My Vacation

You will all have to pardon the lengthy interruption in my blogging. I have been on the move, first to Quito and then on to Portoviejo to visit my cousin Amy (and to do some vacationing, not that I’ve really earned it yet). One of the positive results of all this traveling around is that I now feel that the bus system in Ecuador is not as out of reach as it was, and that six or seven hours in a bus is no big deal. This may or may not make me more mobile—we’ll have to see.

The trip to Quito was necessary because my tourist visa was running out (hard to believe, but I’ve been here over two months). The tourist visa was only good until December 5. But because I work for a stipend, and not a salary, I am eligible for a volunteer visa. Volunteers are lumped in with clergy and missionaries, which makes me feel a bit strange (the gospel of English is the World’s Second Language?), but the visa lasts a year, which will easily carry me through the next seven months. And this is a good thing, because the visa costs almost $200, requires 8 different documents to confirm my volunteer status, and required me to wait four hours in the Ministerio del Exterior to get it. Once again, the Peace Corps sheltered me from all this in Costa Rica. We had a special visa, and never had to deal with the details of where it came from. But, because Angus has become very good at preparing the paperwork, all went smoothly and the visa was I believe) ready yesterday.

I also got to know the touristic area of Quito a bit better. I took the trole (an electric bus with dedicated lanes) to the historic center of Quito, which is really quite nice. I spent some time in the Catedral, which is richly decorated inside and has the tombs of the presidents of Ecuador arranged all around one wing. It was sort of eerie to be in a room that contained the mortal remains of Mariscal Sucre, Ecuador’s counterpart to George Washington. I was kind of glad to get back out into the open air.

I did the visa paperwork before noon on Tuesday, and should have just headed to Portoviejo then. I didn’t because I understood it to be a ten hour trip, and didn’t want to arrive late. How foolish I was. Wednesday was the start of the national holiday, and when I got to the bus station at 6:30 AM, the whole country was there—and trying to go to Portoviejo, or at least the province of Manabi, because that’s where the beaches are. So at 6:30 AM I bought a ticket for a bus to Portoviejo at 4 PM that was supposed to get me there at midnight.

The thought of spending the day in the bus station didn’t appeal to me, though, so I soon bought another ticket to Guayaquil. This would be a longer trip, but I figured that leaving at 10:30 AM would be less boring than standing around the bus station, and would be enough time to get me to Portoviejo earlier than midnight. How wrong I was. The police stopped the bus because its tires were bald, and we didn’t leave until 11:30. And I still got to Portoviejo at midnight. But I didn’t sit around the bus station, and I did get a good look at the countryside between Quito and Guayaquil. Once you get ut of the Andes, of course, Ecuador is tropical, with big oil palm and banana plantations, and denser vegetation than I am used to in Tolte. On the other hand, the coastal zone seems more impoverished than the Andes. People live in houses made of cane and bamboo, and there isn’t the same sense of a society of independent farmers that I have in Tolte. Other than that, I can’t say I know much about exactly what is happening in the lowlands.

But when I got to Portoviejo, I was entirely vaulted out of my rural development mindset. My cousin Amy is a high school exchange student in Portoviejo, where she lives with a host family whose own son is on exchange in Switzerland. Her papa, Jose Luis, very kindly picked me up from the bus station in Portoviejo at midnight, which I felt sorry to have to ask, but couldn’t do otherwise. Jose Luis is the Gerente General of a bank in Puerto Lopez, and his wife, Nancy, sells imported clothing, so their lifestyle is outside of my Latin American experiences. They have two cars, a lovely modern home in a gated community, and a beach house in San Jacinto. My visit was spent almost entirely in the beach house, and each day we visited different beaches from San Jacinto up to Canoa.

You all know I’m not a beach guy, but these beaches are something special. They are on the Pacific ocean, but the water is Caribbean turquoise. The water is also temperate, cool enough to refresh but not at all cold. I particularly liked the beach in San Clemente, which was framed by a high cliff at one end. The walk I took along that beach was truly the sort of relaxing experience that people escape to tropical beaches for.

Our days at the beach were fairly similar one to another, so I won’t go into great detail. We had gorgeous weather, surprisingly mild for a tropical coast, and excellent food. The cuisine of Manabi is popular all over Ecuador, with many Quito restaurants offering “comida Manabita.” The food is based on plantains at various stages of ripeness, maduro (fully yellow) or verde (still green), which are used sort of the way we use potatoes in the US. The platanos are mashed, fried, toasted and served at almost every meal. They seem to be delicious in any form. I think Amy and I have a particular weakness for chifle, which is like thin platano chips, and easily as addictive as potato chips.

I suppose a highlight was that Amy and I cooked dinner when we went back to Portoviejo on Sunday evening. This involved a trip to SuperMaxi, an American style grocery store, to buy the ingredients to chicken cacciatore. I think Amy and I did a pretty good job, but the food seemed a bit bland to our hosts, although they did praise it. I don’t know when I’ll eat anything like it again.

And then it was Monday morning, and I was overdue to return to Tolte. This trip went more smoothly, though: Portoviejo to Guayaquil, a 15 minute wait to catch a bus to Riobamba, Riobamba to Alausi, and then lucky enough to catch a ride from Alausi to Tolte after les sthan an hour’s wait. Door to door, I made the trip in 12 hours, which is not at all bad. I also arrived before it was completely dark. I seem to have missed the opening shot of the rainy season, as it rained all day in Tolte, but it had stopped by the time I arrived. This is a good thing, because I desperately need to do laundry today.

This week will involve me moving from the house I live in to the other Narcisa’s house, where I often eat lunch. We’ll see how that goes.