Abajo y Arriba en el Sol y Basilica

Yesterday I woke up to the unroyal rumbling of more buses and a pack of dogs fighting and howling, and I realized I needed to leave Quito soon. I have made arrangements to travel to the big city´s antithesis, Mindo, a small town situated in a very large cloudy rainforest in the mountains, where I will be volunteering for the eco-friendly, tropical bird-loving Mindo Cloud Forest Foundation. I left the house feeling better about my next move and met with two friends, who have been making their way steadily from Mexico towards Bolivia, and had stopped in Quito briefly before leaving again. I celebrated the well-spirited, sunny afternoon like I used to in college, by drinking early, and a half bottle of Zhumir later I was climbing the belfry of the Basilica, my second favorite church in the world (next only to Milan´s Duomo), that took one hundred years to build. In most churches in Europe, there are more passageways, stairwells, and windows locked or roped off than are accessible. But in the Basilica you can climb almost anywhere, and even change the time on the big clocks if you are both knowledgeable and inclined. Like most wonderful opportunities, it will stay this way until somebody breaks something important, or gets fatally hurt and ruins it. We climbed safely up and walked across the top of the church on a shaky wooden bridge, and soon I was meditating in the open air of one tower and then drinking coffee and cognac in another. It felt good to be with familiar friends again, acting loosely in the cathedral sunshine.

Later that night I found out I was rejected by Teach For America, a job I feel very sure that I was overqualified for. I´m used to women doling out my rejection, but this is the first time a job or school has turned me down, and I can´t help but feel a bit stung.

I woke up hours later very sober, again hearing the chorus of street dogs fighting to certain death or submission, and I had my first ¨What the hell are you doing in South America" moment. It struck me that I´m on another hemisphere without financial prospects, spending the little money I actually have. I thought I had a plan of return, but now I really don´t, and this is both liberating and slightly frightening. I have planned this trip with the idea that I don´t know where I´m going, and I guess I can now extend the metaphor beyond the trip itself. I have a feeling I am not alone in this regard. For now, I´ll uphold my Panglossian disposition and maintain that the best of all possibilities always happens, because its the only way it happens, and I´ll move forward spiritedly to the mountain rainforests of Mindo in another few days.

In another, non-sequiturial note: have you ever wondered where all the Sacagawea dollars went? Well, they all went to Ecuador. The economy here has been US dollarized for almost a decade now, and while they often print their own coins, they use our forgotten gold dollar very commonly.

Lastly, I have updated some of the older blogs with pictures. Check them out, and never be afraid to comment, even if it is something small. It is good fuel for me to keep writing. Paz.