Activities of Daily Living

My son Eric wrote me the other day and asked, “How do you plan your days and where to go and what to do etc etc?”  This got me thinking about our life here on the road, where we spend a large percentage of our time performing “the activities of daily living”.  These activities are surprisingly close to what the Long Term Care branch of the life insurance industry calls ADLs:  eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, transfering (walking) and continence. 

One of my favorite travel blogs is called Seventeenbysix – these wonderful writers have identified themselves by the size of the space they occupy.  Luc figured out the other day that our van is 84 square feet, a little bigger than their VW Vanogen.  We spend a lot of our time in the van on these activities of daily living.  Some other friends, who came through Cuenca last week, had a slightly larger, taller van.  To us it seemed like visiting a chateau.  We sat around a real table and drank wine out of real glasses!  What would we do with all that space? 

By many standards, our life is amazingly simple, but the issues we deal with are things we never think about at home.  How soon will we need to fill the water tank? Where can we park tonight? What to do with the “grey” and “black” water in a country that has no RV parks? Do we have enough propane?  

I am a strong advocate of women’s rights, but in my own life I have always struggled with the fact that my personal preferences are those of the traditional woman’s role.  I love to cook, I love kids, I am happy staying home and keeping house.  I have spent a fair amount of time trying to prove (I'm not sure to who) that I was good at other things.   Here in the van, that traditional division of labor works well for us.  I cook, Luc keeps everything repaired and running.  He drives, I navigate (though this is about to change as the bike is now off the trailer).  He plays his sax, I read.  He works on the vehicles, I walk to market.  We spend close to 24 hours a day within 10 feet of each other and still feel that we have our own domains and spaces.

Figuring out what and how to eat is one of the most interesting challenges for me.  We have a tiny kitchen, which means we can’t buy much at a time, and nothing keeps long in the little fridge with its fluctuating temperatures.   We have found few American-style supermarkets, and when we do they seem overlit and alien.  Here there are mostly tiny stores, many with only a few things to sell.  (In Cartagena, street vendors offer 5 pieces of gum or single cigarettes!).  Store hours are unpredictable (at least to us) and the supplies limited.  For example, I found a great place on my walk back from the market the other day that sold tamales.  I bought two for dinner - they were delicious, we want more!  However, most days when I walk by on my way to the market, they are closed.  One day at 2:00 PM there was someone there, but the gate was locked. The woman in the kitchen explained  that they made only humitas on this particular day of the week, and would be open at 4:00.  (Humitas are slightly sweet and usually eaten with a coffee or hot chocolate). Would I like her to save me some at 4:00?  Since the afternoon downpour here usually start at 3:30, I declined.  Yesterday they were open as I walked to market at about 12:30, so I planned to stop on the way back.  Thirty minutes later I learned that yes, it was tamale day, but they were already sold out!

We eat quite simply in the van.  Breakfast starts with coffee and later, oatmeal with the local yogurt and lots of fresh fruit (baby bananas and pitaya are the standards).  Lunch in the van is a sandwich of fresh cheese and veggies, but we often eat out.  Here in Ecuador, lunch is usually less than $5 for both of us.  
Our challenge at noontime is to find a place that will serve us less than a 2 course meal:  soup followed by meat, rice, potatoes, often corn, and salad.

Dinner is usually veggies with rice or pasta, plus tamales or some other street food if I can find it.  There is so much meat when we eat out that we almost never cook meat ourselves.  We have a tiny grill with a little blue propane tank that I am hoping to break out once when we can find seafood on the coast of Peru.  To be honest, another reason we don’t eat a lot of meat is that much of the meat we see for sale is piled in a wagon or a sunny window with no sign of refrigeration in sight.  Still makes me a little squeamish.

Bathing is another challenge.  Our van has both an indoor and outdoor shower, neither of which we have used.  The indoor shower would require taking up the carpet (there is a drain in the floor) and would probably turn the van into an instant misty greenhouse.  Besides, if we take a shower we’d have to track down water to fill the tank sooner.   In Colombia, it was easy to find a hospedaje (truck stop with sleeping closets) with a cold shower which was usually just a garden hose sticking out of the bathroom wall.  Since showering was essentially the only time in the day when we weren’t bathed in sweat, they were welcome.  Some places have electric showers which is a scary concept, but has produced some lovely hot showers as well as some barely tepid ones.  In the van, we have also mastered the shower “a la mitaine.” 

I will substitute clothing for dressing as one of our activities of daily living. I have gotten over my compunctions about sharing my dirty laundry with someone else.  Here, many people seem to make a good part of their income washing cars and taking in laundry.  For $5 or less, a load of laundry comes back spotless, ironed and folded.  Since we are traveling with so little clothing (I have two tee-shirts, one sleeveless top and one long sleeved shirt, for example) there is still usually a shirt or a pair of shorts hanging over something in the van while it dries. 

In the US, a lot of the time-consuming chores that used to require someone (usually a wife, extended family member or employee) to spend a good deal of time at home, have been replaced by machines and conveniences that have become essentials:  washing machines, dishwashers, blenders and Cuisinarts, freezers, pre-ground meat, vegetables in cans and frozen in bags.  It is unusual for people (at least the people I know) to have hired help at home.  (In businesses, the push toward flat organizations has simultaneously eliminated secretaries, typing pools and mail clerks.)  Here, these roles not only exist, but the economy depends on them.  Just like paying someone to wash my clothes, it was a learning experience for me in Cali to understand what it was acceptable for me to do for myself (carry my dishes to the kitchen), and what was someone else's job.

Back to the activities of daily living:  toileting.  My puritan background makes this topic a little challenging for me, but here again I have something to learn from this culture where the functions of daily life are shared and more out in the open.  In South America, most plumbing systems are not built to withstand the additional burden of paper on the system, so most public and private bathrooms have a small trash can for disposing of used toilet paper.  Any signage related to this is in English, as only foreigners need to be told what to do.  Everyone folds.

The first time we emptied our used water tanks in South America, we found a port-o-potty company that arranged for their truck to return to the main office to help us out.  Their high-powered suction system apparently dislodged something in our toilet, which no longer held its seal and belched stinking gas back into the camper.  Luc did some online research and then took the plunge.  He took the toilet apart to repair whatever it is that creates the seal and keeps the nasty vapors below.  This contributed to our decision to try to keep our “black” water yellow.  We have learned since that many other overlanders do the same.

The proximity of the toilet to all the other activities of daily van living has also made us (or at least me) more similar to South Americans in another way.  When I was sick, almost everyone I talked to wanted to know the colorful details of my malady so they could suggest the appropriate remedy.   (This reminded me of being pregnant when complete strangers would notice my condition and share, unprompted, intimate details in the grocery store lines about their wives’  labor and delivery.)  Maybe it is easier for me to talk about “toileting” now because our limited Spanish required that we speak directly.  My command of the English language has allowed me three complete paragraphs on this topic with only oblique reference to toilet vocabulary.  I can not do this in Spanish.

With "transfering"  I will address Eric’s real question.  How do we plan our days, what to do, where to go, etc.  It has been interesting to encounter other travelers and get glimpses into their planning and decision-making.  Some people come here with specific goals or overriding passions (like Tim and Emily who travel in their tiny vanogen with dog, climbing equipment and surf boards).  Most of the people we meet have a fairly long or open ended timeframe.  Our decision to take this trip evolved from the idea of taking a year off to live in Chile. Then we saw Ewan McGregor’s movie, The Long Way Round, and Luc got the idea to do the journey on a motorcycle and here we are.  (He even rides the same bike that Ewan and Charley Boorman did).   We have a vague goal to make it to the south of Chile before turning around, and Luc has the goal to ride his bike at leatst part of the way. 

I spend a fair amount of my time combing through our two guidebooks, the South American Handbook (preferred by Ted Simon of Jupiter’s Travels) and the Kindle version of the Lonely Planet guides.  I have read some wonderful books about and/or set in South America.  Whenever we have Internet, this is supplemented by a growing list of blogs (see blog and book tabs, above) of other travelers, or overlands as they seem to call themselves.  We have a number of limiting factors:  the width of the van, especially with trailer (hard to manoeuver in small city streets), aversion to cobblestones and traffic (more challenging with a big bike than a small one).  If we decide to come to a city, we do as much research as we can about options for camping/parking at the edge of town.  

As Eric already knows, I love to walk, especially in cities, especially with a good guidebook.  Luc, well, Luc does not.  Though to be fair he does like to hike, especially up.  But much of what we do is at the whim of time and weather.  For example,  we drove through Banos, the adventure tourist capital of Ecuador, without stopping because it was raining.  We have just decided to stay in Cuenca for a few more days to get a rack made for the top of the van.  It will lighten the load on the hitch that carries the trailer when Luc is on the bike.  This will allow us to reconnect with our friend Fiona, who will be in town in a few days. 

Most of the time we plan just a day or two in advance.  Groundrules evolve.  For example, we might take a bus north, as we did a few days ago to visit the ruins at Ingapirca, but we don't retrace our steps in the van. We have started thinking of this southern pointed portion as the scouting trip for the way north.  We have a list of things to do in Colombia on the return trip:  (Zona Cafeteria, St Augustin and Popayan, Bogata Gold Museum (I doubt this is on Luc's list), dance salsa for real and not just in a class).  We'll write the Ecuador list when we get to Peru.

Since neither of us is yet in diaper, I feel at liberty to replace Continence with a difference C word.  Communication?  A blog of its own.  Conducir? Doesn't start with C in English. Courage?  Consciousness?  Yes, consciousness seems to be the right word for our final activity of daily living.  We are continually conscious that we do not look like everyone else.  When we open our mouths, we do not sound like everyone else.  We are uninvited guests here. On the one hand, we must constantly be vigilant and aware.  On the other hand, we could spend our entire trip in this small space, watching the scenery go by like a movie.  We need to get out each day and seek out experiences and interactions that go beyond the activities of daily living.  That is why we are here, after all.