Día 138 | Domingo, 17 de Mayo | 2009

Lord of the Flies...

Today we went on another hike.  Well, before we went on a hike we were supposed to attend a Shaman medicine ritual but it turned out that the Shaman didn't show up.  Shaman-less in South America, we decided to go onward.

We went for a hike to see a waterfall and a cave.  The hike today was much harder (steeper) than the hike yesterday but it was only about 20 minutes instead of 2 hours.  When we got to the waterfalls, we were all pretty fatigued.  Some brave souls -- Ryan, Billy, Sean, and Nick (from left to right) -- ventured up a practically vertical stone wall to get to the waterfall.  The wall that they climbed was about 15 feet in height and I must admit that I was a little concerned about their safety when the climbed up and down the wall.  I decided that I would sit out on climbing the wall and just take pictures instead.  Apparently the water was pretty cold.  But the experience was fantastic.  We went up to the caves and learned more about its significance in the Incan culture.  The cave was a place for spiritual ceremonies and was considered sacred to the Incans.  We saw a dead bat in the cave and many of us regarded that as sacred too.

Today, also, was the day that I have eaten guinea pig (cuy) for the first time.  I knew that today was going to be the guinea pig eating day and I was feeling a little uneasy about it.  I ended up eating just a little piece of meat and, all in all, it wasn't too bad.  It was definitely better than my cascaritas (eating charred pig skin) experience at Ingapirca but it is something that I do not desire to try again.  

We had about a three hour bus ride back to Cuenca today and it was actually pretty comfortable.  When we arrived back to Cuenca, I was starting to feel the excitement of just having one more week of classes.

Día 137 | Sábado, 16 de Mayo | 2009

Saraguro...

Today we arrived in Saraguro.  The indigenous people of Saraguro have been around since pre-Colombian times.  I believe that they were originally from Bolivia but were forced to migrate north due to Incan conquerors but I could be mistaken.  Anyway, when we got here, we ate our packed lunches and then went on about a two hour hike in the mountains.  Mercedes (pictured above) was our guide for the hike and she led the way through the mountains.  For the most part, the hike was pretty steep.  There were a lot of parts that were narrow too -- it was scary to look down and see a pretty much vertical drop off that extended 200 meters down the mountain!  None of us had any problems in the end though, not to worry.  The hike was gorgeous -- the panoramas were beautiful, we saw a lot of flora and fauna, and Mercedes told us some interesting information about the trail.  The trail is about 500 years old or so and extends for several miles.  There are several look-out points along the trail.  These lookouts were used to communicate in several ways, including to warn the village from incoming invaders.  

We were lucky that today was such a nice and sunny day -- we were able to see for a long distance and the saturated blue sky made all of our visual surroundings so crisp.

Later on today we were fed traditional food -- soup, rice, chicken and fruit.  After our dinner, some of the Saraguros played some of the traditional music, too.  The music was jovial and festive and it was enjoyable to get up and dance some of the moves that we had previously learned in our Andean Literature course.  After the Saraguros played for awhile, I went up on stage and played music (half at the invitation of the Saraguros themselves and half at the coercion of my program mates).  I played a Woody Guthrie song and a traditional American folk song and it went over well.  

After that, we danced until it was about 11:30.