Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico

This entry is long overdue. Usually after my travels, I am eager to write my adventure blog. For whatever reason, these last two trips did not elicit that drive, despite how greatly I enjoyed them both. Tonight, however, I am driven to present to you, CENTRAL AMERICA!

Central America: March 22 – Mar 31, 2015

SPRING BREAK! After a very challenging and taxing seven months of teaching, I treated myself to a trip to Central America to experience adventures and environments as far removed from the last seven months as I could afford. I took two red-eye flights to Cancun, Mexico, where I wasted no time immediately getting out of that cesspool of raunchy American undergrads. I took a bus to Tulum, a small touristy town along the Yucatan coastline famous for its Mayan ruins, where I would kill seven hours before boarding an overnight bus to Belize City. Fortunately for me, a young American woman named Parvati took the seat next to me, and we talked the whole way to Tulum. She told me about having a stressful job working as a journalist for CBS in New York City and desperately needed an escape. I related to her with my own situation. 

When we arrived in Tulum, she told me to find her at her hostel so we could continue hanging out until my late-night bus. I had booked a room at a cheap hostel where I could shower and leave my bag for the day. So I checked in, dropped off my bag, grabbed a bicycle, and found my way to her much nicer beachside yoga hostel. We took a yoga class outside as the sun set that left me feeling incredibly fresh. Afterward, we found a great open-air taco restaurant. Its floor was white sand, its décor was several palm trees scattered about. Picnic tables fit in the open spaces between the trees, and we shared one with a honeymooning couple from New Zealand. The four of us connected as if we were long-time friends. Parvati and I, with bellies full of top-notch tacos, rode our borrowed bicycles back down the sandy road under the stars feeling the warm Caribbean air caress our skin and it was perfection. We made our goodbyes and I made my way to the bus station to continue on to Belize. 

(Later, upon trying to find Parvati on facebook so we could keep in touch, I discovered that she is not just a “journalist” for CBS. She is a three-time contestant on Survivor, including the million-dollar winner of one season. She has since gone on to host a travel show for CBS. She has yet to accept my friend request.) 

My overnight bus to Belize City was uneventful, and I immediately found a very crowded “chicken bus” to take me west across the country to the Guatemala border (it only took three hours to drive the entire width of Belize). The bus appeared to be a school bus from the 1960s. Many people had to stand in the aisle, the speakers were playing Reggae music, and a sign above the driver said, 

“Your money is good, but good conduct pays the highest dividend.”

The border crossing was a little shady, as certain officials were telling me I had to pay a fee of varying prices. I joined forces with five other American backpackers as we were very stern about not paying any fees that were clearly bribes. Eventually, they begrudgingly stamped our passports and sent us on our way. 

The six of us backpackers shared a private van an hour into Guatemala to the nearest town outside of Tikal, Guatemala’s famous Mayan temples. My new and very brief friends stayed in town for the night and I found my way to Tikal. For a very nominal fee, I was able to set up a tent at a designated camp site at the park. With a nice grassy field and bathroom facilities, it was all I needed. The added bonus was being surrounded by the Guatemalan rainforest where I was constantly serenaded by tropical birds, bugs, and howler monkeys. (The novelty wore off when I was awoken at midnight by the growling and roaring of howler monkeys, seemingly coming from all angles, seemingly coming to destroy me. Terrified, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and prayed that this would not be the end of me: death by howler monkeys.)

I was informed that for $50, I could take a sunrise tour of the park, where we could climb to the top of the highest temple and watch the sun rise over the jungle. That sounded great, but what sounded even greater was doing that for free! So I set my alarm for 4:00am, walked the trail to the temples (which, I must say, is a frightening experience walking through a jungle in the dark of night, knowing that jaguars are waking up around that time). I decided to avoid the temple where the tour would be. Instead, I climbed one of the other tall temples, which were shaped like skinny pyramids, and in complete solitude, perched atop a temple that was 1300 years old, watched the sun rise over the jungle to the tunes of birds and monkeys waking up. That experience would have been worth $50. 

I spent most of the day wandering the grounds, where thousands of temples and ruins lie at the site of the former epicenter of Mayan civilization. I didn’t take a tour, nor did I have a guide book. But I had solitude and the ability to go at my own pace, to enjoy it exactly as I wanted to enjoy it. And on occasion, I would eavesdrop on other tours to pick up tidbits of information. 

Later that afternoon, I departed the park. As I was walking the quarter-mile trail back to the visitors center, through the jungle, I spotted a pair of spider monkeys swinging back and forth from the tree limbs above me. I stopped, snapped a few photos, and just watched in absolute enjoyment for a good ten minutes. Monkeys have always been one of my favorite animals, and a rare thing to witness in the wild. I literally found myself laughing with excitement watching those two chase each other. 

I made my way back to the border of Belize, had another shady experience crossing the border, this time teamed up with a French couple, and the three of us shared a cab to San Ignacio, Belize. I had booked a hostel outside of town in the jungle, which was run by a family of ex-pats from Chicago. I was greeted by many large, friendly dogs, who later showed me the way to a large, calm river where I would take a swim with my canine friends. I was warned about three species of poisonous snakes that I might encounter while walking to the river, and told that if I am bitten by a snake, I must cut off its head and bring the body to the health clinic so they know what anti-venom to give me. Oh great. (I did see a snake on the path, but the dogs scared it away instantly.) The hostel was a group of scattered dorms and private rooms and a dining room where they serve breakfast and dinner to the guests. Palm trees dotted the grounds and many tropical birds flew from tree to tree that would excite the most enthusiastic bird lovers. 

I shared a room that night with a Londoner named Jack. We spent the evening shooting pool and talking like old friends. The next morning, one of the hostel owners gave a group of us a tour of the grounds, pointing out toucans in the trees, and showing us around the Mayan ruins that have yet to be excavated. 

Later that morning, I took a tour of the ATM cave, which was rated by National Geographic as the #1 cave adventure in the world! In a tour group of approximately a dozen of us, we were lead on a 20 minute hike through the jungle where we reached a small river that flows out of a cave. With waterproof headlamps, helmets, and our swimsuits, we jumped in the river and swam into the opening of the cave. After 100 feet, the river was shallow enough to wade, and we ended up spending most of the excursion in knee-to-waste-deep water as we explored far into the cave. The Mayans believed this cave was a portal to the underworld and was a site of many ritual sacrifices. We eventually reached a wide, open room in the cave where the sacrifices took place. The archeologists who originally found this room in the 1980s decided not to excavate any of it so that all visitors would see it exactly as it was left. Throughout the room were many broken clay pots, encrusted in lime, that had been purposely smashed as part of the sacrifice. Also among the shards of pots were human skeletons, remains of the human sacrifices. Our guides pointed out that each skull had a large puncture where the person would have been bludgeoned (to render them unconscious) before slitting their throats. It was an honor to be sacrificed to the gods, and it is believed that the victims were probably volunteers. It was, hands down, the most unique cave experience of my life. At times, I was expecting to see darts shot out of holes in the walls and a giant stone boulder chase me through the cave. 

The next day, I made my way back to the eastern side of Belize to its largest city, Belize City. Calling it the largest city does not actually say much about its size, since it has only 40,000 people. It really is the only urban center in the country, and definitely not anything to write home about. My hostel was one of the more unpleasant hostels I’ve experienced, and even the “tourist” part of the city is pretty run-down with no real attractions except for a small marketplace to buy handmade crafts and jewelry. That afternoon, I wrote the following in my journal:

“Belize City… get me outta here! I see run-down shops, beggars, and aggressive vendors. Though it’s on the coast, there are no scenic ocean views, except from the balcony of my hostel where I can see a lighthouse and a palm tree to compliment the water, which is murky and trashed… My hostel is in an old house with slanted floors, chipping paint, rusted bars on the windows, a hammock with the bottom worn through, and cushioned chairs and beds so used up that they have become saggy, floppy messes.”  

I tried to reassure myself that I would only be spending one night there before boarding an early morning ferry to the island of Caye Caulker. Then, as often happens to me on my travels, a gracious soul swooped in, livening up my experience. The manager of the hostel, a black Creole woman who goes by the name “A”, told me she was going to walk down the street for some pupusas and invited me to come along. I desperately wanted to escape the terribly awkward and creepy Canadian man who would not leave me alone, so I tagged along with her. As we walked down the busy street, I took the opportunity to pick her brain about life in Belize, and particularly Belize City. To my surprise, she raved about life there, saying that some of her family members have moved to the States, but she would never want to leave Belize City. I struggled to understand what she saw in it at first, but as we walked, I noticed she was saying hello to passersby every five or ten seconds, asking how they’re doing, each greeting us with smiling faces. We reached the pupusa food cart, and she ordered our food in Spanish, making pleasantries with the chef. There was a very communal feeling among the customers standing around waiting for their food. One man was a couple bucks short, so “A” stepped in and paid the remainder of what he owed. It was nothing to her. And I started seeing a glimmer of what she saw in this city. It wasn’t the run-down buildings or the trashy water, but the strong community that kept her there. It’s a community of black Creole, Hispanic, and Mayan, and according to her, they all co-habitate very harmoniously, most speaking both English and Spanish, rarely a racist slur muttered. Later that night, I wrote the following in my journal:

“Funny how things can change. Not only did I avoid getting dinner with the creepy Canadian, but the hostel manager “A” took me out to get pupusas, which is the best food I’ve eaten on the trip thus far, and I really enjoyed talking to her, hearing her perspective on Belize, and hearing about her life… It went from being a run-down city of beggars and aggressive vendors to a city with a healthy sense of community and people who, though they don’t have much, are happy with what they have.” 

The next morning, I boarded my ferry to the island of Caye (pronounced “key”) Caulker, which is almost purely a tourist destination, full of cheap beachy hotels and hostels, scuba and snorkel tours, paddle board rental shops, and bars and restaurants. I stayed in a dorm room with four bunk beds which were, luckily, occupied by some really cool and friendly travelers around my age. I took a half-day snorkel trip where a boat dropped us off at various locations in the sea, including “Shark Ray Cove”, where we were surrounded by nurse sharks and sting rays. I was hesitant for a second to jump into that water, but very quickly saw how docile the animals were. Our guide even grabbed a nurse shark and said “Anyone want to pet a shark??” I did. I also let the sting rays graze my hand as they swam right past me, reminding me of my field trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium as a kid where I would pet the rays in the pools. I was also reminded of the time the Crocodile Hunter was killed by a sting ray…

My couple of nights spent on Caye Caulker were pretty mellow and relaxing, but it was also the first time I felt lonely. This was my first big trip done solo, but I had made so many friends in each destination on the trip leading up to this point, but was not finding friends so easily on this island. But it was a good time for reflection and for finding happiness within myself. And eventually, I joined up with one of my roommates and her friends for a dinner and had a very enjoyable time with them. 

From Caye Caulker, I returned to the mainland and took a bus back to Cancun. I had one full day in Cancun, but rather than share a beach with thousands of drunk Americans, I instead signed up for an all-day excursion to Chichen Itza, the Mayan pyramid that is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. What should have been just a two hour bus ride to the site ended up being several hours as we made repeated stops at tourist traps where we were encouraged to buy useless trinkets and crafts. It felt like we were cattle, being herded off the bus through craft stalls, back onto the bus, back off the bus to more stalls and buffet lines, back onto the bus, and off, and on. Furthermore, our guide would not stop talking on the bus microphone and would get mad if any passengers appeared to not be paying attention to what he was saying. The experience would have made me completely mad if not for the Iranian-German girl named Samara sitting across the aisle from me who I shared a mutual misery with. We ended up supporting each other through the experience, which made it bearable. When we arrived to Chichen Itza, our bus parked among a sea of buses, and we walked to a lined-up crowd that rivaled Disneyland. As soon as we could, Samara and I escaped our tour guide, running ahead of the group. We even managed to find a way to bypass much of the line and enter within a few minutes. Almost immediately, we were presented with the giant pyramid that we had seen in photos countless times in our lives. It looked just as it did in the photos, except for the thousands of tourists wandering around, and the lines of vendors selling the same overpriced trinkets and crafts. As we walked, we would be yelled at by vendors who aggressively tried to sell us on their products, sometimes angrily if we showed any resistance. Again, thank God I had Samara to keep my sanity. We wandered casually through the grounds, visiting other sites, eavesdropping on other tours, and just talking about her upbringing in Iran, her life now in Germany, the challenges and joys of my teaching job. For an hour and a half, we were able to blissfully escape our tour guide, find some quiet corners of the park, take some artsy fartsy photographs, and talk about pleasant things. The bus ride back seemed more tolerable. 

The next morning, I flew back home, reflecting on the whole trip. During my layover, I wrote the following in my journal:

“So what has this trip done for me? Made me tired, for sure! And a little diarrheal. But spiritually and mentally rejuvenated. I learned quite a bit about Mayan and Belizean culture. I saw wildlife in the jungle. I felt a sense of adventure I had yearned for for over a year. I saw Central America for the first time. I learned that I can travel solo and have a great time. I learned that I don’t want to take another trip like this, where I bounce around from place to place, spending no more than two nights in any one location. I removed myself from the stresses of my life long enough to feel like I’ve been gone for a while and miss my students. I feel very excited to have a weekend home with nothing on the agenda.” 

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza

My campsite at Tikal

Sunrise at Tikal

The temple from where I watched the sun rise. 

View of Tikal from the tallest temple. 

The main temples at Tikal

Just sitting on a Mayan ruin. 

Spider monkey swinging in the trees.

One of my canine friends at the swimming spot at my hostel in San Ignacio. 

Caye Caulker

My boat at Caye Caulker

Asia and South America: an Epilogue

Before I went to Asia, I had never been to a third-world country (I had made a few quick trips to Mexico, but only to locations that were heavily touristed by Americans and were practically "America-lite"). Like most people, I imagined third-world countries to be full of poverty, which meant millions of homeless and hungry people begging on the streets; crime-filled cities that are unsafe at night; corrupt police looking for any way to make a buck off of scared tourists. Oddly enough, because of all of this, I wanted to see a third-world country, not because I thought it would be fun to have beggars grabbing at my clothes or police demanding bribes from me, but because I wanted an experience so foreign from my own life and environment.

After traveling the last two years, I can say that I was exposed to very foreign environments in every country I visited, even the modern countries like Korea and Japan (and even European countries that I visited in college). But of course there is something special to being somewhere that adds an economic foreignness (and yes, foreignness is a word!) to the cultural foreignness. In Cambodia, Malaysia, Peru, and Ecuador, I was exposed to and met people who have never known the kind of wealth I have lived with, and probably cannot even fathom such wealth. Let's take a look at a few stats provided to me after a few minutes of research on wikipedia:

• Cambodia is currently ranked as the poorest country in Asia, with the average Cambodian making $2,400 per year (what I made in a month in South Korea). 
• One-third of the Peruvian population is considered "poor", with 10% living in poverty.
• 17% of Ecuadorians live in poverty
• Approx. 21% of Malaysians live in poverty

Through my travels in these countries, I did see poor people. I saw one-room homes made out of cheap wood and corrugated metal that housed families of 12. I saw people living in homes with dirt floors. I saw communities with little electricity and poor plumbing. I saw children with filthy faces and tattered clothes. These people were living in conditions that I do not wish to live in. I like my nice, stable home with plenty of electricity to power my laptop, cell phone, iPod, e-reader, several lamps, fan, and air conditioning all at the same time. I like hot showers and plumbing that is strong enough to handle the flushing of toilet paper. I like being able to throw my dirty clothes into a big, white box and have it wash my clothes better than my own hands can. 

Something shocking occurred to me, though, that surprised me about these third-world countries. It wasn't the fact that I never dealt with greedy, corrupt police (a pleasant surprise, though I am aware that it happens in many countries), or that I nor my travel companions were never victims of any crime (I have heard accounts from other travelers in the same countries, but theft seemed just as prevalent as it is in any European city). The surprise was that these poor people don't seem to need much. Or maybe they don't need anything at all. Even though these people were living in conditions I would consider rough and unfavorable, they were not hungry (compared to 15% of Americans who are "food insecure"), they were not homeless (very rarely did we see beggars on the streets, nothing compared to any American city), and they were not lacking family. They didn't even seem to be lacking happiness (the people of Cambodia and Malaysia seemed an awful lot happier than South Koreans, who hold one of the highest suicide rates in the world) or basic education (93% of Peruvians and Ecuadorians and 88% of Malaysians are literate). And with the exception of people living in remote areas, they are provided with affordable health care (something millions of Americans are without). Most people even seen to have cell phones! 

So these observations made me think, and are still making me think, about the ideas of poverty and wealth, about family, about what we need compared to what we want, and about technology and whether its advancements do equal better living. Are our lives better than those in Cambodia because we have smart phones and the internet at our disposal and 1,000 channels on television? One could argue that we have more access to all the world's knowledge because of this, but let's be honest, we're not exactly taking advantage of that, are we?! America also grows enough food to feed the country several times over, and yet 15% of the population is not properly fed, compared to the Peruvians and Ecuadorians who all seem healthy and well-fed (the Inca Empire was one of the very few civilizations in the world's history that was able to eradicate hunger, something that seems to continue today). 

I'm not trying to argue that life in those countries is better than in the U.S., or that poverty in those countries is not still a hard life. But I am saying that maybe aspects of their lives is better than ours. Maybe it's worth noticing that they seem to value family more than us; that although very few of them are rich, they are not starving and homeless; that although they do not have the technology we have, they don't seem any less happy. 

One last thing that has been on my mind over the last few months is the power of choice. Growing up in America, in my family, I was given the incredible gift of choice to do whatever I want with my life. If I wanted to be an engineer, a doctor, a musician, a businessman, I could (and still can) study for these occupations and work my way towards a career. If I want to live in the big city, I can. And if I want to live in the countryside, I can. However, many people in the world are not given this gift. Many people are born into an occupation, or are born into a region that they will never be able to leave. I know for most people of my culture and society, that sounds like a lifelong imprisonment. But then I wonder about this gift we are given, and I am starting to think that maybe it's a double-edged sword. Although I am so grateful that I have been able to choose a career for myself out of the endless list of occupations available, I also look at my peers in my generation, and I realize that this seems to be a generation and an era of indecision. I look at how many of my friends and peers have college degrees and no idea what to do with their lives. How the average college student changes their major four times. How we can have 1,000 channels available to us on television, but not find what we want to watch. How presidential candidates will campaign for 18 months and people will still be unsure of who they will vote for. Or the fact that there is always something bigger and better than what we have so we cannot be satisfied with our current belongings. How often do we find ourselves in a "crisis" because we cannot choose between two great things available to us? Talk about first-world problems! 

Millions of people around the world are not given nearly as many choices as us, and in many situations are given only one choice. They're going to be a farmer, they're going to marry this woman, they're going to live in this town, and that's that. These may not be things they prefer, but they deal with it, and they are still capable of being happy. And hey, they never have to deal with the stress of deciding! Now all of that being said, if someone offered to take away my power of choice, I'd say "Hell no!" But what I have come to realize is that our world (the first-world) is not universally better than theirs (the third-world). We don't have it all right while they have it all wrong. Our lives aren't necessarily any happier than theirs, or more fulfilling, or healthier. Everything is relative. If we were put in a third-world environment and told to live like those people, it would be very, very hard for us, and probably very unhappy, because we would have things we like taken away. But those people born into such environments find happiness, they manage to smile everyday. And it's because it's what they know. Just as people 100 years ago were able to be happy without electricity and appliances and fast transportation because they were living in the best conditions they knew, people in poverty today are in a similar situation.

Before I conclude my thoughts, I want to make it clear that I do still believe there is real poverty in the world, poverty that entails homelessness, starvation, disease, and illiteracy. And those poverty-stricken communities should be helped and supported by the global community. But the purpose of sharing this entry with you all is to say that my travels have shown me that money does not equal happiness, that technological advancements do not equal progress, and that the privileged lives we live in the first-world are not necessarily better than other lives in the world. I have become more aware that some things in my life are not necessary for my happiness. At the same time, I have become a lot more appreciative of many "little" things in my life, like hot water, internet access, and strong plumbing. 

Two and a Half Weeks at the Middle of the World

After nearly two months exploring Peru from the southern border at Lake Titicaca to the far north, from the vast desert coast to the dramatic Andes and the lush Amazon, we finally made our way across the border into Ecuador. By the time our experience at the ranch ended, we were tired of the desert, and frankly, a bit tired of Peru. We had heard so many wonderful things about Ecuador that it took no convincing at all for us to head straight there from the ranch.

I may have mentioned in past posts that the entire coastline of Peru is painted with just one color: the drabbest shade of brown imaginable. From top to bottom,  it is dry, dusty, and a bit depressing. However, once we crossed the border into Ecuador, everything changed! Browns became sprinkled with green, and soon, the browns disappeared and our eyes were accosted by the boldest greens of grass, palms, trees, and the lushest signs of life. And instantly, our spirits were lifted, morale boosted, and excited once again to be traveling.

Our first stop was a town called Baños, set in the Andes mountains halfway up the country. Before this point, we had never stayed in one town for more than 3 nights because we always exhausted the cheap things to do in that amount of time. But we spent 5 nights in Baños (and could have spent more) because this town and its surrounding area was so spectacular. It's not a large town, but has so much life and culture to it. It is thriving with tourism, but never felt like a touristy spot. We never had to fight off aggressive vendors or tour groups desperately trying to sell their goods and services. 

On our first day, we were planning on doing a hike with an American couple we met at our hostel, until we walked past a tour office that was advertising white water rafting trips. Just out of curiosity, we asked about prices, and a half-day trip was only $20! Drew and Julie, the American couple, became very excited, jumping up and down, saying we should do it. I normally have a hard time paying for rafting since I spent three summers being paid to go rafting, but $20 is hard to pass up. So we signed up and had a blast. The water was huge, so forceful that you could hear the stones on the river bed rolling in a deep and crackling sound like perpetual thunder. 

That night we went to one of the many hot springs in town. Baños (which is Spanish for "baths" or "bathrooms") got its name because of all of the hot springs. The four of us took a nice and VERY hot dip in the very crowded pools shared by tourists and locals. Unfortunately we were all required to wear shower caps, which really hampered our coolness levels. 

For the next three days, Mary and I cycled along the highway with amazing views of waterfall after waterfall, and also did two hikes up the surrounding mountains. The town is in a bowl with steep peaks surrounding it. So there are dozens of hikes to be taken in the area, all offering spectacular views of the town and other mountains, including a volcano that erupted in 1999. 

One of the best things about Baños is that less than a block from our hostel was a bakery. And in said bakery were donuts with chocolate icing. And these donuts became a normal part of our breakfasts! 

After 5 glorious days, we headed south to the city of Cuenca, Ecuador's 2nd largest city, also located in the Andes. It is hands down the most attractive city I saw in South America. Everywhere we went, my jaw was dropped at the sight of not just a beautiful landscape surrounding the city, but stunning architecture that offered the vibe of a European city. Old cathedrals were scattered throughout the city, and the streets were lined with 100 year old apartments and shops that reminded me of photos I've seen of the French Corridor in New Orleans, with balconies along the 2nd stories, lined with flower pot after flower pot. We found a hostel in a nice part of town that was a little out of our price range. So when the lady who ran the hostel could see we were not interested in renting a room from her, she offered us a private room for $5 per person but warned us that it had just been painted and we'd have to sleep with paint fumes, to which I replied, "I love the smell of paint!" So for three nights we had a wonderfully scented cheap room! 

On day 2 in Cuenca, we took a bus one hour out of the city to a national park called Cajas, situated quite high up in elevation (about 4000m, over 12,000ft). It was kind of a mystical place, with few trees and many small shrubs and grasses on rocky terrain and lakes and streams all around. We saw only about 7 other visitors, so we practically had the place to ourselves (well, us and grazing llamas). We spent about 4 hours hiking around the park until we found ourselves at the end of the park boundaries at the highway, where we hitched a ride back to Cuenca. 

On day 3 in Cuenca, we took a 2 hour bus ride out of the city to Ecuadors largest site of Inca ruins called Ingapirca. Half of the ruins date back to a pre-Inca period, and the other half were built by the Inca empire, including a tall sun temple for religious purposes. For free, Mary and I were given an English tour by a local man who was nothing but charming and very educational. Again, we almost had the entire park to ourselves as there were very few visitors there. 

Because Ecuador is on the equator, we expected a very hot country. But since Cuenca and Baños are located so high up in the mountains, we were experiencing some cool temperatures. Hoping to feel a little more warmth on our skin (and work more on our tans), we headed to the coast to get that Ecuador warmth. We found a town called Puerto Lopez which is situated next to a national park called Machcalilla. We were disappointed, however, to arrive and find it only slightly warm and drizzly. Nonetheless, we still had a great time taking a full-day tour out to an island called Isla de Plata, also called the "poor man's Galapagos" due to the bird species that are only found on this island and the Galapagos, but a sliver of the price of the Galapagos. On our way to the island, our boat stopped a few times for some humpback whale watching, where we were able to get great views of these massive creatures breaching and slamming their tales repeatedly on the water's surface. Once at the island, we took a guided hike around for some bird watching, mostly of blue-footed boobies and frigates. Because there are no predators on the island, the birds are easy to approach. At one point, two blue-footed boobies were in the middle of our path and would not move out of our way, so we skirted around them, coming within a foot away. On our way back from the island, our boat stopped for 30 minutes of snorkeling, where we were able to see some beautiful, multicolored fish.

The weather in Puerto Lopez ruined the beach vibe, so we decided to head back to the mountains to a volcano called Quilotoa, that we had heard great reviews of. We stayed in a small, sleepy town outside the mountain in a funky old hostel run by the sweetest little man (and I mean little, he was maybe 5 feet tall, as is common with many of the indigenous people living in the mountains). Everyone in town was dressed in the traditional garments that you would see in a National Geographic article on the Andes, and Spanish is for most of them not their native tongue. Instead, they speak Quechua, which was the language of the Incas. 

We spent most of a day at the top of the volcano, where a lake has formed in the crater from where it once erupted. We walked down into the crater to the lake, where we both jumped in for a quick and very chilly dip. The sun felt so good up there at the high elevation, even though the air was crisp. We ended up getting that sunshine and tan that we had hoped for on the coast. And we can now say we have swam in a volcano!

The next day, we left the sleepy town for the big city of Quito, Ecuador's capital which lies on the equator. This was our last stop as I was soon heading home. We only spent a few days there, which were pretty laid back. We spent our first full day walking around the city, stopping at a large park for a few hours of slack lining and hanging out with some 18 year old boys who wanted to practice their English. We then went to a delicious Hare Krishna restaurant that was recommended to us by the boys, followed by a walk through the historic old town (which was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in the 1970s). Old Town contains buildings and cathedrals built by the Spanish in the 1600s during their colonization of the region and have been restored over the last few decades. On the main cathedral, rather than having gargoyles or angels decorating the outside walls, instead they have statues of local Ecuadorian animals such as turtles, monkeys, anteaters, pumas, and iguanas. They were a surprising and cool added touch to separate this cathedral from all others that I've seen around the world. 

The next day, which was my final day in Quito, we took a long bus ride to the northern end of the city to visit a monument on the equator. A large statue with a globe-like sphere on the top is in the middle of this monument park, with a yellow line painted to mark the line between the northern and southern hemispheres. During some earlier research we did of the monument, we read that the line is actually about 800 feet off from the equator, but we figured we were close enough and enjoyed taking photos of ourselves strattling the "equator". 

That night, I flew home from the Quito airport. About two weeks earlier, while in Baños, Mary and I both decided it was time to end our travels soon. We were both tired of traveling, and missing our respective homes and our friends/family there. It was a very tough decision for us to make, as this would mean we would be going to different places, but in our hearts, it felt like the right thing to do. We enjoyed our final 2 weeks together exploring this beautiful country, and had more fun and happy times in those 2 weeks than probably any other 2 week stretch during our year and a half relationship. 

Though it made me sad to leave, I am also happy to be home. It's great not living out of a backpack, not living in hostels and cooking in kitchens where nobody cleans their dirty dishes, not using dirty bathrooms that often have no toilet paper (TP was like gold on our trip, we were always collecting stashes of it whenever possible), not taking showers that are supposed to have "agua caliente" (hot water) but actually are luke warm at best, not taking long bus rides every 3 or 4 days, not always worrying about being pick-pocketed or robbed, not always worrying about finding clean water to drink,  and not drinking gross, instant coffee (despite being in the thick of some of the world's finest coffee plantations, the cheaper option of Nescafe instant coffee is what everyone in Ecuador and Peru drinks). And the big thing both Mary and I are ready for is stability in our lives. It was almost two years ago that I moved to Korea, and since then I have been traveling, constantly making new friends for short periods of time, and heading to other places. It gets exhausting after a while, and I am now ready to be in one place, find a high school Social Studies position, be with the same friends for more than a few months, and plant my roots. We met many travelers who were taking one or two year long trips through the Americas, and though it seems to be working out well for them, I have learned that it's not the life I want. Though I do plan to continue traveling throughout my life, I have no desire to take trips lasting several months/years. I'm happy to once again have a place to call home. 

Hopefully I will soon land a teaching job here in Portland and begin a whole new adventure. I plan to use my trips abroad in my lessons as a Social Studies teacher. While all Social Studies teachers teach about the world, very few of them have seen much of the world. I would like to think this gives me an advantage as a desirable candidate for teaching jobs, and look forward to sharing my worldly experiences with my students. 

Rafting in Banos

Banos

Banos

Cuenca

Cuenca

Cajas National Park

Cajas National Park

Cajas National Park

Ingapirca Ruins

Ingapirca Ruins

Whale Watching

Isla de Plata

Frigates on Isla de Plata

Blue-footed Boobies on Isla de Plata

Quilotoa Volcano

A Cathedral in Quito

Life on a Horse Ranch

After a failed attempt at working on a farm in the amazon, Mary and I proceeded north into the desert to pursue an invitation to work on a horse ranch. Luckily for us, the invitation was legit and we were happily welcomed. The ranch is called Rancho Santana and is located in a small town called Pacora, 45 minutes away from the city of Chiclayo. Pacora is a sleepy town with a population of roughly 2,000. The town center is quite small, and often times was so quiet and void of people that it reminded me of movie scenes set in Mexican desert towns where it’s eerily quiet because people are too afraid to leave their homes. Though in reality, Pacora is a very safe town with a nice community where everyone greets one another as they pass on the street. Everyone seems to know everyone, and it is likely that the average Pacoran resident is somehow related to every 8^th person in town.

Rancho Santana is run by a married couple named Manuel and Andrea. Andrea is a Swiss woman who fell in love with Manuel, a Peruvian, while working on a horse breeding farm several years back. They married, had a daughter named Joceline (who is 8 years old), and created Rancho Santana. Their house is very modest, which is just one room for the three of them, with no plumbing. They have an outhouse for their toilet, and an outdoor cold shower. In a separate building is their kitchen, which had all the basic necessities: sink, oven/stove, refrigerator.  Since we knew ahead of time that Andrea was Swiss, we assumed that they probably lived with more affluence than the average Peruvian, but we came to find that this was not the case. They live in similar, if not worse, conditions than the average Peruvian. It was an interesting and sometimes challenging experience for us to experience their way of life for 3 and a half weeks.

Initially we lived in a bungalow for our first week there, which is the nicest building on the property. Normally it’s for tourists who stay overnight, but since we had no tourists during that time, we were allowed to stay there. Not only did it have electricity and internet connection, but it had a bathroom with hot water! We were living it up for a week until a tourist came and stayed for 2 and a half weeks, during which we stayed in a large tent next  to the bungalow. No longer did we have electricity to enjoy, and had to share the outhouse and cold shower that the family used. Honestly though, it wasn’t as bad as we anticipated it would  be.

 Rancho Santana has 11 horses, 4 cows, 1 goat, 6 dogs, approx. 30 chickens, 2 cats, and 2 ducks. Though despite having so many animals, very few of them serve any real purpose. They use about half of their horses for horse riding trips offered to tourists (the other half of the horses are in one way or another unfit for riding), and they occasionally eat a chicken (most recently, they had the loudest rooster slaughtered because it was too loud in the early mornings!). But they don’t eat the eggs of the chickens since there is no coop or safe place for the eggs to be (the dogs usually find and eat the eggs that are scattered about), and none of the cows or the goat produce milk, so most of the animals are just there. The animals do, however, create a real ranch environment, creating plenty of noise and often entertainment.

When we first arrived at the ranch, there was another married couple living and working there. They are from a very remote village in the mountains (so remote, in fact, that one must walk 3 hours to get there because there are no roads for cars/buses) and are part of a Peruvian culture that is probably the most traditional and technologically undeveloped (I would bet neither of them have ever used a computer or heard of The Beatles). Their house on the property is made of mud bricks with a dirt floor. There is no plumbing and little electricity. The wife would cook their food by building a small fire in front of the house. This was about as up-close and personal to poverty as I had been in my life.

There was also another volunteer named Marta working at the ranch when we arrived. She’s a Finnish girl in her early 20s who had been helping Manuel with the horses for the past few weeks. We shared the bungalow with her for the week that we had it, and then she left after that. She was very nice, helpful, and fun to be around, and taught us plenty about Finland.

Since Marta was helping Manuel with the horses, and Jorge (the man from the mountains) helped with all of the heavy lifting and day-to-day tasks, Andrea gave Mary and I two special projects for our first week there. First, we planted several grass beds around the ranch to make it less dusty. I really enjoyed this project because for some odd reason I enjoy the manual labor of digging, and digging was a huge part of planting the grass beds. The 2^nd project, on the other hand, was not so nice. We were told to cut down all of the bushes and shrubs  in a very large field. This may not seem so bad, but the catch was that they gave us shovels for cutting these plants. Shovels. Not machetes or large clippers (tools they did have on property), but shovels. After a couple days though we got the hang of it and became masters of shovel-cutting!

After a week, Marta left, and an Austrian woman named Karen came for a two and a half week stay of daily horse riding. This meant that Mary and I had to leave the precious bungalow and move into the tent. At the same time, Jorge and his wife left the ranch, unannounced, and made things a heck of a lot more complicated and difficult for the rest of us. Since Marta had left, Mary and I had hoped to take over some of the horse-related duties. I mean, we did come to a horse ranch hoping and expecting to work with the horses. But since Jorge was gone, Mary and I had to assume his duties because they needed to get done. So we spent almost no time with the horses during our 3 and a half weeks there, aside from feeding them and a two-hour trail ride we each got to take.

So our usual daily routine was wake up around 7:30am, eat breakfast, make breakfast for Karen, clean up after everyone, shovel the horse pooh scattered about, carry very large and heavy bundles of long grass on our backs to a grass grinder machine where Manuel would feed all of the grass through and shoot out small pieces of grass, then we would scoop up the grass and feed it to the horses and cows, then we would have a couple hours when some days there was some sort of work for us to do, other days not so much. Then at 1pm, we would walk into town, pick up Joceline from school, pick up food for lunch and dinner that was prepared daily by a cook in town,  eat lunch, clean up after everyone, and then the afternoons were usually relaxed. Often Mary would help Joceline with homework, or we would play with Joceline, or sometimes take a nap. Then at 4pm, we would bring in more heavy, long grass and feed it to the horses and cows. Afterwards, we would feed the dogs and cats (a delicious meal of rice, chicken heads and other organs, and whatever leftover food from the day before), which could be a very frustrating task since the dogs had to be fed one-by-one in the kitchen. The dogs, however, had almost no discipline, and when they were hungry, they would claw at the kitchen door and try to run in every time we’d open the door. So when we would try to let one dog in to eat, we would also be having to fight off the other dogs who are also trying to get in to eat. We eventually learned that splashing cups of water in their face when we’d open the door would often keep them away. Later in the evening, we would eat dinner (always leftovers from lunch), then Mary and I would clean up after everyone, and retire to our tent to watch a movie or episode of some TV show on her laptop. We were usually asleep by 9:30pm.

For the first half of the time there, we were happy to be doing the work and enjoyed the vibe of the ranch and the small, sleepy town. But our morale dropped as the work became very routine and mundane, we were constantly filthy, we were getting tiny cuts all over our arms and legs from carrying the long grass (even while wearing long sleeves and pants) and the ranch became infested with mosquitoes. I had never in my life had such a problem with mosquito bites until working on this ranch. To try to count the bites on our bodies would have been as futile as to try to count the stars in a clear night sky. So after a while, the last thing we wanted to do was carry very heavy loads of grass that are full of mosquitoes. And at the end of every exhausting, sweaty, dirty day, we were rewarded with cold showers to try to get mostly clean.

Despite having very little interaction with the horses, and despite the awful work, we did still have some enjoyable times on the ranch and in Pacora. We had some fun times playing with Joceline, and even though she only spoke Spanish to us, she was very good at speaking slowly and clearly enough for us to understand, something most Peruvians don’t do for us. She warmed to us immediately and was not shy at all about being silly with us, even in public while walking her home from school.

We enjoyed the company of the various tourists who came through the ranch. Karen, our Austrian tourist for the last 2 and a half weeks, was full of wonderful travel and life stories and kind of seemed like a cool aunt by the end. A German couple, who were on a year-long journey through the Americas, stayed for a few days and became instant buddies of ours. On a Saturday night, they invited us out for some nightlife, to which we replied, “Nightlife? In Pacora?” No matter though, we ended up having a riveting evening in their hotel room playing the German version of the boardgame “Sorry” and eating chocolates. Another young German couple came through for a night in a large truck that they have been driving and sleeping in for the last year and will continue to do for another year. They began their journey in Halifax, Nova Scotia, drove across Canada, up to the northernmost town in Canada, then down the Pacific Coast, through Mexico, Central America, and all the way down to Peru. They will spend the next year exploring the rest of South America.

We enjoyed observing behaviors of farm animals that one only really notices when you spend a lot of time with them, like the way chickens run like people with no arms, or how when cows “moo”, they often sound like a child screaming for attention, starting soft and building with volume and intensity. (One cow’s moo reminded me of that scene in the movie “Seven” when Kevin Spacey comes into the police station covered in blood and is trying to get the attention of Brad Pitt. He is calling for him, but Brad Pitt doesn’t hear him at first, so finally Kevin Spacey yells, “Detectiiiiiiive!” Every time I’d hear that cow, I would just hear, “Detectiiiiive!”) We saw owls in the daytime and witnessed them turn their heads a full 180 degrees. We also saw bats at night, and felt the breeze of their wings as they flew within inches of our faces. And of course, we witnessed almost all of the animal species mating (or at least trying to mate). Horses mating is an intense action to see! I think Mary and I would agree that the best part of living around so many animals was the constant symphony of animal sounds, even in the middle of the night. Cow’s mooing, horses naying, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing, dogs barking, owls hooing, bats screeching, ducks quacking, you get the point.

We also had the exhilarating experience of catching a rooster. One evening, while we were feeding the dogs in the kitchen, Joceline opens the door with a message from her mother: “Catch a cock…?” We were at first taken off guard by the choice of vocabulary, but soon realized that Manuel was trying to catch one of the roosters to be slaughtered and needed our help. You might not think grabbing a rooster is very tough, but let me tell you, it’s tricky!! Roosters are fast, and when they are running at you with a sharp beak and long claws, you think twice about reaching your hands out to grab that thing. We ended up running all around the ranch chasing this animal, trying to corner it, only to have it fly over our heads. Luckily Manuel is a pro and caught it soon enough, and that rooster became lunch the next day. I also had to help wrangle a horse that was loose running around the ranch. Catching a rooster is one thing, but when a horse is running at you at full speed, you’d be nuts to try to stop it! Again, Manuel was the pro who saved the day.

While in Lima before heading to the ranch, I purchased a Peruvian instrument called a charango, which is like a 10-string ukulele. Mary also has been traveling with her ukulele. Andrea knew we played these instruments, so when she met a local Pacora man who is a professional charango player, she told him we also played and invited him to jam at the ranch. It turns out that Pacora doesn’t have any other folk musicians, so this man was thrilled to jam. His name is Willie, and he came to the ranch several times during our time there and taught us a handful of Peruvian songs. At first we were also thrilled to be playing with him, learning local music, singing songs in Spanish, and make a connection with a local resident. He’s full of life, is always happy, and says he is married to music. He started coming to the ranch every four days or so, but after a while began coming every day and during times when we were trying to finish up work for the day. It became so stressful trying to finish work while also entertaining him, and we grew very, very tired of playing the same songs with him, especially on days when we were exhausted and just wanted some quiet time. But a person like Willie does not understand why we would not be interested in playing music at any given moment of the day. We were so happy to have made that relationship with him, but in the end it became a bit much.

In the end, we were glad to have had this experience; to live among so many animals, to live in a much poorer environment, to have a much better taste of Peruvian life than most tourists get, and to also lose weight and get buff! But in the end we were also very ready to be done. The mosquitoes, the cold showers, the sometimes grueling work, living out of a tent, and always feeling dirty just wore us out, lowered our morale, and eventually made the experience unenjoyable. Andrea said she was very sad to see us go and told us we were some of the best volunteers they’d had. We were happy to hear this, since we put in so much hard work on their ranch. We were sad to say goodbye to the family, but it was time.

We were also ready to leave Peru. Although we had been to some beautiful parts of Peru and had some great adventures and experiences, our overall impression of Peru was that it’s just OK. We had heard that Ecuador was amazing, so we headed straight there from the ranch where we have been spending the last week. So far, we can confirm that Ecuador is loads better than Peru in so many ways, especially in its beauty. It is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve seen and has not stopped impressing me with it’s landscapes and architecture. My next blog will be about Ecuador.

Digging out grass beds

Willy, our charango player

Manuel riding away

Joceline eating lunch

Andrea, our Swiss hostess

An example of the grass we carried every day.

Pacora