2 hours away, but worlds apart

Highlights of this past weekend: the Ricardo Arjona concert on Friday night and a trip to Yunguilla yesterday!

Friday evening was the Ricardo Arjona concert. My friends told me I could get there around 6:30pm and that they would already have a spot in line (our tickets were for the soccer field, so it was essential to get into the stadium as soon as possible to get good spots), but at 5pm I got a frantic phone call telling me to hurry up and get there because the doors were about to open! I left my apartment in a rush (and without dinner) to hail a taxi to take me to the stadium, however I really shouldn’t have… we ended up waiting in the most enormous and unorganized line ever for more than 2 hours until we finally entered the stadium at 8pm. The opening act (whose name I forget – he wasn’t very memorable) started at 8:30pm, and then from the time he was done until Ricardo Arjona took the stage at 9:30pm, we got a mini-John Mayer concert because they played most of his Continuum CD. I was, of course, the only person singing along. I was also the tallest person standing on the field for the concert, which was actually great because I had the best view of the stage even though we were pretty far away. Everyone in the group I went with kept on joking that I should give them updates throughout the concert, as they had to rely on the megatrons to see what was going on! One benefit of being tall in a relatively short country! 

View of Cumbaya on an early morning walk through the park behind the apartment

Ricardo Arjona was amazing! His voice was great live, the stage was elaborate and the band was absolutely incredible! I didn’t know many of the songs, but still enjoyed myself and can now say that I’ve attended a concert in one of the world’s highest in altitude major stadiums! We went out to La Mariscal (touristy district) afterwards, so that was fun, although after more than 8 hours of standing, I was glad to arrive back at the apartment and sleep-in the next day.

View of the snow-capped Cotopaxi volcano on the walk through Parque Metropolitano

I didn’t feel like cooking on Saturday evening, so I embarked on mission to order a pizza to be delivered to the apartment. The Papa John’s number didn’t work, so I ended up with a Domino’s cheese pizza and a chocolate lava cake. The pizza didn’t taste exactly like it does in the US, but it wasn’t bad and it actually arrived at my apartment! 

Mission successful!

On Sunday morning, I traveled to Yunguilla, the community where I lived last summer. From my apartment, I took a taxi to the northern-most bus station, where I caught a bus to Calacalí, the closest town to Yunguilla. As we were passing through San Antonio (the town where the Middle of the World monument is located), the family I stayed with last summer boarded my bus! They didn’t know I was coming back to visit, so they were surprised, and when we got to Calacalí, I was able to get a ride with them to Yunguilla in their son’s dry cleaning van. 

Sundays are soccer and volleyball (Ecua-volley – 3 people per team, a much higher net and carrying is basically allowed) days in Yunguilla. Most all of the community (and the family members/friends from Quito) come to the soccer field/volleyball courts by the communal house and basically hang out there all day. I had a good time catching up with people I hadn’t seen since last summer, and then went on an expedition to a lookout point. We sat in the bed of my friend’s cousin’s pick-up truck and drove a while to try to find a good lookout point. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see much, but that didn’t stop us from having a couple of adventures along the way! We drove past my friend’s family’s piece of land and he noticed that there were cows grazing there that weren’t theirs. He and two of his cousins then went to corral the cows and get them off of their land (someone must have deliberately opened the gate and let them in to graze, thinking that we wouldn’t stop by, because there wasn’t another way they could’ve gotten in there) – there were 9 of them in total! His other cousins and I had a good time watching the production from nearby. While we were watching, we got to see dozens of green parrots fly around us overhead. They were moving from tree to tree as a big group and making lots of noise while they were doing it! Apparently it was unusual to see so many of them at one time, so I lucked out!

Corralling the cows

This is an awful picture because it was so cloudy (the don't call it the cloud forest for nothing!), but that's a green parrot sitting on the top of the tree

On the way back to Yunguilla, we stopped at someone’s farm to see if they had any chickens we could buy. The first family didn’t have any, but after waiting for the daughter of the second family to run and fetch her mom, we ended up with 3 live hens (no guinea pigs, although they were raising them there). They didn’t kill them there, but rather put them all in a white sack to ride in the back of the truck with us. I swore we were going to hit a bump in the road and they were all going to slide over onto my lap, but fortunately, they didn’t!

The bag of hens

After a delicious dinner of llapingachos (my favorite!), I spent the night at a friend’s house, where I was reminded that the roosters in Yunguilla don’t realize they’re only supposed to cock-a-doodle-doo at dawn. These roosters like to make noise at 3am! Watching the national news in the morning, we were saddened to learn about the passing of Lonesome George, the giant tortoise that lived on the Galapagos Islands and was the last of his species. He was estimated to be more than 100 years old and served a conservation icon since he was found in 1972. Rest in peace, Lonesome George.

My view when I woke up this morning!

I’m now back in Quito, marveling at what a difference a 2 hour drive can make. Quito is a great city and Yunguilla is an incredible community, but they certainly can seem like worlds apart sometimes! This week I’ll be traveling to the FLACSO library once again and hopefully arranging meetings with some professors there whose names I was given by a Bryn Mawr alum. I’m hoping to get a lot of work done this week and next so that I can devote myself to being my parents’ tour guide when they come to visit July 11-20^th! I’m looking forward to showing them Quito and taking them to visit Yunguilla, which, as I was reminded this weekend, is truly one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Thanks for reading! My e-mail is mzelonis3@gmail.com if you have any questions! -Maggie

A sliver of the moon over Quito on an exceptionally clear night this past week

Cantaloupe, humitas (a traditional pre-Hispanic dish of corn and hominy dough with cheese) and coffee -- the perfect afternoon meal!