January 29 – February 1, 2018
Why Ecuador?
You might be wondering why I had a quick time in Bolivia, and why I was headed to Ecuador on such a specific date? When I was home in October (2017) for a couple of weeks, my parents told me that they really were planning to visit me, and preferably while I was still in the western hemisphere. Given the timing constraints at work, they decided on early February, and that South America seemed like a great opportunity.
At first, my mom had suggested visiting the Amazon together. That was certainly exciting, but I had spent some time there with Sarah in Colombia in 2015, so I wanted to see if we could agree on somewhere that would be new for all of us. My mom, a travel agent, had just attended a presentation on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador and suggested that we go there. I laughed at how amazing that would be, and of course thought it was a great idea. I even added a bit of reality to the situation that we probably wouldn’t want to be traveling together for the full two weeks they had planned to be away, and that we could spend the week together in the Galapagos, and then they would still have time to take a trip in the Amazon. Over the ensuing few months, all the details got hammered out, and we would leave from Quito on February 1st for the Galapagos on a five-day journey!
I was super excited for this, as the Galapagos are an incredibly well-preserved / -conserved part of the world, and the famed home of Darwin during the time he began formulating his ideas of natural selection. At the same time, I knew that having a defined date on the calendar would force me to make some choices. I had considered going up through Chile and then on to Peru in order to experience that incredible country and civilization, but then realized that I’d ultimately want more than the ten days I would have between Atacama and Quito. I figured that Peru was close enough to the US, and not a hard place to convince myself to travel to in the near future. Thus, I took the shorter time through Bolivia and then flew to Ecuador.
Reuniting With My Parents
Not only would this be a huge change to be with my parents from a mixing of personalities, but also from a different style of travel altogether. So, it was a rather funny thing for me to take the combination of public buses for two hours and $2.25 from the Quito airport into the historic district of the city only to arrive at a fancy, boutique hotel where I was greeted in English.
This hotel, the Patio Andaluz, was where I’d meet my mom that night and we’d spend the next couple days exploring Quito before my dad arrived (he had actually treated himself to spending a few days in Cusco and Lima, and seeing Machu Picchu). The hotel was absolutely beautiful, set in an historic building around an interior courtyard atrium. I also had a good laugh thinking about my prior few nights’ sleeping arrangements:
- 1/26 – Overnight bus to La Paz
- 1/27 – Floor of my Couchsurfing in La Paz
- 1/28 – Not really sleeping on some airplanes
- 1/29 – Beautiful queen-sized bed for myself
It made me think of those children’s books where you’re asked “which of these pictures is different from the others?”. Even being in a hotel where they basically forced my backpack off my back to take it up to my room made me a bit uncomfortable, though being able to speak in Spanish was a bit of a save.
After settling into our room, I went down to the lobby to get a sense of where we were and where I could get some lunch. They suggested the main plaza adjacent to the hotel, and that underneath the many official-looking bureaucratic buildings, including the Presidential Palace, were little shops and restaurants that would be a good option. I was hoping more for a menú del dia situation (a cheap set lunch including soup, main, dessert, and drink), but ended up at a little cafe overlooking the square that supposedly had excellent sandwiches. I wasn’t so impressed, paying an “exorbitant” $5 for a smallish pork sandwich with potato chips.
Part of the strangeness was just using US Dollars, which is the official currency of Ecuador, and has been since the beginning of 2000, when they emerged from a crippling financial crisis related to plummeting oil revenues, among other things. Since then, though, they’ve had a relatively stable recovery and have used their oil revenues to fund a lot of social investments like education, health care, and notably, environmental protection. In fact, there was an upcoming vote for a constitutional referendum that week, which would extend more powers to protect and conserve Ecuadorian lands. The Galapagos Islands are a perfect example of the care they place on the environment – it has been a national park since 1959 and a reserve since 1962, before which they were a massive whaling outpost.
After my lunch, I had gotten a tip from the hotel doorman to check out a barber underneath the Presidential Palace, so that I’d look a little more presentable for my parents. Plus, it’d been a month since my last beard trim and that one, in Santiago, had been more for shaping than cutting, so my beard was a little messy. This turned out to be about the same price as what I’d paid in Mexico for a haircut and beard trim, but it was such an awesome experience, I would’ve happily paid double!
When I walked in, ducking my head under the door since this was underground after all, I was greeted by an older woman with an infectious smile. We got to chatting and she was surprised at how well I could speak Spanish. I sat down and she got started, but like a typical crowded barbershop in the middle of a weekday, someone else came in to say hello to her, and the cut was paused every now and again for her to make a point in their conversation, shaking her scissors in the air. She had been visited by the daughter of a longtime friend, so they were talking about all sorts of gossip among their friends – who was with a bad man, who had said something rude to another friend, etc. I couldn’t help cracking up every so often, which invariably caused them to laugh harder, recognizing that I could understand what they were saying.
Overall, it was quite joyous, and honestly, one of my best haircuts I’ve ever received. I’m always a bit anxious getting a haircut, but it never ends up turning out too poorly, and sometimes you get a surprise like this one. I still use the selfies I took after that haircut to show what I want when I get haircuts now, months later. I spent a little while after that wandering through the neighborhood, finding a laundromat, and availing myself of an Ecuadorian pastime – soft-serve ice cream.
I had been walking on one of the main north-south streets in Quito, which is situated in a valley nestled by three volcanoes and laid out on a very long north-south grid. It was late afternoon, and the rush hour traffic was at a complete gridlock. Even motorbikes were having trouble weaving through. Then, I saw something quite unusual happen right in front of me – a pretty young woman walking out of an ice cream store, in full uniform, and handing a fresh cone to a taxi driver. Then, as I looked down the road, I noticed that the left side (driver’s side) was full of ice cream shops, all doing the exact same thing. I was also very pleased that for a mere 50 cents I could get one for myself. I immediately felt like Ecuador would be a place I’d really enjoy.
Another funny moment was receiving my change for that ice cream. I had handed over a $5 bill and received back four gold Sacagawea $1 coins. This is funny because in the US these are basically never used. I can only remember receiving them from a train ticket vending machine after inserting a $20 bill for an $11 transaction and getting back nine of those coins. It sounded like you were winning at a slot machine, but in reality, these were heavy and almost impossible to use. Now, I rarely use cash in the US as it is, but whenever I’d try to use these at a bodega in NYC, they would look at me like I was trying to pass off Monopoly money on them, and wouldn’t accept it.
I relaxed the rest of the evening at the hotel and waited for my mom to arrive, which she finally did around 7pm. It was really surreal to see her, feeling almost normal, but at the same time, so far away from home that it was really bizarre. But it was awesome, and she even had brought me a bagel from NYC, which I happily devoured, even though it was about 12 hours old. She was pretty tired, so we just stayed up a bit longer to talk and then went to sleep.
Exploring The Sights & Tastes of Quito
The next day we had a lazy start and enjoyed the hotel breakfast buffet to the max. Breakfast is probably my favorite meal, and hotel buffets like this one are like hitting the jackpot. I basically tried one of everything, all the fruit, all the cereals and breads, eggs, etc. I was pretty stuffed, but in a good way. My mom had arranged for us to do a walking / eating tour of Quito that started in the late morning, so we made it out to the main plaza and were joined by two other American gentlemen and our Ecuadorian guide. He was so excitable and really loved talking about Ecuadorian history and current politics. My mom, a forever-question-asker, was thrilled that he had answers to her many questions, and we all learned a lot, particularly about this upcoming constitutional referendum.
Besides the environmental piece, it would try to stomp out corruption by including a “political death penalty”, which forbade anyone convicted of a corruption charge from serving in any public role for the rest of their life. Like Bolivia, Ecuador also had a very popular president, Rafael Correa, who was in office for ten years, and did a lot of good for the country, really taking it out of the depths of the financial crisis to its current state. A few months before, he had stepped down, but his VP had been elected thereafter, leading some people to be pretty wary and skeptical of the new president. Our guide felt that it was too early to tell, but that a law like the one being voted on would be a good way to keep him in check.
The other highlights of the tour were the Compañía de Jesús church, a massive baroque structure built by the Jesuits over the course of 160 years and opened in 1765. A fun story from there was that only the rich (and literate) would sit close to the front of the church and receive books to read. On the other hand, the poor were kept in the back where there were only really the decorated panels around and above them. Apparently, these were also the most fearful stories, trying to inspire faith through fear into those who were able to attend.
The eating part was also a highlight, as we went to one of Quito’s most famous ice cream shops to do some tasting. Most of them were ice-based, and fruity, with some really interesting options. My mom and I both opted for a raspberry-quinoa flavor, as there wasn’t a chocolate one that really struck us. The quinoa was a nice addition, a little something the chew on.
After the ice cream stop, we went to a chocolate store, where they taught us a lot about cacao production and exportation. Apparently, Ecuador has been deemed as having the best beans in the world, but due to the normal imperialistic reasons, produces barely any of its own chocolate products and instead exports the beans to the Belgians, Swiss, Italians etc. for them to make on their soil. So when you hear that Swiss chocolate is the best, remember that they don’t grow a single cacao tree there.
The coolest part for me was learning the difference between white, milk, and dark chocolates – being a different combination of cocoa butter (100% for white, about a third for milk, and barely any for dark), raw cacao, and sugar. Seeing how much sugar goes into milk chocolate made me realize why I’d liked it so much growing up, but now I find myself leaning more towards dark chocolate. At the end we got to try some incredible 70-80% products, my favorite being the sea salt chocolate, of which I bought their last pack.
Taking It Easy
We had a low-key evening back at the hotel, both enjoying our books and my mom having a bit of a nap before we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was my first taste of the ever-present patacones (mashed up and fried plantains) since being in Colombia, so I was pretty happy to have them back.
Our last day in Quito we took my friend Zach’s recommendation to go up the teleferico to see the city from above, at over 4,000m. My mom doesn’t love heights, so she was a bit nervous, and with her migraines, the altitude wasn’t a perfect idea, but she obliged. It turned out to be a clear day for it, and by the time we had taken a few steps off the cable car at the top, my mom was already out of breath and feeling the effects of the increased altitude. I joked that she should partake in some of the flavored oxygen at the kitschy “oxygen bar” they had set up in the cafe at the top.
The bizarre thing was when we left, we walked through an abandoned amusement park. Abandoned in that there was nobody there, but yet, they stilled played music through loudspeakers. Zach had warned me about it, but it was really very strange to walk through it. Check out the video below.
We meandered through some parks, had a menu del dia at a cute vegetarian cafe / hostel, and then I tried again to donate blood at the Red Cross. I had tried to go the day before, but by the time I’d arrived it had just closed. The funny part here was that I didn’t even get to the blood-testing part since they restricted me due to countries I’d been in the past year. Strike two. I did have myself weighed for the first time since leaving NYC though, which showed that I’d lost about 20 pounds. Apparently this is the norm for guys when they travel, even though I don’t feel like I’ve been holding back much on my eating! I guess it’s something to do with eating less meat and all that walking…
After we packed up at the hotel, we took a taxi to the airport hotel, about an hour away, where we’d meet my dad and be well-positioned for our morning flight to Galapagos. He arrived shortly after we did and it was another great reunion. It felt so strange, again, to be seeing him in such a faraway place, but then also extremely normal, as we settled back into some old habit patterns – bickering a bit over dinner, having a heated discussion about what time to leave for the airport in the morning, etc.
It felt like home had come to me.
Photos
