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My last day in Ecuador was pretty chill! I returned from Cotopaxi to find Teigs hanging out at the hostel waiting to head out for some eats with Duncan and myself. What an awesome friend heh (considering we got back at like 8 PM so she was pretty damn hungry)! The three of us spent the night chillin out together having a few drinks, laughing, and enjoying good friendships. Something I’ve appreciated this entire trip.
Then at the cheery hour of 4 AM I headed out to the airport to catch my flight to Houston. Fortunately for me I managed to meet a really progressive girl named Kelsey from Seattle (who knows Duncan and ironically took the same flight as me). It was a little emotional finally saying bye to both Duncan and Teigs even if it was that early in the morning (yah their rock stars cause they got up early in the morning too just to see me off). I have to admit that it was weird to finally leave the country that I had been touring around for the last two months. It was nice to hang out for the 5 hours I had to spend in the George Bush airport *cringe* with Kelsey. We had great discussions about taking action against Coke in her school! GO KELSEY!
Returning home was pretty nice as I got to go the wedding of my two best friends Roman and Jamie! It was a really touching wedding and totally emotional. When two people who love each other that much make that commitment it’s really special. The last few days have been pretty crazy busy and culture shock has been hitting me off and on. I’m not regretful and almost thankful for culture shocks presence right now. It can be a super important learning experience if you let it. Read the rest of this entry »
In Quechua the word Cotopaxi (an active volcano 5897 metres high) means the “neck of the moon”. Apparently, depending on the time of day you can see the moon sitting right at the edge of this massive volcano.
I spent my last two days in Ecuador travelling to two different volcanos with my crazy friend Duncan *Chunky D for short* for some serious bicycle action! The first ride being Cotopaxi where we were dropped off quite a ways up the side of an active volcano where the first reserve is located. From there the group of 8 of us rode down the side of the volcano on the roadway up to the first reserve. In total we rode 26 KM that day to much of my pleasure and perma grin. I think the most challlenging part of the ride was the last 5 or 8 KM of sand found along the road. It was like riding in snow back home and really made for a full on workout. We were all bagged by the time we got to the hostel in Riobamba that night.
So at Jatun Sacha you can hike to a look-out tower that is 30 metres in the air above the entire rainforest. Teigan offered to take me there and I was totally game to check it out.
To be honest the metal structure was a lot smaller then I had originally imagined. Let´s put it this way I probably could have huged the metal frame holding the entire thing up, but not to worry the cable attached all the way up helped to stabalize teh structure.
I was a little freaked out being at the top for a short period only because we were on a small metal frame sitting ontop that swayed with our every movement. Wow Mom you would not have liked to be up there. But at the end of the day I was pretty stoked to have stayed up there to see the amazing view of the country side. There were tonnes of birds and other insects flying around at even this crazy height!
On the way home we managed to catch a few monkeys playing in a tree above us. I think seeing the monkies and one tucan made my day!
So the trip down to the Jatun Sacha reserve in the Amazon was pretty damn hilarious and sketchy at parts. The Amazon is experiencing a lot of rain at this point in the year so there are a lot of mud slides happening along the road. What does that mean for the busses? Well it means that they will just drive around the mud slides on alternative dirt roads if they have to. Or at the very least if a bridge is out how about drive right through the river with the bus? Yep they did that at the last bridge just before we got here. My bag was up near the driver so I had no fear of it getting soaked and quite frankly found the entire drive pretty amusing. The water probably came up to fully cover the bus tires completely! Giddy up.
Then yesterday a group of Jatun Sacha volunteers and myself headed out on a bosque walk through the Amazon rainforest with our trusty guide Don Gabriel. The history behind this man (in the photo) is that he comes from a really well known Shamin father who has passed on his knowledge about the various medicinal qualities of the plants found within the Ecuadorian rainforest. He is also a keeper of these areas around Jatun Sacha as he walks around the rainforest regularly with groups and by himself to check out the wildlife, vegetation, and make sure that no illegal trapping, oil work, or cutting of trees happening.
The massive vegetation, bugs the size of my hand, and wild species here is breathtaking. The secondary forest where we started the hike was filled with growth throughout the forest floor. As we approached the primary forest most of this vegetation fell away to tall trees and big plants. It´s something that pictures or words would never truly describe.
Let´s put it out there from the get go: Don Gabriel is an amazing man. His wealth of knowledge about ancient medicinal plants completely inspired me to learn more about my own back home. I respect the amount of knowledge that he carries about each plant in the forest, and there relationship with other plants. The stories that he spoke about reminded me how precious this environment out here really is. There is a hidden cost that we pay for removing the oil from this area of the country.
It came as a reminder to me that I want to tread lightly on our world, and ensure that what is happening to people is fair and ethical. Sometimes people feel there has to be a price to pay for our own progress, but then that makes me think that somewhere in that this type of progress someone always seems to lose out. Tragically, it seems like it´ll will be the people who have less money, knowledge, or skill to fight back those who are taking advantage.
Sure sure by now you know me as the bike guy … or at the very least a lover of bikes … well I have to admit that I do think they are pretty awesome. I do like the fact that I own one, and use that as my primary source of getting pretty much everything I need (with the help of public transit I might add). It´s also a nice way to help keep my footprint down.
As I have been travelling around Ecuador I´ve been really impressed with the number of cyclists (old and young) in small towns on major roads, and pretty much everywhere. Most peeps just own bicycles as a major form of transport.
One of the coolest things I have noticed as of recent is that there are taxi drivers that are taking people and goods around on (yep you guessed it bikes). The bike contraption above is a good example. On the way out to Canoa we were transported a few KM´s by a middle aged man who hauled all of Karin and my stuff plus us in one of these things. I was really impressed and ended up tipping him more for his effort. It was really great to actually use him instead of a vehicle to transport us. But heh they haul more than just people…they also transport plenty of food supplies and can you believe it..live animals.
I dunno I guess some peeps reading might be like be thinking … “Well they have to use these vehicles cause they probably can´t afford a new car.” or something like that. I agree that financial situations really do change things for a person … although I have seen the souped up version of these carriers be a motorcycle attahed to the same front rack.
I guess my main point for bringing this up is that I find it a really great way to transport things. I like the pace at which Ecuadorians work and live. It´s a lot slower then North Americans I think. It´s impressive to see them using these technologies to better themselves too. It´s just something that inspires me to want to do more things in my life to be different, slow my life down, enjoy, and watch the choices that I make.
On that note I don´t want peeps to feel as though I´m saying everyone needs to go out and buy a bicycle and then use that instead of your car. It´s not always practical for everyone, but we can all challenge ourselves to try and be more savvy about the trips we do make when driving. Like pooling all your errands into a few hours when possible so that you don´t have to make multiple trips out somewhere. Ideas like that are really small but can have a really big impact if everyone tries to do their part.
My friend Anna wrote me a little email the other day about this bike festival that is happening during the month of June in Edmonton. The best part being her newly acquired taste for bicycle blended mocktails (cocktails lacking booze but pretty refreshing).
So when she showed up to get a mocktail a guy there had a bike generator that was used to create the drinks. I had heard of bike blenders in the past where a bike is attached to a blender and as you ride the goodies in the blender are being chopped up. With this new setup the energy you create from riding is stored in a battery and captured through a generator (one implementation), and then you are able to plug in any appliance to the generator to use the energy you have stor.
I was slobbering at the mouth when I heard about someone creating that! I would love to create something like that myself…wow!
Any way, I´ve now return to Quito after a nice day of full on sun on the beach. I was in a really nice place called Hostel Bambu situated right on the beach in Canoa. Beautiful, relaxing, and really chilled out. This is where Karin and I met some crazy and cool Americanos from north of San Fransisco. They were nice enough to provide us both with a ride back to Quito in the car they had rented. YOU GUYS ROCK!
Now I´m planning my trip to the Amazon and Cotopaxi and then heading home! I´ve only got about 10 more days until my flight home. At this point I don´t think I´m ready to head back, but then again I´m getting super excited about Roman and Jamie´s wedding so that should be good too.
Ding ding and love and all that crazy crap.
PS - My rad friend Anna just posted a comment with link to free (yah you heard me) designs on pedal power stuff. Check it out yo!
Well quite some days ago (more like a week ago at the end of last month) Karin and I arrived in Cuenca. A beautiful city with a lot of history available by just walking down the streets. Our hostel was located right in the heart of all this history which was really nice. There was a really nice walkway along the river that we spent heading down during one of our days there, and the second day we headed off to Incapirca or the largest Inca ruins located in Ecuador.
Let´s not get this all muddled though..Peru currently holds the record for the largest Inca ruins in existence. Prior to boarding our bus we came across this sign. It was a little disappointing cause it meant we had to leave our donkey bobo behind. Poor guy.
