Since I first arrived in Ecuador more than three years ago, my Spanish has improved exponentially mostly through lots and lots of trial and error. I've also learned a lot by listening, especially to Andres and his family. I was repeating what I heard and hoping it made sense. But after Andres and I moved into our new apartment, I wasn't spending so much time practicing or listening. To add to my Spanish plight, Andres became more interested in practicing his English. So my Spanish suffered. And then last Fall I really started to notice a plateau in my skills. I just wasn't improving, I was making the same mistakes over and over and never knowing how to correct them.
So I finally decided to make a change and make a really effort to get beyond pretty good to great. My friend had been taking lessons with a local tutor, who she said was fantastic, and the proof was in the pudding because she hadn't known much Spanish at all before coming to Ecuador about 4 months before, and after a little time with her tutor, she was already using tons of new vocabulary and verbs tenses. I gave him a call, which was a little less successful than I had expected because I mixed up his name and asked for someone else the first time I called. He said I had the wrong number, so I hung up, confused. Then I asked my friend what his name was and realized I had made a mistake. I was too embarrassed to call back and tell him what happened, so I waited for Andres to get home and called on his phone! Well, I finally managed to make a time to meet, and I was delighted by my first lesson. We started just with some questions and conversation so that he could get an idea of my level and my mistakes. He is a larger than life character who is want to jump out of his chair in order to explain some vocabulary word, and is always laughing and smiling. I knew that it would be a good set up for me.
He told me that my level was very advanced (so flattered!) but that I was still making some stupid mistakes (my words, not his), so we started with some very basic stuff, like gender pronouns and ser and estar. This turned out to be really great though because he explained ser and estar to me in a new way, which I finally understood, and also explained several uses/differences that I hadn't been aware of. For example, if you use estar + participio pasado it indicates that the action has already happened and finished as in "él está muerto." If you use ser + participio pasado it's like the passive voice in English and implies that someone performed the action on the object as "el pavo de navidad fue hecho por Becky." This was mind-blowing for me because I never even thought about the distinction between those to structures, let alone understood it. Now I know why you say "las cobjas están hechas de lana" and "las cobijas son hechas en Otavalo." ( I really hope I didn't mess that up, I'll have to double-check with my tutor, feeling sheepish)
It's always frustrating when I find out I've been making a mistake for ages without realizing it (Hello, saying hago errores instead of cometo errores!) but it's also amazing when something clicks and I am actually able to integrate it into my knowledge of the language. Right now I'm learning phrases in order to say things in a more interesting way, but I feel pretty silly for learning this now because if I had just studied more in school, I would already know them (for example, it is taking me WAY too long to figure out that sin embargo means nevertheless; I'm pretty sure I was supposed to learn that in high school)
I'll keep you posted (haha) on more Spanish breakthroughs as they come up. I shall be the little engine that could
Monday, April 21, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Visiting the Amazon: Liana Lodge
As you will remember from where our story left off, getting to Liana Lodge involved some less than luxurious bus travel, and a longer-than-expected wait by the side of the road for our canoe. By the time we embarked on our 15 minute canoe ride, we were pretty unsure about what awaited us at the lodge.
Liana Lodge
What we discovered was one of the most comfortable and pleasant jungle stays any of us had experienced or heard tell of. The canoe dropped us off and we were met by a sweet Swiss volunteer who explained the regulations and procedures for staying at the lodge, a welcome cocktail of some local beverage and an extremely comfortable, beautiful, wood cabin to ourselves. Our room had three cozy twin beds with soft sheets and pillows, a private deck with a chair and hammock, several candles for the night time in lieu of electric lights, and, best of all, a hot shower. We didn't need to use mosquito nets because the bugs weren't bad (though I suppose Carmen's ankles might beg to differ), and when we went down to dinner we were treated to the five-star experience. We had our own table on the big wooden deck and we were served delicious garlic soup before a main course of chicken, salad, and potatoes, finished off with a carrot dessert. They also made accommodations for the vegetarian among us. The rest of the meals during the trip were similarly tasty, especially the breakfasts, though there was one lunch when we had to contend with an entire tilapia wrapped in banana leaves and looking very recently cooked.
Tour 1: Rainforest hike
For our morning activity we chose to go on the short rain forest walk to visit some giant trees. Our guide was a young man, maybe about 18 years old, from the local community, who had embraced punk style and had a thorough knowledge of the plants that we encountered. The hike was difficult and involved walking straight uphill for about 20 minutes and then straight down hill for about 15. I had a great time though and it was really interesting to learn how the local people used the plant materials. Our whippersnapper guide also demonstrated climbing up the side of these giant trees using vines as thick as his arm. The German girl in our group attempted to copy him but was utterly unsuccessful. Carmen and I did participate in some vine swinging further down the trail, and the guide clearly regretted letting us try in the face of our total ineptitude. We made him nervous, as Carmen managed to slo-mo slide to the end of the vine and I nearly smashed into a tree. So all in all, good times.
AmaZOOnico
At the end of our hike, we came to the zoo, cutely named AmaZOOnico, where the foundation Selva Vida houses rescue animals and prepares them for release into the wild whenever possible. It turned out to be really lovely. We spent about 45 minutes wandering through the zoo with a new guide who was a volunteer and who we think was from Argentina, though I forgot to ask. He spoke great English and was very friendly and funny. We saw several types of monkeys and tons of different birds including the Scarlet Macaw. Our guide told us that the zoo was not planning on releasing them because poachers and bird smugglers can get up to $5,000 for their feathers, and therefore it would not be safe for them outside of the zoo. Unfortunately, most of the mammals were hiding when we were there, but we still enjoyed learning about them and asking questions about the zoo's operations. Possibly my favorite part involved animals not in captivity. While we were walking, a troop of spider monkeys came swinging through the forest to harass the birds and steal food from the zoo. They also stopped to harass a group of their fellow spider monkeys behind bars who were recovering from injuries. And! There was a baby! It was grasping hold of its mother, just enjoying the ride. This was one of three different types of wild monkeys we saw on this trip.
Tour 2: Visit to the Community
For our afternoon activity, we chose to visit the "plantations," which were really little farms belonging to the local people, and visit a home. We were a little wary because we didn't want to be "those" tourists who use local people like tourist sites, but it sounded cool to see the farms, and we figured, what the heck. Ultimately we didn't feel awkward because it was obvious that our guide had a good relationship with the locals and we didn't seem to be intruding. We think there weren't enough of the usual guides for all of the groups when it was time to go because after waiting for about 10 minutes I asked the receptionist if there was a guide for us, and she said that the owner of the lodge was on his way down in a canoe to take us. This turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing. Mostly it was cool because we got to ask him about the lodge and how it hires people from the community and hear him speak Kichwa with local children while asking directions. This brings me to the bad part. I think maybe he wasn't used to leading these tours because we got lost three times in dense banana plants or something similar and had to do a fair amount of bushwhacking to get ourselves unlost. I asked my Spanish tutor how to say "bushwhacking" and he said "entrar a machete" which just goes to show you how inextricably linked our language and culture are. The farms were beautiful and overgrown and our guide showed us male and female papaya plants, Conga ants, a praying mantis, a stick insect, and let us suck on cacao beans while we walked (a flavor suprisingly unlike chocolate).
After tromping through farms for 2 hours, we came to a house on stilts in a small clearing. There our guide taught us how to use the traditional blowdarks from the area (I asked and he said they're really only used deep in the jungle by the uncontacted communities nowadays), which we used to shoot at little wooden owl perched on a stick. Then we went up to the open air kitchen on the second floor where an elderly woman gave us "chicha," a local fermented alcohol drink traditionally made by chewing yuca and spitting it into a large pot to be cooked. The chicha we tried used a different method instead of chewing and our guide explained that the chewed chicha lost popularity many years ago when disease started to become more of a problem. The lady seemed sweet and asked for our names, but she didn't speak Spanish, only Kichwa so we couldn't exactly chat with her.
Liana Lodge
 |
| Children fishing, seen from the deck at Liana Lodge. Photo by Ramona McCabe. |
What we discovered was one of the most comfortable and pleasant jungle stays any of us had experienced or heard tell of. The canoe dropped us off and we were met by a sweet Swiss volunteer who explained the regulations and procedures for staying at the lodge, a welcome cocktail of some local beverage and an extremely comfortable, beautiful, wood cabin to ourselves. Our room had three cozy twin beds with soft sheets and pillows, a private deck with a chair and hammock, several candles for the night time in lieu of electric lights, and, best of all, a hot shower. We didn't need to use mosquito nets because the bugs weren't bad (though I suppose Carmen's ankles might beg to differ), and when we went down to dinner we were treated to the five-star experience. We had our own table on the big wooden deck and we were served delicious garlic soup before a main course of chicken, salad, and potatoes, finished off with a carrot dessert. They also made accommodations for the vegetarian among us. The rest of the meals during the trip were similarly tasty, especially the breakfasts, though there was one lunch when we had to contend with an entire tilapia wrapped in banana leaves and looking very recently cooked.
Tour 1: Rainforest hike
For our morning activity we chose to go on the short rain forest walk to visit some giant trees. Our guide was a young man, maybe about 18 years old, from the local community, who had embraced punk style and had a thorough knowledge of the plants that we encountered. The hike was difficult and involved walking straight uphill for about 20 minutes and then straight down hill for about 15. I had a great time though and it was really interesting to learn how the local people used the plant materials. Our whippersnapper guide also demonstrated climbing up the side of these giant trees using vines as thick as his arm. The German girl in our group attempted to copy him but was utterly unsuccessful. Carmen and I did participate in some vine swinging further down the trail, and the guide clearly regretted letting us try in the face of our total ineptitude. We made him nervous, as Carmen managed to slo-mo slide to the end of the vine and I nearly smashed into a tree. So all in all, good times.
 | ||||
| Proving that his punk outfit did not mutually exclude super jungle skills. Photo by Ramona McCabe. |
AmaZOOnico
At the end of our hike, we came to the zoo, cutely named AmaZOOnico, where the foundation Selva Vida houses rescue animals and prepares them for release into the wild whenever possible. It turned out to be really lovely. We spent about 45 minutes wandering through the zoo with a new guide who was a volunteer and who we think was from Argentina, though I forgot to ask. He spoke great English and was very friendly and funny. We saw several types of monkeys and tons of different birds including the Scarlet Macaw. Our guide told us that the zoo was not planning on releasing them because poachers and bird smugglers can get up to $5,000 for their feathers, and therefore it would not be safe for them outside of the zoo. Unfortunately, most of the mammals were hiding when we were there, but we still enjoyed learning about them and asking questions about the zoo's operations. Possibly my favorite part involved animals not in captivity. While we were walking, a troop of spider monkeys came swinging through the forest to harass the birds and steal food from the zoo. They also stopped to harass a group of their fellow spider monkeys behind bars who were recovering from injuries. And! There was a baby! It was grasping hold of its mother, just enjoying the ride. This was one of three different types of wild monkeys we saw on this trip.
 |
| Photo by Ramona McCabe. |
For our afternoon activity, we chose to visit the "plantations," which were really little farms belonging to the local people, and visit a home. We were a little wary because we didn't want to be "those" tourists who use local people like tourist sites, but it sounded cool to see the farms, and we figured, what the heck. Ultimately we didn't feel awkward because it was obvious that our guide had a good relationship with the locals and we didn't seem to be intruding. We think there weren't enough of the usual guides for all of the groups when it was time to go because after waiting for about 10 minutes I asked the receptionist if there was a guide for us, and she said that the owner of the lodge was on his way down in a canoe to take us. This turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing. Mostly it was cool because we got to ask him about the lodge and how it hires people from the community and hear him speak Kichwa with local children while asking directions. This brings me to the bad part. I think maybe he wasn't used to leading these tours because we got lost three times in dense banana plants or something similar and had to do a fair amount of bushwhacking to get ourselves unlost. I asked my Spanish tutor how to say "bushwhacking" and he said "entrar a machete" which just goes to show you how inextricably linked our language and culture are. The farms were beautiful and overgrown and our guide showed us male and female papaya plants, Conga ants, a praying mantis, a stick insect, and let us suck on cacao beans while we walked (a flavor suprisingly unlike chocolate).
After tromping through farms for 2 hours, we came to a house on stilts in a small clearing. There our guide taught us how to use the traditional blowdarks from the area (I asked and he said they're really only used deep in the jungle by the uncontacted communities nowadays), which we used to shoot at little wooden owl perched on a stick. Then we went up to the open air kitchen on the second floor where an elderly woman gave us "chicha," a local fermented alcohol drink traditionally made by chewing yuca and spitting it into a large pot to be cooked. The chicha we tried used a different method instead of chewing and our guide explained that the chewed chicha lost popularity many years ago when disease started to become more of a problem. The lady seemed sweet and asked for our names, but she didn't speak Spanish, only Kichwa so we couldn't exactly chat with her.
After the visit we returned to the lodge to relax, have dinner, and try fancy cocktails at the bar, including one that used an entire passion fruit.
What are your favorite spots to visit in the Ecuadorian amazon? Reply in the comments.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Around Tena: Parque Amazónico La Isla and More Buses
Parque Amazónico La Isla
This activity was discovered by my friend as she browsed my guidebook, the Rough Guide to Ecuador, which was really a stroke of luck because we might never have met our tiny monkey friends otherwise. The park is at the fork in the river and though not a true island, resembles one, which gives it its name. We visited the park on Sunday before heading out on a bus and canoe journey rather more rustic than we had anticipated to get to Liana Lodge.
More Buses: Getting to Liana Lodge from Tena
Buses, as you may know, are a common theme of mine on this blog and a common theme of pretty much all budget travelers in Ecuador. Also, as I have discovered through my travels in Peru and stories from friends who have spend time in other Latin American countries, Ecuador's buses are of the very bare bones variety. You can find pretty much exclusively what my aunt calls "chicken buses." In other words, buses for the normal folk, who sometimes have to transport chickens etc. and are not comfy, air-conditioned, executive buses like those that can be found in Peru. I have ridden several times on buses with actual chicken passengers and my friend once sat next to a chicken on the way to Mindo that proceeded to fall asleep on her arm. But that's a story for another day. The bus from Tena to Puerto Barantilla, where we caught the canoe to Liana Lodge, did not feature any live chickens, but we would rather have hung around with chickens than wait in the bus stop we were at.
This activity was discovered by my friend as she browsed my guidebook, the Rough Guide to Ecuador, which was really a stroke of luck because we might never have met our tiny monkey friends otherwise. The park is at the fork in the river and though not a true island, resembles one, which gives it its name. We visited the park on Sunday before heading out on a bus and canoe journey rather more rustic than we had anticipated to get to Liana Lodge.
To get to the park, just locate the tall foot bridge crossing the river near to most of the main tourist restaurants, and walk halfway across to stairs down to the park. There was an elevator but it didn't appear functional. When we got to the entrance, there was an old woman collecting the entrance fee ($2) and I asked her if there was a map of the park, which was not small, but the only one available was on the big sign sticking out of the ground. We gave it a quick glance, hoping to remember something of it later, before we walked off towards the west side of the park.
The park is very beautiful and gives you a hint of the lushness of the amazon. We wandered around for a while, climbing an observatory at the top of a small hill, and eventually running into a small zoo with various local creatures.
 |
| Amazonian lushness in action. Photo by Ramona McCabe. |
But the best part wasn't until the very end when we finished our loop and came out of the trees by a large building with a deck. There we encountered three tiny, dark brown monkeys! A family of Ecuadorian tourists was trying to take pictures of them and squealing whenever they hopped suddenly, and we happily joined in.
 | |
| Our plump friend taking a breakskie before resuming his mad hopping. Photo by Ramona McCabe. |
More Buses: Getting to Liana Lodge from Tena
Buses, as you may know, are a common theme of mine on this blog and a common theme of pretty much all budget travelers in Ecuador. Also, as I have discovered through my travels in Peru and stories from friends who have spend time in other Latin American countries, Ecuador's buses are of the very bare bones variety. You can find pretty much exclusively what my aunt calls "chicken buses." In other words, buses for the normal folk, who sometimes have to transport chickens etc. and are not comfy, air-conditioned, executive buses like those that can be found in Peru. I have ridden several times on buses with actual chicken passengers and my friend once sat next to a chicken on the way to Mindo that proceeded to fall asleep on her arm. But that's a story for another day. The bus from Tena to Puerto Barantilla, where we caught the canoe to Liana Lodge, did not feature any live chickens, but we would rather have hung around with chickens than wait in the bus stop we were at.
At first we went to the main terminal and tried to get a bus from one company, Transporte Jumandy, but they only offered buses at 12pm and at 4pm and we wanted to leave at 2pm because we had told the lodge to pick us up in the canoe at 4. So we tried the other company that had buses going our way (catch a bus to Puerto Barantilla or Santa Rosa del Napo). We had to walk off the beaten tourist path, down Avenida del Chofer, to get to the bus company, Sentinella del Tena. When we arrived we had to join a crush of people trying to talk to one woman behind a plexiglass divider. I wedged myself in with my fellow travelers to try to get some information about the bus. Meanwhile, everyone was sweaty and hot from the humidity, we were trying to avoid looking at the dirty diaper on the ground nearby, an old man with some kind of mental disability was telling us stories and asking everyone for money, and I was trusting that my friends smooshed up behind me were protecting my bag from robbery. And we had to stand like that for about half an hour while the world's slowest ticket person attempted to help people at the front of the mass of travelers.
After we finally managed to buy our tickets and extract ourselves from the group of people still waiting, we had to sit on the dusty curb in the sun and wait for the bus to arrive. Once we actually got on the bus, the whole experience started to improve because we were finally out of the sun and sitting somewhere comfortable, with the breeze from the open windows cooling us down. We got underway, and had to be very alert to our surroundings because during Carnaval people love to throw water at the open windows of buses going buy. Several times we had to slam the windows shut so as to avoid getting ourselves and our bus mates doused in water.
After about an hour and a half, the bus driver's assistant, who we had asked to help us find our stop, signaled that it was time to get off. We gathered our belongings and hurried to the front of the bus while it came to a jerky halt. We stepped off the bus and looked around. We were on the side of a dirt road, surrounded by tropical trees, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Then we spotted a big wooden sign saying Liana Lodge and Amazoonico, and decided to walk up a little gravel driveway towards a run-down house and small parking area. Down the hill away from the road we found a small dock and waited hopefully by an old canoe. After about half an hour, by which point we had started to become rather anxious, a big motorized canoe pulled up and asked us to hop on (easier said than done when you consider the slippery, river-worn rocks we had to step precariously off of on to the canoe). Then we sped off down the river to Liana Lodge.
 |
| Photo by Ramona McCabe |
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Around Tena: Cavernas de Jumandy
Tena, which I wrote about in my last post, is a small city whose primary attraction is river rafting. Seriously, every time you turn around you run into another rafting company. If rafting isn't your thing, however, the list of other activity options is pretty short. We took it upon ourselves to investigate a couple of the other options for our fellow non-rafting-types.
Cavernas de Jumandy
Cavernas de Jumandy
On our first day, we went on an excursion to the Cavernas de Jumandy (not to be confused with Robin Williams in "jungle" garb), which turned out to be a bit more adventure than we had bargained on. But let's start from the beginning.
We were getting a late start so we decided to investigate taxi possibilities before trying our hand at the local bus system. We were glad we did because it only ended up being $6 for a 20 minute ride outside of Tena; past Archidona, a small town to the north; and through a jungle thundershower to arrive at an elaborate swimming complex at the mouth of the caves. We had to enter the complex to get to the caves ($2 entrance fee), before dropping off our clothes at the locker area--don't get too excited, we had worn our swimsuits underneath-- and then go rent rubber boot for trekking through the caves ($1). Then we approached the entrance to the caves (a separate $2 fee to enter) and the fun really started. A young woman from the local indigenous community dressed in athletic wear guided us and a group of Ecuadorian tourists down the slippery steps and into the mouth of the cave. There she explained to us in rapid Spanish to follow her closely and not wander off the path lest we find ourselves in deep and unforgiving cave water. She then gave us each a headlamp and tromped off into the dark of the cave. We exchanged startled looks, took a deep breath, and went off after her.
We were getting a late start so we decided to investigate taxi possibilities before trying our hand at the local bus system. We were glad we did because it only ended up being $6 for a 20 minute ride outside of Tena; past Archidona, a small town to the north; and through a jungle thundershower to arrive at an elaborate swimming complex at the mouth of the caves. We had to enter the complex to get to the caves ($2 entrance fee), before dropping off our clothes at the locker area--don't get too excited, we had worn our swimsuits underneath-- and then go rent rubber boot for trekking through the caves ($1). Then we approached the entrance to the caves (a separate $2 fee to enter) and the fun really started. A young woman from the local indigenous community dressed in athletic wear guided us and a group of Ecuadorian tourists down the slippery steps and into the mouth of the cave. There she explained to us in rapid Spanish to follow her closely and not wander off the path lest we find ourselves in deep and unforgiving cave water. She then gave us each a headlamp and tromped off into the dark of the cave. We exchanged startled looks, took a deep breath, and went off after her.
We walked and scrambled for about 5 minutes on surprisingly unslippery rocks before we got to our first challenge. The rocks dropped away and a deep pool loomed in the darkness. The guide instructed us to pull ourselves across to the other side on a thick rubber rope with our legs dangling in the water. Thankfully, I felt pretty adept at doing this due to my great affinity for all things swimming-related. It was at this point, however, that I decided to never bring guests with me to the caves. After traversing the pool, we had to clamber up steep, wet rocks in the dark and try to keep up with the Ecuadorian contingent of our group, all in all quite a feat. We continued like this for a while, some stretches requiring more clambering than others, and peered at the stalactites and stalagmites growing from the floor and ceiling. It was really quite remarkable, because we were able to touch some of them and we often had to duck to avoid smacking our heads on them. We felt a bit bad about trampling all over the geological formations, but we were reassured when the guide said that there were great expanses of the caves closed off to the public. One particularly striking stalagmites coming up from the floor (yes, I had to look up which was which) was shaped rather -- ehem -- phallically and according to the guide it used to be used by shamans to perform rituals meant to improve fertility and get rid of bad energy. We were instructed to pat it for good luck on our way by.
The guide also gave us a mini history lesson on Jumandy, the indigenous leader who led an uprising against the Spaniards from the caves, and was subsequently killed. She told us, with a touch of bitterness that the caves are owned and operated by the local indigenous people but that the swimming complex is now owned by the province, and that is why the charge entrance separately. I won't give away all the secrets of the cave, but suffice it to say, it was a nutso adventure of the top order. I think the best and most terrifying part of the experience is that you really would never be allowed to do it in the U.S.
 |
| How I figured out whether it was a -gite or a -mite. From wikipedia. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)