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.

Subir

Today was Benedicte and my first day at the hospital. Technically, it should have been yesterday, but due to some unforseen troubles with the organizer of our program, today was the day. We showed up at the Sol y Vida office and waited for the organizer (whose name I´m not sure of) to tell us what to do. I don´t think she likes us very much because she was talking in Spanish to another person there (I dont think she knew I could understand her) and was saying how she was annoyed that we were there and why did she need to show us around again... Uh oh.

Anyways, it turned out that the people we are working with are all very nice, so it´s ok. We don´t really ever have to talk to that woman... We started out in the big open waiting room area, where we will work on mondays and fridays. This was really intimidating and overwhelming for me. Basically, we had a table with a bunch of toys and books and things and kids and some mothers would come over to use it. It wasn´t that nice for us though, because the kids we usually with their parents, so they weren´t very social. It was kind of awkward to just sit and watch the kids play.

But after a few minutes, the same organizer woman came down and told us to go up to the fourth floor, where the long term patients were housed. We spent the rest of the day in a big play room with lots of children. This was actually a lot nicer. There were a lot of really nice nurses who introduced us to some of the kids and we basically spent the morning coloring and playing with blocks.

All in all, I think it´s going to be a good experience. I´m hoping that we can also do some more medically relivant things, but I guess we´ll see.

I also just paid my Cotopaxi guide, so I´m officially going to climb next weekend (9/20-21). I´m pretty pumped.

Super Dooper High

So, I have a while here again, so I´m going to upload some more pictures. I haven´t taken many other than today, when I took quite a few. So first, here are a few from a few days ago.

This is the view from our dining room. There´s a nice little balcony where there are often hummingbirds and a nice view of the Northern part of the city.

I´m not sure if you can see this well, but to show Ecuador´s technological status, here is a BETA cassette player that´s in my room. Very classy.

This morning was pretty exciting. Benedicte and I decided to head over to the TeleferiQo, the big tourist attraction in Quito. The TeleferiQo is a multimillion dollar cable car that goes up the side of part of Ruca Pinchicha, a pretty sizeable mountain on the North side of Quito.

We arrived pretty early, to unknowingly beat the crowd, so we got basically right on the cable car. It´s a pretty nervewracking ride if you don´t like heights or rickety machinary. The ride takes about ten minutes and leaves you at a plateau about 80% of the way up Ruca Pinchicha. The altitude here is about 4100 meters, or about 13400 feet. It´s actually quite a noticable difference from Quito, which is about 2900 meters, or 9500 feet.

This is a shot from the start of the TeleferiQo. As you can see, Quito is already pretty far down!

Once we got to the top of the TeleferiQo, we sort of explored the area up there. It was really pretty already, but I wanted to explore the mountains some more than just the few minutes worth of trails that were inside the official TeleferiQo zone. So, we walked over to a barbed wire fence (which everyone seemed to be ignoring), and past the sign which warned that we were no longer under TeleferiQo security, and headed into the Andes.

We walked past a place where you could rent horses and there were still a good amount of people around us, so we felt pretty safe. We had heard some people talk about robberies happening up in the hills, so we were a little cautious.

After about a kilometer, it was just us, but the area was very open, so we still felt pretty comfortable. The trail was well walked but very steep at points. The added bonus of being 14000 feet up took a pretty serious tole on our staminas. We stopped to rest every few minutes.

One thing that was really cool to see were the airplanes taking off from the Quito airport. Keep in mind that Quito is 2900 meters above sea level, and the planes coming into the city were a good ways BELOW us. It was quite something.

Here I about a kilometer before we turned around. This was one of the only times you could see the top of the Volcan as it is usually surrounded by clouds.

Eventually we came to the crest of a hill and saw a person just sort of sitting there and looking a bit sketchy, so we decided to head back. At this point, though, we were probably about 85% of the way up the trail to the summit of Guagua Pinchincha, so I would estimate that we climbed about 1000 meters.

Here is my flatmate, Benedicte, near the top of Guagua Pinchincha. It was pretty high up!

The walk back down was, needless to say, a lot easier. We took the TeleferiQo back to Quito and that was that. All in all, it was a very tiring experience.

Lunch and some relaxing and then I willed my legs to take me for a run. I ran the same loop I have run now for the past five days (down to the Parque Carolína and back). I felt surprisingly good (maybe all the time up at that higher altitude did me some good?), so I did a bit of fast running to test out my lungs and legs. I ran nice and easy down to the Park and then did two pretty quick miles around the park (around 6:20 and 6:10). Again, I think the rule of 60-90 seconds per mile slower than effor applies here because I felt like I was running more like 5:00 effort.

Now, I´m in the internet cafe down the street and I think I may go buy a whole loaf of bread to refuel from all of the calories I´ve burned today! Wahoo!

Picturas!

Greetings! I finally figured out how to upload pictures, so to start let me explain a few of these:

This is a shot from the first plane ride. I just thought it was cool.

Here is a picture that tries to capture the sunset over the Andes from my flight to Quito. I don´t know if you´ll be able to really see what it is, but I thought I would at least try.

Again, this looks really dark on this computer so I don´t know if it will work, but this is a shot of Quito from the air when we flew in. The city is laid out like a long, narrow rectangle because of the mountains on either side.

This is part of my room. As you can see, it´s very nice and quite well furnished.

Another shot of my room. My bed is HUGE!

This is the view from my window this morning. As you can see my house is pretty close to the mountains. In the mornings there are usually a lot of clouds that hover around the mountains. It can be quite stunning.

This is a shot from the roof of our house looking the long way down the city. It is quite sprawling and goes just about as far in the other direction!

Well, that´s all the pictures that I have the time and patience to upload right now. Things here are going pretty well. I´ve had some quite intense spanish classes, about six hours per day, which are really tiring me out. So far I have been pretty lame. I basically get up, eat breakfast, run, rest, eat lunch, go to spanish school, come home and eat dinner and go to sleep at like 9:00. I´m so cool...

I was able to run again yesterday, which went pretty well, around 7:20 pace for the same loop. Again, it went ok until the half mile relatively steep hill at the end of the loop. That is pretty killer. I doubt I was running much faster than 10 or 11 minute pace there.

Lo que bueno is that we have the whole weekend free, so Benedicte and I are going to get to know the city a bit. I think we might go out to a club or bar tonight and then go to the big shopping mall area tomorrow. I need to buy some warmer clothes!

Yesterday, we toured the hospital where we are going to be working. It is very, very poor and disorganized and clear that they could use some help. However, since they are pretty unorganized, it´s unclear exactly what we are going to be doing. We start on monday, so I guess we´ll see then.

I think that my spanish is actually improving quite a bit, even over just a few days. I can basically understand everyone, it´s just difficult for me to speak. Hopefully my speaking will get better so I can really start to communicate with people.

Ok, well I´m going to try and go run again. I will try and update again in the next few days.

Super High!

Greetings from 10,000 feet above sea level. It´s been a hectic few days but I´ll try and recap the best that I can.

Monday was travel day. I woke up pretty early and didnt end up doing the time trial. I couldn´t sleep too well the night before, so I just did a nice easy two miler in my neighborhood. My parents took me to the airport where we sat around a bit (having gotten there super early) and then I went through security and I was on my own. I was pretty relaxed because I had taken two doses of Ativan by the time I got on the plane, so I actually was feeling pretty good. However, it turned out that we ended up sitting at the gate for an hour before actually taking off, so by the time the flight got underway, most of my relaxation had turned back into post-benzo-anxiety.

Nonetheless, the flight was fine and I landed in Miami with over two hours to make the connection. Also, it just so happened that on my flight to Miami, I sat next to a girl from Carleton who was also connecting through Miami to Quito. For some reason, it actually made me feel a lot better to know that there was someone else in my situation that would be there. We exchanged emails, so I at least felt like I had some sort of contact.

In Miami, I grabbed some shitty, overpriced food and sat around, waiting for my flight. This time, to avoid the situation from the first flight, I took my Ativan pretty close to the time of the flight. However, even with this, our flight managed to be delayed for some sort of ¨mechanical problem¨ and thus I was again pretty anxious on the flight.

Once we got up in the air though, it was one of the most beautiful experiences I´ve ever been a part of. We flew above one layer of thick clouds and below another hazy section. I was in the window on the right side of the plane and, since we were flying south, I was able to watch the sunset through these clouds. It literally looked like we were in some sort of acid-trip, space-time thing. It´s impossible to describe and unfortunately I wasn´t really able to capture it with my camera. Oh well.

It was also really beautiful to fly over Quito and see the whole city lit up. When the plane landed, we were ushered into passport control and customs, which was much less intimidating than I had imagined. Pretty simple actually.

One of the things I was most anxious about was meeting up with the i-to-i people at the airport. Luckily, it was pretty simple, as well. Gaby, my in country coordinator, was waiting with a big sign right outside of customs. She was there with a driver and another girl who was also staying in Ecuador. Also, Gaby spoke to me in English, which was yet another pleasant surprise.

We drove through the city to my homestay home where I was dropped off. I walked up the four flights of stairs (which took A LOT out of me seeing that I had been at altitude for all of an hour or so) and met my Mother, María. I basically just fell into bed and fell asleep.

Tuesday, Sept. 02.
I woke up around 7:30 and unpacked. My room is huge! It´s probably about the same size as my room at home. I also have my own bathroom with a shower, toilet, and hot water. The flat we are staying in is really nice on the whole. I´m actually not sure how many people live in it...

Anyways, I woke up and unpacked and then had breakfast at 8:00 with my host Mother. It was a little stressful, as she does not speak English and was interrogating me about everything from my parents, brother, life, girlfriend, etc. After breakfast, I finally met Benedicte, a Norwegian girl who is also staying in my house and is working at the same project as me. The two of us then headed to the i-to-i office to meet the rest of the Ecuador volunteers and go through orientation.

There were about 8 volunteers total, and I was the youngest. There was one other 18 year old girl from England and the others were all in their mid to late 20s. We talked with Gaby, the program head, for a bit, and then hopped in a van and headed to el Mitad del Mundo (the site of the equator). It was a little touristy, but ok. Some of the science was actually interesting (why the water spins one way when draining and the opposite only a few feet away.

After this we headed back to the office and had the real orientation, where Gaby went over a lot of the safety and other such things. It was pretty slow and boring, but it was ok. Around 4:00, those of us who had signed up for Spanish lessons split up and met with our teachers. This was actually incredibly helpful. It turns out I´m probably one of the more knowledgable speakers in the group (NOT what I expected). The lesson was one on one with a teacher and entirely in Spanish for about 3 hours. It was super intense, but really helpful. We not only went over some grammar but mostly just got experience talking and listening. Also, she was helpful in telling me some important things to know about Ecuador y Quito (do NOT climb the mountains without a guide, no matter how experienced you are).

Finally, Benedicte and I were picked up and taken back to our homestay. We had a delicious dinner and then went for a walk to try and find a cellphone store. The city does seem pretty dangerous after dark. Even I would not want to go out alone, and I certainly would not as a woman.

One thing that is really nice, though, is how cheap everything here is. For example, in this internet cafe, it costs $0.70 per HOUR. A bottle of spring water costs $0.10, the most expensive cab ride would be $1.50.

Anyways, we found a cell phone store but didn´t buy any since we didn´t bring any money (one should not walk around with more than a few dollars and a phone is 45). Benedicte and I seem to be getting along quite well. She speaks very good English, which is a nice break from the intensity of constant spanish. We are thinking of doing some traveling around the country, since we have the weekends free. Traveling is also very cheap here. The longest bus ride (500km) costs about $15 and the most expensive hotel is about $10 per night. It seems silly NOT to take advantage of this!

That´s about all for now. I might try and go for a run at some point today, but we´ll see. The stairs still give me some trouble!

Halfway there

One plane ride down, one to go.

I hate airplanes so much. If the world weren't so interesting, I'd have a hard time justifying travel at all. This whole day has been pretty blurry (partially due to the fact that I downed a few ativan before the flight...).

I didn't sleep last night much at all, so I called off the time trial this morning. I did end up running, of course, but not very much. I ran out to the end of the neighborhood and back, totaling around 2 miles. The pace was slow, but I just felt awkward. It was probably the lack of sleep.

We managed to get all my stuff packed up and in the car by 8:00 or so. So, naturally, I got to the airport with a ridiculous amount of time to kill. Luckily, it's labor day, so the airport is pretty quiet (at least Logan was). I sat around for an hour or so with my parents and then bid adieu and headed through security.

I only had a few minutes to kill then and then I got on the plane. I hate planes. I may have mentioned this before. There's just something in everyone's DNA that notices how unnatural the act of being 40,000 feet up in the air is. It takes a while to learn to repress that.

In actuality, my flight was fine. I sat next to a nice girl who happened to also be going to Quito through Miami. We talked a bit and exchanged emails, which is nice because I now know of someone in the country who definitely speaks English and is interesting.

Most of the flight I was half-asleep watching Maid of Honor, possibly the worst movie I've ever seen (why is that a trend with on-flight movies...?). Luckily, I slept through a lot of it.

And so now I'm in Miami International Airport, chillin like a villain. I have a few hours to kill before my flight to Quito, so I figured I would update this and grab some food. Unfortunately, my new friend from the first flight was connecting on an earlier connection, so I have nobody to talk to :(. Oh well!

Right, well I'm going to go get some food. I haven't eaten anything with real sustance all day, so I'm going to go get a piece of pizza or something.

And They're Off!

It’s technically already Monday. I have quite a day ahead of me. I’ve been quite busy the last few days, and it seems likely that I’m only going to get more busy from here on. I leave in the morning.

I only have a minute but I must say a few things. Last night (Saturday) I went down to Amherst to visit Annie. It was pretty wonderful to see her.

In the morning I might do a 5k time trial depending on how I feel. It’s quite late and I have to get up mad early.

Anyways, I had this long entry I was going to write but I’m super tired right now. I have no idea when the first time is that I’ll be able to get to an internet café. Maybe I’ll be able to write in my layover in Miami.