unfortunately we were sick for the first part of the week. we arrived a couple days before todd, who returned from his brother's wedding in the states without a hitch (yay!), but we had little to report because we'd all just been in bed the whole time!
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| poor sick kids! |
so it ended up being a recovery week for our traveling family and truly it was a great spot to be sick. we stayed with the family of elvia and paulino who have four boys including a two month old baby!
elvia cooked three ample meals a day for us (usually with the baby on her back!.....the women are so so hard-working!) so we had the luxury of resting!
todd and i mostly taught english classes everyday. this freed up the english teacher, who also happens to be the school director, time to get some much needed administrative work done.
lucy and riley, once they were feeling better, went to class as students. this was a great experience for them as they got to see first-hand how poor the education is for kids in rural areas of many countries. for example in their math class the teacher came in, wrote a bunch of stuff on the board, told the class to copy it and then left the classroom. that was the whole math class! and randomly they also had a marching class, which they were thrilled to participate in...hear the sarcasm there :)
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| lucy with some of her classmates |
as usual it is the faces of the kids that mark our hearts......
our illnesses put a little damper on our week at escuela la minga, but all and all we had a great visit!
there is a hiking trail called the quilotoa loop that is very popular with backpackers. it is a 3-5 day hike that goes from village to village. the quilotoa area (which is where the school was) is quite beautiful with mountains that look like patchwork quilts.
since the school we taught at was only a few miles away from one of the stops on the loop and we were able to take little hikes after school every day, we didn't feel the need to hike the loop. however i didn't want to miss the famous quilotoa lake which is at the end the hiking loop, so after our few days in latacunga we took a bus out to the lake and stayed for the night. i am so glad we made the effort as this is a stunning volcano-crater lake which the local people believe has no bottom!
from the crater rim we hiked down to the lake where we rented kayaks to paddle around.....we were again at elevation (11,500ft) so the hike back up left us breathless!
after we finished classes at the school on friday afternoon we caught a ride back to the city of latacunga. our timing was super lucky once again as this weekend coincided with latacunga's big festival called mama negra. the story of the festival is that the virgen de merced saved the town of latacunga from the volcano cotopaxi. since that time the virgen has been celebrated with a festival every year.
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| view of cotopaxi volcano from our hostel in latacunga |
this festival was both similar and yet completely different from the festival we saw in peru. as in peru there was a parade of dancers and music, and though there were a few masks in the ecuador festivities they were not a dominant feature as they were in peru. instead of masks, many had painted their faces black in celebration of the mama negra.
in the mama negra festival each group in the parade was represented by a guy carrying this huge crucified pig, with chickens, rabbit, cuy (guinea pig), bottles of liquor, loaves of bread, cigarettes...you name it, all hanging off the pig. as it was explained to us, each represented a party which had several hosts, and each hosts' donation to the party is carried in the parade.....it looked very heavy! periodically these guys would spin the huge pig thing around....somehow nobody fell over (which seemed the real miracle to be celebrating as most paraders were imbibing freely!) at some point in the weekend festivities presumably the pig and other animals are roasted and eaten and the alcohol is drunk!
here is a video of a guy with the pig load....
one of my favorites was the guy carrying just a load of booze, no pig........who needs food, right?? guessing that party was a little out of control!
in the evening there was a display of fireworks for the festival. these are not your usual fireworks, but rather this bamboo tower that ignited in a rotating, spinning display....each section lighting another section! all this set in the plaza in front of the iglesia de merced. parts of the structure would fly off into the night spinning sparks....... what could go wrong?? it was actually pretty cool.
there were also these stalls selling this yummy drink of aguardiente (sugarcane alcohol which is made in ecuador) with cinnamon and spices served hot...little glasses for all of 50 cents! the second night we got ourselves a whole bottle ($2)!!
it also happened to be our 16th anniversary so the celebration seemed even more fun and special....cheers to us!!!!
the second night of the festival there were no official fireworks, just more parading. the atmosphere felt decidedly more drunken and wild.....so of course we took our children out into the mayhem! todd loved that they added fireworks to the pigs!!
on our last day in latacunga we traveled to a neighboring city an hour away to catch one of ecuador's professional soccer games. most of the bigger cities each have their own team (cuenca, quito, guayaquil, ambato, etc.) and they play each other regularly. we watched the city of ambato's team called mushuc runa play against quito's universidad catolica team. it was a small stadium but a super fun day for our soccer loving family!
and bonus picture! .....this is the kids trying a new fruit which turned out to be a bit sour!!
we are now headed to the ecuadorian jungle for a few days. we couldn't resist the opportunity to see the amazon again!
hasta luego!
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