It’s just about ten as we finish the bottle of ronpope. Luis was supposed to be here by eight, but it’s no surprise he’s two hours late — “Ecuadorian time,” I’m told again. The alcohol in the ronpope is strong, but the drink has the consistency of caramel, gritted up with just a bit of mud; not entirely bad, but at around a thousand calories per shot, it’s hardly a healthy way to get a morning buzz. It does complement mashed plantains and cheese well.
It’s day three and I’m extremely sick of plantains.
Roberto comes in with a slightly taller Ecuadorian in a white hat, still carrying his machete inside.
“This is my cousin Coki. He Chone’s Crocodile DunDEE.”
Coki sets his machete on the table, an immaculate specimen several steps above the scrap metal turned into jungle weaponry that most locals carry. My Spanish was finally good enough for a quick joke.
“Ahhhh. No es cuchara,” I say, pointing at the dull butter knife on my plate. Pointing at his machete “ESSS cuCHARA!!!”
Blank stares. Polite smiles.
“That’s not a knife. THAAAT’S a Knife! Crocodile Dundee? No?”
They shake their heads smiling, but clearly they don’t get it. Turns out cuchara means spoon.
Crocodile Chone says something and Roberto translates:
“He want to know if you want to see a snake fight a bat.”
Completely offguard but thrilled: “I want to see a snake or a bat!”
“Too late today. Tomorrow, he come in morning and we see snake fight a bat.”
“OK!”
Luis arrives, rushing us out the door as expected and into the back of a truck with several cousins and an uncle.
“How many cousins do you have, Luis?”
“Hmm. I don’t know the number. It is more than 80. But not 90. My grandfather, he have 15 children!”
Joe: “Bet Christmas gets pretty crazy.”
We take new roads through two small towns, and similar qualities begin to appear. No matter how ragged or poor a town may be, there is always a central square, cris-crossed with paths, gardens and trees all immaculately maintained. In the center, generally a large pavillion or gazebo depending on the size of the town, and it’s not difficult to imagine town dances and festivals all taking place within, even if I never see anhy. We reach our obvious destination with permanent signs in place, despite the festival only taking place once a year:
Fiesta de Comida Tipica
“This is a festival of typical foods?”
“Yes. The best in all of Chone!” proclaims Luis.
He speaks to the people at the gate and they waive the two dollar fee for the gringo journalists. Already we are celebrities by appearance alone. If my fair complexion might have been lost in the crowd, my gargantuan height — about a foot above any of the locals, at least — ensures it is not. Children are told our professions and immediately want to investigate the tools of our trade. A young boy looks at my notebook as though it’s some weird alchemy tome with dark secrets of nature within, and turns the pages reverently. That he stared in awe was proof he understood no English, as this snippet shows:
Crazy, drunken horns guy
rooster irritating. holes throughout floor chicken coup. ask, roberto say for piss drain cows? think luis ringtone is huey lewis power of love, midi version. horrible.
A wild-eyed man carrying some kind of animal horns stumbles up and hones in on me and he starts rambling drunkenly. I maintain a wide smile and constantly repeat “Si. Siii. Oh, si!” hopefully implying I have some idea of what he’s saying. In actuality, I do not, and he is frightening me. One day this technique is certain to get me inadvertently married off or cost me my firstborn child, but for now it seems effective enough. He continues ranting and pours out some of a brown drink he’s carrying along with him into a cup made of bone or horn, which I gladly accept. Strong with alcohol, it again tastes of caramel, reminiscent of ronpope, though far less thick and more drinkable. Downing the cup in one large sip earns his approval and he runs behind me to places his horns upon my head, either as a show of profound respect or as a means of saying “Yo, look what the stupid gringo’ll let me do.”
Me, with horns
The park’s much like Rennaissance festivals in the states, only focusing on a way of life just decades past, rather than centuries. The only “garb” is a table full of Panama hats. Locals are militant about these hats, as they apparently originated in Ecuador, but “Panama” stuck ever since Teddy donned one while checking out the budding canal. Say “Panama” in front of an Ecuadorian selling these hats. Make sure you have some time to kill. Bamboo is all the rage in architecture here, from forts and treehouses for kids, to food stands, to a large stage for performances and beauty pagaents perpetually surrounded by people and chickens throughout the day.
A chicken watches a dance performance intently
The food stands are all active, clouds of thick humid smoke surround the heavyset local women that seem to be cooking behind each counter. At the first food stand, a large man standing in front beckons to us, his arms spread like a religious gesture as he presents a wide assortment of foods ending in “-iche”. Viche, ceviche, geviche and others line his board, as well as a brand of homemade chicha that even from my limited
Spanish, I can tell he lists as revolutionary. He makes a proclamation to all of us, staring at me while I smile with my practiced blank stare.
The revolutionary chicha chef
Luis translates: “He say he change what everyone know about chicha. Everyone else just make with corn, naranjilla (a popular citrus fruit) and spices. No more. He add the mani, the peanuts.”
He speaks again.
“He say is natural viagra.”
A cup is foisted on me by the proud, bulky chef, and I down the thick beverage, surprised that it’s actually very drinkable. After handing the cup back, I pause to make notes in my notebook for the sake of good journalism, and as I try to put it away, he smiles and asks to see the journal. I open to the last page and pass it his way.
Last line: chicha - corn, naranjilla usually. with peanuts revolutionary.
He looks down and smiles at me, patting me on the shoulder enthusiastically. Apparently happy with my report, he grants us a bowl of free soup as well, shockingly enough also made from corn and his state-of-the-art peanut blend, this time with crab and tuna tossed in as well, giving the soup some body. To save room, we split the soup, then made our way through the stands, picking and choosing from amongst the best foods in Chone to be considered “typical.”
Corn and peanut soup, with seafood
Chame (CHAH-mey) is a surprisingly meaty fish with a great flavor, though the bones make up something of a culinary obstacle course. Like everything else in Ecuador, it is served on rice with a fried plantain, and possibly a side of tomato salsa. For a little extra cash, you can get chame eggs as well, which ended up being well worth it if you could get past the gooey texture.
Chame
Small empanadas filled with cheese, pork or chicken shaped like pierogies are fried and sold for 25 cents a piece; rather than being made from pasta, the pockets are, not surprisingly, smashed plantains worked into a tortilla-like consistency.
Empanadas
Performances go on throughout the day, leading up to the pagaent
Music blares constantly from the main bamboo hut, around which a rectangle of people have congregated watching a steady queue of events. Upon our arrival, two couples in white preform an elaborate dance routine. Games are interspersed with the dancing. Sometimes the game is a dance, as couples sway across the dirt with oranges between their foreheads, fighting to be the last citrus-fueled couple dancing.
Luis speaks to a beautiful young woman named Paola, one of the tallest Ecuadorian girls I’ve seen yet, and after a brief discussion, she comes over and takes my hand, acting as my guide for the next hour. Whether she was genuinely fascinated by the gringo or Luis talked her into the task by the director of tourism for the general good of Chone and she was taking one for the team, wasn’t certain. Paola walks me over to a large cardboard display with pictures of beautiful girls dressed for some sort of pageant.
“These… Miss fiesta de comida tipica. End of day… con-test?… and all watch.”
Her English, while not quite the same level of competency as Luis’s, was absolutely adorable.
Far from the main square, a four-piece band starts up playing traditional music.
“Come! You dance?”
“Sure. Terribly!”
Bailamos (we dance)
Despite the dearth of other dancers, we take to the center of the uneven square of dirt that seemed to be a dance floor, and she took my left hand with her right while placing the other around my waist. Far from salsa, rumba or any other official Spanish dance with a name (certainly light years from the lambada), the dance was a lot of simple spinning, twisting and reversing while a crowd built around the beautiful young local girl and the gringo. The song ends and I kiss her on the cheek, and we walked over to a bamboo museum displaying life in Chone at the turn of the century. I wasn’t entirely certain which century, as short of cable television and indoor plumbing, the lifestyle on display doesn’t seem terribly different from anything else I’d seen so far during my stay.
One of the more skimpily-dressed entrants
A loud noise signifies the beginning of the pagaent and we scurry back to the main stage in time to see the first entrant, a fairly dim-eyed girl with golden suns covering her breasts and a small golden plate around her groin, no underwear beneath it (I failed to get a good picture of this. But I tried). More girls walk across the stage, announcing their intentions in Spanish (”If I am elected, I will create dishes made from corn, and serve them with corn beverages. And maybe peanuts.” This is a guess). Fans, family, friends and chickens watch intently as the final girl took the stage. Wearing seven layers (she takes them all off, displaying even more intricate gowns underneath), and an enormous hat consisting of more fruit than the chiquita banana girl framed around a large, paper-mache parrot that bobbed precariously each time she turned her head, she was the one to beat.
Miss fruit hat wins decisively, but a runner-up is proclaimed as well, leaving two girls on display whose smiles aren’t fake and plastered on. The crowd goes wild, including the chicken in the front row, who remains silent but shifts his head from side to side frantically with wild eyes and far more spirit than before the pronouncement, as though suffering from intense, drug-added chicken paranoia. The other girls filter silently, dejectedly, into the crowd while the victors take the stage, and pose for pictures with the judges.
Miss Fruit Hat performs before the judges, currently in her fourth dress
Wait. I’m a celebrity.
“Luis, can I pose with Miss Typical Foods?”
“Yes, you must.”
The ladies of typical food and me. I am a giant.
Grey clouds drop down on cue, and while the drizzle never becomes more, the ending of the main event hits the festival like a wet blanket. We’ve got an appointment on a boat somewhere, and no one really wants more food at this point anyway. Heading out of the festival, a string of trucks and buses pass us, similarly having seen enough. In the back of a flatbed, a light-skinned, blonde-haired child stares out at us cherubically.
“LOOK!” says Luis, more excited than he’s been all day, “mica, mica Look at the mica! Ha ha. Wave! Wave to the mica.”
I give a very half-hearted wave and ask the obvious as the adorable little white freakshow waves back. Around 1900, some Germans settled around Chone and got around enough that a great deal of recessive Aryan genes lie dormant, showing up from unexpectedly from time to time like little white, genetic landmines striking unexpectedly. They’re rare enough to apparently get pointed at as they pass on trucks, but not so rare to not get their own nickname - mica.
“Isn’t that sort of racist, Luis? Like ‘lets all point at the mica?’”
“Racist? I don’t understand. They are mica.”
“But are they treated differently because of their looks?”
“Of course. When parents have two children, and one is mica, they treat it special and the other child, who is not mica is not treated as well and think ‘I wish I was mica.’ Is wonderful to be mica”
“Oh.”
Clearing out the fishing boat
The boat trip involves a single, oar-propelled fishing boat big enough for four people (eight of us get in) requiring the help of everyone to remove crates and fishing equipment so that people might fit into it. I ask Luis if this is really something ready for a stream of tourists my article might bring in as I toss a fish-scented wooden crate into the mud.
“Yes. We can take this boat any time. I know the owner. These waters, many chame. Also the alligator.”
The overfilled metal boat is taking water and about three inches above the water’s surface.
“Ok, got enough to write about here — How about we head on back?”
This is becoming an underlying problem with the trip — I’m supposed to write an article raving about tourism in Chone, but the infrastructure simply isn’t there. Short of Luis acting as a personal guide to every dreadlocked, backpacking hippie to come through town, most tourists would find themselves at a loss to do anything we’ve been experiencing thus far. I explain this to Luis constantly, but he’s blinded by the desire to make Chone a tourist attraction, and he can’t help his reach painfully exceeding his grasp.
Through all this, my fingers are fumbling more and more with the bizarre growth on my chin, feeling out its slowly growing borders with trepidation. What once was mistaken for a pimple now felt like a 50-cent piece sized bubble on my chin, smaller veins of red, swollen wrongness growing up my chin and further down my neck than they’d been even just that morning. Luis drones on about small local festivals based on cacao production, shipping and leather that just any tourist would travel around the world for, and all that’s going through my head is: Fuck. I’ve got the South American flesh-eating disease.
Thoughts of my chin are all-consuming now as Luis talks of a local birthday party he wants to take us to. I like Chone. I like the people, the food, the casual gringo danger. But I’m sure that I like my face more, and now that the paranoia’s set in, I start to envision a jigsaw-like deformity crossing my entire body. My fingers are glued to the aberration; it’s like a thick, hairy bubble constantly leaking something pinkish and sticky, not quite blood but still, well, icky. Luis insists on the party — I can use the bathroom there.
We walk upstairs to a small apartment, the living room filled with people gleefully dancing the macarena, which is also played at least once a night in every club in Ecuador, despite a window of popularity that closed over a decade ago in the states. The bathroom’s occupied but I stand in line, desperately in need of a mirror and a means of cleaning the thing eating into my good looks. My turn arrives needlessly; the bathroom lacks both a mirror and running water. The toilet clearly gets a steady, marginally fresh supply but repeated turns of the faucet produce nothing.
The party’s actually not a bad time. A large German woman promises to bring me horses early tomorrow morning, and the food and dancing help pass the unnecessary two hours we end up spending there. Back at La Providencia, I finally get to see my newly deformed face.
Yikes