Sunday, December 31, 2006

Cuenca


i think i am going to be a vegetarian again after this trip. there is a lot of really disgusting meat that i've been eating lately. when i translate for clyde in restaurants, i tell him there is "meat" on the menu, but then he wants to know what kind, so i tell him "steak" to let him know that it's from a cow, but then when the food comes out, he says, "this is not steak! this is scraps!"
when you see the "carnecarias", which translates to "meat store" it's easy to understand why i continue to be plagued by stomach/intestinal problems. lately i've been thinking about life post trip, and i'm really looking forward to not being sick all the time.

Since arriving in Ecuador we have been doing a lot of climbing. the scenery is breathtaking. all day long we struggle up and down volcanoes, which can be exhausting, but is also incredibly rewarding. the other day peter broke his "land speed record" at 51 mph.
Lonely Planet says that the panamerican highway to Cuenca wasn't paved until the 1960s, however there still remain many unpaved sections, some with grades as steep as 10%. going uphill was quite a challenge, then the fog moved in.
i don't think i could see more than 50 feet in front of me, and i worried that cars wouldn't see me at all. as we continues to climb higher, i realized we were actually climbing through a cloud not fog. eventually we climbed higher than the clouds could see them filling up the vally below us. as we rounded the corner, the view changed again, and most of the clouds were stuck on the other side of the volcano. i never get bored of looking at all the crazy scenery. it's so different than california. mountains of this magnitude just don't exist in the bay area.


Tonight is new years eve. Ecuadorians celebrate new years very differently than we do. it's almost like if halloween was celebrated by adults making politcal statements through public sculpture and performance art. i don't understand a lot of the messages as i know almost nothing about ecuadorian politics and my spanish isn't that great. this one shows bush hanging off of a helicopter, while ecuadorians try and sneak across the US/Mexico border while being shot at by border patrols. on the right is a boat with immigrants that says, "titanic" on the side. these scenes block off entire city streets, and then the people who create them send out a person to collect money from the cars that pass by. usually the money collectors are wearing crazy outfits like sheep skin body suits and gorilla masks, or they're dressed in drag booty dancing for all the traffic. it's pretty wild. anyhows, i hope everyone is having an awesome new years! love,
-jessie

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

ambato

we are in ecuador. yay! ecuador is really awesome. there are volcanoes everywhere. arg. the new version of blogger sucks and photos are not uploading. blogger, you are lame. maybe i'll try and update later when blogger doesn't suck so hard. quito was cool except for coming in and out. on the way in i was attacek by dogs and they ate my shoes (they were hanging off a back pannier), and on the way out, a bus got to close to me and tapped by shoulder as it drove by. ok, miss everyone. love,
-jessie

Monday, December 04, 2006

sailing

tomorrow we are leaving on a two and a half to three week sailboat trip to ecuador. so no updates for a while.... love,
-jessie

Saturday, December 02, 2006

casco antiguo and panama viejo


this is a picture of peter, erik, and i that clyde took. i think it's impossible to do a trip like this and stay normal looking. my hair just keep growing into a bigger, and bigger snarl ball ha ha... part of me wants to let it keep growing, but i think i should probably cut it off. today we went to panama viejo, which is the oldest city in all of the americas (i think). it was founded in the 1500s, but later abandoned because pirates attacked the city and most of it burnt down. they ended up moving the capital to what is currently refered to as casco antigua, the colonial neighborhood of panama city. we have seen several colonial cities so far, antigua guatemala, and then leon and granada in nicaragua, but casco antiguo was definately the most run down. parts of the neighborhood looked like shanty towns, and as we wandered around i began to feel like we were possibly entering into bad neighborhoods. whe stopped for lunch at an open air cafe, and got huge plates of food for $1.50. clyde didn't finish all of his rice, and this guy wearing greasy rags came in, walked over to our table, and grabbed clydes rice with his hands and ran out. it was pretty intense.
right now in panama the retired people are striking and they've blocked off a major road through the city. they want the government to give them an extra dollar a day to live on. it's really been messing up traffic, and yesterday we couldn't get a taxi to take us out of the downtown. they've been striking like this for two months i think. people say it's crazy that the government can put all this money into expanding the canal, but can't help out the elderly. know what's kinda funny? in spanish retired is "jubilacion", which sounds to me like "jubilation". ok, hope everyone is awesome! love,
-jessie

Friday, December 01, 2006

Panama Canal


the other day we went to the miraflores locks on the panama canal, and it was so awesome! The panama canal is crazy! at certain places they have these "locks" that the ships have to pass through in order to rise up to a higher elevation. the ships enter the locks, the gates close behind them, and then they open up the front gate and the ship moves out. i didn't totally understand how this works but the locks raise and lowever the water level so that the ship can flow up to a lake in the middle of panama that is higher than sea level. these huge cargo ships come throught and it seems impossible that they don't scratch the sides of the canal. you can see the locks starting to open here. they say that the locks are 7 stories high. the little silver train next to the ship is helping to pull it through the locks.. the canal has a really good museum and a small theater where they show a short film about the history of the canal (i slept through the presentation). when the movie was over, they didn't turn the lights on or open the doors, and eventually people just started filing out on their own. it ended up that patch adams (that doctor that they made the robin williams movie about) was visiting the canal, and the whole staff was freaking out about the american clowns and television crews and what not. random, huh?
we are going to be hanging out in panama for a while i think because we are waiting for a ship that sails to ecuador. seems like a pain because flying will be quicker and cheaper, but peter really wants to go on a boat... i think i will try and be a good sport about this. we are sailing out of colon on tuesday. hope everyone is good!
-jessie

Panama Canal


the other day we went to the miraflores locks on the panama canal, and it was so awesome! The panama canal is crazy! at certain places they have these "locks" that the ships have to pass through in order to rise up to a higher elevation. the ships enter the locks, the gates close behind them, and then they open up the front gate and the ship moves out. i didn't totally understand how this works but the locks raise and lowever the water level so that the ship can flow up to a lake in the middle of panama that is higher than sea level. href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/4931/3381/1600/475280/IMG_0819.jpg"> these huge cargo ships come throught and it seems impossible that they don't scratch the sides of the canal. you can see the locks starting to open here. they say that the locks are 7 stories high. the little silver train next to the ship is helping to pull it through the locks.. the canal has a really good museum and a small theater where they show a short film about the history of the canal (i slept through the presentation). when the movie was over, they didn't turn the lights on or open the doors, and eventually people just started filing out on their own. it ended up that patch adams (that doctor that they made the robin williams movie about) was visiting the canal, and the whole staff was freaking out about the american clowns and television crews and what not. random, huh?
we are going to be hanging out in panama for a while i think because we are waiting for a ship that sails to ecuador. seems like a pain because flying will be quicker and cheaper, but peter really wants to go on a boat... i think i will try and be a good sport about this. we are sailing out of colon on tuesday. hope everyone is good!
-jessie