Day 11: Saraguro, the Andes Today we had breakfast pretty early because we were beginning our next road trip to Saraguro. At breakfast Tait mentioned that he couldn’t sleep the night before so he began to create a haiku about an Ecuadorian experience and that he would like us all to try to make one or more about this trip. If we were to have enough haikus, he would try to have them published by the university. During our two hour bus ride to Saraguro, I began to try and create my own haiku. At first I was having difficulty with keeping the first and third lines to a five syllable sentence and the second line to a seven syllable sentence but I eventually created two of my own.
Haiku #1 Surrounded by green, Beautiful Mother Nature, How I love you so.
I wrote this about the beauty of the Amazon, Andes and nature. I find it so incredible that places like these exist and I am so grateful to have been able to have this experience.
Haiku #2 Coming to an end, You have my heart Ecuador, I will miss you so.
As much as I couldn’t wait to return home to my family and friends, there was still a part of me that didn’t ever want to leave Ecuador. This has been one of the best experiences in my life and I am so happy that I had this opportunity. I’ve made so many friendships and memories and I will cherish them forever. I thought I was going to love the Galápagos Islands the most but with every new place, I love those even more. I have loved every part of Ecuador, from the people, the food, and the scenery. I will greatly miss it.
Pretty flowers at the hotel
After arriving and checking into our next hotel, we quickly piled onto our next form of transportation. An old truck with wooden seats in the back. Our first stop of the day was an indigenous hat factory. Diego informed the group about many interesting Saraguro facts on our way. The corn that is grown there provides phosphorus for the people and because of this, Sara means “corn” and guro means “gold”.Everyone here are Catholics and they worship the water, wind and earth. Each color of the Saraguro flag, which resembles the pride flag we have at home, represents the different communities all over South America. After a very short drive, we made it to the hat factory which we were greeted by Francisco, who would be the one to show us the process of how the hats are made out of sheep wool. Francisco has been working for 23 years and makes the most famous hats in Saraguro. The process to make one hat can take up to two days, but they make more than one had at a time and do each step on a different day. When making the hats, each hat uses about one pound of wool.
Francisco demonstrating hat making
After the hat factory we headed to lunch with a group of indigenous people. The drive was about an hour but the view was completely worth it. We had a clear view of the beautiful Andean Mountains. For lunch we ate guinea pig, a special dish that is only eaten on special occasions. Before the Inca times, the only animal available to be herded and eaten as a form of meat was guinea pigs. That is until the Incas introduced cattle, pigs and sheep. After this introduction, the guinea pigs are now only eaten for special occasions. Although I was a pescatarian at the time (I eat seafood and not meat), I decided to try the guinea pig out of respect to the indigenous tribe and for my own personal experience. As sad as it seemed (I kept thinking of it as a house pet), I figured I would never be able to experience this again and I forced myself out of my comfort zone. I’ll be honest, the guinea pig was actually good, it kind of tasted like chicken.
Our beautiful view of the Andean Mountains
Enjoying the celebratory blue agave
When we finished lunch, we took part in another indigenous celebration by having a celebratory drink of their blue agave juice, which when fermented for around three days becomes tequila. Ours was not fermented. Before drinking, we offered our thanks to the Pachi Momma, “Mother Earth”, and poured some of the agave on the ground. Once we thanked her, we said “ishcandi, ishcandi” or cheers, and took a sip. To me, the taste of the agave was similar to yeast or raw sour dough but I thought it was still pretty good. Then we headed back to the hotel and Diego allowed a few of us to ride on top of the bus, which I am pretty sure it was the rack used to hold luggage, but it was fun.
When we got back to the hotel, we had a presentation about the Saraurku tourism. The company started their tourism project in the year 2000 and an organization gave them 200,000 dollars to work with different communities. To be able to in the tourism business they had to get their tourcert certification. They get this by people observing their tours and then making recommendations. Their program was developed in four years with four main steps. The first step is to make organization with different communities, that want to participate, to develop tourism and then sign deals. Second, they will decide which community would like to do each service such as hotels, restaurants, and teaching kids about tourism. Third, they invest into the places and work on how they will make the different services that are being toured better. The last step is promoting ad commercializing. After they are all started up, the profits that are made goes to the workers, restoration, and to the struggling local families. The money is also used to put better values and to help the communities with reforestation, and better teachers.
The old wooden truck
After the presentation we headed back to our rooms and dressed ourselves warm clothes for the long, cold night. Once we were appropriately dressed, we headed to mama Rosa’s house, where some textiles are made. The women showed us the process of how they make them. Earlier Diego informed the group of how much clothes in Saraguro can cost. The clothes here are very expensive and are mostly made by hand and sheep wool. Women typically poncho’s that can cost over $1,000. The pin that women use to pin the poncho shut, can cost anywhere from $175 to $750. Although, making a rug is not as expensive. Even though it can take almost two to three weeks and will only sell for about $40. In order to make a living, Saraguro people are able to obtain a visa and travel around the world to sell their textiles. When mama Rosa finished showing us how she makes a rug, we were able to purchase some of the items she and the other women created. I bought a scarf made of sheep wool for $10 and it is very warm.
Us on top of the truck
We then walked over to our next stop, where we would be having dinner. We were greeted my various indigenous people and they served us the food they normally eat. The utensils that we used were all wooden and you could tell they were handmade which were really cool. I would definitely use them at home if I were able to make or buy them myself. After dinner, the fun began! An indigenous band performed for us songs and taught us some dances from their culture. It was so much fun and was probably one of the best nights that we had in my opinion. It was honestly one of the best days as well. I really loved being able to experience their way of life and I will never forget being apart of it. As the night went on, it was unfortunately time to head back to the hotel and get some sleep.