We're off in a few minutes for a trip in the jungle. Should be interesting. We're going to be near the Cuyabeno National Park (I think). Flying into Coca (hee-hee) this morning and taking a dugout canoe ride to the hotel. Naming a town "Coca" in the middle of the jungle in the is like naming a the local dive bar "Booze", so much so that I think they recently changed the name to Lago Agrio (sour lake).
Pictures will be forthcoming.
Oh, and we're missing the kickoff of the Dias de Quito on Sunday. We'll be returning to debauchery, outdoor festivities and general no work getting done around here stuff. It's like mardi gras, but colder, with fewer beads, and bull fights.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
car for sale
Today, in some way, marks the beginning of the end of the great Quito experiment. We put the car (technically a 4x4 suv, though small) on the market. The morning was taken up with getting a much needed clean up of the car - 5 people working on cleaning the interior, exterior, undercarriage and even the engine for a half hour for $8 - and "registering" the car at the patio (which, in some weird twist of language, is the ecuadorian spanish word for car dealership).
The little vitara was good to us and always got us where we needed to get to. I hope it finds a good home (and quickly, since we need to close the sale before we leave).
We're leaving in 4 short weeks, with many mixed emotions.
On a tangential note, related but not relevant to the above, the woman running the car wash asked me to help move several of the cars around during the washing of my car. Kind of strange. There wasn't a lot of room in the little garage, and a lot of cars, so they play this weird game with the cars - kind of like that game with the squares that you have to re-arrange to make a picture. I'm not sure why I was pressed into service, but there I was, backing other people's vehicles into tight corners, and trying to squeeze a pick up around other parked cars and up onto a ramp (elevated space with the gap under the tire lanes where someone can walk under the car). All this with a stick shift, and with not a lot of space in the pick up cab for me to fit. What fun.
Oh, yeah, and all the cars had proximity alarms, and alarms that went off when doors were opened, and, basically, alarms that went off all the time. Fun.
The little vitara was good to us and always got us where we needed to get to. I hope it finds a good home (and quickly, since we need to close the sale before we leave).
We're leaving in 4 short weeks, with many mixed emotions.
On a tangential note, related but not relevant to the above, the woman running the car wash asked me to help move several of the cars around during the washing of my car. Kind of strange. There wasn't a lot of room in the little garage, and a lot of cars, so they play this weird game with the cars - kind of like that game with the squares that you have to re-arrange to make a picture. I'm not sure why I was pressed into service, but there I was, backing other people's vehicles into tight corners, and trying to squeeze a pick up around other parked cars and up onto a ramp (elevated space with the gap under the tire lanes where someone can walk under the car). All this with a stick shift, and with not a lot of space in the pick up cab for me to fit. What fun.
Oh, yeah, and all the cars had proximity alarms, and alarms that went off when doors were opened, and, basically, alarms that went off all the time. Fun.
Monday, November 10, 2008
map of the trip
Pulled a map of Ecuador off the web and drew in the route of the week long trip we just finished. Covered a lot of miles and a lot of different terrain - high mountains, paramo, petrified forests, big cities, little towns, beach life, banana lands and arid mountain areas.
We traveled on some really bad roads, too. Indescribably bad roads. My lower back is still killing me.
A little hard to see, but the routes in the image below (in yellow). We went clock wise.
We traveled on some really bad roads, too. Indescribably bad roads. My lower back is still killing me.
A little hard to see, but the routes in the image below (in yellow). We went clock wise.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
In Cuenca
A and I decided to do some traveling this week, so we find ourselves way down south in Cuenca - which means that we aren´t checking our emails, our voicemails, or doing much in the way of interacting with the rest of the world.
Yes, we were able to catch the election results. We caught a couple hours of results on cnn (in English) over dinner, and then went back to our hotel, where we watched cnn (in Spanish). Amazing that Obama won - we were nervous and now happy.
Interesting notes on the difference between english and spanish cnn -- spanish commentators talk about race A LOT, which the PC people in the US tend to not do. Comments like "Iowa went to McCain, but there aren´t any black people there" were common throughout the evening. Very different. They also didn´t have access to all the cool gadgets, gizmos and analysis tools that the "US" version did.
Fun to hear election results in places like Dakota del Norte, Virginia Occidental, and Ciudad de Washington.
Aside from missing football games and major political events in the states, we´re having fun. Lots of driving, lots of amazing views and mountain roads. Most surreal moment to date -- going to a anthropological exhibit at a museum about the various indigenous groups in the country, and watching about a 100 people from some indigenous tribe walking through the exhibit, taking in the sights. I don´t know if there´s a metaphor for that weirdness. I guess it would be like going to an exhibit of strange religious sects across the history of the US, and finding yourself surrounded by Amish people checking out the exhibit. Strange in a good way.
Yes, we were able to catch the election results. We caught a couple hours of results on cnn (in English) over dinner, and then went back to our hotel, where we watched cnn (in Spanish). Amazing that Obama won - we were nervous and now happy.
Interesting notes on the difference between english and spanish cnn -- spanish commentators talk about race A LOT, which the PC people in the US tend to not do. Comments like "Iowa went to McCain, but there aren´t any black people there" were common throughout the evening. Very different. They also didn´t have access to all the cool gadgets, gizmos and analysis tools that the "US" version did.
Fun to hear election results in places like Dakota del Norte, Virginia Occidental, and Ciudad de Washington.
Aside from missing football games and major political events in the states, we´re having fun. Lots of driving, lots of amazing views and mountain roads. Most surreal moment to date -- going to a anthropological exhibit at a museum about the various indigenous groups in the country, and watching about a 100 people from some indigenous tribe walking through the exhibit, taking in the sights. I don´t know if there´s a metaphor for that weirdness. I guess it would be like going to an exhibit of strange religious sects across the history of the US, and finding yourself surrounded by Amish people checking out the exhibit. Strange in a good way.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
cab ride
strangest cab ride ever (or at least to date).
I got in a cab to go into the Northern part of town the other day - the part of town where I spent my more formative years, and where we don't tend to spend any time at all in the current chapter of our lives.
This was actually my second attempt to cab over to a mall and get a pair of headphones in the same day. Earlier, I had tried to take a cab across town in the middle of the lunch rush, with one of the main arteries through town (6 de Diciembre) shut down for protests (yes, protests and demonstrations are a big art of life here in the capital. It's usually missed, since we either work from home or walk everywhere). That cab attempt lasted about five minutes, when we progressed from on end of the block to the other, and I decided to table th trip until a better time.
so, I tried again a few hours later, when most of the city was back in their offices, or homes, or wherever they go during the workday. I hailed a cab, got in and we were off on our ride. As those that have visited here before know, it's a good idea to check and make sure that the cab has and is using a meter. It ameliorates the haggling, hastle and hurt feelings at the end of the trip. Instead of a meter, though, this cabbie had a little plasma tv, about the size of those handheld DVD players out there, taped to the lower dash board - down by the gear shift. There were wires taped all over the ceiling and running down to the little tv set, pulling the telenovela (latin soups) out of the ether. And the sound was turned all the way up.
Now, I know that there are souped up cabs in various cities across the US, providing commercials or other televised programs for riders in the back. And I know that there are now tvs in the back of all sorts of SUVs and luxury cars. But this wasn't tv for the passenger - this was tv for the driver. At ever light (and there were a lot) he'd stop, pull the emergency break (not sure what that was about, except that he wanted to rest his right foot), and watch the tv. When traffic around would get going again, he'd look up briefly and start driving, looking down periodically, for what I thought was a disconcertingly long time, before glancing up again.
To fully grasp the ludicrousness of this scenario, you have to understand what traffic is like in a developing country. First of all, we're in a tiny vehicle. Think mid-80's Sentra, and this thing is smaller. Second, there are few automatic cars, and this cab wasn't one of them, so the cab driver is shifting through the gears while not paying attention to where he's going. Third, and probably most important, traffic in this city, as in most latin countries, is crazy. There are cars goig through stop lights and red lights. Cars double or triple parked, in the middle of a thoroughfare - cars weaving between lanes, coming out of hiddent driveways, backing up from off of the sidewalk, and generally doing things that require the full attention of a driver and quick defensive tactics. And that's not even considering the hordes of people standing in the road between lanes, playing the part of matador against the car's bull impression.
Anyway, we made it to our final destination, eventually, and it turns out that there was a meter, and it was running, under the TV. Go figure.
I got in a cab to go into the Northern part of town the other day - the part of town where I spent my more formative years, and where we don't tend to spend any time at all in the current chapter of our lives.
This was actually my second attempt to cab over to a mall and get a pair of headphones in the same day. Earlier, I had tried to take a cab across town in the middle of the lunch rush, with one of the main arteries through town (6 de Diciembre) shut down for protests (yes, protests and demonstrations are a big art of life here in the capital. It's usually missed, since we either work from home or walk everywhere). That cab attempt lasted about five minutes, when we progressed from on end of the block to the other, and I decided to table th trip until a better time.
so, I tried again a few hours later, when most of the city was back in their offices, or homes, or wherever they go during the workday. I hailed a cab, got in and we were off on our ride. As those that have visited here before know, it's a good idea to check and make sure that the cab has and is using a meter. It ameliorates the haggling, hastle and hurt feelings at the end of the trip. Instead of a meter, though, this cabbie had a little plasma tv, about the size of those handheld DVD players out there, taped to the lower dash board - down by the gear shift. There were wires taped all over the ceiling and running down to the little tv set, pulling the telenovela (latin soups) out of the ether. And the sound was turned all the way up.
Now, I know that there are souped up cabs in various cities across the US, providing commercials or other televised programs for riders in the back. And I know that there are now tvs in the back of all sorts of SUVs and luxury cars. But this wasn't tv for the passenger - this was tv for the driver. At ever light (and there were a lot) he'd stop, pull the emergency break (not sure what that was about, except that he wanted to rest his right foot), and watch the tv. When traffic around would get going again, he'd look up briefly and start driving, looking down periodically, for what I thought was a disconcertingly long time, before glancing up again.
To fully grasp the ludicrousness of this scenario, you have to understand what traffic is like in a developing country. First of all, we're in a tiny vehicle. Think mid-80's Sentra, and this thing is smaller. Second, there are few automatic cars, and this cab wasn't one of them, so the cab driver is shifting through the gears while not paying attention to where he's going. Third, and probably most important, traffic in this city, as in most latin countries, is crazy. There are cars goig through stop lights and red lights. Cars double or triple parked, in the middle of a thoroughfare - cars weaving between lanes, coming out of hiddent driveways, backing up from off of the sidewalk, and generally doing things that require the full attention of a driver and quick defensive tactics. And that's not even considering the hordes of people standing in the road between lanes, playing the part of matador against the car's bull impression.
Anyway, we made it to our final destination, eventually, and it turns out that there was a meter, and it was running, under the TV. Go figure.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mamma Mia
We watched the movie Mamma Mia (I think there's an exclamation point in there) over two weeks ago, and I still have ABBA songs running through my head.
Speaking of running, I think the above's a mental shout out to the High Heel Races, taking place tonight (right now) in DC. I hope they aren't having the rain that we're having, or that's been a steady attendee to the event over the last couple of years.
Speaking of running, I think the above's a mental shout out to the High Heel Races, taking place tonight (right now) in DC. I hope they aren't having the rain that we're having, or that's been a steady attendee to the event over the last couple of years.
V portal has blown up
It's official. I stopped by the electronics store this morning and they can't get a new processor for the V portal. This sucks even more than usual because I'm in the middle of looking for new work, and it would help to have access to a phone.
I figured out that I can upgrade my account to get a desktop based system that links to my vonage number. This I've done - now I just have to find one of those microphone headset thingamabobs so I can test out the system and see how phone calls sound through the computer.
Keep your fingers crossed.
I figured out that I can upgrade my account to get a desktop based system that links to my vonage number. This I've done - now I just have to find one of those microphone headset thingamabobs so I can test out the system and see how phone calls sound through the computer.
Keep your fingers crossed.
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