This past weekend was a long weekend for us because of the holiday Carnaval. Carnaval is officially Monday and Fat Tuesday. Here people celebrate the whole weekend long. The main things to do are to throw water (water balloons or just bottles of water), spray foam from cans and throw flour. Its basically a giant mess. On Saturday night we went down to La Ronda street and saw first hand how crazy things can get. People didn´t care who or what they sprayed. To stay out of the real action we went to a roof top restaurant and drank the traditional Ecuadorian hot drink, Canelazo. Imagine warm orange juice, cinnamon and some strong liquor made from sugar cane...actually pretty good.
To celebrate the actual Carnaval we ventured to a town about 2.5 hours from Quito called Mindo. It is in a cloud forest. We had to take three different busses to get there. We stayed at a local hostel on the river called ¨Casa de Cecelia¨. After wandering around and finding some almuerzos we stopped by the park to watch some traditional dancers do their thing. (There are pictures on my [Amber´s] facebook page). We wandered out to Lake Mindo when it got dark to attend the frog concert. It was basically a tour around a small pond to view all sorts of aniamals in the dark. Since everyone in the city seemed to make pizza we had that for dinner. The next day we took a truck 4 km outside of town to ride the Tarabita. It is a metal basket that spans a valley 530 meters wide and very high up. It was a fun ride across...only about two minutes though. Once across we hiked an hour to a waterfall called Cascada Reina. We saw many different plants, insects and birds along the way. It was beautiful. The Cascada Reina was really two waterfalls. The lower fall was about 10 feet high and then up the steps lead to the higer fall, which was probably 30 or more feet high. Johnny had to take of his shoes to get to the taller one, because the water was very deep between the two. We took the cable car back and walked the 4km back to Mindo and caught the bus back to Quito. We´re really glad we´ve sort of figured out the bus system, otherwise this would have been the 4th weekend in a row where we stayed in the same place, which is pretty unusual for us.
Fact about Carnaval: It the past few years the city has been trying to control the crazyness of throwing water baloons and water at inoccent people. In Quito, it is illegal to thow water ballons in public spaces. According to the local newspaper, if you are caught, the penalty is a day in jail and a 4-7 dollar fine. They also shut down all outdoor water features like fountains and also I think hydrants to prevent people from playing in them. This may explain why everybody left Quito for the holiday. The city was a ghost town this past weekend. I think most people go to the beach.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
What the heck are we doing here
Here´s a brief review of what our jobs have been so far. We are both working for the Tropical Disease Institute http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/tdi/ which has offices and labs at Ohio University and in the Catholic University in Quito. This summer, the project will go to Loja province to conduct research, search for and collect the chichorro bug (Chagas disease vector), fumigate houses, and educate people about Chagas Disease. I (Johnny) have been helping to create a map of the area we will be going this summer. In addition, I´ve been asked to go to Loja soon to do GPS mapping of areas where no maps exists. I have also been helping with data entry in the office in Quito. Amber has been working in the Biology lab, trying to find and count which chichorros have the T. Cruzi parasite that causes Chagas disease.
Today after Spanish classes we got sucked into salsa lessons. I´m not very good. Maybe we´ll try again later.
Interesting Fact: Even though the temperature rarely gets above 65, very few buildings in Quito have heat, or air conditioning. We sleep with two blankets because there are many gaps in the windows and doors which lets in cold air and bugs.
Today after Spanish classes we got sucked into salsa lessons. I´m not very good. Maybe we´ll try again later.
Interesting Fact: Even though the temperature rarely gets above 65, very few buildings in Quito have heat, or air conditioning. We sleep with two blankets because there are many gaps in the windows and doors which lets in cold air and bugs.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
3 weeks in
So Johnny and I have been here for about three weeks now. We are going to try and recap some of the more interesting things that happened:
1. We found an apartment in Guapulo that costs $390 a month. It came furnished but has a funky smell from the old tenants. It is at the bottom of the complex and has an amazing view. The other day we saw the glaciated peak of Cayambe. We have two resident cats...Michi and one that John named Jingle Fluff. They are pretty clean cats but we only allow them on the patio. Every morning there is a different giant bug on our door step. Yesterday morning it was a zoo...we had a slug (4 inches), a beetle, a moth and a mini tarantula. Also, there is a cow down the hill in front of the house that will moo at you when you moo at it.
2. We walk to work everyday (147 steps up a hill and then 1.5 miles). I hope that we get used to it soon. Work starts for John around 8:30. He is working on maps for Mario and the summer program as well as GPS projects with Cesar. I am trying to learn everything that has to be done in the lab and it is kind of frustrating...especially with my lack of Spanish. Everyday we walk to get lunch. It is $2.50 and includes: soup, juice, a main dish (meat and rice) and a dessert. We have not had anything too weird except for yesterday at lunch we each had a chicken foot in our soup. I am still tyring to not eat meat but it is very hard here.
3. We survived our first earthquake on February 8th. It happened around 6:00 am. John thought it was just me moving around in bed and I slept though the whole thing. Nothing moved in the house at all. We put up a windchime next to the bed so that we can hopefully know the next one is going on.
4. Laundry...it stinks. We had our first experience washing all of our clothes by hand last weekend. We started by filling up a tub with hot water and soap. Then we both sat in the shower and took turns hand washing everything. The water was such a gross color by the time we finished. Then John hung up some random wire on the terrace so that the clothes could dry...We looked like real Ecuadorians from the outside. The clothes ended up taking about 2 hours to wash and 2 days to dry. This week we walked up the hill and paid $7.10 to have them washed and dried.
5. Last Sunday Johnny climbed Volcan Corazon. It was the highest peak he has ever climbed...around 15,780 ft. He left around 6:30 in the morning with a group of about 40 people and returned to the house around 7:30 at night. He said that the whole hike was in the clouds and that at the top he couldnt see much more than 100 ft. He had a fun time and wants to climb more of the peaks in the area.
Interesting fact: Every college seems to have its own invasive species...some have squirrels or rabbits...our University here has mourning doves. They are pretty cute but poop everywhere.
That is all for now. More to come later...hopefully pictures too. Hope everyone is doing well.
1. We found an apartment in Guapulo that costs $390 a month. It came furnished but has a funky smell from the old tenants. It is at the bottom of the complex and has an amazing view. The other day we saw the glaciated peak of Cayambe. We have two resident cats...Michi and one that John named Jingle Fluff. They are pretty clean cats but we only allow them on the patio. Every morning there is a different giant bug on our door step. Yesterday morning it was a zoo...we had a slug (4 inches), a beetle, a moth and a mini tarantula. Also, there is a cow down the hill in front of the house that will moo at you when you moo at it.
2. We walk to work everyday (147 steps up a hill and then 1.5 miles). I hope that we get used to it soon. Work starts for John around 8:30. He is working on maps for Mario and the summer program as well as GPS projects with Cesar. I am trying to learn everything that has to be done in the lab and it is kind of frustrating...especially with my lack of Spanish. Everyday we walk to get lunch. It is $2.50 and includes: soup, juice, a main dish (meat and rice) and a dessert. We have not had anything too weird except for yesterday at lunch we each had a chicken foot in our soup. I am still tyring to not eat meat but it is very hard here.
3. We survived our first earthquake on February 8th. It happened around 6:00 am. John thought it was just me moving around in bed and I slept though the whole thing. Nothing moved in the house at all. We put up a windchime next to the bed so that we can hopefully know the next one is going on.
4. Laundry...it stinks. We had our first experience washing all of our clothes by hand last weekend. We started by filling up a tub with hot water and soap. Then we both sat in the shower and took turns hand washing everything. The water was such a gross color by the time we finished. Then John hung up some random wire on the terrace so that the clothes could dry...We looked like real Ecuadorians from the outside. The clothes ended up taking about 2 hours to wash and 2 days to dry. This week we walked up the hill and paid $7.10 to have them washed and dried.
5. Last Sunday Johnny climbed Volcan Corazon. It was the highest peak he has ever climbed...around 15,780 ft. He left around 6:30 in the morning with a group of about 40 people and returned to the house around 7:30 at night. He said that the whole hike was in the clouds and that at the top he couldnt see much more than 100 ft. He had a fun time and wants to climb more of the peaks in the area.
Interesting fact: Every college seems to have its own invasive species...some have squirrels or rabbits...our University here has mourning doves. They are pretty cute but poop everywhere.
That is all for now. More to come later...hopefully pictures too. Hope everyone is doing well.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
1st weekish
I'm writing this to keep everyone updated of our activities, and so I can remember what we've done while in Quito, Ecuador. I've never read or wrote a blog before, but from what I understand, journal-type blogs are terribly boring. So in addition to an account of our lives, I'll add something new I've learned about Ecuador/Quito/South America, or just a fun fact about them so this blog is a bit more interesting. Since being here we've found a nice appartment in a area of Quito called Gaupulo. It overlooks a valley and Gaupuo church. Every evening the valley fills in with clouds. We're supposed to be able to see Cayambe volcano from the apartment, but it's been too cloudy. We started Spanish lessons this week and they are going well but slow. It's still hard for us to comunicate with someone who doesn't speak english, which is most people.
We started work the first full day we were here. Everyone at the school has been very welcoming and helpful. I've been working on making a map of where the project will got this summer for more research, and Amber's been helping in the lab finding the T. Cruzi parasite. I haven't gotten sick yet, but Amber came here with a cold that she just finally got over. I think she gave the cold to the secretary here. I told her she was like the Spanish conquistidors by bringing disease overseas to South America, but she didn't find it as funny as I did. Interesting fact about Ecuador and probably Latin America in general: you are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet. It will clog the pipes and the septic systems can't handle it. Every toilet here has a little trash can next to it where you put used paper. Flushing toilet paper is not an easy habit to break.
We started work the first full day we were here. Everyone at the school has been very welcoming and helpful. I've been working on making a map of where the project will got this summer for more research, and Amber's been helping in the lab finding the T. Cruzi parasite. I haven't gotten sick yet, but Amber came here with a cold that she just finally got over. I think she gave the cold to the secretary here. I told her she was like the Spanish conquistidors by bringing disease overseas to South America, but she didn't find it as funny as I did. Interesting fact about Ecuador and probably Latin America in general: you are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet. It will clog the pipes and the septic systems can't handle it. Every toilet here has a little trash can next to it where you put used paper. Flushing toilet paper is not an easy habit to break.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)