¡Saludos!: Quito y Otavalo con Tom y Corynn

My brother, Tom, and his fiancee, Corynn, met us in Quito, Ecuador on June 3rd. Unfortunately we were still our crippled selves and weren't able to do much but be taken care of (thanks guys!), but I think they had fun. Here is Tom's take:

Hand grenades were on the menu

That being said, the town of Otavalo is a peaceful, gorgeous, and nifty little place that is much better than Quito. To start back: I'm Tom, Mike's brother, who most of you reading this will know. Corynn and I visited Mike and Hilary a month ago.

We arrived in Quito, at 9,000 feet, and I promptly got whacked with altitude sickness, as did Corynn shortly after. Searches for coca leaves probably led the local police to suspect Hilary of being the world's most blithe drug trafficker, but a few days of not doing much got us back on our feet-- that and loads of the weak but refreshing Ecuadorian beer.

Quito is similar to a lot of other cities in countries with a really, really, really, really severe rich/poor divide. Grimy but with construction going on everywhere, plenty of things to do and see but the incessant knowledge that most of what there was to see and do was not at all within the means of the average person on the street.

We had a decent meal and a spectacular night of music at a restaurant called Vista Hermosa. The view was panoramic, 270 degrees with a church at every compass point. The mountains constrained the horizon so all we could see was city. The first musical act was an overamplified harp, which was a pity. We'd finished our meal and were going to go, when the waitress-- a very warm and nice girl-- told us we should sit, relax, and stay for the Super Trio. It was no upsell-- she was just concerned that we might go away without hearing some good music. So we did stay, and invited a Mr. Walker to have a seat at the table as well.

Soon enough, a trio did indeed appear, breezing in wearing matching eye-searing teal jackets. One was clearly the oldest-- forties, another looked like his quite younger brother, and the third Trio member was a younger dude, the son or nephew. The family resemblance was strong throughout, with features-- if not coloration-- that wouldn't have looked out of place in Southie. In fact, the eldest one looked disturbingly like Teddy Kennedy, leading to speculation that that seed-profligate clan might have passed through Quito at some point and impacted local genetics.

The Super Trio quickly subverted their name by bringing in a friend to play bass, and delivered an awesome, terrific set of music. What it technically was I have no idea-- I'd call it Ecuadorian rock but the singing was the central part, the guitar owed a lot to classical and flamenco. Some musicologist can kindly inform me. Anyway, it kicked Ecuadorian ass and we were all very grateful the waitress had confidently let us know that the music was about to get better.

We'd decided early on that we'd go to the market town Otavalo for a stay, and quickly tiring of Quito's grittiness, we were happy to make the departure. It meant a long bus ride, the usual harrows of nearly-lost luggage, constant bus fumes, but the views as we ground out of Quito got better and better, first travelling through stark-barren mountains which reminded you of just how tough a son of a bitch you had to be to survive here when it was wilderness, then entering some farming country around Otavalo, with pigs, goats, ramshackle buldings that looked less pitiful for looking the more used.

I felt happy the first moment my foot hit the ground in Otavalo. We'd arrived on one of the big market days-- the market is open every day, but on Saturdays it's huge-- but a one dollar taxi ride got us to our hostel.

This hostel is one of the nicest places I've ever stayed at. The rooms are spacious, high-ceilinged, and quiet at night. We were right next to what sounded like a waterfall (though was actually a culvert letting out into a canal. We were to discover later that the manager, Adriana, served real coffee-- a benison after the desert of instant coffee we'd wandered through. The kid who worked the front desk, Luis, was a great representative for the people of Otavalo; he was reserved but friendly, gentle, and patient.

The market was great, huge, boisterous. I was happy that the touristy stuff and the non-touristy stuff were mixed in with each other, rows of textiles branching out from a central square with food, spices, raw ingredients. The local garb should be googled, since my description won't give clarity to the way it looked so appropriate on the people in Otavalo. We bought a few bits and pieces of fabric-- one saleswoman was an absolute natural, sweeping a shawl around Corynn the moment we stopped at her booth, stepping back to admire the results, and saying one of her very few English words, "Wow!" with her hands thrown up and her eyes rolling in an ecstasy of appreciation. Needless to say, we bought plenty from her.

Seeing all of the awesome stuff in the market made me wish we were staying longer, so I could cook with some of the spices, the fruits (passion-fruit looks like fish-eggs.) and the blatantly-displayed meats. The feeling of wanting to stay would intensify throughout our visit.

I don't remember the names of restaurants. That makes this post less-than-ideal if you're trying to follow in our footsteps. But anyway, the first night we ate in a nice, spacious place. Our drink order quickly became a debacle, when a drink order of gin and tonic threw the young staff into a panic. Finally, an older waitress said, "Gin and tonic? Gin y tonica!" and ten minutes later we received gigantic glasses of gin-and-tonic.

People of Ecuador, I love you. I think you're wonderful. But your approach to cocktail making is to conclude that every flavor should be maximized as much as possible. In a gin and tonic, that'd be the gin. In other drinks, it'd be the lime juice. Ecuador has not heard of the soothing balance of sour mix, or of splashing things with seltzer. Ecuador likes its drinks to scream their names as they go into your mouth "I'm a GIN and tonic with LIME!" "I'm a pisco SOUR!" As long as you take this into account, drinking in Ecuador is fine. Just know that your order of a cocktail is a major commitment with both alcohol and flavor intensity.

The meal was good, a musical group playing traditional music came in (though the youngest member played his mini-guitar like Hendrix), and we went back to a night of good sleep at the hostel.

The next few days were charming, tranquil times. Otavalo-ians love babies. They love them. They adore children of all ages. They don't yell at kids, they talk to them. They play with them constantly. They strap them into papooses and carry them, with arms outstretched to hug the world, everywhere. It is the most child-loving place I've ever seen. Otavalo is also a town that's moderately prosperous, or quite prosperous by Ecuadorian standards. They've managed to build a tourist economy, and they've obviously ploughed money back into their town-- the roads were good, and we saw several big schools, with uniformed kids running hither and thither. More tellingly, the children were often doing the math in the marketplace, showing these Otavalites had gotten a better level of education for their kids than they had for themselves-- every parent's dream.

There are lots and lots of stories of individually charming Otavalians-- the taxi driver who took us to the "Healing Tree", a natural latex-producing tree on top of a high hill near Otavalo, which we visited, hugged, and saw the white sticky sap of-- or the taxi driver who, hearing that we wanted ice cream, treated it as an absoluite challenge to his adroitness in hospitality. He narrowed the search down, "No cones, but perhaps... cups." and with a sudden flash of inspiration realized that the girl he was trying to date (my theory) sold ice cream of a sort. He was quickly knocking on her door and getting her to reopen her shop for us. That's service.

Otavalo is too nifty to be summed up. It's a place with it's own style, and despite being a tourist center, it is determinedly and absolutely a town for its residents. Surrounded by beautiful mountainsides, with a volcano nearby to boot, it's magical.

It was with great regret that we left, and greater regret that we left Mike and Hilary, whose spirits, enthusiasms, and desire to experience more and do more never flagged, who are such wonderful representatives of these United States of America. We were happy they were installed in such a nice place to recuperate, and we wish we could visit them again at every other point on their journey.