Ecuador, working in Peru and Bolivia and a visit to Florida

I know, I know, it has been a long time since I have updated these pages. But, I can assure you, it has not been for lack of anything to say.

I spent the last two weeks of November and first two weeks of December continuing my Spanish Language studies in Cuenca. I finally advanced enough to learn something called the Subjunctive. We do not have anything like it in English and I found it difficult. Maria Elena, my teacher worked with me and I at least understand the concept now. I hold my cousin Nancy personally responsible for all of my difficulties. She has studied lots of French and should be aware of this difficult form of verb conjugation. She did not warn me at all.

In the middle of November I had planned to go to the nearby National Park of Cajas for a weekend camping trip. Unfortunately, the Ecuadorian government had other plans. They banned the sale of alcohol at noon on Saturday and declared martial law on Sunday until 5:00 pm. Only census workers were allowed out on Sunday. The census workers were high school students. They went door to door through-out the country and asked a series of questions about the people in each house. Even tourists and students were included in the count. When it was my turn to sit with the census taker, my whole Ecuadorian family gathered around to watch the show. They were especially amused when I came to the question of my race. I had to choose between Indian, black, mixed, and several others. I replied that I was 100% gringo and the census taker seemed to find a place on her form for that.

The day before the census I did manage a trip out to Cajas for a day hike. It was its usual gray day, but I had a good time. The next weekend I headed out with my tent and camping equipment. I took a bus to one side of the park and spent three days walking to the other side. It was a little cold, but I had a great time. When I packed up on Monday morning to head back to town, my tent was still covered with frost. Mario was impressed when I got home and unrolled my tent. We shook it out over the balcony and watched it snow down below. For my last weekend in Cuenca, I led a guided tour to the park. Several of the Spanish teachers and students at my school asked me to take them to the park and lead them on a hike. I had discovered a fairly easy four hour walk that was mostly down hill and took them for a nice walk. Even though it rained alot, we had fun.

The 4th of December was a school day, but I enjoyed it anyway. I spent the morning of my 30th birthday studying Spanish in my room. My family made a nice lunch for me and even got a cake. Then I went to class for the afternoon. I told my teacher that I was now older and she should begin to use the formal Usted form and not the informal tu form when addressing me. She complied. That night dad called and I had a nice chat on the phone with dad, Elizabeth and Emily.
My six weeks of classes ended in the middle of December and I started north immediately. I visited Riobamba and looked at the pretty mountains in the middle of Ecuador. I had planned to come back and climb them, but first I headed for Quito, the capital. I had wanted to get a job leading tours down here eventually, so I swung by the Quito office of GAP Adventures, a Canadian company that does tours in Latin America. On Monday, the 17th of December, I had an interview, in Spanish mind you. On the 18th I signed a six month contract and on the 19th I flew to Lima, Peru to start working.

I spent a few days in the Lima office learning the ropes and then set off on my self-training trip. My first trip started on the 28th of December in La Paz, Bolivia. I took five days to get there and visited Pisco, Nasca, Arequipa and Puno along the way. I stopped in those cities to meet the local operators and check out the hotels. It was nice to be able to show up in a town, say who I am , and have people offer me free hotel rooms and meals again.

GAP is a bit different than Trek America. It is much easier. We take public buses, so I do not have to drive. We stay in hotels and eat in restaurants, so we do not have to camp or cook every night. We have local guides every where we go, so I do not have to be the person who is knowledgeable about everything and know all of the answers. It is enjoyable and I will have fun for the entire six months.

For my first trip I only had three passengers, three young people from Sydney, Australia. The first day of the trip I took them up to the hills and we had a nice hike. The second day we had lunch in Copacabana and went on to Puno, Peru.

On the 31st, we visited the man-made floating islands of Uros. They are made of reeds and if you stand in one place too long, you will sink. We spent the night on Amanatni Island and danced around the bonfire to welcome in the new year. On Amantani, the group splits up into pairs and we are each adopted by a local family. We get to hang out in their dark kitchen, watch the guinea pigs run around and see our food being cooked over a fire. They do not eat much meat on the island, so or meals are generally eggs, potatoes and rice, with some quinoa soup.

On the 1st we visited the nearby island of Taquile before returning to Puno. Then we had a day long bus ride to Cuzco and went river rafting the next day. Then we took a tour of the Sacred Valley and visited the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, Pisaq and Ollantaytambo before starting the four day Inca Trail. After we got to camp the first night, they collapsed and I went on a quick two hour hike up the mountainside. The next day we went up to the 13,000 foot pass and they rested while I took a quick one hour side hike up the mountainside. The second day is very long and I did not have time for an evening hike in the rain. The third day we went to Winaywinay and checked out those impressive ruins. The fourth day we had our tour of Machu Picchu and returned to Cuzco to have a free day.

From Cuzco, we flew to Arequipa and took a two day tour of the Colca Canyon. We soaked in the hot springs of Chivay and looked for condors in the valley. After a free day in Arequipa, we took an over night bus to Nasca in time to fly over the lines and tour the cemetery, gold extraction plant and pottery factory before lounging by the pool all afternoon. The next day we went to one of my favorite places in all of Peru for lunch, Huacachina. This is the desert oasis that I spent some time at in 1999 and 2000. We rented sand boards and played on the big dunes. Then we came to Lima and that was the end of my first three week tour for GAP.

I had a few days off between trips and decided to go for a walk one day. I walked south along the beach and rounded a rocky point. From this final beach the road turned inland and a dirt road continued along the coast. I was amazed that after only one hour of walking from the office, I had found a quiet place in a city of eight million. I passed the last few people along the coast, a couple of fishermen, and enjoyed another thirty minutes of feeling like I was in the middle of nowhere. Then I found out that those last two fisherman had trouble making ends meet and were also thieves. They came up from behind me and held a sharp piece of glass to my neck. They made me sit down and searched me for money. They found my wallet and were very excited indeed to find over US$200, which is more than a month's normal wages. One of them told the other to count it, but that seemed like a ridiculous request to me and the other guy, since they already had the money and did not need to waste time with me around. Then they searched me for a cell phone and seemed a bit disappointed that I did not have one. Maybe they felt a little bad about taking so much, so they explained to me that they were hungry and needed the money to eat. I guess they are better robbers than fishermen because when they walked away they had a lot more money than fish. They did not leave me with even a cent, so I had to walk the hour and a half back to the office. Luckily, GAP is a very understanding company and I was able to put the whole loss on my expense accounts.

The next day I started the same three week trip, back to La Paz. Except, in February, the regular Inca trail is closed for cleaning and raining, so we did an easier trail, called the Ecological Trail, that parallels the river and has no high passes, which all ten of my passengers were perfectly happy with. On the second day, one of my passengers, a 63 year old grandmother, fell about twenty feet off a cliff. She crashed through trees for the first 15 feet or so and then dropped straight down the last six feet or so. A moment after she landed on her backside, a rock bigger than her head landed squarely on her chest. I raced down there to look for the body, but she was perfectly (almost) fine. She had a large but shallow cut on her arm and a bruised ankle. She also had trouble breathing. We took the hour walk to camp slowly and then I accompanied her and her husband to town to visit the doctor. Amazingly, nothing was broken and she was able to continue the trip, although a bit more slowly for the first few days.

When we visited Amantani Island I had a great conversation in Spanish with our local grandmother in the kitchen. The next day I discovered that, like most old people and kids under six, she did not speak Spanish, only Quechua. Oh well.

We were supposed to drive to La Paz on the 13th of February, but the Bolivian workers were on strike and blocking the highways. So, instead, we left the Festival of the Virgen of Candelaria in Puno and took a night bus back to Cuzco. The next morning we flew to La Paz and ended our trip.

On the 15th of February I flew back to Florida. On the 20th of February I had an interview at the Japanese Consulate in Miami to teach English in Japan as part of the JET Programme. I had to wear a jacket and tie for the first time since 1989. I think the interview went well and I hope to hear back from them any week now.

After a good two week visit with all of my Florida family, I flew back to Lima. I handed out all of mom's homemade brownies and zucchini breads and then met my new group of eight for a two week trip. We flew to Puno and visited the islands of Lake Titicaca before going to Cuzco. We hiked the regular Inca Trail and got very wet. It is still rainy season. I had time for some nice side hikes on days one and two while every one rested. On the last day of the Inca Trail we got up at 4:00am and went to see the sunrise over the ruins, but the rain did not let up and we got cold and wet instead. We went back to Cuzco that evening for fruit and chocolate fondue. After a brief visit to the bar, I went back to the hotel and slept until 5:00am.

At around 5:00am I heard a knock on my door. I opened it and Carol, one of my passengers, told me that her friend Craig had been kidnapped and she had been robbed. I followed her down to reception to try to get the whole story. She did not remember anything after leaving the club and before waking up in her bed. By then, Craig and her money and credit cards were gone. She went up to her room while I found out who had brought her home and when they had left. Then she came down nearly hysterical because the bathroom door was locked and Craig was still missing. I went up and opened the door to the empty bedroom, then I went to the club and found Craig watching sunrise over the plaza. I convinced him to stagger home and demonstrate that he was okay to Carol. Then I spent an hour going around town to find the numbers to call to cancel the credit cards. Eventually, Carol cancelled the cards. Later she decided that maybe she had spent all of her money on drinks. Also, later, she found her credit cards in her shoe.
The next day we went to the airport, and after many hours of delay, flew to Puerto Maldonado, in the jungle of the Amazon Basin of Peru. We took a boat up the very muddy and swollen Tambobata River to our lodge, Posada Amazonas. Our rooms were in a very well constructed bamboo building, with one entire side of the room open to the jungle. Also, there was no electricity and the room doors were only curtains. We did have private bathrooms, but no hot water in the shower. The beds had mosquito nets to protect us as we slept. It was a beautiful place.

The next day we woke up before sunrise and went on a boat trip to see the abundant bird life and some river otters. Then we went for a swim in the river before lunch and a nap. Before dinner, we visited a natural medicine clinic and learned about each tree in the garden and which diseases it could treat.

Last Sunday, we our flight was again greatly delayed, but we eventually took off. We landed for a thirty minute layover in Cuzco. Unfortunately, rumor has it, that a person who was already very sick before he got on the plane, died after we had landed in Cuzco. It took several hours of waiting in the airport until the police were done and the body was removed from the plane before we could carry on with our flight.

We eventually made it back to Lima and had our farewell dinner. Now I am spending the week getting ready for my next trip and visiting my friend, Luis. Tomorrow, I begin my three week trip to La Paz.