Mike Down South

After spending New Year’s in the Galápagos, I’ve realized New Year’s in the US is missing several key things that Ecuadoreans have:

1. Superstitions
2. Costumes
3. FIRE

The week leading up to New Year’s Eve, we were seeing lots of little papier-mâché dolls around town. It turns out these are called “viejos” (literally: “olds” or “old men”) and they’re made so they can be burnt at midnight on New Year’s. By New Year’s Eve, these dolls were everywhere. Most of the taxis had viejos strapped to their cars. Restaurants all had a viejo for their restaurant. Even the ATMs had them:

We heard two different explanations for the viejos. The first explanation is the nice one. You make a viejo of yourself or your friends and family and burn it to get rid of all the things you don’t want to bring with you into the new year. The less cute explanation (and the much more common one we heard) is that you burn people/things you don’t like because you don’t want them messing up your new year with all their stupid crap again. Politicians especially are popular viejos to burn.

Depending on your interpretation, Mi Grande (the owner of this restaurant, viejo) either really likes or really dislikes Lady Gaga. A lot of the viejos were accompanied by signs. I can’t understand all the Spanish, but I think this one is explaining what the viejo is and what he did in 2010?

At midnight, it was time to burn a viejo, so we went to Fede and Toto’s house to watch them torch their viejo.

When they broke out the gasoline, I knew it was going to be good.

Because the viejos “die” at midnight, there’s also this thing among guys where they’ll dress in drag as the “widows” of the viejos and cry and ask for money to get them through the new year because they no longer have their viejo husbands to support them. The Ecuadoreans think this is hilarious, not because cross dressing is especially novel (I saw a fair amount of cross-dressers in Quito), but because there’s so much machismo that guys these same guys acting like blubbering women is really funny to them.

After midnight, the plan was to go to the pier to jump off into the water. I was under the impression that this was like an island tradition, but it turned out that it’s just like a Fede and his friends thing. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have a quaint island superstition attached to it. They jump off the pier to symbolize that January 1st is the “jumping off” point of the new year and that if you had any problems in 2010, you should leave them “underwater.” Sounds real, right?

I was a little nervous about the pier jumping part of the night because when Rachel told a woman in town that we were going to do it, the woman looked horrified and asked me, “¿Tú también? ¡Dios mío!” This was a woman whose 4 year old son was next to her lighting firecrackers in his hand and throwing them into a crowded street. And something we were doing was worrying her. But it turned out to be not so scary and oh so awesome.

Everyone jumped in at once, then got out and jumped in again over and over for about 40 minutes.

After we dried ourselves off, we headed to the big outdoor party back in town.

Turns out they take New Year’s pretty damn seriously. I left at 4:30 AM and not only was the party still going strong, but there were little kids like 7 years old still dancing. Yes. I got outpartied by 7 year olds. A lot of them, at that.

I went out to get breakfast at around 9:30 AM and San Cristobal was a ghost town. The only place I could find that served breakfast had just two other guys in it and one of them was so wasted he couldn’t sit upright. Meanwhile, his friend was still pouring him beers and inviting me to drink with them. After I finished breakfast, I was walking down the street and I passed a little old man who turned to me with a huge beaming smile and said, “¡Feliz año!” and gave me a hug.

Best New Year’s ever.

My favorite part about Quicentro, the mall in Quito, is how easy it is to maim your child. If you’re lucky, you can also pretty easily injure fellow mall-goers at the same time. To do this, you’ll have to go to the arcade. At first glance, it’s an arcade pretty much like an American arcade: fancy, high-end arcade games toward the front, older, junky games in the back, as well as skill games that award you tickets you can exchange for SO-not-worth it prizes. And then you get to the ropes course.

The highlight of the ropes course for me is this series of rope bridges that are around ten feet off the ground. Note that I said ground. Not ten feet above a ball pit or a big foam mat, but the cold, hard tile of the arcade floor. The same floor that everyone’s walking on, so if you timed it right, your child could take out an unsuspecting arcade patron in their fall from the rope bridge.

As you can see in the picture, these rope bridges are HARD! Kids are expected to walk between these little arcs of rope hanging from the ceiling two feet apart and get from one platform to the next. They get to wear helmets, but that seemed to be it in the way of precautions. There’s not even a staffer monitoring the course.

The ropes course is attached to the “Spider Web,” which is this tower made up of webs of seat belt-like bands forming about eight horizontal levels. Kids climb up through each web, then have to balance themselves on the current level of webbing to pull themselves up to the next web three feet above. What makes this fun to watch is that kids can’t really figure it out. They’d pull themselves halfway through a level, see that the next was within reach, then try to pull themselves up another level without bothering to untangle their leg/arm/neck from the previous level. Basically, there’s a lot of getting tangled and falling down, which seemed dangerously conducive to strangling children, but compared to the ropes course we saw, this level of danger seemed to be almost coddling the damn kids.

Rachel and I sat watching a 5-6 year old brother and sister pair play in the Spider Web for about twenty minutes. Not because the Spider Web in itself was so interesting (it was worth maybe five minutes of spectating), but because we were really desperate to see children finish the spider web, then continue on to the ropes course and possibly plunge to their demise triumphantly complete it. Sadly, the brother spent the entire time tangled up in level 3 and the sister seemed so pleased with herself at being able to get through it quicker than her brother that she never continued on to the ropes course and instead just kept repeating the spider web over and over and over again.

Outside the arcade, the mall is almost indistinguishable from an American mall. Most of the stores were American (or at least what you’d find in America): Tommy Hilfiger, Sony Style, Diesel. Even the non-American stores had mostly English names like Tennis (an American Eagle-esque clothing store), Pony Store (which sold shoes), and Shoe Mania (which sold ponies). Okay, I made that last one up, but the rest were all real and conspicuously American.

The food court was completely dominated by American fast food joints. Starting the following day, Rachel would be in the Galapagos for three months, where chain restaurants are banned, so she wanted to get a final Taco Bell meal. Now we all know that in other countries, the fast food menus are always slightly different; you can get beer at the McDonalds in France, all the food/soda at the KFC in Switzerland is first dipped in melted cheese, the Big Mac in Canada has a two inch layer of mayonnaise in place of the top bun, etc. But of all chain restaurants, I expected Ecuador’s Taco Bell to be pretty similar to America’s Taco Bell. Instead it’s like they’ve Americanized Mexican food more than America did. The combo meals all come with french fries, not nachos. You can swap back in the nachos if you ask, but the chips are like a disgusting middle ground between potato chips and tortilla chips. Once you get the nachos, you realize that there’s no delicious fake cheese like they serve with the nachos in America, but rather some disgusting fake guacamole-flavored paste! It was disgraceful. The Taco Bell chefs in Ecuador really need to take a trip up to the US and see how real Mexican food is made.

The other way in which Quito has one upped American malls in American-ness is that it’s impossible to actually leave the mall once you’re done. It was raining when we left the mall, and as I found out in my first week in Quito, you can’t get around the city when it’s raining. Theoretically, there are cabs, but everyone wants one, so it’s impossible to find one that’s free, so there are just huge crowds of people hopelessly standing at the mall exits in the rain waiting for cabs and none are showing up. We eventually just left the mall and wandered a couple blocks away where the cabs were equally infrequent, but the competition was less fierce and we miraculously spotted a cab that was letting out its passengers and hopped in and headed back to the hostel.

We left Quito for a few days to hang out in Baños, which is a small town known for its hot springs and a bunch of outdoorsy stuff like biking, hiking, ziplining. Here are some pictures.

Arriving in town after our 3 hour bus ride and trying to find a taxi.

This was the view from our hotel.

We sprung the extra $4/night to get the room with a hammock.

This billboard is posted on the way to our hotel. I don’t know the translation, but it appears to be a beauty spa for dead people.

On our way into town.

I ordered Nachos at this restaurant for dinner and they came out with a bunch of stale Doritos they’d put on a plate. Rachel complained, so they brought us another tray of fresh Doritos.

More cool views of the mountains.

Doing some ziplining over the river.

Yeah, what now, valley? We just ziplined the crap out of you!

For my first lunch on my own in Quito, I decided to just head into Old Town and wander around until I found something that looked good and cheap. The first restaurant I came across was Menestras del Negro:

It translates to “Beans of the Black” and if you’re not sure whether this is bizarrely offensive yet, take a closer look at the logo.

As an added stereotyping bonus, it’s attached to a KFC. I was sufficiently weirded out so I continued on.

A few blocks later, I found a little restaurant that had a lunch menu where several items were listed for $1.75 (Ecuador is on the US Dollar, so this is as cheap as it seems). Score! One of the items was “Pollo Broaster.” I don’t know what “broaster” means but pollo=chicken and I can hardly go wrong with that. I went in and stood around awkwardly for a few seconds trying to decide if I’m supposed to just sit at a table or wait to be seated. After nobody seemed to be trying to seat me, I just started walking around trying to find a table, but as I passed the kitchen, a waitress stopped me and said something quickly in Spanish that I didn’t understand, the jist of which seemed to be that I needed a ticket from the front counter. No problemo!

I went back to the counter up front and said I’d like “pollo broaster” and the cashier asked for $1.75, so I gave her a 10 and she gave me back $3.25 in change. I stared at her for a second trying to figure out if she’s trying to rip me off, but then she whipped out a piece of paper and wrote “Debe $5” which basically means she wrote me an IOU for $5. I can’t claim I have the currency here totally figured out, but I was pretty sure IOUs aren’t legal tender in Ecuador. I looked down at the slip of paper and asked, “Que?” She told me she’d pay me after my meal and handed me my ticket. Alright, fair enough.

First problem: solved! But then I realized there weren’t any free tables in the restaurant. I decided to just stand out of the way and wait for a table to open up, but one of the waitresses came up to me and said “something something something mesa [table] something something something,” so I told her, “No hay mesas [There aren’t tables].” She seemed patiently amused at my confusion and repeated the thing she just said about tables (that I still didn’t understand) but I was starting to suspect that she wanted me to just sit down at a table that was already occupied.

This was a really awkward situation. If I just sit down with say, the two parents and their kid at the table closest to me, and it turns out I misunderstood her, that’s pretty embarrassing because then I’m some strange white guy just plopping down in the middle of their family meal. On the other hand, it’s also kind of embarrassing to just stand there dumbly while the waitress keeps asking me to do something she clearly thinks is really easy. Luckily, a guy eating by himself noticed my confusion and gestured for me to come sit at his table, so I grabbed a seat.

Okay, cool, now that’s settled. But now I’m having lunch with this random guy? What’s the etiquette here? Am I expected to make chitchat with him because he graciously shared his table with me or do we just do our own thing. I guessed “do our own thing” and I believe I was correct since he just stared forward and finished his meal and left a few minutes later.

The rest of the meal was non-confusing/non-awkward. It turned out what I actually bought was a whole meal, with a meat stew, glass of fruit juice, and pollo broaster (mystery revealed: it’s fried chicken with rice and vegetables). All this for $1.75! I love Ecuador prices! I finished my food, traded in my IOU for 5 actual dollars and was on my way to find something else in Ecuador to severely confuse me.

My trip has begun! I’m at LAX on an 11 hour layover (broken up by a dinner with Liz when she gets off work and comes to rescue me) before I continue on to Costa Rica to catch my final connection to Quito, Ecuador.

Al picked me up this morning to give me a ride to the airport at 7:30am, but we didn’t make it to the airport until around 8:45. There wasn’t traffic; we just managed to miss the exit for SeaTac Airport. Twice. The first time we just didn’t see it and got to Federal Way and realized something was wrong. So we swung around and drove back north and Al started getting off on an exit that was labeled:

Terminal
Parking

So I said, “No, we don’t want terminal parking.” Al quickly got out of the exit lane and then said a second later, “Wait, wasn’t that terminal and parking?” It was. Keep in mind that this is an airport I’ve been to about 30 times and the signs are in English, so this is quite promising for my navigation skills in South America.

I’ve spent the last few days doing almost nothing but selling/giving away all my stuff, shipping my remaining possessions to my mom’s house in NY, and picking up last minute trip supplies. It was the getting rid of my stuff that finally made the trip real to me. I’d already said goodbye to almost all my Seattle friends, but in my head I was still thinking, “Yep, I’m going to South America… at some point.” When I had to let go of stuff I use every day like my computer, my bed, my cooking supplies I realized, “Whoa! I’m really going to South America! What am I doing?”

Honestly, it’s kind of scary. It’s fair to say my life in Seattle was very easy, comfortable, and familiar and it’s stressful giving up all the things that made it that way. At the same time, it’s exciting to see how long I can last living owning nothing but what I carry with me. So let’s see what that is!

Boring / self-explanatory stuff excluded:

• Big backpack and daypack – For to carry my stuff.
• Camelback – I packed this for some reason. I think it was mostly out of habit from hiking/climbing trips that it didn’t occur to me until later that a camelback might not be super useful.
• Pocket Spanish-English dictionary - Already coming in handy for imaginary Spanish conversations I have in my head for practice!
• South America on a Shoestring (Lonely Planet guide) – to tell me what to do.
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - a long as hell book that I’m hoping I’ll finally have time for on this trip.

• eBags packing cubes – These are little zippered bags that are supposed to help organize your stuff. Long term usefulness still TBD, but it was kind of handy when reorganizing my pack to be able to pull out the little cubes of stuff instead of each individual article of clothing.
• Speed Dial Combination Lock – This thing is pretty awesome. It’s a padlock where instead of turning a dial, you open it by entering a secret code from an NES game. The only thieves who can steal my stuff will be the ones who also remember how to get infinite lives in Super Mario.
• Leatherman Juice CS4 – Little multi-tool. Has a knife, little corkscrew/bottle opener. Makes me feel very resourceful when I use it (even though every time I used in Seattle I had better, dedicated tools available that did the same thing).
• Fenix LD01 flashlight – Tiny LED flashlight that’s SUPER bright. I’ve already used it to accidentally scare the crap out of Portia, so I’m looking forward to new, non-horrifying uses in South America.
• Travel power converter – I noticed that the converter for South America is the same plug as the one for the USA, so I’m wondering if I need a converter at all in South America. Probably something that would have been clever to figure out before leaving.

I tried to go pretty light on clothing. I brought:

• 8 t-shirts
• 2 gym shirts
• 2 button downs
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 2 pairs of jeans
• 1 pair of slacks
• 1 pair of hiking pants
• 8 pairs of boxers
• 9 pairs of socks
• 1 pair of sneakers
• 1 pair of dress shoes (for da club)
• 1 pair sandals (for da beach)

Not Pictured:

• Laptop (Toshiba Satellite T-235D) – This is my big luxury item. It’s pretty cheap as far as laptops go, but it accounts for like 1/3 of the cost of everything I’m carrying. Motivation in taking it was so I didn’t have to use the malware ridden (read: password sniffing) computers in internet cafes and because I want to work on some programming projects while I travel. I’m hoping it doesn’t get stolen, but I’ve prepared for that as much as possible. I enabled BitLocker (a feature I worked on for Win7. Go BitLocker!) and got a Mozy subscription for file backup to the cloud.
• Canon Powershot 800IS + 16 GB memory card - The memory card can store something like 8000 pictures with this camera, meaning I’ll only run out of space every week or so.

So that’s the trip so far. I’m scheduled to arrive in Quito tomorrow afternoon to meet up with my little sister, Rachel, who just completed a semester abroad in the Galapagos. We’ll hang out in Quito until Christmas, then she’s going to show me around the Galapagos Islands for about two weeks.

See you in South America! I promise the next pictures won’t just be stuff sitting on the floor of my empty apartment.