Sunday morning we got up a little bit earlier than we had the day before so that we could drive the truck out to some of the little villages (pueblos) that he wanted to show me.  Took about an hour to get there and it was a beautiful drive all along the way as we climbed and snaked our way up through the Andes mountains.  We would take this same path later and go into the Amazon jungle farther north on the Pan-American highway.  The mountains were huge, beautiful and were covered in a lush patchwork of greens like nature's quilt with what seemed like every square inch a manicured farm area.  We drove by many people working the fields and they did it all by hand.  It was really quite impressive to see the amount of work they did, all by hand.  Especially when you then lifted your head up to see that virtually every square inch of land for miles in every direction were tilled and worked in this manner.  The people were dressed in their native attire with brightly colored wool wraps and layers of clothes, braided pony tails and distinctive hats.

The farther up we drove the more I felt my heart racing.  It was the altitude.  It was really a dramatic feeling but not too scary.  Pablo said the same thing always happens to him too.  I figured he would have been used to it from living there for 27 years before moving to Europe.  A lot of people get altitude sickness when they go to Quito, Riobamba and the Amazon in general due to the altitude.  Usually the symptoms are an accelerated heartbeat, nausea and headache.  I had a headache for a bit on Saturday and a touch on Sunday but after an aspirin I never had any other problems.

We stopped before getting to the first town at a little restaurant—think fancy shack with a bunch of benches and nice people serving your choice of three breakfast items.  This was the first place I encountered cuy (guinea pig).  The woman at the table across from us ordered stew with cuy.  Just looked like regular pieces of meat in there to me but I sure didn't want it.  Instead I got boiled potatoes with some yummy orange sauce and two slabs of yummy cheese on top.  Never figured out exactly what the cheese was but it was soft, mild, a touch salty and tasted fantastic.  Wasn't going to complain, love my cheese! 

Pablo had potatoes but then had fried pig skin instead of the cheese.  When I say pig skin, I'm not referring to some thin crispy pork rind puffy in a Doritos bag I have seen people eat state-side.  I mean take a pig, scrape/shave the hair (I am imagining that they do this since the skin looks supple, if that's a good word for it), cut the skin off in 3 to 4 inch wide strips that are about 1/2 inch thick and then fry them in oil.  They get a lovely golden color but don't get crispy.  Just looks, although I can't say from tasting it, like chewy fat.  It’s very popular there and with Pablo.  Never tried it and don’t plan on it.

After our breakfast stop we went to two little towns that I don't know the name of and drove around.  You really had to know where you were going because there were no signs.  The first town had their big Sunday market happening so there were a lot of little stands set up with all kinds of clothing and trinkets for sale along with practical things.  Was very interesting to drive through.  Pablo said that on the weekends all of the people from the bigger cities come out to the small towns and on the week days it is the other way around with the big city markets.  Made sense. 

In the second town we made it up to close to the top of the town where there was a small church that was the oldest church in Ecuador.  Not a lot to look at but it was significant to the history of the area.  When we went back to the car we noticed that there was a lot of water leaking from the front of the truck. We checked everything but didn't find a problem and it didn't overheat as we continued on.  We were very careful and monitored every sound closely though.  The truck would go into the shop tomorrow to be checked out before our big road trip into the Amazon! 

On the way back we stopped at a little park and took more pictures.  There was also another little church here that looked so sweet and innocent as a typical old church on the outside, but when you stepped inside there was a lovely neon display of godliness.  Seemed cheesy and over-done but the town was quite proud of it so more power to them.  We returned to Riobamba after we finished our pueblo-hopping adventure and met up with Pablo's family so we could take the weekly trip to the cemetery. 

The trip to the cemetery was very interesting.  While the city of Riobamba is fairly large but there is apparently really only one cemetery to be buried in and everyone that has any money has their family buried there.  The graves ranged from small markers, very uncommon, to multilevel tombs and then there was the enormous mausoleum.  Everything was very ornate with tons and tons of flowers.  I would have liked to have photographed the cemetery but that just seemed in poor taste.

Speaking of flowers, I swear that they must spend around a hundred dollars every week buying these huge bouquets of roses, carnations, lilies, and all kinds of flowers and fillers to plant around the grave sites and put in the huge urns that adorn it.  The visit was mostly a giant production of taking out the old dead ones from last week, pull a few weeds, put the new ones in, water them, make the sign of the cross and move on.  The Yaulema Torres family has two graves.  One is a big multilevel, mostly underground one where Pablo’s grandparents and father are buried and the other is a small grave nearby where Margi's baby that didn't make it years ago is buried. 

This process of the weekly visit, flower changing and all was an interesting activity to participate in.  The importance of family and ritual in the community is very strong.  As far as religion goes, 95% of the population of Ecuador reports themselves as Catholic.  Pablo's family is Catholic.  Catholicism to them is a little lighter than what I’ve grown up with.  Other than wearing the occasional rosary (which isn't meant to be jewelry) and making the sign of the cross and kissing their fist when leaving and entering Riobamba they don't do anything particularly Catholic.  But they are very proud to be Catholic.

After the cemetery, Pablo and I drove to a little shop where we got ice-cream clown cones with Superman ice cream.  Lots of fun to look at and eat, although somehow I didn't remember Superman ice cream being bubblegum flavored.  Oh well, took me back to the days when I was little and my papa used to take my brother Jeff, cousin Andrea and myself to the ice cream shop for Superman ice cream and rainbow sherbet.  A bit later we went with Margi, Santi and Stephi to another town nearby to pick up another niece, Evelyn, who was about 5.  Never figured out or met Evelyn’s parents.  But was a sister’s child because Pablo is the only boy out of five children.

We ate some dinner at a cousin’s or family friends’ restaurant until both girls passed out from exhaustion and then headed back to Riobamba.  They were a lot of fun at the restaurant because they tried really hard to talk to me.  But they talked really, really fast!  We practiced counting in Spanish and English (took me the whole night to get them to get up to eleven and twelve), recited lots of fruits and vegetables and a few animals.  When we got back we just hung out the rest of the day at the house and called it an early night so that we would have a full day to get the truck checked (remember that leaking problem?) and head to the Amazon jungle!!  Oh, one other note, this trip was the first time I asked about the giant blue painted hearts on the roads—some big, some small.  Turned out that is how they mark where people died.  Was shocking to see how many hearts there were in some areas.

Monday Pablo took the car in the moment the shop opened at 8am.  I spent the morning reading my book and watching American TV shows.  They didn't finish until after lunch so we got a later start than we’d hoped.  We packed quickly for our trip to the jungle and hit the road.  We drove along the same path as the day before to the little towns but kept going and going.  The views were amazing and I took lots of pictures.  It was amazing the way that people packed into pickup trucks and on top of foliage cleared from the road in big trucks.  No seatbelts, kids hanging out of windows. . . if you could find room on a vehicle you had a ride.

We stopped at The Banos Zoo that was full of beautiful birds and other tropical animals--ones that you were not likely to see very much of unless captured and held captive in this setting.  They all looked healthy though, just bored!  We stopped at a second bird sanctuary type place that was a little sadder in the presentation of the animals, ate Chinese for dinner and went into a town just outside of Banos so I could email my family that I was okay.  My cell phone did not get service anywhere so I just left it at the house.   

Tuesday we got up early and drove around more taking lots of pictures, eating here and there (lots of time in the car), and then we saw this sign that said "Monkeys" and had to stop.  Okay, really it said "Monos" but same thing!  We turned down a road expecting. . . and closely watching. . . to see monkeys in the trees.  The road was a bit treacherous and most cars could not have made it.  Thank god for our big truck with giant wheels.  We considered turning around but didn't.  It was the coolest "jungle"-looking road though. 

After a mile or so and no monkeys we were getting really disappointed until we realized that there was a place at the end of the road that was where the monkeys were.  We walked down a path and started seeing a monkey or two up in the trees.  We got so excited. . . and then there was one on the path in front of us.  As we walked down the path the guy who ran the place (really just his house in the jungle) greeted us and started telling us about the monkeys.  A few seconds later the monkeys started climbing us and getting really friendly.  It was a lot of fun!  There were 17 monkeys there including an adorable 5 month old baby in diapers.    There was also an older baby who would ride the back of a lab as if it were his mother.  Cute and funny. 

After the monkey excursion, one of our stops was to walk down to this amazing waterfall called Pailon del Diablo or El Diablo.  When I looked up this waterfall online afterwards it turns out that it is reported to be one of the top ten most beautiful waterfalls in the world.  And I cannot disagree!  We walked downhill for about 20 minutes on a well-groomed jungle path to a suspension bridge that connected the two sides of a giant river from a gorgeous waterfall.  The view was amazing.  On the far side of the bridge was a bar that looked over the edge and was the neatest tropical little getaway.  We ordered a few beers and watched the waterfall and then walked back over the bridge to the waterfall side. 

On the waterfall side there was a path to walk up and then down to get as close (and wet) as you could get to the waterfall without swimming in it.  The sound was deafening and the ground continually trembled from the force of the water.  There was a bright green and black stick bug that caught my eye.  The few other folks and Pablo didn’t believe me at first that it wasn’t just a twig. . . until I made it move.  The walk, no, the hike back up to where we started was quite the workout.  It helped we were a bit damp from the waterfall but suddenly the 90 degree weather, steep climb and few beers all took their toll.  Well worth the effort though!

After exploring a few more areas by truck we headed back to Riobamba so that we could have dinner with his three sisters, four nieces/nephews, mother and few other folks.  I'll save Wednesday and heading to the Esmeraldas for good beach times for later!  Oh, one other thing.  Everyone is really nice and friendly there and we were frequently picking up folks, families, bikers, etc. in one area of the jungle and dropping them off a few miles away.  Hitchhiking was very easy for them but not something I would have done myself.