Quito To Banos, Day Two (Saturday)

This is straight up just a way to record some of what we are seeing and doing day to day. Certainly no brilliant bits of writing in here whatsoever. There is so much to see it is simply overwhelming, and I feel my days blurring together. Blogging is my attempt to help me remember!

Brian and I declined to join the group for dinner on Friday night in favour of catching up on some of the sleep we lost in travel. I think we went to bed at 8:45 PM, old farts that we are, and awoke at 7:45 Saturday morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Our bed in the conquistador's mansion was a pleasant surprise- firm, clean, and with a nice layer of warm woollen blankets.

Seeing our hotel in the morning light inspired me to take some photographs- what a remarkable place to rest our heads at night!

 

There was more to the hotel than we'd had the time to examine the day before, so bathed in themorning light, we did a little exploration.

Up the tile stairs.

through a tiled hallway,

past the first balcony, and continuing our climb to the very top of the hotel.

The view was spectacular.

 

Endless roof lines (how on earth did they construct this?!)

Little balcony ares that must be part of people's apartments, all strung up with clotheslines.

 

The roofs are constructed out of terra cotta, often growing moss and stained with the heavy humidity.

Then, back down the series of stairways and back into the busy streets for another walkabout.

Every millimetre or two, there was something to study, wonder about, stare at, and try to photograph without looking like an idiotic noob tourist, which I totally know we looked like in any case.

Around here, there are jobs for all sorts of things. These people are selling toilet paper outside a toilet along the sidewalk. Ten cents or more will buy you a piece of toilet paper and allow you entrance.

The streets were filling up with women who were coming into town to sell their wares. These women are loaded down with stacks of fleece fabric- terrible quality stuff, unfortunately. Nothing at all I'd buy even at home, never mind in this other worldly place.

Some streets here are largely pedestrian, and everyone seems to live outdoors here.

Shoe shining is popular. Numerous sidewalk businesses like this were scattered all along our walks.

 

One of my highlights was capturing these two with my camera. A boy, impeccably dressed in school uniform, is reading aloud out of a newspaper to a blind mind, who is chuckling with pleasure. Young people appear to treat older people with care and respect here

People carry all manner of weird, chintzy, imported plastico stuff on the backs with the intent of making a sale. I find myself wishing they were carrying locally handcrafted items, or something that came down off the mountains. Its a little like being in a mobile Dollarama, but one in which you really don't know what the price of anything is, and you're afraid to ask.

 

Everyone is hustling for a few dollars, it's a little troublesome to wonder what their quality of life might be.

****

At 11:00 AM on Friday morning, we all boarded a bus for a trip to our next destination: Banos, which is Spanish for "bath". This is a town near a volcano, known for its mineral springs, rappelling, ziplines, etc.

The bus ride itself is worthy of its own blog post, which I may accomplish. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble synching my photos from iphone to ipad, so there are 500+ photos on my phone that I'm trying to figure out how to move over here and record.

The bus itself was gorgeous- super comfortable seats, lovely and clean, with our "walking encyclopedia" tour guide Milton sitting in the front telling us endless facts over the microphone. He knows heaps of stuff and speaks English very well, except that of course, his Ecuadorian accent is quite strong. The Virgin Mary is the "BeerHen Maria". There was talk of "horse feet" and "cow feet". I didn't figure out until the end of the trip that feet = feed. Darn.

The bus made several stops along the way to Banos. My favourite stop was at a roadside eatery where the locals cooked and ate.

It was no posh establishment, yet incredibly rich.

Cow stomach. Yum.

Behind us were a live pig and sheep, just hanging around and waiting for their time underneath the bloody axe. There was also a crumpled up partial cow carcass. Really made me crave a rare steak *not*.

My joy was found in the details. Dishes that I would have been drawn to in a thrift shop anywhere.

A boy, standing in a sink, eating a bowl of soup.

 

I couldn't quite get enough of him, and he didn't appear to mind.

 

These little round things which are made of cornmeal, onions, and fresh cheese, fried in oil. I'd like to pull up a chair and live there for a year, they are so yummy.

 

Brian bought a little plastic baggie of these fava beans and baby potatoes, which we chowed down on the continuing bus ride. They tasted like spring, and earth.

I declined the barbeque.

 

And badly wanted to photograph every human in sight. They don't care for having their pictures taken!

The children were more easily persuaded. So many beautiful children, I wished I could ask them questions. Eventually I would learn the word "linda", which means "pretty", so I could at least tell them how I saw them.

We continued on our winding, scenic bus ride. Apparently it was a long drive, but I honestly didn't notice, what this world right outside my window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at a legit restaurant for lunch and met a couple from Edmonton who are on a several year long bicycle trip all across South America.

 

Super friendly, sweet, and interesting, they joined us for lunch.

The bus made a few stops so the photography students could disembark and take some photos.

After all, it's not often you're on a bus driving towards an active volcano.

As is my forte, I got more caught up in the details. The houses built nearly on the highway.

A pumpkin patch flanking the highway.

Vegetation, housing.

Back drop.

Apparently it took us six hours to get to our next destination, but Dorothy, we sure weren't driving through Giroux in winter.

When we did arrive in Banos, what an amazing "hotel" we were about to enjoy!

(I'd like to try and show you, but no more photos are loading for now)

Try to imagine a series of villas with terra cotta roofs that grow moss and various vegetation. Try to imagine this nestled in a huge valley, with gigantic green slopes rising up directly behind where we sleep at night. Imagine a deep, damp, earthy smell, beautiful flowers, a random dog, a mossy rock pathway.

And good luck with that. I'm smack dab in the very Center of the reality of it, and I'm finding it all a little hard to absorb.

So much. So, so very much incredible beauty.

 

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Quito, Ecuador, Day One (Friday)

This morning I ate my breakfast in a dungeon.

It was one of the loveliest dungeons that I've ever eaten breakfast in, and that's saying something.

Soon after, I stepped outside of the circa 1534 former conquistador's villa turned *not* Holiday Inn, I walked into a new old world. Metal doors that slid up from the edge of the narrow sidewalks to reveal little concrete enclaves where local people sold their wares.

The sidewalks were impossibly narrow, and were speckled with more women, some with babies strapped to their backs, selling all manner of everything- cactus pears, mangoes, lotto tickets, scarves, and limes. There was a mad woman, ranting and shaking her arms at us, pacing and muttering. The street was an equal access oppurtunity to cars, taxis, motercycles, hundreds of pedestrians, and the occasional wandering dog. There were cathedrals, museums, men shining shoes, gigantic wooden doors, women in stillettoes. And all in the first few blocks outside our hotel.

We took a short walk and boarded a bus for a winding, curb-jumping drive up to the teleferrico, a system of cable cars designed to take us 8,000 feet up into the Andes.

 

I was immediately struck by how different the air felt- so fresh, and green, and humid. Not at all like the frozen home I'd left behind. Green sprung up from every crack in the pavement. Glorious, wonderful green.

 

After a steep climb in the cable car, we disembarked high in the Andes.

 

We began to hike around on the many pathways.

 

 

Everything smelled so green. (Have I mentioned that I love that its GREEN here?)

There was a beautiful church, every window a celebration in colored glass.

Brian had brought his hand held GPS, and we skulked around looking for a geocache that was nearby, but when we did the math of "nearby as in- down hill all the way there, and then pretty much straight uphill to get back" we decided that the hike was marvelous enough without finding the cache. We struggled back, sometimes nearly straight uphill, gasping in the high altitude air. It was worth every gasp.

Soon enough, it was time to take the ride back down, down, down.

Past the cows grazing below. (affectionately named "Andy")

 

Back "down" to 10,000 feet above sea level.

I sat with my eyes glued to the bus window and found much to entice me.

There are traffic police all over this part of the city, helping people to navigate the streets whether in taxi, car, motercycle, or on foot.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the area surrounding our hotel. So much history packed into every single block that I found it overwhelming, so I decided to focus on the doors.

 

 

 

**

It is impossible to describe what it is to wake up on a Friday morning in Quito, Ecuador.

To find myself surrounded by solid wood, tiled floors, ancient pillars, colored glass windows.

To be the minority- to be the one who is speaking in a foreign tongue.

To wonder about the little boy in the square- the one wearing two pairs of tattered pants, blackened by shoe polish, relentlessly imploring Brian to shine his shoes. To wonder about the mad woman and her waving arms. To wonder what its like to spend a day trying to sell three bags of limes with a toddler strapped to my back.

And then to wonder what tomorrow will bring.

 

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The Mall

There was a little guy sitting in his stroller reaching for his daddy's Starbucks cup. It was empty, so daddy gave it to him to play with. He kept dropping it off the stroller, and daddy kept picking it up, until they engaged in an impromptu game of daddy tossing the cup onto baby's lap and baby laughing like only babies can. I was sitting outside of Forever 21 in the mall, waiting for my daughter who was shopping for new pants.

A mom and adolescent daughter sat down beside me.

"You're ignoring me", the daughter whined.

"No", said the mother; "I just refuse to continue having a conversation where you refuse to hear me, where you block me out. I'm not ignoring you. I want to talk about this."

The daughter planted her chin in her hands and stared at the mall floor, eyes dark, mouth pouting.

A grandfather across from me carried his infant grandson to the lighted up picture of the polar bears at the zoo. He talked in soft little baby words about the bears, the big bear; the baby bear. The grandson grinned and jabbed at baby bear. I imagined spring, and the trip they'd make to see the bears for real- a stroller loaded down with sippy cup, blankie, bug spray, snacks, diapers..... The chatter they would engage in. How fresh it all would be- first trip to the zoo for the little boy, first trip to the zoo for the new grandpa. And the mommy, so proud to push her little man around and point out the monkeys, the groundhogs, the other little babies.

I thought about Jane looking around for pants, and I sighed a little. So long, her legs. So very nearly impossible for her to find pants long enough to accomodate them.

"Still shopping?", I texted her. "Need any help?".

"No, just trying some stuff on."

"Okay, I'll wander around for a while, then".

I picked myself up from the bench and merged into the Sunday mall traffic. Past the pregnant mamas, the young lady with the purple bangs, the impossibly thin middle-aged woman leaning against a planter, holding her back, the teenaged lovers entwined in the center aisle as though no one else existed, the popcorn shop, the billboard for perfect skin. I walked past the racks of cheap neon sweatshirts and window displays of fabulous footwear. I sifted through some racks of discount clothing marked "Large" and noted the pant waist size 24 and wondered when that had become so large.... How size four could possibly be considered anything but tiny. To my left, a man slumbered on a bench, his girth spreading before him, hands and feet swollen from the pressure of his heart working so hard. The mall smelled like bath soaps and popcorn, coffee and french fries. Women streamed past me, pants tight, boots tall. A huge woman came out of a tiny people store, hair piled extravagently on top of her head, black skirt clinging, breasts bouncing heavily under her animal print lycra. A handsome man greeted her, took her hand in his before they continued along their way, smiling at one another.

Uninspired by browsing, I made my way back to wait for my daughter, and continued to watch the world's people go by me. I wondered about their stories. I wondered if they felt lonely and desperate. I wondered what secrets they hid. I wondered if the little Starbucks baby would grow up playing too many video games, if he'd become sullen and withdrawn at the dinner table, if he'd be the target of abuse some day, if kids at his school would shout at him and mock him for his differences.

I wondered if the mom went to sleep every night doubting herself, questioning her parenting, wondering if she should have been more firm? Expected more of her daughter? Did she wish she could go back to the days of pulling her daughter to the park in the wagon, pushing her on the swings, splashing in the springtime puddles? Was she always that calm, that clear and kind, and did she feel that way on the inside? Why was her daughter so angry? Was it just a phase, or did something go wrong somewhere?

I could watch people indefinitely. I wonder sometimes what our world would be like if we could actually SEE one another. If we could understand what motivates our differing responses to life, our different ways of coping, our different expressions of love, affection, and intimacy. I wonder how we would relate to one another if we stopped being so afraid and threatened by how other people live and behave. I wish that I would live in less fear and judgement of people who annoy, frustrate, and frighten me.

When I'm sitting in the mall, and I'm worrying about raising my own kids, and wondering what it would be like if I had it to do again, if that wee baby with the Starbucks cup was mine, and I could try again, no mistakes this time, it's not because I really want to start over. It's because its all so messed up. It's because I wish we could all just SEE one another. It's because when they're little and in the stroller and they laugh just as easily as they cry, they're so fresh. We get to be so hopeful that they'll grow up loving their neighbours, having courage, being joyful, showing gratitude, loving life. We get to dream that we could show them how to see one another, how to swim upstream when they need to, how to embrace freedom instead of fear. It's because I hope I've given my kids enough so that when a boy comes to school wearing tight jeans and an infinity scarf, it won't be my kids sniggering and mocking. I hope I've given them enough so that they'll spend their energy caring for others instead of focusing on their own rightness and their peer's perceived wrongness.

I miss my kids sometimes. I miss how when they were little, I knew how to gather them up in my lap, make them laugh by kissing their neck folds, reading them story after story. I miss that a trip to the library, the park or the pool was always welcomed. My kids are biggish now, and I know that whatever I've done, said, and shown them is already shaping them forever. The days of the lit up polar bears at the mall are behind us now, and Starbucks cups are only fun when they're full. Shopping for clothes usually means me driving Jane to the mall and being patient while she makes her own selections.

Which finds me sitting in the corridor, watching and wondering.

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It Was One of Those Weekends

That felt like an ice jam of goodness and joy.  Where connections and moments, laughter and meaning, good food and profundity piled and crashed upon each other, breaking and swelling, glimmery and hopeful.  It was one of those weekends that was so full of moments (sometimes hours, sometimes nearly entire days) of near perfection that all the empty reserves within me filled and overfilled, allowing me to tentatively give audience to bigger dreams, to hear broader melodies, and to goad my feet to step with renewed energy into the Mondays that would surely follow.

Much too rich to be considered an appetizer, I spent Friday evening at a dinner party for four.  Hours spent over food and wine, baptized in the wisdom and careful, deep, meditative thought of these women, I studied their grace. While embracing their beliefs with passion, they found no need to hate those who disagreed with them.  They moved in love and not fear.  Redemption, not reaction, and yet in all of that, I heard a resolute willingness to take a stand against popular opinion, even counting personal cost.

This was not a dinner party of gossip and frivolity, wearing one another down in comparisons and insecurities.  This was a meeting of intellect and heart, of story telling, memory sharing, and inspiration.  There was a deep thread of redemption running through it- a surprise vein of secret glee that I felt in finding women that I'd never dreamed of knowing, admiring, loving and being loved by.

Saturday morning was too precious to waste by sleeping in. The spring sun was warming the deck, licking at the snow up on the roof, dripping into long prairie stalactites.  The house would fill with children again, but not for me this time.  They would be looked after by my son and daughter, and I seized the opportunity to exit into that wet, transformative spring.

My Saturday treasure hunting friend and I hit the road for a conversation filled thrifting extravaganza.  (note for all you party poopers who have been leaving tracts all around my house about the dangers of buying too much old crap:  go away.  Don't bother me no more.  Go start your own club)

We went.  We visited.  We explored, poked around, discovered, hunted.  A marvelous time was had by all.  I'm not even going to show you my unbelievably marvelous treasure because some of you whowillremainanonymous have overlooked the fact that I live in a "Pinterest house"  (thank you my most favourite niece Elisabeth, to whom all my teal and turquoise is forever more bequeathed in the unfortunate event of my death) and have declared me a hoarder.  Horrible people, you.

I barely took the time to deposit my new old quilt, cowboy boots, and chrome table before heading back out that door.  In the hours of my absence the house had taken on the sickly palour of a mother-gone-away and I wasn't about to squander my one wild and precious weekend sopping up after the slobs.  Let them stew in it, I had more friends to capture and tame!  Off to the city to meet with some of my most favourite older days people- the very ones who helped me to survive those exhausting, demanding years of little people who never left before suppertime, and continued to hammer away at me well past dark for years on end.  These friends had survived with me on black coffee and day old bread when there was always way more month than money.  Back in the day when the big wild expenditure was to run down the flights of stairs to the bowling alley we lived above to blow a dollar on the Coke machine.

We feasted on burritos and laughed the hours away.  I stayed much later than I'd intended, and regretted not a moment.  Two of the three babies were with us, now young, beautiful, charming adults themselves.  They listened to our stories of survival and reminisced about all the hours spent playing dress-up in each others houses.

Driving home in the night, I dwelled on the good fortune of dear friends.

The night was shorter, with the loss of an hour of sleep and my alarm set for earlier than my body wanted.  But there was much to do.  The house needed a major intervention, the chicken needed to roast, some coleslaw mixed, potatoes to mash.  Seating for 14 to invent, dishes to choose, floors to clean, coffee to brew.  I had invited my family over for an old fashioned Sunday family lunch.  And they came-  my mama and my dad, my big brother and his people, two sisters, and another brother.  We filled the room with food and communing.  The coffee was strong, and my dad's stories familiar.

It's Sunday evening now, and my weekend has drawn to a close.  It was full and rich.  Monday is okay, with it sippy cups and probable tedium.  There will be so many leftovers for me to savour in my mind- to turn over and study again, to take out and admire, to hold in my hand and dare to dream of possibility.

Because it really was one of those marvelous weekends.

Little Known Facts: Maybe Five, For the Sake of Continuing a Theme

1. Nail clippers always dash away to top secret retreats for grooming tools.  They never stop to ask me first whether the timing is convenient, whether they could do anything for me before they leave, or if they'll be missed.  They simply vanish.  I swear they are laughing at me, knowing how I'll search through the house for them-  in the bathroom cabinet where they're supposed to be, in the bathroom drawer where I sometimes hide them, and on the key holder where I stash my own, top secret pair.  Currently, every single nail clipper known to the Hildebrands is missing.  My nails are longer than a millimeter, which makes me feel filthy and unkempt.  Possibly whore-ish.  Probably not, but still, the possibility exists.
2. Nose piercings have a bit of an odour.  I'm only telling you this because I trust you and want you to be forewarned if you ever decide to pierce your nostril to spite your mother for not allowing you to have pierced ears when you were a teen-ager.  Not that I would ever do that, but I've heard of some really bad kids who run around in the grass in white socks as adults, just to get back at their mother for complaining about laundry.  I've even heard about people who crochet on Sundays to spite their mothers who always told them that needlework was work, and work on the Sabbath is a sin.
3. Stuff is way easier to buy than it is to sell.  This is a strange truth.
4. There is a possibility of a snow storm tomorrow.  I am not happy about this.  While most people rejoice in school cancellations, I do not.  I work at home, and when school is cancelled, it means that I will be taking my husband and three offspring to work with me.  If you pump gas, imagine your spouse and children following you around at work and getting in your way and on your nerves.  If you do heart surgery, imagine your spouse and your children making snacks and spilling ketchup all over your instrument tray while you're trying to reach your scalpel.  Then feel my pain.
5. My dad tells the same stories every Sunday.  Every now and again, he'll let a new story slip, and that's always a super exciting Sunday for me.  But for sure I know that he has a "part of grade seven education" and always wanted to have more; that he worked in Thunder Bay as a young adult, and would have gone back if it were not for his parents bribing him with farm land to stay put; I know that when he was a little boy, his grandpa held him on his lap and said; "Abie, Abie.  Whatever will become of you?  Maybe a fiddler, but never a farmer!"  and that each autumn when my dad turned his great big combine to maneuver around the graveyard where his granddad rested, he imagined if grandpa could raise his head up above the grave and see him now!  I know those stories for sure, and if I begin to forget, I have next Sunday to look forward to.  Today he let a tiny little bit of a new story out, and it even contained sort of a bad word.  I took an irreverent amount of pleasure in this.  I really love my dad more now that the stroke has loosened him up and made him a little more uninhibited.  It's like he's being himself now, and not worrying so much about being a good example, or "doing the right thing".  He's just being real, and I kind of like real.

Well, that's five.
That means I have to stop or I'm a liar, and nobody likes a liar.