Final Summary from our First Trip to Ecuador

Here is my generic blog with less personal comments...

http://yecuador.blogspot.com/

After working for over two years here in Albuquerque at a really nice small software company with some really cool people, Michele and I decided to take three months off and go down to South America.

It was my first time down to South America, and Michele's second trip down there. She had gone to Peru in the past to visit Machu Pichu and the Cusco area.

The only place in Latin America I had been before was Mexico and going to South America was much more intense and third world like...

Originally, we were going to go to Ecuador and Chile, but after being in Ecuador for about one month, we decided there was just too much to see in this beautiful small country. Ecuador is about the size of Nevada, whereas Peru is much bigger. So we made the big decision to stay in Ecuador the whole time, for about 3 months...

What a lovely difficult journey. I tell people that it was the most incredible journey of my lifetime and at the same time the most difficult journey of my lifetime. In life, usually this is the case... Being on the edge one usually feels all the joy and sorrow of life in different breaths.

The people of Ecuador are lovely and very heartfelt. Every where we went people went out of their way to be friendly and helpful any way they could be.

We didn't know this before we left, but Ecuador is mainly a rain forest -- the whole country for the most part... Here in Albuquerque we get 10 inches of rain annually, whereas Ecuador gets around 100 inches of rain a year.. Quite a big difference, and certainly made the trip kind of wet... In fact, it rained almost every single day we were there... A sunny, clear, blue sky New Mexico day in Ecuador never happened once. So we missed the weather we were used to...

We loved speaking Spanish the whole time, and needless to say our Spanish is much improved. We were able to get along just fine, especially if we knew the context of the conversation. A lot of times, people would just start talking to us out of the blue and at that time we were usually pretty confused, especially when going for long hikes in the mountains with some native Quecha people. We met some lovely native South Americans who guided us around some really big steep mountains.

All in all, the food wasn't that great. They have fantastic fruits and vegetables in the markets, but in the restaurants where we were eating they basically served rice and beans and some type of meat or chicken. You just couldn't get a really big salad or a plate of vegetables for a meal, it didn't exist anywhere except in the really fancy restaurants. If in the future we moved there to live, having our own kitchen for cooking would be great for cooking the foods we love... They are there, we just didn't have easy access to a kitchen to cook our own food.

The prices were great, everything was really cheap. Ecuador is on the US dollar, so there was never any money exchange. We just showed up in Ecuador and started spending our money, pretty wild and crazy.

Accommodations, food, transportation were all very reasonable. Average lunch prices were about $1.50 per person. Our rooms for two people were around $20 a night. A ten hour bus ride was ten dollars.

If we go back next time, we could rent a small house for one month for around $200 per month. The average wage in Ecuador is between $200 - $300 per month, so people are doing actually pretty well -- cause the food in the markets is cheap, and everyone in Ecuador has more than enough food to eat.

The markets are packed with food, so by the end of the day there is a lot of extra food, and anyone that doesn't have food is provided for... People have big hearts and take care of each other, and they also took care of us very well.

When you compare Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to the southern part of South America they are very different. So Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are a whole different world, and thats really the main reason we visited Ecuador. We wanted to see what it was like to live in the Andes in a basically rural nation where the natives are still in the majority.

Basically the countries that Simon Bolivar freed from Spain around the revolution of 1820 are the Andean nations plus Columbia and Venezuela. The Andean nations are considered to be Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia even though the Andes actually run from Venezuela all the way down to Patagonia.

The favorite part of the trip for us was the jungle which we visited in the southern part of Ecuador. The towns of Vilcabamba and Zamora were absolutely lovely, and we were there for about one of the three months. The average stay in Ecuador was around 7 or 8 days, and during our journey we moved around 14 times, staying in some places for a short time, but mainly staying in places we liked for about two weeks.

One of the highlights of our trip was teaching English, which I posted on my blog.

Ecuador is really not that far, especially from Miami its less than four hours, but we flew from LA, which is more like six or seven hours. On our flight home, we flew over Central America and Mexico at night, and I was blow away by how populated Mexico really is. There are small towns pretty much the whole way. Where as in the southwest, you can fly for miles at night and really not see many lights, pretty interesting.

So we are back here for awhile, until we figure out the next step or journey... Hope all is well with you.

Best regards,
Michael

Ingrid Betancourt is Back Home

Pictures of Ingrid Betancourt's Journey Back Home

http://picasaweb.google.com/stormangerman/Ingrid

I am seldom moved by such a historical event, but this one was really one for our hearts. In times of such sorrow and suffering through out the world it is so nice to see a ray of hope on the horizon and know that everything will be all right. Ingrid prayed and suffered each and every day for six years, and when she was finally free I believed it was a time of celebration on the planet.

Having spent three months in Ecuador, I followed this story as it evolved and read in Spanish the stories, editorials, and pleas for her freedom. While we were in Latin America, a war scare broke out over a dispute between Ecuador and Columbia, and once again we couldn't believe that we were there witnessing the struggle first hand. Of course all of this was in Spanish, and the context for my understanding of this situation was some what muddled at times.

It is a joy and a pleasure to share with you some of the photos that I have captured in this historic day on planet Earth. I am happy to share these with you as a prayer for peace and the hostages that still remain in the jungles of southern Ecuador.

Peace,
Michael

Teaching English in Ecuador

One of the most rewarding aspects of our journey has been the ability to teach English in Ecuador. Our most recent teaching experience occurred at Copalinga in the town of Zamora on the edge of the jungle. Michele and I really enjoy the opportunity to share our knowledge of the English with others who are willing and able students.

Martiza has been one of our best students. She is probably in her early 30´s and she has two children Alex and Jessica. The first day we taught Maritza her two children were also with her. They already knew a bit of English and working with Mom and her two kids was very nice.

Of course there is always a double edged sword of anything you do in life, and teaching English is no different. As Katrina pointed out to us in Isinlivi, education is a great thing for kids living in small villages, but it is also a detriment, as the more educated someone is, the less likely it is for them to remain in their small agricultural village and till the land and tend the animals. Why, because as we get more educated, we also want to apply our knowledge out there in the world, and we will usually make the sacrifice to leave our native home and venture out into the world based on curiosity, the willingness to do better in life and the material possessions that most of us desire at some point in our life.

Maritza is the employee of the owner of one of the hostals we stayed at. She is an extremely capable employee, Mom, esposa, y all in all great person. But does the owner of the hostal really want her to become educated in the English language and then discover her abilities to go out into the world and make a better living for herself.

Our we as teachers serving her well by educating her in English and giving her the skill set to earn a higher wage and venture out into the world away from her native village, home, family. All questions that should be carefully thought out before venturing into foreign territory in parts of the world in which we are not that familiar.

Needless to say, having Spanish skills that are good enough to teach English as a foreign language to native Spanish speakers is quite a rewarding experience, and one that I would recommend to anyone who is traveling in the world and learning a new language. Its a great way to learn Spanish and interact with the local people, and at the same time help someone else in the world who has a curious mind and body.

Isinlivi High Up in the Andes

The mountains here are unbelievably green and very big.. We stayed in a small village with probably about 100 people, thats it... The whole town could be walked in five minutes with outlying houses everywhere spread throughout the hills...Of course, no one spoke English -- and our Spanish improved while being there... When people slow down, we have a really nice conversation about life in a simple way...We got to know several of the people in the village by talking to them on a daily basis... This area is unbelievably beautiful and incredibly remote, we are talking several hours on a bus just to get there...Michele and I did some wonderful hiking up and downsome very large mountains/hills... In fact, we walked from one village to the next via some beautiful trails built by the local people... The local people are all indigenous and have been living here their whole life...It was also Michele and my first foray into teaching Spanish in Ecuador -- and we really enjoyed it... We taught a high school boy and his younger sister one day as we were walking in the hills. We started talking to him as we came upon his little village --and the next thing you know he brought out his English text book and we studied English with him and his little sister for about one hour or so, it was very fun and rewarding and by the time we left he was reading English to us, he was shy at first but then he really started feeling comfortable with us and so we made some good progress...On another occasion we walked into a woman´s house in the village we were living in to talk to her, and her son and cousin decided they wanted to study English with us... So we set up a time and they came over to our hostel and we did a one hour lesson with them too. They were much younger than our first student, both boys were eleven years old, and they enjoyed our class...Because it is such a small town, several days later as were walking around the hills we saw a lady tending her crops -- mainly corn and we started talking to her for awhile... The next thing you know we were in her home and she was showing us around where she lived. Turns out her husband is one of the furniture makers in the village and he made all of the furniture in her house, along with all of the doors too... Simply lovely...Turns out that towards the end of the conversation she told us that she was the mom of one of the boys we taught English too and she was very grateful for us taking out time to teach her son English...As we were leaving her lovely home, her husband gave us a hand crafted turtle that he made in his furnitute shop out of gratitude for what we had done...And this is the corazon of the indigenous people in the village, full of heart and soul... These people are incredibly poor, but its not at all obvious from their spirit, simple living conditions, and what appears to be a very happy nature....Money and materialism and being the super power of the world certainly has its draw backs as we are well aware and it is incredibly refreshing to me to meet people like this and literally bond with them in my mind in a very deep way... Its hard to explain and I am not sure why I feel this way, but I believe its the very simple life that I like and think is beautiful in my mind...The village is fascinating, all day long people are walking their cows and pigs and sheep out into the hills to feed for the day and night. They tie a leash around the pig and then pull him out into the green hills.. They then put a stick in the ground and the animal has some rope in which to wander around a bit and eat the grass etc around them... Then at the end of the day the people come and pick them up and lead them back home. So as you are wandering around the hills you see all of these animals eating...The villages are all connected by very primitive roads in which the buses pass usually about once a day from village to village... There are also some milk trucks and village trucks that drive these incredibly primitive dirt roads, but thats it, hardly anyone has a car, obviously when you are making a couple of dollars a day literally, you can´t even conceive of buying a car, let alone the expenses associated with it...The main business in these villages is agriculture, every one grows their own food and takes care of their animals which eventually they take to the market to be sold. Michele and I went to one of the local markets... We walked over two hours up and down some really steep mountains and finally arrived at the next village for their market day... At the market was the animal market where people are buying and selling their pigs,sheep, cows etc...Along the way you see other people walking to the market. We befriended an older woman who saw us walking in the hills one day and we were clearly lost and she pointed us in the direction of where we were going... The next day we were walking again, got lost, and magically the exact same woman appeared from underneath a fence. Turns out she was walking to the market too, and she walked with us all the way to the market showing us the way...To be clear, these mountains are huge and the indigenous people have done a marvelous job of maintaining trails that go every where, it is their only means of transportation... And not only are they walking everywhere, very old women are carrying over fifty pounds on their back filled with corn, potatoes,or whatever else they harvested that day, and then they carry it from their fields to their humble home,and then to the market on market day...At the market are all sorts of local produce plus people are cooking food of all different kinds. In Ecuador, the banana capital of the world, there are many sorts of bananas. But where we were they don´t grow bananas. The bananas are grown down in the lowlands on the equator near the coast and/or in thejungle.Because Ecuador is divided by the Andes, you have the coast where the rice paddies and bananas grow. Then up in the highlands where we were they grow corn, potatoes, and other crops that can grow at 10,000feet. Then as you travel further in Ecuador from the coast you end up in the Amazon jungle where they grow the bananas and other crops of that area...At the market, people are making the local dishes, lots of rice and home made french fries, and this corn kernels that they roast off the cob and add some spices and salt. So it kind of is like pop corn before its popped. Eating in the local markets is quite a culinary experience and each time you eat the food you are taking a minor risk, but we have been lucky and wouldn´t pass up the experience as time evolves -- yummy, but most meals are on the up and up...So, this journey into the depths of the Ecuadorian highlands was one of the most incredible things I have ever done in my life... It ranks up there with some of the incredible camping trips Michele and I have gone on over the years and touches my heart and my soul more than anything...I continue to be thankful each and every day for having the opportunity, resources, and most importantly the courage to go on a journey like this in my life -- its certainly not an easy journey and each and every day I feel also like a "Stranger in a Strange Land" but this is what keeps us going...I continue to be patient with living in the present and focus on the moment in this magical time in my life...

First Thoughts From Ecuador

Michele and I have been in Ecuador for just under three weeks and we are having an excellent time. Wow, what a lovely place. We are having lots of fun, food is good and the weather is hot and steamy on the coast and cool and mild in the highlands which is just over 9000 feet. We were first in Guayaquil which is the lowlands on the equator very near the ocean on a river inlet. The place we stayed was a very nice friendly hostel. We were in the port city of Guayaquil for 3 days, and then moved up into the Andes in a small town called Guaranda. We found a Spanish instructor and took three days of Spanish lessons.The ride up into the mountains was spectacular, about 5 hours on the bus. We moved from a coastal plain to a jungle like setting with bananas etc, and then up to high country. The people are mixed with different looks. Some are native Andeans just like you see in the books --pretty amazing. So far we are able to communicate pretty well with everyone we meet -- but we have along way to go... The talk is pretty basic. We are staying at hostels everywhere we go with average nightly rates of around $20 -- all of the places we have stayed have been simple but clean and nice. We were in Guaranda for six days and then moved on to Ambato,Ecuador´s 4th largest city.We were only in Ambato for two nights. The people of Ecuador couldn´t be more friendly, no one speaks English which can be a problem at times, but that forces us to learn our Spanish more quickly.We have met so many friendly Ecuadorians so far. People come up to us on the street and start talking to us. By the time we left Guaranda we knew quite a number of people just by saying hi to them. We would just walk around town and run into the same people every day and we would have a 10 minute conversation in Spanish-English...We met our Spanish teacher this way, someone recommended her, and she turned out to be fantastic. Food is excellent ! But simple, the markets are incredible -- if we had our own kitchen we would have enough fresh food -- all from the local markets --vegetables in the markets are unbelievable. These people are living and doing the same stuff they did 100 years ago -- the local native indigenous people that is... Old women carrying 50 pound sacks of food on their backs -- its really quite incredible to see. Its all about survival for them -- real basic -- food and shelter and thats it... Traveling around on the buses is interesting to say the least, the buses cost one dollar per hour of driving...I have never in my life been so blown away but what I am seeing -- so this is quite the dream -- and I am really thankful to have gotten the opportunityto experience this in my life...Quito is an unbelievably gorgeos city. Reminds me of New York City orSan Francisco. Quick story, the cab driver took us to our hotel, but he couldn´t find it, so he dropped us off nearby and we walked to it, but he had the address, just didn´t know where it was...15 minutes later -- he showed up at our hotel -- with my coat that I had forgotten in the cab...Can you believe it ? I gave him a hug and a tip...More as things develop in the capital of Ecuador, the second highest capital in the world at over 9200 feet, only La Paz in Bolivia is higher at over 11,200feet... This is the Andes for you, huge big volcanoes with green valleys that extend as far as the eye can see. Its Saturday afternoon in Quito and we went for a nice walk today in the park. We then had lunch at an Indian restaurant, and because the restaurant was full we sat at the same table with a really nice girl who was an English teacher at a university here in Quito. Her mom, who is from Venezuela but moved to Ecuador many years ago also had lunch with us... She gave us tons of good information about Quito and Ecuador, it was a really nice meal. All of the Ecuadorians are so friendly, in fact at the end of the meal she gave us her phone number and email and said to call her any time that we have any questions or problems while we are in Quito. It was a nice experience for both of us, as the young woman got to practice herEnglish and I got to practice my Spanish... People here like to speak in English to you if they know it, and it gives me an opportunity to speak in Spanish. She lived in Oregon for 4 years and studied English there.I will continue to update things as we progress on this lovely journey.