Cultural Exchanges

I am rolling through the Andean Mountains looking at spectacular views of lush green hills and far away mountain tops in a 360-degree panorama. Mark and I just finished a two-week excursion through Colombia and are now busing back to Quito. As I sit staring out the bus window I try to take in the beauty around me and wish there was a way to capture the moment so I can show my friends and family. There is something majestic about these mountains that make them unique from the mountains I know back home. They are grandiose like the Rockies but covered in lush green grass and trees like the Appalachians. They are inviting and warm as the sun reflects the beautiful shades of green. I get the urge to run barefooted up to the top and roll down. They have deep, wide valleys where life is abundant with rivers, lakes, and small pueblos. These wide valleys add to the greatness of the peaks. They create a sense of abundant space as your eyes softly climb the sides of the mountains until they reach the distant top. The land plays tricks with your eyes and creates a false sense of distance. The largeness of the mountains and valleys compared to the tiny houses dotted across them leaves nothing to compare the distance too. That peak over there could be 5 miles or 25 miles away.

But that is not what this journey is about today. I want to talk about Colombia and Ecuador. More specifically, I want to say something about culture. There is an old saying that says you really never know a place until you leave it and then return to it. There is something about experiencing other places that opens your eyes to your own home. That happened in several ways over the past two weeks. Colombians are some of the best conversers around and are extremely amiable. Their pace of life is slower and less stressful. Our first night in Colombia we asked a lady on a bus how to get to a certain part of Cartagena. Her and her husband got off the bus with us and took us where we wanted to go and then proceeded to help us find a place to stay for the night. For about an hour and a half we talked and walked around Old Town Cartagena. This also happened in Cali, Colombia when we asked where we could buy some preroasted coffee beans. A guy about our age ended up spending half the day with us showing us different parts of Cali. Others would simply walk up to us and begin a conversation. I can’t tell you how many times that happened in the course of one day. Across the border, Ecuadorians do not have the same gift of gab as their neighbors. It is part of Ecuadorian culture to stare at foreigners. This took me awhile to get used to. But it still irks me sometimes when I am eating to look up and find a pair of unfamiliar eyes staring back into mine.

These views of the Ecuadorian countryside remind me of how beautiful Colombia is. The land radiates with green mountains contrasted by blue skies and various colored flowers. The people are like the land and radiate with similar beauty. They are black, brown, white and every shade in between. Colombia’s prominent past slave trade mixed with the indigenous people, the indigenous mixed with the European Spaniards, and the Spaniards with the slaves creating an array of colorful people. As a result, only 1% of Colombians still claim any indigenous heritage. In comparison, 25% of Ecuadorians still have strong indigenous blood and continue to practice traditional indigenous religion and language. The rest of the Ecuadorians are in a category called Mestizo (Mixed Spanish and Indigenous roots) and there is a small minority of Afro-Ecuadorians. Most Ecuadorians thus have prominent Indigenous physical features including wider nostrils, strong wide jaw lines, short stature, and similar skin tones.

As we cross the equatorial line I have some relief in knowing that despite all the zigzagging and winding through these mountains we are making our way southward. Quito is on the horizon and my mind is at ease with thoughts of a warm shower, a soft bed, and a hearty meal waiting on me at my home away from home.