After a harrowing, mountaintop, high speed, 20 hour bus journey, we arrived in Ecuador to find it`s capital divided by political protests. The locals warned us to stay away, but they were perfectly peaceful (not even any tear gas) with the two opposing sides kept on separate sides of the city. There were the (mainly) indigenous people who`d walked for three days to arrive in Quito to protest against an allegedly unsustainable new mine
and there were the huge, slick, obviously government organised pro-government rallies.
Here, there were people singing songs about about how the president has built schools and hospitals and using rhetoric, that frankly I`d have thought a sitting South American government would stay well away from, like “lets unite for a revolution”.
Quito’s claim to fame is being on the equator, something the local people figured out long before the conquistadors or Incas arrived. I learnt this and other cool stuff at a museum called Mitad del Mundo or centre of the world.
A story that circulates among travellers in this part of the world is the tiny “fish” that swims up a urine stream into a penis or vagina (if you’re weeing in the amazon river) and lives inside you. Well, it’s true. They get up there, put out their little barbs to hold on and hang out growing bigger and bigger. We saw one about 14cm long that’d been extracted fom a person. The tribes in the Amazon are practically naked, but they wear a little penis sock with a string round the waist to protect from this little fish that’s apparently the biggest killer in the Amazon.
Funny, I just had a glimpse of what the Ecuadorian Mardi Gras might look like.
The tribe that shrinks heads lives in the Amazon in southern Ecuador too. Back in the day they shrank the heads of enemies they killed or loved ones who died to wear round their necks on a string.
They only shrank male heads, so obviously machismo didn’t arrive with the conquistadors. Unfortunately these heads became trendy in Europe, so the indigenous people started killing each other to sell to the tourists. The government stepped in and said no more humans, only animals. However apparantly, during the war/border dispute with Peru in the 40s there were a few shrunken heads of Peruvian soldiers banging about which helped a favourable peace settlement for Ecuador.
Oh, we also ate a massive empanada in Quito. Here it is with some kind of sweet milky corn drink that tastes a bit like rice pudding.
On the bus between Quito and Baños, I reaffirmed my vegetarianism. The people selling food, or anything really, on the buses in Ecuador are out of control. There can be up to ten at a time. We had a girl with a loud speaker who kept referencing god to try to sell her cookbooks, and even spent the next 20 minutes reading us the entire contents page. This occasion certainly wasn’t the first time I’ve accidentally eaten meat in South America, but it was the most extreme. The woman selling the chochos told me she wasn’t sure I’d like it, but I thought, what’s not to like? White beans, red onion, tomato, lime and some kind of pancake/tortillla. Truly the brain interprets what it will and even though the “tortilla” was really tough as I was cutting it, it wasn’t until Guille said “this tastes like meat” that I realised I had a mouthful of thick, hard, cold pigskin. Even the carniverous husband insisted we buy something else to get the taste out of our mouths.
Our first taste of the uber religious, but lovely Baños was the anti-abortion rally, that had obviously just taken all the kids out of a school, parading through the main street past the bbq-ing guinea pigs.
Baños de Agua Santa (Baths of holy water) is gorgeous. It’s surrounded by lush mountains, waterfalls, a very active volcano and of course the holy and healing thermal baths and waterfalls.
With all these natural hazards, the virgin of agua santa is always intervening to help out. So when people fall off cliffs into treacherous waters far far below, they may feel an invisible hand pulling them to saftey on the shore. People are healed when they come to drink the water. If the virgin is called on in your hour of need she’s been known to even stop the eruption of the volcano. She saved one lone house in a city wide fire, and on one occasion saved in a house fire only picture of herself and a picture of the guy who built the church. This is all detailed in numerous paintings in the cathedral.
Another interesting facty about Baños is that there’s obviously a very fertile poodle in town. Even the cycnical Guille agrees that the poodle population (both stray and domesticated) must be sitting at around 90% of the canine population. They are everywhere.
A multi-lingual Ecudoriano told me Ecuatorian slang is very difficult for foreigners as its full of double entendres. They have a delicious snack, a banana stuffed with cheese and deep-fried that they call a maduro con queso (mature with cheese) and he told me (we were speaking in English) that you can also call a “fat one” a maduro con queso. I said “what, an erection?” and he got all embarassed and said, “oh god, no! a marijuana cigarette with cocaine in it, I thought that’s what you called it in English”.
A lo bestia means savagely good.
“To be salty” (estar salado) means to have bad luck, or more specifically bad karma.
When you’re young you can call your boyfriend/girlfriend your pelado or pelada, which means shaved head, specifically in this context after the head’s been shaved due to nits.
“To sit in the chair” is to be gay, which makes some sense I suppose though I’m also aware of how the phrase could be accidentally misused. My suegra, Guille’s mum, was giggling recently at lunch when she burned the rice because in Chile, as she informed me, “to burn the rice” means you’re gay. Specifically male gay, not lesbian. That one’s more of a mystery.
One More Gringa 