Carnival, etc.

Greeting from Quito,
I thought today woud be very unexciting, but I was very mistaken.
This morning I went to the tourism office in Old Town. I was looking for a place that might sell the Lonely Planet book for Ecuador. I had bought one in Phx before I left and it has been a resource that I don´t want to try to live here without. It seems I left mine in the car that was involved in the accident on Monday. Another anglo told me they thought they saw them for sale at the tourism office in Old Town. To make a long story short they didn´t have it, nor did they have it at any of the other places in Old Town I was referred to. Finally someone told me of a bookstore in a secton of town called La Mariscal (more about La Mariscal later), so I started to look for a taxi.
Suddenly I heard a lot of noice, band music (not very good band music, but band music nonetheless) and I found myself in the midst of a huge parade that is part of the Carnival celebration that runs until Ash Wednesday next week. It was fabulous--literally hundreds of people, most in indeginous dress, some in constumes of every imaginable kind, bands, floats, people throwing flower pedals, and the ever-present KARAOKA. Karaoka is a custom where people buy aerosol cans of a soapy foam spray and go around spraying everybody and I mean everybody. It serves much the same purpose as confetti, only some spray it right in peoples´ faces. It vanishes pretty quickly, but it is a pain when you get hit right in the face, as I did, and many do. Don´t you know I didn´t have a camera. But it may be better, because the karaoka could have damaged the camera anyway.
I am sure I will run into more Carnival. I will be in Arequipa, Peru on Shrove Tuesday and there they will surely have a fantastic event for the last day of Carnival.
I thought I´d take a few minutes to acquaaint you with a few of the slices of daily life here. I have already mentioned the horrible traffic, but what I haven´t told you is that people here walk the same way the drive--aggressively. No one ever says excuse me or such when they bang into you or cut in front of you. No one ever steps aside to let a lady, or anyone else for that matter, pass first. It is every man and woman for themselves and no apologies.
Also people think nothing of blocking a pathway. People park cars on the side walks and force pedestrians to step out into the streets. They think nothing of blocking a lane of traffic if they need to stop for a few minutes for some reason. People often block the aisles in the supermarket and move only after they are asked. They are not rude by their standards at all, that is just the culture here.
Walking on the sidewalks is an exercise in mental concentration and athletic ability. The sidewaljks are horrible by our sndards. They have holes, some from lack of repair, some by design, there are pipes and other structures sticking up right in the middle of the sidewalk, the elevation changes fro property to property. One property owner ha hs sidewalk at a certan height, the next has his 6 inches higher or lower, curbs vary in height from low to ¨make your best jump¨. You have to watch very carefully every step you take, and be ready make an athletic move at any time.
On the more plesant side, Ecuador is a major producer and exporter of flowers, especially roses. Green houses are all over the countryside. The good part about this is that flowers here are dirt cheap. I bought a dozen long-stemmed roses for my apartment for $1.70, and some places they cost as little as $1.00.
I mentioned La Mariscal above. That is a part of town generally referred to as GRINGO LANDIA. It is a part of town where many restaurants and hotels and shops are located that cater to gringo tourists. I go there sometimes when I eat out. The gringo sports bar where I will watch the Superbowl is located.
Speaking of the Superbowl, no one does here, that is speak of it, I mean. The papers don´t have a word about it, there is nothing on the TV sports news--nada, nada, nada!!!!. I had to ask Mike to send me an email telling me what time the game is on Sunday.
Similarly, there is very little news about the primary elections. None in the press, and only short references in the TV news. Incase anybody thinks otherise, the USA is not the center of interest on the earth. The only interest I hear expressed by local people about the primaries is ANYBODY BUT BUSH, other than that the locals have no interest.
If you have never traveled in underdeveloped, or third world contries, bathrooms would be a bit of a surprise. Used toilet paper is NEVER put in the commode. It is placed in a waste basket mext to the commode. If you stop at a gas station, the men´s urinals are outside--set only so that the person using it has his back to the area where the gas is pumped. In some public bathrooms a lady stands inside, both the mens and womens and sells you a very small amount of toilet paper for a dime.
These are just a few of those little things that make up daily life. Well, I must go and do my Spanish homework and get some supper.
Love to you all,
Glenn+

My Trip to Cotopaxi

Hola Y´all,
As I mentioned yesterday, today Chris Morck and I went to an ecological park that surrounds one of the post prominent volcanos near Quito, called Cotopaxi. He picked me up at 5:30 AM and we drove through the empty streets of Quito and up, from 10,000 to over 14,000 feet toward the park. As usual Quito was enshrouded in deep fog and it wasn´t until near sunrise at 6:30 that we started to get out of it. Incidentally, you may be interested to know that on the equator the sun rises and sets every day at exactly the same time all year round and it rises at exactly 6:30 AM and sets at exactly 6:30 PM.
The road to the park is incredibly rough and inside the park it was even rougher. Chris has a 4x4 pick up and we had no problems but it is a ride not to be forgotten. Another incidental piece of info: When I am in a car I almost always hang onto the ¨Oh, my God¨ handle just above the passenger door window. I do this because everyone constantly swerves abruptly, weaving in and out of the maniacal traffic here. Also on rough roads, like the ones we were on today, holding on to that handle is a necessity. I will come home with a much stronger right arm than when I left for sure.
We arrived at the park expecting that the fog would preclude us from seeing much if any of the volcano. Infact the constant fog and cloudy conditions have been the only real disappointment on this trip as they have effectively killed any chance to take good landscape and scenic photos. I expected today would be no exception, but went hopefully anyway.
Well, to our great surprise, we got some very good light as the sun played ¨peep-a-boo¨ through the clouds, and when we got to were we had the best chance to see the volcano, the clouds that covered the snow line around the volcano slowly began to lift. We never could see the top of the volcano, but we surely saw more than most people ever see and it was incredible. I hope my photos do it justice. We were up about 14,000-15,000 feet in altitude. There are no trees because we were well above the tree line. That area is called locally by the name ¨paramo¨. It has some similarities in appearance to the tundra of Alaska. The ground is sponge-like, very wet and very soft with tiny vegetation and very tiny, and very gorgeous red, blue and yellow flowers. There are volcanic rocks of all sizes everywhere left from volcanic eruptions that have occurred over thousands of years. Herds of wild horses roam the paramo, and we saw many of them. Wild llamas also roam the paramo, but they are less frequently seen. But since we were riding a wave of great luck, we did see a few as we were driving back toward the entrance to the park as we left and that was a thrill.
It was a magical experience in every way. I am so grateful to Chris for taking the day to show me this wonder of nature that few ever get to experience.
Tomorrow and Friday I have Spanish classes in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning I am going to the Office of Tourism and replace the Lonely Planet book on Ecuador that has been my second bible on this trip. I left it in the car I was in when we had the crash and forgot to get it out before thay took the car away. I depend every day on information provided in that book.
Friday morning I am going to an Episcopal church here in Quito that I was at briefly early in my trip. It is called ¨Chrtisto, el Librador¨, Christ, the Liberator. It has a magnificent ministry to the poor area in which it is located, including a day car center for about 45 children every day. Most are children of single mothers who work. They charge $25 per week, per child, and it cost about $40 per child, per week. The meal the children get at the church is the best meal, and often the only meal they get. The congregation at this church is the largest in the entire diocese. In addition to the day care they also have several progams for elderly people, and a host of other programs. This is a tiny church located in run-down buildings that they are trying to repare and expand to accommodate their ever-increasing services to the neighborhood. Friday morning I will go to the church to photograph their minsitries and their people and I plan to go to church there on Sunday.
It is a truly inspiring group of faithful people who do so much with so little, operating soley on faith that somehow the money and resources they need will be found to continue their ministries.
Well, it has been a long day and I need to go to the grociery store for a few things for supper and then I will relax and watch the Aminal Planet and National Geographic channels in Spanish until 8:00 when I will watch Robert Lehrer and see how the primary elections are going.
I send my love to you all and pray for you all every day (among the people I pray for every day I include, ¨and everyone who reads my blog¨) so if you read my blog you get prayed for, at absolutely no extra charge.
¨Adios y amor¨ from near the middle of the earth.
Glenn+

The Adventure Continues

Greetings to you all,

It has been a long time since I had accwess to a place where I could enter my blog, but I am finally back in Quito and I have lots of stories to tell.

As you know I went to Ibarra last Wednesday with Chris and his friends. I decided not to join them on Thursday and Friday which opened up a block of time for me with no schedule plans. So I decided to go to Otovalo for the weekend. Otovalo is a town about 2.5 hours north of Quito and it is famous for its markets of artisans and its animal markets

I took the bus and went to Otovalo Friday morning.

I spent Friday walking around the town getting familiar with the area. Otovalo is inhabited my many Indigenous people, most of whom dress in their traitional manner and they are very fascinating. However they are very relictant to have their pictures taken. They do not trust photographers and think that their images will be exploited commercially. This of course presented a serious challenge for me.

Saturday is the BIG Market day. The artisans market not only fills the central plaza that it fills every day, on Saturdays it spills over into all of the surrounding streets and it truly is an enormous event--more about that later.

In addition to the artisans market I really wanted to see and photograph the large animal market which is held in a huge empty lot on the edge of town. It starts at 6:00 AM, before sunrise. Saturday morning I had a taxi pick me up at 6:00 and take me to the market and I arranged for the driver to come back an hour and ahalf later to take me back to town.

The animal maket is quite an experience. Hundreds of mostly indigenous people come to this market each bringing a cow or a bull or a goat or pig or horse to sell. They stand in this crowd of anuimals and people with a rope on their animal and wait for someone to come by who may make an offer to buy their animal. It is chaos, yet it is such a slice of local life here I wouldn´t dare miss it. I had a ball. I took some photos from distance so that I was less obtrusive and objectionable. I also used a method called street photography that is just letting the camera hang from your neck and rest on your stomach, and without raising the camera to your eye you just point it in the direction you want to shoot and push the shutter button. No one knows you are taking photos and sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you don´t, but I have become pretty proficient at this technique and used it a lot to shoot people in public areas.

After I left the animal market, I went back to town and had breakfast. I hired a taxi driver to take me up into some of the outer areas outside of town to see some of the sights there, especially a gorgeous waterfall in an ecological park, and then we went up a mountain called Cotocachi that has a gorgeous lake high up on the mountain. We were gone about 4 hours and the whole trip was fantastic. Along the way the driver would introduce me as his friend to indigenous people and then they were very willing to allow me to take their pictures.

We camw back to town and I had lunch. Then I hit the artisans market. I bought a beautiful woven tapistry and some gifts.

When I wnt back to the hotel about 3:30 I met another guy, namd Robert, who was staying there who was also traveling alone. He had a car that a friend in Otovalo had arranged for him. It was a 4 wheel drive car about the size of a Toyota 4 Runner. He was going to exlore a back road up one of the mountains and asked me if I´d like to join him. I went along and we had a great time exploring the area and saw some fantastic views.

I came back and had an early dinner and went to sleep. I got up Sunday morning expecting to take the bus back to Quito, and had infact packed up all my stuff. But at breakfast the waiter told me that that same day they were starting a 10 pre-lenten Carnival and it would be a great place to take photos. So I decide to stay an extra day and go to the fiesta. About that same time the Robert showed up and said he was also going to the Carnival and asked me to join him. We went and it was so cool. There were hundreds of indigenous people all in trdional dress, lots of booths selling all kinds of local food, including roasted guinea pig. In fact they had the guinea pigs right there on a spit roasting over a charcoal fire, with the heads and little feet and all. (my apologies to anyone who has a problem with this descriptions, but this is an exsential part of local life). They had a queen and princesses, formal presentations of gifts to the queen of local produce and a soccer tournament.

While is was wondering around I saw another anglo with a Canon Camera on his shoulder. We started to chat and he introduced me to his wife and we decided to meet for supper at a restaurant in town. We had a great evening together. They are from New York and are big New York Giants fans. They were planning to come to Quito this coming Sunday to a sports bar that happens to be the same one. I had been in a week ago. They are coming this coming Sunday

to watch the Super Bowl. We dedide to meet at that same bar this coming Sunday and watch the game together.

Robert had told me that he was going to Quito Monday morning and offered me a ride. So I decide to accept.

We left Otovalo about 9:00 AM. All was well until we were about 20 miles out of Quito. We thought we had made a wrong turn and taken a wrong road. Roberte tried to make U turn, and didn´t see another car who hit us broad side on the drivers side. The adventure had suddenly taken a new and very uncertain turn. No one was hurt, thank God, but the other driver was very angry. Robert didn´t speak Spanish either.

The police came and I am thinking ¨this could be very bad¨. Amazingly the police officer was so laid back about the whole thing. He calmed the other driver and said no one needed to get upset, no one was hurt and the insurance comapnies will take care of the damage to the cars. I quickly learned that here in Ecuador all legal liabilities in traffic accidents are the responcibility of the owners of the cars, not the drivers. The driver doesn´t even get a traffic ticket. All the officer wanted to know was that both cars were insured.

Well, don´t you know that the car I was in had been borrowed by Robert from a friend of a friend and the car was not insured. Since I speak Spanish I am the one in the cell phone talking to the owner of our car and I learn this and now my heart rate picks up a little. I had to inform the police officer that our car is not insured. Again he was so laid back. He said no problem just tell the owner to come here so I can talk with him. So we waite outside the polce station in the Ecuadorean sun for 2 hours until the owner arrives. Luckily I had purchased a broad brimmed hat at the market in Otovaolo. Finally the owner arrived and he talked with the office assured him he had the finacial ability to cover all damages and that was it, we left. I took a taxi on to Quito and that was it.

Today I have my Spanish class and tomorrow Chris and I are oing to another large Ecological Park, called Cotpaxi, an all day trip. I will have more adventure to share after that trip.

God Bless you all.

Glenn+