I have the flu?

Which made it even easier to do multiple double takes seeing people that look just like known and unknown urban and rez natives. This country has the highest percentage of indigenous people and it is incredible how much some people here look so familiar. Especially the girls in the oversized sweatshirts and baseball caps in the market that looked just like they could be going from Pow Wow vendor to Pow Wow vendor looking for the perfect earrings.

This morning I felt out of it, the thought of eating food other than the watermelon at the hostel made me feel worse. Still I set out to the thermal baths with Ida, thinking of the healing properties of natural hot springs. The thermals were not quite what we expected with the music playing and the big pools of people playing around, but there were also private closed bath areas so I spent hours soaking (naked - in my out-of-it sick state I forgot both underwear to change out of from my bathingsuit and a towel, and I thought I might as well take advantage of the privacy of the bath... I think being sick brings out too many details, I digress) in the hot water listening to stories about finland, so happy that Ida was just letting me listen so I didn´t have to muster up too much brain power. I did tell her how incredibly fun the MECHA costume parties are and described everyones costume interpretation of the themes. The bus ride back was okay, but by the time I was walking to get 7up and juice and heading back to the hostel I must have looked like something out of the living dead. I was really afraid that out of Carnaval tradition I would be pegged down by some water balloons and not be able to get back up.

It is time again to share the computer with another hosteller, I have a bus ticket for 7.30 tomorrow morning and hope I can carry my pack by then. Then I am off to Oruro where the real waterballoon action is at.

The Peace, Bolivia

It's 8 am in Bolivia and I am wondering where exactly I will be going outside of La Paz. I have several places I really want to travel to in this country, but the weather does not seem to be on my side. Bolivia is in a state of emergency due to flooding and the roads are at there worst. Some busses aren't even going the routes that I would need to go to get to the salt flats and other cities, or the busses are being delayed to the point where I am not really sure when I would make it back again.

Update:

It's 1:30 pm and I have just returned from a long walk through La Paz and I found the Mujeres Creando building!!! It took some walking, but it really wasn't hard to spot. A bright red building with feminist decor inside and out. They have many campaigns, many projects, are responsible for quite a bit of graffiti and they have won me over. It is places like this that make me want to be 100% fluent in Spanish. I am heading on a bus to Ururo today to find a hostel and make reservations for the weekend of Carneval *spelling?* and then I am going to Sucre, BUT when I return to La Paz you can bet I will be spending quite a bit more time at La Casa de La Virgen de Deseos, Mujeres Creando headquaters extraordinare. http://mujerescreando.org (I suggest reading "Evo Morales and the Phallic Decolonization of the Bolivian State" under the english articles. To learn more about Mujeres Creando in English you can always gooooooogle them). I really wish I could teleport everyone from the UW Q-center and the Women's center to see this...

A girl just passed by the hostel computer area showing off a great looking tattoo she had done today. Getting tattoos in 'third world' countries? Sounds like an adventure, a very inexpensive adventure... Scared yet mom?

Winter Pow Wow

(This is actually from my last day in Cusco, before bussing to Copacabana)

I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia and hoping to meet some of the incredible women of Mujeres Creando... But all I can think about at this moment is Winter Pow Wow at UW. The Pow Wow is going on right now, if you were to walk around UW campus there would be a dramatic increase in Natives, an event that helped me survive my first year of college and made me actually feel truly at home for the first time at UW. I am on a computer at a hostel with many people waiting patiently (and impatiently) so all I really have time to say is what is on my heart: I wish everyone safe travels to and from this uplifting event.

Just a heads up *added mo'

These pictures loaded in a very strange order but here goes: Me with the INC group in the protest, they asked me to come visit them in the office and I helped them fix some translation they did for a project proposal that needs to be submitted to UNESCO in English.
GABIE and I, leave it to me to make a lot of friends at bakeries
Horseride to see ruins close to Cusco
Thats Saqsaywaman behind me, my favorite of the ruins
More of the protest.

machupicchu
Ximena took this picture of me outside the shop
Ximena art action photo

Looking down on Machupicchu from up up up high

Journaling at the top of the smaller of the two peaks you see in pictures of machupicchu
Me journaling atop the larger of the two peaks you see in the pictures, that was quite a hike

THE picture... Its a nice to get there before there are people walking through
Ya!

I really really will write about my time in Peru, highlights being art projects with Ximena, Yanapay restaurant, horseback riding to ruins, stumbling upon the St. Antonio procession, being in a protest march, visiting Machu Picchu, meeting Mary Rothschild (first director and starter of womens studies dept. at UW) and returning to Cusco to help the Instituto Nacional de Cultural (friends I made in the march) edit a grant application they are translating to english to submit to UNESCO. Another big highpoint has been receiving emails from cuzzin Joey! Lowpoints being: homestay experiences, homesickness (if that´s what it is), a package from my parents that never arrived and general (premature?) bouts of weary-traveling-philosopher moments where I asked questions like ¨what is the marrow of my soul? what is harbored in those hollow spaces hardened by history?¨I will write about these things, it´s just that I have reached a point where I am doing so much that it is really hard to sit down and type everything out.... But I will soon.

Come to think of it, I have been recently reflecting on several parts of my journey that I have not yet written about in my blog and might go back to:

1. My time in Monte Verde, Costa Rica
2. My jungle trip to Tena, Ecuador
3. I know there was one more, I can´t think of it just now

But my theory on why I didn´t write about these times is that I was uncomfortable for one reason or another (very opposite reasons for 1 and 2). Monte Verde was a strange experience because I was suddenly surrounded by English and a side of travel where the majority of your interaction is with other travellers. There were supermarkets with brands of food and types of food sold in the US that I didn´t see anywhere in Mexico or Nicaragua. The entire place revolved around tourists, and everything came with a price. Everything, but my precious time in the tree. Maybe I said all this before, I don´t really read back in my blog very much. A very uncomfortable experience happened in Monte Verde as well. I stayed in a private room the first two nights in the really fun hostel I was staying at, and then switched to the dorm rooms. I moved my stuff in and didn´t meet my dormmates until much later that day. One of which was a very creepy and revolting guy that was the only one in the room when I came in alone. He instantly was talking to me from his top bunk that was next to mine, asking my name, telling me he noticed me in the common area, that I am beautiful... which then turned into him asking where I am traveling next, telling me he´ll buy a plane ticket to go along, that he just wants me to sleep in his bed - that I don´t have to have sex with him... It was utterly disgusting and all I could think is "drawback number 1 of travelling alone.." In that case all I had to do was let one of the other four guys I was sharing the dorm with know that I was uncomfortable and they made sure I never had to be alone in the dorm with Kabir the Creep again. This is when I learned... or was reminded that it really is often in my best interest to lie about my itinerary, the length of my trip, the number of people I am traveling with or meeting up with, and mostly that I do not need to be nice when someone is making me uncomfortable. And usually I'm not, I mean I'm Emma, in my mother's own words "we didn't raise Emma to be nice", this is the situation where I become outspoken and tough, but I didn't and I think my embarrassment of the entire ordeal led me to write absolutely nothing about it.

When I went to Tena it was completely unplanned. I had been waiting for the bus back to Quito and thought "hey, I would like to see the Amazon." So I got on a bus to Tena instead. I looked high and low for a jungle tour, and went to a strange island zoo/park with a guy I met from Hungary where we received some unwanted attention from a Tapir that roams free on the island. And by roams I mean he lays around like your typical lethargic looking zoo tapir until suddenly he is running around tearing up plants and trying to bite your legs. I ended up doing a jungle tour alone with a guide that at several points made me pretty uncomfortable as well, which resulted in my tour being cut short of a few activities. No need for details, but another aspect of this Jungle tour that was hard for me that I keep thinking back to was the family that I stayed with outside of Tena and the poverty. The recognizable health ailments of the children, things that I have seen slides of in public health classes and in my text books. What really got me though, is after helping with some homework for an hour or so I went and used the outhouse and saw the same brightly colored workbook papers in wads in the garbage bin. The thick workbook paper and school projects were also used as toilet paper. I tell myself this really is no big deal, that it is actually good that the paper is being reused... that I shouldn't think about how much my parents and grandparents treasured some of my school work.

Tena left me with a colorful assortment of bug bites and rashes and after going on a night jungle walk I have a renewed fear of gigantic spiders. I know that on my next jungle tour I will be patient and find another traveler to go along with me, and I will wear twice the bug repellent.

I crossed the border to Bolivia and am currently in Copacabana. I was honestly going to skip going to Bolivia as of just 4 days ago or so, but my friend Ida and I took the night bus together and for the first time on my trip I am traveling WITH someone. I have moments where I need to go do my own exploring or journaling (although my blog has been neglected, my journal has received double the attention) and Ida is wonderfully understanding of these needs. We just rented a ridiculous paddle boat shaped like a swan to get out on Lake Titicaca, and are going to spend tomorrow night on the Isla del Sol. I am not sure how I have managed to be present for so many celebrations everywhere I have gone, but tomorrow is a big day here in Bolivia where people have miniture figurines of things they want blessed to bring these things their way this year. Ida and I have been discussing what sort of figurines we should be looking for in the market, and which ones we may just have to make ourselves.

Taking some time to post from peru...

I think I have a cold, or that the last couple very dry days + air pollution in these little streets has really killed my throat. I will write a real blog soon about my first week here and Peru, the ups and downs very soon. Promise. For now just know that I am more enthusiastic about learning how to do this type of art where you work impressions into thin aluminum, creating pretty shiny three dimensional things than going out and seeing every museum and ruin in or near Cusco. I met my new art teacher and friend at funky little clothes store near where I am staying on my second day here in Cusco and put off returning to the store to learn her craft until this past Monday, when I really was in art project withdrawals. Now I love going to the shop, and having me there working on art projects means she can run out to do little errands... So I think it works out well for her too. Today when the sun was shining down on me through the skylight and Fiona Apple singing Across the Universe was playing from the store cd player... I was extatic about doing exactly what I should be doing and the exact time, travel can make you feel like you need to be going out and seeing everything constantly... but today all I want and need is to finish the replica of the aztec gold frog pendent I saw when I was in Mexico.

And again, where my Spanish is weak, my Art is strong.

More soon. Promise. Feeling a bit too sick/out of it to write more about what I have been doing here.

La Costa!

Happiness is a coconut batido and a hammock on the beach
I was expecting more beach photos because someone I met took photos of me later on and said they would email them to me... I wonder where those photos are now. Oh well, heres me and the beach!
Muddy streets of Canoa, the peach building in the back is the 2nd hostel I stayed at, off the main street.

After New Years I took a very long bus ride to the coast, arriving in Pedernales after 6 or so hours (lost track of time reading and knitting) which meant I was just in time to miss the bus to Canoa. Luckily, 3 other travelers from Norway and Ecuador were in the same situation and we could all share a cab. The bus ride was long, but what felt longer was the time the driver spent stopping and waiting all over hoping more people would get on the bus and pay their fare. I thought after New Years would be perfect for travel to the coast because everyone was returning or staying in town, but I didn´t realize that bus drivers don´t want to bother with a half empty bus. Anyway the ride in the taxi was relatively unevently besides several unexpected pot holes and seeing sparks of fire flies along the way.

It was dark when we arrived so I only got to explore the tiny town, made up mostly of restaurants and bars, muddy dirt streets and then the ocean. In the morning I ate the best crepe pancake filled with fruit salad for $1.50, I seriously love the prices and quality of food I have found traveling. I switched hostels after the first night because the main street was a bit too loud in the morning, and met Sammer, my new neighbor in the new hostel first at an internet cafe and then discovered my room was right next to his. Sammer is, and I mean really is Peter Nelson. Except he is a surfer. I am sure there may be some other slight differences, but after going out to lunch I was convinced of the incredible similarity.

My time in Canoa, a super tranquilo surfer and fisher town, was short and sweet. There was just enough cloud cover that the temperature remained at about room temperature all day, which was wonderful because laying out on the beach was more comfortable than the mid-day roasting of Costa Rica beaches. I really love wandering along beaches looking at sea shells, so I was in the right place. I also was fascinated by the pelicans. I had no idea that they fly in such large groups. There were other very silly looking birds and cranes, I really need to get some pictures up here.

The first two days I started by walking a block down to the beach and renting a body board. I have had some surfing adventures and misadventures in Hawaii, the grand finale invovling me practically naked clinging to a surf board while Steve and stranger attempted to guide me out of the rocks and coral. Sooo I was feeling a little wary of renting a board. I´ve never tried body boarding so I first went about using what I knew about surfing, so I was mostly tossed about and knocked down by waves farther out than I should have been. Oh but being right there when the pelicans swooped down low along the crest of the waves looking for fish was worth it. Soon I realized I needed to be scooting along with the tiny waves near shore, and although my board was pretty crappy I also realized that body boarding seems to be much more my pace than surfing.

I probably said this when I went to the beach in Costa Rica as well, but the beach is one place that I will admit is quite strange to go alone. I thought about this as I stood in the waves looking from time to time at the families and couples nearby. It was a moment of loneliness that I reasoned away, because I have really mostly gone to the ocean with family when I was little and as an only child I spent a majority of that time playing alone... So I thought, here I am playing alone, all that is really missing is the person watching me... Grandma for example. I missed my family, but I thought to myself, you know... this is okay. I´m okay. And then I caught a wave that took me all the way into shore, a body boarding ideal I believe.

Canoa is known for having the highest hammock per capita or something like that, and I did spend a good amount of time in hammocks with my book or journal and tall glasses of batididos de coco, or coconut smoothies. I hoped to watch the sunset on the beach alone, but the trouble with traveling alone and sitting silently is that is attracts attention. To my annoyance I was approached by a guy named Carlos, and then 2 other guys came to find out what I was doing alone on the beach as well. I was polite, I answered questions, smiled a bit, but mostly stared out at the ocean and the sky. Looking back it was still pleasant, because my sunset was supplimented by the Kapoera (spelling???) instrument playing and singing of my visitors.

The next day, which was supposed to be my last, I awoke to find that the bottoms for my bathing suit had disapeared. I had left my bathing suit out on the hostel balcony to dry near Sammer´s things, and the only thing missing were my bathing black ¨pirate¨ bathing suit bottoms (they have a little skull and crossed swords on them). I don´t think they fell off the balcony, and I can understand why no one would want my ¨bathingsuit top¨, it is far more puritan than the bottoms and doesn´t match them at all because it is really just a blue exercise top. I stood there for a moment wondering what exactly I should swim in, or if I should just catch the bus and skip the beach that day. There was no way I was going to let a missing bathing suit get in my way, I became determined to have an even better day than if nothing had happened. So I went an bought a whole new (much less Puritan) bathingsuit on the main street completely unsure if it would actually fit and put it on in the bathroom of the place I returned to every morning for fruit crepes. Except that morning I asked if I could take my plate down to the beach, which I did. It was 8 am and I was the only one on the beach besides fishing boats way down the beach and people setting up stands further away from the water. It was a sunnier day by far and I sat down in the sand close to the water and watched the waves while enjoying my breakfast. Afterwards I ran into the water and jumped in the waves, like a 5 year old, or in my case like a 22 year old.

After I returned my plate I came back to the beach and saw Carlos, the sunset guy getting ready to surf. He asked when I was leaving and I said in about 2 hours and he attempted to convince me to stay another day, to be in Canoa for the big Saturday night fiestas. I was not interested in the fiestas, but my train of thought was: would I rather have 1 more night in Canoa or 1 more night in Quito. Canoa won, and I told Carlos I would stay for the rest of the day if he gave me a surf lesson. It was all a matter of renting a board, which is easy and cheap in Canoa.

So I ended up surfing afterall! Thank you to whoever took my bathingsuit or knocked it off the balcony, you are my liberator! Surfing was great, followed by a delicious lunch and another glorious day at the beach, including a long lovely nap in the sun... and a bit of a sunburn. That night I danced a bit of salsa and then decided I´d rather go back to the hostel hammock than spend much more time around the bars. I am probably the only girl that orders coconut batidos past 10 pm. I am also beginning to realize just how much a cherish time to myself... and how strange this can seem to other travelers.

The next day I made it back to Quito thanks to a series of miracles. I went back a different way than I arrived, not knowing any of the times of the busses or boats. I took a bus as soon as I walked on the main street, then a boat to another town, then got a ride on one of those bicycle taxis to the bus terminal where the bus to Quito was not currently full but would be at a later stop... so it a lot of me looking confused and asking about the bus over and over until they let me ride to another major bus station where the person whose seat I was in would get on. At that bus station they told me the bus about to leave for Quito was full and that I would have to wait a few hours for the next. My flight was leaving the next day and I was anxious to get back to Quito ASAP so I asked the bus driver and his assistant a few times and was fortunately picked over a few others to get to just sit up front. A bit later I got to sit in an open seat that had again been purchased by someone getting on at a later stop, but for one reason or another I got to keep that seat. Eventually I was back in Quito... and ready to move on to Peru.

Happy New Year... a little late

Ano Viejos by the truck load
My family on New Years!

Me and a neighbors Ano Viejo
Ave and I in disguise
The fancy (and highly political) Ano Viejos in down town

I hope no one is holding their breath between my posts, I have really been getting behind!

For some reason it has been difficult to start a blog entry about New Years in Quito. I almost feel too guilty to write about the fact that the best and most memorable New Years of my life took place in a completely different country with a completely different family and friends. I have had some really good New Years in my time. Leona, Amanda and I used to ice skate until midnight in Wenatchee... Last year Mom and I walked the Labirynth at St. Mark´s and watched the fireworks going off in downtown Seattle... I have many good memories. New Years in Quito though, wow, it was like a combination of my favorite holidays and events. There are the fireworks of New Years, the masks and costumes of halloween, streets full of men in drag like pride fest, effigies burning like protests, and a huge turkey dinner at midnight... not that I am a huge fan of the ridiculous lies that mainstream Thanksgiving celebrations entail... but basically it was like a late Thanksgiving as well.

I started my day helping the neighbors make their Año Viejo, figures that represent the old year and are often political leaders or other people people might like to see burn that are set fire in the street around midnight. At first I stood around watching and asking some questions, just talking with the family. I was really happy to come in handy when they needed to know what color combinations make green or purple... The color wheel is second nature for me, I think my dad was teaching me how to mix paints before I could talk. I proved to be helpful, trustworthy and after I promised I knew how to paint I was handed a brush. Being involved in a group art project made me feel in my element. Sure, I can barely communicate in Spanish, but I am fluent in Paint.

I left with Ave to go have some sopa and buy my grapes (for the midnight wishes). Over lunch Ave explained more about the many different New Years traditions and we started to talk about New Years resolutions. He told me his resolutions for this year (including a resolution to be spending the next New Years in a different country and atleast a year abroad). He had fulfilled his resolutions from the year before, getting his degree and moving out of his parent´s home. and then asked if I had made any.

My mind was blank. Resolutions... um... and then I remembered all of the very specific goals that I had begun to formulate since my first morning in Ecuador when I decided I won´t be graduating until 2010, decisions about things I want to do, I am pumped and there is no way I will spill the beans on any of my big plans here :) So I snapped back to attention and told him all about my resolutions... all of which strangely enough have been made while I have been in Ecuador.

About the men in drag. It was explained to me that they represent the widows of the dead year, the year that is passing on. So they are in the streets blocking cars, dancing up to the drivers windows and begging for a charitable donation. The drivers give the ¨widow¨ 5 or 10 cents and are allowed to pass. Ave and I met up with some of his friends to see the big año viejo competition and other festivities on the closed busy streets of new town area. This is when I really started getting into the celebration, we bought our masks and treats and took pictures of the decorations people had spent countless hours working on. Afterwards his family took me for a drive to experience to ¨widows¨, they really get into character, and to show me how beautiful the historic center of town is at night. On the way home we bought fireworks and made several stops bargaining with people selling año viejos on the side of the road until a vendor agreed to 3 dollars, at which point the body was pulled in through the sliding van door and pushed over my head where it flopped to the ground in the back of the van. Fire work sales and use were supposed to be prohibited this year, but there was cleary no enforcement for this law. We started with the fireworks as soon as we had the año viejo propped up in a chair in front of the house. There were many widows and other people stopping cars on the street in front of Ave´s parents house, and although Ave´s brothers assured me this was calm compared to other neighborhoods, I could hardly take in everything that was going on. We went to go visit a friend´s house that lived near a park, prime firework location. On the walk over I saw a group of people trying to launch one of those tissue paper hot air balloons, we saw the beautiful lantern like paper bubble float high up in the sky soon after.

There was a fancier party going on at the house we visited, and I felt kind of on the awkward side going around and kissing all of the people seated in the living room and adjacent room. I had already told Ave and his family I didn´t want to tomar bebidas alcoholicas, and although they were a bit puzzled about this at first, Ave´s brothers came to my rescue letting the host know that I would prefer my soda without any holiday cheer. The fireworks we bought were shared with the young boys at this party and we stood in the park dodging sparks and watching the different tricks people did with the fireworks. At 11:45 it was time to run back home where the bigger fireworks were now being lit, along with some of the año viejo piles. A radio announcer recounted events of the year that was now passing and started the countdown. Cheers and hugs at midnight, I watched the large fireworks and the joyful celebrations going on around me as I ate my 12 very large grapes, with Ave´s family cheering me on and asking how many more I had left to eat in between greeting neighbors and setting off more fireworks.

There is one moment in particular that lingers in my memory, watching one large firework light up the sky trying to think of another wish and instead thinking of how incredibly lucky I am to experience that very moment, and with such luck what more could I be wishing for? I did think of 12 wishes, and since I do believe revealing my wishes will have any effect on them... here they are...

1. For the health of my family and myself

2. For more love in the lives of everyone I know (self included... actually I kind of wished for a better understanding of true love)

3. Good health and happiness for Ave and his family

4. That I exceed my expections for myself

5. That my friends all graduate

6. That I always make my family proud

7. That I become passionate about the world in new ways

8. That all that is lost is found

9. For bigger dreams for all

10. For safe travels

11. That this year outdoes 2007

12. That everyone can have the joy I´ve experienced this year, and none of the sorrow

When I finished my grapes Ave told me his mom had been saying how good it was to have me there, that she will have special memories of this New Years in particular and of my enthusiasm about everything that makes an Ecuadorian Año Nuevo an Año Nuevo. She and I shared another big hug, and walked inside the house together for the feast! I don´t remember if it was before we ate, I think it may have been, when Ave´s younger brothers took turns dancing with me and advicing my salsa techniques, this too brought a large smile to Ave´s parents. The meal was wonderful, Turkey, rice, fruit salad, a meat stuffing... Soooo Goooood. I decided to not go out with Ave that night, to stick around the house and have a chance to journal, watch movies and spend more time with the family. The following day (the first) had the perfect lazy holiday feel, eating left overs, relaxing, and not leaving the house until late that night when Ave and I went with one of his brothers and another friend to go play Hero Quest with Naco (another friend that is somewhat bedridden after recently re-breaking a leg, he broke both his legs falling down Peguche falls two years ago). This was my first experience playing a role-playing board game type thing, but I was the best Barbarian that game board has ever seen. It was a really fun experience, to my great surprise, especially when I was asked to explain what a Mage is, and a crag, and all the other magical english words used in the American board game.

Still so much to catch up on, im trying really, but its hard when I am doing so many other things. Oh and I am in Peru now!!!

More Christmas Photos

Christmas morning, after church with friends-family

My Christmas Shrine

The other Emma took this photo, and provided the santa hats

Papa Noel in Otavalo the day after Christmas