Ecuador!

Ecuador! Im here, its so green and lush literally everywhere. I havent been to a single city or town yet where there arent huge green lush mountains. Its beautiful! Hello! Also, basically all of Ecuador is in this email so maybe you should make a cup of tea first and cuddle up on the couch to read...

Border crossing Peru and Ecuador: So I left Javier in mancora,Peru. My bus left at 6 pm so I hung out with him all day while he tried to catch a ride hitchhiking down the coast back to Lima. We didn't realize it was Sunday and so it was virtually impossible for him to get a ride. The day and afternoon was spent chatting, talking about future travel plans together and eating our last ceviche from our favorite señora in the market for 1.50. We said our see you laters, hugged a million times, I cried my eyes out( of course)  and wandered off into the sunset by myself to catch the bus. It turns out that i waited 1.5 hours for the bus to leave bc the office i bought my ticket at passed me along go another agency who sold too many tickets. Finally me and 6 other tourists got on the bus which traveled 2 hours south first before heading north. When we got to the bus terminal in sullana, the city 2 hours south, the bus company we had bought our tickets from jn mancora never gave the money to the bus agency in sullana. Aka our tickets had not been booked. So here we are, stranded in a very unsafe town at 945 at night with no bus tickets for the only bus that leaves at night. While waiting to sort everything out i got accused of stealing someones water bottle until 5 minutes later, some grabbing involved, they realized their water bottle was sitting right next to them. Finally everything got sorted out and there would be room for us on the bus after we crossed the border, 3 hours, but until then we would have to stand. This was the first time something like this had happened in my travels and it really made me miss having a travel partner. But we crossed the border just fine, sat down, and arrived in Loja, Ecuador at 5am. Loja is just incredibly beautiful, well the city itself isn't but the surrounding areas are. I caught a 6am bus to vilcabamba and off I went! 

Vilcabamba, Ecuador: this place is just absurdly beautiful! Beautiful doesn't even describe it well enough. Rolling green mountains that are so lush, so so so lush. Vilcabamba is a small town in the middle of these rolling lush green beautiful mountains. If there werent more poeple from the us than people from ecuador i probably would have stayed there much longer than i did, which was only two days. There was a natural juice shop which i decided to check out one day and immediately had the sensation that I was at the co-op. I love the co-op, dont get me wrong, but I don't love people who are so wrapped up in their own privileged worlds to realize they live in privileged pretentious worlds. This cafe was just too overwhelming and nobody spoke Spanish. In vilcabamba the gringo community doesn't interact with the community of people who are from the area. It's two separate worlds. Anyway, I made some argentine friends at my hostal and we went in search of this supposedly magic water together. After walking for about and hour we came across this woman who we asked directions from. She told us that she was the owner of the water and we needed to pay her to enter the property. We asked if we could see the water first, before paying and she agreed. What an absurdity! The water is water that she pumps from a tank into a small puddle under a rock. This water is one of the few tourist attractions of the town and it's a complete hoax. So of course we didn't pay, it was a joke. We walked back to town and room one of the argentine girls to the hospital. The day before on a trek she had caught her finger on a barbed wire fence and ripped it open, needing 10 stitches. Turns  out they did a horrible job and her finger got infected. We took her to get it looked at and she wound up having to stay in the hospital overnight for 2 days! I left vilcabamba the next day and headed to a town called Zaruma. Delicious soup I ate in vilcabamba: repe. Soup made with platano, little while beans and cilantro. Also, the mangos are 25 cents here and just out of this world! 

Zaruma, Ecuador: zaruma is like going to a wild west movie set but in the middle of lush green mountains of ecuador. I apologize for saying lush green mountains so much but it's basically the one way to describe the scenery in Ecuador. This town is way off the normal traveler path in Ecuador but its awesome! I arrived,found my hostel which turned out to be a hotel for 10 dollars which is way out of my budget for Ecuador but it was the only one available so I sucked it up. Then I walked around taking in the architecture and feel of the town. The sidewalks and buildings are made of wood, have that old wood smell and the pace of life is very relaxed and slow here. It's a town high in the mountains but still green and has a perfect climate! That afternoon I ate a typical food from Zaruma called Tirgrillo. They take plantain that isn't ripe yet, grind it up, fry it and then mix in eggs and cheese with it. You take it with coffee! Oh man was it delicious! Just so so delicious! It also kept me full until about 3pm the next day! The next day I wandered around the small town again, taking in the scenery, the buildings, the people, the vibes and then kind of got stuck with nothing to do for around 8 hours because the only bus leaving to Cuenca leaves at midnight.  So I found a cool cafe, made friends with the extremely friendly owner and chatted for a few hours. Then i left for Cuenca! On my bus ride there I had to pee at about 3 am and went to use the bathroom on the bus but it was locked! I asked the attendant if he could open it for me and this turned out to be a catastrophe and took like 10 minutes bc he couldn't find the key and was illuminating the key hole with his cell phone. But fiiiinallly I got to pee! 

Cuenca, Ecuador: i got to cuenca early in the morning, caught a city bus to the center and walked around for about 45 minutes looking for a cheap hostel, finally found one, slept for a few hours and began my exploration of the city. Cuenca is stunning, probably the second most beautiful colonial town ive been to after Sucre in Bolivia. Theres a river that runs through the river surrounded by small green hills and its just genuis! The street art in cuenca is really really cool, i think some artists from argentina have done some work there and i spent a few hours wandering around taking pictures of the art. At the hostel i met a wonderful couple from cordoba, argentina and we wandered around a little bit. Theres not much to do there so i really only spent about 2 days exploring and then left and headed towards Baños on the oriente ( think jungle, amazon) side of ecuador. 

Puyo, Tena, Puerto Misahualli, Ecuador: when i crossed the border between argentina and bolivia i made friends with Francisco from Portugal and Paulo from Brasil. We exchanged facebook information and kept in touch since that moment. Turns out that we were in baños at the same time! So we met up the morning after i got there, devised a plan and headed to jungle towns! Our first stop was Puyo where we wandered through a large park with a river, made friends with a woman selling bananas, ate a typical plate for lunch with fish, fried plantain, beans, tomato and cilantro and then headed to the hostel to chill out. Francisco from portugal warned me before hand that he sings or talks in his sleep and that night i woke up bc he was singing! Haha! The next day we headed to Tena, another jungle town further into the oriente. In Tena we went to a large park, kind of like a little reserve in the middle of the town and wandered around. We took a nap on top of the look out point, surrounded by lush greenness, huge mountains and delicious wind. When we started to walk back to the park entrance a snake incircled Paulos ankle,i shreeked more bc i didn't understand why he was screaming. He kicked the snake off and we noticed that he was bleeding a little bit. Unsure whether or not the snake skin had cut him or whether the snake had bit him we made a little turnequit and (oddly) walked very calmly back to the front office of the park. There we made friends with this raccoon type animal that is kind of like the pet of the park, oh, and we also found out that the snake had only cut Paulo with its skin and that it only encircles the ankles of liars!! We died of laughter. That afternoon we went walking around in search of a hostel and stopped to ask this woman and artisan guy she was having a juice with whether they knew of anywhere to stay. Turns out that Paulo had sent a couch surfing request to the woman but she didn't have time to respond to us but told us that she had room at the house and we were totally welcome to stay there! So we went back to the bus station, gathered our backpacks, bought some fruit and headed to her house. The house was tiny and precious and just perfect! The three of us cuddled up on the one mattress and slept like angels! I almost forgot the best part of tena, and the new little thing that I'm adding to my blog, the food! In tena we found stalls selling plantain cooked on the grill, cut down the middle and then filled with shredded cheese and homemade mayo with garlic. I almost passed out it as so delicious!! They also have bags of fresh coconut juice for .50 cents in the street. Our next stop was Puerto Misahualli. Here we played with monkeys that wander around the tiny plaza, grabbing your clothes, food, smashing glass bottles, eating ice from snow cone vendors and mangos from the street. They were hilarious! We probably sat there watching them for over an hour dying of laughter. Especially when they started to play with the dogs!! In the afternoon we crossed the bridge to the other side of town and wandered into an indigenous community that grows cacao, collects it, dries it out and then sells it. The gentleman let us try fresh cacao!!  Francisco and i stayed for a while and played volleyball with the kids using palm frawns as the net. The next day we hiked to waterfalls that were just spectacular with our new argentine friends. We splashed around, climbed rocks and ate some fruit waterfall-side while watching the gigantic rays of sun shine through enormous trees. The sunset was just magical that day! Then we headed back to town, grabbed some dinner and hit the sack early. It poured all night and we were all thankful that we had gone to the waterfalls the day before. In the morning we packed up and I headed back to a town called Rio Negro, about 45 minutes outside of Baños. 

Rio Negro- Hare Krishna Yoga-Farm, Ecuador: on a bus ride a few days earlier the woman sitting next to me told me about a hare krishna farm that accepts volunteers in her home own of rio negro. So i decided that after traveling with francisco and paulo for a little bit into jungle towns i would head to the farm for a few days. A few days turned out to be 8 days! It was just amazing, i loved every minute of it. Well, maybe not the 4km walk in the rain to get there on my first day but even that was awesome. The farm/ yoga space/ house/ meditation room is in the middle of nowhere up in lush green beautiful mountains. There are no neighbors for at least 500 meters in any direction, there is a huge river next to the house ( the water source for the kitchen), a puppy named bhanduh who is only 2 months old, fresh whole wheat breads and cakes and delicious delicous food all day every day and just the most relaxing vibes. The people who run it Jagganath, Gopal and Nitya are always smiling and loving and caring and gentle. And although i dont believe in all the same things as them they are still such gentle people. there is so much to tell about the house bc I stayed there for so long but I will try to give only the best most tasty details. We went to an indigenous community one day looking for palm frawns for the roof of the new house they're building. The town is called canelos and its at the end of the bus line, sits next to a river and is very under served. There is this huge rushing river yet nobody has running water; they collect rain water to boil and cook with or hike down to the river to collect water in buckets. They also bathe, wash clothes and swim in the river they are forced to get their water from. Well, we went for a dip in the river! All of us terrified we would get some sort of awful skin rash but we turned out fine! I didn't know we were going swimming so I went in with my leggings and tank top on. Luckily it was about 3,000 degrees out so I dried quickly. Then we went to find some yucca chicha ( fermented yucca drink) made with peanuts. We found it! Gross! So so gross! I hated it. I've tried chicha made with corn and really liked it but this drink was just awful. I kindly passed the gourd around. After our chicha experience we climbed up to the mirador, watched the sunset from the tower and climbed back down to catch our ride home. Everyone in canelos was so kind and happy and warm and friendly! To get home there were 7 of us loaded into a pick up truck carrying palm frawns and boy were we snuggled in tight. But it was so fun and I enjoyed every moment of it. We stopped for plantains cooked on the grill, split down the middle and filled with homemade mayo with cilantro and cheese! What we didn't realize was that there was a checkpoint we would have to pass and what we were carrying was potentially illegal. Everyone in the group got out to walk except for me and one of the krishnas. I sat in the back seat, smiled and waved at the guard as he was stopping us, he caught my eye, smiled back and waved us through! Teehee! The rest of my time at farm/ house was spent doing yoga every morning, cooking lunch, hanging out, talking, napping by the river, climbing trees, visiting waterfalls and feeling so nourished both by food and love. Oh! Did I mention Banduh the 8 week old puppy? I spent a lot of time with him too! He got "lost" one might and Beatrice, the yoga instructor, and I went in search for him...calling his name, walking with a flashlight, going down to the river, asking neighbors, desperate to find the little guy who is just learning to climb the stairs on his own. After about 45 minutes of searching for him we came back to the house almost in tears to find him curled up in a ball asleep in the cabinet where the toilet paper is kept! I had such an amazing time at this place and it really made me re think or rather confirm the kind of life I want to lead. Live somewhere surrounded by nature, eat purely, only consume what is necessary and try to be the purest, truest, calmest form of myself.

Food: homemade granola with peanuts, raw sugar and coconut. Eaten with fresh picked bananas and strawberries. Chapatti. Fresh made whole wheat flax seed bread with pineapple jam ( homemade) baked in. Carrot cake. Pizza with French fries on top. Broccoli, cauliflower, garbanzo bean masala burgers( my creation), patacones, soup with plantains- chard- potatoes-carrots- masala. Fresh fruit juices everyday. Fresh herbal teas everyday. I ate gooooooood there! 

 

Next email to come soon! I will be crossing over to Colombia in a few days and am excited beyond words!! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying all that citrus and apples that should be in your belly because it's winter fruit!! 

Besos, 
Adge