Ecuador Adventures, Quito

Quito is a great mix of old and ultra modern. You can start at the South end of the city in the old town and take ‘El Trole’ (the trolley bus) to the North end going from Spanish Colonial to American Modern. This year the trolley line is supposed to be extended further into the southern parts but work seemed to be progressing slowly, I think owing to strikes and general unrest.

The first sight that meets the eyes of a tourist in Quito, especially if he or she is in the tourist zone, is the people begging. From the very old to the very young, they roam the streets as long as there are tourists and middle class Ecuadorians to beg from.

Women with small children and/or babies often have a place picked out on the sidewalk where they will sit day after day. The children breathe in the pollution and learn no other life.

At first most tourists want to give something to each one they see, but soon it becomes obvious that this is not going to go away no matter how much they give. It becomes a topic for conversation in many a café and hostel. Yet no one has come up with an answer to this problem, to give or not to give and if you give, to whom and how much and for how long and so the questions go. If you live in Quito long enough, it is possible to become slightly numb to it all, or to work out your own private system to appease your own conscience. On this point I speak with authority.

Many sights will never leave my memory and many of them are of the impoverished: A small boy begging in the middle of a busy street, his mouth and chin so covered with sores that you could not make out his lips. A man in a wheel chair, one hand held to his arm only by the skin, or so it seemed as it flopped around, with both hands having fingers that were rigid and deformed. A girl of no more than 2 years sitting alone on the sidewalk with a newborn baby swaddled beside her that could have been dead; other people in wheelchairs that were home made and so rickety that it would be a liability to ride in them.

Occasionally a beggar would board a bus and give his story. One such man had a leg that was covered in open sore from the knee down; he needed money for medicine. Another had nails stuck up his nose, but this one was harder to figure out as my Spanish wasn’t nearly good enough to catch this intriguing tale.

Another indelible memory is the working young. They sell everything from food to postcards and the boys shine shoes. (I never saw a girl in this trade.) Sometimes you will see a boy of about seven or eight years being followed by a younger brother, learning the tricks. I came across boys as young as five doing this job and working late into the night as did the other youngsters that help to support their families.

Many of these children do attend school; at least the ones whose parents can afford to buy the school uniforms and books necessary. No child is allowed to attend school or college without the uniform and the books are expensive. When the schools let out in the afternoon, there are floods of similarly dressed children, huge crowds of blue and white or red and white, and a smaller amount of plaid and white, and a few other combinations. These groups of colors do not intermix; like the same poles of a magnet they seem to repel each other no matter how large the group. In general they are well behaved and polite. Girls are quite often seen holding hands or with their arms around each other’s shoulders, as sometimes are the boys in a companionable way that would be seen in a totally different light here.

Love and affection are displayed openly and always one can see lovers of all ages sitting or lying in the parks just holding each other.

Something else that caught my eye early on was the fact that the children of the indigenous people do not as a rule complain when given something to carry. A young girl no more than four foot tall, may have to help out by carrying her sibling on her back while her mother sees to other chores such as transporting sacks of potatoes or other foods for sale. Sometimes the sibling babysitter is not so nice and more than once I saw a smaller child being terrorized or played with a little too roughly usually by an older brother. The parents, who have neither the time nor the energy to interfere, ignore this behaviour.

Children of the indigenous population that sell their wares on the sidewalks learn to crawl and walk in that area. These little creatures seem to have a built in awareness of their boundaries and stay close to the family group. Even though they are only a few feet away from the stream of traffic, I did not notice any signs of stress in the parents regarding the inherent danger in this situation.

Then there are the old men and women who carry loads on their backs that are as wide as they are tall, and can be seen staggering down a road bent almost double, appearing at times to be no more than three feet tall.

One of the things that really stood out for me as I explored the city on and off over my six-month stay, was the primitiveness of tools used. For instance, quite often I would see the grass in a park being cut with scythes, not that there are not ride on mowers, but they are in short supply.

The concrete of a sidewalk to be broken was done more often than not with chisel and mallet, though most sidewalks are made from interlocking brick that is easy to remove and replace.

One does have to watch out for open unmarked holes in and around the sidewalks. Some of these are a four to five feet across and as much as six feet deep! I was witness once to a man who stepped in a smaller variety wrenching his ankle quite badly.

Two parts of a wooden ladder held together with flimsy rope are a common sight and I once saw a hanging scaffold being used by two men painting the side of a building, that had loose planks for its flooring and a large hole where they did not quite fit together. But the strangest sight to me were the floors of a building under construction being held up with small tree trunks.

The only time I saw any kind of safety regulation instituted was along the oil pipeline in the jungle. Here, men sweated in overalls and hard hats, repairing breaks and slashing away at the encroaching greenery, a never-ending task I’m sure. The need for hard hats was a mystery to me as was the fact that the men actually agreed to wear them, though I suppose the financial gain of working for an oil company was enough incentive for them to put up with the discomfort.

It is not against the law to urinate in the streets and the men take full advantage of this relaxed view of things, so to speak. There is definitely a shortage of public washrooms and the ones that do exist are quite often taken care of by women or men who sell you toilet paper on the way in and will flush the toilet after you are done by pouring a bucket of water down it. (Though in rural areas the pouring of water is often the task of the user.) Used paper is never meant to be placed in the toilet; the sewer systems are just not up to it. This is one of the hardest habits for a tourist to acquire and the sewers are suffering as a consequence. Sometimes the public stalls are open to men and women or you may find a man working the women’s side and a woman working the men's side. This can be very confusing at first glance.

There are many parks and because of high unemployment, they are popular places for people of all ages to hang out. A large group of spectators can often be seen gathered around an entertainer. These performers are highly professional and make their living bringing laughter to others. They are more often than not poking fun at the politicians, the state of Quito or Ecuador in general and have no problem laughing at themselves.
Occasionally entertainment will be provided outside the police station, as on the day that I witnessed four men, heads covered in hoods, being loaded onto a truck. This was accomplished none too gently or quietly. Whoever they were, they had obviously upset someone.

Children’s entertainers are also a great attraction especially on the weekends, which is family time. The parks are crowded, especially Parque Carolina, which boasts a fair ground with mostly hand-operated rides, a boating lake, an exercise area, and a large number of soccer fields. Soccer and volleyball are the two most popular sports in Ecuador with strolling through the parks being a close third.

Rarely will you see a person hurrying here. Even during the workweek, the people move in a relaxed fashion.

It is never hard to find a snack in Ecuador. Food vendors roam the streets selling 2 or 3 different types of corn and accompanying salsa, or occasionally a vendor will be carrying a tray with a variety of sliced cakes and everywhere there are stalls with hot or cold foods, as well as the regular food stores.

Ice cream is sold from containers attached to bicycles, much the same as here, except that some are home made devices containing home made ice cream kept cold with blocks of frozen carbon dioxide. It is good and cheap and very popular. Also popular is the shaved ice and syrup concoction; the ice is shaved from a large block by a hand-cranked machine, again attached to the front of a bicycle. The ice is placed in a cardboard cone and covered with your choice of syrup. My favorite snack was hot figs with a piece of white soft cheese, in a bun, with lots of syrup.

They say the tap water is okay to drink in Quito, but most people drink bottled water, even the natives. I went as far as to use the tap water to brush my teeth with no ill effects. On my first weekend in the city I walked by a group of four young girls and one of them motioned to me requesting a drink from my water bottle. (There are no water fountains and often the taps in the public washrooms do not work.) Handing it over I watched as they each took a drink except for the oldest who appeared more shy. They gave it back and not thinking more about it I continued to drink from it. Twenty-four hours later I came down with a very nasty case of ‘flu, with a high fever, aching muscles and headache. Possibly it was not connected to the sharing of the water, but as I normally do not get sick, I have my suspicions. (I later found out that I was probably suffering from altitude sickness, as Quito stands at a nine thousand foot elevation.)

From Friday until Sunday evening there is a craft market in Parque El Ejidah. Many of the craft people are from the Imbubara area with Otavalo being the main town. It is a very colourful affair as indigenous people of Ecuador in general love bright clothing. Add to this the mounds of multi hued woollen sweaters, hats and mitts, plus colorful woven striped pants and shirts, the beautifully decorated boxes and enormous variety of artifacts and folk art and you have a feast of color that somehow brightens up even the most overcast day. If the rain comes, which it usually does at least once, the plastic sheets and poles are brought out and set up so business can go on as usual. When the rain stops unwary customers and some artisans are quite often the recipients of a minor deluge as the plastic tarp is dismantled and relieved of its contents.

Artists display their paintings around the outside of the park and no matter how many times I strolled by, I never ceased to be amazed at the artistic talent and imagination of these people. The market is a big tourist attraction, though while I was there, tourism dropped sharply, due to bad press over all of Europe.

Ecuadorians seem to be addicted to TV soap operas and Charlie Chan movies. Actually, any movie is popular here, the more violent the better or so it seems. Young children and babes in arms are taken into the theatres instead of being babysat, to view, or, if they are lucky, to sleep through, the horror and blood shed. If you are so ‘lucky’ as to journey on a bus equipped with a TV, do not expect to see a love story. Only fast action and killing is appropriate for these vehicles as they crash into potholes and swerve in a nerve wracking manner around corners that overlook drops into cloud obscured canyons.