Sábado, 13 de octubre del 2007
00h01m: After completing a six-hour long hike through the Andean highlands, western cloud forests, and even entering the western slope of the jungle; Seth, Zak, and I are currently down 6 to 3 in a 12 game (aka, one case of Pilsener) series of Cuarenta (an Ecuadorian card game literally called 40 because it is played to 40 points and with 40 of the 52 cards in the deck).
We find ourselves in the village of Chugchilán, a small community of some 600 families in the western Andes Mountains not far from Laguna Quilotoa. Quilotoa was an active volcano until 1797 when it had its last eruption and blew its top leaving a humungous crater with a lake at the bottom, which we hiked all the way around yesterday, much like Crater Lake in Oregon. After an absolutely fabulous dinner last night that consisted of soup, rice, vegetables, a pork chop, more rice, lentils, another pork chop, and more rice, the owner of Hostal Cloud Forest José Luis challenged our group to a game of Cuarenta with his partner Dennis. Dennis is a Peace Corp volunteer who has been living in Chugchilán now for close to two and a half years. In the recent town festivals José Luis and Dennis won the regional Cuarenta championship leaving us novices with almost no chance of success. Happy, however, we were, having won a third of the games after the first case of beer.
01h32m: José Luis bids us goodnight considering that he has to lead a horse tour to the cloud forest at 7am. Zak, Seth, Dennis, and I continue to play Cuarenta.
02h42m: I go to wake the girls up and we each pay Dennis $20 per person for our two nights, four meals, and several beers and waters at the wonderful Hostal Cloud Forest of Chugchilán.
02h59m: The drivers of both 3am buses leaving Chugchilán are asleep in the driver’s seats.
03h12m: Both buses are supposed to leave at 3am. One is labeled to be going in our direction. The other is labeled to be going the other direction. We are told to get on the one that is not labeled to be going in our direction. The driver climbs up onto the roof and ties our six backpacks to the roof with one rope.
03h28m: The 3am bus to Latacunga via Zumbahua leaves Chugchilán with seven gringos and eight Ecuadorian mestizos aboard.
03h42m: For the third time our bus stops to pick up indigenous Quichua speaking passengers. Our bus will continue to make stops for the first couple hours until we arrive in Zumbahua picking up indigenous folk to the point where every seat is taken, most with three people in two seats, and such that every imaginable place to stand is overly occupied by human bodies. The interesting thing about this stop, however, and what caused me to wake up, was that I looked out my window to the right and saw a sheep hanging by the ladder on the side of the bus. Not quite sure what was happening I scratched my eyes and looked around at the other passengers.
No one seemed alarmed by such an occurrence. Still not positive if I was dreaming or if there actually was a sheep hanging six inches from my body, I woke Hilary and asked her to look to our right. Like I, she also saw a sheep hanging directly outside the window. Calmed by her confirmation, and by the fact that the sheep continued to go up above the window all the way to the roof, I went back to sleep.
03h53m: I am awoken once again by something banging on my window. The bus is still moving about as fast as a bus can go in the middle of the night on a one-lane dirt road in the mountains. I try to be a good citizen as I say “Señor, se cae la oveja” (Sir, the sheep is falling). Hearing my call the driver looks back towards my seat and sees what I also see: a sheep hanging from the roof of the bus and bopping and banging with every curve, rock, or divot in the muddy road.
04h18m: The bus is stopped, more and more indigenously dressed and Quichua speaking people are filling the bus, and the driver is running behind the bus trying to catch the sheep that has completely fallen off the bus in order to reload it onto the roof…Two more times in the next 45 minutes will said sheep fall completely off the roof and crash into the ground, apparently unharmed.
05h07m: I begin to accustom to waking up every 15 minutes. We have reached the town of Zumbahua, only 51km (about 38 miles) from Chugchilán in just under three hours. Apparently every one is getting off the bus. I look to the right and the entire town is absolutely dead asleep, except for this one corner where there is a group of some 30 indigenous Ecuadorians, mostly women, nearly all of which with at least one 40 to 50 pound bag of grain or vegetables. Not a day goes by in Ecuador that I do not see a woman of at least 45 years with a very large pack strapped to her back by a blanket.
All of my friends awake and, seeing almost every getting off the bus, ask me if we are in Latacunga and if we should also get off. Totally groggy, I respond that there is no possible way that we could be in Latacunga (130km from Chugchilán) because the sun has not risen…
I look to my right and see two sheep being lowered by rope to their owner, a 65 year old indigenous lady. I now see why she put the sheep on the roof rather than brought them in her lap.
06h24m: The sun has now been up for close to half an hour and finally I can see something outside the window besides a sheep. To the north is a perfect view of the twin volcanoes Ilinizas at 5248m (17,300 feet). To the northeast is the most precious view of the perfect cone that is Volcano Cotopaxi (5897m or 19,400 feet).
06h57m: The guy sitting next to Seth tries to convince him that we have missed our stop and now we will never make it back to Quito.
07h01m: The bus reaches its final stop, the bus terminal of Latacunga where one can catch buses to every major Andean city, including Quito.
07h24m: After a good pee, we all board the bus bound for Quito.
07h48m: The Quito bus finally leaves the Latacunga bus terminal.
07h49m: The Quito bus makes its first stop.
08h04m: The Quito bus finally leaves its first stop.
09h17m: We get off the Quito bus in the middle of a freeway interchange, walk down to the underpass, walk out to the medium, and catch the bus to Conocoto.
10h04m: For the next few hours not much happens other than naps and consumption of John’s amazing quinoa (some of kind bean thing) soup.
14h58m: Zak said that we were leaving to go to the soccer game (Ecuador versus Venezuela in the first 2010 World Cup qualifying match) at three o’clock, so I decide to wake up from my nap. Unfortunately, only one other person is currently awake and inside the house.
15h22m: It starts to rain really hard.
16h33m: After an hour of travel in the pouring down rain we arrive at the soccer stadium, only to discover that not only have the general admission tickets been raised from five to fifteen dollars, but they are also sold out.
16h40m: It isn’t raining so hard any more, but no scalpers are selling general admission tickets.
16h42m: I see shawarma across the street and get really hungry and walk over and buy some. Yummy!
16h53m: Some guy sells us general admission tickets for twenty dollars a piece.
17h01m: Since the game is supposed to start at 5:00, half of us rush in to find some seats before it starts. The other half waits outside to find John. Nobody really seems to know where he is or whether or not he has a ticket.
17h03m: The general admission section is full so they won’t honor our tickets at the door. They tell us we have to go to the better seats ($30) in the middle of the field. Even though our tickets say northeast general admission, we end up sitting in the southeast palcos.
17h50m: The soccer game starts.
17h56m: The rest of our friends finally come in and find us.
18h24m: It starts to rain really, really hard again. In the first 30-35 minutes of the game Ecuador has shown complete domination. Venezuela has taken two shots on goal; Ecuador eight. Ecuador has controlled time of possession about three to one. The score, however, remains a zero-zero tie, and will stay as such until halftime.
18h26m: All of the food and beer vendors turn into poncho and plastic vendors.
18h35m: Halftime starts and I decide to go to the bathroom. The line is really long.
18h59m: I make it out of the bathroom and walk by a guy selling guatag. I don’t know what it is, but it looks like rice and potatoes and smells really good. I buy some for two dollars and go back to my seat.
19h14m: Venezuela scores on a free kick from the other side of midfield taking the lead one to nothing. This will hold up as the final score. For the rest of the game, Ecuador appears too scared to shoot and content with simply making awesome crosses and taking ugly shots.
19h23m: Zak asks me if my guatag is as slamming as it appears. I tell him that it is amazing, the rice and the potatoes and the sauce are all wonderful; nevertheless, if you don’t like calamari I wouldn’t recommend it. Zak immediately decides that buying seafood at an Ecuadorian soccer game is a terrible idea and elects against purchasing his own guatag.
19h50m: The game ends in a 1-0 loss for the Ecuadorians. It is still raining and the (one) gate is totally packed as the whole east section tries to leave, but no Ecuadorians seem really upset about the circumstances.
20h18m: We arrive in Mariscal (aka Gringolandía), a neighborhood that many seem to always complain about, and yet we always seem to go back. I don’t know why. A couple people really want some Indian food so we go to an Arabic restaurant.
20h19m: Seth realizes that he was pick-pocketed on the bus and no longer has his phone.
20h31m: Mark asks what I ate the game and I tell him I had some kind of a potatoes and rice and squid dish. He asked what it was called. I told him it was guatag. He told me that is cow intestine. I didn’t order anything to eat at the Arabic restaurant.
21h19m: The last bus back to Conocoto apparently leaves at 10pm from downtown Quito, so we decide to pay and hustle over to catch the bus going downtown.
21h27m: Some Ecuadorians tell us that they aren’t any more buses running.
21h28m: The bus we want drives by and doesn’t stop for us at the station.
21h29m: We ask the guy at the station if another bus is coming and he says that yes, one is coming right away.
21h38m: We ask the guy again if a bus is coming and he says that yes, one is coming right now.
21h46m: We ask the guy again if a bus is coming and he says that yes, one is coming right now.
21h51m: We ask the guy again if a bus is coming and he says that yes, one is coming right now.
21h53m: The bus finally comes and we get on.
22h09m: We arrive downtown assuming that we have missed the last bus back to the valley. John gets off and runs to the stop and asks the guy if there are any buses going to the valley. The guy says that there isn’t one here, but if we go across the street one should come by.
22h14m: We catch a bus going to San Rafael, the next town over from Conocoto.
22h39m: John, Mark, and I get off the bus on the freeway at Bridge 8 and decide to walk home from there. The rest of the group stays on the bus and catches a cab (for $2.00) from San Rafael. Mark, John, and I proceed to spend the next half hour walking home and speaking exclusively in Spanish. We walked really fast and I was tired because I had been on three 10km+ hikes at around 12-14,000 feet this week. Even though I only said three names, we made this really fast walk with a fourth person. Some Ecuadorian guy absolutely walked with us. None of us, or he, ever acknowledged each other’s presence, but he was there the whole time. After we turned down our street we came to the conclusion that even Ecuadorians are afraid to walk alone after dark.
23h32m: We start watching Animal House.
00h00m: I have been asleep on the couch in front of Animal House for over 15 minutes already.
After our hike the six of us road the bumpy, muddy, and nearly vomit-inducing 23 kilometers to Chugchilán in a five passenger truck with a man and his wife in just under 45 minutes. Despite the means of transport, Chugchilán was wonderful. We stayed at Hostal Cloud Forest, where for only $8 we received a bed, hot shower, popcorn in the afternoons, breakfast, dinner, and the company and advice of the owner José Luis. This really was a wonderful hotel complete with hours and hours of Cuarenta, a local dance troupe, and maps and other hiking information.
