I woke up before dawn to the sounds of pipes/whistles/flutes (I'm not sure which). There were two, and they seemed to be calling to each other from different parts of the neighbourhood (kind of an Andean Marco-Polo with musical instruments). It was a curious and intriguing way to wake up. I went back to sleep, though, for another hour or so. I generally prefer to wake up after the sun has.

Coffee time.

We figured out the percolator! Coffee is now tolerable (still not fantastic, but tolerable).

***

There's really nothing like sitting down to have breakfast at the same table you unpacked and tagged human remains at the day before. Ah, archaeology.

***

I cooked bacon for sandwiches for lunch. The matches to light the stove are awful. They break easily and are really small. The sandwiches were quite good, though the bread disintegrated when touched. Doing the dishes involved the use of a bright, neon-yellow soap in a container which one wipes with a wet sponge to use, rather than immersing it in the water itself. It was interestng. Well, not really, I guess, but I felt I should note it anyway.

***

So, I just had my first shower in the big green house. i realize I've been here a few days now and probably should have had one sooner, but it just didn't happen until now. I feel so much better without the collected grime of centuries of artifacts coating my entire being. Despite the fact that it was a cold shower with a device that is supposed to heat the water with electricity (thus adding the thrill of possible electrocution to the process), it truly felt great.

***

We're pretty much organized now and can begin the actual analysis portion of the job. We've separated everything into the various sites, pushed to the side all the artifacts from Ross' grad students and pulled out all the faunal material , charcoal, and botanical remains for study later (and likely by others), leaving us with the ceramics, lithics, glass, metal and soil to look at here. We start tomorrow.

***

A rather amusing story was just relayed to us. Apparently, there's a town 5-10 km south of Riobamba where Mastodon and other Pleistocene fossils have been found. The people there are apparently hostile to outsiders, even Ecuadorian outsiders. If someone they don't know goes up the valley to look at, or take, the fossils, one of the villagers (the one that first sees the outsider, I assume) will call out "Thief!" in Quechua and blow a large, loud horn. This will signal the rest of the villagers to grab sharpened sticks and stones and appear, Indiana Jones-esque, over the hills, surrounding the invader. they then will proceed to strip the intruder naked and beat him (pardon the androcentricism) with nettles, plunge him into cold water and repeat until it is understood not to come and take the bones. Ross isn't sure how much of this is true, but doesn't really feel the urge to test it out. Besides, we're archaeologists, not paleontologists.

***

Ross and José-Luis just came in with the craziest looking Jesus candle. I have pictures of each of us with it. I think we're taking it to Pepe and Elva's for the dinner party they have planned.

***

We didn't take it to Pepe and Elva's. That would have been highly inappropriate. It's just a decoration for our home for the month. We'll be spending much of our free time watching Jesus melt, I guess.

***

We had a pretty good time at Pepe and Elva's. Dinner, wine, converstaion; can one ask for more? We were all given a shot of cane alcohol to start the evening. It was poured out of a 5l plastic container and had the feel, and taste, of a sweet, Ecuadorian moonshine. As for the conversation, I felt much better about it this time. While I was often lost, I could understand quite a bit and was even able to contribute, albeit haltingly.

Afterwards, we hung out on our roof top patio and watched the fireworks from a real fiesta a few blocks away and drank Jim's scotch. Soon it got cold and Jim went to bed, so Ross, José-Luis and I went downstairs to have some beer. We ended up flipping through my notebook of random phrases and having Ross translate them into Spanish for José-Luis. They really didn't translate very well, although my haiku about canned ham did generate some confused amusement among both of them. I also ended up telling the infamous horse joke, which did translate well, apparently.

***

On a side note, completely irrelevant to the events of the day, it has been pointed out that two very popular names for boys in Ecuador are Lenin and Stalin. How truly bizarre.

Morning = productive
Afternoon = inefficient

This was today, and I'm ok with that.

We started off with breakfast, including some rather badly made coffee, courtesy of myself, Ross, and our new percolator. We'll just have to get used to bad coffee, I think.

After that, we took artifacts out of boxes, moved boxes around, put artifacts back in boxes in a more organized fashion and generally did some archaeological house-keeping. We'll continue doing that today. In fact, this is what the trip is all about; organizing what has previously been found, though Ross has said we will go out a few times on some field trips.

Anyway, we got quite a bit done before lunch and had great plans to get much more done after. All we managed to do was buy new boxes and get the rest of the artifacts over to the house. I guess tomorrow is the day to finish sorting everything by site and next week we start analyzing.

Speaking of lunch, we had Chinese food. It wasn't bad. Better than mall stuff.

***

Today is the marking point of Laura and I being together for two years. I tried to make an international call home, but failed miserably due to my own incompetence. I realized after that the people at the internet café had given me the wrong code (don't use the Toronto area code before the Vancouver area code; it won't work). I will call tomorrow. Actually, the entire process at the internet café was rather frustrating. The connection was slow, I was tired, the phone thing failed, and I only managed to get on blog entry in and none of my pictures. I've thought of a system, though, that should speed things along, so pictures and updates are forthcoming.

Today we moved in. Archaeological artifacts, contrary to popular belief (are there such things as popular beliefs about archaeological artifacts?), are significantly heavier than furniture. That said, our furniture is pretty minimal (as Ross put it, "we're camping in a mansion") and there are years (centuries, actually) worth of artifacts.

the house itself is truly big. Not to belabour the point (I know I've mentioned at least twice already), but seriously, it's massive. There's a sunken livingroom with a fireplace and hardwood floors; a big dining area and kitchen; 3 levels; 6 bedrooms; 4 bathrooms; 2 patios; a storage room; and some absolutely great views of the three volcanoes (Chimborazo, Tungarahua, and El Altar) which surround Riobamba. We occupy the place with simple mattress thrown on the floor, plastic chairs, benches and tables made of raw 2x4s, and, as mentioned previously, tons (perhaps literally) of artifacts. Ross, José-Luis and I are currently sitting in our lastic chairs in front of the grateless, open fireplace, burning scraps of wood from the pile of tetanus in the backyard, drinking Ecuadorian beer (which is very similar to Molson Canadian, Budweiser, Hite, etc.). I feel a little bit like a squater in an abandoned home. I guess that's not that far from the truth - the house is generally unoccupied unless Ross brings down an expedition crew, although the fact that he pays rent kind of takes a bit away from the squatter similarities.

Riobamba itself is a smallish city which finds itself at the point in the country where the major highways through the highlands and down to the coast and the the Amazon meet. It's very dry here and there aren't very many trees on the surrounding hills. Ross says there's not much to do here after 10:00, and even the day isn't overly excting. Thus, in short, Riobamba is the Kamloops of Ecuador.

It seems as if I'm drawn to Kamloops like places. For one, I grew up in the real Kamloops and returned again later. Also, I would compare Miryang in Korea to Kamloops as well. Strange.

Anyway, I really have no idea what the plan is for tomorrow. I think we'll be setting the place up for work now that we've set the place up to live. We went grocery shopping. It was pretty fun, but I always enjoy a trip to the grocery store. Food really isn't too different here from at home. There are some strange fruit, but nothing I couldn't identify. We've decided that, as far as food organization goes, we'll take care of breakfast and lunch on our own from our grocery supplies, but dinner will follow a weekly schedule: Sundays and Wednesdays we will eat with Pepe and Elva; Tuesdays and Thursdays we'll go out to restaurants; Fridays and Saturdays will be the nights we're on our own as likely there will be weekend trips out of town, and Mondays, we'll take turns making dinner. I've already obtained most of the ingredients to make my lentil soup on the first Monday. We'll see how that goes.

Tonight we went out to the oldest standing house in Riobamba. It's from the mid 1800s (one would expect older down here, but the entire old city [where Ross has been excavating] and many others in the region, was destroyed in a massive earthquake in 1797) and apparently was once owned by Simón Bolívar. It's called Café Concért el Delerio, after the poem written by Bolívar. It's a really beatiful place and the food, while not earth-shatteringly good, was tasty (I had ceviche, spelled 'cebiche' here).

The fire is extremely warm right now. I think I need to move further away from it.

Just below our hotel was the coolest narrow, windy road lined with colourful houses. It was absolutely amazing. Ross tells us that it's the 'cool' place for artists and embassy functionaries to live and I can see why. We're now driving along a river gorge and it's absolutely gorgeous. We haven't even left Quito yet! In fact, we just left the hotel. I wish I had known about these places before. I would've taken some pictures. My descriptions just don't do them justice. We're now headed towards the Pan American highway. Actually, I think we just merged onto it. Riobamba, here we come!

***

The edge of Quito was much as I imagined it. Half built, cinder block buildings, people everywhere, high traffic volume, tiny stores and hole in the wall restaurants. It seemed very dirty and chaotic.

***

So many people are just walking along the highway.

***

Not anymore. Now, just cars and cows.

***

Everywhere you look, there's a volcano. Most are dormant, some for millennia, others for centuries, but there are still plenty of active ones. We have yet to reach Tungarahua, which just erupted a few weeks ago. It's apparently constantly active. We're just now passing Cotopaxi. It's active, but in a minor way. Apparently you'll only see fumaroles if you are climbing it. It last erupted in full in 1897.

***

We've turned off the highway and are now following a winding dirt road towards Cotopaxi. Our destination is a former hacienda and, even further back in time, an Incan way station along the Inca highway. Now it's a pricey hotel. The road passes huge greenhouses where pretty much all the roses available in North America come from.

The hacienda was awesome. There were full, intact, Inca walls and colonial architecture. I absolutely love that I got to touch a wall built by the Inca.

***

I just ate a flaming steak cooked on a hot rock. It was brought out by a procession of waiters, with a certain amount of ceremony. One of them tied a bib around my neck and placed the sizzling meat on a chunk of basalt in front of me. It was great. Ross got pictures.

***

We got into Riobamba around 4:00, met up with José-Luis, Ross' archaeologist friend from Cuenca who will be staying with us and helping out, set ourselves up in the hotel then had beer at a pizza place while we waited for our 6:00 appointment to go see the house we're renting. Ross has rented this house numerous times so it was really just giving to money and getting the keys.

After the viewing of the mansion (which I will describe later), we met up with Elva and Pepe, Ross' friends down the street and had dinner with them. They said I seemed 'bravo,' or angry, but that I'm a nice guy once they got to know me. I'm not sure how I came across as angry, but I'll chalk it up to my super-short hair and the look of intense concentration I likely had due to my attempts to understand what was being said. We're all very tired now and need to sleep. Tomorrow we move Ross' stored furniture and the artifacts into the house. Fun stuff!

***

Tonight shook what little confidence I had in my Spanish. The conversations were fast and animated and constant. Clearly, this was a reuniting of old friends, but I understood very little and participated not at all. I'm sure it will get better as the trip progresses, but I doubt five weeks working with English speakers is going to help much. Jim says he has some instructional tapes. I may borrow them at some point.

So, the day has come to an end, basically, and I find myself sitting alone in a British pub (a rather good British pub, too - the shepherd's pie was surprisingly tasty) writing a journal. Ross and Jim have returned to the hotel after a long day of touristing, but I've decided that this is a much more congenial place for journal writing than a hotel room. It's really quite comfortable. I swear it could have been taken right out of England itself (not that I've ever been to England, never mind a pub in England).

Anyway, I suppose a description of the day's events is in order.

The day started with a venture out for breakfast. I had some hugely delicious blackberry pancakes and some truly terrible coffee. After that, we wandered into a music store where I decided to buy a churango. The first question one should logically ask is "What?", followed closely by "Why?". Well, a churango is an Andean strng instrument, kind of like a twelve string ukelele with a deeper cavity. My goal is to diligently practice it, with the aid of the English/Spanish instructional cd, throughout the trip, much to the consternation of my travel companions.

I've also found myself buying postcards at a furious pace. I'm not generally a postcard kind of guy, as my friends who have never received one during my travels can attest, but this time I can't seem to stop myself. Thus, if anyone wants a postcard from Ecuador, email me your mailing address and, as long as demand isn't too great, I'll send you one.

Anyway, after that, we set off on a quest of Jim's to locate the local Scouts chapter. He had a cross road, but not a specific address. However, we were confident we could find it (well, Ross was kind of confident, anyway). We found the corner, after a bit of an adventure on the Quito bus system, but there was no Scouts office in sight. It took some doing, including asking a supremely helpful guy selling phone cards on the street, buzzing what seemed like a rather random house, asking at a curtain store and finally at what I recall to be a paint store (but my memory is a bit fuzzy). We ended up finding the place and Jim bought the badges he wanted.

Next up was a much needed (and much better) coffee, followed by a trip to the Central Bank Museum. There were lots of archaeological things and it was, on the whole, pretty interesting. After that we went to the botanical gardens, which were really quite a nice place, especially after spending all day amongst the traffic and pollution of Quito. It was quiet, the air was pleasant, and the plants were all very pretty. I took all sorts of pictures (which, again, I'll post later), especially of cacti and orchids.

And that was the day. We went straight from the botanical gardens to the pub where we spent a three and a half hours drinking/talking/eating. Ross and jim have left now and I've been writing, listening to the chatter and talking to the waitress. It's been a good day. Tomorrow we head off to Riobamba in a van Ross has arranged to get us there.

Guillermo

The shower at this hotel is really powerful. That's all I really have to say so far. There'll be more later.

***

Breakfast was a tasty buffet, but expensive. Luckily, Ross is covering this so I didn't have to worry about it. The best part of it was the super-strong coffee and the fresh blackberry juice. Both were amazing. We went out after breakfast to get some topographical maps for Ross so we can do some surveying at some point. I picked up a political map of Ecuador for myself, being the map nerd that I am. After that, we hit the internet café (30 cents for 30 minutes; nice), and had some lunch. Jim had cuy (guinea pig), I had a pan fried fish (the whole fish) and Ross had shrimp and rice. I enjoyed my fish thoroughly. Ross was satisfied with his rice. Jim had some issues with the guinea pig. This is one of the national dishes of Ecuador, usually served grilled or skewered and roasted over an open fire. Jim's was breaded and fried. Ross, while at no point endorsing guinea pig as a delicacy, thought that a fried and breaded one was probably not the best way to ingest it. I plan on trying it later, skewered and roasted over an open flame. I'll let you know how it is.

***

So, I struggled a bit with a traveller's hangover today. I had a slight, but persistent headache all day and lacked somewhat in energy. that said, today was pretty great.

After lunch we went to Old Quito and acted like serious tourists. I got lots of pictures (which I will publish once I figure how to get blogger to let me; for some reason they're just not showing up). We went to see museums and churches covered in gold (well, not covered, but the inside was pretty close) and had a relaxing beer in the square outside the Cathedral of San Fransisco. Ross pointed out that a good number, if not the vast majority, of the buildings were not at all colonial but much more recent, but they still looked nice. We went for dinner at an underground restaurant featuring many pictures of bullfighters and a great 1960s decor. the food was good, not spectacular, but we had a fun time. After that it was off to the tourist section of town in search of booze. We found it and spent the evening getting all philosophical about life, archaeology, and capitalism. A good time was had by all.

So, I got up this morning at 3:30 after going to bed at 11:00 last night. Sleep ended up not coming all that easily for me. The internal and external moise rattling through my skull wouldn't allow for it. That said, I woke up feeling far more alert than I had thought possible (not to say that I was perky by any means, but I was functional). Made some coffee, had a quick breakfast and woke up Laura and Jon to say good-bye then climbed into my cab (which arrived a good 15 minutes early, much to my chagrin) and went to the airport. I had originally only planned to take the taxi to Broadway and Granville, but once nestled peacefully in the backseat, decided to just ride it out all the way to YVR. Thirty bucks and fifteen minutes later I found myself sitting in a surprisingly busy terminal waiting for the Continental booth to open up and for Ross and Jim to arrive. I had a fairly lengthy wait as the flight didn't leave until 8:10 and it wasn't even 5:00 yet. I guess I could've slept a little longer.

I've never had to take my shoes off before when going through airport security. I guess everyone had to do it this time, though. That, in combination with taking off my belt and jacket had me feeling like the next step would be wandering naked throught the terminal.

Things moved quickly after that and I spent the next few hours flying over the western states, being regaled with fascinating stories of misadventures in South American archaeology by Ross. I've actually come the conclusion that part of the whole archaeology thing is a natural ability to tell a great story (likely this comes from experiencing the world as if one were Indiana Jones, but I think the key is in the telling, not necessarily the doing). I've never met an archaeolgist or anthropologist who lacked this ability. A little more practice, and maybe I can get there, too.

***

I don't know what state we're flying over right now. I'm guessing Colorado, but I could very well be wrong. Ross and Jim are dozing and I'm staring out the window. It seems like the further south we go, the more snow I see. The low hills are evenly dusted and some appear to even be glacial. It's all so vastly unpopulated. Every now and then there is a break in the white and grey motling below; a valley of rich red ochre or a sickly yellow. Occasionally, a town appears. There are very few roads. The hills have become more pointedly mountains and the white-grey-green with some icy-deep-blue lakes scattered about have grown yet more prominent. I'm even more convinced now that we're over Colorado (but I still could be wrong, but what does it really matter?). All the signs of human life look like massive wounds, deeply gouged scars on the surface which would be more contoured and graceful if left to itself. Perhaps it's because the evidence of humanity here is so scarce, scattered, that they stand out so plainly, so ugly. No one lives here. Snow gathers on the north slopes, leaving the south a dusty brown. The road which cuts across the flow so angular is clearly a means to get through here, not to here. Everyone is somewhere else.

***

The circular fields below look like pac-man and sundials. There's one that even looks like pac-man eating a power pellet. Farms from the air are strange beings.

***

George Bush Airport, Houston

Don't they usually wait until a person dies before they start naming public buildings after them?

This is a strange place, but in a subtle way. Like any major airport, it's big, disorienting, climate controlled and full of shops and surly people (much like a mall). But somehow it seems a bit surreal, like some sort of alternate dimension. The general population, milling about with bags, seem slightly less friendly and inviting than at home, with the exception of service staff at the various stores and fast food places who are distinctly and exhuberantly friendly. It's as if all the friendliness of this place has been channelled through them to the point that they are so overloaded with it they just might burst, relieving everyone else of the responsibility of even attempting the pretense of friendliness. This is a strangely skewed existence and very unnerving.

I think we board our plane to Quito soon and I will be very happy to get out of this uninviting place.

On a side note, I had a rather large cup of cola with my lunch at the airport. It's been an extremely long time since I had a cola and it made me feel woozy and a bit ill. That's a hell of a lot of sugar for one person to consume in one go. That got me thinking of obesity and the oft-reported problem of it n the U.S. In looking around at the people in the airport, it didn't appear that the number of obese people per capita was any greater than that at home (this is an admittedly select sample of people, many of whom likely weren't even American). What struck me, though, wasn't the ratio of obese to non-obese people, but the scale of the obesity on the obese individuals. Those people who were fat were really fat. There wasn't much in between. It seemed as if the people here (at the airport, anyway) were either thin or extremely big. Just an observation.

Anyway, it took us forever to finally take-off once we boarded the plane. I have no idea what the delay was, but I've never had to wait so long, post-boarding, to leave a city.

***

We arrived in Quito at about 11:15. The airport is right smack in the middle of the city. It seriously looked as if we were going to land on houses. Getting through immigration and out of the airport was exceedingly easy. I get the distinct feeling that the airports on the way back won't be quite as simple. Anyway, we hopped into a taxi, drove to our hotel, had our complimentary drink at the bar and went to bed. It seems that we'll be staying in Quito for a few days while Ross runs some errands and shows us around, tourist-style. Then, it's off to Riobamba where we'll settle into what I'm told is quite the house. I'll describe it once I've seen it.

Guillermo