All you need is friends...

With Fernando at La Noche in Barranco, Lima

Apologies for the lack of apostrophes....I can not find it on this keyboard so am either writing more formally than I usually would or am ignoring possession. Maybe the Spanish and French are smarter, avoiding the need for apostrophes by showing possession by saying the thing of someone.

I just finished chatting with Paige on gmail now and had tears in my eyes saying it was so nice to see a friend after 2 months of meeting new people and not seeing anyone I really knew until now. Even though I mostly spoke Spanish with him, it was just so nice to be sitting next to someone that I have talked to before....

And so I never would have guessed that the best days of my trip so far, (it has been over 2 months now!) aside from about an hour total of fretful waiting (which has never been my strong point and is a little more anxiety provoking in Lima), would be in Lima, which I have heard such bad things about! But I think it has an undeservedly bad reputation (I know, not exactly a glowing recommendation). Yesterday I arrived in the bus station in Lima at around 7:15 and Fernando has sent a driver he knew to pick me up. When I got the the hostel I checked in to my room (and felt bad for the girl that was already there and trying to sleep!). All I wanted to do though was sleep too. I am not sure I really slept but it was nice to lie down for 3 hours and I chatted with the girl, who was from Australia and doing a tour with the company I did tours with in Asia. Then I called Fernando and arranged to meet him to go to lunch in central Lima. I waited for him outside and about 15 minutes after he said he would come, I saw him walking down the street in his Ford escuela sweatshirt. We went to a Chinese restaurant in the city to eat with his mom, his sister (my age) and a friend of his sister who is American who lives in Mexico City. It turned out this friend was about 70 and has lived in Mexico City for 50 years ( not what I pictured!). She joked she has lived there longer than most Mexicans. Other than the food, which I thought was really good but not that different from American Chinese food, it was exciting that I understood more than I would have expected of the conversation. After lunch we walked through Central Lima, which apparently Fernando visits about as much as I visit NYC (ie 4 times a year!). Ok so he goes a little more often than that, but not as much as I would have expected. There is a Chinatown much like the Chinatown in every other city with a Chinatown in the world, churches, and a big plaza surrounded by a cathedral and the Peru White House. There is a fountain in the plaza that is filled on one day with pisco rather than water, and all the locals come and fill their cups from the fountain. Overall since Lima was the capital of the Spanish empire in South America it didnt look that different from Santiago or Buenos Aires although the buildings in that plaza were attractive, as were the buildings with enclosed balconies that Fernando said have been restored in the past 10 years. Then Fernando, his sisters friend and I visited a convent that was much bigger than we expected and included tombs, and a beautiful, Harry Potter-esque library. The tour was maybe 45 minutes and the cloisters part of the convent was beautiful, with tiled walls like in Spain. The only good thing about my camera batteries being dead was that you couldnt take pictures inside anyway.

We then went to Miraflores, the wealthy inner suburb of Lima where Fernando lives and my hostel is. I didnt realize before visiting that Lima is on the coast, and the city is on cliffs above the ocean. It is often foggy in Lima so the sea appears grey and not enticing, but apparently people surf every day, even in the winter. The area we went to has a mall that is hidden from the street and is as Fernando called it " Little America" including a Tony Romas. Then Fernando and I went to one of his friends houses where even Fernando didnt know many people. He must have been tired of me because he brought me back to the hostel about 8 pm, but it worked out well because the girl from Australia was in the room, and we decided to walk around together (on Sunday nights the main streets of Miraflores are quite lively and unlike in Quito all the stores are open). We walked down to that mall, where we ate burgers from a place Fernando called fast food that was better than McDonalds, Bembos. I didnt like it but my friend did. Then we couldnt resist gelato even though it was much more expensive than in Ecuador, and we walked around the mall which had stores like Timberland and Hush Puppies...very American. There were also about 5 people dressed in cat costumes and we couldnt figure out whether they were just having fun shopping in face makeup and tails or whether it was to promote a store from which they were carrying a lot of shopping bags. Anyway the Australian girl and I got along very well and were also happy to get in bed around 10 pm. But it turned out that after 2 nights on a bus, sleeping lying down was overrated and between an uncomfortable bed and noise from the bar upstairs I didnt have a great sleep.

This morning I waited 45 minutes outside for the driver Fernando knew to pick me up to go to museums...finally he found the hostel and then we picked up his sisters friend. We went to two museums, one with pre incan things and another with a collection of Peruvian gold objects, mummies, and the worlds largest collection of firearms (????). The first museum was better than the second, which has explanations (signs) for maybe 1% of the collection. And I am a sign/explanation reader. After the museums I was starving any my first lunch of a cheese and bacon crepe didnt satisfy me so I had to get a falafel sandwich too. Then Fernando met we, we went to his dads and then to a friends. From there we went to another friends house who cooked dinner and then to a bar to hear live jazz. Fernandos friends were impressed that I had only been studying Spanish for 2 months and was understanding and speaking as much as I was...I wonder if I fake understanding better than others? At about 1:30 I returned to the hostel. Since my flight to Cuzco is at 6 am and I am leaving for the airport at 3:30 I had decided earlier that it wasnt worth sleeping tonight since I am going to get into bed when I arrive to the hostel tomorrow (the same brand of hostel I stayed in here, even if the beds arent as good as they could be it is a pretty social place and maybe I will end up with nice roommates, since I am not really the type to just go up to people in the bar and sit down with them). I am excited to get to Cuzco. Fernandos friends said it is really beautiful - it sounds like it is definitely the best place in Peru.

Hasta Cuzco...

Borders without actions

I wish I could say I woke up and I was in Peru, but that would be wrong because a) of course you have to pass through immigration in ecuador first and b) sleep on the bus....ha. I cant figure out how to get the question marks on this computer so will have to do without.

But passing through immigration in ecuador wasn´t so easy. Mind you there´s a bus company that runs every day 2 buses that leave about 10:30 / 11 pm arriving at the border around 2:30 or 3. And when we showed up at 2:45 AM, the "24 hour border" was pretty dead. So we all lined up and waited...for about 20 minutes, while the bus went ahead a little, the luggage compartments opened and a cursory glance inside made. Finally after 20 minutes a guy in army gear appeared. But nothing happened. Maybe 20 minutes more and he finally opened up the window the the immigration office and turned on the computer. Ecuador has a computerized entry/exit system...they put your passport in a machine to get the stamp with your date and place of arrival, kind of visa etc. But it was taking a while and nothing was happening. And another bus, although very empty, pulled up. Turns out nothing was happening because there was a computer problem. The guy kept rebooting the computer and it would get to the start screen with the same box appearing...then at one point an alarm went off and he left the office to see what had happened. Finally, about 4:45 we heard a phone ring. And then everything started working. BECAUSE ALL HE NEEDED WAS A PASSWORD! And apparently it took 2 hours to find someone who knew the password. And of course one of the few people you don´t ever want to mess with is an immigration officer because he can just not let you in if he doesnt want to...so no one said anything. Once the computer started working it was all very efficient and we all walked over the brigde, cleared in at PEru immigration and were off....at 5:45, 3 hours after arriving at hte border! Thankfully there was no bus I was trying to catch at a certain time or only one bus to my next destation so I wasn´t a nervouse new york wreck.

My trip from Cuenca to Loja, where I caught the bus to PEru, was quite pleasant because I traveled with 2 girls from school, one the one in the Michigan b school. 5 hours on a bus are much more pleasant when you have people to talk to! Especially when the road is windy. They were going for the weekend to a relaxing town Vilcabamba I might hit up on the way back to Quito.

I am coming to you live from Chiclayo, which was a 3 hour yery comfy bus ride from Piura, where my Ecuador - PEru bus terminated. Tonight I take a bus overnight to Lima. Yes 4 bus rides in 24 hours. But this one will be the nicest - its pretty much a plane on the road, stewardess, meals served etc.

More on my day in Chiclayo when I´m in Lima, where I´ll be content to do nothing but eat good food and practice Spanish with Fernando.

ps I´m pretty proud of this blog entry title, it took me a while.

The art of gifting

When you think of the perfect present for someone, it is very exciting to give it to them. When you don´t know what in the world to get, in my opinion, giving a gift is not too fun. I spent some time yesterday afternoon looking for a gift for my family. I really didn´t know what to get - there´s a famous ceramacist in Cuenca, but their house is much more traditional than his designs and his studio was a 4 km uphill walk from home. So I went in to the city, where there are many more clothing boutiques than gift shops. I thought about a crystal bowl from a jewelry store across the street from school but decided to explore some more. Finally I walked by a little store where a guy was working on wooder inlaid things, like boxes and trays. I don´t know how to decredibe it - the patterns, instead of being painted on, are really thin pieces of wood on wood. So he showed me what different things were and I said I needed to think about it and walked on. I walked myabe 15 minutes before I decided: what was I holding back on? I didn´t have any better ideas, I didn´t really care THAT much what the actual gift was, the prices were reasonable and I´d much rather buy from a local person than an anonymous store. So I went back and bought a box that holds a bottle of wine. I´ve never seen them drink wine but they have a whole bar at home and there´s 3 bottles of wine that have been sitting on a counter in the kitchen. So I headed back and bought the box. When I told him I was from NY he said something I didn´t understand - it turned out he was asking ¨Where the twin towers fell?" I think that is what people from Ecuador most associate with NY.

After buying my box I headed for an ice cream place near my house that the family had said was just as good as the one I really liked. But when I arrived I saw that the prices were more than double what I´d been paying. $1.30 for a copa junior? Junior sounds small to me, and on principle I just couldn´t spend that much (its all relative, remember?). But by that time my mouth was watering. The problem with desserts is once you start eating them, you body craves it every day. So I thought about buying a packaged popsicle but nothing cheap grabbed my attention. Finally I bought a sweet roll for 12 cents.

Then I got home and no one was home. I put my key in the front door, opened it...and the alarm went off. I called the mom on her cell and she gave me the code, and it went off. Then the phone rang and I answered it, which I never do of course. It was the alarm company wanting to know if everything was ok. Being flustered my Spanish was even worse than usual, and I´m sure that assured him I wasn´t an actual robber. I think the family felt worse about what happened than I did - it wasn´t really scary, I just wasnt sure what was going to happen once the alarm went off. They said it has happened 3 times before and the company knows they have foreigners staying with them. The son was the one who turned the alarm on. Apparently he´d been told not to, but forgot. So it was all fine in the end. At least the police didn´t roar up, sirens blazing (which I haven´t really seen here.

Day tripp´n

It was tempting to be lazy and just watch TV and try to study on Sunday, but instead I was intrepid, finally, and did a day trip. The school charged a lot of money to go to two towns known for their markets - one a real local´s market with mostly fruits and veggies, and the other a town known for its filigree jewelry. But I knew I could take a bus there and so wanted to give it a try. First I had to get to the bus station, which is 2 kms north of downtown, which is probably 2 kms north of my house. so for the first time since I´ve been in Cuenca, I took a city bus. About 1 minute after I hopped on, I thought my bad bus karma had struck again, as we appeared to be stuck at an intersection and all non-bus vehicles were turning around or going down a side street. But after a few minutes we were moving again. While one of my host brothers had said that it would take a long time, in 15 minutes I was at the bus terminal, which is about the same amount of time just driving directly in a taxi would have taken. The only thing interesting about the ride was when a guy got on with a chicken under his arm. Its the little things that remind me: I´m not in America anymore. He was a good chicken and the only time he squawked was when I was getting off the bus at the terminal.

As I passed by the bus exit, a bus going where I wanted to go was leaving, but I was too shy to try to just hop on. Then I regreted that decision when I was inside the terminal and the lady in the office of the company I needed to take didn´t want to sell me a ticket, she just said "go on ahead to the bus." But I didn´t know she said that, so didn´t go through (you have to pay 10 cents to leave the terminal) and went back to try to get a little more clafication. But none was forthcoming so I passed through and stood in front of the bus going to one of the towns I wanted to go to. Buses left for the town every 15 minutes so I didn´t lose too much time being confused. But unfortunately the bus was going to the town I was less interested in visiting (the market) and the other town was 5 kms away uphill. The bus ride took only about 55 minutes and cost 50 cents. I got to the town, headed to the market and spent approximately 2 minutes there. I hate markets anyway and this one didn´t have things for tourists (as the books mentioned). So I headed for the jewelry town. Both guide books I have said that the walk between the two towns was pretty, and I figured that with independent confirmation of that, I was safe. So I headed off, following the buses that go between the towns. It took about 5o minutes to walk the uphill route (I didn´t see anyone else walking). In the second town there wasn´t really a market, just stores, but whenever there´s a lot of jewelry and its all the same, I´m not very interested. Plus I had visions of $6 earrings and that wasn´t the case. So after about an hour and a half I hopped on a bus back to Cuenca. Once there I decided to walk back to the center of town to go by a church I´d been meaning to visit. I was lucky that it was sunny and the walk to town wasn´t far at all. And that´s when I tried the ice cream place. Heaven! Pistacio is one of my favorite flavors that isn´t chocolate based. I sat on a bench in the central square to eat my cone/bowl. Then I wandered home. I was on the last few blocks before home when it started to sprinkle very lightly. About 3 minutes after I entered the house, it started pouring. Great timing! I was proud of myself for finally being more adventurous and seeing some of the surrounding area. I like the landscape more than I did Guatemala´s but I can´t say I´m blown away with what I´ve seen so far. Maybe the parts of the sierra (the Andes) closer to Quito are more impressive.

Another student at the school this week just finished her first year at the b-school at Michigan. Crazy. I leave Friday for a town 5 hours south from which I can take a bus to Peru. I hopefully will be arriving on Sunday morning in Lima, and I leave Tuesday morning for Cuzco and Machu Picchu!

Cuenca pictures

Uploading pictures is painfully slow...I´m not sure I have the patience to upload anymore.

Here´s a pic of some other students and I - 3 girls from Ireland and LuAnne from California, who came with me to the Galapagos:

http://img3.travelblog.org/Photos/34801/153552/f/1108272-Las-Chicas-2.jpg

No soap...radio!

Who knows this joke? It goes like this ¨There´s two elephants sitting in a tub. One says to the other "Pass the soap." The other says "No soap...radio!"

Get it?

Of course not, because it doesn´t make any sense, and it isn´t funny. It´s a "follower joke." In a group of people, you need at least 2 people who know the joke...one tells it, and the other one laughs. Then you see whether the people who don´t know the joke feel social pressure to pretend they know the joke by laughing too, even though they don´t get it. Well, that is how I often feel at the parties I go to with my family. The difference is that a) whatever story is being told is funny and b) I don´t laugh because I don´t think I could fake it well enough, and if anyone said anything to me about the story I wouldn´t have anything to say back.

So the worst time was at a dinner for the first birthday. I went in to the kitchen and sat at a table with about 10 people sitting at the table or standing around it, including my host mother. There was a woman there I´d never seen before and she was very animatedly telling a story. Apparently she was also hilarious, because everyone else was cracking up...and I was just sitting there. Then someone asked my host mom if I spoke Spanish, and the mom replied "un poco." (a little). And then the lady launched into a story about someone not speaking English well but she wasn´t telling it to me, it was to everyone else and apparently it was a funny story too, and everyone else laughed. Then an uncle came up to me, and said "I am brother Michael." Everyone else laughed uproriously. I had no idea what was funny - what is funny about being someone´s brother and having the name Michael? Turns out that he was trying to say he was "Brother Michael" like he is a (sleezy) priest, his name is Pablo and he was pretty drunk. Then he told me "This my wife," pointing to the first very funny story teller. "She speak English." But she made no attempt to speak to me. The only attempt to include me was a discussion of how old I was, with my mother asking people to guess. Apparently to Ecuadorians, I look like I´m 15. Maybe 18. How can that be????

One of the uncles, who has been the one driving us up to the city just north of Cuenca, has been better at trying to include me. He has a very cute granddaughter, Sophie, but I´m not sure I approve of the family´s child rearing habits. She´s 2 1/2 and is still running around at parties at midnight, I´ve seen the grandparents driving with her on their lap in the front seat, and at the most recent party, she was allowed to continually go up to the cake, wipe off a bit of icing with her finger and lick it clean. The grandfather was the one who showed her how to do that. But at the early party, the only joke I really understood was when she had a brush and walked around with it, and people would lean over to let her brush their hair. Then a guy who is bald said "Sophie, brush my hair!¨He leaned forward - and she stopped dead in her tracks.

So its just getting tiring not really knowing what is going on. I didn´t know until I heard people downstairs that the Saturday night party was at my house. I´m also ready to leave Cuenca...I feel like I´ve gotten all from it and the family that I can. Although I do also feel when I come back after a day trip away, or the Galapagos, like "oh, I´m home."

More on yesterday´s pretty non-evenful day trip. The most exciting aspect was trying ice cream at a place I´ve been wanting to try but have never visited. 70 cents for a bowl made out of waffle cone with two big scoops (pistachio and naranjilla, my favorite local fruit - Lonely Planet describes it as "bitter orange" but that isn´t exactly correct. It was soooo good. I am going back for more now. I´m glad I didn´t try the place 4 weeks ago, I´d engorda mucha (that´s probably not at all correct Spanish)!

It´s a small world after all

So I´d been excited to see Fernando next week just to see someone I know (since its been almost 2 months) but it turns out I don´t have to wait until next week since someone from Michigan (Josh the token third year) is studying here for the week with his girlfriend. Who is going to be studying at Columbia next year. And they´ll be living up by campus too. Its all very exciting, since I have this idea of creating a life of friends outside the law school just in case those rumors about CLS students being competitive are true... When I was in the Galapagos, I was fairly certain that there was someone on one of the islands somewhere that I knew. But I never expected to run into someone at my school.

Apparently I´ve already forgotten the password I entered for my Columbia email address. Oops.

Four fiestas and a wedding

So I finally have a little time to write about some of the things I´ve done with the family that have made staying with them infintely better than my homestays in Guatemala. The first was a wedding, which wasn´t all that different from a US wedding. The service was a Catholic mass of course. I think it lasted about an hour, which is actually shorter than I had expected. At one point in about the middle we all clapped, at another point (not the end) everyone shook hands, and some people took communion, but other than that I don´t really know what happened. There was no "you may now kiss the bride" moment though. There were TONS of ring bearers and flower girls, but no visible best man/maid of honor or bridesmaids/groomsmen. The aisle at the church didn´t seem very wide and had wrought iron pedestals with lit candles on top (read: not study) and there was mumbling amongst my family about whether the bride, her father and her dress would fit down the aisle. I was doubtful and was staking out the nearest exit in case of a fire. There was also a woman working as "The Wedding Planner" who was maybe 400 pounds - not something you see every day in Ecuador. My host mother whispered to me "que impressionante, la gorda" which translated to English means something like "what do you think of the fatty?" Which I don´t think most people would say at home. But apparently here gordo/gorda isn´t really an insult - I heard my favorite cousin call her husnad "gordo." But as one teacher explained it is different to call someone you know that as a nickname as it is to use it about someone you don´t know.

Once the wedding was over we went to the party at the bride´s house. Before the meal there was a chocolate fountain with fruit, little chocolates, and cold cuts. A slightly odd combo of appetizers. And my mother and I were a little too slow getting up to get them and the tables were practically cleared out by the time we got there. There were 300 people at the wedding, and about 90% were family - I can´t imagine a family that big. They served us a lunch that wasn´t enough for me, and I almost asked the caterers for another piece of whatever the meat with stuffing was, but held back. It took a while for the dancing to start but once it did everyone danced - young and old, cousins with cousins etc.

There was one terrifying moment at the wedding where all the single people had to go on stage. Of the 300 people there only about 11 girls and 8 guys were up there! We had to stand in a row while the bride and groom offered up a garter. Then they picked a number between 1 and 20 and the lucky girl who guessed the right number had the garter slid up her leg by one of the guys who chose a number between 1 and 10. And it wasn´t just one garter. Or two, or three...he just kept pulling them out of his pocket. And then the groom took a garter off the bridge - one for each leg. I was terrified of being one of the ones who got the right number so I kept guessing low and finally it was over. While up there, I asked the girl next to me if the final garter was in fact the last one, and clearly in that one word I didn´t sound like Spanish was my native language, and she came over to me later with a glass of whisky to chat - she had spent some time in Arizona - and bring me to dance. In the end I left with my host parents about 7:30.

And the birthday parties. Apparently in Ecuador it is a tradition to surprise the person at midnight on their birthday. Now, if it is a tradition it doesn´t sound to me like it can be much of a surprise. But one night I headed out with my host mother, her brother and sister and Alzheimer-affected mother, who I barely understand but rivals me in her passion for eating - to a town 1/2 hour away, at around 10 pm. There we went to one house that had about 30 people and waited there until 11:15. Then we drove to another house and stood around outside in the cold for 2o minutes (not my favority part) while a singer and piano player set up speakers outside the house. People were walking around talking, laughing and sometimes shushing each other. Then around 11:40 music started blaring (the neighbors must have loved that) and the singer sang a song. Slowly we all filed in. The birthday girl was turning 40, and she, her parents and kids were all in their pyjamas. The singer then set up inside and sang more songs and every so often yelled "Que viva la compleanas!" and the rest would all clap and then yell "Que viva sus tios!" "Que viva sus primos!" The birthday girl and her father even got up to initiate some dancing (I give a lot of credit to a 60+ man who dances in his robe at midnight). So then everyone had to get up and dance. Some of the ladies decided to turn back up dancer to the singer and were dancing supremes-style in back of her. At one point someone passed around a bown of what looked to me like Rice Krispie treats but tasted like fried pork rind dipped in fish oil. Needless to say I didn´t have seconds but everyone else was eating them up. There was also canelezo, a hot drink of lemon, cinnamon (LBH I can picture you gagging right now) and a local alcohol , a sort of rum that costs about $2 for 750 ml called Zhumir. At around 1 am everyone left. That was Wednesday. Friday we went back to the house for dinner and cake, and there were more people there.

The next week there was another birthday like that, for one of the uncles who is very nice to me even though I clearly understand nada (ok that isn´t true but when everyone is talking to each other its 99% true). While my mother told me about it at dinner, I didn´t understand, and was in my room watching TV in my pjs when I heard a ton of noise from the street around 10 pm. And I was sitting there thinking "don´t people want to sleep?" And then there was lots of noise from downstairs, and my mother came up and said to come downstairs. So I go down in my pj pants and theres about 20 people in the house. We all left around 11:30 and didn´t go very far to the birthday man´s house, where he was clearly expecting people because everyone was awake and there were chips out. And then the next night we returned for a dinner...which was just a sort of canneloni. Not even cake! I went to bed a little hungry that night.

Tonight is a graduation from university of one of the nieces, who studies pyschology. If I understand my host mother correctly, she has a heart condition and could drop dead at any moment. So it will be something to celebrate.

Miss everyone like crazy!

Cuenca, the cultural capital of Ecuador

I was so cultural (cultured? I´m losing my English abilities a little, hopefully they´ll be easily recovered when I turn home) yesterday. Not only did I go to the modern art musuem, but also an art expo. Because this year is the 450 anniversary of Cuenca´s founding, there is all kind of art and expositions around the city, including paintings on random corners. I walk by the entrance to this expo every day but never go in. It had art from international artists, some that I didn´t get at all. My favorite was photos and drawings of a sheep who was sheared, and then they used the wool to make a sweater just for him. It was dyed bright pink. There was a video of him in a meadow, nibbling clovers, wearing the sweater. There was also a video talking with Ecuadorians in Paris, and although I only watched for a few minutes, I sort of understood them. I might go back to watch the whole thing another time.

Last night I watched Las Vegas and 30 Rock with only the Spanish subtitles and understood almost everything. And then I watched a show in Spanish on fancy homes in Guatemala. There were a lot from Antigua, where I spent the first 2 weeks of my trip, and I always get a kick out of seeing on TV places that I´ve been in person. And I understood a lot of what the commentator said. Maybe I´m ready to be watching TV in Spanish instead of in English reading the Spanish subtitles, but all the American shows are in English and I prefer watching them to Mexican soap operas..maybe I just need to get over that. There are a few stations with US movies that are dubbed over...oh, how I love cable TV.

More Galapagos

I keep trying to load more pictures but it isn´t working. More importantly, if anyone thinks they might want to come to South America this summer, let me know soon and maybe we can do some traveling together. There´s some pretty cool stuff here....Lots in the southern part of Peru to the Bolivia border (including Machu Picchu) and then many things close to Quito, which I´ll be visiting in the last week or two of July. If I last that long.

So I´d always thought from pictures that the Galapagos were rather ugly. They certainly arent lush tropical paradises - no palm trees, no green hills (there are volcanos though).´But being there there were much more beautiful than in the pictures. One island especially was covered with bery short shrubs of a bright red cover. On that island were also many iguanas, who let you get incredibly close (the hallmark of the Galapagos). Our guide told us they are vegetarians, but then we came across one that was eating the carcass of a baby sea lion. Maybe we were the first people in history to witness a carnivorous land iguana? That island is also where bachelor sea lions go to die (we saw evidence of a big one that had reached that day) and a petrified land iguana that was straight out of Jurassic Park, mouth open with teeth bared and everything (only he was about 12 inches long, not 30 feet).

As for things we saw. Tons of birds and their funny mating ritual dances. We saw one for the waved albatross that involved a lot of hitting the beaks together and ducking up and down. One a female has picked a mate it seems his next task is to collect sticks to build a nest with. Then there´s another kind of bird, the frigate, that doesn´t catch his own fish or find his own sticks - he simply steals it from other (smaller) birds as they are flying around! We were lucky to see right on the path an unusually colored red-footed booby - most of them are brown, only 5% are white and we saw one at the very beginning. some of you might not think that is very interesting, and trust me that I didn´t think much of birds before I went to the Galapagos, but when you get there and they´re so close and sometimes so funny, you get to like them.

We saw land tortoises in both the Charles Darwin Research Station and in the wild. They are really big and have two defense mechanisms. One of course is retreating into their shell. The other is once they have done that, to make a hissing sound. It isn´t at all menacing but maybe it would be to a non-human predator. Although I think once they´ve reached 4 years old they don´t have predators. We saw sea turtles in the water, calmly swimming around and munching leaves under water. I thought one was going to press his face into my mask. I didn´t think the sea lions that swam with us were quite as friendly and curious as the guidebooks say they will be. But there´s 100,000 visitors to the islands each year, maybe the sea lions have gotten over their curiousity.

The hammerheads were great even though the water visibility wasn´t that great, meaning you could see more their very distincitive shape than any details, like the eyes (unlike some underwater pictures I´ve seen, where there´s 50 hammerheads floating in crystal clear water. Which might be a little scary). One of the people on the trip had a digital camera that could go underwater and he got a great pic of one. There were maybe 6-8 hammerheads but they kept their distance - I think they were scared of us. Our guide told us there is a lot of illegal shark fishing, and just a few weeks ago they caught a boat with tons of sharks. But I´m not sure that can explain them being shy - how quickly does that kind of behavior manifest itself? Because the water was cold, a lot of the group had already gotten back in the dingy, but from up above they were able to see where the sharks were (the water was maybe 20 feet deep) and so they would point them out and we´d frantically swim over to where they were pointing...or say "they´re over here too!" It was very exciting. Earlier in that snorkel some of us had seen a school of about 30 rays (not sure what kind). So the freezing was worth it to see some tiburons! On the dingy ride back to the big boat, we were all shivering, but I think it was half from being cold and half from adrenaline at seeing maneaters. Hammerheads can be dangerous but usually aren´t, and I read that since there is enough food in the Galapagos, they rarely attack humans (I think you are statistically more likely to be bitten by a male sea lion protecting his harem - sometimes 25 females!). The poor male sea lions. Once they gather up their posse, they spend the rest of their time gruarding them. While the women and children laze around on the beach or go surfing (really) the male swims up and down the streach of beach where his women live, making sure no other man comes over to steal them away. He also does a lot of barking. The sea lions made lots of noises actually, of varying sounds, and like humans they cough and sneeze and sometimes have snotty noses (I backed away from that one).

Other mammals we saw were common dolphins. One afternoon when we were motoring between islands, one of the crew came to the back where some of us were reading to say "dolphins!" We all rushed to the front and didnt see anything at first...and then they appeared. Far, though. Maybe 200 meters (I´m terrible at estimating distance). They were all heading perpendicular to our path, so we sort of crossed them. There were maybe 100 (I´m also terrible at estimating numbers of people in a crowd and that sort of thing). Some of them were jumping up in the air for no apparent reason. It was kind of a "woo hoo, I can fly!" kind of leap. So beautiful. And I enjoyed seeing common dolphins even though I worked with bottlenose dolphins - it is always good to see something new. I was kind of surprised they didn´t have an interest in the boat´s wake like bottlenose dolphins in the Caribbean do, but I guess every dolphin is different.

So I didn´t want to spend all afternoon at the computer yet that is what I´ve done. At least I got 15 minutes of culture in when I went to the museum of modern art. Like all modern art musuems, it had the requisite video installation with naked people (can you tell I don´t really "get" modern art?). Now that I know when I´m leaving Cuenca (I think) I can get down to visiting tourist sites...one a day should be fine.

more pics

I would like to put more up, but they´re on a computer someone else is using. I´m also going crazy deciding what I´m going to do next...go to Lima to see Fernando, then to Bolivia, or move up north in Ecuador and forget about Lima (which as someone told me "is a hole" - don´t tell Fernando I said that!). I guess the problem with Bolivia is that it is so far from here and my return ticket is from Ecuador...its sort of that I made a deal with myself that I would be in Ecuador. So I´m looking in to volunteer opportunities in Ecuador but most of them are ecotourism/conservation related. And so for a few minutes it sounds coolk - live with an indiginous tribe in the Amazon - and then I read about needing to bring a sleeping bag and bug repellent and a torch and I realize that I am just not a fan of large amounts of time roughing it. And I´ve been to the jungle and it isn´t quite as exotic as it sounds. You hardly ever see cats (which is what everyone wants to see), its humid, there are lots of mosquitos and lots of rain. So then I drop the whole jungle idea and then think of the 60 bus hours it will take to get to Bolivia (plus back) and then the jungle doesn´t sound so bad. Well, the jungle still sounds bad, but Quito sounds a little more appealing. As it is, all I do every day is go to class in the morning, return home for lunch, watch TV and use the internet. And I might as well be doing it in Quito. Since I´m too lazy to go out at night (having no friends helps) the increased danger in Quito feels like less of a factor.

In any case that is all boring for anyone reading this. And things change hourly...sometimes I think that there´s nowhere else I´d rather be than in South America studying Spanish. And at this moment, because I was just looking at photos on Facebook of graduation, I just want this whole experience to be over and to be starting law school already.

I will try to think of more things to say about the Galapagos soon. Of course there was something interesting I remembered when I was at home. But that was a 25 minute walk from here.

The end of the earth

That is kind of what if feels like being in the Galapagos knowing you are 1100 kilometers from a continent. Anyway, I´m back from one of the more enjoyable weeks of my life. The biggest stress was whether I had enough sunscreen on not to get burned. Also, the fact that the water was cold, meaning that while I normally love snorkeling, every time it was on the schedule, I sort of dreaded it, yet I didn´t want to not go, because I was in the Galapagos (!). And I did get my wish from the last blog entry - we saw hammerhead sharks! And other sharks. And sea lions, and sea turtles, and penguins. I snorkeled with all of the above. Plus some eels and an octopus, and of course many fish. On land the amazing thing about the Galapagos is: if it lives there, you see it. We saw every animal that our guide mentioned. Unlike other places, as the South Africa people for instance know, where there´s animals out there but you´re very lucky if you see a lot of them.

Unlike my Africa safari group, I loved the people on the boat. Most were around late 20s/early 30s, and they were all just so nice and excited to be in the Galapagos and it was wonderful to have them there. One of them, from Spain, is a photographer by profession and took 5000 pictures in his 3 weeks in Ecuador. I look forward to seeing his pictures...in 2 or 3 months, since he says he spends 45 minutes on each on the computer.

I was worried for a few days before the trip that the girl from school who went with me wouldn´t like it, andI´d been the reason she had gone. After about 20 minutes of being in the Galapagos I realized that only a Philistine wouldn´t enjoy being there, so I forgot about that concern. I felt not so hot on one part of the boat ride, but only for about an hour and a half - for the most part we moved at night, and I enjoyed the rocking of the ship.

I´ll try to post more pictures but the internet is slow...

Feeling hot hot hot

Took the bus today from Cuenca to Guayaquil. It is supposed to be a 3 1/2 trip on the route we took, which cuts through a naitonal park. But when your bus breaks down and you have to wait for another one to ocme along, it takes longer than that. It is also supposed to cost 5 dollars, but when we got on the second bus from the first one, the ticket collector didn´t give us our ticket back and the second guy made us pay again. The best thing about the trip were the guys sitting in the row in front of us who tried to convince the ticket guy not to charge us again (I understood "The chicas didn´t know" about getting our ticket back. The worst part was either the bus breaking down, having to pay twice, or going to the bathroom after 2 guys had gone in. There is a reason the bathroom door had a sign "women only." The guys were in there on a particularly winding part of the trip...enough said. It was also amusing when I asked for my bag after seeing that there was no toilet paper. The ticket collector, who also seved to hold the door closed while someone was in the bathroom, asked me if I was going to urinate...the toilet didn´t have a flush, just a drain.

Once we got out of the mountain pass the weather changed dramatically to steamy hot, with banana trees on the side of the road. It this is what it is like in early winter I wouldn´t want to be here in the summer! When we finally got to Guayquil, it was fast to get in to town, find a hotel and head out to explore the riverfront and Las Penas, a revitalized, Disney like fishing village with 444 steps (they are numbered, we didn´t count) to the top of a hill with a lighthouse and a view of the city. We only explored two parts but they were both lovely and I think Guayaquil gets a bad rap. But it is also obvious they put lots of money into making the riverfront (2 1/2 miles long) really nice, and they have tons of police there and in Las Penas. I dont think the rest of the city is like that.

Tomorrow, Galapagos! I don´t think it has really sunk in yet. I just want to see hammerhead sharks while snorkeling!

Complications

Those things I said about Ecuador being too easy to live in? I take it back, because booking this Galapagos trip has been a nightmare! Sort of a comedy of errors, although I have faith it will all work out in the end. I´m sure some of the problems have to do with me being from New York, and taking it literally when someone says they will send me the info "today" - silly me thinks today means today, but I guess in other places it doesn´t. And then "two hours from now" - same thing. And "the lady from the boat will send you the information right away." Nope, nothing. When I finally got the voucher for the boat from the travel agency....it had the name of another boat. What really worried me was that the names are very similar, and maybe they´d booked me for the wrong boat! But it turns out the voucher was wrong, not the boat (I hope...I now do have a voucher with the name of the boat I want, and hopefully that is the boat I am booked on).

And then to purchase the airplane tickets...which I couldn´t do until they sent me the info they said they´d send yesterday and didn´t until this afternoon. Finally I got the info and they said the reservation expired at 16:00. And it was 15:58. Literally. Turns out that was wrong and it expires tomorrow at noon, but I didn´t know where the other girl was so I left her a note at her hotel. Then I went to a travel agency to purchase the ticket and the very nice lady there called the airline, who told her it was $55 more than I thought it would be. "The fare went up yesterday" said the airline. Awesome. I thought the reservation had been made yesterday, and wasn´t excited that the day it happened to go up was the day after the reservation was supposed to be made. I guess my unhappy face was enough for the lady to call the more local airline office, where they gave her the lower, promotional price. But i was able to get a slightly lower one with my ISIC card, so walked to the other side of town to the actual airline office, where you´d think they had never booked a ticket to the Galapagos before, because she was using the scrap of paper with the ISIC price the travel agency lady wrote down as the fare..too bad she didn´t write down $100! And then she had to run the credit card through three times before it worked. I´m at least proud of myself that I talked to the travel agency and airline person in Spanish, including my passport number!

Tomorrow last day of classes for a whole week...to quote a favorite blog commentor of mine, woooooo hoooo! And then to the Galapagos. Here´s hoping the trip goes more smoothly than the booking process. I actually learned a phrase similar to "God willing" today but I think I forget what it is...something like "ojala." That may be it actually. Apparently it its origins are Arabic.

Breathe!

Those sleepless nights were all worth it, I guess, since everything is going to work out in the end - I´m heading to the Galapagos next week! I guess some people would look at those sleepless nights as a waste since it all worked out in the end, but there´s nothing I can do about them now and it makes having something set (or sorted as my Antipodean or British friends would say) sweeter. And I am definitely needing a break from classes. Six weeks of Spanish in a row is a lot and I was about thisclose this morning to hating every Spanish speaker for already knowing, and speaking, a language that has many things that are a pain to memorize. Of course it isn´t their fault but I feel like I need to take it out on someone, and the inventor of the Spanish language isn´t around. And I´ve also been spending way too much time on the internet trying to find a trip to the Galapagos rather than updating my blog or exploring the city. At this moment I don´t really know what to do with myself! And there´s still decisions to be made about staying here or going to Bolivia etc...Don´t misunderstand, Bolivia is not close by. I´d say by bus from Cuenca it is about 64 hours from here of driving time alone. But that´s still closer than it is from NYC.

I´m going on the boat I wanted, an 8 day trip including a visit to an island where there´s a chance to snorkel with hammerhead sharks! For some of you that might be a terrifying prospect, but for scuba divers, seeing a shark is like finding the holy grail (I think. I don´t really know what the holy grail is - my knowledge is limited to what they say in The DaVinci Code, and I´ve never seen any Monty Python). Also, I´m going with another student at the school. She is from California and has been here for 5 weeks. So it is even nicer to be going with someone I know rather than sharing with a stranger, which I wouldn´t have minded either. But after 6 weeks of sort of being on my own it is a nice thought to be taking the bus to Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador, the commercial center, the Johannesberg or Frankfurt of Ecuador) with someone rather than doing it on my own. I think I want to come back to Cuenca afterwards, although there´ll hardly be any students here. There´s a university graduation in the family that week and I think I should only do a week off, since I´m not expecting I´ll actually do much studying next week. While it sounds like Guayaquil gets a bad rap, it has two interesting sites, the Malecon (a rejuvinated riverfront) and an area of restored houses called Las Penas. The waterfront might be like the Durban waterfront (I´m not going to be surprised if every local we meet warns us to keep out of anywhere besides the waterfront, unless that kind of paranoia is unique to South Africa).

And then the Galapagos, and I don´t even know what to expect there, except that I think it is the pefect time to be going - the end of the rainy, warm season (I´m looking forward to some warmth, since in Cuenca I only get it for about 25 minutes a day, when I walk home after classes). I´ll need to clear off my memory card before I go, but again it is nice that I´m going with someone I know - they might be the first pictures I have of this trip that I´m actually in!

And I have all kinds of updating to do on events here. Soon, now that I don´t have to look for Galapagos trips all afternoon.