Where the map turns blue

Having completed everything that we needed to do in Quito by around 2:00 on Monday afternoon, we decided that there was no reason to hang around here for the entire week. Since neither one of us has yet been to the Ecuadorian coast, we decided to make a trip to the beach our final adventure for this year. Having been recommended by Giovanni and his Italian friend, Italo, to go to Pedernales, we decided to go somewhere quite close. We love our Rough Guide dearly for all that it has done for us, and it delivered this time as well. I called the number for a secluded beachfront hotel, and we had our reservation without any trouble. But, as you know by now, this is Ecuador.

Due to its incredible traffic congestion which has developed over the past 15 years or so, Quito recently enacted a transportation law with the aim of improving traffic flow. As it stands, they use the final digit of a car’s license plate to enforce the law. Each day of the week, there are two final digits which are forbidden to be on the road between 7-9:30 AM and 4-7:30 PM. Tuesday happens to be 3 and 4, and it also happens to be the day when we were making our merry way to the coast for a relaxing trip. We had breakfast at the usual hour of 7 AM, and we were in the car by 7:30. We had made it across the city and nearly to the highway when we attracted the attention of a motorcycle policeman. He motioned for us to pull over, so we did. I handed him my driver’s license, and he proceeded to inform us that our car was not allowed to be on the road at that time of day (he took the liberty of adding an extra hour to the stated time during his explanation). He then mentioned that our car would be impounded and that we would have to pay $80 to get it back the next day.

Being a generally polite person, I offered to wait until 9:30 in order to respect their law before resuming our journey. He didn’t go for that, and he told us to follow him to where a group of other officers was on patrol. They had us pull into a bus company’s parking lot, and we were hoping that we would get to wait there. A few minutes later, however, one of the officers came over and told me that I needed to walk down the street and talk to a different officer about our situation. So, I walked over and began a nice friendly conversation with this officer. He repeated the law and the prescribed punishment to me several times, of course while managing to ask where I’m from, what I think of President Obama, and other things. When I expressed my distaste for having my car impounded, he pulled out his cell phone and called the guy who pulled us over to see if he would be willing to “help us out.” After a bit of beating around the bush, it came to the point that we would be allowed to drive away at 9:30 after all.

Now, I need to point out that I am new with the whole bribing police officers and government officials thing. I attempted to make a deal with this officer right there on the street since he seemed to be in charge of the operation. As soon as I reached for my wallet, however, he stepped back with his hands up. He then decided to have me go back to our car and wait for the officer who pulled us over. Once this guy showed up, I attempted to pull out my wallet again. Being the well-trained sleazeballs that they are, he told me to get in the car and then pull out the money. He handed me my driver’s license back, and I handed him his $60 bribe. Lovely. Then the guy in charge of the bus station demanded $5 for us to park there for an hour and a half (which was about three times overpriced), but I figured I wasn’t really in a position to make anyone mad at us. We read our books until 9:30, and then we got back on the road to the beach.

Once we got on the road (and out of Quito) the drive itself was quite nice. First we had to drive down the western slopes of the Andes to the coast. The road is thin, trafficky, and winds through the mountains. The mountainsides are lushly green, at times foggy, and the waterfalls are spectacular. Road crews are working diligently to meet the demands of increased traffic, but widening a road through the mountains can’t be an easy job. Once we got through the mountains and past Santo Domingo, the road flattens out on the coastal plains. We stopped for a quick lunch, and continued another couple of hours to the coast. Pedernales is the closes beach to Quito, and the hotel we had made a reservation at, Punta Prieta, was just south of Pedernales.

We arrived to the hotel, and had to pull the car through two gates before reaching the reception desk. The woman at the desk said she had no information about the reservation we had made only a day earlier, and wasn’t too friendly about it. We asked to see the rooms, and she readily agreed—starting with the most expensive. Well, the most expensive was out of our price range, and we nearly had to beg to see the cheap room. After some deliberation, she decided the cheap room wasn’t going to suit our needs and she gave us the mid-range room for the cheap price $30/ night. The room itself had two full sized beds, a bathroom with hot water, and a beautiful balcony with a small table and two hammocks. The room was built at the top of a cliff, facing the beach south of the point. It was private, serene, and a perfect place for us to relax a bit before coming home.

After making our lodging arrangements, we headed down for a late afternoon walk on the beach before dinner. The weather was cool, cloudy, and a bit windy. We took off our shoes and waded in the water. We appreciated the smell of the ocean breeze, the wildlife, and the colorful seashells.

We returned to our room before dark, got cleaned up, and walked over to the hotel’s restaurant for our 7:30 reservation. The hotel is quite secluded, so the restaurant there was really our only dining choice; we were not disappointed. The same woman who had shown us the rooms prepared our dinner, and was quite apologetic that they didn’t have fish because they weren’t expecting us—would shrimp be alright? So we sat alone in the restaurant, tauted in our Rough Guide for it’s spectacular views, and enjoyed a simple dinner of shrimp, rice, and vegetables. We didn’t find out until the next day just how spectacular the cliff top views were, complete with pelicans and other birds flying by and iguanas hanging out in the brush beneath the window.

The weather insisted on being cool and cloudy the next day, so we enjoyed walking on the beach, sitting in the hammocks and reading our books. The hotel staff had also set up two hammocks in a little cabana on the beach for us, so we had our choice of locations on the private beach and our skin was sheltered from the harsh sun. The day was broken up by our meals, shrimp ceviche for lunch and pan fried fish for dinner. We went to bed early, and fell asleep to the waves crashing onshore.

We had another half day to spend on the beach, collected a few more seashells and took a walk down the south beach toward a group of fishing boats. We left the hotel before lunch and drove to Pedernales to check out the coastal scene there. While we ate encocados (fish cooked in coconut milk) at a restaurant across the street from the beach, we saw that Pedernales was a slightly more “hopping” place. There were chairs and boogie boards for rent on the beach, juices and alcohol for sale in little thatched stands, and vendors selling an array of tourist souvenirs. I think we made the right choice with our secluded cliff top hotel.

We spent the afternoon driving back to Quito, and got here just in time to miss dinner. Giovanni kindly offered to make us a soup, and although I wasn’t hungry I knew Brad wouldn’t decline the offer. It was a quiet evening, and a nice opportunity to chat with Giovanni over bowls of potato, spinach, and cheese soup. He reminded us that breakfast would be served promptly at 7:00 am, then wished us a good night. Later, we made some phone calls to family and enjoyed our last full night of sleep before returning to the US.

This is our last blog until February 2011, we hope you’ve enjoyed them and promise to continue just as soon as we return to Ecuador! Our lives in the US just aren’t quite so interesting…

Shopping and the Census

The whole point of leaving Cuenca over a week in advance of our flight back home was for us to be able to attend the Saturday market in Otavalo. An indigenous town about 2 hours north of Quito, Otavalo is famous for its artesans. Its market is one of the largest in all of South America, and Saturday is the big day. Now, it must be said that Quito is a fairly large and difficult city to navigate in an automobile. The city is one large, uninterrupted mass that stretches probably 25-30 miles from north to south. Needless to say, I was a little worried about getting lost once we decided to drive our car to Giovanni’s house from Toachi. When we asked Giovanni for directions to the Panamericana Norte, however, his answer couldn’t have been simpler. All we had to do was get on the big road one block over from his house and drive until it meets the highway. Whew!

So, after enjoying a nice breakfast, we hit the road around 8:00 AM. We stopped to buy fruits called chirimoyas from one of the many ladies along the road, and we pulled into town just before 10:00 AM. The market was definitely in full swing. Even with living in Cuenca, I don’t think Chelsea and I had seen so many white people since August! We quickly went into bargaining mode, because you should never take the first price someone offers you at a market. We wheeled and dealed, picking up items which you aren’t allowed to know about yet. In the space of two and a half hours, we had crossed most things off of our shopping list. One vendor even gave us a large bag so we could consolidate our little bags, and we were surprised to find that our purchases practically filled it up! We took our huge bag back to our car and then sat down for some lunch.

With legs rested and tummies full, we returned for a little bit more. Shopping in this setting is always easier when you don’t really need anything that you’re looking at. The vendors always want to sell, but they’re pretty good at noticing when they can stick to a price because you want something really bad. Looking disinterested and walking away are the two best techniques for getting prices to fall sharply, but it’s hard to look disinterested over something you came to the market knowing you wanted to buy. Following our lunch, however, we took our disinterestedness to a new level because we didn’t have to fake it. I prefer not to stop and look at things unless if I’m considering buying, but Chelsea likes to stop and smell the roses, if you will. She had people calling after her, asking her what her price was for this or that. She also used the walk-away technique to perfection when she got a guy to drop from $12 to $7 for a certain item. He had previously been offering us 2 for $18 or 3 for $24, but she got us 1 for $7. This was quite impressive to me given that cheapness is something of a family tradition in honor of my great-grandfather.

After completing our shopping spree, we took a few pictures around town just as it began to sprinkle. The sprinkle shortly turned into a downpour, so we waited it out from the safety of the Lead Bullet (pushing the nickname again). We made a reservation for a hotel in a nearby village where I stayed during my medical program in February. The drive over was interesting due to the road resembling a shallow pond, but our ridiculously expensive all-terrain tires acquitted themselves well. Much like Mazan, the hotel’s electricity and water appear to be very sensitive to the rain. There was no power when we arrived, but we enjoyed sitting outside and listening to the birds (albeit was pretty chilly). We headed up to the hotel’s restaurant for dinner around 6:30, but they informed us that the chef wouldn’t be arriving until 7:30. No big deal, this is Ecuador. We sat down next to a glorious fire and ordered hot chocolate. While savoring those, the hotel’s volunteer struck up a conversation with us. At one point he mentioned their local cane alcohol drink that is served warm, noting that it is made with mora. Chelsea expressed interest in comparing it to the canelazo of Cuenca, and a few minutes later the volunteer returned with two complimentary glasses for us. For the cold, he said. The chef did eventually arrive, and we enjoyed two very nice dinners before heading to bed.

We knew Sunday was going to be interesting in its own special way, because it was the day for the 2010 Census in Ecuador. Since they don’t really use the mail, sending out questionnaires for everyone to complete and return wouldn’t really work. Especially since a lot of people have address like, “in the corner behind the school” or, “up the mountain at kilometer 8 on the road to Cajas” (sound familiar?). In order to combat this logistical hurdle, the brilliant government of Ecuador decided to enact an “Immobility Law” from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The law is basically self-explanatory: according to the government, you’re not allowed to leave your house, or hotel, during the stated hours. Honestly, they expected people who paid money to visit this country to sit around inside all day long even though they don’t have anything to do with the Census. Poppycock, I say.

So, we went to the restaurant for breakfast at 9:30, hoping to eat enough food to last us most of the day. This hotel had a wonderful buffet breakfast with pancakes when I stayed in February, but, of course, the chef wasn’t there to prepare it. The guy running the place told us something to the effect that they were closed for the Census, but they could get us one of the smaller breakfasts on the menu. Okay, better than nothing. Once we finished up, we asked our host what they could offer us for lunch. He told us that, sorry, they would be closed for lunch due to the Census. We then decided to follow the example of the German guests and ask for some food to go. He said that, yes, he could do this, and what time would we like it to be ready? Confused, we said, “How about 1:30?” No problem, he said, I’ll be here. Quite accustomed as we are to not really understanding how things work in this country, we set out for a walk to the Peguche waterfall. We took the opportunity to spend more time learning how to use our camera, and we got some nice pictures of the waterfall and hummingbirds in a field of flowers close by.

We returned to the restaurant just after 1:30, and our host came shortly thereafter to take our orders for lunch. Not content with cold food, Chelsea asked if he could prepare us a sandwich. He said yes, and brought the lunch menu to us. They were able to prepare at least half the things on the menu, so Chelsea got a grilled cheese and I got a crepe with mixed fruits on top (I actually ordered pancakes and a crepe arrived, but oh well). Then the Germans came in and ordered lunch as well, so I’m pretty sure the restaurant would have looked pretty darn open for lunch to anyone else who walked in. Chelsea then continued on her roll and asked the host to prepare us a fire, which he did quite efficiently. We then spent our remaining immobility time sitting by the fire and reading. The drive back went quite smoothly thanks to the reduced traffic, and we are now able to look back upon another interesting and quite nice trip.

Avenue of the Volcanoes

Since we have an Ecuadorian car to babysit, we have been thinking about what to do with it during our time in the US for quite some time now. Traveling on buses with bags full of valuable items isn’t really a great idea: some thieves here have made an art out of cutting into bags that you place between your feet and relieving you of your expensive items. Larger bags that get stored in the cargo areas at the bottom of the bus sometimes decide that they want to get off before you do. With these things in mind, we decided to drive ourselves up the Panamericana from Cuenca to Quito.

I started the day by nearly taking the front end off while backing out of Jose’s parking spot, but the silver lining to that is that now we should have enough damage to the car to meet the $100 minimum required for our insurance policy to cover the repairs. After making sure that the car wasn’t going to fall apart and the gate wasn´t damaged, we headed for the highway. The drive through the Andes is really quite pretty. You get to see out over many different valleys along the way. They call this section of the road “The Avenue of the Volcanoes,” and they are justified in doing so. Unfortunately, there were too many clouds for us to see all but the biggest volcano (this is usually the case unless if you’re in the area around 6 AM). We got a view of the massive base of Chimborazo, which at 6200 meters or so and close to the Equator is the farthest point from the center of the Earth.

We then took Jose´s advice and stopped at the market in Ambato to have llapingachos for lunch. Ambato is more of a city than a town, so it took us over an hour to get in and out of the city center. Since you can’t just park your car when it has stuff in it in this country, there was no good place in town to stop and eat our food. Fittingly, we stopped at a gas station so we could get out of the car and share our Thanksgiving lunch. We’re pretty sure the attendant cheated us out of $3 and didn’t actually put any gas in our car, but neither one of us felt like arguing over $3 . . . in Spanish.

Chelsea then remembered that the upcoming town of Salcedo is famous for its multicolored ice creams on a stick. I passed the first sign advertising them and asked Chelsea where she wanted me to stop. She replied, “Anywhere. Every store in town sells them.” She was right. We probably passed over a hundred ice cream signs. With so many options, it’s hard to know which one to choose. For our purposes, I made a good choice. The lady at the store hopped up when we pulled over and gave us roadside service. We drove away with ice cream sticks in hand, and they were delicious!

From Salcedo, we continued on towards La Union Del Toachi. We passed through Aloag, then switched roads instead of heading north to Quito. Here, the highway continues west toward the coast—fortunately it wasn´t our plan to go that far. However, it is amazing to travel downhill in the Andes. The vegetation changes significantly and waterfalls flowing down from the mountains are common. Along this part of the drive, we saw car washes advertised with semi- naked ladies for truckers to wash their cars, we saw a guy´s bare backside as he stood next to his car to respond to the call of nature, we saw a large devil´s face carved into the side of a mountain, and finally we came to Toachi.

When we arrived in Toachi, we had to carry our things across a large footbridge and up to the house. Neither one of us are particularly good at traveling light, so it took a few trips. However, we were very excited to meet an old friend, Elicio, when we finally arrived at the house. He is involved in an amphibian conservation project in this part of the country, and is currently building a frog house. He invited us to sit down with them to dinner, we spent the evening catching up, and got to see a monkey that came to the “monkey feeded” near the dining table. We enjoyed the much warmer climate of Toachi, slept in the following morning, then were on the road again to Quito.

We had planned on leaving the car in Toachi, but were uncertain about the best way to get our things (and ourselves) to Quito. Elicio suggested we drive the car to Quito, then he could bring it to Toachi the next week. So we re-loaded the car and hit the road. Quito is a big city and local maps leave something to be desired, but Brad braved the challenge and succeeded! We easily found our way to Giovanni´s house, and he greeted us both with a big smile and warm hugs. His house feels more like home than anyplace else in Ecuador, and I´m pretty sure it is the Marianist spirit which permeates the house. He offered us a temporary parking spot at his house, inside the gate. We also got to catch up with our friends Mayra and Silvia, the girls who live here. They were both shy, but managed to practice their English with us and we practiced a little Spanish while Italian was also being spoken at the table.

As always, Giovanni stopped what he was doing to prove himself Marianist, and got us a snack when we arrived. Jams are his specialty, and he had 2 new ones for us to try: one of some bizarre tropical fruit and the other of the fruit of the chocolate plant. You have to be brave to try the food here, but bravery is usually rewarded. The jams were delicious, and I´m afraid Brad liked them enough to wear out his welcome!

Tomorrow, we have a big shopping trip planned. We are going to the famous Otavalo Market, and hope to find a bank once we get in town! It will be a day of Christmas shopping in the busy market, then we hope to spend the night in a hotel Brad´s medical group stayed in last February. Sunday is a day of travel restrictions, so we may be stuck there. They will be conducting their census (which they do in person since the mail system is so poor), and no one is allowed to leave their house or apartment or hotel from 7am- 5pm. It should be an adventure!

Tying up loose ends

Written Wednesday Nov 24

Happy Thanksgiving! We have spent the last few days preparing for our trip home. Last weekend we made a trip to Patul, this week we visited some of our favorite restaurants, we set up a tadpole project, made one last trip on the trail at Mazan, and just had a really nice dinner with our friends here so that we could say goodbye. We’ve been packing, preparing samples to be delivered for processing next week, preparing equipment and protocols for the student who is assisting me while I am away, doing last minute shopping for souvenirs, oh, and I got a pedicure  Tomorrow morning we will make the 8 hour drive through the Andes to a little town called Toachi, then Friday we will make our way to Quito.

Last Thursday, we celebrated Ernesto’s 29th birthday. His birthday really wasn’t until Friday, but we were planning on leaving Friday morning for a 4-day trip to Patul. So we celebrated at Mazan. We had chocolate cake (a shared love among us and our friends here) and Andean beer. One of Ernesto’s greatest quirks is the way he insists on pronouncing words in English. Our personal favorite is when he says “beer” instead of “bear.” At the zoo, he has an Andean spectacled bear and she is one of his favorite animals. So for his birthday, we got a 6-pack of Andean “bear.” I drew a nice picture of the bear and we labeled it “Andean bear.” He took one of the bottles, passed it around for everyone to sign, and took it home from the party as a keepsake. He may have enjoyed it even more than the chocolate cake.

Over the past week and a half I have been training a student to assist in my work while I am away. Her name is Jenniffer, and she is from Guyaquil—which means she has a different accent from our Cuencano friends and she talks really really fast. When we first met last March, I couldn’t understand a word she said. Now, we’re both much more patient with one another and we’re getting by alright. She doesn’t speak English. I didn’t think I spoke Spanish. However, little by little I have been showing her my field methods and doing my best to explain how and why I collect data in the field. She’s doing an awesome job (and also helping me with my spanish!, and I’m feeling pretty confident about leaving the project in her hands while I am away.

One of my field sites, Patul (remember, the place we went where we had to hike for miles and up to 4,200 meters?), is one of the places Jenniffer is going to visit each month while I am gone. Before leaving, I had to make a November trip and show her the sites. We thought we had everything planned perfectly. We had been in touch with a local guide from the community, and had arranged for him to meet us Friday morning with 2 horses. We were a little bit concerned, because Jenniffer is from the coast and not acclimated to 4,200m, but she did an excellent job. To us, the hike was a breeze since we didn’t have to carry our big backpacks like last time. We stopped several times along the way, once to collect data on another species of frog and another time for lunch. However, when our guide showed us to the house, all 4 of us were surprised to find it locked. This was the same house where we had stayed last time, and our guide is the son-in-law of the family. We thought they had made the arrangements for our visit, but something else must have come up. Daniel, our guide, took a machete to the wire holding the lock onto the door, and broke us in to the kitchen and the bedroom. He helped us prepare dinner, then headed to his own house for the night.

The plan for Day 2 was to look for the critically endangered and incredibly striking Atelopus nanay (or sapo negro, locally). Daniel was our hired guide for the weekend, but when he showed up to help us prepare breakfast, he informed us that he had a bad cold and wouldn’t be able to work. No problem. We had 2 full days of work at 3 different sites, and one of those days was planned to be spent near the house. We agreed to work on our own, and that we would see him the following day. So we worked. We spent the entire day searching under rocks and plants along the Baute River, and were very happy to find 2 Atelopus nanay. I worked with Jenniffer to show her how to find the frogs, measure and weigh them, take pictures, and collect skin swabs. At the end of the day, we came back to the house to warm up and have a good dinner. However, we couldn’t get the fire going again. An Andean fire is a tough thing to learn, and among the three of us (and with the help of a bottle of ethanol) we got barely enough of a fire going to re-heat left over rice and beans. We couldn’t get the water boiling for tea, and we were too tired, cold and frustrated to do anything other than go to bed.

The next morning, I woke up early and waited for the music to know that Daniel had arrived. I waited, and waited, and no music. Finally, we decided we had waited long enough and it was time to get out of our warm covers and see what the day would bring. No Daniel. No fire. No hot breakfast. We had PB&J sandwiches, and discussed our dilemma. I didn’t know the field sites well enough (not to mention the trouble we could have created if anyone local wondered what we were doing) to work alone, and Brad was afraid that we wouldn’t have anything warm to eat for dinner. We decided to pack up our things and start for Cuenca. We walked about a mile before coming to another house, and we asked the man outside if he could help us with a horse to carry our things back to the road. He readily agreed, stopped what he was doing, got a horse, and in 15 minutes we were on our way again. The walk back was wet and cold, but a lot less miserable since we had the help of the horse. We went directly, without stopping for food or frogs, and when we got to the road we were tired and hungry—it was 4:15 pm. We drove down the road, stopped for lunch, then came to the city to warm up in a hot shower.

Since then, we have been running around the city to take care of all the last minute necessary details before we leave. I admit, the pedicure may not have been necessary but it sure was nice. We had to get paperwork for our visas. I FINALLY got official permission from the government agency who runs the national park to do my work here. I had meetings to attend so that work will (hopefully) continue effectively while I am gone. We had to withdraw money from my grant to make sure there would be enough money to cover operating costs while I am away. As a list-maker, this week has been full of writing things down and crossing them off, and moving the things that didn’t get crossed off to a new to-do list for when we return.

Tonight, we invited our friends to join us for dinner at our favorite restaurant—Moliendo Café. We made a reservation with Dona Magnolia, the adorable woman who runs the restaurant. While we waited for our friends to arrive, her husband Don Miguel, sat down and chatted with us about our work in Ecuador and our trip back to the US. They are absolutely adorable, and maybe 2 of my favorite people in the whole city. When we want a delicious hot meal in the city, we always go to visit them (even if the food is Colombian and we are in Ecuador). So tonight, we were excited to be sharing a meal with our friends in Cuenca and bringing business to our favorite restaurant. We all had arepas (savory cornmeal pancakes, served with a long list of possible savory toppings) and either batidos or beers. The conversation flowed back and forth in Spanish and English, and continued over freshly brewed Colombian coffee. Our friends wished us happy travels, were bummed that we will miss the upcoming festivities here, but said that they will look forward to our return.

Tomorrow, while you are all eating turkey and being thankful, we will be having another adventure. We will be making a 400+ km drive (8 hrs) across the country and through the spine of the Andes. If we’re lucky, we may find a place with chicken and rice for lunch. If the weather is clear, we will be able to see some of the highest peaks in the country—which means we will see snow BEFORE we get to Ohio!

Miss you all, and can't wait to see you soon!

More photos

A visit to the Shuar Community, Tiink

Instead of the typical expensive tourist trip to the rainforest, we let our work take us there. I went to study the frogs, and Brad went to provide medical care to the children. Ultimately, we had an authentic experience interacting with some of the most hospitable and welcoming people I have ever met.

The drive itself was an experience. We drove quickly through three small cities (Gualaceo, Chordeleg, Sigsig), then slowed down to take a dirt road the rest of the way. The landscape changed from paramo to cloud forest to rainforest, and along the way we enjoyed the immense waterfalls that were visible from the road. Four hours later, the road turned back to asphalt and we arrived in Gualaquiza. Here, we were supposed to stop at the bus station and put a “Zoologico Amaru” sign in our car and wait for our hosts to find us. We sat for a minute, then decided to carry the sign and walk toward the terminal. In less than 5 minutes, a smiling family came over to greet us. German, Targelia, and the two youngest of their five children welcomed us and asked about our trip. We didn’t waste time, and soon began our trip to their small town of Tiink. We drove another 45 minutes along a dirt road, parked the car at their friends’ home, then walked 30 minutes to Tiink. The walk started with a long bridge over the Zamora river (which they told us has anacondas) which wiggled when we walked. It ended when we arrived at a clearing with an open yard surrounded by several school houses and a 2-stall public bathroom.

Our hosts showed us to their home and gave us a room with simple beds, pillows, and light blankets. They offered us the opportunity to rest, and we were both surprised when we woke up after two hours. There was loud music coming from the community pavilion, and we learned that each day the students practice dances in the evening. We had a simple dinner of rice and beef with tomatoes and peppers, made a plan for our visit, and heard an announcement through a loudspeaker that there was a doctor in town who would be seeing the younger students in school in the morning. Then we went back to bed. We woke up in the morning, just before 7:00, to the crowing of the roosters in the yard. German told us that they usually get up at 5:00, but that we were welcome to sleep as long as we wanted. However, we had a big day ahead of us and a big breakfast to kick start the day. Targelia told us that it is their custom to eat a big breakfast, and provided us with a dinner- sized portion of food. Then we walked three minutes over to the school for Brad to run his clinic.

The day before our trip we ran around Cuenca to gather what we thought would be the proper medicines to run a small clinic for the village. We knew there were more than 100 kids, and Brad’s main goal was to provide antiparasitic treatments to the children. We made purchases at 8 different pharmacies to acquire enough chewable and non-chewable treatments, aleve, ibuprofen, Bactrim, etc. and antiseptic spray, cups for water to accompany the pills, and forms to document the symptoms and treatments for each patient. Mostly, we had what we needed but having seen patients from 3 months to 60 years old Brad learned a lot about the common problems in the community and next time we intend to bring some additional items (toothbrushes, vitamins, etc.)

So our first day we ran a clinic from 8:00am until 12:30 for the students 4-12 years old. A viral epidemic had recently caused many of the students to be sick, but unfortunately the only treatment Brad could recommend was drinking a lot of water. The teacher filled out the students’ names, Brad interviewed and examined each student, and I got to pass out the pills. We ran the clinic in the classroom, and since the teacher was preoccupied filling out the forms they didn’t have class. Instead, the kids sat in the window frames and looked over Brad’s shoulder. Some thought it was funny that Brad asked them to open their mouths during the exams, and they practiced telling each other. A few of the parents showed up with their kids, and the teacher intervened a few times when the kids were too shy to explain their problems. I was surprised how willing the students were to take the antiparasitic pills, even though they were chewable and sweetened. It is rare for a doctor to come to this remote community, and many of the children suffered visible signs of parasites. For the $0.35 per treatment, I just can’t believe that these kids don’t have access to basic medical care. In all, we treated nearly 60 kids in the morning.

The time went quickly, we returned to the house for lunch, then went for our first hike in the field in the afternoon. The forest was absolutely beautiful. We were there to see a specific species of toad—brilliant yellow with black spots and red hands, but our host pointed out a number of different interesting things including the tracks of an ocelot, the elaborate spines on a caterpillar, and many other species of frogs and toads. Like our research sites in Cuenca, the forest had been quite dry. After a couple of hours of searching, German told us that it was just bad luck we hadn’t found any yet but as we stood by the river I spotted what I believed was what we were looking for, Atelopus wampukrum! I was right, and after searching a bit more German found a second individual. He explained to us that “wampukrum” is the Shuar name for the frog.

We returned to the house for a simple dinner, then hurried over to a different community building. The people had asked Brad to run a second clinic for the children not yet old enough for school, so he readily agreed. The clinic was to begin at 7:00, but when we arrived ten minutes late there wasn’t anyone there. After another 20 minutes, someone made an announcement over the loudspeaker and people began to arrive. When Brad asked for the first patient, an older man sat in the patient chair. We were both a bit surprised, but Brad bravely took care of this first patient as well as the others that sat before him. Most of the older people suffered from aches and pains and arthritis, but many young men also suffered from similar aches and pains due to the manual labor that provides them with income each day. Brad saw three generations of one family, and a total of 17 more patients in the evening. By the time we finished, it was past bed time for the village and we were both exhausted!

The following day we planned to spend the entire day in the field. We left the house at 8:00, and returned around 4:00. We spent the entire day walking and looking for frogs. German’s keen eye spotted much more than we saw in the forest: birds, mammals, well- camouflaged frogs, and he did his best to point out everything to us. We found only two more of the frogs we were looking for, but enjoyed very much the long day of hard work in the field. We stopped after several hours and shared a papaya, then a couple of hours later had lunch. We walked slowly and carefully through the jungle, and German was proud to tell us that part of the jungle was completely natural and not used commercially. He told us that he learned to hunt birds with blow darts when he was 7 years old, and has spent much of his time in the forest ever since. Recently, he had worked for an amphibian conservation project looking for wampukrum, but since funding stopped for that project he has worked where work is available for $10 each day. He said that he would like to send his older girls to high school, but it costs $300/year for each student and that he just doesn’t know how to make enough money to do that. They live a simple life, but want very much for their kids to live better.

Our last day in Tiink, we had hoped to run a clinic for the kids 13-18. However, school wasn’t in session that day because it was the Independence day of Guyaquil, the country’s capitol. Instead, we spent some time talking about the amphibian project (German hopes that it will provide him with more work soon), trying to teach them how to use a rain gauge to collect rainfall data, and learning a few words in Shuar while teaching a few words in English. We went for one more short trip to the field, then began the long trip back to Cuenca. It was really a successful trip for both of us, and we look forward to returning again in February!

Fiestas Photos

Fiestas of Cuenca

The weekend (and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday) was crazy here. There were festivities to occupy us, special foods to eat, work to get done, and general life inconveniences to deal with. After the indigenous-themed costume party, we got to bed around 2 AM. We were then awake promptly at 7:15 in order to meet Eduardo at 8:00 for a field session in Mazan. Eduardo worked at Mazan in 1994 and 2000, but this was the first time the park was going to let him back in since 2004 (apparently he ticked off the previous director). We got to the bottom of our 4x4 road precisely on time, and then we waited a little bit, and then we laid our seats back for a bit of nap, and then he showed up. Frankly, it would have been very un-Ecuadorian of him not to make us wait 40 minutes. We also had the pleasant surprise of two additional companions for the day: Eduardo’s girlfriend and an undergraduate student from the Catholic university in Quito. Oh well, we bought the five door Vitara for occasions just like this.

Once we got on the trail, Eduardo made sure to share his knowledge with Chelsea. He showed us a few sites that we didn’t know, and he pointed out the ones where he found the most frogs. He found 32 individuals in 2000, so now we have our target (currently we are at 10 different individuals). While showing us a new site, Eduardo found an A. exiguus individual and did a little dance in the trail. Finding even one of these frogs makes it a great day, and we enjoyed our time in the field with the group. After the excursion, we returned to Cuenca for more fiesta-ing.

Chelsea has recently been expressing the difficult time she was going through due to a lack of shopping for fun, but she was to be in luck during the fiestas. Amanda very conveniently mentioned an arts and crafts fair that was being held at a museum close to the Zoo, so we went to check it out. There we found jewelry, woodworking, home decorations, ceramics, and more. Needless to say, Chelsea had a golden opportunity to satisfy her shopping desires. We then heard about a “Noche Cuencana” in a different part of the city, so we walked that way. Apparently a “Noche Cuencana” means singing, dancing, drinking, and fireworks. We didn’t find it, but we did stumble upon another arts and crafts fair in a different museum. They had more goodies for us to peruse, and we returned to the Zoo with a few bags full of purchases. There is also a collection of art galleries and stores very close to the Zoo, and they too were having a special event for the fiestas. Naturally, we walked over there to enjoy the traditional music and live dancing (and to buy more nice things).

Tuesday was quite the eventful day for us. We woke up and went out the trail in the morning to search for frogs. After the nice rainfall the day before, we were confident of making a find. After about 10 minutes of searching, Chelsea found a little juvenile that we’re pretty sure we found about two weeks ago. He had gained a little weight and gotten a little bit longer, so that was very interesting. We then continued searching for another two hours. Believe me, turning over rocks and digging through razor-sharp leaves for two hours is pretty tiring. We then went up and turned over the rock where Eduardo found his frog two days earlier, and, sure enough, the same little guy was still there. So, they weren’t new individuals, but finding two exiguus in one day is a pretty good thing.

Excited by our morning’s results, we then got ready to head down to town for a meeting and more festivities. The only problem is that our car wouldn’t start. I mean, it wasn’t even trying to start. Nothing. Of course it chose to die at the top of the 4x4 road. Of course it chose to die during the five day holiday when no mechanic is working. We then implemented our Ecuadorian-honed plan-changing skills and got ready to walk down the mountain to the bus stop. When we got to the ranger house, the ranger there insisted on trying to help us. So, we walked back up to our house and let him take a look at the car. He decided to try a push start, but this only succeeded in getting the car stuck about 40 yards farther down the road. Well, it was worth the effort. The ranger happened to be heading down for the fiestas as well, so we all walked together (with us giving an English lesson along the way).

Now, in addition to working for the national park, our friend Jose happens to be in a band. Apparently they were all biology students in school. They are also pretty popular here in Cuenca. They also happened to be playing at the concert in the city’s main park. Interested in hearing their music, Chelsea and I made sure to be at the show. They were pretty good, and the crowd definitely loved them. Afterwards, we got to experience Ecuador’s love of pyrotechnics. Let me tell you that this experience makes it readily apparent why we have safety precautions in our country. Here, however, running directly into a crowd while carrying a firecracker-laden, paper-maché cow over your head is just good sport. And letting people stand right next to a tower that spews fireworks twenty yards in every direction is a really good time. Really, it made the 4th of July seem about as thrilling as a session of chair yoga for senior citizens. Oh, and we also enjoyed the fiesta’s typical food: the colada morada and guagua de pan. The colada is made from a black corn flour and pieces of fruit. One time we had it served hot, another time served cold—but both times it was served with a spoon. The guagua (pronounced wah-wah, meaning child) de pan is a piece of bread shaped and decorated with icing to look like a baby. Brad liked the sweets enough to go back for seconds!

Of course, as Chelsea pointed out, everybody was too tired from four days of all-out partying to want to do anything on Wednesday. There were no concerts, no crazy cows, and certainly no firework castles that evening. We just followed the cue and went to sleep early. And so began the adventure of getting our car towed . . .

After conducting several conversations with the insurance company, we finally found out that a tow truck was coming all the way from Guyaquil (5 hrs away) to rescue our car. But it never arrived, it called to say it was 10 minutes away but then had some kind of trouble and they had to send another truck. We started the process at 9:00am, and by 1:00 we finally had a tow truck. Then we had to get it through 2 gates and up 4 km of a 4x4 road to our car. When we got to the car, the driver diagnosed that it was just a bad battery and 2 rangers helped Brad push start the car. We got it going, drove down to an electromechanic, and within 10 minutes he had replaced the battery and charged us $88. Problem solved.

Now, we are preparing for a trip to the Amazon. Brad plans to run a free clinic to provide antiparasitics to the kids and I will study the frogs there. We are both looking forward to the warm weather and to another adventure!

Yunguilla, Halloween, Fiesta

Since we got to Cuenca, we’ve been hearing about the annual excitement and general state of chaos that the Fiestas of Cuenca, a celebration of independence, bring to town. People from all over come to Cuenca to celebrate, and everyone who has something to sell (food, alcohol, handicrafts, hotel, etc) works like crazy while everyone else takes 4-5 days off. Finally, the fiestas have arrived and at the suggestion of several of our friends we decided to get out of town for a couple of days to avoid the craziness.

Plans always change here—at least a couple of times. We planned to take Saturday and Sunday off, then take part in the celebration Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (working during the day, then partying in the afternoons). However, a researcher from Quito who worked at the same field sites in 1994 and 2000 called to say that he would like to come on Sunday. Awesome, I’ve been looking forward to meeting this guy for a while—so we decided to take our vacation on Friday and Saturday instead.

Brad had been hearing about a nice little valley about an hour’s drive from Cuenca and 1000m lower in altitude called Yunguilla. However, we couldn’t find any info about this place where all the Cuencanos have country homes in our guidebook. So our computer tech friend, Manuel, hooked us up with a reservation at the best hosteria he knew of, and directions to get there. We took off Thursday afternoon, excited to be heading toward warmer weather and onto another adventure. At Manuel’s recommendation, we stopped at a roadside stand for the locally brewed “mapanagua” made from sugarcane. His words were, “they conveniently put it in a cup with a lid and straw so you can drink and drive responsibly.” Well, ours came in a plastic bag and we chose to wait until safely arriving at our hotel before taking a sip. It was sweet, and tangy, and STRONG so we contented ourselves with a few sips each then took a nap.

When we woke up, we were ready for showers and dinner. So we turned on the water and waited, and waited, and waited. We had to ask the staff how to get hot water, and since we were the only people staying that night, they didn’t have the water heater on. Awesome, so finally after 45 minutes of 2 guys running back and forth and up and down while I watched a beautiful sunset from our balcony while wearing a towel we had hot water. So then we ventured out to a place called El Bambu that our friends recommended for dinner. It was closed. Awesome, we had just told the hotel owner to send his kitchen staff home because we were eating elsewhere and there wasn’t another decent looking restaurant open in site. It all worked out though, the owner sent us 5 minutes down the road where we could have our pick of a number of roadside restaurants. We chose one called “Restaurant Azuay” and enjoyed a decent meal of fried shrimp and a local favorite called mote pillo.

The next day, we chilled all day long. We ate a delicious breakfast of orange juice, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, toast with jam and milk coffee which was served with delightful presentation. We sat by the pool, we sat in the pool, we read our books, we reapplied sunscreen, we ordered a pitched of lemonade, and we did a whole lot of nothing besides take in the warm and beautiful weather. After wearing long pants and long sleeves and jackets every day it felt so good to sit around comfortably in a swimsuit. Then it was time to shower. Let’s just say it was like groundhog’s day. First, we couldn’t get any water at all in the shower. The man who ran the hotel quickly apologized and then asked the woman to stop watering the flowers so we could take showers—then he disappeared. No hot water, and no one to help us out. So instead of eating at the hotel’s restaurant like we told the owner, we went to make a reservation at El Bambu. We arrived, and they were clearly cleaning up and getting ready to leave. However, they were willing to wait around if we could sit down to dinner before 7:00. So we went back to the hotel, changed our clothes (without showering) and as we were leaving to return to El Bambu the owner appeared. We expressed our dissatisfaction, told him that again there was no hot water, and left for dinner.

We enjoyed a decent (but not great) parillada dinner, and returned to our hotel expecting to find hot water waiting for us. No. While we were gone, they hadn’t fixed the problem and again there was no water at all. So we went back down to the front desk, explained the problem, and sent the owner running around for another 45 minutes trying to get us hot water. First, he had the lady stop watering the flowers again. Then he said there wasn’t enough water to turn on the heater. Finally he decided that all along he had been telling us to turn the first knob when really we needed to turn the second knob. Voila! Hot water! Honestly, it’s not worth getting mad—this is just typical of small-town Ecuador.

So Saturday morning we repeated Friday morning and enjoyed the sunshine, warmth, and great pool-side weather. We stayed until 3:00 in the afternoon, then drove to Cuenca to see what the hubbub was all about. We were sent to an artisan market which we found and enjoyed quite a bit, then to a Cuencano Night which we couldn’t find, but instead found a second artisan market. Afterwards, we met up with some friends at a Halloween party, sponsored by our favorite hostel and internet hot spot café, where there was music, dancing, and costumes of indigenous clothing. All in all, we had a great time and are excited to see the upcoming festivities (the party goes until Wednesday!)

Frogs, frogs, frogs

We got back to work on Monday morning. Our plan was to drive into Cajas and hike up to 4200 meters in order to collect tadpoles from pools there. This is basically the upper limit of the range of the frogs that Chelsea is studying. Everything went well until we got almost to the top of the trail, where a thunderstorm was producing marble-sized hail. So after our 1 hour walk up to the top, we immediately turned around and headed back down. We found a few tadpoles in a pool at 4000 meters, but our hands were barely working due to the cold at that point. We went back to Mazan in the afternoon and Fausto taught us how to make aquariums for one of Chelsea’s projects with raising tadpoles.

After packing our clothes for a couple days, we headed down to Cuenca to stay at Jose’s apartment. We arrived to find that Jose’s apartment had flooded due to a burst pipe. His parents kindly invited us to stay at their house which is located just around the corner. When we got to their house with items from Jose’s apartment, his Mom remarked: “Now you see that children never really leave their parents” (or something kind of like that). We enjoyed probably the best showers we’ve had in Ecuador that evening, and Jose’s dad made us delicious orange juice in the morning.

After departing the Caceres’ house, we met Amanda and Ernesto at the mechanic. Ernesto’s truck apparently has been working right since he got it washed last week, but the mechanic had too many cars to be able to work on it. By the way, we were just there on Saturday because a rock or something on the mountain road bent something underneath our car (it’s fine now). So we then drove over to Amanda’s parent’s house so Ernesto could leave his truck there for the day. A sweet old lady ran a stop sign and almost t-boned us on the way, but really it was an uneventful trip.

Then we all set out in the Lead Bullet (I’m pushing this nickname for the car because the Spanish name for the color translates to mean “lead”) for the southern road of Cajas. The point of the trip was for Ernesto to show us more places where we can find frogs and tadpoles. Ernesto was able to find a species he’s never seen before while using the bathroom along the side of the road (this guy has the golden touch). After searching a bit more, Chelsea found a beautiful gastrotheca female full of eggs. We took plenty of pictures and then continued on our reconnaissance mission. We were able to find tadpoles at another point along the road, which was great.

On the way back, we stopped at some hot springs that have frogs and used to have snakes that Ernesto studied. Just as we got out of our car, we heard an animal calling. Ernesto asked us if we knew what it was, and of course we didn’t. He then told us that it was a species of poison dart frog that used to be very common in Cuenca. We hopped down in the marsh next to the river and were able to find four individuals. We also recorded their call with our cameras. Then we met the owner of the hot springs, and he invited us to come back some time. We plan to use this place to combine work and relaxation.

On another note, our house at Mazan has been without power since Thursday. Hopefully the park agency will fix it soon. It is very dark at 6:30 up there, and we’re running out of hot chocolate!

Ingapirca

We decided to take a day this past weekend to be tourists. Ingapirca, a complex of Incan ruins, is located about 90 km from Cuenca. So, we got in our Vitara and hit the Panamericana pavement. The drive took about two and a half hours from our mountaintop, and it was full of great views across the various vallies. We had a quick lunch once we got to the ruins, and then we started our visit. Our guidebook says that the entry fee includes a guide, but we started out with just ourselves to interpret what the different structures may have been in the past. Luckily there was a group of Americans (college students and teachers, we think) just ahead of us with an English-speaking tour guide. We stayed close enough to this group in order to hear most of the guide’s description of the ruins. The most entertaining part was when the llamas became angry at the large group and huddled together to protect their territory.

After enjoying the Temple of the Sun, we headed down a short trail to see the “Inca face” in a nearby rock wall. It was nice to take a little stroll, and we got back in our car with the hope of being home before dark. We were soon stopped by a police officer who asked to see me driving credentials. I calmly handed him my international driver’s license from AAA, and he calmly pretended that he sees them all the time before wishing us well on our way. We then stopped at a town named Biblian in order to check out their church which is built into the side of a mountain (literally). We happened to arrive just in time for the Gospel reading, so we decided to stay for the rest of the mass. Chelsea then had a hankering to stop for dinner at one of the pig roasts along the road. We found one close to the town and had a nice meal of pork and mote (corn). The sunset created absolutely beautiful colors in the sky during the rest of our drive back to Cuenca, and we arrived home after a satisfying day as tourists.

Patul: more photos

Patul: a remote Andean village

Last weekend we had our biggest adventure yet. We traveled to the tiny village of Patul, one of the few remaining isolated villages in the Andes. It takes 5-6 hours to hike there, and the path is so difficult that it is used as a prayer path. It is a really old way that has been used for perhaps thousands of years. We started at a place along the road in Cajas at 3200m, hiked up to 4200m then back down to 3700m where we were greeted warmly by a local family. They had no idea we were coming because there is no phone service in the village, and they just got electricity a few years ago. Their isolation has helped keep the traditions of the Andean indigenous people alive, and it is rare that they receive visitors from other places.

We began the trip by shopping for groceries, and were surprised by the items that our friend Amanda chose. When we go on backpacking trips, we usually buy food that is light, easily packable, and rich in calories. Instead, we bought things to make sandwiches, a bag of rice, cans of beans, peas, and corn, coffee, tea, cookies, 2 liters of drinkable yogurt, raisins and chocolate. We were unable to purchase the correct type of fuel for our camp stove (it had to be ordered from Quito, and didn’t arrive until after we left for the trip), so I had no idea how we were going to prepare the food. Then we had to pack. There was a chance there would be horses going back to Patul that we could hire for $5/ horse to carry our things, but it was likely that we were going to have to carry everything ourselves. We needed to pack warm clothes, rain jackets and pants, sleeping bags and pads, tents, field supplies, and all the food. Wow were our bags heavy! I could barely lift mine to put it on, and Brad’s seemed twice as heavy! When we got to the start of the trail, we were not lucky enough to find horses waiting.

After a hard day of walking, complete with several necessary breaks for food and rest, we arrived at Patul—sort of. When we got there, the fog was so heavy that we couldn’t find the house where Ernesto knows the family. Instead, we sat and watched the fog until it lifted to reveal first a beautiful mountain ridge, then a lake, and finally the village. What a welcome! Then we were able to find the house, a small adobe dwelling complete with a thatch roof, the typical style of the Andean people. Dona Maximina and her son-in-law Don Reynaldo greeted us with smiles, and we apologized for showing up unannounced (remember, there is no phone service). They invited us in for tea, and we were eventually treated to a meal prepared in a traditional Andean kitchen. There was a fire pit in the ground which she cooked over, guinea pigs in one corner, a few shelves, a pot of water on the dirt floor for washing the dishes, and more smoke than Brad or I could stand to inhale. The entire inside of the kitchen was covered in a black gloss from the smoke. However, we enjoyed tea prepared from orange leaves and a big dinner of rice and beans. It turns out that in return for the inconvenience of taking care of us, Ernesto usually brings enough food to feed everyone. Dona Maximina prepared our food for dinner, and added some of her own, too. After dinner, she invited us to sleep in a room with 2 beds (probably the beds for her sons). The beds were wooden frames with a few blankets and sheep skins instead of mattresses. We put our sleeping pads and bags on top, and it was nice to not be sleeping in a tent on the ground. However, our friend Ernesto is quite tall and people from the village are quite short. His legs hung over the edge of the bed almost to his knees! He had to sleep on a diagonal, and although our bed was slightly longer, Brad also had to scrunch his legs to fit. On the day we were scheduled to leave, she made us rice with eggs from creole chickens, a soup of cabbage and her own home-made cheese, coffee with milk from her cows, and a shot of cane alcohol to “give us energy for the trip home.” The food was delicious, but the cane alcohol was stronger than we could handle! Overall, I was amazed by the generosity of our host family and how willing they were to share so much of their home and their food with us. It made carrying the heavy food all worthwhile, so that we had something to share in return.

We spent a full day doing field work around the village. The frogs I am looking for in this area, called Atelopus nanay or the black harlequin frog or locally “sapo negro,” live in the upland habitat adjacent to the streams. The village is near a lake which is the confluence of three separate streams. If you stand near the lake, you can see the 3 waterfalls that cascade down into a wetland which flows into the lake. From the lake, the river Patul flows to the coast. During the day we were guided by Eduardo, the 7 yr. old son of Dona Maximina. He showed us the places where he has found the frogs and where his much older brother –in-law has found the frogs. He was so full of energy as we hiked all day through the mountains, and then would occasionally lay down in the grass for a quick rest. He helped me catch tadpoles of another species in the wetlands, and although I gave him a net, he was more successful with his bare hands! By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, and Eduardo fell asleep in the kitchen while we were waiting for dinner.

The first day at Patul (Sunday) was mostly reconnaissance work. Ernesto showed us all of the places where Atelopus has been found, and we didn’t have much extra time to actually look for the frogs. Monday we had a huge breakfast then worked for a couple of hours by the river closest to the house. Although I really wasn’t expecting to have luck, Ernesto found one male individual of Atelopus nanay! We were all so excited, and after the data was collected we had an extensive photo session. We kept looking, but without success. We began walking home at noon, and on the way stopped to look for several other species of frogs. With these other species, we had some luck. The genus is Pristimantis, and there are many species that live in Ecuador. They are unique because they breed on land instead of in wetlands or streams like most amphibians. They lay their eggs under a rock or among damp moss, and we happened to find some eggs. We could actually watch the embryos moving in the clear eggs, which was a pretty amazing experience!

All in all, the research trip was a success. We got back to the road just after dark and my field notebook contains data from 1 Atelopus nanay, 2 Pristimantis of a potentially new species, Gastrotheca tadpoles from two different pools, 9 Pristimantis philipi, 1 clutch of 25 Pristimantis eggs, and a whole list of sites to return to for both Atelopus nanay and Gastrotheca tadpoles.

We had skipped lunch on the trip home, and had only a handful of raisins and half a chocolate bar. After warm showers, we met up with Ernesto’s wife Amanda (she had been sick the previous week and wasn’t feeling strong enough to make the trip) to share our stories from the weekend over dinner. We went to a really nice parrilladas- style steak house, and the four of us managed to consume a large amount of beef, potatoes, salad, and juice. That night we went to bed exhausted but completely content.