Ecuador, Ferris Bueller Style

Because the camera worked overtime in the Galapagos I gave it the Thanksgiving Weekend off so that it would not go on strike like the Writer's Guild. In the mean time, there are more Galapagos pictures interspersed throughout this article...

We didn't end up spending a whole lot of time in Ecuador. After the seven nights on the Galapagos we had to get through the rest of the main land in less than a week. This brings me back to an old hero of mine, Ferris Bueller. The guy who worked harder to not go to school than he would have in school would have been proud of what we accomplished in the short time we had. Trying to do Ecuador like Ferris had done to Chicago turned out to be a formidable, nay impossible tasks, but due to previously arranged engagements in Perú, it had to be done.

One of the details that was most striking to me was the variety of terrain in Ecuador. In a country the size of Nevada there is intolerably hot rain forest, active volcanoes, the Galapagos island, steep Andes mountains that collect snow, beautiful tropical beaches, cloud forest, national parks with the highest species density in the world, and all the land is fertile thus food variety is expansive. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the highlights. There are plenty of other places all over the country worth visiting. The following is the short list of the places that we did get to...

Otavalo: A picturesque town at the base of the northern Andes which has a remarkable artisan market. A hagglers paradise, this market literally takes over the town with people selling their goods. One of the refreshing things about this area was that most of the products are made by the artisans themselves. I was recently disappointed in a market (which shall remain nameless) to find tags with 'Made in China'. Otavalo market still seemed remarkably true to its indigenous roots.

Quito: I tend to be rather critical of cities, and Quito is no exception.
There was nothing spectacular about the city itself, with one very large exception. We were put in contact with a family, a friend of a friend, and accepted us into their house not once but twice. Dave and I used the house as a pre and post staging for the Galapagos, and these people gave us food, guidance, a bed, shower, and laundry facilities for no other reason than we share a common friend and they are exceptionally nice people. There is no way we could thank them enough. So as a way of trying I have posted a picture of some of them making funny faces (seems fair to me).

Upon returning to Quito we met up with our Irish friend from the Ciudad Perdida trip -recall if you will ¨tirty tree and a turd¨. He was staging to do the Galapagos and had some questions because we had just finished. After lunch we decided to wander down to the stadium to watch the Perú - Ecuador World Cup Qualifier. We had no tickets, but were not worried about getting in as Ecuador had lost its first three games. Needless to say, we could not get into the game because we were not willing to pay $25 for a scalped ticket (face value $8) to what was most likely a meaningless game. We thought we would just go watch the game at the pub. BUT, the game was not on in the pub! We found this to be a grave injustice and indicative of Latin American backwards thinking. So we spent the next two hours outside the stadium trying to understand why there were empty seats in the stadium, and we were still standing outside with a $20 bill and a beer each.

Saquisilí: After our failure at the game, we packed up early Thanksgiving morning and headed south, Our morning stop was at a market in Saquisilí, which was different to the Otavalo market because it was more centered around local buyers. There were still artisan goods. As I was still feeling the pinch from the last market, I roamed the streets asking about prices of llamas and sheep, and if they came properly documented so that I could send them back to the states (llamas $50, short-hair sheep $25, documentation? -I'm a jerk). We also made our first attempt to find what we wanted our Thanksgiving meal to be, roasted guinea pig (cuy). It is a true delicacy in the Andes, but after striking out we moved on in the afternoon to...

Baños: A popular tourist town for foreigners and paisanos alike. This mountain town is carved into the side of a hill and has natural hot spring baths at the base of a waterfall. It was described by someone in the following way, ¨Well I have been in uglier places,¨ which may be the understatement of the month. Everything about the place was charming to the point of being too perfect. There was not a scrap of garbage to be found, all stores were immaculately decorated, and even the parks and plazas had been nurtured and tended to perfection (for me to notice this is noteworthy, I normally could care less). We spent the afternoon soaking in the hot water, and asking around for our Thanksgiving cuy to no avail.

We move on to Riobamba as one final attempt at a guinea pig Thanksgiving. We also considered having Chinese food until we realize there would be no 'Thanksgiving Carols' for the waiters to butcher (Think: ¨Fa-ra-ra¨ from A Christmas Story). To make a short story shorter we had no luck there either we said, ¨To Hades with this country, we be out. Peace!¨ (We didn't actually say it, but it might have been funny if we did.) With that we jumped on an overnight bus and woke up at the border to bid a fond farewell to Ecuador despite the lack of local cuisine. With that we closed the book on Ecuador, and I on this article.