Day 8-Trip to Cumbaratza

8:10am – After a delicious b’fast of empanadas de verde y huevos (empanadas made with green plantains stuffed w/veggies y chicken, with egg on top) we left Milagro for our 8 hour trip across the country to our final destination in the rain forest.  After enjoying our week of traveling, exploring & eating we were looking forward to getting settled in Cumbaratza, what would be our home for the next 11 weeks. What we weren’t expecting was the beauty along the way. Ecuador is divided into 4 sections: the Galapagos, the coast (where we had been staying), the sierra (which we would drive through), y el Oriente (or the East, which is where we are staying for the remainder of our time here). At 11:00 a.m. we stopped at a town (pueblo) called Pesca de Altura and we ate a restaurant called Reina de Cigne. We were a tad bit early but they went ahead and prepared us a meal anyway.

Agua de tomate y de naranjilla

For $10 we got 3 bowls of chicken soup, 3 plates of food, 3 glasses of fresh-squeezed juice and 2 coffees. I think she overcharged us cuz we’re gringos. We’re going back on the way through and getting overcharged again, you’d better believe!

So, the drive there was pretty treacherous. We went up mountains over 10,000’ tall, which of course means we went down mountains over 10,000’ tall. We went from sun to rain, to fog to clouds, to rain to sun…you get the picture.

Sometimes we saw this:

And sometimes we saw this:

And sometimes you came out of that to this:

Right after this:

We saw these:

Our first joyful experience was having to squeeze through the oncoming lane because a rock-slide was covering most of the street. Mind you, these are streets with a mountain on one side and 1,000 drop-off on the other side-very similar to Rt 1 in California but no ocean at the bottom.  The boulders would have sent the car over the edge-they were really big. Then it was the landslides. Because it is the rainy season, there were lots of landslides. One time we had to really give it the gas to get through about 6” of mud covering the opposite lane, which was way smarter than going through the 12” of mud covering our lane-so we thought. The car struggled, started to fishtail and a pickup truck coming the other way almost T-boned us. Later on we saw a man standing on the side of the road looking up at the mountain-he seemed to be frantically waving us through, what you wonder? So did we until we saw pebbles rolling across the road and quickly realized what was happening. We didn’t even stop to look up, Shawn gunned it again, another narrow escape. Shawn did a great job of driving and has been a tremendous help to us in transportation, letting us know how to act, what to eat (which is easy cuz he says just eat everything) and where to go. Thanks Jim and Robin! You have great kids.

We passed through Cuenca, the 3^rd largest city in Ecuador, very pretty with lots of expatriots moving there and building pretty impressive houses. While we were at the gas station a woman came by selling bags of mandarinas(clementines), little tiny plums, nectarines & pears.

We also passed through Loja (about 1.5 hours from Cumbaratza) which is apparently the only place in Ecuador that has real, delicious coffee (so everyone says). We’ll find out later when we come back to buy groceries.

At 3:50pm it was raining pretty hard and we passed by 5 guys in yellow slickers. 1 by the side of the road and 4 in the middle looking down at something. - You know the old adage about NYS road workers-it takes five guys to fix a pothole-4 standing around and one actually working? Well in this case the 4 were working  but what we witnessed was the very definition of inefficiency and possibly one of the funniest things we’ve ever seen. Did u guess what they were standing around? That’s right – a line painting machine. It took a minute to register what we were actually seeing (did I mention it was pouring? And we r in the mountains?) so we forgot to get a picture. But as we kept driving we saw every bit of the “lines” they had painted being washing down to the town and the bottom of the hill.  Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor hail can stop the US Postal Service(see Shawn & Wayne we do respect the PO) and apparently a monsoon doesn’t stop Ecuadorian road workers from painting the streets (and the town below). We r still laughing as we r writing this.

The adventure was great and every thorn is beautified by a rose. The roses were the waterfalls. Spectacular waterfalls.

Home Sweet Home

At 5:30ish we finally arrived in Cumbaratza

Ryan and Veronica  stopped home between studies and we went into the nearby town of Zamora for some food  (I know what you’re thinking) An elder from the zamora congregation has a street cart with with delicious food. We ate pollo encocado (chicken slow cooked in a delicious coconut sauce with rice and beans). Shawn and Ryan had pork and tongue. – 5 plates of food, 4 drinks (delicious fresh juices) - $13. You gotta love it here. We thought we’d sleep like babies, BUT….