Jan 4, 2007 - Visit to an indigenous market, faith in humanity restored, and talking communism

Today we took a bus to a village 20 minutes away called Saquisilí (Sak-ee-si-LI). Every Thursday morning there is a huge market in Saquisilí, which Ecuadorian economists consider the most important indigenous village market in the country. This is not a tourist market selling cheap jewelry and weavings; this is an event for the indigenous people of the Andean villages in the surrouding area. They come from miles away to buy and sell their animals, fruit, vegetables, herbs, grain, and many other things.

We got a really late start and didn't get to the market until almost 11 am. We thought we might have missed the action (apparently it starts at dawn), but we finally found the market and it did not disappoint. There were so many different sights and smells and sounds; it really was a great experience. Dave took many great photos, and mananged to do so discreetly so as not to offend anyone. I bought a bag of 4 mangoes for a dollar, but other than that we didn't make any purchases. I am going to explain the pictures below.

This is a very typical sight in doorways all over the country, but especially in small towns. Often they will also have pigs hanging up too. Walking by one of these meat vendors on a hot day or when feeling a bit nauseous (or anytime, actually) is a bad idea - the smell can really turn your stomach.








We wanted to get a photo of this woman's bright green socks. It is pretty common for the indigenous women to wear colourful socks; not sure if this is a cultural norm or if those were just the socks that were on sale at the market that day!







All the woman carry their kids on their backs in this manner. It's funny, when they get on the bus, they plop into a seat and lean back against their kids as though they weren't even there! The kids don't seem to mind, though. They rarely make a peep.








Some of the younger women don't wear the full tribal outfits that the older women wear, but they still wear the hats (and those babies that seem to be all the rage). This child was fully covered in the blanket-cocoon. Even its head was wrapped up tightly! If it weren't for the feet sticking out, we never would have known it was a child in there.





Typical roadside sight.











Ecuador's national specialty: cuy (roasted guinea pig). It is so weird (and to me, gross) to see this little guy roasting on a spit like this. Dave took this photo inconspicuously just by holding the camera by his hip, aiming at the critter, guessing how much to hit the zoom button, and snapping. He didn't even look and this is the photo he got - pretty impressive, eh?


These hard brown discs were all wrapped up in palm leaves. The women would unwrap them and hack away at them with knives. We had to ask one of them what the stuff was...it's cane sugar!




The fruit and veggie stands are amazing. We drool over them and want to buy everything in sight. There are a lot of unfamiliar fruits that we've never seen before.






Dave is especially enthralled with the pyramids of lovely fresh tomatoes.

This is the grain section of the market where they sell rice, quinoa, corn of various forms, pasta, and other mystery grains. Often, women will sit on the ground and pick through it with their hands, as though they are picking out dirt or impurities.

Market scene.








These kids were really cute. They were discreetly sharing some kind of food that was inside the bag.










These leek/scallion type items were extremely popular at the market.












Big heads of cabbage.














It is very common here to see older women carrying giant loads on their backs...although they usually have it in a blanket! We didn't know what these greens were, but they were also a popular item at the market.











More carrying.

















Mmmm, chicken heads and chicken feet.

















These poor sad little lambs were in rough shape...the child seems happy to see them nonetheless.

















Me with indigenous women in the background.













Someone from the area can apparently tell what tribe an indigenous person is from by the colour of their clothes and the shape of their hat.












When we returned to Latacunga from the market, these indigenous people were all lined up where we got off the bus. We aren't sure what they were waiting for.



After we got back to Latacunga we checked out of our hotel and got on a bus to Quito. We had decided it was time to head to the coast. I was sick with a cold and the cold weather was getting to me and we were both just ready to relax on the beach (it really was chilly...I only had my t-shirt on in the photos because I was feverish and was having hot flashes). To avoid a 12 hour bus ride, we decided to fly from Quito to Manta, one of the larger coastal cities. I wasn't sure if I could fly with no passport, but it was no problem. Actually, flying was really easy! We just showed up at the airport 1.5 hours before we wanted to fly, bought a ticket, and breezed through "security."

The flight only cost us $50 each and would take 30 minutes. Definitely a good deal and worth the cost to save a day of travelling. In the airport, I was hungry and decided to eat one of my mangoes. I know I mentioned this once before, but it fascinates me so much I think it bears repeating. People here walk around the streets eating mangoes like people at home might walk around eating a bag of chips. To me, the way that they eat mangoes is so crazy: They simply puncture the top of the fruit and somehow suck out the contents, leaving the skin intact. Then, when all they have left is the pit, they use the skin to hold the pit while they suck the remaining fruit off of it. The amazing part is that the mangoes are so juicy, yet they manage to eat them without making any mess at all! To me, mangoes are one of the messiest, juiciest fruits of all time. Even when I have a knife and a cutting board, I manage to end up covered in juice and pulp. Anyway, inspired by the impressive Ecuadorian mango-eaters, I decided to try to eat a mango in the airport with my bare hands. I did manage to peel the skin off using only my fingernails, but that's the end of the success story. Thank god for the availability of napkins and public washrooms!

The flight was short and they fed us yummy coconut cupcakes. Dave took some nice photos from the plane. We arrived in Manta, a fishing town on the coast, at about 6 pm and promptly took a taxi to the bus station. The taxi driver kept telling us that there were no more buses to Puerto Lopez (our destination), but because he was trying to charge us $35 to take us there instead, we were hesitant to believe him. When we got to the bus station, sure enough, we were told that there were no more buses to Puerto Lopez until the next morning. We had decided to simply stay in Manta and take a bus the next day, but we decided to investigate a bit further to be certain that was our only option. One of the bus drivers told me that we could go to Puerto Lopez that night, just indirectly: We could take a bus to a place called Jipijapa (pronounced hippee-HA-pa) and then go on to Puerto Lopez. This would supposedly be a 3 hour bus ride instead of two hours – no big deal.

I, however, was sceptical. The bus that was supposedly going on to Puerto Lopez only said Jipijapa on the window, whereas every other bus we had ever taken always listed all the destinations on the window. Plus, if it was as easy as taking us through one other town, why did everyone else tell us that it was impossible to get to Puerto Lopez until the morning? I asked the driver again, slowly and clearly and in my best Spanish: “Will this bus take us to Puerto Lopez? Tonight? And it will take three hours? Even though it only says Jipijapa in the window?” He basically started laughing at me (in a good-natured way) and told us to get on the bus. So we did. It was HOT, HOT, HOT! Everywhere else in the country has been pretty chilly. Yes, it gets hot in most places for about two or three hours in the middle of the day, then it rains in the afternoon, gets cold at night, and stays that way until the following afternoon. Not here. We had stepped off the plane into a hot, humid, land of tropical joy. But we weren’t dressed for it, and we sat on the bus sweating like pigs. We were the only ones on the bus, except for the driver and the two “officials” who work on the bus.

The driver said the bus would leave around 7 pm. At around 7:40 pm, we left. We thought that the ride to Jipijapa was supposed to cost $1 each, but the driver charged us $3 each. It was supposedly an hour-long bus ride to Jipijapa, but it took us closer to 1.5 hours. The bus stopped on the side of the road in Jipijapa and the "officials" got off. We looked around and realized that we were the only ones left on the bus. I asked the driver what was going on, and he told me to wait and talk to the officials. I asked if we had to change buses to get to Puerto Lopez, and he said yes.

I returned to my seat and Dave and I started freaking out. We became convinced we were never going to get to Puerto Lopez! We saw the officials standing outside chatting to some food vendors on the side of the road and, as the minutes ticked by, we became more and more impatient. Earlier in the day (on our way to the airport) we got ripped off by a cab driver who gave Dave change in the form of a bunch of coins and sped off instantly. When we counted the change, we were about $4 short! Now, probably as a result of this cab incident, we became paranoid and convinced ourselves that we had gotten ripped off again. Because we had to change buses, we figured that there was no way the $3 each we paid could be to Puerto Lopez. We also figured that, given that it was after 9 pm, the likelihood of us getting a bus to Puerto Lopez at this hour was slim. We also had no idea why we were alone on the bus and why we were just sitting there. After we had been sitting in the bus for about 20 minutes and had become sufficiently sweaty and angry, Dave convinced me to go out and talk to the official. So, I went out and asked him if our $3 was good for the entire trip to Puerto Lopez and he assured me it was. I asked him what was going on, and I couldn't understand exactly what he was saying, but the gist was that we had to keep waiting and that I should stop worrying.

I got back on the bus and we waited. We were getting so pissed off - we thought that they were waiting for food from the vendors and that was the reason for the hold up. Then we noticed that all three employees (driver & both officials) we standing out of the road, as though they were waiting for something. We finally realized that they were trying to flag down a bus for us! Sure enough, about an hour later, one of the officials ran onto the bus frantically and told us to grab our bags and go outside. They flagged down a bus coming from Quito, told the official on the new bus to drop us off in Puerto Lopez, and paid our fare to the new official for us!

The whole time, we had assumed the worst, when in actuality, they spent an hour of their own time to help us get to Puerto Lopez! Out of the goodness of their hearts, these guys went out of their way to help us get to Puerto Lopez that night when we never would have been able to get there otherwise. They even took it upon themselves to pay our fare on our behalf (maybe so we wouldn't get ripped off?)! We felt so guilty for thinking such evil thoughts about them when we realized how nice the guys were! On the positive side, our faith in humanity was restored!

When we finally got to Puerto Lopez, it was about 11:30 pm and almost everything was closed. We found about the only open room, a horrible place that reeked of mildew, had several spiders living in it, and had the grossest bathroom I've seen in awhile (I'll spare you the details, but it was disgusting). We had already tried other places with no luck, so we just took it. We were starving and there was a restaurant/bar attached to the place that still had a couple of customers in it. The owner offered to open the kitchen for us if we were hungry, and we happily accepted his offer. The next thing we knew, he was sitting at our table chatting away to us. The guy was very, very nice, spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish, and was a self-professed communist and revolutionary! He was 38 years old, had 8 children ranging in age from 2 months old to 16 years old, and lived in one small room of the hostel with his 3rd wife (24 yrs old), his 16 year old son, a daughter who looked about 4, and the 2 month old baby. There may have been more kids in there for all we knew - those were just the ones we saw. We talked to him about politics (not daring to tell him that we both lived in the US!) and culture and life until 3 am!

Even though I was exhausted when we finally headed to our room, I barely slept in our stinky, spider-infested room from hell. While I was trying to fall asleep, I woke Dave up twice to save us from spiders that were dangerously close to us or our belongings (we were sleeping with the light on, as is protocol when I see spiders in the room). I finally drifted into a horrible, restless sleep...I dreamed spiders attacking me and of the morning when we could check out and find a new hotel!