After that, we went for a walk to find supper, but ended up going back to the hotel for a full 4-course Christmas Eve Dinner in the Dining room. On our way back to the hotel, Melissa fell in love with a little stuffed panda bear in the store window display. She wanted it *so* badly! Even though she knows that Santa is pretend / fun to play, I told her to look up in the sky at a star and tell Santa about it. She looked up... it was overcast, but a couple of lights were at the top of one of the mountains. I said, "I bet that's Santa's sleigh!" She got all excited and quietly pleaded, "Oh, Santa!! I really *REALLY* love that panda bear -- can I have it for Christmas? I'm in Baños Ecuador!"
As we walked around the bend in the road, the lights disappeared around the mountain. It was one of those melancholic moments of warmth to watch / hear and be a part of.
Dinner at the hotel consisted of: 1st course: Angelitos Rellenos with Ojaldre, Carnes de res, chuleta, chorizo y jamón. 2nd course: Consomé al Jerez - flambeado con Jerez. 3rd course: Pato a la Naranja (Duck al Orange) con salsa de naranja y vino tinto, papas en forma de peras, choclo y piña. 4th course: Torta de Queso y Melocotón.
After dinner, Jeff went out to the store while I put Melissa to bed. We managed to get a 2-room suite with a private bathroom, for quite a good price... so she had her own bedroom ("I get THREE beds in my room!!! And YOU only get ONE!" she exclaimed)
The store on the corner was still open and we managed to get the panda bear and some candy. Melissa had hung a pair of socks (she didn't have a stocking) on the drawer in the night stand. She was fast asleep long before midnight, and we put some candy into one sock, and put the other sock on the foot of the Panda bear.
We woke up the next morning and she was still groggy with sleep ...she went to the bathroom, then back to her room and you could almost hear the pause of disbelief and wonder... and then the squeal of excitement!! She was ecstatic!! The panda bear was on the bed beside the one she'd slept in!! And it was wearing her SOCK!! ... and CANDY!! "Can I have some now????" {grin} :)) It was a simple Christmas, although we'd given her most of her Christmas presents before we left the States, it seems those were forgotten and that Panda bear was the only gift of importance. The little heart it was holding said "Te Quiero" on it and she knew already that that means "I love you"
We went over to the dining room for breakfast - pineapple juice, café con leche, eggs, bacon and ... flat cakes ... (I wouldn't go so far as to call them pancakes). I have concluded that I like pressed coffee better than automatic drip.
Wilson arrived at 10 a.m. and we decided that, at 2:30, he'd take us up to the cascade and hot springs and then down to see El Agoyán (waterfall) and back. We were going to go to Puyo, but decided against it. It was Christmas, and we just wanted to relax. We changed our schedule to stay another night in Baños.
All the stores were open, even though it was Christmas day. I had forgotten about the molasses taffy being pulled from hooks in the doorways, but as we wandered down the street we saw men pulling taffy and cutting it, wrapping it ... and I bought a bunch of it.
I was looking, in particular, for a tagua nut tea set, but the only ones I found were not painted very well, or else they weren't painted at all. Tagua has become the "vegetable ivory" and now everything is going white – no paint. {sigh} It was disappointing. The tea sets without paint are totally boring. Jeff bought me a pair of tagua heart earrings :)
After Wilson left in the morning, we walked around town, still looking for the perfect packable/shippable balsa parrot/toucan set. We found a candle holder we both liked, we found a treasure chest I liked -- not as nice as my old one, but it'll work.
I found a tagua nut tea set, but it was really tacky. Another wasn't painted at all... S/.15,000. I passed on them. We walked into one of the shops we had previously visited and bought a bunch of tabletop parrot stuff and a vase with butterflies and ivy and a ladybug on it.
One more shop and we went crazy.
Parrots, egrets, toucans, pelicans, cockatoos ... hmm... we fairly near emptied the store. They were all in muted tones of purples, mostly ... perched, hanging, magnets, you name it. We ended up with more than 30 balsa birds of all different sizes and shapes... and a snake.
We went next door for the *WORST* pizza I've ever had ... and then walked back to the hotel where Wilson was waiting - and on the way I found a wonderfully comfy leather/faja headband and a belt to match -- and Jeff got a belt too - that sort of matched his hat from Otavalo (which he likes to wear still -- and it looks good on him). Wilson was laughing at us with our boxes full of birds.
We drove out to see El Agoyán. What a CHANGE there!!! A huge dam has been built across the Rio Puembo and further down, the Agoyán goes down the ravine, much lower than before.
There are two one-way tunnels just past El Agoyán and we went through them and returned through sprawling Baños - a thriving little tourist town now, on to the hot springs on the other side of town. Compared to Las Termas de Papallacta, it was a disappointment. The water was brown, they were *crowded* with both tourists and locals.
We came back into town. I bought a couple of individual pieces of painted tagua and the store we wanted to look into was closed. We chomped on fresh sugarcane and Jeff said he wanted to walk back, but Melissa and I were tired and Wilson drove the two of us back to the hotel.
The hotel was sold out Christmas night, so we were lucky we had reserved our room the night before.
When Jeff got back, he and Melissa went down to the sauna and Turkish bath and I stayed in the room, not wanting to catch a worse cold than I was already recovering from, since I *was* improving. The Dairy Ease let me enjoy my café-con-leche without an emergency later on... (I'm lactose intolerant, but I *love* café-con-leche!).
We went out to look at a particular parrot thingy before supper and ended up coming back with three canisters, four or five professional wooden rondadores and flutes, two different size rainmakers, a drum and two sets of maracas, a key holder, a snake and 6 lengths of faja (I had no CLUE how we were going to get all this stuff back to Holland, either ... ) I got another headband as well.
We went back to the hotel for supper, ate arroz con pollo -- Jeff had sea bass in teriyaki sauce. For dessert Jeff had a banana split with mora and pineapple ice cream and banana's with chocolate sauce. Melissa had cookies. I had chocolate mousse (I should have had the banana split -- but Jeff was nice enough to give me a couple of bites of his mora ice cream) He agreed, moras are not black raspberries or blackberries or raspberries... they're in that family, but they're unique.
After supper, Jeff took Melissa to play for a bit on the playground and I rolled up the faja. The next day, we planned to head out to Riobamba, through Colta, down through Ingapirca and on to Cuenca, where we would meet up with Walter Bell (Alliance Academy Class of '79) and we'd stay at his house for the weekend.
I tucked Melissa into bed, and Jeff was sawing logs shortly thereafter.
I walked to the window sat on the sill and looked out at the mountains that night. All was quiet and still ... a light fog was gently settling into the valley.
"Merry Christmas!" I thought quietly to myself, looking out at the mountains rising up all around me, and watching the street lights twinkling in and out of the fog in town... Merry Christmas, Ecuador!" I whispered softly, choking up, tears filling my eyes as once again I felt the wonder of being back in my heart-home.
