Quito, Lima, Paulinia, and São Paulo (Days 26-40)

The next day we flew to Quito, Ecuador. Ecuador had a very different feeling from Colombia from the minute we stepped off the plane. First of all, I could feel the difference in elevation from the first breath I took outside. This was really challenging when we had to play concerts (think principal horn on Mahler 4!) with such limited oxygen. Second, the pace of life seemed pretty different. In Colombia, things were always pretty relaxed, but in Ecuador they were definitely more on a schedule. Also, Ecuador seemed more Americanized than Colombia. I’m not totally sure why, but other people told me they noticed the same thing. It also felt really different to be in Quito because really we were starting a new tour. We were no longer with the Colombian orchestra, which meant it was time to learn new repertoire. I also missed all my friends from the Colombian orchestra, and I had to start socializing with other people more.
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

Cali and Bogotá (Days 22-25)

I’m sorry I haven’t updated this blog in so long, but the tour is starting to get the point where everyone is tired all the time. Sorry! Here is the update for the rest of our time in Colombia. Look for an entry on Ecuador and Perú coming up soon!

Cali was the city we visited after Barranquilla. Cali is the salsa capital of Colombia, which means we had a fun-filled time there. The first night we were going to go out, but we were all too tired from a long day of traveling so we ended up staying in and playing a wonderfully fun card game called Burro until 5 AM. One of my friends in the YOA horn section is from Cali, and studies at the conservatory there, so at our concert the next day, I had the privilege of meeting his horn professors. I also met his younger brother, who is also an accomplished horn player. Later that night we went out on the town for a night of dancing. I was on the first flight to Bogotá the next day, so I stayed up all night that night. I’m becoming an expert at salsa and meringue! One of the things I will miss most about Latin America is the lack of good dancing music in the United States.

Upon arrival in Bogotá, I had a free afternoon and evening. Many of my best friends from the tour live in Bogotá, but most were on the second flight. First we went to the apartment of one of my friends, and also looked around the music school she attends. Afterwards, we went to the old town area of Bogotá, where we saw the “White House” of Colombia and went to the Botero museum. Botero is a very famous Colombian artist. You would probably know him from his paintings of fat people. The next day we had two concerts. The first was sold out two weeks before so they added another, which was also sold out by the time the concert started. It was really exciting, because two of my friends from the World Orchestra tour of China who live in Bogotá came to the concerts. It was fantastic to get to see them again, even though we weren’t able to hang out much. Also, the energy at these concerts was fantastic. Because so many people were from there, everyone really wanted to play their best. Also, during the encores, I danced for the first time ever to thank all the Colombians who taught me to dance during the tour. Afterwards we went to a friend’s apartment where once again we danced the whole night until once again I had a flight with no sleep at 5am. I was so sad to leave. I know I made friends in Colombia to last a lifetime. I hope I’ll be able to go back to visit sometime very soon.

In general, I was so glad to have spent so much time in Colombia this summer. I really loved the country and by the end of the tour I actually felt partially Colombian. I learned how to play a few folk songs and I learned a ton of Colombian slang. It was a different type of love than that I felt for Brazil. In Brazil, I felt really comfortable and happy in a vacation sort of way. I did have a great time there. But in Colombia, I really felt like I belonged there. It’s a different sort of feeling. I hope I can go back to Colombia one day and live there for at least a few months or something.

So that's what I was up to in my final days in Colombia. Below are some photos from the end of this part of the tour. I'll write soon about what's been going on since then!

The double horn section after our last concert together.

With my Colombian friends on the last night of the Colombia tour.

Medellín, Cartagena, and Barranquilla (Days 16-21)

We arrived in Medellin late in the day, but I had to go directly to coach the youth orchestra. I was a little nervous about it because of the language barrier. I was concerned that they wouldn’t speak any English and that I would have a lot of communication barriers. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out that way at all. We arrived and listened to the orchestra rehearse for a few minutes, and then we had to play with them a bit. That would have been fine but none of us had played in about two or three days, and let’s just say that the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony is not the world’s best warm-up. After that we had about an hour to work with the students in individual groups for each instrument. I worked with my two horn players on how to play together, and how to practice your music for orchestra rehearsal effectively. The language barrier actually wasn’t a problem at all. There was only one word (glue) that I had to ask a translation for.

The following day we had rehearsals all day because it was the first time during the tour where we had a space available for a rehearsal and not just a sound check. Our evening concert was once again outdoors, but it was pouring rain so we didn’t know if we’d actually be playing it until literally five minutes before we started. It turned out ok, though. It only really started raining after the concert.

The next day we left at 5:30 AM for our flight to Cartagena. We got to the airport for our 8 am flight, but the airline hadn’t accounted for the amount of carry-on luggage (with an entire orchestra, you get a lot of carry-on bags), so our flight was kind of delayed. This flight was taking place on July 19, the day before Colombia’s bicentennial, so there was an air show taking place in Bogotá between 10-12 that morning. Our flight had a stopover in Bogotá, and our flight was just delayed enough to make them have to cancel it until after the air show in Bogotá. So we waited in the airport for about an hour until the orchestra and airline decided to just change the flight to go directly to Cartagena. So even though it was awful to have to sit in the airport in Medellín for so long, it was really nice to have a direct flight and have plenty of time to do stuff in Cartagena!

Cartagena is kind of the party capital of Colombia; it’s where all the Colombians go on vacation to go to the beach, maybe like the Colombian equivalent of Miami or something. The first day, we did some shopping and then went to the beach. The beach was really nice, but not comparable to the one I went to in Brazil. The water was super warm and pretty calm, but there was some trash on the beach, and since it’s such a tourist destination there were people pestering us constantly to buy stuff. I wasn’t able to take my camera there either, because it would be really easy for someone to steal stuff there.

The next day we had the whole day free until our concert at night. My friends and I went swimming in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went to walk around the old city. It is a very quaint old town, which even included a castle. It was really awesome to get to see all those old buildings – it was a different side of Colombia that what I’d seen so far. Our concert started at 10:30 that night; the idea was to play the Colombian national anthem last on the program perfectly on the stroke of midnight. We were off by about three minutes, but it was ok. What an experience. The whole huge crowd was enthusiastically singing along to the anthem. Afterwards there was a huge party for YOA with lots of dancing.

The next day we again had a free day until we left for Barranquilla in the night. We went to the beach for a few hours in the morning, and then in the afternoon went and walked around the city some more. I like Cartagena a lot, but at the same time to me it feels less safe than some of the others. I’m not completely sure why, since crime is lower there, but I think it has something to do with the sheer number of tourists everywhere and that fact that I am obviously a gringa.

Last night we took a bus here to Barranquilla. I haven’t had a chance to look around the city yet, but I hope I have a chance to do so before we depart for Cali tomorrow morning.