It's method on the edge of madness
It's a balance on the edge of a knife
It's a smile on the edge of sadness
It's a dance on the edge of life
I have amoebas. That´s what the stool analysis said when I recently went to Quito for my medical exams.
Amoebas are these pesky little microscopic critters that live inside the intestines and, if not treated, can migrate to other parts of the body, including the brain. Most Peace Corps volunteers get them from drinking contaminated water or food.
I had no idea I had them, and have no idea from where I got them, but they´re not welcome in my body! So, I´m taking anti-amoeba pills three times a day for 20 days.
I just got back from a whirl-wind 14-day “business trip” through Ecuador´s Andes mountains and western lowlands.
First I had to take a 15-hour bus ride to get to Guayaquil airport because the airport closest to my site (“only” five hours away) was closed down at the last minute for runway maintenance (so many things are done last minute in this country!). Once I got into Quito, I spent three days there for medical exams. In my free time, I gorged on vegetarian food, went ice-skating (yes, there´s an ice skating rink in Ecuador!), and ogled at the “Quiteñas”.
Next, I blasted off to the western lowlands city of Santo Domingo. The ride down the Andean mountainsides into the western lowlands was both beautiful and terrifying. Beautiful because of the steep cliffs with dense vegetation and waterfalls, and terrifying because of the way the crazy bus driver barreled down the treacherously windy road, dense fog ahead, passing up trucks on blind curves with frightening speed.
Upon arrival in Santo Domingo, I spent the night with my former host family, where I spent three months during training last year.
Next destination: an remote obscure village in the jungles of the western lowlands, known as La Leon, where a fellow Peace Corps volunteer lives. To get there, I had to travel on a ramshackle bus for five hours, including 3 hours on a bumpy, pothole-filled dirt road. We crossed several very rickety bridges and, on two occasions, we crossed rivers that had no bridge at all. The bus merely plowed its way through the water, swaying precariously back and forth.
The village where my colleague lives has no electricity and no running water. The people there live in wooden shacks, and everyone if quite poor. Most sustain their livelihoods by working in the palm oil plantations that have replaced much of the rainforest in that area.
My Peace Corps friend was living luxuriously in comparison, given that he had installed a solar panel on his roof top, and had built in a unique system of pipes and hoses that channeled rainwater from his roof into a “sink”, which was just a bucket. While I was visiting him for two days, the villagers would come over to use his refrigerator, oven, and DVD player.
The villagers looked sad, depressed and skinny. My colleague told me that he would often give them food to supplement their meager diets.
While I was there, we lead 4 villagers on a tree planting project at a nearby school. I also gathered seeds for my tree nursery, and we swam in a nearby river in the middle of a jungle. The river was warm and wide with clear, deep pools. It was a fantastic experience.
Next stop: Las Tecas. Las Tecas is another tiny village in Ecuador´s south western lowlands. The trip into Las Tecas was also on a dirt road. The journey was picturesque, featuring rolling hills, teak tree forests, banana plantations, barefoot children riding bareback on horses, and the most unusual site: bamboo houses built high up on stilts. While visiting a Peace Corps volunteer at that site, I collected Teak seeds and was invited to lunch in one of the bamboo houses!
Finally, to round out my trip, I took a risk by traveling to the wild and crazy coastal city of Guayaquil.
Peace Corps volunteers are strongly advised not to travel to Guayaquil due to its nasty reputation as a crime-filled city. Given its nasty reputation, as well as the fact that I like hot, steamy cities, I decided to check it out for myself.
Upon arriving into the bus terminal, while waiting for a taxi to take me to my hotel, I saw I woman get run over by someone driving an SUV. As I rode in the taxi, a crowd of onlookers gathered around her body. Moments later, I saw that the cops had caught the perpetrator who had tried to flee the scene.
Well, I didn´t get robbed or shot at while in Guayaquil. What I experienced was an incredible city that has been newly renovated, features many safe areas to walk in, beautiful plazas (including one that is known for its live iguanas, which roam around freely), a great waterfront board walk, and plenty of restaurants, bars, and museums.
Of course, being a coastal city, there were prostitutes hanging out on the street corners, as well as a dirth of “nightclubs”. “Nightclubs” in Ecuador are whorehouses. Prostitution is legal in Ecuador.
While stepping out of my hotel one night, a bleach-blond, aging prostitute, wearing a skin-tight red tank top to show off her sagging breasts, approached me.
I took her hand and said “Well, how ´bout it?”.
“$15.00, including anal sex, a blow job, and anything else you want,” she replied.
“We can even do it cat style”, she added, winking at me slyly.
“Maybe later”, I said, thanking her, and walked away, thinking to myself “in the Amazon, prostitutes charge only $5.00!"
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