Quito Cultural Museum Oyacachi   Street of Quito Church An observatory in Quito

July 25, 2002 Meeting the Ex-Pats     It has been two weeks since I came to Ecuador nevertheless I couldn’t feel more disconnected.  The archaeological project was still going but I was not there.   I left for Quito yesterday planning to go to the Amazon with some people from the group, but I fell sick.  My companions headed to the Amazon and I wasn’t there either.  Instead, I was locked in an empty hotel room feeling bottomless.       This past week has been a miserable one.  Over the weekend I had a fever and basically confined to bed.  I think it started out with the party on Friday night.  We had a little getting together at Dr. C‘s rental house down the street.  We were there drinking until midnight then another party down the street was discovered so we crashed that one.    It was a highschool graduation party for one of the kids in town.  The low ceiling house was packed with people swaying to Cumbia rhythm.  The gringos entered the joint towering over the locals.  The party picked up energy as the sound blasted on a deafening decibel.  A bucket of Chicha (Ecuadorian homemade beer) was going around by a guy scooping the liquid and passing it to the patrons.     This substance was made from fermented maize (corn) and how it was fermented wasn’t scientific.  It was told that the corn was chewed and then spitted back into a bucket.   The drink smelled like rotten food.  It tasted sweet, sour and pulpy.  I gulped the substance down and tried not to think what it would do to my stomach.     On the next day, we went to Otavalo, famous for its outdoor market that has been congregated there for centuries.  On the following day, some of us rose early to go to Oyacachi, a lush valley beyond the sierra.  The bus we wanted to take was filled with people. So we hired a truck for transportation. We rode in the back of a bouncing truck as it cruised along the pass of the east range.     Oyacachi looked like something that appeared in Jurassic park.  Waterfalls spurted out of the mountain wall like sap oozing out of tree bark.  Rivers twisted through the lush valley like snakes crawling on the forest floor.  This town was an old Inca settlement as stone walls still erected.   We submerged in warm hot springs built next to raging river.  The warm sun caressed my skin, but in fact, underneath a flow of lava was ready to explode.   The lack of sleep and the condition of the Andes and the altitude have put my body in a cyclone of aches and pain.  The bouncing ride had done more damages also.       In Quito, I laid in a hotel room feeling ill, unoccupied and unaccompanied.  Emotionally, I felt lost in an abyss of drifting sighs.  My feeling couldn’t be uttered.  I was just hoping for a wind of change.  That wind came when I left the hotel.  It was high noon.  My backpack weighed a ton and tried to pull me backward.  The sun relentlessly beat down on me.  My body felt so fragile against the tyrannous environment.  The dusty and fume filled streets of Quito weren’t helping either.  Though, I kept marching on.     On the way to the bus station to Cayambe, I spotted a Porta Phone (public phone).  The sight of this red phone reminded me Tamera who I tried to contact since I’ve been here but haven’t been able to reach.  Tamera, is an American who works here in Quito.  I got her number through her the sister who was my GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) back in Berkeley.     I placed the phone card on the slot and dialed the number.  It rang twice.  A voice peeked at the other end.  My ear perked.  Hola?  Is this Tamera? I asked.  After a short chat, I explained my situation.  Tamera told me I can sleep over at her place overnight if I want to stay in Quito.  The red phone seemed to glow brighter.  I didn’t really want to return to Cangahua and it was the opportunity I wanted to discover another corner of Ecuador.     I marched on to the Comercial Espiral Mall.  This place was built in a cylinder shape with the shops lined against the wall.  Inside, the walkway spiraled upward leading the patrons across the windows of the stores.  In the middle, an emptied void trafficked by a lone elevator.  My backpack felt heavier.  I parked by the elevator door, sat down and wrote.  My eyes drooped heavily.     Peeking out the glass window, the high-rises lined up non-uniformly.  Hung on them were signs for tours, trips and Spanish lessons.  Street vendors stooped conspicuously near the corners of the streets glancing at the passerby. Peeking behind the building were the pointy tips of a Cathedral while dark clouds invaded the city.  This part of town seemed to thrive on excursion tour businesses.  And it was rightly so because Amazonas blvd is frequented by few local pedestrians who were outnumbered by visitors.     When my watch hit 5pm, I took the Trolebus to Parque Carolina to meet with Tamera.  This huge park was swarmed by soccer players.  Many miniature size soccer fields stretched across the park.  I wandered on a dirt path that zigzagged through the park looking for the gringos.  In front of me a commercial airplane parked within the a fenced square.  It was painted in a collage of bright colors.  A sign placed by the entrance read: “Fantasy Adventure” in Spanish.     I strolled further into the park.  There were different areas for different sports.  One for volleyball, one for basketball and even a course for BMX bike and the majority played soccer but I didn’t see anyone playing baseball.  Commercial planes zoomed by above my head leaving a deafening noise.  I spotted a frizbee whizzing in the air.  Down below it were a few white heads of the gringos bobbling up and down catching the gliding saucer.  I sat down and watched the gringos run.       Shortly after, Tamera appeared.  She didn’t have an exact resemblance of her sister, but when she cracked a smile I knew immediately it was her.  Tamera quickly shook my hand, turned around, took her shirt off exposing a sport bar then departed for the field.  With her was a black puppy lab.  The lab immediately followed her and seemed to be confused with the rule of the game.  He thought that Tamera was playing with him.  He grabbed the leg of her pant and wouldn’t let her go.  From afar, it looked like Tamera was running with her ankle tied to a ball and chain.  Only that this ball and chain has four legs, a wagging tail and a pair of gripping jaw.      The frizbee game seemed to last an eternity.  The sky sunk, airplanes continued to parade out of the airport above our heads and the gringos continued to play.  Finally the game ended when the frizbee was no longer visible.   Adam, a guy in the group invited everyone to his place for a barbeque.  So, me Tamera and a couple blonds climbed into a jeep driven by Santiago, an Ecuadorian.  We zipped by the street of Quito listening to American pop music while Tamera and the blonds gossiped on their pop stars in the like of Cristina Aguilar and Shakira.  Driving on the edge of the Quito hill, I glanced at the city light below.  The flickering lights reminded me of the Hollywood hill with all the glittering sparks at night.       We arrived at a 5 stories building on a hill.  Adam’s place located on the top floor and has a magnificent view of the city.  Through a glass window, an almost panoramic view of the city complimented the spacious livingroom.   The party attracted about 20 people, mostly gringos ex-patriots excepted for a couple of Ecuadorians who were the gringos’ girlfriend and spouse.    We had chicken kabob, lasagna, salad and sucking down Corona, Budweiser and Heineken.   Pilsener, the equivalent of Budweiser in Ecuador, was absented from the party.     I landed on the couch and talked to Mark, a 22-yrs-old student from North Carolina.  He came to Ecuador to volunteer in a program teaching low-income kids who lived near a dump-site.  Like most South American countries, these kids scavenged through the garbage dump to eke out a living.  Mark’s job was to integrate them, age 0-5, to be ready for school.  Mark was chatty and comical.  He could liven a party after a can of Bud.     Next to him was Norm, a graduate student doing a master thesis on the indigenous political scene.  He was a little quieter but quick with the smile.  Opposite of Norm was Kim, a petite but gung-ho blond.  Her left knee was covered with a blob of dried blood.   When we inquired about it, she affirmed its unseriousness and then went on to embark on an even more unserious conversation.  Her sister, who flanked her, wasn’t far behind. She filled in every details Kim missed.  The subject matters of our conversation were mostly about pop culture- movies to be exact.     Aside from chatting about the movies we saw, we masticated the sticks of meat, scrapped our plates and sucked on our beers until about 9:00pm when the crowd began to disperse.   Tamera and I took a cab to her office to pickup a few things and then headed for her apartment.  Tamera worked for a flower exporter.  There was a whole industry of growers in Ecuador that supply the flower market in United States.  I would never thought that those dozen of roses delivered to lovers during Valentine Day came from the highland of Ecuador.     The gate of Tamera’s office was guarded by an armed security guard 24hrs a day.  I asked her about the bulletproof vest that these security guards wear.  Tamera told me how serious crime is in Ecuador.  She told me that it is one of the worst cities in South America.  We walked up a hill to Tamera’s place.  On the streets there were hardly anyone except for the watching guards.     Once again we had to climb 5 flights of stair to get to her apartment.  The place was spacious with a large balcony looking over the city.  It appeared as she doesn’t invest much into her nest.  Or maybe it was difficult to do so in Ecuador.    We went out for salsa dancing at a bar called Seseribo after Tamera got ready.     The hangout located in a plaza sunk below the street level.  There were three discotecas located next to one another.  The one we were entering has a metal folding gate out front and a bouncer who let the patrons in when others had cleared the entrance.  One inside, the receptionist took out a card and recorded Tamera’s name and wrote down how many people in the party.  On the card was the list of items available.   Each time an order was made at the bar, the card was marked and when we left the cashier would tally the damage and gave us a receipt.  That was our ticket out.