The Holidays on the Coast

December 21st--my first term as an English professor finished and within an hour I was headed on a night bus to Montañita, a relaxed coastal town in Ecuador, where I would spend Christmas and New Years and the days surrounding them on the beach with Andrew and his international travel buddies and close to twenty of my fellow WorldTeach-ers.

Once I arrived the next morning, I went to the cabana style hostel that we would be staying at. It was so relaxing and the waterfront was a welcomed change from the hustle and bustle of the Quito streets. That night, after dinner, we were able to meet up with Andrew´s friends as we passed them on the streets. The town is small enough that cell phones are a joke and if you want to meet up with someone, a quick vuelta around the block, will catch you up with them. The town of Montañita is a great getaway to dance in the streets to the sounds of bongo drums, with a fruit cocktail drink in your hand. The people were so friendly and one artisan in particular, Memo (short for Guillermo), took us under his wing for the holidays. Andrew and I met up with him for Christmas Eve dinner at midnight. We were joined for dinner by two musicians that we had actualy seen play the night before, another artisan from Canada, Honduras, ...you get the idea, a free spirit from Colombia and Memo´s mother, who prepared the meal.

Christmas Day was spent catching some rays on the beach with a few of my favorite World Teachers. Rough life, I know. After a few days of hanging out in Montañita, surfing, sunning, swimming and more, we headed off to Puerto Lopez, the hub city that connects you to different parts of the Coastal National Park Machalilla. Our first stop was Agua Blancas, a quiet, dusty little town where we toured the reservation and went camping. (Of course, it was the first night it rained since I´d been on the coast!) The next day we set out to Isla de la Plata, also coined as the Poor Man´s Galapagos. Here we were able to see the infamous piqueros con patas azules, better known as blue-footed boobies to the English speaking population. We then hopped on the boat and headed to snorkel for a bit in the water. My lack of knowledge of fish names makes for a boring description but the majority of them were similar to Dory in ¨Finding Nemo¨. My favorite were the shiny purple and black ones. The next day we headed to Los Frailes, a beautiful beach with the clearest water I´ve ever seen. The beahc area was surrounded by two points and formed a cove type feel. We took a walk down the beach to one of the points and were able to see hundreds of black crabs and admire the different forms of geology in one of the caves and upon the rocks we climbed. One thing to mention about our time in Puerto Lopez was getting to see the creation of the Burning Men for the New Year´s festivities. Every year, each household creates a giant paper mache doll and sets it aflame at Midnight. Some of the most creative and unique ones I saw were a Peruvian soccer player, Homer Simpson and ET.

On New Year´s Eve, we hurried back to Montañita for the festivites. Montañita is truly the city that never sleeps, or maybe just sleeps during weekdays and non-holidays. The night began with a campfire cookout at Hilary´s hostel, with fish, potatoes, sangria, and a delicious rice combination brought by Ava. Then we headed out and watched the fireworks and just before midnight watched as the hardcore surfers rushed into the waves for their first surf of the new year. At midnight, everyone was on the beach dancing and laughing and burning the Old Year. As fate would have it, in a crowd full of people, we somehow ended up next to Memo, his mom and ¨Colombia¨ and danced into the night. As we were beginning to fade, Memo´s mom said she needed a break and Colombia chimed in with ¨La alma nunca cansa¨ (The soul never tires). What a mantra to begin the New Year with. After the New Year, we spent one more day in the beloved coastal town and then headed to Guayaquil, where Andrew would take off to Lima by bus and from there to Buenos Aires by plane.

My time in Guayaquil was unfortunately a short one but fun nonetheless, we went to the Malecon 2000, along the waterfront, and visited the famous park that has iguanas roaming free throughout the grass and walkways. Along the Malecon, we visited the Museo de Banco Central of Guayaquil, which featured an art exhibit of Juan Villafuerte, an interesting painter from Ecuador who emphasized surrealism and human form. Finally, I headed out from the coast yesterday to take an all day bus to Quito. While I was originally not looking forward to it, it turned out to be alright, since I had an empty seat next to me and the vendors sold just the right things to eat at just the right times. One man had a small container of rice, chicken and vegetables for 75 cents..perfect!

This Monday, I head back to SECAP to teach a class of Basic I and another class of Basic II, which will be nice to have one class of the same curriculum and one with returning students. It will simply be difficult to say goodbye to the easy living of the past two weeks. Lucky for me, in just a few weeks, I head to the coast again for a teaching conference and can soak it up just a little more.

¡Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo! :)

¡Feliz Navidad de los niños!

Viva, la chiva! ...and other adventures in Quito

In my class last week, we learned the words to a Christmas song that had contractions in it too. The song I chose was none other than ¨All I Want for Christmas is You¨ by Mariah Carey. Come to find out I had to explain a lot of the things I would sometimes take for granted that everyone knows. For example, mistletoe, snow, making a list for Santa, ... They loved the song and wanted it played more than the girls at BC did during the entire month of December (cough, Lisa Schmidt, cough). I started to get a little sad that their version of Christmas was so different and that some of the fun traditions we have in the United States were lost in translation. Then I finally made a trip to El Jardin Centro de Comercio, aka a mall. While it wasn´t quite the same feel I was happy to see all the decorations for Christmas and was even lucky enough to see a gigantic tree lit up at night and a HippoSanta walking around saying hello to children and the occasional 22 year old American girl, who was instantly obsessed. We also put up the Christmas tree in the house last week with the help of the niños, Cesar and David. They were so enchanted by the lights, it took an hour after that to get them to bed. Overall, the differences here haven´t been too bad and I will spend the holidays with Andrew, possibly another friend from BC and close friends from this program on the Coast of Ecuador in a town outside of Montañita.

While Quito doesn´t celebrate the holidays the exactly same way, they do have one very cool tradition of celebrating their city with pride. Every major city in Latin America has a day or weekend that they celebrate their foundation, independence and culture. The people of Quito, on the other hand, spent the past week and a half celebrating just about everything. One afternoon, we were fortunate enough to encounter a free concert in El Plaza Teatro, and yet another free concert in Plaza Foch, after class one night. Another night, we came upon fireworks and a parade. Finally, though, our greatest experience within the Fiestas de Quito was our two hours in the chiva. A chiva is basically a glorified truck/trolley with people on the roof and in cargo and some seats that are benches inside. On top, there is a six person mariachi band, whistles and Viva Quito! flags, as well as canelazo (my new favorite spirited drink). The volunteers that are here with me in Quito were more than ready to embark on this adventure. We were joined by some of our Ecuadorian students and European friends, but for those two hours, we were all Ecuadorian and Quiteños at that. This chiva went around the city, including El Centro Historico and as we passed, everyone on the streets waved and cheered. It was a night to be remembered.

Today, I spent the day and I mean, the whole day, with my students in Parque Metropolitano. This park is HUGE! There was tons to do and was a great chance for my morning and night classes to make some new friends and partake in a friendly (ha, maybe not so friendly) game of soccer. We also did a little nature hike and ate lunch together. It was a very successful day, finished off by a visit to the Mariscal with a few of the twenty-somethings for shwarma and cerveza.