Today I stood on the very center of the earth, or really close to it. I am in Quito and almost every person who passes through this city makes the 40 minute trip to the monument called la mitad del mundo or center of the earth. So being a good tourist I went as well and as with every other tourist trap I had been in was severely dissapointed. I knew beforehand that it wasn´t the real geographic center of the earth as the line that the monument was built on was determined in the 1700s by the french. The ecuatorian government subsequently built the monument on the same line in the 30s and since then thousands of tourists have visited the site thinking they are straddling the hemispheres. Nowadays most people know its a few hundred meters away from the real one but most people dont seem to care. Anyways the best thing I can say about it is the insect museum which showcases some amazingly large beetles and other things that are too wierd to be described. However there was a guy at the gates passing out flyers advertising another museum near buy that wasn´t government funded and had a free entry (I forgot to say it is two dollars to enter the site and another 3.50 if you want to visit the museum inside the monument, so we never went inside). Anyways we decided to check out the other museum and it was well worth it.
It is run by a private organization that has 5 members and is dedicated to the scientific investigation of the real equator and the ancient societies that have constructed numerous sites around quito to mark the lines of the soltices, equinoxes etc... About 12 years ago using modern GPS systems they located a small archeological site shaped in a kind of semi circle on a nearby hill on the summit of a nearby hill and further investiation proved that it measures not only the exact equator but also the summer soltice, so the line of the semicircle runs from the equator to the exact line that the sun passes over during the soltice and in total measures 23 degrees which is the tilt of the earth. You have to see a map to truly understand it but it is impressive none the less. Anyways following theses lines of the sun at all the soltices and equinoxes they have discovered several more sites that correspond to these lines and are all based on this principal site which lies directly on the equator. It is pretty fascinating if you think this was way before any contact with europe or any modern instruments such as a telescope.
Here in Ecuador (which means equator in spanish) is the only place where the equator crosses over mountains. The rest of the world it crosses over forests, jungles and oceans. This is important because oceans and jungles do not provide fixed reference points like mountains do, so it is a lot more difficult to trace the path of the sun if from one year to the next a tree has either grown a bit or fallen down because your reference point no longer exists. It is the opinion of this organization that that is why no triangle shaped pyramids are found in ecuador while in other ancient societies that also measured with accuracy things like the soltices, such as egypt and the aztecs and mayans. He went on to explain that this civilization was pre incan, meaning they had built this stuff before the famous incans invaded the area, and that the incans didn´t invade for wealth or territory as in other cases, but for the ecuator, as their god was itsu(sp.) or the sun. He also explained the origins of the name ecuador which is derived from an few different words in latin but basically means equal weight or balance. They show a map of the world that is not based on a traditional european invented north south alignment, but one that views the equator as running in the traditional direction of north, so the map is basically turned on its side. When you really stop to think about it this is a much more logical view of things, only that your whole life you have been taught that north is up and south is down, when really it is all a matter of perspective (there is no up or down in space). Another interesting fact was the name of Quito. The name of their organization is Quitso if I remember correctly, but basically in the ancient language to is world and quit is center, so Quito really means center of the earth.
The guy who taught us all this was very dedicated and enthusiastic and gave us so much information it was hard to absorb it all and I am forgetting a lot, hopefully all this makes a bit of sense. Anyways it was fascinating to say the least. This organization has several goals, the first of which is to save the original site/ruins where the equator runs. This site can actually be seen a little bit on the horizon of a distant hill when looking out the front door of the museum ( or even the monument of the fake equator) yet tourists can´t visit it and very few average people even know about it. Currently they are mining the hill and blasting away at it with dynamite so they predict that within ten years it could be destroyed. The government is one of the biggest buyers of what the mine produces so once again the economy takes precedent over conservation.
Their second goal is education, which is also suffering as due to a lack of funds they have to close the museum after only two years of existence. Anyways they are trying to make all of this common knowledge among ecuatorians and anyone who visits ecuador, although trying to introduce the fact that the monument (government owned) is not the real equator into the public school system is apparently just as easy as trying to get the government to give up economic gains for conservation purposes. (The rainforests they want to dig up to extract oil is a huge issue right now.) Anyways they have a very modern and egalitarian vision of the world which is based on the equator as being the union of people from all parts of the world and is reflected in their modified map of the world. They are very anti conquistador and promote indigenous rights and education. He used the example of indigenous people being unable to visit Machu Pichu, which was built by their own ancestors, due to the prices that mass tourism has brought. They also have constructed a huge sundial that lies on the equator about 40kms away and has only 1mm of error in the exact line. They have placed a large tube in the middle that when standing inside and looking directly up at the sky you can see the sun pass exactly overhead at twelve noon on the soltice and you will literally have no shadow. I have written a lot because I found all this very interesting, after his presentation (we were the only two people at this particular time) we hung around talking with him for another hour because he is a fountain of facinating information. Anyways I think I have covered the most interesting points here, or at least the ones i can remember right now. I had planned on writing about the climb up the volcano cotopaxi yesterday but this was far more interesting, as it was covered in clouds and after a certain point visibility was severely limited. I can´t remember exactly if this volcano or another one is the farthest you can get from the center of the earth due to the bulge at the equator (the earth isnt a perfect sphere), but anyways I was close to the farthest you can get from the center of the earth, just as I was close to the exact middle of it. The shelter on the volcano that I stumbled into, after about an hour of struggling with the flu and the altitude, is at 4,800 meters above sea level and there is still another thousand to get to the top. However to summit you need full mountain gear and have to overnight in the shelter, as just above the refuge is the limit of the glacier that covers the whole summit.
anyways that is it for today, staying in quito again tonight and then heading back to guayaquil on the night bus tommorow. Tommorrow plan on hitting up one of the the biggest artesanal craft markets in south america so if anyone wants anything specific let me know right away, otherwise you´ll have to settle for cheesy fridge magnets, haha. I am off to see if the beer tastes any diffent in the second highest captial city in the world. take care
viernes, 27 de febrero de 2009
miércoles, 25 de febrero de 2009
carnival
I am currently in a touristic town in the Andes called baños, and in about half an hour we´re scheduled to take a 3 hour tour that stops at five or six different waterfalls, so i´ll have to write quick. Have been really busy ever since last saturday since last weekend was the festival of carnival here, meaning that the monday and tuesday were holidays and almost everyone goes either to the beaches or to a few different cities in the mountains that have parades etc.. I decided to take adavantage and took the whole week off to travel.
I started saturday by going to a beach on the north coast with a group of people from guayaquil and two canadian girls who are doing an internship in the embassy in quito. The nightlife was good but the beach wasn´t anything special and there was way to many people so I decided to head back to Ambato where I was the weekend before. Most of the people I was with had to go back to work or study on wednesday so they stayed at the beach while me and one other girl from brazil left for the mountains. We took an overnight bus that was supposed to get us into Quito by 8am and from there it is just another 2 hours to Ambato, however due to some heavy rain there was a landslide that made the road impassable, so sometime in the night we had to stop and wait for them to clear it up. We didn´t get going again until 10 or 11 the next morning and by then there was a massive line up of buses and other traffic all waiting. Bad news for us but good news for the few people who lived in the area as they made a killing selling any kind of food they had. It didn´t take them long to take advantage of the situation. Anyways as a result we didn´t get into Quito until 1 in the afternoon and didn´t get to Ambato until 5ish, just enough time for a quick shower at my friends place before going down to the city center to watch the parade. The streets were absolutely packed, apparently there were more people than normal because a lot of routes to the coast had been closed due to the rain so people from Quito went to the festival in Ambato instead. The parade was a toned down copy of the famous carnival in Rio de Janiero but it was entertaining none the less, however afterwards was when the party really started. Like I said the streets were completely full of people and almost everyone was armed with cannisters of foam to spray, so as soon as the last float of the parade passed the war began. It didn´t matter if you wanted to participate or not, everyone was fair game. A few cannisters later we headed to temporary bar that had been set up that charged 20$ to get in but once inside everything was free. By the end of the night they had run out of plastic cups so the tequila was distributed by the bartender standing on the bar and pouring the bottle into peoples open mouths. I was reminded of how a bird feeds its new born chicks in the nest. Anyways it goes without saying that overall it was a pretty good time.
We stayed with my friend once again last night and this morning took an hour bus ride here to baños, tonight we will probably go back to Ambato and stay with my friend once more and from there head out to the province and volcano of Cotopaxi. Apprently to summit it you need full mountain gear but the hike to a cabin about half way up is supposed to be fairly easy so thats what I hope to do tommorow.
Tommorow night we will most likely stay in Quito with the Canadian girl we met at the beach and from there make a few days trips to some touristic places close by, one of which is Mitad del Mundo, or middle of the earth which marks the Equator.
Anyways I am off to see some waterfalls
I started saturday by going to a beach on the north coast with a group of people from guayaquil and two canadian girls who are doing an internship in the embassy in quito. The nightlife was good but the beach wasn´t anything special and there was way to many people so I decided to head back to Ambato where I was the weekend before. Most of the people I was with had to go back to work or study on wednesday so they stayed at the beach while me and one other girl from brazil left for the mountains. We took an overnight bus that was supposed to get us into Quito by 8am and from there it is just another 2 hours to Ambato, however due to some heavy rain there was a landslide that made the road impassable, so sometime in the night we had to stop and wait for them to clear it up. We didn´t get going again until 10 or 11 the next morning and by then there was a massive line up of buses and other traffic all waiting. Bad news for us but good news for the few people who lived in the area as they made a killing selling any kind of food they had. It didn´t take them long to take advantage of the situation. Anyways as a result we didn´t get into Quito until 1 in the afternoon and didn´t get to Ambato until 5ish, just enough time for a quick shower at my friends place before going down to the city center to watch the parade. The streets were absolutely packed, apparently there were more people than normal because a lot of routes to the coast had been closed due to the rain so people from Quito went to the festival in Ambato instead. The parade was a toned down copy of the famous carnival in Rio de Janiero but it was entertaining none the less, however afterwards was when the party really started. Like I said the streets were completely full of people and almost everyone was armed with cannisters of foam to spray, so as soon as the last float of the parade passed the war began. It didn´t matter if you wanted to participate or not, everyone was fair game. A few cannisters later we headed to temporary bar that had been set up that charged 20$ to get in but once inside everything was free. By the end of the night they had run out of plastic cups so the tequila was distributed by the bartender standing on the bar and pouring the bottle into peoples open mouths. I was reminded of how a bird feeds its new born chicks in the nest. Anyways it goes without saying that overall it was a pretty good time.
We stayed with my friend once again last night and this morning took an hour bus ride here to baños, tonight we will probably go back to Ambato and stay with my friend once more and from there head out to the province and volcano of Cotopaxi. Apprently to summit it you need full mountain gear but the hike to a cabin about half way up is supposed to be fairly easy so thats what I hope to do tommorow.
Tommorow night we will most likely stay in Quito with the Canadian girl we met at the beach and from there make a few days trips to some touristic places close by, one of which is Mitad del Mundo, or middle of the earth which marks the Equator.
Anyways I am off to see some waterfalls
domingo, 15 de febrero de 2009
hot shower
Last saturday I enjoyed my first hot shower in almost 4 months. That sounds like a long time, but the truth is that I haven´t missed it, and most days actually look forward to getting home to a nice cold shower. The reason for this luxury was that I went to visit a friend in a city in the mountains, and the climate there makes it a necessity.
The Sierra of Ecuador is a completely different world than the coast, they even speak differently and once again I had to adjust my ears to a new accent. Since I have spent so little time in the Sierra I shouldn´t really judge between the two ´worlds´, but I do it anyways since the two cities I have been in are much cleaner, quieter, and better organized than Guayaquil. I should mention that Guayaquil is the by far the biggest city in the country and I am not exactly living in the best part of it, so there will obviously be more noise/pollution/etc.. than a smaller city deals with. Furthermore my friend is from the upper-middle class and therefore lives a very different life than most people I know here in Guayaquil do. Even taking these differences into account however, I still think that what I have seen of the Sierra is generally more developed than what I have seen of the coast.
One good un-biased example of this is the fact that the city I was in, Ambato, had public trash dumpsters every other block. I have yet to see a garbage can here in Guayaquil outside the touristy area along the river, so you can imagine where all the garbage usually winds up. The garbage trucks have designated pickup points along their route (no trash can in the alley), so a day or two before the pick up date you can see a large pile of garbage seeminlgy piled at random alongside the road, and even if you don´t see it you will be sure to smell it. Once again take into account that I am living in a rather poor part of the city and only 30 years ago their was nothing here but trees. Despite its overall ugliness everyone assures me that it used to be a lot worse, and continues to improve.
Anyways back to the Sierra. The city of Ambato is not anything too special, I found Loja to be nicer, yet it is close to a lot of cool places, and fortunately my friend has a car so I got to see some of the surrounding area. The most distinguishing feature of Ambato is the massive volcano you can see smoking from anywhere in the city, and the base of it is a very touristy town called Baños (due to its´ volcanically heated thermal baths). Despite all the typical tourist trap stuff it is a very nice town with a lot of stuff to do, from bungee jumping to white water rafting to a world famous downhill mountain bike course. The area consists of very steep mountains with a ton of cool waterfalls and canyons to hike in. Since we were only there for a few hours I didn´t see very much but we did hike into a canyon with an incredible waterfall, and if you are willing to scramble through some pretty tight wet spaces you can even get right behind it, getting soaked in the process. I hope to go back and see a bit more next week.
Next week is carnaval and the monday tuesday and wednesday are holidays, so i plan on taking the whole week of so I can see some of the many places I haven´t had a chance to visit yet. I am going to start by going back to Ambato since the parties for Carnaval are supposed to be especially good there, plus they have a very famous parade and festival of flowers and fruits that everyone tells me I have to see. Other possible attractions include: Quito, the capital, Cotopaxi the national park with several volcanos to hike up, and possibly even a part of the amazon. Should be a good week.
The Sierra of Ecuador is a completely different world than the coast, they even speak differently and once again I had to adjust my ears to a new accent. Since I have spent so little time in the Sierra I shouldn´t really judge between the two ´worlds´, but I do it anyways since the two cities I have been in are much cleaner, quieter, and better organized than Guayaquil. I should mention that Guayaquil is the by far the biggest city in the country and I am not exactly living in the best part of it, so there will obviously be more noise/pollution/etc.. than a smaller city deals with. Furthermore my friend is from the upper-middle class and therefore lives a very different life than most people I know here in Guayaquil do. Even taking these differences into account however, I still think that what I have seen of the Sierra is generally more developed than what I have seen of the coast.
One good un-biased example of this is the fact that the city I was in, Ambato, had public trash dumpsters every other block. I have yet to see a garbage can here in Guayaquil outside the touristy area along the river, so you can imagine where all the garbage usually winds up. The garbage trucks have designated pickup points along their route (no trash can in the alley), so a day or two before the pick up date you can see a large pile of garbage seeminlgy piled at random alongside the road, and even if you don´t see it you will be sure to smell it. Once again take into account that I am living in a rather poor part of the city and only 30 years ago their was nothing here but trees. Despite its overall ugliness everyone assures me that it used to be a lot worse, and continues to improve.
Anyways back to the Sierra. The city of Ambato is not anything too special, I found Loja to be nicer, yet it is close to a lot of cool places, and fortunately my friend has a car so I got to see some of the surrounding area. The most distinguishing feature of Ambato is the massive volcano you can see smoking from anywhere in the city, and the base of it is a very touristy town called Baños (due to its´ volcanically heated thermal baths). Despite all the typical tourist trap stuff it is a very nice town with a lot of stuff to do, from bungee jumping to white water rafting to a world famous downhill mountain bike course. The area consists of very steep mountains with a ton of cool waterfalls and canyons to hike in. Since we were only there for a few hours I didn´t see very much but we did hike into a canyon with an incredible waterfall, and if you are willing to scramble through some pretty tight wet spaces you can even get right behind it, getting soaked in the process. I hope to go back and see a bit more next week.
Next week is carnaval and the monday tuesday and wednesday are holidays, so i plan on taking the whole week of so I can see some of the many places I haven´t had a chance to visit yet. I am going to start by going back to Ambato since the parties for Carnaval are supposed to be especially good there, plus they have a very famous parade and festival of flowers and fruits that everyone tells me I have to see. Other possible attractions include: Quito, the capital, Cotopaxi the national park with several volcanos to hike up, and possibly even a part of the amazon. Should be a good week.
martes, 10 de febrero de 2009
finally!
I finally made it to the Sierra, which is the Andes. I put an exlamation point in the title because it is something I have been wanting to do since I got here but for one reason or another it hasn´t worked out. Anyone who I have been in regular contact with over the last few months has surely heard me complain more than once about the wicked heat and humidity that one can enjoy on a daily basis living in guayaquil. In Canada people like to go to mexico or a beach to escape the cold, here, I want to go to the mountains to escape the heat. Everyone here always talks about how cold it is in Quito and the sierra, but since they have no idea what cold really is, I figured that cold for them would be perfect for me, and I was right.
I am not implying that I haven´t enjoyed my time here, but if I had to do it all over again I would definately look for an internship some place in the mountains. In the 2 short days I spent there last weekend I literally couldn´t think of one thing in Guayaquil that I liked better than what I saw in the city of Loja, or the town of Vilcabamba. I went to sleep in a hot and dirty city and when I woke up I couldn´t see anything but clouds out the bus window cause of the height we were at. When I could see something it was incredible views of very steep, green, cloudy covered mountains. As soon as I got off the bus at about 8am on saturday I immediately could sense the change in air temperature and see a huge difference in the overall cleanliness and
order of the city.
Me and the other canadian intern I was with got a taxi and went to the hotel where two other interns (brazil and holland), who had arrived the day before, were staying. The reason for the trip was that there was a national AIESEC conference in the nearby town of Vilcabamba that weekend, and even though we weren´t participating in the conference they invited the interns along (and paid for our bus fare and accomadation) as a ´cultural activity.´ So we ate breakfast at the restaurant of a local aiesec member and then he spent the afternoon taking us on a small walking tour of Loja. I think he said there were about 200,000 people there but it seemed like less.
In the afternoon we took a cab to the town of Vilcabamba which was about an hours drive from loja. The scenery here was even more spectacular than the route into loja, yet due to the terrible sleep I had on the bus, I only was able to enjoy it for about 20 minutes before I woke up in vilcabamaba. Vilcabamba is a very small town that has the nickname of the valley of long life, due to the supposed life prolonging qualities of the water there. If people do in fact live longer there I would attribute it to the complete lack of stress that the residents must have to live in such a quiet town surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I am sure 90% of the town´s economy must be based on tourism because I didn´t see much else going on there.
We went to the hotel were the conference was, checked into our rooms, showered and then walked back to the town to eat dinner. We hung out in the central plaza with a few beer killing time until the formal dinner for the conference was over and the party started... ------------------------------------- the next morning we woke up late and went for breakfast (again just the four interns as the aiesec people were at the conference). The rest of the day we spent walking along a road that kind of made semi circle above the town offering pretty good scenery, and that was about it. We got on a bus with the aisec people to go back to loja about 6 and then hung out there until we got on the night bus at 11 to take us back to guayaquil. It was nothing overly exciting (except for one event I will explain after I get home for the sake of moms sanity) yet was one of the most enjoyable weekends i have spent here since i arrived.
Its 8pm here now and dinner should be ready so I am heading back to the house. I want to write a bit about what has been going on with the job and english classes etc.. but will have to do it another night. The good news is that this is my last week of teaching english to kids which I am extremely happy about. Don´t have anything planned for next weekend although if nothing comes up I plan on visiting a friend I met while I was in Argentina, he also lives in the mountains....
I am not implying that I haven´t enjoyed my time here, but if I had to do it all over again I would definately look for an internship some place in the mountains. In the 2 short days I spent there last weekend I literally couldn´t think of one thing in Guayaquil that I liked better than what I saw in the city of Loja, or the town of Vilcabamba. I went to sleep in a hot and dirty city and when I woke up I couldn´t see anything but clouds out the bus window cause of the height we were at. When I could see something it was incredible views of very steep, green, cloudy covered mountains. As soon as I got off the bus at about 8am on saturday I immediately could sense the change in air temperature and see a huge difference in the overall cleanliness and
order of the city.
Me and the other canadian intern I was with got a taxi and went to the hotel where two other interns (brazil and holland), who had arrived the day before, were staying. The reason for the trip was that there was a national AIESEC conference in the nearby town of Vilcabamba that weekend, and even though we weren´t participating in the conference they invited the interns along (and paid for our bus fare and accomadation) as a ´cultural activity.´ So we ate breakfast at the restaurant of a local aiesec member and then he spent the afternoon taking us on a small walking tour of Loja. I think he said there were about 200,000 people there but it seemed like less.
In the afternoon we took a cab to the town of Vilcabamba which was about an hours drive from loja. The scenery here was even more spectacular than the route into loja, yet due to the terrible sleep I had on the bus, I only was able to enjoy it for about 20 minutes before I woke up in vilcabamaba. Vilcabamba is a very small town that has the nickname of the valley of long life, due to the supposed life prolonging qualities of the water there. If people do in fact live longer there I would attribute it to the complete lack of stress that the residents must have to live in such a quiet town surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I am sure 90% of the town´s economy must be based on tourism because I didn´t see much else going on there.
We went to the hotel were the conference was, checked into our rooms, showered and then walked back to the town to eat dinner. We hung out in the central plaza with a few beer killing time until the formal dinner for the conference was over and the party started... ------------------------------------- the next morning we woke up late and went for breakfast (again just the four interns as the aiesec people were at the conference). The rest of the day we spent walking along a road that kind of made semi circle above the town offering pretty good scenery, and that was about it. We got on a bus with the aisec people to go back to loja about 6 and then hung out there until we got on the night bus at 11 to take us back to guayaquil. It was nothing overly exciting (except for one event I will explain after I get home for the sake of moms sanity) yet was one of the most enjoyable weekends i have spent here since i arrived.
Its 8pm here now and dinner should be ready so I am heading back to the house. I want to write a bit about what has been going on with the job and english classes etc.. but will have to do it another night. The good news is that this is my last week of teaching english to kids which I am extremely happy about. Don´t have anything planned for next weekend although if nothing comes up I plan on visiting a friend I met while I was in Argentina, he also lives in the mountains....
martes, 3 de febrero de 2009
linea zero hot springs
I finally have some time on my hands so I can try to update this thing, but its nice to know that the lack of entries has been missed by at least a few people. Since the first entry I have been really busy and have been to two pretty neat places so I´ll start with the first and go from there...
So the house and the nearby town did have electricity which was nice, and most of the time there was running water as well. We got off the bus on the main highway, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and hired someone with a truck to drive us the 8 kilometers up to the house. The road left something to be desired, especially when you are precariously perched in the back of a truck with, i think I counted thirteen other people. There was at least 3 or 4 times where we had to ford creeks, however the scenery was nice.
We were in a large very lush valley with lots of cacao and banana plantations, and all around us were green mist covered mountains. The only really ugly part about it was the fact that in the river there were several excavators making dikes along the banks. What was probably a pretty nice clean river now looks like a dirty rock filled canal, but I guess they can have some serious flooding problems at times which isn't good for the cacoa growing business. Fortunately the hot springs were way above all this.
The house we stayed in was fairly nice compared to the standards I have gotten used to living where i live in the city. I guess someone in my organization knew the owner and so for the last several years they have taken the group of german students who come here every summer to teach music to stay there for the weekend. Basically whenever they want to go they just have to give him a bit of notice and he gives them the keys. Anyways it has 4 double beds upstairs and a cooking-eating area downstairs, way nicer, brighter, and cleaner than i am used to.
We organized for the same guy who drove us to the house to come back the next day and drive us up to the hot springs, which were another 45 minutes farther up the road.
They turned out to be some of the nicer hot springs I have been to. The pool was a fairly good size and some people who have a house near by cleans up the garbage regularly so they were clean as well (the same people also charge 50 a head for their services). The best part however, was that there was a nice clean and cold stream that ran right beside them, so you could hop back and forth from the cold to hot water. Personally I enjoyed the cold water more than the hot, as even though it was cloudy and we were far from the coast, it was still plenty warm that day.
The part about the people cleaning up the garbage is important, because most (there are lots of people who aren´t like this) of the people here don´t understand the concept of throwing garbage in the garbage, and instead throw it wherever they feel like it. It can be really frustrating to see this and I have given the 11 year old nephew of my family s--t a few times when he just tossed his garbage out the window or into the river. The stuff that has annoyed me about ecuador could fill up quite a few entries, but maybe i´ll save them for another time.
Anyways that was basically the weekend. You should be able to see the pictures on facebook, if not now then fairly soon. It was a lot more exciting at the time because at the time I had still not been to the Sierra where I was last weekend, and to me at least, that made the place I have just written seem pretty dull by comparison...
So the house and the nearby town did have electricity which was nice, and most of the time there was running water as well. We got off the bus on the main highway, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and hired someone with a truck to drive us the 8 kilometers up to the house. The road left something to be desired, especially when you are precariously perched in the back of a truck with, i think I counted thirteen other people. There was at least 3 or 4 times where we had to ford creeks, however the scenery was nice.
We were in a large very lush valley with lots of cacao and banana plantations, and all around us were green mist covered mountains. The only really ugly part about it was the fact that in the river there were several excavators making dikes along the banks. What was probably a pretty nice clean river now looks like a dirty rock filled canal, but I guess they can have some serious flooding problems at times which isn't good for the cacoa growing business. Fortunately the hot springs were way above all this.
The house we stayed in was fairly nice compared to the standards I have gotten used to living where i live in the city. I guess someone in my organization knew the owner and so for the last several years they have taken the group of german students who come here every summer to teach music to stay there for the weekend. Basically whenever they want to go they just have to give him a bit of notice and he gives them the keys. Anyways it has 4 double beds upstairs and a cooking-eating area downstairs, way nicer, brighter, and cleaner than i am used to.
We organized for the same guy who drove us to the house to come back the next day and drive us up to the hot springs, which were another 45 minutes farther up the road.
They turned out to be some of the nicer hot springs I have been to. The pool was a fairly good size and some people who have a house near by cleans up the garbage regularly so they were clean as well (the same people also charge 50 a head for their services). The best part however, was that there was a nice clean and cold stream that ran right beside them, so you could hop back and forth from the cold to hot water. Personally I enjoyed the cold water more than the hot, as even though it was cloudy and we were far from the coast, it was still plenty warm that day.
The part about the people cleaning up the garbage is important, because most (there are lots of people who aren´t like this) of the people here don´t understand the concept of throwing garbage in the garbage, and instead throw it wherever they feel like it. It can be really frustrating to see this and I have given the 11 year old nephew of my family s--t a few times when he just tossed his garbage out the window or into the river. The stuff that has annoyed me about ecuador could fill up quite a few entries, but maybe i´ll save them for another time.
Anyways that was basically the weekend. You should be able to see the pictures on facebook, if not now then fairly soon. It was a lot more exciting at the time because at the time I had still not been to the Sierra where I was last weekend, and to me at least, that made the place I have just written seem pretty dull by comparison...
jueves, 29 de enero de 2009
my first blog and teaching job ever
Jeff inspired me, well that and mom's subtle suggestions...
Anyways it is something I had thought about doing before, not so much for the benefit of other people to read, but more as a record for myself. I have a traditional travel journal, but I have to force myself to write in it, and when I do it is basically point form and nearly illegible. I write much better with a computer. Sign of the times I guess.
Like I said Jeff's blog inspired me to try writing my own, and all though I am not nearly as good of writer as he is, the content about my life here in Ecuador may keep you entertained for awhile at least...
This week I went by fast, mostly beacause I was extremely busy. I have recently started giving english lessons to both kids and adults. I have a group of younger kids between 6 and 8 or so in the morning starting at 8.30, then a groupd of kids from 9-13 in the afternoon at 4. This is from monday till thursday. Mondays and wednesday nights starting at 5.30, I have a group of adults as well. The kids are terrible, both groups. The adults were worse but in a different way.
The kids have absolutely zero patience, and are on vacation from school so don't feel like they need to learn anything, it is a consant struggle to keep them entertained enough to pay attenion.
The first adult class i had on monday was worse in the sense that they didn't say nearly anything. There was about 10 of them and they just kind of came in and sat there looking at me. I had planned on finding out how much they knew and going from there, helping them out with things they didn't understand, so I didn't have any lesson prepared or worksheet to give them. I tried to explain something like the past tense to them, they said it was perfectly clear and then continued to sit there silently. The silence made me get nervous and sweaty and I couldn't think because of it, and that just made the lesson get more awkward. I tried asking some question but they were all one word answers and nothing else. I ended the class early by saying that on wednesday i would be better prepared and have actual worksheets etc...
So I spent both tuesday and wednesday before the class stressing out about how to teach a bunch of people who don't want to talk. I looked for games and lesson plans on the internet, I called Marcela asking her for advice, and by 5.30 on wednesday I felt like i had enough material to get me through an hour and a half.
Turns out I didn't need any of it. There were two or three new people and two or three people missing from the class on monday, and that seemed to make the difference. The entire class I never got to the material cause they always had more questions. It was great, and because there were no awkward silences I wasn't nervous and I think I taught a lot better as well. At the end of the lesson I asked them what kind of things they wanted me to prepare to teach thm on monday, and they basically came up with a lesson plan for themselves, I simply have to print off a few sheets from the internet and I am set.
Anyways apart from this, which, as it turned out caused me way more stress than it should have, I also had to prepare a presentation on canada, and finish translating my bosses letter of recomendation for my application to grad school (haha how perfect is that). I finished the presentation last night about midnight, and presented it this morning, to mixed reveiws I think...
I'll have to see if I can post files on here or not, maybe people reading this can see it. I was quite proud of it, but I don't know if my spanish explanations of the picutres etc.. really did them justice. Anyways its done.
Just before my english class today I also finished liberally translating my bosses letter, I only hope their suspicions aren't aroused by his excellent command of the english language, haha. so anyway those were the big things I had to finish this week. I am still trying to work on my letter of intent but simply haven't had time this week, so it will be my goal for next week.
Tommorrow morning I leave on a trip with some people from the project to some hot springs about 4 hours away. From what I understand the town they are near has no electricity, and the persons house we will be staying at, and is near the the springs, is a good kilometer or two's hike from the town. Should be interesting. The people from my office have gone their a few times in the summer when a group of german volunteers come here for a month to teach music, so they know this guy who owns this house/farm. Anyways it had better be good because I won't get back till late on sunday and will likely miss the finals of the australian open. (tennis is the only sport I follow nowadays since vancouver decided to retire from the nhl.)
I guess that is enough for one blog, hopefully the prospect about hearing how this weekend goes is enough of a cliffhanger to get you to read another one if you were falling asleep during the english lessons. It's almost seven, I should get home just in time for a big plate of rice, some greasy meat and a bottle of coke (you will see the results of this diet when I get back to canada). i thought i would get sick of rice but I am actually looking forward to it at the moment, and ice cold coca cola has never tasted so good as when its 30+ in the evening....
Anyways it is something I had thought about doing before, not so much for the benefit of other people to read, but more as a record for myself. I have a traditional travel journal, but I have to force myself to write in it, and when I do it is basically point form and nearly illegible. I write much better with a computer. Sign of the times I guess.
Like I said Jeff's blog inspired me to try writing my own, and all though I am not nearly as good of writer as he is, the content about my life here in Ecuador may keep you entertained for awhile at least...
This week I went by fast, mostly beacause I was extremely busy. I have recently started giving english lessons to both kids and adults. I have a group of younger kids between 6 and 8 or so in the morning starting at 8.30, then a groupd of kids from 9-13 in the afternoon at 4. This is from monday till thursday. Mondays and wednesday nights starting at 5.30, I have a group of adults as well. The kids are terrible, both groups. The adults were worse but in a different way.
The kids have absolutely zero patience, and are on vacation from school so don't feel like they need to learn anything, it is a consant struggle to keep them entertained enough to pay attenion.
The first adult class i had on monday was worse in the sense that they didn't say nearly anything. There was about 10 of them and they just kind of came in and sat there looking at me. I had planned on finding out how much they knew and going from there, helping them out with things they didn't understand, so I didn't have any lesson prepared or worksheet to give them. I tried to explain something like the past tense to them, they said it was perfectly clear and then continued to sit there silently. The silence made me get nervous and sweaty and I couldn't think because of it, and that just made the lesson get more awkward. I tried asking some question but they were all one word answers and nothing else. I ended the class early by saying that on wednesday i would be better prepared and have actual worksheets etc...
So I spent both tuesday and wednesday before the class stressing out about how to teach a bunch of people who don't want to talk. I looked for games and lesson plans on the internet, I called Marcela asking her for advice, and by 5.30 on wednesday I felt like i had enough material to get me through an hour and a half.
Turns out I didn't need any of it. There were two or three new people and two or three people missing from the class on monday, and that seemed to make the difference. The entire class I never got to the material cause they always had more questions. It was great, and because there were no awkward silences I wasn't nervous and I think I taught a lot better as well. At the end of the lesson I asked them what kind of things they wanted me to prepare to teach thm on monday, and they basically came up with a lesson plan for themselves, I simply have to print off a few sheets from the internet and I am set.
Anyways apart from this, which, as it turned out caused me way more stress than it should have, I also had to prepare a presentation on canada, and finish translating my bosses letter of recomendation for my application to grad school (haha how perfect is that). I finished the presentation last night about midnight, and presented it this morning, to mixed reveiws I think...
I'll have to see if I can post files on here or not, maybe people reading this can see it. I was quite proud of it, but I don't know if my spanish explanations of the picutres etc.. really did them justice. Anyways its done.
Just before my english class today I also finished liberally translating my bosses letter, I only hope their suspicions aren't aroused by his excellent command of the english language, haha. so anyway those were the big things I had to finish this week. I am still trying to work on my letter of intent but simply haven't had time this week, so it will be my goal for next week.
Tommorrow morning I leave on a trip with some people from the project to some hot springs about 4 hours away. From what I understand the town they are near has no electricity, and the persons house we will be staying at, and is near the the springs, is a good kilometer or two's hike from the town. Should be interesting. The people from my office have gone their a few times in the summer when a group of german volunteers come here for a month to teach music, so they know this guy who owns this house/farm. Anyways it had better be good because I won't get back till late on sunday and will likely miss the finals of the australian open. (tennis is the only sport I follow nowadays since vancouver decided to retire from the nhl.)
I guess that is enough for one blog, hopefully the prospect about hearing how this weekend goes is enough of a cliffhanger to get you to read another one if you were falling asleep during the english lessons. It's almost seven, I should get home just in time for a big plate of rice, some greasy meat and a bottle of coke (you will see the results of this diet when I get back to canada). i thought i would get sick of rice but I am actually looking forward to it at the moment, and ice cold coca cola has never tasted so good as when its 30+ in the evening....
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