Salud, Deniro, Armor

In Ecuador, when you sneeze, there is a three tiered progression of what you say equivalent to "bless you" - but there are three words for consecutive occasions: Salud, Deniro, Amor.

Salud - health
At the weekend we visited Baños, a small town nestled under an active volcano, named after its thermal baths. With 12 students from the school going, the group was almost unmanageably big and there was a lot of waiting around for people. Contrary to foreign office advice, we didn't check the volcanic activity before we left.

The baths themselves came in different temperatures from scalding to pleasantly warm to freezing. Despite being packed, moving between the pools was a calming experience. In Baños there are wheelchair ramps on and off every pavement in the town - this was the first time I had seen this in Ecuador. From this, I deduced that there must be a belief in the healing properties of the baths, which calls to mind the gospel story of Jesus healing the crippled man at the baths (ref, anyone?). Whether my deduction is correct or not, the baths were certainly very good for the muscles after a day on mountain bikes.

Unlike some of the other students, I have have yet to fall foul of any nasty bugs in food.

Dinero - Money
In tourist towns such as Baños, all you need is a very little money and everything is easy. Our mountain bike tour took us east and downhill through breathtaking scenery, where the startling Andean valleys run into to the dense Amazonian jungle. Standing close to the bottom of the Cascada del Diablo (waterfall of the devil), you get soaked - but it is well worth it - being so close to the awesome power of the water is an almost spiritual experience. There are then vans on standby to drive you back up the hill - hence why everything is easy! The next day we all went rafting in the rapids lower down the river, where the massive waterfalls give way to the flatness of Amazon basin.

But cash can be a problem here. Cash machines dish out $20 notes, but in many contexts people won't accept anything bigger than a $5 - and small change is much more convenient. Consequently, one has to make a conscious effort to hoard change and break a note whenever the opportunity arises.

Amor - Love
Or Not? There a slightly unsettling phenomenon in Quito of "Gringohunters" - Locals who try to start a romantic relationship with tourists with the hope of being taken to a western country. (I suppose this could have fitted under Dinero, but I needed something for the Armor space!) But I think I am safe, as I don't think I am the type to fall for this - I intend to have more contact with locals in the coming weeks - It is the best way to practice my Spanish.

Enjoyable as all this tourism is, I am now starting to look forward to getting a little off the beaten track - both in the hopefully more challenging volunteering role I will be doing in Lima, and later, atop mountains in the Cordillera Blanca. Feeling settled here with the other students in the school, I am also starting to look forward to the next challenge of travelling solo to Lima - something I had earlier been apprehensive about.

Deseo te tener mucho Salud, Deniro y Amor,

FC

Subimos una montaña, ahora somos andinistos

This weekend a referendum took place in Ecuador on whether the constitution should be changed to try to reduce corruption. Interestingly, voting is compulsory, and no alcohol could be sold or consumed all weekend.

With the political instability of Ecuador, anything could happen. So it seemed a good weekend to get out of Quito. With a couple of German gringos (K and A) I headed 50 km south to climb Volcan Illiza. At 5118m, this would be the highest mountain I had ever climbed (pt. Lenana on Mount Kenya is 4985m). Given this, I was worried that my atitude to this trip might have been too relaxed. I needn't have been. As it turned out, I was the most prepared of anyone to climb the mountain.

On Friday (Viernes) night we were the only people in the hostel in the small town of Chaupi at 3800m . On Saturday (Sabado) we climbed to the refuge at 4600m. "A" then decided to climb the rest of the mountain that day with a big Ecuadorian party who were at the hut. He was pretty intent on it, despite our advice on acclimatisation and the daily weather patterns (clearer in the morning, wet in the afternoon) . Myself and K climbed a little higher then waited out the rest of the day at the hut.

Just after dark, the Ecuadorians and "A" returned, wet and cold, and about three hours late. A tricky scramble with a big inexperienced group does not make for a quick outing. The Ecuadorians wanted to descend to the town that evening. They set out down the path but soon returned, having decided that they had got wet and cold enough for one day. They were completely unprepared for a night in the hut, so we shared our clothes and food with them. Unsurprisingly "A" had a horrible headache and got no sleep.

The next day, myself and K ascended in the dry of the morning to the summit of Iliniza Norte. We had some great views, although the summit was cloudy. Ilinaza Norte sits hidden behind Illinza Sud which takes the brunt of the prevailing weather. Much of the time the southern sister has its own lenticular cloud and the associated extra snow makes it a technically difficult climb.

The route was not dissimilar to a Skye scramble with a small snow patches - except at 5 times the altitude. An enjoyable scramble, but not beyond our abilities. We were back at the hut in 4 hours - it had taken the other group 7. I was pleased that the altitude had not been a major problem. This bodes well for the later higher Peruvian peaks I plan to climb. Being in Quito at 2800m was definitely a good start, and the acclimatisation process above was just about sufficiently slow.

Overall it was great to get out of Quito and away from western malls and the such like - these are not what I came to south America for. In the rural areas, travelling on the chaos of the local buses it suddenly became much clearer that Ecuador is very much a developing nation. The cost of the weekend was incredible: Buses $4. Hostel $10. Hut (El Refugio) $8. Food $8. Return "taxi" up some of the mountain $8. Park fees $5. Total $43. In the Alps, the same would have cost $150+.

My Spanish is progressing, but not as fast as I would like. Some days progress is exciting and I come in after 6 hours of Spanish wanting to do more. Others days, lack of progress is frustrating, particularly when locals don't understand me. One of our teachers in particular is a real personality and enjoys telling us dirty jokes in Spanish! This week I will take some private lessons with the intention of speaking more than we get to in the group lessons. Soon I want to get to the stage where I can speak without thinking first - I need to start thinking in Spanish.

Andinisto is one of my favorite words so far - it means one who climbs in the Andes.

Hasta la proxima vez,

FC

The langauge barrier - Quito, Ecuador

So I changed my mind on having a blog. Puede ser, far from friends in an alien environment, it can be an outlet to express myself.

The journey here, although long and tiring, went fine with no problems. So here I am, in Quito, Ecuador - with 5 exciting months on this amazing continent ahead of me.

I'm not sure why I have this drive to set myself challenges. This language barrier is not going to be an easy one, but there really is no backing out of it now.

My expectations of what Spanish I had already learnt, and the rate at which I would progress were probably a little over optimistic. But one guy arrived here two weeks ago without a word of Spanish - and from what he says I’m fairly glad I didn’t attempt that! I can usually express myself on simple matters, but struggle to understand most of what is said back to me.

I've only had two days of lessons, but I can see that even with an easy language such as Spanish, there are no shortcuts, and no substitute for time and effort. I've upgraded to the intensive course with 6 hours per day - this is what most others seem to be doing. I only have a month, and I have a lot to learn. I’m hoping that even with this there will still be plenty of time to explore Quito and its environs.

“Solo Espagnol” is the mantra of the college. Whilst I understand the motivation behind this it does create some difficulties. The mantra applies to administrivia too and on the first day this left me with a feeling that I might be missing some important information! In the lessons I sometimes feel that time is wasted trying to explain new words with charades or roundabout descriptions using existing Spanish vocabulary. As a scientist, I think the way I learn requires an understanding of the how and why of things – and for now it can be difficult to get to the bottom of complex questions in Spanish. So whilst I appreciate Spanish only philosophy, I question whether for me, at my level, it is the ideal approach. However, I know it will only get better as I progress.

Despite the above gripes, the college, students and teachers are great, and I am sure my Spanish will come on leaps and bounds. It probably already has – though it may be hard to see this at the time. I seem to know more grammar than the other students in my group. But I have a lot of vocab to learn and I am wondering whether I this may be a weakness of mine. New words don’t stick as easily in my head as I would like. But perhaps there are just too many too quickly, and my expectations are again too high. I hope to find a procedure for fixing new vocab (suggestions welcome). Reading through lists doesn’t do it – I think it has to be used in context, repeatedly.

The language college has a great international feel with Swedes, Swiss, German, French Canadian, Americans, Australians - but no other Brits. I think perhaps this indicates something about our nation's attitude to languages.

Outwith lessons, English is the lingua franca between the students. For most of them it's not their first language and so they get some educational benefit by using it. For me, of course, using English is a hindrance to my progression in Spanish. In my first 48 hours I spoke no English to anyone. Not having any outlet to express oneself is mentally quite challenging. I think realistically, for my sanity, with my current and foreseeable level of Spanish, I will be using English with Los Gringos (and yes, Ben, I accept your disdain).

The family are nice, but there are not many opportunities to be social and practice my Spanish with them. They don’t naturally talk down to me - so I expect to be using “¿Peude abla mas despacio, por favor?” plenty more times! It’s a lot easier to understand the Spanish of the students, even those much better than me - so I must the effort to use Spanish with them whenever possible.

After reading the Lonely Planet’s over-cautious section on crime in Quito, one might be reluctant to ever set foot outside the front door - or travel on the buses, or visit the town center. Thankfully I got past this and with a little vigilance and sense am now confident enough to explore, though I have not had much time to do this as yet.

The person next to me in the internet café just googled “manifesta communista” – but of course it would be foolish to read anything about south American politics from such a single anecdote.

Quito is a great place from which to make excursions out. A number of plans are in the offing, and there will always be people up for doing stuff. It may even be possible to find a companion for the overland journey down to Lima.

Comments welcome, then I will know someone is reading this! I don’t expect later entries to be quite this long!
Asta luesta.

FC