Thursday, September 7th
Sadly, all good things have to come to an end. It is really troubling that today would be the last day of living like there is no tomorrow and just plainly absorbing your surroundings. However, life goes on and we have to do the same..
In the morning, we went around the bus terminal (provisional one since the real deal is being retored) trying to find a bus that would take Alexey directly from Guayaquil to Lima, Peru. This would be a 24 hour bus ride but we find a company ready to do it! Alexey will decide if to take it or not later in the day.
I go to office to fix up a few things. What´s in the future for me? Picking up Rosinante in Miami, doing all his custom proceedings, driving it accross the US to California, putting it back into shape, and selling it! All of this in about 2 weeks :) So all the planning ahead I can get will be useful in the future.
I don´t really remember much of what happened today. It must have been that I was so busy trying to get everything ready. Alexey just kind of hanged in there. My brother and I told him to stay a few more days in Guayaquil since there was much more to see.. My brother and sister-in-law dropped me off at the airport while Alexey finished off his packing.
Saying good bye was kind of tough. But we headed to the airport and I took my flight.. Afterwards, I heard that Alexey left that same night towards Peru and had a great life, married a Peruvian native and had three kids. He named one of them, Rosinante, in honor of our steed.. His family pet is a healthy Llama about 1.5mts tall.
The End.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Alexey, the man of 10 hats..
Wednesday, September 6th
We woke up kind of early and had breakfast at the hotel with a wonderful view of the market and a local church in front. We decided to walk around the town to show Alexey the Tomebamba river which runs through Cuenca. We kept waking until we found a hat store. These hats, also known as Panama Hats, are actually originally from Ecuador, and not even from Cuenca but from a town in the coastal province of Manabi called Montecristi.
In any case, Alexey had a blast buying hats for all his friends as wedding presents, graduation presents, etc.. he had them boxed, all 10 of them!! It took about 2 hours but I became good friends with the attendant, had coffee, etc, etc. After this, it was already late and we still had to eat and get out before the fog started again!!
Given that our stomachs were not feeling that well, we decided to eat yogurt with pan de yucca. We did this and I purchased some piroted CDs (yes, you have done it too!). One of them was unbelievably good!! It was by Calle 13 El Residente. Really good stuff. I have since, even purchased one of their songs in iTunes just as to not feel guilty.
We drove back with my newfound favorite CD. Getting into El Cajas National Park, a cop tells me that I am not supposed to be driving without my passport and he will have to impound El Snoopy or I talk to his boss. So we get ready to talk to his boss, backing up the car towards the police´s offices, when the officer tells us to just go.. I guess he did not really want us to talk to his boss.
Going through the fog once again was not fun, believe us! But we managed with Alexey at the wheel. We got down to the flat, hot and humid weather of the coastal region in about 3 hours. El Snoopy was once again going above 15km/h in the flat lands. I take pictures of the dying sun while Alexey keeps chugging Kms.
We arrived at my brother´s place and I have to start packing for my departure! :( I know, the end is coming...
We woke up kind of early and had breakfast at the hotel with a wonderful view of the market and a local church in front. We decided to walk around the town to show Alexey the Tomebamba river which runs through Cuenca. We kept waking until we found a hat store. These hats, also known as Panama Hats, are actually originally from Ecuador, and not even from Cuenca but from a town in the coastal province of Manabi called Montecristi.
In any case, Alexey had a blast buying hats for all his friends as wedding presents, graduation presents, etc.. he had them boxed, all 10 of them!! It took about 2 hours but I became good friends with the attendant, had coffee, etc, etc. After this, it was already late and we still had to eat and get out before the fog started again!!
Given that our stomachs were not feeling that well, we decided to eat yogurt with pan de yucca. We did this and I purchased some piroted CDs (yes, you have done it too!). One of them was unbelievably good!! It was by Calle 13 El Residente. Really good stuff. I have since, even purchased one of their songs in iTunes just as to not feel guilty.
We drove back with my newfound favorite CD. Getting into El Cajas National Park, a cop tells me that I am not supposed to be driving without my passport and he will have to impound El Snoopy or I talk to his boss. So we get ready to talk to his boss, backing up the car towards the police´s offices, when the officer tells us to just go.. I guess he did not really want us to talk to his boss.
Going through the fog once again was not fun, believe us! But we managed with Alexey at the wheel. We got down to the flat, hot and humid weather of the coastal region in about 3 hours. El Snoopy was once again going above 15km/h in the flat lands. I take pictures of the dying sun while Alexey keeps chugging Kms.
We arrived at my brother´s place and I have to start packing for my departure! :( I know, the end is coming...
Engineers from MIT, huh? Prove it!
Tuesday, September 5th
Today was full of excitement. We woke up and had already decided with my brother, Edgar, that Alexey and I would go to our Land in Dos Bocas where we spent last Sunday BBQing. See, the problem is that the guy who takes care of the land for us, Willian (yes, his name is Willian not William), does not have electricity yet. The problem is that the guy who was the previous owner did not pay $2000 worth of bills with the electric company. In this jurisdiction, the bill remains with the land, not with the bill owner. So that means that for Willian to have electricity, we need to pay $2000 which we won´t. So my brother, with his new company, Powersun (free plug here) has installed a small wind turbine with batteries hoping that this would give him some electricity until we figure out the paperwork.
Our mission today is to try to streighten the wind turbine which appears to be tilted. This may be the reason why Willian still does not have electricity even with the turbine. Before we attempted this, we stopped by the nearest bigger town of El Triunfo to figure out what necessary paperwork was needed for us to get Willian the electricity that he needs, locally. We also ate encebollados once again at a local eatery for about a buck.
Now it was time to use our ingenuity. We had some tools, limited materials and lots of energy. After a while, it was clear that we needed some breakthrough. Nails: we got them off the wodden walls of Willian´s house; Adjustment Level Block: we got a piece of wood and drilled two holes on it; Level Meter: well, we did bring one of these luckily.. In any case, it took us a while but we straighten it enough to figure out that the level had nothing to do with the poor performance of the turbine. There was simply, no wind! Alexey jumped on the roof and moved the turbine with a broom but it seem to work ok, meaning not much friction. Oh well, we did our part.
We now decided to pack up, say good bye to Willian and go to the beautiful city of Cuenca, high up in the Andes. If you have ever been around here, you know that you should never attempt to go through the El Triunfo-Cuenca road at this time. It must have been about 2PM. The road promised to offer the best of its hills and fog.. We certainly felt it.
Passing through thick, meaning, thick fog was really scary. It was as if the sun suddently dissapeared. We were simply guided by the sounds of the ocassional huge buss coming full speed ahead. El Snoopy was performing ok while we were still at sea level. However, once the slopes started, we were doing 15km/h max! Also, there was thick black smoke coming out the exhaust. We tried to do our best and kept it going between 1st and 2nd gears.
Crossing the El Cajas National Park was amazing!! This is certainly a paradise that not many people get to see, we took lost of pictures. When the El Cajas park ends, there is a beautiful valley where I have decided to retire someday :)
We got into Cuenca and quickly got a taste of traffic once again. We searched for a hotel.. it had been a while since the last time we did this, so we were a bit rusty. Alexey found one just on the corner of the market (later I learned this is not a good area to stay). We stored El Snoopy at some guarded parking lot and brough our turbine fixing tools into the room just in case.
We went out on the town and got to see the architecture. It is very pretty and historic. There are quite a bit of tourists too. We now go for dinner at a tourist hangout spot. The food was decent but not extraordinary. I really wanted to have trout which is the local delicacy but had no luck.
Later, we went back to the room and fell asleep. We were exhausted!
Today was full of excitement. We woke up and had already decided with my brother, Edgar, that Alexey and I would go to our Land in Dos Bocas where we spent last Sunday BBQing. See, the problem is that the guy who takes care of the land for us, Willian (yes, his name is Willian not William), does not have electricity yet. The problem is that the guy who was the previous owner did not pay $2000 worth of bills with the electric company. In this jurisdiction, the bill remains with the land, not with the bill owner. So that means that for Willian to have electricity, we need to pay $2000 which we won´t. So my brother, with his new company, Powersun (free plug here) has installed a small wind turbine with batteries hoping that this would give him some electricity until we figure out the paperwork.
Our mission today is to try to streighten the wind turbine which appears to be tilted. This may be the reason why Willian still does not have electricity even with the turbine. Before we attempted this, we stopped by the nearest bigger town of El Triunfo to figure out what necessary paperwork was needed for us to get Willian the electricity that he needs, locally. We also ate encebollados once again at a local eatery for about a buck.
Now it was time to use our ingenuity. We had some tools, limited materials and lots of energy. After a while, it was clear that we needed some breakthrough. Nails: we got them off the wodden walls of Willian´s house; Adjustment Level Block: we got a piece of wood and drilled two holes on it; Level Meter: well, we did bring one of these luckily.. In any case, it took us a while but we straighten it enough to figure out that the level had nothing to do with the poor performance of the turbine. There was simply, no wind! Alexey jumped on the roof and moved the turbine with a broom but it seem to work ok, meaning not much friction. Oh well, we did our part.
We now decided to pack up, say good bye to Willian and go to the beautiful city of Cuenca, high up in the Andes. If you have ever been around here, you know that you should never attempt to go through the El Triunfo-Cuenca road at this time. It must have been about 2PM. The road promised to offer the best of its hills and fog.. We certainly felt it.
Passing through thick, meaning, thick fog was really scary. It was as if the sun suddently dissapeared. We were simply guided by the sounds of the ocassional huge buss coming full speed ahead. El Snoopy was performing ok while we were still at sea level. However, once the slopes started, we were doing 15km/h max! Also, there was thick black smoke coming out the exhaust. We tried to do our best and kept it going between 1st and 2nd gears.
Crossing the El Cajas National Park was amazing!! This is certainly a paradise that not many people get to see, we took lost of pictures. When the El Cajas park ends, there is a beautiful valley where I have decided to retire someday :)
We got into Cuenca and quickly got a taste of traffic once again. We searched for a hotel.. it had been a while since the last time we did this, so we were a bit rusty. Alexey found one just on the corner of the market (later I learned this is not a good area to stay). We stored El Snoopy at some guarded parking lot and brough our turbine fixing tools into the room just in case.
We went out on the town and got to see the architecture. It is very pretty and historic. There are quite a bit of tourists too. We now go for dinner at a tourist hangout spot. The food was decent but not extraordinary. I really wanted to have trout which is the local delicacy but had no luck.
Later, we went back to the room and fell asleep. We were exhausted!
Unproductive day, at least it was cultural
Monday, September 4th
So today we pretty much did nothing. Alexey got some business stuff done, I think.
We spent most of the day in a cyber cafe. After eating at a local eatery where they serve the whole menu for about a buck 25, we head back to interneting.
Nothing much to report until we decide to go visit the city´s landmarks in the centre. Guayaquil has been renewed recently and is much nicer and pleasant to the eye than it was a decade ago. We walked through the center and reached the Parque de las Iguanas where you will find an impressive quantity of Iguanas that just hang out and watch you pass. We actually saw a male Iguana (or so we suppose) trying to hook up with a female (or sowe suppose) on top of a bush.. The position was so unstable that they nearly fell! They must have been about 20 pounds each so it was kind of scary.
Next we went through the Bahias. This is an area of tiny shops where you can find all the piroted CDs you want, Colombian knockoffs of Nike shoes, etc.. We reached the new Malecon Simon Bolivar which is the city boardwalk. This is about 2km, I think, of nice structural architecture and breeze coming from the Guayas river. After finishing our walk through the Malecon, we headed for the Las Peñas neighborhood. Las Peñas is the first real neighborhood that was here in Guayaquil. In this small mountain was also where the city was founded. There are nearly 500 steps to reach the top where there is a lighthouse and a small church. We reached the top and took pictures.
On the way down, we get a call from my brother reminding us that there is a concert at the ESPOL campus.. which is actually just down the hill. The concert is free and the guys performing are a group of rebel musicians playing a mix of cuban son and local rythms. The lyrics, an important component of their music, are incredible and penetrating. The group is not always the same mix of people. The guys performing change depending on availability but they are all friends. The leader of them all is a guy named Hector Napolitano. We had to line up a-la-food-stamp-line. We were given a numbered coin when we arrived and we were supposed to enter on a line ordered by the numbers on our coins.
The concert was great and the guys had to keep playing for a while after the concert was scheduled to end, due to popular demand.
We then went back home, I think.
So today we pretty much did nothing. Alexey got some business stuff done, I think.
We spent most of the day in a cyber cafe. After eating at a local eatery where they serve the whole menu for about a buck 25, we head back to interneting.
Nothing much to report until we decide to go visit the city´s landmarks in the centre. Guayaquil has been renewed recently and is much nicer and pleasant to the eye than it was a decade ago. We walked through the center and reached the Parque de las Iguanas where you will find an impressive quantity of Iguanas that just hang out and watch you pass. We actually saw a male Iguana (or so we suppose) trying to hook up with a female (or sowe suppose) on top of a bush.. The position was so unstable that they nearly fell! They must have been about 20 pounds each so it was kind of scary.
Next we went through the Bahias. This is an area of tiny shops where you can find all the piroted CDs you want, Colombian knockoffs of Nike shoes, etc.. We reached the new Malecon Simon Bolivar which is the city boardwalk. This is about 2km, I think, of nice structural architecture and breeze coming from the Guayas river. After finishing our walk through the Malecon, we headed for the Las Peñas neighborhood. Las Peñas is the first real neighborhood that was here in Guayaquil. In this small mountain was also where the city was founded. There are nearly 500 steps to reach the top where there is a lighthouse and a small church. We reached the top and took pictures.
On the way down, we get a call from my brother reminding us that there is a concert at the ESPOL campus.. which is actually just down the hill. The concert is free and the guys performing are a group of rebel musicians playing a mix of cuban son and local rythms. The lyrics, an important component of their music, are incredible and penetrating. The group is not always the same mix of people. The guys performing change depending on availability but they are all friends. The leader of them all is a guy named Hector Napolitano. We had to line up a-la-food-stamp-line. We were given a numbered coin when we arrived and we were supposed to enter on a line ordered by the numbers on our coins.
The concert was great and the guys had to keep playing for a while after the concert was scheduled to end, due to popular demand.
We then went back home, I think.
The promised land: My land :)
Sunday, September 3rd
NOTE: It has been a while since the last post and many things have happened. I have now relocated to Guayaquil, fully engaged in working here, left all the beautiful moments of traveling with great friends, etc.. but I will try, nonetheless, to fill it what is left, for completeness
This day was marked by us waking up early (noonish) and calling El Abogado, my cousing Cagelito, my other cousing Luis Fernando and a few friends to go to a piece of land that my brother, aunt and myself bought near the mountains in a place called Dos Bocas. This is a really small and poor town if you can call it that. There is a river that runs through it and we plan to host a BBQ next to it.
So we gather everyone and leave in our new road warrior, the Diesel Citroen Berlingo, otherwise known as El Snoopy. We all head over to the meat store to buy a few goodies and off we go. After about an hour and a half we are there, at our own patch of land.. 80 acres of beautiful nothing. We have not managed to have any plants there yet but everything is growing wild, just the way we like it.
We camp out by the river and Fabiola starts cooking. The guys head over to the river, some wearing underware only, and we sit and chat by the river. I also start cleaning up the river banks that have gotten flooded with debris from upstream. Nasty things like plastics and leathers have come down and we take about 45 minutes to clean everything up. We ate afterwards.
All of a sudden, we strike up a game of ¨throw rocks to a bigger rock downstream¨. Part of the rules was that the bigger rock, the target, was far enough that you had to really take some impulse to hit it. The other rule was that you had to sit down in the river so as to not use your body to build up momentum. It was fun and I won the first hand. The second hand had a far away rock that was impossible to hit. Really, we could not hit it until it was late and we had to leave.
We got back and the sun was setting. This reminded me of the times in Guatemala or Nicaragua where we always scrapped off the bottom of the Rosinante against the Topes.. This time, they were called Vigilantes Acostados (or laydown cop) and we were smarter than going with four people in El Snoopy while crossing them. We certainly have learned the ways and disembarked our crew. We walked while El Snoopy passed the hurdles without problems.
We got back and simply relaxed.
NOTE: It has been a while since the last post and many things have happened. I have now relocated to Guayaquil, fully engaged in working here, left all the beautiful moments of traveling with great friends, etc.. but I will try, nonetheless, to fill it what is left, for completeness
This day was marked by us waking up early (noonish) and calling El Abogado, my cousing Cagelito, my other cousing Luis Fernando and a few friends to go to a piece of land that my brother, aunt and myself bought near the mountains in a place called Dos Bocas. This is a really small and poor town if you can call it that. There is a river that runs through it and we plan to host a BBQ next to it.
So we gather everyone and leave in our new road warrior, the Diesel Citroen Berlingo, otherwise known as El Snoopy. We all head over to the meat store to buy a few goodies and off we go. After about an hour and a half we are there, at our own patch of land.. 80 acres of beautiful nothing. We have not managed to have any plants there yet but everything is growing wild, just the way we like it.
We camp out by the river and Fabiola starts cooking. The guys head over to the river, some wearing underware only, and we sit and chat by the river. I also start cleaning up the river banks that have gotten flooded with debris from upstream. Nasty things like plastics and leathers have come down and we take about 45 minutes to clean everything up. We ate afterwards.
All of a sudden, we strike up a game of ¨throw rocks to a bigger rock downstream¨. Part of the rules was that the bigger rock, the target, was far enough that you had to really take some impulse to hit it. The other rule was that you had to sit down in the river so as to not use your body to build up momentum. It was fun and I won the first hand. The second hand had a far away rock that was impossible to hit. Really, we could not hit it until it was late and we had to leave.
We got back and the sun was setting. This reminded me of the times in Guatemala or Nicaragua where we always scrapped off the bottom of the Rosinante against the Topes.. This time, they were called Vigilantes Acostados (or laydown cop) and we were smarter than going with four people in El Snoopy while crossing them. We certainly have learned the ways and disembarked our crew. We walked while El Snoopy passed the hurdles without problems.
We got back and simply relaxed.
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