Jordan in Ecuador: Paccha, El Oro

Mi amiga Whitni recently moved from a site on the coast where she ate a clove of raw garlic every few days to keep the mosquitoes away, where the kids protected the iguanas from the dogs by picking the iguanas up by their tails and slinging them into trees, and where she once danced carrying a pig's head in a basket, to a town in the Andean foothills, a town called Paccha.

She is very happy there.

I say this with confidence because I paid her a personal visit and brought Cristina along during her visit from the States, and we saw with our own four eyes just how great Paccha is.

The bus ride to get there was something of a trying experience. What should have taken 3 buses and maybe 5 hours ended up taking 5 buses and about 9 hours. That's what you get when you try to go anywhere mountain-y during the rainy season: landslides and blocked roads. But the views the whole way up and roundabout were breathtaking.

We arrived in Paccha just at dusk, and this is what we found:

Clouds, clouds, and more clouds.

This is what it looked like later in the evening:

Imagine our delight upon waking up the next morning and seeing our surroundings:

So we set off with Lucas the dog.

But not before studying the map that Jack, another PCV more familiar with these parts, had drawn us. Landmarks included a house of ill repute; a shack; and an old people's home.

Merrily we wandered, and adventures we did have.

We encountered a large centipede or millipede.

We encountered a landslide. The mud, I observed, looks very much like Georgia red clay. Over the course of our walk, we looked out over the hills and saw dozens of red gashes in the mountainside, some bigger than others. These, Whitni informed us, were either landslides or the result of mining.

Whitni will be the first to tell you that Paccha is perfect, "the Eden of Ecuador." It's located in a temperate zone, in the midst of lush green mountains, surrounded by cloud forest--the clouds creep in at night, and when you look out over the valley it's as if the valley had disappeared and you were looking at the ocean instead.

Apparently, Paccha is Eden in more ways than one: it just so happens to be located in a province whose name translates to "The Gold." (Or really just "gold," but "The Gold" sounds much more powerful and impressive.) And there is gold to be found here. In recent years, the mining industry - large foreign companies as well as smaller mines run by locals and individuals - has begun to make an impact on Paccha's economy and ecosystem.

I won't get into the details here, as I'm no expert, but you can imagine that the advent of the mining industry here has had both positive and negative repercussions. Think of the new wealth brought into the community; the wage competition local farmers now face; and, most visibly obvious, the effect mining has on the land.

Moving on...

We came across a chicken who bore a remarkable resemblance to...

...Donald Trump.

Paccha from afar.

By the time we made it back into town at the end of the day, our shoes and Lucas the dog were covered in mud (Lucas also being covered in cow poop and a number of other unidentifiable substances), and we were hungry.

DINNER: lentil stew and cauliflower. Secret Ingredients: Old Bay, Jack's mom's herb salt (see photo below). And, of course, Club Verde beer.