Yes, if you are hearing from me, it must be Ecuador. This time we are in Quito on yet another search for the perfect place to live. Ecuador is shaping up to be a strong candidate, even though my new glow-in-the-dark, flexible, travel keyboard is not. Oh well, another $3 wasted.
The start of our trip did not start propitiously. We had to get up at 4 am to get to the airport to wait to fly to the next connection to wait to fly to the next connection to wait and then go through customs at 10 at night. But we knew about that; what we didn’t know is when we let the dog out, there would be a skunk waiting to perfume him. He is always perplexed as to why we don’t appreciate his new smell as much as he does.
The minor thing is that we have a new house sitter this time, who had just met our dog, Mendel. Now of course, he would be memorable. The only thing that we could do is sneak out of town, leaving yet another note, apologizing yet again for our dog. We named the dog after one of my mother’s curses (“Mendel, I’m going to give you such a smashing.”), which seems as appropriate now as when he was a puppy.
The other stupidity is one that I have elevated to a saying: “Never have a procedure on your back before taking a trip.” This dictum seems obvious much like my saying, “When in a restaurant that specialized in chicken, order the chicken,” but it is surprising how many people (like Toni) forget this valuable lesson of life and live to rue the day. At any rate, I had a new back procedure to dissolve the scar tissue in my back and was guaranteed to allow me to throw down my crutches and walk again, praise god, whoever she is. Well, I am now able to walk half the distance with twice the pain.
Getting back to Ecuador, of course, there is no perfect place to live. Indeed, each new place we visit adds to the confusion. Mexico’s great but it doesn’t have good Chinese food. Guatemala is great but it doesn’t have good Mexican food. Ecuador is great but it doesn’t have a good hamburger. The more you know, the less you are satisfied.
But so far, Ecuador is looking very good, if a bit wet. It seems that we arrived at the height of the rainy season. But Quito’s cultural offerings are very interesting. We have seen its museums, concerts, exhibitions, botanical garden, architecture, treatment of animals, treatment of people, and general character. So far, we discovered a two week long series of concerts of sacred music (Musica Sacra), played in spectacular churches, convents, and museum spaces. Last night, it was an organ concert, featuring a Spanish organist in the Catedral Metropolitana, one of the many spectacular cathedrals built in the 1500s and 1600s in Quito. Toni took a series of photos of Quito’s Basilica, which I will include with this letter. The program featured Bach, Vivaldi and another composer who in Toni’s opinion had the bad taste of being born in the 19th century in a country that wasn’t Austria, Germany or Italy. Toni is off attending another concert tonight, leaving me to write this postcard.
We went to an ethnographic museum that focused on Indians living in the Amazon, as the headwaters of the Amazon River begin on the east side of the Ecuadorian Andes. Their material culture included brilliantly colored feather headdresses (worn by the men), blow guns for killing the brightly colored birds, shrunken heads of men, monkeys and anteaters, and baskets woven so tightly that they were water proof. The exhibit also included photographs of the massive pollution of the rivers and streams by oil companies, which exercise far less care in a jungle where poor illiterate people live than they do in the 
United States. Since oil exports are one of the biggest parts of the Ecuadorian economy, these companies have far more political power to ignore environmental laws. They also pay higher bribes than government salaries, although this is probably lower than the political contributions they have to pay in the United States. But the net result is the government passes great sounding laws; it just doesn’t enforce them.
Then we visited the national museum with its stunning collections of ceramics, stone statues, and gold, silver and platinum jewelry. It seems that the Indians of Ecuador were master metal workers and were the first people in the world to work platinum. Compared to the Aztecs and Mayans, the various indigenous people of Ecuador seemed to have been less bloodthirsty. The motif of ripping out the beating hearts of their victims as offerings to the gods, much less the self-perforation of their most sensitive organs (lips, ears, penises) with spines and obsidian needles, doesn’t appear as prevalently here as it does in Mexico and Guatemala. I am sure that they did sacrifice people, but it doesn’t seem to be on the assembly line basis as it was with the Aztecs.
The Incas who arrived in Ecuador only 100 years before the Spanish did sacrifice young girls on the tops of the highest peaks of the Andes, but that method certainly lacks the drama of ripping living hearts from the chest of captured warriors and bouncing their bodies down the steep steps of pyramids. Spanish priests reported that the Aztecs sacrificed 20,000 people on a single day, but you know priests, always exaggerating. It probably wasn’t any more than 5,000, as there was no way to preserve the meat, much less make all that salsa.
While it is doubtful that there is a direct correlation to pre-Columbian culture and their culture today, it does seem to be reflected in the national character of Ecuador and those of Mexico and Guatemala. In Mexico in particular, there was always a sense of anger and rage below the surface, as if an explosion of violence was always just below the surface. So far, we haven’t sensed that rage in the Ecuadorian people. Nor have we seen the beggars and starving Indian families living on the street as is common in Mexico.
Many Mexican intellectuals attributed the suppressed violence and rage of the Mexican people to the long centuries of exploitation, inequality and just downright violence perpetrated by the rich and the church on the poor. Of course, most Mexican intellectuals come from rich families, so guilt plays a large part in their thinking. However, I think that pre-Hispanic religions also play a considerable role as well.
But whatever the reason, we are enjoying the more relaxed vibe of the Ecuadoreños. Tomorrow we are off to visit Otavalo, a major weaving and folk art center, so we will be able to see another aspect of Ecuador. The prevalence and diversity of folk art is an important criteria for us. Indeed, one of the problems that we had in Guatemala was that a number of their traditions had been lost. While we saw great collections of ceramics, masks, and wood carving, the Guatemalans were not producing them anymore. Instead of wonderful hand-thrown bowls, you found only bowls from China in the open-air markets. There were plastic Superman, Mickey Mouse, George Bush and other Halloween masks. Guatemalan weavings are still great.
We also went to a number of exhibits of contemporary photography and painting here in Quito, which were actually very good. We had worried that a small country like Ecuador won’t have many good modern artists, which is one of the problems that we saw in both Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Of course, the biggest downside of Ecuador so far is the dominance of the Catholic Church, as reflected in fact that there seems to be a church, cathedral or convent on every block, at least in the historic center of the city. Ecuador is described as being a very conservative and very Catholic country, with Quito being the most infected with priest and nuns. This makes for great religious processions, like the ones that we are planning to see during Holy Week, but I don’t know how oppressive it would be living here. In Mexico, none of that bothered us, as the art community was already condemned to hell and left alone. We have no idea if that is also true in Ecuador or if we will be able to find a similar art community.
Well, I will write more after we get back from Otavalo. It is 60 miles away from Quito on the Pan American Highway, but takes two and a half hours to get there by car. All of which means that we are in for a bumpy ride.
