Peripheral/Beloved Characters Part 2

Today I offer the second installment of beloved Ecua-characters (read the first here):

4. Draco, My Landlady's Underwear-Stealing Pooch:
Among the unanticipated benefits of living at one of the highest points in the city are the spying opportunities. And since my ancient, borrowed television sizzled into oblivion on the second day I used it in November, I have had to find other ways to procrastinate. Enter Draco, my landlady's high-energy cocker spaniel. Although Draco (yes... like the Harry Potter character) is a yippity little terror to his owners, we have a special bond. Occasionally he'll manage to get around the wooden barrier and come shooting up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment barking madly, at which point my landlady will run out in her robe and purple slippers screaming "DRACO!! NO!! DRACO!!" hysterically until he can be corralled back down 10 minutes later.

On sunny mornings, Draco's favorite game is stealing wet underwear out of the laundry pile and running around with them in his mouth while my landlady chases him around the terrace screaming "DRACO!! NO!! DRACO!!" Sometimes he jumps several feet in the air, pulls down underwear from the clothesline, and plays keep-away while my landlandy gets angrier and angrier. High-quality entertainment.

5. "Laurita", the Freckled Megamaxi Checkout Girl Who Reminds Me of My Best Friend From College:
Here in Ambato, the Megamaxi is where I can go to take comfort in sterilized, standardized odors, pay too much for JIF peanut butter and imported cream cheese (I seriously can't find an Ecuadorian brand that tastes half as good as Philadelphia), and generally be reminded of the Walmart excess I was raised on. I go to the Megamaxi too often, but it is so damn convenient to be able to buy headphones, 12 brands of raisins, leggings and Ramen noodles all in the same store. I have a favorite checkout girl at the Megamaxi (I don't know her name, but I call her Laurita).
She's so favorite that I'm willing to wait in her line even if it means standing behind a grandma with 18 million pounds of food and a stack of coupons. Why? 1.) She looks exactly like my freckly best friend Laura (whom I miss a lot), and even has similar mannerisms. 2.) She makes non-awkward small talk and doesn't feel the need to point out that I'm a foreigner (you'd be surprised how many people inform me). 3.) She already knows I don't have a Megamaxi discount card and doesn't make me feel bad for it.

Scenes from Bogotá

Plaza de Bolivar-- Bogota's main square. The colonial buildings are pretty, but I find the history of rebel groups occasionally taking over important buildings, the military responding by firing cannons into them, etc., much more thrilling.

Bogota is known for its cold, rainy climate and horrible traffic problems-- both of which I experienced at length. This particular evening we went 10 kilometers in 90 minutes.

Another Simon Bolivar. I have never seen so many statues of the same man in such a small area. This particular Bolivar is actually him (there's another "Bolivar" which is the figure of Julius Caeser), graffiti-covered, and occasionally has clothes lines around the periphery where people dry their underwear. Way up at the top of this photo, you can spot Monserrate, a church perched on top of the mountain.

Bogota Beer Company (the other BBC). Andean microbreweries are almost non-existent, and the few I have located in Ecuador have left a LOT to be desired. Either the good beer bar has been readjusted to an extremely low level, or BBC was actually kind of impressive.

One of the 3 times I spotted the sun, although it was vague and receding beyond the cityscape.

Snapped this picture of the Colombian coat of arms about 15 seconds before I was frisked and searched by military men with big hats and bigger guns. Travel note: there is a sidewalk outside of the Colombian President's house, but you should not stand on it.

 I arrived in Colombia during the thick of my amigo's sociology thesis research, which revolves around class stratification and leisure practices in Bogota's nightclub district. Basically we went dancing and brought the voice recorder.

High/Low Art

I've loved museums since 1996, when my dad and uncle turned them into a competitive sport. One rainy afternoon, they brought my cousins, sisters and I to the Cleveland Museum of Art and set us loose on the most epic scavenger hunt of all time. Each team was given an envelop with detailed rules (no touching priceless works of art, no embarrassing your legal guardians, etc.) and a set of tasks to complete (locate a painting with animals gambling, find 5 naked women statues and name the galleries in which they are located, etc.). Besides entertaining a group of bored 8-12 year olds so they could actually enjoy themselves, my dad and uncle succeeded in turning art into a cut-throat competition, which was the primary way I garnered interest in anything as a child.

I still like museums. Here in Bogota, I've already visited three. My favorite was the Botero Museum, which features original works by contemporary Colombian painter Fernando Botero, as well as Botero's personal collection of paintings/sculptures (Dali, Picasso, Renoir, among others). I'm also fascinated by art that will never make it into a museum. And of all the urban centers I've been in, Bogota has some of the most incredible urban street art I've ever seen.

Fernando Botero, "La Mona Lisa"

Che Guevara street art, Historical Center, Bogota, Colombia

Fernando Botero, "Guerrilla"

Callejon de las Brujas, Historical Center, Bogota, Colombia

Tourist Attempts in Bogotá

Bland Colombian beer.

Hola from Bogotá, Colombia, where I'm vacationing from my (admittedly vacation-like) life in Ecuador. Since I'm only allowed to spend 2 weeks outside of Ecuador during my entire Fulbright grant period, I came to Colombia hoping to make these 10 days good and touristy.

Turns out I'm a decent [not-quite] anthropologist and a terrible international tourist. I arrived Friday morning without a single map, guide, or idea what there was to do in Bogotá. I didn't even have a fanny pack, and I'm way too cheap/lazy to purchase a lonely planet book.

But I'm duly impressed by Colombian coffee.

I knew that my amigo Sebastián, a sociology student who presented at my table at an academic conference last summer, would be at the airport to pick me up. I knew that Bogotá is really not any more dangerous than Quito, despite the dramatically more violent way that American news portrays Colombia. And, most importantly, I knew I'd wanted to go to Colombia ever since the Study Abroad office at Denison told me I couldn't.

But this is shaping up to be the nerdiest vacation of all time. Sebastián (my unofficial guide) is currently writing a thesis on urban problems/space/class in Bogota. So I not only get to see the absurd traffic problems first-hand, but hear about their 30-year history. I've gotten a complete run-down of class segregation in different sectors of the city, the politics and (non)functioning of transportation policies, and urban renewal projects. I'm helping him with his research interviews. And, in the most non-vacation-like, non-touristy thing of all time, I'm scheduled to guest lecture in an anthropology course at the Universidad del Rosario later in the week.

I fear I'll never be a good tourist.

Amateur Encounters with Mountains

Just to be clear: I am referring to myself when I say "amateur." I grew up in Cleveland, where the biggest mountains were landfills and the most thrilling outdoor adventures to be had involved tunneling out of the house on winter mornings. My hiking partner last weekend, none other than Latacunga-based Fulbrighter Chandra, moved past "amateur" ranking long ago. She was patient with me. Here's a brief overview of our Mt. Iliniza hiking weekend:

Day 1, 2pm: After two bus rides and a thirty minute wait on the side of a highway, we arrive at a lovely hostel in El Chaupi, Ecuador. It is about 2 hours from my house in Ambato. Our goal for the weekend to get to the top of Iliniza North, a volcano we can see in the distance. In the hostel lobby, a large, rambunctious group of Eastern European climbers are sharing a bottle of whiskey. Eastern Europeans apparently don't like to wear pants very much.

2:30 pm: We drop our things in our room (warm clothes, large quantities of peanut butter, GRE study materials for Chandra) and look for the hostel owner, who has promised to drive us to the foot of the mountain so we can begin climbing. We would like to reach the refuge by nightfall, so that we can stay there overnight and do the final summit early the following morning.

3:30-6 pm: Vladimir informs us that the weather is terrible, and there has just been a tragedy on the mountain. Although the Ilinizas are usually NOT very dangerous mountains, we won't be able to do the final summit without equipment (ice picks and such) and a guide. We give up our dreams of reaching the peak, but decide to stay the night and hike to the refuge in the morning. We take a long walk around the countryside, and run into some unattended alpacas.

Day 2, 6:30 am: The weather has completely turned around. From just outside the hostel, we can see the sun rising over Volcano Cotopaxi.

7:30 am: The Iliniza Mountains (Iliniza North is on the right, Iliniza South on the left) on the morning of our hike.

8 am: We catch a ride to the foot of the Ilinizas with a Swiss man, who has driven this SUV from Alaska. Yes, Alaska. Like where Chandra is from. He is a pretty incredible man. Cotopaxi is mesmerizing and continues to dominate the countryside.

9:30 am: About 1/4 of the way to the mountain refuge. The first wave of altitude sickness hits me, hard. My vision blurs, I spend about 20 minutes sitting and trying not to barf while Chandra offers a pep talk. I never consider turning back, but I realize I'll need to do this at snails pace or risk passing out.

10:30 am: About 1/3 of the way up to the mountain refuge. Those are Chandra's ski poles, which significantly help the hiking endeavor.

11 am: We encounter packs of wild bulls at various points during the hike. This is by far the scariest part of the day, since these are notoriously dangerous animals. We reroute.

1 pm: We reach the Iliniza refuge, which was our goal.

The view from the refuge. That's the first snow I've touched since leaving Ohio. And those are clouds... below us.

1:30 pm: Inside the refuge, an Ecuadorian family and their mountain guide is cooking lunch and invites me to join. I wonder how the 10 year old made it up the mountain. I pass on their lunch for my mushy PB+J, mostly because Chandra and I want to get back down the mountain before the rain/snow/cold comes. I notice that the people who signed the refuge guestbook the previous day were from Canton, Ohio.

4pm: We get lost going down the mountain. We find ourselves again, nearly miss some wild bulls, and finally reach the bottom. There are no cars leaving the mountain, so we begin another 8ish kilometer walk to the hostel, completely exhausted and in the middle of nowhere. After 90 minutes, a car drives past and picks us up. It is an Ecuadorian couple. The woman asks us what we're doing in Ecuador, and we mention Fulbright in passing. She tells us in perfect English that she is a former Fulbrighter.... she got her MA in Environmental Planning from Yale. There are probably 200 current/former Fulbrighters (either Ecuadorian or American) in this entire country right now, so it was probably the strangest coincidence of all time.

7 pm: Back in Ambato in bed. My entire body hurts for the next 3 days, but it was completely worth it.