First off, we started the day with a good breakfast, including the naranjilla juice (I don't know if the ones I bought on Sunday at the market were ripe enough, but I got my naranjilla juice anyway!!) :))
We drove out first to Rumicucho, some Inca ruins out toward the Equator monument. Not terribly impressive ... but it's another one of those "been-there-done-that" places you must go to if you're visiting Ecuador and are in the Quito vicinity for any number of days.
The road was under construction and the dust was horrendous, but we finally arrived. "You mean ... this is it??" We climbed around a bit, through a couple of "rooms" ... Melissa was standing at the edge of one of the "rooms" at Rumicucho, and although it was only two steps or a small jump down from where she was standing, the view from a few steps away made it look like she was on the edge of a precipice ... cool perspective.
oh dear, another potty stop ... no bathrooms in the vicinity ... :/ so one of the Inca "rooms" was designated a bathroom ... and the ground was watered. (We left our mark?)
We drove on from Rumicucho to Pululahua, a large, deep crater where you can watch the clouds forming in the valley and coming up toward you. It was a clear day, however, so the clouds weren't acting up -- but the view was really pretty with the patchwork farming below and a winding road going steeply down the side of the mountain that was aptly named "Sali Si Pueda"
After taking pictures there, we drove back to the Mitad del Mundo. There have been a lot of changes there from when I was there last!! It's set up like a little village now, with artesanía shops and little restaurants and a couple of museums sprinkled around the new (bigger, brown marble) monument ... and the walking avenue approaching the monument is lined by busts of scientists.
We could have gone up inside the monument, but again, we chose not to (we have since been informed that was a mistake and there is a wonderful museum inside) ... we meandered around the shops, bought a few trinkets, had some Manzana soda pop...
We saw a few paintings that looked similar to Moncayo's (a famous Ecuadorian artist who we found out later has moved to Venezuela and that is one of the main reasons we couldn't find his paintings in Ecuador anymore) ... they are using the old money (the 5, 10, 20, and 50 sucre bills) to paint little tiny oil paintings on where the faces used to be in the center of the bill ... it looks really cool ... and although we didn't buy any, we wished later that we had)
We also got our first look at some paintings by Gonzalo Endara Crow -- what fun his paintings were!! He has a mix of sci-fi and fantasy with reality and Ecuadorian flavor ... great details and fanciful additions that make you feel pleasant and happy when you look at his works. One of his "trademarks" is a train going through the sky, blowing bubbles out of the smoke stack ... and sometimes, amid the tiled roofed houses and people in the surrounding streets and mountains, you'd find a big fruit or vegetable rolling down the street ... about the size of a person... but it all seemed to fit anyway. {grin} We had a lot of fun looking through those!
One of our favorite paintings (which we didn't get, but I'll always remember) was a group of Otavalans, facing away, walking, holding a big framework of firecrackers that were going off -- pinwheels and skyrockets -- against a deep blue background ... and yet there was an oddly subdued dignity about the whole picture that made it extremely intriguing.
We started feeling guilty for leaving our driver waiting for us, as it had been two hours or more, so we went back to the car, put our purchases in the trunk and drove back to Quito, detouring to go through Calderón first, where they make mazapan (bread dough) figures.
What a change there has been in Calderón!! The Panamericano Norte there is a six to eight lane freeway with the green and white direction signs, overpasses... wow!
There weren't too many mazapan shops left that we found, but we looked through them and bought Melissa a couple of cute pins: A pink owl, and a pink girl/doll pin. The pins were S/.300 each. I knew that. My brain was finally becoming accustomed to talking/thinking in thousands of sucres instead singles/tens/hundreds. I said, "Can we have 2 for S/.5,000?" The lady laughed, "No, you can have 2 for S/.500 ... but if you want to give me the rest, I will be happy to take it!" (ay yay yay)
On from Calderón, back to the Panamerican Freeway going south, I wanted to see if I could find the brick house we had built -- there was a whole neighborhood built around that area ... I had this gut feeling where the turn was and we turned down the road I indicated ... it was all crowded by apartments, then bumpy roads, then the driver turned off the road I thought it was on and went over a block and all the way down. I kept saying "No, I think it's back on that other block, just further down." From the bottom of the hill at the end of the road I looked over to the other block and thought I recognized one of the houses on the other block as one from before.
No red-orange brick anywhere on the block we'd been on. Wilson drove back up, back over to the other block, and almost all the way down. About 3/4 of the way down, *BOOM* an orange brick fence with an arched wood and wrought iron gate {peek} "THAT'S IT!!!!!" "ESO ES!!!" We piled out of the car and I, unabashedly, gazed through the gate at our old house.
A man was there, standing in a carport that was built of the same matching brick. He saw me and came toward the gate. I was crying. I said, "I'm sorry for intruding! This used to be my house! We built it ourselves! My mom drew the drawings for it!! It looks so beautiful!!!" He let us in to look around. It was his aunts' house... and she was the same person who had purchased the house when we'd left the country. It had only had one owner since we left.
The house did look beautiful! The cement had been painted white and the doors had been varnished, the front porch to the front door was enclosed by a half-wall and a gate that nicely matched the front door. A stone walkway was lined by a white decorative fence that beautifully complemented the brick. A small stairway led up to the enclosed back porch that had been next to my bedroom. There were still no railings on the front porch upstairs on the other side of my bedroom.
The whole time I'm wandering around crying and laughing and over and over exclaiming how well they did. The house was kept true to itself. The garden on the house side of the front lawn has a vine that reaches up to the porch and hangs over, giving shade to the picture windows without blocking their view of Cayambe.
The workshop is still there, the workman's building is still there. Part of the property was left semi-wild with some fruit trees here and there and eucalyptus and cabulla still growing wild, and there was a stack of pallets down by the workshop. Up near the road was the matching brick three-stall carport. It truly looked *wonderful* ... out back they had added a wash house, and a wall separated the property from the quebrada behind it.
There had recently been another fire in the woods out back, but (as before) it came up to 10 feet from the house and stopped ... it was quite evident that there had been a fire - a lot of the forest was charred, but what was around the house was beautiful still.
I cried, I laughed, I was content that our house was loved and had been taken care of so *very* very well. The nephew said we could return to see the inside of it but I chose not to. I did peek inside and saw that what they had finished inside was also very well done -- Spanish tile on the stairs, marble floors in the entry and wooden flooring in the dining/living area ... it was very well done.
We went from there to El Batán, where my grandfather was buried. I bought a few dozen roses, found out where his grave was and when I got there I was so disappointed I apologized to grandpa. The site had not been well-maintained and I weeded around the broken (ugly!) tile and laid the flowers around the headstone. We took a few pictures, and are hoping to do something to improve the site in the near future if we can. I stood there quietly for a little while, and I said "goodbye" to grandpa again ... and we left after obtaining the information necessary to make any changes.
From there, we ate a *very* late lunch (3:30?!) at Chifa China downtown ... it's still as great as ever ... great sweet 'n sour pork ... and the best fried wonton!!
After lunch, the driver dropped us off at the mall El Jardín and we got some Nyquil for our "hanging on" colds, we bought a Japanese flag to match the Ecuadorian flag I'd gotten there before, and then we headed back to the guest house until the Christmas party that night.
We got a ride to the Christmas party, we crammed inside a vanful of missionaries from when I had been there (we were specifically invited to this party because these were the missionaries who would remember us – even though they were all in their 60's and older and we're only 35 ... {grin}) But we were able to see *many* old family friends that night. It was wonderful to talk with them all, introduce them to Jeff and Melissa, eat potluck, listen to stories being read and told ... (Melissa was really tired and went to sleep in the coat room).
The most fun of the evening for me, I think, was hearing familiar voices sharing personal stories about Christmas memories, laughing with people I had laughed with many many years ago ... but especially singing Christmas carols around the tree ... in both English and Spanish ... and knowing the words by heart.
I will hold that evening close for a long time and treasure it especially in Christmases to come. We scrunched into the van again and rode "home" to the Guest House.
Grandpa Turner's Grave
God bless you, Grandpa.