Out-of-tune Guitars = Fiesta!

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Out-of-tune Guitars = Fiesta!

Monday, June 30, 2008 at 6:43pm

Weekend at La Chimba's:

La Chimba is a cow-milking community near the town of Cayambe, near the volcano Cayambe.

That isn't the volcano in the background.

After multiple buses and 2 hours later, we arrived to La Chimba around 11am on Saturday. After a lunch, we headed out on a horse ride to some well-anticipated hot springs (considering La Chimba is fairly cold at this point)...

This is the posse on caballos...

Here is my horse, we'll call him Horace for the sake of this note.

Horace... of course.

Horace was a good horse. He never kicked me off anything. However, Horace doesn't have the back of a La-Z-Boy, so after about 30 seconds of trotting it started to hurt. It got quite painful when he wanted to trot with the other horses ("Hey guys, wait for me!", says Horace). My experience with Horace reminded me of City Slickers with Billy Crystal:

After about a 45 minute Horace ride, we arrived at the much anticipated "Hot Springs of La Chimba"!

Yep... that´s them. The hot "springs¨were more like a spout.

The tour guide told us that the springs were normally here, but some cows must have drank all the water. This made me a little disappointed and confused... How many cows would it take to drink 4 hot tubs worth of water!? I wondered if it was something else, like a leak in the man-made, river-side hot tub.

After the hot springs of La Chimba, we returned to La Chimba. On the ride back, there was good news and bad news...

Bad news: One of the girls from our group fell off her horse. It was kinda scary, especially when we realized she had broken her neck. Yeah, she's paralyzed now. Sad isn't? Actually she was just fine, hallelujah. She got right back up. But imagine what we would've done if she had broken her neck. Yikes.

Good news: While riding back we discovered an "arco iris".

Here is me and Horace and the rainbow.

How cute we are. Riding Horace and seeing a rainbow reminded me of My Little Pony. Horace was my little pony. :-)

On the way back, we passed by this band of musicians.

They played some song that consisted of only 2 chords and multiple out-of-tune guitars. We would hear this same song about 50 times between now and the time we left on Sunday. Mind you, the next day was the Fiesta de San Juan.

Here is a photo of the volcano Cayambe... i think.

I'm not sure if it was a cloud or the snow-capped mountain top. Can you see it over that green hill?

THE NEXT DAY: La Fiesta de San Juan.
The town got together today to celebrate St John, from the Bible, i think. I asked someone what the purpose of the occasion was, but I could only make out certain words, like San... and Juan... and Santa Biblia.
But from what I saw, it looked like the purpose was to have a parade...

... drink a ton...

... dance...

... and play the same 2 chords over and over again with out-of-tune guitars...

...oh! and to watch people fights bulls (torros)...

This was probably the best part.

About 5 minutes after we left the bull fight, a guy was stabbed in the leg by a bull. supposedly he was bleeding really bad. :-/
most of the people who were taunting the bull were drunk... so he had it coming.

After the torros, we left La Chimba. Overall, it was a great cultural experience.

Pichincha Me... I Must Be Dreaming

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Pichincha me... I must be dreaming.

Friday, June 27, 2008 at 5:51pm

A Trip to Pichinchia: The Volcano

Here is a pic of Pichincha in 1999:

Today, another student and I went up to Pichincha with our teachers.
Here are some pics...

We took the TeleferiQo up to the top of the volcano, Pichichina.
Here is a pic of part of Quito from the box on a string, known as the TeleferiQo.
Wow, 2 million people live down there.

Here is the group, from left to right,
Ricardo (Catarina's teacher), Betty (my teacher), Me, and Catarina (student from Belgium).

Here is another photo with a better view of Pichincha, he's the Volcano in the background on the right.

Here is a view of my part of Quito. I am pointing near where I live.

Here is a view of part of our group in the foreground and the rest of Quito in the background. You may also see Cotopaxi in the background.

FINALLY, AT near THE TOP of PICHINCHA! You can see the opening to the crater in the distance behind me (I think).

Wow! 4,100 meters high. That´s like 1300+ basketball goals high. And without oxygen! Suck it Ivan Vallejo!* (*see previous notes for the reference)

Some of our group didn't make it.

She died there. It was sad. Jk.

Day 11 - Down at the Farm

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Day 11 - Down at the Farm

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 4:42pm

Day 11 - Down at the Farm

Papa Augusto took me with him to see his family's farm land. The farm land was very scenic.

And the people were really nice. We walked around for a few hours, looking at the scenery, drinking the nectar of sweet flowers, and getting our shoes muddy.

I'm not sure if you notice, but my nose looks a little bigger than normal in this picture. The night before I almost broke my nose playing soccer. I collided with another player going for the ball. (You should see the other guy... jk).

Journey to the Middle of the World!

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Day 10 - Journey to the Middle of the World!

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 4:35pm

Day 10 - Journey to the Middle of the World!


This is the day we went to "Mitad del Mundo". Or in English, "THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD!!! Or in Tolkien, "Middle Earth".

Tha's the monument in the distance.
And that's some random lady.

This is the place where the northern and southern hemispheres meet... and where toilets flush neither clockwise nor counter-clockwise.

That's me at "exactly" 0*0'0"

We visited the monument, took pictures, and bought the shirt. Well...I almost bought the shirt. They ran out of "I went to the Middle of the World and all I got was this lousy camiseta" shirts. Dang it. All in all, it was a lot of fun. Plus, this picture made it all worth it.

And I look like that guy that jumps in the back of some stranger's picture.
Sorry Gortaire Family, I didn't mean to be the stranger in your photo.

Day 8 - No School

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Day 8 - No School

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 4:23pm

Day 8 - No School.

I took this day off from school to see Nicky´s performance at her school. It was cute, musical, and in English... which was great for me. She did really well, remembering all her lines, and sang-danced her heart out.

Afterwards, the three sisters and I went to Centro Historico - the historic district of Quito.

This is the Plaza de la Independencia.

The architecture is very pretty there. We also went to a museum and learned about the history of Ecuador.

This is Iglesia de San Francisco.

P.S. These are the views from the car on my way to class everyday.
This is Cotopaxi.

And this is Antisana.

And this is a view of the runway that runs through the middle of Quito.

This is a view of Augusto's area of town. This is a shot from the food court in the mall right next to his house.

There are constantly airplanes flying over the city. A few years back, a plane ran into one of the major buildings... sad. He says that only the best pilots can fly into Quito because of the altitude and the runway being in the middle of the city.

Day 7 - More (Real) Famous People...

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Day 7 - More (Real) Famous People...

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 4:08pm

(Note: This post is out of order because I wrote this post a while ago and just never posted it. That is why Day 7, and so on is so late.)

I guess I am lucky because I ran into two more famous people today, well famous for Ecuador.

While eating at a restaurant, we took a picture with a famous Ecuadorian comedian. (He is one the right and his name is David Reinaro, aka "Cholito"). He is known for his impersonations, like an SNL comedian.

After I saw him that day, I started seeing him everywhere - on billboards, ads, and commercials. Kinda cool.
You can see an example of his comedy here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWoTip0wBdE

We also ran into a famous soccer player (retired) in the mall. His name is Ermen Benitiz. He was a famous forward nicknamed "La Pantera". His son is also a famous socker player.

After we ran into these two famous Ecuadorians, we went to the Ecuadorian Olympic qualifier soccer match. They played Columbia, the northern-bordering rivals.

The game was freezing, rainy, and purple.

The stadium workers handed out purple confetti before the game, which ended up everywhere. Due to the rain before hand, everyone was covered in purple confetti like glue. Due to the cheap confetti, the purple bled through onto everyones clothes. My friend Augusto had it worse... his hat and shoes were ruined.

After suffering through 3 hours of rain drenched, bone freezing soccer, the game ended in a 0-0 tie. !Viva Futbol! All in all, it was a great international soccer experience.

Yanapuma Classes

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Yanapuma Classes

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 4:37pm

I have been taking classes at Yanapuma for the last week and a half. This was my "first day of school" picture. I had my bag lunch and I was ready to learn!

The classes are one-on-one so the lessons are very specific, which is great. I am not progressing through them as fast as I would expect (I guess learning a language is harder than I thought). However, I will be taking classes for the next month, so I have plenty of time to catch up... I hope.

Here is the building where Yanapuma is located:

On the second floor is where the classes are located:

Day 6 - More Famous People

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Day 6 - More Famous People

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 2:45pm

Now its getting annoying... I do not want to run into another famous person while I am here. This is just too much.
Guess who I ran into today on the street:

Sorry that its blurry. I didn't have time to get a second pic.

I will write more of a note later today.
Adios,
Mateo

Day 4b - Famous People!

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Day 4b - Famous People!

Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 11:44pm

I don´t know what it is, but whenever I leave the country, I always run into famous Latin American celebrities...
Example 1: While studying in London, I ran into this guy...

Hugo Chavez - The President of Venezuala

And tonight, I ran into 2 famous Ecuadorians at Augusto´s church.
The first was Ivan Vallejo...

Ivan Vallejo (in the middle) -
The Famous Ecuadorian Mountain Climber

Here is Ivan in action...

Ivan Vallejo - On top of Mount Everest
(He is famous because he does not use oxygen... must be those Ecuadorian lungs)

You can read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vallejo

The second and most coolest (yes, most coolest) famous person I saw tonight was the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa.

Rafael Correa - The President of Ecuador

He has been to Augusto´s church twice before. Maybe he will be a regular and come next week so I can get a real picture of him.

What a night...