Courtney Niday-Nyan

Our Typical Altai City School Day

Altai City, Asia, Mongolia, Our Travels 8 Responses »

Aug 272010

7:45 Our phone alarm goes off a second time! We grumpily dress, brush our teeth, and wash our face with bottled water. There’s no running water at the Birj. We attempt to approach the squat toilet, IF we can’t hold it any longer. Otherwise we wait to use the sit-down toilet at the school.

8:00 Hopefully, our director, Lhagvaa, picks us up for a shower at the public bathhouse to wash ourselves and our dust-covered clothes. Without easy access to coffee, Thantcyn NEEDS a shower every morning!

8:30 We call Lhagvaa’s friend, Munho, to tell him his buddy’s late! Lhagvaa’s mobile is ALWAYS off! One of them arrives ten minutes later, with rap/ techno/ trance music blasting from his car.

8:40 We arrive at the public bathhouse. The wait room is full of grubby, sleepy, mostly sober Mongolians. We catch-up on week-old news from UB, while we wait our turn. Wait time at the bathhouse increases approaching Naadam, as locals start cleaning up for company. After about twenty minutes, we get locked in our own private cell, for a nice sometimes warm shower!

9:30 We walk to school, located around the corner from the bathhouse. Everything’s around the corner in Altai City, EXCEPT for the Birj, which is hanging off the edge of town. We greet students that have been eagerly waiting for us outside, before making our way upstairs to our respective classes. Thantcyn and I split a breakfast of eggs & rice from Lhagvaa’s mom, and hang our laundry to dry on a pipe in my homeroom.

10:00-11:40 ‘Homeroom Class’- Advanced High School/ Adults: Thantcyn and I are the first native-speaking English teachers they’ve had out in Altai City! We see the same pool of students at different points in the day. Students are only charged 1400 tugriks(a little over $1 US) for ten days of English instruction, IF they can afford to pay. Despite what we think of Lhagvaa’s crooked ways, we really respect how he is trying to improve his community, by bringing English instruction to the masses, way out in the middle of nowhere! We teach for ten days straight, with no rest on the weekend!

11:50- 13:30 2nd Class – Intermediate High School/ Adults: Mongolia has an astounding literacy rate of 98%, and our students are wonderful, hardworking, and eager. They also know how to read and write English fairly well. However, they are very shy to speak in class, so their conversational English is lacking, compared to their reading comprehension, and writing skills.

13:30- 14:30 Lunch at Lhagvaa’s! More eggs and rice for me, and mutton for Thantcyn and the others. Lhagvaa’s mom is a kind, sweet lady, and a great cook. She’s a proud winner of the coveted ‘Chinngis Khaan Best Cook Medal’ for Altai City! She cooked a different traditional Mongolian dish for every meal, for Thantcyn and the others, and made my meals a bit more exciting by cleverly arranging sliced fruit around the eggs and rice. After the first week of instruction, Thantcyn started practicing with local wrestlers training for Naadam, after lunch.

14:30-16:00 3rd class – Beginner and Intermediate Elementary and Junior High Students: The teaching resources Lhagvaa expects us to use in class are HORRIBLE! Students get a stapled xerox copy of an English workbook, made in China, with random tidbits of instruction.

16:00- 18:00 ‘English Speaking Club’: We meet in the gym, gather in a huge happy circle, and talk about ANYTHING in English! Many of our students want to come study in the United States, and are really curious about American holidays, lifestyles, and celebrities. We practiced some ‘worldly’ songs in English, like ‘Waving Flag’ , ‘Waka, Waka’, and of course, ‘We Are the World’.

18:00- 20:00 Break: Thantcyn stumbles back after wrestling practice, and we play basketball or volleyball, with our students, on most days. We take another shower after playing, if we are feeling extra-crunchy. Sometimes, if we are REALLY worn out, we stagger back to the Birj for a quick nap.

20:00- 21:30 4th class – Beginner Adult Professionals: This small class consists of doctors, nurses, and policemen, who can’t come to morning classes because of work. Doctors are really busy delivering cute, chubby Mongolian babies. Altai City averages three new citizens per day! WAAAAA!!!

21:30 Dinner: Back to Lhagvaa’s mom for more eggs, rice, and mutton! We take pictures of Lhagvaa’s adorable nieces and nephew, while we wait for dinner.

22:30 Back to the Birj: We converge in our friends’ (Ugi, Nara, Tsagaanaa, & Usukh) room across the hall for some well deserved r & r! We compare Mongolian and American customs, exchange language lessons, and ALWAYS complain about Lhagvaa’s latest lies and antics. We count down how many days we have left at the Birj, by peeling a row of stickers off the wall.

11:30 Sleep: We hit the bed snoring!

3:00 We wake to an interesting, albeit VERY ANNOYING, combo of the following EVERY SINGLE NIGHT: cursing, screaming, shouting, wailing (No, they are not the same! There’s a distinct unpleasantness to each, especially in the dead of night.), shattering vodka bottles, cars swerving in the ‘parking lot’, someone pounding on our door, someone pounding on our neighbors’ doors, and endless doors SLAMMING SUPER HARD! It seems, at least in the countryside, Mongolians take great pride in SLAMMING doors shut!

3:10 Fall back asleep after complaining about Birj and Lhagvaa.

7:30 Phone alarm goes off!

Teaching Altai City: Broken Promises

Altai City, Asia, Mongolia, Our Travels 4 Responses »

Aug 222010

After unloading at Altai’s remote ‘Dragon Center’ we worried how we would find our employer when our call went directly to his voicemail. However, our slack-jawed annoyance was soon interrupted by a shining white sedan in a thundering hip-hop dust cloud! Smoothing my dust-caked, brittle straw hair, we strode over to meet the grinning twenty-something director Lhagvaa Dorj, and two Mongolian English teachers from Ulaanbaatar (UB), Ugi and Usukh, all glossy in sharply pressed suits and heels. Our boisterous bus mates gaped as our slick, sunglass wearing escorts whisked us away in the booming, fancy ‘machine’.

Our first destination was Lhagvaa’s family home, to eat a mound of eggs and rice, which would be my standard meal for the next three weeks. We met two more Mongolian English teachers from UB, Nara and Tsagannaa, who arrived a day earlier, in between mouthfuls. In the feeding frenzy, we caught that our private dorm room at the university was not available due to water and electricity shortages. Lhagvaa then told us we would enjoy sleeping on the ‘more comfortable’ floor of his walk-in closet-sized room, just as the four Mongolian teachers had the day before!

ABSOLUTELY NOT! We traversed the sea of shrubs and dust for 28 hours on the basis of a few thoroughly promised beliefs which included: we would be driven to Altai City in a private car, we would get either a private dorm room or a private hotel room, we would teach only four hours a day, and I would be paid 50,000 T (Tugrik)/ day, while Thantcyn came as a volunteer, for his room and board. The first promise was shot to hell since we were informed 30 minutes before departure, that our ‘private car’ was unavailable, and we were to be crammed into a very public minivan-bus with 16 other warm bodies! Promise number two was now not going to be a “private room”, but rather a small floor space to be shared by six teachers !?!?

We endured the trip, but demanded for all of us what was promised! Lhagvaa was a slick talker, but when the six of us stood firmly against him on his false promises, he eventually broke, and scurried around to locate a hotel. The offer to shower at the public bathhouse was turned down since we figured a shower could be had at the hotel if the need for sleep didn’t take us first. We chugged to the Birj (pronounced Bilsch), at the fringe of town, which our great leader insisted was the only hotel in town. The decor hovered between ‘dilapidated crack house’ and ‘Siberian asylum’, minus the running water usually found in those institutions!

Our room contained two creaky rusted spring contraptions scooted together with a sagging sliver mattress for a bed. The walls were laced with punched-out holes and juvenile graffiti, and a stubborn boulder resembling a TV, sat mutely at a corner. We fared better then the four other teachers, who ended up sharing an equally appealing room, across the dark hall. We were on our last weary legs, hungry for as much sleep as possible before our early morning wake-up call, so we accepted our lot in life and crashed into two hibernating heaps.

Tiny Tales of Cuenca

Cuenca, Ecuador, Our Press, Our Travels, Poetry, South America 2 Responses »

Jun 302010

Cuenca's Fire Monger, copyright Thantcyn Nyan 2009

Swelling eight thousand feet in the Andes,

slick blue tiled basillica domes gleam

under Cuenca’s cyclopean morn.

Flowers and ancient iron crosses sprout

from antique tiled roofs. Crude cinderblock casas

chop Spanish Colonial flow.

Girls swish down sidewalks in pleated plaid, zig-

zagging miniature grandmothers hauling plastic bundles of poverty.

Children ogle blondes stomping in hiking boots, beam

like they’ve seen movie stars. Beauties balance on spiked heels,

clicking on chipped, slanted walkways, weaving whistling machos,

doggy-doo, and hollering lotto-pushers. Mothers breathe into woolen scarves

as ragged buses fart black diesel from tailpipes. Panama hats bob

down crowded streets on thickly braided heads. Cross dressers

stuffed with balloons hustle picture-seeking tourists. Gringos

stumble through free language school salsa lessons.

Kevlar-cladded uniforms toting massive guns stalk

library hallways shushing with a pssst. A six year old shouts,

I’m on the bus, from a red light, double-flicking everyone off

with vulgar little fingers; old men bunched around

Parque Calderon’s shaded benches shake their heads.

Three o’clock brings a twenty degree drop

in mercury, making the layered look fashionable.

A shoe shiner fingers silver coins, waits

for shabby shuffles of his cross-eyed love.

Dreadlocked peddlers spill their woven wares in pink sunset.

Fiestas are a way of life, and fireworks are constant stars in the night.

Paper hot air balloons drift toward the moon, shower cheering crowds in embers.

Paunchy lechers growl out slow rolling cars. Streets clear after 11:00 into zombie movie sets.

Bent women wobble home. Paper-thin hostel walls throb, and

we doze to late night Chinese novellas dubbed in Spanish.

The Road to Cuenca

Cuenca, Ecuador, South America 2 Responses »

Nov 262009

Dia de los Muertos en Cuenca, copyright Thantcyn Nyan 2009

After adopting Fabris, our Belgium shipmate on the Encantata, we became a group of five stepping off the plane from the Galapagos. Shoving our bags and ourselves in the first taxi we saw at the Guayaquil airport, we had the shortest paid ride ever; the cabbie rounded the corner for $5 to the bus terminal. Still feeling the sway of the ocean, we trudged on our sea legs, up to the top level of the terminal, to find our bus for Cuenca.

Punctuality is a bendable thing in Ecuador; buses leave kind of on time, pretty late, or not at all. Our bus was 30 minutes late in leaving, making us squirm, because the designated time for our connecting ride was fast approaching! We grimaced when our bus, after a bit of meandering, pulled into a gas station. While stalled at the station, I pleaded with the driver about our connecting bus, by pointing at my ticket’s scheduled time and putting on my best worried face. He seemed to understand my urgency, and rushed more through town, as the clock ticked down to our connection time. Suddenly he screeched to a stop on a busy road across from a bus facing the other direction. He jutted a finger at us and at the rumbling bus across the street, while his helper threw open the underside compartment, for us to grab our bags. Yanking my bag out, I raced across traffic yelling, pare, stop, to our now moving connecting bus. Fortunately the driver heard me, and all of us caught up to board. With about six hours ahead of us, I settled in for the ride that would take us away from the coast, and back high into the Andes Mountains.

Scenes played outside my window like a most unusual movie. Families fished and cooled in ditch water swirling with debris. Plastic chairs clustered friends together on roadsides in front of huts teetering on stilts. Towns cooling in the setting coastal sun rolled by until street lights called us to a halt. We sat a few moments in front of a cement-box church shaking its prayer into the street. I snapped a mental photo, through the open blue church doors, of the purple-robed priest shouting his sermon on outstretched arms. Mere moments later, the slow roll of the bus let us linger in the heartache of a twilight funeral, where a handful of mourners bowed awkwardly around a freshly dug grave. Time stretched, land climbed into clouds, and the sun rolled under the world.

I gaped, transfixed by the velvet sky sprinkled with silver stars. Had there always been so many? Our bus, obviously thinking it was a lot smaller than it actually was, zipped along winding mountain roads, lacing the edge with its wheels. It took turns playing chicken, jumping onto the oncoming traffic, and diving into thick blankets of clouds. They then put a in movie to distract and pacify the people who unknowingly paid for this extreme sport!

We hurtled on, headlights cutting yellow wedges into darkness, until suddenly, we rounded a corner onto a horrific scene; a pickup truck, flipped onto its side, blocked our path. The white pickup glowed in the night, with its contents of chicken, pigs, and people meandering on the fringe of illumination, groping for consciousness. Thantcyn, along with most of the men, exited into the chilly Andes night to help, while I stayed behind with our bags, hanging out the window with concern. I feared an unsuspecting vehicle would come barreling over the mountain and crash into this unfortunate scene. Pigs grunted in dizzying circles, frantic chicken flapped in and out of darkness, and a young girl sobbed inconsolably, clinging to her wobbling shoe-less mom. Thantcyn took the shoe-less lady by the arm and gently steered her away from glistening shards of glass piercing the darkness. Fortunately everyone came out alive, albeit seriously shaken, with only minor bumps and bruises.

I marveled at the strength of numbers, as the men rocked the twisted truck, back onto its tires. Ecuadorians are mostly short and stocky in stature, but they could really muster the strength when called upon! The crowd then picked up the truck a second time to clear the enormous rock which it was hung up on. The windshield was a hanging web of glass as the car chugged forward and back, righting itself on the uneven debris-filled road.

With things somewhat patched back together the passengers re-boarded the bus, and settled into their seats, in an all too quiet and orderly fashion, after such chaos. Our bus had pulled to the wrong side of the road, but we somehow pushed forward on the dirt until an opportunity to jump onto the paved right hand lane appeared. I held my breath at our bus driver’s negotiation skills. We were still about an hour to Cuenca, and no longer sleepy-eyed, waited to see the glow of civilization Ecuadorian style!

Odes to Galapagos Critters!

Ecuador, Galapagos, South America 1 Response »

Nov 252009

The Land Turtles

You, lovely grizzled antique, languish in the Galapagos sun. A meal of green leaves drops you flat, limbs thrown out like a tripped toddler. Consumed in rest, your life simplifies, until the desire for exploration wells inside. Your rising is a mountain pulling itself out of the earth! You labor every step with the gravity of your shell, and centuries on your back. Your elephant legs plod towards me in hold- your- breath time, and you focus your sage-like gaze inches from my face. Your chipped yellow beak could tell tales of three lifetimes. Do creak-out a few words to me. Tell of how you escaped pirates, and the little boys who rode your back, through dunes of time. I’m all ears!

Sea Lion Babies

You should bask in a giant ceviche tub inky eyed velvety shrimp. Your twisting head is full of wonderment, as I garble to you in a foreign tongue. Your clumsy little flops over volcanic rocks make me laugh. Your strangled little yelps conjures drunken five year olds belching butter-beer. Your whiskery faces I want to smooch! Your flippers self-pat fat squeezable bellies. Your wobbling awkwardness topples you into confusion. Little lomo del mar leave the Galapagos with me. Who wants powder white beaches and clear turquoise waters? I could stow you easily in my daypack, if only you don’t belch through customs.

Blue- Footed Boobies

You are a conjured thing from a wild-eyed child’s dream: drawn on two blueberry-cream colored legs you stand proud like a kindergartener’s crazy Crayola creation! Calm and composed you are a proper looking toon! You are an aristocratic blue-blood, with sage-like poise; staring down your slate-blue beak, you eye the world without a fear in your feathers. Nothing will harm you my gloriously footed friends; you need never scurry or scream! No sharp-toothed predator will chase you down! Not even the light from drooling tourists’ cameras will blind you because you are protected! So stand on, steal the glory of all other boobies! Who cares about your red footed or masked brethren! You command respect even from your giant fuzz-clad boobie-babies! Strut your stuff regal boobies! Blue things around our mudball pay homage to your wondrous webbed feet!

Snorkling Galapagos!

Ecuador, Galapagos, South America No Responses »

Nov 152009

Pelican Friend, copyright Thantcyn Nyan 2009

I’d try snorkeling. Why not start in the Galapagos. Proud of my set of borrowed snorkeling equipment, I set out with the tools to see some serious fish! Looking like I was scaling mountains with every step, I approached a liquid dream, the salty water holding Galapagos sea creatures. Electing not to rent a wet suit, my skin didn’t have the magic buoyancy of my friends, so I, a strange and clumsy bird, hopped from rock to rock in the shallow end. I tried to prove to myself I could dip my head below water and still breathe. Excitement surged in me when I saw a small blue rimmed fish! My friends in their floating skins extolled their prize, a massive sea turtle! On the beach Thantcyn laughed at his crazy wife piddling in the water for small things. I was hooked, if not at all that confident, of my new snorkeling ability, and all the awesome underwater friend-making possibilities it provided! I couldn’t wait for the next dive!

Later that same day, we hurtled, like spies in an old Bond flick, in our rubber raft, towards The Devil’s Crown: a ring of black volcanic daggers piercing the graying sky! Somewhere buried in its treacherous name, the cool whip of the wind, and the thunderous crash of waves, I shivered: what am I doing? Thirty feet of water between me and the ocean floor, on only my second attempt at snorkeling! At least I was strapped with a life jacket, and wouldn’t drown, I hoped! Over the roar of motor and waves, our guide called out, “I watched you all snorkel at the beach and you’re not very good so we’ll start on the more protected side of the Crown.” Well, Duh! I have no gold medals in snorkeling, but our European shipmates grumbled. Laughter is a good way to combat the fear of having to plunge into Satan’s jagged hat. With a great display of ungraceful hugging and clinging to the side of our life raft, I dipped into the water, testing my buoyancy. Then, slowly, I peeked at what mysteries lingered beneath, a deliberate dangling marionette. Colorful living stars clutched on their dark volcanic perches as I hyperventilated through my snorkel. With flippers pumping I steered away from sharp rocks to a deeper world where fish elongated like slithering, swimming pencils, and shadows were sting rays floating through space. One slid just below me on massive dark wings! I lingered, awestruck by its grace, until an icy blast of salt water shot down my throat, ripping me from my underwater dream. Drawn in by the other worldly peace below, I calmed becoming one with my wobbly liquid world. I made friends with large bug-eyed neon fish, and giggled at the shimmering school of silver slivers shimmering past me. The round body and flippers of a sea turtle stayed just beyond reach but I saw its quiet timeless shape. I drifted for an eternity, between the thunderous clash of white waves, smashing against the Devil’s Crown, and the cool calm glassy stillness below. A piece of me is still there, in limbo, forever circling the Devil’s Crown…

The Warmth of Guayaquil

Ecuador, Guayaquil, Our Travels, South America 3 Responses »

Nov 072009

Armed with tickets for Guayaquil, we shot out of Baños on a bus that thought it was a bullet! Chugging through the Andes, while breathing diesel fumes isn’t fun at all. All I could do was close my eyes and try to keep my head from spinning off my body. Inhaling a peppermint scented gum wrapper Deenaree gave me kept me from losing my lunch, as our bouncing bus coughed up diesel! Fragrant bodies press, babies wail, and things get sticky, as small tin-roofed cinder block towns gave way to rolling farmlands, gave way to winding roads through the cloud shrouded Andes. Vendors hop on and off, singing of steaming popsicles, banana chips, and sweet pineapple wedges heaped onto flaked enamel trays. We stop at a few gas stations to use their Spartan bathrooms, sans toilet paper. If you’re planning on taking a long bus ride in Ecuador, plan on packing some toilet paper, because the roadside facilities don’t offer any!

Seven hours later we pulled into Guayaquil’s mall-like bus terminal, looking for Alejandra, our couchsurfing host. She was on the other end of Ben’s cell phone trying to decipher his Spanglish for our exact location. Alejandra only spoke Spanish, so it was an adventure in language from the start. She glided up slender in a long pink dress, tennis shoes, and a warm smile, and told us we were her first couchsurfers! She then curtly negotiated the fare for two taxis to deliver us to her home. While we fumbled with our bags, upon arrival, Alejandra insisted on paying, and swept us into her house. After greeting her mother, she led us up immaculate tiled floors to the third level. We passed her younger sister, sound asleep, face down on her bed, and arrived at our room, with two beds, posters of Quito’s fùtbol team, old military uniforms, and windows she swung open, flinging the curtains out.

Downstairs, Alejandra and her mom were busy cooking, and wouldn’t accept any help from us. The quick clip of her step, with her pink dress bunched tight at the waist, showed how adept and efficient this little girl was. She was graceful determination, and she was clicking down forks and plates for an army! Then, an outside table came in, along with a procession of men wishing us buen provecho, have a good meal. Now, I was totally confused about what was happening! As the men filled Alejandra’s large wooden table, she served them a heaping portions of delicious chicken and rice, smothered in steaming gravy. We likewise were given hearty helpings, and my aching stomach was more than satisfied, with a wonderful warm bowl of cream of broccoli soup. In addition to being a vegetarian, Alejandra also works as a food engineer for a children’s school, so she was very mindful of my dietary needs. A man who dined at our table explained that Alejandra’s family is paid to serve a company of wielders dinner. I was in awe of the politeness of the men, despite their scruffy façade, the swift way they ate, cheerfully conversed, and orderly cleared out. I lingered, as I always do, savoring each spoonful of yummy broccoli soup, while chatting up everyone around me. Soon, with my stomach bulging, I realized how tired everyone was in the room, the four of us, after the magical seven hour bus ride, and Alejandra and her mom, after cooking for a small army, plus four additional vagabonds. We gradually excused ourselves, and slowly trudged up three stories to our beds.

The night was cooled by a steady breeze drifting through the two windows opposite each other in our room. As my friends and my husband slept, I watched the curtains grow fat and float eerily around like glowing phantoms. It grew quite chilly, so I closed my window a bit, and drifted to sounds of dogs whining, drunks shuffling, and the wind moaning through Guayaquil’s dark labyrinth.

The morning presented us the opportunity to wash our stale clothes at a cement wash station on Alejandra’s roof. Thantcyn scrubbed our clothes with bar soap on the slant of the sink, rinsed them clean, and strung up our dripping laundry to dry. After a quick brunch of eggs, sweet plantain balls, and rice, Alejandra surprised us by announcing that she took a day off work to show us around Guayaquil.

We walked down the dusty sidewalk with our new friend, past cinderblock houses painted the colors of tropical fruit, jumped onto the median of one of the busiest streets I’ve seen in Ecuador, and waited for the bus to lead us into town. Alejandra waved her little hand out to bring our bus to stop, and I bumped my head on the too short door. I quickly realized that we were giants among the Ecuadorians. Thantcyn stood holding on like a monkey for dear life, and Ben, being over six foot tall, bent in an uncomfortable position as the bus pulsed quickly ahead.

I worried about my husband’s pockets being fished in by a woman who sat on the other side of Alejandra and me. She kept whispering to her friend and nodding toward his gaping pocket. When her hand progressively inched closer I patted Thantcyn’s bottom and told him to move up. She recoiled into her friend when I smiled at her and said, buenas dias. She didn’t seem aware that we were together since I sat next to Alejandra. Who knows what she was doing, but she was way too interested in my man so I let her know she needed to back off!

In this big city, charm was sprinkled in the details. At the Parque de Las Iguanas, scaly little iguanas freely roam around. It was pretty intimidating passing a guard armed to the teeth, with many massive guns strapped to his every limb. I wasn’t sure if he was there to shoot the visitors bothering the iguanas, or the iguanas if they attempted escape! A proper statue honoring Simon Bolivar stood center stage, and beautifully manicured gardens flowed in every direction, as did the iguanas. Iguanas bobbed their heads at each other making the old and young giggle. One man who spoke English was scratching away at one, telling me they like to be touched, so I patted one on the head, and squealed when he looked up to acknowledge me. They swarmed, lounged, and climbed on everything in sight. Many dripped from trees, swam in ponds, splayed out on park benches, and balanced perfectly on two hind legs to reach a crumble of bread from a visitor. One man’s body even became an eager iguana’s ladder as the hungry little fellow clawed his way up his jeans to get at the precious bread. I suppose bread doesn’t grow on trees, so that was quite a treat for him. No harm came out of these crawly little things except for the occasional poop that plopped from the trees.

Guayaquil gets plenty hot, even for a Texan! When we boarded the bus all the locals sat on only one side, the one in the shade, while we were forced to sit like potatoes cooking on the sunny side of the bus. We were getting hungry, and Alejandra was on a mission to get us the best ceviche in town. Ceviche is a traditional dish of raw, but chemically cured seafood. Alejandra and I contented ourselves with rice and plantains, while the meat-eaters sampled the restaurant’s ceviche offerings: fish, shrimp, and conch. After the long, hot, sticky day, and the relaxing meal, Alejandra led us back to her home, where we had another wonderful meal, and met her father, before crashing for the long day to come.

The next morning we rose before the sun, ate breakfast in gulps, and hugged our sweet friend, Alejandra, making her promise to visit us in Texas someday. The good-byes were hurried, but heart-felt, and we couldn’t hold on to her long enough. We had a flight to the Galapagos to catch, and the taxi she called was already waiting and paid for! We groaned as she told us this while shutting the taxi door, and watched Alejandra’s small figure, shrink smaller still, as we zoomed away in the pinkish-gray dawn.

Between Heaven and Hell: Baños!

Baños, Ecuador, Our Travels, South America 5 Responses »

Oct 312009

We’re going to Baños? Why do we want to go to a city named after a bathroom? My look of confusion shifted when it was explained to me that baños also meant a spa/resort type town. In fact, when I learned it was nestled between the foot of an active volcano, Tungurahua, and the Amazon Rainforest, it sounded way better than a smelly third-world bathroom! This Gateway to the Ecuadorian Amazon was a tiny jewel of a city crowned with the lush green Andes Mountains. It was about a four hour bus ride from Quito on winding roads, with llamas looking down on us from mountainside pastures.

After unloading our bags, we caught up to Maggie, a pilot we met at the Quito bus terminal, and invited her to join us in our search for a hostel. Baños sprawled out before us, jam-packed with wide-eyed backpackers, street-food vendors pushing cups of toasted corn, taffy-tossers swinging sugary ropes, ATVs gasping over narrow cobblestone, and death-dealers pitching promises of high adventure. Baños was pure unrestrained chaos, and we fed off its kinetic energy! It was Guayaquil’s Independence Day weekend, and all the vacationers flocked here making hostel pickings very slim. The five of us luckily snatched up the last room available in an affordable hostel. It had three beds so we not only had a room for the night, but a new friend to share it with.

After we settled in our room, the five of us stumbled back out into the chilly sunset, for some grub and immediately spotted a shack roasting skewered rat-like critters simmering over a glowing bed of coal. The cuys, or guinea pigs had toothy, pained faces, crispy red skin, and claws. The sight was too good for my omnivore companions to pass up, as they each ordered up a plate of cuy with mystery gravy, over a bed of rice. Thantcyn wasn’t too thrilled with the Ecuadorian delicacy, and had some difficulty biting through the crisp tough hide that covered the bland duck-like strips of meat underneath. Luckily for me, Baños is a bit of a hippy town, with ample vegetarian options, so I opted for the ‘Hindu Plate’ from an Italian restaurant next door.

The next day we were set for high adventure! Rafting, volcano climbing, bungee jumping, and mountain biking are some of the ‘extreme’ activities you can partake in. Deenaree was feeling a bit ill, so Thantcyn and I grabbed Maggie, and ponied up $5 each for an entire day of mountain biking. We strapped on smelly styrofoam helmets, and chose a route that would take us 20 miles downhill to Cascada Pailon Del Diablo, the Devil’s Cauldron. Maggie, a weekend mountain biker, flowed beautifully through Baños streets, while Thantcyn and I wobbled down the sidewalk scattering the locals in our path! The learning curve was as steep as the road in parts, but somehow between dodging boulders while squeezing to the side of the road for buses to pass I gasped at how beautiful the scenery was; our path followed a rushing river carving its way through green, cloud-ringed mountains.

Just when confidence started to settle upon us we zoomed into a tunnel. It felt like swimming through tar, with a faint promise light on the other side. Stay straight towards the light, was what I kept repeating in my head! Suddenly, I heard Thantcyn yelp, followed by a clattering bang! I spun around, but only the dark was there! Split-seconds turned into a heart-pounding eternity, and suddenly, light! After my eyes refocused, I saw Thantcyn jogging his bike out of the pit of hell. When a bus passed us, he swerved, slamming both his bike and shoulder against the wall. A long black smudge ran down his arm and his bike chain was dangling. Thantcyn wiped off his battle scar, and Maggie fitted the chain back on his bike, making everything right in my world again!

We zipped along, coming to a bridge of men, women, and children bungee jumpers. We stopped for a while to catch our breaths, and marveled at the speed at which each jumper was strapped in, then let go! Some kids hurtling through space seemed too young to have their training wheels off, let alone bungee bobble off a bridge!

We cycled on, now a bit more weary, until we heard a growing rumble of our destination. We perked up, and screeched into a crowded parking lot, lined with overstuffed bike stands. We squeezed our battered bikes in, snapped the lock shut, shouldered past fast-food vendors and souvenir peddlers, and trotted down slippery steps towards our roaring prize. I paused on the way down, looked up, and suddenly, magic! A perfectly benign donkey hovered above us, sprouted from tufts of green grass, chewing its cud! I was elated, snapped some pictures, and had to be prompted to move on to the thunderous end. The Devil’s Cauldron revealed itself, a barrage of white water slamming jagged black rocks! Its rampage drowned out all sound, and its spittle cooled our tired, overheated limbs.

After the welcome breather, it was time to head on back up. I huffed and puffed up those miserable stairs in the thin mountain air. Upon reaching the top, we thankfully opted to splurge, and caught a ride back to Baños, for $1.50 each. The thirty minutes in the bed of an army truck, sandwiched between muddy bike tires, felt like a limo ride home! We got back to our hostel in time for a much needed shower, and afternoon tea.

Over tea, we became quick friends with Patrick, a brainy Belgium working for NASA, and living in Houston! With this growing band of new friends, we made our pilgrimage to see the huge paintings of “Our Lady of the Holy Water”, which depicted miracles credited to the Virgin Mary. The church housing these giant jaw-dropping masterpieces hummed with reverent prayer and shivered in blue fluorescent light. Worshippers and traveling thrill-seekers shuffle through its wings to offer flickering tributes to glassy-eyed statues of saints and saviors. After floating on glowing clouds of incense, through this magical realm, we stepped back outside, feeling peaceful, and spiritually elevated, into Baños’ wonderfully chaotic night!

Early the next day, a few hours before moving on to Guayaquil, Deenaree and I sat in steam-filled, wooden cabinets with only our heads sticking out. We wanted to experience an Ecuadorian spa treatment. The cycle was four minutes of steaming with bay leaves, followed by dragging an icy, dripping, wet towel from toes to shoulders. After the cycle, a very tiny, serious man hosed us down with freezing water. Two other heads belonging to an older French couple stuck out of neighboring cabinets. We took turns being captive audiences, and laughing at each other’s pain of being doused with cold water. It was an intense, fitting topper to our Baños adventure!

Mitad del Mundo

Ecuador, Quito, South America No Responses »

Oct 122009

Go to the end of the line on Quito’s city buses and you will get a ride to Mitad del Mundo, where it’s a forty cent bargain to put a foot on each side of the equator and walk on the northern and southern hemispheres at the same time. An hour and a half on a bus with locals popping on and off gives you time to practice a little Spanish especially if their children smile and play for your attention. I asked Ben to look up in his trusty Spainish/English Dictionary what the word for “cute” is. According to the book, it’s “mono”. Now that I was armed with this word, I thought I could try it out on the precious, rosey cheeked kids on our bus. A little boy across from me stared and smiled at me as did his parents. We exchanged a few words and I was trying to remember the word for cute so I mumbled something about “mono” and the parents kinda chuckled. I thought, “success, I used a new Spanish word properly!

We jumped off when a kind stranger told us that this was the stop for Mitad Del Mundo. It was an arrid uneventful place to be dropped off at, with shanty towns burrowed in the distant mountainside, and a quiet so errie, I could not even hear the hum of powerlines. With no one to ask where this elusive equator was, we swung ourselves around 360 degrees, and found a few local families trudging toward a gate, emblazoned with gleaming white stones: “Mitad Del Mundo”. Eureka!

My pulse quickened because I have always had a fascination with maps, and I was about to see the equator! After buying tickets, we entered the sprawling amusement park-like grounds, complete with colorful cottage shops, and a row of austere head statues lining the walkway. Little patches of well kept gardens spaced out the little shops selling bright souvenirs. I so wanted a llama sweater, but decided to hold off until Peru.

I finally found the equator clearly labled with a bright orange line under bundles of tourists. The four of us balanced ourselves gingerly on it, singing the Johnny Cash classic, “I walk the line”! An Ecuadorian man nearby took a picture of us all, and showed us how you could balance an egg on the head of a nail, where the Equator ran through.

The Museo Etnográfico Mitad del Mundo, the museum of indigenous cultures loomed under a giant bronze globe laying on its side. Thantcyn, walking in the northern hemisphere, Deenaree, in the southern hemisphere, and Ben and I walking on the equator approached this massive structure. We were ushered into an elevator at the equator (I thought that was so funny for some reason) and came out at the top of the pedestal holding the giant globe. It had the same feeling as going into the pedestal of the Statue of Libery. It was a vast panorama of life at the equator – an amusement park, shanty towns, desert plants crawling up the Andes Mountains, and a smiling me in the middle!

All this excitement made for hungry stomachs. Fearing amusement park prices, we compared a few restaurants before settling on one that offered something for everyone – that means I could eat a vegetarian, wheat-free, no sugar meal and still be satisfied. It was a meal of visual wonderment. Deenaree and I ordered the same thing: huge lima beans, a thick cut of cheese, a cob of fat corn, and potatoes served on a teracotta plate with ancient animals chasing each other around its rim.

Ben brought his GPS to mark the exact location of the equator, but the apparently the magnetic equator is a little different, so we hiked along the road outside the equator museum, and counted down the approach to where the GPS truely picked up the equator’s location. It took us through an area where stray dogs and bits of garbage floated, across from an old run-down tire company. We got a few strange looks when we put our four feet together and took a picture of the spot. After we satisfied our quest for the equator, we hopped on a bus bound back to Quito, and nestled into the four seats lining the back. On the return, I flipped through Ben’s English/Spanish dictionary to find out that the word I believed to be “cute” was also the word for “monkey”. So we couldn’t contain ourselves and howled wildly when I realized that I probably called the little boy on the bus to Mitad Del Mundo a monkey.

The Vendors of Old Town

Ecuador, Our Travels, Quito, South America No Responses »

Oct 102009

Old Town fills our lungs with baked sweets, peeled oranges, oily simmering peanuts, vats of sweet golden plantains, unrefrigerated meat, and swelling clouds of diesel. Shops huddle close together selling produce, medicines, bootlegged movies, and empanadas in their shallow alcoves. Five days of trotting up and down Quito’s colorful, colonial, rag-tag cobblestones in Old Town showed me a world of sales I’ve never seen before.

On the street you sweep along a head above bowler derbied ladies in skirts swirling with embroidered flowers. School children weave through you in uniforms with books in hand. They take themselves to school on foot and on public buses. Some even click down the cobbled streets still in school clothes and “Sunday Shoes” to peddle bubblegum to locals and especially tourists.

One persistent four year old went from person to person at the same table in our tiny restaurant and stood for a few minutes repeating the same plea to buy some candy for a few cents. When he heard “no” he hung on and patted your arm earnestly to get your attention. That little one was out by himself in the dark, chilled Quito night. It was aching to see his big, black eyes searching for buyers and knowing that someone supplied him up and sent him out. At least he looked like he went to school in his tiny uniform and black dress shoes because we’ve seen other petite vendors during school hours. A few grubby boys around six and nine years old hopped on our bus laden with mandarin-filled tubes slung over their shoulders called out for quick sales down the bumpy aisle in between bus stops. If they made enough money to make it worthwhile they were more valuable out of school.

Not just little ones pound the pavement here even the weathered crooked-over grandmothers sit on stoops braiding handicrafts reflecting their culture. One miniature woman hauling sacks of papayas craned her neck up severely to look at us then settled into a hard corner to pass her day selling her precious fruit across from a protest filled square rimmed with the military police. Location, location, location! That pint-sized lady knew the protesters had to leave the president’s house and get hungry sometime. Cha-ching!