Cumpleaños feliz

"Feliz Cumpleaños a tí. Feliz Cumpleaños a tí. Sorry I don´t know the rest of the song." John sang softly, as the waiter lit the long white candle in a small bolivian pottery vase.

I clapped my hands, "That´s fun and unexpected!"

"They didn´t have any cake, so I had to get you a banana split for your birthday dessert."

That was just fine by me. In fact the whole day had been a nice, calm celebration of the day of my birth.

True, there had been no tin foil crown, toilet paper streamers and gold cuttlery at the breakfast table, my mom´s off key voice, singing the special birthday song to wake me up, "It´s your birthday. It´s Jenny´s birthday. It´s your birthday. Birthday, today. Oh yeah!"

But, John had remembered the song and told me that I got to pick any breakfast I wanted. After all, that was the Steiner tradition. And even though I couldn´t pick my dad´s chocolate chip pancakes or bulls eye eggs with a slice of cheese for a smile, the Bolivian style breakfast with fried plantains and eggs were quite tasty and set us up for the long walk through the Bolivian countryside to La Gruta del San Pedro.

There had not been twizzlers, peanut m&ms and silly decorations or gag gifts from Ross at Zeitgeist, but nevertheless, John and I made due celebrating on our own in Sorata, Bolivia with a visit to a local cave, complete with its own laguna and a celebratory bottle of Chilean wine for five whole American dollars! That´s right, we broke the bank for my birthday.

We even met a friend, a man from Galicia, Spain now living in this sleepy town at the base of la cordillera real. He joined us at the end of our birthday salad and pizza, chain smoking, sipping a beer and regaling us with strange stories of his torid youth. When he jumped up suddenly, claiming to need to get money to pay his bill, we thought nothing of it. But upon his return, he slipped me a birthday gift under the table in a small plastic bag. . . possiby something that might have been better suited for my brother. But as they say, it´s the thought that counts.

And the day had indeed been full of happy, fun, birthday thoughts.

Rides with strangers

Yesterday, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I am not totally sure what exactly was going on, but everything just felt completely wrong. Physically, I was exhausted. It felt as if there was a large anvil resting on my chest, making normal breathing a virtual impossiblity. My head pounded, my glands hurt, my throat ached.

I chalked it up to all the traveling I had been doing. After all, I had just traveled from Copacabana, Bolivia 23 hours by bus to arrive in Lima and take an overnight flight to Miami, followed by a shorter flight to Philly to surprise my dad for his 60th surprise party. In the end, I just couldn´t miss it. Then after the party, I had rented a car, driven the three hours to Brooklyn to surprise my grandparents. I figured I might as well, seeing as how close I was. So after the three hour drive back, followed by the inquisition of American airport security and two flights to arrive back in Lima, I just couldn´t face another 23 hour bus ride back to Bolivia. Plus, John wouldn´t be back to Cuzco, Peru from his Machu Pichu treking till Friday night, which meant that we wouldn´t be seeing each other in Bolivia till at least Saturday night or Sunday morning at best. So I chose, (wisely, though not all that economically) to fly to Cusco, at least putting me closer to seeing John and saving myself 14 hours on a bus. After all time is money.

So the physical exhaustion I sort of understood. I was back at altitude. I had been living in the same clothes for over a week. I had taken buses, trains, planes, cars and foot all over the northern and southern hemisphere. I was beat. But that didn´t explain my emotional state. I sat there on the edge of the dorm room bed, looking around the room biting back my tears. I wasn´t alone and crying definitely would have attracted looks if not questions. And that I just couldn´t handle at 6:50 in the morning. The bed across from me was unmade and I wondered how early its occupant had risen to depart for his or her next destination. The bed next to it was also vacant, but a sleeping bag and small backpack told that he would be back later in the day. A girl with dark curly hair looked frantically through her bag as if she had misplaced something of extreme importance and in the other two beds, I could make out the tops of two sleeping head, a young man I had met the day before and a crop of white blonde hair that could have belonged to either a boy or a girl. They were all traveling alone, just like me. Only unlike me, they probably weren´t waiting to meet back up with their travel partner. I wasn´t really traveling alone. Not this time. And anyway, being alone could not be the reason I felt this sad. I just didn´t get lonely like that. It wasn´t in my "fiercely independent" nature. It had taken years to even consider myself part of a we.

So what was it? Was it the quick trip home, the disruption to this time abroad, far from credit cards and convenience stores and traffic lights? Was it the look on my father´s face when he saw my brother and I standing in the restaurant as we yelled, "Surprise!" His eyes filled up and he just stood there, dumbfounded, shaking his head. Or maybe it was having seen my grandparents in their varying states of fragility, overwhelmed with joy that I was there and immediately equally saddened that I wouldn´t be staying more than one night before heading back to places they were sure were more dangerous than their apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I even speculated that it could have been this feeling that I have been having these last few weeks as I talk to my friends living and working or volunteering in communities around the world. This feeling that somehow this travel is self indulgent and egotisitical and that I would have been better off setting up camp in an underserved community, volunteering for the year rather than galavanting off to broaden my own horizons.

But none of it specifically felt like what was wrong and I wasn´t about to spend another day wallowing in my exhaustion and self pity, while John was off having the adventure of a lifetime. I was way too competitive for that. So I picked myself up, showered in the luke warm, electrically heated shower and wished for the third time that I hadn´t given all our soap to John. I donned my uniform for the week and headed out to see some of the ruins I hadn´t had time to see on my first visit to Cuzco three years earlier.

I had been told the day before that there were ruins to the south that were less touristy than the ones heading northeast to Machu Pichu, and since I had seen many of the must see attractions previously, that sounded just fine to me. So after a leisurely breakfast, a second coffee at an outdoor cafe, some internet time and reading half of my new novel set out to find the bus heading to los Urcos. In theory, that would allow me to head to the town of Tipon, famous for its cuy al horno (baked guinea pig), from where I would take a combi (Peru´s version of a guagua) and arrive at the archeological site of Tipón.

After walking for well over an hour and getting at least six sets of directions that got me no closer to the bus terminal for los Urcos, I finally arrived at a dusty parking lot with three small buses. They were obviously local buses as packages, lugage and large plastic and cloth wrapped sacks were being tied to the roof and about 40 Peruvians sat waiting patiently aboard the bus for the last remaining seats to be sold before departing. I boarded the bus and sat down next a man in his late forties. A baseball hat covered wavey hair and as I sat down next to him, he smiled a wide toothed smile that showed off the gold encircling many of his front teeth and deepened the smile lines around his eyes.

I sat on the bus, overheating in my tank top, wondering how so many people could be dressed in long pants or skirts and long sleeved wool sweaters, babies tied to young mothers´backs in brightly colored blankets. "How much does it cost to ride the bus?" I asked the man next to me, figuring it was better to have the price before the money collector attempted to collect from me the fare plus the local gringa tax.

"Where are you going?" he asked fiddling with two gold sol coins in his lap.

"To Tipón."

"I think it´s either 1.50 or 2 soles to Tipón. It´s 2 all the way to los Urcos, but I can´t be sure when the price goes down. You going to Pikillacta too? What about Andahuaylillas? Lots of nice birds there."

"Well, right now I had planned to go to Tipón. Do you think there´s time to go to all three?"

He shrugged and I nodded as the bus roared to life and we pulled out of the dusty parking lot onto la avenida de las culturas.

As it turned out, Sebastian was a wealth of knowledge and by the time we reached Tipón, I had learned a ton about the local region, the archeology, the Incan history and why I was better of getting off in Andahuaylillas with him and then working my way back to Pikillacta and Tipón. He seemed nice enough and when he told me that he collected kids for a living, that sealed the pact. He either collected them as prisoners in his basement for child slave labor, or the guy was ok. I decided to take the risk and as we got off the bus in the small cobblestone town of Andahuaylillas, I sent up a prayer to universe to protect me.

Of course, before getting these so called children, we had a must visit to the local catholic church, for which they are quite famous with the tourists. There we met two tour guides in training, who were only two happy to offer up a bit too much information on many of the patron saints, Mary and of course, the saint of tremors, who protects societies from earthquakes. (Too bad that saint doesn´t live in San Francisco. I would feel a whole lot safer then.)

Luckily for me, Sebastian really did have a job escorting children from school to their homes for 2 soles a day per child (not a bad job considering how hard it is to make a sol around here). As we approached a long white van, not unsimilar to the guaguas of Nicaragua, the colectivos of Bolivia and of course, the combis of Peru, I could see the kids already waiting around the van. They ranged in age from five to sixteen and all of them immediately decided I was their "profe" (teacher) and that on the ride down to Pikillacta, I could teach them something about the states, my life, my hair and of course American dollars.

We were old friends by the time we reached the ruins, children grabbing me by the hand to pull me this way and that, to show me the left over Incan houses, churches and schools. They had all been to the site a million times before, but never with a celebrity with hair like Shakira, a shiny nose ring and a digital camera. I was a hit, which of course, was just fine by me. Spending a few hours with eager children is right up my alley.

My sour mood long since forgotten, we took turns taking pictures among the ruins, first Sebastian with the kids, then me with the kids, then all of us with one of the kid snapping the picture. They found me yellow grasshoppers and small, black, slimy snails that I begged them not to smash on the rocks for fun. I was having such a good time that I completely forgot that they would have to go home to their houses. This was an unauthorized field trip by Sebastian, and there was no way he wanted to lose this job. So with exaggerated kisses, hugs and teary good-byes, they left me standing among the Incan ruins, blue skies spotted with billowy white clouds and long, thin cacti curling up toward the sky.

I smiled and sat down on a set of steps to eat a luna bar, thinking how fortunate I was and then realizing that it was after three, thought I should start my trip back to Cuzco. So much for Tipón and the laguna. Oh well, there was always next time and you never knew when that might be.

I reached the street and stood between the white line and a drainage ditch, poised to flag down the buses as they headed from Urcos back to Cuzco. I knew how to flag a bus, a wave with one finger and I was ready. When the first bus passed me by, full and waving back, I didn´t give it much thought. It was early and surely the next bus would stop to pick me up.

I think it was probably the fourth bus that passed me, all smiles and waves, when I finally decided to begin walking toward Cuzco. Moving in the direction of my final destination couldn´t hurt. As the fifth bus passed, my dark mood slowly returning, I realized I would have no choice but to hitchhike. So offering up yet another prayer to the universe, I began holding out my hand to buses, cars and trucks alike. Someone had to be heading to Cuzco and have room for little ole me. After all, people rode on the tops of trucks here and the sides of buses. Surely someone would push over to let me in their van.

Finally after 15 minutes and measured breathing, a truck with a tarp covering it´s cargo pulled over to the side. I ran to catch up with it as a young boy about 20 opened the door, "Where you headed?"

"Cuzco?" I pleaded as I began to climb the steps to the truck.

"Well, we´re headed to Manu," the driver said, "but we can drop you at the crossroads."

As the expression goes, beggars can´t be chooser, so I settled for the 5 kilometer ride to the intersection and hoped that someone else would be as nice on the next road. The two men, carrying thousands of kilos of coca leaves were headed to Manu to drop their shipment and offered to take me, that is if I was interested in changing my plans and spending a few days in the Jungle. They assured me they´d be back by Sunday, but didn´t seem to mind much when I politely declined.

At the intersection, a group of men standing by the side of the road, urged me not to wait with them as it made their chances of a bus stopping even slimmer and I was sure to get a ride from a truck or car passing by. "Everyone´s real nice round here," they said in a local accent eating the ends of their words. "You can go with jus bout anyone." They nodded and laughed and I continued on my way, wondering if they were laughing at me or with me, knowing full well what my father would say if he saw me here.

I walked slowly in the afternoon light, Tipón´s ruins on the far side of the corn fields, a weeping willow completing the scene. For some reason as I came across a field of wild purple flowers along side of the river, I felt a pressure in my chest I can only describe as sadness or melancholy. But not the bad kind, the kind that makes you feel that much more alive and I breathed the air in deeply as more cars and trucks passed me, with no intention of slowing, let alone stopping.

A bus passed me then, full and waving and as they went by, I thought for sure I saw the men who had urged me on. They were on their way home. But I guess they had worked all day and were tired, really what had I done that I couldn´t walk a little longer.

Finally, just as I was starting to wonder if it really was a four hour walk to Cuzco, a large blue truck pulled over into the shoulder, the passenger door swung open and I ran toward my ride. I would not arrive in Cuzco in the middle of the night, freezing, starving or possibly abducted.

The driver was one of those non descript ages. He could have been 30 or he could have been 60, with deep creases next to eyes and a big puffy winter jacket. The cab of the truck was decorated with hanging amulets, a Jesus, a Mary, maybe Saint Christopher, the protector of travelers. As I sat on the far side of the truck, backpack on my lap, hand on the doorhandle, Wilbur began to tell me his life story. A truck driver for more years than he cared to remember (that did nothing for my age calculation), he had done the trip from Arequipa to Cuzco, carrying water for the Coca Cola company so many times he could do it with his eyes closed (I hoped he wouldn´t).

We had the same conversations I always have with locals. What was I doing here? Where was I from? Why did I speak Spanish so well if I was from the U.S.? And of course, where was my husband. That question, one that normally offends me, as if a woman could never be traveling alone without someone there to protect her, for some reason in that moment, I answered, "Oh he´s back in Cuzco. Didn´t feel that well today after his trek to Machu Pichu." Strange as the guy had done nothing out of the ordinary but make small talk, and yet I knew for some reason, it was important for him to think I had a husband. Someone waiting on my safe return.

We drove in silence then, as we passed the signs for the famous guinea pigs baked to perfection, piles of batteries being sold roadside and stray dogs, sheep and cows that wandered out into the street at will.

After the better part of an hour, Wilbur remarked about his insatiable thirst and, we pulled onto a side street before I could think of a good reason why I could not stop for a chicha. I had had chicha before, a sweet corn and fruit drink that sometimes came with our menus of the day and so was at least relieved he hadn´t ordered a beer or pisco sour before continuing to drive me the rest of the way to Cuzco.

So you can imagine my surprise when an elderly, bent backed man set a glass of foamy yellow liquid before me, easily the size of two pints of beer. I pushed the glass to the middle of the table, waiting for our smaller glasses to come. Wilbur laughed, pushed it back toward me and told me he would have his own.

I sipped slowly, watching the women sipping the same foamy, yellow liquid, as they sat on the dirt ground by the fire. By now, Wilbur had had his shoes shined, finished half his chicha, ordered a second and was talking about a trip we could take before he had to head back to Arequipa with his empty truck. He suggested that we meet the next day at two at a plaza on the far side of town and I mentioned John again, swirled my 3/4 full drink and pretened to not understand when Wilbur encouraged me to drink up. With a luna bar for lunch, and breakfast a distant memory, I was in not hurry to drink this alcoholic version of chicha.

Finally, Wilbur stood up and motioned for me to follow. I suggested he go on with out me, but Wilbur, Peruvian "gentleman" that he was, would hear nothing of it, opened my door and as I climbed up, disappeared around the back of the truck. I sat in the cab, wondering what he could possibly doing for so long and fiddled with the seatbelt. I wouldn´t put it on this time, just in case I needed to make a quick escape.

We drove up the bumpy road, rounded a corner past a local market and avoided a bicycle cab, two fighting dogs and a truck full of orangeds as we headed back to the main road. It was mintues before I realized I was holding my breath, and as I let it out slowly, I realized that Wilbur was no longer talking.

Abruptly he pulled over to the side of the road, indicating a blue sign, "The bus will stop here and take you right to Cuzco center." I nodded and pushed the door open quickly before he could change his mind.

"Thanks! See you!" I cried the door already closing as I hit the pavement. He pulled away as a Combi pulled up yelling destinations I did not know. I smiled and squeezed myself into the van, my knees touching the woman facing me. I didn´t care where we were headed as I looked out onto the crowded street. I was safe, my dark mood a distant memory.

Get involved

I know I haven´t posted an entry in a few weeks and I have a few in the works that should be up in a few days, but before I tell you any more about my self-indulgant travel, I need to plug some amazing people and the work they are doing.

Check out the following websites and see for yourself:

http://runforafrica.org/index.html

• this organization, set up by my good friends BJ and Emily outside of Asheville, NC is a running team who raises money to sustain life saving water programs in villages in Africa.
• if you are a runner or interested in becoming one, here is a training program that can help you while you help others.
  

http://www.copacabana-bolivia.com/copacabana/content/blogsection/7/48/lang,es/

• this organization, literally translated is let´s live better and is set up by a local bolivian woman and her columbian husband who live on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia
• their idea is to create recycling programs, sewage and drainage programs to stop the pollution of the lake, a national treasure and to create educational programs so that the next generation knows how to take care of the environment.
  
• they need donations of money, materials and volunteers to help in the schools and with the recycling.

http://babycatching.blogspot.com/

• this is my friend Joanne´s website who has been living in Malawi, Africa for the last two years, where she volunteers as a midwife at a local hospital
• they always need donations, medical supplies etc.
  
• you can contact her through her blog or just read her amazing story

http://www.dominicandream.org/

• this organization is the one that mentors Domincan schools and teachers to create sustainable educational programs for Domincan children
• my friend, Jen has been volunteering there this year (this is also where John and I helped out in September)
• they also always need donations, materials or volunteers

So yeah, as you can see, there are lots of amazing people doing amazing things to make the world a better place. Check the sites out and see if one appeals to you. . .

Peace,
Jen

Moving on

There are moments in life when you just know that it is time to move on. It´s as if, things are moving along they way they should and then, "wham!" the realization hits you, you need to go. I think that´s what happened to John and I last week.

It was Friday, when we piled into Edwin´s blue Mazda pick-up, two mountain bikes and four 100 pound bags of compost and headed out of Ibarra. There were only two bikes and three of us, because apparently I would not need a bike, though the exact reason why eluded me. I speculated then that it might have been what was lacking between my legs in Edwin´s opinion, but that had yet to be confirmed. I mentioned, as we squeezed into the front of the cab, that I too would like to ride a bike, but Edwin just laughed and replied, "Let´s go," in an accented English, one of his fou English phrases (along with Please, Come on, I´m sorry and Thank you).

We were back in Ibarra somewhat anticlimactically as our volunteer job in La Chimba had been unexpectedly cancelled or postponed (which we weren´t sure), due to an impromptu training by the department of education. I couldn´t quite figure out why the training hadn´t come up as a problem before, but I imagine that part of the lack of success in the educational system in Ecuador might have something to do with this type of lack of communication. Call me crazy - it´s just a theory. Then again, I could have been just really disappointed about the possible cancellation of our volunteerism. . .

We had a few days free and Edwin, our bakery friend, insisted we stay with him and pay for our meals, which seemed just fine to us. Thursday, he had suggested that we head up to a small mountain village where he had grown up until age 13, when he had finshed school and had left home on a horse with, no money, no plan and nowhere to stay in Ibarra. Apparently his family lived on a tomato tree farm and that piqued our interest and we had the time, so we thought why not?

It was somewhere on that journey heading north out of Ibarra, as the asphalt turned first to a smooth octagonal type of cobblestone, then to a bumpier version of the same, the road seeming to be paved with any old rock or stone that had been found in the surrounding fields to finally dirt, the road strewn with rocks and debris, that I understood that it was essentially impossible to have anything but a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Of course, in the spirit of proving me wrong, not long after I had come to that conclusion, I saw the first of many buses winding their way deep into the valley on a road barely wide enough for it to pass. I wondered briefly how oncoming traffic fared in these situations, and then hoped I would never have to find that out.

The 46 kilometer ride from Ibarra, to where vehicles could no longer pass, due to a landslide that had obscured the road making it impossible to continue the last three kilometers up to the village, took us well over three hours, crossing bridges that had no business calling itself a bridge, and winding up and down mountain passes that made me glad I couldn´t see over the no-guard rail drop off from my seat in the middle of the cab.

After about two and a half hours, Edwin pulled the truck over, hopped out of the car, looked at me and asked, ¨You know how to drive?" I nodded not completely understanding why he needed to know. "Come on, John. Jenny can drive and we can bike." This was just too much. Not only was I not going to get to bike, but in addition, I had to drive these insane roads? I tried to protest, but Edwin pretended he hadn´t heard me and was already on the bike heading downhill, "Keep it in second," he shouted back at me, "otherwise you might careen off the side."

"Great, just fantastic." I mumbled, my heart beating in my throat. I definitely had to figure out a way to get out of driving tomorrow. Now I understood that this was just practice for the bike trip he had planned with John and two of his friends for Saturaday. No way in hell that I was going to spend the whole day in the car, while Edwin, John and his friends biked the whole way from Ibarra back up to this mountain village. Machismo or no, he was out of his mind. He didn´t know who he was messing with.

For the moment though, I drove. Slowly, much slower than John and Edwin, careening down the dirt roads, miles from medical services, helmets a precaution apparently not needed in this part of the country.

Somehow though, we made it intact, to where the road began to climb back up the hill and since Edwin was definitely not a biker, he called their trip quits before John could embarass him and threw his bike in the back of the truck, following it up there and sitting on the side of the bed. He motioned to John to follow and said something John clearly could not understand, ¨You keep driving Jenny, you´re not half bad.¨John, not totally understanding that I had just been insulted, shrugged and jumped in the back after Edwin. I put the car in first, put the idea out of my head to throw Edwin from the truck bed with a short stop, and continued driving, up the pass, back down the other side, over a few more ragged bridges, around tight corners, through a river and up the valley till we reached the slide.

"A truck will come down and meet us in a while. They know we´re coming." Edwin explained as we surveyed our surroundings. Mountains reached up on every side of us into a deep blue sky, dotted with white puffy clouds. Down below, the river raged over rocks in deep in a lush green valley. Flowers seemed to bloom in the most unlikely of places, yellow, purple and orange popping up out of rocks, dirt and trees alike.

"How long has the road been like this"? I wondered, thinking of how difficult the community´s life must be without any access to a town of any size.

"Maybe three months or so." Edwin shrugged, "Hope they get it fixed by the new year. Otherwise I´ll be stuck meeting my brother up here and loading up the truck with thousands and thousands of tomatoes to sell in town. I stared at the unmoving yellow crane on the far side of the slide, no one was working on the road. It looked like no one had worked on it in months. It was little more than a large pile of dirt obscuring one side from the other.

By then, Edwin´s half-brother, Julio had arrived in another pick up, dressed in knee high, black rubber boots, dirty jeans and a black t-shirt. We dragged the bikes and the four 100 pound bags of compost over the fallen road, past the motionless tractor to Julio´s red pick up (And by we, I mean John, Julio and Edwin, apparently that too was no job for a female).

At Edwin´s mother´s house, we ducked to enter the kitchen and sat on low, wooden stools at a small wooden table, pushed up against the far wall. The wall was barren with the exception of a calendar, the picture on this month´s page, a toddler in a raccoon suit. I surveyed my surroundings. Julio sat on a milk crate against the far wall, close to a door that led out to a small store. Edwin´s mother began serving us fresh tomato juice, fresh from their tomato trees, laden with tons of sugar and local water, followed by a quinoa and potato soup. We were assured that no hens had been sacrificed for our visit, but I felt uneasy, as I sipped the familiar broth. Edwin´s mother looked on as I searched my bowl, laughing as she sat on a bag of potatoes beside the oven, "Eat! It´s good for you." When I inquired if she would join us in eating, she laughed again, "Later I eat. After you young people."

Immediately following our meal of the psuedo chicken soup, rice, potatoes and salad fresh from their fields, we bid good bye to his mother, who immediately began, no not to eat, but to clean the dishes. I offered to clean the dishes myself, as a thank you for having fed us, but was laughed right out of the small concrete house, back out onto the dirt road and the hot, afternoon sun.

Edwin indicated to John that he follow on the bike and so John followed, apologizing to me with his eyes as he left me to walk down the steep side of the pasture to visit the tomato trees with Julio. I still didn´t get how a tomato could grow on a tree, but I had a feeling I was about to find out.

We climbed down the grassy hill to a grove of trees with large, floppy dark green leaves and a skinny trunk, similar to bamboo and there they were, hundreds of thousands of tomato trees.

We wandered through rows and rows of the lush trees, heavy with the unripe fruit. Edwin found two almost red ones, plucked them from the tree and handed them to John and me, "Tomatoes, fresh from the tree." On the far side of the field, where the trees were little more than two feet tall, a young man with a whip made of some sort of vine, followed a white horse in the rows between the baby plants. The horse, harnished with a makeshift plow, a curved wooden tree trunk with a carved wooden wedge, tilled the soil as they walked by us. This indeed was a different life. We stood there observing the fields for a few minutes and waved at the man working the field as he came by us on his way back down the row.

From tomato trees, to bean plants to fields of asparagus, each one worked by only one or two men, dressed alike in their knee high rubber boots, worn jeans and t-shirts, wide brim hats atop their dark hair to ward off the strong sun. "How long does it take to plow a field like this?" I inquired in Spanish after John asked me the same question in English.

"About four days to plow the two acres, harvest is a whole other story. Maybe two or three weeks if we´re fast and lucky."

"Problem is, there aren´t too many young people left here," explained Julio as we walked together, John and Edwin, mere specs of color on their bicycles. "We only have about 50 families to begin with and lots of times, once the kids finish school, at 12 or 13, they head to the city. See if they can´t find work, make money. You know?"

"Is there a school here in town?" I wondered aloud.

"Sure," he nodded, " Passed up by the house. ´Bout 30 kids go there from grades one through six, two teachers. One for kinder and one for the rest."

We walked in silence then. So much and yet nothing else to say. I had a million questions for Julio, but didn´t want to offend with my naive curiousity. Perhaps he has a million for me as well, but the same reasons stopped him.

We reached the makeshift fence at the far end of the field and I climbed between the top and bottom rung after Julio, then waited while he replaced the missing middle one. "It´s not a fancy gate, but it works." He said gesturing behind him at the gate we had just come through. I smiled and nodded, it sure did.

Luckily for Edwin, though not so much for John, John had a relapse of the stomach virus that had plagued him the week before in Bahía de Caraquez, and so Edwin was spared my "Don´t be a sexist asshole rant!" when I was sure to be refused a bicycle for the following day´s adventure.

As John lay suffering in bed, the La Chimba job now definitely cancelled, the Galapagos job postponed till January, the jungle job now the first week in February, we thought about what to do. Edwin was a stellar guy. He had given us his house, fed us, guided us all over the area, but he had a serious, machista blind spot. One that was making me, (and despite his illness, John) extremely uncomfortable.

So, we did what we had to do. We bid out good byes and moved on. Yes, we waited for John to recover, but the minute he did, we bid Edwin and his family good bye and began the trek southward toward Boliva.

Of course, as with all of the best laid plans of mice and men, our plans changed and we got waylayed in Peru, which is where we are now. Somehow, on the three bus rides totalling more than 50 hours from Quito to the Bolivian border, we made new Limeño friends, who had other ideas for us. So after a quick stop in Lima and a snack and shower at Oscar´s house (one of our newfound friends), we headed to the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, so that John could also partake in some of the beauty that Peru has to offer. I imagine Bolivia and Argentina are not going anywhere, even if our time is.

Domincan Republic Photos link

Here is a link to our photo album from the Dominican Republic. It is missing a few photos from the hike up Pico Duarte and they are a bit out of order, but I thought to publish it before more time passes. Especially since soon, we will leave Ecuador and I will have to send out those pictures. I am also sending the link via email, as a forward from my account.

When you click on the link or the email that says "view this album," you will have to log in. If you don´t have an account, it is free and easy to create one. If you can´t see the photos from either source, and want to view them, email me and I will invite you directly from snapfish.

Happy picture viewing.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=921281162055852120/l=217221443/g=5671161/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Heart Isle

"27 dollars?" I repeated the slender woman's words incredulously, wondering how many days worth of food that would be for John and me. "That's really expensive. Isn't there a way to go and visit the island more cheaply?"

The woman looked up from the magazine she had returned to flipping through and tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder. "No." Her voice was flat and her face unsmiling. "You are sure to get lost if you are not from Bahía de Caraquez. You will need a guide."

I sighed heavily. Same old story, different place. It seemed as though that going on your own anywhere in Ecuador was impossibility. I was positive there had to be a cheaper way to see the Mangroves, the only question was how.

"Psst," I heard from behind me and turned to find a young, unshaven man sitting at the small round table on the other side of the travel agency's office. "You can go on your own," he continue whispering out of one side of his mouth, "I know how." He winked and then stood to address the woman reading the magazine about his own travel adventures.

I nodded and sat listening to the two of them discuss the dry forest that grew in the area, flipping through the binder displaying the various tours offered in English by the agency, all at prices that could feed a family of four for a month in this small coastal town. He extended his had to shake the woman's and I stood smiling my good bye, unsure if this was someone to be trusted.

Outside on the sidewalk, my new friend Javier from Alicante, Spain, explained to me that at his hostal, Coco Bongo, the owners, Suzi and Tony had given him explicit instructions on how to visit la Isla Corazon, the land of the mangroves, independently. We agreed to meet back up in two hours time and went our separate ways.

Later that morning, John was quiet as we sat on the benches at the end of the pier waiting for Javi to arrive. "Javi seemed really nice John. I am sure he'll show and we'll find the mangroves." "No, I'm fine," he assured me, "it's not Javi. It's my stomach. Something is strange in my stomach." Concerned, I began to ask him exactly what was wrong with his stomach, but before I had time to inquire further, there was Javi and we were off, donning our life jackets, paying our 30 cent fare and boarding a small motorboat/taxi bound for the other side of the bay.

Across the bay in San Vicente, nothing much had changed. Like Bahía, San Vicente's run down buildings, bicycle cabs and street vendors completed the dusty scene. We stood chatting on the side of the road, waiting for our bus, "Es que aquí, no hay paradas," Javier muttered as we watched a bus about half a mile down the road pull over three times before reaching where we stood. He was right, busses stopped wherever there were people to get on or off. Unfortunately, this one was not our bus.

After fending off a soldier, an elderly woman, two small boys and a man with one leg all in need of our money, we finally boarded an overcrowded bus bound for Chone. We squeezed ourselves into the masses of humanity, bags of potatoes and wicker baskets, wedging parts of our bodies between the people, seats and window ledges to prevent ourselves from flying forward when, inevitably, the bus stopped short.

The bus whizzed by shrimp farms, former sites of thousands of mangroves along the river Chone. The destruction of these amazing trees, designed as a natural water filter and habitat to thousands of species of local birds was incomprehensible. Like so many places, the shrimp farmers had destroyed thousands of hectares of mangroves in exchange for the profit of the shrimping industry. What remained . . . a mere fraction of the graceful mazelike trees and the black and white frigate birds that made the mangroves their homes.

The bus dropped us at the beginning of a dirt driveway leading up to two small houses, one a short squat structure next to a dock along the river bank, the other built high above us, a wooden staircase leading up to what looked like an oversized tree house. As we stood on the banks of the Chone, a green island in the shape of a heart was clearly visible, la isla corazón.

We quickly found Francisco, the recommended guide for the tour, and after some negotiations and explanation of our current financial situation due to the recent pick pocketing events, we were able to settle with the town's president what we felt was a reasonable price: $20 for the three of us.

"Hurry up," Francisco yelled down to the three mostly naked boys that had stopped splashing around in the water and were now bailing out what I could only assume to be our mode of transport to the island. One, around ten years of age, disappeared inside the house, came out in a t-shirt and shorts and placed small wooden chairs with seat cushions inside the rickety canoe. He motioned for us to come closer and one by one, we hiked up our pant legs and sat ourselves in the inch of water still on the boat's floor. The now dressed boy positioned himself at the bow of the canoe, thick paddle in hand and Francisco pushed us off into the murky waters of the Chone, toward the island. "Too bad you didn't come an hour ago,” he mused, "tide would have been higher then. Easier to navigate. Don't worry. We'll manage."

We weren't worried. We were entranced. As Francisco and the young boy paddled, Javi, John and I sat in awe, snapping pictures as we listened to Francisco's descriptions of the reforestation of the island in front of us. We moved slowly toward the island watching as fish jumped around us and frigate birds, pelicans and cormorants dove for their lunch on either side of the canoe.

Javi, a marine biologist in Spain, was dumbfounded by the beauty, his incessant questions keeping Francisco on his toes. "How long had the mangroves been reforested? Who did the reforestation? Did the shrimping industry still destroy the mangroves? Did they need help to plant more?" On and on until we reached the edge of the island.

As we entered the first tunnel of mangroves, a hush fell upon the group as we looked. . .left, right and then up -- the branches, leaves and roots of the mangroves forming a roof over our heads. "Wow. . ." I heard John sigh behind me, stomach ache monetarily forgotten. "Amazing."

Francisco indicated the three types of mangroves, the white with small delicate flowers, the black with long dark leaves and the red, the most resilient of the bunch that accounted for over 90 percent of the trees on the island. He showed us how some of the trees breathe through their roots stuck up to 10 feet deep in the mud of the island, while others took in oxygen through their leaves. All around us, trees intertwined, own swirling around another until it was impossible to distinguish one from the next. Bright, red crabs scurried along the branches as floated down the canal into a section where the water very quickly became un-rowable mud.

"It's the tide," explained Francisco hopping down off the boat and indicating that the boy in front should do the same, "Would have been easier an hour ago. But don't worry, we'll make it." I had my doubts as our young friend sunk to his thighs in mud and began to push with all of his might to propel the canoe forward.

As we came around the corner, mud once again gave way to water and grabbing their paddles, Francisco and son steered us deftly out of the old growth and into the reforested section of mangroves, haven to hundreds of thousands of frigates. Long slender birds with curved feet swarmed the trees overhead, the air lit up with their mating songs.

"See the male birds?" Francisco inquired indicating the scarlet, pouch protruding from some of the birds' throats. "That's how he entices his female companions. Up to four a day feed and spoil him, vying for his affection, but only one wins his courtship. The rest build their nests and protect their egg alone. How's you'd like to be a frigate Javi?" Francisco laughed from the back of the boat and I rolled my eyes at John, knowing he too would find the joke un poco machista.

We continued around the lake, mesmerized by the elegance of the pure white ibis, the skill of the pelican with his large fish trapping beak, watching as cormorants lazed on top branches sunning themselves to dry their wet feathers before taking flight once again. Fish jumped playfully around the edges of the boat as we reached a wooden dock with a small foot path that would take us deep inside the enchanted mangrove forest.

Surrounded on all sides by giant mangroves, Francisco leaned down to pick up mangrove seeds that lay strewn on our wooden footpath. "See this tip?" He scoops up the long slender branch to shop us a small brown edge in the shape of an arrow. "This tells the mangrove how far to throw its seed. It's a detector. Watch!" He walked to the railing leaned over and let the seed plummet to the ground 8 feet below us. The seed stuck upright in the mud, a young mangrove planted. Javi, John and I planted three more, watching them as they each took root in the island.

Standing among the beauty and wonder of the magnificent trees, the magnitude of this island with its natural water filtration system, thousands of species of shellfish, birds, fish, plants all around us, it is difficult to imagine wanting to destroy any of it, even for the inevitable profit the shrimping industry will bring. Francisco agrees and explains how after years and years of watching the precious mangroves disappear; he and a group of local fisherman became fed up with the destruction. Feeling the power of a group, they banded together and began to replant the trees in danger of disappearing from the River Chone completely.

He sighs deeply, content with what he sees all around him, "Six years ago, this island was but a dream in our minds. Now it is a reality."

A quiet, reflective trip back in our makeshift canoe, now filled with significantly more water than when we started four hours earlier that day, gives time for reflection on the efforts of a few determined individuals, determined to make a difference in the world. We float by two barebacked teenagers, one fishing rod made of sticks, a small handmade net tossed out into the sea, creating waves that ripple out toward our boat. They wave as we go by, a slow friendly salute.

The island gets smaller and smaller as we approach the shore, and I turn around to take one more look at the island, reminded of how each and every one of us can truly make a difference.

They say. . .

They say, bad things happen in threes. They say, you reap what you sow. They say, what comes around goes around. They say that for every door that closes, a window opens. They say, you have to take the good with the bad.

I have always wondered, who exactly are they? And how the heck do they know so much about life? Haven´t you?

Well for what it´s worth, in our experience during these last few weeks, we have discovered that "they" know what they are talking about.

For example, take the old addage that bad things happens in threes. Now, I am not particularly supersititious, though I do throw salt over my shoulder if I spill it and I do from time to time, knock on some wood. I mean, really, it can´t hurt right? I guess you could call me an agnostic when it comes to the oral traditions. It´s not that I am a staunch believer, yet at the same time, I am not completely willing to say ok, I don´t believe in fate or destiny or that things happen for a reason. But, I digress. I must return to things that happen in threes. I am sure you all remember the story of the mustard bird that got us on the streets of Quito? Well I guess we would have to call that number one, right?

It happened, nothing to major, upsetting but for the most part, we got off scott free. No money to speak of was stolen, no documents, we weren´t hurt physically. . .you get the picture. So you can imagine our surprise the following day when we went to pack up to leave Quito and lo and behold, there´s good ole number two. . . John´s ipod is gone. Poof. Disappeared. We searched high and low (and while I searched through my things and John pulled apart his own, I remembered him distinctly saying to me, "You know Jen, I am just not going to bring it. I don´t want to risk it getting damaged or lost or stolen." My response of course that changed his mind, "Then why do you own it if you aren´t going to bring it?" Ahh, hindsight). Anyway, back to the search. We looked and looked and looked everywhere we could think of, but for the life of us, there was no ipod to be found. Bad thing number two.

But again, really after being disturbed for the better part of half an hour, what could we do. An ipod is expensive. It´s valuable, sure. But really in the large scheme of things, not that important. So words of Buddah and the Dali Lamma in our heads, we let the ipod go, right along with John´s camelback and blissfully returned to our life on the road.

Of course, number three wasn´t far behind. That´s the way these addages and good ole Murphy´s law works. You know, when it rains it pours. The bread always fall butter side down etc. etc.

We had left La Chimba (the town that took me from city to country girl in a matter of minutes) for a few weeks after having met with the teachers and deciding that it was better for them if we started the English courses later in the month to give the municipality time to certify their time, and since we really have no binding plans, we readily obliged. So we set off for La Esperanza, another tiny village about two hours from La Chimba, thinking we would hike this great trail over a volcano to a volcanic lake back to the small market town of Otavalo. It sounded perfect. But after two days of rain and a sore throat and swolen glands on my part, we gave the idea up and decided to head down the mountain into the city of Ibarra.

Back in a relatively big city again, we headed down one of the main streets to find ourselves a hotel for the night. The sidewalks were crowded and thin and as we wove our way in and out of the throngs of hummanity, and before long five or six people separated me from John, our humongous backpacks making it impossible to walk two abreast.

That´s when I heard it,"Shit! Jen! Help me! Help me!" It had to be John. Not just because I heard my name, but really because who else would be yelling help me in English. I whirled around to see John throw his backpack on the ground and frantically begin to pat all of his pockets. "Shit. Shit. Shit. They got it. I can´t believe they got it. Shit."

"Got what? Got what? Calm down. I can´t understand you. What did they get? Who?

"Shit. My wallet. They got my wallet. There was a woman with a baby and I bumped her. Some guy bumped me and then I bumped her and now my wallet is gone. I cannot believe this shit!"

Still unsure if John had actually been pickpocketed or if he had put his wallet somewhere different, I stood there dumbly blinking, "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" he shouted already on his way back down the street to see if he could locate the guy who had stolen his wallet. (There it is, number three in the series in case you hadn´t been paying attention).

By then a small crowd had gathered and as I leaned up against a wall holding John´s bag, they began to talk all at once. "Las espitufas." "Sí claro, siempre lo hacen." Shaking their collective heads, wondering how once again this group had pulled it off.

"Subió al autobus." a young guy in a red jacket shouted, pointing to the bus pulling away from the curb.

"John," I yelled stopping him from going further down the street, "He´s on the bus. The bus. Go! Go! Go!" And just like that, John was off, like the wind chasing the bus. I wondered briefly how John would communicate with the alleged theives if they were really on the bus and if in fact, John recognized them, but dismissed it quickly since by now, the group gathered included three police officers who wanted to take a statement of what had happened.

Apparently from the comments going on behind me as I described what I knew of the events that had transpired, the event was well witnessed by every local shopowner and passerby. As it turns out, a small boy had cut John off in his path and upon stopping, a teenager had crashed into him from behind, shoving him into a woman with a baby in her arms. The woman gave John a dirty look and while John apologized and tried to explain what had happened, she lifted his wallet. Talk about irony. He apologizes to her as she steals from him. Good karma that is not. And I don´t think it is good things come to those who wait, nor what comes around goes around. But again, I digress.

John returned huffing and puffing, empty handed. They, along with his wallet, $50, a credit card, an ATM card and his driver´s liscence were gone. Poof. Like the camelback, like the ipod. Things happen in threes.

They say, bad things happen in threes. And frankly I believe them. But as I mentioned before they also say, when one door closes, a window opens and of course, you gotta take the good with the bad.

So we had taken the bad. (Three of them, to be precise, and really John had taken all three of them, though for the most part what happens to him, tends to affect me too.) And we were about ready to swear off all cities over 300 in size when our luck began to change. We were about to be offered the open window, the good that comes with the bad, the ying that goes with the yang.

That´s when our luck began to change. Initially, we didn´t get it. We didn´t realize that it was the universe´s attempt to restore our faith in humanity, or possibly in Ecuadorian city dwellers. The guy in red, who we later discovered to be called Edwin, offered to take us in his truck to look for the alleged "robbers," yet at that moment, throwing my backpack in some guy´s open pick up and having him drive us around a city we didn´t know to find a pair of thieves didn´t strike me as the most responsible thing to do in the world. The police seemed to think it would be a good idea, but even so, I resisted and defered to that small voice inside of me that said, "WHAT? Are you isane? He is probably one of them!"

So we didn´t go with Edwin. Instead, he went on his own and we proceded to get in a cab with another one of the witnesses. (We´ll call him William. We are not actually sure of his name, as he told it to us while we were still in shock, and later were too embarassed to ask again.) William took us to a local hotel where we stored our bags and then proceded to play tour guide for us the rest of the day. First, he helped us pick out fanny packs (I know, lame and too little too late, but heck if we were going to get robbed a fourth time.) Then he took us on the bus to a local laguna with a 10K path around it and some hiking trails leading up to the patron saint and guardian angel of Ibarra, Gabriel. He even paid for our taxi and bus fare. Of course, in the back of my mind, I couldn´t help but wonder, "OK, when´s the part where he takes out the knife, demands the rest of our money and kills us?"

But despite my cynical bouts of paranoia, that never materialized. What did happen instead was that he tooks later that evening over to Edwin´s bakery, where Edwin told us that he had been unable to get our cards back, despite the fact that he had spent time trying. He thought maybe they would return our cards for a reward, but the thought of paying the people who had stolen from us, to get our own things back didn´t really compute in our minds, so we just cancelled the cards and chalked it up to one of those things you just can´t control.

By then, William had left to go to work (turns out, he had forgone sleep to play tour guide for us and worked from 10 pm till 7 am that night.) We sat in Edwin´s bakery, recounting the rest of our day to Edwin and told him that in the morning we thought we would go back to the lake to go running. "I´ll take you. What time do you want to go?"

A million thoughts raced through my mind at once, "Are you kidding us with this? Were these guys for real? Were people actually this nice? Or was this still a scheme to get the gringos?" It was too hard to figure out, so we agreed to meet at 6 the following morning to go running around the lake.

So we took the good too. Why not? Sometimes, you just have to take that leap of faith and trust that the universe is taking care of things. Luckily for us, this time, it was. Edwin turned out to be one of the nicest people I have ever had the good fortune to come across. He didn´t just take us running, and then pay for our orange juice and then invite us to his bakery for free coffee and breakfast. Which would have been more than enough (Dayenu). Over and beyond what a stranger does for another stanger. (And still that nagging voice in my mind whispering, "No one is this nice. What does he want from us?")

No, the running, the juice, the coffee, the breakfast were just the beginning. Apparently, the running for me was not meant to be and after 20 minutes, I was in pain again, limping around the trail with Edwin, as John continued on. I told Edwin the on and off two month long story of my sore leg, and he insisted that after breakfast we go to get it x-rayed. He of course, accompanied us first there, then to the orthepedist,and then later, to the pharmacy to fill the large dose of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers and rest he had prescribed me. (Turns out, there are no fractures, but there will be no running or hiking for jenny for the next three weeks). He insisted on us staying with him and his family that night and, as if that wasn´t enough, he insisted on taking us to lunch and then to visit the crater lake in the middle of Volcano Cotacachi, Lago Cuicocha, over an hour´s drive from Ibarra. This guy was really too much.

This morning, on our way out of town, we stopped by the bakery to say good bye and he insisted on feeding us more coffee and breakfast (on him) and told us that he could give us a ride back up to La Chimba the following week when our job started. Seriously?

Just now while typing this, our cell phone rang. It was William (turns out, his name is William. Good for us for remembering correctly.), wanting to know how everything had gone yesterday and if we needed anything.

They say, what comes around goes around. They say, when one door closes, another opens. They say, you take the good with the bad.

You know what I think? I think, whoever they are, they´re right.

City Girl

I have always thought of myself as a city girl. Not that I have always lived in a city. As a matter of fact, I didn’t live in a big city for the first time until I was 20 years old and moved to Seville, Spain during my last year of college. But being there that year confirmed for me what I always knew. I was a city girl. I loved the fast pace, the accessibility, the anonymity of it, the diversity of people, smells, sights and foods . . . I would live in a city. And pretty much since then (with a small digression back to Delaware in my early 20´s), I have lived in cities. No they weren’t New York City, but the populations were large and the conveniences of being in a city were all there. From our door to the nearest coffee shop is 200 steps, the nearest bar 150, the nearest place to purchase a bite to eat 100, a bagel is maybe 110 steps away. You get the point.

And yet, despite the ease of being in a city, I do love to visit small towns or even communities that can’t even call themselves villages due to their small size and relative lack of every convenience imaginable. Especially when travelling abroad. I love the hillside village in the middle of nowhere where everyone knows everyone else’s name and "Good morning" is a matter of course rather than a cause for alarm.

John and I, after 10 days in the capital city of Quito, had had enough of the city life. Perhaps it was the bird spewing mustard incident, or perhaps we were just tired of having our choice of 15 internet cafes, of breathing in the intense smell of the diesel fuel, of knowing that at any moment we could be approached by someone wanting to take advantage of us. So after a little under two weeks time, we packed up our backpacks and trekked up to the Pan-American highway to catch one of the buses headed to Cayembe, a smaller town of only 20-30,000 people settled in the shadow of snow-capped Vulcán Cayembe.

While Cayembe was no Quito, 30,000 people is nothing to sneeze about and we quickly dismissed our guidebook’s summary that there was only one internet cafe and two restaurants of note. What we did notice was that we were the only non-Ecuadorians in town. It is possible, though not likely, that we might not have so quickly made that observation, were it not for the fact that every passer-by literally did a double take upon seeing us and alternately snickered or stared as if we were from outer space rather than the United States.

Cayembe, famous for its bizchochos (small, crunchy breadsticks served warm) and queso de hoja (freshly made string cheese) is not a major tourist destination for "gringos," however it is a fantastic place from which to explore the larger region, also called Cayembe. After securing a map from the very helpful tourist information center and filling up on sautéed potatoes, French fried potatoes and a version of potato pancakes, John and I were ready to embark on our adventures for the weekend.

We first set out in the town of Cayembe to find the Temples of the Sun and the Moon, ruins left over in the green space at the far end of town. Remembering my experience in Peru, I began to imagine the types of ruins we would find there, but after searching through the local cemetery for the better part of half an hour and finding only homage to people that had passed on, I began to wonder. Finally, we decided to ask for help and located what appeared to be a grounds keeper putting his tools back into the tool shed.

"Ven acá," he motioned to us as he shuffled off, over toward one of the cemetery walls. We followed closely, exchanging curious looks over top of his head. He brought us to a section of the wall that had been knocked down and indicated a small pathway between a set of run down shacks and the outside of the cemetery wall, indicating that we should follow the path up.

"What about the barbed wire fence?" I asked. But he just shook his head, smiled and assured us that the news people had brought back confirmed what he already knew, the ruins were at the top of the hill. So, we went. Climbed through the wall, under the fence, greeted the man cutting his toenails in the shack and walked up the grassy dirt path to an open field. And there is where we found, absolutely nothing.

We stood in the field, bewildered looking at each other under the threatening sky and shrugged. "Do you think this is it?"

John laughed, "I guess this is why no one in town knew where the ruins were?"

I guessed so too. Later, back in the tourist office, she told us that the pre-Incan ruins were in the process of being restored (to what I am not sure) and that we were better off going to explore some of the local communities and "touristic sites."

Determined to prove our guide book wrong, we set out the next morning on a bus bound for Paquistancia, a community about 30 minutes up the dirt road leading out of Cayembe. As usual, I attracted the one drunk old man on the bus and despite my insistence that he stay on the bus, he got off when we did, the bus kicking up dust into the sunny morning air. We stood in the middle of the dirt road, old, drunken man, John and I weighing our options. We knew that there was an old growth forest on the map near here . . . only if we knew where.

To our right, a family congregated around an outdoor sink, chopping cilantro and washing a bowl of already chopped potatoes. "I guess we can go ask them," I whispered to John, giving the swaying man a sideways glance. "I hope he doesn’t think he is coming with us."

As it turns out the family was preparing for a local girl’s quinceañera, but the eldest also served as local guide and after a few negotiations, John, Maira and I set out, just the three of us, for El Bosque Primario de Pumamaqui (The Old Growth Forest of the Puma’s Hand. We walked along dusty road, an outcropping of houses dotting the sides of the small road, cows, sheep, goats, bulls and horses grazing the pastures. Through the local church’s "parking lot" and up into the hills for the next 4 hours. As we walked, me huffing and puffing along side of John and Maira, Maira regaled us with her knowledge of local culture, fauna and lore. We learned that one of the volcanoes without snow that could be seen in the distance had become snow less, when her "husband" volcano cheated on her and she cried so much that she was left without water. We learned that the Pumamaqui tree, old growth trees that were near extinction before the forest became protected, got its name in Quechwa because the puma used to hide in its branches and because the leaves of the trees looked like a puma’s paw. We ate local taxo fruit from the trees and learned about the many uses of the plants that grew on either side of the path, with sweeping views of the valley below us, green pastures, volcanoes and small communities growing their own existence, far from the lights, sounds and smells of the city.

Unlike Paquistancia, Oyachachi was not an easy 30 minute jaunt from the town of Cayembe and as we climbed higher and higher up into the clouds of the mountains, I gripped the side of the bus seat that I leaned on, feeling the effects of the altitude with every pitch of the bus. After a while, I gave up and John was gracious enough to let me use his lap as a seat for the remainder of the nauseating ride up over the pass and then back down into the valley on the other side, into the community of Oyachachi. Like Paquistancia, and even the town of Cayembe, John and I were the only non-Ecuadorians in sight as we made our way past the soccer field and the ten houses that consisted of the town toward what the sign indicated were local ruins. We were not jaded by our experience two days earlier, we would see some ruins if there were some. We bundled up against the cold drizzle returning the greetings of the indigenous women sitting in their doorways, brightly colored shawls draped over the shoulders, a lone feather sticking out of their round hat.

Two miles down the road, we discovered the community that had been moved into modern day Oyachachi only 40 years early. A sign invited us to imagine children running in their streets, learning in their schools, families eating in their houses and mourning the loss of loved ones in the remains of the church that still stood in the pasture. Standing there in the field, a soft mist falling from the sky, the river rushing further down the hill, we stood in the remains of what had been a family’s house and I closed my eyes. Could I feel their presence here? Why had they moved their community futher up the hill? What had made them change from these cute little round houses with thatched roofs to the squat, rectangular structures we had seen in town? With no phone service and few possessions, their lives remained simple in the new version of Oyachaci . . .had the move been merely to be closer to the natural hotsprings inside the town, popular with many daytrippers? Or had their been a different reason altogether. Heading back to the new town, we fell silent, the sound of our footfalls absorbed by the dirt of the street, mountains rising up to our right, the river flowing on the far side of the pastures to our left.

Once inside the hotsprings, we were quickly the object of many a curious stares as we lowered ourselves into the volcano fed pools overlooking the town and valley beyond. The water warmed our bones, cold from the walk down to the ruins and before long, we were engaged in a rousing game of tag with a group of young teenagers from a town not too far from Oyachachi. Laughing and playing with the kids, John and I noticed that despite the odd looks we received from the general population, no one felt threatened by our engagment with the children and we tried to imagine how two adults playing tag with unknown children would go over in the States. There was inherent trust from the kids, from the people that sat and swam bathing around us.

After a lunch of beans, toasted corn kernals and fresh salsa in a bag and some fresh watermellon and pineapple from the back of pick up truck, we headed back to Cayembe, once again entertaining the locals´curiuosity about where we were from, what we were doing in Ecuador, how long we would stay and if we liked their country, their food, their customs, their people. The answer . . .of course.

As I said before I am a city girl. I love being able to get what I want, when I want it. So you may find it interesting that John and I today signed on to volunteer in the community of La Chimba, an hour bus ride up the dirt road from Cayembe. For the next two weeks or so, John and I will be giving English, computer and teacher training courses there in exchange for room, hopefully meals and an hour a day of Spanish for John. It may be difficult to reach us as there is no internet and no cell service. No restaurants, no cafes, no bars, no bookstores. In La Chimba, there are houses, school, church, a river and an ex-hacienda (slave owners´house) being converted into a future hostel for people like us, who pass through to help.

I have always thought of myself as a city girl, but for the next few weeks, country girl I will be.

It´s been too long

I hate when this happens. When it´s been too long and the thoughts about what to write just keep piling up. Every day a new story to write. It´s hard to live your life and find the time to write the parts of your life you want to share as well. But tonight seems to be the night for sharing. And then after a while, the one exciting story feels like it needs to become part of list of things that have happened during the past two weeks to catch up and move on. Also, my email inbox is simply overwhelming right now. That is not to say that I don´t love each and every one of the messages. It´s just taking me a while to get through them. Have patience my friends, I will respond.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. Let´s see if I can makes sense of what has happened since we survived our Pico Duarte adventure. . .

After our mountain experience, we headed back to Cabarete (the town where Jen C is volunteering this year) and ended up spending a little over a week there. We set up a deal with the Dream Project that in exchange for some volunteer work ourself, they would put us up at a local hotel. Turned out to be quite a hotel actually, nothing John and I would normally stay at but the air conditioning was a welcome change to what we had been experiencing with the 90 to 100 degree days, so we didn´t complain. We spent the week giving workshops to the Dream Volunteers, most of whom do not have education experience, so while they want to help in the schools, are not really sure where to start. We did a series of workshops for them on setting up the classroom, setting clear behavioral expectations and the basics of teaching reading and writing. I also had the opportunity to go to a number of the schools and do some observing, some modeling, some coaching which I always love doing so the week was work but fun work. Jen even set up a workshop with the Dominican teachers at her school, which was quite an interesting experience, to say the least.

For a little over a week now, we have been in Quito, Ecuador. Quito is an interesting place and about as different of a city than anywhere in the Dominican Republic and I have to say any of the major cities that I have been to in South and Central America. My typical M.O. in a major city when traveling, is quick and dirty. Get in and get out. While there are typically some sights to see, the cities are often crowded, polluted, dirty and somewhat dangerous. Quito, while it does have the polluted and somewhat dangerous rep, is very clean and has tons to offer.

We have been staying at Casa Paxee, a family house in the foothills of the city. Martha, the owner of the "hostal" rents out her upstairs to travellers, provides tons of travel advice and allows them use of the kitchen. So for the last week, for a mere $6 a night, John and I have been in the "penthouse" at Martha´s, a rooftop room with a private bathroom and spectacular views of Cotopaxi (a snow capped Volcano over 19,000 feet tall), the old and the new city and all the other mountains and volcanoes that the eye can see on a clear day. A funny side note is that we had chosen Casa Paxee for the fact that it was small . . .only 5 bedrooms, and as it turned out, the place got even smaller as John and I have been the only tenants all week. Talk about a bargain. $6 a night for our own house! ;)

This week has been about as full as you could imgaine. We decided to stay in Quito for the accessibility to phone and internet as we have been trying to set up a volunteer situation for the next month or so. So we alternated between our "chore days" as we called them where we mostly did internet, phone and business related things and our "fun days," where we got to see all that Quito and the area had to offer.

Since the chore days weren´t that interesting, even for John and me, I will stick to a couple of the other days instead.

The Saturday Market in Otavalo
Otavalo, a city about 2 hours by bus from Quito, should definitely not be missed if you ever come to Ecuador. It is famous for it´s Saturday marked and after visiting it last Saturday, I understand why. John and I headed up in the early morning, following Martha´s advice to walk up, up, up where the cars came down till we came to a foot bridge and then flag down one of the buses bound for Otavalo. We did just that and while we were actually let off about 2 miles past Otavalo (this seems to happen to us quite a bit), we did make it to the market by 10 and by 10:30, were amazed by the colors of the local handicrafts.

From handwoven sweaters, hats, socks and blankets, to brightly colored paintings depicting local scenes to as many types of fruits and vegetables as you could possibly imagine, this was a place to get lost in. Andean men with long braided hair invited us into to look at their shops, "Ven amiga, a tu orden amiga." Short women in brightly colored clothings, babies tied to their backs in shawls, sat weaving, nodding their heads, smiling, inviting us in to see their hardwork, thanking us whether we bought something or not. And of course, there is the bargaining. No price is ever set. For you, there is always a discount, a special price for the first sale of the day, for today only.

Mitad del Mundo
Obviously the equator is in Ecuador. It probably wouldn´t be called Ecuador otherwise. But honestly, before visiting the "middle of the world," last Sunday, I wasn´t really that interested in actually going to see the Equatorial line. I mean what would be there - would there actually be a line? Sounded like a tourist trap to me. But after Martha told us to go and to go on Sunday, we went. You don´t really argue with Martha, she is sort of a cross between a grandmother and a Jewish mother. Honestly, I don´t know what I expected, but the scene we experienced on Sunday was definitely not it.

We got to la mitad del mundo (which is the name of the town, meaning middle of the earth) at around 1 in the afternoon, just in time to catch the Sunday show taking place in their central square. There in the middle of the square were 6 or 7 women in traditional Andean dress, two men and a little girl around 5 years old. We stood at the edge of the square with the rest of the visitors, Ecuadorians and toursits alike, spellbound as the women and men (and little girl) twirled around to the traditional sound of Ecuador, their brilliantly colored shawls, bandanas and skirts flying in the air. Song after song, dance after dance, they invited onlookers into the circle, people danced, sang, laughed all around the equitorial line under the bright sun of the afternoon. There actually was a line painted on the ground, which while cools, was kind of silly when you thought about it.

El Teleferico

Yesterday, we headed up to a Gondola (teleferico in Spanish) which took us up over Quito. Quito, already over 9,000 feet is quite a high city. So heading up another 3,000 feet in what feels like a ski lift, is no small feat. And when we disembarked at 4,100 meters (about 12,500 feet), you can imagine how cold it was. Even from the first overlook down over Quito, the view was amazing, the new city with it´s skyscrapers and busy streets, the old city with it´s colonial style Cathedrals and winding cobblestone roads and off in the distance, layers of clouds and mountains.

Of course, as is our custom, the weather left something to be desired. So while it didn´t rain (wonder of wonders), some of the bigger more impressive mountains were obscured. And clearly, our hike up to the summit ridgeline at over 15,000 feet (4,700ish meters) was done as rapidly as possible with our diminishing oxygen to avoid what looked like a repeat of Pico Duarte. Nevertheless, the days was beautiful, the storm held at bay with dark, menacing clouds as we hiked up and around the volcano, past thistle like orange, purple and yellow flowers, Quito becoming a tiny version of itself in the distance, until it was nothing more than little while dots on the horizon.

The last part of the hike was as always, a scramble, not up rocks, but up slippery volcanic ash that slid from under your feet with every step up. So it went something like, two steps up, two steps back, three steps up, one step back. You get the picture. Not a whole lot of fun in the freezing cold with the threat of rain or hail or worse. But we made it and I 4 minutes behind John, had a view of the fog that had rolled in, my favorite view from every summit. (Actually my typical view is more like it.)

Duped
One bad thing happened today during one of our chore days. . . .we were walking down calle colon so John could do his long run and i could amuse myself around town (I am not running right now for those of you that didn´t know that) John had his camelback and i had my purse and my backpack with a change of clothes for John for later. All of a sudden, I look down and there is what appears to be bird poo on my shoe.

"Ew!" I yell and John stops to get out the toilet paper stored conveniently in his camelback. It´s then that he notices that he too has some on his shirt and his backpack. He takes out the toilet paper, hands me some and begins to clean himself up.

Just then a man comes with some toilet paper and starts to indicated that the bird had been up there. "Alla, alla" he is saying and pointing as I continue to wipe off the yellow stuff off my shoe.

"Hey¨" John muses aloud, "This is mustard, not bird poop." Someone had thrown mustard at us? Hmm. .. that seems weird. And then even as it dawned on us, "Shit! Jen! Where´s my bag?"

Gone! just like that. Down on the sidewalk to wipe off the mustard off his shirt for two seconds, the man indicating where the supossed bird had gone and boom, they had us, hook line and sinker. How stupid are we? Luckily nothing except John´s compass, $3 and the bag itself was worth much. Imagine how disappointed they were when they got around the corner and realized they had just stolen 70 oz of water! he he.

So you live and learn. . .we learned to keep walking when we get sprayed with mustard and we learned to let go of the things that really aren´t all that important. And while, very thirsty, John was still able to do his long run in el Parque Metropolitano (a park even larger than Central Park).

So sorry to have crammed all that into today´s entry. But I wanted you all to be caught up. We head out of Quito tomorrow and I believe I will be able to return to smaller, more manageable and more fun to read, entries in the future.

Pico Duarte

Pico Duarte should have never been a real adventure. Sure it was going to be challenging. Challenges we liked. Challenges were something we wanted during our travels. But it was not going to be something to write home about. And that´s houw the first day and a half of the journey felt. Yeah, day 1 had had 5,000 feet of elevation gain, but Abelito, our young guide, had insisted on letting the mules carry our packs, so John and I were excited for the cardiovascular challenge of some altitude. Sure it was 90+ degrees and we were climbing up what looked like river washes, possibly what had previously been flat sandstone trails, deeply rutted out by years (or possibly just a few hard weeks) or torrential rain and flooding, but still, it wasn´t going to be any sort of "serious" aventure. "Serious adventures" were dangerous, life threatening or difficult to the point of tears, and honestly for all intents and purposes, Pico Duate just didn´t have it in ém.

Don´t get me wrong, I was tired that first day. We had hiked over 12 miles and over 5,000 feet the first day, the sides of the wash rising up above our heads at times, rocks strewn across the trail making footing precarious at times. It had been steep and sweaty and tiring. We had slept tentatively on hard wooden slats in the Park Refuge, one ear open for the society of hungry rats waiting to eat our food, our backpacks or crawl across our faces as we attempted sleep. We slept fitfully hoping as we tossed and turned that the heavy rain that had begun to fall that evening would cease long enough for us to summit. We had risen in the pre-crack of dawn, the half moon lighting our way, rain all but a distant memory, headlamps in place, sleep still encrusting our eyes, hiking by intuition on the rock strewn path to the sunrise and the sweeping vistas of the Pico Duarte summit. Peanut butter and crackers had never tasted so delicious. A delicacy beyond delicacy. We had been lucky, Abelito told us and his 9 year old brother who had come along on the journey via mule. People just didn´t get summit views like this from Duarte. John and I had laughed, my stigma as "little miss raincloud" momentarily banished to a far off land. Pico Duarte had been fun and exciting. . .but it had not been an adventure.

But. . .yep, there it is the BUT we´ve all been waiting for. Pico Duarte had not been an adventure, should not have ever been a serious adventure, but then at mid-day on day 2 as we headed back down from the summit, the skies opened up and it began to rain. No rain is not really what began to happen. Rain implies a series of drops or even, if it´s pouring, a torrential downpour of water, wetting the ground, the trees, the humans walking around on the paths. No this was not rain, no drizzling rain or a shower of rain, or even pouring rain. It cannot even be classified as a mere torrent. What began to fall, first soaking, then blinding us, was a deluge. It was as if the sky had opened up and began to dump every last drop of moisture it held down onto us and the trails upon which we now slid, sloshed and smushed our way through. And just when you thought you could get no wetter, you did.

Rain? A rain storm? I can hear the incredulity in your voices as you try to fathom how rain is what turned our experience from sheep grazing peacefully in green pastures on a bucolic hillside to tazmanian devils tearing through trees and ripping up mountainsides.

Honestly it hadn´t been the rain. Oh the rain, falling in incessant sheets from the deep, gray sky above had been a nusance. It had made me wish at least three times in ten minutes that I hadn´t turned down my rainjacked from Abelito at the reststop La Laguna, nonchelantly commenting, "I´m already drenched. How much more soaked can I possibly get?" Little did I know what it really felt like to be truly soaked to the bone. It was no ordinary wet and cold. It was a penatrating dampness, deep inside, into your bones, your muscles, your blood. It went beyond cold, stikcy and uncomfortable and entered into the realm of ridiculousness.

Yet even as I sloshed my way down the mountain, slip sliding away reverberating in my ears, I told myself over and over again how lucky we had been that morning. Ok it was pouring now, but we had seen the sweeping views of La Cordillera Central. "A little rain never hurt anyone!" a positive upbeat voice sang in my head. "You are doing just fine." it continued as I wrenched my left leg out of a mud sucking puddle up to my knee. "Fine, just fine. Oh fine."

I felt myself relax. It was raining. Abelito and his younger brother were no where to be found, but I could see John not too far up in the distance. We were fine, fine, fine.

Honestly, I am not sure how long it had been lightening ad thundering as the rain fell incessantly. I am sure I noticed it before John ordered me down onto the ground. I am sure I did and yet, thinking back or even then, I couldn´t remember. My heart thudding in my throat, I squatted next to John. "What are we doing?" I whispered. It felt like whispering was appropriate, though no one was around and with the storm all around us, he could barely hear me.

"Move over. Don´t sit so close. We´re bigger that way and more liable to be hit by lightening. Get out of that puddle, don´t stand in the water. Move away from the roots." His voice too was a strained whisper, but it did nothing to calm my overactive heart rate. Hit by lightening? I did not want to be hit by lightening and as we sat crouched inches apart, I began to feel very, very cold.

"John, this is silly. We are not going to be hit by lightening. Come on. Let´s go." The lightening lit up the sky all around up, thunder following less than a second behind it.

"The storm is HERE Jen. It´s right here. This is not good, not good. Not Good."

"Ok, I get it. Not good. But I am cold and if the storm is here, we should go - right?" It made sense to me. What were we going to do? Sit there waiting for the lightening to strike us or one of the huge trees surrounding us? John got up and shrugged and I followed suit.

"Quickly," he hissed and we were off, no longer worrying about the terrain. Down, down down, the wash, now understanding how the trails had gotten like that. The water rushed under our feet as we jostled for a position that wouldn´t send us careening down the wash into the water and to certain death by drowning or electricution. "If you feel your hair stand up on end, scream and jump left. OK? And I´ll do the same. Really we shouldn´t be moving with the thunder less than 5 seconds after the lightening." Flash, the sky lit up. "One one. . ." BOOM, the thunder followed.

I swallowed and nodded, numb from the cold, my shirt and pants stuck to my body. I wondered if I would really notice my hair standing on edge as it was platered to my head an face and wondered what hair would stand up on edge for John. "I don´t want to die today."

John turned around, forcing a smile. We practically flew down the next kilometer of the hill, lightening and thunder all around us. Twice John ordered me down on to the ground and I crouched praying to God, Jesus, Allah, my mom, to get us out of this alive. Lucky my foot.

And then without warning, the storm stopped. Not the rain. That continued to fall, though slower now, without as much energy, without as much umph. But all of a sudden I slowed my pace and looked around, it had been minutes since I had heard lightening. Whole minutes. We had travelled over 8 kilometers and the exhaustion of the adventure caught up with me. "Where the heck is Abelito?" I practically screamed as we reached the first of the river crossings, the bridge´s left side submerged in water. "Isn´t this why we had to have a stupid guide in the first place?" John, always calmer and more level headed, agreed. We crossed the bridge tentatively, balancing, holding hands, praying.

"I´m gonna kill ém. And we´re not paying for today. No way. We almost died. Died." We rounded the corner and there were the mules tied to a tree by the side of the second river crossing, the bridge reaching slightly past the middle of the bridge. "Uh-oh. How we crossing that?"

Abelito and his little brother hovered, across the river underneath a park provided shelter and Abelito jumped up as he saw us waving and screaming something we could not hear. They had crossed the river. How?

Abelito waded his way across the rushing wated to a large bolder at the edge of the bridge and lifted himself up. "Wow, you guys got here fast!" He exclaimed, no trace of remorse on his face. "The river expanded." He gestured to the water and we nodded. I didn´t trust myself to speak yet. I was cold, hungry, tired and ready for this adventure to call itself a day.

We crossed the river, first John, then me, straddled between Abelito on the rock and John almost at the shoreline on the other side. The mules could not cross in this kind of rapids. We would have to wait. But as I sat on the edge of a bench, underneath the structure, shivering and listening to the thunder in the distance getting closer by the minute, I knew we wouldn´t be waiting for long.

"Abelito," I stood, "We´ll meet you at the ranger station."

He nodded, knowing we were pissed. Knowing he had not been the guide he had promised. We would cross that bridge when we came to it, in dry clothes hopefully.

Four kilometers later, two more bridges and a brief conversation about the merits of doing your job well, John and I sat underneath the Park´s sheldter with the park ranger, cooking pasta and shivering in the only dry clothes I had, shorts and my rain jacket.

Pico Duarte had been something to write home about after all.

Adventures before the Adventure

There is no way that either of the previous two guagua trips could have prepared me for what we would experience on the way to La Ciénaga. After sitting on our backpacks for the better part of an hour, a tall, thin man with dreadlocks and a wide smile approached us indicating that we should bring our backpacks over to the back of the pickup truck, “Llévense los bultos. Ya nos vamos.”

I stood watching as the driver threw first my, then John’s backpack into the back of the truck. “No way that’s gonna stay,” John whispered and I nodded, waiting to see what plans he had to secure our belongings.

Next to us an older man with deep lines etched into his tanned face, argued emphatically with a middle aged woman in a bright pink top and tight, white Capri pants, a pink portable CD player in her hands. “You, your just a young girl. A tiny little thing. Me, well. Now that’s a different story,” he pleaded, his words slurred together cutting off all s’s, “I am an old, old man.” She moved a sack of rice to the other side of the pick up truck ignoring his pleas and the driver moved it back, placing it atop the two enormous cans of Crisco oil.

“¡Ya! ¡Vámanos!” he cried and the throng of people hanging around the pick up began to pile into the cab. One, two, three, four in front. One, two, three, four, in back leaving six more, including John and I to contend with a spot in the back. The woman in pink, having lost the fight with the elderly Dominican, settled atop the burlap rice bag, her CD player in her lap. A younger Haitian man hopped up onto John’s backpack and John wedged himself in to his left, his right hand securing himself on his backpack, his left on my thigh. I sat perched on the edge of the back door, both hands gripping the lip, surrounded on both sides by young men in their late teens who laughed as I looked wide eyed around us thinking, “My father would kill me if he saw me right now.”

Now fourteen of us in the pick up, a container of propane, the two backpacks, two 3-gallon cans of cooking oil, 50 pounds of rice, various plastic and burlap bags, a strange metal object that looked like a vice grip, a number of large plastic gas cans, a strangely shaped rock that initially I thought was quartz, but later realized to be rock salt, set out down the road. My heart was in my throat. Thump, thump, thump in went in rhythm with the truck’s engine. And just like that, three blocks later, we stopped.

“More passengers?” I joked aloud, surveying the already over packed truck bed, limbs and packages in every conceivable crevice.

“There’s always room in the guagua,” laughed the boy to my right as he nodded at two tall, Haitian brothers appeared. One squeezed miraculously into the back of the cab as the other one, leaped effortlessly onto the side of the pickup and perched himself on the edge of my backpack. We lurched forward and once again headed out of Jarbacoa to begin the 23 kilometer trip to La Ciénaga.

We drove slowly along a two-lane, paved road out of town, stopping briefly at a store where a few of the riders from inside the cab got out and went inside, leaving those of us in the pick up to die of sunstroke.

“What do you think? We’re waiting in the shade out here? Get a move on!” The woman in pink cried.

The young Dominican man in his cub’s jersey jumped down off the pick up, shaking his head, and sat down on a chair outside of the store, tipping it back till the top edge of the chair touched the wall, his toes the only part of his feet touching the ground, “Aquí, hay sombra.” The woman in pink glared at his shady spot, fanning her face furiously with her sweaty, upturned hand.

“¡Ya, venga, vamos, ya!” the driver cried getting back into the pick up and beginning to blare a horn that sounded like the Duke’s of Hazard. The old man inside the colmado, nodded, wished the cashier a good day and sauntered out to squeeze into his place inside the cab, tipping his hat at the woman in pink.

We jolted forward and with the weight of sixteen people and easily as much cargo, it seemed improbable that we would go anywhere fast. Up, up, up and around, swerving to avoid potholes, ruts and sections of the road where the grass had grown over the lane, we began our ascent into the mountains, the load slowing us to almost a slow stroll as we hit the steeper sections of the mountain.

Banana trees, grape vines, coffee plants, avocado and a local, light green fruit we later found out was called toyata lined both sides of the street as we left city life behind us. Make shift shacks dotted the fields and the sides of the road, the occasional rooster, goat or cow making its way across the street, causing the driver to once again swerve, his horn a constant song in our ears.

I felt and then saw the road change from paved to rocky dirt, as the pickup bounced from side to side, my grip tightening on the back of the truck door, my quick prayers to save me from impending doom running through my mind.

One by one, players and items on our strange drip dropped out. A block of salt here, some printer papers there, the young Dominicans, first one to the a house on the right, the other jumping off and waving his good byes as the truck continued through town. The woman in pink, her mother from inside the truck’s cab then departed, and with her the strange metal vice grip, the empty gallon bottle and the pink portable CD player. Then both Haitian men, until finally we stopped in front of a small shack by the side of the road, another wooden structure visible behind the first. I looked around at eh remaining passengers, wondering who would get off here. The driver got down out of the truck and began to untie my backpack, “Aquí, niña. Esta es la casa de Chano.”

“Oh? Nosotros?” I asked surprised pointing to my chest. I searched for a sign of this so called Chano, but saw only a woman in her late 30s, her strong arms dark around the basket she carried.

“Está es la mujer de Chano.” He indicated to the woman standing there and the woman nodded her head, extending her hand and introducing her self as Maria, Chano’s wife.

And just like that, the ride was over. Safely on the ground again, we donned our packs and followed Maria and a herd of children all under the age of ten to a porch with two plastic chairs on it. A young man took out a third wooden chair and motioned for us to sit down.
“Chano won’t be back for a few days,” Abelito, the young man explained. I’m his cousin, Abelito and I too can take you to el Pico.”

Of course he was his cousin. And even though Amado had recommended Luis before a member of Chano’s family, we couldn’t really see getting up and excusing ourselves at this point. So we began negotiations and ended up with a reasonable price, the obligatory park mule and a plan to shop at 4 that afternoon.

Chano’s wife offered a bed at their house and for the low price of $5 for the two of us, would even cook us dinner and make us coffee in the morning. So we stayed, and for the next few hours were entertained by the seemingly never-ending quantity of children belonging to Chano and his wife and some of the neighbors.

A few hours later, exhausted from the school books and Barbie show and tell, John and I decided to take a walk through La Ciénaga. If Jarbacoa is a small mountain town, then La Ciénaga can best be described as a mountain community, sprung up along the unpaved river at the base of el Pico Duarte and along the River Yanque. We walked through the “center” of town where two small stores advertised to travelers in Spanish and English all their Pico Duarte necessities. Crossing the river that barely fit under a bridge flush with pavement, we stood watching 5 bare chested boys float in inner tubes, navigating around rocks down the rushing river. We passed three cows lying on the side of the road and a various tiny houses with strings of colorful clothing hung out to dry. A toothless man in a rocking chair picked up his hand in greeting, a bemused look on his wizened face. And all around us, sweeping views of the mountains jutting up into the afternoon sky, dotted with thunderheads, green valleys stretching out for miles and miles below us.

That night after homework by candlelight, a visit to the very pregnant pig and a necessary trip to the outhouse, we retired into the only double bed in the house, what could only have been Maria and Chano’s. The bed barely fit inside the tin room, a curtained door giving the semblance of privacy for the room’s inhabitants.

It was that night, before beginning our climb up Pico Duarte that I learned that roosters do not only crow at dawn. Take it from me, they crow all night long.