The mysterious origins of the gripe pill

Hola again! Here I am back in Quito after an amazing time at the beach, where the ground literally moved. First of all I must say thanks to all those who post comments on the blog. I do read them but rarely respond as I am not sure those who posted check back to see if there is a response. So anyway....if you respond and want a response, please say so and I will send a comment your way!

I am heading back to Chugchilan tomorrow in anticipation of a nice turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, so that is very exciting! Of course I have just found out that I have a task of trying to find some cranberries here, but alas have found out too late and think the likely stores to have it will be closed by the time I get there.......drat.

Anyway, the beach was great although I was really too lazy to take many pictures, so have about 3 and will add them next time. I did get to encounter the earthquake though, and as it has been many years since I felt one, it was like a new experience all over again! The ground literally shook right after I sunk the eight ball at pool (actually on purpose this time!) and everyone went running for the doorway. No major damage, although the bar did lose it´s sign that was swinging outside.

I must say before we move on, that you always find these great little towns and think you could really settle in for a while and take it easy. Unfortunatley, inevitably some local guy takes a shine to me and then starts to stalk me and finally I have to leave town. So sad and this little beach town was no exception....sigh. Oh well.

But let´s get back to the real topic at hand: yes, the gripe pill. Gripe (pronounced gree-pay) is a standard latin american term for everything ill it seems. From a cold, to the flu, to menstral cramps to hemmoroids. The real issue is of course the pill since it treats everything! These pills of dubious origin usually come in a packet that the pharmacist or your good buddy gives you and are never labelled, so it is really unclear how many to take or what they should actually do for you. Which I think is nothing anyway, so guess that where it comes from is no muy importante. Just another latin american ism to ponder on those 7 hour bus rides!

"He was so cute....and delicious!"

OK, before you all freak out, the cuys on the left are not the one on the right! The quote is actually referring to a pic of one of the former sheep at the BSI that I was viewing. Haha.

In all seriousness though, here I am in Quito catching up on some interneting as ours has been out at work for the last couple of weeks. I have to say I was so excited to get here and have an empanada yesterday. Unfortunatley, it had to be one of the most disgusting things I have eaten in a long time. It was supposed to be filled with carne, but had what had to be dog food in it. Fortunately I am not in the habit of eating dog food and so cannot attest to the vailidy of that statement, but it was nasty. And empanadanas are made from flour people, not corn! So disappointing......but thankfully the McDonald{s burger I had today was not!

The day started with a 4 AM bus towards Latacunga, and the discovery in the dark that with all the rain we have had, the road has disappeared down into the canyon. This part of Ecuador is so high in altitude, nothing is growing and it looks a bit like you are on the moon. So in the pitch black, they announce we all have to get off the bus. The driver attempts for about a half hour to see if he can get the bus over enough of the sand road that is left for us to continue on. He is missing about 6 inches of road space, and so finally decides it is not happening. Of course there is nowhere to turn around, so we all trudge after the bus for about a mile while he backs up to a point where he can finally turn it around. We get back on and head the way we have come. We are about an hour and a half from Chugchilan, and I think we have to go all the way back and then around through Sigchos and am not convinced I shouldn{t get off and just go back to bed when we get there. But apparently he has other choices, as we finally pull into Zumbahuaa about 2 hours later. So I get here to Quito a couple of hours late, but it is all good. Well, until the disappointing empanada, but we won{t revisit that.

I am off to the beach for a few days of relaxing and eating fish and getting warmed up as it is damn cold in the Andes. I have been at the BSI for about 5 weeks now and am having a grand time--except for the internet being out. And the phone line has been out more often than not as well, so I am really quite out of touch. But that is actually OK as it makes getting a chance to send some email a bit of a novel experience again!

For a vegetarian place, I admit I am getting to have a bit of meat once in a while. We had a party with the local staff to celebrate the day of the dead, so I got to have some rabbit, which I don{t think I have had before, as well as finally getting to try the guinea pig, the Ecuadorian delicacy we would never think to have in the states. Unless your pet died, I guess. It was rather tasty albiet a bit bony. The dogs love to munch on cuy bones though. :) The cat is disinterested, as she prefers her cuys to be alive when she starts on them. Word on the street is that one of the new babies has apparently been a victim to the cat{s desire for live cuy, but thankfully I was not a witness to this event.

In the past few weeks I have done a bunch of hikes near the inn and gotten lost, as well as finally tackling the big hike from Laguna Quilotoa back to Chugchilan. The laguna is a crater lake about 7 or 8 miles away from the inn, where you take a pickup truck with all of us squished in the back about an hour from the inn and then do the hike back. Included in this episode are a couple of pictures from that day.

I have met some great people during my time at the inn, as well as a bunch of weirdos you only seem to get to meet when working in the hospitality industry. Every day there is something new to laugh at, and I am also getting to learn alot about how to function in a different culture. Very much like the states, there are a bunch of people in the community that want to get things done (Andres is working with the local community to get a new water system in place) but don{t want to actually do anything but talk about how differently everything should be done. And no one wants to take direction from anyone else. So some things are universal!

So here are some of the photos, but coming in our next installment will hopefully be the answer to the burning question--what exactly is in a gripe pill?

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/BSI%20Dos/

Ba Ba Black Sheep!

Hi again my loyal subjects--

So here I am in Chugchilan Ecuador and the BSI. I am writing you whilst looking over the canyon and watching the day's clouds come in, as they usually do at this time of day. Sometimes there is rain and we have even had some thunder and hail! The weather can change here in a New York minute and often does. The sunset lasts about 5 minutes, so when I tell the guests to go check out the sunset, they all run up to thier rooms to grab thier cameras. The sunset is usually over before they get back with them!

Things are going really well here. I am enjoying my time here and am learning a ton of information about hospitality and ecotourism. The owners are one of the coolest couples I have ever met. You people know how impressed I always am with meeting people who are living a life of their own design. These folks are doing just that and have built everything they have here from the ground up with little to no experience. The are also getting to enjoy the trails and tribulations of trying to accomplish anything in a developing country, so those are always fun stories to hear!

I am trying to work on my spanish a bit more and studying a bit each day. I am also climbing hills each day in order to get in better shape for all the walking I will need to do in Machu Piccu, so that is good for me as well. I am enjoying perhaps a bit too much boxed Chilean wine, but in general not doing too bad. The food is yummy, and for a vegetarian place, we (the owners and myself) are sure getting to enjoy a lot of meat for dinner! hehe!

They have about 9 local employees working here and the girls are fascinated with the size of my breasts and scandalized by the fact that I am divorced. And old. And have no children. They are constantly asking why I am divorced, which is a loaded question in English let alone in Spanish! The only answer I can come up with is "no me gusta me esposo". Which translates roughly to "I don't like my husband". I have yet to reach the point of being able to use that verb in the past tense, so they just have to deal with it for now! They are also constantly on the move to try to set me up with every Ecuadorian man in the village, married or not. My heart lies elsewhere, so I am working the smile nod I-don't-understand look pretty often. Often it is actually even true, so not that much of a stretch for me!

So that is all I have time for now--but here are some pics to start with and will write more later!

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Black%20Sheep%20Inn/?start=all

Colombia, New York, North Carolina, Ecuador...I'm so confused!

Hola travellers!

You people will think I deserved it, but there I was, on a 17 hour overnight bus from Santa Marta to Bogota surrounded by children. Thankfully after a while the parents smarted up and drugged them and they went to sleep.....so ended my last trip to Colombia which I have to say is one of the best places on earth and I highly recommend everyone go there if given a chance. I do have some secrets about that trip which I will not divulge here (a girl has to have some secrets!), but suffice it to say it has been a highlight of my trip here to South America.

I know it has been forever, and tomorrow I am off to the Black Sheep Inn www.blacksheepinn.com to do some volunteer work so who knows when I will actually find the time to update this again!

Some thoughts as I sit here at the Papayanet here in Quito before I head out tomorrow. Coming back to the states was a lot of fun for a while, although I probably spent too much time, as now I have to get back in the groove and try to think en espanol again.

I sit here listening to, of course, Culture Club because it is all about the 80's here, and consider the differences 24 hours can make. Last night I was having drinks at some semi ritzy hotel in Manhattan with a friend who flew out all the way to NYC from New Mexico to surprise me, and then not 10 hours ago I was browsing the sky mall catalog on my flight from New York and pondering the real need in the world for an instant doorway puppet stage (complete with working curtains!) and something called the marshmallow shooter, which as you have probably guessed, is a gun that shoots marshmallows. But all is right with the world as not more than a half hour ago I got to through the toilet paper in the trash again. Although in reality I now know someone who would actually probably like the marshmallow shooter (you know who you are, but your secret is safe with me!).

I think we last left off in Cartegena which is very beautiful and very hot. Those folks speak very fast and apparently have collectively decided to do away with the S is all Spanish words. I got to wear the shorts I have been carrying around in my bag for 6 months there and so justified packing them to bring back, although in reality don't think I will wear shorts again for 6 more months. I also got to tour one of the old forts in Cartegena that was constructed to protect the city and see the museum of the inquisiton. Creepy. I did get to have drinks at an awesome outdoor restuarant at sunset, so that was cool. Very romantic and I was there alone, but that is kind of the story of my life...sigh. For my trouble I got to spend 27,000 pesos on a mojito! Preparing me for my reentry into New York, I guess.

I then pressed on to a small town called Taganga which is in the Northeast of Colombia near the Venezuelan border. I did nothing there but look at the amazing view, sweat, and try to think of ways to foil the mosquitos. I took a "direct" bus from Cartegena which turned out to involve sitting in Baranquilla (has to be one of the ugliest cities on the planet, I don't care what Shakira says!) where the same bus then picked me up an hour later to continue on to Santa Marta. I have a total of about 1 picture of Taganga which is the lovely bay picture you will see in the photos.

Other photos are of the statues in San Augustin, which apparently come from a civilization no one really knows anything about, and our horseback ride into the hills to see some of them and Lucas, our guide, demonstrating his horseriding abilities. Of course the guide kind of started stalking me in town after that, but did give me a lovely pair of earrings that I wore on my birthday, so it's not all bad! Weird, but not bad. Before I forget, here are the photos

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Colombia%20dos/?start=all

I am hoping at some point to figure out how to make that a link rather than something you have to copy and paste, but for now you just get to deal with it.

Better run for now as the music has decidedly turned 90's, which I will take as my cue to head back to the hostel, where they even put me in the same room as last time, which is somewhat comforting. It was great to see everyone in New York and North Carolina, and thanks to dad, Cheryl and Kris for coming to see me in North Carolina, and to Maryann for coming to see me in New York. Kudos to Doina for a surprise well done!

Further updates will include the sordid details regarding my realization that it is not only my life that is all about laundry, but it is everyone else's life here too. I finally fit in somewhere as these people can all appreciate my issues!

Love you all!

And on to Colombia....again

As we pulled out of San Augustin the other night, the bus came to a complete stop and I thought, oh no--here it is--maybe I shouldn´t have done the night bus after all! The southern part of Colombia is mostly controlled by guerillas and I know they do bus checks just like the military does. I thought for sure they were going to get on board and see what was going on, but alas, the stop I was feeling a bit fearful of? That´s right...the first traffic light I had seen in what felt like weeks. But anyway, on with our story.

So at this point, the real burning question is: What exactly is it that the Colombians have against the toilet seat? The chances of finding one in any given bathroom are roughly 50% and I have to say even Ecuador has better odds than that! And what is up with the fact that there is no toliet paper? Don´t you people use it?Strange the things that occupy my mind these days.

Anyway, I had a bunch of notes about things I wanted to post on here that of course I forgot in my hotel room--which has two fans blowing and that means the papers are probably all over the floor by now. I have traded in the cold Andean nights for a bit of hot and humid air (just to show solidarity with you folks who are sweating through the US summer) here in Cartegena on the coast of Colombia.

I returned to Colombia a little over a week ago when I found out I am going to be able to do the internship at the Black Sheep Inn in Ecuador. I was due to head to Peru, but needed to reschedule all that so I could return home and grace you folks with my presence for a couple of weeks and let you all take me out to dinner. So the best flight I could find was leaving out of Bogota and figured that since I missed most of Colombia last time, now was as good of a time as ever to return.

This time around I came in via the land border north of Quito by about 5 hours. Of course, with my great idea to try and not pay anymore ATM fees, I came in with about 5 US dollars, which is bad because there were no ATM´s to be found--well, working ATM´s that is. There are none at the border and I had just enough pesos to get myself into town via collectivo and then walk around the town (which is kind of shady) to try to find a working ATM. The Colombians are so great because they are always so friendly and telling you to take care. They will also drop whatever they are doing to accompany you somewhere if you are alone (like in a state park or something) just to walk and talk with you.

I was riding from Quito next to a guy from Peru and you people think my bus schedule is outrageous--check this out. He was going to be travelling for about 30-35 days. All by bus. He had left Lima and gone to northern Peru for a couple of days, then on to Guayaquil, the Ecuador coast and then to Quito. He was going up into Colombia and on to Cali that day (about 10 hours more than the 5 hours we had just done) and then over to Bogota, into Venuzuela, down to Brazil and back to Peru. Anyone that has logged any bus time with me here knows that he was probably looking to spend a good 2 weeks of his time (day and night) into the transport of it all because these distances are massive and for the most part, every one of these trips he was taking was between 12-20 hours just to get from place to place! I hope it was worth it for him, as I am thinking when he returns, all he will really have to tell his friends is what bus is better to go where, etc, than about what he may have seen! Yikes!

So enough of that and back to me. :)

Some of the great things I have seen so far in the last weeks....a bus that went, literally, 10 kilometers an hour from Popyan to San Augustin, with so many bumps in the road that I repeatedly smacked the side of my face against the support of the back window (this is my fault, I choose a really shit bus and my travel buddy says he gets to choose next time as I clearly cannot be trusted). More on him and his opinions of my decision making abilities later!

Other snipets from my memory: horse carts sharing the streets with cars, people go around mostly either barefoot or in those rockin rubber boots, chickens (all over south america!) roam free everywhere and I must say they are rather tasty for getting to live such a carefree life!, crazy geese, Manuel the coke cooker with the funny smile (more on him later as well), indications of bus times--If they tell you 5 hours, it will be 7-8, busses and cars only pass each other on curves in the road it seems, and of course, the 4 person family on the moped--along with dad´s briefcase on someone´s knee!

And the ever important--just like in Ecuador--need for small bills. Everything is done with cash, but there are no ATM´s anywhere, and everyone wants small bills, and no one has change for anything. And if you are lucky enough to get money from the bank or ATM, they will of course only give you 50´s. While in San Augustin, a few of us realized we were going to need money. Of course the only ATM in town wasn´t working, and another girl and myself were able to do a Visa cash advance (after about an hour or two of waiting in line), but the guy with us had to get a bus and go into Pitalito (about an hour) in order to get money from his mastercard and the whole ordeal for him took about 4 hours! So important now to think of wher I am going and when and then get money accordingly!

And the people are so sweet--feel like I was involved in a little bit of a soap opera in San Augustin with the tour guide, which I won´t get into now, but anytime I walked through town, local people that I met would always come up and say hi. My last day there, one of the vendors in the market gave my friend a banana to give to me as a gift--isn´t that sweet! Think I got more gifts in that town than anywhere else...but again, a story for a different time. For now, I think I am going to talk myself into going out into the heat and then tomorrow I am heading off to a beach town to put in a bit of time chilling before getting on another long ass bus back to Bogota and you people.

Coming in our next post: the dates and times I am available in NYC for you folks to take me out, and what my prefered food choices might be. Since there are choices, it will take me about 5 days to make any--so look for that info next time! And don´t forget that my birthday is coming up!

Saludos,
S

The state of Ecuador in our wake

Still standing of course, but not for lack of trying! Haha. So I here I sit guarding my newly washed laundry--half of what I have with me for only $2.60! The best deal yet! Good thing too as I am off to the Cotoapaxi area tomorrow to check out the Black Sheep Inn where I am hoping to do some volunteer work in the fall after my much needed rest in the states. I will then return to Quito for about a week as I signed up for some español lessons and then will be off to Peru. Quite possibly there is a flight in the future there too as it is 24 hours by bus just to the Peruvian border, and these aint no Argentine busses!

So we decided to suck it up and pay the $50 or so more to fly back to Quito from Cuenca, as we just couldn{t stomach another 10 hours on the bus. I have been on a bus an average of once every 4 days for the last 6 weeks and am looking to sign on for a bunch more in the next 6 and so a flight for about 35 minutes (including the fastest food service ever) was totally worth it!

Cuenca is a lovely old colonial town and we were both a bit under the weather, so it was a nice place to relax for a couple of days. We went to visit the largest site of Incan ruins in Ecuador (amazing how much is there since the Incas were only there for 4 years before the Spanish took over) on a private tour with our guide, Diego. He is a wealth of knowledge about Ecuador and we got a lot of info on not just the Incans and Cañar peoples, but also about local politics in Ecuador and things of that sort. Great fun to take the ride in a car too!

It was great fun to have my sister here and travel together as we have never done anything of the sort before. As I write this, she should be in the car on the way back to Spruce Pine and her family and the impending start of the school year! She was too chicken to do the bridge jumping (you know I couldn{t resist), but I did get her to ride a horse while we were in Otavalo! Oh I see as writing this that the apostrophe doesn{t work here either....they must not use them much in español. :)

We did and saw so much it is almost hard to remember what it all was. She probably needs a vacation to recover from her vacation. We started by staying for 2 nights in the old town of Quito, with all the churches and colonial architecture and visited the big theater in Quito that was mostly destroyed by fire some time ago and is being repaired--very interesting tour and the guide got to give her first tour in English. She did very well by the way.

We then went to Otavalo and checked out some local Andean music andalso shopped at the famous market, before moving on to spend a really expensive night in a hacidenda near Otavalo--this would be where the horseriding occured. We then did a roughly 10 hour day on the bus going back to Quito and transferring to the Tena bus. We stayed the night in Tena and I got to bore Mary to tears remeniscing about my time at Jatun Sacha and all the decent meals I got in Tena! Then we went out to the jungle lodge where we did a bosque tour and sweated our way through all the hills we had to climb. Also, I discovered a snake on the hike that our guide missed..much better than the last hike I did at Jatun Sacha! There were resident monkeys at the lodge and Mary has some great pictures of them visiting us on the porch. I am not sure if I have any of those pictures here, but if not will add them at a later date.

We visited a local Kichewa community and learned how they make the chicha (sans the spit), which is an indigineous drink. We did some swimming in the river and visited the animal rescue center at Amazoonico. Not a bad day taking the innertubes down the river back to the lodge either! We also stopped by to visit Jatun Sacha and wow is it damn hot there now!

Then we were off to Baños where we did a chiva tour of the waterfalls and the now infamous bridge jumping occured. We visited the hot springs where I met a very nice local guy and thankfully didnt subject Mary to my attempts to get to know him better.

I am feeling like a lot of this is probably redundant from the last post and apologize for that.....also coming up on the redundancy rader will be my pictures all our of order with those of Mary{s that I downloaded earlier. We returned to Quito on Wednesday afternoon and and stayed in the new town area this time so she could see the difference between the two. This is a funky little area with a lot of bars and restaurants, so some decent meals were had in the last couple of days.

Think that is probably all for now, so I will wrap this up and put the pictures on before I loose all will to do so...where is that waiter with another glass of wine?

Here are the photos, again and as usual in no particular order. I will try to be sure and label them so you know when you are seeing the same thing for the 15th time..

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Ecuador%20con%20Mary/


I wil now wrap this up and head back to my hotel where Mary will be pissed to hear I am now in a junior suite with two huge beds and no one to share either one with..but not for lack of trying. There is a story there for future reference when there is actually something to report. I am planning to louge with the cable Tv and perhaps get to see the Omen! Mary and i have seen all 6 of the Star Wars movies in recent days, so I am sure she will breathe a sigh of relief knowing I don{t have to wathc them again as this is probably the last time I will get TV in a long time. :) Horrifying how excited I am by TV these days....

Two sisters take on the world.......well, Ecuador anyway

Hello again armchair travellers! So here we are in Cuenca! It really is a lovely old city, and if all goes according to plan, there will eventually be pictures of it! Not today though, the only real goal for today is to write enough on this computer where the space bar doesn´t really work before I chuck it out the window. Ugh.

Anyway, Mary got here about a week and a half ago,and we have been damn busy in that time--mostly testing the Ecuadorian bus system and it´s obvious deficeincies. After logging roughly 25 hours on this great system of transport, we have seen of course Quito, (no bus required--so more on that later), Otavalo and the great Andean market, where we foolishly stuffed our backpacks to overflowing with things mostly for ourselves (sorry to the family, not much room left for gifts for you people) and have been having to cart all that stuff around for days and getting black and blue doing it!

We have done some time out in the amazon region and hung with monkeys fighting over our hammocks. I have also added most impressively to my collection of bug bites, while Mary has aquired about a total of 4. It was hot, damn hot, and cloudless in the amazon and at Jatun Sacha as well when we stopped by for a couple of hours--much cooler and rainier when I was there in June!

Then we were off to Baños where we chilled in the hot springs and rode the Chiva bus for a tour of the waterfalls and I tried my hand at swing jumping, which is basically jumping off a bridge over a river with the sincere hope that the bungee cord attached to your waist will work and keep you from plunging into the river. Obviously in this case it worked, huh?

There is a massive volcano roughly 10 kilometers from Baños which has apparently been erupting in some fashion for several years. We didn´t even see it, as it is behind some mountains we were going to climb one day, but when that day came the whole sky was covered in clouds......so we just have to take their word for it that it even exists.

Now we are here in Cuenca after a long and obnoxious day on the bus. I am very excited about the fact that we have a TV in our room!Mary,not surprisingly´, doesn´t really give a shit about the TV, but then she can see it any old time she wants to.
There are Incan ruins here that we are hoping to head off to in the next day or so by....you guessed it, the reliable bus system!

Stay tuned for further adventures as I have just about had it with this keyboard,and also want to be sure to be able to give you people a laundry update. :)