Or, Shop till you Drop... Pack till you Tip the Scales
On Black Friday, while hordes of shoppers in the U.S. were doing
the Bargain Brawl, our little gang of ten was doing the less traumatic Hemisphere
Straddle at the Center of the Earth, a.k.a., the Equator.
We got there early and for most of the morning it was just a
handful of other tourists, a gazillion elementary school kids on field trip, and
us.
My favorite display at the Equator complex is a scale model
of colonial Quito as it looked early last century. But it may have been the interactive insect
house that provided the most adrenalin - thanks to Tiffany and Patrick, who
posed for pictures while holding live rhinoceros beetles and a tarantula. After the requisite photos of people with one
foot in the Southern and the other in the Northern Hemisphere, we got back on
our bus and Byron pointed us toward Otavalo.
Pictures never do justice to the scenery of the northern
road. We stopped along the way for
bizcochos and manjar (hard, flaky biscuits with milk caramel). And then we stopped to just soak in the beauty.
The ethereal moment was punctuated by the artist/animal
herder who had set up his wares outside the competing tourist shop. He wanted to know if we'd like to pet an
alpaca and a llama. I said sure - and
before I could say thanks, our entrepreneurial friend had dashed down the hill
to fetch his animals.
Juanita Llama and Paco Alpaca were obviously used to being
petted and ahhhed over by strangers. They
posed with us for pictures. It wasn't long, though, before his handler noticed
the barbed wire that had somehow gotten wrapped around Paco's body and embedded
in his fur.
Have you ever turned an alpaca on its back? They don't like it. Still, Paco's herder tackled the job and
Patrick gave a hand, earning himself the instantly-invented title of Alpaca
Wrangler. Now to convince him that wrangling alpacas is not likely to be listed
on the U.S. rodeo circuit...
Once in Otavalo, we checked into the Hotel Indio Inn and I
went to ask the front desk for dinner recommendations. I explained my goal of making sure that my
family got to try as many regional foods as possible. The hotel staff offered
to prepare a special meal just for us: locro de papa (potato soup), seco de
chivo (goat meat in sauce) with rice, potatoes and veggies, and a dessert of
stewed babaco (a fruit related to the papaya.) Add the charm of their private dining room and
it was more than a meal: it was an Event.
Saturday morning dawned bright and early. In Otavalo, that means market time!
Tiffany, Blake, Mandy, the granddaughters, and I all took
off for the market together. Patrick,
Carol Ann and Adrian made up a second group. Travis joined us later.
Before hitting the market, I gave the group a quick lesson
on the art of bargaining. The doubtful
look, the slight turning away of the body, the reluctance to reach for one's
wallet... it's a finely tuned game played mostly with body language. Once bargaining got serious, I would step in
to interpret.
At least, that was the plan. As it turned out, the 14-year-old was a master at the game, a veritable negotiating
force of nature. The adults all did
pretty well without much help from me and the 10-year-old was too enamored of
the dolls and toy alpacas to care about bargains and body language.
By the end of the morning, bundles of souvenirs were carted
back to the hotel and we left Otavalo having contributed nicely to the local
economy. Once back in Quito, we unloaded
our bags and Byron left to pick up his wife.
It was our last night together: on Sunday morning, half of
our group would return to the U.S. Those
of us who were left would no longer need the bus, so we invited our always
cheerful driver to bring his wife and share one last dinner with the gang.
It was also time to figure out just how to pack all of the
purchases made. Since I wasn't leaving
until Tuesday, I spent some time consolidating my belongings. Any spare room (after
calculating space for groceries yet to be bought), could be used by others in
my party for their overflow
That night, Byron took us to see Quito at night. The churches and colonial-era buildings were
lit up and beautiful. I had been looking forward to taking everyone to La
Ronda, one of the earliest streets in Quito; it's the place to be on Saturday nights,
enjoying street performers and live bands and canelazos, that delicious hot cinnamon drink with a kick. La Ronda was
to be the exclamation point, the grand finale to our Grand Adventure.
But La Ronda was too crowded. Quito Day festivities were
kicking off that night and parking was nowhere to be found. So Byron drove us to a buffet, instead. We ate
our fill and the conversation inevitably turned to "do you remember" and our time came quietly to a close.
Sunday morning early, the first group left; Monday, the rest followed suit. Once they were out of sight, I walked out of the airport to the taxi
stand and hailed a cab.
"Where to?" the unsuspecting driver asked. "Well,"
I said, "It's my sister's house and I don't remember the number, but it's on
the Vía Occidental, uphill from the mall, but downhill from the apartments, and
there's a black gate and a chain link fence and after that..."
The Grand Adventure was over. Now, it was just me, in my
hometown, visiting my sister and giving directions the best way I know how.
The next afternoon, I settled into my seat on the airplane
for my own return flight. The airline staff had kindly ignored the weight of my overstuffed luggage and I was enjoying the banter of the group of men seated near me.
Once
airborne, the flight attendant came by with drinks. He seemed to know the men and made a game out of matching faces to
drinks. "You have a coke-fiend face," he joked with the man on the aisle,
handing him a Coca-Cola. I thought of how satisfying that family trip had been and how comfortable it is to travel with those
who understand you well.
"What would you like, ma'am?" the flight attendant
asked me.
The words popped out, bypassing my brain: "I don't
know... what kind of face do I have?"
With a smile, the attendant reached into his cart - then handed
me not one, but two, tiny bottles of vodka. And just like that, the Grand Adventure got its Exclamation Point.
