After we got back to Jake and Rebecca's house in Guayaquil, we ate schwerma and drank rum to rest and recover. Here in Ecuador the rum, which they call ron, is super cheap. So we made a lot of Cuba Libres and Rum and Peach Nectars. Good shit. The schwerma wasn't bad either. Both Jake and Rebecca are vegetarians and I can't think of a tougher place in the world to be one. Here, when you say, "We're vegetarians..." they nod as though they understand you, but they don't, and they prove it in short order. They say things like this: "Ok, so then do you eat chicken?" "No, we're vegetarians..." "Oh alright, then you eat fish right?" "No, you see, we're vegetarians. We don't eat meat." "But fish isn't meat." "Ok, well whatever, we don't eat fish either."
There are side dishes that one can order here that have no meat, but they often don't understand that the 'no meat' thing means, absolutely no meat. Not even a little bit. They often serve you potatoes fried in beef fat, or other animal productos.
Today, we had a hilarious thing happen. Jake and I established with our waitress that he was vegetarian. The only options on the menu were with meat, but she said that they had a soup that is traditionally made with no meat. Jake ordered that with a side of rice, I ordered a bowl of tomato soup and a chicken and noodle entree. When Jake's bowl of soup arrived, it had a huge hock of meat in it! The waitress smiled and said 'que aproveche!' with no acknowledgement at all that she had just established that Jake was vegetarian and then served him meat. So I ate that soup, and he had my tomato soup. My entree ended up being a few cold noodles with some shreds of chicken and a mountain of undercooked rice. Luckily it only cost a dollar...or as Jake put it, "about what it was worth." The kid hits the nail on the head every time.
So the food isn't all that great here in Ecuador. It is the third world though so one can't complain. Jake, at this point, has gotten used to the constant struggle to eat. He also looks a lot like Jesus and people comment on it in the street. A guy today actually pointed at him and said, "Jesus Christo!!!" I laughed, Jake grimaced. I sent my friend Marta a foto of us all on the cruise and pointed Jake out in the foto, she replied in Spanish, "Ahh, the guy with face of Jesus Christo!!" Luckily for Jake, his face looks like Jesus, who is very well liked here in Sud America...he could look like George Bush...that would be real bad. In fact I don't think he would be around still!! Ha ha!
So we chilled for a couple days in Guayaquil. I cooked a risotto dinner on saturday night and we had pizza on sunday. Yesterday, on monday, Rebecca headed off to do her job, and Jake and I got on a bus to come up to the highland sierra, to Quito. We drove through hundreds of miles of banana and pineapple plantations. Everything totally green and lush. It seems as if the whole lowland is flooded right now. Houses on stilts and huge brown, rushing rivers full of brush and garbage. It was scheduled to take 8 hours on the bus, but it took almost 12 because of a big rainstorm that caused us to take a major detour. We ate almost nothing all day and our hunger, combined with the elevation, warped our senses of reality when we arrived here in Quito. Man was I hungry. We were staying in the old city and there is nothing open there after seven. So again, poor vegetarian Jake had to eat a plate of french fries for dinner. We found this shitty chain restaurant that served mainly chicken. I ate shit chicken and he ate fried potatoes. Probably fried with beef lard!! Ha ha! Poor bastard.
That is another observation I have made enough times now to say it outloud. In Ecuador, signs don't mean anything. They could say, "HERE WE HAVE FOOD." And you could walk in and be like, "Hi, I'm hungry and I see that you have food, can I eat?" And they'll look at you like you're a dumbass whiteboy and say in a confused voice as though they wonder where you would have gotten that idea, "No, we don't have food here." And you'd say something to the effect of, "But, the sign?" And they'd slowly shake their head and frown and say, "No." Ok. Bummer. Everywhere in the Galapagos were signs that read, "Coca Cola! Pidela!!!" which means, order coke!!! And when you would, they'd smile and say that there was none of that there. That was happening everywhere there! It has happened with many other things. One place had this big ice cream poster advertising all the lip licking varieties they had. I stared at it for almost an hour before caving in to the temptation, then when I asked for a cone, the guy just said, "No hay." "There isn't any." That happened with so many things. So now Mateo Del Norte don't truss nobody in Ecuador!! The sign could say "Now selling, good luck!" or "Free Money!!" and Mateo would just walk on by. I would shake my head and talk to myself as though sharing some sort of inside joke and then I would just walk on by. If you have a sign that says that you have something, then have it!!! If you don't have it anymore, then take the goddamn sign down!!! Sheesh.
They also are much happier lying when giving street directions than admitting that they don't know. According to the people of Quito, The Ecuadorian History Museum is in seven different places!! All far apart. Don't truss 'em!
So Jake and I wandered around this high elevation city for hours today. We are now in a bar/internet cafe so if this blog still makes sense then that is a pretty big success! The rumor is that here in Mariscal, the hood we're in, the restaurants are open past dark...wow, cool. I am still having probs with the photos, so this blog will be missing them for a minute. I am going to try a couple things tomorrow to get them uploaded.
A couple days ago there was a huge sinkhole that caved in right in the middle of the city! No one died, but huge amounts of road and sidewalk and grass just disappeared, falling more than 100 feet to the underground river flowing below. Because of this sinkhole, they have canceled school and the traffic is horrendous. Cabbies are charging more and busses are jampacked. Quite something I must say.
This is a nice city, high elevation and cold. It is crazy how fast the climate changes here. We are above 9,000 feet and it is like late autumn here. I have a wool hat on and my jacket. It smells like woodsmoke and rain and it makes me think of Cusco. And that makes me sad because I love Cusco. Love it. Quito is nice, but it's no Cusco. Soon I will be in Bogota in Colombia, which is said to be a nice high elevation city as well. We shall see. Peace.
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