Mind, Body, Soul - Sacred Valley

It's pretty easy to see how the Sacred Valley got its name. The Urubamba river winds steadily between two terraced mountain ridges that have a palpable yet hard-to-describe energy, similar to the kind that you might feel in old churches or at ancient ruins. The Valley is notable for many reasons - its surpassing beauty, Incan heritage, and crown jewel Machu Picchu, for starters - but it's also a powerfully calming place. 

We spent five days at a yogic retreat in the Valley, under the tutelage of a Peruvian yogi named Chitanya. Needless to say, it was an absolutely incredible experience.  At the moment, though, I'm too exhausted to describe it all in words. For the sake of continuity of the blog, I'm gonna turn it over to my boy Jimmy Friedman, who has given our week a much more comprehensive rundown than I could've.

From Jimmy's entry on the Carpe Diem Blog site: https://www.carpediemeducation.org/2015/11/sacred-valley-ecoyoga-retreat/

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

On November 8th, the Sacred Valley, near Cusco, greeted us with an overcast sky, a calm river, and enormous, cultivated mountains on either side of the main road. Uphill, dorms, a cafeteria, and a meditation center (all made of a deep, brown adobe). Boulders and stone pathways decorated the large, open space between the students’ home and the eating area. The air of peace and balance was a significant energetic change from the hustle of Cusco. People came there to work on themselves and to do that alone; we were no exception. We knew upon arrival that the change in lifestyle would yield new wisdom and health.

Our contact at this EcoYoga center was a Peruvian yogi named Chaitanya. He walked up to us with a baseball cap, cargo pants, a hoodie, and a smile indicating profound contentment and a drive to teach. He showed us to our cozy living quarters and told us to “make ourselves ready.” That same evening, we began our humbling yoga regimen.

Each day we woke up at 7:10 to prepare for 45 minutes of meditation and/or chanting, often guided by centering words from Chaitanya and dulcet tones from a Tibetan singing bowl or the poignant breath of a harmonium, a small hand pumped reed organ used in small chapels. After meditation, we carried our yoga mats down the hill, to a spacious, circular practice building that, itself, took the form of a mandala. The classes were lead by Chaitanya half the time and by a disciple of his for the other half. During this time, we enjoyed an hour and a half of arduous poses, including stretches, head stands, and strenuous holds in difficult positions. Some of our favorite classes were the AcroYoga classes (simply translated, acrobatic yoga). These consisted of having one or two partners to achieve an end pose of, for example, balancing your body only on the feet of your supporting partner. Other times, one would be sitting upright with their legs wrapped around the calves of their partner laying on the ground with their legs straight up, giving way to miraculous feelings of lightness and flight. Overall, a mind-expanding experience.

After breathing our way through the early morning, we ate a vegetarian breakfast, followed by an hour of Seva. Seva, the Sanskrit word for service, included picking up trash by the river, cleaning the dining area, helping with dishes, or simply moving boulders to more desirable locations, making the space more beautiful. After Seva, there were two hours of workshop. During this time, Chaitanya taught us about either Vedic Astrology, Yogic philosophy, Pranayama (use and control of the breath), or Chakras (energy centers in the body). All of these subjects intrigued us hugely because it was so far outside of our normal, Western educational paradigm. Each workshop featured not only understanding, but moments in which we would experience exactly what Chaitanya was dictating. For example, the pranayama workshop was principally a breathing exercise to show us how to control the mind with our breath. After said exercise, we all agreed that we shared a pervading peace and calmness from the lesson. We were refreshed to know that we were gaining skills that could be used for years to come.

At 1:00pm, a seated, vegetarian lunch followed the workshop, a time for mindful eating and thankful gestures like washing dishes and cleaning the tables. 2:00 until 2:30 was resting time, followed by another workshop, leading into 4:30 yoga for a total of three hours of physical yoga each day.

Mind clear and body calm, we relished a light dinner prepared with love and great vibes. Next was the nightly Kirtan (a call and response chanting with tablas, a harmonium, and other drums). Weary from a day of spiritual practice, we went to bed around 8:30 each night.

On the 11th, Chaitanya lead us in a departing ceremony in the meditation room. Seated closely in a circle, we chanted in sanskrit around a pot of burning paper and cow chips. Previous to the ceremony, we had written down on peaces of paper one thing we want to take from the retreat, and one thing we wanted to leave behind to be shed from our pre-yoga selves. We symbolically threw the papers in the fire separately and watched them incinerate, giving us a luminous warmth.

In retrospect, I believe we did gain what we wanted to, and shed what we needed to. The 5 days were tough, but gave us new dimensions to live and grow in. Shout out to our homeboy Chaitanya for being an exemplary role model and an inspiration to live a more conscious life. From the Inti group in Cusco, Namaste.

Exploratory Chilling - Southern Highlands

Our week in Arequipa sold us on Peru pretty easily.  Aside from Jimmy, Ryan and TJ, whose inconvenient location necessitated a 45-minute commute to and from the Spanish school, the majority of us took a quick liking to the new country - 5000-meter snow-covered warts and all. 

This was especially good news because our next week was libre: We had six days to plan and follow our own schedule, operating within a given budget and landing us in the city of Cusco by the end. Within those parameters, we were free to discuss and decide our own week and our own fate. Yes.

The money, of course, proved to be our most limiting factor.  Seventy bucks can get a person a long way in South America, but it wasn't quite enough to realize some of our wilder fantisies. For example, it discounted the possibility of a quick jaunt to the Galápagos - believe me, we tried like hell to make that one work - and then anything further away (like Patagonia or the Caribbean) just  kind of fizzled away by default. But we were more than happy to hang out in Peru, and Arequipa's location in the Southern Highlands gave us tons of options that were relatively close at hand.

So on Sunday morning Lucas and I hit the Festivál de Comida one more time, met up with the rest of the Carpe Gentlemen's Club, and piled into a bus that had at one time been bright purple but was now faded and patched with duct tape. Economy is key. Though the bus squirmed in protest all the while, the three-hour drive was a cool experience for most of us; we traversed a painted desert, between twelve and fifteen thousand feet above sea level, and witnessed an alien landscape and an evening sky that probably don't have equals anywhere else on this planet.  I just wish the windows would have been clearer.

We arrived in the town of Chivay as the evening fell and the cold rolled in, like it always does when it gets dark and you're three miles above the flipping ocean. I still can't get over that.

Chivay is a charming, historical place where the indigenous culture has blended uncompromisingly with 21st-century tourism.  Women walk to and fro in enormous, brightly-colored hats and dresses, running an energetic open-air market and bumping elbows with adventurous gringos.  Most of Chivay's visitors are out to see the nearby Cañon del Colca, and we were no exception; the Cañon is the second-deepest in the world, bested only by a smaller and less-magnificent neighbor (the Cotahuasi)  to the north, and it's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon at it's deepest.  We spent a day hanging out in Chivay's cobblestone streets and exploring the Incan ruins to the East, and then decided that the canyon would be better explored from a different town, Cabanaconde, a quick 30 minute drive down the rim. 

After arriving in Cabanaconde on the morning of Day 3, we packed our bags and prepared for one of South America's most insane hikes.  Our descent - about a mile, vertically, I think - wound down an arduous series of dusty switchbacks, finally concluding at a weird little settlement known as The Oasis. An incongruous gem of palm trees and swimming pools located on the floor of this plunging, jagged, dusty crevasse, it's wholly unique (albeit a little touristy) and it's equal parts attractive and absurd. There's a restaurant at the bottom, with accompanying cabins; all supplies (and some visitors) are hauled down by mule. Lindsay actually had to enlist one for the evening ascent, which was doubly difficult on account of the plunging temperatures and the lack of ambient oxygen.

The next morning, Morning 4, our stay in Cabanaconde was brought to a close by another long bus ride - less bumpy this time, but just as scenic - to the city of Puno. We had read that our destination is a sprawling dump full of smog and illicit activity; we justified our visit on account of it's neighbor, Lake Titikaka, which is officially the world's most fun-to-say geographical feature.  It's also Earth's highest navigable body of water, and, according to legend, the birthplace of the sun. 

We spent all of Day 5 on the water, hopping from island to island in a rented boat and reveling in the novelty of it all.  Lake Titikaka? The one we've all been making jokes about since fourth grade? It was almost too much.  The Islas de Uros, manmade islands which are composed entirely of lake-borne reeds and have been maintained by their indigenous inhabitants for centuries? No way. Taquile, a Mediterranean isle with Mediterranean scenery that looks like it was picked up and plopped down on a different continent? Come on. The fact all of this is perched around two miles above sea level - that my house is located something like 35 football fields straight down? Ridiculous.

We bedded down on a night bus and woke up in Cusco, our final destination, with little to do other than recharge and explore.  Cusco is a big, beautiful, Spanish Colonial tourist haven situated on the edge of the Sacred Valley, and it's probably one of my favorite stops on the trip thus far.

Maybe. I don't know. It's pretty hard to pick favorites.

(None of these pictures are mine. I can't find a computer that'll cooperate with my camera.)

Oasis

From the bus windows

Uros

Crossing the Line - Quito/Arequipa

We left the Intag Watershed with a pretty simple itenerary: Head back to Quito, check into Community Hostel, hit the laundromat, eat ludicrous amounts of brownies, and fall asleep watching movies on the wall projector.

Community is an exceptionally comfortable hostel with delicious meals, friendly (English-speaking) staff, and a welcoming vibe. It was the first place we stayed after arriving in Ecuador back in September, and most of the group considers it a kind of home-away-from-home. We were happy to pay it one last visit to close out our time in Ecuador, and we stayed pretty faithful to our schedule.

Before dawn on the third morning we called some of Ecuador's most spirited cab drivers and burnt rubber all the way to Quito International. Our day consisted of one flight to Lima and another to Arequipa, with a visit to McDonald's (God bless America) in between. We arrived in Arequipa well-rested but unsure of what to expect; though Peru is Ecuador's neighbor, it's an altogether different place.  Supposedly it's also more dangerous. One of our leaders, Lindsay, has lived there for six years and has no shortage of stories to tell.  We were excited, but we'd mentally prepared ourselves for a distinct change of pace.

If we had any fears about the transition, they weren't confirmed.  We all love Peru.  Most of the group would probably agree that our week in Arequipa was one of the best of the trip so far; we were in a beautiful place, experiencing Peruvian life through an incredibly full schedule. We enrolled for the week as students in a local Spanish school, taking classes for half of each day while spending the other half hanging out with kids at a nearby orphanage. Our host families were amazing, too, with comfortable homes, good food, and even hot water.

Our schedule kept us busy - I've never learned so much Spanish so fast, nor pretended to be a horse so often - but I can't think of a better way to have spent our first week in Peru. This country is absurdly gorgeous, with near-perfect weather at this time of year, and it seems like day-to-day experiences are even better just because of the quality of the air. Visiting sunny Arequipa just to gawk at the snow-capped mountains and sip maté de coca would all have been great even without awesome stuff to do from sunup to sundown.  Our teachers in the Spanish school were second to none, and the 3-4 hours of daily class seemed to go by like lightening.  We also had a blast at the orphanage. Aside from some light yardwork and some chicken coup assembly, our only job was to play with the squad each afternoon - to give some piggyback rides, spend some time on the swing set, and pop some volleyballs over the language barrier.  It was a good gig, and we were pretty sad to leave on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday we rounded off the week at Arequipa's annual Festival de Comida, where heaping platters of delicious local fare are dished out at Peru's typical dirt-cheap prices.  The city's evident passion for food kind of reminded me of America, although delecacies like chicha morada and picarones are probably hard to come by in the States. Picarones. Oh man. Four handmade honey-soaked donuts, flash-baked to perfection right in front of your eyes and supplemented with a side of quinoa ice cream - for less than three dollars? I like your style, Peru, and I think we're all pretty hungry for more.  Hope you keep it all up for the next month or so.

Arequipa / Either I took this picture, or I can't find a computer that can upload my photos

Trouble in Paradise - Intag

The Ecuadorian villiage of Pucará is a solid candidate for the title of World's Most Unassuming Place.  It's a humble little town, small in every sense, with modest buildings dwarfed even further by the Andean monoliths that pierce the horizon in every direction.  The center square, complete with a small church, two stores, and a volleyball court, branches out into a few sleepy streets, ranging out in different directions towards family farms and friendly bungalows.  The dirt highway, old but rarely used, rolls haphazardly through the middle of it all; trucks and buses rumble by semi-regularly, pushing onward to bigger and busier destinations as locals chat nonchalantly outside.

Pucará has never really tried to attract much attention to itself. It's a reserved place, even by Ecuadorian standards; by American ones, it would qualify as ¨extremely quiet.¨ But after spending some time in the villiage, an outsider will discover a new-age vitality that's hard to come by elsewhere in the rural Andes. Off the square, for example, there's a Spanish school where local women can earn money by teaching tourists and backpackers their language.  A shiny new Community Center, officially the largest building in the entire Intag Watershed, fosters a close and communicative local network.  Close by is the Rio Intag Coffee Cooperative, a regional coalition of growers who together produce some of the world's most delicious - and critically acclaimed - coffee. Residents run a restaurant, selling only the freshest of sustainably grown local goods; there's also a handbag weaving business that exports to two other continents.  Although fewer than 250 people call Pucará home, the area's energy and industry are suggestive of a much larger place.

Our ten days in town were some of the fullest and most eye-opening yet.  We worked closely with Peter Shear, an American expat living in Pucará who has devoted his last 20 years to developing the community. We spent the week working for the residents, exploring the region, studying sustainable agriculture, and learning about the pressing socio-political issues of the region.

Things aren't looking good for Pucará.  The villiage is in the midst of a decades-long conflict that threatens to uproot the entire community and destroy the local way of life. The Intag Watershed, where Pucará is located, sits atop one of the largest unexcavated copper deposits in the world; it also happens to be among the planet's most biodiverse regions, with more species per hectare than almost anywhere.  Excavating and refining the copper would swiftly reduce the entire watershed to a barren wasteland, thereby eliminating one of the last great natural paradises and displacing thousands of natives, including the citizens of Pucará and similar villiages.  International companies have been jostling for the rights to the copper deposit since 1996, while the Ecuadorian government has sat passively by. Supported by only their own industry and determination, the locals have succeeded in preserving their land, fending off powerful corporate giants from Japan, Chile, and Canada. Recently, however, pressed by a growing national debt, the Ecuadorian government has begun an effort to sieze the land for itself. Locals and outsiders alike view this as traitorous; it also goes against several constitutional laws.

Our role in the conflict was a small one: To learn what we could about these problems, and then dedicate just a few days of our time and energy to the community. We saw firsthand that Pucará's best bet is a stronger, more self-reliant Pucará; our task, then, was simply to support the town.

So we stayed awhile.  We ate at the restaurant, bought some handbags, and paid host families for room and board.  We spent a few mornings plowing fields and planting pineapples with and for some of the local farming families. We hiked (and, in one case, ziplined) all over the place, absorbing the scenery and experiencing the Cloud Forest while it still exists. We chatted with locals. We salsa'd with our host moms in the square.  We got absolutely decimated by the local soccer team - although we let them win, obviously, because that's the charitable thing to do, of course. And it's safe to say that we had a truly unforgettable exrpeience.

Places like Pucará are a dying breed. Life in the 21st Century has become so hurried and competitive that even the most rural communities are endangered by the pressures of the modern area - to the detriment of their cultures and against their collective wills. But Pucará is fighting back. The times have galvanized the people into action, and they're all working, with some success, to preserve their heritage and their home. We were extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to experience their way of life. Hopefully, it will remain for years to come.

There are no guarantees, however; the people of Intag are fighting an uphill battle.  Money, of course, is what's lacking. There's truly no better place to put your spare change - dollars go a long way in Ecuador, and every cent counts in this fight.  Visit http://www.decoin.org/ to donate or to learn more.

*Actually not Pucará, but a similar-ish villiage near Otavalo, since I forgot to take pictures of the town

A slice of the Intag Watershed.  Can't capture it with a camera

SpongeBob?

Awesome tourist cabins where we stayed our last two nights, near the villiage of Junín (population: 36) - another example of Intag's industry

Welcome to the Jungle - Tena/Otavalo

We spent four days of last week in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 30 bumpy minutes outside of the city of Tena, learning how much life can improve when you're half an hour from the nearest power outlet and surrounded by deet-hungry mosquitoes.  Special thanks to my anti-malarial tablets for making this awesome stay possible.

We bunked down in a ridiculously cool two-story shack that our backpacker-friendly host family had constructed in the middle of the jungle.  Reaching the encampment from the dirt road required knee-high rubber boots and a 10-minute trek, which turned out to be a lot more awesome than inconvenient. Overlooking the Napo River, a famous rafting destination, the shack served as our base of operations as we spent the week adventuring through the rainforest and brushing up a little more on our Spanish.

I don't know what to write about first.  The waterfall hike? The laguna hike? The second iteration of the aforementioned waterfall hike, in which we free-rappelled down the same 25-foot cascadas that we had climbed up twice before? The mind-blowing night skies, the likes of which can only be seen numerous kilometers from civilization? The afternoon that we spent panning for gold in the river - with some actual success? Maybe the morning riverside yoga sessions, or the nighttime campfire jams? What about the fact that our amazing host family cooked us native Ecuadorian cuisine all week, serving it up hot and fresh right outside our shack? Or the fact that we're even here at all, instead of in math class or something? It's a challege to keep track of everything, and even harder to do it justice in words.  So many experiences, so much gratitude, and such a short time.  I can't believe it all went by in four days.

Unfortunately, though, it did - which would suck, except we're now in the bustling tourist hub of Otavalo.  We're here for three nights, and it happens to be a blast here as well.  We arrived on Saturday morning, settled into our hostel (has running water AND electricity), and struck out to explore the famous outdoor market.  It's a really cool scene, and our haggling skills are getting sharper all the time.  Most of us, if we hadn't already, bought ourselves ponchos made of llama wool. We'd look exactly like an indigenous tribe if we didn't look so much like tourists.

Today we taxi'd/hiked up to a famous tree, El Lechero.  It supposedly has healing powers; it definitely looks like it has healing powers; if these bug bites stop itching any time soon, I'll be inclined to believe that it does, in fact, have healing powers. It was a great way to spend the morning, healing powers or not, and we followed it up the right way: with a stop at a nearby bakery.

In Ecuador, a dollar can buy two generous slices of cake.  There are some American stereotypes that we're more than happy to uphold.

The back yard

Oh, hey there.

(Yo, also, everybody should check out my buddy Lucas' blog at https://doslenguasdosalmas.wordpress.com/ .  For more blogs written by Carpe Diem kids, doing cool stuff in other parts of the world, go to https://www.carpediemeducation.org/blog/ .)

More pictures to follow, when I can find a fast enough internet cafe.

Chasing Waterfalls - Baños

It´s almost a challenge to describe the Ecuadorian town of Baños without sounding like a travel brochure.  The place has everything a tourist (or a roving band of student-volunteers) could wish for: a friendly atmosphere, fantastic food, plenty of nightlife, and a picturesque mountain range, which rises up majestically on every side and boasts something like 65 waterfalls.  The outdoor scene, as you might imagine, is off the charts - but the biggest draw of all is probably the series of volcanic hot springs for which the town is named.  This week we´ve encountered other non-locals - mostly European backpackers, actually - for pretty much the first time since Quito, and it´s not too tough to understand why they´re here.

I spent the week living with my buddy Peter - Pedro, I mean - under the roof of a friendly and welcoming host family.  The first of several homestay families on the trip, the Iglesiases set a pretty hard-to-match precedent: They showed us around town when we arrived, cooked us amazing meals all week, and washed our clothes at the laundromat that they run on the roof (an extremely helpful service after a week on a banana farm).  They were remarkably accommodating, and we were blown away by their willingness to take us into their day-to-day lives.

When we weren´t sleeping, eating, or retrieving laundry, though, we were usually out taking advantage of our time in Baños.  Our full schedule was comprised of almost equal parts learning, volunteering, and exploring.

We spent our mornings at a small Spanish school down the street, sharpening our Spanish with a dedicated group of teachers - including, but not limited to, some of our Las Delicias hosts from last week.  Our Spanish skills are improving in leaps and bounds.  For me, basic strings of words are starting to become more intuitive, and I´m starting to understand what it means to think in another language.

We would head home each day at lunchtime to eat with the Iglesias clan, and then return to school afterward for more classes  -  but, this time around, we were the teachers.  Levi and I were tasked with teaching elementary English to a small class of 13-16 year olds, none of whom had more than a year´s worth of English instruction under their belts.  It was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Our Spanish skills and creativity were taxed to the extreme, but by the end of the week we had made a pretty successful foray into the ins and outs of present tense verbs. On the last day, our students bought us a cake and asked for our email addresses. Incredibly gratifying.

We were extremely productive during the days, and exremely active during evenings and weekends. Additional accomplishments of the week include, but are not limited to: Rafting through a jungle, summiting a mountain, climbing a waterfall, salsa-ing in a nightclub, filming a music video (more on this later), running to the hot springs, and stumbling upon a good American-style burger joint.  Overall, the week couldn´t have been better.

¨Spanish Jenga¨

I can´t remember what this fruit is called, but it´s delicious.

It´s the thought that counts.

Bananas and Hammocks - Las Delicias

I spent the last week living with my Carpe group in the Ecuadorian town of Las Delicias.  That is, if you can call Las Delicias a town.

To the uncultured American observer, Las Delicias is an altogether unfamiliar type of establishment. It´s a semi-official conglomerate of farms and residences, clumped loosely around a couple of stores and a homely futbol court. A quick Google search doesn´t turn up anything definitive, but I guess we can go ahead and use the word ¨town.¨

It´s not actually too important; we spent the whole week on one farm anyway.

For me, the experience was mind-blowing even before it started. The three-hour drive from Quito to Las Delicias, from the Ecuadorian Highlands to the coastal region, was a striking back-and-forth of decrepit rural shantytowns and breathtaking natural scenery. If the view from the bus window wasn´t immensely humbling and somewhat sad, it was knock-your-socks-off, desktop-background-material gorgeous.  I registered a wider range of emotions from that (extremely uncomfortable) bus seat than I ever would have thought possible.  Hadn´t really seen it coming.

We were dropped off about half a mile from the farmhouse, and carried most of our week´s supply of drinking water the remaining distance. I guess the bus driver didn´t feel up to the hike.

Upon arrival, our group was greeted enthusiastically by our first host family, the owners and residents of the farm - which exports mostly bananas, plantains, and cacao.  Our hosts were genuinely excited to have us, even though our Spanish was mostly poor and their English is almost nonexistent.  They showed us around the complex, introduced us to our accomodations, and gave us a slow, clear, and infinitely patient Spanish rundown of the farming process.  My mosquito net bed fort was cozy as all get-out, and I felt right at home.

It was off to work the next morning.  We spent the better part of the day carrying, cutting, cleaning, and boxing bananas, working every part of the process from start to finish - even slapping the Dole stickers on at the end.  It was hard work, but the boost in perspective was huge.  I´ll never eat a banana unappreciatively again.

Thus began our weeklong working residence.  A typical day´s schedule included light harvest work (we also gathered other fruits, like papaya and satsuma, and slaughtered chickens, and created our own hot chocolate, from the cacao bush to the mug - all incredibly delicious, as per the town´s name); Spanish instruction (from the family members, some of whom actually work as low-level Spanish language teachers at nearby schools); downtime for hammocking (under our house, which was raised to keep the snakes out), Frisbee (most people around here have never seen one before), pickup soccer (we somehow beat the local church group 6-5 in extra time), or exploration of the area (the banana trees give way to rainforest a couple of hectares out); and miscellaneous group activities (for instance, a nightly a-capella freestyle session in the woods). I´m putting the latter in the ¨unanticipated highlights¨ category.

For most of us Carpe Diem kids, life on a working farm is something entirely new and different.  This place isn´t a huge-scale commercial produce factory, but an earnest and meager income source - and also a home.  Our host family is a modest, dedicated, and close-knit group of dawn-to-dusk laborers. It´s inspiring to live alongside them, without most of the comforts and assurances that Americans tend to take for granted.

Life improves drastically when you move to a foreign farm with no internet or smartphone access. Every hour that goes by serves to widen our perspectives and treat us to new experiences.  The farm´s laid-back agrarian lifestyle, so full yet so modest, shows what it really means to live in the moment. Spiders are everywhere, civilization is distant, and showers are provided by a rooftop rainwater urn, but I wouldn´t have it any other way; this life isn´t excessively comfortable, but it´s definitely pure.

"Hola, Soy Gringo" - Quito

If you would have told me earlier this year - say, in April - that I would spend three months of 2015 gallivanting around South America, I probably would have laughed in your face.

Yet here I am: Backpack stuffed, Spanish rusty, and water purification tablets on-hand, wrapping up my first Ecuador Week in Quito's Community Hostel and trying in vain not to fall asleep on their guest computer.  

I still don't quite know what happened in the meantime.  First, this "whole gap year thing" was an idea; then, it was a possibility; and now I'm looking back at the last hundred-some-odd hours and trying to figure out where they went and what's going on. It's been a jam-packed rush of acculturation and altitude sickness, empanadas and morocho, meditation and malaria medicine.  I've eaten traditionally-prepared cow intestines, futbolled with guayachos, saluted the sun at 10,000 feet, explored cathedrals and wandered the urban sprawl within these five or six outrageously full days. 

I might be the happiest kid in the Western Hemisphere.

Until early December I'll be living and learning with Carpe Diem Education, an accredited international volunteering organization out of Portland.  My 12 American compatriots and I are spending these 12-or-so weeks wending our way across Ecuador and Peru, volunteering in capacities as diverse as construction, conservation, and elementary education.  

That starts tomorrow, though.  This past week in the Ecuadorian capital has been our "orientation," our brief opportunity to get comfortable with this radically different part of the world.  One major objective: Practice acting just a little less American than we are. 

This is actually pretty difficult. The flagrant whiteness of our skin is enough to turn heads wherever we go, and the naturally loud demeanor of our homeland sets us well apart from the more reserved culture of the locals.  We've been stopped more than once to pose for pictures, asked all kinds of intriguing questions, and given more dead-panned stares than anybody could hope to receive in a lifetime. "Soy gringo" (literally, "I'm a white dude") has become the de facto catchphrase and conversation-starter of our group, and the earnest transparency of the statement is generally pretty well-received by locals. 

Quito's been good to us, and there's definitely a lot more to report, but I'm just too wiped-out to stay up any later. En la mañana we're heading out of the city to Las Delicias, a small family-owned banana farm on the coast. There, we're supposed to be studying some Spanish on top of helping out with the business.  They won't have internet.  I can't wait.