Passing the Days in Relaxation Mode

My days in Otavalo are past (well, sort of). One day, Viviana and Romina accompanied Suse and me (or maybe it was the other way around) to Lake Cuicocha. It´s a beautiful place, and if I´d had the time, I would´ve love to have walked the circumference of the lake despite the fact that it´s a very difficult 4-5 hour trek. Instead, we spent about an hour there and then went to Cotocachi where we had a wonderful Ecuadorian lunch. You can purchase an ¨almuerzo¨ for $4.50, which includes four courses. The first course was some cheese, salad, and beans that looked similar to lima beans but tasted better. As we were eating the second course, a soup, Suse scooped up something on her spoon and asked what it was. Viviana replied that it was pig skin (not a euphemism for a football!). I promptly removed it from my bowl onto the saucer and tried not to think about it as I ate the rest. A few minutes later, the topic arose again and Suse informed us that she had thought Viviana was joking and had actually taken a bite of it. When I asked her what it tasted like, she simply replied she´d rather not talk about it. The third course was meat with rice, vegetables, and salad. Our fourth course was strawberries and cream. Needless to say, we left stuffed to the gills.

Saturday we passed a pleasant evening watching a movie. I had purchased Slumdog Millionaire because Viviana hadn´t seen it, but we lacked the DVD remote control to change the language to Spanish. She said, I´m going to try to understand, but I knew that it would be futile. We ended up watching The Time Traveler´s Wife instead. I´m hoping to set the language on Slumdog to Spanish using a computer so that we can watch it this weekend. I have purchased quite a few movies since I´ve been here as they´re quite cheap and the quality not much lower than you would find with a new disc. For example, I purchased 3 DVDs (one of which contained all 6 Harry Potter movies) for less than $4. And I like being able to watch them in English with the Spanish subtitles (at times just so I can laugh at the sometimes poor translation).

Sunday, Suse and I took a taxi back to Quito. As has been the custom for her in the two weeks that she has been in Ecuador (the absolute first two weeks of her trip), she has had bad luck (one of them being she ended up with gray hair after she miscommunicated with the hairstylist about the color she wanted). The bad luck continued. We were stopped at a roadblock by the police and of course whose bag did they want to open? Hers! I told her I definitely don´t want to stand next to her in a storm because she´ll likely be struck by lightning, but she informed me that next to her would probably be the safest place to stand!

I don´t have a lot to do this week. I needed to print a photo of Romina and purchase a frame so that I can give them a gift Friday. That has been accomplished. I wanted to purchase a book in Spanish. That has been accomplished, and I am now almost 50 pages into Twilight in Spanish, at a rapid clip of 7 minutes per page. The good news is that my new dictionary (the other was falling apart already) is much better even if it still doesn´t have all the words. I could actually read a little faster than I am. At times I understand the meaning of a sentence but will sometimes look up a word for an exact definition. How long I´ll keep up that anal retentiveness remains to be seen.

I haven´t talked to too many people here in Quito, particularly in Spanish, but this morning and afternoon I had occasion to. I stopped in a panaderia (bread shop) to buy a coffee (which by the way sucks here) and a doughnut. As is custom for me, I needed sugar, but when I turned the sugar over to pour into the cup, I discovered quickly that the top was off. The hole of my doughnut was now filled with sugar as was my right flip flop. A local guy quickly informed me that I would have a good day because of this. Spent a couple hours on a blanket in the park and then ate an Ecuadorian lunch. On my return to the hostel, I felt a tap on the shoulder and then the guy from the morning, who I learned is Franklin, popped in front of me asking how my day was. We began to talk and then his friend arrived as well. Franklin works only a few blocks from the hostel and we agreed to have lunch tomorrow. It was a welcome invitation since I have nothing else to do while I wait for Wendy to arrive. When I arrived at the hostel, I had several wonderful emails, some of which I had been waiting for. So maybe Franklin was right--the sugar gave me a good day. Or maybe it´s just that I´m so sweet anyway!

I do actually have a to do list for this week. Today I managed to book my flight back to Costa Rica for the hefty sum of $591, which I booked on a Spanish website as opposed to Expedia who wanted $17 more. As you may know, I had hoped to catch a ride with a friend on a boat out of Columbia, but he already has two more passengers for that voyage than he can comfortably accomodate. He knows others who are making the journey with boats but at a cost of $350, it isn´t worth it since I´d have to spend an additional $100-150 and two days´ travel. I bit the bullet and booked the flight.

But it feels good to have a firm plan again. Those of you who know me know that I function better in life when there is some semblance of a plan for the future. I now know that at 7 p.m. on January 8, 2010 I´ll be back on Costa Rican soil and as soon as I clear customs and immigration, I´ll be back in the arms of someone familiar as he has promised to pick me up at the airport. Only 24 days. I´m hoping to pass a weekend vacation with him before we head back to Silencio, perhaps take him to the hot springs in La Fortuna. There is something comforting in returning to places I know, then again maybe we´ll go somewhere new.

Friday, Wendy and I will make the 2-hour taxi ride to Otavalo where we´ll stay with Viviana and Romina. I´m excited to return there (that whole comforting feeling again). It was a whole lot easier to leave last Sunday knowing that I would be returning shortly. It will be sad to leave their home this Sunday with the knowledge that I might never see them again. That´s the big downside to traveling.

As for this week, I´m spending a lot of time reading or watching movies, and I´m trying to cross some things off my to do list. Don´t worry, there´s nothing stress-inducing on my list, unless of course you consider watching a video of my former student give a speech in front of thousands stress-inducing.

I´m grateful to have no holiday stress-inducers on my list--no holiday cards to write, no shopping to do, no decorations to hang or tree to trim, no mandatory parties to attend, no worrying about whether to buy someone something or not, no cookies to make (truth be told, I gave some of these things up years ago!).

And with that said, I hereby publicly announce my aversion to the Christmas season with all its excesses and promise to have a drink on Christmas to toast my non-celebration of this completely overdone and wasteful holiday.