Joey Lesh and Katie Coleman: The Next Step

I´m typing this from a bus station in Loja, Ecuador as we wait for our 11 PM bus to depart to PERU! It is hard to believe it, but we´ve been down here for a month already! Since our last adventure in beautiful, soggy Cajas, we´ve traveled south to a community called Vilcabamba. Our guide book says this is where the fountain of youth is located, but Joey and I didn´t find it. What we did find was some of the most AMAZING scenery, sunsets, starscapes, and weather around.

Vilcabamba is a very laid-back town set in a green valley surrounded by crumpled mountains on all sides (the tallest of which, Joey and Matt climbed today). We stayed at a nature reserve called Rumi Wilco outside of town, high up on a hill overlooking the stunning views during the day and the bright stars at night. We spent a lot of time swinging in the hammocks, playing cards, and generally loving life. Joey was excited to get a chance to cook some AMAZING pizzas in the adobe woodfired stove, and we were excited to eat them!

Wow! We just returned from an amazing two days of trekking through the El Cajas National Park. We started in the paramo (the part above treeline) at aroud 13,000 feet and hiked through beautiful mountains, past rivers swollen with the recent two weeks of rain. Our trail was missing half the time providing a great sense of adventure, though the wild llamas and alpacas just 10 yards away certainly didn’t hurt.

We spent the night by a large lake with dinner and a wet twig fire (Katie called it a smoke signal :-). When it gets dark at 6:30 it sure is a change from summer hiking in AK!

Today we hiked for around 6 hours through rain and clouds down about 3000 feet through tough, steep, and muddy terrain. At least one bus passed us by so as not to ruin their seats with the drowned rat gringos.

Even shopping for the trip was fun. With Matt and Lindsay we hit a small town market and loaded up on avocados, garlic, onions, raw peanuts, peppers, and on and on for less thatn 10 bucks. Don’t like the way the tomatos look, just head one stall down. Supermarkets should be this neat.

My digital camera broke, hence the lack of pix so far. Now that we’re with M&L, they’ve promised to share their pictures. Look for them soon!

Whoo! 10 hours in a bus yesterday wears you out. The problem with these buses is that they’re built for a population with an average height that rivals the Japanese. Not to mention that non-stop salsa is played at volumes that would make a deaf man cringe while careening around turns on one lane mountain highways. I’d feel safe but most of the bus drivers are under 20 (things that make you go hmmmm….). At times it feels like an amusement park ride that has gone on a *little* too long.

Maybe we’d just been a bit pampered for the last few days while studying Spanish in Puerto Lopez. I’m not sure if it was swimming on a gorgeous deserted beach in the national park, snorkeling in 70 degree water, or the new friends, both from Puerto Lopez and from Scandanavia, but we might have been a little bit spoiled. We spent several nights chilling at Clandestino Bar, the owner, a rasta-Ecuatoriano sporting dreads and a chilled out attitude, taught us a little salsa and we picked up a few new phrases to boot.

We’re camped out in Cuenca now, waiting for Matt and Lindsay to arrive later today. Cuenca seems to be the first big city in Ecuador that has genuine charm to it. With its narrow cobblestone streets and lack of unpainted cinderblock buildings, it feels decidedly European. Well, more like if the streets of Toulouse had indigenas grilling plaintain and pollo in every open doorway and minus the strip of high-end fashionista shopping. It’s quite nice. We can’t wait to start exploring later today.

We´ve seen the last of Quito now. Yesterday was a day for running errands in the last big city we´ll see for awhile and then we moved on to the resort town of Baños just long enough to spend the night. Today was spent rafting down a major tributary of the Amazon into a small town called Puyo. Puyo is on the edge of the secodary rainforest and is a popular jumping off point for trips into the Amazon. We´ll only have a day but that´s what we´re gonna do tomorrow before we head off to lay on a beach and study Spanish! Rough life!

Just returned to Quito after spending three days in Otavalo, a large village/small city about two hours north of Quito. During our time in Otavalo, we visited many mastercraftsmen including a famous wood carver, leather maker, weaver, and instrument maker. It was amazing to see the incredible art of crafting things for daily use by hand – like bedspreads and purses – that we can get commercially made anywhere in the States. For example, when we visted the weaver, he showed us how he brushed the raw wool repeatedly by hand, then spun yarn, then dyed it with materials like dried worms (purple), moss (yellow), and walnuts (brown) before weaving it on his backstrap loom.

After hanging out in Otavalo with our friends Matt and Lindsay and Lindsay´s parents, Joe and I headed out to Papallacta, a town high in the mountains where hot springs flow. We enjoyed the morning lounging in the hot pools, then cooling off in the nearby river while looking at 15,000 foot peaks all around us.

Life is great in Ecuador!

Wow! The last week has been quite an adventure for Joe and I in South America. After aclimitizing in Quito for a couple of days (Quito sits at about 8,000 feet), we took a bumpy bus ride to Chugchilan, a small community high in the Andes west of Quito. After hairpin turns throughout unpaved mountain passes we arrived at the Black Sheep Inn. We stayed there for four days hiking through the canyons, down by an bright blue-green crater lake called Quilatoa, and walking up to the cloud forest where orchids and mountain lions live side by side.

On our trip to the cloud forest we hired a guide from the community who told us lots about the area{s history and many of the folklore stories some of which Joe recognized as similar to those the Native Alaskans tell. It was our first real Spanish accomplishment that we were able to spend a whole day talking with Humberto, our guide.

We left Chugchilan in the back of a milk truck to head to Saquisili, our next destination. The milk truck drove for two hours through small villages where the native people would wait by the road with buckets filled with milk from their animals. A man would collect the buckets of fresh milk and pour it into the containers in the back of this pick up truck and sell it to people in the larger towns who needed to buy it. In addition to picking up milk, the truck picked up people, and at one point, more than 20 people, a chicken and many babies were bouncing along together. One woman breast fed her baby while holding on to the side of the truck with one hand.

In Saquisili we attended one of the biggest local markets – colors and smells and sounds EVERYWHERE. Pigs, llamas, fruits, spices, watches, fabric, and wool were all for sale! It was absolutely beautiful. I was most facinated by the boiled pigs heads and chicken feet in the stalls.

Now we{re in Otavalo visiting with our friends Lindsay and Matt before they head to the Galapagos and we head to Spanish school on the coast! Adios por ahora!

After a bus ride that had more in common with a small skiff on rough water than most trip made with wheels, we arrived at the Black Sheep Inn.

Today we hiked from a lake in the crater of the volcano back to the inn, tiring but welcome after the confining feel of being in a big city like Quito.

We´ve arrived safe and sound … rather uneventful, really. We´re staying at the Hostal Alcalá and spending the day looking at language schools, going to an art museum and planning the rest of our trip!