Culture shock

Only a few days in Ecuador and already I feel as though I have a lifetime of stories to tell. This country is so diverse and constantly surprising and although it may be clichéd to say so, my life is being transformed by the things I have seen. Where to start…

Before I had really even had chance to settle in to life in Quito, I set off on Friday on a trip with the other writers from the paper, a few hours´bus ride away to the northern highlands. We were based in Ibarra, the ´white city´ of this region – which basically means it is a major colonial town with pretty Spanish-stylee white houses.

Ibarra itself is gorgeous and we had a bit of a hike around the city, as well as a couple of nice evenings eating Mexican food and drinking wine in its Café Arte (which was the only place serving alcohol). Sunday was the big election for Ecuadorians and they have this rule over here that the weekend of an election is a ´dry weekend´. I think the logic is that a lot of people spend their weekends getting blind drunk (esp in the villages) and they would then go and vote for some random politican whilst in their inebriated state. As all the politicians seem to be as corrupt as one another, I don´t think it would make much difference either way.

On Saturday we set off early to take the áutoferro´(a curious, colourful open decked bus on rails) to Salinas, an Afro-Ecuadorian town named after its salt mines, which should strictly have taken around two hours but we were sharing the ride with Ecuador´s four ´reinas´-beauty queens – and a film crew, the purpose of which was to raise the profile of the region, but resulted in us stopping, reversing and re-filming things several times over.

Nonetheless, it was a stunningly beautiful journey around the valley of the Rio Chota with its breath-grasping fields of sugar cane and mountainous backdrop. As we tootled along the tracks we were obliged to duck to avoid being beheaded by stray cables hanging down and then plunged into darkness as we travelled underneath a rocky tunnel, after which the train proceeded across a precarious looking bridge with no rails, straddling the deep valley. All a bit of a safety certificate-less fairground ride but muchos fun anyway.

On reaching our destination, Erin and I hopped on another bus to the Oasis hotel and water park, joined by the beauty queens and a band playing the area´s bewitching mixture of salsa and bumba, while Martijn and Hannah went off to interview someone else about something else.

The day then took Erin and I to Huncal, another Afro-Ecuadorian community, where she interviewed people and I attempted to converse with the kids who were mobbing me and we both watched the guys playing football on their gravely pitch. Apparently one third of the country´s professional footballers originate from the village and so despite their poverty most of the young lads dream of fame.

A few erroneous bus rides later and we were on our way towards Mascarilla, a hub of creative activity, where a passing truck carrying half the village´s population picked us up and took us to our destination, giving me a real authentic taste of their lifestyle and the true bohemian dream of travelling South America. We came back down the hill at sundown and saw our surroundings in their full beauty; I can hardly believe all I have seen is real, as it is so far removed from what I know.

Yesterday was equally eye-opening as I went to Otavalo with Hannah and Erin and skimmed the market before hiring bikes and undertaking a strenuous and long ride up the mountain to see the lake and the indigenous communities that surround it. At one point, I became separated from the others and all my false sense of security fell away as I realised I was stranded on a mountain top, without my purse or water, exhausted and unable to communicate. The scenario ended with me waving my arms around dramatically at some indigenous women and attempting some poor schmangle of English, French and Spanish at them to communicate that ´jái perdu mis amigas´– at which point Erin came cycling around the corner (what relief!) and enlightened me that the people I was speaking to hardly spoke Spanish let alone any other European languages.

The only frustration that I have is that I have such limited Spanish and that even when I understand what is being said to me, I cannot reply coherently as yet and I intend to work on this as rapidly as possible to make the most of my time in this beautiful country. I had my first Spanish lesson this morning and moved in with my host family at lunchtime so with that and my guessing-the-word-from-the-French-word technique I am expecting myself to progress in no time!