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).