I need adventures!
I have the comfort I need.
Bacon, potatoes, onions, fried in the skillet in my own kitchen, and a pot of coffee, standing in my warm slippers, and a hot shower.
That is all the comfort that I need. Let us go out of our comforts. Let us go see something new.
I cannot always be in South America. There are new things to see here too.
I have wide eyed resolve. I have fire in my eyes and on my hands and up the back of my head and my neck. The world is 24,000 miles around. I have got two legs! And they move, independently of one another when I choose. They start at my thighs and they go and I have knees, and then more legs, and then I have feet!
Only tell me about things that excite you. You matter to me. We go out in the wide world!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Ecuador
- from 2/19/2010 -
Ya 'stoy in Ecuador.
Ya 'stoy in Ecuador.
It is good.
It is good to travel.
Thoreau said that moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. That to be awake is to be capable of a poetic or divine life.
There are other words for this. To be inspired, or enlightened, or energized. I think they all describe the same thing, and I think this feeling generally comes from a few different sources. There are an infinite number, sure, but what comes to mind for me, as things that make me feel awake, are travel, art, love, and god.
Traveling is I think the most reliable.
I'm in Ecuador now, staying with my friend Erika. I arrived two days late due to record snowfall in Dallas (so I missed my flight to Ecuador) and to carnaval (which meant there were no bus tickets when I arrived in Quito). I ended up spending unexpected days in two Latin American cities, Miami and Quito. Though it was enjoyable to see these cities, I was very tired. When I finally did arrive in Cuenca Erika and I had to adjust our carnaval plans. We took the bus to Loja the next morning. This was a 5 hour bus ride to the south through the mountains. Everything is mountians here. They just rise and rise and rise. There are no highways that run straight from one city to the next. One must ascend and descend winding mountain roads over and over again to get anywhere. It is hard to believe that a country can function with such tenuous transportation connections between its major cities.
As we rose through the mountains above Cuenca we found ourselves rising above even the clouds. To the west massive cloud banks were rolling in from the pacific, but from our andean highway it appeared that we were the more heavenly bodies. At some points fully half one's field of vision was dominated by layer upon layer of clouds dramatically lit by the evening sun. As the sun fell to that western horizon the sea of clouds approached us. Our bus raced around each corner as cloud fingers reached for us.
- continued 3/15/2010 -
The clouds never caught us though. As evening came on we descended into a drier valley. As night fell we were climbing once again, and we saw brilliant stars from the windows on the bus as we wound our way over the last mountains before arriving in Loja.
We stayed at the Hostal Londres. It was an old place. It must have been a large family house at one point. Now the various rooms of all shapes and sizes are mostly empty. Our room was on the third floor with balcony doors overlooking the street. In Latin America I've always seen these old tall, narrow doors and windows overlooking the downtown streets, and always thought how I'd like to live in an old house like that. To stay in that room statisfied some part of that craving.
It was late when we arrived however, and when we went out to find food all that was open was a small store that served hot dogs. We ate our meals and talked with the shop keeper about our plans for travelling beyond Loja.
The next morning we walked to the bus station to find a bus to Zamora, an hour and a half to the East. Zamora is in the transistion zone between the Andes and the Amazon. It's a pleasant town, small enough to feel comfortable, but large that you cannot see every part of it in a few days. The Podocarpus National Park is a 10 minute drive south of the town. We spent the next three days exploring the park. The first day we slept in and then went swimming in the river near the entrance to the park. The next day we decided to hike, and climbed all the way to the top of a jungle covered mountain, without realizing that we had reached the end of the trail and kept going. It doesn't do you any good to get to the top of a mountain if the top is also covered in jungle. You can't see anything.
That afternoon we also hiked to the "poderoso" waterfall. It was incredible, but it was getting late. Both the first two days we got a cab to the park entrance, but then hoped to hitchhike back into town. The second time however we got back too late and had to walk. We smoked pot again as we walked down the road, carved out of the side of the steep mountains, with the river Bobuscaro below. It got darker and small bluish white lights began to flicker occasionally in the shadows. As the darkness increased we realized that these were gloworms, suspending themselves from the trees with silk.
We began to approach the outskirts of town and heard a concert down below us. The whole town was celebrating in various ways for carnaval. Where the road down to the concert arena met ours, there was an empanada stand, lit by only a candle, surrounded by people. They were making and frying empanadas in a big metal bowl heated by a gas grill. We got one each. Kids were hopping in the back of a pickup truck headed for town. We hopped on as well and bit into the hot, flaky, oily, cheesy empanadas as the truck pulled away.
As we got into town we had buckets of water thrown on us and everyone in the back of the truck, because it was carnaval, and that is what they do. That night it rained hard like it never does in the Pacific Northwest. Hard, loud, joyous rain, stretching into the morning.
- continued 3/15/2010 -
The clouds never caught us though. As evening came on we descended into a drier valley. As night fell we were climbing once again, and we saw brilliant stars from the windows on the bus as we wound our way over the last mountains before arriving in Loja.
We stayed at the Hostal Londres. It was an old place. It must have been a large family house at one point. Now the various rooms of all shapes and sizes are mostly empty. Our room was on the third floor with balcony doors overlooking the street. In Latin America I've always seen these old tall, narrow doors and windows overlooking the downtown streets, and always thought how I'd like to live in an old house like that. To stay in that room statisfied some part of that craving.
It was late when we arrived however, and when we went out to find food all that was open was a small store that served hot dogs. We ate our meals and talked with the shop keeper about our plans for travelling beyond Loja.
The next morning we walked to the bus station to find a bus to Zamora, an hour and a half to the East. Zamora is in the transistion zone between the Andes and the Amazon. It's a pleasant town, small enough to feel comfortable, but large that you cannot see every part of it in a few days. The Podocarpus National Park is a 10 minute drive south of the town. We spent the next three days exploring the park. The first day we slept in and then went swimming in the river near the entrance to the park. The next day we decided to hike, and climbed all the way to the top of a jungle covered mountain, without realizing that we had reached the end of the trail and kept going. It doesn't do you any good to get to the top of a mountain if the top is also covered in jungle. You can't see anything.
That afternoon we also hiked to the "poderoso" waterfall. It was incredible, but it was getting late. Both the first two days we got a cab to the park entrance, but then hoped to hitchhike back into town. The second time however we got back too late and had to walk. We smoked pot again as we walked down the road, carved out of the side of the steep mountains, with the river Bobuscaro below. It got darker and small bluish white lights began to flicker occasionally in the shadows. As the darkness increased we realized that these were gloworms, suspending themselves from the trees with silk.
We began to approach the outskirts of town and heard a concert down below us. The whole town was celebrating in various ways for carnaval. Where the road down to the concert arena met ours, there was an empanada stand, lit by only a candle, surrounded by people. They were making and frying empanadas in a big metal bowl heated by a gas grill. We got one each. Kids were hopping in the back of a pickup truck headed for town. We hopped on as well and bit into the hot, flaky, oily, cheesy empanadas as the truck pulled away.
As we got into town we had buckets of water thrown on us and everyone in the back of the truck, because it was carnaval, and that is what they do. That night it rained hard like it never does in the Pacific Northwest. Hard, loud, joyous rain, stretching into the morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)