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2 February 2006

Long over due report from the field.

Yes, I have excuses and rationalizations a-plenty for the lack of communication from this end. But I won’t bore you with them except to say that the Global Volunteers program we have been participating in has kept us exceedingly busy. That, and the fiasco of a damaged camera lens upon our arrival and the difficulty of getting a new one (thank you forever Greta). And, of course, the pace of the travel agency that we have been working with to schedule our next two weeks. A little detail here: we have maybe 3 hours between our work day and the evening’s scheduled events but for the last five days in a row we have been dealing with this agency for at least two of them! They don’t accept traveler’s checks and tack on 9% to credit cards so we’ve had to go to the bank every day as well to get cash. So much for sight seeing or e-mailing etc. The good news is we are now in possession of tickets and vouchers that will keep us hopping between Quito and the Galapagoes and Machu Pichu in Peru (with a couple of days, hopefully, to go to the hot springs in Papalachta - 2 hrs from Quito). Of course we miss you all the most (and Walt) but life without a hot tub has been a challenge. The remainder of our time in South America looks busy and exciting.

Our program started two days after we arrived in Quito and only ended today. We worked every day in a place called Camp Hope which is part of a foundation that includes an orphanage that serves 8 special needs kids, a day care facility (Camp Hope) that serves over 100 special needs kids and other “regular” kids from poverty settings, and two grades of school that also serve this same population. We’ve been doing a number of things for them. Tessa spent most of her time going from classroom to classroom primarily assisting the teachers with their special charges. In the afternoon she came to work with a gang of us who have constructed a “fort” in the playground with a ramp and tunnel and small suspended bridge. Today was the last day and we had the privilege to complete the structure – not a small feat considering the tools at our disposal and the relative lack of experience of those working. The kids love it. Oh, what I wouldn’t have done with a decent saw, dimensional lumber (almost everything is concrete in this part of the world) and my compressor and nailer. Never the less we left something concrete (actually non-concrete) behind us and in the mean time accomplished our real goal here which is to build a foundation for world peace through interactions and understanding between cultures.

The children here are enough to break your heart. Ecuador does not embrace special needs kids – in fact it usually hides them. Camp Hope is an attempt to change all that. The people who created this place and who work here (usually for about $140.00/month- and these are college educated people) are indeed heroes and we feel we have been honored to help in any way we can. The kids have various degenerative problems, cerebral palsy, downs syndrome, etc. Many, but not all, have mental retardation . Some are plenty smart, just trapped in bodies that have been cursed by the fates. Camp hope has a day care that provides for babies through the second grade. They also offer pre-vocational education for some older kids that are able to do some rudimentary physical tasks. They have a social worker on staff and a physical therapist. Doctors come periodically through Global Volunteers programs and see the kids and try to outreach to their families as well.

Our day starts with a group breakfast in the restaurant of the cute little hotel we have been settled in, El Sol de Quito. Then we van off to Camp Hope where we work till lunch and eat in a large room with all the amazing kids. It’s quite an experience. The food is nothing to write home about so I won’t say much more except that for these children it is perhaps a godsend. After the afternoons work we van back and have a few hours until we meet for dinner. Often there is a special event for dinner or after dinner like touring the city, eating at a Camp Hope board member’s house, or trying out the local eating establishments. It’s a full day with little time for much else (especially considering the travel agency bs). Sometimes during the day we take special trips to visit the homes of some of the kids, or the site of the new orphanage being built (to eventually accommodate 60 kids) or some such thing. It’s an education. Two weeks of this ended today with a fiesta at the Camp Hope facility where each age level did a performance of one kind or another. Those that are able, of course. Many are unable even to feed themselves. The G.V. volunteers (there are 10 of us) did a song and dance as well, singing an oreo commercial in Spanish and then handing out oreos to everyone. Afterward we were rushed by 100 beautiful children intent on hugging us all at once. It was emotionally overwhelming. And after two weeks of getting to know these kids, getting to understand their circumstances, coming to understand their humanity it was so hard to say goodbye.

Our group consists of a wide spectrum of participants. Interestingly enough Tessa and I are the youngest two. Tom, a retired engineer who lives on a boat in Marina Del Ray, California is the oldest at 80! He has come here to volunteer 14 times. There are three wonderfully young at heart ladies from Scottsdale, a couple from Rhode Island who are here for their fourth time, a woman who recently sold her house and is off on a 2 year trip around the world going from one Global Volunteers group to another. She recently finished a program in Costa Rica (Greta her leader was Gena!) and is off to Peru next, and a guy from Norway who has been the stinker of the group – a real Scandinavian alcoholic who is great when sober but easily becomes an asshole. Not that this is a light drinking group – on the contrary – Tessa and I almost seem like lightweights. Many evenings have ended after midnight with the group drinking and laughing and dancing with the hotel staff. We feel pretty comfortable. Conversation is never light. This group is well educated, well traveled and liberal (in the intelligent liberal tradition).

Last weekend , on our two days off, we traveled as a group to a little area (town?) called Mindo. It was so beautiful! This little community of just 1000 people has almost 500 species of birds – the same as Canada and the US combined. It is in a cloud forest that is thick with vegetation. We hiked through the forest, crossed a ravine in a little open 4-seater car hung from a cable, and Tessa and I rappelled down a cliff next to a gorgeous waterfall. We ate at a beautiful handmade restaurant and bar called “Out of Babylon” and were serenaded by a local man playing Ecuadorian music left handed with the guitar upside down. Every bit of the place was fashioned from beautiful rainforest woods w/o a fastener, simply pegged and fitted. Saturday it rained buckets and we sat in the lobby of the hotel and caught up on reading and sorting photos, backing up on I-pod and laptop. By the by have I ever expressed my love of the I-pod? My god what a travelers’s friend. Never, ever leave home without it. On our way home we stopped at a monument exactly on the Equator. Our traveling companion, Fez, the smoking monkey, got a bit dizzy straddling the center of the world.

Quito, as a city, is unparalleled. What a city. It was for a time the northern seat of the Inca empire. Once the Spanish moved in, in their own inimitable style, it became a major center of Catholicism and culture in South America. Many of the old colonial buildings are still standing in the “old town”. Some of them are 500 years old! One church took 131 years to build and is decorated with 131 tons of gold! The whole city of 2 million is nestled at 9000 feet in a beautiful valley in the Andes mountains. There are views everywhere. Much of Quito is quite modern as it is the capital of Ecuador but development has been constrained by the politics of this country. It is a classic South American oligarchy, a democracy on paper but just 20 families completely control the country, and rather than build equitable infrastructures it seems they are simply are in it for the money and the power. Coops are frequent, though usually bloodless. Therefore one of the most amazing countries in the world, a country that has beautiful Pacific coastline, mountains that tower 24,000 feet (tallest in the US is under 15,000), the Galapagos islands, beautiful rain and cloud forests, the western edge of the Amazon basin and perhaps the most well preserved example of Spanish colonial architecture in the new world here in Quito, has relatively little tourism and great poverty. It’s extremely sad and must be very frustrating for the people who live here. But it is a great place to visit and relatively unspoiled at that.

So Tessa and I have a couple of days to regroup before moving on. I am recovering from a bout of Bronchitis which has greatly interfered with my sleep these last days (and I’m sure Tessa’s also). It is hard enough to breath at 9000 feet without a lung infection as well. We are happy, eating well, meeting all kinds of people and safe and sound (well, relatively sound). We are so happy we began our honeymoon with this Global Volunteers program. It gives us such a sane perspective to go forward and gather further experiences and see more amazing wonders. We are off to the Galapagoes Monday. We will be staying at the same hotel in Quito between trips so we are able to be reached there or through our e-mail until we leave Ecuador for Belize Feb 16.

We think about our life back home often. I talk about my amazing children and people are still surprised that I have 6 grandchildren. Hell, I’m still amazed. After just two weeks in Ecuador life back home seems like a fantasy, the richness of our homes, the way every thing is taken for granted, like mailing a letter , the wealth of food or simply getting around. It’s hard to imagine snow and cold and we try not to, thinking mainly about all the people we miss and who we would love to share this experience with. We hope everyone is doing well. So sorry about this mass e-mail, I really hate that kind of thing, but I have been practicing with Xmas cards so you’ll just have to get over it. Write back. E-mail may not be easy everywhere but it sure is in Quito.
Much love to all,
Scott and Tessa

Valentine’s day, 2006
Thermas Papallacta, Ecuador

Again my apologies for the impersonal nature of this mailing, but time issues don’t change with the changing of latitude. Tessa and I send this only to let you know we are thinking of you and we are so filled with the sensations of discovery that we would burst without dumping at least a bit of onto you. Thank you for the outlet. We are constantly excited about our reunions with you. And so
.

My very best friend,

After five flights, fourteen van or bus transfers, eight hours of train travel through the Andes, two half day bus tours, a long day on a boat to Bartholomew Island in the Galapagos, a harrowing bus trip up the side of Machupicchu and back down, a beautiful drive through the mountains north of Quito, numerous taxi rides and long hikes through ruins and over magical landscapes, all in the last eleven days, we have finally arrived to the perfect destination, a place specifically made for the likes of us, where we have two nights and a full day to do nothing more than soak in the thermal waters and explore the options at the spa of this amazing resort: Thermas Papallacta. Not 24 hours ago we were in Machupicchu, a place where the ancient Inca nobles and intellectuals made a special and important worship of water, and now we find ourselves, willing pilgrims, dousing, baptizing, healing in steaming thermal waters back in Ecuador.

I was standing in a private shower room hanging on to bars mounted on the wall while a young woman in a large plastic apron pounded my body with hot water from a firehose and I was thinking
what a land of contrasts we have found ourselves in. Coming off of two weeks working with special needs kids in a day care center in Quito we have been to the Galapagos Islands, been to Peru in Lima, Cusco and Machupicchu and now at this California feeling spa in the snow capped mountains back in Ecuador. We have no greater desire than to experience as much as possible. Unfortunately this comes at a price, sometimes, as Tessa will attest, spending this rare and generous day in bed, regretting whatever unknown substance she consumed at breakfast our last morning in Cusco.

The Galapagos was otherworldly. The differences in the species between islands and between the mainland, the oddities that led Darwin to solidify his theories of evolution, are obvious at once. We saw turtles that evolved differently because of the different terrain one island to another. We saw Blue Footed Boobies, strange little Penguins of all things, and unique Iguanas with comb like array along their backs and long agile tails. We saw two Sea Lions in an underwater sensual dance: twirling , laced around one another, giving little love bites, swimming directly under us as we snorkeled. Our boat was occasionally accompanied by dolphins and occasionally by sharks. At the ferry dock, as the sun was rising and casting long horizontal light, illuminating the white boats on the blue water, a school of Rays, like a floating raft, swam by. Everywhere are the large, graceful gulls, swooping down and gliding, effortlessly over the water, one unmovable wing of bird, one foot off the water, silent, slow motion. We hiked through the lush uplands of Santa Cruis Island to see the giant turtles , some of which were 180 years old, and walk through the giant lava tubes that formed as the island was formed, tunnels 25 feet high and 500 meters long. Our last night we went by water ferry through the harbor of Pueto Ayora, amidst the hulks of boats, some with their cabin lights ablaze, and ate at a romantic harbor side restaurant. All too quickly it was time to leave again, back to Quito for one night, repacking and off to Peru.

We arrived in Lima after a wonderful Italian dinner that had Tessa going on and on in Italian with the woman owner. We ate with Julio Cesar, a Columbian and a regular
at our hotel, whom we have befriended and who’s business in Quito has kept him there much longer than he had hoped. As they say in Columbia, “we said goodbye more often than a bad circus”.

A ridiculous, ill advised travel agent brought us in to Lima at 10 pm, had us shuttled 50 minutes to a hotel only to be picked up at 4:15 am and shuttled back to the airport for a 6am flight to Cusco. But in Cusco we were delighted to find ourselves in a room banked with ten windows, on top of the hotel, above a myriad of red tiled roofs, directly across from the Cathedral in the main square. We toured the city and four of the Inca ruins nearby. Cusco was considered by the Inca to be the “navel of the universe”. This is where the great age of the Inca took form and power and has bewitched modern man with their advances of art and science and architecture. Just a short cobbled street above the cathedral we ate at a restaurant called “The Fallen Angel”. What a shock to come off those ancient, history laden streets into a place worthy of a Brant Kingman party. Oh my god. Waitress reminiscent of Asian girl in “Diva”. Flying pigs and DJ behind glass, behind bar. Tables of glass covered bathtubs with underwater installations in each. Twenty foot silver angel lit up with mirror balls, hanging suspended, in the courtyard. Welcome to Peru.

The next morning early we caught the four hour train to Aguascaliente, the entrance to Machupicchu. It was wet and cold and the windows were covered in fog when we left. However, as we neared the park, the day cleared and we had wonderful weather for exploring the ruins of the “Lost City of the Incas”. Machupicchu is one of those places everyone has on their list of must places to go before you die. Rightfully so. The site is so common to anyone who has ever eaten in a dive with placemats, but in person,
in person it is so huge, so spectral, it defies explanation. Even with the aggravation of sharing the experience with thousands of other tourists, it remains so powerful. First there is the majesty of the place, then the mastery of craft and then, the mystery of who it was made for and why. It’s a wonderful place to go, spiritually powerful, almost beyond believing. And made even more so by the difficulty in getting there. The better way to approach the city is by walking the Inca trail, a two to three day approach, but it was closed for the month of February. (shoot!) We did see one intrepid, and cheap, French couple walking the train tracks to save the fare. Next time we will budget time to stay in Aguascalliente and see the ruins for a few days. It is such an amazing piece of the planet. I can’t say enough.

From Cusco all the way to Thermos Paspalachta in a day. Ending such a busy time floating in one of the many thermal pools that snakes it’s way up to the porch of our rooms seems so ethereal. We return to Quito tomorrow and are off to the final leg of our honeymoon, Belize. We discovered the “honeymoon suite” we arranged for in the bowels of a cave, off to the side of a collapsed cavern, has been flooded out and washed away. Is it bad luck it got washed out or is it good news it didn’t happen while we were in it? All of life can be viewed this way.

No matter how busy we are we are always thinking of you. Happy Valentines Day.
Much love, peace,

Scott and Tessa

24 February, 2006
Portofino, Ambergris Caye, Belize

Yesterday the wind blew without stopping, from the night before until this sitting, and still it blows. It blew the likes of us out of the jungle and out onto a large flat Caye, called Ambergris, to the small tourist town of San Pedro and then eight miles north by water taxi to our quiet little piece of beach here in Belize called Portofino. The breeze is not as much trouble as you might think. It keeps the flies away for one. It's sunny and warm and it's easy to find a bar or restaurant or cabana to sidle out of the wind for a while whenever you want. We feel fortunate to have found this place to wind down and chill out for the duration of our honeymoon.

Through the brilliance of modern aviation planning we flew to Belize from Quito via Houston and the whole immigration/customs rigmarole of the US. Why not? We were met in Belize City by an employee of Caves Branch Jungle Lodge who drove us into the land of snakes and spiders, howler monkeys and fauna that grows like an explosion. The next morning we were led into a cave, a cave we would never leave for the next eighteen hours.

We came to Belize, believe it or not, more for the jungle than for the beach. We came specifically to Caves Branch to rappel 300 feet into a sunken forest, an ancient collapsed cavern, and to spend the night together in a candle-lit cave by the banks of an underground river. It all sounded so romantic and looked so amazing when I glimpsed it five years ago while traveling with Peter. Unfortunately, nature never follows orders and expectations often fall short of reality. Our "honeymoon cave suite" was washed out due to excessive rainfall shortly before our arrival. The alternative cave they chose, out of the imperative of multiple bookings, fell a bit short of the romantic standards of the original. Tessa and I soon realized that "cute" romantic stuff, of the honeymoon variety, is often not directly targeted at our particular aesthetic. Perhaps they thought that leaving us alone in a football-field sized cavern, entirely covered in a two-inch thick layer of sticky mud, after walking and tubing for hours into this same dead-end cave, with no chairs but only an inflatable (slowly leaking) air mattress on a tarp, for 17-1/2 hours was somehow romantic or (ghoulishly) erotic. Not so! Even with all the candles burning we spent the first two hours getting past separate but equal bouts of paniky claustrophobia, brought on by imprisonment in a dark, dead space that felt much like a tomb and as damp, though not as comforting, as a womb. By 6:30 pm we had consumed the four bottles of beer and the twist off bottle of Andre "champagne" they had left for us. And only 14-1/2 hours to go! We looked everywhere for a meal we felt must have been left for us. Alas, the Cheeze Wiz and Pringles were evidently more of that romantic-night-in-a-cave sort of thing they thought we would love. We cooked everything they left us on a propane stove (left for what purpose?) with a bottle of hot sauce, not to eat I promise you, but to cover the smell of a cigarette we were not supposed to smoke. Sorry.

After a very long and instructive night, one that Tessa likened to a bad layover, we were never so glad to breathe fresh air and see natural light. Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above. For the next three days we continued to have daytime adventures but returned to the lodge, our cabana, the porch and starlight at night. We did rappel into the beautiful "Black Hole" after a strenuous hike through the jungle. We even went back into another cave to explore and to climb up underground waterfalls only to turn around and leap off of them, twelve feet into dark churning pools, on our way back out.

In retrospect, Tessa and I have realized that our best memories come from times of most challenge. That said, this last week here on the beach is not so much for creating memories but for digesting those that came before. We have had an unforgettable honeymoon. We are happy and we are excited to see our friends and family (and dog) back home. It's all coming to an end so quickly. For Tessa and me this is truly the "beginning of a great friendship" and much, much more.

We will see you soon.

Amor y Pax
Scott and Tessa

Photos from this and other trips. Click here.