Carnaval Weekend

We have just come off of a 4 day weekend here in Ecuador. This holiday is celebrated all across South America with much enthusiasm. As a way of celebrating people throw water balloons, buckets of water, and spray one another with sticky foam. Despite the calendar saying that Carnaval was only one weekend, people have been celebrating since the second week we were here. A friend of mine got blind sided with a frozen balloon while walking home from the training center. Ecuadorian kids have a great sense of humor.

While I did not get “celebrated on”, as many unsuspecting bystanders did, I was involved in a foam fight. The women in our training group thought they would pull a fast one and attack us on Friday after classes. Luckily, I caught wind of this a day in advance and came prepared. We were all gathered for a picture after classes and were quickly ambushed. I tossed out the bottles of foam to fellow male volunteers and the fight was on. At the conclusion of the fight we were all sticky and smelly. It is good to regress to a childlike state of mentality ever so often. 

This was the beginning of a great weekend. Initially, my family had planned to go to a province in the South of Ecuador, Loja. This area is 16 hours away by bus. I was excited to get to visit this area of the country. As plans were becoming solidified, I spoke with the Peace Corps about my weekend travel plans. They had reservations about the distance that I would be traveling over such a short period of time. Long story short, I was not allowed to travel this far off province. After informing my family that I could not join them they quickly decided we would all do something different. They had no reservations about completely changing their plans because I was unable to go. I insisted they go on their vacation. I told them it was unfair to the family. They repeatedly told me that I was a part of the family and they would never go on vacation if one of their own kids were unable to go. It was another lesson on how close families are here in Ecuador. It is pretty incredible how they do not view me as a guest but simply another one of the kids. This is also apparent when you look at my chore list.

The new plans for our weekend were to go to thermal baths (hot springs) in a neighboring province. We went for a day trip and took my host dad’s semi. The hot springs, Papallacta, are situated right at the beginning of the Amazon rainforest. As we climbed higher and higher into the mountains and closer to the Amazon the views became more and more incredible. We went early in the morning in hopes that the clouds would be clear and we would be able to swim without any rain. This is exactly what happened. We dipped in the four or five pools for several hours. The views from the pools were great. Mountains shot up all around us with several small waterfalls hidden in the dense forest. The pools were busy but not packed as they would be as we left.

I was not quite ready to leave but my family told me that we had other plans. I was not sure what they were, but then again, I never know what we are doing next. I have heard this same observation from many other volunteers. One minute the family will be sitting around chatting, and the next we are loading into a car and headed to a relative’s house for an unexpected visit. I have begun to get used to these impromptu trips. 

We left the springs and drove for about an hour along the windy road through the mountains. We arrived at a medium sized cabin that had a small pond in the front yard. As it turns out, this was a trout fishing business. We went inside and my host dad prepaid for 10 fish. We were then escorted outside where we were given bamboo fishing poles and a young girl put bait on our hooks. We dropped hooks and quickly started reeling in trout. As soon as four were caught, the cook took them inside the cabin to clean them and begin cooking them. We continued to fish until lunch was prepared. I will say that I usually do not like fishy food but these trout were great!

After lunch my host dad told us that we still had two to catch. My little sister, Daniela, and I were told to go back to the pond and catch them. Being high in the mountains it was very chilly. Also, it had begun to rain while we ate. At this point it was a full on downpour. We reluctantly went outside to round up the last two. We stood there for probably 20 minutes soaked all the way through until finally we finished our task. We took the extra fish home and ate them the following day. 

 On my last day of my vacation I went into Quito with a friend to check out the Centro Historico. This area is full of buildings and plazas built in the 16^th and 17^th century. We explored much of the area and toured many different churches and historic places. We had little trouble getting around the city. The country virtually closes down during Carnaval and thus there was very little traffic and transportation was less congested than usual. Despite being only 25 km from my house, it takes about an hour to make it into the city. To make it into Quito we take three buses and do a decent amount of walking. The Peace Corps has taken us into Quito many times so that we might learn the transportation system. I feel that this has helped a lot. Our trip into Quito was nice. I really enjoyed seeing the history and people of Quito.

 

All in all, it was a great weekend.