Baños

The day after climbing Rucu Pichincha (see below) I was off on another adventure. Like I mentioned, I spent the first two weeks in Quito harassing everyone in the consular section at the embassy for things to do, seeing if they’d hang out with me. I had asked a few of the greeters I had met as well. One of them, Johanna, was nice enough to invite me down to Baños, a popular tourist town in the mountain jungle with rafting, rappelling, bungee jumping, and a party scene. She was headed there with some friends, and they were renting a bus. It sounded like it’d be a blast. And, it just happened to be the day after I got sunburned and super exhausted climbing Pichincha. Sounded like it’d be a blast. Then, on either Thursday or Friday, after I’d committed, she informed me she’d be picking me up at 4 am on Sunday. I’m a man of my word, negotiated the pick-up time to 4:30, but still said yes.

(waterfall-el pailon del diablo)

One of my best friend Dave’s favorite sayings is “never say no, try anything twice.” I can’t say that I totally agree, or think it always applies, but I’m generally up for almost anything. Additionally, for some reason, when I’m abroad I tend to be a bit more trusting of other people’s opinions (if they’re locals) because I figure they have a better idea. So, I still said yes to the trip.

Instead of the 10-15 person bus I imagined, it was a full size bus. Johanna’s friends were there, her friends from the English center she tutors at, and about 40 of their 8-12 year old students. So, essentially I was a chaperone for a day. Normally, people go to Baños for the spas, adventure sports and partying. But, that probably wasn’t going to happen with 40 kids from poor areas.

(river outside the town of Baños)

We spent a lot of time that day in the bus. Way too much time. Luckily I got some reading done, and helped the kids with some of their English worksheets. We visited a “zoo” which was really just full of chickens. Seriously, they had an ostrich, some parrots, a couple of ducks and geese, and about 50 types of chickens. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. There were some cool chickens, and, now I can use “I’ve been to a chicken zoo” in two truths and a lie. We were to go to a river/swimming hole, but it had been stopped up to create a pond like area for 4x4 races. Because, of course, the trip organizers hadn’t checked and didn’t know it was some big 4x4 festival. So we instead went to a little lodge with a pool and hot tub. A small pool and hot tub with some cleaning desired, but it was okay.

(view from the zipline)

The day actually got better as it went along. Despite a lot more time in the bus, we did see a super cool, huge waterfall. You could hike down it a ways and kind of get under it, it was pretty cool. At sunset, the best, and last activity of the day was a zipline across a huge valley, just as the sun was setting. I think I got back to my house just before ten. Completely exhausted, and you can bet there were a hundred people ready to be interviewed for visas the next morning. I’ll be sure to make a trip back to Baños when I have just a little more control over the itinerary.

Rucu Pichincha

I went up to Quito for five weeks because they had two officers out on paternity leave. One of the metrics used for non-immigrant visas is how long the locals have to wait to get an appointment. In order to keep the wait time low, Quito asked (ordered) for one of the Consular Officers from Guayaquil to come offer temporary support. As my housing items and vehicle hadn't yet arrived, and to give me some experience at another post, my bosses sent me up to Quito to help out. And I mean up, as Quito is at 9,350 feet of elevation.

(view of the mountains to the south, and a bit of Quito to the east)

I was obviously going to visit Quito at some time, and have done so since my stay, but nonetheless wanted to take full advantage of my stay. So, I harassed all my brand new coworkers there and was able to convince one, Lili, to hike up Rucu Pichincha. It wasn’t too hard, as Lili’s dad is big into mountain climbing-so she’s always game for some hiking and she hadn’t done this hike in a while. 

(about halfway up, looking east at Quito)

Pichincha is the tallest of the peaks immediately surrounding Quito, and is an active stratovolcano, which last erupted in 2002, and had a big eruption in 1999. It’s often used as an acclimatization climb, as it’s not a difficult or technical climb, but does give the lungs a workout. It is right on the edge of the city, it’s base is covered by west central Quito. I met Lili at the cable car, which is an attraction in itself. You take that up to the base, where there are plenty of lookouts, a restaurant and some llamas and horses you can ride. From there we took some trails through a gorgeous valley, which apparently isn’t the main route, but it was nice and peaceful. We soon enough met up with the same route. We had beautiful weather for the first ¾ of the climb, clear skies and good warmth from the bright equatorial sun. The last third or so of the climb gets a bit more tough, with some rock jumping, muddy spots, sandy spots, and a few crevices and big steps as you move into the rockier ridge that the peak in on. 

We were moving at about the same pace as two young German girls, and they befriended us, so we chatted with them and climbed the last portion with them. Germany has this program, that I don’t totally understand, but it more or less involves young people getting a stipend to volunteer abroad for a year after high school. I met some Germans doing the same program in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and that’s what these girls were doing. I think they were helping at a pre-school for poor kids, if my memory serves me right. 

The last half an hour really starts to push on your lungs. Well, it certainly pushed on mine, although I think by my 6th day I should’ve been pretty acclimatized. We showed up for the cable car at about 9:15, which is early enough for me on a Saturday-but apparently you need to be first in line at 7:30 or 8:00 when it opens in order to make it to the top before the clouds come over. Needless to say, the view from the top, was, gray. And quite limited. But there were these hawk-like looking birds that landed up on top, which was pretty sweet, considering we were at 15,407 feet. At that point, it was the highest I’ve ever been. And, in case you’re wondering, is higher than any point in the contiguous United States. 

(at the top)

Needless to say it was a wonderful start to my time in Quito, even if I got super sunburned.  One thing you can kind of see in the view of Quito is that because Quito is built in the valley between two lines of mountains, it’s a super long and narrow city. From other viewpoints it seems that it just keeps going forever as you look north and south. 

The trail, before we hit the steep, rocky part (and went into the clouds). The peak is 
kind of back behind the black rocks. The picture below shows how volcanic the soil is.

V
View of Quito from near the top.

At the top with Lili and our two German hiking partners!

First night in Quito

One memorable and frustrating experience did happen my first night in Quito. It was an experience that taught me (or reinforced earlier indications) that it's best to double check things in the State Department. I'm not sure if it's that people are so busy they forget to do things, or something else. Time will tell. Everything was fine in getting to Quito. The Consulate here in Guayaquil arranged a driver for me to the airport, the flight, and then I was picked up by a driver in Quito. The problem occurred when we arrived at the gated community where the TDY apartment is located. TDY stands for temporary duty, which was what I was doing in Quito-it usually applies to anything less than 6 months or so in the State Department. It includes interns, and lots of technical workers come on TDY assignments-instead of every post having certain specialists, which would be a waste, there’ll just be one in a region, and they have a base and then travel about. There’s enough of these people in Quito to warrant having an apartment just for them (cheaper than a hotel). 

As we approached the gate, the driver asked me where the house was. I, of course, had never been there, so was a bit worried. I had printed off a rough google map with directions. So we headed in that direction, but, the buildings weren’t all marked, so we weren’t 100% sure we had the right building. We went back to the guard station at the entrance, and they more or less sent us to where we had been. I, assumed, that since the Embassy didn’t arrange for one of its drivers to pick me up, that they would’ve at least made sure the driver knew where he was headed. That hadn’t happened. So, as I didn’t want to go dinging all the doorbells in a few different apartment buildings, I called the housing coordinator in Guayaquil. He said he’d try to find the information for the housing guy in Quito, and would get back to me. In the meantime I called the contact I had in Quito, the woman who’d be my supervisor for the next 5 weeks. She was quite upset, as she had recently had many problems with the housing unit, so she said she’d try and get the numbers for the two interns living there, as well as contact the housing guy. 

(the view outside the neighborhood gate, that’s Rucu Pichincha)

In the meantime I felt bad that the driver was just waiting there, so I went to the building that we thought was it, and rang the doorbell of the first apartment on the panel. I knew I was looking for Apt. 1, the bottom floor apartment, and hoped the panel (no labels) went in sequential order. There were two sets of metal grated doors. I could see through the lobby two young women come to the inside door. They looked out, saw me, and shut the door. Was it the wrong apartment? Or had the Consulate and Embassy not been able to complete the fairly basic task of telling the two interns they were receiving a new roommate that night? I guessed the latter, and rang the bell a few more times. 

They answered, and opened up the first gate. Now in the lobby, I asked “is this the embassy TDY apartment?” Once this was confirmed, I told them I’d be staying there. They were a bit taken aback, and asked if I had some sort of proof that I worked for the embassy. I showed them my diplomatic ID card, and that, with the addition that I CLEARLY was American, and had a bunch of knowledge of people working in the embassy, apparently was enough led them to let me in. 

I couldn’t put my bags right down in my room, because one of the intern’s mothers was visiting. As they had no idea I was coming, her mother had been staying in the empty room. So, they were very kind, and her mom moved all her stuff out and washed the sheets and made the bed for me. In the meantime, we all discussed our mutual disbelief that no one had notified them that there would be someone moving into the other room, and that no one had asked them if they’d be comfortable if it was a single male. (Apparently, as the housing coordinator told me the next day, because we didn’t share a bathroom it wasn’t against the State Department’s rules.) It took the housing department until Wednesday to get me keys for the apartment. So, it was good I had a cell phone to be able to call the interns and make sure I’d be able to get into the place. Needless to say, having to show ID to get into my apartment wasn’t the best welcome to Quito. 

Luckily, the people in the Consular section, especially the Ecuadorians, were super cool and friendly, and I had a blast during my time there. 

(sun setting over the hills in southwest Quito)

Bahia de Caraquez

Right before I headed to Quito, we had a three day weekend, not sure why. I had met a few Peace Corps volunteers in the area, at a BBQ that a few us at the Consulate (who are returned Peace Corps Volunteers) held. I had mentioned to a few that I didn’t have plans for the long weekend, and Rachel from Colorado invited me on a trip to visit her friend at the beach. So we met up at the bus station and took the 5 or so hour trip to Bahía de Caráquez. It’s a mid-sized beach town on the Manabí coast. Manabí is the major coastal province in Ecuador. 

Jackie was a super cool host. Rachel stayed at her apartment and I stayed at a hostel, because, well, hostels are well within my price range. Visiting Jackie’s apartment was like traveling in a time machine back to my days in Costa Rica, just so many different things that are part of a volunteer’s apartment, when living on a Peace Corps subsidy. I got in some good reading, lots of beach time, a good sunburn, and lots of great conversation with Rachel and Jackie. I think at that point they were both about 7 or 8 months into their service, so no longer bright eyed and bushy tailed, but still very absorbed in their communities and projects. Bahia is an interesting town, most of the development (read beach houses/condos for people from Guayaquil and Quito) have been built in the past 15 years, so there is some new wealth created by the construction jobs and land purchases, but still a lot of poor fisherman. One of the big things that Jackie talked about was teen pregnancy, which makes a lot of sense, due to the loose culture of the beach, the comings and goings of boats, and the historical prohibitions on birth control because of the Catholic Church. 

But I wasn’t too worried about that as I downed cold Pilseners and hit up the ceviche restaurants. We also went to this quirky little restaurant, which serves yogurt and burritos. Now, cold, icy, flavored yogurt is a very popular thing here. Think more frozen go-gurts, and less the little plastic cup at the supermarket. The burritos made little sense, usually yogurt here is served with yuca bread and other pastries (which they also had). But, the burritos did help explain Speedy Gonzalez as the restaurant’s logo. 

Oh, so the beach there is kind of a peninsula where the river meets the coast. The tide came in very fast, as we were sitting reading. Jackie had warned us, but was up buying a coconut, and I had recently checked, and the tide was a ways away. About a page or two later, and I head Rachel go “oh shit” and had time to turn, see the water coming right at me. So, I got up, and (now being pulled by the wave) in a bit of panic, dropped my Kindle in order to grab my phone and wallet. Sand and water washed over the Kindle, but the rest of my stuff was fine. Buying a bag of rice and putting the Kindle in it overnight did no good, but, I’d much rather replace it for $70 than a phone for $500-so, all was good. A stunning sunset from the roof of Jackie’s apartment building had me forgetting pretty quickly. 

On the radio

Visa adjudication is pretty repetitive and although quite interesting, fairly predictable. But, every once in a while, and hopefully more often, there are outreach opportunities. When it comes to outreach from the Consular section, it usually means doing town hall type meetings (often for American Citizens) or presenting at a forum or something similar (often information about student visas for prospective college students. If you weren’t aware, getting foreigners to attend U.S. colleges is a very, very popular thing among almost everyone involved. It allows for (hopefully) the US to make a great impression on motivated, ambitious young people from around the world, and it allows for foreigners to pay full tuition (very few scholarships or aid for foreigners) and thus subsidize the education of Americans. But, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to speak at either of these type of events. But, I did get the chance to speak to a much larger audience.

Almost every Friday, someone from the Consulate heads to Radio Cristal, 870 AM, one of the more popular radio news stations in coastal Ecuador. It’s been around for 58 years, and is a very well trusted news source across the country. It focuses a bit more on Guayaquil news, as that’s where it is, but it does have listeners throughout the country. The guy we talked to said the listenership varies from 50,000 to double that for certain programs, peak times. That isn’t really a lot of people, but it is a very reliable group. Unlike the pop music FM stations, Radio Cristal is a station people will put on when cooking, cleaning the house, driving to/from work, or working in labor jobs-not one they’ll quickly flip through looking for a hot song. It does all sorts of news, and some music, kind of like a local AM station you can think of.

Every Friday during the lunch time, there’s the dedicated Consulate hour. The format is pretty simple, there’s the host, an experienced radio news guy (he does morning news every day) and then 2-3 people from the Consulate. He introduces the show, and then takes questions from callers, an email address, and their Facebook page. He does a good job of kind of rephrasing and clarifying the questions. By this point there aren’t too many surprises, so we’ve got out talking points down pretty well. Which is probably clear by the fact they let me go on the show during maybe my fifth or sixth week working at the Consulate. Most of the questions are specific to one person’s case, and we give general answers, but answers that are helpful. I went with my supervisor’s boss-the lady that is the head of the entire Consular section, as well as with an older Ecuadorian woman, who has been working in the immigration visa section for some time. Besides introducing myself, I just fielded two questions, as my boss took another two, and then there were three or so about immigrant visas and lawful permanent resident rules.  I made a bit of a joke in one of my answers, but otherwise spit out the official talking points pretty much word for word.

Personally, I think this is an incredibly great thing to do and something we should be doing more and more of. While there are certainly lots of details about visa eligibility and reasons that people are denied the ability to travel to the US that we want to keep secret or at least not promote, there are plenty of tips, guidelines, and rules that we can share with prospective tourists, students, workers, and immigrants that will make their application process easier, and my job easier (less to explain to people, less people showing up with the wrong documents/forms).