Cascada de Peguche (Peguche Waterfall)
In the past two weeks, we have twice visited a beautiful waterfall called the Cascada de Peguche. We first visited last Saturday, the night after our walk around the Cuicocha Lake, for a festival called Inti Raymi. Inti Raymi (also known as the La Fiesta de San Juan) is a sun festival celebrated throughout Latin America, in which people celebrate the summer solstice by cleansing their bad energy in the waterfall and dancing well into the night.
After our long trek through the mountains Saturday morning, we walked across town to the waterfall. After two weeks here I now know that we can never trust the time estimates that we're given (time in Ecuador, as I've learned, is more of a guideline than a strict schedule to be followed), but I had not yet realized last week. So the 20 minute walk from the hostel to the waterfall turned into more of and hour and a half, tacked onto our 5 hours of hiking. My legs were killing me the next morning!
At the waterfall, many of our group jumped in the freezing cold water to participate in the celebration, emerging drenched but rejuvenated. One girl's shoes were snatched from where she left her clothes, and we've been joking all week that they must have had a bad energy and were taken as part of the festival's soul cleansing. I was content to watch the celebration and be cleansed by the strong spritz from the waterfall, and it was a wonderful sight to behold. I chose not to swim to avoid the risk of getting sick, but of course I came down with a cold anyway, which I am finally starting to get over. Darn my bad immune system. Anyway, the rest of the night was spent in a plaza near the waterfall where we danced huge group dances in which we marched around in circles. I think we've all had the Inti Raymi songs stuck in our heads for the past week! In fact, we've been hearing the songs in the distance all week as the celebrations continue.
On Thursday, we returned to the waterfall in the daylight with the kids from the Chuchuquí school. Once again, we were told that it was a 30 minute walk from the school (which is significantly outside of Otavalo) to the waterfall (which is outside of Otavalo in the opposite direction). Two hours later, we finally found ourselves at the waterfall.
From observing the schools here, I am impressed by the amount of freedom given to the Ecuadorian students, many of whom are very young. The kids ran and played around the waterfall, its river, the park where we ate lunch, and the surrounding woodsy area. In the U.S., I can't imagine kids having the freedom to run around unsupervised, but it seems that the students here understand that with freedom comes responsibility. Even as we were leaving and missing a few students, the teachers remained unworried and the students eventually straggled back to the group. It certainly helps that time is not strictly followed, but there also seems to be a distinct respect between teachers and students here that I really appreciate. It should be interesting how this comes into play when we are teaching.
I'll put up some photos of the waterfall next! More breathtaking views. The kids love to be photographed, so there are a bunch of my new friends, Adriana, Diana, and Nancy.
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