A Really Big Market

To get out of Quito for a day, we chose to immerse ourselves in something unlike what we’ve seen before. Otavalo Market is renowned within Ecuador as the largest outdoor market in South America. Every Saturday, primarily indigenous people (although Ecuador seems to be a somewhat mixed society regarding ethnic origin) gather to sell their food, wares, and their animals to what are now a mixture of tourists and local people. The original market must have been quite a sight when it sold only to locals. The market is huge in that it occupies a very large town square where the stalls are fitted tightly, many repeating the things that they sell. The market even extends up the streets that are beside the square indicating the vastness of this mercantile exchange. There is even a semblance of a food court which is really a raft of small tents set up just for this day of the week.

The market doesn’t stop at the town center, it extends up onto a bare patch of grass next to the highway where people bring with all the animals they wish to vend for the week. You’ll see people buying bunny rabbits and kittens and guinea pigs. They were giant hogs, cows, chickens and ducks…….anything animal. At the small food vendors at this market, they produce a stew that is boiled for hours that contains cow stomach and all sorts of other lively parts. The local children are shifting away from some of the foods and the way of dress that make up this indigenous culture but they are still alive and visible to us as onlookers.

We found a few special items at the market to bring home and we didn’t haggle too much with the vendors – things here are still very cheap and they deserve a good living too. In fact, they are kind of fun to haggle with as it always ended in smiles for both of us. Some places I’ve been you both feel like you’ve beat each other up and I don’t really like that.

One of the things that interested me, which none will be surprised to hear, is the geology. Fascinatingly, the majority of this area of Ecuador is built on top of volcanic debris that is mostly still unlithified (not yet turned into rock) and as such, the roads are leveled into the terrain by creating huge road cuts that make for a spectacle of depositional wonderment.

 

 

We stopped for cookies and tea.

 

Brooke’s first Alpaca sighting.

 

 

 

 

A beautiful crater lake.

 

 

 

 

 

I think they’re live until you take ‘em.

 

we’re not really sure if they eat them or play with them.

 

I’m pretty sure you don’t eat kittens. Some people just have them!!!!

 

 

In Ecuador, guinea pigs are part of the family traditionally, but they are also food. Like keeping a small cow.

 

Finally…..something we could buy.

 

 

 

This was a giant pig. I mean giant. It was practically the size of a cow.

 

Roast pig anyone????

 

All the widdow chickadeees.

 

 

 

 

 

MMMMM, cow stomach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing like fresh squeezed orange juice.

 

We should have tried some of these.

 

Now there’s a guinea pig you can take home.

 

BELOW: you just have to love rocks.

 

 

Time Heals All Wounds

Three days have passed and we just had our appointment with Dr. Sierra, the plastic surgeon, to assess Brooke’s recovery. We tried to catch a taxi to the hospital but we couldn’t as it was Friday afternoon and, well, good luck. So, we walked the 8 blocks along one of the parts of town we wished we had discovered earlier. The main road we walked down was full of shops, activities, banks, and restaurants. We arrived at the hospital at cuatro en punto (4:00 sharp) and there was the doctor and his assistant waiting for us with the door wide open.

We communicated as best as we could and his best English was his medical terminology which Brooke was able to understand, of course. He cleaned her hand for her and assessed her function, and he seemed very optimistic she would fully recover, con tiempo(with time). Brooke was in good spirits and enjoyed her discussions with the doctor – as best they could. He asked her if she could stitch better than him – jokes across languages!  He apologized for his country but we replied as to how it brought us close to so many people.  Since the incident, we have been making friends like crazy, both locals and foreigners. In fact, one night we got chatting with a wonderful couple, Phil and Jill, which I can’t say enough good things about, and Phil as it turns out is a neurosurgeon in San Diego. Brooke picked his brain about the injury and he seemed to quell her fears, assuring her that things should recover, specifically the severed nerves, which are causing her a lot of pain at the moment. Jill and I just sat around and joked with each other, what a fun time we ended up having.

Leaving the clinic, we walked down the main street again and in a rare moment of genius, I suggested Brooke have her hair washed at a salon. We had been struggling to invent a way we could wash her hair within the small shower we had, whilst not getting her bandages soaked. As you can imagine, washing your hair with one hand is only ok if you have a brush cut.

We finished the night with a nice dinner at a parilla just down the street from our hotel . FYI if you want to know what a parilla is, you can go back and look at photos from our Argentine trips to see the famous South American barbeque that makes steak taste the best in the world.

Everybody asks “how many stitches"?” but we don’t’ know…. It continues on the back of her hand too!

 

Dr. Sierra giving Brooke her medical notes

 

In front of Clinica Pichincha.

 

Another well deserved treat!

 

Our table top Parilla! Note: kidneys, intestine along with some nice sausage, steak and chicken.

Muy Profundo – Very Deep

The turn that our trip was taking went from a 15 degree turn to a 90 degree turn. You could call it adding injury to insult.

We checked into our beautiful little hotel , more akin to a B&B, and took off to see the old town in the very early evening. We arrived by Taxi to Plaza Grande, taking in the beautifully lit colonial buildings that have made this part of the city famous.

Our plan was simple, see a couple of the buildings at night, and then walk to the areas that have some good restaurants and enjoy. We were going to catch a taxi home, knowing that the streets were unsafe at night. However, nothing went the way we planned. We saw a few buildings but in an error of map reading, and also a massive error in judgment – errors neither Brooke or myself are known for, we climbed 50m up a street, past one of the most expensive hotels in Quito only to be mugged by two crazy hombres. They pulled out two knives and demanded our money.  We were totally unprepared. We had been living on 4 hours sleep two nights in a row.

Normally, Brooke and I have only the bare essentials with us. We didn’t have much but I didn’t want to give up what we had. With the two bad men on either side of us, we had a small break and I yelled “run”, only to look back and see Brooke hadn’t been able to run. It was terrifying. I ran back towards her but the hombres had sliced her purse strap……and her hand. They ran off but Brooke was hurt. I didn’t know she had been cut and I had tried to yell and point to people to stop him but no one could see what had happened and maybe if they did, they were scared too. I ran back to Brooke and she was bleeding everywhere. We were instantly engulfed by people trying to help us. They were all so concerned. Many tried to help, all in different ways. A woman gave us her scarf and wrapped Brooke’s hand, another man hailed a taxi and took us to the local clinic. He even paid for the taxi and walked us up to the door. We couldn’t show the man guarding the entrance how bad it was as the scarf was importantly holding the blood in. He eventually let Brooke in but I was forced to stay outside until the doctor asked for me. That was a huge relief. I knew I couldn’t start a debate with the guard, how could I – I needed them to care for her above all. Inside the clinic, a young doctor helped bandage Brooke and clean the wound so that we could make it to a hospital.

They sent us to a private hospital that was pretty empty; it was only around 8pm and the bad stuff hadn’t started rolling in yet. The doctors and nurses in the emergency area began to look at her wound and assess it. They told her she would need surgery and repeatedly shook their heads while looking at the wound and saying “muy profundo” – very deep. We heard “muy profundo” all through the night. They told us they paged a plastic surgeon and a feeling of relief came for both of us. It was so important that her wound was repaired by someone who didn’t just know how to stitch. Brooke got x-rays on her hand within 15min of arriving and we waited perhaps another 20 minutes for the surgeon to arrive. The young interns that were there had told Brooke she would need a general anesthetic but when the surgeon arrived he shook his head and immediately began the process of rebuilding Brooke’s hand under local anesthetic. Nerves were cut, it was terribly deep, muy profundo. We were now the highlight of the night for the hospital staff, especially the interns. The surgeon was one of the most steady and patient men I have ever seen. He had an incredible calmness and an unwavering knowledge that Brooke would be ok after this. He sewed up her muscle first, one careful individual stitch at a time. He aimed to align the nerves for her finger and eventually began to bring her skin together. I watched everything and even took some pictures – though you won’t see them here. Brooke was so strong through it all. She had to squeeze my hand till she couldn’t squeeze anymore but she didn’t shed a tear. At’a girl. 

Eventually we left the clinic, our bill: $350. You can’t get an x-ray for that in Calgary, let alone a plastic surgeon to rebuild your hand.

It was an incredible awakening for both of us. It’s taken us two days to get back on our feet and Brooke’s hand is doing well, we think. On Friday she has a recheck appointment with the surgeon. We’ll post some more things as time goes on but here are a few pics for now, including our visit to McDonalds today – once every vacation for us.

As they say here in Ecuador, adios.

 

In front of the President’s Palace.

 

Plaza Grande, in front of the President’s Palace.

 

Some of the beautiful buildings lit up at night.

 

Gates to a convent.

 

The detail is amazing.

 

 

This is Plaza San Francisco. Just at the back corner there of the plaza is where it happened. The bright building on the far left is
a $500/night hotel.

 

Brooke needed a special treat the next day.

And then it rained so we went in and had a
copa de vino.

 

Incidentally, beer is cheap but wine is expensive.
I didn’t expect to pay nearly as much as at home
for the same bottle of wine.

 

We stayed at the hotel for dinner that night. It is a lovely place.

 

Self Portrait

 

A very nice man, with perhaps Parkinson's, took this photo despite his incredibly shaky hands and difficulty holding the camera. He had such a softness about him.



The Basilica.

 

This is an amazing Cathedral. It doesn’t have
the extraordinary amount of decoration other
great churches of the world might have but it is
incredibly grand and a surprise to see in a city
like Quito.

 

 

At McDonalds, at least once every trip. She needed a “Happy Meal”.

We stopped for a cup of tea, and a beer for me!

We love spending time in our hotel’s common area, enjoying the fire.

Merry Christmas

Into the night… and the next day…

Brooke needed two coffees just to get started….

 

So, we arrived safely in Columbia. I bet you didn't know we were going there......neither did we. Our flight was a bit of a crazy one from Miami to what was supposed to be Quito. The flights from Calgary to Dallas and Dallas to Miami were uneventful (though one cool thing was that we ate at the same restaurant in Dallas that we did on the way down to Costa Rica last year).

 

 
Cory at the Dallas Airport

 

From Miami, things got interesting. Most everyone in line at the airport was crowded around the boarding desk at the gate - all with massive carry on suitcases. Everyone had two to three carry on items that were clearly beyond normal in size. Almost everyone had huge roller-board carry-ons and additional backpacks etc. Everyone was Spanish speaking and looked like perhaps they were heading home to Ecuador for Christmas so I figured this was just a cultural thing.

Once everyone was on the plane (good luck finding room in the overhead bins - the poor stewardesses) an event occurred that ended with the police coming aboard and escorting a little old lady off the plane. Rumour had it that the little old lady said something slightly crass to the flight attendant because she was unhappy about something. So, the flight attendant had the captain kick her off. We sat for an hour and a half waiting for this to resolve.

The captain bellowed over the speakers that "this was my decision and my decision alone to deal with a particular passenger". He then later said that anyone who challenged his decision could leave the plane too. Confrontation seems to be an United Statsian pass time. Note that United Statsian is the proper term for a person from the United States.

Eventually, there was a sigh of relief as the plane pulled back from the gate and we began our journey. Brooke and I got a few winks and watched a few shows on the laptop though we were still very tired from leaving the house at 4:30am.

 

 
Brooke and I relaxing at the Columbian airport  in Cali while
everyone else was manic about getting to their hotel rooms.

 

After we passed the time in which we should have landed in Quito, the captain mumbled something about wind speed and that we were circling over Quito. Eventually we had to proceed to our alternate landing location in Cali, Columbia. We landed at a very small airport that was, for all intents and purposes, closed. It was by now 2:00 am. I do understand that at altitude it is very hard to get the slow speed lift you need to land a plane and the plane we were on was a very old American Airlines Boeing 757. It was probably due for replacement 10 years ago.

We never did customs and we never got our luggage but they seemed to have a plan - amazingly.

It took them hours to sort out the hotel and get us in cabs to somewhere. The cab ride was an hour long - yes an hour!  But we ended up in our room, which turned out to be awesome, though we couldn't enjoy it we were so tired. It was now nearly 5am.

 

This hotel was attached to a huge mall and had all the makings of a wonderful place, however, as with all south america, the finishing details are always missing.

 

What a neat roof!

 

 

 

 

We finally left for Quito the following day at 3:30pm flying straight there upon which the pilot flew right past the airport,  raising questions from the passengers about what the hell was going on.  Apparently, he couldn’t make the landing on the initial approach. We landed eventually, safely I might add, and all was well in the world.

We’ve checked into this beautiful little hotel that is more like a B&B. We’ve got our own balcony and a quaint little room.

Confucius say:  expect the unexpected when traveling.

Preparing for a Big One.

 

We spent last night in Banff and when we left on Saturday aft to go there, I almost didn’t bring a jacket it was so nice. Over night the snow began to fall and by the time the next morning rolled around, there was blowing snow and cars in the ditch.

What didn’t help was that I was tired and a little bit hung over from the night before.  We had our company Christmas party at the Rimrock – still one of my favourite hotels in the world.

We made it back and I wasted tons of time doing silly little things before finally making an effort to pack. What makes the task of packing daunting is the series of climates we’re going to be experienceing – it’ll be real climate change.  We’re going to likely see snow like this (photos below), and Sun like Hawaii. We’re also going to have time in big cities where we’ll want to dress nicely for a night out, and we’ll want to bum around taking it easy in our casual wear. Then there’s the gear – rain coats for one kind of water and wet suits for another kind!

We’ll here’s the start of our Ecuadorian blog. I hope you all enjoy it. I’ll try to post wonderful photos and a few cool stories. Hopefully at least one person enjoys it (besides me and probably my mom).

Car after car going slowly down the highway

 

Still positive…..

 

Almost packed….

 

Our technology bags….(cameras and such)