stationary

its hard for me to believe that i went so long in my life without flossing. it seems that this has been the reason for my uncontrollably decrepit dental health. a reason that is on its way to becoming moot. my parents came to visit and brought with them, as a gift, those handheld 1 time use flossers. wow. they have already changed my life. i have been brushing quite regularly since i was little, but yet the first time i flossed with this new life-saving device, it was quite a disturbing scene invloving pounds of what had become rancid meat.

the reason why it is ok for me to be receiving packages like this instead of sending loads of things back home is that for some reason, in the last couple weeks or so, anna and i have more or less come to terms with living in cuenca. deciding not to be a traveler has taken quite a long time. even though the intellectual idea was there a while ago, the realistic motions of the thing have taken a few months to become natural. for example, before leaving to come to ecuador in july, i shopped for said hand-held flossers. however, upon packing my bags, i found that my bag would be too stuffed if i were to leave them in. so, i took them out and figured that as long as i brushed, all would be well.

point is though, that now i am able to be a consumer here in ecuador. now that im not traveling. now that anna and i have decided to stay in cuenca until july, we can begin acquiring things that will weigh us down, such as: every season of sopranos that has ever existed. windows 2007 (for $2), and dental floss.

yes, it is a big turnaround for us to be wanting to now stay in cuenca, but these things happen. and, once it has happened, everything seems better. the food, once bland, is kind of interesting and tasty if you are willing to get off the travelers budget for one second and spend $1.75 on a meal rather than $1.25 (note that the travelers budget always accounts for copius amounts of alcohol and passes on food quite often). the people in cuenca are really pretty nice once you try talking to them and it is easier to make friends when you tell people you will stay around for longer. all of these things are intellectually obvious, but not so much so when you try to act it out. so, this cuenca is where you can find us, and wherever you are in life, it is pretty important that your breath not smell like rancid meat.

pacifist cats

the other day anna and i were walking to the colisseum to go work out and we noticed that strewn all along the sidewalks were these massive, hard-shelled beetles. they were abouth the size of my fist and their backs loked to be protected by something like a helmet. many of them were dead, but one was on his back trying to turn over. he couldnt, so i kicked him over and he groggily climbed up a wall.

one of the nice things about the little indiscretion performed by my ex roomate/friend who had to flee our apartment is that anna and i got her room. her room, which is now ours, has a large window opening out to the patio. nobody else goes on the patio so i spend a lot of time there now reading, or just sitting and listening to birds. our old room had a window weirdly overlooking the downstairs apartment where the girls who lived there would smoke cigarettes all day long.

ive been trying to make the male cat tough ever since iveknown him. his natural nature when he sees somone is to run away. he always does it. but, once he knows you he will come to you and sit on your lap. i play tranquily for a while and then usually dangle a string in front of his face which agitates him into violence and he flips around and gets frustrated that he cant get to it. when i got back from colombia he actually caught the string i dangled and ripped it from my hands. he then slunk off with it back to his den and tortured it like a good cat.

yesterday i was sitting on the patio reading a book as the sun set. when it got dark i turned the lights on and continued. it was a nice warm night with a cool breeze. suddenly, i heard what i thought was a moth flapping around bumping into the walls next to the lights. i was startled by the force with which it was slamming itself into the walls -each time there was a crack and i couldnt tell if maybe the walls were coming down. i soon realized that it was one of the football beetles and it whizzed by my head and landed itself on the laundry machine. i went over to inspect it and found that it is certainly a relative of the rhinocerous as it har two distinct eyes and a horn poking out from its nose and from its head.

i was watching it and the girl cat came up from and pounced onto the laundry machine and eyed the bug. i anticipated a fight. the bug didnt move and the cat inched closer to it and put her nose to it. she didnt do anything so i assumed that it was a sort of cat hunting ritual. in a second she snaped straight and began pawing at the bug. the bug stil didnt move - not even an antenna, and the cat soon grew bored. i was disappointed because i wanted to see a fight, but i sat back down andd awaited the boy cats turn. strangely though, he was nowhere to be found. once, he ran upstairs from the garden where the cats like to hang out, but when i went to grab him to show him where the bug was, he did his favorite run away routine. i waited another ten minutes, the bug didnt move, and the cat did not come back. so, i plucked at their metal fod bowls and the sound attracted them both. they ran to me but the boy cat noticed first that it was a ruse. he ran back downstairs. the girl cat, who i believe is learning disabled in some way - but is evidently brave, stayed and allowed me to pick her up and put her near the bug for a fight. she accomodated for as long as it interested her, pawing and sniffing at the unresponsive beast, but soon joined her brother back in the garden. anna told me that they are babies and couldnt be expected to hunt so well, but i think they are old enough to find their own food if need be.

later, we were in our room and opened our window. this always attracts the cats who prefer to stretch out on our bed rather than doing anything else catlike. soon enough the boy cat came bounding through the window, but i was there to catch him this time. i brought him out to the laundry machine where the bug was still sitting dormant. i knew, just knew that the waving of the antennae would remind fat-fat the cat about the string and he would attack and eat. instead, nothing. all he did was paw - without nails- and then try to leap back into our room and take up bedspace. i stopped him and closed the window.

back in cuenca, pt 126

we got back to cuenca last week after logging a good 22 hours on a bus. but, we split the bus time up so it wasnt that bad. we left the jungle at about 530 in the morning, which was not too hard to leave because of the vast amounts of huge cockroaches that were crawling around everywhere in our room. we enjoyed the jungle and our vacation in general to such a degree that it would have had to have taken something like an invasion of waterbugs (seriously too many to count) to make us agree to come back to cuenca. the bus from our river to lago agria was fine because it was early and i got a seat in the front where i could stretch my legs. i went to sleep, and apparently the bus driver did too. luckily i slept for more time than the busdriver did. anna, who didnt sleep, told me that the bus driver dozed off and the bus rolled off the road at one point. oh well, an adventure i missed...

we got to lago agria at 830 and our next bus to quito left at 10 or so, so we sat and then ate a breakfast of coffee and chicken with rice. yum. the next bus was not so bad either even though it was a 7 and a half hour ride. the ride took us from sea level well into the andes and the weather changed. secretly i was happy to have the cool mountain air. secretly only because i had made a huge effort at not wanting to come back to the mountains. it had been the rainy season and while we were at sea level, be it the coast or the jungle, it didnt rain once. still, the cool air was nice. ther ewere the usual arguments with the ecuadorian bus riding public insofar as their not wanting the window opened is concerned. i dont understand it. i have to overcompensate just to prove my point and throw the window wide open even when it is cold so i normally ride the bus wearing a sweater tied around my neck. very classy.

we got into quito and immidiately went to the internet shop from where i posted my previous post. then, went to watch football at one of the overpriced bars with an american theme that have taken over the mariscal area of quito. unfortunately the colts won, and we had to leave midway through the cowboys-seahawks game to go catch a night bus to cuenca. its a 9 hour ride and featured teh regular cast of crying babies, men with tuberculosis or some other juicy coughing disease, closed windows and fights over opening the windows. one guy reached around my head when he though i was sleeping in order to close my window. i was awake, reopened the window and we had a bit of a staredown. i was right though and the window stayed open.

we got into cuenca at about 730am and it was drizzling a bit, which was disappointing, but this was the last time ive seen rain. apparently this is bad because rain means that we have electricity because everything is hydro powered. my personal belief is that this reliance on torrntially downpouring weather only breeds more of it. perhaps if ecuador changed its electrical policy, the rain would feel unwanted and only come at regular intervals. i should be in charge of energy and stuff.

ive started working again and classes are going fine. a few new cafes opened up so ive been sitting in them. it has been nice to see people i know, the cats are bigger. we have a couple of different roomates, which has taken some getting used to, but we will survive i guess. and, we have a brand new $8 per day budget which has been weirdly easy to follow. things couldnt be better. so thats that.

believe in the jungle

i have developed the habit of not believing people when they say things. part of this is due to peopels incessant bragging, and part due to other factors. for example: in colombia we were taking a van from here to there down a hot, dusty road. a goat ran by in front of the van and the van had to stop short. everyone slid forward and was slightly alarmed. the driver apologized. i saw the whole thing happen, though many did not. i told anna, "a goat ran by." nearby, in a separate conversation, a guy said, "i think it was a dog, goats dont run like that." i fle tno need to respond or justify my opinion. i was never in doubt. the driver heard the discussion and announced that a goat had run by. the other guy was quiet. i didnt necessarily feel vindication because i never thought i was wrong.

we met a girl in colombia who claimed that she had traveled extensively and lived in africa. she had also lived in new york city and had many interesting jobs. yet, her other topics of conversation included, exclusively, how drunk she was and had been - and her urinary tract infection. something was incongruous. then, we found out that she was 21 and had just graduated college. she had studied abroad in egypt and visited other countries for a short amount of time (different connotation than what she had originally announced). and, i didnt ask, but im assuming she did some sort of internship in new york.

 

so, when we got to the jungle, i didnt know what to think. first of all, it is difficult to imagine the expansiveness of the jungle. we were in teh amazon basin and ecuador doesnt even touch the amazon river itself. we were on the cuyabeno river and we were about 5 hours of busride into the jungle, and then a conoe ride. we conoed (in a canoe with motor) some three hours from where we were - all dense jungle, dripping and humid with bird calls, monkeys and insects filling the air with noise. still, on the map we hardly traveled any significant distance even in ecuador - a tiny country that is half jungle. the rest of the amazon basin is in larger portions of peru, colombia and of course brazil. we canoed so much that i figured we must have crossed into brazil, but no. at night, the chatter of birds and insects far off sounded like the chatter of a nearby family gathered around the tv, but no. we were in pretty deep as far as im concerned but space in the world is difficult to gauge, so there was always the sneaking suspicion that we were in the bronx zoo somewhere, lost.

 

we brought a bottle of rum into the jungle, but that was gone after the first night due to our having met some nice people and hanginga out with our guide, romulo. after helping himself to significant portions of our rum, romulo became drunk and talkative. he told stories of staring jaguars face to face. he told stories of capturing 30 foot anacondas and fishing pirhanas with his machete. i figured that i, a city kid, had no real ground to stand on from which to not believe him until he made one slip-up. he brought out two drink concoctions to contribute to the party. one was a sugarcane moonshine steeped with a special tree bark. it was kind of tasty and aromatic and it burned your insides. the other, which burned more, was a sugarcane moonshine steeped with coca leaves and a dead scorpion. the scorpion juice was given the distinction of being the source of his strength. he said it made him stronger and never made him chuchaqui (hungover). he could drink it all night and get up at daybreak and do manual labor, then catch an anaconda. even more than the scorpion juice, however, was a remedy his grandmother made him drink when he was young. she killed a turtle once, they ate it, and she made him drink the blood of the turtle. that turtles blood (since turtles live so long) has made it so that he has never been sick and is always strong and ready for action. still, i had no reason not to believe him. later though, many drinks down the road, his voice more slurred, he told a story about how strong his father is, and that once when he was sick, his father lifted a conoe all by himself even though romulo was supposed to help. ha! when he was sick, i thought, what happend to the turtle juice remedy?! great, i thought, we are being led around the jungle by a cocky, lying 19 year old kid!

 

the next night, we went on a conoe trip down the river searching for wildlife. the river is of the muddy, murky jungly sort and the banks are muddy as well. it is hard to spot things during the day. at night, when it is dark, the task becomes tougher. romulo positioned himself at the front of the canoe, with a weak flashlight in hand, while i was content to sit back, listen to the bugs, and not think about what would await me if the boat tipped over. every so often, romulo would announce that an alligator was on teh banks. when he shines his light on them, their eyes glowed red. most of them would slide into the water when we came too close. most of them i didnt see. one time, under a large fallen tree, and the growth around it, romulo spotted a red eye. we paddled over to the banks, and i didnt see what he was talking about, so i thought maybe it had either slid into the water, or he was making it up. from where i was, all i saw was romulo bend over the side of the canoe, then i heard some banging and within a few seconds, romulo stood up holding a caiman (a type of alligator). he held it up by the neck and the pelvis. he brought it through the canoe for all of us to pet. it was hard like a rock and scaly. he told us that you can tell its age by how many spikes its tail has. this one was 15 months old. he opened its mouth and showed us its razor teeth, and put it back in the water. the whole boat was exhilerated and i decided that i had no right not to believe his stories.