Ecuador: Other Things We Noticed About Life in Ecuador (In No Particular Order)

• Toilet paper is not guaranteed to be provided in public restrooms.  Most of the time it was provided, but most of the time don't cut it!  At that fancy mall, Quicentro, instead of toilet paper being on rolls inside the stalls, there was one toilet paper dispenser high on the wall (like a paper towel dispenser, but with toilet paper.)  In some restrooms, however, it was just not provided.  I think the deal is, everyone expects that you either carry your own TP on your person, or in some cases, you have to request the toilet paper from someone before you go in.  Somehow I managed to avoid any terrible situations, but on one occasion I was very thankful that by reading signs I had recently learned to say "papel hygiénico." I was at the Basilica, needed to pee, couldn't find a can, stopped at an internet café down the street, went in the bathroom, thankfully CHECKED before doing my business, came back out, asked the guy for toilet paper (in Spanish - one of my finest moments), and he nodded completely calmly, unzipped his fanny pack, and pulled out some folded up toilet paper for my use.  (I was not ungrateful, and bought an ice cream sandwich and a bottle of water from him.)

• There are signs everywhere reminding you not to waste water, paper, or electricity, and to use only what you need.  And I mean, this is way, way more common than it is here.  I didn't find out if this is because they take environmentalism very seriously, or because they run into shortages, or both, or if one is a euphemistic mask for the other.  The warnings were usually followed by "Take care of our planet!" Of course that usually means "Save money for our business!" 

• Used toilet paper is often not flushed down the toilet, but instead is thrown into a waste basket provided in the stall.  At first I thought the waste basket was for sanitary napkins, and my mind blanked on the fact that they were always filled with wads of used toilet paper, but sooner or later I got wise.  One would think that meant the plumbing can't handle toilet paper, but on the contrary, I always flushed my toilet paper and everything always worked out fine.  I guess they don't even want to risk the occasional clog.  I must admit that this is one practice I really disliked, because of the smell.  Both times I felt compelled to use the facilities at that mall (which was such a nice, fancy mall!) I walked into a dense cloud of the odor of stranger-vadge, and got woozy from the yuck factor.  For a moment I wondered if the odor was due to different standards of bathing/personal hygiene, but quickly I realized it probably isn't that at all - people in Ecuador did not have B.O.  I'm pretty sure those bad smells were squarely because of the waste baskets full of used toilet paper.  (This is really unsanitary, and a public health hazard, one would think.)  Again, most restrooms were fine and featured the accoutrements I expected.  Of course, when you're used to 100%, "most" don't cut it.  Sure, plenty of times you walk into a stall in the U.S.  only to find out that it's out of toilet paper and somebody neglected to replace it, but in those cases, you do have the comfort of knowing that the person who neglected to replace it is an asshole who is clearly in the wrong.  Upon returning to the U.S. from Ecuador, the restroom stalls in the airport had signs in Spanish that said, "Throw your toilet paper into the toilet."  So that confirmed it.  They don't normally do that.

• Many toilets have dual flush buttons, to give you the ability to select either a weak flush or a normal flush.  It took almost the entire week before our brains pieced this together, because it's a round silver button, you depress it, and sometimes you get a weak flush, sometimes you get a normal flush.  Eventually we realized the button was split into two halves: one for pee and one for poop!  Of course, don't ever use the pee one.  That doesn't do anything but add a little water to the bowl.  Maybe the U.S. is the more unusual for not being quite so diligent about water conservation, but it stood out to me.

• All the cars were stick-shifts (manual transmission), and they all ran on diesel fuel.  This isn't something we noticed on our own, it's something Adam was told by Ecuadorian residents from his work.

• Food.  Many traditional dishes are based around seafood and corn.  I didn't even know there were so many things you could do with corn.  There are many forms of corn that I wouldn't even have recognized to be corn.  Many dishes have fried eggs in or on them.  All juices are fresh-squeezed, not from concentrate.  The juices tended to be thick and pulpy, almost syrupy.  Fried plantains are popular.  Rice a common side-dish.  Potato soup was a common appetizer.  Adam got an appetizer at a very fancy restaurant once that was basically vegetables mixed with popcorn.  KFC had rice instead of mashed potatoes (and surprisingly, no corn-on-the-cob, which does not seem to be among the million ways they eat corn.)  Ketchup did not taste the same, and McDonald's food did not taste quite the same.  There was an extra variety of Coca-cola available there that we don't have here, called Coke Life (I only saw it at the supermarket, not restaurants), which is sweetened half with real sugar and half with stevia, so it doesn't taste like Diet, but there are only 90 calories in a 20-ounce.  There were many street food vendors who were roasting meats and shish-kabob things that smelled so tantalizing, yet only drove you insane because you knew if you ate it you'd probably get food poisoning.  One time I didn't care and was ABOUT TO BUY ONE. Just as I strolled up, the food vendor sauntered away from his cart and urinated against a wall.  And sauntered right back to his cart and started handling the food. Which leads me to - 

• Public urination is commonly practiced.  As evidenced by my having witnessed it twice during a five-day visit.  The first time I saw it, we were walking down the sidewalk one evening, and there were several groups of people walking in the same direction very nearby.  Suddenly I passed by a guy who had been walking a little ways ahead, who had stopped.  About an inch away from me as I passed, I was baffled that he was standing up against the wall facing a corner, with his back to me.  For a couple of seconds, it was just inexplicable and bizarre and I connected no meaning to it.  It struck me as creepy, like a horror movie.  Like the Blair Witch Project.  I gave Adam a look.  My look was saying, "Fuck, that's creepy!" But Adam thought my look was saying, "Oh my God, that guy was peeing."  Because he gave me more credit than I deserved.  Adam had already been there for a few days so he'd already seen a public urination (separate from my two).

Ecuador: The Mall, The Park, The Bus, The Taxi, and the Museum

Continuing (after a couple of days' break) with my narrative about a recent short trip to Quito, Ecuador...

Disclaimer:  I feel like a slug/waste-of-space today.  Maybe some post-vacation blues have set in, but in any case, I'm not sure I can write this with as much enthusiasm and detail as my previous Ecuador posts.  If what I'm about to write sounds "blah" or uneven, that's why.

There was a big three-story shopping mall within walking distance called "Quicentro." One of the fanciest malls I've ever been to.  [I've been over-using the word "fancy"...but there's no stopping it now, I'm just going to ride this "fancy" train off a cliff.]

Ecuador is much more service-oriented compared to the U.S. which is much more self-serve.  They still have real live people available to do jobs that have become extinct here.  For instance, the hotel staff carries your luggage up to your room for you.  (Upon reflection, I'm not sure they carried Adam's luggage, but they did carry mine, so it is possible that the service is mostly for ladies.)  I know there were lots more examples, but the only one that is coming to mind immediately is that there was a person (wearing a formal jacket and a bowler hat!) standing next to the directory map at the mall.  Our reaction to this was complete confusion: "Oh, thank goodness, a directory.  Oh, great, I can't see it because there's a GUY in the way.  What is this nutcase doing?  Get out of the way, dude!"  Slowly the possibility dawned on us that he might be there to help direct people, so we cautiously approached.  We needed directions to an ATM, and that was probably the first time we got our feet wet talking to someone local who did not speak English.

People who surmised we were English-speakers would go out of their way to speak any English words or greetings they knew to help the transaction along.  On those occasions where we spoke English or couldn't understand Spanish, I kept expecting someone, somewhere, to be annoyed by us.  We tried to head this off by sporting buffoonish, self-deprecating grins. ("Duh-hyuck!  Help a dipshit out?)"  Everyone had a practiced, professional ease with it, as if they dealt with it all the time.  The mall directory guide-person was able to show his amusement without making it feel like it was at our expense, and he made his directions very clear with gestures.

At home in the U.S., I come across people who I know are Spanish-speakers all the time, but out of shyness I rarely try to speak Spanish with them.  I thought I would end up offending them and embarrassing myself.  But that's not how it's taken, and after visiting a Spanish-speaking country, now I can see why.  Maybe Quito is different because it's a capital city that receives lots of international visitors, but I did not ever feel that our presence was out of place.  I felt like we fit right in with the landscape, just like part of the furniture.  A lot of it was due to this prevailing welcoming attitude.

I realized just how much harder it would be to navigate the U.S. without speaking English than it is to visit Ecuador without speaking Spanish.  Here, much is made of the fact that Spanish translations are everywhere and we have to "press 1 for English" on phone menus (Oh, the humanity!)  but in Quito, the fact that you don't speak their language very well didn't seem to get under anyone's skin.  I was wondering why so many people spoke at least a little English - were they economically dependent on tourism, or traveling business people?  After I while, I was forced to reach this startling conclusion:  they just do it because 1) It's good customer service, and 2)  It's good manners.

There were actually two malls within walking distance, and they were both very similar.  One was Quicentro, the big one, and the other one was "the one with the multi-plex cinema and the supermarket."

By the way, the grocery store was called  "SUPER MAXI."  Love.  It.

Hard liquor was only a few feet away from the Coca-cola.

Quicentro - Expensive clothing stores, all very fashionable...Here are two stores you haven't seen since 1987 that are still going strong in Quicentro:  Esprit and Swatch!    Food court:  Giant, I mean GIANT TV screen (for soccer, of course).  Big sushi bar in the middle.  Multi-level.  Very nice and top-notch. (See, I avoided saying "fancy" that time.)

There was one restaurant in the food court called "Menestras de Negros" that had a ... a... logo, that depicted a... Well, I'll just say it, a sambo.  A racist, cartoonish depiction of a little monkey-muzzled guy with a bone in his hair.  Did a double-take.  Did a triple and quadruple take, just to make sure.  Squinted at it.  Scratched my head.  Surely there's some mistake.   I don't know the back-story there, so it's still kind of a mystery.  Maybe there are very few black people in Ecuador (though I did see a few).

The Park - El Parque de Carolina was a big park that was very close to our hotel.  It had lots of playgrounds, soccer fields, dirt-bike or stunt-bike track, track-and-field track, basketball courts, and several sports unfamiliar to me but similar to familiar ones.  It was so damn big, and sports-centric.  It was beautiful and well-manicured.  From the park there was a magnificent view of mountains very nearby.  And there were many playgrounds and paved trails for walking/skating/whatever.  The playground equipment was 1980's style.  Real teeter-totters, jungle gyms, monkey bars, metal slides, etc.  It brought back our childhoods.

We saw a bunch of cute little kids, really little, like three or four, who were on a mini BMX bike team.  They crossed the path in a single-file line, like little ducklings.  Ducklings on mini-BMX bikes.

On the last day, it was our lofty goal to visit the Museo Nacional de Quito.  We dragged our feet on planning it out and didn't really know how we would transport ourselves there.  We considered taking the car service, but didn't want to spend the money, considered taking a taxi, but didn't feel up to the challenge of talking to a taxi driver (and Adam had been told by locals that taxi-drivers over-charge "gringos").  I wanted to just walk there.  I thought it would be a nice long walk and a way to soak in the city.  My directions that I had written down from Google weren't very good, though.  We stopped at Le Parc hotel for directions in English.  They told us we should take the bus (but to be very careful with our belongings and hold them on the front side of our bodies).

So we took the bus for only 25 cents!  But it did not go well.  It is too crowded.  Standing room only.  There is genuine risk of being trampled, crushed, or smothered.  You are pressed - not just a little bit, but hard - against everyone else on all sides. And there are no hand-railings left that you can reach, so if you fall, you're all going down like dominoes, most likely feeling stranger-junk and having strangers feel your junk.  Then there's the problem of not being able to understand the stop announcements on the loudspeaker, because it's being spoken rapidly in Spanish, and very muffled, with static.  Our strategy was to count out nine stops, as we were told.  But then we got to the sixth stop and heard on the announcement the name of our stop, La Casa de Cultura.  Was it our stop already?  Then the route went off of the street we wanted.  So we had to second-guess ourselves and get off the bus.  Then we were far away from the previous stop, that we thought was our stop.  But in reality we should have stayed on the bus because our stop really would have been the ninth stop, but it was impossible to tell because the route started out on the street we wanted, then turned and went far away from our street, and then apparently I guess by the ninth stop it made its way back to the correct street.  But we had no way of knowing that.  The bus ride was agony for Adam because there was something wrong with his back.  So we got off the bus.

Tried to walk, and asked directions from a couple of people, but they didn't make sense. Unfortunately there are TWO places called Museo Nacional in Quito.  One has pre-columbian art and paintings and stuff.  The other is a museum of the Central Bank.

So, new plan.  We took a cab.  At this point we'd spent more than an hour struggling to get to this place.  The cab got us there lickety-split, no problems, and it only cost four dollars.  Really wished we had done that in the first place.

Museo Nacional - it was very nice, but maybe not as elaborate as I'd anticipated.  The first floor had the really really old pottery and ceramic sculptures from the many, many cultures that lived in the country for the past 10,000 years.  We browsed and read the descriptions of the cultures.  They had a couple of model villages based on ruins that were neat.  Pre-columbian art features lots of ugly/scary gargoyle-like faces, bizarrely squat body proportions, giant heads, and very exaggerated genitalia.  Very exaggerated genitalia.  And every once in a while, something just really weird, like a cup that's a little statue of a man bending over, and you drink out of his enormously stretched-out anus?

The upper floor had contemporary paintings and photography, which were very interesting and/or beautiful to behold, much more my cup of tea.

We got there only an hour before closing.  We took a cab home.

Uh...the end.

Stay tuned for an Ecuador epilogue/post-script.  It will be like a list of random things we noticed about Ecuador as foreigners - things that really stood out as being different from home.  A catch-all to scoop up any last interesting things I may have missed.

To Be Epilogued...

Ecuador: Teleférico Cable Cars, "The Problems," and My Friend Diego

Teleférico is what they call the place where you can ride cable cars (depending on what region you're from, you might know them as "sky ferries" or "gondolas") waaaay up a big mountain, similar to taking a ski lift I guess.  I didn't know which mountain it was until I asked the other people who were riding in the car with us (Spanish practice!).  The name of the mountain is Pichincha.  Pichincha is also the name of the province in which Quito is located.  I think that's right.

This was about half an hour away from our hotel, so with help from Adam's Ecuadorian contact, once again we used the car service that contracts with the company.  And when the driver showed up, I recognized him!  It was Diego, who had picked me up at the airport when I arrived.  Diego was the perfect person for me to talk to, because he didn't really speak much English (although he told me he could understand better than he could speak), but he was really, really good at speaking clearly and slowly and using vocabulary I knew, and just being a very considerate conversational partner.  The car rides to and from Teleférico were just as much a highlight of my trip as any of the other major experiences, because Diego encouraged me so much with my Spanish.  I did have other interactions in Spanish that made me feel good, but they were pretty brief and usually mixed with some stress.  What was great about talking to Diego is that he seemed to sort of pick up on where I was at skill-wise and talk to me right at my level of understanding, or pretty close.

At one point Diego asked if we had visited the Presidential Palace.  Adam had, but I hadn't (and it was closed for the night when he went).  This led to a discussion of the protests that occur on a daily basis all over the city, but especially at the Presidential Palace.  We had already learned a little from Gonzalo (who had driven us to the hot springs).  We'd had some difficulty finding news coverage about it.  We were already curious because you could see it happening even in our hotel's neighborhood, probably each evening around the time when people get off from work.  People in Quito have a certain car-horn honking rhythm that indicates their displeasure with the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa.  It sounds a lot like "Shave and a Haircut." It can be a little difficult to distinguish when people are honking like mad to indicate they would like to participate in a coup d'état, and when they are honking like mad to celebrate their soccer team scoring a goal.  We noticed people standing around in large groups holding signs of "Fuera, Correa, Fuera"(Out, Correa, Out!) Basically, according to Gonzalo, the taxes are insane.  When they buy a house, they have to give 50% of the price of the house to the government.  And recently a new inheritance tax was imposed, equally outrageous or maybe more so.  Their sales tax is quite high, too, about 12%.   The tax being so high is probably why most prices have to be "tax-included."

[I just wanted to clarify about the prices of things - restaurants, hotels, entertainment, and many food items were generally much cheaper there than in the U.S.  However, other things, like clothing, could be incredibly expensive.  We went to a drugstore called Fybeca, you know, like a CVS or a Walgreen's?  Except it looked more like a Nordstroms (a fancy department store).  I needed a few personal toiletry items.  They totaled $45.  Jesus Christ!]

Apparently, often the people who are pro-Correa set up counter-protests and the two groups fight.  I'd asked Gonzalo (who speaks English very well) if he meant violently, and he said no, but they'd throw things at each other like bottles of water. Later we would see such a counter-protest, with a big banner that said "Contigo Presidente" (With You, President).

Anyway, back to Diego (who spoke Spanish only), on the drive to Teleférico.  At one point Diego pointed out that we were driving past the exact spot where there had been an assassination attempt on the president a couple of years back.  It was the place where all the big hospitals are (I'm not sure why all the hospitals are together in one spot like that...doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but whatever).  Here is what I thought Diego was saying:  the president was hiding out in the hospital and then somebody across the street from the hospital shot him through the window with a sniper rifle.  But he recovered. (Part of this I gleaned from Diego's very expressive pantomime).  We were like, WHOA.  DUDE.

After doing some Google searches, I'm not sure I had that quite right.  In 2010, there was a police uprising.  Police were upset that their benefits had been cut.  Correa entered some police barracks to try to talk to them and ease tensions, but that only pissed them off more. Some of them roughed up Correa and pepper sprayed him.  The Police Hospital was right nearby, so he went there to take refuge (and, you know, get medical attention).  On his way out of, or to (I'm not sure) the hospital, that's when someone tried to shoot him through the windshield of his armored SUV.  Now, if accuracy is important to you, please check the details of this.  I didn't look into it very thoroughly and there was confusion because different accounts contained different details and I couldn't tell if they were all talking about the same incident, or multiple incidents that were somewhat similar.

So, the Teleférico.  What can I say?  The mountain itself was beautiful and so was the view from the top.  It was about a 20 minute ride each way.  The pictures are worth far more than words on this.

View from the top of Mt. Pichincha

At the top there was a snack bar.  We had chicken empanadas and Cokes, and we shared a bag of "Picaditos" which was a mixture of Ruffles-like potato chips, pork rinds, and fried banana chips.  After eating, we really didn't have time to do anything else because we'd agreed to be back down the mountain to meet Diego at a certain time.  But if we'd had time, we could have done some hiking trails and/or horseback riding up there.  We spent a few minutes taking photos of the view from the top.  There was a low wooden railing some feet away from the edge of a steep drop, but people seemed to take that as merely a "suggestion," so we followed suit and stepped over it to get great pictures right up on the edge.  And there was more marveling over being "allowed" to do dangerous stuff.

To Be Continued...

Ecuador: La Virgen de Panecillo

As mentioned before, there is a giant hill, or a small-ish mountain in the middle of Quito, called Panecillo.  At the top of the hill is a very large statue representing the Virgin Mary, which can be seen from all over the city, and appears in many of our photos.  The statue has angel's wings and a barbed-wire-looking halo.  It looks like it is made of metal patchwork.  The statue faces the very Basilica we visited on the tour bus - and Panecillo was also a stop on the tour.  From the top spire of the Basilica, we looked across the city to see the statue far away, facing us.  When we visited La Virgen de Panecillo, we climbed up into the statue and viewed the front face of the Basilica, far away, from the circular observation balcony high up on the base of the statue.

Panecillo is in the heart of the Quito's historic district where all of the buildings (mostly large, terraced) are several hundred years old (and look it).  Some of them are kept up nicely, but probably most of them appear more or less dilapidated.  Lots of them are painted garish colors like pink and baby blue.  Riding on the top floor of the double-decker tour bus was lots of fun in this area, because there are so many steep hills, and because being on top put you at eye-level with the upper-floor windows of these old buildings.  Some buildings had boarded up, crappy-looking windows; some had beautifully intricate iron-work and gorgeous flower boxes; and surprisingly, a lot of them had both.

La Virgen de Panecillo is visible atop the hill in the distance.

The steep climb to the top of Panecillo (on our way to visit the statue) was interesting.  Before my arrival in Quito, Adam had eaten at a very fancy restaurant at the top of the mountain called Pim's with his business associates.  His photos of that dinner showed an amazing night-time view of the grid of city lights in the valley below.  But he also mentioned that there are packs of "wild dogs" roaming the hill top and there are so many of them that they held up traffic, and chased the cars.  I saw them for myself.  They are really just stray dogs from all breeds.  They look just like cute pets, except they're scruffy and dirty.  Some of them are not well-fed, but many of them seem to get plenty to eat.  They are attracted to the mountain-top because it's a tourist attraction where there are always lots of people eating and sharing their food with the dogs.  People don't spay and neuter their dogs there, apparently.  And they also don't fear or shun the strays.  On multiple occasions (both at Panecillo and at the park), I saw people feeding the dogs, playing with the dogs, letting their own pet dogs play with the strays, and even letting their children play with them.  No one seemed the slightest bit concerned about disease.  [I have a picture of some stray dogs, do you want to see?  Okay, nevermind.]

On top of this Panecillo mountain, there is a park-like green area where the most popular thing to do is to fly kites.  I don't know why it is so heart-warming to watch families fly kites, but it sure is.  It also appears to be a popular date destination, judging by many couples canoodling while gazing at the view.  But it should be noted that we saw a lot more PDA in Quito all around than you typically see in the U.S.  I wondered why there were so many couples.  Couples couples couples!

People flying kites on the edge of a mountain (Panecillo)

The other thing of note on top of the mountain is the long, long row (or rows? I can't remember if there was one or two) of souvenir shops, all in cute little wooden shacks connected together.  And also food vendors.  Unfortunately, we were low on cash the time we were there.  The only thing we bought was a little hand-painted wooden ukulele that said "Ecuador" on it, for our daughter.  We bought it (for only five dollars) from what looked to be a six-year-old girl who was manning her shop solo.  Sadly, the ukulele got broken in the luggage during the flight home.  It really sucks because we had already told our daughter all about it.  And we never really bought anything else for her in Ecuador, aside from a cheap foam puzzle of a map of Ecuador and another of South America.  Come to think of it, I think we might be thoughtless bastards.  But I will attempt to have the little guitar (or ukulele, I'm not sure) fixed.

That was pretty much it for the tour bus.  That night was the night we had the adventure of getting the front desk to order us a pizza from Papa John's.  I remember because it had started to rain as we got back on the bus at Panecillo, so we didn't want to go out walking in search of a restaurant.  I forgot to mention that on the previous night (I think), the same day that we had gone to the Termas Papallactas hot springs, we took a stroll over to the movie theater at the mall and saw Jurassic World (there were several Spanish showings and one English one with Spanish subtitles - we went to that one).  Jurassic World could've been better, but it was pretty good.


To Be Continued...

Ecuador: The Basilica

View of La Virgen de Panecillo from the Basilica de Voto Nacional

On the second day of sight-seeing, we decided to take a tour bus we had spotted while walking through the neighborhood.  It was only $15 for a three-hour tour of the city, and you could hop off at any stop and stay as long as you wanted to, and get back on the next bus which would come by each hour.  This was one of those fun double-decker tour buses, so of course we had to sit up on the roof, which is how I got this beautiful red sun-burn ring around my neck.

I don't remember much of the tour information blaring from the loudspeaker in both English and Spanish.  I remember it was saying something about the stadium and I chuckled about the line "where important soccer games are held."  The population of Ecuador is pretty dead serious about soccer.  The games are broadcast EVERYWHERE.  And EVERYONE congregates to watch and/or listen with rapt attention.  When we went to the park, the game commentary was blasting loud enough so everyone within ten city blocks could hear, all day long.  When a goal is scored, you can hear all the sounds of people cheering (especially by honking their car horns) all around the city.  And the announcer says, "Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllll!" One time it was more like "Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllll!"

And when the announcer says "Ecuador" he really rolls the "r" at the end in a celebratory fashion:  "ECUADORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

So anyway, the tour bus.  We got off the bus to take a close look at the Basilica de Voto Nacional, a monstrously, unimaginably, mind-bogglingly, impossibly large cathedral inspired by French Gothic architecture.  Of course it was very beautiful.  It felt like going back in time hundreds of years (although I think it was really only finished a little over a hundred years ago).  We took long-distance photos of each other in its courtyard to show the drastic scale, in which we look like little ants.

When I looked up to the top of the cathedral, I shuddered to see tiny-looking humans climbing into the highest spire on a rickety-looking wrought-iron ladder.  Holy shit, I thought.  Let's do that.  At least I guess I must have thought that on some level, because some time later I found myself up on that spire, in a cold sweat, clinging to this narrow little wrought-iron ladder, with thin wire mesh between some of the rungs.  I'm really not a person who fears heights and actually I usually enjoy them. The higher the better!  But there really were some dicey moments when I thought to myself, This is not okay.  We should not have done this.  (Maybe Adam had felt the same way at Termas Papallactas when he swam across a pool full of freezing cold spring water, egged on by Marco, an Ecuador-and-New Jersey resident, and he amused onlookers by screaming, "THIS WAS A TERRIBLE DECISION!!")

By the time I got to the top of the needle-like spire, I was pretty shaken up, and was afraid of going back down because I didn't want to be on the ladder. The tower was narrow.  Being on top was like being on the point of a pin.  The walls were high enough to make me feel safe there - that is, until it was time to go back down the ladder.

Did I mention that in order to access that terrifying ladder, we also had to walk across a very narrow cat-walk made of wooden planks, with no railing - only a rope suspended between intermittent wooden pegs - inside the roof of the cathedral, along and underneath the "ridge-pole" so to speak?  Well.  We did.  And people were coming from the opposite direction and you had to squeeze past them somehow (the same was true on the harrowing ladder).  And none of this was managed by anyone.  No one was being herded along, there was nobody playing traffic cop.  The only "employees"or authority of any kind was a person situated safe on the ground floor far below who collected two dollars per person to let you go up there.

It became so crystal clear that in America we are being gypped out of remarkable experiences because anything remotely dangerous is regulated up the ass.  It was eye-opening for me to realize that even though I have criticized that knee-jerk "There oughtta be a law!" mentality for a long time, this experience revealed that culturally, I still have that automatic reaction when I feel physically unsafe of, "Isn't anyone going to ensure my safety?  Aren't the people in charge going to make sure I don't hurt myself?" We're kind of stuck in a perpetual childhood, where we never quite fully graduate to feeling responsible for ourselves.

That reminds me (this is a side-note) of the drive up to Termas Papallactas, when I looked out the window and saw a lot of ramshackle huts made of anything and everything (mud, plastic, tarp, tin, scrap metal, scrap lumber), scattered along the way.  I marveled that people were "allowed"  to slap up any kind of structure without regard to any "building code."  In America, those homes would be condemned and destroyed, and then perhaps the people would have no shelter.


To Be Continued...

Ecuador: Termas Papallactas & Adventures in Spanish-speaking

On our first sight-seeing day, the same car service picked us up at about 8:00 in the morning and drove us about an hour and a half to visit Termas Papallactas.  "Termas" are hot springs.  Papallactas is the name of the mountain.  Our driver that day was Gonzalo, who spoke English very well and was also really friendly and great to us.  We stopped to get out of the car and take pictures several times on the way up.  We were now, way, way, way up in the mountains.

Termas Papallactas looked like an out-of-the-way resort with lots of normal-looking swimming pools, but the water in all the pools was hot spring water.  Other than a restaurant and some dressing rooms, and a snack bar with towel and locker rentals, and the ticket office, there wasn't much there but lots of pools and showers, and breathtaking vistas.  Huge imposing mountains with tropical-looking vegetation and tropical-looking flowers, and the natural springs, which looked like a picturesque river of white-water rapids, were all around.  It was a very cloudy day and there was an intermittent light sprinkling of rain.  It felt too cold to be wearing a swimsuit, but since the water was pretty hot, it actually worked out well.  Some of the swimming pools were built around outcroppings of rocks with presumably natural little waterfalls.  There was so much mountain mist, mixing with steam rising from the pools, it gave the landscape a surreal but gorgeous look.

Guess how much it cost?  $8.50 per person for all day.

Gonzalo came out of the car and walked up to the ticket counter with us so he could help us buy our tickets, as Adam doesn't speak Spanish and I was still feeling pretty unsure about my linguistic capabilities.  He didn't have to do that, but he offered.  I think he originally intended to leave and pick us up later, but he changed his mind and said he'd stay and he would be around if we needed him.  He changed into his swim trunks and soaked in the springs right along with us, although we didn't really hang out together while there.

We swam and enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours.  When we got out and changed back into street clothes, Adam realized that he had left his shoes in a dressing room when we first got there and they were now gone.  At this point, we should have tried to find Gonzalo so that he could help us talk to the staff, but we didn't immediately see him around and it seemed like time was of the essence when lost shoes (and socks!) were at stake.  So I talked to the snack-bar/locker rental lady, rather awkwardly in Spanish (I cringe because I said "vestidos" [dresses] when I meant "vestidores" [dressing rooms]), she made a phone call, presumably to Lost & Found, and luckily Adam's shoes (and socks!) had been found turned in, and a security guard came and found us and we got them back. Zapatos (y calcetines!).  Then we ate lunch at the restaurant.

I was proud that I had gotten the message across and also that I had handled the locker rentals earlier.  In fact the only reason I tell this boring side-story is because the Spanish-speaking experiences were one of the biggest highlights for me.  Every interaction left me either embarrassed and insecure, or glowing with pride and exhilaration.  It was way too big of a deal to me;  I can admit that.  But I really like learning Spanish, and this was my first time in a Spanish-speaking country.  Although there are plenty of Spanish-speaking people at home and everywhere else, they pretty much all speak English as well.  Not always but usually, I feel pretty self-conscious about trying to speak Spanish (sort of conversantly but not fluently) to native Spanish-speakers who are fluent in English.  It's easier to push through that when there's no other choice because they don't speak English.  At least then, even though I'm making tons of big mistakes, it's not quite as embarrassing because their English won't be SO much better than my Spanish.

Of course, many people can speak English in Quito, especially in hospitality and tourism-type industries, but otherwise, a lot don't.  Many, many signs have English translations, but a lot don't.  Translating shit for Adam was a major thrill for me.  That is my idea of a fun time.  Except for when I suck and feel ashamed.  But I'm finally, for the first time, at a language level where those moments are outweighed by proud moments.

It can give you a really icky feeling in the pit of your stomach when someone is saying something you know is probably pretty simple and straightforward, but you don't have even a clue.  That happened to me a lot.  Various minor things went slightly awry because I didn't understand shit well enough...like, I went to Subway and ordered a meatball sandwich, and they asked me if I wanted it heated, and I thought they meant do I want it toasted and I said no.  The dude explained that no, he meant the meat is cold, and I said it was fine because I still didn't get it.  So I got a COLD meatball sandwich, which was also under-cooked, and it was way too gross to eat, and I felt really bad.  I was too embarrassed to go back and ask him to heat it for me.

One time I spent about an hour carefully composing a hand-written note to the front-desk hotel clerk asking him to order a pizza for us and ask various other questions, which I was so proud of, until I found out that guy speaks English very well and it had been unnecessary.  Then I was embarrassed.

 Probably the worst thing that happened, in terms of actual results, was that in the airport on our way back to the U.S., a luggage protection service came up to me wanting to wrap our suitcases in plastic-wrap, which cost $15 each, and I agreed to let them do it only because I was so confused and flustered I thought it was a requirement of the airport, when it was actually just some extra unnecessary service.

Another time I was a little embarrassed when I asked a mall food-court guy for ice in my drink (they don't put ice in drinks unless you ask), and he told me that they don't even have a way of putting ice in because their soda fountain machines don't even have an ice maker.  But all I got from that was "máquina" (machine), and since he gestured, I thought maybe he was saying that there was an ice machine somewhere. So I said, "Where is the machine?" and he kinda smirked and pointed at the soda fountain (smirked because my question made no sense, revealing that I had no idea what he was talking about and was trying to bluff my way through it).  Most of the time, everything turned out alright, but I was still embarrassed by having to make people repeat things over and over, and misunderstanding stuff.  The embarrassment was only minimal as long as people were nice and patient and for the most part, they really were.

To Be Continued...

Ecuador (an epic series of posts; stay hydrated and take pee breaks)

I'm going way off the topic of this blog for a post or two.  I just got back from Ecuador last night, and at least one reader of this blog (hi, Nicole!) has requested a post about my experiences on the trip.

This post and several more posts to come are about my vacation in Quito, Ecuador.  After that departure, I'll return to the topic of overcoming junk food addiction, and working toward the specific goal of abstaining from junk for three complete months.

Quito is the capital city of Ecuador and second-largest city in the country.  It is the highest elevation capital city in the world.  It is in the fucking Andes.  It's in a valley nestled between active volcanoes, and just a few hours' drive from the Amazon rain forest.  In case you were wondering where the hell in South America it is, it's kind of in the northwest of the continent and borders both Colombia and Peru.  Ecuador does have Pacific coastline, but Quito is pretty far inland.  Interestingly, it's only a four-hour flight from Miami, Florida.

How did I wind up in Ecuador after less than two months of knowing I was going to be there?  My husband, Adam, had an opportunity to be flown there by his employer (a big multi-national corporation) for a business trip.  Since his expenses were paid by his company, here was a (probably once-in-a-lifetime) chance for us to take a vacation there together, and only have to pay for one person's airfare, thus plunging into an only mildly scary amount of credit card debt.  From June 8-11, he did work stuff, and even got in some sight-seeing with his co-workers on the company's dime.  At about 8:00 pm on the 11th, I arrived in Quito, and got to spend one night in the very fancy-shmancy hotel that his company paid for (Le Parc Hotel.)  It was not a big room in terms of size, but it was luxuriously appointed (and had a mini-fridge stocked with drinks).

In the morning we transferred to a less expensive hotel that was within short walking distance, Finlandia Hotel.  This was a nice place and comparable to your average middle-of-the-road hotel in the States.  However, their complimentary breakfast service was much nicer (complete buffet, not merely continental) and their customer service in general was above and beyond.  They also had a laundry service, but we didn't partake due to my cultural discomfort with strangers handling my undies.  The only slight drawback was that they didn't have a thermostat or any apparent air conditioning in the room.  Since it was a temperate 70-75 degrees in Quito (which it pretty much always is, giving it the title of "Land of Eternal Spring"), just keeping the windows open kept the room feeling comfortable.  However, having open windows meant we had to subject ourselves to the full loudness of major construction going on next door in the mornings, and at night, loud protests. (More to come on civil unrest in Ecuador, which people there referred to as "the problems.")

Let me back up to when I first arrived at the airport in Quito (Mariscal Sucre Internacional).  An Ecuadorian co-worker of Adam's had arranged a car service (it's not his job to do that, he was just really awesome) to come and pick me up from the airport.  It wasn't paid for by the company, but it was the same car service used by the company, so it was very high-quality.  For the first time, I had the experience of being met at an airport by a stranger holding a sign with my name on it, which is kinda cool.

I was expecting a man, but it was a woman named Chorrito.  She greeted me with a hug and a cheek-kiss, which seems to be the custom there (and probably other South American countries, much as in many parts of Europe), particularly among women.  She spoke a little bit of English, but less than I speak Spanish.  The driver, Diego, didn't really speak any English, so I guessed they had just sent Chorrito to ride along so she could go inside the aiport and meet me while Diego stayed with the car, and maybe also because she spoke some English.  The car was a very clean and very new dark-colored SUV.

It was about a 30 to 40 minute drive from the airport to the hotel, so I got to use my rusty Spanish skills for small talk on the car ride, which was pleasant and only slightly awkward, if at all.  They were both incredibly nice and I especially appreciated that even though there was something of a language barrier they were still happy to keep the discussion going and give it lots of tries even when I and they had trouble communicating.  They pointed out the landmarks on the way, the valley, the names of the surrounding mountains (though I couldn't see them in the dark).  Chorrito was telling me about the giant hill or mountain that's right in the middle of the city, but I didn't quite get what she  was saying until later. (The mountain she was talking about has a giant statue on it called La Virgen de Panecillo.)  We talked about the beautiful city lights, the toll roads, their brand-new huge and hugely expensive airport that was built a couple of years ago, the snow on the top of Cotopaxi, so just a little of this and that.  A lot was said that I wasn't picking up on very well.

When we arrived at the hotel, I called Adam on the phone so he could come down and pay them, because that's what he'd told me to do.  I assumed it was because he had Ecuadorian currency, but it was just because he had cash and I didn't; Ecuador is actually the only country in South America whose national currency is the U.S. dollar, so that was very convenient.

I figured that would be the last I saw of those two, but we were to meet Diego on two more occasions after that, which was delightful.  More on that later.

We went into the restaurant inside the Le Parc hotel and Adam introduced me to his co-workers (some from the Ecuador office, some from Adam's location), who were having a late dinner.  Adam told me that all of them had been universally stoked that he was extending his stay so that his wife could join him for leisure time.  He was kind of puzzled by their interest and enthusiasm about it, never having had such supportive co-workers before.

To Be Continued...

I'm All About That Bass

It has been about two weeks since my last post, which is pretty bad because I was trying to post more like every two days.  I haven't been avoiding junk food.  And I'm honestly not ready to try again right now.  But this will still be a worthwhile blog, and it will still be called "No Junk Food for Three Months," because that is going to be the ultimate goal - to actually make it, without cheats or exceptions, for three full months.  It just so happens I didn't make it on the first attempt, and that taught me a lesson.  It taught me that I can do it for about three weeks and I need to practice and build up to something as ambitious as three months.

So, when I'm ready to start again...it'll be No Junk Food for Four Weeks.  Once I make it to that place without failing, I'll do it again, this time for 5 weeks, and so on.  Damn, and I thought this would only be a three-month long blog.

To be honest, I'm not feeling super great about my physical condition at the moment but singing this song helps.  I'm not glorifying unhealthy habits or obesity here, but celebrating loving ourselves and feeling scrumptious in any shape or size.

Let's face it, life can be really fucking stressful.  Mine is no exception.  We work on things we need to work on as much as we can, when we can, at a pace we can manage, and build on it gradually.

I think my mid-life crisis is showing. Awk-ward...!

Hopefully you will be back to read my next blog post which will likely happen when I come back from vacation, full of remorse, no, full of vim and vigor and ready to take on the world!  See you in a couple of weeks!