Goodbye-ish, Quito

It just occurred to me that I don't have photos of the Spanish party, only videos. Downstairs from my apartment is this awesome shared space where leftist twenty-somethings congregate weekly to watch independent films, drink, make music and merry. Thinking that this was such a party, and, myself being leftist and open to all of these activities, I demanded they admit me. Only later did I find out it was a going-away party for a couple of Spaniards and that I wasn't quite welcome. So, instead of mixing, I stayed in the kitchen with Germania (above), Gabriella's birth mother and my adopted Ecuadorian mother. She fed me empanadas and stories, and all with love. The man-Spaniard, it turned out, was a professional musician and flamenco singer, and so to wrap up the party, he sang for all some tunes from his homeland, while women in the party took turns dancing flamenco. Germania and I were enraptured.
The following day, I went with my friend, Edison, Petra, and Gloria to some waterfalls 20 minutes outside Quito. The hobbit in me reveled in hiking barefoot across streams and through forests, as did the flu in me.

Farewell Germania, Rocio, Gabriella, Edison, Edison, Andy, Olufemi, Steve. Now my Ecuadorean adventures end, and begin my Barcelona adventures.

Cafe Mosaico and Flamenco

Brunch this morning with Lou and Steve, after I got taken for a ride by a taxi. I know I've reached a milestone in my Spanish speaking, since I let him have it, accusing him of singling out foreigners and how dare he and all that. Must've worked, since he didn't charge me. Above is the view from Cafe Mosaico, with a building burning in the background. We clocked the response time at 20 minutes, which would be horrific in any city, but even worse here.

Because all the houses have bars around every orifice. In other words, buildings here are zombie-proof. But they are also nearly escape-proof. EekGads!



Here's Lou laughing at something Steve (above) said. Steve said he once, while walking down the sidewalk in London, tried to avoid being noticed by a girl he had dallied with, by hiding behind a lampost. Yes, behind a lampost.

After brunch, I wandered the city in search of souvenirs, without success; however, I did succeed in nursing my flu to full strength. I am now enswined, and I can't rid myself of the fear that somewhere, maybe here in one of the tall dark church towers, Bavmorda is cursing us all.

Next, in which I crash a going-away party and get treated to live Flamenco and motherly affection.

Basilica in Old Town and a Strange Cat Sculpture

A cat frozen in fear for all time. Brilliant!



The windows shine their ancient stories on vacant pews. Maybe malls should have stained glass windows with the epics and heroes of capitalism...

Vertiginous. There was not a single person there at worship. What does this say about Quito? What does this say about God?
You walk across this rickety plankety bridge to get to the towers. On either side are the bones of people who have fallen.

Olufemi at leisure.
Kate and Steve, her own Englishman in Quito, beaming from the heights of Cafe Mosaico, which sits poised in the center of Quito, watching the city stretch from East to West.
From L-R, Rocio and Gabriela, our two incredibly sweet and hippie roomates, and Senorita Kati. Kate left on Tuesday, and my roomates the next day for a week-long zen meditation retreat. Here I am, drinking coffee and eating granola in Samsara. Such is life.
A nice girl I briefly met at an organic foodfest in Parque Carolina.

Edison, my spanish teacher and erstwhile photographer.

Dios Existe!

Quito is beautiful!

The old city - wow! Old, beautiful, majestic, and dozens of churches. The one above was made for San Francisco. The Spanish built them over those places where Incans worshiped the sun. Most were built so that, at a particular time of day, the sun would shine directly through the stained glass windows onto the altar, on a golden figure of Christ, the better to show them who the real God was.
Above: on our daily commute to the clinic.

Above: a park in Quito.

The Clinic

Ah, la Clinica. Not exactly what we expected. During the week, Kate and I volunteer at a clinic that specializes in women's health and family planning. We had hoped to be of more service at this clinic, since we are both capable of taking vital signs, at the very least, but as of yet we are still mostly shadowing physicians.

Shadowing has been a learning experience of another kind, since medicine is practiced very differently here. The good hygeine practices we are accustomed to in the states are nowhere to be found, and both Kate and I have been horrified to see dozens of women, many with vaginal infections, being examined while wearing the same gown and being on an exam table that never gets cleaned, all of this while people, both nurses and patients, are walking unnanounced into the same exam room. Yikes!

We have been searching for clinics and foundations where we can be of more assistance. I'll keep you posted on how this goes.

On the way home from Otavalo, our bus, which had before was fairly empty (we were sitting in the back), filled up with people, and families started heading back toward us. Because it is unsafe to store one's bags overhead (our wise hostmothers warned us with hallowing tales of lost bags/passports/friends), we had kept ours between our feet. Because of the crowding of the bus, the between our feet was too great a luxury, so we heaped the bags on me, as I was sitting by the window, and though from the picture you can't appreciate this, rest assured that only a sixth of me was uncovered by bags.

This sixth of me was delighted at how quickly and easily Kate took to this family, taking one of their children, Gabriel, on her lap, and comforting him in this most uncomfortable situation. In truth he was adorable, touching Kate's nose and ears and eyebrows and naming them in English. When I'm in foreign lands, particularly in those with rocky relations with the U.S., which is most every country in Latin America, I'm always wary about seeming patronizing or exoticizing or being exploitative. If Kate had been me, and I Kate, which is a long way of saying if Kate were a man, I wonder how well they would have taken to this impromptu English lesson. But, as it was and is, Kate was most not a man, and the family took a real shine to her.

The same night we got back, we went out on the town to dance. After one mis-step into a club for teenagers, where the DJ kept shouting for all the singly ladies to hollar, and then for all the single ladies to hollar, where I felt like I was in a displaced Bar Mitzvah, we left for the Black Party in la Floresta, at a place called the Balzac Opera Club. Here we danced mightily for hours and hours and met some very friendly locals. This is me with Andres, who studies international relations, in fewer words, dances with extranjeros.

I could post lots of silly bar pictures, but don't these look the same everywhere? Yes. Aren't these more a Facebook kind of thing? Perhaps. So it should suffice to say that we made it back home by 5AM.

Otavalo continued

For 1.50, one gets rice, fried egg, meat, salad, beets, and plantains. Yum!

The market was colorful.

Otavalo - a La Orden

Thursday, after taking care of some business - getting a phone, Kate getting a ticket to Spain, we went to la Fruteria Monseratte for what our guidebook recommended as the best breakfast deal in town. A big bowl of fresh fruit with cream and berry sauce, a smaller bowl of fruit without any trimmings, two empanadas made of plantains, one filled with a stinky cheese, the other with beef, scrambled eggs, chorizo, a croissant, and cafe fuerte!

The eggs were mesmerizing. In fact, eggs may be the best thing about Ecuadorian cuisine - they´re in everything, from plates of beef and rice to soups to plates of rice. It reminds me of Japan.

Then we were on the bus to Otavalo. Here is a shot through the bus window. On arrival, Otavalo seemed opaque. The streets were deserted, and there were long stretches of wall keeping what in and what out not at all clear. In front of such a wall Kate posed fresh.

See Kate fresh. We think Kate could have seduced Caesar with a glance, but it was not "Rome" scribbled on this wall, but "Romeo." Kate would never date a Montague... After settling in at our hostel, Rincon de Viajeras, which had a sublimely powerful shower, we went to Quino, famed for its ceviche. On the way, we came upon this strikingly lit church:

By the time we found Quino, so hungry were we that the shrimp ceviche could not survive in art - goodbye forever, fair ceviche! What did survive in posterity were these dregs of a fruity version of agua de guayasa, which is a rum, served hot, that has been infused with leaves of the guayasa plant. This is the look of "Kate will have no more."

After dinner, we went to a quaint restaurant called, quaintly, Mi Otavalito, for dessert and some live music. Blueberry ice cream with pineapple, melon, and papaya, a mocha and a hot chocolate. The milk was the richest I had ever tasted.

After dessert, we went in search of pure agua de guayasa, which we had heard was potent, not a little dangerous and, as our host mothers described it, typical of the area. We found it in this dive bar that surprised us with its warm fireplace and excellent live music. Kate learned the bar´s secret recipe from the bartender, who looked like "Machete" from "Grindhouse - Planet Terror." For fear of retribution, I did not photograph Machete.

Kate and I awoke early the next day to take in as much of the Saturday market as we could. Because it´s not safe to carry more than twenty dollars, we hid money under our insoles, and maybe one of us hid it in our undergear. I did not hide it in my undergear.

In our next installment, photos of the market, the jacket Kate did not buy, odds and ends, the ride home, in which Kate almost converts an Ecuadorean child to Americanism, and our bender at the Black Party- yes, you heard me, Quito has gays, and they love monochromatic parties as passionately as we. "Stay" tuned!

Nah, I was not in Equador. I was in Miami, getting a new passport, since mine only had 5 months of validity remaining, and one needs 6 to enter South American and European countries. Officer Cooke was extraordinarily sympathetic and was very keen on my being able to get my passport the same day, since he was convinced that the medical supplies I had with me were desperately needed. Despite all of his pleading, and warm words of support, I had to spend the better part of a day lugging my bags from the passport agency to various Walgreens, through thunderstorms, in search of one that had a working photographer. With all my comings and goings, each time passing my bags through an xray machine and having them searched, Officer Cooke and i grew quite close.

Paula and I had a beautiful lunch two afternoons ago near the main plaza. Paula had a hard time deciding what to order, but she finally settled on a Greek salad, which my camera picked up as a blur because she devoured it so quickly!

Seeing this reminded me of home and rusty patriotism.