Acampar!

El fin de semana fuimos a acampar (We went camping this weekend) con unos amigos (with some friends) en su finca (in their farm) por Cerro Verde. Fue bacanísimo! (It rocked). Traemos una carpa grande, unos colchonites, comida—pan, atún, queso—, y unos instrumentos musicales (y las hula-hulas). (We brought a big tent, some sleeping mats, food—bread, tuna, cheese—, and some musical instruments (and the hula hoops).) Comemos las frutas de la finca—mandarinas, mora, guava, y limas— y caminamos al mar, a una playa que se llama Puerto Chino. (We ate the fruit of the farm—clementines, blackberries, guava, limas— and we walked to the ocean, to a beach called Puerto Chino.)

My shins hurt from walking downhill so much (downhill for about an hour), so at the end I was more than willing to brave the icy water for a quick post-hike dip. It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend, and it was nice to finally visit our friends´ farm, which we had tried to get out to see so many times. The owners are the family of musicians whom we teach English to over breakfast and have been hanging out with throughout the trip. We went with the two middle boys (15 and 19) and their friend from Quito, who we immediately connected with. (The family has friends streaming in and out of the house steadily, not to mention the fact that they themselves are always coming and going—the father is a musician who travels, and the two oldest brothers are in and out of the house and other countries). Their world is a fascinating mix of stability and change, as you always know what to expect when you walk in the door, but it is never the exact same group of friends.

In any case, as soon as we arrived at the farm and hauled all of our strange luggage up to the campsite, the fresh forest air revived us. Burros and birds squawked around us as we set up our huge, 6 person tent. Later, our friends led us on a tasty tour of the finca (farm), plucking blackberries and guava along the way. At night we built a campfire (which desperately lacked marshmallows), played cards, and settled in for the night. When putting out the fire, our friends attempted to cover the burning-out sticks with tierra, spreading thousands of small glittering red embers around on the ground that we had cleared. Looking down on it, we were struck by the beauty of the blinking mass, which seemed at times like a giant city at night, an alien landscape, or some vision of the end of the world.

The next day the middle son left for Quito, to perform with his brother and band-mates there, so it was just the four of us, and a bit more tranquil (no brother-bickering, hahaha). When we were waiting to leave the finca, we picked a bagful of mora (blackberries), which we used to make two pies on Monday (though we didn’t strain the seeds, and they were a bit crunchy!).

Back at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, we’ve been continuing with our classes, finishing up what will be our last week at the foundation (well, I guess the hula classes will continue until the end of the month, right before we leave Galapagos). After thursday, we will say goodbye to English classes (wahoo!), finish up our yoga and hula classes, and finalize our plans for travelling on the continent. Right now we have a ticket to fly into Guyaquil on October 1st, which we will be going to change or confirm mañana, after making sure our visa extension goes through today.

At this very moment Vicente and I are attempting to practice for our second and last San Viernes Cultural performance followed by a gig at Iguana Rock, everyone’s favorite bar on Cristobal. Unfortunately, he`s having some problems with getting the songs off his ipod, but hopefully we`ll figure it all out. I think that it is time to almorzar, so ciao for now…