Ecuador

When I traveled with Semester at Sea I was less than thrilled to be heading towards our two ports of call in South America. After visiting areas in Asia and Africa that were fairly safe and fairly easy to communicate – all we heard about was the crazy amounts of petty crime and language being a huge challenge. Turns out that Brazil and Venezuela were both fabulous! Since then I have visited Peru and now I can add Ecuador to my list of South American countries. Like Brazil and Venezuela, Ecuador was sort of surprise for me. Looking back over my seven days there I am struck with just how amazingly friendly, helpful and kind everyone was. Whether it was our in-country university partner or the cashier at the grocery store everyone in Ecuador seemed to go out of their way to help you out.

So what were my highlights of Ecuador? Good food for one – on our first night in Ecuador I went with a bunch of folks to a place that only local Ecuadorians go to. I was skeptical at first – plastic chairs, dirty plastic table cloths, and only three entrees on the menu. We had cheese empanadas, patacones (friend plantains) and each had an entrée. The empanadas were to die for, the patacones were great and the entrees were huge and very good. The chicken was flavorful and perfectly cooked and the rice was perfect. All of the food plus beer and sodas added up to $3 a piece for dinner. On our last day some of us went out for a yummy lunch that included soup, a drink, entrée and dessert for $1.75. There was also this traditional Ecuadorian soup – it was a creamy potato soup with cheese and avocado in it – delish!

Another highlight for me was all the wildlife in the city of Guayaquil (and I’m not talking about the night life). On our first day there – a few of us were wandering the city and came across this very interesting park. It was full of iguanas! They were all over the place – in the trees, in the pond, and walking on the sidewalks. All of the iguanas are very unafraid of humans – they will walk right past you (or over you) and even let you touch them. It turns out that that particular park is informally called Iguana park because of the large volume of iguanas that live there. I counted over twenty iguanas in just one tree! There are also tons of turtles – all shapes, sizes and species living in this park. After visiting Iguana park I noticed iguanas in other parts of the city – I saw them in the big plaza where the TSS shuttle was picking us up and I even saw one cross a busy downtown street.

A third highlight for me in Ecuador is that I actually got away for a couple of days. I know that many of you think of me as an adventurous traveler but if I am honest I have to admit that I am not. Usually when I travel I am with a group or a tour, with someone who speaks the language or knows where they are going or I have a home base like the ship that makes it easy. I haven’t done much independent traveling – other than a couple days in Peru before our tour started and my three weeks in Thailand with my dad and some random day trips in some cities that is about it. Thailand doesn’t even really count because my friend Karen who had lived there for almost two years told us exactly what to do and where to go while we were there.

For awhile now I’ve been thinking that I wanted to stretch my traveling wings and do some more independent traveling – in fact I debated about whether or not I would feel too restricted or restrained traveling with another shipboard program.

Well while in Ecuador I definitely got to stretch my independent travel wings and actually did something completely uncharacteristic of me. I did a two and half day trip to a mountain town in the middle of Ecuador – no research, no plans, no reservations and no safety net of going with someone who speaks the language.

One of the Intercultural Residence Counselors, Chris (a shy, young British guy), and I realized that we both had the same time free and both had an interest in going to Cuenca so we decided to go together. Cuenca is a city located south of Quito in the middle of the Andes about four hours away from Guayaquil. Descriptions about the city talked about it’s quaint feel, beautiful architecture and numerous cathedrals and churches. It is also believed that the Incans had a trail through Cuenca that connected Cusco, Peru to Quito, Ecuador. Since I hiked the ancient Incan religious trail to Machu Piccu last September – why not see another city along the ancient Incan “highway”?

So Chris and I left the ship one morning with just a small backpack each and a map of Cuenca that we got out of advertising tourist brochure. Our only plan was to get to the bus station and buy a ticket to Cuenca – beyond that we had no plan. It was a holiday weekend in Ecuador so we had no idea if it would be easy or difficult to get a hotel room. That felt a little bit scary but not too bad. Here is the scary part…

For those of you who don’t already know I am pretty terrible with all languages. It’s one of my few regrets in life that I didn’t learn a language when I was younger (or get over my insecurities and fears of sounding stupid when I had the chance to learn in high school). The extent of my language vocabulary in any country is usually: yes, no, thank you, hello, goodbye or good day, how much and maybe a few numbers. Just before we leave the ship Chris and I talk and I realize that I am going to be the better language speaker (that is REALLY scary if you’ve heard me trying to speak any Spanish words). So we have absolutely no plans and I have to figure out how to communicate at every step along the way. GREEEAAT! Needless to say this did not start off as the nice, relaxing time away that I so desperately needed.

Of course there were no taxis just inside the port area like there had been the rest of the week so we got a taxi right outside the port (mom close your eyes on this part - an illegal cab in the unsafe part of the city just outside the port). Amazingly I was able to bargain the cab driver, we got to the bus station, figured out where to go to purchase our $6 bus tickets for the 4 hour ride to Cuenca – all without incident.

The bus ride up was very interesting. The first 2 hours were on the flat coastal area then the last two hours felt like we were going straight up – the vegetation changed, the temperature changed, the look of the villages changed, we drove straight up through the cloud cover and kept going. I think Cuenca’s elevation is over 3,000 meters (I forget how to convert to feet for you). We saw a lot of rural villages along the way – my favorite site was when we drove past a road side stand where they had a huge pig split down the middle, laid flat with a grate on each side of the pig and they were spinning it like it was on a spit to cook it.

Ok this story is getting way too long. We get to Cuenca – got a cab to drop us off in the middle of the city, wandered into a random hostel-like hotel and got a room for two nights. We spent the next two days exploring the city – we just walked everywhere. Our biggest challenge was that it was a holiday weekend so lots of things were closed. It was ok though – it was nice to just walk, see the river, walk the markets, people watch and pop into one of the many churches. I don’t know why (I need to do some research now that I am back) but Cuenca has an inordinate more churches and cathedrals. They boast having one of the largest cathedrals in the Americas (it was HUGE) and one of the oldest cathedrals in the Americas. It was nice to see a city outside of Guayaquil – it was very different than the big port city – had a lot more character. Two days later we reversed our trip and made it back to the ship without incident.

I’m quite proud that I fumbled my way through all the communicating to have a successful trip with such limited Spanish. I didn’t exactly come back relaxed and well rested (not only the stress of communicating but the high altitude made for very restless sleep) but once I was back to the ship I realized that just having time to be completely away from work was huge and desperately needed.

We are now on our way across the South Pacific headed towards Tahiti. We will get there in eleven days and be there for just two. I believe that life should settle down for me a bit on this leg of the journey. We have more time to prepare for our next full port stop and some of our systems and routines are finally taking shape.

Hopefully I will have time to post again before we get to Tahiti. Hope that all is well with everyone at home – take care!