Once A Loper

I haven´t updated this in a while, so I guess I should have a good bit to say. I just finished my first (somehwhat) full week at the hospital, whiched ended up being a lot better than I expected. It was actually really nice to work on the Ellison 18 kind of floor because, even in a few days, you begin to get to know each kid. It´s pretty nice.

First of all, this is a picture of the kind of service I get here at my homestay (parents take notice). Not only is my laundry done and brought back to my room, it is even decoratively arranged.

I´ve been running pretty steadily for the last week or so. I´m running 6 days a week now, which so far feels okay. This week I´m putting in about 30 miles, so I´m pretty happy with where that is and how I feel. The pace is definitely getting easier to maintain the longer I stay up in the mountains. I´ve also added my PT and core back into my daily routines, which I didn´t do last week while I was getting adjusted. Other than plank, I´m already at about the same level I was before I left for my core and PT. Also, I find myself doing a TON of walking here. Benedicte and I walk to work each morning, which is about 90 minutes round trip, and then I usually also head to the park or internet afterwards. So, in general, I´m getting about 2-4 hours of nice walking every day. This can´t be bad for my legs OR my lungs, so I´m glad it works out well.

These past few days, I´ve been traveling a bit. On thursday after work, Benedicte and I took a bus to Baños de Agua Santa (literally baths of holy water), a town about 4 hours south of Quito which is a big tourist destination with lots of hiking, climbing, and several (hot and cold) natural volcanic baths.

The trip there was much more eventful than I had hoped for. Being relative n00bs to traveling in Ecuador, the bus system out of Quito was really overwhelming. Unfortunately, we got on the lesser quality bus to Baños, which stopped more frequently, and was generally less classy. The ncie thing about travel in South America is that it is ung-dly cheap. Our 4 hour trip to Baños cost us USD$3.00. At some point during the bus ride (around the town of Ambato, which I now have a permanant grudge against), my running watch fell down while I was sleeping and someone behind me walked off the bus with it. It bothers me that I have to be so distrusting of the locals here, and I was trying not to be, but this just reaffirms my distrust. Oh well.

Once we got to Baños, things were pretty nice. We arrived after dark on thursday night and took a cab to the Hostal de Eden (recommended by the Lonely Planet book, our traveler´s bible). The accomodations were actually really nice for a whopping $7.00 per night. We had comfortable beds, TV, a bathroom with hot water (though it wasn´t on the first day), and the location was pretty central. Though, everything in this small city was within a 10 minute walk of anything else.

When we got there, we were both hungry and decided to grab some dinner. We spent a few minutes wandering around looking for one of the restaurants recommened by the Lonely Planet, but eventually were hungry enough that we just walked into a pizza joint. The food was great and cheap: about $4.00 for a pretty big veggie pizza. The food didn´t taste like regular american pizza, but had a different sauce and much more spicing (I think it must have been cilantro).

Here is the big Cathedral in town all lit up at night:

We basically called it a night at that point and headed to bed after watching some Spanish TV. The next morning, we woke up pretty early since we wanted to do some hiking. We got breakfast, again, really cheap and good (<2.00>

And so, Benedicte and I set off on our hike. The trails around Baños are truly spectacular, but are SO poorly marked. It took us over an hour just to find the trailhead. In a town that is probably only one or two square miles, this should not happen.

Anyways, the first part of the hike was really beautiful. It was a pretty steep and narrow trail that led up to the Bella Vista, a point on top of a ridge where a large cross stood over the city. Along the trail, there were lots of little vistas where one could peak out and see the whole city tucked between the huge mountains on either side. The higher you go the more breathtaking it was.

Actually, though, the most amazing thing for me was what I assume was some sort of sports team that was doing repeats of this hill (running up and running back down). There must have been about 30 or so teenagers in uniforms that passed us going up and then again going down. Again, this was a steep trail which climbed probably 500 or 1000m.

From the spot with the cross, the view was specatacular. Not only could you see the whole city, but you could see mountains probably 100km away. After resting a bit at the top, we decided to hike along a trail which followed a ridge along the top of several mountains with views of the big Volcano towering over the city.

Again, this trail was pretty steep and at times very narrow and poorly maintained. We ended up climbing at a similar pace as a few Americans who were hiking the same trail. Eventually we came to a building in a clearing, which we realized was a Hotel! It looked really beautiful, with pools and jacuzzis on the roof overlooking the city some 1000 meters below. Too bad it was more than $7.00 per night!

We continued along the trail until we came to a small settlement of local people who lived up in the mountains. There arragements seemed very poor and basic, but they were very nice and greeted us and wished us well.

At some point near here, we (us and the American couple) took a wrong turn and somehow ended up in a cow pasture. For some reason, the American husband just kind of wandered off, so Benedicte and I ended up finding the trail with the American woman but then could not find her husband. We waited for a few minutes with her, but as it started to rain, we decided we ought to head down. As we were talking about how strange it was that the man had simply wandered off, the woman as well just kind of wandered off. How bizzare. We waited a few minutes and then just told one of the locals to tell them that we had headed down.

The descent trail was probably the steepest trail we encountered. It actually hurt the knees it was so steep. To add to the strangeness of this whole experience, about 200 meters down the trail, a cow stood, tethered to a tree, in the middle of the path. This was a narrow path with a barbed wire fence on one side and very dense jungle vegitation on the other. We waited about 10 minutes to see if it would move and eventually tried tugging on his rope. With sucess, the cow jumped over the fence and back into the pasture where he belonged and we continued our descent.

Overall, the hike took about 5 hours and was not easy. We had eaten lunch on the hike, so we spent the afternoon just relaxing and doing some shopping. I purchased a bootleg copy of Batman Dark Knight (El Caballero Oscuro) for all of $1.00. This is really a Jew´s paradise.

Also, one thing to note. Guinnea Pig (or Cuy, here) is considered a delicacy here in Ecuador. Personally, I´m a little turned off by the presentation:

Eventually, after my bad run that morning, I convinced myself to try to run again. I decided not to run in the city but instead take a trail leading out into the Andes, hoping it wouldn´t be too steep. The run was beautiful. One of the most beautiful I have ever been on. Really really jaw dropping. I´m hoping to write a more detailed report about this trail later when I have time, so stay tuned.

After that, we had some dinner at a local restaurant. We happened to run into two i-to-i people who were working in Tena (jungle) and just happened to be visiting Baños at the same time. Really wierd coincidence. They told us some funny stories about the jungle and then we headed back to bed.

Yesterday morning, we woke up early and headed to the famous baths, hoping to beat the crowds. Maybe it gets even more crowded, but by 8:00 there were already a lot of people there. The baths are really nice. They look super dirty, but it´s simply because there´s a lot of minerals in the water (which are said to have medicinal purposes). The hot water flows directly from the ground from the underground volcanic pools and is piped into pools. Also, the pools are right next to a 100 meter waterfall. It´s a really nice setting and a great way to start the day.

After this, I headed out to run again on the same trail. I continued farther than I had on the day before. This was one of the few runs I´ve had recently where I found myself saying ¨Oh, well I guess I can go a little bit longer than I had said I was going to.¨ It was that beautiful. There were some really steep climbs and some rocky parts and at one point I had to ford a small river, but all in all, it was amazing.

On the way back, I saw a man bungee jumpng off a bridge 100 meters above the rapids of the river before. Wow.

As I said before, the town is pretty touristy, so there are lots of nice spas and things. I found one right down the street offering Deep Sports Massages for next to nothing, so I decided to indulge myself before I headed back to Quito. It was really good to get some of the tension out of my muscles before what is probably going to be, a hard week, physically.

After this, I packed up my stuff and ran down to the bus station to catch a bus to Quito. I was sure, this time, not to take Transporte Amazonas (remember that!). Instead, I took Transporte Baños, which was a much nicer experience. The bus stopped many fewer times, had a bathroom, and just felt a lot nicer. The trip out of Baños was beautiful, since it was still light (the sun had set by the time we got here on the way), so there were a lot of beautiful views of the mountains and valleys and such.

On the way over, we got a great view of Cotopaxi, the mountain I am set to climb this weekend, but unfortunately, it was too cloudly to see it on the way back. Bummer.

Anyways, the return trip was uneventful and I got back to my house in time for dinner. All in all, it was a fun trip, despite the watch being stolen. Baños is a really nice town and the nicest part was that it felt a lot safer than Quito. I never felt like I was going to get mugged (Wow, what a novel concept!).

Ok, well I have to go eat lunch now as this has taken quite a while. I will try and update some more this week.

Also, one final note, I learned that the word for ¨runner¨in Norwegian is basically the English word Loper (one who lopes). I don´t know about you, but I think being a loper is a pretty sweet title.