Tales of a Travelling Englishman (Ecuador - Part 2)

Chugchilan, a tiny village high in the Andean mountains, numbering no more than 50 homesteads is a strange place to be a popular backpacker destination. Out of the three places to stay in the village, Hostal Cloudforest is cheapest and where I had the pleasure of staying during a surprise birthday trip for my girlfriend. I often wonder why people are prepared to pay more when hostels such as here offer amenities and services to match.

Upon arriving at Hostal Cloudforest I was pleasantly surprised at how impressive the hostel was compared to other buildings around. I was also happy to hear the $8 a night per person charge for a double room with shared bathroom facilities also included breakfast and a rather nice three course evening meal. With Chugchilan having no restaurants this was a bonus!

Hostal Cloudforest is situated in two adjacent buildings. The newer of the buildings contains the new en-suite rooms, located above the bar and restaurant and cost a little extra at $10 a night per person. Unless you are visiting in high tourist season, which I’m not exactly sure when is for such a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, an en-suite bathroom isn't really a necessity as the toilets and showers are located right next to the rooms.

The rooms are adequate although nothing special. Decoration is sparse but luckily with the Andean cold, each room comes with a good supply of warm blankets. Linen, towels, and soap are also provided. The showers have hot water 24/7, a definite bonus during the cold nights. The older rooms without en-suite bathrooms only have a catch on the door. Therefore a padlock is needed to lock your door from the outside when venturing on day trips.

Chugchilan is prime territory for adventurous hiking and horseback riding. Hostal Cloudforest helps brilliantly with both of these, organising horses and guides for trips into the Andean wilderness. Maps are also available. With all this exercise it's a good job breakfast, served between 6.30am-9am including bread, eggs, jam and tea, and evening dinner are available. Evening meals are served around 7pm and consist of an adequate feeding and includes all your normal Ecuadorian staples. Beer and other alcoholic drinks are also available.

After eating, entertainment and dancing is put on by a local group of school children, which brings an enjoyable end to the day. The hostel also offers Internet, although at the ridiculous price of $5 an hour I think very few people use this facility. During my stay there was only one real problem I encountered, a rather annoying American Peace Corp volunteer who liked to call this hostel his home. Not only did his arrogance undermine the politeness of the owner but his superiority complex and forcefulness made myself and other volunteers feel like not wanting to take full advantage of the communal areas the hostel has to offer. More information can be obtained by calling the hostel directly on 03814808.

The Thursday weekly market in Saquisili is one of the most important indigenous markets economically in all of Ecuador. If you have a spare Thursday morning, it won't be wasted with a trip to Saquisili. A trip on any other day will make you wonder what all the fuss is about.

Reaching Saquisili is very straightforward. From Latacunga (a 2 hour bus journey from Quito, costing $1.50) buses to Saquisili on a Thursday leave every ten minutes from the main bus station on the Panamericana and cost $0.30 for the 20 minute journey.

It's best to arrive into Saquisili as early as possible in order to catch most of the frantic action, especially the animal market, which by 9am is finished. If it’s tourist souvenirs you are after, arriving around 8.30am into Saquisili is recommended. Tourist trading doesn't kick off as early as the all important animal market, but the earlier you get there, the more chance you have of a decent price. From 10am onwards more tourists arrive, which can almost double the starting price of many souvenirs.

Upon arriving you can literally smell the atmosphere. In total there are seven different plazas, each dedicated its own specific product to sell. If this isn't enough, every street adjoining and connecting the different plaza's are also rammed full of street sellers offering anything from freshly baked bread to real scorpion key rings.

I felt the clothes market, located to your right as you disembark the bus was disappointing, as the indoor clothes market in Latacunga is bigger with a wider variety. Sadly due to having a fiesta to attend the night before, I arrived too late for the animal market, so I’m unable to comment on this. The food markets seem to go on forever and due to their size and the amount of traders selling identical products, prices here are lower than other daily markets in the area, like Latacunga and Zumbahua.

The best part for me (other than getting eight avocados for $1) was the tourist market. Prices here I found cheaper than Quito and Otavalo, with the quality of a high standard. Three hours is more than enough time to walk around Saquisili and its sprawling market. If you find this hungry work, there are many street vendors and small restaurants selling your typical Ecuadorian foods. If you haven’t already tried guinea pig, then Saquisili is your perfect opportunity to do so. Not only can you pick your own from the twisted and distorted faces of pain on offer, but prices here are cheap. Expect to pay between $3 and $5 for half a guinea pig.

After finishing your Saquisili experience, buses out of the town leave from every corner. Local buses, such as those travelling to Sigchos, Chugchilan and Lasso leave from next to the tourist market, while those returning back to Latacunga and the Panamericana leave from next to the main plaza, the opposite end of town to both the food and tourist markets.

When viewing recommendations for activities in Ecuador, one thing that is always said not be missed is the 'Nariz del Diablo' train ride from Riobamba passing through Guamote, Alausi before descending down the 'Devils Nose' (hence the name 'Nariz del Diablo') to Sibambe.

The 'Devils Nose' part of the journey from Alausi to Sibambe consists of a series of switchbacks, descending almost 1000m down a vertical rock face, which cost hundreds of lives in the making in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s often claimed this is the most amazing feat of railway engineering ever to be performed and makes for one of the world's most amazing train journeys. With such a billing I was a tad excited at partaking in such a journey but my experience left me with a feeling of disappointment, which I have to point towards the 'most amazing train journey' billing, plus a few other little discrepancies.

The train journey starts out of Riobamba, normally at 7am, but on my trip the train left an hour earlier. When the train arrived instead of the traditional locomotive you see in all the photos pulling in to the station, a bus on a train chassis arrived. Luckily we were still able to sit on the roof, although I would recommend arriving an hour earlier than departure to secure a seat on the roof.

The 'Devils Nose' part of the journey, where you descend down the switchbacks, but this was highly disappointing. There were only two switchbacks, descended in less than ten minutes. The train ride to Machu Picchu from Cusco in Peru, although not publicly noted for its fame contains at least twice as many switchbacks just to get out of Cusco, and the scenery is far more breathtaking.

For me though the most interesting part of the journey is from Riobamba to Alausi, before you reach the 'Devil's Nose'. The scenery the train takes you through changes dramatically. One minute you can be passing small rural villages, the next you can be going through pine forests, the paramo, or crossing lush green gorges, the land zigzagged with various vegetables of the inhabiting farmers. The only negative part of this journey is the bitterly cold temperatures and misty weather. If you don't wrap up warm, it will certainly ruin your whole journey.

You stop twice along the way at Guamote and Alausi. Both stations offer a well needed toilet break, a selection of street food (which to be expected is well overpriced!) and a variety of souvenir sellers. You get a 10-15 minute rest at each stop. Tickets for the typical Riobamba-Sibambe-Alausi journey cost $11. You can return back to Riobamba for an extra $3, although it's much quicker (and cheaper) to disembark at Alausi and catch a bus back to Riobamba, normally cutting 2 hours off the journey. Although I was let down with the trip due to my high expectations, it is still something I would do if visiting the Sierra region of Ecuador.

Chugchilan, a tiny village deep in the Andean Mountains containing no more than 20 houses, seems a strange place to be popular on the backpacker circuit. Its approximate half-way point on the Quilotoa Loop explains its popularity. There are only three places to stay here and although most people use Chugchilan as a stop-off point, a place to rest for the day, the village has much to offer in its own right.

Located on the Toachi Canyon, its idyllic position gives many opportunities for horseback rides into the surrounding Andean wilderness. All accommodation in Chugchilan offers a variety of horseback rides and varied information on different hikes. I would recommend hiking down into the Toachi Canyon, a 4-hour round-trip to the banks of Rio Toachi where a few homesteads, a beautiful little church, and a school can be found. Be aware of the dogs though, which can be aggressive when passing their homes. Have a few stones at the ready! My hostel, Hostal Cloudforest, was excellent in arranging hikes and horseback tours.

Within the local vicinity there is much to visit on horseback. I decided on a 6-hour trek costing $12. For this you are taken galloping through the Andean countryside high into the Paramo, where you visit a local cheese factory, followed by a quick gallop to pre-Incan ruins and both primary and secondary cloud forests. The pre-Incan ruins were a little disappointing as they were just trenches in the ground, but the cloud forests made up for this. Shrouded in thick clouds, it was amazing galloping through the tiny forest paths, the clouds not allowing you to see more than a couple of metres in front of you.

This was only the second time I had ridden a horse and by the end of the 6 hours, I was in a foul, angry mood from all the pain I was experiencing, but this took nothing away from the day’s experience. I would highly recommend starting your horseback trek as early as possible as the clouds immerse Chugchilan and the surrounding areas very quickly and normally torrential rain occurs from 2pm onwards.

Within Chugchilan itself there is very little to keep you occupied, as it resembles a ghost town most days. The only place really offering substantial food for lunch is Hostal Cloudforest, with hearty almuerzos costing only $2. I don't really have fond memories of my lunch here though, as it gave me a bad case of food poisoning, which made the journey out of Chugchilan a nightmare. Only two buses leave Chugchilan every day, both to Latacunga, one via Zumbahua at 4am and one via Sigchos at 3am. There are also two buses to Chugchilan from Latacunga from the Terminal Terrestre, one at 11:30am and the other at midday. All journeys cost $2.25. There is a milk float that leaves Chugchilan at 9am that takes you as far as Sigchos, where there is more regular transport to Latacunga.

Otavalo seems to be held very highly in the eyes of the Ecuadorian Tourism Board. Indeed almost every tourist that spends enough time in this wonderful country will make the trip here, located two hours north of Quito, for its world renowned Saturday market. Sadly though it seems its traditional business of weaving has now been overtaken by this frenzied selling of souvenirs with the stereotypical fanny belt and camera touting tourists willing to pay over the top prices for their souvenir goods.

I should know by now that places with such a high billing always seems to disappoint me and I’m afraid Otavalo falls into this category. I'm not saying it isn’t worth a visit though. Although Otavalo has tourist markets, the town’s biggest attraction and economic income every day of the week, the best and biggest by far is the market on Saturday. Catching a bus from outside Terminal Terrestre in Quito to Otavalo is almost as easy as someone trying to pick-pocket you on the cities public transport system, leaving every ten minutes and costing $2 for the two hour ride.

The ride to Otavalo is quite breathtaking even with the random Jean Claude Van Dam movies that buses seem to have a craving. As well as many high gorges and cascading waterfalls you also pass the snow covered Cayambe and Imbabura volcanoes and the rather scenic Lago (lake) de San Pablo.

Upon arriving into Otavalo and getting dropped off at the bus station in the north end of town, it's only a five minute walk south along Calle Sucre until you reach the sprawling market. The size of the market is quite unbelievable, running the length of Calle Sucre up to Parque Central and encompassing the majority of the side roads as well. You would need a good 2-3 hours to take in the whole market but similarly to Pisaq in Peru, one hour is probably enough as the market stalls become slightly monotonous with each one selling virtually identical goods. These same goods can be found in any tourist place in Ecuador such as Banos, Quito, Saquisili and Riobamba, with similar qualities and prices. Therefore a specific trip to Otavalo is not really a necessity.

The first stalls reached on the walk southwards from the bus terminal almost put me off from venturing any further with the ridiculously high prices the stall holders were quoting. Luckily the further south along Calle Sucre you walk, the lower the prices get and if you are here late in the day you can actually get yourself some decent bargains.

For me, my trip to Otavalo was enjoyable, but there wasn’t anything I hadn't already seen at numerous other destinations around Ecuador. The only reason I would recommend a Saturday morning trip here is for the animal market located all the way at the bottom of Calle Sucre, 2km south of the tourist market.

Well, I have to admit that this week has been a totally different week to previous weeks in Ecuador, for a number of reasons. On the positive side though, I have learnt many invaluable life experience lessons that will stand me in good stead later in life.

As there isn’t anymore school now for the next 3 weeks, I thought this would give me the chance to kick back my shoes and fully enjoy my new surroundings. Maybe even crack a few jokes and bond with my fellow teachers. Sadly my fellow teachers had other ideas and shipped me off to work in the day nursery. Maybe they were trying to tell me something!

First of all, babies at the present moment in time aren’t exactly the kind of thing I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of. So when I arrived at the nursery and was sent straight upstairs to where all the babies were waiting to be changed and dressed, my face, if I’m honest with you, didn’t really light up with joy and satisfaction. Up until this moment I had never dressed another person in my life. Undressed, possibly, as I am an adult and have experienced contact with the female gender earlier in my life! Dressing a baby though is a completely different kettle of fish. How such tiny creations of nature can have so much strength and stubbornness when being made to do something they don’t want to do is something that I will never understand. Luckily though, to address the problem of dressing the baby I also found out that their arms are very flexible and can bend into positions that an expert of the karma sutra would be proud of.

Now, dressing the baby was the easy part, as when coming across the nappies, I have to say that I acted like a true man, and played dumb to what this amazing invention was. Even so, I am dumbfounded at how much mess can fit into these white bundles of joy. Projectile vomit I can deal with, but the visions of projectile diarrhoea I came across here is something that will haunt me to my dying day. I will save you the details!

Very important as well, which I certainly think is a fact that needs more publicity, especially with me, is that babies find sitting up under their own accord impossible. I realised this before it was too late, before the baby I was dressing fell off the bed. Although for a split second it was touch and go. I thank my parents for giving me the ability of quick reflexes (I’d definitely get a 20 for reflexes on Champ, that’s a certainty!).

After the amount of sh** I have seen this week it has put me off having my own children for the foreseeable future, and more importantly also put me off having the tendencies and urge of picking up children and swinging them around. This I also learnt the hard way. After picking up an energetic young boy, I quickly noticed that his happy smile had been replaced to a look that shouted discomfort. On seeing this I quickly stopped swinging him around and gently let him back into the gravitational pull of the Earth. Feet firmly on the ground I inspected the boy to see what this urgent problem was that he seemed to have. I saw a small stain on the inside of his leg, and politely took him to one of the female members of staff, where I explained that somehow in the previous few minutes, this darling of a child had had a small accident. On closer inspection though the female member of staff realised, that indeed he had had an accident, but calling it a small one was something of an enormous understatement. Some sort of brown substance had managed to work its way, not only down to and on his shoes but also up to his neck as well. I really have never seen anything like it, but from the scolding that the child got, I do think that he learnt his lesson, and me also.

All this happened on my first day, and I thought I had got through the worst of it until it was decided that we would take the children on an outdoor adventure to the local forest. There is one problem with trips to a forest in a 3rd World country, you are guaranteed of no toilet facilities. This message was brought home when one young girl came running up to me and confided that this moment was ideal for a bit of defecating. Finally deciding to face such problems head on, instead of pathetically handing them on to some other unsuspecting member of staff, I quickly rushed the girl to the side of the path where upon getting her trouser and pants down in time, she decided to drop her load straight into her pants. She must have seen the look of disgust and annoyance on my face, because she found the whole event very amusing. So did the other staff as they watched the Gringo chase a soiled child through the forest. Luckily for me it was a perfect one, so the mess was kept to a minimum.

During my week at the nursery, other than these incidences, I had a boy kick his shoe right between my eyes (very painful indeed!) and was left in the awkward position of being left alone with a room full of babies as their mothers came to breast feed. I honestly didn’t know where to look. I have never seen so many naked boobies in one room before, and I doubt I will ever see such a thing again. I have a feeling I was put in this position on purpose, due to my week of inadequate work performances.

I think the children also need some help with their English pronunciation, although as they are still all under the age of 4, I will let them off for now. All the children seem to have the tendency of repeating everything I say, although some words are far to complex for their basic vocabulary and pronunciation to cope with. One such word is ‘wait’. Now this may seem harmless enough, but say it to children here under the age of 4, and you met with a perfectly pronunciated ‘w*nk’ response. Now I can’t see any resemblance between these two words, but somewhere inside the mind of a child, they are indeed identical.

Apart from these lovely moments of experiencing the life as an Ecuadorian nursery worker, one part of Ecuadorian culture has come to my attention, and is something that is causing me a little concern. This concern is the ridiculously tight trousers that I have seen many women wearing here. Normally I would have absolutely no problem with this at all. I mean, up until recently I was also wearing ridiculously tight trousers, but that was more down to being overweight, than wanting to show off my pert ass. Many of the trousers that the women wear don’t seem to have been made correctly, as they seem to have left no breathing space in a very delicate part of the female anatomy. I’m sorry but in my opinion, camel toes are not the future of evolution and female sexuality.

Well. the biggest piece of news coming out of the Central Sierra region of Ecuador this week, has been the amazing capture of a real life Leprechaun in the town of Mulalo, the nearest village to where I am living. Apparently according to the voices of local inhabitants, he came willingly, and was more than happy to be placed head first into a glass bottle.

Now, I don’t want to be seen as a skeptic here, in what could be the biggest find the world has ever seen, but there are a number of questions that I need to have answers for, before believing this tall tale. Firstly aren’t Leprechauns’ natives of Ireland? How did they make it to this part of the world? Secondly, I always thought the little green creatures waited at the end of rainbows with their pots of gold and lucky charms? As I haven’t seen any rainbows since arriving here, I can only assume that business in the rainbow gold trade is pretty slow going and they have decided to branch out their operations. I did ask where this bottle was now, and how the Leprechaun liked his new environment, but unfortunately nobody seemed to know of its whereabouts. Sad really, as my Irish impression needs some practice.

Joking aside, and being serious for once, the role of ghosts, the supernatural, and any other phenomena that has yet to be fully proven plays a hugely important role in the everyday lives of people here. More or less everyone has either seen, felt or spoken to spirits of the after-life. I find these incidences highly interesting as having a few strange experiences in my time (and I’m not referring to excessive alcohol consumption and dark nightclub dance floors!), I find this outlook quite refreshing. For example, when I dream of people who no longer walk this Earth, and who speak of some startling revelations, when I awake, I put this down to nothing but the imagination of my mind. Here in Ecuador if the same thing occurs it is seen as a message from beyond the grave. I am certainly not mocking such beliefs as in reality they are just as plausible as other explanations. Aren’t they?

While I am willing to give such beliefs the benefit of the doubt, I was told a story this week that I think is one Jackanory too far. On a weekend walk to view a rock the size of a house, located a couple of kilometres from my house, which was blown from the top of Cotopaxi Volcano the last time it erupted, we came across a 50-year-old man who told us an unbelievable tale. After preaching to me about the pros and cons of God and the Devil (I think he was slightly crazy!) he beckoned me closer to tell us of a near death experience he had earlier in the week. While minding his own business splashing around in a nearby river, a rainbow came out of nowhere and tried to pull him towards oblivion. Luckily he had his machete at hand and was able to slice himself free from the rainbow, before escaping into the forest. After delighting me with this ‘true’ tale, he praised the Lord, knelt down and kissed the soil in front of my feet. It looked as though he was eating the soil rather than kissing it as when he returned to his feet, his face was covered in dirt and grass. He let out a cheeky grin; teeth covered in gravel and walked off down the road. A very strange man indeed.

Water is an important commodity and I learnt just how important it was this week. Upon waking on Sunday morning I decided to do a bit of washing, which I timed to perfection as just after I had finished the water went off. To make matters worse, after hanging my clothes outside, it started raining for the first time since arriving, making both my clothes, and the wood I use for heat during the cold nights, dripping wet and impossible to use. If this wasn’t already bad enough I woke up the following morning with temperatures touching zero inside my bedroom, and with no clean clothes or water, you can imagine the mood I was in! It was so cold, that if I had been living 100 metres higher, I would have been walking to school in the snow. Not something I really expected living on the Equator!

It took 4 days until our water returned. Living without a shower for this period was bad enough, but not being able to flush the toilet certainly highlighted the love my girlfriend has for me, and viceversa. After three days of ‘suffering’ the rose plantation finally decided to do something about it, giving us a kid of brown liquid that was supposedly water, but the colour looked as though one of the little children had left a dirty present in it for me. It certainly wasn’t fit to drink, but allowed the toilet to receive a well deserved flush. Thankfully the next day water returned. How people survive during droughts sadly I will never know.

After five weeks of waiting, I have finally been given my timetable for the forthcoming school year and was quite shocked to learn that as well as teaching the fine language of English (American not British!), I will also be trying my hand at teaching both maths and music, with a couple of lessons of P.E. thrown in for good measure. As I know nothing about maths and, especially music, I have to say morale was low upon finding out. To improve this I kept telling myself motivational phrases such as ‘I’m here for the kids’, and ‘I’m here for a long time, not a good time’, which didn’t help much to be honest.

I suppose these extra subjects could have been revenge for what I thought was a harmless comment I made earlier in the week. A fellow teacher was telling a heart-wrenching story around the lunch table of how the children react when their twice yearly vaccinations take place. Upon hearing the doctors’ car, they rush to the window to confirm their worst fears and then proceed to dart around the classroom like crazed lunatics, making strange whining noises. Apparently comparing this behaviour to that of dogs with fireworks wasn’t the most appropriate response I could have made, and led to a few rather disgusted looks from other members of staff. I suppose I should know better considering the harsh life that these children face.

Other than this, I also saw corruption at its finest, as my bus was pulled over while on the way to the nearby town of Latacunga. The traffic cop made up a ludicrous offence committed by the driver, snatched away his driving license and ordered the bus to follow him to a quiet deserted road, where I am sure a bribe would have been handed over. Obviously no one was allowed to see this honest behaviour as everyone was made to disembark and wait to catch another bus to take us into town. Something that interested me even more were the actions of a fellow passenger who after seeing the bus stopping for the police, ran all the way from the front of the bus to the back and hid behind the back seats. Highly suspicious behaviour if you ask me.

In a week where I started teaching for real, it was partaking in one of the biggest festivals in Ecuador that took the limelight for the week. I have to admit partly for the wrong reasons though.

The second from last weekend in September is known throughout the country as the time for the world famous Mama Negra Fiesta. Basically this ‘religious’ festival seems to be just an excuse to have one big drunken street party. Even better still is that it takes place in the nearest town to where I am living, Latacunga. I’m not that religious to be honest but after seeing the huge amounts of free alcohol on offer that lead to copious amounts of rowdiness and debauchery, then please consider me born again!

The festival started at 9am, and from this moment onwards, there were hundreds of people parading through town in traditional dress, dancing traditional dances and offering sacrifices of food, alcohol, and cigarettes to appease the gods. If I was God I would be a little annoyed as by the end of the parade a couple of hours later, all alcohol had been drunk and cigarettes smoked. To make matters worse, the parade was performed again in the afternoon with a fresh stock of alcohol and cigarettes, this time though in much larger quantities. Virtually no one could walk in a straight line this time around, which seemed to go down a treat with the adoring crowds. Being so drunk also led many performers to see this as the perfect opportunity to rummage into the crowd and cop a feel of all the beautiful ladies. Highly amusing indeed! Even more highly amusing were the amounts of free alcohol being dished out. Age didn’t seem to be a problem as I saw many children guzzling down hard liquor in large quantities.

Anyway, some of you might know me as a guy who likes saving his pennies and who can’t turn anything down that’s free. This is probably why at 4pm I was already showing the tell-tale signs of the menace that I am after alcohol consumption. Being a menace on the streets of London is one thing, being a menace on the small rural streets of Ecuador is a completely different matter. I at least made the conscious effort to refrain from trying to start chants of ‘One man went to war’, ‘Can you take another Stella’ and ‘We’ll be running round Tottenham’. For some reason I knew these wouldn’t go down well at all.

Sadly, such efforts of not being a menace were thwarted upon returning to my friend’s house, where her father was readily waiting with a couple of bottles of the finest Scotch Whiskey, to be shared amongst us all. It was this moment where I wish I was sensible enough to copy my girlfriend and opt out after a couple of swift shots of the burning liquor, but not wanting to offend the hospitality I happily continued knocking the nectar back.

Now, if I had known that we were going to a salsa club later in the night I would have probably a) stopped drinking as much alcohol, b) eaten more food, or just as importantly c) drank copious amounts of water. Unfortunately, due to nothing but stupidity, I did none of these, arriving at the salsa club red-eyed and in full menace mode.

I managed to hold my own for an hour or so before the combination of the variants above started to take their toll and quickly led to my early demise. It started off pretty harmlessly, trying my hand at drunken salsa dancing in the middle of the dance floor, very reminiscent of the Stiffmeister in American Pie 3, except most of the people watching on were showing nothing but repulsion and annoyance of this half-cut Gringo making a fool of himself.

Things didn’t really get much better as my pathetic salsa dancing was soon followed by myself stumbling around the salsa dance floor trying to give everyone high fives. It was probably at this moment I knew I was in trouble. There was still time to do a second round of the dance floor, only this time trying to give as many hunky men kisses on the cheek, only escaping numerous beatings due to the quick thinking of my girlfriend and the beauty of a friend we were with, before collapsing over the toilet. It was here I was found half an hour later in a pile of my own vomit by what I am reliably informed were two strapping bouncers who were kind enough to carry me out of the club fast asleep to a waiting car. It is here that I have to thank my girlfriend for being sensible throughout and taking care of me as it certainly isn’t big, nor clever to get carried away in Mama Negra festivities.

A slight reprieve and the only piece of saving grace to my drunken antics for myself was the friends father who I had been drinking whiskey with returned back home a couple of hours after me in just a worse state, apart from he could actually walk. Even so, he still somehow managed to break the front door of the house, ending up lying in a crumpled heap on the living room floor on top of a collection of broken crockery and figurines. It made me feel a little better. Maybe I am just becoming an Ecuadorian quicker than I thought?

Other than disgracing my country with drunken shenanigans, it was my first week of proper teaching, and I have already acknowledged that a career as a primary school teacher is certainly not for me, having a first week that I wish I could forget in a hurry. It seems the skill of ‘patience’ is a huge necessity in primary school teaching and is a quality that I am sincerely lacking in.

Only five minutes in to my first lesson of the school year, two young boys came up to me asking to use the toilet. Seeing that the lesson was still so fresh and young I declined all their pleading and genital holding antics. Two minutes later they had both wet themselves. Luckily, most of the evidence had dried off by the end of the lesson!

Things didn’t get much better at lunch time when I was forced to play airplanes in order for one child to eat their food. I am not an expert at this game, which can probably help explain why on the second mouthful of food, I misjudged the width of their mouth, sending the salad ladened fork straight in to their gums. Red coloured lettuce isn’t really that attractive! Another kid coming up to me to show me a rather nice machete cut straight down the middle of his forehead, which I highly doubt he could of managed to do himself.

I think I am already in to double figures of the amount of children I have made cry, although most are through the hard stance of punishments I have taken in order to earn a little respect. A few accidents on my part I have to admit have also led to a few tears being shed. On one rendition of ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ a child was getting his toes and knees mixed up. I innocently tried to rectify this problem by pulling his hands down to his toes instead of his knees, only managing to pull the child forward smashing his head on my knee. It was a good 15 minutes until he stopped crying. Although I felt a little guilty, I suppose looking on the bright side he now knows his toes from his knees!

Well that’s more or less all this time around. The security guards at the rose plantation have come up with the ingenious late night game of ‘scare the Gringo’, where they take it in turns to peer through the house windows late at night to see who can scare us the most. It hasn’t really had that much effect so far and I think I was more shocked to look out of the window last week to see Tungurahua Volcano erupting again in the distance. Luckily though unlike the last time, this time was just a small amount of smoke and ash. It was still a strange spectacle to see.

Before the week started, I was hopeful that this would be the best and easiest yet teaching. Sadly, the feelings of joy and happiness at helping the underprivileged and needy didn’t really materialize. I have never been a quitter before, but if it wasn’t for the fact that full-time employment is just not enticing me at the moment, then I think my stint as a primary school teacher might be coming to an end!

Children can be a handful at the best of times, but when you are given classes full of energetic children, most of them with severe behavioral problems through the abuse they suffer, then you know you’re going to be in for a tough ride. Add in the fact that the children I teach know almost no English, and I have to speak in nothing but English to them, then it is a recipe for disaster. Indeed, even my harshest words, angriest faces, and meanest voices have no effect on the mayhem caused. It definitely makes for some interesting lessons.

One such interesting lesson saw me apprehend a rather naughty 6 year old, who was running amok in my lesson, jumping on tables and, I can only assume, trying to electrocute himself by sticking his fingers in the electrical sockets. Of course I quickly pulled him away and gave him a very stern lecture (not that he understood any of my English!) and sat him down in his seat. It was at this point I learnt for the first time, a truly amazing skill that young children here have, the ability to make their bodies go limp. This 6 year old decided this was the perfect moment to show me this. As I sat him down, his body went limp, allowing himself to fall off his chair and smack his head on the concrete floor. I have never heard such a high shrieked wailing sound in all my life upon this happening, which lasted for a good 15 minutes. To make matters even worse the rest of the class looked at me with utter disgust as though it was my fault. For once though, this seemed to calm the class down, and they followed my instructions with absolutely no complaints.

If teaching wasn’t hard enough, to have a couple of confrontations with a fellow teacher certainly didn’t help matters. Both confrontations were over the other teacher deciding she was far superior to me (better and more experienced yes!) and over-ruling the disciplinary actions I had taken against her children. I’m happy to say though all issues have been resolved now, although it is still debated who was correct!

On the bright side though, the students have found my ‘messy Mohican’ hairstyle very interesting and entertaining and at one point in the last week I had seven young boys copying my hairstyle, which I have to admit was rather good for morale and confidence. As most thrills in my life, it was short lived and my new found popularity diminished before it had even begun as a new school rule of no ‘messy Mohican’ hairstyles was imposed by the management. So far I have managed to escape from the ban, although the children, through their despair have nicknamed me ‘father chicken’ and ‘rooster’. I haven’t yet decided if I am a fan of these or not!

After watching almost every Ecuadorian man eye up my girlfriend since arriving here, I feel it is about time I should discuss the appalling behavior and attitudes of the male gender here. Obviously this isn’t everyone, but I would have to say that it is the majority of men in the area where I am living. It seems perfectly normal here for men to beat, punch, kick, hit, and use any other kind of physical abuse to their poor defenseless spouses. My girlfriend was asked by her fellow workers if I ever hit her. They seemed totally flabbergasted when she replied no, as though it couldn’t possibly be so.

Cheating on your girlfriend or wife is also seen as a highly macho thing to do amongst the men here. The more macho you are, the more women you have on the go. It is so inbred in to the culture here, that even if a girl finds out or suspects it, the man normally is forgiven or let off. This is probably the reason why many women here are very paranoid and clingy to their other half! I’m happy to say that just the one woman is enough for me, and I don’t really think my personality really fits in with this macho behavior.

To make me think even less of the men here, they also like to make a ‘sissing’ sound to white women as they pass by. This is the same sound that they also make to scare away dogs. In this culture, such noises seem to be totally acceptable and are made by virtually all men of ‘love-making’ age. What animals!

There is very little else to report this week. It was my girlfriends turn to have her body taken over by a nasty little parasite. Even the locals seem to get this every 3 months or so, so it seems I should be expecting my next parasite invasion just in time for Christmas. There was also another Mama Negra Fiesta in the nearby town of Latacunga, but this time I decided to stay well away from the festivities and free alcohol. I was also planning a trip to the Amazonian jungle town of Puyo, a 4-hour drive away in the next couple of weeks, but as there were a couple of American tourists kidnapped there a few days a go, I might put it off for a while!

That’s all for now. This coming weekend I am travelling deep into the depths of the Andean Mountains in search of the infamous Laguna Quilotoa, a lake in an extinct volcano crater, which has been coined as one of the most beautiful lakes in Ecuador. A tourist died there a couple of weeks back, when she fell down the steep sides of the crater while taking a picture. I don’t expect the same to happen to me though!

The last week of life in Ecuador has easily been the most hectic so far during my short stay here. If planning 25 lessons wasn’t hard enough, I also had the pleasure of taking on the role of a fully fledged builder, helping in the construction of the new school. Sadly though, my lack of strength, muscles and anything masculine proved to be a huge stumbling block in my efforts to help, and I think I will have to take part of the responsibility for us starting the new school year without a new school, and only half the classrooms needed to teach the children. On the bright side though, it should make for a fairly interesting first week.

In between taking on the roles of teacher and builder, I was lucky enough to spend another day at the nursery, the scene of some of my most harrowing moments in Ecuador so far. It wasn’t something I was really looking forward to, especially upon walking through the door and being accosted by two young girls who wanted to know if they should call me Aunt or Uncle. Luckily this was as bad as it got, and there were no repeats of incidences of the previous week.

Sadly though there was more evidence of the neglect and abuse that seems to be rife here. One young boy entered with a rather nasty looking bleeding nose. When I asked what happened, he casually said that his mother had punched him; as though it happ ens all the time. Another girl came running up to me, sobbing her heart out and handed me her broken shoe, the zip tore apart from the seams. There was no way that it could be mended and upon telling her this, she started to cry even more and pleaded with me “please mend it, otherwise my mother will beat me”. In such a situation there is not a lot you can do, other than tell the young girl to tell her mother I broke it and to come and beat me. I’m still waiting for this beating, which probably means that the message didn’t have the purpose it was supposed to do.

If these incidences weren’t harsh enough, my girlfriend had a 3 year old girl start to French-Kiss her arm one afternoon. Now I don’t know if I was just a late starter in life, having my first experience with a girl I wish I could forget about (and wish many of my friends would forget about too!) at the ripe old age of 17. As mentioned previously, these are some of the harsh realities that these children seem to have to face every day and sadly there’s not a whole lot you can do about it in this part of the world.

There are many traditions and beliefs in Ecuador, that I would doubt you would find in many Western countries. I already find it hard to believe that leprechauns roam the area at night, but one sick note brought by one of the toddlers from his mother, is right up there with this. After being absent for a couple of days, the sick note from the mother stated that her poor, sick son, had been ill, because someone had given him ‘the evil eye’. Now, I have been given the evil eye on many occasions, sometimes I think for quite harsh reasons, but it certainly didn’t make me violently ill the next day. From what I have been told such an ‘excuse’ is a common occurrence here and a perfectly acceptable reason for missing school. If only such excuses would work for paid jobs back in England, you could have a field day!

As per usual, my poor Spanish and strange English accent has led to more confusion and humorous moments. I learnt this week that people find it extremely difficult to pronounce the word ‘shy’, instead sounding a perfectly pronounced ‘shite’ word in its place. So instead of saying “you are shy?”, instead I am met with the rather offensive phrase of “you are shite!” Maybe my fellow teachers are just being honest with me?

This week also saw my body being taken over by the parasite Giardia, which leaves you with many unpleasant symptoms that are far too horrible to mention here. Luckily all it took was a quick trip to the doctors, and everything seems to be working pretty much correctly again. Upon returning back to school though after my consultation I informed other staff members of my problem, but I unfortunately pronounced Giardia wrong, which sounded like the word for ‘security guard’ in Spanish. Obviously everyone found it amusing when I was trying to say that I had this parasite inside me, not a security guard.

During my short stay in the nursery this week I was given an impromptu salsa lesson by one of the workers. Unfortunately I was absolutely terrible at the ‘it’s all in the hips’ moves I was being shown and was asked how I normally dance. I decided this was the perfect moment to show them my own style of dancing, and before I knew it, the other workers were all copying my actions, saying how unique and good it was. Unique yes, but good is certainly not the word I would call it.

Christmas on the rose plantation I have learnt will be quite an interesting and exciting affair. Apparently Secret Santa is deemed far too lame to be carried out here. Instead they bring a couple of angry bulls in to the plantation and hang presents on their horns, where the workers have the chance to try and snatch the presents without getting gored. Last year two workers went to hospital after allowing the bulls to stick their horns into some pretty painful places. I think this will be one activity I will be watching from afar!

That’s more or less all of interest this week. I tired the local delicacy of cow skin soup, which is something I won’t cry too hard about if I don’t eat again, especially when you’re expected to eat the rather large pieces of skin that still contain all of the hairs. I have also finally started running again, and have a half marathon lined up in Quito at the start of next year. I doubt my time will be anything to write home about, but it’s another medal!