Cotacachi

Volcanoes are married here. This past week eleven of us went to Cotacachi for our first tech trip. The small city is in the northern sierras of Ecuador and sits at the base of the dormant volcano from which the city derives its name. On Wednesday we hiked around part of Cotacachi´s crater, doing trail maintenance and learning about ecotourism from a park ranger. He told us that the last time the volcano erupted, all of the ice from it´s summit melted and formed the lake that now sits in the crater. Also, two islands were thrust up in the lake. Cuy (guineapig) populated the islands and the place became known as Cuicocha, which means ¨lake of cuy¨ in Quichua. The legend of the indigenous communities here tells that Cotacachi is the wife of Imbaburra (a volcano across the valley) and their babies are the two islands in Cuicocha.

The views of Cotacachi´s summit were incredible (I hope to post photos soon). Wispy clouds whipped past the peak, covering and revealing it within seconds. The views of the landscape in the valley between the two married volcanoes were equally breathtaking, with the small cities of Cotacachi and Otavalo surrounded by farms that spread out and rose up the checkered slopes of the mountains on the other side of the valley. The sun was hot, and we got burnt. But it was a highlight of the trip. Also, at 3,5oo meters, it was the closest I´ve ever been to the sun.

Cotacachi has a large indigenous population. Forty-two communities surround the city, and their schools are generally bilingual, teaching classes in both Spanish and Quichua. When we were attending a tourism workshop on Thursday, I got to hear a few conversations in Quichua for the first time. We were hanging out with three women who were making jewelry to supplement the income they earned from farming. Cotacachi is a big in handcrafts and leather products and receives alot of tourists. Anyway, it was cool, and hopefully I´ll learn a bit of Quichua while I´m here.

The whole week was great. We attended workshops on cooperatives in indigenous communities, ecotourism, and park management, and worked on several farms (worked alot with uvillas - or gooseberries). Also got to see a neat permaculture farm run by a hip ecuadorian-japanese couple. Their washing machine is hooked up to a bike for power. I asked whether they worked at all with the Biodynamic calendar, but they said they only use the lunar calendar. I´m on a trek for information on how to farm Biodynamically at the equator. There´s a farm in Pifo (about thirty minutes from Tumbaco) that is connected with Kroka - the Waldorf-inspired adventure camp in N.H., and I´m hoping I can get there before the end of training to see how they practice Biodynamics. The search continues.