Otavalo Market

Saturday is market day in Otavalo, a tiny little town about two hours north of Quito. Last Saturday, I headed up there early in the morning with Melanie and Norma, a former schoolteacher from Scotland. The market was incredible. Every kind of handicraft, art, apparel and food (yes, those are snails in the top left corner) was sold in street after street of stalls. For the most part, Otavalenos still wear their traditional dress, which includes ponytails on the men and strings of gold beads for the women. It's beautiful. After wandering the market in the rain for several hours, we stopped for mora (blackberry) pie in a shop along the way and wow, was it the best lunch I've had in a while. I resisted buying my and Zac's wedding rings at a booth for $12, but I did succumb to a handknit wool sweater! Now I just have to figure out what to discard so that I can fit it into my backpack...

Quito Catch-all

We've already been in Banos, Ecuador for a week now, but internet has been so sketchy here that I haven't had a chance to post the rest of our pictures from Quito! So here you go, rapidfire:

Zac and I rode the TeleferiQo to gaze at Quito from on high.

It was hard to breathe but we managed to take cheesy pictures anyway!

We stumbled upon a group of young Alfaristas on a visit to La Casa de la Cultura.

Beer and Cigar night!

Zac resourcefully studying Spanish in our rather dim hostal.

Zac stopped by Ecuador's Department of Livestock and Agriculture to try and find a job for his brother, Haden. Unable to come up with the right phrase in Spanish, he had to rely on the words of encouragement from a classic Haden text message. Hence, the quick departure from Quito.

Not Dead Yet

Hi everyone!! We´re in Baños, Ecuador, this awesome little town nestled in the mountains with jungle, (active) volcanoes, and hot springs all over the place. For all it´s charms, we can´t seem to find wi-fi that works, hence the lack of new posts.

But we´re having tons of fun! We´ve been hiking, and horseback riding, and today we´re off to the hot springs for a dip. Will update with details and pictures soon.

Love,
Joy and Zac

Oh yes, it's Ladies' Night

 

Last week, upon arriving at our hostal, Zac and I almost immediately met Carmen (that’s her on the left). She’s originally from Ecuador, lives in Dallas, Texas, and goes out salsa dancing at least four times a week. Once she found out we were taking salsa-dancing lessons, she quickly threatened promised to take us to her favorite clubs. Well… Zac convinced her he’d rather stay home and read than go out dancing, but I put on my cleanest tank top and red lipstick and headed with Carmen and Paola to a bar that promised to supply free drinks to ladies and to keep the men outside until 10pm. (Once 10pm hit, we escaped to the salsa club.) We had a blast!

That was last week, but it’s Ladies’ Night again, and Carmen may have left for the United States, but we’re going to keep her memory alive here in Quito. Here’s to new friends, free drinks, and hot salsa!

Dad's Sign

¿Puede decirme donde está la casa de música?

Fun in the Sun

So Zac is off at his first day of school! I sent him out the door with snacks, reading glasses, his new dictionary and pocket change for to-go coffee. (Okay, he really did all the getting ready himself, but I waved goodbye!)

Yesterday, we took advantage of the sun to go riding. Each Sunday, Quito closes 33km of one of the main thoroughfares of the city and rents out bicycles to all comers. Melanie, a Canadian who's been running a refugee camp in the Sudan for the past three years, and Carey, a Californian who flies helicopters in Afghanistan, joined us for the day.

Melanie and I had to take a break from bike riding when we stumbled across some sort of Zumba/Tae-Bo hybrid class in the park. The instructor demonstrated the moves by pretending to attack and beat up a member of the audience. And it all happened to the beat of loud Latin pop music.

After riding in the sun for several hours, we turned our bikes back in and took a trip through the Mariscal Artisan Market. Our best find of the market- Meat on a Stick! Yummmmm.

Zac and I took a break in the shade but it was too late. We are so. so. red. Three weeks in the Costa Rican sun has nothing on one day at 9,000 feet up. Ouch!

Como se dice, "big beer"??

Coffee in Quito, on the whole, doesn’t seem to be as good as in Costa Rica, but the public restrooms are cheaper…

…although I’m still not certain if the old women sitting at the doors, demanding a nickel per use (or a dime if you need paper), are legitimate empleadas or just savvy entrepreneurs. 

We have found one place with really good coffee, though: El Cafecito, which is conveniently located not far from our new home, Hostal Alcala. We only go to El Cafecito for coffees, usually right before or right after lunch, because their food is priced rather high, especially when we can get an almuerzo for just two or three dollars per person at any one of the hundreds of little cafes in this densely populated city. 

And smoggy. Oh lord. We met a British couple and they told us that they don’t look for a bus when they need a ride somewhere, they just look for a big black cloud that rolls down the street. This might be a slight exaggeration, but it isn’t much of one. The combination of the city’s elevation (about 3000 meters) with its anti-Prius emission controls, leave Joy and I gasping for breath much of the time. It’s beautiful though, in a big-damn-city sort of way. 

But I got off track a little. I wanted to explain that almuerzos are set lunches, usually comprised of soup to start, followed by a segundo, which is meat of some kind (beef, chicken, fish) with rice or potato and a small side salad, and then a small dessert, which usually looks a lot like fruit of some kind (and not at all like dessert should look), and served with a glass of freshly-squeezed fruit juice. I would tell you the kinds of fruits used, but I’m not certain if I can pronounce or spell any of them (e.g. guanabana???). 

Anyhow, like I said, these meals are quite cheap, which makes them the perfect lunch for a couple who is trying to stretch a meager budget into April and avoid the verguenza of having to come home early due to lack of funds. They are so well priced that we can justify them even when we know that either Joy is going to get stuck with potatoes or I am going to get stuck with chicken, or both.  We usually have no trouble justifying ice cream or cookies with our coffees afterwards either!

We don’t usually eat breakfast out anywhere, though, choosing instead to eat the free toast and eggs and fruit at the hostal; it ain’t bad, but it ain’t gallo pinto either, if you know what I mean.

Dinners in Quito can be quite reasonably priced as well- if you don’t count the ‘date-night’ dinner at the Italian restaurant last night- and often come with 20oz bottles of Pilsenser, the national Ecuadorian beer. Prior to being de vacaciones in Sudamerica, I didn’t know I was capable of drinking a 20oz bottle of beer- or two- but it turns out I am! Joy, of course, never had any such self-doubt.

Okay, so I’ve spent most of this note talking about food rather than the Spanish-speaking lessons that were the original reason for our extended stay in the city, but that’s because the dumb bastards from the school never picked us up at the airport, as planned. I believe Joy has previously mentioned that we were stood up at the dance, but I don’t think that she mentioned that our Plan B was to do self-study with the books we got from the school in Costa Rica. You don’t need to wonder how Plan B turned out if you were paying attention during the ‘20oz bottle’ section. Plan C, therefore, is looking like an extra week in Quito while I go to the organized Spanish-speaking school a block away from the hostal, while Joy goes to more salsa-dancing lessons (don’t worry, she’s already dragged me to one of those), or to more classes at Crossfit Quito, which is a great gym run by David, a really great guy. 

In another quick side-note, this one hopefully more interesting than smog, on the first day we went to Crossfit Quito Joy was our sole communicator with David, all in Spanish, including interpreting for me when I had something to say more complex than, “where is the bathroom?” or “can I have another beer?” On our second day at Crossfit Quito, David walked over to me right before the starting gun sounded for Joy’s workout (I’m still on shoulder surgery injured reserve), and said to me, in perfectly enunciated English, “The altitude’s going to destroy her.” Dirty bugger. Sometimes I feel as if I’m the only person around who can’t speak both Spanish and English. And though I know that I won’t learn the complete language on this trip, and that this adventure is about much more than me learning how to verify with meseros that they are bringing me a 20oz bottle of beer and not one of those wimpy American 12oz bottles, I really would like to learn some while I’m here, and we think that another week of brain-crushing, fire-hose training will be beneficial to my four-month learning curve. Besides, maybe I’ll learn to understand Joy a little better when she’s signing me up for more salsa lessons!