Unshackled

For the first three months of service, the Peace Corps wants you to stay in your site (more or less) and become familiar with the town and its people.  So, as soon as we hit the 3-month mark, nearly half of my group converged at Mompiche Beach in the province of Esmeraldas in northern Ecuador for a little break from our sites.  The place is very “tranquilo” as they would say here, consisting of two sand streets and a handful of open-air bars and restaurants serving about 40 different types of batidos, or fresh-squeezed juices mixed with ice and milk, and all kinds of seafood that the local fisherman pull out of the Pacific Ocean early each morning.  The coast of Ecuador in general is a lot more laid back than the Sierra, or mountain areas, where the people tend to be a bit more conservative (and work a lot more!).  It was a nice change from the “big city” life in Loja.  There aren’t many places to stay at the beach, but we lucked out and were able to get a big thatched roof cabana that was able to fit a bunch of us.  There’s not much to do here except relax, which we didn’t have any problem with!  A few of us arrived early and paid some fisherman to take us out to an island that we had heard about.  After about 30 minutes of flying (literally) over some huge swells we arrived at the island which didn’t really have much to offer except an unbelievably wide beach, lots of birds and tons of giant-sized sand dollars covering the sand.  We hung out here and talked with the super-friendly fisherman for an hour or two, and then headed back to Mompiche. On the way back we stopped to watch some surfers do their thing for a while which was pretty impressive.  Mompiche is known to have some of the best/longest surfing waves in the world, and a bunch of international surfing competitions have taken place in the area.  Back at Mompiche, we didn’t do much but swing in the hammock, sit around a campfire, wade in the ocean and sip Caipiriñas at the bar.  Speaking of which, the electricity here isn’t too reliable!  We lost power about 3 times during the weekend and one night at the bar, the blender wasn’t working so well so the bartender proceeded to unscrew the two light bulbs and turn off the CD player so that more juice could flow to the blender!  (and it worked!)  One of the coolest parts about the beach was going into the ocean at night.  There are lots of tiny organisms called bioluminescent dinoflagelettes (say that 10 times fast) in the water here, and whenever you swing your arms through the water they light up like little stars.  Very neat!  There’s also a black sand beach within a 20-minute walk from Mompiche with silky smooth pitch black sand that was pretty cool too.

After 3 relaxing days at the beach I decided to check out two other volunteer’s sites in northern Ecuador.  The journey started with a bus from Mompiche to Atacames, a bigger city on the coast a bit north of Mompiche.  The ride is only an hour and a half, but of course the bus driver and his ayudante (or helper that does everything from collecting the fare to hanging outside the bus and washing the windshield with powdered laundry detergent and his hand) had to stop for a sit-down lunch mid-way through.  Why they couldn’t wait the 45 minutes to have lunch in Atacames is beyond me!  From Atacames, we were able to hop on a chartered bus to the city of Ibarra that would get us there in 6 hours instead of 8 on the regular bus.  The only catch was that the five of us heading that direction couldn’t sit in the regular seats with the folks that chartered the bus.  Instead we were relegated to the front compartment with the driver and his ayudante, Pepe, who proved to be quite the character and liked hanging out the door train-conductor-“All Aboard!”-style and informing us of the areas where it was and wasn’t safe for the bus to stop for us to take a leak on the side of the road.  Ari and I sat on the sweltering seats above the engine compartment, while Chris manned the dashboard and Shelley and Gaby sat on the floor on the top step.  And of course the people that chartered the bus had to stop at every roadside stand selling everything from mamacita's coconut candies to strings of grapefruits in yard-long mesh bags. When we finally made it to Ibarra, we ended up spending the night at another volunteer’s house before continuing on our way.  In the morning, Ari and I continued further north to her site in the province of Carchi, adjacent to the Colombian border.  This was another nice 4-hour bus ride, but at least we had seats this time around!  Ari’s site is located at the end of a painfully bumpy dirt road that any bus driver in the States would refuse to drive on.  The Ecuadorian bus driver, however, navigated the hair-pin turns with streams running across the road with ease.  Ari’s village is an Afro-Ecuadorian community of a few hundred people with a nearly perfect climate.  I think my initial reaction to the site was, “Wow this is a real Peace Corps site.”  It couldn’t be more different from Loja.  All that was there were a few houses, a volleyball court, an overgrown soccer field, and a tienda selling a few drinks and snacks that opened a month or two earlier.  Ari’s host family’s house was rustic to say the least, complete with newspaper wallpaper.  There was electricity but the only running water was an outdoor pipe diverted from the river for washing dishes and clothing.  The kitchen looked like something out of colonial times in the US with a wood burning fire inside for cooking and walls coated with black soot.  It was a gathering place, not just for Ari and the family, but for the three dogs, one cat, two ducks, and the plethora of chickens and chicks that roamed the property.  Thankfully the pig had to stay in his pen outside.  Armadillos are pretty common here and outside on the rafters of the porch was the family’s armadillo shell collection from all the ones that they’ve eaten recently.  The difference between this place and my host mom’s “palace” in Loja was shocking.  As rustic as the place was though, it was kind of nice to live the “simple country life” for two days.  All the kids were a ton of fun (and were pleading with me to stay another day… I think I gave them too much attention since they were a novelty and Ari was sick of them already!). 

After two nights in the world’s most uncomfortable bed, I headed 4 hours back to Ibarra, another hour to Cotacachi and then another half hour to Shelley’s site.  Her site is a small farming community in the mountains with neat views of the Imbabura volcano.  Many of the people at her site speak Kichwaa, which was/is the language spoken in the Andes long before the Spaniards arrived.  Most of the women and girls dress in traditional clothing as well.  I only had time for an hour or so here, so I just got a quick tour of the town and her house, which like Ari’s is also pretty rustic compared with my posh Loja life!  

From here, I really wanted to spend some more time on a bus so I headed back to Cotacachi, on to Otavallo (one hour) and then to my old host family’s house in Cayambe (1.5 hours).  It was good to see them and this was the first time I felt that my Spanish had improved tremendously.  When I left there three months ago I could still only understand about 50% of what was going on.  Now I think it was up to 80 or 90%! 

After a night in Cayambe, I headed back to Quito (2 hours) and then toured around the city for a few hours (the center of which is a United Nations World Heritage Site) before heading back to Loja on the always-enjoyable 13 hour overnight bus ride (which turned into 14 hours because of the landslide we hit along the way that some of the bus/truck drivers collectively shoveled a path through so that vehicles could pass).   It was awesome to see some other parts of the country and a bunch of other volunteers from my group, but I was pretty happy to be back in my own bed after the countless hours of bussing watching dubbed jackie chan and steven segal movies and listening to hours and hours of bachata music about everlasting love and aching "corazoncitos" (little hearts). And just remember, next time your toaster-oven isn’t working too well, all you need to do is unscrew a few light bulbs and all your problems will be solved! 

Enjoy the pics below and as usual click a few times to enlarge.  Then click “slideshow” for the full screen pics.