While the pictures load at the bottom of the page, I hope you enjoy reading Part IX of my journal of our trip to Ecuador.
My Journal of Our 1997 Trip to Ecuador
-- by Donna R. Carter
~*~ Part IX ~*~
The Last Few Days Monday-Thursday, December 29, 1997 - January 1, 1998
We dropped our things off at the Guest House, showered, and after running a couple of errands, went down to all the artesanía shops on Amazonas and thereabout for the rest of the day.
We had lunch at the place that used to be La Fuente (I can't remember the name of it now ... starts with an "M") ... great fries and popcorn, but sadly, the toasted chicken sandwich apparently died with the name.
We came back home laden with more last-minute stuff, bought humitas at Supermercado X but...although Jeff and Melissa liked them well enough, they were humitas dulces and I didn't like them ...
We crashed early.
Tuesday we got up in time for breakfast, then went to HCJB and bought a bunch of stuff from the guy out front ... he gave Melissa a drawstring purse for a "yapa." By the time we were done, it was 10 a.m. and we went to meet up with a friend for coffee again. We hung out with her for a couple of hours, shooting the breeze, enjoying the company, and around noon or so, we took a taxi down to Filanbanco and were caught in the *crush* of traffic there... then we went on El Ejido park, bought two hammocks, a belt, and a painting. It was the wrong day to be there for paintings, but there was at least *one* that we liked ... and a few imitation Gonzalo Endara Crow's ... which were obvious forgeries and we weren't terribly impressed.
From there, we headed back to Amazonas and picked up where we'd left off the day before ... found the *right* leather treasure chest :)) and a *beautiful* round llama rug, and a Jívaro hammock (three hammocks, you ask? Well, I guess that's one each ... and no, I have no idea where we're going to put them...) I found a few more leather bracelets, a cholito bus for the pueblito, and then we took a cab to CCI, ate at the "new" McDonalds (it's not the same taste since they use Ecuadorian beef ... but otherwise, it's pretty much the same).
It rained heavily, briefly... We were scheduled to have dinner at the a friend's home that evening, so we took a taxi back to the Guest house, grabbed a few umbrellas since it was still sprinkling. Rather than go directly to their house, I wanted to see if I could find the apartment we lived in up the hill -- since it was, indirectly, on the way up. I found it easily. The empty lot across the street has been almost totally cleared and fenced in for a soccer field, and across the street from it, the other empty lot has been made into a lovely park and playground. We took some pictures. (I now have pictures of all the houses I lived in there, with the exception of the yellow house that was torn down and the apartments put up in its place)
We went up a few more blocks to the street where the OMS dorm was (and still is) and we crossed the street to our friend's and had supper and a nice visit with them
Knowing we were short on boxes for packing stuff up to bring it home, they gave us some empty boxes they had on hand and we walked / cabbed home (it was still drizzling, so we figured we didn't want the boxes to get too wet ... plus which, we'd been on our feet all day!)
Wednesday morning I woke up with the feeling of heaviness, knowing it was my last full day in Ecuador ... it was like every moment was replaying in my head -- everything I looked at, I tried to imprint a picture of in my mind ... Looking out the window at Pichincha... hearing the cadence of the birds singing outside ... smelling the smells, hearing the sounds ...
We had breakfast and took a cab down to Quicentro (another "new" mall, down by the stadium, the other side of the road from CCI but further down) I liked that mall ... it wasn't half as crowded as El Jardín, and it seemed more spread out, rather than stacked up, although it was several stories high.
We were there early, so we had to wait for the stores to open. We sat on the steps and waited... then we meandered the mall with a few items in mind that we still wanted to get -- another Vega ceramic plate if we could find it, a charm for my bracelet, and a couple of coffee-table books --
We looked in every jewelry store there, to no avail -- nothing remotely "Ecuadorian" in gold charms ... {sigh} We found a Vega store and they did have one other mountain plate -- of Sangay -- and it was a great match for the two we bought in Cuenca. Then we stopped by Libri Mundi and found a few coffee-table books we liked. We asked if they had the book about Endara-Crow, but they did not have it in stock. They referred us to a Gallery downtown.
We took a cab in search of the Gallery, but it was closed for the holiday ... {pout} ... so we decided we would take one last chance on the charm for my bracelet and we'd go to the one mall we had not gone to yet -- El Bosque.
That was an interesting ride.
Now, I knew that there were all these buildings and high rises up in the section of town that has grown up the hill past English Fellowship, but I really had no idea of the whole little community back there!
We dropped our purchases off at the house, and went up the hill, past the church, down the hill, around a million corners until I was lost and up the hill again and voila -- a whole other mall there (I had been under the impression that El Bosque was up on Villalengua or Diguja somewhere, but it's over up behind the church, overlooking the airport almost!)
Packing tape came first ... then we went to the Vega shop there to see if there were any more mountain plates, only to find that Vega had only *done* three mountain plates, so we had them all (and no Antisana!!) {sigh} oh well ...
Then we went up to the newly remodeled food court there -- what a *gorgeous* view of the city and the airport it has!! Huge, high glass walls stretch across the front of it and along part of one side. We ate Kentucky Fried Chicken and watched planes take off and land at the airport.
We found another jewelry store and I found two charms that I liked -- one was a lock and key to symbolize locking up personal business, the other was a little choza to go with the palm tree I already have :)
From there, we went to SuperMaxi and loaded up on Ecuadorian packaged foodstuff to bring back to the U.S. ... and we took it all back to the Guest house.
Jeff went out to find some boxes, I went to the compound to send some mail and the rest of the afternoon was spent packing.
On my way back from the compound, Jeff was coming up the street with a big box and a dozen roses (which, in order to bring back, we decapitated and put in the treasure chests). Some friends were walking by and told us that they would take us to the airport in the morning.
It was New Years' Eve. We decided, last minute, to go ahead and go down to Amazonas to see the competition of the viejos.
[For those who don't know the tradition, in Ecuador they stuff old clothes with straw and sometimes fireworks, and make stuffed dummies called "old men" to symbolize the old year. At midnight, they burn the old men. The dummies have become more and more elaborate over the years and this contest was full of dummies with politically satirical captions attached to them (mostly relating to Bucarám, the ousted former president) and his cabinet. Prior to New Years' for about a week, vendors now sell plain dummies and masks to put on them for those who do not have the time or inclination to make them themselves... which I thought was rather sad, because I liked the ingenuity of the homemade viejos.]
We were going to eat at El Tártaro first, but I didn't have the address and the taxi driver didn't know where it was, so he just dropped us off at Amazonas and we found a restaurant there.
What a crush that was!! The street was blocked off from one end to the other, it seemed ... and people were jammed together, walking either one direction or the other. The only relief from the crowd was to get off the street and against a building a ways back.
Vendors were selling meat on sticks hot off the grill, banana chips, soup, ice cream, cotton candy... you name it (we'd just had supper, so we didn't eat it, although I did want some banana chips ...)
People were wearing masks, viejos were in their little cabanas, speakers were booming, people were talking and shouting, music was playing ... and each viejo was more detailed than the last. We took pictures, bought Melissa a butterfly eye mask, and walked the full length of the competition, crushed by the crowd, smelling the smells of people and food and sweat.
When we got to the other end of Amazonas, it was almost impossible to find a taxi willing to stop and take us home. Finally, after flagging one down and having someone else get in ... we were discouraged, but then we saw the couple getting out again ... apparently the driver wouldn't take them, but he would take us.
We got home around 9:30. We shot off a few firecrackers and played with sparklers for a while, and then both Jeff and Melissa went to bed because we had to be up early to get to the airport by 6. I couldn't sleep. I wandered around the room, listened to the radio blaring New Years' Eve announcements from down the street, looked out at Pichincha, thought about leaving, wanted to stay .....
I finally crawled in bed around 11:30, but still couldn't sleep. I heard firecrackers going off and got up again, pulled on some clothes over my pajamas and went outside to the gate.
A gathering of people across the street had been shooting off firecrackers (I don't know if they burned a viejo at midnight or not - if they did, I missed it). They were dropping firecrackers into the gutters and watching the gutters spray when the firecrackers exploded ...
Down the street, they were burning a viejo. Firecrackers were exploding and popping and viejos were burning all over the city... the air became thick with smoke.
I just sort of gathered it all in inside me and tearfully said "Happy New Year" to myself and my heart-home which I would be leaving all too soon.
I went back inside and crawled into bed, falling asleep with a lump in my throat. Morning came all too soon.
We were up at 4:30 ... but the hot water wasn't on. Cold showers didn't appeal to us, so we just washed our hair downstairs where the water was still hot, and we got ready to go. The lack of hot water sort of threw us off schedule (isn't it strange how something like that can mess up a schedule??) so by the time Bob was out front with the van, we were not quite ready to go.
We did manage to get the room cleaned out -- well, at least we got all the trash into one leftover box ... and get everything into the van so we could get out to the airport. (Thank you again for your patience, Bob, getting up that early on New Years Day to take us out there and then having to wait for us to be ready!!!)
As we drove down to the end of Vozandes, there was a smoldering viejo lying in the street ... a pair of stuffed pants was all that was left of him. Interesting route to the airport now, there's an underpass/overpass down where there used to be just a circle. The airport is totally different -- no big glass front to watch the planes come up and leave ... just a wall full of airline desks...
We ended up with TEN check-in bags (!!!) and two carry-ons each (including a big -noisy- rainmaker)
After going through two or three security checks, including a physical check of our carry-on bags, we waited briefly in the waiting area, and then walked out on the tarmac to board the plane.
The Apartment up the Hill
Viejos Competition on Avenida Amazonas
The Grim Reaper coming to take the soul of the old year.
