Dschungelblog!

After spending the last weeks in the sun we were quite surprised finding ourselves freezing after our arrival in Quito!! Here we are, planning the second half of the trip and cannot believe that time went by so fast (and we haven´t been doing half of what we intended to do…)

The last two weeks on the farm were quite interesting as we could witness some traditional festivities going on in the local community. They all involved a lot sugar cane schnapps and also the ever-present Pilsener beer. While the women were singing a never ending song where new verses were added when the old ones had been repeated 3 times, the men were sitting in the dark drinking, applauding, and hoping the singing would soon stop to start with the eating, dancing and even more drinking part of the fiesta ;-) Unfortunately the day after the party one, apparently still drunken guy, decided he had to cut a tree. Which is not that bad itself if you don´t consider that deforestation problem but in his case the tree hit the electricity cable and the whole area didn´t have light, showers, anything for the next 4 days!!!

Workwise there wasn´t as hard work as in the first weeks (the moon must have told them, its time for easier stuff now!! Or the guru of the farm SAI BABA - you can tell from the picture that this guy cannot be normal!!!). However, we decided that two weeks on the farm would have been enough because you really feel a little abused as member of a regular workforce (thus stealing ecuadorians jobs which wasn´t the deal) and also as source of money (those who wanted to stay for the christmas meal had to pay 5 dollars more although they all paid the 280 for full board and living costs on the farm!!!). We decided not to stay for the meal and spent christmas in Canoa where we had an earthquake on the 23rd!!! We couldn´t believe it at first but it was a real earthquake with glasses shaking in the bar and our bed trembling… Scary but no bad effects!!

New years eve in Canoa as well was very interesting as we got to know the custom of burning the old year that is represented by large puppets resembling politicians, comic heroes and so on! The whole street seemed to be set afire at midnight and it looked a little bit like a war-site especially the morning after. The whole night we had to “enjoy” the latino dance music thing they like here and Heiko was muttering about “at least mixing songs propperly, now matter how bad they are!”. But unfortunately the 62 years old DJ wasn´t able to do that. But we had fun watching our co-volunteers from the states and Canada dancing.

After this exciting time in Canoa we decided to leave and stopped in Don Juan, a tiny spot with about 4 houses and a few more huts. We checked into the only “hotel” at the place where Jesus pictures and figurines were hanging at the wall right next to some eighties softporn pictures - very nice! We set out to see howler monkeys in the nearby woods but didn´t succeed - at least we could hear them which proved that they actually existed (which Heiko strongly doubted during our strenuous uphill hike in the heat). The next morning we were woken up by pidgeons fighting on our tin roof which made a quite impressive sound and continued north along the coast to Punta Prieta where we had a last day on the beach with dangerous rip tides (as a consequence of the earthquake a few days earlier) that prevented us from swimming! But now we have a really good tan that even the bad Quito weather wont destroy too fast! Stayed in a lovely cabaña there and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, excellent food, and conversations with the french owner and his cute family who didn´t want us to leave that early. However we had to leave because we needed to extend our visa in Quito and preferred to be early for that than too late.

On the way inlands up to the Andes we stopped in Santo Domingo de los Colorados where we visited one of the last Colorado or Tsáchili Indian communities. A kind of weird experience. It was definitely interesting to learn about their culture and see how they live today but I found it such a peculiar situation when this guy dressed up and painted himself just for us two and then he and our guide started to perform some of their traditional music for us which was better than any latino stuff. But still, they didn´t feel comfortable in their dresses and that made it kinda weird…

Well, now back to Quito and struck by my first stomach-bowel-diarrhoea-thing since we are here! Well, had to happen at one point but didn´t expect to get it from a veggie burger in a tourist restaurant in the middle of Quito, would have been more authentic in the middle of the jungle ;-) Feel better today and tomorrow we are off to extend the visa hoping they will actually do it! Heard stories that they only give you one months more instead of 3 and then you have to go back and pay every time - south american money-making bureaucracy!! Then we plan to leave asap because of the shitty weather and increasing numbers of crimes we hear of (one German girl murdered in her hostal and a guy from our dorm mugged with a knife on his way home…). A trip into the jungle seems a good alternative eh?? More later!

xxx Romy & Heiko