Today we rented crappy mountain bikes (what did we expect for $2 each?) and decided to ride to an indigenous community called Agua Blanca. Before we headed off, Dave was hungry so he had almuerzo, the cheap set lunch that is traditional here. It always starts off with some kind of soup, then the next course is usually rice, plantains, and meat or fish of some kind. Dave got the potato soup, which included this grotesque hunk of fat, cartilage, and bones that was used to flavour the broth. He didn't actually eat it, we just thought it made a good photo! This whole meal cost $1. 50. Speaking of potato soup, on this trip we learned that potatoes originated in the Andes, where hundreds of types of wild potatoes grow.
This is a street in Puerto Lopez, on our way out of town. Someone's donkey is parked outside the pharmacy.
Our bike ride was about 10 km, which of course isn't long at all, but seemed much longer in the sweltering heat on bikes with gears that didn't work! Still, it was a nice ride. This is a termite colony that we saw on a tree and thought it looked like a turtle. Ever since Dave caught that sea turtle, we have been seeing turtles everywhere!
On the ride, there were cows wandering freely all over the road and the sides of the road. We had no idea where they came from, because there wasn't any sign of farms or houses for several kilometers. All the cows I've seen outside of North America are so thin and emaciated looking; very different from the healthy looking cows we are used to seeing. I don't know if our cows look healthier simply because we pump then full of steriods and antibiotics, if these cows are really malnourished, or if they are just very different breeds that naturally differ in bulkiness. I'm guessing it's probably some combination of these factors.
Me on our bike ride. We loved the way the trees arched over the road and made a tunnel for us to ride through.
Nice view of the countryside that we rode through on our bike ride.
Agua Blanca is the site of an excavation of several Mantena and other pre-Colombian artifacts. They have a small museum in the community that houses some of these artifacts. This is a chair that was thought to be the seat of a leader or some other powerful person.
Some other artifacts.
These are funeral urns of the Mantena people. The guide who showed these to us said that the urns were not for ashes; rather, the bodies were placed in the urns in a seated, cross-legged, cross-armed position, decorated with jewelry. He said they were a very small people - no more than 1 metre (about 3 feet) tall. Every family had it's own plot; this is one family's plot.
A beautiful bird called a motmot. You can't see it very well in this photo, but these birds have a long tail with two big almond-shaped plumes at the end.
A home and yard in Agua Blanca.
There is a sulphur spring here with mineral-rich mud at the bottom. It reeked like rotten eggs!
Dave got in, but I didn't want to...partly because of the smell, partly because I didn't want to ride my bike in a wet bathing suit. Ok, mostly because of the smell.
Agua blanca is home to many, many goats. I love goats (and not just for their delicious cheese), so I was pretty happy to see so many cute ones. Many of them had very interesting coats like I had never seen before.
The goats walked along the very edge of the dirt cliffs.
This mom and kid were so cute.
Today we rented crappy mountain bikes (what did we expect for $2 each?) and decided to ride to an indigenous community called Agua Blanca. Before we headed off, Dave was hungry so he had almuerzo, the cheap set lunch that is traditional here. It always starts off with some kind of soup, then the next course is usually rice, plantains, and meat or fish of some kind. Dave got the potato soup, which included this grotesque hunk of fat, cartilage, and bones that was used to flavour the broth. He didn't actually eat it, we just thought it made a good photo! This whole meal cost $1. 50. Speaking of potato soup, on this trip we learned that potatoes originated in the Andes, where hundreds of types of wild potatoes grow.
This is a street in Puerto Lopez, on our way out of town. Someone's donkey is parked outside the pharmacy.
Our bike ride was about 10 km, which of course isn't long at all, but seemed much longer in the sweltering heat on bikes with gears that didn't work! Still, it was a nice ride. This is a termite colony that we saw on a tree and thought it looked like a turtle. Ever since Dave caught that sea turtle, we have been seeing turtles everywhere!
On the ride, there were cows wandering freely all over the road and the sides of the road. We had no idea where they came from, because there wasn't any sign of farms or houses for several kilometers. All the cows I've seen outside of North America are so thin and emaciated looking; very different from the healthy looking cows we are used to seeing. I don't know if our cows look healthier simply because we pump then full of steriods and antibiotics, if these cows are really malnourished, or if they are just very different breeds that naturally differ in bulkiness. I'm guessing it's probably some combination of these factors.
Me on our bike ride. We loved the way the trees arched over the road and made a tunnel for us to ride through.
Nice view of the countryside that we rode through on our bike ride.
Agua Blanca is the site of an excavation of several Mantena and other pre-Colombian artifacts. They have a small museum in the community that houses some of these artifacts. This is a chair that was thought to be the seat of a leader or some other powerful person.
Some other artifacts.
These are funeral urns of the Mantena people. The guide who showed these to us said that the urns were not for ashes; rather, the bodies were placed in the urns in a seated, cross-legged, cross-armed position, decorated with jewelry. He said they were a very small people - no more than 1 metre (about 3 feet) tall. Every family had it's own plot; this is one family's plot.
A beautiful bird called a motmot. You can't see it very well in this photo, but these birds have a long tail with two big almond-shaped plumes at the end.
A home and yard in Agua Blanca.
There is a sulphur spring here with mineral-rich mud at the bottom. It reeked like rotten eggs!
Dave got in, but I didn't want to...partly because of the smell, partly because I didn't want to ride my bike in a wet bathing suit. Ok, mostly because of the smell.
Agua blanca is home to many, many goats. I love goats (and not just for their delicious cheese), so I was pretty happy to see so many cute ones. Many of them had very interesting coats like I had never seen before.
The goats walked along the very edge of the dirt cliffs.
This mom and kid were so cute.
This goat had crazy spots and was very nimble!
Cute!
The village church.
On the way home, we were running really late - we had to catch a night bus to Quito. We were riding like crazy and it was starting to get dark. It was looking more and more like we'd barely have time for supper, let alone a shower. We decided that we would flag down a truck or bus and hitch a ride (this is a pretty standard procedure inEcuador, and we had already done this once in Banos). We flagged down the first truck that passed and asked for a lift into town, and the drivers happily obliged. The truck was like a pickup truck, except the back was wooden and had really high sides - so high that there was no way to see into the back of the truck. Dave climbed in the back and with the help of the driver, pulled our bikes up into the truck. Then I climbed in and I immediately noticed that we were in some kind of fish truck! It smelled SO bad (it even drowned out the lingering farty aroma of Dave's dip in the sulphur spring!) and there were a few little fishy remnants lying around. Ew! We didn't want to sit down so we just kind of stood up and leaned against the sides of the truck as it flew down the highway - fun! We were happy to have gotten the ride, and even though the driver didn't ask for any money, we gave him a couple bucks for his trouble. This picture shows us trying to keep our balance while the truck sped down the road; it also shows our fabulous sunglasses purchased in Ecuador after we both managed to forget ours (mine are especially beautiful and flattering). We made it back in plenty of time for showers in our hotel (the nice people let us use their shower even though we had checked out) and supper...and I had swordfish again!
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