The day that we arrived in Ecuador everyone was super sleep-deprived from our last night of partying in Colombia. Unfortunately, that night we had a concert. After that we had three days of endless rehearsals to prepare our new concert programs. Because I was only playing on one of the new pieces, I had a lot of free time. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the orchestra who didn’t play on the other pieces. Therefore, I had a lot of time alone to explore the city. Mostly I just walked around by myself, attracting tons of attention because I was a gringa walking alone on the streets of Quito! I had a couple adventures, too, in which I almost got hopelessly lost and was harassed by sketchy men. But everything turned out fine, and I emerged unharmed. One afternoon I went with some friends to the Center of the World monument (at the equator) but that was about all the normal tourist type stuff that I was able to do. Also, I got some souvenir shopping done at the traditional markets that were everywhere in Quito.
After about five days in Quito, we then traveled to Lima, Peru. We had a lot of free time in Lima, also, but because of the way the concert presenters took care of us, it didn’t feel like much time at all! Because I was on the early flight from Quito, we had a free afternoon. In the evening, the concert presenters gave us a free night tour of Lima from a double-decker bus. It was awesome to be able to see the whole city in this way. My favorite feature of Lima was the Fountain Garden, where there were dozens of fountains lit up in different colors complete with light shows and everything! My friends and I were so enthralled by this that we missed the bus to the rest of the sights so we had to take a cab back by ourselves.
The next day, we got a trip to some ruins, called Pachacamac. It was fascinating to see such ancient architecture in such good condition! We saw the location of human sacrifices, mummification, and temples to the sun and the moon. Afterwards, we went to a horse show, complete with traditional Peruvian dancing and those horses that can famously walk sideways. During our meal we were treated to more traditional music and dancing from Peru.
The following morning we gave a performance at the conservatory in Lima as a kind of invitation to our two concerts. There was this familiar looking girl in the audience, so afterwards I went up to talk to her. It turns out it was someone I knew from a summer program in 2006 with whom I hadn’t spoken since! It was really cool to encounter her here in Lima of all places! The concerts in Lima went well in general, but I was feeling pretty unwell my entire time there. It was freezing cold in the city, and I just felt ill in general the entire time. It’s actually still going on, even though now we’re in sunny warm Brazil.
We came to Brazil last Thursday, August 5. I like Brazil. Even though we’re in a completely different region than I was in with NEOJIBÁ, it has the same feel as a country. The first city we went to here in Brazil was called Paulinia. In Paulinia, a friend from NEOJIBÁ came to visit me for the weekend, which was very exciting. Yesterday we went to São Paulo, and now we’re in another city called Poços de Caldas. I haven’t seen much of any of these cities because I haven’t been feeling well and additionally have been very busy with orchestra rehearsals and things like that. The truth is that we’re at the point in the tour where everyone is really ready to go home. Everyone has been on tour since June 30 (me since June 21) and traveling almost every day takes a lot out of you. I’ve slept 20 hours out of the last 36 and am going to go sleep some more after I finish this blog post. I’ve had a great time on this tour, but it’s about time for it to be over. I’ll try to do one more post before the end of the tour, but since we leave next Monday I don’t know if I will have a chance to, or if I’ll have anything to write about since I’m pretty much sleeping constantly these days. Anyways, before I go I will grace you all with a few more pictures from the tour.
Center of the World Monument outside Quito
The fountain garden in Lima
