Actions of Grace

My ex-husband, Charlie, comes from a family of toasters.  Not the kitchen appliance kind, the stand up in front of the people you love best and say something clever and meaningful and humorous kind.  The first time I visited Cleveland for Thanksgiving, I was terrified, despite having joined Toastmasters International, a public speaking organization, in anticipation of the visit.  Of course I didn't stand up to say anything that meal, and everyone was kind and made me fell welcome.  After a few years, I came to enjoy Thanksgiving in Cleveland, and even look forward to it, which is what holiday rituals are about, I think. Then, when I was no longer part of that family, I looked forward to it for my children, and to the stories they would bring home with them.  I would prompt them for the details I had already imagined.  Twin uncles Toby and David dressed in different color shirts.  Caviar pie. Sausage stuffing made with an onion the size of a nut. Extra tables spilling into the hallway to accommodate 25+ family and friends. The all-male carving scene in the kitchen, which my adult boys have now joined.  And of course the toasts.

I have incorporated some of the traditions into my life, though not always at Thanksgiving.  And I am happy just to know that others exist.  This morning in Cleveland, someone is making a caviar pie. I hope that after work tonight in Vermont, Jack will carve a turkey with the skill he honed in Cleveland.

A few years ago, I spent a wonderful pre-Thanksgiving weekend with my son Eric at the home of the Seven Fingers in Montreal.   (The Seven Fingers of the Hand is his circus company.)    The seven founding members live together, but separately, in a block of houses close to where Eric lived in Montreal.  During the day, in several of the separate kitchens, different elements of the dinner were coming together.  Ingredients and children and stories spilled from one kitchen to the other.  Charlie was there too.  We made several trips to the Atwater market a few blocks away.  New friends came in and out (but mostly in) throughout the day.  Twenty-five or more people in that adopted circus family fit themselves around the table.  Shana Carroll, one of the Seven, brought out a book and asked Eric to read a Thanksgiving toast that her father, columnist Jon Carroll, had written.  It was a wonderful toast, and Eric read it beautifully. I should not have been surprised, he comes from a family of toasters, after all.

I found the piece online* and read it to my own family a few days later at our Thanksgiving at my parents'.  It is a magical piece of writing, though my own reading on that day did not shine as brightly as Eric's did.  I did not grow up toasting, as he did.  I hope that somewhere in France, he will read it again today.

 My French-Canadian husband travels with his US passport (the vehicles are registered in Vermont) but he can't bring himself to say he is American (just ask the insufferable woman at the Canadian border crossing who once asked him where he had sworn his allegiance to the United States of America).  On this trip, we say that I am Estadaunidense and Luc is Canadiense; we both look as gringo as the next light-haired couple walking down the street.  In Quebec, Thanksgiving is viewed by French speakers as an imposition of the Anglos.  Luc did not grow up with Thanksgiving, but when he is home at the end of November (which is not often) he adopts the customs of my family, and enjoys the day because we do. Tom and Mary's many dips before dinner.  My mom's corn pudding. Cleveland sausage stuffing when my boys are there.  My sister Alison's cranberry-orange relish from the original mimeographed recipe she brought home from Royle School in third grade.  Jim's rendition of Nana's pumpkin pie. The tour around the table when each of us says what he is thankful for.  Luc says it keeps him full until Christmas.

Today we are in Puerto Chicama, a Peruvian fishing port famous for its left-hand point break (you can surf a 2 meter wave for up to 3.2 kilometers).  We are parked in a little garden next to the beach across from the El Hombre hostel, where The Man himself, a local surfing legend who now spends most of the year presiding over the scene from his patio, is off in Hawaii visiting his children for Thanksgiving.  He left the place in charge of his grandson, who gave us the keys to the hottest showers we've had in South America.  We can see the perfect breakers from the van window, and hear the surf in our sleep.   We are thankful to be here, and thankful that the traditions we love continue on this year without us.

Today we will celebrate with our version of local traditions.  We will eat rice and an onion and maybe corn.  We may break out the grill, cook a fish in the cactus garden and set up the table in the van tonight.  We will raise a glass and think of the people we love celebrating in the ways we remember, and feel thankful.


* http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/11/23/DDGLBMHPBM1.DTL

No photos this time, Internet too slow.


 

Into Peru

After two weeks in Cuenca, we left for Peru in two separate vehicles.  Yipee!  Our first day was an 8-hour marathon complete with border crossing.  The sky was darkening as we left the border for Tumbes, and by the time we hit the hive of three wheeled moto-taxis swarming the Friday night of Tumbes, it was oh-dark-thirty, as my brother would say. 

Like all bad dreams, these moto-taxis look pretty harmless in the daytime, but on our first exhausted night, they were terrifying!

We made our way to the first petrol station on the Pan American highway in Tumbes.  It took a pep talk from a nice young Peruvian at a truck stop (and Luc on the radio) to get me to cross the divided highway and back up the other side about a half a kilometer to the only hotel that didn’t require us to drive into town.  I think if the van hadn’t fit under the gate, I would have just lain down in the middle of the highway and cried.  I’m sure no one would have been able to distinguish me from the unmarked speed bumps in the road.

The next morning, we took a ride into town in a moto-taxi driven by our sweet waiter-bellhop-delivery boy to get money.   He was proud of his spotless bike, of his taxi license (which he encouraged me to examine), and of his border town.  In fact, he was a good driver.  In the video Luc took in the taxi, I am only holding on for my life with one hand.

It was still disappointing how quickly my understanding of Spanish deteriorated in the 25 k from the border to Tumbes!  I have rediscovered that wrenching feeling during the 3 seconds between someone’s utterance and my thirty-percent comprehension.  I know that my face resembles the fixed smile and uncomprehending gaze of other travelers as they lean forward thinking that proximity will bring them another centimeter closer to comprehension.

We are now in Zorritos, Peru, at a beautiful “eco-lodge” with an incredible beach where we are camped less than 10 paces from the high tide mark.  We have met two other groups of travelers here.  One, a lovely Austrian family that started in Bolivia, is heading north into Ecuador.  They generously shared their advice and gave us their maps of Peru and Bolivia in exchange for a few extra square centimeters in their van, a short list of camping suggestions for Ecuador, and our best wishes in selling their van before they head back to Vienna (know anyone looking to buy a cool van in Ecuador in December?).  The best part, at least for me, was to be within eavesdropping distance of children’s voices.  It didn’t matter at all that the homeschool lessons I was hearing were in German! 

The second was a French couple visiting Peru for a month.  Paloma, whose father is a Peruvian archeologist now living and working in Paris, had timed their visit to celebrate her grandmother’s 101^st birthday.  We shared two delicious meals and fascinating conversation with them.

Tide is going out.  Time for a walk on the beach!

Ingapirca

Luc took a day out of his mechanical adventures in Cuenca to join me and our friend, Steve, for a trip to Ingapirca, about two hours and $2.50 north of Cuenca by bus.  Ingapirca is “Ecuador’s most important Inca ruin.”  It pales, I’m sure, to the vast expanse of Macchu Pichu, but we had a wonderful day on a human scale.  Our guide, Angel, had lived in New York at one time, and he and Steve, who is from Queens, hit it off right away.  Angel did a great job of helping us imagine the marriage of the native Cañari people’s moon goddess to the sun god of the Incas.  We saw their connected temples, one made of river rock and one make of volcanic rock.  Ingapirca is a magical place. 

One of my favorite things was this lunar calendar.

There are twenty-eight little pockets for water, one for each day of the moon cycle, thirteen times a year.  Each little pocket reflects the moon from a different angle, so that on any night with moonshine, you can tell where you are in the lunar cycle.  28 x 13 = 364.  That leaves us one day to celebrate the sun alone, giving us the 365 days of the solar calendar.

Steve’s parents are from Azogues, a bit less than an hour north of Cuenca.  He had just returned from a visit to Peru, and I was sure as a child he had visited Ingapirca plenty with his family.  Happily, he was up for the trip.  First because it was great to see him, but also because he knew that when in Ingapirca, one must eat trout.  So after our tour with Angel, and before a little walk where we saw rock carvings, the Old Inca of the Mountain, and other natural phenomenon best explained with mystery, we had a wonderful lunch.

 On our walk, we also met a woman who sewed beautiful little dolls dressed as many local women dress.  Since I am usually genée (what is this word in English?) to take pictures of people unless I am on the top of a double decker bus and using a telephoto lens, I was happy to buy one of her little dolls.  The woman at the next little hut tried to sell Steve an ancient polished Inca stone phallus, but he was able to resist her charms.

The following week, our friend and conquering hero, Fiona, arrived in Azogues from Colombia, with her bike tied on the top of a 46-hour bus ride.  We were delighted that Steve and Fiona were willing to hop on yet another bus and join us for a visit and lovely dinner at a Cuenca restaurant called Todosantos, tucked into a church and apparently still a working monastery.  We were brought down to the restaurant by a nun, and stopped in the bakery that the nuns run on our way out.  What a lovely evening!

The backdrop to all of this, of course, is the progress that Luc made on the van.  Humberto, the owner of our farm/campground, connected us with genius and mechanic Mauricio Dominguez.  

The three men, along with Humberto’s son, Druba, (when he wasn’t barreling down the side hill on his bicycle) worked their magic to stabilize the flatbed that carries the trailer.  I can now drive with confidence over dead policemen and not worry that I will leave bits of the trailer scattered on the road behind me.

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.

Layers of Cuenca

Cuenca from the Turi Church

We happened to arrive in Cuenca, Ecuador for the 3-day festival that encompasses All Saints Day (Nov 1), the  Day of the Dead (Nov 2) and the celebration of Cuenca's independence from Spain (Nov 3) in 1820.  The weekend was full of  festivals, parades and beauty pagents.  The newspaper reported that hotels were at 90% capacity with visiting Ecuadorians.  There is also a large ex-pat population here (estimates vary from 500 to 5000) and a network of english language blogs, support groups, bars and Chamber of Commerce sponsored programs.  (Cuenca was first named the world number one retirement destination by International Living in 2009 due (I guess) to cost of living, health care and its UNESCO world heritage status.  However, a fair number of the ex-pat blogs are pretty whiney).  Whether expat or gringo (those of us just passing through) we were also out in large numbers in the city this weekend.  Though it makes Luc and me cringe to encounter aging Texan punksters with pink hair, black spandex and piercings on the street, I am sure we stand out to the local population as much as they do.  I am easily a foot taller than the average woman on the street, and Luc's motorcycle is 1000 ccs bigger than most bikes we see here.

We missed most of the parades and the beauty contest, but we did have a chance to sample one of the special foods of the holiday:  a warm drink made with andean blackberries, purple maize, cinnamon and unidentified peach-like floating fruit.  Along with this colada molada, you usually eat a baby-shaped bread called Pan de Guagua (which means baby in Cechua).  Yum (or at least I thought so).

Colada Molada y Guagau de Pan

Cuenca is a layer-cake of cultures.  There is evidence of inhabitants here as early as 8060 BC (surprised?  see Charles C Mann's wonderful book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for a complete revision of the history of the Americas as you learned it in school).  There is little that remains, at least in the archeological museums, but there is plenty of evidence of the Cañari people who were here starting in 500 AD.  They were absorbed (if this is the right word for the Inca style of empire building) by the Inca's in the 1400s, and the Incas, in turn, were overwhelmed by Spanish diseases 100 or so years later.  Cuenca at the time of the Incas is said to have rivaled Cusco in Peru.  Many people in Cuenca wear tradition dress.

Cuenca girl on her iPad

Any street corner

Not every street corner

At the little Museo Manuel Agustin Landivar, you can see the archeological remains of the three cultures literally layered one on top of the other.  At the Parque Arqueologico Pumapungo down the road, you can walk around the remains of the vast city of Pumapungo that was rumored to be El Dorado (as many places were) and contemplate the view they had of their dominion.

Cuenca Layers

Pumapungo

Another thing you notice in Cuenca is the number of churches, all Catholic from what I have seen (there were quite a few evangelical churches further north, in Tena, for example).  They say there is a church in Cuenca for every Sunday of the year, which is only a slight exaggeration (there are 40).  Though a good deal of the pillage was shipped back to Spain, much of the colonial Spanish city, including the gold on the church alters, was built with the building blocks and booty from previous civilizations.

While I have been combing through museums and churches, Luc has been back at campground, a lovely little organic farm in the city, working on maintenance and repairs.  Besides the consistent little problems that need fixing (toilet seal, leaky window, broken window lever), he has decreased the width of the trailer from 95 to 84 inches, which means it is now about the width of our van including rear-view mirrors. Now he is changing out something in the motorcycle (valves?). Hopefully when we head to Peru in a few days he will be riding the bike!

Antes

Despues