A Passage to Ecuador: Chapter 4
Incan tombs, Lake Cuicocha, and Bob Wright
June 10
Ramiro (the son) and I walked through his uncle’s property, which was not far from the farm, past a bunch of calves, cows, bulls, and horses. We got high up on a hill overlooking the valley. There were little mounds that I assumed were natural, but Ramiro told me they were Incan tombs. Some had been disinterred, indicated by gaping holes. Apparently, Ramiro’s friend found an engraved golden knife in one of the tombs he dug up. We walked up along in the ridge through mud and cow poop. From up high, Ramiro noticed storm-like clouds heading our way, so we headed back to the farm.
June 11
I talked a bunch with Ramiro (the dad) about Lake Cuicocha, where I’d like to go on Saturday. I’m supposed to meet Edwin (and his friend who wants to hear about Canada) on Sunday in Cuellaje. I think everyone in the Cristopamba valley will head into town on Sunday, though Ramiro says he tends to go to Apuela instead of Cuellaje.
June 12
I only had to work at the school until 11:00 am today because the kids had a presentation on the preservation of forests in the afternoon, so I came home early. I had chicken in tomato sauce with rice, plátanos, and radishes for lunch. I was served and ate two entire bananas with the lunch (the bananas were steamed I think). There are so many goddamn bananas here. On the counter and the table in the kitchen there are like three separate bunches of at least ten bananas (all stuck together, directly off the tree). I spent the day researching guests for the podcast and reading Why Nations Fail.
I then helped Alva shell, roast, grind, and prepare coffee. We also made homemade chocolate. I had dinner with Alva, Ramiro (the son), and Edgar. I’m starting to speak some French to Ramiro, since he’s trying to learn the language. Sometimes I have trouble coming up with French words and phrases that come very naturally to me back in Montreal.
June 14
On Fridays, I don’t have much work to do at school. The kids draw, sing, and dance; there’s no English class. The teacher gave me colada morada, a hot, pink fruity drink, and it was delicious. I’ve downloaded Bob Wright’s incredible book The Evolution of God and started listening to it. Discovering Bob Wright has led to a paradigm shift in the way I view the world. I worked on my Substack, writing a piece on Iran. My take is that it’s silly for the U.S. to pick sides in the Iran–Saudi Arabia cold war because both countries are kinda crazy and do really awful things. Also I think Saudi Arabia is probably worse (no elections, bombing Yemen, et cetera). And it’s quite understandable, at least to me, that Iran hates the U.S. (deposing Mosadegh, installing the Shah, Iran-Iraq war, plane we shot down, et cetera).
June 15
I got up hella early, grabbed some rolls and mandarins, and walked down to the bus. I kinda half-slept my way to Otavalo, where I got off and got some money at an ATM. I then grabbed a coffee and some food from the same little café next to the main square that I went to last time I was in Otavalo. Afterward, I grabbed a taxi to go to Lake Cuicocha. The taxi driver was from Intag (the region where I’m staying), so we talked about that for a while. His brother-in-law and sister (Rosa) even live in El Rosario (which is where my farm and school are)! Small world. He told me his brother was driving from Otavalo to Intag later in the day and might give me a ride. But the brother didn’t answer his calls as we drove through Cotacachi to the lake. At the lake, I asked him to come back in four and half hours to get me, and he generously agreed.
Lake Cuicocha is awesome. It’s surprising that it isn’t known as a major attraction like Mount Kilimanjaro or Machu Picchu. There were few people on the trail, and I walked briskly, listening to The Evolution of God. The issue with listening to a really good audiobook is that every time it gives you the spark of some great idea or theory and your mind wanders, you can’t look back up to the start of the paragraph. About halfway around the lake it began to lightly rain and it kept doing that for the rest of the way. From this point onward, I could only see endless water vapour; no more view of the lake. I was pretty drenched by the end.
I sat under an awning by a snack and drink bar at the lakeside lodge afterward, listing to Wright talk about the real Jesus (he probably existed and probably wasn’t that revolutionarily generous or empathetic, just another apocalyptic Jewish shaman roaming around monolatrist Palestine). Eventually the cabbie came and got me, and delivered me to a restaurant with typical food of the region in Otavalo. I had pork with choclo and tortillas (there was no cheese in these tortillas, which was a crying shame). The pork must have been fried or something because it was much better than hornado. I then walked around Otavalo for a bit. Here’s the central square:
Before getting on the bus to return to Intag, I bought dental floss, a coffee, and earbuds. On the bus I continued listening to The Evolution of God. When my phone died, I watched the Spanish-dubbed Guy Richie movie playing in the bus. It was the exact same movie (with Jason Statham) that had played on the bus from Quito to Otavalo. I got to the hotel in Cuellaje quite late, and began worrying because it seemed to be closed. Who was I supposed to talk to about a room? I was roaming around the dark hotel looking for someone when I heard something move below, in the courtyard. I called buenas noches out into the darkness and got a response. The guy showed me a to a room with three twin beds and no bathroom. I gladly took it, and finally removed my wet, dirty socks and shoes. There was no towel to be found (in my room or in any other place in the hotel, save one used-looking towel hanging in a shared bathroom on the third floor). I washed my feet in the shower of the shared bathroom, dried them on my jeans, and went to bed. Before sleeping, I watched a debate between Glenn Greenwald and Alan Dershowitz on whether the U.S. should bomb Iran. My own peacenik bias aside, it wasn’t even close. Glenn is so knowledgeable and well spoken.
yay!!!!!