A Path Less Trodden #CarpeDiem: Guachinguero to Otavalo

View of. . well you know where this is.

I wrote this blog a few days ago, however have not had the opportunity to post it until now. Here is my blog relating to the service week in Guachinguero, Ecuador. Currently, however, I am in Urubamba, Peru, after having just arrived to a hostel via a Train from Aguas Calientes, Peru. I will post a sneak-peak picture of what I have done over the past few days, however I will go into greater detail in my following blog!
P.S. All photos on this post, except the ones I am in, are my own work.

Prior Blog:
Writing while listening to music is a dangerous thing. I have discovered that the style, mood, and general feel of my writing can be completely dictated by the style, mood, and general feel of the music I'm listening to. If I am not careful, and place my music service, Spotify, on "Shuffle" I can end up with a general mash of all types of interesting writing styles. One paragraph, while listening to, say, "Only Time" by Enya or "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young might be pensive and philosophical, while the next paragraph while listening to "Tiny Dancer" could be nostalgic, while "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond could make my paragraph inexplicably energetic and upbeat. If I listen to a marathon song by The Doors, such as "The End", I might simply get lost in a mumbling jumble of incoherency.. So, I apologize in advance if there are any odd shifts in this blog, because I don't have the energy to make a Queue, leaving "Shuffle" as my only option..
Currently I am writing this surrounded by about a dozen children from the local school up here i'n Otavalo. I had just finished my lunch of pasta, and set down to write this blog with some NesCafe, when I was mobbed out of the blue and surrounded by about a dozen kids from the classroom directly adjacent to the kitchen.
Anyway, back to the subject. Although the fact that I am being crawled over by a dozen children is occupying my mind right now, I will write more on what we have been doing over the past week. First of all, Otavalo has been one of the most immersive cultural experiences thus far in the trip. After leaving Quito, we believed we were going straight to the public school in Guachinguero, which is run with the assistance and volunteer work of The Tandana Foundation. However, we instead spent a night in Otavalo. Arriving mid-day we met with the Tandana volunteers, had a brief orientation, and then had time to explore the town. Otavalo has an incredible open-air food and clothes market. The second day in Otavalo, we purchased large quantities of food supplies for our next week up in Guachinguero. Our group split 3 ways, and my group was in charge of purchasing bread supplies. We ended up purchasing 25 pounds of flour, along with all the other ingredients, which would later be used to make 325 small loaves of bread, most of which would be given to families in the nearby community. The food market was incredible; we couldn't stop staring at all the makeshift stalls selling whole fish, cow fetus, raw hunks of meat, cow stomach, and piles of vegetables. It wasn’t the refined and quiet environment familiar in the United States, but rather a dirty, raw, and visceral environment that moved with its own kind of efficiency and finesse.
Before leaving for Guachinguero, we gathered up lunch supplies and went to a thrumming little nature reserve where we ate in the grass while cows came up and sniffed our heads. One nuzzled my hand, and I took it as an inter-species bonding moment, however it soon followed its nuzzle with a deep grumble and a toss of the head, which changed my mind and sent me scrambling to the other side of a tree.. I am apparently not a cow whisperer. After lunch we spent time at yet another beautiful waterfall before returning to the bus and heading up to the school.
After arriving at the school in Guachinguero we were happily greeted by throngs of smiling children. They all clambered around our bus and greeted us warmly. They then formed a line behind our bus, grabbed our bags, and somehow hauled them into the small community room where we would be sleeping the coming week. It was comical to watch, as the children rushed to grab bags larger than themselves and somehow managed to run with them into our room!
Over the coming days we spent our time prepping and plastering a future school building, painting the plaster, cooking and cleaning meals, teaching english in the school, attending a local wedding, shopping at the largest open market event in South America, and attending a class for traditional Ecuadorian cooking. Over five days, we spent our time from 8 till 1:30 working on the building. In increments we scoured and smoothed the concrete, primed it with a sealant, applied plaster, and finally painted the plaster.
When not working on the painting project, we embarked on excursions to nearby areas. On Saturday we spent our time in the largest open-market event in South America, which is held in Otavalo every Saturday. The market, or rather city-wide sprawl of makeshift stalls, was enormous. An entire city block along with all the surrounding streets were filled with colorful Alpaca fur garments, wooden masks, silver jewelry, hand-made bags, and vibrantly designed rugs. Although there were thousands of stalls to visit and view, I found myself getting hung up on each stall I passed, making forward progress impossible and exasperating my companions. However, we all ended up with great items from the market (and maybe Christmas gifts for you if you're lucky), along with a much better understanding of price negotiation. One of my friends, Alex, was quite happy with his purchase of a beautiful hammock, however his face fell when I told him I purchased an almost identical item for exactly half the price.

lunch above Cuycochi lake

   After the market we had lunch overlooking CuyCochi Lake, which we then zipped across on a boat while listening to the information being presented to us by our Spanish-speaking boat-guide. We then capped off the day by going through a leather-selling district in Cotacachi, where we had another opportunity to negotiate for items and admire the leather craftsmanship. I personally purchased a leather crocodile-Dundee hat which I was extremely happy about getting. However, approximately 25 seconds after my purchase I had acquired a strong sense of buyer's remorse after deciding that Brett looked better in it than I. I then offered to sell it to him for half the price, but he responded that I would have to pay for him to wear it.. Nonetheless, after this rocky start with my hat, the buyer's remorse has thankfully passed and I am quite happy with it once again.
          On Sunday we had the opportunity to attend an event that many would seldom be invited to. Thanks to The Tandana Foundation and their close ties with the community surrounding Guachinguero, we were able to attend a local wedding. All the girls in my group had to dress up in the traditional attire in order to be culturally sensitive, and I chose to wear all white which is traditionally what men wear at an indigenous wedding. At the wedding, men swirled through the crowds holding large buckets of a fermented corn drink. This drink could only be offered to others, and could not be drunk without an invitation to do so. Furthermore, if you accepted the offer, you had to drink the entire cup before returning it to the bucket. At the wedding we all tested our commitment to being open-minded and strong-stomached when we were given bowls full of "Blood of Cow" stew. To create this stew, the Ecuadorians cut up and use nearly every organ within the cow (including the small intestines and stomach) and drain the blood of the cow into the stew. Although from our cultural viewpoint it may seem revolting to eat the intestines, stomach, kidneys, and blood of a cow; it is considered a delicacy in Ecuador. I mainly adopted a no-chew and swallow approach, especially when confronted with the little white rings of intestines. After the meal, we all danced to traditional songs, some of which were incredibly long. A few of the girls in my group had to dance for 30 minutes with a partner to a single song!
         The day after the wedding, the man in charge of directing our volunteer efforts on the plastering project was nowhere to be found. He likely was still mired in the midst of the wedding after-party which is usually a week long. As a result, we instead had a lesson on the Kichwa language. The language, to my inexperienced ears, sounded like an incoherent mash of "s", "k", and "m" noises. However, after an hour of repeating the incoherent mash back to our instructor, we can now mumble a few slightly coherent noises in Kichwa.
Anyway, this is where we part, and where you stop living vicariously through my blog. All is well down here; I am looking forward to the final chapter in our voyage through Latin America! As for me, I am going to drift off to sleep while listening to "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young, and with any luck I'll get some pensive and philosophical dreams. Till next time! Adios, Ciao, Hasta la vista!