Parades... enough already!

South America is addicted to parades. I mean, really addicted. There´s one every day. Every day. You can´t get away from them. You can try, but it doesn´t work. The parades find you...

We first encountered the SAPA (South American Parade Addiction) back in Puerto Lopez, a little town on the coast of Ecuador. We just happened to be passing through on the day of the Festival of Humpback Whales, kicking off the start of the town´s whale-watching season. It was all very innocent, just a small-town parade consisting of cars decorated like whales, and schoolchildren performing traditional dances and dressing up as shrimp and the like. Cute.

(By the way.... it is worth noting that the Spanish word for whales sounds almost exactly like the Spanish word for virgens. Also, the Spanish word for parade is desfile. A great deal of confusion resulted when Cristobal [that guy whose house we tented at] was trying to tell me about the parade of whales, but he didn´t know the English word for parade. He not only accidentally spelled desfile ¨defile¨, but he looked it up in the English section of his dictionary and showed me the definition. Thus, there was a period of time was I was sure he was telling me the we were in town for the annual Festival of the Defiling of Virgens. I was glad to get that straightened out.)

Moving on... the next day, we had made it as far as Piura, Peru. I had left Nic guarding our backpacks on a bench in a tranquil town square while I investigated ATMs. While I was gone, what should come marching around the corner....

Nic got kicked out of his bench on the park to make way for some sort of military academy ceremony, and had to drag both our bags across the street on his own. I got back in time to enjoy the show, which involved marching bands, soldiers in combat fatigues, homecoming princesses, and what appeared to be a previous graduating class of the academy:

Note the one guy who missed the memo about which tie to wear.

The exact same thing happened a few days later... I was to meet Nic in the middle of the main square in Cusco, but as he was waiting he got kicked out, this time by a squad of Incan guards:

Then things really started to get out of hand.

It seems that as the Spaniards conquered their way across South America, they encountered a certain Incan tradition. Each year, the townspeople would bring out the mummies of all their deceased kings and gleefully parade them around town. The Spaniards, understandably perturbed at the sight, somehow convinced the natives to parade around effigies of the Catholic saints instead of the bodies of their dead Incan kings. The tradition survives today as Corpus Christi... and all week in Cusco we´ve had to side-step marching bands and throngs of people parading their particular effigy around the streets before returning it to its home church.

We also happened to show up in Cusco in time for Cusco Week, which seems to be mainly celebrated by setting of generous amounts of firecrackers (all week, at all hours) and, of course, parades. One morning around 9 we stumbled upon the beginning of the Cusco Week parade.

We enjoyed it for a while, chuckled at our luck at finding parades, and went about our day. We got back to the square that night a little after 11... and were stunned to see the last entry, number 196, pass the judging stands.

It had been a fifteen hour parade. These guys take their parades seriously.

Cusco Week ended with Inti Raymi, a reinactment of an Incan winter solstice ceremony. It started in the town square:

Papa Inca. The main dude. Our personal favorite.

Then the entire audience marched up the hill to the nearby Incan ruins of Sacsayhuaman.

(Note: Sacsayhuaman is pronounced exactly like ¨sexy woman.¨This makes for interesting conversations... for example, overheard in the streets of Cusco: ¨So, did you enjoy sexy woman today?¨)

After a few hours of waiting for the thousands of people to find their way to the ruins and get seats on the hillsides, we were treated with a rambling ceremony consisting of a series of strangely famiar dances (we´d seen them all half a dozen times already), garbled native music blasted through the traditional Incan sound system, and lots of shouted Quechua. (The native Incan language, which almost no one understands. It was nice, for once, not to be the only one out of the loop.)

It both rained and hailed during the Incan sun-worship ceremony. Something´s wrong, here.

Oh yeah. They also killed a llama. Yup. Right in front of us. Killed it, pulled out its guts and still-beating heart, and burned them. That was right between the pretty handkerchief dance and the twirling maiden dance.

Our last night in Cusco, we´d had enough of parades. We took our tent, got on a bus, and found a secluded hillside overlooking the valley.

There, we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of native Andean wildlife: birds, sheep, llamas... and, to our astonishment and horror, echoing from miles away, the unmistakable revelry of yet another Peruvian parade.

Nic´s Side of the Story, Part II

Fact 1: I did not pack deoderant on this trip.
Fact 2: I DID pack five huge chocolate bars.
Comment: Tells you a little something about where my priorities lie, huh?

Fact 1: I didn't discover that I hadn't packed deoderant until about a week into the trip.
Fact 2: By that time I had finished two of the candy bars.
Comment: (See comment #1)

Fact 1: Ecuador is very beautiful.
Fact 2: I am allergic to Ecuador.
Comment: I hope I'm not forming a pattern here.....

Fact 1: Ecuadorians love soccer. I mean LOVE it!! We're talking cars honking, people freaking out, impromtu parades, flags everywhere, lots and lots of chanting (Ecuador Ecuador ECUADOR!) - who KNOWS what would happen if they lost???
Fact 2: Almost everyone asks Travis and I if we are German before asking if we are American.
Comment: This dazzling combination of facts (along with the fact that Ecuador plays against Germany next in the world cup on Tuesday) is one of the many reasons Travis and I have opted to leave Ecuador for neighboring Peru. Smart move, me thinks.

Fact 1: There is an overwhelming support of religion among bus-drivers in Ecuador. (i.e., every single bus has pictures of Jesus or Mary or baby-Jesus giving us the peace sign)
Fact 2: There is also an overwhelming support of the American sex industry. (i.e., every single bus also has the "playboy bunny special" paint job)
Comment: The coming revival among Ecuadorian bus drivers may take a little longer than originally expected.

Fact 1: Down here, if it is American, it is automatically cool. (Brands, sayings...whatever)
Fact 2: Down here, if you are American you are not automatically cool. (Travs and I)
Comment: This is unfortunate.

Fact 1: To be able to squeal incredibly high is a common virtue among latina pop stars.
Fact 2: To be able to play recordings of said latina pop stars all night long while everyone on your bus is trying to sleep is a common virtue among Peruvian bus drivers.
Comment: My annoyance at this has nothing to do with the fact that I was also barfing during most of the squealing.

Fact 1: The South American version of "hot shower" is very different than the American one. (Different as in much much much colder)
Fact 2: The knobs of the last three "hot showers" that I have tried to take have\n shocked me, causing my arm to go numb.
Comment: I smell.

Fact 1: The twenty members of the small pentacostal church that Travis and I attended two nights in a row in Machalylla had lots of ferver, little musical talent, one microphone, and two very loud speakers.
Fact 2: They conduct service EVERY NIGHT (three times on Saturday) for an hour with their doors wide open.
Comment: Travis and I loved it....everyone else in the town absolutely hates it. We can´t figure out why.

Cusco, and Incan Ruins

Cusco. It´s not just a character in a familiar Disney animated flick. (Although we have been Emperor´s New Groove quite a bit lately.... ¨Ah...the poison for Cusco. The poison chosen specifically for Cusco. Cusco´s poison. That poison?¨)

First of all, getting here from Lima -- easier said than done. It involves either a 21-hour bus ride over rough roads, or a 36-hour bus ride over smooth roads. We opted for the cheaper, shorter, and rougher option. This, in Nic´s case, was a rather poor choice, as you shall see.

Picture the curviest, narrowest, most switchback-filled road you´ve ever been on. Put a huge Greyhound-style bus on that road, with crazed bus driver at the wheel who passes cars at every opportunity. Have you ever been on that Runaway Train ride at Disneyland? Around 15 of our 21 bus hours were just like it. Sleep was next to impossible. Unless you could wedge yourself firmly in place, you found yourself alternately crushing your travel companion, or being bashed into the window (or falling into the aisle, as the case may be).

Second problem... traveling from Lima to Cusco involves moving from sea level to 12,000 feet (two and a half miles high) in roughly 20 hours. Altitude sickness can strike at the best of us, as Nic has discovered.

Last, and biggest problem... some syrupy dough-ball things that Nic had in Lima did not agreed with him. Combined with the rapid altitude change and the rollercoaster bus, Nic was soon experiencing severe gastrointestinal distress... at both ends. When he wasn´t puking, snotting (his allergies were acting up too), or running for the bathroom, he was hacking, moaning, and generally expressing his discomfort. He eventually discovered that he felt best when slouched way down in the bus seat, with his legs and feet positioned well above his head. A roll of TP and several plastic bags full of puke later, we arrived in Cusco.

Ahh, the Andes. How beautiful, high, steep, and curvy you are.

The last few days we´ve been traipsing across the Peruvian countryside, treading on Incan ruins to our hearts´ content.

Incan ruins, the Andes, and us with content hearts.

Our favorite thus far is Tipòn...

...with its intact Incan waterpark.

Nic is duly impressed, not only by boobies (see previous post), but by intact Incan waterparks. (Incidentally, the scarf-poncho-thing he´s sporting is neither a scarf, nor a poncho, nor any other article of clothing. It is, in fact, a hammock. He assures me it functions quite well as a scarf-poncho-thing. I´m dubious.)

We´ve enjoyed Incan water...

...climbed Incan stairs...

...surveyed Incan walls...

...explored Incan caves...

...tamed the fearsome IGB (Incan Guard Beast)...

...and performed Incan sacrificial ceremonies on Incan alters with sacred Incan bananas.

We´ve also dined in the solitude of Andean mountainsides on the finest 5-cent bread Cusco has to offer...

...with only llamas for company. Oh yes. There´s llamas. If you´re surprised by that fact, you really need to see Emperor´s New Groove.

Nic´s Side of the Story, Part I

Hi. This isn´t my blog, but considering the similarity of the word blog to bogsley, I thought I´d give it a try. Here goes nothin´:

Things I broke on my first day on my own in Ecuador:
- The very interesting guitar-looking thing hanging on the wall in my hostel.....this birthed a multi-minute conversation between me and the owner of the hostel......finally at the end of the conversation both of us realized I don't speak spanish.
- The very important main buckle on the front of my backpack....this birthed a multi-hour trip around Quito looking for a replacement. Ecuadorian backpacks seem to operate on a different buckle system then we do in the US.....they all seemed to be smaller. But I eventually found one that fit.......kind of......I had to tie one of the sides on.
-The plastic bag holding my only real food source: cliff bars. Fortunately their own individual wrapping has preserved their deliciousness.

Other things I've broken since then....
-wind.....numberous times. Fortunately in many sections of the big cities we've stayed in the smell was lost thanks to the helpful feral dog population.
-my dad's garmin etrex global positioning device. Haha. uh, yeah. I'm bidding on a replacement on ebay, dad.
-my jeans.....I guess I'm a little bigger than I was in high school.
-the roof of our hostel in Cusco, Peru....at least that's what it sounded like as I crawled across it at 1am sneaking into the hostel we had been locked out of.
-my face....well, that's what it felt like when I got super super sunburned. I believe there is a super flattering picture of me sporting the burn in full glory on the blog already.
-my floss container........purposefully, because it angered me. Actually just because the floss got stuck on the inside.

--Nic Schneider

Los Cinco MUERTES!!!

Nic and I have been quoting the title of the blog (Los Cinco MUERTES!!!) to each other for the past several days.... it's from Jurassic Park II. For those who no hablo espanol, it means '' the five DEATHS''!!!

We visited one of the Five Deaths the other day. Sorta. Isla de la Plata... the poor man's Galapogos. We are, in fact, poor men, so we opted to visit Isla de la Plata for $30 instead of the Galapogos for around $1,000.

The boat ride there was supposed to include whale and/or dolphin viewing. It did not. I don't believe they actually exist. Whales, I mean. Does anyone actually ever see them on these whale-viewing trips? I mean have you, specifically, seen them? Not some friend of a cousin's coworker? I think not. ''Whales,'' it seems, are just a clever marketing scheme created to sell more boat trips.

The island itself was pretty cool. There were lots of birds, and they weren't afraid of us big human beings walking by a few feet away from them. It was easy to see how the dodos got clubbed to extintion by sailors visiting the Galapagos.

A couple of blue-footed boobies. Really, that's their real name.

Nic, duly impressed with all the boobies.

Besides the hundreds of boobies, the island had frigate birds, pelicans, sea lions (this, too, we had to take on faith alone... suspicious...) and some great snorkeling. Snorkeling that was leaps and bounds better than our previous attempt. Snorkeling that consisted of us swimming with (and actually being able to see) colorful fish. This was followed by another boat ride completely devoid of sightings of any mammals other than our fellow homo sapeins. (Marketing scheme!! Marketing scheme!)

Happy Dia de los Padres!!

In honor of Father's Day, we have returned to civilization. Hi, Dads!! Ah, technology... how non-omnipresent you are. The past several days we've been staying in a tiny fishing village called Machalilla, wherein is a distinct lack of internet cafes... and thus the lack of blogging. We found this family (Cristobal, his wife Lydia, and their 4-year old daughter Llami-lexi, or something similar) that let travelers camp in their yard which, as you can see, is pretty darn close to the beach:

That's our tent, their yard, and... the ocean. Very nice.

Us with Cristobal and his family... their daughter Llami (pronounced jah-mee) is probably the cutest living thing in existence.

We've spent a lot of time exploring Machalilla National Park...

Beachcombing for dead things...

Mastering the sea...

Finding and exploring multitudinous and sundry sea caves...

Battling local crustacean widlife...

Snorkeling with equipment we rented...

We'd been talking about our mutual love for snorkeling for days... and after a side trip specifically to seek out snorkelig equipment and about a hour of wavering, we decided to take the plunge and pay the five bucks to rent the stuff for the day. This was probably the worst decision we've made on the trip thus far. Notice the terrible weather conditions. You can't tell, but it was also windy. And the water was far colder than any water that close to the equator should be. And we couldn't see more than about a foot because the water was so cloudy. And Nic forgot his trunks (see photo for details). On the bright side.... uh.... we got to joke around about how dumb we were.

Fish... and Hats

Manta´s a fishing town on the coast of Ecuador... each morning the local fisherman drag their catch onto the beach, and the whole shoreline turns into a bustling impromptu fish market. Perusing hundreds of pounds of fresh seafood (barracudas, marlins, shrimp, calamari, crab, tuna...) definitely gives you a hankering to enjoy some yourself...

Sharks...

And marlins...

And camorillo, oh my!

Yesterday we had camorillo (the fish I´m enjoying above). This morning we went back to the same place and asked if he had calamari... he scurried off to the market (a few steps away) and came back with a bag of totally fresh squid, which he proceeded to fry up for us. Absolutely delicious.

Yesterday we also visited Montecristi, a nearby town known world-wide as the home of... the Montecristi! (Also referred to, somewhat incorrectly, as the ¨Panama¨ hat. We wandered around a bit in some of the shops, where they were hand-making the hats... they´re all woven straw, but the more expensive ones (on the order of $300) were incredibly fine and soft and light... enough to be rolled up and passed through a man´s ring.

The hatmaker, himself.

The hat wearers, themselves. For a short time, at least.

Hasta la vista, Quito... hola Manta!

Chicken foot soup, anyone?

That´s right! For the scandalously low price of 1 US dollar, you too could be the proud owner of one steaming bowl of avian appendage stew. But that´s not all!! Also included in this deal is a main course of fried chicken breast, rice, and beans.... AND a complementary cup of ultra-sweet coconut juice!!

I should mention that this has happened to us several times.... that is, we´ve spent a dollar on what we though we be just a bowl of soup (vegetable, chicken appendage, whatever), then we lick the bowl clean because it´s so good... and suddenly there appears before us a plate heaping with rice, beans, meat... turns out the soup was just an appetizer. Lucky, unsuspecting us.

One more shot of Quito, before we head off for the coast... notice the pleasant park with pleasant artist selling their pleasant wares at left, the big city-type things at right, and the mountainous mountains with their mountain-ish clouds in the immediate background. Ah, Quito... how radical you are.

We headed out of Quito on Sunday, after our brief and fruitless search for an English church service. (We did sit in on a Spanish service, though... We even understood a little... )

A sample of the beautiful Ecuadorian countryside/mountainside we passed, calmly and serenly, until...

BAM! Flat tire! Exploded tire, actually. First a little pop, then a major bang. It blasted a bit of a hole in the bus floor, in fact, completely freaking out the lady sitting above the wheels and filling the bus interior with the pleasat aroma of burnt rubber. And all we did was go over a lousy speed bump in a cute little mountain town. Based on the proximity of our little incident to the village´s primary eating establishments, Nic and I surmised that the restaurant owners had, in fact, placed mines in the street so as to temporarily strand the hungry, money-carrying bus passengers directly in front of their establishments.

In any case... shortly thereafter, we boarded a second, far safer bus, and continued our 10-hour ride to the coastal town of Manta.

Bienvenidos a Ecuador!!

We´re nearing the end of Day 3 here in Quito, Ecuador, South America... Of course, Day 1 didn´t really count, since all I did was land in Quito, meet Nic in the airport, walk 100 yards to the hostel, and pretty much crash for the night.

On Day 2 we moved to a hostel in downtown Quito, then bussed to Old Quito (after we figured out exactly how to do that) and checked out some old architecture and ornate churches.

Nic and I in El Plaza Grande, doing our best to look stately in front of the Presidential Palace.

A bit on Quito: The city´s actually at 9,200 some-odd feet (that´s almost twice as high as Denver), so wandering around with an almost 50 pound pack can tend to leave you a bit breathless, particularly coming straight from sea level. The weather over the past few days has been pretty much the same... mostly in the 60´s and overcast, with intermittent drizzle and the occaisional drenching downpour.

During one such deluge, we took refuge in an English-language bookstore, where we ran across books concerning both ¨The Body¨(BAAAAH-dee) and Mr. McGregor himself (EWAN MCGREGOR!!!!). I apologize to all readers who are not acquainted with these standing GFU phrases. Just understand that we were thrilled to our toenails upon their discovery.

That evening, we ate dinner to the while grooving to the sounds of a live Latin/Cuban band...

Nic getting his very blurry salsa groove on.

There were a few differences between Nic and I, and the majority of the people in the place:

1. Nic and I are Americans. Most people there weren´t - locals, or at least native spanish speakers. That´s good... we were hoping to avoid crowds of Gringos.
2. Nic and I are not a couple. We´re very firm on this point. For most of the night, however, we were completely surrounded by couples. Which leads to the third point...
3. During several of the most awesome songs, everyone... and I mean everyone... got up and salsa-ed with their date. The only people in the place not dancing were the band, the cook, the bartender, and the waiter... and Nic and I. As you can see from the above photo, however, we eventually overcame the problem. In the above photo, in fact, Nic is dancing with the girlfriend of the lead singer of the band. Incidentally, he was able to escape any bodily injury from the aforementioned bandmember.

Day 3 began with a surprise breakfast-in-bed from our surprisingly cheap hotel. The breakfast itself wasn´t a surprise... the guy knocking on the door at 7:30 to deliver it was, however.

Nic and I, hemispheres apart.

As you can see, we took a side trip out of Quito today, to visit both the Equator and the spectacular Pululahua Crater:

Yup. That´s the mouth of a (supposedly) extinct volcano behind us.

Also worth noting: Soccer (sorry! ¨futbol¨) is somewhat popular down here. It was hard to miss that fact this morning, when literally half the people on the street - teenagers, middle-aged-looking businessman-types, old folks, babies - were wearing the yellow Equadorian jerseys. It was also somewhat evident that the Equadorian team won its match today... as we returned to the city, the majority of the cars were honking, people were waving jerseys and flags, and... I´m getting kicked out of the internet cafe so the owners can celebrate. Vive Ecuador!!!