The Hostal Tiana in Latacunga has been taken over by an Ecuadorian family, who are digging out the floor of their lobby. Deb says it's to create more storage for helmets and climbing gear, I guess so that they can turn the ground floor storage room into an extra rentable bedroom. We cat-walked over a board to get to our room, as you'll see in the photo. However, they appear to be trying to gouge the naive young European travellers to pay for the excavation.
We arrived early and they invited us to have breakfast but didn't post a price or tell us about a price, so we thought they were just being nice, but they charged us for it the next day - wrote $2 each on the bill, then suddenly as Deb was ready to pay the lady scratched it out and wrote $2.50 each! Deb complained and said she'd happily pay a reasonable extra charge, but how could the price have gone up another 50 cents in the day since she'd arrived? This is not accounting-based pricing, but prices levied at the whim and caprice of the owner and staff. And mind you, this is for two croissants, a banana, juice and coffee, a breakfast meal that costs about 40 cents to set out here in Ecuador and wouldn't cost much more than that in Canada. The owner reimbursed her, said he "didn't want her to be unhappy"; but how many other younger customers are just walking away unhappy without having the moxie to complain like Deb did? Young travellers with a bad taste in their mouths don't use those same mouths to spread positive word of mouth advertising, do they?
25 days ago if you'd wanted to add an egg that costs 7 1/2 cents at the market to your breakfast you would have paid 50 cents (we did); but the price has now doubled to $1 per egg! They're rather clueless, obviously. A New Zealand guy who was working there for his last day said they've barely sold two or three eggs in total in the weeks since the price increase, and they used to sell five or six each morning at the lower price. He said someone asked for extra jam (1 cent worth, comes from a bucket, gets put in a tiny dish) and they tried to charge him 30 cents; another girl asked for a bit of milk for her cereal - they have milk for coffee, but not for drinking as milk - and was refused. "It's only for the coffee", they said. "But I don't drink coffee", she said, "so couldn't I simply have the portion of milk I've paid for with my breakfast in my cereal instead?" "No", was the reply. That's the ridiculous direction that things are headed. You'd think that at the very least they'd have a few extra milk cartons to sell to young travellers who want to start the day with their favourite granola cereal, but I guess they'd increase the price fifteen times for that too, so maybe that wouldn't be a helpful suggestion!
I'm beginning to suspect that the dominant theme of doing business in Ecuador, especially where tourists are concerned, is: "killing the goose that lays the golden egg". My friend Arnd found the same thing thirty years ago when doing trade with Brazilian companies, and more recently, in Peru. Here, even the "official" taxis with registered plates and placards, for whom it is supposed to be illegal to operate off the meter, consistently demand a cash price 50% to 100% higher than we know the trip will cost. We sometimes go through four "legal" taxis before finding one who is willing to turn on his meter for us. After 8 p.m., they all turn off their meters and just charge as much as they can get away with. The taxis do themselves out of business by consistently trying to gouge; a lot of visitors simply get used to the bus and trole system, instead. We're comfortable on the buses and troles, as long as we're not carrying anything pick-pocketable, and the fare is only a quarter.
When I visit a country with a stronger currency than ours, I pay more just for that reason, and I get more in myriad benefits of being in a stronger economic climate. When I visit a country with a weaker currency than ours, there are reasons for that weaker currency. A lower quality of goods and services, and infrastructure to match, generally. Among other things, consider lungs full of thick black diesel exhaust every time you walk up the street; no street cleaning, and no tax on fuel to pay for these things; but also think low input costs for food - low labour, and low fuel cost for delivery. I don't expect to have to pay double, triple or quintuple the going rate just because I'm from a country with a stronger currency. That stronger currency rests on superior business and trade ethics, a strong work ethic, much higher taxes, and good social management of health care, public health and safety, world class education, public and social service, not merely random good fortune; but that's very hard to explain. Canada has raw resources, but so does Ecuador. In Canada there are people who earn a terribly high salary compared to Ecuadorians, who yet cannot afford to retire early or to travel because of a much higher cost of living, higher taxation and fewer ways to avoid it, and an inability to live below their means and save their money. Odd though it is when you think about it, many of them are former Ecuadorians and other South Americans. Go figure. There are hidden benefits to living under economic policy like ours.
In Quito we thought we were going to connect with Any and Edwin, because we think of them as our friends in Quito now, but they were unable to connect and co-ordinate with us last night because they are very busy with family visiting from Ibarra and from the U.S. We arranged to stay at the nearby Hostal Ecokarmel initially because Any wanted to work with Deborah on the idea of selling Ecuadorian crafts in Toronto, but the prospect of staying on the shelf in that hostal for three days wasn't very appealing.
The Ecokarmel used to be owned by Edwin's father. However, it is triple the price of our other downtown choice, and it is in a part of town with not much to appeal to tourists. We'd already seen and done what there is to see and do there a month ago. They jacked up the price over what they'd told us in December, which annoyed us; then we endured ridiculously weak wifi in spite of being put in a room on the first floor closest to the router at the front desk (which I had to reset before we could get any connection at all), but the only consistent connection is in our bathroom sitting on the can!
We endured the noise of the manager and his friends hollering (their normal speaking voices, apparently) in an echo chamber lobby all evening with the sound reverberating up the stairs and through our front door. Our room wasn't the one they'd showed us in December. This one has grotty carpet and peeling paint. The whole building is run down and there are customers with painted ladies who rent their rooms by the hour. They couldn't find us a key for hours after we'd moved into our room, which always triggers alarm in me - an obvious security risk. Our door showed signs of recently being jimmied and someone walked by and tried the door handle in the morning to see if it was unlocked...I'd just stepped out of the shower, so whoever it was would've been repelled by the vision of full frontal nudity that confronted him!
No hot water for shaving in the sink, no mat for the bathroom floor. Cockroaches in the communal kitchen off the lobby were no surprise given the mess of unwashed dishes, open jam and other food containers, and half-finished food in open pots.
We'd rather stay with the "hippies", quite frankly: savvy fellow travellers. So we moved this morning to The Belmont, which is a very funky old building right next to Quito's most famous hostel The Secret Garden, which the Ecokarmel has the nerve to match in price. The next door Belmont has "old-Quito" charm and is just as comfortable as its more famous neighbour - lacking the restaurant, but it has its own rooftop terrace with a partial view that is almost as nice as the Secret Garden view, which is famous.
You get to meet other travellers (currently mostly French and Japanese, also German, British, and American), get advice on things to see and do in Quito, and it is in a much older and more interesting part of the city. You can walk up a set of stairs that you'll see in the photo album, and get an even more amazing view than the Secret Garden boasts. Guayaquil street and the surrounding neighbourhood are loaded with small, inexpensive restaurants and other stores. I found a decent pair of shoes to replace my worn out runners.
The Belmont has everything the Ecokarmel has, and more, in a more interesting neighbourhood. We were given a "matrimonial" room with a private bath at a third of the price we'd paid the night before. Dustin stayed in a room next door, paid $6 a night for his private room with a double bed and a private bath. It's run by a cheerful hard-working Russian lady named Elena, who spends her entire long day in rubber gloves, cleaning - the place looks old, but smells clean, unlike the Ecokarmel. In addition to the rooftop terrace which has tables and its own little kitchen and BBQ, there is a large ground floor common room with an 18 foot ceiling, two armchairs and a sectional couch for seven, a sizeable book exchange, a shelf of free DVD movies to watch on the TV, and a guitar that anyone may pick up and play. I did. Nice touch.
There are, however, delicious meals in small family owned lunch restaurants (I can't figure out why some are only open such short hours - can't make any money on breakfasts and dinners?) with posted prices that are the same for locals and tourists, as they are in Canada, and as they should be everywhere. We've paid from $1.25 to $6 a meal, but usually somewhere in the middle. Our breakfast one morning was an egg, two tortillas, juice and darn good coffee for the price, with milk (or you can have chocolate) for $1.25, in Quito, in a tourist area, just at the foot of the street from the foreigners' hostels. Food is usually quite tasty here and you don't have to haggle about the prices, as you do with taxis. We have a favourite coffee shop across the street, a bit upscale, the Cafe Alhambra - $2.90 for really good coffee, a giant cookie for me and a slice of cake for Deb.
At the foot of the street from the Belmont is the Hermano Miguel Plaza, which has a lovely living wall featuring a mosaic of plants, and a water jet fountain that many Quito children and older kids have a lot of fun playing in on a hot day. I took a few photos of that, couldn't help myself - great photos just happen naturally when people play with water. You have to be constantly on your guard though; in spite of the policemen standing around keeping an eye out for it, there are people constantly watching you and shadowing you, and there's a lot of robbery of the more naive gringos. You need to maintain a "spidey-sense", like in a school playground. But there are lovely plazas and statues nearby, and other great photographs waiting to be taken. Around the corner is the Plaza San Blas, although the statue in my photo seems more a saint of children than the 12th century original - probably Saint Brother Miguel.
We hope we'll be staying with Any and Edwin for our final few days in Quito, before flying on to Cusco via Lima. I'd like to see how we can help them get established in Canada if that's what they decide to do. We expect to be connected with them through Aaron for the years he is at the University of Toronto campus in Scarborough. We're looking forward to being part of his "support team" away from home. I'm guessing he'll be a little homesick by the time we get there in April, and ready to get out and go sailing this summer, and to see more of Toronto as spring blossoms. We hope to host Any and Edwin when they come to visit him in the fall, too.
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