Epic Weekend

So on Thursday night my friend Alex, also an exchange student, though with a different program, called me and asked if I wanted to go to his family's farm for Sunday and Monday. Of course I jumped at the idea of seeing more of Ecuador and with permission from my family, I said I would love to go. A few minutes later my phone rang again, it was Alex, again, asking if I wanted to go with him and his sister to Mindo for Friday and Saturday. Now I had to think, I had been lucky and got to go to Mindo earlier that very same week, would twice in 5 days be too much....nahhh! So we had a plan, though many of the finer details, like where we would stay, were a mystery to me. But to me that just makes it all the more fun!

Friday was only a half day of school, this weekend Ecuador celebrated Dia de Los Difuntos, similar to to Mexico's Day of the Dead, but without all the parades and costumes. The most notable thing about this holiday is the traditional food, guaguas (pronounced Wah-wahs) de pan and colada morada. The first translates to "bread children" and it is essentially bread baked into the shape of a person, filled with fruit preserves and decorated with icing to resemble a child. They are about a foot long and really good. The second, colada morada, roughly translates to blackberry juice, but it actually much more than just that. It is a thick drink, made with blackberries, pineapple and cinnamon, and served hot with chunks of fruit floating around t surprise you. Some people use other fruits as well like strawberries and whatever else they can find. In school Alex's host mum and two others brought in homemade guaguas de pan and colada morada for us to have during the last hour. I loved the bread, but the colada just wasn't for me. Maybe it was the fact that if was hot and the consistency of really thick soup, I don't know, but either way I can only describe it as a meal in a cup, and a really fruity meal at that.

So after school I went back with Alex to his house which is in the Valley of San Rafael, which I mentioned in my last post, to get ready for our weekend adventure. I had a good amount of stuff with me and I carefully selected what I thought I would need for part one of the weekend, this included swim trunks, juggling balls, and a headlamp, all essential.

Alex's cousin met us at the house so he could show us which bus to take to Mindo, he works as a guide for photographers in the rainforest and therefore travels alot between Quito and Mindo. The bus terminal was huge, like a small village of vendors, travelers and ticket agents. We got everything sorted and climbed abourd our bus. The tickets cost $3 each, a deal.

Two hours later I stood on the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, watching the bus grown smaller and smaller as it drove off into the distance, eventually disappearing around a corner. We walked up a dirt road into the forest, past a sign that said "Mindo Loma Lodge" and soon came upon several open planned wooden buildings at the top of the hill.

We went inside and were greeted by Alex's (host) aunt and unlce, who owned the lodge. They were really nice, they showed us where our room was and made big bowls of soup for us while we put our stuff away. The lodge was obviously built to be as close to nature as possible, except for the bedrooms, most of the space was open planned with lots of windows, with or without glass. Upstairs there was a space with benches to watch the wildlife from and tons of humminbird feeders.

Outside the window of the dining hall there was a tree with bananas hanging from it, put there by Alex´s uncle to feed the monkeys. So we waited and waited and none were coming so we left to explore some more. Alex´s cousin came and found us to say that the monkey was at the tree so we watched it for a while, hanging upside down by its tail eating the bananas. A pretty stereotypical monkey.

After we ate Alex and I said that we wanted to go and explore the forest, despite the darkness and the rain. His cousin said that we would most certainly get lost but that she would take us to a waterfall if we wanted. Obviously we wanted to go, so we got ready. We were about to leave when it dawned on us that is was raining pretty hard and that jeans and t shirts probably weren't the best clothing. Wellington boots and swim trunks seemed a much better idea so we quickly changed and set off armed with nothing more than my headlamp and Alex's small red LED light. There was actually a path through the forest, I reckon we would have been fine without the cousin showing us the way, but we certainly would not have seen all the wildlife without her. We found scropions in the tree trunks, phosphorescent bacteria, we even heard ocelots, but unfortunatly we didn't actually see them. I loved looking up with my headlamp, with the light I could just make out the canopy far above us, the rain drops fells through gaps in the leaves and looked like silver bullets falling to earth. After about 30 minutes we made it to the waterfall, it was freezing cold and created a steady wind which chilled me to my very bones. We all got thrown in at least once, I am feeling cold just writing about it. The strange thing was that the waterfall was huge, 39 meters, but the pool was only about 3 feet deep, very different from thhose in Mindo.

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Ok so now I am in the computer lab at school, in a class called Theory of Knowledge, but we don´t seem to have a teacher so I am going to continue writing about the weekend.

So, we left the waterfall, drenched, shivering, but in good spirits and returned to the lodge. All the lights were out except for a few on the side of the building, these were absolutly covered in moths. There were moths of all different sizes, shapes and colors, many of them camoflauged to look like leaves or poisonous insects. We found one which was literally the size of a small bird, we named it Mothra, in honor of the monster from the 1961 horror film of the same name.

The next morning we got up early becuase we were told that that is the best time to see all the hummingbirds. So we went up to where all the feeders were and sat down on the benches. I was amazed at the sheer number of them, practically smarming the feeders at times. There were more kinds of humming birds than I had ever seen before I think I counted 6 different hummingbirds and also three kinds of tanangers. You could just stand there and they would fly past your head like bullets.

Oh, periods over. More to come.

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After breakfast, empanadas and coffee, Alex's uncle asked if we wanted to go walk around and maybe look for some quetzals, which are a really cool bird, look them up online. So we got into his car and drove to the town neaby, about 15 minutes. Obviously we weren't going bird watching in the town, but Alex's uncle had some shopping to do so we helped him with that. Also there was a a sort of farmers market / nature aweness event going on in the town center. So we walked around for a while, looking at and trying foods and listening to people talk about strip mines in the Amazon.

After that we drove back into the hills and turned up a long dirt road (these dirt road adventures seem to be becoming a staple of my life here). We passed one house but lots of cool trees and flowers. We got out next to a big field and Alex's uncle said that he needed us to help him move the bulls from one side of the field to the other, it turns out that they won't voluntarily go to the drinking trough becuase the terrain is really rough and they are to lazy!? So we set of to the other side of the field and stopped about 15 yeards in front of the bulls, they didn't look the least bit pleased to see us, but from across the field came shouts of, "its not a problem, shout "SAL!" and they will move". So we did. Sal means salt and when you shout it the bulls think you are going to give them some, so they move. I felt bad tricking them like this but it seemd to bet he only way.

After we got all the bulls across the field the sun came out and we couldn't look for quetzals, becuase they are only out when its overcast so we went back to the house and got ready to go to the waterfalls.

We hitched a ride in the back of a pretty big truck, i wouldnt reLly call it hitchhiking becuase there were a bunch of other people in the back and we all paid 50 cents. It was funny though, riding inthe back of a covered truck, I felt like we were sneaking across a border or something.

We did some different zip lines which were cool, but for the most part going to the falls was no different than the first time. (see previous posts)

However, returning was a whole different story. We had got ot hte falls kindof late in the afternoon, and therefore we left pretty late too. IN fact it was getting dark when we got back tot he road. The road to Mindo fromt the falls is 7km long and goes up the hill (towards the falls). The guy with the pick up truck who said he would be there when we were ready to leave, was not. The woman who manages the gate to the waterfall said that there were no more trucks going back to Mindo and there was nothing we can do. So we did the only thing there was to do. WE started walking. Now 7km is not a very long nor very difficult walk, comparativly. But when you add potholes, rocks and huge puddles and subtract light, 7km becomes a real pain in the ass. There was nothing else to do, so we had to walk. We told stories to pass the time and kept our eyes glues to the ground, trying our best to look out for rocks and holes despite the almost total darkness. After abuout 5km, things started getting rapidly brighter, and i becmae apparent that a pickup truck was coming downt the hill behind us. So we climbed in the truck and were greeted by no less than 14 other people and 2 dogs, all in one truck. We talked with them and found out that they were all the guides for the ziplines, the last ones to leave the hill every night.

Tired and hungry we eventually got back to the lodge and went straight to bed. Just like I am about to do now. Stories fromt he farm will be posted tomorrow.

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