Coasting along

On Sunday, I returned to Quito after spending 5 days on the coast of Ecuador.

I have a friend who works at Hosteria Alandaluz, an upscale eco-resort near the the town of Puerto Lopez, and I visited her, staying at her house while I was there. I didn’t have to pay for lodging, nor for food, since I ate with the staff.  Alandaluz is a beautiful place, with lots of gardens full of different species of palm trees, bright hibiscus flowers, and lots of butterflies, birds, and lizards. As well, Alandaluz is right next to the beach, whose soothing sounds can be heard from all over the grounds. While it´s dangerous to swim at this beach because the waves are so strong, it´s really relaxing to just stand on the shore and watch the waves.

On Thursday, I went on a whale-watching tour. Beforehand, I was convinced I wouldn’t see any whales; even if there were some to be seen, I’m usually terrible at spotting things. But I ended up seeing about 10 humpback (I think) whales!  I saw lots of dorsal fins, a few flukes (tails) and one  jump.

I met a really nice couple from the Chicago area who was also staying at Alandaluz, and I enjoyed getting to speak English for a change, and having people closer to my own age to hang out with.

I also loved getting to know the Alandaluz staff, and spending time with Kairu, my friend’s 8-year-old son. I discovered I have a minor talent for foosball – or maybe it’s just that it’s not one of Kairu’s fortes. Either way, I had fun playing with him.  It was also fun pretending to be a shark in the pool, and telling Kairu about Weird Al Yankovic´s spoofs of Michael Jackson songs. Kairu adores Michael Jackson.

Last night, when I was playing a card game with some people from Massachusetts, one of them remarked that Ecuador’s president was currently at Alandaluz; she had seen him come in. I was initially skeptical, thinking she’d probably just seen a doppelganger of the president. However, while I was having dinner in the restaurant with Kairu (having decided to splurge on a meal for my last night there), Rafael Correa himself walked in, and cordially greeted the staff nearby,  including my friend Cecy. He and his wife proceeded to sit down at a table right behind mine and Kairu’s.

I almost went up to Correa  and told him I was a fan of much of what he’s been doing for Ecuador (since he seems to me to be a very progressive president, concerned with improving areas such as education, health, and improving the quality of life of the poor), but it’s a good thing I first asked Cecy whether it would be appropriate to approach him, because she told me that he had expressly requested to be left alone. But it was a huge surprise – and  a good one – just to have been able to see him in person!

My host family aren’t such fans of Correa; my host father Marcelo is a journalist and basically says that Correa hates all journalists. I think that at times Marcelo has somewhat extreme opinions. Sometimes Maria Elena, his wife, steps in and counters with her different, usually-less-extreme, viewpoint. From my perspective,  anyway, Correa seems to be doing a lot of good things for Ecuador.

I had a 12-hour bus-ride back to Quito from Puerto Lopez, and I really enjoyed the views from the bus of  beaches and cliffs, chiseled hills covered in nubbly vegetation with tall palm trees rising up here and there, bamboo groves, banana plantations,  trees covered with a silky green skin that had wrinkles where branches met trunk, farms with a lone horse or donkey meandering through lush pasture, towns  traversed by open buses with people riding fearlessly on their roofs, and then the changing vegetation and fast-flowing rivers as we entered the mountainous sierra region. For much of my bus ride,  I sat next to a friendly older woman named Zoila who ended up being a great conversation partner. We talked about ourselves, about politics, about the scenery. I enjoyed listening to the various kinds of latin music playing over the bus´s sound system, most of it traditional kinds of music like salsa, mererengue, and old-fashioned Spanish-language love songs.

Well, I can’t find the adaptor I need in order to be able to charge my laptop’s battery, so I’m going to have to end this entry soon. In brief, today I went to the Centro Historico with Cecy, and later took a salsa lesson at a gym near my host family’s house. But It was a private lesson taught by a woman who sometimes left me alone while she went to attend to other clients in the gym. I’m going to try to find a salsa school where I can at least learn to dance with a partner.

I’m loving it here in Ecuador! I had been feeling dizzy and light-headed during the last few days before I went to the coast, and I had a cold, and had been feeling a bit sad. But now I’m as happy as a spondylus (rather than a clam – hee hee).  I have lots of energy, and lots of plans, including hiking a mountain called Pichincha (the mountain which overlooks Quito) with friends of my host family, volunteering with UBECI, an organization that works with street children and other at-risk youngsters and their families.  Here´s their website:  http://www.ubeci.org/

Well, that’s all for now.

Chao,

Sarita

Edit:  Yesterday I learned a lot from my host grandma about how Alandaluz has resulted in a lot of  natural vegetation being restored to the area, and that it has benefited the local communities and people a great deal. I also learned my friend Cecy (my host grandmother´s daughter) was a lot more involved in the development of Alandaluz, and related eco-projects, than I had known.  More on that later!

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