Beautiful Cuenca

So when we left, I left my nephews books to open as we arrive in each country. Here they are opening Ecuador. They are so ridiculously cute that I thought I would share. Thanks to my sis for sending these.

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p.s. Jake emailed Matt that he loves the word Ecuador and hopes we´re making friends. How could you get any sweeter?

January 5

Bus from Quito to Cuenca

So we woke up at 5am and grabbed a cab to the bus station. The bus station, never the most scenic place in any city, was already lively by 6am. Mostly with people who had slept there. We paid a small fee to enter the gates where the buses were. A security guard, armed to the teeth, ushered us through. As we walked up to the slip where our bus was to arrive, we noticed two highly intoxicated men, who were obviously homeless, wrestling and laughing on the ground on a flattened cardboard box where they had slept. We spoke briefly with an Ecuadorian woman to clarify that we had the correct bus. Matt asked her if she wanted to get down on the ground and fight with the men. She laughed and said ¨No.¨ It was clear that none of the other people at the bus station that morning were impressed with the men on the ground. Maria, who Matt asked about the bus in near perfect English, was originally from Quito and was visiting her family over the holidays.

(This is Matt)

We boarded the bus and ended up sitting next to Maria, who was dressed in mix of standard mestizo attire and some traditional indigenous clothing and jewelery. As it turns out, she lives in a largely indigenous village called Saraguro about three hours south of Cuenca. She married an indigenous man from Saraguro, and they both taught indigenous children. She has taught English for 20 years. It was great to talk with her because she provided valuable insight into the indigenous culture and the extent to which it is quickly fading away. She and her husband had returned to school to learn Quechua and now teach it to the indigenous children, who are generally not taught the language by their parents. There is a real threat of losing this language. So her school in particular is making a concerted effort to preserve this important aspect of the indigenous culture of Ecuador. Her husband, whose parents both spoke Quechua, specifically did not teach it to him and spoke to him only in Castillano/Spanish. She said that this is commonplace.

She told us about aspects of Ecuador, including politics, education, and even governmental corruption. After asking me what I did back home, Maria said that her father was a lawyer and that two of her brothers were lawyers and that the corruption within the judicial system of Ecuador was so extensive that made it almost impossible obtain any form of justice here, unless you were wealthy. She gave us her number and invited us to visit her village to see indigenous culture up close. Unfortunately, we don´t have time to make it down there. It was nice to meet her though.

An aside about buses.

Bus travel in South America, or really Latin America as a whole, is kind of hilarious. It can be exhausting, especially without Vallium, but you just have to laugh sometimes to be able to sit in one place for so many hours. First, all bus drivers and their assistants, who collect money and handle all matters other than driving, believe that their job is principally to entertain the passengers. The problem is that, according to the bus personnel, entertainment must be nauseatingly loud. If there is a radio station, it must be ear-splitting, but it does not necessarily need to be tuned in, making the fuzz at very high decibels. If the bus is playing a movie, it must be a bad movie, such as Tango and Cash, overdubbed in Spanish and cranked to the loudest setting possible on the bus´s speaker system. The explosions on the movie must rattle the windows of the bus and decimate the little speakers above your head. Second, there are the salesman who are allowed to board the bus and use your captivity as a great opportunity to hock some goods, though usually they are selling things that you do not want. Unfortunately, the things that you want the least get the hardest sell. For example, while a man selling some delectable banana bread on an early morning bus just needs only to say the name of the product and the price to make several sales, a person selling gum will hand out gum to everyone on the whole bus and then speak very loudly for sometimes fifteen minutes or more about how great the gum is. A salesman yesterday actually began saying that his gum cured certain diseases....or most diseases actually. Third, and probably worst of all, buses usually have toilets that allow all forms of waste--some buses expressly state that the restroom is for urine only--and these restrooms smell up the whole bus with a foul chemical smell each time the door is opened. While writing this commentary on a bus between Cuenca and Ambato, someone just lit a cigarette. It now smells like a nightclub in here. It´s 9am. But buses are cheap, generally comfortable, and you get to see a lot of the countryside, and you get where you´re going...all part of the fun of traveling. After probably thousands of hours on buses over the years, I thought I would allow myself a slight digression to complain a little bit.

(Amber again)

The road to Cuenca was interesting. The landscape, which was almost entirely mountainous, was beautiful. We passed many rivers and waterfalls, drove through valleys, and got a good snapshot of daily life for villagers, which is much different from their city counterparts. Poverty is everywhere, and people are working very hard to survive and feed their families. The Ecuadorian farmers, called campesinos, work the fields on steep mountainsides by hand, using only very basic tools. We have seen almost no tractors. We see plows being pulled by cows on small plats of land around every corner.

Most homes we´ve seen in the countryside are very basic with many times only one small room surrounded by laundry, dogs, pigs, cows, horses, chickens, etc. Most of the rural population appears to be indigenous.

Towns that we passed were bustling with roadside food stands. Rotisserie chickens and whole pigs are popular. We passed children playing and people sitting and talking.

Architecture in the towns is very basic, and many buildings were partially constructed and never completed.

Trash disposal seems to be an issue here, as in many developing countries. As we saw in Asia, most villages just dump their trash in passing rivers or on roadsides. There is insufficient infrastructure to service waste disposal in a way that we take for granted in the States.

In the country, buildings are constructed of principally cinder blocks with corrugated steel roofs and bars over the windows. Of course, the construction is more modern, and many buildings have clay shingle roofs. The churches and colonial centers are mind blowingly beautiful.

Plazas and squares are also beautiful with well tended flowers, walkways, etc....even in towns that appear to be quite poor and have only a few paved roads. You can tell that in general, pride is taken in the plazas. Of course, the plazas are nicer in the bigger towns.

The cathedrals we´ve visited rival any we´ve seen in Europe. The opulence is in stark contract to the homes in the countryside and many in the cities for that matter.

Back to the bus. We got on the bus at 6am. Of course, we didn´t pack any water or food for what turned out to be an 11 hour ride. About 4 hours in, we got lucky. A man selling homemade banana loaf got on the bus, and we bought 2 huge pieces for $1. It was still warm and hit the spot.

It was too bumpy to read, so I listened to my iPod, and Matt slept. We try not to draw too much attention to our electronics, especially on buses, but I´ve mastered hiding the iPod and listening to it very discretely. So my soundtrack for the trip was Coldplay, Death Cab, Marty Friedman, and The Weepies. All made the Andes and the villages look even more amazing. I laughed at myself this morning. The first song I keyed up was ¨Mama knows the highway by heart.¨Now Fiona is my soundtrack. Nice contrast to the scenery......¨what I need is a good defense cause I´m feelin like a criminal¨....with cows grazing on steep mountainsides outside my window.

The road to Cuenca was pretty good most of the way, but there were rough spots. About 6 hours in, on a windy mountainside, it became a mud road. I was on the right side of the bus, so about 4 feet from the tires on my side, was a huge cliff. I asked Matt what he thought about the mud and cliff combo, and he reminded me that people do it everyday. He´s right. It was fine. I just had to get back into the mode. 11 hours after pulling out of Quito, we pulled into Cuenca.

January 6

Cuenca

Cuenca is a beautiful colonial city that has been largely shut off from the world until relatively recently. No paved road reached Cuenca until the mid 1960s. It´s thriving with culture, churches, and tradition. I really loved it. It will no doubt be a highlight of not only Ecuador for me but of the entire trip.

We jumped in a cab to a hostel in the middle of everything that got a good review in Lonely Planet. It was called the Hostal el Monasterio on the San Francisco plaza. The plaza was the first thing we saw, and it was awesome. It held a market, not for tourists but for locals, that sold clothes, flowers, household items, etc....We found the entrance to Hostal el Monasterio and had to call up to be buzzed in. We walked 7 floors up to reach the Hostal. For $15 a night, we got a private room and use of the kitchen. Segundo, about 25, and William, about 6, ran the place. Sweet little William, right when we walked up the stairs, said in Spanish, ¨Would you like coffee. It´s free.¨Good start in Cuenca.

We spent the evening wandering through the town square, and I can´t tell you how beautiful the city is. Matt had a horrible headache that I think was from lack of caffeine plus the problems he was already having with his sinuses, so we turned in before 10. We did get lost at one point and stumble upon a stage set up in the street with singers and a crowd. All was probably in preparation for tomorrow´s festival, which we knew nothing about yet.

(This is Matt)

At Hostel El Monestario, our room has a window overlooking Iglesia de San Francisco. We can also see the main plaza. We were awakened very early by a cacophony of bells and singing with accompanying prerecorded music that echoed all over the walls of the buildings along the streets before arriving through our window, sounding like a tape cassette that had been warped by sitting in the sun. The songs were unrecognizable, and I assumed they were religious song until I recognized a child singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in Spanish. The bells would stop and start as would the singing. Sometimes they overlapped, and sometimes the didn´t. Then at exactly 9am, all that could be heard was the light sounds of traffic. Later that morning, Segundo explained to me that the bells occurred every morning, not just Sundays as I originally presumed.

(Amber again)

The next morning, we got up and just started walking around. We stumbled upon an amazing parade celebrating the ¨passing of the baby king.¨All of the children dressed up and got in decorated cars or on horses and rode through town with food vendors, singers, brass bands, and balloon salesmen in tow. It was great.

From there, we hopped on a bus to a nearby town of Gualaceo that´s famous for its Sunday market. It was also beautiful. Matt bought something that they told us was a Guava, but it´s not what we know as a Guava, so we´re not sure what it was.

We went to a second market in Chodeleg, another nearby town, ate soup, beef, and rice, and then grabbed a couple of buses back to Cuenca.

When we got back to Cuenca, we walked along the Rio Tomebamba and stumbled on yet another street festival. We bought some fried bananas from a vendor and walked through the festival. No idea what this one was. It was on the college campus, so it was a little rowdier than the one this morning featuring tiny angels on parade. Everyone wore clown costumes or masks, and there was food and music. I can´t even believe this all happened in one day....all without any preplanning....but it did. And it was awesome.

From there, we went to dinner on the main square. Dinner in Cuenca has been Churrasco for me ' steak with fried egg on top, avocado, rice, and potatoes. Very good. Matt has had a fried steak with veggies and rice.

After dinner, we wandered through a beautiful cathedral, which is called New Cathedral and was built in 1885, on the square that was having a mass. It was incredible.

We went home and went to bed. Up at 6am for a 7am bus to Ambato and then on to Banos. More soon.

A few random things we´ve noticed:

People on the bus often cross themselves when the bus passes a saint.

Lots of people in Cuenca eat potatoes and weenies fried together for breakfast or lunch from street vendors.

There are lots of street dogs that are not in good shape at all by the standards of Max and Daisy...many strays in the country are rabid....but they are in better condition than we´ve seen in other countries. Most have meat on their bones, and people don´t tend to kick or shoo them out of places...even markets. Where we went in Asia, dogs would have been immediately kicked....literally......out of markets. So dogs, even though there are hundreds or probably thousands of strays, do not appear to be overtly abused. They live on the streets and fend for themselves most of the time, but people are generally kind to them. We have seen quite a few dogs kept as pets, and they are cared for very well. I even saw some in costume at the parade in Cuenca.

One thing that I´ve also noticed since the first day and been totally impressed by.....Men here seem to really adore and help with babies and children. In many countries we´ve visited, you see the women and children doing one thing and the men doing another...only rarely interacting, at least in public. But I can say that you see men carrying babies, riding buses with babies, feeding and playing with kids, etc....everywhere. Just something that strikes me as another pretty great thing happening in Ecuador.

Photographs.

Here are our pictures from Cuenca:

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