Welcome to the Jungle

To finish our trip Maya and I spent three nights and four days in the jungle of the Orient provence of Ecuador. We actually learned that orient, like 'oriental,' is short for orientation which all come from the fact that the sun rises in the East (see map below). We took the local route, bus to taxi to boat, to get to the lodge in about 6-7 hours or so from Quito. It was a perfect finish to our trip as we knew we were coming back to overly plugged-in America shortly. It's also strange though to go a couple of days now without Wifi, computers, and/or any other modern form of entertainment. It takes awhile for your mind to slow down and enjoy the type of tranquility you really have to search for these days if you want it (and put those distractions away)!

The true map of the world

Our stay at the jungle lodge was pleasant. The steady sound of the river always in the background could easily be confused for rain. At night you especially knew you were in the jungle with all of the noisy frogs, crickets, and other creatures coming out. We actually went for a great night hike as well as several other jungle treks. No large animal sightings sadly but we did see some monkeys, birds, and lots of interesting flora and got to put on huge boots all of the time (see picture from previous blog post).

Another activity we did was a visit to a local Quechua community. I've now been on several trips from Guatemala to Tanzania where there has been some component of "indigenous village visit" and it continues to seem like a very awkward form of tourism. I can try to imagine some foreigners coming into my community looking very different from me with a totally different set of customs, languages, and traditions, but it doesn't really put me in the shoes of the people I've visited. I can't imagine what it must really feel like to have tourists coming, paying you money (usually very little from our standpoint), and like they use to say in the Wild West: "Dance." Like "show us your culture" on command in 5 minute dance, 10 minute presentation/discussion, and maybe some display of a local craft or building skill. I don't know that paying more or less money would make it any better?

On the hand this seems like a good thing in that ignorant foreigners can gain access to new cultures that they might otherwise flip the National Geographic channel on if they were sitting comfortably back home in America. And maybe the people enjoy the visitors, although I've always had a tough time of gaging this. If I were to imagine people coming to my community and giving the "dance" command, maybe I'd enjoy it a few times, but over an over it would get tiring and potentially annoying. But they might not care if they are making money, especially in very remote villages where there aren't a whole lot of viable ways to make money. More likely I am projecting my Western bias with this.

On the other hand, it seems like this could at best be classified as an appropriation of culture and at worse as a weird form of neocolonialism. How could you possibly claim to get to know an entirely different group of people in a few hour visit (or even the overnight home stays I've done which can be even more awkward)? Is a little something better than nothing? Are the super generic (often older) Americans in their big tour groups giving a weird representation of who we are when they visit? Think of my parents with this sort of thing and imagining a very paternalistic type exchange with local people makes me cringe. But maybe I'm being self righteous?  Not all of us, in fact most of us, are not going to go overseas for 2.5 years with the Peace Corps to learn the indigenous language and "go native" as people say. I don't know if this activity feels as awkward to other people as it does to me when I am in another country.

Despite my hesitations I guess I usually do enjoy these visits and I learn something. But as a form of (eco) tourism it feels misplaced, like you are going to a zoo for human beings. I'd much rather be doing business, volunteering, or working on some sort of purposeful project when getting to learn about indigenous people.

Finally, while there are usually translators present with this sort of thing, it seems like most often neither side has any idea what the other is saying. And it's rare to see any sort of true exchange happen; it's not like the community people normally ask the foreigners about where they are coming from and what type of lives they have. I asked the people on our visit in Ecuador if they had any questions for us and they looked at me very strangely as if no one had asked this before and they didn't know what I was even asking. It would be interesting to go to a local community on one of these visits for example and do a hip hop dance (although of course I'm not Black) so maybe a line dance or something? For me it could be doing the Horah). That would at least elicit some sort of reaction and maybe start more of a dialogue.

Awkward dance with forced child labor dance during our community visit (or maybe they get some compensation?). Despite my sweet dance moves I could not elicit one single smile from these kids. Is smiling not part of their customs?

After a hard day of tourism with jungle treks, dirty, and poor local community visits, we thankfully made it back to the comfort of our luxury resort jungle lodge 

Our trip in pictures

Krys, my old friend from Boston, and impetus for Machu Piccu hike, also becomes my impetus to try "cuy" - or the Peruvian speciality guinea pig (I did not like it all that much)

The infamous andean alpaca 

The natural dies used to make traditional Peruvian clothing

crazy salt mines in the sacred valley

Beautiful lake on day 1 of Salkantay Trail - well worth the exhausting 2 hour steep hike

Our hiking group on the glacier near the top of day 1 with load carrying donkey

Frequent switchbacks hiking to the cloud forest

Classic Maccu Pichu shot with one of Krys' friends - Stephanie

We tried to do an "Adam" and "Eve" type shot at the top of Macchu Pichu mountain but we got in trouble from one of the park workers

Bike trip with Ecuador Pure Life at one of our first lodges

Lunch break

The terrain was incredibly varied depending on the day as well as the weather and temperature conditions

Maya mountain biking down a hill

Overlooking a lake near Imbabura volcano

Otavalo town - this place was famous for it's market

And meanwhile back home...Havi taking Sherlock for a walk (my brother dog sat while we were away)

Maya preparing for 'superman' zipline

Go-Pro on the zip line

Traveling to our jungle lodge Ithamandi - only accessible by boat

Ithamandi Jungle Lodge

Lunch break during one of our Amazon treks 

Monkeys have overtaken the town of Misahualli, fun for tourists, a nuance for locals

And the day after we came back to Boston my friend Pam got married - our first gay wedding!

Going for a walk with Sherlock and my friend Ben we stumbled upon my cousin Rachel's wedding beautiful site the Codman estate in Lincoln, MA

South America

This blog used to be mostly about travel and when I look back to my first entry---- I see a lot of evolution. Travel is still my Passion and the nice thing about becoming a teacher is having summers again.

Maya and decided to go to South America for a three week trip since neither of us had been to the continent before. We made a last minute decision to join some old Boston friends on a Machu Piccu trip in Peru first. We hiked the Salkantay trail for five days and some beautiful landscapes. Peru seems like an awesome place to travel and probably most popular tourist destination as well in South America. They've got every micro climate in Latin America in Peru and even though our hike took us through jungle, mountain, glacier, cloud forest, rain forest, meatball forest

- ok well all of those except the last one -there were plenty of others we didn't see. 

The food in Peru was great (better than Ecuador I'd say). I love the "soup" course and tried many delicious varieties. I also tried cuy, which is guinea pig, and found it to be very strong and greasy in taste. It was not my favorite, especially at the expensive price here of $20-$30. Alpaca on the other hand was delicious. Both Ecuador and Peru seem like they have more variety than Guatemala with their rice, beans, and tortillas at every meal. But really I spent a few weeks here, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

Back in Peru, I got a little altitude sickness at about 15,000 ft at the top of our mountain/glacier component of our hike but it was worth it for the views (coming soon). Being on a glacier was probably the most different thing of the whole trip. Machu Piccu was certainly impressive but I have a hard time when I'm doing things that seem so utterly un-special or rather over frequented by tourists. Which is ironic since I bet MP is on a lot of peoples' bucket lists. This is probably a reflection of my privilege and experience with global travel. 

The next component of our trip consisted of one week cycling in Ecuador with a group of 6 American gringos (well one was of Hispanic American origin). Our trek was also all american. The landscapes were also quite varied and beautiful. We did a great chocolate tour (plantation and manufacturer bean to bar) in beautiful Mindo. After a short bird watching experience we climbed about 8,000 ft on mountain bikes one day. This was the most exhausting day. 

We've been also cycling around volcanos and moving between asphalt, cobblestone, dirt, grass, and rock surfaces keeping things interesting. We made a quick visit to the equator line as I did in Uganda so now I just need to get there on the Eastern Hemisphere line (so I think Jakarta ish area?). Next up, Prime Meridian? Poles? 

Overall my impression of this one part of south America has been favorable and it's a relatively comfortable poverty tourism experience. Things just seem to be going a little better, they are slightly more organized, than in the African countries I've visited. The hotels have big jugs of free mineral water. You don't see quite as many street vendors and random piles of trash. Locals take out money from ATMs, not just the foreigners, more people have cars but yet public transportation like buses is still very functional - because it has to be for a majority (whereas it doesn't work great in Atlanta and doesn't have to since it's not a majority population base of users - although I wish that would change). 

Even though Ecuador is similar to the size of Colorado, two weeks was not enough time to see that much. The terrain is so mountain-e that you have to fly places to really move around efficiently. Cuenca in the south is over 7 hours from Quito driving. We really wanted to do the Galapagos but it takes a surprising amount of time to do it.  So instead we take off for the jungle tomorrow. 4 days at a remote lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon, will report back soon.