You can’t spell Iquitos without Quito …and Is (Andrew)

At the end of March we went to Quito, Ecuador for a week so that Jess could make a presentation about the current state of her Fulbright project. We were both ready for a change of scenery, and took the opportunity to visit her host family from a previous study abroad experiece, the Mirandas, and see some of the historic downtown area. Quito is a long city that runs down the middle of a valley 9,300 feet above sea level. It was cold, cloudy, and rainy all week and we quickly realized how acclimatized we had become to the lowland rainforest. There were some giant cathedrals (the immense gold plating and paintings of sinners that covered the insides were a bit disturbing) built by the Spanish in the 16th century, or, as our devil-impersonating tour guide described it, old enough that “our grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmothers” attended mass there. Many of the downtown street vendors have been moved to market areas and major renovations projects are going on to make most of the areas we were taken to very clean and safe-feeling (although a bit sterile). A fancy dinner on one of the hills above town let us look out across the city from the feet of the giant “Virgen de Quito” statue and see all the cathedrals lit up through the clouds.

In addition to many conversations with other Fulbrighters and learning lots about current events in the Andean region, I also had some more adventures with parasites (see article below) just to really make things interesting. That only slowed us down a little bit though. The commission took us to a resort in the rainforest, which was pleasant, (although nothing like the Muyuna ecotour), and we did play some miniature golf and went swimming in a river with actual rocks in it! (The rivers in our area don’t have rocks). However, the highlight of the week for me was a trip to the Tucanopy organic coffee farm. It was run by an inspiring group of Ecuadorian families, who grew most of their own food, worked to preserve not only their property but the whole region against extractive/destructive industries, and know how to make a mean pizza. After a short hike around part of the property we took a ride on their circuit of 6 zip lines. (See our youtube videos for an example) which was a fun way to see the forest, although I wished we could have spent more time there, on the air or the ground. Afterwards we headed back to Quito and then to Lima, arriving just in time to watch Carolina lose to Kansas. This week found us back in Iquitos working hard (and at times frantically) to keep the volunteer/social information gathering program running.