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...