with a ten-foot tail that waved back and forth when the kid walked, or a princess dress with five layers of tulle and glittering jewels hand-sewn on the skirt was just more than I could deal with. I hate Halloween for the pressure it puts on mothers (and I suppose, some fathers) to be expert seamstresses (or seam-misters). But lately I’ve also begun hating Halloween because of Halloween parents. Yes. I hate Halloween parents.

I hate Halloween parents who drive their children miles from their own neighborhood to my neighborhood to trick or treat. Do they really think I’ll have better candy than their own neighbors? Guess what? I don’t. I buy the cheapest candy I can find because I know that every year I will have more kids (who do not live in my neighborhood) than I can afford to “treat”. And I am stingy. I don't give handfuls of candy. I give them two tiny bite-size candy bars because if I gave each kid more than that I would have to turn my light out even earlier than I did last night. Last night, by 7:00 p.m., 153 kids had come to my door. Let me say that again. By 7:00 p.m. I had given candy to one hundred and fifty-three kids. Kids who do not live in my neighborhood. By 7:00 p.m. last night I had run out of candy. And dang it, I was handing it out so fast I only managed to cram one piece into my mouth before it was all gone.

I hate Halloween parents who drive their children across town, to my neighborhood, and then do not get out of their cars. They creep along, bumper to bumper, following as their children walk from house to house – even on a beautiful, warm, fall evening – like it was last night.  (Dorothy, we're not in Rock Springs anymore....) If they feel compelled to drive their children to my neighborhood, they should at least get their lazy butts out of their cars and walk with their children.

I hate Halloween parents who bring their babies and tiny children trick or treating. Babies and tiny children who don’t even have teeth. Babies and tiny children who are too young to eat anything other than formula, baby food, mashed bananas or dog food. Come on, when those parents hold a plastic pumpkin out toward me and say, “it’s for the baby”, do they really think I'm stupid enough to believe they're going to grind up Butterfingers into pablum or let them chew on Hershey Bars with their toothless baby gums?

I hate Halloween parents who hold open their pillowcase and say, “it’s for Johnny … Sally … Iris … ” and then point to a sleeping child in a stroller or a lifeless body draped over their shoulder. Maybe if their child is snoring and drooling down their back it means they don’t NEED any more candy. Maybe it means that child should be taken home and put to bed.

Next year I am boycotting Halloween. I will not be at the door handing out candy to babies and sleeping children and parents who should have stayed in their OWN neighborhood. That is, unless, of course, these three little trick or treaters ring my doorbell. I’ll answer the door to them and give them handfuls of candy. Even if they don’t live in my neighborhood.





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