I remember, while my mother was home schooling my older brother and sister, I would go out in the back yard and sit on the grass near the big rock on the lawn... I'd take an old tuna fish can, pick a few dandelions, gather some seed pods, pull some weeds, and tear them all up, add a bit of water and make "soup". I would love to lie back in the grass and look out toward the mountains, feeling completely surrounded and protected, watching clouds swirling up from the valley and being sucked into the sky before the sky darkened and huge drops of rain would begin to fall, slowly at first, (just enough time to run into the house) and then faster and faster until there was a torrential downpour that made it seem like even the thought of setting foot outside would get me drenched.
My very favorite snowcap, Antisana, was visible en route to Papallacta ... the most gloriously huge snowcap, majestically rising up from the ground and so enormous it struck awe into my heart. I loved it... and I felt that it loved me.
We used wander along the cobbled roadside and pick up large pieces of obsidian that had been thrown from Cotopaxi's still smoldering volcano. I have many childhood memories stored up from Pifo!. I remember climbing trees until I couldn't find any branches that were big enough to put my foot on... I remember playing pirates with the other kids who lived there and taking handfuls of grass and tying them together into grass "stirrups" to make the other "team" trip so we could catch them and take them to our "dungeon" until they were rescued (of course, there was soon an end to the trap-making when one of our parents ever-so-neatly tripped on one with a plate full of jello en route to a potluck one afternoon...)
Rainy season in Quito was wonderful! When it rained at night I loved to put on a poncho, sit on a big cushion on the front steps with the porch overhang keeping me dry... the porch light would be on and the raindrops would fall all around me while I would read for a bit. I never managed to read very much when I was out there, because I so loved watching the rain fall, smelling the fresh air, feeling the cleansing chill of a rainy night that I would put my book down and just sit and think and watch and listen: Listen to the raindrops splashing, listen to gates being opened and slamming closed, listening to cars driving through puddles on the dirt/cobblestone road...
I remember my mom asking in her 'slipped into Venezuelan accent' Spanish "Que hay para merienda?" (what's for supper?) and hearing "Idi" answer, "Pescadito" (little fish) with his "s" spoken from his throat as is the way of the coastal people) instead of the tip of his tongue... making it sound more like an "h"....
One week we had borrowed an old army caravan tent from the hospital where my dad was administrator. He kept telling everyone all the way there, "It won't rain." Well, in the middle of the night, when the ancient tent flooded in the deluge and the heat made the inside more like a sauna than a tent, my younger sister was complaining that her head was in a puddle (I remember my older sister reaching over to check and hearing a {splash} ... she *was* sleeping in a puddle!) and when we all got up the next morning, both of my younger sisters were running around for days like little smurfs because the wet sleeping bags had bled all over the place and dyed their skin blue (and red)... Yeah, (sigh/grin) those were the days..
The beaches beat all -- even though the sand turns your feet black because of the iron ore... a plethora of palm trees swishing to and fro in the gentle ocean breeze... salt water lapping up as the tide rolls in... the best place to sling a hammock between two trees and fall fast asleep breathing that wonderful ocean air!
