Ecuador's Amazon Rain Forest (El Oriente)

The Oriente was definitely the best place I visited with my parents. It had everything. A really good guide, beautiful scenery, perfect weather, cool animals (we saw 6 different types of monkeys), and complete relaxation. We were at the Napo Wildlife Reserve. While not cheap, definitely worth your money and a great place to visit.



Our group for the four days we were in El Oriente. The guy in the front with the blue shirt was our guide. A very bright guy with perfect English. The two on the right were our native guide and extra paddler. We didn't have to paddle. What luxury.


Our lodge at sunrise (not sunset).


My parents enjoying the canoe ride up the river to the lodge.


This is a video of a parrot lick. Every day the parrots come to a place like this where they can eat the exposed chalk. The chalk is necessary for their digestive system.



This plant is very cool. When an insect eats the seeds, the plant takes over the nervous system. It then forces the insect to climb up a tree on to a branch where it can receive sunlight. Once there, the plant sprouts through the animals body and sets its roots down. Isn't that incredible?



A local shaman doing a healing ritual to eliminate bad energies. He used the branch to brush the lady off while making whooshing sounds and would periodically empty the leaves of the bad energy by shaking them at the wall. At the end, he did something where it looked like he was blowing something into the top of her head while making a gutteral sound. Pretty cool to watch. Apparently, in the past, if a shaman could not heal a patient, he would blame it on another shaman in a different tribe casting a curse, at which war would break out. Being a shaman is dangerous business.


Two Macaws that we saw at one of the Parrot Licks.


Toucans!!!!!


Look out for the Anaconda! Actually, we didn't see any. Too bad. But it is still a good picture of the jungle.


Paddling down the river. Did I mention that it was a relaxing trip?

The Galapagos Islands

With this entry, I'm going to try a different approach. More pictures and less words. Let's see how it goes.


With the rents enjoying the sun (obviously not in Quito) and the view. The islands were absolutely gorgeous.

You can see our ship the Santa Cruz on the left in the background. It was a large ship with 85 passengers. We think it was too large, but at least we didn't get sea sick.

Strutting its stuff.



Cool. It was hard not to feel like you were in a zoo.



Boobies!!!!!!!!!!!! And they have blue feet!




With some friends from the boat on the day of the turtles.



These guys are enormous. No one knows how long they actually live, but Darwin's turtle just died. That's right, the same Darwin who wrote about evolution sent an adult turtle back to England and then Australia (?). So at least 170 years old.



Our ship. Definitely NOT sexy.

Peru and a 38 hr. bus ride

Machu Picchu. The Incan citadel in the Andes. My destination...Thursday.

But I shouldn´t get ahead of myself. Let me take a step back.

I´m in Perú. I left last Monday from Quito on a night bus to Guayaquil with a long-time friend of mine from home, Caroline Chalmers. Recently, she decided to travel through South America, and invited me along. Luckily, she´s a chill cookie. Our night bus to Guayaquil took 10 hours. And two hours after arriving, we boarded a 28 hour bus to Lima Peru. Surprisingly, the ride wasn´t too horrendous. I read "Into the Wild", slept 11 hours, watched the scenery, chatted with some tree-huggers, and ya, llegamos. We´ll see if I´m still singing to the same tune after repeating this trip in one week to get back to Quito in time for classes on the 31st of March.

We spent two nights in Lima, and loved it. I was surprised how clean the city was. The sidewalks didn´t have any holes, the buses didn´t billow out huge black clouds as they drove by, the the buildings weren´t falling apart. I was impressed. Also, we found a grocery store that screamed New Seasons (or Whole Foods for you non-Portland folk). I was in heaven. Quito has nothing of the sort.

Now I´m in Cusco. Tomorrow morning we are leaving on an alternative trek to Machu Picchu. We are taking the Salcantay Trail (o algo asi) at 4:30 am. Yikes! But I´m thrilled. I´m so excited to get out on the trail. 5 days, 4 nights. A 4600 meter (15,200 ft.) pass. Beautiful mountains. Hot springs. Machu Picchu. It should be awesome. We are agoing with an agency called Amadcus. It was pretty random how we chose it. Basically, we were walking down the street, walked in, they were leaving when we wanted to leave, the price was right, and they seemed legit. So...listo y Ojalá. Cuzco is pretty cool as well, but incredibly touristy. I haven´t enjoyed it as much as Lima or Quito. I just don´t do the crazy tourist scene well any more.

That´s it on the news. Next time I´ll have photos. Stay tuned. Chao.

Now I've Seen Everything

Well...not quite, actually a long shot from it. But today, I saw something completely new for me. Street dogs humping is a common sight in Latin America. But what I saw is in a whole new ballpark: Two male dogs having sex. It reminded me of the "Ignoble Awards" or something like that, which was won by a scientist that documented the first case of homosexuality in animals (ducks). But this was really interesting and it just goes to show that homosexuality is a natural condition in nature.

Political Saber Rattling and Rumors of War

Some of you may have been following the conflict between Colombia and Ecuador (and Venezuela although it does not involve them). First, I’d like to calm any fears. We are not at war, and war is highly unlikely. Ecuador is not on the “hot-spots” list posted by the State Department. Really, all this amounts to is saber rattling and political posturing. Although, I think there are some real grievances that underlie this conflict.

A cautionary note: this blog entry does not involve anything about my life down here. It is merely a report on the political situation and conflict with Colombia. It is kind of long, but that’s because the conflict is complicated, and I want to do it justice.

First a brief synopsis of events. Last week, Colombia attacked FARC, the leftist leading guerrilla movement (originally) and drug-trafficking terrorist organization (currently), in Ecuadorian territory. They only advanced 1 mile over the border, and they succeeded in killing one of the leaders along with 21 other guerrilla fighters. Plus, they recovered a crucial laptop from the FARC leadership. This laptop supposedly has documented evidence of Chavez (president of Venezuela) giving $300 million to FARC, of the FARC pursuing chemical material to make dirty bombs, and meetings between FARC and Ecuador and Venezuela.

Arguably, this is why Chavez has led the political counter-attack on Colombia, in an attempt to cover up his complicity with the terrorists. He led by severing diplomatic contacts with Colombia and kicked out Colombia’s ambassador, and by stopping trade with Colombia. Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, followed suit by severing diplomatic ties and by getting all huffy about Colombia violating Ecuador’s sovereignty.

It is entirely possible that all of these connections between FARC and Ecuador and Venezuela is a result of the hostage situation that has been playing out in recent months. Venezuela and Ecuador both were helping to negotiate the hostage release. Venezuela was not playing the part of un-biased mediator, so Chavez was dismissed from negotiations. But in January, Ecuador’s Minister of the Interior (or something) went to help negotiate. This is the same time as the supposed meeting between Ecuador and FARC that Colombia is accusing Ecuador of. Furthermore, someone said that Chavez paid $300M for the release of the hostages. This would explain the money payment, but it still doesn’t seem like a proper use of Venezuelan money. (Note: Chavez received $192,000 from FARC in 1992 while in jail after a failed coup. The connection gets deeper.)

Since the attack, Ecuador and Venezuela have sent troupes to the border with Colombia as a show of force. Venezuela says that if Colombia carries out a similar mission in Venezuela, there will be war. But that is ludicrous, because Venezuela has no chance of winning. Colombia has been receiving $600M a year under Plan Colombia to help fight FARC and drug-trafficking in Colombia. Does that seem like a good use of American tax payer dollars? Incidentally, Colombia began its assault on FARC with Plan Colombia. Before Plan Colombia, FARC was stronger militarily and could have taken over the government (apparently), but now Colombia has stronger fire-power. Now, to escape the attacks, FARC crosses the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan borders to rest, regroup, and then re-launch their own assaults in Colombia. Because of this, Colombia is claiming that Ecuador is harboring terrorists.

So why all the anger? Colombia was defending its own national security and might have even done Ecuador a favor. Chavez is not Ecuador, Colombia, or FARC, so this really doesn’t concern him, unless he really has been helping out FARC. Well…there is actually a hidden undercurrent between Colombia and Ecuador that might be causing a lot of the tension.

According to a Colombian living in Ecuador, Ecuador and Colombia were great friends in the past, and had a very healthy relationship. This friendship deteriorated in the last 5 years or so since Colombians have been entering Ecuador in large numbers. This immigration is hard to explain because Ecuador's economy is not strong. In the last decade, the economy collapsed along with all the banks, forcing the switch to the dollar. Now, 1 million Ecuadorians are sending back remittances from Spain. So why would Colombians want to come to Ecuador?

Notice that relations started to deteriorate at about the time that Plan Colombia began. My Spanish teacher, who used to work for the American Embassy, says that the deterioration in good-feelings has to do with the conflict with FARC. FARC has terrorized the south of Colombia near Ecuador's border, forcing civilians to flee the conflict. These civilians are posed with one of two options: move to another Colombian city and try to settle down, or temporarily go to Ecuador where there are free refugee camps until they can return to their land. Returning to their land is the ultimate goal, so they choose the cheaper option. Thus, Ecuador has been receiving a lot of immigrants of late.

This has upset lots of Ecuadorians, because they are being forced to pay for the consequences of the conflict in Colombia, and Ecuador doesn't have any spare resources. A refugee camp doesn’t have to be bad news. But Ecuador is not receiving any financial help from the world or Colombia (or at least not enough). Plus, many of these Colombians have resorted to crime to make a living, which causes bitter feelings. Finally, since Ecuador’s economy is weak, many Ecuadorians think that Colombians are going to take their jobs (notice a parallel?).

Similarly, Ecuador does not want to be drawn into the conflict with the guerrillas. They see this as Colombia's problem, and they don't understand why they have to once again pay for Colombia's war. By attacking the FARC in Ecuador, not only has Colombia violated Ecuador's sovereignty, but they have also made them accomplices with Colombia and therefore the enemy of FARC. This opens Ecuador to retaliation from FARC. Thus, Ecuador wants the fight to stay on the other side of the border.

Unfortunately for Ecuador, they don't really have the option to stay uninvolved in this situation. Ecuador does not have a military large enough to defend its entire border with Colombia, especially in the jungle, so the FARC will cross the border to avoid attacks by Colombia. This gives Ecuador two options: help Colombia defeat the guerrillas, or do nothing and give unofficial amnesty to the guerrillas.

Personally, I think Ecuador should help Colombia, but they should not have to use their own financial resources. Colombia should give part of that $600M to Ecuador to compensate them. Ecuador will suffer casualties, and that is something that will be unavoidable, but at least it prevents the FARC from permanently setting up camp in Ecuador, the worst case scenario for this wonderful (despite all the political posturing) country.

One last comment about Plan Colombia. $600M a year is a lot of money. Ultimately, it is money to bolster Colombia’s military and fight drugs. But considering the results, their must be a better solution. Under Plan Colombia, the military has been crop-dusting a serious chemical on Coca crops to eliminate them. But this chemical kills all plants, not just the targeted plants. Plus, this chemical has been getting into the water in Colombia and Ecuador, causing grave and fatal diseases. Plan Colombia has led to a deterioration of foreign relations and caused a perpetuation of the civil war in Colombia. Might soft power be a better solution? Imagine if Colombia used the $600M to subsidize farmers so that they didn’t have to turn to the lucrative coca farming in order to make a living. Might it be a better plan to convince farmers to plant other crops and working with them rather than destroying their land? Not planting coca would be the most accurate and productive way to eliminate this necessary ingredient for cocaine.

Now, I’d like to leave you with one last question to consider. Some Ecuadorians believe that Colombia should not allow the FARC to leave the country. It is Colombia's problem, so it should remain within their borders. So who's responsibility is it to seal the border. Does Colombia need to prevent people from leaving or does Ecuador need to prevent people from entering?

The Economist has a good article about the situation. You can check it out here. I made a comment on the article. My pen name is Jeff08. Check it out.

But here is an even better article.