cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Portoviejo’s weather is predictable. Take a look at the forecast: http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/tenday/ECXX0017?from=today_topnav_BusinessTravel  . Basically, high of about 90, low of about 70, and scattered thunderstorms. eeeeeeevery day. I have yet to actually hear thunder, but there sure has been a lot of rain. Portoviejo is a big puddle. A wonderful place for pigs, or people in rainboots.

As far as I know, the power outages have officially stopped. So no more eating dinner by candlelight or laying on the porch outside when it’s super hot. I will kind of miss the inconveniences that the power outages caused- sitting in the movie theatre waiting for the generators to kick in and to continue the movie, having to return to the post office the next day to recieve your package because the computers won't work without electricity, spending the hottest days in the mall because it is air conditioned...

I am currently spending my free time reading The DaVinci Code in Spanish! Which is interesting. I have to look up a whole bunch of words but I understand everything that is going on. It really shows me how much Spanish I actually know. I can read an adult-level book and actually understand what's going on (even if I do have to look up every other word)!

winter time

It is, without a doubt, winter time here in Ecuador. This means rain (FINALLY) and heat. I am feeling quite at home in the humidity. Unfortunately, wintertime also means that there are SO MANY BUGS. Last night it was really hot so I slept without a sheet on top of me, and I woke up with at least 50 more mosquito bites on my legs. Tonight I will wear bug spray to bed. 

It is kind of amazing to me that Portoviejo is able to function year after year in the wintertime. It has just begun and already the streets are FULL of mud. Everything that was dust is now mud and it is gross. I am considering buying some rubber boots for when I want to leave the house and don’t want to get dirty. Until now the only sort of footwear I have worn have been flip flops, and those are not so much fun when the streets are full of mud.

I have now taught Ricardo three card games, and we play, at least once, every day. He knows ‘Go Fish’, ‘Old Maid’, and a game that a Swiss girl taught me that is apparently called ‘Asshole’ that we have renamed as ‘Galleta’ (cookie) in Spanish. :) I am really going to miss him when I change houses.

Today I went with a group of med school students and recent graduates to a village about 35 minutes away from Portoviejo. They were holding a one-day free clinic thing for the children in the town. The doctors saw between 90 and 100 kids, and all of the medicines that were prescribed were free, as long as we had them. It was nice to be in such a hands-on position helping this community. I was dedicated as the master weigh-er and height-take-er, so I’m really good at that now.

I also weighed myself for the first time in 5 months. I didn’t eat dinner tonight. :)

There will not be any pictures for a while. My camera is not working. :(

the bus terminal, my new second home.

I am way behind on blog-writing. Just posted the previous entry.

I’ve had a busy week- there was an exchange student from the US who lives in Riobamba staying in my house for a week so we tried as hard as we could to spend as little time in Portoviejo as possible. :)

On Tuesday we went to Crucita, where we ate encebollado (new favorite!) and then swam in the ocean. It rained the whole time, but was still a lot of fun. Wednesday we went to San Clemente, except we got off the bus too early- in San Jacinto and had to walk the rest of the way to San Clemente. Friday we went to Bahia and San Vicente. Total transportation cost for four hours in bus and two boat rides- $4.35. Saturday we went to Manta, where we met up with the four exchange students there, who are living like kings. We went to the grocery store there, bought some food, and then went to the beach for a picnic.

I have become quite familiar with the bus station over the past few days. And I now plan on using it a lot. There’s no use to stay in Portoviejo when you can leave Portoviejo. :)

cuenca!

Last Friday I went with Alex from Switzerland and her host grandfather to Cuenca. I finally asked permission from Rotary at about 12 Thursday night, and we left at 6 on Friday morning. 

We rode with her host dad and one of his coworkers to Guayaquil in his car, which is nice because it’s faster than the bus. The road between Portoviejo and Guayaquil is terrible. I spent most of the trip somewhere between the seat and the roof of the car. We took the bus from Guayaquil to Cuenca. We didn’t have the best luck either- in the first minute of the trip, the bus had stalled out at least 10 times. It also had a max speed of about 30 miles an hour. On flat ground. Aaaaaaaaand pretty much the whole trip was uphill. Needless to say, it took a while. At least an hour longer than it should have.

We did arrive in Cuenca eventually. The bus decided to drop us off outside of town though, because he said there was too much traffic. So we walked to a city-bus station and then took a taxi to a hotel. We left our stuff at the hotel and went exploring. That night, we went on a bus tour around the city.

The next morning we got up early and went to a city outside of Cuenca called Chordeleg, which is famous for selling ‘inca gold’. Pretty much all they have in this tiny little town are shops that sell jewelry and shops that make shoes. The town is gorgeous though. We went back to Cuenca for lunch, which we ate at a market. We ate meat from a pig that still had a head and a tail and had been roasted whole, which was gross to look at, but very tasty. When we left the market, we saw a horse walking along the streets of Cuenca, probably delivering things to the market from the countryside. It was quite interesting- not something you see everyday in downtown Houston. That afternoon, we tried to go to the main museum in Cuenca, that was featuring a paintings by Guayasamin, but when we arrived at the museum, we found that it was closed, due to the energy shortages. We walked to another museum instead, and then to a store where they make Panama (Montecrisit) hats. Alexandra and I had a short fashion show and tried on at least ten million different hats, and then the owner of the store took us upstairs to a hotel that she owned. The view of the city was fantastic.

Later, we wandered around Cuenca, and in the evening, went to a hot springs just outside of Cuenca. Where I dropped my camera in the water. :(

Sunday morning we visited the cathedral in Cuenca and then went to the bus station to go home.

One of my favorite things that clearly separates the highlands from the coast is that the indigenous culture is so much stronger in the highlands. There are so many people- mostly women- walking around the streets of Cuenca in their traditional outfits, which are absolutely gorgeous. 

This week there are three exchange students who live in Riobamba here visiting, one of which is staying in my house. So we’ve been busy doing things here. We’ve been to the beach twice, once when it was raining, and we have plans to go to the beach tomorrow and Saturday as well. :)

here are some pictures!

lunch!

me eating lunch. :)

fruits and vegetables at the market: fashion show at the panama hat factory:eating a guaba:

some women dressed traditionally:

fishin

I have a friend from Switzerland who is here on a different sort of Rotary Exchange- she is only here for 3 months, but she is staying with a girl who is also her age, and when she returns to Switzerland, the girl from Ecuador will return with her to stay for 3 months. She got really lucky with her family- they have taken her almost everywhere in Ecuador! She is leaving next week, so has been doing a bit of traveling close to Portoviejo- trying to do everything before she leaves. Tuesday I went with them to a town about 25 minutes from Portoviejo called Montecristi. We just did some shopping in the market there, and it was fun. Wednesday night, they both showed up at my house unannounced and asked if I would like to go to the beach with them to spend the night in their beach house. I threw some clothes in a backpack and was out the door in less than 5 minutes. The girl from Switzerland hadn’t seen the fishers in the morning at Crucita. So we drove up there and spent the night. In the morning, we woke up at 6 and went walking along the beach to where the fishermen are. I had been there before while they were unloading the fish, but this time was more interesting. Last time, I just saw all of the fish that they chop up to make fish flour- they use the heads and gross parts of the fish that we don’t like to eat, and grind it up and feed it to livestock to make them gain weight faster. The people who chop up the fish are of all shapes and sizes- there are children, teenagers, adults, and old people. 

This time, we saw a lot cooler things- a hammerhead shark, a fish called a ‘picudo’ or something like that in Spanish that look s like a swordfish that they use to make ceviche that was HUMONGOUS, and another huge fish that has a big fan-shaped fin on it’s back.  Here are some pictures, because those are by far the most interesting:

I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and I am hoping that I am not getting sick. I did not enjoy being sick the last time, and i don’t think I will be able to stand being sick in this heat.

This morning when I woke up it was raining! For the third time in almost 20 weeks. It was exciting.

machalilla

Today I went with Marvin my friend from Germany, a girl who is here from Switzerland, her host sister, and her host father south to the Machalilla National Park. After picking me up about half an hour late (just on time for Ecuador), we made our way to Manta, and then took the Ruta del Sol south. This road basically follows the coastline, which results in some pretty gorgeous views. After a while, we stopped, at a beach named San Lorenzo, where we got out of the car and walked down the beach. San Lorenzo is gorgeous. There is a really small town there, but the beach was basically deserted the whole time. At one end of the beach, there is a large cliff, with caves and cracks that have been carved into them by the constant crashing of the waves. We explored the beach for a while, trying to coax the  crabs out of the cracks in the cliff, but eventually had to get back in the car and continue.

Ecuador is interesting in that you can look out the car window and see only dead-looking, dry, and brown plants, and then while you blink, they change to different sorts of plants, all of which are green and pretty. Unfortunately, most of our trip was full of the ugly brown sort of scenery.

We finally arrived at the Machalilla National Park a bit later. We did a sort of mini-tour through the archeological part of the park along with a trip through the bird-section of the park. After that, we went to a small pond full of black water. Apparently it is a sulfuric pond, and the mud and water are supposed to be good for your skin. It smelled so bad, but we decided to get in anyway, since the guide told us that the smell wouldn’t stick. After smearing mud all over our bodies and then rinsing it off, we discovered that the smell DOES in fact stick. We then walked back to our car and went straight to the beach, hoping that the salt water would get rid of the sulfur odor we were covered in. It didn’t quite get rid of it, but it did help a bit- we could now stand riding in a car full of sulfur-smelling people. While we were at the beach, a boat full of fish came in to unload, so we watched the battle between the fishermen and the birds.

After swimming for a while, we realized that we still hadn’t eaten, and it was 3 o’clock! So, we headed north to a beach named Puerto Cayo, where we ate lunch. After lunch, we decided to head home to Portoviejo. We stopped at a gas station to fill up, since we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it all the way back without getting gas, and found out that the gas station was out of gas. And, unlike Houston, there are not gas stations on every corner. We ended up having to drive about 20 miles to a different city to get gas, which meant we had to take a different road back to Portoviejo- one that was significantly uglier and in much worse shape.

 

feliz año nuevo!

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

New Years celebrations are, without a doubt, cooler here. For the past week or so, the streets have been full of proof that New Years would be an experience- stands selling yellow underwear and grapes in downtown, millions of people trying to sell lottery tickets, and people making and selling massive amounts of effigies of all sorts of cartoon characters and famous figures.

Here in Portoviejo there is a contest for the best ‘año viejo’ (new year). Yesterday morning we went driving around the city to look at all of them. They were AMAZING. They all have a theme, and they were all huge. The worst part was knowing that they would all be burnt. My favorite was one that was based on the Botanical Gardens in Portoviejo- it had all sorts of animals, and they all looked great.

Last night we took our ‘año viejo’ outside and joined all of neighbors in the street. We got kind of excited, so we set them all on fire before midnight, but it was still quite cool. Standing outside on a street full of people, with a huge exploding fire in the middle of the street and fireworks going off all around us was quite cool. After hanging out outside for a while, we all went inside and prepared dinner. We all ate, and then afterwards, my host sister and host dad went out to parties- they left around 2:15, and I think that they got home around 9 this morning. :)

I am not quite sure what we will be doing today. The plan was to eat ceviche for lunch, but now Ricardo is sick and no one else is awake so I don’t really know.

Happy New Year!

One of the large año viejo's for the contest:

año viejo's being sold in the street:

our squirrel:

all of the neighbor's año viejo's- ready to burn!

burning!