Harry Potter Land with Mr. and Mrs. Beckham

October 2011

   By October my workload here in Tena had really slowed down. Having finished the paperwork for our $4 million tourism project we found ourselves sitting around waiting for the Ministry department to approve us for our grant. In the meantime, my counterpart Lenin began spending long hours in the office working with the new Indigenous Territorial District. Under the new constitution in Ecuador, indigenous groups can now form autonomous governments within the country in order to play a more active roll in the nation's political system. Well here in Napo there are 6 Kichwa federations which are just now coming together for the first time in history as one single group to form this autonomous government, and who would be better to lead this group than my own counterpart Lenin! So by mid October, after many hours in meetings and even more hours traveling up and down river to organize even more meetings, we held the very first inauguration of a Kichwa District here in Napo and Lenin signed as their director. The inauguration, held at a community about 2 hours down river from Tena, started off with a dance preformed by the local high school dress in traditional clothing and then followed by one of the more well known singers from the area.

  Largely due to my counterpart's dedication to this new venture I found myself with an abundance of down time... in other words, I spent a lot of time in my hammock and working on the family farm. By mid October my girlfriend Hillarie realized that there was a possible break in her busy schedule as a Doctorate student in Florida which was not full of exams and lab practicals. So, toying with the idea of making a last minute ticket purchase and spending a week on the beach I sent in a vacation request to my Program Manager exactly 8 days before I was hoping to leave, which also happens to be the absolute minimum. Within a few hours she had approved my vacation and I was the happy owner of a round trip ticket to Orlando, Florida, set to leave the 25th of the month.

  The next week seemed to fly by. I set up a meeting with my community to make a few tanks of Biol (liquid organic fertilizer) and when we met the following weekend people actually showed up! We had quite a good turn out for party that consisted of mixing cow poo with leaves and ashes and we finished two 50 gallons tanks that are actually ready to be used this week! It was a really good experience to make the fertilizer with my community. I feel like I spend so much of my time here in the office rather than with my community that it was a good way to get out and get to know my community members a bit better. The women who hosted the work party at her house even invited me back to help work on an organic family garden (thanks mom and dad for forcing us to have our own garden years ago, it's actually paying off here in the Amazon!). 

  The next week I headed to Quito and was on a 3 pm flight into Panama City for a short layover and then on up to Orlando. Before I go any further I must say that being a Peace Corps Volunteer flying back to the U.S. with only a carry-on has to be one of the fastest ways of getting through immigration ever. After seeing the Peace Corps sticker on my passport the only questions I got from the immigration officer were about life in the Amazon before a warm welcoming back to the country. Once I got to the baggage carousel and kept walking the guys at the door didn't even make me scan my bag and I headed out.  Having only been 2 months since I last saw Hillarie it still felt like much longer since she left Ecuador and I was very happy to see her again. Since I got into Orlando around 11 at night more than a little exhausted we headed straight for the hotel.  On the drive there I was surprised by the things that now caught me as "abnormal". Things like the size of the 4 lane free ways, the huge box stores one after another after another, and fact that when I got off the airplane people were speaking English, all seemed slightly out of place. 

   After a good night's sleep and a real American breakfast we headed out to Universal Studios for the day. Once we got into the park we made a bee-line for the Harry Potter exhibit on the far end of the park. I must say for those of you who are Harry Potter fans, this park was insane. As you walk in they have full scale replicas of all the buildings; from the Castle perched atop a great hill, to the town of Hogsmead and Hagrid's Hut. Everything is very elaborately decorated and honestly looks like it is straight out of the movie. We toured the shops, ate at the Hog's Head, and rode the effects ride through the castle. It was every a HP nerd like myself could hope for on the first day back on US soil and by the end of the afternoon we were driving north to Saint Augustine. 

  We got into Hillarie's apartment late in the evening and I must say pictures did not prepare me to walk into this house. She and her room mate share a second story condo on a golf coarse in St. Augustine. Having only lived in an old crooked house in Bellingham where all the doors you want to stay closed always open and when the heater shuts off you could almost fly a kite with the draft it creates, this place was enormous! Compared to my life here in Ecuador everything is so spread out, they have cupboards, a dishwasher, a stove, a separate place to keep your food, another closet just for towels, all three rooms have full closets and they even have air conditioning! Looking back now, the two things that stand out the most for me from my whole trip to Florida are how clean and comfortable everything is (so long as you're not a pumpkin, one molded in like 2 days). I mean when I moved into my house here in Ecuador I bought the nice, fancy bed that costs 100 bux, but every bed I slept on in Florida was like a cloud. When I did laundry (or when Hillarie helped me do laundry) my clothes came out without stains and not covered in lint. And you can drink the tap water! 

   Alas, I digress. So we spent the next few days wandering around the lovely town of St. Augustine. Touring the famous St. Augustine college, going to the beach (boy do I miss the smell of salt water in the air), and eating. I had a Reuben at the Irish pub in town with my pint of Guinness, fresh mahi, sushi, and I even got to cook one night (a chicken, gorgonzola pene alfredo with garlic bread and a chocolate lava cake with fresh strawberry sauce)! I even got to see Hillarie's school which sits right on water. By the weekend we were dashing around buying up costume supplies and headed to a party with some friends of Hillarie's as David and Victoria Beckham. Halloween was a lot of fun and I had a good time getting to meet her friends and might I and we make a pretty awesome foosball team. 

   After a short trip to the local lighthouse and a windy ascent to the top, I was headed to the airport Sunday afternoon and flying back to Ecuador.  Having had such a great time on vacation in Florida, it was hard to get back into the swing of things here in Ecuador however, it is always nice getting back home and laying down in your own bed (or hammock). Also, for those of you who are Island bound this holiday season, I had also bought a ticket to Seattle right before I flew out and will be arriving in Seattle on the 21st of December through the 4th of January. 

Outa This World... Well, Almost

September 2011

Tumbaco and Tena, Ecuador

   By the beginning of September, I was once again heading up to the highlands and Quito for "Reconnect" (the 3 months at site training). Reconnect is a time for volunteers who have been out at site for just over 3 months to come back to a central location, talk about their experiences thus far and discuss potential projects moving forward. For me, Reconnect was a bit slow and felt more like summer camp than actual work. However, the week flew by as I had my sights set on a much higher horizon... Cotopaxi.

  Cotopaxi stands as one of Ecuador's majestic peaks, rising from the Amazon basin to a staggering 19,347 feet.  It is said to be one of the world's highest active volcanoes and described by volcanoloegists as one of the most perfectly shaped volcanoes on earth; with a nearly perfect symmetrical cone, topped by an equatorial glacier and a nearly perfect crater. I had suggested taking a run at Cotopaxi during training and during the weeks leading up to Reconnect I realized now was time. Not only would I be able to stay a week at altitude for Reconnect but I had also spent large portions of the month before in Quito as well, so I was as acclimatized as I'd ever be. After making all my preparations and connecting with one of the most well known mountaineering guides in the country, I was hard pressed to think about anything but climbing during the entire week of Reconnect. 

  By the end of the week my climbing buddy, Christina, and I could hardly sit still. Come Saturday we packed up our gear and headed into Quito to rent out the technical gear that didn't find space in my luggage from home. For the mere price of 35 dollars I was stocked and ready to head off to the mountains; we met up with our guide, Edgar, and caught a ride to Cotopaxi. From the edge of the National Park you can pay a taxi $30 for a round trip into base camp and from there it is an hour hike and a 700 foot climb to the Refugio camp which sits at a lofty 15,750 feet above sea level. Here we dropped our packs and took an afternoon walk up the mountain to help acclimatize to the altitude. On that day we made it to 16,400 feet and I felt great! The view from the hill was amazing, with light cloud cover we could see all of Quito and many of the surrounding great peaks of the Andes. Shortly after our descent to the to the refuge camp we were making dinner as the full moon rose up over the shoulder of Cotopaxi, illuminating its slopes completely. At dinner we were visited by two foxes that live around the camp. To bed at 8 with at best, 30 minutes of real sleep.

  Shortly after midnight headlamps clicked on and the high mountain refuge camp was alive with the sounds of pots clanging, boots in the stairwell and climbers making last minute adjustments to their packs before setting off by 1 a.m. With Edgar in the lead, followed by Christina and then myself at the tail, we began our slow trudge up the hillside, wide awake with excitement for the climb to come. By 3 a.m. we were stepping into our crampons and onto the glacier at about 16,700 feet.  The weather held over night and we were climbing in full moonlight, many climbers had shut their headlamps off! Climbing to 17,000 feet on an equatorial glacier on a clear night with a full moon is definitely one of a kind experience and as the cold bite of sub-zero winds stung at our faces, we marched on, kick-stepping further up the glacier. An hour and a half later we made it to 5,400 meters, or 17,717 feet, and were stopped by a very large crevasse cutting across the entire side of the mountain. Everyone was shining their headlamps into the crevasse, which gave the glacier an eerie glow as if it were light from within, searching for a potential route over.  

   Our guide Edgar came to us to discuss a route that one group had managed earlier. Where the snow bridge had melted out, we could slide down an 8 foot wall of ice to a small ledge, then with our face to the wall, jump backward over a 4 foot gap and turn to land on the opposite wall ledge. From there it was an 8 foot climb back out using pick axes and crampons to a small platform where a guide had placed a small wooden board to cross another 6 foot gap in the glacier. We were also informed that due to the failing conditions of the remaining parts of the snow bridge we would need to cross quickly and then find an alternate route down once having reached the summit. Further down the mountain I had noticed my climbing partner was rapidly growing weaker due to the high altitude and by the time we got to this point in our climb she was having a hard time holding a conversation, let alone put one foot in front of the other; I knew that we would be pushing our luck to try and get everyone to the summit and out safely. Between her declining condition and what appeared to be one bank vault away from a mission impossible movie getting over the crevasse, we made the decision to forgo our summit attempt to return another day. 

   After making the final decision to turn around at 17,717 feet I opened my water bottle which I had inside my backpack. Immediately after lowering the bottle from my lips the entire contents of my water bottle froze completely solid, movie sound effects and all. According to my sources that would put us down around 20-25 degree below zero.....reeeeeeaalllyyyy cold! And this was long after my insulated camelback hose had gone solid as well. Our decent down the mountain was fairly quick and I led the charge. We arrived back to the refuge around 5:30 and hunkered down in the frosty cabin until our ride came at 9. A short ride out to the road and a bus to Quito put us back on city streets by lunch time and after a fine fair well, I caught my bus headed to the jungle. All in all, it was a great experience and I made it 3,306 feet higher than I have ever been, not to mention to one of the furthest points from the center of the world on earth. Due to the equatorial bulge of the planet (think of a spinning water balloon that would get fatter in the middle) the mountains that lie on the equator are actually further from the center of the earth than the Himalayan Mountain Range. So on that day I stood nearly 4,000 feet further from the center of the earth than the top of Mount Everest!

   Later in September, I was invited to the anniversary celebrations of a community I work work called Campo Cocha. The day I went to this 5 day festival was the final ceremony. The day began with the presentation of the national flag and opening words from the community president. Following the welcome the community leaders began an annual tradition of "passing the torch" so to say to the in coming delegates. The ceremony consists of both the out going and in coming community president, vice-president, 2 directors of community affairs and the winner of the annual beauty pageant to kneel down before the village elder (my host-mom's brother!) who dripped juice from freshly pressed tobacco leaves into both eyes and nostrils. This causes an immediate burning sensation in the eyes and excessive running of the nose. While some coughed and hacked and tried to fight the burning with glasses of water, the elders merely took the pain, silently knelt on the ground. Following this demonstration tobacco was passed around to each house hold where parents put tobacco into the eyes of each child who in repeated the process to their parents. I was later told by the village elder that this ancient tradition establishes respect between parents and their children and also makes them stronger. The festivals were then concluded with a game of soccer, in which I played on the winning team, and a large lunch for which they had killed a cow earlier in the day. 

  

The rest of September and into October was spent in my community, helping around the house and working in the family farm. We cleaned out the fish ponds, cleared jungle brush, hunted (unsuccessfully), planted yuca and plantain, harvested from the fields and I even made a pizza in my earthen oven! At the end of the month a fellow volunteer who lives 6 hours south from me was passing through Tena with her parents and asked me to play tour guide for the day. I took them on a canoe ride down the river to the community of Kamak Maki (one of my favorite communities where we work). We toured the botanical garden which is full of medicinal plants from the area, walked through the Kichwa museum which shows the many different types of traditional transportation and hunting traps, and we got to interact with the many animals that live in and around the community. Jess and her parents really enjoyed the community and I think it helped to prepare them for river rafting the next day, I sadly was unable to go.