-1 small pinch of terror (mostly due to my status as a non-Ecuadorian and my concern that what we were doing was totally illegal)

-10 drunk men (I would call them boys based on behavior and conversation level but they all were at least 4 years older than me, so it would be inaccurate in the strictest sense)

-1 bottle of cheap vodka and 4-5 plastic cups

-several large gusts of wind, approximately 12 degrees centigrade

Don’t worry, the whining and wit ends there.  Suffice it to say, last night wasn’t really my idea of a good time.  However, I have been supremely enjoying myself here in Quito for the last couple of weeks, so I can’t really complain (although I obviously have…thanks for listening!  I’ll be here all week…).

One of my host sisters, Alejandra (also known as Ale) has taken it upon herself to show me a good time while I’m in Quito, and for the most part she has been doing a top rate job.  We’ve gone salsa dancing, gone to lots of bars in the Mariscal (the tourist/prime drinking spot for youngins), and I’ve met a bunch of my sister’s Ecuadorian friends, which has drastically improved my sentiments towards this city and its residents.

Going out with Ale has pretty much been the highlight of my last two weeks here in Quito, although we’ve also visited an organic farm owned by a crazy Communist and would-be agrarian revolutionary, two different flower plantations, and a museum about the indigenous groups of the Amazon.  The organic farm was interesting until the owner began spouting out full passages of the Communist Manifesto (thanks CC).   Add to that the fact that his favorite phrase was “Bullshit, man,” and you can seen why I found the man just a wee bit irritating.

Visiting the two flower plantations was actually extremely interesting and eye-opening.  Ecuador is the world’s largest rose exporter, a little known fact I would assume, but due to the recession the flower business is no longer booming like it used to.  The first plantation, owned by an Ecuadorian-American named Ramiro, has about 100 employees and is in the process of downsizing, plus Ramiro is in the process of getting out of the company.  The plantation definitely had a more down-home, family oriented feel, although knowing what I know now about the labor practices of many of the big flower plantations here made me a bit skeptical about the working conditions, the use of toxic chemicals, the services provided to the workers, etc that Ramiro spent a lot of time talking up.

The second plantation, RosaPrima, is a much bigger operation, with 100s of hectares and 400 employees.  The plantation itself had much more of a factory-like feel, and at least for me conjured up images of early Industrial-age factories filled with women hunched over sewing machines, although here the men and women were hunched over rose beds or stainless steel tables packing roses into cardboard boxes.  That being said, compared to most other rose plantations in Ecuador, RosaPrima provides a relatively safe environment for their workers and provides a modicum of services, like free transportation from surrounding pueblos, breakfast and lunch, medical care, etc.  The cynic in me had a hard time looking past the schlocky “There is a family behind every rose we pick here,” but nevertheless, the visit was informative and interesting.

One of the most important things I will take away from my time here in Ecuador is a new consciousness about my own consumerism.  We, the consumers, dictate demand, and thus supply.  If we didn’t want perfect roses with giant heads and totally free of blemishes, the rose growers wouldn’t feel like they needed to use toxic fertilizers just to make a profit.  Obviously I’m not the first to discover the link between labor practices in the third world and materialism in the first, but getting to see some of this stuff first hand has really made an impression on me and made me think a little bit more about what I buy, where its from, who’s growing it, etc.  And a little bit of consciousness can go a long way, maybe even from Quito to Manhattan.

I’ll leave you, dearest readers, with that thought and hope that you’ll forgive me for preaching via the blogosphere.   Expect to hear from me again post-Galapagos, hopefully with some amazing stories and pictures, and without 3rd degree burns/sun poisoning (the Burn of ’05 does not need to be repeated…I’ve learned my lesson!).  Until then, ciao!

I feel like I have so much to say about the wonderful, dazzling, mystifying place called the Amazon rainforest, but at the same time it’s hard for me to put into words (at least in a mildly coherent manner) all the things that I got to experience  this past week.  I guess I’ll start with the physical activities and progress to the more illusory, emotional crap.  And so…

First, to actually get to the research station where we spent the week takes an entire day and several different modes of transportation.  We took a very short plane ride from Quito to Coca, a 2 hour boat ride down the Napo River out of Coca, a 2 hour truck ride down the Maxxus Highway (built and maintained by Repsol, a Spanish oil company), and then finally another 2 hour boat ride down the Tiputini River.  Our final destination was the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, owned and operated by the University of San Francisco de Quito, with some financial and professorial support from Boston University.  The station itself is pretty cool–there’s a dining hall, a lab, lots of classrooms, cabins, a volleyball court, a day spa….well, not the last one but you get the picture.  The station manager is a masters student from USFQ named Juan Pablo, or as we nicknamed him in typical American fashion, JP.  Right now there are 2 primatologists working at the station, Ricardo and Dan (from Colombia and Montreal respectively) who are working under the auspices of Tony Di Fiore, an anthropologist at NYU who runs the primate project at TBS.

In order to get the most out of our time at the station, we woke up every morning around 5:15 and headed out in small groups to do an activity in the field.  The activities included floating down the river, going to a 45 M tall tower to bird watch, going to a rope bridge about 35 M high up in the canopy, and going for a hike in the woods.  These activities lasted until around 8:30 at which point we breakfasted, usually on tropical colored fruit loops and some bread.  The rest of the day alternated between lectures in the lab and activities int he field, like looking at soil composition or collecting seeds or learning how to use a compass correctly (no small feat, I might add).

On Sunday a small group of us went out with Dan to chase around some monkeys.  Awesome, right?  We spent around 7 hour with a group of unhabituated titi monkeys, chasing them through vine tangles so that they could start to get used to having humans around.  Around 2 PM we caught up with a group of habituated titis who let us watch them for a while without running off, a welcomed relief after the morning spent with the unhabituated group.  It was really great getting to experience a day in the life of an actual primatologist, out in the field, doing focal samples and chasing titis.  It also gave me ample time to make lots of “titi chasing” jokes.  If you’re in need of a laugh, just let me know and I’d be happy to share some…

Despite the humidity, the heat, the bugs (big bugs, little bugs, stinging bugs, all sorts of bugs), and the utter exhaustion I experienced at the end of each day, my week at Tiputini was one of the best weeks I’ve ever had.  The forest is so overwhelmingly beautiful that at times it can be a little too much, but in the best way possible, kind of like eating just a little bit too much of the best cake ever…even though your waistband is cutting off circulation to your legs, you just have to have that last little bite or the whole experience will have been for nothing.  I’m not sure if that really is the best metaphor to describe the natural splendor that is the rainforest, but it will have to suffice.

I’ll be in Quito until next Tuesday, when we head to the Galapagos.  If you’ve been really good little girls and boys, you might just be lucky enough to get another blog post to read before then.  If not, you’ll have to wait till my return from las islas.

Until some later point in time, my dearests!

i think that´s pretty typical of my life here so far.  i spend a lot of time thinking about how to achieve the smallest of goals, like printing out a paper, or how to fill out a form for Columbia about all the credits that i probably won´t get that i can´t seem to open on my computer.  i guess i never realized how reliant i am on technology to survive.  i hate not being able to skype with you, my dearest reader, at a moment´s notice.  i hate that the keyboard i´m currently using seems to have something against the letters m, o, and the delete function. 

if you´re wondering why i´m such a complainer at the moment, you can thank the parasites currently throwing a party in my gastrointestinal tract (hence the title of this post…).  being sick makes everything that much more overwhelming.  how do i explain to my host mom that her meals are lovely but i have no appetite?  a little slap in the face from my dear friend reality serves well to remins me that things really aren´t so bad, but its hard to keep up one´s proverbial chin when you´ve got bichos in the tum-tum.

today marks the official 3 week anniversary of my arrival to this enchanting land.  on the one hand, it feels like i´ve been here forever.  the quiteño landscape is pretty familiar these days…buildings, mostly 70s style architecture, stretch on for what seems like forever.  because quito rests in an interandean valley, if you are standing at any height above the valley floor you can pretty much see all of the city in one fell swoop.  as the program´s resident NYC gal, i know that i´m not supposed to be awestruck by the city´s vastness.  however, i will point out that i have never seen all of my glorious city at one time, from a single vantage point.  hence the feeling that quito is actually a just a never-ending sea of houses, floating between the eastern and western cordilleras that contain it.

enough with the waxing poetic.  i´m not sure if i´ll be blogging again before i leave for the oriente (that´s the amazon for those not in the know).  we leave a week from today, i´m pretty sure, and will be there for a week in total.  i know that my absence will be a strain on those of you who have little else to think about…try to keep yourselves entertained until i return, ok?

on that note, chao for now from almost 10,000 ft.

1. our trip to the intag, a region in northwestern ecuador that is made up of montane cloud forests.  it is absolutely beautiful and under extreme threat from transnational mining companies to be destroyed any day now. i  spent 3 days with a family in a small town in intag, getting to observe what life is like when one lives on the top of a mountain with 2 small children and a husband all at the young age of 20.  the rest of the week was spent doing ecological research on birds and botany, which was interesting, but no where near as interesting getting to know my homestay mom, maricela, and her children, stiven and joseph.

we returned to quito on saturday and received our homestay families on sunday.  my mom, nancy, and my two sisters, gabi and ale, are pretty amazing.  considering that we just met, i was impressed by how much they took care of me during my first bacterial infection of the estomago of the semester.  my mom took a sample to the lab and my sister picked up my antibiotics while i lay in bed alternating between intense stomach pain and intense homesickness, probably a direct result of the stomach pain.

i also want to make a direct plea to the 3 or 4 people who are actually reading this: don´t stop being my friend because i haven´t been able to talk to you on skype or add blog posts .  my host family doesn´t have internet and so i have to go to internet cafes, which means skyping is almost impossible as is posting to my blog with intense freqency or the use of any writing ability whatsoever. 

that being said, from quito to wherever you are, muchos besos!  i´ll try to write again as soon as possible.

Yesterday we experienced what our program directors call “The Drop-Off.”  We were given a direction to walk in, a bus to take for a certain amount of time, and the instructions to get lunch while we were out, talk to someone on the street about environmental problems in Quito, and make it back by 3 PM.  No map, no cellphone, nothing.  Despite the silent screams of terror that must have been eminating from my direction, I ventured forth with one of my new classmates, Estelle.  We took the bus for the prescribed 7 minutes down one of the biggest east-west streets in Quito, Colon, and walked around for 2 hours or so.  Not only did we succeed in all of our tasks but we also managed to speak in mostly Spanish the whole time, so I’d count the whole thing as a big victory for Team Miriam (and Estelle).

Ok that’s all for now…but an update on our excursion to Yanacocha coming soon!

Side note: I’m watching an SNL rerun with the real John and Cindy McCain and the Tina Fey version of Sarah Palin.  You know what?  It’s still funny, in a weird, nostalgic sort of way.  A little sad also, to see John McCain before the big pile of dog poo that came to be known as his campaign for the presidency.

Ok back to my attempt at genuine self-reflection before the inception of a possible life changing, definitely anxiety provoking, adventure.  Right now, all I want to do is pretend like I never booked a round-trip flight to Quito and head back to New York, and school, and everything that is known and totally safe and comforting (minus the 5 or so muggings and assaults that have occurred around campus in the last month…minor disturbance to that image).  I haven’t even left West Palm Beach yet, let alone the US, so I can only imagine how I’ll feel tomorrow as I sit at the airport.  Having gotten there several hours early, I’ll have plenty of time to sit uncomfortably in the waiting area outside my gate, biting my nails, looking around anxiously as I wonder which one of my fellow travelers will be sitting next to me for 4 hours.  I’ll probably buy some gum, maybe a magazine (anything to avoid reading my Neotropical Companion, the bane of my existence recently).  And then, knowing myself far too well for my own good, I’ll probably have several tearful moments of panic and fear, all the while telling myself that “This is just part of the experience” –my new mantra, courtesy of Leigh P. Gorman, intrepid traveler and study abroad mentor.

Despite my general inability to string together a coherent sentence, I think my feelings right now can be summed up pretty simply.  I will miss everyone and everything that I find comfort in: my parents, my siblings, my cats, my dear friends, my room.  Missing them will be the hardest part, far harder than navigating the Quito bus system or making sure I don’t get told the gringo price, but the real price, when I’m out and about.  Knowing that “this is just part of the experience” may or may not make it any easier to deal with, but I’ll just have to figure that out as I go, I suppose.

Anyways, I guess I’ll end with this: If you are reading this right now, it is because you are one of those people who will be missed dearly and thought of often.  And while my heart will be a little heavy (and so will my suitcases) I still can’t wait to get on that plane and finally arrive at my destination.

Until then!

Despite my countless failed attempts at journaling/diary writing, I think that an experience such as the one I am about to embark on deserves to be documented in some way, if only to lull myself into thinking that there are people who will miss me tremendously while I am away and will want to know about every minute detail.  Using the “polls” application so handily included for free from the lovely people at wordpress.com, I will, in fact, be able to learn how many people are actually reading my private (or perhaps more accurately, totally censored) thoughts.  Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to lure a couple people into my web and be able to justify the total and complete narcissism that is bound to accompany the creation of such a thing.

So, at T-6 days, I’m in the beginning stages of packing, which has so far involved making piles on my floor of all the clothes I want to bring, all the while knowing that I will have to eventually reduce those piles by a large enough percentage so that I can fit everything into one large rolling duffel bag and a small, over-the-shoulder duffel.  How on earth will I be able to survive without my beloved Brooklyn Industries black jumper, my striped stretch cotton shirtdress, or my Marc Jacobs sundress?!  Living in New York has allowed me to indulge my inner fashion slave, bringing out a materialistic side in me that I actually was surprised to know existed.  The knowledge of the eventual and much needed culling of the clothes that will have to take place before I leave for Florida on Wednesday (small pit-stop for some beach time pre-adventure) has brought out a plaguing insecurity–what if I am that girl, the one with all the clothes and intense consumerist zeal, and am surrounded by a bunch of frisbee-playing, hiking boot-wearing, eco-friendly people who don’t like me?  Reality reassures me that this is not the most likely scenario, given my usual ambition for social butterfly status. And, while yes, I like to own nice things, I am well aware that they do not make me who I am, nor will I ever allow them to.  So I’m packing my quick-drying pants (thanks Eastern Mountain Sports in SoHo!), my hiking boots, and my fleece, but they’ll be nestled in cozily with my black patent leather flats and a dress or two.

Wish me luck on my packing, and be sure to check back in when the adventure really begins!