AWOL! Em and Chris in South America

It makes me sad to have to write this post, even after a frustrating and hectic day in which Ecuadorian annoyances were in abundant supply. The short list: internet was totally down all day which did not help in organizing things for our trip, jumping through bureaucratic hoops just to get a certificate for Thandi which only lasts 48 hours and is only used to get yet another certificate in Quito so she can leave the country, trying to pick up our passports (time of day 12:30pm) which I’m sure were ready for pickup only to be informed that I was supposed to pick them up in the “afternoon” (i.e. after the 3 hour lunch) just because our receipt said so.

It has been a long day. But at the end of it all I find myself here looking back at our trip and feeling nostalgic already, even though technically we haven’t even finished yet! I’m sure you know the feeling. We have had a really good time here in Ecuador and in South America in general. Even now I know that we will probably look back on this as one of the most enjoyable times of our lives. We have seen and experienced so much. The best thing about our stay in Cuenca has probably been the community that we have had, both with fellow English teachers and with our host family. AND my brother came down to visit a month ago (I meant to make a post about it because we had an awesome time). He and I had a lot of time just to bro down. It has been a long time since we have been able to spend some quality time like that.

Even in little ways there is so much we are going to take back with us. Just a couple weeks ago, Em and I went up to visit a few of the surrounding towns. One of them is a pueblito called Principal. That day it was the “changing of the guard” for the Peace Corps volunteer Matthew, who was leaving his work of two years to move on to something else. One of his principal projects was to build a community center. One of the primary features of this community center was its loudspeaker. Throughout the day we heard various announcements go booming through the valleys, most of them about the “dia de la madre” celebration that night. At one point we busted out laughing because they used it to summon Matt (Mateo) to his farewell dinner and final meeting with the Grupo Turismo that he helped establish. Little did we know we were to be featured in blaring tones ourselves. Em unwittingly locked us out of our hostel room that night, so we searched around for the hostel owner. Usually she wasn’t hard to find in the tiny town. We asked one of the people we recognized from earlier in the day and were standing on the corner amongst a small throng of people gathered for the celebration…when suddenly, echoing amongst the hills and valleys “Anabela, Anabela los extranjeros perdieron las llaves.….Necesitan las llaves…las llaves…llaves” It was that time of night when sound travels forever too. So everybody within a couple mile radius now knew there were a couple idiot gringos staying at the hostel in Principal who had lost the keys.

And now its time for the gringos to head back home. We don’t know what the future holds for us back in the states, I still have a lot of school to do. Emily doesn’t know what to do about a job….who knows what will happen. What I do hope though is that we will be able to do this again sometime down the road. There is so much to see and do in this life that it feels criminal to just let it pass on by. So, our dear readers, if I can say one thing it is this: do not let your dreams slip away. Find a way to chase after them. I am blessed to have a wife who took something that I had always wanted to do and helped turn it into reality. Things didn’t turn out like we had planned, our Spanish is still only barely passable and I hardly got anywhere with school due to various hang-ups (including my own). But if we had not done this, we would have missed out on so, so, so much.

Sadly, Cuenca, Ecuador, South America, we have to say goodbye for now. Gracias por todo. Ojala podamos volver pronto!

As one of the gems of the natural world it is unfortunate that, even as protected as it is, the Galapagos Islands are suffering from the same issues that threaten the diversity of much of the world. It is something that has been weighing on me more and more as time goes on. Not just the problems in the Galapagos, but the problems everywhere. Whether you believe in the faulty step in the garden of Eden or in the need of species to dominate and thrive whatever the costs, there is no denying that at the core of the human race are two things that are currently spelling disaster for our domain: ingenuity and selfish oblivion. Ingenuity is great, but we’re careening along inventing, innovating like a bull through a china shop. And the tough thing is that there are many aspects of human dominance of the planet that are not innately evil. In the little world of the Galapagos, sure, there are some things that are downright illegal and cause significant damage—such as the black market trade of sea cucumbers and shark fins—but there are others that are causing far more damage that are completely innocent byproducts of people living on the islands. For the longest time, introduced animals plagued the islands. Goats, rats and dogs decimated the landscape and certain populations of animals. Now there are programs that have mostly eradicated the animal invaders. But, the saga continues, and is much more difficult to control. Two introduced plants are currently running rampant on the islands: Mora (raspberry) and Guava. Basically, they both are widely popular with both humans and animals and both are extremely hardy and fast growing. We drove by patches of San Cristobal that were completely covered by the thorny mora vines. On Isabela there were fields and fields of wild guava. These plants are destroying the habitat of endemic species, which will trickle down, leading to disruptions in the ecosystem and probable extinctions down the road.

I don’t know, starting this little blog I had a lot to say. But basically what it boils down to is this one sad fact. We are a plague to our own earth. The problem is, like the innocent plants above, like global warming or the countless other expansions, damages, extinctions, whatever else…it’s not like we’re trying to destroy our world. While you have the poachers, criminals and evil corporations of the world, most of us are just trying to get by. In exponential terms. We are the weeds that spring up everywhere. Having children, trying to make money, pursuing our dreams, our passions and our needs. Human life is beautiful, rich and sacred. The tragedy is that we are hurtling on so absorbed in all of it. We can’t slow down. We increase in number exponentially, our technology is advancing exponentially and we are destroying everything except for the things we need to keep on going. Our intelligence is a double-edged sword. Whether we are still trapped in the evolutionary drive to reproduce and prosper, or whether we are trapped in an age-old curse, there is no avoiding the fact that we are nowhere near a point of balance. We have the capacity intellectually, spiritually and technologically to start protecting and benefiting our planet, our livelihood, our home. Yet we are failing ourselves. I do it on a daily basis as do every one of you. I honestly don’t know where to start in our own lives. I want a comfortable and enjoyable life just as much as the next person. I want to make money, buy a house, build a little koi pond and garden in the back. Yet, it is my hope that for myself and all of us, that on the global scale we can learn how to slow down, stop the mad spin, and begin changes, large and small, that we need to avoid a lot of pain in the future.

Well, it’s a bit after the fact, so the post is not going to exactly have the more biting, fuming flavor that it deserves. But the story is amusing (it wasn’t at the time though!).

So.

We told you about getting to the Galapagos and how wonderful it was and yadda yadda, great experiences of life, etc. Well, actually getting on to the islands themselves was one of the biggest headaches and string of complications that we have yet experienced in our whole trip in South America.

It was a dark and stormy night…dun dun dun….and we left Cuenca on the bus towards Guayaquil so we could catch our flight the next morning. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was playing (hence our inspired post titles), beautifully rendered in dubbed Spanish. I was half-watching the movie, and really, even if it were in English and I paid attention, I don’t know if it would have made any more sense….but I digress. Right. It was a dark and stormy night, the bus winding through the treacherous Andean passes, when, suddenly, or rather, gradually, we came to a stop. “No hay paso” murmurs ominously through the bus as we speculate the reason for the delay. The bus starts up again, the bus ayudante assures us that there is a way and we will be heading to Guayaquil. We continue on, uneasiness pressed around us like the vapor clinging to the chilled windows. The bus stops again. “No hay paso” murmurs from one passenger to the next, we are sure this time that we will have to turn back. Storms and mud slides had blocked the route. Inevitably, the bus does turn around and we again head off into the darkness, destination unknown. Emily, at this point, asks the driver if we are still going to Guayaquil. Yes, yes, don’t worry we are going another way. BACK THROUGH CUENCA, is what he didn’t tell us. A couple hours later, things started looking familiar as I gazed out the window and it dawned on me that they shouldn’t be looking familiar. Sure enough, Mall del Rio loomed out of the mist in all its neon glory. We had returned. Only to go another route which takes even longer than the first. Clint Eastwood had long faded from the TV in a blaze of bullet-ricochets and bad gun posturing, and here we were on our way, once again, to Guayaquil.

We finally got there at around three in the morning which is a bad time to be out and about in ye ole Guayas. Stepping into a cab, I managed to sink my foot into one of the most vile gutters that my foot yet has to experience. The cab driver then proceeds to get lost. Now being ‘lost’ with a Guayaquil cab driver at three in the morning is exactly what we were afraid of. Lucky for us (the only thing that did go “right!”) he genuinely was lost. He made some calls, and we eventually made it to the hostel, were ushered in by a topless, long haired guy with man boobs, and finally, after I got the stinking muck off of my shoe, we were able to sleep.

Only to discover the next day that we would not be flying to the Galapagos after all.

Yeah, we had ordered an organized tour through a travel agency in Quito and a few weeks prior they sent us scans of the tickets and told us that they were e-tickets. Well, Emily and I didn’t like the look of these e-tickets so we asked several times if they were sure that this would work. They assured us they would. They did not.

Despite my dramatic rendition (attempt) of the bus ride, this was actually the most painful part of the trip. The agency refused to take fault for messing things up, and while they said they were trying to work things out with the airlines, we (Emily mostly, poor thing) had to baby-sit the travel agent through practically every step of the way to get things fixed. Flights to the Galapagos are always full or at near capacity so it was very difficult working things out. Finally at one point, after about 6 hours of back and forth, talking with the airline guy in Spanish with a very thick Guayas accent and with the agent in Quito, we were fed up and got one of the airline managers who spoke English. The agent had told us that we, for sure, had a flight going out, we tried to confirm this with the manager and he said no, we are on a WAITING LIST….not what we wanted to hear. I told him that the agent kept blaming the airline, he got pretty angry and talked with the agent, put the agent in her place and we finally got a confirmed flight. Eleven hours in the airport and two days later we were FINALLY in the air and on our way to one of the coolest places on earth.

Yay, and good riddance to Guayaquil!