Jänner & Febrero – an overview.

Dear family & friends,

Sorry for not blogging too regularly the last few weeks. Even though a lot has happened, I somehow never found the writing mood to put everything down into words. But well, I’ll give you a short overview now, before I head off into the next adventure. :)

As a culture-interested traveler, I started taking Salsa classes. And hey, I didn’t do too bad after all! :) At least it was enough to impress some Latinas, who obviously thought that none of these gringos is able to move to a Salsa rhythm at all. (And, hey, because I was so proud of myself, I even had a trial run on Capoeira. But as my shoulder still doesn’t seem to have perfectly recovered, that wasn’t the best idea. Even though it’s really fun! ^^)

I knocked a point off my to-do-list for this year: I produced a Thai Curry in a pineapple! *ha* Because my Ecuadorian guest showed up some mere 1,5 hours late, it didn’t taste too awesome in the end. But well, that’s all her fault, I’m sure. *g* (Well, honestly, I was a bit disappointed! I mean, hello? Who ever was invited by me for a three-course-dinner, that took 1,5 hours to prepare???? And then showing up late is really mean. Well, it was the last invitation she received…)

Besides a lot of sightseeing in Quito, I also left the city quite often lately. First there was a trip to “La Mitad del Mundo”, the middle of the Earth. They have a fun museum there, where they show you the weird differences between the northern and the southern hemisphere, like water flushing in different directions on either side of the line, or that it is possible to balance an egg on a nail right on the equator line. (Well, in fact, it is! And I did it! :) )

But the most amazing thing about the trip was my company: Wlady, and Ecuadorian guy, Krus, and Ecuadorian girl, as well as Nicky, a lady I had met in Australia - FIVE YEARS AGO!!! We hadn´t had much contact since, until I read her status update on facebook, stating that she´d be travelling trhough Peru at the moment. Just for the sake of the comment, I stated she should head up to Ecuador - and she did! Ain´t that awesome? Seeing someone again after five years of silence, on the other side of the world???? Hoorray to the internet! :)

Two weeks later (in-between was the Cotopaxi expedition), a working colleague invited me to go rafting. I couldn’t reject her. So off we went. 4 hours bus ride into the jungle, pitching up our tents late at night, then enjoying a BBQ and some serious discussion until well after midnight (more like 2am) was a great way to start the adventure.

Sunday morning we got up early, packed our stuff together, and went down to the river. Some safety instructions later we found ourselves paddling down Rio Napo – and I felt a little like 2,5 years ago in Canada. Rafting in the Rockis or Rafting in the Rain Forest – is there any difference?

Well, yes, there is. This time we were out on the river for around 6 hours! Awesome! In-between we had some yummi sandwiches, found a tame butterfly colony…

…and did a lot of fun stuff, visited jungle caves and tried a “wheely” in the rafting boat until we finally capsized. Loved it. :) (Unfortunately no picture taken of the wheely...)

First week of February was Montanita time again. Some surf competition was held in that little beach town, where Julez still is working. Two rough days full of fiesta, sunshine and beach I headed up to Porto Lopez, spent a day there watching The Lion King and hanging out in a hammock spying on fishermen doing their job, and finally took the bus back to Quito.

Last week-end we had to celebrate Carneval. In Guaranda. Gringos go to Ambato, Ecuadorians to Guaranda, I was told. ^^ So I took 5 friends, who had more friends in Guaranda, and off we went. Friday night we arrived and went straight to bed. No late-night party, as I had expected. But well, the next day was exhausting enough: 10am was when the parade in Chimbo started, including all those funny Ecuadorian carnival features as loads of flour, intense water and foam fights and occasionally flying eggs… it was terrific! :)

Everyone happy, not too foamy yet. But hey, not half a minute later...

In the afternoon, after the parade had finished, we went back to Guaranda, and found more action going on there: A hardrock/metal concert could be entered free of charge. And even though I’m not the biggest worshipper of this music, my hosts were, and so we spent some two hours of rough dancing/fighting/jumping. Whatever it was that we were doing. ^^

The night ended at a rock concert, which I found pretty lame. The host of the show loved to hear himself talking, so his talking actually exceeded the time that I heard music playing! Awful. But hey, at least it started raining, and we all went wild in the rain. :)

In general, the day was awesome. Sunday was a little more relaxed, we watched another parade, this time with few water and foam and no eggs or flour. And no dancing either. Somehow we still had fun. ^^

But well, around 4pm we enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by our host mum, before we had to take our bus back home – Bea &Sarina had to take Spanish classes again on Monday.

Oi, talking about Spanish classes: Mine are officially over. I had booked a packaged of 20 hours, but after 14 hours my professor confessed that he probably couldn’t teach me that much more, so he suggested to drop the regular classes. Should I come up with any questions etc., he’d still give me advice, he said. *ha*

After two months of living here, I also completed most of the sightseeing: El Panecillo, for example, “the little bread loaf”, can be ticked off the list. Great view from up there.

ParqueItchimbia is my new favourite spot to chill out – and discuss travel plans with my flatmate, Sarah, as tomorrow I’ll head down to Guayaquil. Just for one single day. Friday morning is airport time, and I’m heading to … THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS!!! *wooohooooo* Eight days of beach, sunshine and amazing wildlife are waiting for me and Sarina, a lady with super-multinational background.

She’ll head home on February 28 already, but Julez and his mum fly over to the islands on February 26, so I might meet up with them. Being alone is so uncool!

You might wonder why I have so much spare time? *ha* Well – I quit my job. And it probably was the best decision I could have made.

After sitting around for another week not doing much I complained again. And again, they promised me heaven. And acted: I became the keeper of our new high street travel agency bureau! 40sqm just for myself! Awesome! (Sometimes being alone can be totally cool! *g*)

Only downturn: Nothing to do. Again. Nothing than to wait for some people to deliver some stuff to the bureau, as the office wasn’t officially open yet. So, well, I started watching movies. And invited friends. ^^ It wasn’t the worst week in this job. But still, I felt weird. Why should they employ me for not doing anything productive???

As I am an honest person, I went to consult my boss. My three bosses, to be more precise. As I was desperate to do something productive, I sent daily messages out to whoever I had in my contact list to ask for tasks. Occasionally I got some, which were done within an hour or so. And every time I sent the completed task back to whoever was in charge of it, I was promised more and better and more interesting tasks. Until I decided to quit.

And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to have me back! Each of my three bosses came to talk to me to convince me to stay. They told me they had just elaborated the perfect job for me, and no one else than me could handle that. So I stayed. Again.This time for some few more hours only. Then I got fired. *hahahahahaha*

Amazing. So, after I had told them I’d like to quit the job, they finally did some work. No offence, but they probably hadn’t worked that hard for the rest of the week. And all that, just to find a reason to fire me… *hahahaha* I still don’t believe it. I mean, I didn’t mind to leave the office, as I had announced before that I’d like to leave, the only problem with that was (as I found out later), that now, as “they fired me”, they are not willing to hand me my paycheck for January! Five weeks of really, really tough work (well, okay, I didn’t do much, but I always asked for it, I always had to be present, and I always helped as soon as someone needed me), that equals almost 200 hours! And these ba*****s don’t want to pay me? How mean can people be? I’m still getting on their nerves to try to get my money back… but I guess chances are rather low… :(

Well, that was the downturn about working at Haugan Cruises / Galapagosislands.com. But, in the end, I am more than happy that I quit the job, as it was really an absolute waste of time.

So, what now? Well – good question. To be honest, I have no idea. Tomorrow, I’ll start my Galapagos adventure. That’ll last until the 3^rd of March. One day later, Carina, a friend from studying in Freiburg arrived in Quito, and we’ll head out on a two weeks’ Ecuador trip. It’ll be awesome! :) Looking totally forward to that!

Carina leaves Quito on March 19. From then on, there are no further plans. I applied for a new visa here, so I could theoretically stay in Ecuador until the end of August. But I’m not too sure if that is going to happen. I mean, should a nice job opportunity open up, well, why not, but other than that, Julez and I might continue our South American adventure in Peru, Bolivia and Chile. But hey – you’ll never know. And you should never worry. As BazLuhrman put it: “Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an Algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.” I’m trying to succeed in the way my big brother did – and solve those Algebra equations properly. ;)

Guys & girls, thank you very much for your attention. I’ll be back soon. But for the next few days, I’ll be off in paradise. Don’t try to disturb me there. Sea Lions, Giant Turtles, Manta Rays, Hammerhead Sharks, Whale Sharks, Blue and Red Footed Boobies etc. are way more important. Until the 3^rd of March. :)

Enjoy the last day of carnival – and good luck with your fasting pledges (if you have any?)!

Love from Quito,

El Chris