In the middle
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2004
1
51
165
Trip End
Nov 23, 2006
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Quito,
Ecuador
Saturday, August 13, 2005
narrow French doors to the tiny wrought iron enclosed balcony with the
boxed geraniums, it could have been old Paris. But the building over
the road was mirror glass and advertised Galapagos cruises, the avenue
was wide and not cobbled, the taxis were the wrong colour and the
nightly parade of hookers spoke Spanish and smoked cigars. Our lovely
hotel room was in Mariscal Sucre - the gringo centre of new Quito.
Transactions here are conducted in Spanglish, eating is a melange of
Tex-Mex, espresso and Italian - no tipica to be seen for blocks and
blocks. [This is a good thing. In Argentina "picada" is an hors
d'oeuvres plate with olives, dips, breads, nuts, kebabs, pickled
vegetables, perhaps some tiny empanadas or delicate, yummy, little
sandwiches. In Ecuador it's 300g of tasteless cheese hacked into
ploughman's chunks, chips, steak and bits of sausage.]
We had traveled to Quito through "volcano alley" - at times as we
twisted and turned on the mountain roads we could see three or four
active, snow-capped volcanoes of the dozen or so which litter
Ecuador's spine. Unlike Peru the countryside is a luscious, generous
green, dotted with concrete swan factories and hothouses on slopes
where only mountain goats should climb - the hills are a quilt of
tobacco, sugarcane, maize and potatoes. Dogs, goats, chickens and
pigs nose around the verges, banished from the tidy, affluent yards (a
very unusual sight).
Quito was a time to do some house keeping, buy the things we might
need in Cuba and stroll, savouring our last few days in South America.
Oh, and sort out the interminable drama with the airline ticket.
[Hint: if you are planning to go to Cuba and, on the same trip to the
States, and you might need to adjust the US flight, make sure the US
flight and the Cuba flight are not printed on the same page of the
ticket!].
"Panama" hats come from Ecuador
With clean clothes, stocks of cosmetic soap (to give away)and David (mostly) triumphant in his battle with bureaucracy we had a
couple of days left to do the sights of Quito and make cheap phone
calls home.
We traveled a couple of hours north to Otovalo for the biggest market
in South America. Every Saturday the indigenous Indians come down
from the hills to sell their handicrafts - everything from silver
jewelry worked with local shells and hammocks to Osama bin Ladin
puppets and ukuleles made from armadillo shells. Weaving, knitting,
tie-dyeing and fine silk hand embroidery abound. Panama hats (which
are in fact, and always have been, made in Ecuador) so fine they will
pass through a wedding ring and can be rolled to store. Craggy,
weather-beaten faces smiled up at you from under battered fedoras or
the flat, turban-like scarf arrangement the women wear (in combination
with silk embroidered, satin and lace fru fru wrapped in a woolen
blanket). The atmosphere was friendly but competitive - the trick is
to stop long enough to look without having every vaguely similar item
thrust upon you for viewing, extra points if you can touch and dart
away unnoticed. Many bright, beautiful, sensuous things beckoned to
us and, I confess, we were not strong ... unless you count the labour
of lugging it all home.
Back in Quito's Old City, the Plaza de Armas is flanked by the
Presidential Palace, the Palacio de Gobierno, bishop's palace (now
foodcourt) and the Cathedral Primada.
Craggy faces and silly hats
Over the shoulder of thecathedral, perched atop Quito's highest hill, guarding and guiding the
city, is a gigantic, angelic Virgin.
The Presidential Palace is colonnaded marble and wrought iron,
guarded, at the doors, by men in blue and red tin soldier uniforms
and, at the gates, by machine gun toting GI Joes. The entry of the
Palace is raised and, like the Roman forums, has tiny, windowless
shops set under the frontage. Where we come from these shops, in the
Presidential Palace, fronting the main square, would be premium retail
spots - here there are a collection of tourist tat sellers and a
button shop.
In the plaza official guides in train conductor uniforms, money
changers and tour touts offer their services; the old, buried in
threadbare suits, don't stir much as the world wanders by but they
don't miss much either; ice cream besmeared children screech around
the busts and monuments; striking workers maintain a noisy but tidy
picket outside the Presidential Palace; nobody walks on the grass.
Following the seven crosses, erected at important sites down Sucre (to
remind the Indians of their newly acquired religion), you come first
upon the cathedral. It is a marble, multi-domed, tile encrusted,
paradise for pigeons. It's an aesthetic marvel (or nightmare)
encompassing baroque, Moorish, rococo, neo-gothic and neo-classical
styles. There were no petitioners inside; although services are held,
this is really a museum.
In the halls of the Jesuits
It was odd to be able to wander with onlythe hush a monumental building forces upon you and not the additional
circumspection people's private devotions ask of you - well, us
anyway, it's been notably absent in some (particular classes of)
tourists. Gilt, plush, marble sculpture, intricately worked wood,
curlicues and crystal competed for attention with the massive frescoes
and canvasses by important Spanish, Italian and South American masters.
Two crosses further on we arrived at La Compaņia de Jesus gift wrapped
in scaffolding and pigeon netting. The Jesuits of Quito opened
Ecuador (and the rest of the Americas) to Catholicism. This, their
headquarters, defies belief (of the temporal kind at least), with
every surface intricately corded, pleated, pin-tucked and plated with
gold. It looked like a Hindu temple but the statues had only one
(human) head (except the decapitated martyrs - they were often still
holding theirs) and one set each of arms and legs.
[Throughout South America people's Catholicism has been obvious at
every turn: more churches than schools, people automatically cross
themselves when passing (on foot, bicycle or in a car) churches, even
the thugs wear rosaries, people nip into a church on the way to the
supermarket or a business meeting for a few quiet moments and to
light a candle,"Dios es amor" messages printed on product labels or
bus seats, roadside shrines scattered throughout the countryside,
every car has at least one rosary and one Virgin hanging from the
rearview mirror, every bus station its glass encased Virgin, every
town its hillside Christ; it's as everyday as lunch and as natural as
breathing.
In the middle of the world
In Ecuador it's all that but, in the tradition of theirJesuit fathers, a bit more militant too - a sticker in a public bus:
"We are Catholics. Our fathers were Catholics. We will always be
Catholics. We do not want to hear your religious propaganda."]
We were going to follow the crosses but were distracted by the house
of Mrs Maria Augusta. Widowed, childless, at 30, extremely devout and
phenomenally wealthy (due to everyone else in the family dying
childless as well), she devoted the remainder of her life to prayer,
the poor children of Quito, the Jesuits and patronising modern art.
Aside from the open air internal courtyard arrangement, the quartering
for the thirty servants required to maintain one little old lady (and
her hungry streetchildren), the specially imported Italian stained
glass murals in the bathroom, the crucifix once belonging to Jesuit
founder Ignacious Loyola and the avant garde artwork on religious
themes, it was really your granny's house. The interesting things
were the letters and documents showing how, through family connections
and friends of family, this one widow lady was intimately entwined
with the personalities and events of the history and independence of
her country.
On this trip alone we have crossed the equator several times (twice on
Saturday to go shopping), but we braved the local bus system to travel
to the monument at Mitad del Mundo, held hands, formally stepped
across the yellow line we took on faith as being the equator (it's
not: the Earth is not steady on its axis and the real equator moves)
and braved the bus system back again. Also David weighed himself.
Due to the earth bulging at the equator and, therefore, gravity being
less, he could have weighed up to 4 kgs lighter than usual - actually
he was heavier than when we left :). I preferred to remain in ignorance.
In Puerto Lopez we were ready to ditch Ecuador. It was too similar to
Bolivia and Peru, we were struggling to find things to fill our time,
what we were doing was falling a bit flat (read mainland Ecuador here
- the Galapagos were fabulous). Thank heavens we couldn't get that
earlier flight to Cuba - Riobamba and Baņos were great, Quito was
undefinably warm (although you shouldn't walk the streets after dark),
people loved that you thought their city was photogenic, more people
were out trying to make a buck than asking you for one, people
volunteered information (!). We might return to dive the Galapagos
but mainland Ecuador has closed its doors for us now - for that we are
sad but, after nine months, we are also suffering from Latin
American-ness fatigue and are ready for a change of pace, of language,
of culture and cuisine. We're trading in the mountains, cold nights
and religious statuary for salsa, rum and cigars - next stop Cuba.
Both well, I'v been savaged by a water vole so next time we're in
Ecuador it's rat-on-a-stick for me!
