Only Dead Fish Go With the Flow: Late Nights and Hot Springs

As the title suggests the past few nights have been quite late indeed. On saturday I decided that I was well enough to go out, I think this decision was mostly based on my high level of boredom. I even started reading a book while I was sick, thats how little I had to do.

So I met up with Claudio, his sisters and two cousins. It was kind of strange, the cousins had both recently returned from exchanges in Germany, Claudio's sister had lived there when she was in high school, and Claudio speaks German in Switzerland. This resulted in occasional outbursts of German in the car, none of which I understood, well except for, "Shiza!!", when we made a wrong turn. We went to eat at a cafe in Amazonas, the part of town with all the bars and gringos. The cafe was completely dedicated to John Lennon, the walls were plastered with pictures of him and his fellow band mates, and the Beatles were constantly playing in the background, mixed in with other classic rock as well. As usual, everything was dirt cheap, I had a full dinner for $4.

We went to some bars to dance and when I looked at my phone to see what time it was, it was 1:30 in the morning. We decided it would be better for me to stay at their house for the night rather than risk taking a cab so late.

Sunday was quiet, everyone had left in the morning to do various things in the morning so I had the house to myself. I borrowed Sharone's guitar, having not played in months, and started the long process of remembering songs. It felt really good to play again but was quite frustrating at times when things came to a grinding halt and I had to resort to the internet to refresh my memory. That night, at about 10:30 my sister asked if I wanted to go the movies with her boyfriend and another friend, having not left that house all day I went. We saw Atonement, it was in English with Spanish subtitles. I spent a lot of time reading the subtitles and was really surprised at the difference. Obviously some meaning gets lost in translation, but the subtitles absolutely slaughtered the dialog. English has so many idiomatic expressions and words that just have no equivalents in spanish. The words here can have so many different meanings, whereas in English we manipulate words and grammar to convey different thoughts. This resulted in me being the only one who actually enjoyed / appreciated the film, kind of sad in a way.

I went to school on Monday, I had missed a lot, but it didn't really matter which was nice. I decided that I wasn't really feeling up to class in the afternoon so I left with all the other kids at 1:40. My course stays until almost 4. Not fun. It was very lucky that I left early because not only was I exactly on time for lunch at home, but also my family was about to go some hot springs up in the mountains so I got to go too.

The drive was about an hour, but we could have done it quicker without all the stopping for me to take photos. It was really spectacular, we went up into the mountains and drove along these winding roads, often times with large drops just a few feet away. Clouds gathered around the jagged peaks and settled in the valleys like blankets of cotton. Then we passed about 20 or 30 blue hearts painted on the road. In Ecuador these hearts signify when people have died in traffic accidents, they are scattered throughout the city, but rarely more than one. It was really eerie to see them all grouped together, next to the twisted metal that used to be a guard rail and tire marks through the bushes and over the edge. A simple cross had been put in the hole in the guard rail, it was quite surreal, it stood still on the side of the mountain while the cold wind moved everything around it.

There were two or three more sites like this along the drive. They were all different, some with only one heart, some with many crosses, others with nothing but skid marks through the underbrush, but each time I couldn't escape the strange feeling they gave me inside.

We stopped on the way to eat at a group of store bunched together on the side of the road. All sorts of fresh veggies, cheese and fried trout. The fish here is always served whole, head, tail, skin, bones, eyes... whole. Needless to say it was really good, but quite a lot of work removing all the bones mid chew.

We kept driving, slowly climbing higher and higher. Every 10 minutes or so we would see small shacks clinging to the hillsides, the poverty is really bad as soon as you leave the city. These dwellings were probably about 400 square feet at most, usually with a fire burning next to the door and cows or goats wandering around. It really makes one think... Eventually we reached a fork in the road and we turned off onto a dirt track riddled with rocks and potholes. We went down into a valley and then back up the other side. It was about 6PM and almost completely dark but I did see two huge pipes we drove underneath running down to the golden glow of a town in the distance. I figured these must be carrying hot water and that the thermal springs had to be close. We got there about 10 minutes later.

The springs were not really what I was expecting, there was a small resort built around them with hotels, a few places to eat, and abundant changing rooms. The springs themselves were like swimming pools with rubber bottoms but there were rocks that poked up through the surface. The air was really cold due to how high up we were, about 10,500 feet I think, and because it was night. This made for tons of steam rising of the pools that created a cool fog everywhere. Unfortunately the steam made all my pictures turn out horribly which is rather a shame but I still have those from the drive.

In all there were 8 or 9 pools, all varying in shape and temperature. One was so hot I couldn't go in past my ankles and others were so cold I thought I was going to get hypothermia. There was a river running down the mountainside next to the pools, a bunch of rocks had been moved to create a pool inside the river, also deathly cold.

Before we left I was wandering around, exploring, when I looked inside one of the changing rooms. Being the only places with light, these rooms looked more like an insect exhibit at a zoo. I spotted a stick insect on the ceiling, which I was really excited about because I always used to see them on the TV and hear that they are nearly impossible to find because they are so well camouflaged. This one kind of stuck out against the cement backdrop, but it was cool nonetheless.

I was so tired on the drive home I just turned on my iPod and passed out in the backseat. It was too dark to see anything so it didn't matter.