Sin Ropa

Erin and I took a delightful repast this past weekend to the ecotourism hotspot of Mindo, about two hours northwest and downmountain of Quito. A beautiful little village in a valley, surrounded by lush forests on all sides, and perpetually enshrouded in clouds, giving it a "lost world" appearance, not unlike Rivendale.

Through the magic of time travel, it is now Saturday morning the 22nd of March and we are slogging up a very muddy road towards Las Cascadas, a series of waterfalls...

The view is terrific, the weather is cool and misty and therefore perfect for hiking, but goddam there are way too many cars on this road. It is Semana Santa (Easter) weekend, and that means every single Quiteno with a car has left the city for the weekend and apparently headed for Mindo. Ecotourism merely means the setting is beautiful. It says nothing about how the setting is to be enjoyed. 4-wheelers roar bye, families spend the entire day inside their car looking out, and everyone stays in summer camp-style lodges, one of which even has a huge water slide. Definetely not my idea of ecotourism, but then neither are the National Parks.

We reach a cable car that crosses the gorge in front of us, watch all the walking-averse hop aboard, and we promptly descend a solitary jungle trail to the river below. Solitude disappears as we cross the appropriately sketchy bridge at the bottom and rejoin the masses. But then we reach a cascada (waterfall), and the noise of crashing water drowns out everything else.

I love water. It brings out the kid in everyone. I strip down and dive into the pool, swimming as fast as possible straight into the pounding torrent, only to be spat out immediately with a full mouthful of water. Just below the main plunge pool is a natural water slide. There is a rope that descends along with the chute. I attempt to cautiously lower myself down the slide with the rope, but I'm sucked down immediately, get spun around underwater, and frantically surface. I'm fine, but my hands are rope-burned and I've lost my indomitable bandana which gives me special powers. Nuts. I recall my father's advice (he once lost something important in the surf of Hawaii, but rather than despair, he spent 10 minutes searching for it, and somehow found it), and start to search all the nooks and crannies of the pool. Perseverance is rewarded with luck. The bandana has caught on a snag, and I happily retrieve it.

There is a kid, a teenager, tentatively eyeing the chute as we dry and dress. Like myself, he begins to cautiously descend with the rope. I lean over and holler at him not to use the rope. "Es seguro, no necesitas la ropa, es mejor sin ropa" I say, pointing at my hands and attempting to demonstrate that it hurts to hold onto the rope. The kid gives me a very weird look and backs off. A couple minutes later, he tries again, and again I insist its perfectly safe (Es seguro) and he should not use the rope (sin ropa!). He gives me a really weird look, takes of his T-shirt and goes down the chute. I get momentarily nervous, but then he pops up all right.

Erin and I resume our conversation in Spanish, describing to each other how we are putting our clothes back on. "Vamos ponernos nuestra ropa." Ropa? That means clothes. Woah. I just told the kid to go down the slide naked. No wonder he thought I was a crazy gringo. Like crazy gringos, we laugh uncontrollably as we imagine just what was going through this kid's mind as I insisted he take off his clothes before going down the chute. As we leave, we hear him instruct his little brother, "Sin Camiseta", to take off his shirt before going down.

More pictures to come. Freaky spiders, cool plants and snake!

http://picasaweb.google.com/haroldwershow Hit this up for tons of pics from Ruco Pichincha and Mindo!

It´s all so clear now

Woohoo!! There was sun, real legit sun, all weekend long. Now I can finally stop complaining about the weather. Waaaaaaa-waaaaa-waaaaa, I hear the waaaaaaa-ambulance coming, I must´ve dialed Whine One One.

Anyways, a number of things have become quite clear to me. I made a classic mistake in my last post. Overwhelmed by all the newness of Quito, I could do nothing but compare it to Central America. First of all, that´s about as logical as winding up in Ottawa and comparing it to Florida and Georgia. Second, I made the fatal error of completely ignoring context. My travels in Guatemala and Nicaragua were almost exclusively in small towns and rural areas. I spent a grand total of one week in the two capital cities combined, over the course of 5 months of travel. Yet in Ecuador, all I have seen is Quito, and really all I have seen in Quito is La Mariscal. La Mariscal is inhabited by high-flying Quiteños and foreign tourists galore. La Mariscal has far more in common with NYC´s East Village than it does with a small village in rural Nicaragua. So please ignore any and all comparisons I have made between Quito and Central America, for they are pure bullshit.

Interestingly, this sort of mistake is quite common in anthropology. I´ve been reading Charles Mann´s 1491, a fascinating look at the Americas before disease incapacitated civilizations whose grandeur often surpassed those of Europe and Asia. Mann gives an account of an anthropologist by the name of Holmberg who visited a remote region of Bolivia (the Beni) in the early 1900´s. The peope he found there (also called the Beni) were truly living like savages (or if that offends you, hunter-gatherers). They had no agriculture, pottery, weaving, buildings or any of the other things that are thought of as hallmarks of civilization and culture. They were sickly, weak, hungry, cold and wretched. Holmberg observed all this, and concluded that they had been living an ahistorical life since Pleistocene times. The first thing that had ever happened in their lives was his observations of them. Turns out he should´ve investigated the context of the Beni´s suffering. Just a couple decades before he arrived, their entire civilization had been wiped out by an epidemic. Further investigation found widespread agriculture, cities, massive public works, religious institutions, etc etc etc. An interesting anecdote that applies to many aspects of life, especially when one encounters the new and unknown.

Life in Quito es muy tranquilo. Tranquilo is by far my favorite Spanish word, as it means chill, except you get to draw it out to emphasive the chillness. Traaaanqeeeeeeeelo, todo es tranqeeeeelo. O tranquilEEEEEEEEE-seemo. Erin Noble and I are living in an apartment, we´re super close to all the action in Quito. There is a family that lives off and on in the apartment as well, a few adult daughters our age and La Mama, who is possibly the most hilariously overdramatic person I have ever met. We have Spanish school during the day, explore the city during the afternoons, and find amusing ways to study at night, such as playing chess or getting wasted (in Spanish, of course). Despite all the english in this text, I am actually speaking almost exclusively Spanish, which is incredible. I have a terrible time coming up with synonyms in English as a result.

Yesterday, we climbed Ruco Pichincha, the volcano that towers over Quito. It was an excellent adventure in all aspects. We made a new friend along the way, we got hit with a snowstorm as we ascended the peak, we didn´t fuck up in any meaningful way, and we finally got out of Quito. My first time out of the city since I arrived!! As I aspire to talk about rocks in every post, I will mention that I did collect a few likely samples, but did not investigate them thoroughly, due to the deleterious effects of altitude and exertion on the geology portion of my brain. First order observations...they are volcanic. That goes for almost every rock in Ecuador. I´ll scope them out tonight and report back.

Good news!! Erin has a camera, and uses it to take pictures. While I have long espoused the superiority of mental pictures, as they cannot be stolen and are very unobtrusive, they are surprisingly difficult to share. So, I will soon be posting some very sweet pictures of Quito, La Mama y la familia, Ruco Pichincha, and of course Erin and myself having the time of our lives. Picture blogs are more fun to write and to read!!!

Que vaya bien

Foggy Quito and even foggier me

Please disregard all comparisons between Quito and Central America. They are unfounded and ignorant. Please refer to post from 3/17 for an explanation. Also please ignore all whining. (3/17/08)




Nobody told me that Quito was completely covered in clouds, all day every day. The sun peeked out today for the very first time since I arrived (five days ago!), but was quickly banished from sight. Well, I was told it was the rainy season, so perhaps this makes sense. No worries, at least I´m on the Equator, so it must be warm and wet at least. NO! Wrong again. It´s damned cold. And of course I did not bring anything resembling warm clothes. It kind of feels like Seattle in the winter actually, always cold and damp, but at least I had the good sense to wear warm clothes back home.

I´ve now been here long enough for it to feel normal to be here. For example, this was the first morning that i woke up expecting to be in Quito. It is really quite a jarring experience to be half-awake and hear a foreign language being spoken in the room down the hall. Whaaaaaaaat? Where the hell am I? Oh, right, Quito, Ecuador. I live here now.

I find it very strange how fast we humans acclimatize to new realities. Despite the fact that everything is still ¨new¨, i´ve already started seeing things as normal. I see this as my brain shortcutting the overwhelming amount of information it is receiving. Rather than take note of all the intricacies of new and foreign place, my brain just deals with basic survival. Like dodging taxi cabs. And staring at every single sign that is in some way related to food. As in New York, everyone eats out here, so there are an absurd amount of restaurants. Unlike in New York, they are incredibly cheap. $10 a day is way more than enough for three very good meals. The variety is really surprising. Good Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, Italian, ¨fusion¨, American, English pub fare, all sorts of Ecuadorian cuisine and of course plenty of KFC. I had no idea it was so popular here. Zero McDonalds, dozens of KFC´s.

Whoops. Got sidetracked on food again. That´ll happen.

All of my expectations for Quito and South America in general were based on my experiences in Guatemala and Nicaragua. In retrospect, this is absurd. But so is the notion of retrospection. Getting back to my previous observation about brain streamlining, it took me a few days to realize that Quito is completely different than Guate or Nica. The absensce of trash in Quito is stunning compared to Central American cities, along with far less stray dogs and associated dog shit. There is a surprisingly strong ethic against littering here.

I´ve settled down nicely. I´m enrolled in a language school, i´ve got the lay of the land (under the clouds, and without the aid of volcanoes for a compass), i´m living in an apartment with a couple Quitenas (friends of a friend) just outside the very happening La Mariscal district. I´ve got a favorite cafe with a great happy hour special on cocktails. I´ve even found a couple brewpubs, which brew real beer, to supplement the traditionally poor Latin American light lager.

First impressions are in, and I really like this town. Quitenos really dig living here. They would never dream of living in the US. Going back to Central American comparisons, I was astounded by how often I met people in Nica or Guate whose driving motivation was to somehow make it into the United States. These were smart, young, ambitious people, often with professional degrees. Yet they knew they would make more money illegally in the States than in Guate or Nica. Quito has money. It´s very different. The young people here have good enough jobs to rent an apartment in the city and go out partying till 2am, 3am, 4am.

It´s very cloudy outside, and I believe that is effecting my brain. Just can´t stick to a coherent storyline.

As for Ecuador´s famed volcanoes...I have yet to see them. Apparently Quito is surrounded by 5000m plus volcanoes. We shall see.

What exactly am I doing in South America?

A new tradition is developing. My skateboard was stolen my last week of school, perhaps signaling that this particular form of recreation was meant to be confined to board-safe college campuses, lacking cars and potholes. My last night of school, i lost my student ID...for the first time ever in four and a half years. They are golden for discounts; a student ID in the post-student world is comparable to a fake ID in the pre-21 world.

And now? Well, after another great night at Yogi's on 75th and Broadway, I headed back to Jen and Elihu's place in lower Manhattan, along w/ younger Bogan Rosie. The cab ride was highly amusing; the cabbie had a sweet accent and was gregarious. We get back to the apartment, start in on the late-night chips and dip...and I realize my cell is gone, no doubt still in the cab. Nuts. On the one hand, i've got a million and one things to do before I leave, and phones sure are handy. On the other hand, I can't think of a better time to lose a phone. I'm outta here for the next 4 months, I'm unemployed and unschooled, what the hell do I need a cell phone for?

Ok, that was a digression. Apparently I lose stuff right before I leave places (come to think of it, my last night in Vegas in summer '06 saw the end of my last wallet). Exciting.

But more exciting is that I'm bout to go to South America for four months. What's gonna happen? What am I gonna do?

Quito, Ecuador: I want to be fluent. Not competent, not functional, not good enough. I want it to be sweet and smooth. Good enough to woo a discerning woman, good enough to impress a suspicious employer. Or at least not screw me over from the get-go. Erin Noble has a similar aim (I think).
So, we are living in Quito for a month or two to learn Spanish real good. We'll rent an apartment, take Spanish classes, explore Quito, integrate ourselves into some sort of social scene, and go climb volcanoes on the weekends. Post-Quito, we head south to Lago Titicaca and the town of Puno, on the border of Peru and Bolivia.

Puno, Peru:
This is the science part of the trip. Pomona professor Heather Williams has been conducting nutrient testing of the waters in Lago Titicaca, which I will be continuing. There are nearly 3 million people living around the lake (it's really big), and there is precious little in the way of modern sewage systems. The result is a huge amount of shit (urban effluence, to use the lingo) washing down into the lake. The nitrogen in poop allows micro-organisms, such as algae and bacteria, to thrive; these algal blooms cause precipitous drop offs in oxygen levels, which in turn kills of the fish. This process is known as eutrophication. It is a fairly common problem in lakes around the world, but it severely harms communities who rely upon fish as a main source of protein and cash, as many communities around Lago Titicaca do.

So, the problem is eutrophication, and we will be sampling water around the lake to measure the water chemistry and nutrient levels. Pretty basic stuff; you stick a probe into the water, push a few buttons, and you get a number. Our results are interesting because they will allow us to compare rainy season nutrient levels with dry season nutrient levels, which were compiled last year by Heather Williams and Derek Young, another Pomona student.

There is a 2nd environmental issue. There are a series of artisanal gold mines (meaning worked by small groups of very poor people, as opposed to big rich mining corporations) located at the head of the Ramis River, a major river that drains into Lago Titicaca. Artisanal gold mining is characterized by the use of mercury to separate the gold from the motley of crushed ore that the gold is mixed up in. So, the crushed ore slurry is run down a sluice (think of a slide) that is lined with mercury. The mercury bonds to the gold particles, resulting in an amalgam. The amalgam is separated and then heated with a blowtorch, until the mercury evaporates from the gold. The end result is mostly pure gold, although a significant amount of mercury remains.

Mercury, eh? Isn't that incredibly poisonous? Yup. And thousands of poor, uneducated miners are turning it into vapor right in front of their noses, with nothing in the way of protective equipment. Yes, they are getting sick from it. And a huge amount of the dangerous stuff makes its way downstream with the waste ore, and into the watershed. Mercury is heavy, so it doesn't stay in the water much, and instead sinks to the ground. But it bio-accumulates; this means that little critters eat ground sediments that contains the mercury, then bigger critters eat them, and even bigger critters eat them. Throughout the whole process, the mercury is never excreted or broken down. The end result is that the top predator (say, lake trout) end up with a huge dose of mercury. As it happens, the top fish in Lago Titicaca have been found to have dangerously high levels of mercury. This is clearly a problem for the 3 million people living around the lake and eating the fish every day.

So, where do we (Senor Noble and myself) come into play?

We would like to conduct a survey of mercury levels in the Ramis River watershed. But it is very expensive to test for mercury and we lack the funding. So we are going to conduct a survey to set up a framework for a future (better funded) sampling project. This has two aspects, environmental and social. The environmental aspect is fairly simple. We go up the river finding good sites to sample, log them on a GPS, make observations of the water conditions (flow velocity and quantity, fish present, water quality, etc) and compile this into a database.

The social aspect is related to the disruption the mines and the mercury pose to the communities along the Ramis River watershed. Farmers are being negatively affected by higher silt levels in the water and possible mercury contamination. On the other hand, fishermen have no desire to be told that the fish they are selling is full of mercury. So, some people are being harmed by the mine, and therefore want a sampling survey to be done, while other people would be harmed by a survey. This makes for a potentially explosive situation. We need to talk to the people, figure out where everyone's interest lies, essentially make a report concerning how a future sampling project would be received. There is a very real risk of violence in the area, so it is important that we establish if a project would even be safe to run. Hopefully, we will end up with a professional looking report on the Ramis River watershed and a future mercury sampling project.


So...that is what I am doing in South America. Actually, there will be a whole bunch more. We'll be doing a ton of trekking in the Andes, climbing lots of mountains and volcanoes, perhaps visiting the Amazon, playing lots of chess, beating the crap out of each other on a regular basis (seriously, i'm bringing boxing gloves), carousing, making friends, etc etc etc.

If you want to see what actually happens...stay tuned. I arrive in Quito tomorrow!!!


As if things weren't exciting enough...Ecuador is on the verge of a war with Colombia