Adios, Cuenca!

Better late than never! Here I am on the eve of my Escape from Ecuador, and I promise that I will blog a bit about my time there, but this site will mostly be for What Comes Next.

First things first: a few words about the blog title. My sister deserves the credit for dreaming up "the technicolor yarn" idea for me. It's a play on words alluding to the shocking amount of intestinal parasites I've dealt with over the past four months - "technicolor yawn" is a favorite vomit-related euphemism (spewphemism?) of my dear brother-in-law. The title also, in my mind, ties in nicely with the amount of woven and woolen goods I've been buying down here. And obviously, yarns - I'll be spinning them out as I make my way up and down the spine of the Andes over the next four months, and I hope you'll enjoy my tales.

So.. Ecuador. Cuenca. I've spent the past four months here, working as an International Programs Coordinator at CEDEI (Centers for Interamerican Studies). The job had some perks (leading a 4am hike up Machu Picchu in Peru was pretty awesome) and some downsides (dull office work, no vacation time), so all in all I decided to head out this fall in search of further adventures on my own. I mean really - who moves to South America to work in an office?

But Cuenca was not a bad time at all. There have been a great many fun moments over the past four months. The highlight of these was probably our gringo roadside juice stand...

 

...but that's a yarn for another time.

Farewell, Cuenca! I will miss your German bakery and your amazing encebollado (onion, fish, cilantro and lime soup) place that I discovered only this last week. I will miss working in a bilingual office where we swap como-se-dice's back and forth all day. But I will not miss your rain, your lame machista guys, or your pollution.

Onwards and upwards. Some plans have been formulated and some plane tickets have been bought. The general outline is this: September and part of October will be spent exploring the Caribbean coast region of Colombia, and hopefully trekking to Ciudad Perdida. Then perhaps a quick stop back in Ecuador (?) on the way down to Chile, where I'll visit old friends in Santiago and then head for Patagonia, spending November and part of December volunteering in two different national parks. I'll be home for the holidays and (maybe.. these things can be hard to predict) the birth of my first ever niece or nephew in December!

I'm going to try and keep this thing pretty multi-media, so here is a little video I made about what I've been spending the past week doing...

That's all for now. Tomorrow it's rumbo para COLOMBIA!!