Guayaquil from above

It’s not Malaria

The sickness is finally starting to abate as we plan the Guayaquil trip.  It all started with the notorious diarrhea that South America is so infamous for bestowing upon hapless gringos, and it grew until it felt as though every part of my body was systematically destroying and rebuilding itself to adapt to this brave new environment.  For over two weeks, I’ve received a daily visit from a low grade fever, only to have it flush itself out again each night as I lay sweating.  Intermittently, the fever’s carried headaches, stomach aches, sore throats and every other side effect imaginable, though worse are the times when there are no symptoms at all; it gives the false impression that the sickness is gone.

Said false impressions lead to false confidence, and I leave the apartment disguised in perfect health, only to find myself dizzy, exhausted and shivering in the most inopportune places.  I’ve emptied my stomach on busy city streets, turned my ass into a nauseating vice grip on public bus lines to spare myself the ultimate olfactory embarrassment and nearly passed out in line while waiting to buy a single carton of milk that was neither requested nor needed.

I’m not above riding a cold out, but two weeks into the misery with a regular diet that has deteriorated into two bottles of pedialyte a day with a Pringles chaser, I throw in the towel.  A doctor’s sign, visible from our respectable vantage point, calls to me more emphatically with each white-knuckled visit to the bathroom.  Dr. Ching is an Asian in both name and form, but speaks English with a standard Spanish accent; it’s certainly far better than my Spanish with standard English accent, and with a fever of 102 I’m in no mood to practice verb tenses with him (is it “vomito” or “vomite”?).  After reciting a malady list longer than Schindler’s, he tells me quite calmly:

“Well, I am fairly sure you have Malaria.”

Sweet blog.

I hadn’t expected to have a top-rated disease down here at least until January.  It’s always good to be ahead of the curve.

He orders a blood test, which down here can still imply a house call.  Two men in lab uniforms arrive at the door of my sixth floor apartment the next morning carrying medical bags filled with syringes, test tubes, bio-waste, etc.  They crave my stool as well, and provide a small plastic cup and spoon combo for the solitary trip (thankfully) to the bathroom.  It’s a bit of a surprise, but not one I have a problem providing for; I make “those” visits almost hourly by now, despite not always having any offerings for the porcelein gods.  Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I’ve flatulated with confidence.

Noon the following day, I receive a mostly positive voice-mail.

“Mr. Davis.  This is Dr. Ching.  I have your test results in and you do not have Malaria.  Your stool is very good.  Your blood shows a slight infection I do not know.  Come over and pick up a prescription I leave for you and you will be better.”

I follow the advice and take the slip of paper to the pharmacist without actually checking to see what the doctor ordered.  A minor mistake.  The pharmacist looks at me curiously.

“No.  Es Holistico.  No tengo aqui.  Holistico.”

Holistico?  Holistic??  I look down at the paper and see I’ve been prescribed echinacea.  Swell.

Ecuadorian pharmacies are a bit more open than their US counterparts; even without a prescription, I could get everything short of morphine with a simple show of my urgent need.  Supposedly.  I explain the symptoms and immediately receive some antibiotics.  Three days later, I’m well.

Lesson learned: Self-medicate.

The Guayaquil assignment and Halloween

Two weeks wasted in bed.  Two weeks of awkward, middle-of-the-night bathroom visits, cold sweats and bizarre fever dreams including one where I’m convinced the current state of the US economy has been directly caused by my laying on the left side of my bed, leaving me with intense feelings of guilt every time I wake in such a position.  In the States, two weeks would be an epic vacation, so the awkward nature of spending that much time in a foreign land almost entirely bedridden isn’t lost on me. In addition to the assignment — or possibly complementing it — are two girls that Joe recently befriended with a strong desire to be our unofficial guides to their city.  Halloween’s far more a gringo holiday than an Ecuadorian one (their main event comes two days later on the Day of the Dead), but the girls aren’t above throwing a good gringo holiday party, and what could be better for that than a few actual gringos?

Las Penas

Guayaquil’s a big city — the biggest in Ecuador by a few hundred thousand.  It’s the financial capital, but completely off the radar as far as tourism goes.  A boutique hostel there’s offering us the royal treatment, free of charge, in exchange for a write-up with a slightly positive bias.  There’s hardly a glut of places like this willing to dispense goods and services just to get a fluff piece written up, but there are enough that it makes my temporary journalist gig more than worthwhile.  Quito’s perpetually locked into a surface area defined by the mountains and volcanoes that frame it, limiting expansion a bit.  Guayaquil, on the other hand, sprawls out in every direction with no clear boundaries for where the city ends, save than the Guayas River it sits on.

My excretory issues grant me a miraculous reprieve during the eight hour bus ride from Quito, and we get in to town with an hour to kill before the party.  The staff at Manso are friendly but almost entirely mono-lingual, and we give up quickly on trying to explain to them how we’ll be staying for free in their establishment for the weekend and settle for simply accepting a room to change into proper Halloween attire.  Getting the journalism discount can wait for now.

Halloween with the minions

A cheap set of red horns and a plastic pitchfork made my choice of devilish wear an easy one, though I probably should’ve considered the implications of rocking the Satanic vibe in such a superstitiously Catholic country as Ecuador.  Women and children quietly gasp “Diablo!” as we make our way down the street, and empty cabs pass by without stopping.  There are others, predominantly children, dressed up for the evening, but Halloween isn’t really their holiday and costumes tend to focus on happier, more cartoonish fare.  Four children in a row, all Spiderman, grant me a wide berth as they pass with wide eyes.

Manso’s doorman flags down a rather beaten up blue 80’s Ford with, ironically enough, flame stickers on the rear window to announce the transportation of el Diablo to all.  Joe had met Monserrat, or Monsy, on a previous assignment and while she would act as our tourguide throughout the weekend, she’ll be a vampire tonight.  The party’s small, but made up of a wide selection of creatures of the night that quickly take to calling themselves my minions — a nice icebreaker, if mildly sinister.  But on the positive side, I never need to make my own drinks.  We shmooze, dance (it’s not an Ecuadorian party without dancing) and play an assortment of drinking games, though the fever I’d held at bay for so long finally broke through and I collapse on the sofa, drained, playing the quiet, devilish spectator for the latter hours of the party, the sunken eyes actually enhancing my look for a change.

Yancy and Nancy (I'm the one in the devil outfit)

Joe and I spend the Saturday guide-less, making our way through la Malecon 2000 (the new boardwalk, erected unsurprisingly in the year 2000) and Las Peñas.  The latter was once one of the slummier areas of Guayaquil, despite some fantastic waterside views.  Similar to Tacoma Park in Maryland (and any number of spots in New York City), the artists took over and, with the help of the government, reestablished the area as a tourist attraction with pastel-colored homes bunched in upon one another overlooking the Guayas.  La Malecon is equally attractive, with no shortage of fountains, parks, restaurants and statues clustered together along its entire mile-long span, but both are tourist attractions for an older crowd, limiting the excitement I can force upon the backpacker sort that reads The Ecuador Reporter.

Climbing the 500 steps to the lighthouse at the top of Las Penas

One of the many parks along La Malecon 2000

Monsy and Nancy — Robin Hood from the previous evening’s party — pick us up for some sushi.  The prices, unfortunately, aren’t that different from sushi prices in the States, though the addition of banana, plantain and yucca make for some interesting combos.  We’re told that the itinerary for tomorrow is as follows: traditional Ecuadorian brunch at Nancy’s place (I’m guessing plantains will be involved), a local park with both a zoo and playhouse and then a birthday party for Nancy’s gorgeous friend Catalina’s brother.  Apparently birtday parties are huge here, and the addition of a few gringos won’t matter at all.  In fact, it would end up enhancing the party quite a bit.

I love this dog

They say most crimes against tourists down here happen due to carelessness on the part of the victim, rather than any particular criminal acumen on the part of the perpetrator.

On the day one hundred dollars were taken from my pocket without my knowledge, I made the following mistakes:

1. I had one hundred dollars in my pocket in the first place.
2. I opted to ride public transportation after retrieving said money from the ATM machine, rather than return home first to drop off all but twenty of it.
3. I put the money in my zippered pants pocket, rather than the hidden pocket located on the interior of my pants.
4. I stood obliviously on the packed bus while a velcro flap on my pants was lifted, a zipper unzipped and a hand reached in to relieve me of my currency.

Given the clearly substantial skills of the pickpocketer in question, number four is the one I had the least amount of control over.  It’s also the one I’ve beaten myself up for unfairly ever since, as it’s a terrible feeling to realize what a clear, oblivious mark I must’ve been.  I’m thankful my one experience with theft was entirely non-violent, but still wouldn’t have complained had I not learned this lesson.

On the positive side, I work for a small newspaper:

Schedler took this from the plane while flying back from the Galapagos. The circle is around our apartment building, and we're on the top floor. The big white complex to the right is Quicentro (a local mall) and the stadium above is where all major soccer games are held.

I wake up to the sound of an ominous incoming text message:

“If you don’t get here in 30 minutes, we’re taking Machine Gun out the jukebox”

It’s a fate worse than another Bonnie Tyler singalong, but not a fate worth getting me out of bed.  The sickness has gripped me for over two weeks now, and I’m likely a bit hungover too.  I return to ignoring the currently hyperactive cell phone ring.

All three of the girls have been ringing me all night; there’s not a hint of romantic entanglement with any of them, but feeling in such high demand’s almost enough to rouse me from bed.  Almost.  I worked hard to bring “Machine Gun” south of the border, but I definitely need a hiatus from multiple nights of bi-lingual self-destruction, so I call their bluff — they like the song enough by now that I’m not too worried about its removal.  The expatriate crowd — a smooth mix of English, Irish and Americans with some French and Israelis I’ve met recently thrown in for good measure — work hard down here, but they clearly play hard as well.  When I’m not off doing the stoic walkabout thing, it’s nice to know my nights here’ll never be too uninteresting.

The Regulars

Kathleen and I cooking shrimp, with the indirect help of champagne

My hostel experiment put on hold now until Peru, I’ve been here now in my “penthouse apartment” for over two months.  The roommates are all packed up and back in merry ol’ England for the holidays, but I fell right back into playing nicely with roommates without much of a hitch.  British roommates are just about the same, in terms of cleanliness and compatibility, as their American counterparts — they just use words like “bloody” and “blimey” without a hint of irony.  They make the words sound so enticing, yet my few experiments with them left me feeling like a douchebag.  Or “wanker,” as the British translation seems to be.  My first night here, I was warned about the shortage of “bog paper,” but didn’t really take note of it until an extended visit to the bathroom ended with an unpleasant surprise.  “Crackin’!” is a good thing.  “Crisps” are chips, and “chips” are fries.  It’s still been easier to pick up than Spanish thus far…

Tom’s the one that talked me into moving in initially, and he’s also the one with the vision behind The Ecuador Reporter.  It was a bold and semi-successful move on his part, though relentless spelling and grammar errors (by the time you’re the editor of a paper, you should probably have a good grasp of how to use “your” versus “you’re,” no?) can be a bit distracting.  At times a great guy, bouts of moodiness and hypocrisy made him a frustrating roommate at times, and from all the griping I’ve heard around town, he’s clearly made his share of enemies, business-wise, since establishing what should be a fairly innocuous tourist paper.

I’m far closer with Joe, who finally left the country yesterday after two botched and costly flight attempts; time saved by lax security here is more than lost again by general airport inefficiency.  He’s back in the UK either for a quick break or a long one, depending on visas, savings and the likelihood of getting a job in the less-than-friendly economy back home.  Despite the lingering threat of bodily harm in Quito, there’s no shortage of jobs or opportunities for the entrepreneurial types.  High risk, high reward.  He’s been a great friend and I hope to keep up with him.

From the left: Pete (a friend from home), Kathleen, Joe, Eimear, myself and Chris, an English teacher

Rounding out my group of regulars are Kathleen and Eimear, the latter being both an Irish name and Irish person.  Kathleen’s a Virginian, and so immediately easy to relate to.  We’ve discussed in the past how great it is to meet and connect with people from foreign lands, but you never really click as quickly as with someone from your home turf.  Eimear got accepted to Oxford a few years back, then opted for reasons she hasn’t fully explained, to head down to South America and manage Finn McCool’s (”a wee giant of an Irish pub”) instead.  She’s the regular Quizmaster — “pub quiz” apparently being a huge weekly tradition in the UK, and certainly a big thing at Finn’s each Tuesday — but has recently relinquished the title to me while I’m around.  It’s a fun gig, but my exploits as trivia master probably deserves a post of their own.

Just this past weekend, two men grabbed her a block from Finn’s, taking her money and phone while, for reasons not entirely understood, slicing one of the legs of her pants with a switchblade.  Similar attacks — threatening and costly, but on the whole non-violent — hit four of my friends this past weekend alone.  Another sent a man to the hospital.  Not everyone feels Christmas spirit the same way, apparently…

Apartment Living

The living room, including a great view of Quito's cityscape and surrounding mountains

Using my camera's "panorama" setting to capture said view

I moved into this swanky pad in mid-October, my anticipation for hours of welcoming revelry dashed by a tragic murder.  One of the American owners of the successful club Bungalow 6 had been shot and killed on the street in broad daylight in La Mariscal.  The city’s unsafe, but this went beyond the normal level of FUBAR on pretty much every level, and it understandably devastated the community.  I hadn’t had time to meet the man, but it was clear he was extremely well loved and had a powerful effect on the lives of nearly everyone I met, leaving me quietly commiserating with the somber crew.  There was worry that his passing would break up the local community, but it only seems to have brought everyone closer together — small benefit from such tragedy.

The snazzy shower

As for the apartment itself, the place’s a bit overpriced at $300 a month, but certainly one of the finer apartments I’ve visited down here.  The showers are theoretically nicer than any I’ve ever used, outside of those in my brother’s place in North Carolina.  The stove’s got five burners, including an ovular central one for skilleting and a split-level oven with various defrosting and convection settings that’ve likely never been used.  Both washer and dryer are top of the line, front-loading models with a barrage of possible options listed out in Spanish that it doesn’t seem anyone’s bothered to translate — both have been on the same setting since I’ve arrived, and seem to do the trick just fine.

And the view is among the best in Quito, with Mount Pichincha,  its peak almost perpetually lost in the clouds, in direct line of sight past my laptop.

As much as I talk about La Mariscal and the myriad social opportunities available there, our place is much further north behind Quicentro, one of the biggest malls in Quito.  Cab fare to Mariscal is two to three dollars for the ten minute ride, though during the day it’s safe enough to take the Ecovia (local bus line).  Cars have apparently been stolen from Quicentro’s parking lot from time to time, but in general it’s much safer here than it is in Gringolandia, where most of us tend to congregate.  It’s a fairly high-class mall, which grants access to the best Quito has to offer in clothing, electronics and motorcycles (small appliance stores all seem to sell motorcycles and ATVs here for some reason).  But the prices, especially for the named brand merchandise they sell, are generally higher than what you’d see in the States.  As an added plus, one of the nicest parks in Quito’s just two blocks away.  I even went there once.

A small appliance shop, no featuring ATVs

While the mall hours limit shopping times, nearly every city block in Quito — and in smaller towns as well, for that matter — has at least one tienda for all your basic shopping needs.  They aren’t quite 7-11s, but if you need water at 10 PM or wine at 10 AM, it’s generally the best bet.  A masseuse has set up shop next door and charges twenty bucks for an hour’s services — painfully tempting, though I’ve resisted well since my first visit last month.  Three almuerzo places are within a stone’s throw, and a woman sits on the pavement with her toddler in the exact same spot peddling cheap gum and cigarettes to mall shoppers.  Much of the time, both lay on the pavement sleeping at awkward angles, though when conscious they appear to take turns reaching out with small, shaking hands and slightly tearful eyes.

I don’t really smoke or chew gum though.  Sorry, kid.

A woman selling gum and cigarettes. These women are everywhere and always have exactly one child with them

There’s a security guard at our gate, and this point it should be clear to all that such a thing’s a necessity down here.  Nearly all buildings have a guard of some sort, leading me to believe that with all the crime down here, more adult males are involved in either crime or crime prevention than any other field of work.  The burger place across the way typically has two men in uniform with an attack dog, though in all fairness, they do have some mighty tasty burgers.

Speaking of fast food, nearly every popular variety in the States (from the east coast, at least) is represented here, though they all taste… different.  It’s nearly imperceptible and impossible to define, but something is almost always off.  Burger King’s got far more presence down here than McDonald’s, but the dominant cheap eatery by nearly three-to-one is KFC.  Imagine the ubiquity of Starbucks in Manhattan, translate it to Spanish and apply to poultry and you’ll understand the solid grip that the Colonel has down here.

Lasagna Night

The swankiness of the pad and semi-desirable part of the city to live in are nice perks, but there are inescapable drawbacks to living down here once used to the cushiness of the States.  Like anywhere else in Quito, there are hot and cold water handles on every sink, but both only supply the same frigid water.  The top floor that gives us penthouse cred and helps dissuade all but the most go-getter bandits also has no elevator, leading to a bit more daily exercise than I’d intended on getting — exacerbated greatly by the thin air of Quito’s 9000 plus feet above sea level.  Six flights shouldn’t be much of a strain, but as every gringo has the same breathless reaction to arriving at the top, there’s an unspoken rule of complete silence from the second floor until about two minutes after collapsing, wheezing, on the sofas.

And despite having top-of-the-line appliances, only one tank of propane fuels all of them separately, requiring anyone wanting to shower to wait for whomever might be frying up some breakfast before manually changing the gas hoses over to the proper device.  It’s all a bit convoluted and in stark contrast to the high quality of nearly everything else in the apartment, but it doesn’t take long to fall into a pattern where moving fifty-pound tanks around between doing laundry and making tea (the English really do love the stuff) doesn’t feel terribly unusual at all.  The shower, with eight settings including a detachable head, really is a thing of beauty, though no hot water is possible without both bathroom sinks being turned on first to get the pilot lit.

Our washing machine, along with the propane tank that fuels it, the dryer, the stove and the hot water heater

But how do you get that tremendous propane tank and fresh water up six flights of stairs you can barely get up empty-handed?

A: Luckily, water and propane trucks make their way slowly down every block each morning.  How do I know they’re out there every morning?  Simple.  They announce their presence by repeatedly honking their horns every two seconds as they make their way through.  I call it “morning annoyance #3.”  On the plus side, they carry the fifty pound tanks up themselves and it only costs $2.50 (for the hike up, I pay three) for about a month’s worth of propane.

Morning Annoyances 1 and 2

Number 2: Roosters.  It makes sense to be awakened by them throughout the night in the countryside, but I’m in a city of well over a million people.  It’s a fairly modern city, despite minor inconveniences that US living has spoiled me on.  Who keeps roosters in the middle of a city?

The two black lumps above the bronze car have serious issues with nighttime human unconsciousness, and they're not afraid to be vocal about it

And number 1: Dogs.  Two of them, kept walled in together across the street from my apartment building.  By day, they’re relatively quiet and boring, ignoring all passers-by and loud propane delivery men.  Even now, they lay against one another listlessly.  Something happens to them at night, which causes an incessant pointless barking that goes on at impossible lengths.  Only the soft thud of a potato hitting the concrete seems to silence them for a bit, so we keep them stocked up by the windowsill.  The dark coloring of the throaty monsters makes them impossible to aim at once the sun’s gone down, but none of us are brazen enough to launch our spud assaults by day.

I used to be a dog person, too.

A nation in love with cheap DVDs

The DVD collection. Only a small percentage are mine.

It might sound like a waste of cash to have a decent-sized DVD collection down here, but there’s a bootleg shop on nearly every block selling them for a buck-fifty a disc.  We don’t vegetate around the TV that often, but when you can get all of season 4 of “The Simpsons” for four dollars, why not?  The discs are plain silver — completely unlabeled — but the outside packaging is fairly professional, and generally in Spanish as well, which sometimes leads to extra comedy.  I can understand getting direct copies of most other flicks that’ve been around for a while, but multi-language versions, complete with deleted scenes, etc, are already out for movies still in the theatres like Quantum of Solace and Bolt.  As far as TV shows go, nothing seems to top “Friends” in popularity: every video store has a different selection of shows, but it’s the one you can nearly always count on getting half a shelf.  Conversely, I’ve never once seen Seinfeld for sale down here — maybe the comedy doesn’t translate?

The translated titles are not quite in Engrish, but their Spanglish (interestingly enough, that movie is “Espanglish” here) names can still be amusing.  “Harry es Sucio” — literally “Harry is Dirty” — is easy enough to figure out.  But see if you can guess what these hit movies in our collection are:

1. No es lugar para debiles (not a place for the weak)
2. Fuego Contra Fuego (fire on fire)
3. La Novicia Rebelde (the rebel nun)
4. Identidad Perdida (lost identity)
5. Nacido para matar (born to kill)
6. Infiltrado (the infiltrator)
7. Ahora Son Trece (now there are 13)
8. Supersalidos (super gone)

It should be noted that Megamaxi, Quito’s closest equivalent to a Walmart, sells regular DVDs for 12-20 dollars.  I’ve never actually seen anyone in that section…

[Finally addressing all questions posed in comments, in order of receiving]

Anna writes, with regard to travel: How’s it feel to be on the other end of that jealousy, finally?

A: Pretty good, actually!  Though your life doesn’t seem terribly dull

My mother asks (after the Chone article): That was no Disneyland set, ey what?

A: I have no idea what that means.

Lisa Cox asks: Was it everything you hoped it would be?

A: It’s kind of like sex for the first time.  It’s awesome and better than expected, but still can be pretty awkward at times.  And no matter how often you prepped yourself daily to get ready for it prior to the actual experience, you can never truly have guessed what it’d be like.

Honestly, all I wanted was a change in my perspective on things — something to knock me out of repetitive patterns that didn’t seem beneficial to me.  I don’t know if I’ve found that yet or if I will, but there are occasional times in life where you absolutely know you’re on the right (or wrong) track, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the right one.

My niece Elizabeth asks: Why do you look like the giant from The Princess Brid? Why are you bigger than their horses?

A: I look like Andre the Giant?  Thanks, Elizabeth!

The people here are definitely much shorter in general than people from the United States, by almost a foot or more.  So proportionately, I do tend to stand out in a crowd.  I rode both a horse and a mule, and on the latter, I’ll admit that I did look freakishly huge.  But Andre The Giant?? Really?  He was like 500 pounds and talked like he was missing half of his tongue.  I miss the days of being compared to John Cusack…

“Maggie and Friends” (my father and stepmother, hiding behind their Jack Russell terrier) write: Can’t find a Taco Bell?

A: There’s actually one in Quicentro, the mall I live behind.  Something about it is just wrong, though.  The tortillas are a mix of flour and corn, as opposed to just flour, so they both bend and taste strange.  Sour cream here isn’t thick and viscous, but runny like salad dressing, and tastes different as well.  It’s just close enough to the real thing that the strange differences really turn me off.  Also, rather than Nachos Supreme, they have Papas (potatoes) Supremo, which are french fries with the toppings you’d normally get on their nachos.   Not bad.

Nell asks: Wait, who are you?

A: I can’t tell if this is a reference to me doing atypical things, the “About” section not filled out or a temporary lapse of sanity on Nell’s part.  But just in case:

1. You don’t come to South America to do typical things.
2. Yeah, lots of stuff needs to get done.  So hard when moving about.  The photo gallery’s at the top of my list, but I hate working on this computer for webpage editing.
3. Get well!

Ty asks: Have you found yourself in need of anything that you did not pack? Did you forgo any recommended items that could have been useful?

A: It’s hard to say yet, as I’ve done little true backpacking.  I picked up a cheap phone here, which made me wish I’d brought my world edition BlackBerry with me.  And I bought a small mouse for the laptop, since the touchpad on the eee is a tremendous pain to use.  I avoided bringing shampoo and deodorant with me, but those are readily available everywhere.  So in general, I’m pretty content with the gear I took along.

Galit says: Oh, I have a question: was there a lot of local talk about our elections? Was there a big reaction to the results?

A: From my first day here, straight on through to the elections, this was a primary topic of conversation between both travelers and locals.  People from other countries assure me that there are still some places that like the United States (Israel’s the only country whose citizens I’ve met have had a generally positive view of us), but they’ve dwindled to a pathetic amount in the past few years.  When politics come up, people are almost always civil and want to know my opinion on things.  They don’t hate America (and make a point of still separating its people from its politics), but they don’t like her much either.

Part of it is the natural human tendency to hate the big guy, but an equal part is a laundry list of what they consider to be arrogant abuses of that power that affect things on the global level.  Number one on that list of regular complaints, oddly enough, isn’t Iraq but Guantanamo Bay.  The idea of coming up with a loophole for getting around the Geneva Conventions — especially from a country that’s had no shortage of POWs itself — gets a lot of people going.  We (Americans) criticized Europe for giving us grief over re-electing Bush — it’s OUR president, not yours!  Simultaneously, we regularly toss out our superpower-iness and expect it to be recognized without complaint.  We wouldn’t take this much shit from anyone, so it’s no wonder we went from “coalition of the willing” to “coalition of the unwilling” to “coalition of how-the-fuck-do-i-get-out-of-this???”

Europe’s basically like New York or California for the past four years; they’re big blue states constantly griping about the direction of things and abuses of power, but don’t really have any choice but to be along for the ride.  Proportionally speaking, the whole continent’s more educated as a whole than we are in the States.  But their dominant period is over, and no one’s even trying to fight it.  It seems to be generally accepted that after us are the Chinese (powerful, but still built around socialist ideals that only work only when 70% of the population are uneducated enough to have no problem working in abject poverty), the Russians (besides dealing with corruption on one of the grandest scales ever, their fantasies of the “good ol’ days” are much like rememberances of past relationships — it seems so perfect at first, but you can’t think about it more than five minutes without remember how terrible things turned out) and the Islamics (all rhetoric with no substance, they’ve mastered the art of using the smallest amount of effort to irritate on the grandest scale ever, but can’t even agree on the right vision of Allah amongst themselves).

Basically, we’re the best of four less-than-desirable options, but they’re stuck with us for now.

In Latin America, that subtle dislike turns to outright hate, especially among the poorer and less well-educated.  Some of it’s well thought out and likely deserved hate.  The rest is “we’re poor, you’re not, and you’re dicks about it” hate.  Up through the 80s, there are things in public record the CIA did that actively affected the lives of entire populations down here, and no one’s forgotten any of it.  We’ve also poured billions of dollars in aid to various countries here, which is reluctantly recognized and helps to counter the shady business.  But when you’re living in abject poverty and have visions of this magical land of gold that seemingly can do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, resentment starts to build and fester.

So, onto the election:

Europeans and South Americans unanimously seemed to view Obama the same way his idealistic US supporters did.  In many ways, he’s an unknown and will be given the keys to the kingdom, so to speak — if he botches it and is “The Next Jimmy Carter” as conservative pundits did their best to paint him as, it’ll screw up their world as much as it does ours.  But most people I talked to not only hated Bush’s policies, but the fact that there was very little intellectual substance to back them.  The whole “blame it on the liberal media” thing only works on a short-term basis.  The media on both sides does a great job of temporarily polarizing the public, but given time, most truths come out across the board regardless of who they benefit or detract from.  Bush spent most of the past term in a haze of corruption, enacting an unpopular foreign policy that had even less popular results.  On a global level, “ANYTHING BUT MORE OF THIS” is bound to be the popular choice.  There’s only so long that the most powerful person in the world can answer any criticism with an arrogant “Hey — Fuck you!” smile before it starts to wear on people a bit.

I spent election night at two bars, and my passive Obama support couldn’t help but swell watching the sea of nationalities react to his election as though it alone could stem the tide of a previously unstoppable global nightmare. A crying Englishwoman hugged me and said “thank you” as though I alone brought it about.  I’ve seen less emotion at videos of Superbowl victories.  It’s an optimistic reaction; there are too many problems in the US and globally to think that a change of power will fix things in the slightest.  But simply not “staying the course” is enough for now.  US haters seem to all be in stasis right now.  Those that weren’t fans before still aren’t, but they’re holding back the rhetoric and optimistically waiting to see what Obama does.  No one’s “Rah rah America!!!” around here just yet, but it’s far better than when I arrived.

The day after the election, I passed a stranger in the streets wearing a t-shirt with an American flag on it, and said “nice shirt!”

He said “Yeah, it feels great having everyone pointing it out and smiling at me for a change!”

Obama wins, at Finn's

And there was great rejoice...

In terms of moments where you could feel the world change, right there before you, it was a night I’ll never forget.

Jess Glace says: Well done! What’s your country travel itinerary?

A: I head down on a cargo boat to Peru on January 3rd, making my way to Iquitos for a bizarre jungle tour.  By late January, I make my way into Brazil, where I stick around through Carnival before heading south to Argentina.  From Ushwaia at the tip of Argentina, I hop on a boat to Antarctica for the hell of it, before heading back north to Buenos Aires.  Uruguay’s optional at this point, but a quick boat ride north should I go that route.

I get to Chile around May, check out Easter Island and then head northwards to Peru again.  Bolivia’s high on my list, but Americans are low on theirs so I’ll gauge the safety before venturing onwards.  If I can get back into Ecuador, I’d love to.  Otherwise, summer’s in Colombia.  I’ll either fly back at that point or make my way northwards through Central America.

Or maybe I’ll take up sailing…

Jeff writes: When do you expect to end up in Columbia?

A: Probably by July or so..?  If you (or anyone) wants to meet up, I’ll gladly work my schedule around things.

Fran asks: Are in in the hostel or in an apartment? I’m as usual - confused - can’t believe you ate the little piggy..is it better than Taco Bell?! Remember the egg that stood upright at midnight or— something - was that the winter or summer soltice - anything to do with the equater?

A: I’m in an apartment now — the next post should clear that up a bit.  No, the guinea pig was not better than Taco Bell.

The Equinox thing was weird.  Standing an egg is entirely considered to be a myth by all reputable sources.  Except that we didn’t stand the egg on its end — we watched as it stood up on its own for about two minutes before dropping back with no help from anyone.  As this is scientifically impossible, part of me wonders if you guys were messing with me, though I don’t recall anyone being near the egg when it stood up.  Anyway, to answer the latter question: I have no idea.

Jeff corrects me: Glad for the updates. But you filed this under United States rather than equador, which threw me off.  Also, when did you become news editor of the equador reporter?  And when did you become a black female minister?

A: You posted this under the “bacon” post, which was written in the States, right before I took off…

Also, I don’t mess around.

As for the female minister thing, I wish her well, but Yancy is clearly a boy’s name.

Please, feel free to ask me questions.  It makes me feel connected and loved

The Basilica, with nearby, completely unrelated architecture

Nearly empty, the Basilica of the National Vow is disquieting from a mix of open space and dark stone, dimly lit only by sunlight permeating its elaborate stained glass windows.  Climbing the tallest tower in the structure is another popular diversion around here, so I made the not-entirely-safe walk from La Mariscal to Old Town with that as my primary goal.  It’s neither the oldest nor the most important church in town, but it is the largest, clearly visible against the repetitive city background from above when flying in.  My temporary German friend Arlem’s daytime mugging took place mere minutes after making the climb himself, so I’m naturally on guard at all times.  But the serene structure, equally impressive both inside and out, has caused me to lower my defenses a bit.

Much of old Quito is filled with beautiful parks like this, making it easy to forget about the apparent danger.

The slightly disquieting Mary doll

For such an expansive site, there’s a lack of both intuitive starting points for heading upwards and accessible church figures to pester about said meaningless sight-seeing act.  An old woman prays in front of a smiling doll encased in glass that I take to represent a young Mary (few things in here are clearly labeled, even in Spanish).  Far be it for me to make jibes about anyone’s religion, but in a building such as this with a slew of alcoves, each more ornate than the other, such devotion on an object more reminiscent of Chucky from Child’s Play does catch me a bit off-guard.  The woman’s eyes, much like those of the figure she’s praying so intently to, are glazed over and I opt against breaking the rapturous flow of her pleas just to get directions on how to go about finding a sweet vantage point of Old Town.

An unstable spiral staircase leads upwards behind a sign that seems to solemnly state that the Basilica is purposefully unfinished, as the end of the world will arrive should it ever be completed.  I can see why they’re not in a rush to finish the place, but if any blocks or crosses are missing, I don’t see it.  The staircase looks more official and utilitarian than I’d expect compared to the flair of the rest of the building.  More importantly, the access gate is completely chained up and locked, which is far less promising than its plain appearance.  A man in black approaches while I’m standing about, lost in idle thought.

One of the many elaborate stained glass displays

“I see you admiring our church.  It is quite a spectacle, is it not?”

“Yes.  Yes, it’s a spectacle.  It’s spectacular.”

He smiles warmly, humbly looking downwards, full of soulful grace.  “Yes.  I am Father Jose.  You are from United States, yes?  I live in Colorado.  Many years.”

“Ahhh. I know the Poudre River well…”

“Yes.  Look up over there.”  He points at a large heart-shaped hole cut into the far wall above the east exit.  “Do you see her?  Is the Panecillo.  Is Mary on the hill, looking down on us.  From here, you see her through the heart.  It represents love.”

“Oh.  I need to look from where you’re standing?“  I move over a bit and can barely make out a silhouette far in the distance through the bright heart-shaped light flooding into one of the few openings along the side of the austerely dim church.  “Sure.  Hearts.  Hearts mean love.  Right.  Nice..”

“Yes.  You should take a picture.  You are a photographer, no?”

He’s no great sleuth.  My Canon XT Digital SLR is touristfully wrapped around my neck.

The Panecillo, as seen from outside

“Yes.  I work for a major local newspaper.”

The heart of Jesus

“I thought so.  Yes.  Yes.  LOOK! — Is the heart of Jesus!”  He points emphatically at a red stone heart on the wall and I can’t tell if he’s even speaking metaphorically.

The padre guides me around the massive complex, explaining the symbolism and stories captured in stained glass, the reason they have a 60’s era doll reverently encased in glass (”Is Mary!  Mary the blessed mother!” followed by a pious gaze downwards), and the history of the figures, crosses, relics and the building in which they’re all encased.

“Come.  Let me show you Church of San Francisco next door.  Is oldest church in Quito.  I do most of my work there.”

“Well, honestly, I only have another hour and really wanted to climb the Basilica.”

“Yes, climb is nice.  Come come.”

My SLR would be a shame to lose, though I only have $2.47 on me (other than an emergency ten in my hidden pocket inside my pants which the holy man needn’t know about) so I opt to take the plunge and go, out of general intrigue and boredom if nothing else.  After exchanging his black jacket for a rainslick, the father and I make our way across the street but keep going.  There doesn’t seem to be a quick end-point on our walk, as we proceed to head down several more city blocks past my limited frame of reference.

“Up ahead… Is good, is good.”  Reassuring start.

A random parade goes by. For some reason, the band is playing the theme song to "Popeye the Sailor"

Quito’s a tricky place for tourists; In the States, when you’re on “the wrong side of the tracks,” there are rarely freshly painted colonial era buildings and immaculately trimed gardens on every block.  And generally daytime can be counted on to add an extra layer of protection — a layer definitely not present here.  Yet from all the sob stories I’ve heard, the most noteworthy muggings have taken place in broad daylight in some of the nicest parts of town [read: tourist destinations].  The whole situation can be a bit confounding as I find myself at once taken in by pristinely kept Spanish architecture and schoolchildren in uniforms laughing carelessly down the street, yet simultaneously paranoid with a feeling of constant danger.

“Look there — Don Quixote!”  He points at a bizarre metal sculpture outside the second floor of a building on the opposite end of the street.

“Is Cervantes big in Quito?”

“No, no!  Don Quixote!  There!  Take picture.”

I was instructed to take this picture.

I do.  I take pictures of Quixote.  I take pictures of old homes with floors made of cow bones.  I take pictures of statues, and street signs and people.  When long, hilly streets sharply ascend or descend into artificial valleys of pastel colonial buildings, I take pictures, nodding in agreement with his assessment of their photogenic qualities.  Eventually, I start to ignore some of his suggested Kodak Moments, only to get a sad-eyed glance nearly as practiced as his pious one.

As the tour goes on, his knowledge of the subject matter evaporates simply into “You must take picture, yes?” or “Is beautiful, no?” with every statement becoming a yes/no question of some sort rather than erudite explanation.  I run through my entire collection of superlative adjectives to keep up the banter, first out of respect, then later simply to entertain myself.

Jose explains that this is a plaque.

“Sure.  That’s beautiful.” (Si, yes!)

“Oh, Exceptional!” (Is old famous conquistador.  You tell by his hat.)

“Breathtaking!” (Is from Guatamala, right? [Ed: wtf?])

“Phantasmagorical!” (I think so, yes)

“Mind-boggling!!” (Take picture, please!)

“Mind-bottling!!!” (Um.  Yes.  Come come!)

The holy father’s pretext has long been shattered, but the tour’s at least hitting some interesting spots.  As we get deeper and deeper into Old Town, amusement starts to be dwarfed by a low, rumbling sense of dread as though I’m being herded to a particular location likely devoid of anything pleasantly compelling to tourists.  Heading through the central plaza, I see the presidential palace and a series of political and religious structures framed around a well-kept square centered with a fountain.  It’s un-ironically breathtaking, and the presence of Equator’s equivalent of Secret Service agents outside add to my comfort levels, but the idyllic quality of the scene is abruptly broken by a woman’s tight grip on my arm.

“You.  You speak English?” she says, in a hushed tone with eyes filled with warning.  It’d be amusingly Hitchcockian were I not the central protagonist.

The white between the tiles is cow bone -- used to be all the rage back in the day, apparently.

“Yes?”

“You should not be here.  Do you know this man?”

“Sure, I know him from church.  He says he’s a priest!”

She makes a rumbling, doubting noise like some kind of Latin Marge Simpson even less impressed with a bad situation than she’d initially been, while he stands there looking more and more comically pious.  “You should put your camera away at least.  It is not safe for you to be here.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see that.  Thanks.”

As we walk downhill past the plaza, the sense of foreboding is growing to noteworthily uncomfortable levels and I tell him it’s time for me to head back.  In addition to the rapidly greying clouds, my Spanish class is at two, and it’s 1:30 now, so my intense need to flee the scene is hardly even much of a cop-out on my part.

“Yes.  One more thing.  The market.  Fine hammocks you must see.”  Now fully in creepy Yoda mode, I start to get hard on myself for even considering giving him church cred in the first place.

“Spanish class, Jose, Spanish class.  I gotta head back, man…”

“But you must see.  You MUST!  Is quick!”

The patron saint of taxi hailing?

“Later, man.  Sorry.“  As he gets more imperative about the tour, a visibly out-of-place older white couple, the first I’ve seen in some time, walks obliviously down the street towards us.  His eyes dart nervously towards them and then back to me.  All smiles again.

“And so, my friend, I have to go, too.  But now… how much would you say such a good tour should cost?”

“Uh, cost?  Well, hopefully less than two forty-seven?“  I’d counted exactly what was in my pocket earlier, just in case.

Absolute shock.  Possibly not even feigned.  “My friend, is almost two hours walking.  So many pictures!  Much more than two dollars!”

The one good thing about being perceived as a stupid tourist is that you don’t even have to do much acting to conveniently play dumb.  “Yeah, man, you just said you wanted to show me a church or something.  Nothing about cash.  This is all I have (opening up pocket to illustrate my impoverished plight).  I can’t even afford a cab now if I pay you this!”

He wordlessly extracts the cash from my hand with a grumble and skips off to catch up with his new targets.  I’m fairly lost on one of the most gorgeously menacing side streets I’ve ever walked down, but on the positive side, I did just get an unrequested and unnecessary personalized tour through old Quito for barely more than a dollar an hour.

The rain’s coming in a bit early, though.  I opted against an umbrella as it was one of the more beautiful mornings I’d seen out of Ecuador thus far, radiantly sunny in the mid-70s — a good deal warmer than the norm.  The steady greying of the skies did little to alleviate the tension of my awkward expedition with Jose, and as he leaves the drizzle has turned into a fairly strong rain with added thunder echoing uncomfortably close to my unknown location.  The Basilica’s big enough to use as a landmark thankfully, but the rain pounding down is surpassing anything it’s done since I’ve arrived as the sky literally opens up on me.

Taken from the cab window as we forded our way through the flood. No oxen were lost on the journey.

As an almost after-insult to the hot, sunny morning from just three hours prior, ice begins to pelt me from the sky and I finally stop running to hang out under an already-crowded canopy providing scant protection from the massive hail storm.  I dart forward from my precarious protection towards oncoming taxis, only to get splashed from below as well as above as the filled vehicles pass by.  Eventually money talks as I bargain with a much more well-dressed man, offering to pay five dollars — more than I’ve paid for any other cab in the city — for the relatively short, but wet ride.

I’m dry, but traffic’s slowed to a halt as shallow, newly formed rivers pour down the steeply inclined city streets.  Cab fare causes me to break into my hidden pocket stash, but I’m only five minutes late in learning Spanish lessons that go beyond “add ‘-O’ to the end of whatever word you’re trying to translate,” and I’ve once again been pleasantly un-mugged against all odds.  So that’s nice.

A Quito puppy vendor. Not quite as popular as hamburger stands, but I've seen this a few times now. I didn't catch the price...

Mitad del Mundo

Back in the early 1700s, French explorer Charles Marie de La Condamine spent years tracking down what he was sure was the precise location of the equator, focusing his efforts just north of Quito.  Several decades later, a team of French scientists came down to verify his work, giving Chuck’s established line the official French seal of approval.  A 30-foot tall monument was placed over the imaginary spot to commemorate its earth-splitting greatness, and topped with an iron globe for good measure.  By 1980, the small obelisk was deemed too insignificant for one of the modern world’s most significant geological “guesstimates,” and a massive tower — this time topped with a five-ton globe — was erected, now with a long, white line stretching outwards from it, allowing tourists for decades to straddle two hemispheres as photogenically as possible.

Unfortunately, modern GPS equipment has shown all those tourists and Frenchmen to be just about 240 meters off the mark.  A smaller, less ostentatious museum was added several years ago on the more precise spot, right next door to the “official” one, leading to this semi-regular tourist conversation:

“I’m went to Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world) today!”

“Oh,” snidely, “Did you go to the right one?”

Both sites are impressive in their own right and cost between two and three dollars to get into.  The “real” one, as in “the one established by the government several decades ago,” has multiple museums that have little to do with the equator inside, a planetarium, insect zoo and variety of fairly sterile looking restaurants where ordering a rodent/pet like guinea pig might actually be hygienically feasible.  The “real” one, as in “the big painted line representing the equator that is actually on the equator” offers a freakshow-like museum with shrunken heads, mummified snakes and jarred candiru, along with various “scientific” tricks that I’ve been assured by multiple people could not possibly have been real.

The German non-couple I hit Otavalo with, Arlem and Simone, came along again on this venture, as well as Wai (pronounced “why?”), a new friend from the hostel.  Freshly in love with a Colombian she’d just met in Peru, Wai had a day to figure out whether to stick with her initial plan of heading north to a country full of Colombians or return south to just one of them, and Mitad offered a perfect diversion.  Mass transit took us about an hour and a half to get there.  We stood for most of the time, but it barely even seemed as though  we covered gas money with the forty cents spent on the trip.

Getting down to "Above the Waves"

The obelisk, a monument to inaccuracy, beckons immediately as we jump off the bus.  Sundays bring live music and other performances, which in turn bring a larger percentage of locals to blend in with the sea of camera-happy tourists.  The sky’s opened up at some point in the afternoon daily since I’ve arrived, leaving us racing not only dusk but the oddly reliable late day deluge as well.  The “fun with science” aspect of the newer museum is most compelling to all of us, but as only a single sign along what looks to be a small service road announces its existence, we get sucked instead into the massive spectacle of the official park.

Live music — not salsa for a change, so much as a more traditional, folky Latin sound — blasts out from somewhere between the cluster of overpriced restaurants and souvenir stands we’re standing by and the central monument consistently visible in the background.  A large crowd’s gathered around a cluster of modestly dressed women performing a traditional dance number; eight of them in vividly colored dresses whirl around in a loosely choreographed circle of rhythmic motions.  Small children run through the crowd collecting money, though it’s uncertain if they’re related to the act or profiting off the assumed good will of the freshly entertained.  The rapt audience stays intensely focused on the display, even after the dancers leave the stage, replaced by a male/female pair that are both less colorful and less interesting to watch.

It's not accurate, but the sign still makes for a good photo-op

An orange, mock equatorial line slices through the monument and runs down a thick walkway with an enormous, floral “S” and “N” to growing to either side of it, representing half of the cardinal directions.  The statues, plaques and landscaping celebrate the equator so artfully, it’s almost easy to forget they built the place over the wrong one.  We take turns being tourists and straddling imaginary hemispheres before heading up to the only restaurant with cuy on the menu for lunch.

An exotic dish in few places in the States, guinea pigs were once reserved for religious figures and ceremonial meals, though regular folks got the fever for the flavor of the pigs down here some time around the 1960s and they’ve been standard fare in certain Andean regions throughout Peru, Ecuador and Colombia ever since.  Personally, I’ve never much had a craving for any type of rodent, either as a pet or as lunch, but the critters are high in protein, low in fat, and supposedly are no worse than rabbit.  Cuy’s extremely overpriced down here — easily the cost of about seven typical almuerzos — and the grimacing presentation is a bit of an appetite killer.  Sometimes pictures tell the story a little better, though:

The poor bastard comes out split down the middle — paws, claws, fangs, tail and all.  I’ve been told the full bodied presentation stems from a desire on the part of the restaurants to assure their patrons they’re not being served rat or some other, less impressive rodent.  It’s mildly disconcerting.

But clearly not too disconcerting…

The epic “After” picture.  The stack of bones might imply that I got more than five normal sized bites of meat off of the little, but I assure you that I did not.

chicha, of the hopefully spit-less variety

Equally traditional in these parts is chicha, the milky yellow beverage I ordered to go with my vermin.  Mildly fermented — about 1-3% alcohol, tops — this maize-based drink has been made for hundreds of years by forming balls of starchy paste in the mouth, with the preparer’s saliva playing an active role in the drink-making process.  Luckily, this is only still done (supposedly) deep in remote areas of the countryside, though the sneering guinea pig on my plate distracted me from actively asking about it.  The alcohol’s too weak to affect me, but too strong to make me forget I’m gulping down fermented corn.  In Chone, I had a special blend (now, with peanuts!) and it seems to have spoiled me from any other variations of the sour drink.

As we eat, the music outside changes, gets louder.  A sassy female voice is barking something into a microphone in an attempt to get the crowd riled up, and it seems to be working.  Traditional garb and music have been put away in exchange for an act that seems to be Latin America’s take on the Spice Girls, only built upon the premise that the Spice Girls weren’t nearly slutty enough for their fans.  Five women parade across the stage in skimpy outfits while a crowd of children and their parents look on.  None of the adults seem particularly bothered by the overtly sexual display, though, so I’m certainly not going to be.

Las chicas de especia. And a random guy on stilts.

For such a large complex, the park doesn’t have much to offer, and none of us are terribly thrilled to drop any more cash on additional mini-museums after already paying to get in.  The unimpressive planetarium’s three more dollars, and despite the presence of constellations unavailable in the northern hemisphere my newfound cheapness trumps any mild curiosity I might have about the southern cross.  The Museum of Indigenous People?  Three more dollars unspent.  There’s an insect zoo that’s free, though about the size of an average living room.  By the time we’re shopping for overpriced postcards, it’s clear we’ve gotten the gist of the place and start digging into our meager Spanish skills to ask around about the alternate park.

Straddling the "true" equator

Following a dirt road that looks more like a hidden back entrance, we make our way to the Intiñan Solar Museum.  It’s another three bucks for entry, but a far more interactive experience, complete with an English speaking guide to help us navigate our way through both a history of the pre-Spanish peoples and the various equatorial experiments therein.  Much has been made about the veracity of the display, but the tests all seem fairly straight-forward.

A plastic bin on legs with a bucket below it has a fifty cent piece sized hole cut into the middle and water is poured into it and allowed to drain.  To ease the viewing a bit, broken leaf bits are dropped in to illustrate the flow of drainage into the bucket.  When placed over their version of the equator, marked in white stone along the otherwise dark pavement, the water drops through into the bucket below with no spiraling effect.  Ten feet in one direction has the leaf bits flow clockwise, while ten feet in the opposite direction brings a counter-clockwise spinning.  There seems to be much doubt over this experiment, though the plastic bin seemed no different from your standard Home Depot variety and the hole looked cut in by hand with no attachments to affect the drainage in any way.

The first test of equatorial magic

We’re told by the guide to interlock our fingers and hold our arms straight and aloft, while another friend attempts to pull the arms down.  Anywhere but the equator, this requires a degree of force on the part of the puller, but standing on it, the arms are easily brought down with mild effort.  Yet another test involves tightly pressing the index finger and thumb together in an “A-OK” sign while a friend uses the same two fingers from inside the makeshift circle to break the link.  Away from the equator it proves impossible, yet standing again on the line, the circle is broken effortlessly.  I’m not denying that the tests might be more a testament to the power of suggestion than to any kind of “equatorial magic,” but we repeated every test giddily, and the marked change in resistance appeared to not be any kind of tomfoolery.

Note the intense concentration...

And finally, the egg trick: Changes in gravity being what they are (or something), the standard egg becomes greatly more simple to balance on its end.  The challenge here is built around a single nail, its flat end protruding upwards at a perfect ninety degrees from a large egg-themed statue.  Balance it right and receive an official diploma proclaiming your proud, egg-balancing mastery to an uncaring world.  Fake or not, it’s the most enjoyable test as nimble fingers gently wrap around the egg with subtle shifts in weight, like Indiana Jones and the golden statue from the first scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I get my diploma, though it is, as of yet, unframed.

The rest of the presentation focuses on some of the creepier elements of the Amazon.  I lightly stroke the hair of a shrunken head as the process is painstakingly explained to us (remove all bone and brain, treat with secret family recipe for skin shrinkage and keep for posterity).  There really is no better way to take someone’s soul and power, apparently, and the procedure would be used at times on respected friends as well as revered enemies.  Another room stores bizarre jungle creatures — including, yes, the candiru – either mummified or stored in glass jars of formaldehyde.  A quick turn for everyone with a blowgun, and we end up in the ceremonial gift shop filled with traditional clothings and noisemakers, now playfully adorned in ways any shaman would approve of with Spongebob Squarepants.

One of the most sacred indigenous mythological figures

The colorful, face-covering hat I tried on in Otavalo adorns a quiet older man that hopefully works for the park.  He’s followed us for some time and the end of the tour causes him to spontaneously break out in song and start dancing around in a circle.  The possibility is always there that he’s a random native and not an employee at all, inspired by the head-shrinking display and looking to build up his collection.  But the likelihood of that is small enough that I follow his lead and start dancing along with him.  Others join in, turning his slow, deep chant into an impressive display of coordination-less gringos, but he nods to me at the end of the song and my head is spared.

Getting down

Like clockwork, the rain slowly begins to build in intensity and along with the setting sun, the nearly empty outdoor museum takes on an oddly eerie quality.  The buses will be coming with less frequency soon, and we take our leave.   Signs along the way back to the bus stop advertise other museums, and a nearby dormant volcano also looks to be a point of interest, but the day’s been long and full, and Quito’s regular display of evening rain is masterful at putting a damper on both moods and tourism.  The remains of the cuy are scampering around listlessly in my stomach, and I begin to wish I’d attempted to check out the effects of the equator on my excretory system, though I manage to keep everything safely inside for the long bus ride until our return to the hostel.

But just barely.

Twilight at the Inti-nan Solar Museum

Otavalo, in the shadow of Imbabura

Saturdays carry with them a mean market scene down here in Ecuador, where local merchants gang up on select patches of open city space, blocking roads while hawking all sorts of wares, food and livestock.  According to nearly every travel guide, Otavalo’s the king of these, and a site no tourist should miss.  I’ve been trying to get down with the grizzled “Traveler” vibe that eschews popular tourist spots, but I’m simply too new at all this — and too used to “market” translating to “Wal-mart” back at home — to pass up on the traditional Ecuadorian experience.  Unfortunately, its hyped-up, “if you don’t check this out, you may as well have just gone to Mexico” guidebook reputation seems to have transformed it over the past few years from “traditional Ecuadorian experience” to “kitschy tourist trap.”

Actually, that’s not fair.

Looking down on the heady market scene

There are plenty of goods — clothing materials, rare foods and grains, and sometimes even truly handmade wares — that make it enough of a destination to have earned its popularity.  And seeing hundreds of “traditional” merchandise stands crowded up uncomfortably against one another like sweaty kids at a summer music festival is a uniquely non-North American sight.  The sea of colors and people, and the open invitation to practice haggling skills is almost alone worth the trip.

But after being sold on the idea of buying goods made by indigenous old women wearing interesting hats for ridiculously low prices, it was a bit of a letdown to see every clothing stand presenting the exact same four alpaca sweaters, clearly made and purchased originally from the same factory.  And possibly it’s just me, but when I think “traditional wares,” cheap red, yellow and green necklaces with Bob Marley’s stoic visage printed over them and chintsy marijuana pipes shaped like two turtles banging with “GALAPAGOS” stamped over the top turtle’s shell don’t come to mind.

The day trip — two hours by bus — was another one randomly plotted out on the spur of the moment around the hostel’s dining room table the night before with the help of a Lonely Planet guide and a few bottles of Pilsener.  As generically flavored as it is named, the beer is the most reliably served throughout Ecuador, followed immediately by Club (also Ecuadorian) and Brahma (Brazillian, I believe).  Budweiser and Heineken make appearances from time to time, but that’s about it on the beer front.  A six pack of Guinness, occasionally snuck in via luggage or political connections, has alone been known to inspire house parties.  Pilsener isn’t terrible, but it’s terribly far from good.

Everyone takes buses, but no tourists seem to have mastered the procedure yet.  The schedules change too often to be written up in any guidebooks, though street vendors sell cheaply printed copies of bus times that might just be reliable enough to be counted on for the next few weeks.  Terminal Terestre tends to be the standard spot for inter-city traveling, though there are other options with different times, destinations and deals, and international bus travel requires a dropoff I haven’t even discovered yet.

Despite the existence of the station, buses will slow down anywhere along a given route for every cluster of potential travelers on the sidewalk.  Thus, the few faces we see in the massive complex are either vendors selling chips, taffy, fruit, beer and/or hard alcohol, or other tourists like ourselves.  Destinations are boldly listed above every ticket window, yet those manning the booths still bark out the destinations relentlessly to the mostly empty station, as though yelling “MINDO MINDO MINDO MINDO!!!” enough might inspire someone originally planning on a trip to Guayaquil to spontaneously alter their travel plans.

Otavalo’s two hours away, so it’s easy to guess the two dollar price before even making it to the window, following the fairly intuitive “a buck an hour” rule for bus rides here.  There’s five of us on this outing, including two Canadians on the last leg of their South American adventure, and Arlem and Simona, two Germans I spent several days traveling with before determining they weren’t actually a couple.  Leaving the station, only eight spots on the bus are filled; it’ll be packed well before reaching our destination.  Quito to Otavalo probably should be an hour-long trip, but stopping at nearly every city block to alert everyone on the street that this bus is going to “OTAVALO OTAVALO OTAVALO OTAVALO!!!!” can be a bit of a slowdown.

Ecuadorian public transit chip vendor

Another interesting take on bus travel that hasn’t really caught on yet with Greyhound up in the States is the allowing of a barrage of solicitors onto the bus with the regular passengers.  With each random stop to pick up new riders, salesmen hop on the bus to walk the aisle with their wares until the next stop several blocks later, where they ostensibly jump out to wait for the next busload of potential buyers.  The majority of these are nonabrasive food vendors, pushing everything from plantain chips and popcorn to hot quesadillas and bowls of rice and chicken [Sorry I've yet to take pictures of these, Liz!].

Far more irritating are the ones with a pitch– a spiel.  Like door-to-door Cutco Knife salesmen of the 50s, they come prepared with inedible merchandise you didn’t even know you needed, yet now suddenly must buy before the credits on the Nicholas Cage DVD have even finished.  The atonal Spanish speech drones on as though even the speaker can’t stand listening to himself anymore, punctuated at times by the lifting of these incredible products into the air to inspire an awe from the listless bus passengers that never comes.  Here’s a bracelet made from five metals that will protect you from most infections and diseases — looks pretty damned dapper too!  Try some top-of-the-line shoe inserts — it’s like your toes are having sex! [Note: my Spanish is not yet good enough to know for certain that this is what was said].  Want some imported incense?  Christmas tree ornaments?  Luxury chapstick?  Good thing you rode the public bus today, because man, you can’t find goods this high in quality anywhere else!

Off the bus, more food vendors sit hunched over in small booths, generally alone and without the aid of reading materials or other forms of entertainment to help pass the long, uneventful day.  Hot dogs (the term wouldn’t possibly translate enticingly over here — especially given the amount of stray dogs ambling down every street) are popular, as are hamburguesas, which I hopefully needn’t translate.  Sadly, the popular style of the latter here are paper thin slabs of meat that make the basic McDonald’s variant look positively beefy.  Otavalo’s food market’s almost as hyped as the merchandise spot, so buying such standard culinary offerings seemed criminal.

Not terribly different from the standard US farmer's market, actually...

Cramped quarters and an overwhelming supply of goods play tricks on our ADD minds and we get separated from the Candadians within the first fifteen minutes.  No handy mall maps proclaim “you are here” but the pungency of the food court is a handy olfactory guide and cheap linen peasant shirts are ignored for now as we hone in on enough food to fill a mall’s worth of stores in the states, all crammed into a space about one fifth the size.  The display, as colorful as it is aromatic, is a mix of hot almuerzo (lunch) stands and fresh meat, bread and produce vendors.  Fruit dealers pile bunches of grapes up to five feet high over their platforms, with mandarins, apples and various other fruits in large bags hanging over the sides of their tables, a dollar per bag.

That Wilbur was some pig.

A quick turn and I’m unexpectedly eye to eye with the impassive eyes of an ostensibly succulent pig, its unmolested head trailing off into entrails upon the table.  He’s not alone, as apparently nothing says “good fresh meat” like greeting each shopper with a giant porcine grin.  Beef doesn’t seem to be as prevalent here, though every possible cut of pork lays across the open-air tables, and select vendors offer fresh cuy (guinea pig) as well.  I haven’t tried the latter yet, but decide as I walk by a stack of the rodents, each with a deep-fried grimace perpetually frozen on their faces that this is neither the time nor the place.  Soon, though…

Two bucks gets me a plate of rice, vegetables, sausage and plantains and a bowl of chicken consomme, plus another dollar for some juice.  The soup is a comida tipica (standard local food, basically) and this isn’t my first time downing it.  For the most part, it’s a simple chicken broth with meat typically still attached to a bit of bone for some flavor.  The extra flair comes with Aji sauce — a thin salsa made with peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic and vinegar almost religiously placed on the table of every restaurant I’ve been to — plus some avocados, and a small pile of funky black powder with the lightly moist consistency of fresh soil.  The flavor’s more interesting than good or bad, and after several samplings I finally break down and ask when I’ve got a translator handy.

I generally just add salt when my soup's a bit lacking, but I guess dried cow's blood works too...

“He says it’s dried cow’s blood…”

“Oh.”

Well, this is what I came here for.

Strange and unusual bacterias and parasites have made their homes in my digestive system, as expected, and I run to the bathroom for some temporary relief.  Entry’s five cents, but I made the rookie mistake of not bringing toilet paper along, so a handful of the stuff costs me an additional twenty.  The stall’s far from gorgeous and missing a toilet seat as well, but I’ve seen worse both here and in the States.  And the smell’s barely even asphyxiating.  My stomach problems aren’t too rough yet, but the fun’s just beginning…

Outside, the Germans and I weave in and out of the stalls.  Before it dawns on me that I’m checking out the exact same shawls, shirts, sweaters, smocks and socks at every other stand, the rainbow of colors is as overwhelming as a Skittles commercial.  I settle on some alpaca socks, which I successfully haggle down from seven to three dollars, despite not really wanting them.  Many of the stalls are specifically aimed at tourists, but there’s still a sizable cluster of them that aren’t; a sneaker stand displays a vast pyramid of shoes, paired together by a single knot in the shoelaces, ten bucks a pair.  One stand is just a series of old electronics scattered over the pavement, including a vintage Beta-max along next to a cardboard box of copied movies on those bizarre single reel tapes to go along with it.

The Otavalo garment district

Entire tables are dedicated to yarns and clothing material of every color and local animal fur, apparently for a tenth of the cost that the same quantity would cost at home (as was giddily explained to me by a habitual knitter with a trash bag full of the stuff).  A light blue alpaca sweater reminds me of something my friend Aimee would wear, but if I picked up something for her, I might feel obliged to grab something for her husband Bernie as well, and that would be terrible [private note: f bernie].

We saunter around for a couple of hours, almost buying some things we almost want, before heading back towards the bus for the two hour ride and obligatory Jean Claude van Damme movie.  Twenty minutes outside of the station, a European woman tells us that we’re close to La Mariscal (turns out it means “The Marshall” — Backstory there still uncertain…) and we unwisely jump off.  It’s a long walk, and Arlem is the

In the end, it just wasn't my style

one that just got tackled and mugged in broad daylight just two days prior, so every group of four or more males between the ages of 17 and 35 heading toward us is perceived as a threat, leading to some timid dashes across the street — through moving traffic at times — likely amusing the hell out of our potential “attackers.”

Enough other people have been enthralled by Otavalo that I wouldn’t knock it.  If nothing else, the place is on every “Ecuador Top 10″ list, so a quick visit’s good just for the sake of proper touristry and a sense of completion.  Nearby are large blue lakes, and the dormant volcano Imbabura that Otavalo sits in the shadow of both offer plenty of multi-hour hikes and diversions that we failed to take advantage of.  But in the end, I’d filter the trip under “mildly interesting things that I need never do again.”

[Note: apologies on the long delay in getting this post out.  I had a friend down here for eight days of traveling about, and there were few free moments for some sweet blogging.]

Not a day back in Quito from the rash-inducing initiation provided by Chone, and I’ve already got a solid offer for a place to live — to go from dormitory-style hostel living to being an actual Quiteñan, at least temporarily.  Three hundred big ones a month is a fairly steep price tag down here, as most hostels are far less than ten dollars a night.  But most hostels don’t have their own laundry room, internet, and steady supply of hot water fed from a showerhead that doesn’t look like it was sinisterly designed by Nazi war criminals.  As an added perk, I would have full control over anyone else that might end up sleeping in my bedroom, which is definitely not part of the typical hostel arrangement.

Still, wide eyed from only having just arrived in the city, with grand plans of getting comfortable with the hostel scene that would represent my life for the next year, I decided to put off moving into my own swanky Ecuadorian bachelor pad (on the top floor of the building, it could be called a penthouse suite, though that would be a stretch and should probably be covered in my next entry, as opposed to this, the hostel-themed one) for at least a week to get a full taste of the hosteler’s lifestyle and answer the lingering questions I had about it:

How does one share a kitchen, let alone a bathroom, with 32 people?  How easy is it to come and go at awkward hours of the night?  Do Australians do more than relentless baby-arm-sized lines of cocaine when traveling South America?  How hard is it to connect with people, both in the friendly “let’s go check out that goat market” way and the friendly “let’s go check out that innocent unicorn tattoo you said you had so high up on your right thigh that most of his horn is generally covered by underwear” way?  How comfortable is a three-inch thick foam mattress, slept on by people from at least six continents each month?  Do other people snore as oppressively as I do, and is it hypocritical to tell them to shut up?  What nationalities travel the most and what fun quirks can I expect from each?

Arriving less than a week ago, I hopped from my cab in the dark, apprehensive about arriving in any South American city after dark after all the warnings I had heard.  More tourist muggings happen in Quito than any other Ecuadorian city (Guayaquil is more violent, apparently, but gets less tourism), but most of those tourist violations happen in La Mariscal (the section of town I was in), and most of those happen on Avenue Reina Victoria (the street I was standing on).  At the time I didn’t know this, but I did know that I was lumbering slowly from a cab with two thousand dollars worth of gear as a large Nigerian man walked into the street and approached me unbidden, talking gruffly in Spanish.

His stance and body motions weren’t in any way threatening, but the unwanted venture immediately into my zone of comfort was far from comforting.  And even if he merely meant to discuss fantastic Am-way deals, I didn’t have the time for him or anyone in my decidedly defenseless position.  My eyes darted quickly about the dimly lit street.

El Centro del Mundo

Home of “Free rum and coke” night.  My eyes facing down, helped by a fairly heavy backpack pushing my entire body in that general direction, I darted casually yet gracelessly toward the entrance of the hostel.

Buzz to be let in.

The small sign’s in English.  Good good.

I buzz once, turning insouciantly back to the African with the same plastered smile on my face since I’d jumped from the car.  No problem here, ha ha.  He’s still standing in the middle of the street where I’d gotten out of the car, now speaking in English with a thick, resounding African accent.  Think “Coming to America” — though more Eddie Murphy or James Earl Jones than Arsenio Hall.  His arms are spread wide in feigned shock as he queries me, his eyes bulging and unnecessarily accusatory, as though I’d accidentally just driven over a cherished pet.

“WHUT?  You just Ignoor me?  You just walk away like I’m not even talking here?  I’m some kind of DOG to you?!?”

Dammit, he’s employing guilt in his repertoire.  I buzz two more times in rapid, machine gun progression, the picture of over-privileged American tourist timidity.

“A DOG?  Is that it?!”

The door clicks open as he further explores the dog metaphor for at least four or five sentences from his spot in the street, and I rush through the second entryway just as fast, pulling it in behind me.  Composure.  No problems here.  Normal hostel environment.  Casual walk up to the desk, past a room full of veteran travelers, mostly younger than me, all without the frayed, wild-eyed look I’m currently sporting.

“Hi, I’m here for.. I’ve got a room.“  A sentence trying to be a question.  Failing.

“Que?”

“Hablas Englais?”

“Oh.  No.”

He speaks little English, but is used to travelers that speak even less Spanish, and through a series of gestures and pointing manage to work out where I’d be sleeping and for how much (The key says “4″ though the door has no numbers on it.  The cost is $5.50 a night).  I smile as he goes over rules that I clearly could not possibly understand, though I give my best reassuring “It’s cool — I’m not one of the problem travelers…” grin the whole time.  I actually do manage to understand some of the rules.  Hostel staff man the doors 24 hours a day, so come and go as desired.  No guests.  Checkout at noon.  Breakfast is free, though it costs money for it to be good (read: more than burnt toast and tea).  All alcohol consumed in the hostel must be purchased from the hostel.  No problema.

The lockers are substantial enough to not only store my backpack but take things out and get a little comfortable as well.  The metal-framed bunk beds don’t look like much, but they’re nicely made and long enough for my non-Ecuadorian frame.  The room, clearly arranged for four, is about half the size of my old apartment bedroom.  I never really filled that space well anyway — my few attempts at purchasing wall art caused lingering, relentless relationship stress and didn’t even match the carpets anyway.  My few but valuable worldly possessions now secure, thoughts turned back to my first encounter with a local, both from his guilt and from my own remembrance of facing the situation as amateurishly as I did.

Our eyes meet immediately as I walk outside.  He’s talking to an Ecuadorian, but stares at me warily from across the street the moment Centro’s large, reinforced wooden gate cracks open.

“Hey!”  It was the best greeting I could come up with.  He does a parting hand clasp with the local, the two hands coming together in what at first looked to be a handshake, only to touch like a sideways high-five and slide off of one another, morphing afterwards into fists for what FoxNews classified as a “terrorist fist jab,” though I myself have used it many times in the past in non-terrorist ways.  I walk over calmly.  I’m cool, I’m cool.

“Sorry I ignored you earlier.  I just got to Ecuador and wanted to just get inside, you know.  You’re not, like, a dog to me or anything.”

“Yah mon, it’s Cool.”  He gives me a slightly different hand clasp/slap/shake than the one the Ecuadorian had just gotten, and I almost seem to respond to it competently.  His name’s Leonard, pronounced with two syllables plus a side of diphthong in the middle.  His eyes light up a bit as I tell him this is the start of my journey.

“Oh mon, you got to be careful here.  Good city, but dangerous.  Very dangerous.  Don’t trust anyone you meet, not even me.”  He laughs.  I laugh too.  At the very least I’d already proven my mastery of the latter.

He gives me a basic primer on South American street smarts (avoiding streets is smart), as well as shares a quick rundown of his rambling life.  Born in Nigeria, he’s lived in Singapore, Sydney, New York, Rio and Quito among other places and and speaks about four languages passably.  Africa wins in his book as the most dangerous continent for casual traveling, but South America is a surprisingly close second.  Despite that, it’s also his favorite, though he admits that his opinion on “favorite” changes regularly.  We chat for about ten minutes while sitting on a stump outside the hostel, before I finally take his advice to not hang out on the street after dark and make my speedy return inside.

“Yah, good to know you, mon.  Be safe.  You need any coke?”

“Oh.  Well, no.  But if I did I would definitely buy it from you.”

He laughs as our hands touch, this time in the manner I’d witnessed before with the Ecuadorian, giving me that warm “in” feeling.  I’m cool.

Back from Chone a week later with a fresh harvest of rashes blooming across my body, I can finally enjoy the backpacker-friendly atmosphere.  My bedroom at the hostel is small, but doesn’t tend to feel cramped.  Roommates constantly shift, in a steady flow of ages, weights, genders, nationalities and colors, and sometimes I wake to a completely different social landscape than I went to sleep to.  Backpackers are a friendly sort in general, filled with curiosity about the adventures of everyone else around them, either as a way of comparing notes or looking for new ways to spend the glut of free time they’ve allowed for their travels.

In the common room, the television is seldom switched off, with the sick, tired, hungover and lazy of the hostel’s occupants sprawled out on the makeshift sofas (well-placed old cushions all over the floor) around it.  With the US election looming, the days are often spent with one of the English language news channels on; the nights belong to HBO.  Standard Ecuadorian cable has about a third of the channels in English, with Spanish subtitles.  This actually can be kind of beneficial towards learning the language, assuming the viewer has a reasonable understanding of what’s going on in any given show.  For this reason, The Simpsons is on whenever possible, and more than a few travelers have claimed it as their favorite learning aid.  Veteran travelers as a whole tend to scoff at those that spend their days in front of the television, to the point where some hostels advertise that their common room is boob-tube free as though that were a bigger selling point than free Internet.

Centro del Mundo comes complete with an outdoor terrace including an all-weather pool table.  The thing’s old, wobbly, stained, torn and has probably supported a few late-night, passionate trysts when it was assumed no one else was watching (generally a bad assumption here).  The thing still works reasonably well for its primary task.  The kitchen, a standard necessity at hostels, is also outside, though a small plastic overhang keeps the budget chefs marginally dry.  The pans are bruised and battered, and look as though every usage in their long careers cooking up various rice or noodle dishes involving five-or-less ingredients added a new, charred, unwashable scar to its already far-from-smooth surface.  A lack of spices and fridge-space has me avoiding the makeshift kitchen for now, though I have no issues snacking on the goodwill of others.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, as mentioned many times before, are “Free rum and coke night” and lend themselves toward slightly rowdier evenings in general.  Comparatively, Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are completely dead, either because guests are still hungover or because there’s an unspoken rule that sometimes a break is a good thing.  My first Wednesday back, sporting a fresh goatee to cover my facial rash (and because the protrusion is absolutely unshaveable), the large pail of cuba libra empties and we carry the party over to the dining area for drinking games and steadily loudening chatter.

A week prior, I had little to say in a room where travel stories dominate the conversations; Chone has seen to it that this predicament is no longer the case.  Drinking games are similar the world over, though different regions bring different rules to the table.  Irish “Circle of Death” contains rules for every card in a standard deck, and somehow there are 14 of us playing, representing the United States, England, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Israel and, of course, Ireland.  Here, Israelis and Germans co-mingle without even a hint of old scars, at least until an Irishman forced to come up with a new rule for the game tried to make a pulled joker cause the entire table to make a “sieg heil” gesture.  The rule was quickly nixed by at least three countries of our makeshift, mock United Nations, proof that the “anything goes” attitude here does have its limits.

A cute, young English girl sits next to me and we banter with the room and, as time progresses, solely with each other.  Eventually she lets slip that she’s got her own private room here as opposed to one of the shared dormitories, and I admit that I am actually curious about how the place’s laid out — strictly from an interior design, feng shui perspective of course.  It’s my first foray in many years into intimate adventures with someone that I have no hint of affection for, and is unsatisfying enough on many levels that when I awkwardly request an email address the next morning I honestly don’t know if it’s to “make a new Facebook buddy” or send my condolences.

My walk of shame is a twenty foot hallway past loud, though friendly Israelis that are oblivious to me as they plan breakfast.  In general, kitchen access would seem to be a blessing to the frugal traveler’s pocketbook, but all meals I’ve seen thus far have been over-sized, with the clear intention of having extra enough to share with everyone, a culinary socialism that only works if we all play along.  I fall firmly into the “not playing, but gladly eating” category, though like so many other things here, no one seems to care.

Meals are sparse, but creative, with the obvious inexpensive starches — rice and pasta — providing a foundation for almost every meal.  My temporary friend from the night before sits next to me at breakfast, and there are no soft touches or discrete looks, the visible weight of our interconnectivity likely no heavier or lighter than anyone else’s to the discerning eyes of the others present.  Numerous open journals and constant note taking in the common room usually involve only three things here: Spanish lessons, travel plans/ideas and email swapping.  Everyone with more than a month to kill arrived here with very set plans, and nearly all of them have changed drastically following these tableside chats, as expressions like “you HAVE to go to…” and “Oh, it was without a doubt the greatest place I’ve been to in my life” are spread around the table.

Despite the US State Department’s warnings about relative safety in Colombia, it has relentlessly taken top prize in that category from almost everyone, and I’m both glad and a bit down that I won’t be there until the end of my trip.

I help clean the dishes, a lone display of hostel solidarity.  Travelers are now talking about crimes and muggings, and I find that I’m the only one in the room that hasn’t been robbed — seemingly good news if it didn’t make me feel as though I suddenly had a tremendous target painted on my head.  Some muggers attack using only the intimidation of outnumbering their victims, while others surreptitiously display a weapon and murderous gaze, which works about as well.  A young German barely had time to register the rush of footfalls approaching behind him when he was tackled to the ground and had his backpack unceremoniously ripped off his back with his camera and passport “safely” inside.

Each night as I carried my laptop to the Internet hot-spot, I carried a target large enough to break out the big guns had any possible assailants known, and this sobering conversation wakes me from my naive slumber.  My laptop now stays at home, always, as does my passport; I have a copy anyway, and US passports are worth hundreds of dollars.  On the left of my waist is a small spring-loaded knife that will more likely be used against me than in my defense.  And walking alone in uncertain areas, I rock a frown in tandem with a murderous gaze that hopefully translates to “Pick the next gringo — this one’s probably just faking it, but it’s not like we don’t have a never-ending supply here to choose from.”

The passing of time lacks the inescapable weight here that it brings with it on nearly every other “vacation.”  With eight days to play around on a typical break, every moment has to count.  When days number in the hundreds, the options tend to expand, allowing for more casual exploration of a place.  Chance meetings during breakfast lead to elaborate day trips to small towns and popular attractions that are hours away.  Despite safety issues, even the mugged are unswayed by their unpleasant incidents and bounce back into streets almost immediately, if a bit more wary, for more tastes of Quiteñan life.

I check out of Centro del Mundo the next week after going on about three to four improvized day trips and missing countless others.  My “first week” checklist is far from complete, but at least I’m safely enrolled in school and have a room to call my own.  Apartment living goes against the unspoke Traveler’s Creedo, apparently, but it’s a good warm-up for the rest of my journey, and I’m simply too spoiled to resist steady Internet at home.  My temporary home down here has a slew of its own catches and gotchas, but I’ll get to those later…