Gone to Cuyabeno

Back on Thursday :)

http://www.cuyabenolodge.com/

Love,
Karen

Quito soundtrack

Every morning I wake up promptly at 7 am.  The sun is streaming upon my bed and Nuvia (my darling 24 year old roomate, who manages this hostel/house) has already silently left for her day job.  The Huayra Causay students have been up for a while. I can hear them talking and laughing in the room directly above mine where all the women sleep. The wood floorboards creak as they bustle about, getting ready for their 8:30 am English class.

And every morning there is the music they play from their laptop playlists sometimes as often as 2 or 3 times (!) before they head downstairs for breakfast - not terribly loud but loud enough that they can learn and remember the English. I hadn't thought of most these songs in years and it's funny how they have been conjured up for me here, of all places.

These songs will be forever ingrained in my brain as the soundtrack of my memories of Quito.  I have by now commited their lyrics to memory too, like the lines of a deeply analyzed poem in h.s.  I won't miss hearing them - EVERY SINGLE DAY - when I'm gone, but I will always hear them again in life with a fond hint of nostalgia :)

This Quito track includes:

• Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler 
• I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
• Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
• Kama Chameleon - Culture Club
• Hotel California - Eagles
• Eternal Flame - The Bangles
• Hey Jude - Beattles
• My Heart Will Go On (Titanic movie)- Celine Dion

Things could be worse. At least my students are not into heavy metal!!

P.S. And these are the songs I've taught my students the lyrics to during our afternoon English lessons: Don't stop believing (Journey), All summer long (Kid Rock), Time after time (Cyndi Lauper) - also the wise words to Baz Luhrman's "everybody's free to wear sunscreen" :)

Salsa dancing

I had two of my very first salsa moments in life today. 

The first was the class I decided to take at the last minute this afternoon.  It is no joke that everyone in Ecuador can salsa. This is something they learn apparently shortly after birth, as some Quitoans have informed me. Thus, though salsa actually hails from Cuba, most Ecuadorians like it and can dance it fairly well.

I learned this during my first week at the house with Huayra Causay, when the whole lot of us went out to El Aguijon for salsa night and they all danced for hours and hours. Though I joined in and tried really hard to look convincing, I stepped on way too many feet.  Besides, moving your hips and legs in nonstop circular fashion is really only fun for the first 20 minutes. 

So I wasn't expecting to really like class today - though I was curious to see what the steps actually looked  like when you slowed them down.  Turns out they are pretty simple, and also pretty fun when turned into a sequence played out in time to the music - and depending on the partner (!).  It was a big revelation to discover how much I could enjoy salsa when I could follow along with the rythmn and switch it up and also let myself be led without tripping.

"Basico!" "Atras!" "Traverse!" Gibson, our teacher, kept prompting.  Suddenly salsa wasn't so boring! And the super fast beat suddenly made sense.

The other salsa moment came later this evening, when I was trying to (discretely) show Nuvia my new salsa moves while waiting for our cab at the bar we'd gone to for drinks.  The adorable waiter who'd been serving us offered himself up as a partner and there I was salsa'ing away in a near empty bar at midnight in Guapolo. Needless to say, this guy knew what he was doing and was very helpful and there is nothing like finding yourself dancing with someone who's name you didn't know a moment ago and turns out to be an incredibly good dancer.

I hear rumor that salsa is addicting and I'm not expecting anything like that to happen here. But I will be taking a few more classes in the hopes of making a proper comeback on that dance floor in the Mariscal before I leave Quito.

I have 9 Spanish teachers!!!

For the past 2 weeks, I've been living in this lovely house in the La Floresta neighborhood of Quito, on the corners of Calles Barcelona and Tolsa. I share the house with students that are here thanks to Huayra Causay, the program where I volunteer every weekday afternoon teaching English. When I finally settled on volunteering with Huayra Causay, I was torn between living at the house with the students; staying at a hostel where I could meet other travelers; or else doing a homestay. Staying here is proving to be the best decision I could have made. 

Not only is La Floresta a pretty neighborhood and the house nice and spacious, but the students are amazing housemates. Mostly in their 20s and early 30s, they are here from all over Ecuador to participate in Huayra Causay because they are either farmers or have been studying something related to the field of agribusiness. Most importantly, each of them has demonstrated the ability to promote either the practice or principles of sustainable agriculture in their respective communities. Soon they will be heading to the States to stay on whatever organic farm has agreed to host them for 8 months through the US agriculture program, MESA - the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture.

But for now they are in Quito for 5 weeks to improve their English. That's where I - and one other volunteer, Hannes - come in.

They are a small bunch, and only 9 of the 11 students actually live in the house.  But we have a great time in between all the classes they are here to take.  Dinner is a communal activity, prepared by 2 different pairs of students each night (with a meal budget provided by Huayra Causay) and everyone is an amazing cook.  So I am eating well.  Besides which I am hearing and learning LOTS of Spanish, which was part of the plan.  Speaking Spanish is a big struggle for me still (!!) and sometimes I wish I could just patter on into the kitchen for tea and shoot the shit in English.  But they are all incredibly patient with me and appreciative of the effort and I guess, if anything, can relate to my struggle.  As Ketty proclaimed over dinner tonight, as I struggled to tell them about my weekend in Otavallo, "You have NINE Spanish teachers!!!"

But lovely dinners and Spanish chitchat aside, the biggest highlight at the house so far was my introduction to Carnival last week. It was the Friday before I left for my long weekend on the Ruta del Sol and we had a massive cookout with every variety of meat thrown on the grill. I'd received plenty of warning that this big festive meal would be followed by the true "raison d'etre" of Carnival which is to make sure everyone gets extremely wet. I was told that everything from water to shaving cream to eggs get thrown and the streets become pure mayham. Which was what happened to the house.  Think Halloween when you were 13 years old x 100. Innocently believing everyone was too drunk and full of meat by the end of the meal to actually start a waterfight, I learned the hard way how Carnival is played: Ruthlessly!!

No doubt the experience (which is of course so much more fun in the telling) will be one of my fondest memories of Ecuador.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

This trite little expression takes on new meaning when faced with the seemingly neverending heaves of food poisoning. Which I unfortunately was last night, thanks to some innocently purchased made-to-order spinach and ricotta ravioli and homemade tomato sauce. (Yes I am still in Ecuador!)

I thought that if anything got me in South America, it would be the ceviche. Which I had already discovered I liked when I tried it for the first time a few months in Cusco (ahhhh, Cusco!). Had it again just the other day for lunch with Fabian, who has been such a lovely host to me these past few days in his home in Guapolo (along with his rambunctious super hairy golden retriever, Pisco). To repay the favor of his patient hospitality I thought to buy some fresh pasta from the gourment pasta store on my walk back to his place (Quito has everything!). Unfortunately, the ravioli got us both and now I will forever be trying to live down being the guest that tried to poison him.

Aside from this little tidbit of news, my few days in Quito so far have been quiet and peaceful. I've spent them strolling about, slowly taking things in and trying to get myself oriented in no particular rush. It's such a different way to experience a city when time seems to be less pressing. I've visited the Mariscal neighborhood and checked out a potential Spanish school there. And yesterday afternoon, I went to the Museo Guayasamin which houses the most extensive collection of art by this artist. Guayasamin is Ecuador's most famous painter/sculpture, a contemporary of Picasso, and I was especially surprised I'd never heard of him when I discovered how much I loved his work. The museum was small - just a collection of three modest-sized houses on a green lawn - but perfect for absorbing everything, without losing focus. Always a problem for me at the Met.

In true New Yorker fashion, I am trying to walk everywhere but it's not easy as Quito is quite hilly. The city sits in a valley high in the Andes surrounded by the peaks of assorted hills and mountains, including Volcan Pichincha. By early afternoon, the clouds and fog rolls in and hug the mountainsides. Today it rained all day, which suited my food sickly self just fine. The only time we left the house was in the late afternoon to visit Fabian's parents in the fancy Cumbaya neighborhood for Saturday dinner.

Things should be picking up soon though. For one, I am already FINALLY feeling better!! :) For another, my friend Tim has decided to pay me a spontaneous visit in honor of his 40th birthday. So tomorrow we are going to visit the cloud forests of Mindo with its waterfalls and exotic birds, for a few days. Then next week, too, I begin my volunteering with the Huayra Causay school. Between all of this and the number of things there are to see and do within just a few hours of Quito, these next few weeks will surely fly by.