Riobamba weekend

Last weekend, I decided to give myself vacation points for completing my first month in Tolte. I figured it would give me a chance to clear my mind, maybe entertain myself a bit, and force me out of my tendency to stay put once I make the big trip. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of, but I’m not much of a traveler once I’ve arrived. I hardly ever left Santa Ana when I lived in Costa Rica, and I stick pretty close to Tolte now that I’m in Ecuador. Of course, Tolte is a lot farther from Quito than Santa Ana was from San Jose, but I still felt like I had to shake things up a little.

My original idea had been to go to Riobamaba, which is the nearest big city, and where some of the people who work in Tolte, like the school teachers and Daniel, the agronomist, come from. Angus suggested I not bother with Riobamba, and head straight from there to Banos, a more touristy town about an hour to the west. But Daniel invited me to Riobamba, and I figured local guidance beats touristy every time, so on Friday afternoon, we hit the road.

The trip to Riobamba from Tolte is simple: you take the bus up that Pan-American Highway for about two hours. It’s a bit more complicated when you get there. Riobamba is a surprisingly big place, and yu have to catch a cab to the center of town. Daniel said that he doesn’t know how the city survives. It’s his impression that the only business is clothing stores. I’m sure he’s wrong. I saw plenty of places to buy cell phones and make copies, too.

Anyway, Daniel set me up in a very pretty little hotel in his neighborhood, Barrio San Francisco, and introduced me to his parents, who run a small coffee shop. Of course I had coffee, but a friend of his Dad’s also offered me a shot of bootleg sugarcane moonshine, so I tried that, too. It was smooth at the beginning, but certainly had a fiery finish. At least I’m sure no microbes could live in it.

The plan was for Daniel to pick me up and take me to a little piece of land he has in Chambo, just outside the city. But his 30 year old VW was not behaving nicely, so we didn’t meet up again. Instead, I walked around Riobamba, looking for odds and ends to see and do. I bought potatoes, oranges, tree tomatoes, and blackberries in the open market, underwear (I wish I’d brought more), and got a haircut. What was the best bargain? The haircut, of course, at $1.50, one tenth the US price.

Of course, this inspires a brief political statement. Ecuador is not so much poorer than the United States because market prices are low. Food prices are comparable to US prices. Underwear prices are brutal. The part of the economy that lags is labor prices. Work is worth almost nothing. My feeling is that right wing policies in the United States are aimed at producing the same condition there, where unemployment is chronically high and people will work for any wage at all. It is clear that this does not produce prosperity. The experiment is ongoing in Latin America, and it doesn’t work. Or at least, it doesn’t produce a thriving economy with a sense of social equality. By the way, this economic model has been largely imposed on the developing world by the United States. We might be getting a taste of our own medicine now. In case you haven’t noticed, no one seems to like it.

Anyway, back to Riobamba. By the time I had walked about the city Saturday, I was sort of tired of the place. I mean it was nice enough, but I don’t know anyone there. I cut the edge by taking advantage of the hotel’s nice wireless connection to do a bunch of skyping, but I was glad to return to Tolte Sunday morning. And I guess that’s what a vacation is for.