Weekend trip part two: Vinces

I woke up early on Saturday to take a bus to Vinces, about 2.5 hours north of Guayaquil in the province of Los Ríos (Guayaquil is in the province of Guayas).

You can see that Guayaquil is a port city, Vinces is North in the Los Rios province (just NW of Babahoyo, written in big letters, the capital of Los Rios)

Photo of the "Torre Eiffel" in Vinces. Found on the internet, not mine.

Vinces is known as "little Paris"- during the cocoa boom (late 19th-early 20th centuries), many rich Ecuadorian plantation owners frequently travelled to Paris and brought back customs, fashions, and even chose to send their children to Paris to be educated. Now, there aren't many French remnants left, but there are some wooden Municipal buildings built with a French style. There is also...a mini Eiffel Tower! I was joking with some new friends about how Vinces is known as the Paris Chiquito, but I learned while I was in Vinces- there actually is a tower! It's about 7 meters high.

I "was invited" (read: forcibly invited myself) to a meeting with cocoa producers in Vinces and an Italian client who specializes in direct trade cocoa products. "We" (the Asociación de Productores Orgánicos de Vinces (APOV)- and the sneaky gringa) met with Gianluca Franzoni, an Italian chocolatier, and also a famous restaurant critic and general "taster"- he tastes wine, cocoa, coffee, honey, and many other items. He's apparently a big deal in Italy- I had no idea! But I Google'd him back in Quito today, and he even has several entries under Google Images. Anyone who has several pictures of themselves featured prominently under Google Images is a Big Deal in my book.

Cocoa at the APOV co-op

Fermentation boxes- Nacional cocoa usually ferments for about 3 days

Some cocoa pods sitting around outside of the co-op

Cocoa drying on the outside patio, after the fermentation process

Me trying some of Wilson's cacao en baba in Búa, near Santo Domingo in 2008

APOV's buying system is fairly unique. They buy cocoa from the farmers en baba- covered in the pulpy liquid that surrounds the beans inside the cocoa pod. This means that all of the cacao that the co-op buys is fermented and dried evenly. Most co-ops buy dry beans, but you have to depend on farmers knowing how to properly ferment their beans, and they do it uniformly- something that's hard to do. Becuase cocoa en baba weighs much more because of the liquid that eventually drips and dries off, I learned that the co-op pays each farmer for 38 kilos of dry beans for every 100 kilos of beans en baba that they bring in. This in itself is complicated- farmers don't do the complex math to figure out how much their beans weigh en baba compared to when they're dry, so they're often suspicious of this system, although I was assured that farmers don't get ripped off this way.

Young cocoa plants at the greenhouse

L-R: Gianluca, Gerardo, Jaime in front of Jaime's Nacional cocoa tree. The green pods mean they're not ripe yet

Gerardo standing in front of a tree that needs pruning that is no longer productive

So, there was a meeting between the Comercialization Manger Gerardo, President Julio, Associated Agricultural Engineer Lupita, Italiano Famoso Gianluca, and Intrusive Gringa Michelle. When the meeting finished, we all took a trip to see APOV's greenhouse where they're growing new cocoa plants to hand out to APOV farmers. We also visited one farmer's particularly productive finca, or plot of land. The tiny part of his finca that we saw had mostly cocoa and banana trees, and it had been recently pruned, something that most farmers don't do, either out of ignorance or out of laziness. Pruning can help a tree remain productive for a long time, and can help to keep common diseases and plagues out of the finca.

Rodeo!

I wouldn't mind relaxing here after harvesting my cocoa...(of course no small-scale cocoa producer can afford it)

We stopped by a local Hotel/Spa- El Señor de los Caballos- a lodge with a rodeo (we watched some unimpressive rodeo-ing), a pool, and relaxing hotel rooms. Back in Vinces (the finca and lodge were about 20 minutes by truck outside of Vinces in neighboring communities) we ate what surely must have been a disappointing lunch for someone with such a trained palate as Gianluca. After stopping off at another finca, they offered to take Gianluca back to Guayaquil, and I stowed away in the truck as well.

This finca has Nacional, or aromatic, fine quality cocoa

This finca has CCN-51 cacao, known as a "clone" that has less flavor. More for bulk. You can tell the difference because these trees tend to fork immediately from the trunk, whereas Nacional more commonly has one solid trunk

L-R: Gerardo, me and Gianluca in front of a 200 year cocoa tree!

Cocoa pods left to decompose in the finca

The visit was all about Gianluca- the APOV Comercialization Manager is hoping that when other European producers try the chocolate that he makes out of their cocoa, they'll score some new contracts. Gianluca also negotiates all of his business through direct trade- he doesn't deal with intermediaries or even national exporters. For being a Hot Shot, he was incredibly nice, laid back, and not at all weirded out by the gringa who invited herself along for the ride. He also had a delightful Italian lilt to his well-spoken Spanish. On top of that, he invited all of us (me and two men from APOV) out to a super posh dinner in Guayaquil. We went out to an Asian-Cuban fusion restaurant, apparently it's a chain and a big deal in NY. The food was yummy, the decor was hip, and the appetizers, two bottles of wine, main dishes and desserts that he treated us all to were very generous of him. It never escaped me that he definitely didn't have to include me in the dinner (even though I'd spent the day with the group) because he's clearly just negotiating with APOV, and paying for my meal wasn't at all necessary. So Gianluca earned major kudos with me for being an all around nice guy.

Weekend trip part 1: Guayaquil

I'm back from my weekend research trip to Guayaquil and Vinces, which was delightful. I flew 35 minutes into Guayaquil (pronounced Gwai-ah-keel), located along the coast. The city is definitely the economic and financial capital of Ecuador, although most political operations occur in Quito. Guayaquil is a port city, and almost all of Ecuador's cocoa is (and most of its other agricultural products are) exported through Guayaquil. Although I only flew to Guayaquil because it was the quickest way to get to Vinces for a cocoa meeting, I wanted to check out the city for at least a day because I've never really seen much of it. I stayed with a new friend, a Peace Corps volunteer who kindly offered to show me around the town and to let me stay with her.

The Malecón

It does have a boat like feel

The white/grey building is a Municipal building in Guayaquil. Lovely!

We saw some of Guayaquil's main attractions, mainly the Malecón- the city's famous boardwalk, completed in 2000. The whole thing is supposed to feel like a ship, and they had some cool towers for looking out over the river. Along the whole way were restaurants, kiosks, boutique shops, an ecological park, cool statues, etc. I'm glad I got to see it- it's the main thing people talk about when they talk about touring around Guayaquil.

Barrio Las Peñas

I want to live in the one with the windows that open to a mini balcony

Wow, when did we arrive in Europe?

We also saw Barrio Las Peñas, which reminded me a lot of Valpo. It's a small hill with colorfully painted houses looking out over the river, and there are stairs that lead to the top, with bars, restaurants, dance clubs, galleries, etc. on either side of the stairs, making it a cool place to go out at night. Apparently Las Peñas is the place where Guayquil's historic homes have been best restored/maintained. Lower along the hill are ritzy apartments and hotels. We ate empanadas in the afternoon, and then later returned to Las Peñas in the evening. One of the best parts was partaking in the delicious street food on our way home late at night- most people chose an assortment of meat on a stick, but my PCV's friend (an Oxy graduate!) and I shared a delicious choclo asado con queso- a roasted husk of corn coated with butter and cheese.

Guayaquil has a decidedly different feel than Quito. The vibe was much more Caribbean, likely due to the significantly warmer climate- it was in the high 80s and humid while I was there. There is also a much more racially diverse population in Guayaquil- a lot of Afro Ecuadorians from Esmeraldas come to Guayaquil, and there's a significant Asian population. Quito, being an Andean highland city, has a much more indigenous feel, Guayaquil has a much more mestizo feel.  Quito is 2850 meters above sea level- most of Guayaquil is just 1 meter above sea level.  Guayaquileños (those from Guayaquil) in Quito have mentioned to me that Guayaquil is much more abierto- open- and Quito is mucho more tranquilo- calm. Guayquileños like to dance salsa much more than Quiteños, for example, and many people have commented that the highland indigenous presence in Quito makes for a much more modest climae in comparison to Guayaquil. I just spent half a day and one evening there, but I certainly picked up on the different ondas- vibes- in each city. 

Next stop: Vinces, also known as Little Paris!

Introduction to my thesis

Things have been pretty culinary for me lately, since I make my own schedule and can spend decidedly more time in the kitchen since I don't have as many strict deadlines or class times to abide by. Still, I don't want everyone to think that I spend all of my time in the kitchen. (Although I'll be discussing a life changing broccoli basil mac and cheese recipe at the end of this post.) What I actually spend most of my time thinking about and working on is my thesis, which I haven't really talked about much.

(I just finished writing this post and realized that it's really long, so for now it's just an introduction to my two main themes- cocoa and fair trade. Most of you probably know a lot about both of these, especially about fair trade. But in case you're not totally sure, hopefully these insanely long and not at all brief explanations should help.)

My thesis deals at a much more "local" level than my class studies- I'm investigating whether or not it's worth it for small cocoa farmers to be certified fair trade, on an economic and social level. Just to be clear, cocoa is a what you use to make chocolate- not to be confused with coca which is what is used to make cocaine. Cocoa, often referred to as cacao (I interchange the words), is totally legal in all of its states; coca is legal in an unprocessed state and illegal when it's processed into cocaine. 

"Fair trade" is usually contrasted with "free trade". Free trade is trade as it's conventionally done- the price of a product is regulated by supply and demand. In the case of fair trade products, a minimum price is guaranteed and a premium is paid to producers associations that is used for communal benefit- usually to support development projects, like the construction of new schools or roads, or to help pay for tools that will help the entire association. When world prices go above the fair trade price, producers receive the world price plus the premium, and when world prices go below the fair trade price, farmers really see the benefits- rather than receiving the low world prices, they're guaranteed the minimum fair trade price and the premium. 

For example, the current fair trade price for cocoa is $2000 per metric ton (as of January 2011- previously, as shown in the chart, it was $1600 with a $150 premium), and there's a $200 community premium per metric ton on top of that. The current price today for a metric ton of cocoa is $2427, so the fair trade markets and the free trade/conventional markets pay the same price because it's above $2000/MT, although fair trade certified co-ops receive the $200 premium with every metric ton that they sell. The graphic above should hopefully help to visually show a) how commodity prices fluctuate and b) how the fair trade price helps support farmers, especially during times of price crisis.

That's the producer side. On the other side, consumers pay more for fair trade certified products because the farmers are paid more money than they would be if the product was traded conventionally. Products are certified, usually by the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO), an umbrella agency that sets fair trade standards and includes a separate organization (FLO-Cert) that certifies farmers organizations. In Europe (where the fair trade market for almost all certified products is the biggest), they use one fair trade label on certified products to show consumers that the products were produced under fair conditions and that farmers were paid a fair price. With cacao the fair conditions usually usually specifically refers to no child labor- not a big issue in Ecuador, but a big one in West Africa where the majority of the cacao comes from. Democratically elected co-ops or producers associations are also important.

 The center image is the European label. In the US, the two biggest labels are Fair Trade USA /TransFair and Exqual Exchange.

Provinces of Ecuador

Almost all of Ecuador's cocoa is produced by small farmers on plots of 10 hectares or less (10 hectares is about equal to 25 acres). Cocoa is mostly produced along the coast- specifically in Los Ríos, Guayas, Manabí, Esmeraldas, and El Oro. (You should be able to find these provinces labelled on the map above. Where as Ecuador's other major agricultural exports are traditionally produced on large plots of land- haciendas-, cacao (and to some extent, coffee) is mostly the domain of small farmers, making it particularly useful as a poverty alleviation tool. Cacao is also the tropical commodity that has the smallest ecological footprint in its production, specifically because cocoa trees grow best under shade. This means that cacao is not as frequently planted as a monoculture, but rather is planted along side other plants- often banana trees, coffee trees, citrus trees, and hard wood trees. This variety increases biodiversity, and the fallen leaves make for good natural compost. These factors combine to make cocoa well suited to be certified because of its fairly ecological cultivation and because chocolate is considered a "luxury item" in the developed world, much like coffee and wine. Consumers are often willing to pay more for fair trade chocolate, partially because it's considered a luxury item and consumers are willing to pay more in general for it, and partially because many consumers equate fair trade with higher quality, a connection that isn't necessarily always the case (but often is because of the small scale, artisan nature of lots of the chocolate bar production).

I hope that helps as an introduction to these topics. My main goal is to analyze further the fair trade system as it pertains to cacao in Ecuador. Is fair trade a viable option for small, marginalized farmers, or is the cost of certification so high that the system excludes those that it purports to support most? Does the fair trade price for cacao cover the cost of production and the cost of living? If a community is benefitting from fair trade, are the benefits economic, social, or both? Are there alternatives to the fair trade system that also promise a fair price for farmers? Hopefully I'll have time to write up my non-expert opinions about these soon.



I know I promised a life changing recipe, so I'll link to it here. It's a broccoli basil macaroni and cheese recipe- let me just tell you that there's a squash puree involved that thickens and creams up the sauce nicely, and that the breadcrumbs are mostly finely chopped broccoli with basil! Oh, and the tomato in the sauce is genius- I was skeptical at first, but it added a nice, sweet contrast to the cheese. Also, I didn't have any creme fraiche on hand (who does?) so I just substituted normal plain yogurt- not even strained yogurt (more like Greek) because I didn't have time. And it worked out just fine. Another reason why I'm now on the side of Camp Cooking instead of Camp Baking.

The Masters program

Since my academic program- a Masters in Latin American Studies- can be difficult to understand, I thought I'd explain a little bit about that. It sounds like a weird, post-modern, non-career building program, but it's actually pretty much just a mix of political sciences and social sciences. It's a comprehensive vision of the problems that Latin America faces, specifically the Andean Region (which usually refers to the countries in the Andean Community- Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru).

My classes (which ended last June) were most economic and political, although we also learned about social movements and had a class on Latin American philosophy. The program was essentially like a Masters in International Relations, except instead of all international relations, it focused mostly on international relations that involved Latin America, although it wasn't entirely limited to that- I took two classes about Geopolitics of the 20th and 21st century, which involve the US (especially in the 20th century) and other major powers- India, Russia, China, Brazil, and Iran, which frequently allies with Venezuela and Bolivia in their anti-imperialistic, anti-US sentiments. 

I know that the non-traditionalness of this program can make it confusing to understand what I'm doing down here. I'm not any closer to having an idea of what I'll be doing specifically when I finish my thesis (probably around June or September 2012), but my classmates have gone on to be researchers, professors, consultants, NGO employees, government employees, and to hold many other job titles. 

I thought I'd explain a little bit about my thesis soon (!), so hopefully this brief description of the Masters program will help everyone understand how my thesis fits into my studies.

early thanksgiving

It seems like Thanksgiving has come early almost everywhere. I had a lovely chat with family in SoCal on Sunday as they all celebrated Thanksgiving together- the meal looked yummy, and it was great to see everyone via Skype! I myself celebrated Thanksgiving early too- I was invited to a potluck on Saturday hosted by a gringa friend and I met many of her work mates too. The food was delicious- the only other gringa made roasted sweet potatoes with rosemary and cardamum (a nice combo), and the other Ecuadorians brought mashed potatoes, salads, veggies, bread, a dried cranberry sauce-like concoction, drinks, desserts, paper plates, etc. I brought a traditional green bean casserole and some even more traditional yuca breads- didn't you know that Ecuadorian indigenous tribes from the Amazon brought some yucca, met up with some indigenous tribes from the Sierra who provided the cheese, and then they all caravan'ed up to North America where pilgrims, Native Americans, and Ecuadorians all celebrated a warm meal together? I thought that was common knowledge. 

One funny thing about Ecuadorian Thanksgiving (really, just about Ecuadorians in general) is the importance of rice at meals. A French friend of mine told me that she is slowly "training" her Ecuadorian boyfriend to need less rice with meals- she says that he used to feel like he couldn't possibly be full if he hadn't eaten rice, so he'd make rice as a side dish- even if they were eating pasta or potatoes! So of course, there was white rice at the potluck Thanksgiving, brought by an Ecuadorian. Claro que sí.

Finally, another gringa friend and I are planning on hosting our own Thanksgiving bash, but ours will be a bit late- we won't celebrate until 3 December.  But no one here really understands Thanksgiving (one guy I met at the first Tgiving potluck told me he thought that we celebrated Tgiving once a month), so I don't think anyone will care or notice that we're not celebrating in November but rather in early December.  Since my friend is also veg, we won't have a turkey (neither of us knows how to make it nor really wants to learn), but she suggested that we make a lentil roast- a new Ecuadorian Thanksgiving tradition! 

Finally, I can't help but mention it: I made the most amazing lasagna the other night- a lasaña de tres salsas- three sauces! I had lots of tomato sauce leftover from some aging tomatoes that I'd made the night before, and I made a green sauce out of some swiss chard that was starting to go limp. Finally, I remembered that Alvaro likes to make a garlic sauce (lots of garlic, yogurt, some oil, boiled potato, egg) with his lasagnas, so there was a garlic sauce too. Add in some sauteed leeks and carrots (OK, so I was cleaning out the fridge from my co-op bounty from the week before) and this lasagna was amazing! It was like la pêche- a French peach that Rach and I mourned all evening after we finished eating it in France when we were nine. I similarly mourned my lasañita. So delicious!

May all of your weeks involve as much delicious food as mine.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Baking

With all of the story telling about my dull travel adventures with a boring friend, I'm sure you're all dying to read more about the real subject of this blog: my hornito.

For those of you who were wondering (all of you, I'm sure), my hornito has been doing just fine.  The real problem lately has been me, specifically me baking. Back in the yesteryears when Rachel and I were in charge of baking (usually on the floor), I never understood why Mom didn't like baking. It was so much fun!  We measured oil, eggs, and water into our brownie mixes no prob, and best of all, there was a delicious final product AND a bowl to be licked! What wasn't to like about that?

Now that I'm much wiser, I am a complete convert to Mom's side. Baking is lame. You have to measure things perfectly, and there's none of the improvisation involved in cooking.  When you bake, recipes are always right, which just isn't true when you cook. Unfortunately, I recently took my cooking skills to the activity of baking. "Four tablespoons of cocoa powder for brownies? That can't be right! They won't be nearly chocolatey enough! Anyway, I can handle pure cocoa powder, I don't like sweet things anyway.  I'll just kind of eyeball how much cocoa powder should go into that. I've read that yogurt is a nice substitute for oil- I'll just make that switch in the recipe too."  30 minutes later I had very bitter, waaaaay too chocolatey brownies that tasted like yogurt.  Brownie fail on my part, for sure.  I learned my lesson- the recipe is always right! No improvising!

So today I stuck very closely to the recipe- I mean, as closely as you can when it calls for 2 cups of beet puree and I only had 3/4 cup.  And when it calls for a mixer, and I'm just beating the mixture vigorously with a fork because I don't have a mixer. And when I don't really want to figure out how much I should be splitting the recipe.  3/4 cup isn't quite half of 2 cups, but it's pretty close. Plus, how important can beets be?  But then later, when the recipe called for 3 eggs, I figured 1 egg was OK since I was less-than-halving the recipe anyway and I didn't want to deal with the leftovers of part of a beaten egg. You might think that this is narrating itself towards another baking disaster- wrong! I have totally learned the wrong lesson, as my chocolate beet cake turned out delightfully! Bring on the baking improv (and the likely unpalatable brownies).

You might be thinking, how is this possible? Michelle waxes poetically about her olive bread all the time! How can she hate baking when she's always making that silly olive bread? To this, I say: making olive bread is not baking. It is a creative endeavor. I'm constantly tweaking things. No sage? I'll just add rosemary. I consistently add double the olives that the recipe calls for. I switch the whole wheat flour to bread flour ratios. This round saw the addition of sun dried tomatoes. My toaster oven is too small to bake the whole bread as the recipe calls for, so I usually halve the recipe, eyeballing quantities because the numbers on my plastic measuring cup have rubbed off. And the olive bread always turns out amazing! Olive bread never lets me down, despite improvising. 

So you don't think I'm a total flunk in the kitchen because of the Brownie Disaster of 2011, I'll toot my own horn even more by saying that I made a completely successful, improvised challah last Friday for Shabbat.  I needed just butter? Some olive oil made for a fine substitute for some of the butter.  I wanted it to be more savory? I sauteed some onions and garlic and folded them into the challah ropes.

Moral of the story? Brownies are fickle and not worth eating unless they come from a mix. That's definitely the moral, no need to learn anything about improvising while baking. That would be silly.

kee-to

  Daria and I returned to Quito on Sunday so that I could be around on Monday to defend my Thesis Plan, which had been scheduled for 3pm.  We spent most of Monday morning recuperating lost sleep and putzing around, but we enjoyed one of my favorite new breakfasts- milk heated with pureed pumpkin served with some pumpkin spice mix over oatmeal- yum! 

Looking down into Guápulo, the valley Cumbayá is in the distance

We took a walk over to Guápulo, a small area that lies on the outskirts of Quito.  There’s a lovely lookout area, and although it was raining, it was still cool to point out surrounding valleys, etc.  We walked a bit further to my favorite bread place where we picked up a soft pretzel (Rach- YUM- to make while I’m in SF?) and then walked back home for lunch.

While I was at my thesis defense meeting, Daria took a taxi over to the Museo Guayasamin, which (I think) she enjoyed, even though the more impressive Capilla del Hombre was closed.  In the evening we invited some of my lady friends over for dinner, and we all enjoyed a yummy, South American inspired meal.

Tuesday was a full day, and since I didn’t have to be at the University, we decided to aprovechar- take advantage of- the time.  We walked to the Parque Carolina, which is, as anyone who has ever visited Quito with me knows, one of my favorite places. It’s an enormous park where they do morning aerobics classes on weekends.  There are really so many parts of the park- futbol fields, basketball courts, open areas, play equipment for kids, tons of food vendors, a track, the Botanical Garden, an area where they put on puppet shows for kids, a man made river/lake area where you can rent paddle boats, an enormous, world-famous skate park, and more open spaces.  Daria and I checked out the Botanical Gardens and Daria got some nice photos of orquids to show her mom.  

La Ternura- Tenderness- one of Guayasamin's most reconized pieces

From the Parque Carolina, we headed up to the Capilla del Hombre- Chapel of Man- created by Guayasamin, one of Ecuador’s most treasured painters.  The Capilla del Hombre is perhaps one of my other favorite places to show off (unfortunately, it was closed when I went to show it to Mom and Rach).  There are enormous, beautiful and very moving paintings and sculptures all through the area, many in dedication to indigenous struggles, resistance movements under dictatorships, and the mestizo  or mixed white/indigenous experience. While the Capilla in itself is amazing, the free tour really adds a lot of value- the guides explain the works and various bits of symbolism, history, and meaning behind each piece. 

A view of the Virgin in Quito from the Centro Histórico. Photo credit: Daria

After a perhaps too-leisurely lunch, the second half of our afternoon marked the beginning of our three-minutes too late experience.  We walked down to the Banco Central’s free museum that has cool diorama-like indications of what indigenous life was like as well as an entire exhibition dedicated to displaying ancient gold artifacts.  Unfortunately, we arrived 3 minutes too late, and they were shooing everyone out of the museum.  We continued to walk through the Parque El Ejido so that Daria could get some last minute souvenirs, but unfortunately the vendors weren’t there on Tuesday. 

Daria in front of La Basílica

We walked through the park to the Centro Histórico, where we successfully saw the Basílica, one of many churches in the Centro Histórico, the only one with a decidedly gothic feel to it.  We walked around the Centro Histórico, only to arrive 3 minutes too late at the Compañía de Jesús, a church entirely gold-plated on the interior.  Although they had begun Mass, we convinced the guy to let us at least peek in and check it out for a minute.  Daria definitely got a good feel of the Centro Histórico’s unique feel because we walked around a lot and saw several of the landmark churches without specifically seeking them out. 

View of the Centro from Café Mosaico. Photo credit: Daria

Cool bottles hanging in Café Mosaico. Photo credit: Daria

From there we took a taxi to perhaps my last must-see Quito destination- Café Mosaico (Mom and RachCafé Mosaico has an incredible, unblocked view of the entire historic center and lots of the rest of Quito as well, and when the Centro Histórico is lit up at night, it’s a really amazing view.  We enjoyed maracuyazos- a combination of the canelazo drink, which is usually flavored with cinnamon and sugar cane alcohol, but ours were flavored with maracuyá- passion fruit juice.  Delightful. We also split an order of veg lasagna and maybe two orders of tzatziki.  We wanted to stop at the Supermaxi to get some last minute cooking supplies for Daria to take back, but our cab driver told us they were open until 8:30, and when we got there at 8:03, they told us that they were closing and that we couldn’t go in.  This made sense to us, as we had just barely missed many important landmarks during the day, so it would have been silly for karma to have been on our side this time. 

It was an entirely delightful trip!  Hopefully Daria works up a good campaign back home to get other people to come down and visit!  We tried all sorts of yummy local foods, including but not limited to:

Food:

Pan de yuca (yuca bread)

Menestra de porotos (bean stew)

Empanadas de verde (green plantain empanadas with cheese)

Palmitos (hearts of palm)

Plantains with cheese inside

Chifles (green plantain or banana chips)

Helado de paila (an artisan ice cream)

Habas (fava beans, usually toasted)

Chochos y chulpi (lupine beans and toasted corn)

Aji de tomate de arbol (tree tomato spicy sauce)

Yuca chips

Patacones (flattened fried green plantains)

Juices:

Passionfruit

Tree tomato

Tree tomato/guayaba

Papaya

Coconut

Avena (an oatmeal based juice-like drink)


I'm probably missing some...but look how yummy your next trip to Ecuador will be! Come visit!

Days 3 & 4: Baños!

When we last heard from our heroines, they were on an early bus from Tena to Baños...

Baños (Bahn-yos) is the one place where we thought to book a hostel ahead of time.  It's hard to tell how necessary it was- on one hand, the entire city was PACKED with tourists, both national and international; on the other hand, the entire city is also PACKED with hostels/hotels/residenciales/B&Bs, etc.  Baños is a very touristy town, for good reason- it's nestled in a valley and has easily accessed hiking, outdoor adventure activities, and it's called Baños for its hotsprings.  So it's a touristy option, but definitely worth visiting. Baños seems to be one of Ecuador's pride and joys- most Ecuadorians asking about my travel experience ask to see if I've been to the basic Ecuadorian travel "staples": the coast (check), Cuenca (check), the jungle (check) and/or Baños (check!). As a side note, the entire familia Stoler was in Baños about 10 years ago when we visited the Galápagos.  I don't remember much except that Mom was sick with food poisoning (major bummer), that we did a mini-hike, we saw lots of taffy, and that the hotel attendants were drunk when we came back in the evening on Christmas Eve.  I think that this time I was able to locate the hotel/cabins where we stayed though!  So we had our hostel and it was cute and had hammocks, a pool and a breakfast option for reasonable prices.

This photo of my horrendous posture reveals why my back hurt so much the next day. Photo credit: Daria

Rolling hills outside of Baños

On the slackline chair across the ravine! Photo credit: Daria

After settling in, we rushed to take advantage of gringo-centered menus and ate a non-rice/beans/egg meal, which was lovely, and then we went to meet our equine friends, John Travolta and Leonardo DiCaprio. We went horseback riding!  Here we encountered Ecua-Teen número 3, who was by far the most sullen- I tried repeatedly to engage him in conversation, and he gave one word answers, if he could be bothered at all to look up from his cell phone that he was using as a radio or from dusting minuscule flecks of dust off his shoes.  Still, his less than professional attitude didn't do anything to keep us from enjoying the ride- we were surrounded by beautiful hills, including the active Volcano Tungurahua.  We eventually stopped off at a little Café-Bar which seemed kind of like a hidden away resort- there was a pool, a mini ropes course in the adjunct forest, and a swing you could swing out on.  The best part, though, was a cool metal chair hanging on a slackline- you sat down on one end and it took you over a ravine to the other side, where you hopped off and they pulled it back for the next person.

The outside of our tapas bar restaurant. Daria, let's go back!!

I can't remember what we did after horseback riding because most of my memories of the evening are consumed by the memory of the best food, EVER! Daria and I stumbled upon a tapas bar with amazing veg options (think: roasted red pepper bruschetta; Asian fusion salad with fresh pineapple and ginger carrot dressing; Moroccan panini with grilled eggplant, pesto, cheese, and veggies; and a side salad with a balsamic reduction that could rival Brianna's world famous reduction) and a delightful daily deal on mojitos- score. When the chef came out Daria and I were reduced to bumbling, star-struck chef-groupies and lost any cool factors that we might have previously possessed by telling him him it was the best food we'd ever eaten and intently grilling him on preparation techniques and ingredients.

Later, Daria got to sample Ecuador's finest national product and Latin America's best export: Pilsner beer and reggaeton music, respectively. We checked out the dancing scene and Daria got to hear many of my guilty pleasure songs, many of which involve Don Omar or Pitbull, one of which boasts this profound lyric as the chorus: "yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida!"- "I don't want water, I want a beverage!".

I can't remember if we saw this while hiking or horseback riding but this is pretty much the amazing beauty that surrounds Baños

On our hike up to the Virgin we passed the Baños cemetery that was all decorated from the Day of the Dead

View of Baños from our hike to the Virgin

View of Baños from another side, from our Bellavista hike up to a cross

Yet another view of Baños! From yet another angle! This is a little bit higher up than the Bellavista cross photo

We mostly spent Day 2 in Baños in a continuous babble about the food from the night before. Seriously. We also managed to fit in several hikes, almost all leading to religious symbols: one to the Virgin, another to a cross, and another failed one that ended at a church.

This (clearly) isn't Daria, it was a dude who worked at the puenting showing how it's done- but this photo was too cool not to post! Photo credit: Daria

 We actually walked around quite a bit, and Daria, being not only Sharp-Eyed but also Super-Brave, partook in puenting- jumping off a bridge, a puente

Outside of the main church they were selling literally tons of plastic crap

Some fruit samplings from the market

We also got to see a big feria or outdoor market, which was really cool because Daria didn't get to see either of the outdoor mercados where I buy my produce in Quito.  We even fit in some souvenir shopping, checked out the waterfall and hotsprings, and we managed to both lose and find Daria's water bottle! Needless to say that by the time that our (incredibly late) bus arrived to Baños, we were able to rest pretty well on the trip back to Quito.

Did you think I would finalize this without a photo of adorable animals? We saw two puppies and a duck playing together at the top of one of our hikes. The puppies were so sweet!

Since it seems unlikely that everyone wants to continue to read a constant narration of our every move and food choice, the next post will highlight our Quito experience and that will conclude Daria's trip!

Misahualli Day 2 and Tena

After awakening covered in bug bites, we tried to distract ourselves with a delicious breakfast which included one of my favorite juices, tomate de árbol- tree tomato- mixed with another favorite, guanabana which apparently translates to English as soursop.  I'm sure you all know exactly which fruit that is now. It's delicious!  There were also more eggs (of course) and some bread-like cheese empanadas with jam and butter for breakfast.

Two butterflies

Beautiful colors!

The butterfly on my shoulder never left! There's also one on my backpack. Photo credit: Daria

This is such a great "head shot"! Photo credit: Daria

We checked out the river and the monkeys, and then we decided to go to a mariposario, or a butterfly garden.  Here Daria and I encountered our first Ecuadorian adolescent, although he was probably the least teenager-y of them all. He pointed out butterfly eggs and then showed us caterpillars, cocoons and then butterflies.  I didn't know that different butterfly caterpillars like different leaves, and some of them are a major pest in banana crops.  The cocooned butterflies were really cool, some had camouflaged leaf-like cocoons and others had shiny, gold cocoons.  There was an impressive display of well-preserved butterflies, beetles, praying mantises, etc. as well.  There were also some dead rhinoceros beetles on display (were they hoping people would think they were still alive?) and we saw a live metallic beetle. In the butterfly garden we saw all sorts of beautiful butterflies and several of them were almost attack-like- they kept returning to our shoulders, backpacks, etc.

Daria and me (sweating heavily) in front of the waterfall

Our teenage guide is the one on the far left, up on the rocks with the white Keds

From the mariposario we got a ride to the major attraction- a waterfall.  We paid an entrance fee and walked along the incredibly slippery, muddy trail to get to the waterfall.  Most Ecuadorians were wearing Keds-like shoes with no traction, as seems to be typical for hikes here- oh, Ecuadorians. Loyal readers will remember that I once saw a woman climbing a mountain in heels, so this seems about on par. Once we were about 200 meters from the waterfall we were told by two "guards" that we had to pay again- they were clearly taking advantage of the holiday to earn a few extra bucks. We beat the system by saying that we wouldn't pay and turning around- they immediately called after us and let us by without paying. Ecuadorian Adolescent #2 joined us at this point- it was unclear whether he wanted a tip for "showing us the way" or if he just decided to join us for the walk- but it was nice to have someone to take pictures of Daria and me together.  It was ridiculously hot and humid all day long, so we stripped off our clothes (we wore bathing suits) and jumped into the waterfall while Adolescent #2 made modelling poses whenever we took pictures of the waterfall where he happened to be standing, slicking his hair back and looking into the distance with what I'm sure he thought was a pensive look. Daria and I couldn't stop giggling which probably only served as encouragement.

We rode back to Tena (pronounced Tay-na) and a taxi driver offered to take us back to Tena (with another passenger) right away instead of having to wait for the bus.  This sounded like a good option so we hopped in his truck (thankfully not the back part).  Unfortunately, the driver was insane and ripped around a curvy road passing with none of the usual safety precautions like, for example, not passing on a curve.  Back in Tena, Daria and I both confessed to having imagined awful scenarios where we didn't make it home as safely. Another plate of rice, beans and eggs later, Daria and I stripped down to our bathing suits again to enjoy the only cool place in Tena, the river. We proceeded to be eaten alive by more bugs.

I forget what these animals were called...Daria?

Blurry photo, but this is a capybara

A baby duck!

Wild pig

View from the lookout tower

Yellow breasted bird seen from the lookout tower

One of probably a dozen squirrel monkeys that came out to play

After we finished our river dip we took a canoe for literally 15 seconds across the river (we decided we definitely could have waded across because it wasn't that deep or far) to visit the Isla Amazónica or the Amazonian Island, a chunk of land with lots of Amazonian trees and animals in natural cages. We saw a boa constrictor (which tried to attack us through the cage!), a porcupine, a monkey, capybaras (largest rodent in the world!), pigs, chickens, a parrot, wild monkeys and bats, and a goose that terrorized us while we oohed over the squirrel monkeys.  We climbed a lookout tower and had a great view, and Sharp-Eyed Daria pointed out two toucans!

Later that evening there was a huge rain/lightening storm and Daria and I scratched at our bug bites all night long.  We woke up early to take a morning bus to Baños.

Coming up next: The most sullen of our teenage guides, horses, and an unforgettable tapas meal