Otovalo, Ecuador

- You know that day destroys the night, thirty-nine{sic} times a day; try to run; try to hide; break on through to the other side – Morrison, James.

Daylight came early in the Andes for 39 on Friday. Through the fog and mist, one by one we staggered our way to the lobby for our cattle-call departure. What we found in the lobby was something that, well, we just were not expecting. We lost a fellow. Amidst a sea of beards, some scraggly and others robust, was a clean-shaven* island of a face. That face, from that fellow, at that point ceased to exists. The code of solidarity was broken. All male fellows had made sworn oath to each other, that from the Embassay until customs in LA, no more razor blades. Was it Jose? Not he! Schapp? He withstood a jungle feaver yet his wiskers still itched! How about poor scraggly James – not a chance in hell that guy can grow a beard. Yet there, alone and guilty of deceit and mistrust, stood one Richard Keith Stark. We won’t be referencing this wayward soul again.

*Excepting a small patch of fuzz around the cleft in his chinny chin chin.

We split into two, group A and group B, in hopes that at the equator we soon were to be. Yes, that was a Seussian rhyme – the fun bus was on a roll. Loud and rowdies on one and the quiet and shy recluses on the other. At this point in our fellowship, there was zero debate on who belonged on either bus. Very biblical really.

We stopped and walked over the equator. See picture of the full effect. Yes, it was THAT exciting It was so momentous that our tour guides from Metropolitan Touring presented each of us with a certificate commemorating this historic crossing! How touristastic. From there, we single-filed back to our respective buses to the left and the right. We thought that Otavalo would soon be in sight. Again, we were wrong, yet another picture-perfect stop stood in our way. Young, old, and even deceased were treated to coffee and snacks at an authentic working hacienda on a flower plantation. The palatial estate included a chapel, a stable, dozens of 100-rose arrangements, a former dairy, and three papal dispensations by three different pontiffs!! Cannon commented that he didn’t know it would be that cold on the equator as the mist and drizzle continued its downward pour. We were all presented with beautiful pink or multi-colored roses for our picture. Greg loved every minute of it and it took the good Captain Morgan quite a lot of time to cajole our Bakersfield Brother back to the bus. We don’t know what he said, but Greg’s smile was big and bright!

We finally arrived in Otavalo and sat down to an otherwise siesta-inducing cuy and friends lunch. Dr. Young was in heaven. Strangely enough, hyper consumer Ivor mysteriously lost his appetite for all food. Strange thing this equatorial zone. Cue Twilight Zone theme. After the cluster that was the beverage payment, we bussed over to the Agricultural College for a briefing and tour. My my my, was this place nothing like the one we visited in Cuzco – they remembered we were coming and even had a qualified instructor on salary! While the work with field crops and fruits proved interesting – what really whet our appetite was the trip around the livestock production clusters. Let us be the first to let you, dear loyal readers, know that we are now experts in the propagation of cuy – utilizing the newest and most advanced methods. Impressed does not even begin to describe our collective opinion on what very well could replace beef as the all-American protein source. Jonnalee let us know that slaughter and prep are easy – she found a do-it-yourself book on the internet. Vallis wretched to himself.

From there we traveled to see the work of the Benson Institute. For those of you like us that are unfamiliar with what BI does, we’ll tell you. The Benson Institute is an international organization that works to help the indigenous poor to vary their diets, grow and cook more in a sustainable fashion, and improve their lives through nutrition. We broke into three teams, each with one of the good doctors (Young, Flores, and Thomas) assigned to “keep us under control”, to visit multiple families in various stages of the three-year program. While the individual experiences varied from group to group, the commonality of agenuine gratitude expressed by each family hit all of us to the core. Even Foley.

We retreated to the final destination- the Hacienda Cuisin, rustic swank with a splash of old world elegance and charm. Many of the females in the group had their own private cottages. This in itself requires it’s own blog post. Stay tuned...