Quito... (in Vib's eyes)

Take it easy when in Quito.

One week after we arrived in Guayaquil where Francisco was figuring in an Aquaculture conference, we had all these plans for the weekend. We’d get to Quito after a short flight, Francisco would do an offical type meeting with a European Union representative and then we would check out the beautiful old city of Quito and have pizza at night.
We would go to Otavalo the next day and the day after that we would take a bus over the Andes or something adventurous and that’s how we’d get back to Guayaquil.

But we forgot.. that Quito is pretty high (in altitude) and that, when you get to Quito, your body has to get used to coping with less oxygen and that makes you feel.. very…tired. That’s all fair enough and easily explained, but when you’re four and a half years old, when you’re very.. tired.., stuff just doesn’t really run smoothly anymore in your brain and melt downs happen.

When parents are very tired as well, they don’t always realize straight away that four and a half year old brains with low oxygen supply need to be taken very seriously. Do not attempt to visit the Florence of South America with a very tired four and a half year old. (Imagine Stendhal syndrome mixed with altitude sickness) Give it some time to let things adjust.

We cut back on things to do and didn’t take busses over the Andes, we just hung out at the pool of our lovely sixties style hotel (Hotel Quito), had breakfast in it’s restaurant, called El techo del Mundo (the roof of the world)

We saw the smog build every morning over the city, did just a day trip to Otavalo and stayed another night in the old city and went to every single church in Quito Antiguo (Centro Historico – a UNESCO World Heritage Site). We chased pigeons on the 1590’s square of San Francisco and took a ride in a horse carrier. We went out after dark against the advice of the Lonely Planet and had dinner in a restaurant where music was provided by a trio of blind musicians.

Inside one of the countless churches in Quito Viejo, me and the kids watched a family celebrating the 15th birthday of a girl clad in a cloud of pink. They were celebrating her ‘Quince’ and all her girlfriends were dressed in lilac. Ave Maria creaked through the stereo. Behind us a family lined up for another celebration, something for two year old girls dressed in clouds of white. Kika was of course very interested in these little girls. I tried to imagine her dressed up head to toe in white fluff and lace. HAHA that wouldn’t last very long!

Outside the same church we watched this lady getting ready to mount the motorbikes with her baby on her back. Now safety standards in traffic (and anywhere else) are something else in South America, but more about that later. That she’s carrying her baby is traditional however in Ecuador.

In Ecuador we got many many stares and even comments because we carry our children in slings when we need to, in a similar fashion. Actually the most common way I’ve seen women do it is in a longer cloth, rebozo style I think it is, so the baby sits up on the back with the cloth tied criss-cross across the front of your body (will have to find you some pics to illustrate it). But all the women who do wear their babies are indigenous and if you’re anywhere near middle class in Ecuador you’re not supposed to do this anymore (I’ve heard the same in Mozambique). I think it’s seen as ‘country’, or worse because a lot of the street people, asking for money, seem to be babywearers. Not the best social stigma you can have for the product. That foreigners like me would wear their baby (or toddler because Kika is almost two and not small) is a new concept.
In Quito we met a girl with her partner and their 6 month old baby who stood there with sore arms from holding the baby at a dance/music performance (she had a stroller but the baby obviously didn’t want to be there) and he told her: YOU SEE! You shouldn’t be embarrassed! Then Francisco broke the news to them that people pay more than 50 dollars for dulce&zoet slings in New Zealand. Of course that’s just plain hilarious!

You need a four wheel drive at Lagunas de Mojanda!

We went to Otavalo to buy some touristy stuff and see something of the country side. Someone in Guayaquil who Francisco worked with new someone in Quito who sometimes takes tourists in his car for trips. So after some calling around Ricardo showed up in his white car, of which he was very proud. Sorry for complying with any stereotype you might have of girls and cars, but of course I only remember that it was white, and not what type it was.

Francisco makes it a habit not to take the same road twice and had spotted a lake in a guide which would make the perfect detour. Without a map or a sign, after some asking around we found the road up the mountain and climbed all the way to cold laguna de Mojanda.



The road got gradually worse however and then it got bumpy and we got ourselves stuck a few times and it got very dusty and Ricardo became very nervous, but he just kept going.

Then a few more bumps and me and Francisco started wondering if Ricardo really knew what he was doing, or if we really knew what we were doing. In the end Francisco had to climb out of the car and coach a very nervous Ricardo out of a few precarious situations and it took some time for him to recover his nerves. Enough already we said! I didn’t feel like getting stuck next to a desolate Andean lake on an unsignposted road in a country where nobody bothers to put up roadsigns or warnings that say: Four wheel drive only.

That’s why I’m telling you now, if you want to go to Lagunas de Mojanda, take a 4 wheel drive. Oh and a warm top. And something to drink and to eat. We turned around and went all the way down the mountain again.. the same road. Ricardo then made this classic comment: I feel like I’ve been having an affair with a woman on the side but it didn’t work out and now I have to go back to the wife with my tail between my legs. Haha. That’s straying of the beaten path in Ecuador.

We did see a lot of roses along the way! And had bizcochos with dulce de leche. Returning to Quito we got stuck in 6 pm Friday afternoon traffic in Quito in the rain. A very claustrophobic situation, but a great adventure nonetheless.

This is all for now as this blog needs to be published before our trip to South America is over. I haven’t even told you about Halloween in Chile and finding out I’m not even married to Francisco in Argentina. (Is Maxima even married to Willem Alexander in that case?)

Guayaquil... (in Vib's eyes)

Francisco asked me to guest blog about our family sojourn into South America.

He was already in Ecuador finishing a month of work when I got there end of October with Felix (4) and Kika (almost 2). I travelled from Holland via Madrid and Quito to Guayaquil. You have to excuse me that a lot of the time my focus is on travelling with young children because if I can’t keep them happy, everything else stops.. As I understand that this is sometimes a bit tedious for those of you not in that ‘frame of life’, I’m starting a separate blog about travel with young kids, where I can elaborate to my hearts content about the ins and outs and ups and downs of travel with under fives.

In Ecuador, the people you see on the billboards advertising fast food, or on the outside of huge new looking malls do not look at all like the people in the cars driving past them (nor do they look like the people walking on the streets, between the cars selling stuff)

The people on the billboards are blond and have blue eyes. But the people of Ecuador (the actual consumers) look something like this:



Francisco says that apparently many ecuadorians think that they look like Europerans. Only when they come to Europe they realize that they don’t.

For a minute I wondered if this was something like the relatively high proportion of Jamaicans in New Zealand commercials. You’d think by watching tv ads in NZ that a huge part of the population is of African descent and speaks with a Jamaican accent.

Now I think it’s more like what Kiran Desai said in an interview I read in Holland in October, how a very large proportion of the population of this world grow up thinking that the place where they are, is not the place to be and that they should strive to leave.
Somehow that sounds very familiar, isn’t that how we’re all sometimes made to feel? Or is that just me?

Guayaquil
What to do with a waterfront? On our first weekend in Guayaquil we hung out at the Malecon!
(if you live in Auckland this may be interesting
http://publicaddress.net/default,3708.sm#post3708)
(if it can be done in Guayaquil?.....)

Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador and suffice to say that most people in Ecuador do not belong to the worlds lucky eight percent
Still, guayaquilianos realized something.. a good public space can save a city. With the Malecon a space was created that people were proud of and that they actively use in their daily lives.

I have a thing for public spaces because in Auckland they somehow don’t quite seem to work, but I sorely miss the good European ones. A good public space makes you want be there and hang out. I’ve taken trains across continents just to be in famous public spaces. They don’t involve Mac D’s and don’t have cars, that’s one thing I know for sure.

The Malecon 2000 in Guayaquil a strip of public space of 4 kilometers long, meticulously paved, it has gardens, art, fountains parks, playgrounds, exercise areas, restaurants, several open air food courts, monuments and morphs itself past two art galleries, an imax cinema and ends at the Cerra Santa Ana.
The Malecon is constantly positively humming with the people of Guayaquil. Old and young, rich and poor… People come here during their time off with the entire family, with their boyfriend or girlfriend (novio/novia), they come here to see and be seen, to eat icecream, to play and to hang out. I think people need a place to play.

I have to point out that the Malecon is ONLY possible in Ecuador because every ten meters there’s a uniformed and armed presence.



Me with Kika in my sling on the Malecon on a Sunday afternoon..
Note.. the tidal river delta of Guayaquil does obviously NOT have pretty blue water like in Auckland.



Something to do for the kids, for only fifty cents a go.



Some more fun for fifty cents.


Some green, some benches to hang out on. Some iguana’s in trees, some ducks to feed.


Some art to stand between.



What else do you need?
The malecon became one of our favourite places to go in Guayaquil.
You can watch people and let young children run without there being the immediate danger of traffic running over them.
For fifty cents you can make the kids INCREDIBLY happy by giving them a ride in a silly train.
And even at 11 o’clock at night, when I was besides myself with jetlag and passed out, Francisco could take the kids for a run (their bio clock obviously told them it was 8 o’clock in the morning) and a play on the Malecon and it would still be buzzing with friendly life.


The Malecon then ends at the Cerro Santa Ana, which is a little hill covered in tiny houses that seemed to have grown on it, leaning on top of and next to each other like in a Hundertwasser picture. Not so long ago it was apparently a no-go slumzone and now it has all been done up in many freshly painted colours with hundreds and hundreds of steps taking you up and down past people running tiny businesses in their front rooms or just hanging out talking about Dutch football (an ecuadorian player is the current star of PSV Eindhoven). People have been stimulated to start these businesses and it’s now a place safe to go because there are guards and people of the Cerro get paid to help keep the place clean.


Nice one Guayaquil.