Day 9: Quito Charm and Closed Roads

(For those of you wondering where Days 7 and 8 are, they were spent variously walking, bussing, writing about the Amazon, and walking some more)

Hola from 10,000 feet and the capital city of Ecuador, Quito. The city is shaped like a hot dog, a long tightly-stuffed situation in between two buns of mountains, as it were. We stayed in the historical and architecture-eye-candy district of Santo Domingo. Our hotel was a maze of hallways and stairways (with potted vines!) and if you found your way up to the top floor you were granted an open terrace and a million dollar view of a gorgeous cathedral and square. It felt so timeless and luxurious to see the cobbled streets, the church spires, the wraught iron balconies at windows, and the busy bustle of all the people selling all the things. 

That the historical city was so satisfying was good, because getting in and out of Quito is a task indeed. A bus from out of town will arrive at one of the many large terminals. Then you need to transfer to the city "metro" system, which is a bus-trolley like thing, incredibly crowded (many of the locals wear their bags on their front for pickpockets), and makes multiple stops per block. Painfully slow. But it was worth it! 

And the best part, Sundays in Quito are "Ciclovia Day", which means that multiple main roads are shut to vehicles and cyclists and runners can take over for the morning. I borrowed a bicycle from the hotel and grinned and pedaled and relished. Biking emptied streets was such a great way to see the city, much clearer view than a bus window, and offering a much wider menu than walking. 

I loved being a part of the diverse humanity--hundreds if not thousands of people out--enjoying the streets. There were fancy Trek and Specialized bikes with their riders all in branded jerseys, there were little kids on kick-bikes, bikes that desperately needed their seats raised, bikes incredulously too big for their person. A group of hip people cruised past on fixed-gears, teenagers roller-bladed, some folks dismounted for the small hills. An entire family rode one BMX bike, the young dad pedaling, young mom standing on the rear axle, and little daughter balanced on the handlebars. A woman on a pink bike pedaled onward, her backpack yawning open with a curly dog assessing the world from within. 

Old city, fancy new city with tall buildings, unattractive car dealership area, graffiti neighborhood: we poured through these areas under our own power. Finally there was a yellow tape across the road. The end! People congregated, eating bananas and drinking free cups of water. Then we turned around and cruised the other way. I think I bicycled 17 miles today.  

At one point I heard music from one of the many expansive city parks, complete with soccer matches, children eating candy, and trinket-sellers, and found a big outdoor Zumba party. I laid the bike down and joined them. Dancing Zumba in an authentic area made me no less awkward, but I didn't care. I was surrounded by Quito people of all ages and both genders, some with organized dancing bodies and others, like me, very disorganized. I felt so happy dancing to spirited Latin pop music in the sun. 

I was waiting for the effects of high altitude to beset me, but so far nothing much interesting has happened. I've been concentrating on staying very hydrated with fruit juices and tea, and I've also heard that garlic and cloves can help the blood, so I've been having lots of those. I've had barely a momentary headache here and there, but didn't feel insurmountably winded on the bike. 

Million Dollar view from our $8 a night/person hostal.

Street scene, Quito.

Street scene, Quito.

This pleasing arrangement abutted a huge cathedral.

Ciclovia Day in Quito! Main roads close and people power is celebrated.

Reached the end of the line for Ciclovia.

My borrowed bici for Ciclovia. Found a rose in the middle of the street, perfect headlight in all this sunshine.

Day 6: Adventure in the Amazon Rainforest

Adventure, noun: an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.

Yesterday, I had an adventure in the Amazon rainforest. Might as well start this entry with that punch line. In writing this I tried to leave out the parts that readers skip, but even then there is so much to say. 

The Amazon, the lungs of our planet. I couldn't tell you the origination of my love of the rainforest. In 2009 I could be found doing my study-abroad in Australia's Queensland rainforest, experiencing land leeches, cycads, huge spiders, and towering strangler figs. Planning my trip in Ecuador, at first I felt frustrated at how tricky it seemed to to get into the rainforest. But now I've decided that it SHOULD be difficult: let's preserve as much of this wonderful incomprehensible place as we can, by keeping out of it. It breaks my heart to think of all that biodiversity being lost, even by the minute. Humans want oil and plastic and beef and hamburgers and coffee and we're progressively devastating this incredible ecosystem. 

After all the David Attenborough and BBC and National Geographic and rainforest novels and imagining, this chronic slow build-up of anticipation for this revered and sacred place, I was actually going to be in it. At least a little bit in it, as much as I could manage without 8 hours of more bussing and boating. I'd done a lot of shopping around at the numerous tour agencies in Baños; all places offered the same menu: for $25 you got to do a little hike, feed some river fish, go tubing, and get your face painted by an indigenous tribe. The photos of groups of white people in adventure harnesses and the indigenous people posing stoically, it made me feel deeply uncomfortable at what I felt was cultural insensitivity. I just wanted to walk in the rainforest and learn about plants. I didn't want what seemed like this prepackaged experience. 

So I found a small eco-adventure company (Akangua) and tried their Wattsapp number posted on their webpage. Almost immediately someone returned my text, and we texted back and forth until 10pm one night. I decided their 1-day forest hike experience might be good for me. Much more expensive than the other generic "jungle tours", and a 4 hour bus ride away from Baños, but something I felt in my gut was a good choice when I read the reviews. 

I arrived at the tour office the morning of and met my guide, a Quechua man named Misael with a long ponytail and an eagle tattoo. I didn't know it at the time, but saying goodbye to him at the end of this day would be like ending a relationship. I was putting my life in his hands. You basically can't go into the Amazon without a guide: because getting lost and snakes and poisonous plants. He was carrying two pairs of rubber boots, one inner tube (?), and a machete. Together we boarded a hot and slow public bus. I liked this already, who needs a private air-conditioned van when buses go everywhere anyway. 

On the bus, Misael and I established that he had some English and I had some Spanish and that we would accept each other as we were, applying charades and experimental incorrect conjugations in each other's languages as needed. I also didn't know this at the time, but my Spanish would improve by about 180% by the end of the day. We taught each other words in our languages and made noises and molded our hands around the air to act out what was needed. He was quiet and introspective seeming, but answered me eagerly as soon as I began with, "una pregunta?" (I have a question?). 

After 20 minutes he asked the bus driver to stop, and we got off the bus at an anonymous place near a bridge. The bus drove off, leaving us on a boring empty road. No signs for trails, no wooden map boards. I followed my guide down into the river from the bridge. 

And it was like entering Wonderland. Or Oz. A different world. A feeling of peace and reverence descended around me, chirping and pipping and chorusing of creatures, rippling water singing over rocks. The sun was made dappled by the canopy and the air was still. Misael was silent and my sense of sacredness was magnified because I felt him manifesting it so deeply as well. 

Misael explained this place was a protected reserve, virgin rainforest, and that only a few guides knew their way around it. He put his finger to his lips in the international sign for "secret" and I felt so grateful to be here. 

I didn't really know what this day would bring, but arriving in this place I was able to cultivate an open appetite for whatever might happen. I put on my pair of rubber boots and followed Misael into the river. The huge glorious leaves draped over the water and he showed me which rocks would be slippery. So much can be communicated without understanding all the words. He produced for me a sturdy walking stick as well. This was all great, rock stepping in the Amazon! 

And then I noticed that Misael was walking unperturbed through a deeper part, his boots glugging up water and his pants capillarying it up his legs. I followed him dutifully, dreading the deluge of water into my boots, and in it gushed. After we forded out, he taught me the yoga move with bent knee and forward lean: Boot Dumping Pose. I asked him, "porque no sandales in el Rio?" And he said his mom and dad (who lived in the rainforest) used rubber boots, and all the indigenous folks use rubber boots, so that's what you do. Go fording along, all glugging, and then traipse around after with plastic marsh foot. 

But the frogs were singing and I was seeing leaves so varied and intricate I could only stare dumbly. Then Misael announced that it was time to change into my swimwear (which the Wattsapp person had told me I would need). The watery path ahead of us was deep and black now, passing through high rock walls, steep sides and impassable forest above. I was standing boot-deep in rio surrounded by impenetrable forest bank. In my awful Spanish I communicated that I couldn't really easily change in this situation, por favor?, if I had any hope of keeping my poor pantalones dry. He took his machete and wacked me some foot holds and a small changing room up on the muddy bank. 

After I climbed back down into the rio all suited up, he produced a big garbage bag to put our clothes and backpacks in. He took off his shirt, tied up the garbage bag, and set that inner tube--which had been with us this whole way--into the water. He sat himself in the tube, put the machete on his lap, the bag on top of that, and launched off through the long channel. I took a deep breath and applied myself, rubber boots and all, to swim behind him. Let me tell you: swimming with boots AND a walking pole is no small feat. But I grew up on Lake Ontario, thank you very much, and I was fine. 

After asking if I could swim, he warned me not to touch the banks and to stay in the middle. Because snakes and stinging plants. A tunnel of water thru an impassable mass of green. I simply cannot describe what all those leaves are like. As if you're used to a single plated serving but offered a full buffet. 

After we docked in a more shallow part of the river he padded around silently looking for rocks that people would use for face paint and cleansing rituals. Red, grey, white clays. He showed me how a certain tree makes a perfect paintbrush because of its porous wood. I made a painting on a rock. It felt as natural and sweetly consuming as playing in "Rockville" down by the lake when I was a kid. He had so much ancestral knowledge he told me about: river spirits, the rituals of the tribes, so many uses for so many plants, how his shaman father passed him all this. He took obvious satisfaction and care in weaving me a palm skirt to try on, like his mom would wear on special days. This took so much time, but I felt bad interrupting him, since he seemed to be relishing the motions of folding fronds over and across each other. So I just stood there and gazed into the magnificent canopy and reminded myself where I was. 

By this point I had become cold (who gets cold in a rainforest?!) and it was time to do more river traversing to move onwards. This time I motioned I was going to take a turn with that inner tube. Misael seemed a little surprised by this, but stacked me up with all our things as I planted my butt in the tube. I paddled easily along (thank you again, Lake Ontario) and watched as he started swimming and then floundering. Oh gad, did I take the tube of a man who cannot swim? But he reached down and pulled off those rubber boots and added them to my lap. Yeah, sure is tough swimming with those, right! 

Everyone arrived safely again on the bank and now the water path had become a land path: a little trail wandered narrowly through the impenetrable squall of green. 

There were flowers that looked like lips and the indigenous women of some groups wear them in their mouths for ceremonies. The balsawood tree all huge and super strong. The round seed with dimples and spikes used as a hairbrush. Smelling the leaves of a cinnamon tree, gawking at an orchid that had fallen off her perch onto the forest floor. Encountering heliconias so vibrant and impossible-seeming, as if someone had planted them ornamentally, dotting around the forest, but they were JUST GROWING THEIR LOCALLY ON THEIR OWN. 

Parrots clacked overheard, monkeys called from the distance and Misael called back to them, an electrically blue butterfly wafted past. He stopped me, machete in hand, to indicate a poisonous snake I couldn't see. An enormous black ant appeared without invitation on my hamstring, and without hesitating, my senses told me to flick it off. "Tengo una pregunta?" I said to Misael once I was clear, and pointed at the huge ant that was now kayaking on a leaf in the water. A conga ant, aka a bullet ant. He mimed chills and a headache and I googled later that I had had the honor of a visit from one of the most painfully venomous creatures on the planet (3 days of insurmountable pain). Horribly, bullet ants are used in initiation rituals for the warriors of some tribes. 

By this point it was 2 pm, and Misael had neither eaten nor had any water. Meanwhile, I needed to extract a snack from my bag and was working my way through my waterbottles. I was also grumpy from swamp foot. My physical needs contrasted with his total unperturbed nature and made it apparent how truly tough those humans are who live in the rainforest, or who grew up in it. I was very pale and sensitive and I felt enormous respect for this incredible forest and the indigenous people who can make their lives in it. For instance, some tribes don't even wear clothes, because clothes get wet and then don't dry. It is wet all the time. Skin dries. 

I don't even know how long we hiked, but we wove up and down and around among huge trees, vines as big as my leg, epiphytes, mosses, leaves shaped with fingers and bigger than a card table. We arrived damply above it all at a lookout point (don't even think lean-to with a picnic table), which was a little cleared area big enough for two people to sit on the forest floor. Misael produced the most delicious tuna-onion-celery sandwiches I have EVER eaten EVER, and some organic yuca chips made by a local indigenous group. The view was through thick air, over treetops, undulating green hill masses, heavy mist weighty. We sat in companionable silence and swatted bugs and ate and gazed. I loved how much this man obviously loved this forest. (There is another man back home for me, who has a similar love for the northern woods, and it is beautiful to witness.) 

We visited caves where parrots nested, and we walked more, and I learned about leaves for stomach upset, for labor pains, trees to make canoes. It was incredible how his people utilize the plants for every single need they have, and with respect, without tearing down the forest, but only taking what they need. 

Then we emerged into a clearing and I sensed a road. We clamboured down out of that incomprehensible world and plunked down at another bridge. We waited for a bus to take us back to town. I ate an apple from the Andes while Misael picked at his un-booted feet. The sun came out. "Sol", he said simply, and we sat and sauna'd together in silence. After some time I was grateful for a bus to come busting past. 

And with that, my rainforest adventure was finished. I nearly fell asleep on the bus, muddy and stinky and damp and bug-bitten and wowwed beyond words. I felt so incredibly honored and grateful to have had this day.  

The clunky city bus arrived into town and I barely had enough turn-around time to catch a fancier bus for the wretched 4 hour ride back to Baños. I said a rushed and somehow also profound goodbye to Misael. What an amazing person, so much knowledge, so quietly caring of me, all while probably being rather surprised at all the Needs I had. 

What would have been deliciously attractive would have been a hot shower, a toilet, a nice drink, and an industrial washing machine. Instead, I squished myself into a groty bus terminal bathroom, still wearing what had become sopping shoes (I gave up on the boots after a while), then went charging to the bus terminal. The bus I wanted had just left. Why the one time I was 2 minutes late, the bus was actually leaving when it was supposed to? There was an enterprising man trying to sell me a ticket for a bus a full hour later, but I wanted to get to my destination with as little festering around as possible. Plus, from previous experience, I had gotten smart about enterprising competing companies, leaving times, and plasticity of drivers. So I went charging wetly across the parking lot and into the street and found the bus barely slowing to have a large package put underneath. I called out "Baños?" to the driver and he waved me on. I felt resourceful and pleased, and took a seat. Silently apologizing to everyone around me, I pulled off my wet footwear. I quarantined my muddy saturated shoes and my spongy socks with my damp pantalones in what was now a truly baneful bag. 

Soon the aisle became packed with others getting on as I had, and as the bus rolled back and forth all packed, black hair fell in my face and a pink backpack shuffled against my shoulder. A girl's sneeze landed on my arm. Then a man in a collared shirt pointed at my seat; he had bought a ticket and had this seat. So I joined the standers. I was able to bolster myself by placing my feet widely and resting my lower back against a squishy seat side. It wasn't bad actually, and everyone seemed used to being on top of each other. I perfected a move also, called the Squeeze-Past; someone would come up the aisle getting on or off and I would pull my backpack up over a seat back, avoiding the sitter therein, and flatten myself facing away from the oncoming human, which seemed nicer than sliding face-to-chest (yes I am that tall around here). This happened a lot and I rather perfected this move. Who knew what skills I would learn to intuit out in this world? 

Rainforest packed with tree species and bus packed with humans. What a day. 

View from the lookout place.

Almost unbelievable, heliconias grow as if someone had planted them intentionally here, but no they are just wild and here on their own.

This fantastical flower, the women of some tribes will wear it in their mouths like fun fake lips.

Gazing upward.

This tree will literally "walk" a couple meters across the forest because it puts out new roots and can shift places in this way.

Misael carrying that inner tube thru the boot-glugging rio.

Day 5: Bathing and More Bussing

At quarter to 7 in the morning, no tourists could be found, but the town was quietly bustling under the looming mountains with their gathered clouds. Uniformed school children were walking everywhere, a taxi driver helped an old woman load a bag of onions larger than she was into his trunk, a curly-haired white poodle followed a woman in a bright pink sweatshirt as she unlocked her shop. I padded to the market, where I bought chard, cilantro, avocados, a dragon fruit, tiny bananas, a lime, and inadvertently 2 mandarins. All this produce cost me $2.25 (yes, Ecuador uses the American dollar). When I went to the lady selling the small bananas, they were 10 cents. I had a quarter. I handed her my quarter and she looked at my forlornly. Too early in the morning to have change. Handing someone a five dollar bill in the middle of the day will garner the same dispirited look, and then they have to trot off to their neighbor, or the cash stash in their lorry parked nearby, to break your huge $5 bill. Mrs Banana's neighbors didn't have any change either. She tried to sell me a more expensive mango to fix the problem, but that would have only aggravated it because the next up I had was that humungous fiver. After some charades and negotiating, we settled on her giving me two mandarins and keeping the quarter and we were all happy. 

Back at the hostel kitchen I crafted guacamole for me and my traveling companions. I love making food here, all this delicious cheap produce, and I can wash it myself in safe water and feel better about the prognosis of eating raw veggies in a tropical country with all the maladies. 

Baños is called such not because of "bathroom" but because it has hot springs! (Baños is bath). The shirts in the tourists shops say "I 💜 Baños", which, if someone doesn't know towns in Ecuador will make the wearer appear to have a strong affinity for toilets. 

So off we trekked into the crook of the mountain to get some soaking time. The water was the color of broken pipe outflow and smiled vaguely of eggs. Bathers of all ages gathered, especially older locals it seemed, and one could dunk in a number of pools of different temperatures, including a chilly one to make the skin truly vibrate. It felt wonderful to rest in perfectly warm water and gaze up at big leaves, with my legs all rickety and wacked from so much walking upwards. After an hour of resting in the mineral pools, I was surprisingly not pruney, and I felt like a stewed chicken, that my flesh would just meltingly peel of my bones. 

 

One of the many baths in Baños.

 

After making ourselves all floppy and lala in the baths, it was time to move onwards out of Baños and closer to the rainforest. Unlike the states, where you'd be lucky to find two buses a day between large towns, and basically unable to bus between small towns, in Ecuador, buses move between towns all day every day. We wanted to Puyo, further down out of the mountains, and stopped by last night to the terminal so we could plan our day around the bus if needed. We found about 8 different companies, and they all had multiple trips to Puyo during the day. We didn't even buy tickets in advance, just showed up and found whichever company was leaving next. So I'm not flexing quads on the bicycle but I am becoming an expert on buses now I guess. 

All packed up and ready to bus! I used to play "towel on the end of a stick traveler" when I was a kid.

Onboard, the bus dieseled along, carving down the curvy hill-hugging road like a ship on the high seas. I dried my swim suit in the wind as empty plastic drink bottles rolled back and forth across the floor with the keeling of the bus. The roadside vegetation got progressively more crowded and stacked as we barreled down in elevation towards the oriente. I felt glad I wasn't a cyclist sharing this road with this bus. 

I was paying attention: there were palm trees and flowering things and even grassy weeds that weren't growing up in Baños. I don't know why, but I just relish seeing who lives where. Bigger leaves here I come!

Day 4: Volcanic views

Drying my shoes for more hiking, with townscape.

After the day of mist-ical mystical mountain moisture hiking, the next day cleared and the glorious sun graced us. Equatorial sun prompts sunscreen AND a hat AND a collared shirt. At least until I know what I'm up against. 

Companion Elise (for those who read my Thailand and Vietnam blog, this is our veteran and indefatigable "Lady Elise") and I ventured up the mountains opposite what I had clamboured around yesterday. Seeing the whole expanse of green wall and how high it was: so satisfying, "I was up THERE?"  The peak of the volcano Tungurahua was so perfectly pokey and triangular. We zig-zagged up 2000 some feet, through a completely different situation than yesterday. Simply because this mountain aspect faced south (and had been cleared for more farming and garden projects), the hike smelled deliciously like toast. Drier, crispier. Hot grasses, spikey agave, bamboo. Far fewer large leaves or epiphytes or ferns compared with that north-facing waterfall-woven mountainside. 

The views were worth the sun and the panting and the guard farm dogs coming out to bark at us. That volcano! If I got tired I could just look out la!! nothing mattered but I was looking at a volcano. The descent was much less steep than the ascent, along a road, and took so long I became bored and stoic about it. I started jogging down the mountain; what a sight I was for any locals, this huge pale gringa, carrying a long piece of bamboo (my new beloved walking stick), backpack jostling, hat flapping, trotting along like a horse. Miles later, getting back into town, it was beyond glorious to take off my sauna-shoes and have a locally-grown iced coffee with a "bolla" of icecream. I've said this before, but pleasures are magnified exponentially after some suffering and earning. 

Not a sign I see every day.

This is celery growing!

The town of Baños just coexits under this volcano.

Sunshine hiking! 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3: Climbing in a Cloud

Largest Leaf Award goes to! It looks like a huge calocasia (elephant ear) to me maybe. I just felt so much excitement and also peace to be among all these different leaves, green green green! 

 

The trail tunneled through bamboo, I had to duck to fit, and I was glad for my raincoat covering both me and my backpack because I was painted wet from the leaves.

And I came around a tight turn in the forest trail, all the epiphytes and hanging mosses and hello! here is a cow! The little farms and fields and forest were so tightly integrated, it was hard to know what I was next to, unless I heard reggaeton music or without fanfare encountered a bovine.

It was dense grey cloud the whole time, but I did not care because color could be found everywhere.

Half-shrouded mountain. I rested from the most inside that little guy for a while, contemplating the adventure and eating a banana.

Like Dr Seuss creatures, these epiphyte puffs are so delightful to me. Also there is a bromeliad in the background.

In odd contrast to the steep muddy scrabbly trail, there were sweet chairs posted variously throughout.

The little ones remind me of bleeding heart flowers.

One of my destinations was Casa del Arbol, a tree house in a park at a viewpoint, with a big swing. One could swing out over the edge and, allegedly, view the sweeping below. I furthered the fact I was in a cloud.

Once I climbed back down low enough however, I was out from inside the cloud and could see the town of Baños beneath.

Setting off in solitude, with my Wikiloc app (it helps you follow trails with a GPS, even offline and allowed me to go where otherwise I would have been impossibly lost), up into this volcanic mountainside, felt adventurous and good and I was so excited to be moving. Although it wasn't raining in town, up above it in these hills, it was like suspended rain, a thick mist of magic, so that as you walked your destinations appeared only as you approached them. By the end of the 5 hours of being out, my feet were so wet that with each step my shoes said, "slurp", "slurp". I acquired a bamboo walking stick for myself and loved it's lightness and how balanced it made me feel on the slidey parts. I climbed over 3000 feet of elevation gain and went just under 6 miles. I saw a black and white pudgy little hummingbird, heard frogs singing wetly, foraged some blackberries, said hi to the cows, and barely saw any humans. I watched shards of cloud soring upwards as if they were birds, I felt like I was in a dramatic chemistry experiment.

Day 2: I Love Leaves, Bus Day

 The noises of a new place are a soundscape when you wake into it. Enter the morning in the city of Guayaquil. The sound of small cars whooshing thru the residual layers of thick tropical rain in the street, squacky honks not out of aggression, just communication. A TV somewhere in the 9 floors of our building. 

I have that New Arrival Phenomenon, where everything is precious and exciting. Tiny bananas! A grocery store where I can't find what I need but don't care. The exotic plants! 

Today was Bus Day. We wanted to leave this big grungy damp city of Guayaquil (biggest city in country, had cheapest flights from US) and head up into the lush and quieter city of Baños. 

A seven hour ride or so. I sat on the bus, temperature-regulated and still, and watched endless fields of bananas as we left the coast. I thought about how humongous banana leaves are, how fast they grow, the intensity of sun and water and air moisture that makes those expansive leaves possible. I thought about all the times I'd passed by huge leaves on my bicycle, not still and not at all temperature regulated. I felt nostalgia for that method of travel. And, it is more comfortable to let a bus do all the work. 

Since I'm not out there myself in stifling heat, focusing on my own suffering and preservation, my mind wanders. Is banana production mechanized? I can't really see how it could be, the trees all close together and the clumps of bananas all individually cased in plastic bags (pest management I imagine). With temperatures pushing 100 some days and all that equatorial sun and the thickness of the air, to work amongst those banana trees, oi I can barely fathom the stoicism needed. And we buy these Dole bananas for barely anything in our grocery stores. Thank a banana farmer next time you make a smoothie.  

Also this thought: does not being on a bike devalue my experience in some way? Is it lower-grade to not be out there moving under my own power, more exposed, more all-consumed with the activity of movement? Then an unannounced rainstorm appeared and I didn't even have to worry about getting wet. 

Rice, bananas, cocoa, mangos, corn, taro. Oh holy goodness, the heliconia plants (in the same order as ginger) with their unfathomably elegant flowers, bright pink and orange, as solid as plastic, zig zag like rick-rack, and they're just growing in the ditches. 

Oh and the epiphytes! Plants that live on other plants. I love them so much, those tropical plants on tropical plants, like putting ice cream on top of cake just cements that this is a very special thing. Some types of epiphytes are shaped like winged bowls and water collects inside, and the plants don't need roots except to grasp onto their perch. 

Then the flats of bananas abutted the range of Andes, which is the spine of the country. The bus down-shifted and we began the ascent. Out the window it was apparent the only way to keep humans from removing the trees and making agriculture is to make the ground nearly vertical. I went from seeing domesticated organized leaves to watching a veritable wild theatre of untamed leaves. 

The mountains are just piles of green, lumpy curves and divits thick with leaves and canopies and trunks. From a distance they are like undulating green shag carpet. And even when it's nearly vertical there are still areas of short grass, grazed by some well-balancing cows. I love this landscape. So verdant and disregarding of humans.   

After enough elevation we were in the clouds. The bus windows condensed up with a grey shrouding screen and the outside world was a fuzzy blur. I had to learn that all the craning around and watching out the windows wouldn't help the driver keep us on the curving wet roads, and I had the opportunity to practice trust and to relax. The public transportation in this country is extensive and frequent and buses are going everywhere all the time. 

Then we exited the clouds and were in yet another world. Officially up in the Andes. Bright sun, so many small square fields of indigenous crops I couldn't even recognize, small square houses, the rising hills now tree-less but lush with grass, sheep and cows. Fields of Chenopodium album (common lambsquarters?). Is that amaranth growing? 

Now the people out the bus windows included folks of smaller stature, wearing intricately beaded waist bands and draped with red and black striped wool ponchos. Women had red cloth draped over their heads. If where we started this morning was ambiguous Latin-X city modern metropolis, we were now in National Geographic.  

And then: Chimborazo was framed and visible. This huge looming triangular form, text-book volcanic perfection. 

What was I feeling when I saw the volcano? It took me a moment to categorize and qualify: wonder. How often do I get to feel that! At first I could see the pyramidal volcanic shape of the thing, and then it became stuck with clouds, like a big piled sweater attracting lint.  

And with these beautiful views, eliciting reflection and contemplation and awe, all of that is tempered by the violence bang-bam explosion killing groaning movies that are shown on the bus. All receive the benefit of this disgusting entertainment whether we want to participate or not. We three roll our earplugs tight and jam them protectively into our ears while no one else seems in the slightest perturbed; the couple two seats ahead keeps kissing with great enjoyment and sweetness.

 

View from bus. Bananas for sale, with reading rest.

View from bus. Man in traffic sells drinks to Datsun.

 

Day 1: A Discourse on the Theory and Application of an Ecuadorian Experience

Abstract. 

Herein is described an experiential adventure which has commenced within the country of Ecuador. This work differs from previous projects of this author as a bicycle is not included in the methods. Instead, a novel means of travel will be studied, namely, the traversing of terrain by foot, and roads by auto-bus. Collaborators include two women-of-the-world travel friends, who have previously participated in adventures which included, but are not limited to: Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Southeast Asia. The goals of this work are to facilitate deeper cultural perspectives, broaden the understanding of the Andes, cultivate an experience of high altitude, deepen the appreciation of photosynthetic devices (e.g., leaves)--which are expected to be just dripping with rainforest lusciousness--and to richly move, feel, see, relish, and describe. To consume all my vacation days, whisk myself away from the claustrophobic endlessly-gray skies of the north, and have an adventure in the tropics.  

Introduction. 

(Why are you still reading this academic fluffer-nutter? Glad you're still here.) 

Ecuador comprises enormous diversity, demonstrated by the following which represent only a small fraction of the goodness: high-altitude cloud forests, the Amazon rainforest, the Andes mountain range, coastal humidity, an impressive oil industry, an enormous volume of banana production, countless indigenous groups still living in traditional ways as best they still can, blue-footed boobies, Spanish architecture, and grilled plantains stuffed with aged cheese. Did you know that the point farthest from the Earth's core is actually in Ecuador (not Mt Everest)? Mt Chimborazo due to the rotund bulge at the ecuator, actually bears this distinction. 

Materials and Methods. 

The duration of the trip will be 2 weeks and 2 days. The author and collaborators will travel by bus to some, all, or none of the following: Baños for hot springs, Puyo for rainforest, Quito for street art and lack of oxygen, and the Quilotoa Laguna for a multi-day trek. The author will apply utmost stoicism in the test of the hypothesis that going 2 weeks without a bicycle will be impossible. The designer of this study wishes her readers to know that travel without a bicycle is out of "the comfort zone". 

A properly-fitting hiking backpack was given to the author by a certain beloved wonderful man, which served as inspiration for this study, along with the inspiration from his ways to carry as little mass as possible in aforementioned backpack (i.e., simply "pack" as referred to in the primary literature). Thus I could be found cutting the handle off my razor, fitting 5 Tums in a doll's ziplock baggie, and choosing which SINGLE PAIR of shorts I would bring for the duration. Fitting my life support systems into a given space was like a puzzle, playful, resourceful. Mary Poppins' magical carpet bag. My most satisfying component was finding a $70-off sustainably-sourced down coat and mashing it into the space equivalent of a half sub sandwich. Upon freeing it from it's drawstring bag, the coat blooms into a wonder of warming floaty comfort. From what I've heard of the Andes at night, this half sub will initiate immense gratitude.  

Results. 

No preliminary data to report at this time. Please check in to learn the results of this study! 

Acknowledgements. 

Funding graciously provided in part by a flexible and rather seasonally unbalanced job in sustainable agriculture at Cornell. Inspiration and encouragement provided by a loving man in my life. Blessings granted from my family, and endless gratitude that my Mom is doing well. Every forthcoming tropical flower photo is in her honor. 

Appendix A. 

PS. What is amazing: I am tapping these words into a rectangular palm-top computer, using only two of my ten digits, at 32,995 feet, pummeling thru the atmosphere at 526 mph in an aluminum tube. I don't often enough stop to really digest how astonishing these activities are. Also, I just consumed 23 Cheese-its from a brightly colored package, and for those of you who know me and my eating preferences, that activity may seem equally as astonishing. 

P.P.S. Seven hours is a mighty long flight, a mighty long time for me to hold still, and a mighty flat butt has resulted. But to travel so far in this time is actually incomprehensible. I cannot ever truly grasp the distance my body has traveled through space to get here. 

From the Annals of Tracking Beautiful Things, Beautiful Thing for Day 1: 

From outside my airplane window, the glowing orb of full moon reflected on the broad shiny wing, as we parted our way thru wisps of clouds approaching landing. 

Flight, with moon, and sunset.