Birds in a Gilded Cage

Dec 29th: Now that we've exhausted Tripadvisor ideas of what we can see and do in Quito, we spend our days inside this cavernous, well-appointed apartment, looking out on the city and the mountains but not venturing out. The past few days have been filled with intensely bright white sunlight; in 2006 Cuzco had the highest UV radiation level in the world, and it's not that far from here. 

    That's not actually the reason we are less venturesome, but except for shopping trips every second day, we are staying put. Not so bad for me, because I can continue my Spanish acquisition project and watch the market as the U.S. approaches the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes on Jan 1st and another debt ceiling we'll hit in February, but Deb is getting bored, I guess. She has finished two books and is trying to get into a third, but does a lot of animated card-making, emailing, Skyping, online scrabble and a balloon popping video game to fill her time. We haven't been able to stumble upon anything like a community centre or other social outlet; the nearest we've come is the Explorer's Club downtown, but that didn't seem very actively social either, although they will throw a New Year's party for members.  We haven't joined.

    Walks with Zoey punctuate the day, but longer hikes seem unwise - the traffic pollution is unpleasant and probably unhealthy, and since Deborah has read about the risk of muggings if you walk through the parks as opposed to walking around the outskirts, she isn't keen to visit any, although I might try locate another one to drag her out to this weekend. Or another museum, perhaps...we have only a week left here, anyway, and then we're off to Latacunga, Isinlivi and Malingua Pamba for the next chapter.

    We find ourselves taking care of Zoey more than we'd anticipated. Maggie has suddenly had to take on a babysitting job for a mother who is bedridden with a complication to her second pregnancy, and who also has a two-year old to be cared for. That's in addition to the afternoon cleaning job she has at another home; for the last two weekdays we only saw Maggie early in the morning and then again later in the evening. However, I'm delighted to say that since Deb began keeping a timing log of Zoey's needs, we've virtually eliminated indoor eliminations.

    Two days ago I just about went buggy from an entire neighbourhood of dogs barking all day long (residents leave them out in their yards while they're away at work), setting each other off every few seconds, in addition to the car alarms and incessant car honking, jetliners buzzing us thunderously as they came in to land, police and emergency vehicle sirens, recycling trucks with loudhailers, and other constant city noise. "Quiteños" certainly have a much higher noise tolerance than Torontonians, and more than I do. Yesterday there were no dogs, at least - they'd mysteriously all become silent. 

    There was lots of latin dance music from surrounding apartments, though, and we looked down on one outdoor patio to see couples dancing; that was at least a more pleasant form of noise pollution.  There was a really loud dance party going on at the Toyota/Innova offices a few doors down from here, with lots of music and dancing, hollering and drumming; latin rhythms alternating with "Gangnam Style", everybody dressed in rodeo clown and Sadie Hawkins style costumes, the girls with curlers in their hair, and several four foot effigies in the same style of dress - partiers take turns having their photos taken with them.

    There have been fireworks. I've noticed them intermittently all week, at all hours of the day, and yesterday at 6 p.m. there was a barrage of explosions just outside our living room window. One might have thought the U.S. ambassador's apartment was under siege, but we ran to the balcony to watch incredibly loud fireworks arcing from the back courtyard across the street. They're so percussive, they set off car alarms in all the nearby streets. As they scream into the air, observers cheer and whistle. 

    One ember landed on a neighbour's balcony, still burning. I thought the fireworks were related to the Christmas or New Year's season, but Maggie said it happens every Friday at 6 p.m.; that doesn't explain why I've been hearing them through the rest of the week, but they must be at least common enough to explain why Zoey takes them in stride. Our dogs used to experience fireworks once a year, and would go berserk. But the car-alarm-triggering fireworks are happening every few minutes all through the afternoon today, as well. It's completely beyond me to understand why so many Quiteños prefer to explode their fireworks in broad daylight rather than at night when we can enjoy their sensational luminosity.

Dec 31st, 6 p.m.: We've had two days of blissful quiet; Quiteños do respect the Sabbath, and today not many people were at work, it seems. On shopping excursions, we've noticed that the army of vendors that thread their way between the cars at every intersection now have more than fruit and magazines to flog. They have fireworks, clown hair and masks, and flammable cartoon effigies. The fireworks have started again, and the city sounds as if it is under artillery attack.

    There was an annual parade today at Atuntaqui, about forty minutes drive from here.  Men dress up as clowns, and as women, in drag. There are a few floats, and costumes with giant heads.  We didn't go.  It looks like a bit of fun, but with not much that's unique enough to other parades around the world. 

    Tonight Quito will hold its own version of Times Square, as so many cities do. The younger and wilder element will gather at a section of Avenida Rio Amazonas where they will drink and dance and eat street food, set off projectile fireworks, and burn special effigies called "muñecos" (puppets) often dressed up to represent something about the old year that they're especially glad to see the back of - a politician (most commonly the President), or a celebrity that they're quite sick of. A lot of the men will dress as women, or as "widows" (but they'll look more like two dollar hookers), and they'll barricade the streets with light ropes and demand small change from cars, "for charity" (but I'm guessing it'll also pay for a few drinks). 

    It all sounds like fun, except for standing around in the dark next to drunken strangers with projectile fireworks - will their aim improve as the night progresses? - and dancers who pile onto makeshift platforms until they collapse (the platforms, that is, not the dancers).  There will be daredevils leaping over burning effigies of paper and sawdust like British nutters on Guy Fawkes Day, and a plethora of pickpockets and muggers, I suspect.  It's well described here.

    Yay for the Brave New World that includes Youtube. Now that we know what to avoid, we'll bring in the New Year right here, but we won't escape the smoke and madness completely. It seems that there were enough muñecos on the street for every home and business to have one, and their ritual purpose is to clean and purify, burning up the residual spirits of the old year to get a clean start on the new one. They'll burn on the sidewalks in front of buildings all over the city; we've had three that I know of on our block already, just below our balcony, while young men and women in cars, trucks and motorcycles cruise the streets in high spirits; fortunately, they all headed down to the main event as night fell, and our street became fairly quiet except for the more distant fireworks. In some of the barrios it'll be pretty lively this evening.

    Many residents who can afford it escape the city for nearby towns on this weekend. Edwin and Any went all the way to New York, although admittedly not only to escape the New Year - maybe they're at Times Square tonight. Any emailed us a Happy New Year message.

    Here on Whymper Avenue (BTW, those who love the Rockies, Alps and Andes should learn who Edward Whymper was), there was lots of whistling and hollering, racing and revving of motorcycle engines, and a few flying bottles. From our balcony we can enjoy frequent fireworks against the backdrop of city lights stretching up the mountain, but Maggie is sequestered in her room watching her favourite Nigerian live church service on her Macbook, where the New Year has already arrived. She enjoyed the lighting of candles as midnight struck in Nigeria, and will spend the evening Skyping her Ghanaian family and friends when they return home from church. 

    Deb and I have had Maggie's delicious lasagna for supper, and for dessert we tried out another new fruit called a babaco; it has the flavour of a watery pear and an edible skin like an apple, but with a tartness to it (just acidic enough to make a unique new wine, I think); Deb thinks it has a slightly soapy taste, and didn't eat much (mind you, she hates pawpaw, too). In the morning she will teach Maggie yet another of her recipes, so we will bring in the New Year tomorrow morning with delicious smoked salmon quiche.

That's the quiet New Year of "sexagenarians".

Here are photos.

January 1st: Last night we had an experience that I wouldn't have believed if anyone had simply told me about it. In Toronto we have fireworks two or three times a year usually financed by the gov't at some level, detonated by professionals, and carefully spaced for maximum effect, and we are all dutifully impressed. Many people drive a long way to enjoy them.

    Quiteños in general, in spite of the event I described last night, celebrate the New Year at home with their families. The fireworks continued to build all evening. Deb and I were tired, and we'd retired an hour before midnight, but at around 11:30 the explosions had become so intense we had to get up to see what was going on. In all directions, up the hillsides, fireworks were being detonated, one block apparently trying to outdo the next, and our own block was no exception. Zoe, who'd taken fireworks in stride until now, had never experienced anything like this (she's not a year old yet) and began to cry frantically in her room, so I went to get her and carry her around to watch them with us. She settled down when I held her and she realized I wasn't in a panic about it.

    Our best view of the most impressive ones was northward toward the airport, but there was no direction that you didn't see the same thing happening. They became more intense as midnight approached, and within ten minutes of midnight the cumulative sound of distant pops and nearby booms and bangs was like - this is absolutely true, we both remarked on it out loud - the roaring rhythm of a long prairie freight train from inside an empty boxcar, and sometimes like breakers on an ocean shore, regular but with very short frequency. We both wondered, "How can they afford this?", and the celebration continued. There are busy lottery ticket sellers who dodge the cars at intersections, but this seemed to be a mass propitiation to all the saints and gods by a populace of two million all at once. 

    Neighbours down the street poured out of their houses and danced around their flaming muñecos on the sidewalks.  They set off fireworks there and from the rooftops of the collection of six story highrises like ours. The entire city sounded like it was experiencing a bombing raid, and the barrage continued unabated for at least another half hour but it didn't stop.  When I go to bed I usually drift off like a baby, but by 1 a.m. it continued to thwart my effort to fall asleep.

    This memory of Quito will stay with us. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to be impressed by a fireworks event anywhere else in the world.

Next: Quietly Quitting Quito

Christmas in Quito

    Dec 24th: the smoke and smog has cleared over the past two days and we have intense sunshine with intermittent rain, with thunder and sometimes lightning over the mountain peaks that surround the city.

    Yesterday we had the Salazar family over for lunch. Deb made Hainanese chicken and Maggie made her famous cheesecake, which she sells to embassy staff for $20 - it's pretty delicious; Maggie also made Christmas sugar cookies, and Deb made her melt-in-your mouth shortbread. They spent the whole day prior in the kitchen, comparing recipes, messing with animated Christmas cards, having a lot of fun.

    Deb made traditional egg nog too, which you don`t see in the stores here, although they do have Christmas turkeys.  I provided rum for the egg nog, but the Salazars all declined - they had closed the factory on Friday and had a factory party with employees, and on Saturday another party with other friends kept them up until 8 a.m. this morning.  Edwin, in particular, needed shades to face the bright sunshine today. None of them drink alcohol on a frequent basis.

    Afterward, Any drove us back up to Itchimbia, the glass palace, to enjoy one of the most charming Christmas traditions anywhere. The residents of Quito fill the space with nativity scenes made by children and families, professional artists, churches, community groups, you name it. These are called Pesebres, or manger scenes ("pesebre" means "manger"). Someone screens them carefully to ensure that no two are too similar, either in materials used or appearance. They are made from found objects, bottles and trash items, fabric, paint, grains and foodstuffs, electronic trash (old circuit boards and capacitors, for example), recycled metal and car parts, burlap, paper maché, chocolate and marzipan, recycled glass, straw and corn husks, light bulbs...just about anything the creators can imagine working with. And they are all charming in one way or another. Here they are - if you zoom in, you`ll see lots of cute details.

    Tomorrow is Christmas. A few fireworks have already gone off. Maggie and Deborah have agreed on an exchange of Christmas gifts that seems most appropriate for two skilled cooks: Deb will make her pear puff pancake dish for breakfast, topped with some real maple syrup that we brought along, and Maggie will make a full-blown traditional Ghanaian dinner with fufu, fried plantain, and peppery tomato turkey stew for the sauce that goes with the fufu.

Next: Birds in a Gilded Cage

Otavalo Women

    My photo album features the women of Otavalo because they are the ones who've created most of the textile products you'll see, and also because the women of Otavalo wear traditional dress everywhere they go, not just in the tourist market. They are Quechua, but they seem to have several subgroups with identifiable costumes. The men tend to dress in occidental fashion except for a dark fedora and often a braided pony tail. The light "Panama hat", which is actually Ecuadorian in origin, appears to be worn only by tourists.

    We got up at six.  The taxi was supposed to arrive at our door at 7:15 but got there by 7:45 and didn't clear town until 8:30 because of extra passengers he still had to pick up. Eventually there were seven of us in the cab and a lot of cargo in the roof rack - and seven on the way home, too. To get home we were told to be back at the depot before 3, but we left at 3:30 and didn't get home until 6:30, partly because of rush hour traffic and partly because we dropped off the other passengers at various locations. This is how we learn; for a similar trip next time we'll try the coach to see if it is cheaper and more comfortable, even if it takes just as long.

    I noticed police buses driving police officers (both genders) to the intersections around town, where they ostensibly direct traffic but mostly their mission seems to be to enforce the "pico y placa" initiative to curb gridlock in the city. Your licence plate determines whether you are allowed to be on the road on a particular day, and if you forget what day it is, there's a heavy fine. Any and Edwin have been caught. 

    It was too early yet for the hawkers and jugglers and amputees in wheelchairs who play chicken with the cars and hold their hands out for spare change as the cars flow around them. There's no such thing as "cutting someone off" here - a driver is expected to make his move back and forth between lanes whenever there is space for your front quarter-panel, to try to take any opportunity to move forward; if you don't people behind will honk at you.  As you move, you keep honking regularly to let people know that you are already entering a space they might have considered, and to keep other drivers aware of your presence.  Therefore, there's a continuous wall of honking sounds.

    There are a half-dozen police personnel at each intersection - usually a couple of senior officers scanning licence plates, and then a fleet of three or four "dirt-bike" style motorcycles with younger officers ready to race off in pursuit of any car that the senior officer directs them to stop. 

    When I arrived in Quito I wondered at the absolute army of police and security guards at all levels, but I've since come to wonder if it isn't a considered mechanism to deal with unemployment - certainly they get fairly easy jobs with nice uniforms, so there is a sense of respect, upholding the law and protecting people and property; and it keeps a lot of intelligent, able-bodied people employed who might otherwise form an angry, underemployed opposition to the government. I saw the same type of employment profile in the Soviet Union when I stopped there briefly thirty years ago. Who pays for all of this? The rich, for sure, and even the middle class, in terms of heavy taxation, and certainly the employers who struggle to make their factories profitable.

    One form of taxation might be hidden in mortgage interest. The government provides mortgages at interest rates in the teens while the rest of the world secures mortgages at half that rate, and less. If the gov't hadn't torn up treaties with western nations and allied itself with Chavez in Venezuela, and similarly aligned nations, perhaps some of that lendable foreign capital would be available in this economy. 

    While public transit is incredibly cheap, cars (and fines) are twice the cost you'd see in N. America, and everyone has a job but if you're wealthy enough to consider buying your own new home, it'll take a long time to get it built. As we drove to Otavalo I saw that more than half of the homes along the highway were in a state of incomplete construction, usually with the rebar still exposed on upper floors. They seem to be built piece-meal, as the owner can afford each next step, and often the ground or bottom two floors are inhabited by people or businesses while the top floors remain under intermittent construction.

    I saw a brickworks. The rough looking bricks I mentioned in a previous post were being fired there in a wood kiln, and there were piles of firewood ready to be used. I guess that's the easiest way to proceed economically; business loans must be as hard to obtain as mortgages. I reflected that our bricks are more finely made and the mortar applied with more craftsmanship, but they are also visible from the outside of our homes, whereas these bricks and this messy mortar are hidden behind a facing layer of stucco cement which is smooth and painted in bright colours - although often only at the front of the building.

    The highway was new and looked like a Canadian highway; part of it is finished, with two toll booths already set up to help pay for the continuance, and work is proceeding steadily. Once in the outskirts of Quito, we were quickly in an area where dogs ran free but darted nimbly through traffic as intelligently as human pedestrians. There were also chickens on the loose, the occasional pig, usually tethered, and dairy cattle, usually corralled or tethered but I saw one calf following his human around like a large dog. 

    We wound through steep hills, and it was easy to imagine how nerve-wracking the trip would have been in the days of narrow, ill-maintained roads. We passed one bus on fire from overheated front brakes - the tire had gone up in flames before someone ran for an "extintor" (I don't know why there wouldn't have been one on the bus) and managed to put it out.

    The Otavalo market fills the central square, and is a good experience. One feels relatively safe and secure there, and the colours and varied goods are very interesting. Unless you have a lot of shopping to do, it might take you a couple of hours at most to explore, and one can have a meal on the side street. We had Yahuarlocro, the typical locro soup of this region: the potato soup of this province of Imbabura (Quito is in the neighbouring province of Pichincha) doesn't have cheese in it. Interesting small distinctions create local variations.  It has cow intestines (stomach and lung parts), and a side plate of salad, avocado and flaky dried sheep's blood that you can stir into your soup along with a little hot sauce that is on every table instead of the N. America ketchup bottle. Yum.

Next: Christmas in Quito

Closer to Hell, Quito sights, and life with Maggie and Zoey

    This post is titled in honour of Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano, which is threatening local villages, destroying crops with dirty black ash and polluting the air 90 miles away here in Quito - adding insult to injury in a city already too full of dirty diesel engines with no enforcement of filter replacement. And of course the planes are still coming in low over the city as if they are on strafing runs, to get under the cloud cover. 

    There are dangerous hot lava flows downs Tungurahua's sides, and the smoke and ash plume is 2 to 3 kms high. The Canadian Consulate calls it an "Orange Alert" - the lava is certainly orange - and we are closely watching the situation to see whether we can still go to Malingua Pamba on January 6th - there has been ash falling in some nearby towns.

    Our photos today are of the city of Quito - its architecture, mostly. Quito is a UNESCO Heritage City. On Tuesday we took the big red open-topped double decker tourist bus through the city. We stopped at the artisan's market, which is not too huge but the merchandise is interesting. The section of the tour bus route that goes through the old town and up to El Panecillo is worth the experience. The more modern part of town is a mixed bag: a lot of the buildings and infrastructure are "second world" rather than first or third world, and I was surprised at the poor quality of the brick in some areas. Street level electrical wiring is like spaghetti. Much of the city, however, including the neighbourhood we are in, is quite modern and well-built.

    "Weather clear but with a chance of sudden showers:" On the way back to stop #1, the bus was on a small ring road through a more modern section of town. Suddenly I noticed that a frame was lifting on the upper deck and a black vinyl cover was being brought forward, motorized, like putting up the top on a convertible. It was a little cool, but not raining, so I wondered why they were covering us. Once it was done, I suddenly noticed that there was a young man on a pedestrian overpass ahead of us on the highway. As we passed underneath, he whipped out his hose and peed a fairly copious amount of urine down onto the bus.  He managed to splash the upper windscreen, and if the top had been retracted, Deb would have worn some. A little later, the ticket-taker calmly retracted the top again. It must be a hilarious and common joke amongst some of the young people here - "Piss on the tourists!" - because later I saw a young man in a car coming from the other direction looking up at the front of the bus, and he pointed and laughed.

    This morning we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 a.m. and took Maggie to the fresh food market, where we bought fish, meat, fruit, etc and came home $60 lighter but with about six bags full of edibles. Since her Spanish (and maybe her confidence) is limited, she doesn't get out to a place like that very often - this was only her second visit. She did recognise several things that she knew from her home in Ghana, including the Jamaica tea, which she says is ubiqitous and inexpensive there. Here they bring it in from Mexico and charge about $20/lb for it, or $3 for quite a small bag.

    I'm convinced that we paid a "gringo price" for some of our items, especially in the smaller quantities; they weren't that keen to actually weigh fruits for us, so everything was "one dollar"; but it wasn't extreme gouging, and we came home pleased with our loot. Maggie, used to shopping in a Ghanaian market, was much quicker than we are to offer a buck when two bucks was asked, and several times got her price. We've noticed that taxi drivers, even the special city licenced ones for whom this is supposed to be illegal, will always quote us an "off the meter" price which is anywhere from 50% to 150% higher than we know that the same trip will cost on the meter - and that's even with Deb speaking clear Spanish to them. They usually claim it's because the traffic is hell...but it's never not hell. We've learned that if we demand the meter or offer the rounded cash amount that we know it is going to come to, they'll usually acquiesce, a little grudgingly but cheerfully.

    Except for a second trip to the regular supermarket today, we intend to stay put for the rest of the day, eating, napping and reading, studying Spanish, taking Zoey out for walks, etc. 

    We were winning the battle with Zoey - she hadn't pooped inside the house for two days now, except for overnight in her own little room, which she normally never does. I've recalculated based on the size of our little retirement bungalow at home that this apartment is closer to 6000 square feet, which is a pretty big neighbourhood in itself for a very small dog; we don't allow her access to regions where she'd developed the habit of sneaking off to have a poop, and we keep her tethered near us so she feels happy in our company and if she has to go she can give us fair warning. We broke our winning streak, however, by taking her upstairs - on a lead - while giving Mom a Skype tour of the apartment. As soon as she hit the upstairs landing that she used to use for a poop station, it triggered her bowel immediately, possibly from the residual odour, or maybe just residual habituation. We'll keep her completely away from the second floor, I guess.

    Reducing her food intake to the recommended amount for her size, and splitting that between two strict mealtimes (taking up what she doesn't eat in a half-hour or so), creates a routine for her body and less urgent and constant flow of food through it. We realized that she mostly pees in the house only out of nervousness, especially when we bend down to pick her up or attach the leash, when she cowers and cringes momentarily. She responds well to the opportunity to poop outside, and we've only scolded her once for pooping inside the house a few days ago, just to express our disapproval of that act. She's a very bright little dog when walking on the leash, being very aware of the leash, never pulling, and she is very attentive to us and any change in direction we decide on. Not bad for a nine month old puppy.

Next: Women of Otavalo

Closer to Heaven via "TelefériQo" (Quito's Teleférico)

    On Monday morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and got up to study Spanish. Deb had opened the windows during the night, because we have a south facing bedroom and it gets quite warm in the morning; but within an hour or two my eyes were burning and my throat began to get sore. Quito lies in a trough between two mountain ranges, and I thought there must be some kind of temperature inversion that trapped the smog, although I was puzzled that could have built to such a level so early in the day. Buses are diesel and filter replacement is not enforced, and the whole city is under the flight path of arriving jetliners, but that wasn't the explanation.  Deb got an email from the Canadian Consulate later today that solved the mystery: the region we're going to is under an "orange" volcano alert because Tungurahua has blown its top, with ash falls in places we'll pass through, and smoke and ash plumes 2 to 3 kilometres high. Tungurahua is only 143 kilometres from Quito.

    We had a fairly lazy start to the day, and then decided the smog had cleared enough on the surrounding mountains to make it possible to see back into the city, so we took a taxi over to the Teleferico, the cable car. We rode up to 13,300 feet, then hiked up another 200, with frequent stops, gasping for air like fish out of water. The view was great, and in spite of being thin, the air felt lovely, with a slight refreshing chill to counter the bright sunshine. The staff wore scarves and full snowsuits, which seemed a little overdressed to us, but they were stationed in shade all day, I suppose. Our photos are here, including a handful for the horsey set among us.

    Except for those very few who want to get their fingers into your pockets, Ecuadorians are very gracious, charming, helpful people with old world manners and conservative dress. One must be sure to greet properly with a "Buenos días" or a "Buenas tardes" before launching into a question or conversation, and to start the day with a hearty greeting as well, which might include, between close friends and family, a hug and a cheek kiss, or a handshake. And the same when saying goodnight, but then you would say "Buenas Noches".

Next post: Closer to Hell

The middle of the world

    Today Paulo, a driver who occasionally does deliveries for Any, took us both to Mitad del Mundo and back for $30. Even when we paid for parking and our own entry fees and museum entrance, it was half the $45 each that a local travel agency quoted us. It was a fun little trip, and we took photos, of course. 

    My daily routine is becoming clear: portfolio time every morning just like at home (except on weekends, of course), then one tourist attraction per day, then home to edit photos and write a blog, and finally a Spanish study portion of the day. And there's a collection of dvd's to watch here at Jeannie Friedman's when I get tired of reading and learning new words.

    At Mitad del Mundo we stood with one leg on either side of the equator as it was known by early twentieth century scientific measurement. Modern gps measurement puts the equator about 240 metres to the north. Paulo dropped us at a funny tourist trap called the Intiñan Solar Museum, which purports to be on the correct gps-defined equator, but when I saw the place and considered the "45 minute tour" we'd be subjected to, I opted out. You can read about that aberration in the Wikipedia article as well.

    The mountain peak that is closest to the sun is in Ecuador. Mind you, it isn't a taller climb than Everest; it's just that the earth bulges outward at the equator because of centrifugal force. Rather like my middle, I suppose, except that in my case the force is more gravitational.

    We rode on a "Touristic Train" for an overview of the site, then went inside the monument for a view from above. You go up in an elevator, but you must come down by the stairs, and at each level there is a new ethnographic exhibit featuring the different cultural and linguistic groups in Ecuador - quite a nice little museum, and I kept expecting it to end but there was always one more floor, each as interesting as the last. 

    There is an artisan's village with great traditional weaving and other crafts, and some nice looking charangos made from real armadillo shell, well made, but they looked more decorative than functional - the strings seemed too similar in diametre, like black fishing line, and I couldn't figure out how it should be tuned in order to hear the sound. You can see llamingos there (an Ecuadorian member of the llama family), have "cuy" (guinea pig) cooked on a spit, or sit in a 2,000 seat amphitheater and watch a bullfight.

    On the way there and back, there are fruit sellers in abundance, trucks and stalls by the dozens, and you can buy it all through your car window, including gorgeous bouquets of flowers and snacks of all description. We brought home a new fruit, some sort of green pod that comes from the coast, but I've forgotten the name. We got four for a buck. You eat the pulp that surrounds the seeds, and it is like sweet cotton at first, then the fibrous texture disappears as you continue to chew. Deb's not a fan, but it's okay. Not as tasty as the bag of mandarins for a buck that we also picked up (but I paid too hastily before inspecting them, darn it!), or the grenadillas, which are Deb's new favourite fruit. 

    Driving in Quito: if you can come through this traffic unscathed, you can drive anywhere. It is fluid, and you have to watch constantly for lane changers, and be ready to change lanes instantly yourself as vehicles simply stop in front of you for whatever reason they please. There are advantages; gas is $1.46/gallon, and it is open season on pedestrians - cars have the total right of way, even over zebra crosswalks at intersections. To cross a road on foot, you have to watch for an opening, and dash. 

    In downtown Quito, buses and emergency vehicles have their own two lanes in the middle of the road, with the outer lanes left for cars. That solves a few problems that we have with traffic in Toronto. A major road will usually have two or three lanes in either direction, with a thin boulevard down the middle for public vehicles; on Sundays they choose a double set of major roads and shut down one set of lanes on each, so that they become one-way streets, and cyclists - whole families out together for a Sunday ride - get to use the freed lanes in perfect safety. This weekly event is called "Ciclopaseo".

    A funny observation about making assumptions - at the mall, all the women coming out of the supermarket had their shopping carts pushed to the elevator and then to their cars by the male baggers. "Could they be so lazy?", I thought, "Or is this how they imagine women of status should be served?" After my experiences on the "trole", it suddenly clicked: female shoppers have to be accompanied to their cars by male employees in order to foil petty thieves.

Here are today's photos.

Next post: Closer to Heaven

New Digs, New Dog

 The South American Explorer's Club (closed two years after our visit) had a Quito clubhouse, a lovely old building near the Mariscal tourist area (near a place called "Gringoland" on the map!) The Explorer's Club was a safe harbour for members, who paid $60/year or $90 for a couple.  They had a good website, social events, a few rooms available to rent upstairs for around $250/month, a huge lending and book swap library, binders of maps and trip reports from members, and a club network throughout eight countries. 

    There we met Kate, a young British girl who began a tour around S. America five years ago in Colombia. She got as far as Quito, and stopped. She's content here. She assured me that if I'd made more fuss on the "trole", bystanders would have pitched in and stuck up for me. I was fierce but quiet about it; I think that on my mind was the thought of not attracting the attention of any accomplices my pickpocket might have had to what I was up to, before I bounced him out the back doors when they opened at the station. Kate said other bus lines are not as full and are therefore much safer, and the trole can also be not as packed on the weekends.

    We went to the Cultural Museum a short walk from the clubhouse, and enjoyed paintings by Ecuadorian artists of the past two centuries, large panoramic photos by high altitude photographer Patricio Tisalemas, a gallery of musical instruments that they claimed was the second largest collection outside of Belgium (take that with a grain of salt!) and gazed upon my first real charango, which I covet. I'm looking for a place to buy a second hand one. There was also an exhibition of photos and panels celebrating the life of Richard Schultes, a very famous ethnobotanist. I enjoyed reading about him - science topics are easier for me in Spanish, because the concepts and roots of the words are already familiar.

    That evening the Mayor and his retinue opened a new park on the corner a half block from Edwin and Any's, calling it the Parque del Agua, with many long speeches. It's lovely, beside a ministry building, has pretty gardens and walks and a new fountain. The workers worked three fifteen hour days to finish it in time for the opening, and they shut off the water for three nights in a row to try to make the fountain work, with no warning to the residents of the neighbourhood. That really messed up the Salazar family's morning shower routine. 

    It was quite a celebration, with stilt-walkers, called "zanqueros", who danced in front of a "bando del pueblo". Once it was dark enough, they set off fireworks behind the fountain. There was a special design construction of blue neon lights to symbolize the park and many of those were lit up on neighbouring buildings and on lamp posts down the street in front of the Salazar house.

    Edwin and Any had a flood overnight - the water line for the ice maker on Edwin's Mom's frig broke, upstairs. His Mom and Dad live on the top two floors of the building.  Edwin and Any live on the main floor in the middle, and the clothing factory is on the ground floor, along with a secure parking and storage area that you can drive into.  They took us upstairs to show us the top two floors of the home. I photographed the central area of the top floor.  

    Edwin, Any and Aaron took us for a drive to locate our new digs.  We treated them to a "thank you" dinner at a Chinese Food restaurant next door to our new address.  The next morning they drove us over again and dropped us with our belongings.  We'll be here for the next three weeks. There are photos of the place in today's album. 

    Jeannie Friedmann is a USAID worker who has been in Zambia, Ghana, Afghanistan and now Ecuador; maybe other places too.  She has an apartment which is quite lovely and upscale for what I've seen in Quito so far, with three bedrooms, each with its own bath, on two levels, with lots of dining and lounging areas and lots of light and space, with windows in four directions - maybe 6000 square feet. There seem to be about six two-story apartments stacked up on top of each other, each with a view in every direction; we're all of the fourth and fifth floor, and I'm told that the U.S. Ambassador lives just above us.

    Jeannie brought a friend named Maggie from Ghana to be her housekeeper in Ecuador, and she remains here while Jeannie and her daughter Becky are away in New York. We'll keep Maggie company over Christmas and New Year's, and pay her to cook and clean and do laundry as she normally does. 

    Zoey is here too: she's a nine month old little black dachshund that is also probably part chihuahua. Our assignment while we're here is to try to house-train her; Jeannie and Maggie have tried for months without success. We do think they should have named her "Shiva, goddess of destruction".  She has already crunched the button off the cuff of my shirt, and has previously ruined their shoes, the ironing cord, coffee table legs, the Bible that she pulled off Maggie's bedspread...anything she feels like setting her teeth to.

    Maggie made us Ghanaian stew for supper, with veggies, meat, peanut butter and peppers...delicious. I'm smelling it cooking as I write this. For tomorrow we've hired Paulo, a friend of Edwin's, to drive us to Mitad del Mundo, the "middle of the earth" - in other words, the equator that Ecuador is named after. There's a monument and a little museum there, and great scenery, I'm told.

Next post: The Middle of the Globe

Muy rico! And pick-pockets thwarted.

"Muy rico" means very delicious. Any enthusiastically finds many things "muy rico!"   She introduced me to a flowering herb from Mexico called "Jamaica" which is my new favourite beverage - it has to be boiled into a tea in half a litre of water, allowed to cool, the leaves are sieved out, another litre of cold water and a bit of sugar is added, and it tastes like a delicious fruit drink.  It is muy rico.

    It rained hard overnight, and threatened rain today, so we took the trole down to the Banco Central Museo. It's not huge, but quite a good museum, and we enjoyed the afternoon there.  Deb particularly enjoyed the pottery (our photos here), some of it exceptional artisanship from an era we tend to think of as not that sophisticated. She marvelled at its creativity and inventiveness, and that it was all kiln-fired pottery, even some rather enormous pieces.

    We went through a chamber of golden objects. The Incas were skilled metallurgists in copper, silver and gold; they could blend copper and gold through a process of hammering and welding, and they were the first to alloy platinum with gold.

    We had agreed that we would take a taxi to the museum today. It really is cheap - $1.50 ($2 with tip) compared with 50 cents for the two of us on the bus. However, today we ended up choosing the trole again. On the way down, we were packed in like sardines, as previously. Deb said yesterday she'd leave her purse at home, but she took it anyway. A fellow held a book above her purse with one hand, and slipped his other hand into her purse. Fortunately all he came up with was a slip of paper, and she saw that. She didn't have any money in her purse.

    At the same time, another fellow about my size was pushing hard against me in the crush near the back door, and I suddenly realized that he was still pushing against me even though a space had opened up behind him. I wondered what was wrong with him, then realized his hand was in my pocket. He'd felt my little pocket dictionary and thought it was a wallet. He might have felt my camera too, but that was hanging inside my trousers on its wrist-strap. 

    I squeezed his fingers very hard while keeping his hand trapped inside my pocket, suggesting I might break them, and spoke angrily to him in English, which probably also confused him and put him on the defensive; we pulled up to the stop and the back doors opened, and I "encouraged" him to leave through them - with a  push - and let his fingers go, filling the space so that he had no chance to squeeze back in. 

     No-one around me seemed to find this incident unusual, and no-one so much as smiled that the pick-pocket had been foiled. No-one would meet my eyes. It's an Alice-in-Wonderland world here. In Africa when you call out a petty thief, bystanders will usually beat him up or at least help him on his way with kicks and slaps, and congratulate the would-be victim.

    The taxi home was a much smarter choice, and well worth including in our daily budget, for peace of mind. Bottom line, probably, is that public transit in Quito is not for foreign visitors, and not a way to try to meet and experience the local populace. Edwin has never let his kids take the public bus in Quito. They're cheap, at a quarter a ride, but incredibly packed at any hour of the day - perhaps because they don't charge enough to buy more buses! It's a catch-22, though; minimum wage here is about $250/month, which only works out to less than $2/hour, and these workers have to get back and forth to work. And they carry many who are unemployed, I'm guessing.

    Speaking of Edwin, he and Any generously came through with a further offer to let us stay here until we move to Jeannie's apartment on Saturday. Sadly, the reason they were able to was because Any's brother-in-law lost the salesman job he'd held with Ford Motors for the past two years, and her sister was unable to come to visit her at this time. Any and Edwin are incredibly busy in their Atex Bordado factory these days, working twelve hours a day trying to get through a rush of orders for the Christmas season. They lost their chauffeur/delivery driver recently, which makes their work load even heavier, although I understand that Edwin's brother is helping out with that.

    I can't help feeling that it was a lucky accident that our travel agent booked our flights a week before we were actually supposed to show up at Jeannie's; Any and Edwin picked up on our general request while other direct requests were ignored by supposed CouchSurfing hosts, and we have made a friendship with a family of four that I believe will last for years, especially now that we will be able to serve as a lifeline to their son Aaron in his first year away from home, at the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto.

    Next post: New digs, new dog

Juggling impressions of Quito

    By Sunday I was feeling better, and taking my acetazolamide faithfully. I'll keep doing it until we've done the cable car up the mountainside and back.

    Edwin took us around the old city on Saturday night, but the traffic was murder. Still, we got to see some of the famous collection of cathedrals and churches, the presidential palace, etc. One or more of the churches is completely covered with gold leaf in the interior. The presidential palace has a plaque on the wall to commemorate the day one of the presidents got hauled out and macheted to death; later Sharon's boyfriend Giuseppe told us it was an ancestor on his mother's side, and explained how and why it happened: the man was a womanizer who got caught by the husband. Ecuadorians don't brook with poor behaviour from their politicians; he explained that they will march in the streets and demonstrate to get the guy bounced out immediately if he doesn't do the job right. In one eight year stretch they'd had six presidents. However, the current guy, a graduate of Stanford U., cleverly plays different classes within the electorate to maintain power.

    There are jugglers and tumblers at intersections who would entertain drivers while they waited at the lights, taking their lives in their hands in the traffic, and then accepting change from the drivers along with beggars in wheelchairs, vendors of fruit and other goods. Any mentioned that many of these guys would be Cuban. There are lots of Colombians here, too.

    Any (Ana) drove us around town a bit on Sunday. Giuseppe had the top of his ear (the "pinna", Deb says) slit by a soccer cleat, so Any drove him and Sharon to emergency, then did a drive-by where we'll stay this coming Saturday.  We got out for a walk for us and for Olivia the schnauzer at Itchimbia, a lovely glass pavilion used for festivals, art shows, pageants, etc. 

    From that vantage point I took photos of parts of the city including the hill called El Panecillo (a little bread, or a bun, which is the shape of the hill), which is topped by a statue of La Virgen de Quito, complete with eagle's wings like an angel. 

    In the evening we went out to "Crepes and Waffles" for supper, and I had a chicken curry "Panne Cook" - a bread bowl carved out like a Hallowe'en pumpkin to hold the curry inside. It was just like the "Bani-chow" we ate in Durban, which I've always referred to as "bunny-chow"...which I suppose would make the most sense if there was rabbit meat inside it.

    On Monday we hung around the house trying to connect with the person we were supposed to stay with next, a person who works with disabled programs, directly for the vice-president, she says. Eventually she phoned to tell us that her circumstance had changed, that her son didn't want to go back to school in New Orleans and his room, which she was planning to put us up in, wasn't available. We sent an email to my back-up person, but haven't had a response, and there were no responses to our general and "last-minute" requests.  I get the impression that in general, couchsurfing hosts here might not be as trusting or eager to host strangers in their homes as they are on other continents - maybe a result of the sense of personal insecurity in the society. 

    Fortunately Edwin and Any were quick to invite us to stay two extra nights, after which we've booked into the hostel a short walk down the street from Edwin and Any's, owned by his father, I believe. Any's sister will move into our room here tomorrow. The hostel is $30/night all in for a private double with ensuite bathroom, which is fairly standard; another down the street is $36 for the same kind of room but includes continental breakfast.

    Last night we hit the supermarket and made up a large soup for the whole family, because Any said that she likes soup of the sort that Deb described making to stay warm in a Canadian winter. Ours wasn't a complete success - veggies we weren't quite used to, stewing beef a bit tough, some spices we might have added that would have helped the flavour - but it was pretty good, and happily devoured by all.

    We went to the market with Giuseppe and Sharon.  Giuseppe is training as a chef. He is full of information that he is eager to share, and he speaks English quite well. He's Italian on his father's side (he travels to the States frequently to visit him) and Ecuadorian on his mother's side.  He is a marvellous ambassador for Quito, and very proud of his city and culture. 

    We studied fruits both familiar and less so; some we recognised from Africa or Asia and others completely unfamiliar to us, indigenous to this area. The slaughterhouse is attached to the market so everything is as fresh as can be, but also very clean.  I didn't notice a single fly in the building. We ate a good plate called hornado, of roast pork and potatoes coloured and flavoured with achiote and cheese. 

    The diversity of fruits and vegetables is immense, and there are many different kinds of corn (mais) and potatoes (papas). The range of flowers is also very broad. I think most of our winter roses and other flowers come from this part of the world; but here you can buy 25 roses for $1. We brought home a favourite savoury snack of mais tostada - a special kind of corn roasted for four hours in a cauldron with onion, garlic and salt; and the same kind of corn but sugared instead, which is a snack called "caca de perro" (= puppy-poops!)

    We chatted with Giuseppe and Sharon about personal security in Quito...in short, there isn't much. Colombians and a brutal fiscal collapse have brought muggings, contract killings and shake-downs by police to a whole new level.  Sharon described three personal robberies, two of them by corrupt policemen, while Giuseppe, who travelled long distances by bus as a professional soccer player, has been a mugging victim sixteen times. Travelling alone on foot or public transit, especially at night, is just not recommended. 

    Reporting to the police generally doesn't help because the robber often has family connections within the police department; and even if not, it will take a long time and a lot of trouble to have your property returned. They have a policy here that if you're mugged for less than $500, or for property for which you have no receipt, or property purchased outside of Ecuador even if you do have a receipt, they won't even take a report; and the robber, if assaulted, has more rights than the victim and won't even be charged for being in possession of a firearm and using it in the execution of a crime.

    Mind you, we feel somewhat insulated from danger ourselves: we dress modestly and don't make money and valuables apparent, we avoid travelling alone or in unsafe neighbourhoods, especially after dark. The existence of our foreign embassy gives us an extra layer of protection from corrupt officials that Ecuadorian citizens don't enjoy, as long as we don't panic if we experience an attempt at a shake-down. We carry very little cash and very little of value besides (sometimes) our camera and/or cell phone. If it ever happens, it`ll be unsettling, but a small loss, and muggings rarely include assault.

    Edwin talked about the very difficult business environment which has developed with the loss of treaties to major trading nations, and the laws enacted to protect workers which they can freely twist to use against employers. He gave us a tour of his factory, which covers the ground floor of his house - he has had to contract his operation from the outside building he once worked out of, and reduce his employee complement, which is how the current president's course of legislation has backfired against those he intended to help, as a result of great loss of jobs. Another result of the loss of those treaties is that it will now cost him a small fortune each year to pay for Aaron's schooling in Canada. Their company, Atex, makes very fine clothing and computerized embroidery work - golf shirts and hats, blankets, vests, pants and jackets, crests - all sorts of things.

    You can hardly find a friendlier, kinder, more affectionate, politely dressed, well-mannered and helpful populace anywhere else in the world than in Quito. I look at the bars on doors, broken glass on walls, electrified or barbed wire - every home a fortress - and the constant army of police and security guards at all levels, and find that I have to do some sort of mental juggling act to keep these contrasting realities in my head at the same time. Although the traffic is horrendous and the behaviour of drivers reminds me of Karachi, the architectural design of modern commercial buildings is remarkably bold and attractive. 

    Many northern retirees live in enclaves in Cuenca, a smaller city with similar climate.  They live cheaply here over the winters compared to being at home, and I'm told they really love to be here. From Quito you can get to a warmer town (if you'd want to) in twenty minutes, be in the jungle rainforest in three hours, or at the beach in four hours, and the road surfaces have been improved in recent years, Giuseppe tells us.

    This evening we'll go to Jeannie Friedmann's house to meet her and her housekeeper Maggie from Ghana. Edwin and Any will come and meet her too.

    Here are some photos, including a few from the market.

Next Post: Gold museum, tram pickpockets