To The Banks of Crater Lake

I'm sitting on the shores of this emerald green crater lake, with the wind blowing the still water just enough for the swooshing sound of waves hitting the sand. Because of the incline of the sharp rocks, I'm lying on my back but still able to see the water and the surrounding crater crests, and with all of my clothes on to fight the cold, I'm very comfortable in the hot morning sun. I'm wondering if that SPF 50 I put on an hour ago is holding up its end of the bargain, and whether or not I'm burning badly. My friends have left me--gone to rock climb like crabs against a steep drop into the poisonous, sulfuric water to see what may or may not be lava bubbles. I didn't want to go and risk damage to my camera, so I'm all by my lonesome, with nothing but the sounds of the wind in the crater. In the middle of this extinct volcano, a place where most people will never go or even hear of, I have no phone, no Internet, and no one else around. New York could be under attack from some giant lizard-like alien that shoots other lizard-like aliens out of its butt, and I would have no idea. And I'm perfectly happy with this.

Having woken up with the sun, we got our breakfast at the hostel and asked what time the next bus back to Latacunga was. We were told noon, which would give us enough time to hike down to the lake at the bottom of Quilotoa crater lake. The old man at the hostel told us it was about a 45 minute hike down and an hour and 45 minutes back up. We were tired and knew the route back up would be tough, but the man told us we could rent horses. That sounded perfect to us.

No one was even stirring yet when started the hike down in the strong sun. At nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, the temperature means nothing in terms of a sunburn. Especially on the equator. Hiking down was easy enough, and a walk in the park compared to the hike around the rim of the crater the day before. The sand was soft and we would take 5 foot steps, sinking in with each movement. It felt like being on the moon in between the canyons that were carved out for a path, and I was glad we'd have horses to do the work on the way back up.

Once down at the lake we could see the green and the white sand contrasting on the shore. Right along the edge it was florescent and algae was visible. We sat for a while taking it in before we moved off to the western bank. Our German friend Elias said a friend had told him that if you climbed along the rocks you would be able to see bubbles from sulfur. The day before was rough on my camera and with just a couple days left in the country, I didn't want to fall into a sulfuric lake and risk injury, maybe even death. So Elias and Amy clung to the rocks and disappeared beyond my sight. For maybe a half hour I laid there peacefully until they came back. Amy stopped about halfway down, and Elias confirmed that there was nothing to see and it was really dangerous. I made a good decision.

We went over to an indigenous woman who rented boats and asked where we could get the horses, and she told us that you had to rent them from the top of the crater. Something that the old man in the hostel could have told us. The hike up was listed at about an hour and 45 minutes, exactly how much time we had until the bus arrived. We started hauling ass without question up the steep trail. Again, it was a race against the clock. It was tough from the get-go, with each step in the sand keeping us from our goal. We would take one step forward and go two steps back. Every few minutes we would have to stop to catch our breaths, but it was hardest on me.

Eventually the jackets came off, as well as the hats, and we stopped for a couple minutes about halfway. We were making good time, and the top kept getting closer, despite the fact that it felt like my chest was going to cave in. There's just no air up there. Sweating and exhausted, we reached the top, and looking at the clock on the cellphone we realized that we'd done it in 40 minutes. So high altitude training can actually pay off, even though the altitude still takes its toll.

A man in a van pulled up and told us that the bus got there at 12, but didn't leave until 1:30, so we finally decided to jump in and hitchhiked with him all the way to Latacunga. It was supposed to be $10 for all of us, but once in Latacunga he tried to rip us off for $15. We argued for a few minutes and finally gave him the money, not feeling like dealing with it. It could have been a scar on an otherwise great trip, but we let it go. The crater lake was just too beautiful to let something like that get in our hair. And that was the last trip I would be taking in Ecuador.

Above: Images from the shores of Quilotoa crater lake

Hiking Quilotoa: The Green Crater Lake

I've left Cuenca now, but there was still one last place I needed to see before leaving Ecuador. It's why I left my home earlier than I needed to. Quilotoa, a tiny little town in the middle of the "Quilotoa Loop" is really just a large crater lake high in the Andes, a little under 13,000 feet above sea level. It's about 2 hours from Latacunga, a smaller city about an hour and a half south of Quito. Since I've been in this country people have told me how beautiful this region is, and the pictures proved they weren't lying.

So yesterday morning I geared up with my friend Amy and we headed south for Latacunga. Along the way we linked up with a friendly German kid named Elias, who was traveling around the country. Getting in can be a bit of a hassle, because once you reach Latacunga you need to rely on infrequent buses, and often are left to hitchike, depending on when a car comes by. But we were fortunate in our timing and made it into Quilotoa by 1:30 pm. To get into the town and crater you need to pay $2, and once we did so we found a hostel. It wasn't too hard, as there are really only three hostels, all next to each other. Across from that is one small strip of artisans, and that's about the whole town. Our hostel cost $10 per person, including a private bathroom, dinner and breakfast.

Once we dropped off our stuff we headed to the lake. The wind was fierce and the cold was offset by the power of the sun, but every time a cloud came by it was only cold and windy. Reading the sign, it said to hike around the rim of the extinct volcano was 7.5 miles and would take about 4.5-7 hours. It was truly beautiful, with emerald green water that bounced off the sun, still and unchanging. As it was 2 pm, we knew we only had about 4.5 hours of sunlight left, so we decided to go for it and start the hike.

I foolishly scoffed, thinking it wasn't nearly 7.5 miles and since we were all used to living at high altitude, we would finish it in a couple of hours. As usual, nature proved me wrong. We started hiking clockwise, stopping every so often to take the same pictures but from a different angle. It just always seemed like it was worth another shot. In some parts the wind was so strong that I thought I'd be blown away. Yet at others we were hot and taking our jackets off. Up and down, up and down the trail wound, going from dense brush to sand traps and desert-like conditions. At other points we could see the outer laying valleys and mountains, and the hundreds of farms in the distance.

We only passed a few other hikers in the beginning, and from then on we were alone. The peaceful emptiness of the lake was more of a reward than anything else. Though known to tourists with guide books, many Ecuadorians don't even know about Quilotoa. Telling my friends in Cuenca where I was going, they just scratched their heads unless they were tourism students. And as amazing as this place was, I can't believe more people don't go there.

For a while we hiked in near silence, and all you could hear was the sound of the dirt shuffling as we skidded down the trails. Some parts were really dangerous, and with no guard rails and just a narrow path, a mistake meant death, or at the very least broken limbs and possible paralysis. There is hardly any liability in these parts. One step to the left was a roll down the mountain into a farm, and a half step to the left was an 80* drop into the lake. Moving along and up the trail proved harder than originally thought. I always wondered what it would be like to walk on the ridge of a mountain, and the truth is that it's not just straight up easy. You have to go down and up and down and down and then way up again. It makes you sweat.

Going down gingerly, you'd hear the thud of the feet, and every so often the sudden, loud tumble of rocks, sand, and shoes as the person to your front or rear just lost control. But the lack of the deep thud told you that they regained their balance in that less than a millisecond of reaction from thousands of years of evolution. All you could do was trust the person in front of you and try to hit where their feet already went, and if you were in front, God be with you.

Once we reached what we thought was the halfway point we took a 15 minute break to eat a lunch of crackers and take 2 sips of water per person. We had to conserve since we only took one bottle. Spitting out the dust in our mouths, we took in the views and realized we needed to move on. I held my hands in front of me and estimated that we had 2 hours of sunlight left, and we still had the largest ridge to cross. Even living and running at high altitude for 11 months can't help you when you hike at almost 13,000 feet. You take two steps up and are just spent, no air getting into your lungs, getting into your blood, getting into your muscles.

Going up the highest peak was tough and for the most part done in silence, but we did finally reach it. We caught our breaths and realized that we had about 15 minutes of sunlight left. We needed to haul ass or we'd be stuck there all night, and the wind was picking up with force as the sun dropped. Going down the peak was almost as difficult, and while filming part of it with my small point and shoot, talking about how dangerous it was, I slipped and fell a bit, covered my other camera in dirt and making for a pretty funny video.

The sunset was red and orange and red again but in a different shade. The kind of color that can only be explained through actual sight, and as the last remaining light bounced off the mountain, they painted the sky and clouds. We were now marching in the dark, using the moonlight to guide the white path. Noses running like faucets and fingers frozen, we chugged along like our lives depended on it, because they did. And we were so tired. By 7 pm we were back in the tiny town, stumbling into the hostel covered in dirt. But it had only taken us about 4.5 hours with a few breaks here and there.

We got our dinner, talked with a few other guests, sat by the furnace for a bit to heat up, and called it a night. By 9 pm it was lights out, but freezing in the room with no heat, I went to sleep with my dirty socks and winter hat still on, and all of my shirts and sweaters as well. The wind was so fierce that at one point I thought the roof would blow away like in the movie "Black Sheep" or in "Twister." Sleep came fairly easy to us after a long day, and we still had more plans ahead for the morning, when we would hike to the bottom of the lake and get a glimpse of the water.

Above: Images from Quilotoa crater lake, Ecuador

Goodbye, Cuenca

I'm sitting in the airport in Guayaquil, using the free WiFi and listening to the terrible jazzy renditions of songs from the past 30 years. I left Cuenca just a short time ago, and I'm wondering how I've gotten here. How I've already left the place I living in, volunteering in, teaching in for almost 11 months. It's surreal, if that's the best way to put a word to it. I spent my last days in the city as well as I could, making the most of the time with my friends. And now it's over.

Last night I went out with some friends for one last beer, and at the bar that I was almost a regular in the owner gave us all shots of tequila on the house. A parting gift. And this morning I went to the bank, happily discovered that I'd finally been paid, and ate my last meal in the house with my host mom. My friend Jamie went with me to the airport and waited until she had to leave to go to a class. It was hard saying goodbye to her, mostly because she was one of my best friends down here, but also because it really meant that it was over.

I tried to get a look at the city one last time from the plane, but my view from the aisle seat was obscured, and the overcast morning didn't help. So I closed my eyes and just tried to think about what I've been through. And now I'm getting ready to board the plane to Quito, for one last trip with a friend and then on to home on Saturday. It's almost completely finished.

Fingers Crossed

One of the last things that I had to take care of before leaving Cuenca was getting my last paycheck, paying my host family for July, and closing my bank account. I started asking my director in my department a couple of months ago to help me get my last paycheck early. It was tough at first, but she was finally on board to help out. I had to continually check in with the secretary, but she always reassured me that I'd be paid early on the 15th of this month. The 15th came and went, and still I was unpaid.

I went down to the university and asked what happened, and she calmly explained that they couldn't pay me early, and that I'd be paid on the 20th. The 20th came and went, and still I was unpaid. Again, I went down and complained, and the secretary told me that the money would be in my account the next morning. But I was beginning to see that she had no idea what she was talking about and would say anything to get rid of me.

So on Friday the 25th, with still no money in my account, I decided to do something about it myself. It would be impossible for me to close my account, and I didn't want to forfeit my last paycheck and pay out of pocket. So instead, I offered to transfer over the bank account to my friend Jamie. Jamie is going to stay in Ecuador for another year or so, and she has citizenship here, so it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange it. We went into the bank on Friday morning and asked how to do it.

Surprisingly, the woman at the bank was extremely helpful--maybe the most helpful person I've met in this country so far. She helped us figure out the paperwork and told us everything we had to do, which was nothing more than make some photocopies of our identification and hand in a copy of some bills. Then we signed about 10 different papers and Jamie was added as a co-signer on my account. The idea of this is that in the event that the university didn't pay me until I'd already left the country, Jamie would be able to withdraw the money for me and then transfer it to me, either in my American bank account or through a money transfer. And once all of that money was withdrawn, the account would be left for her to use.

After we figured out the bank account situation, we went down to the university and I went to the financial office. They tried to tell me that I couldn't be paid early because the boss was at a conference. But all of the checks were there on the table, and they said they couldn't give me one because I'd already requested to have the money earlier. So when I complained long enough that I was leaving and needed to close the account, the clerk went upstairs for 10 minutes, then came back down saying that the money would definitely be in the account on Monday morning. I'm not completely sold, but at least I did what I could.

I'm glad that I was able to find a way around the bureaucracy and get a solution to the problem with the help of a friend. And now I just need to hope that they don't try to burn me on the last check because they know that I'm leaving. So tomorrow morning is do or die. And hopefully it works out alright.

The Final Days

My time here is nearly finished, and I have had a good last week in Cuenca. Thursday was my birthday and I went out with some friends to one of our favorite restaurants for Italian food. It's kind of expensive, so we only go there on special occasions. Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to three good friends that same night also, as it was the last time I'd be seeing them.

On Friday night I went out again, meeting up with some friends and then going to a club later on. With the purchase of a Long Island Iced Tea and Cuba Libre, I was drunk until well into yesterday morning. I was tired and not looking forward to drinking again last night, but knew that I wouldn't have much say in it because it was my going away party.

I met up with some friends in the afternoon and we bought supplies to have an all day barbecue in my friend Andres' art studio, where we were also going to have the going away party later at night. As usual when we have all day barbecues, we started slow and didn't even start to eat until 3 or 4 pm. But we ate slowly and consistently for nearly the entire day after that. A bunch of my former students and other Ecuadorian friends had told me that they were definitely going to be there for the going away party, I was pretty disappointed to find that other than the people who were there for the barbecue, no one showed up.

For one reason or another, people couldn't make it. Some had texted me to let me know they wouldn't be arriving, and others just never said anything at all. It was a let down, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit offended, but there's nothing that can be done about that now. And the only thing that saved it was that the friends who were there made it a fun night. Though most of those people there were friends that I'd only made in the last few months, I guess we were closer than the people I'd known for most of the year.

We sat around after eating and drank some Zhumir while a few of the artists started painting on a huge canvas taking up the whole courtyard. I even contributed a little bit, though it was the worst part and was soon covered up with paint. Realizing that no one else was going to show up, we simply left for a bar to get some beers, went to Charlie's apartment to make more food, and then split off into different directions. I went with another friend, Akin, to a club, but only for a short while before heading home. The day was good enough and I was tired, so I didn't feel like pushing it.

In the end, the going away party is only as good as the people you have there. It would have been nice to be able to say goodbye to all of the friends that I'd made over the year, but it was good enough to be there with the people who actually wanted to be there. It's tough enough to move on after such a long time and say goodbye, and in dealing with that you sometimes lose contact with the people you'd known the longest. I leave Cuenca on Tuesday, bound for Quito first. Then I'll be traveling with a friend to a crater lake in a pueblo called Quilotoa for a couple of days. And early on the morning of August 1st I'll be leaving Ecuador for Miami, and eventually Boston.

People keep asking me if and when I'll be back. I always tell them I'm not sure when, and not for a while, but I'd like to. And it's true. I would like to come back at some point, but I have no idea when that will be. It's a big world, and I want to see as much as possible. Having already spent a year here, I know there are other places I could spend my time in. But I've also thought that maybe upon my return to the U.S. from Argentina, whenever that is, I could arrange to have a flight out of Ecuador, so that I could return again. We'll see.

Now I have to get my act together to pack and wait around for the final moments before departure. I have no doubts that it will be difficult. It's all a part of the process.

The Hangover Cure

Every culture seems to have their own traditional remedy for indulging too much from the night before. Although, come to think of it, I can't exactly say what ours in the United States is. I guess just sitting on the couch and watching TV. Last night I drank a good amount. The thing is, today is my birthday, and I've now turned 23. Only problem is everyone who doesn't already know always guesses that I'm at the youngest 26. But now I'm moving closer towards the projected age.

So I went out with some friends of mine to La Mesa, the hole in the wall salsa club that people go to on Wednesday nights. My friend Katherine came in for the night with a friend who is visiting, and together with Lauren, we met up with other friends at the salsateca. At midnight the girls surprised me with a double shot of tequila, which I definitely didn't need, but accepted graciously. I left at closing time, then went to a friends house where I crashed until 7 am when I went home. So long story short, I have a hangover.

The cure for the common hangover in Ecuador is a dish called Encebollado. This is a warm soup, similar to Ceviche, but with a few differences. Instead of shrimp you find tuna, and where you find tomatoes in Ceviche, you find loads and loads of onions and cilantro. You can also add lime to taste. On top of the dish you add some banana chips which soon get soggy. I'd had this dish twice before when I was on the coast, as it's their specialty, but much less common in the sierra. However, I'd never taken it to cure a hangover, and this morning I was eager to test it out and see if it actually worked.

I headed over to the 9 de Octubre market with Katherine and her friend, and we all moseyed up to the lunch counter and ordered Encebollado. It's not the best tasting thing, and I think I prefer Ceviche, but it can hit the spot when needed. I couldn't finish the whole bowl because I was full pretty quickly, but I ate enough of it to look like I'd made a dent in the bowl. I wasn't sure at first--I knew I was no longer really hungover, but I wasn't exactly feeling great. But maybe that was never the point. It wasn't, after all, a magical elixir to make you feel like Superman. But I felt like a normal person, or normaler anyway.

I still could go for a nap or a coffee, but the worst of the hangover is over. I was really hoping it would work, and I'm not disappointed with the effects. It has my approval. Also, it only cost $1.50 and came with a juice, which is always nice. On the downside, today is still my birthday, and Friday is my friends birthday, and Saturday is my going away party. So long story short, the potential for hangover lingers in the air, and I most likely won't be able to run out for Encebollado every day. But at least it's a possibility now, and I know that if I truly need it, it can help out a bit. Take that, Advil!

Improvements to TG

If you look on the left side of the page, you'll notice that you can now see my personal photos from my travels. This is an addition that I've been interested in making for the blog for a while, and I've finally gone through with it. It's going to be a slow start--to begin with I only have the photos from my day trip to Yungilla on Sunday, but over the next few days and weeks I'm going to be adding all of my pictures onto Picasa Web Albums, which will then be displayed through the blog. So now you'll all be able to see the many places that I've visited, but haven't yet been able to show through picture or video on the blog. Hope you enjoy it.