I arrived on a night bus, last Sunday morning. 12 hours from Santiago isn’t bad, as buses go, but I’ve never been good at sleeping sitting up. I dozed, listened to Cold War Kids, TV on the Radio, and thought of other trips, in other countries. A waxing moon yellowed near the horizon and kept me company for a time, but I dozed off before it set, and woke to blackness. I’m happy to be out of Santiago, in a place where trekking pants and fleece don’t draw stares. Happy to greet Orion’s starry belt and the Southern Cross in a mostly dark sky. I’m tenting in the back yard of the hostel to save money, but it feels like an upgrade to a private room after three weeks in a dorm in Santiago.

Work has slowed, a bit. Leaving the city makes me feel less anxious to GODOMORENOWFASTER, but I’m eager to move farther south, and I’d rather do the intensive researching before I get there so that I can enjoy the new and wild and different Patagonia, the one I haven’t seen yet. I did a short hike a few days ago with an older man from the U.S., and I’m doing most of my reading and writing from the back porch. It stays light until 10pm; it takes a concentrated effort not to work until then.

It’s nearly Christmas! And all of my gifts are coming early! The little fundraising bar on my Spot.Us site is speeding towards $2,000 faster than I could have hoped for! Since my last post on Nov. 29, ten days ago, I’ve jumped from 15% to 48%! Thank you, friends! It’s actually a bit overwhelming, the support that you all are heaping on me. I’m not entirely sure how to express my gratitude, other than to say, again, THANK YOU, to Aunt Jeanine and Uncle Larry, Jeanine Newell, Jill Duffield, Jeremiah Schwartz, Kat Altieri, Alison Jeannette, Karen Johnson, Claudia Gerard, Katie Byrd, Melissa Davis, Aunt Ann, Matt Strine, Wade Permar, Karen Ryman, Mia Fuentebella, Ruben Ortiz, Bryan Rennekamp, and Alex Jahp. Wow. I’m almost halfway there.

A couple more things to check out, if you’re interested:
Recent update on my research and the dams.
Pictures of the trip thus far!

When the next train approached, it was equally loaded, but this time I was at the front of the platform and forced my way into half a square foot that was open near the door. There was a prolonged squeezing sensation as two more people wiggled on board and then pressed themselves against the crowd to avoid the closing door. I couldn’t reach any handholds, but I didn’t need to. The train bolted forward, and as a unit, the crammed mass of humanity leaned backward slightly, cushioned and held upright by proximity. Sleepiness forgotten, I studied the people around me with all of my senses save taste. I counted seven split ends in the orangey dyed hair of the woman in front of me, and heard the breathy laugh and eye roll of a woman behind me. With one elbow I experienced the starched six pack of a man to my left; with my forearm, the tired back of a woman who smelled of lemon cleaner and dust. For six stops, I rode in intimate and anonymous communication, protected and supported by this complacent and temporary association of metro-riders.

Disembarking at Universidad la Catolica, I felt giddy, elated, uplifted by the brief but fascinating ride. For those ten minutes, I was a part of a whole: a Chilean whole. Not a tourist, just a body against five others. Weird, perhaps, but it cleared my head of the entire day, buoyed my reeling mind and renewed my sense of purpose. I do belong here! I am capable of not only completing, but nailing this project.

This was my state of mind when I opened my email and saw that I have earned %3 of my fundraising goal in one day! Katie Leum, Brin Finnegan, Syreena Mortimer, and Jordan James: THANK YOU. Thank you for being part of my supporting community. Thanks for validating my efforts and holding me up in the speeding subway train that is my life. Thanks for feeding and housing me for four days, which is exactly how many days I’ve been here! Let’s keep this up. If I can get at least $20 worth of donations every day for the next two and a half months, I’ll break even. Who will be the next to step up to the plate? Find out more here: Hydroelectric Dams Proposed in Patagonia meet Fierce Resistance.

There are two ATMs in the narrow arrivals terminal, with a uniformed security guard to watch the backpacked-backs of the Gringos and Europeans fumbling with money belts and wads of pink pesos. Got cash. Set my luggage in a corner and sat down for a minute to regroup and consolidate my carry-ons into my large pack. Public transit with a 60-liter pack requires organization. Careful not to put any valuables in the outside pockets, I also stuffed CHP20,000 into my bra (hard for someone to pickpocket that without my knowing about it). The Centropuerto and Tur Buses waited just outside the terminal. I paid my CHP1,400 and sat by the back door (the correct exit point). The first thing I saw as we pulled out of the airport compound was a PATAGONIA SIN REPRESAS billboard. A bubble of excitement swelled and burst, and I leaned my face against the window to hide my huge grin. As the bus neared the center of town, I asked the person behind me to tell me when we got to Pajaritos, the start of the Santiago Metro. Centropuerto also goes to Los Heroes, another stop closer to the center, but the metro is famously overcrowded. Hopping on at the start of the line meant I had room for both myself and my backpack to sit. At Pajaritos, I bought a “Bip!” card.

“Can I buy a B.I.P. card?” I shouted to the heavyset girl behind the window. She looked back blankly. “Bay, eee, pay?” I tried, enunciating each letter in the acroynm.
“Ohhhh. Beeeep?” Oh. Bip! is not an acroynm, but a clever onomonapoeia of the noise that the card reader makes when you brush the card against its face. “Vale miltrecientos” (it costs CHP1,300), the girl said, at the exact second that a train passed below us, washing away everything she said except for “ciento.” I thought for a minute.
“Uh…yes, I want to go to el centro.” I could feel the clerk’s sigh through the window.
“NO. VAH-LAY MEEL TRAY-SEE-EN-TOS.”
“Ohh! Okay!” I slid the plasticky notes under the glass, plus a few extra thousand to load the card for use on the subway and buses.

Still life with Fish

Large, easy-to-read maps of the Metro hung on the walls above the stairs, and I quickly deduced that I needed to catch the train toward Los Dominicos. The Metro is clean and well-organized. A disembodied voice announces each stop like any subway in the world. Universidad la Catolica was mine. My strategy for any crowded public space is just to keep moving, leave my hands in my pockets or on my purse, and go with the flow of the crowd until it breaks up and I can step away to get my bearings. I like to stand with my back against a wall or pillar to eliminate the possibility of someone helping themselves to my back pockets or backpack. I consulted my city map, but I needed to ask a peanut vendor on which street I was standing. After an easy,

ten minute walk, I was ringing the doorbell at the EcoHostel. It’s clean and cozy. Dorms line one side of the hallway, the other is open to two small courtyards

with hammocks, chairs, and tables for dining al fresco. There’s free wifi, and breakfast is included (typical for Chile). The showers have plenty of water pressure and the kitchen has a stove, microwave, fridges, and most cooking supplies. A dorm bed is CHP7,000 a night, a private is approximately double that.

A weekly farmer’s market was sprawled across several blocks on the next street over, and I wandered for an hour, buying vegetables and other treats to sustain me for the next week. I’m anticipating being in Santiago for at least one week, but more likely it will be close to three weeks. I prepared an early dinner and brought it out on the patio, inexpressibly pleased with myself. I’m finally here! Ya estoy!

**

You likely noticed the new item in my sidebar: “Help fund this story!” With a big 0% underneath. This, my friends, is the link to my fundraising website, sponsored by Spot.us, a unique site designed specifically to help freelance journalists fund and publish their work! I mentioned above that I’m traveling on a budget of $20 a day. I’m traveling on my savings account, which isn’t huge, but at $20 a day, will carry me through the end of February. $20 isn’t much. Accommodation alone in Santiago costs $15 a night. For the past six years, I’ve traveled around the world, always on my own dime. I’ve always managed to work and save before or during my trips. I’ve never asked for money before – of course not. I wouldn’t ask someone to fund my vacation. This trip, though, is different. The point of this trip is work – I’m actually working as a journalist – but as a freelancer, I won’t get paid unless and until I publish my story. I accept this. It’s good motivation to work hard, to push myself. But I could use your help to gain some breathing room. So begins operation Fund Susan For a Day! $20 will fund one day in my life on my mission to get published. Think you can help?

Please visit the website above. Clicking on the sidebar will bring you to my proposal. Visit, read, and think about it. Clicking doesn’t cost you a thing. You’ll notice that on the right side of my Spot.us pitch is a list of fun incentives. Even donating $5 gets you a little something. Spot.us requires writers to set a deadline for themselves. It’s a way to encourage us to network and actively raise funds. My goal is to raise $2,000 by February 1st. That’s 100 $20 days. Or, it’s enough to cover a $1,500 round trip ticket plus $500 for travel within Chile.

If you decide to donate, you will be required to create a username (with your email address) and log in with a password. Spot.us does not spam. You’ll have the option to pay with a credit card or PayPal. Spot.us will charge 10% of whatever you choose to donate for their operating costs. And then that’s it! I’ll be in touch with profuse thanks and to make arrangements to send you whichever incentive you have earned.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your time, and thanks for your support!

One afternoon, determined to be helpful, I cooked lunch with my mom. It was just the two of us. Her older daughters, Estefani and Vanessa were away at university in Cusco, Sabino, her husband, was driving a group of tourists to Lake Titicaca, and the younger kids hadn’t come home from school yet. I had bought way too much fruit the day before, and had a pineapple left over. I’d placed it on the kitchen table with a note scribbled on a square of toilet paper and skewered onto the spiky crown, Para mi familia, un beso, Susana. Feliciana got the hint. Something else about Ollantaytambo that is different from my home in huge, desert-y Utah: tropical fruit is dirt cheap here, and most of it is grown less than 100 miles from Ollanta. But despite the cheap fruit, Andean cuisine consists of starch, protein, more starch, and few vegetables. Potato soup with rice, chicken, and shredded carrots. Fried potatoes with rice, fried eggs, and two slices of tomato. Boiled potatoes with pasta, ground beef, and onions. On this day, we used my pineapple to make a fruit salad, adding apple, papaya, and banana, then pouring fresh-squeezed orange juice over the fruit as an extra sweetener. Heavenly, sweet, and fibrous! Feliciana also made a squash-based vegetable soup (with chicken and potatoes, of course). Feliciana ran out to buy dishwashing soap, herbs, and vegetables, and I sat on the tiny, rectangular stool in the corner of the kitchen and pared the skin away from white and yellow potato flesh with a keen, home-sharpened knife. Dropped the dirt-encrusted half moons and spirals into the brown wastewater, dug the tip of the knife into the odd divots, flicked away the eyes and spots of rot.

Feliciana came bustling through the door. Peruvian women bustle differently than women from the United States. US women sweep through their hurry, rushing with long, efficient movements. Peruvian women scurry, taking smaller steps the bigger a hurry they’re in, holding their body close to themselves as they rush. Like mice. And they smile while they do it, as if amused by their tardiness, excited to get where they’re going, or embarrassed, smiling to let the world know that they’re appropriately abashed and are moving quickly to make amends. Bustling through the door, Feliciana smiled at me, down on the floor. She said something I didn’t catch. “Como?” She paused. “Susana, you can do things! Rebecca” (Rebecca was the family’s very first – and most favorite – homestay volunteer) “couldn’t do anything. You can wash your clothes, you can help cook. Rebecca always said, ‘Oh, I’d love to help, oh, but I can’t.’ She just didn’t know how to work.” This may be the best compliment I’ve ever received.  Scooping the peeled potatoes from my bowl with rough brown hands, she dropped them quickly into the water boiling on the stove. “It goes so much faster with the two of us!”

The floors in Feliciana’s house are painted concrete. Stone and mud mortar make up the bottom two thirds of the walls; the upper third is adobe brick covered in plaster. Trying to be helpful one morning, I swept the kitchen floor, then the dining room floor, then the hall, then my downstairs bedroom. I ran the broom over the rafters to break loose a few cobwebs I’d seen. I poked at the plastered bricks near the ceiling, and then swept the stone walls. Chunks of dried mud crumbled and fell, and brown flowers of dirt dust bloomed. Ah, I thought. Don’t sweep walls made of dirt. The ceiling is wooden and doubles as the floor of the upstairs rooms: round eucalyptus trunks support simple two by six planks. There is no insulation. Heels clicked and tromped over my head as I wrote in my journal at night. Jeans with change in the pockets thumped onto the floor. Light dripped through the cracks. Pillow fights made the bed creak and the kids shriek. Feliciana and Sabino have four children and three bedrooms (including the one I used), but only use the two upstairs, even when their volunteer room is unoccupied. The kids (aged 6 to 24) sleep three or four to a bed and often climb in with their parents, well beyond the age when American parents strictly establish the importance of personal space. During a visit to the Awamaki weaving cooperative in Patacancha, I met a girl named Magdalena. She and the other women of the cooperative were learning how to make placemats, a piece of household frippery that doesn’t exist in Peru. Sixteen years old, Magdalena is already the secretary of the cooperative. I admired her placemat design, and she began to ask me questions. “Where are you from? And your parents?” Still living, I explained, but in a different part of the country. “But…” her serious dark eyes were perplexed. “How will you know when they die?” I didn’t have the words to explain that in my culture, it is expected that children will leave their parents and forge a life apart.

Toilet paper goes in the trash can instead of in the toilet, and hot water for showers trickles from a terrifying electric shower head. I washed my hair three times in the four and a half weeks that I lived with Feliciana. Differences abound, but in the end, Ollantaytambo felt like home. This is the challenge that keeps me traveling. Plopping myself down into a foreign situation and figuring it out is thrilling, because it’s always different, always new, always enlightening. Learning how to respect and enjoy the way of life in Ollanta and other towns and countries makes me a better, stronger, broader person. I’m addicted. Viva la diferencia!

Someone turned the music up: waino, the music of the campesinos (a word that translates literally as “peasant”). A male emcee shouts the name of the singer, usually a woman, repeatedly throughout the song. Sometimes shouting directions to the crowd, “Manos arriba, manos arriba, manos arrrrrrrrrrribaaaaaa!” (hands up, hands up!), sometimes calling out names of Andean towns and communities, sometimes repeating the main themes of the song. Harps, drum machines, and high-pitched vocals add a unexpected dash of oriental flavor. The songs are either about tragedies, heartbreak, or about getting drunk. Tonight, at least, there were no tragedies. More chicha, more beer, and soon I was apologizing to the woman who cleared my plate, still half full of potatoes, noodles, and meat. Too loud to talk, people continued raising their glasses, clinking them, mouthing ‘Salud’, then refilling.

I ducked out for a bit, running through the rain to meet up with a few of my fellow volunteers. I told them about the party. They rolled their eyes. “At least you missed the dancing,” one said.
“Oh, no, I’m going back. I promised my host mom.” My friends blinked.
“Really? Have you been to a waino party? This is how they dance – ” one friend grabbed another’s hands and started shaking them. “One time I tried to move to the rhythm of the music with my dance partner, but she shook her head and made me dance like this! Nah, no no no. I just don’t like it, I don’t want to do it.  You know they’re all going to want to dance with you?” I shrugged. This is why I’m here. To dance waino and eat too much starch and drink too-sweet beer and pour the dregs at the bottom of the bottle onto the floor.

An hour or so later, I was back at the closed restaurant, knocking on the window to be let in. The boy who answered was one I hadn’t met yet, and he was confused, thinking I was looking for the internet café, or the restaurant. “No, no, we’re closed,” he said.
“No, no, I’m invited,” I said.
“No, it’s a private party,” he said.
“Yes, yes, I know, Maria invited me. I’m living with her sister, Feliciana,” I said.
“Oh…” he said. Inside, drunkenness had proceeded with abandon. One uncle dozed where he sat. A cousin sat with his face on the table, passed out. Feliciana and my host sisters had left, but Maria recognized me and invited me to have another beer. I sat with Balthasar, Feliciana and Maria’s brother. His wife, Adela was deep in conversation with another woman across the table. The drums and harps were still thudding and chirping away, but I’d evidently arrived at a break in the dancing. “Salud!” Balthasar clinked his bottle against mine. I couldn’t find a clean glass, but Adela pushed hers over to me. “Where are you from?” he shouted. I told him. “Ahhh. And how do you like Peru?” I nodded and smiled, and gave my well-practiced line about how I’d been here three years ago, and fallen in love, and how I was called back by the country’s magic. “Ahhh. Si. And what places have you visited?” More well-practiced lines. “Ahhh. Do you like this music? This is our music, the music of the campesinos. Should we dance? Let’s dance.” We joined Maria, another woman, and the elderly aunt of the pink sweater and soft, wobbly hat. The elderly aunt shouted along with the emcee on the stereo, and others gathered around, clapping a rhythm. We held hands and danced in a circle, stomping our feet, swinging our hands and hips from front to back and side to side. The movement made perfect sense to me, and I relished the trembling of the wooden floor beneath our heavy steps. The elderly aunt drove the whole circle, swinging her arms vigorously, pounding her heels in time to the music until the nylons on one leg began to sag and slip down off of her knee. She let go of the hands next to her and spread her arms like a child pretending to be an airplane, and spun in a circle, kicking with one leg and pivoting on the other. The crowd loved this, and shouted in time with the music, “hay, hay, hay, hay, haaaaaay,” shouting giving way to trilling tongues and cheers. Moving along with the rest, I laughed, and smiled at the strangeness, the unselfconsciousness, the faroucheness of it all.

In the morning, Feliciana and I walked to Balthasar and Adela’s house to hang laundry. Both brother and sister-in-law were outside, nursing hangovers. “Ahhhh, buenos dias, Susana. I was drunk last night. But I remember what we were talking about. Today I, today the cerveza is a bit too much, but there are other interesting places here. Much history. Today I can’t, but next Sunday I will tell you about our customs and show you the places I know.” I worked in the morning, and arrived home for lunch late, but Feliciana wasn’t there, and the stove was cold. An hour later she arrived, bustling in her very Peruvian way, obviously upset. “Oh, Susana,” she tsked. “I’m so sorry I’m late. Ahhh, but what bad children my sister has! Five children she is raising, paying for them to go to university. And they don’t appreciate it. They don’t understand. The oldest daughter left school because she got pregnant. And now Maria is supporting her grandchild and new son-in-law. And now, the second oldest, ahhh.” Feliciana picked up a pot, put it back, picked up another pot and started boiling water. “The second daughter, she’s pregnant, too. Five months! Five months pregnant, and she’s been keeping her belly wrapped up tight so her mama wouldn’t know. What was she thinking? How is she going to finish school with a baby? She just thinks her mother is going to take care of her? And the baby, too?” There had been an intervention this morning, Feliciana told me. Certain family members who knew about the pregnancy had decided that it was time for Maria to be told. Feliciana had walked in expecting to have a drink with her sister and relive the party the night before, and instead had found the entire family gathered, several crying, older brothers furious, other relatives preventing them from taking to the streets and finding their sister’s boyfriend. “My sister was in shock. She fainted. Her brother had to catch her; her husband is in shock, too.” Feliciana was chopping potatoes. Small chunks shimmied off the cutting board and onto the floor. “Five months, without saying anything to her mother! Oh, Susana, what was she thinking? Maria was so happy yesterday! Drinking, dancing, with all of her friends, and today, well.” She sighed, putting both her hands on the edge of the counter and resting her weight against them for a moment. “Poor Tia Maria.”

That’s life, the waino musicians sing. The world can change that quickly. One minute you’re drinking with friends, spinning, soaring, the next, trying to forget the pain of being human. The contract that we sign by default, being born, requires us to live each moment. Opting out means escaping the bad times, but missing out on the good ones, too. But, this is why I’m here. To drink the sweet chicha and the bitter dregs, and to move along with the rest of the circle, squeezing the hands of the people next to me as we swing in tune with all the songs, even the ones I don’t like.

Criollo is a soulful, passionate music that comes from the coast. It consists of guitars, gently strummed, mournful accordions, and male and female voices belting their woes to a sympathetic audience. I fell in love with it on my last trip. Of all the different types of music I endured on the many long bus rides, criollo was the first that caught me humming along, the first with which I connected in this foreign land. I like it for the same reasons I like Billy Holiday and Edith Piaf. It has that same antique quality; as if it’s being sung into a black and white room of suited men smoking cigarettes wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and women in nylons and smart evening dresses with gloves, heels, and matching clutches. Or, today, into a small, crowded kitchen lit with one bare light bulb, to a sympathetic gringa, her Peruvian madre shredding carrots and butchering a chicken breast, and her hermanita (little sister) in a sparkly pink sweater with her hair falling out of a tight bun. After every third or fourth song, the same macho announcer would remind listeners everywhere that they were enjoying “¡Criollo a las doce!” courtesy of “¡Radio Felicidad!” – Radio Happiness!

A stubborn cold has resigned me to low-energy activities for the last few days. “It’s because you wear sandals everywhere!” Feliciana scolds. It’s kept me close to home, where I’ve been able to work on bonding with my host family. Before lunch today I helped carry bags of textiles, hats, and other souvenirs to the plazoleta (small town square), where Feliciana presides over a wooden stall next to her cousins, nieces, and other relatives. The plazoleta is at the base of the famous ruins, through which all the tourists funnel. Unlike other tourist areas (the train station, for example), here the women sell passively. Their brightly colored wares attract enough attention without the women hounding the tourists: “Poncho, lady? Blankets? Hats?” I sat and practiced counting in Quechua (joc, iskay, kinsa, tawa, pisac, socqta, canchis…), wanting to regain the little proficiency I gained on my last trip. Feliciana helped me count, and I helped her translate each of her items for sale into English. Camila and one of her thousand cousins played with a stick and a red ribbon, and I took pictures. I had imagined doing this on my first trip to Peru: sitting and passing the time in the market, a fly on the wall instead of another staring tourist. The society of women and  children there fascinated me, but I was too shy to talk to them, too wary of offending with my very gringa presence. Today I felt protected by my position as Feliciana’s (paying) house guest. I was invited, welcome to sit and submerge.

Back to the kitchen. The humid childish warmth of Camila leaning on my knee, and her inquiring smile as she’d look at the dictionary and then at me as she practiced reading the letters made me feel relaxed, at home. A part of the household. The music swelled and ebbed, invisible men and women asked not to be abandoned, asked for their love to cherish them forever. Feliciana shouted up the stairs to her son, Aaron, with a mother’s loving frustration, stripped another hunk of meat from the chicken carcass, and rolled her eyes at me with a smile. And then the announcer came back; in case we’d forgotten, we were listening to “Radio Happiness! The best songs of your life!” Maybe. The best songs of my first week back in Peru? Definitely.

My own jointed bones and square inches of flesh are feeling stretched taut, full of love and friendship. Full of the happy sadness and sentimentality of leaving a place one loves. Last night thirty-odd favorite ski bum friends poured into my home with arms full of food, drink, gifts, and good wishes. Chris set it up as a surprise party, but with so many friends excited to talk about my trip and share their support, the secret was never going to be kept for long. It was a great sending-off; tomorrow as I lift off from the Salt Lake airport, I’ll imagine that the plane is being buoyed by my friends’ excitement rather than jet fuel. I’m excited to leave; I believe as Muir does, that it is easy enough to live out of sight of one’s friends, but only because I know that I’m bringing their love with me, and that they’ll be waiting for me when I get back.

The adventure begins tomorrow…

My job while I’m there will be to create a guidebook of local trails, day hikes, and longer treks that will attract more Western tourists.  Hiking AND writing?  It’s perfect.  When I read the job description back in September, I thought, this job was made for me! And then I thought, I’m going to make it happen.  I’ve been working three and four jobs since I got back to Utah in order to save enough money to make the trip a possibility, and it’s finally coming together.  Two years ago I spent four months hiking through the Peruvian Andes, practicing my Spanish and learning Quechua, the language of the indigenous mountain people.  I was lucky to meet many locals who helped me to trek far off the beaten tourist path and explore regions rarely visited but unparalleled in their history and wildness.  It was this experience, as well as my passion for writing, that I described to Awamaki to indicate my unique qualification for the guidebook job, and they agreed to take me on. I won’t be getting paid, but I will be a hired writer.  Being able to put the experience on my resume is going to be worth every penny.

Like most non-profits operating in the third world, Awamaki is constantly seeking donations of time, money, and supplies.  In order for me to participate in the program, I will be paying a one-time donation of $650.  This donation will cover my first month of room and board in a homestay (almost half of the funds go directly to the local family that will host me), project materials, and a donation to the guidebook project. It also covers the expenses that Awamaki incurs in hosting volunteers and running the volunteer program.

Now that I know for sure that I’ll be going, I’m reaching out.  I’m talking to my contacts at REI, and planning presentations to talk about my past experiences in Peru as well as seek donations and sponsorship for this upcoming trip.  I’m talking to the owner of Brighton Resort to request permission to hold a fund-raising bake sale and to see if Brighton would be interested in being a sponsor of the trip.  And I’m asking all of you to consider supporting me and Awamaki.  The program is currently requesting baby and kid’s clothes, prenatal vitamins, school and art supplies, used digital cameras for a community photography workshop, and a used laptop computer.  I know many of you readers are far from Salt Lake City, Utah, but if you have any of the above supplies and would be willing to mail them to me, I know that Awamaki will be exceptionally grateful, as will the local Ollantinos who receive your donations.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for your support.

Two weeks after writing my last blog entry, here I sit, back in Perú, the month and a half spent in Ecuador a brief blip on the radar of my memory, an excellent interlude, but wedged so tightly between the wonders of the Peruvian mountains and jungle that it’s hard to truly savor, like a thin slice of mild cheese between two slabs of hearty seed bread.  Alison, the little sister, had been studying in Quito, Ecuador on an exchange program since February, living with a local family and making weekend trips with her class to cloud forests and the Galapagos Islands.  June was her last month in the country, and I showed up on the first to share it with her.  Alison was my city guide, teaching me to use the public transit system and orienting me so I could find my way back home.  I watched with pride the ease with which she navigated the city, always three steps ahead of me, confident, fearless, direct.  In the evenings, after classes and homework, we talked, shared photos, watched DVDs.  We took a weekend trip to the famous artisan market at Otavalo, and she brought me to La Esperanza, a tiny mountain town where an afternoon fog drifted between the eucalyptus trees and the cobblestone streets.  One afternoon we climbed to the top of the tower in the city’s basilica, and another weekend we spent at a friend’s cabin outside of the city, riding horses and dancing late into the night with the local boys.  The stress of finals and a busy university schedule restricted our excursions, but I was happy just to be there, to experience a bit of Ecuador at my sister’ side, and even more happy to learn more about the vibrant young woman that my little sister is becoming.

For a week or so I tramped around the central highlands south of Quito.  I summitted El Corazón (4790m) and hitchhiked into the Parque Nacional de Cotopaxi and slept in the refugio (4800m) on the edge of the volcano’s glaciated cap (5897m – Ecuador’s 2nd highest).  The altitude had begun to wear on me, and for once in my life, the peak didn’t tempt me.  I nestled in my sleeping bag in the kitchen area and talked to the ice-encrusted climbers as they returned, one after another, foiled in their summit attempts by high winds and fresh snow.  Breathing the icy air as I crossed the frozen volcanic rocks to reach the separate bathroom, I remembered Antarctica.  Recently, everything reminds me of that place.

In the city, and on the mountain tops, Ecuadorian culture was elusive, distant.  I missed the closeness to the people I’d had in Perú.  Ecuador is much smaller, the size of Colorado, and three fourths of the population lives in less than half of the land.  It feels more crowded; the hills are patchwork quilts of farmlands, whereas in Perú there are more trees, more uninhabited spaces.  The predominately cement construction lends the countryside an unfinished look.  Re-bar spikes protrude from the roofs, and roofless or windowless houses stand empty.  Pollution clings to the walls, staining them dingy gray to match the perpetually cloudy skies.  Winter means rain in the highlands.  As I moved south from the capital and down from the alpine region, however, the country gradually opened up to me.  There were more days of sunshine.  I discovered the market in Latacunga.  I learned a few words of Ecuadorian Quichua, caught some rides with local families.  Sebastien, a Frenchman I’d met in Quito, caught up with me in Latacunga, and together we traced a six-day circuit through several small towns in the western Andean foothills.  It was a smaller, less remote version of my adventure in Perú with Wilson, and here more than anywhere else, I felt like I was finally experiencing Ecuador.

The market at Saquisilí, the one that began with a bang, or rather the clatter of hooves on the roof, was the other highlight of our circuit.  We wandered through the animal market, watching the interactions, the bartering, the posturing, and the exchanging of wads of greenbacks for the tethered, terrified sheep, goats, cows, llamas, pigs and their young.  Cuys (guinea pigs) and chickens chirped in net bags on the ground and herbs and grasses lay in huge piled hedges to be navigated.  The rest of the market spread across four different plazas and spilled over into the streets and alleyways.  Under tents and behind booths, men, women, and children hawked their wares.  Fresh butchered meat, health drinks, veggies, fruits, fried fish.  Grains and pastas in great sacks, spices in colorful piles.  Enormous cauldrons of soup and rice and boiled chickens.  Utensils for the kitchen, the office, the car, the bathroom; things for cleaning, locking, organizing, decorating, chopping, storing, and hauling.  Shoes, clothes, jewelry in piles, batteries and pens held out between arms draped with shoelaces and ribbons.  Pickpockets and shoeshine boys and beggars plied the crowd.  Uniformed ice cream salesmen raised their voices to compete with the aproned “gelatina” ladies.  And everywhere, the crowd of buyers, indigenous and modern, the purposeful and the gawkers, dodging, ducking and weaving, mingling in a tapestry of culture and commerce.