Ecuadorian culture seems obsessed with the dead. There’s Dia De Los Muertes, a separate holiday. New Year’s, which is being celebrated outside as I write this, is all about burning dolls dressed as people in huge bondfires. The idea is you are burning the unpleasant things that happened to you in 2007. Below is a pic of one such doll, though instead of it being rugged and on a street corner or on a car bumper (both typical places), it’s nicely dressed with a mask, sitting in a chair in a restaurant.
Spanglish
Why oh why does this sign in Mindo start with English and end with Spanish?
Mindo, Ecuador
Assorted, unorganized musings
Mindo is 2.5 hours by bus from Quito. My brother and I went there for a two-day, one-night trip. Mindo is known for their cloud forests, butterfly population, waterfalls, and birdwatching (#1 birdwatching place in the world).
The bus ride was better than I expected — third world buses are always hit or miss. This bus was far better than the one I took from Shanghai to Suzhou; about equal to the one from Beijing airport to downtown Beijing.
Mindo itself is a quant lil’ town serving mostly tourists. Wild dogs roam the streets more than they do in Quito. Not nearly as much as in India, but enough to make you a bit uneasy. My brother and I referred to them as "rabies".
We found a hostel ($8/night/person) run by "Norma" — she amazingly spoke English, which was a surprise, and nicely outlined what there is to do. Her husband is an expert birdwatcher. By western standards, of course, the hostel was a piece of shit — little hot water, word floors that creaked all night, etc etc. But nothing beats next-to-nothing prices, a homemade desayuno the next morning, and a husband-and-wife team who talk to you in Spanish.
That afternoon, against the advice of Norma, we trekked out to the waterfalls. It was about 2 hours of hiking — mostly on a muddy road, then down into the forest / jungle area. Mindo had received rain for the past few days so we were sure it was going to pour at any moment. Luckily, it didn’t. The hike was grueling at times — sloshing through mud, climbing down rickety stairs, crossing three-board-wide bridges over fast-flowing rivers. We finally reached the waterfall area. Lots of people swimming around in the water and jumping off the cliff into the water.
We only rested there for 20 minutes or so before turning around and headed home. Rain seemed imminent and we weren’t well prepared to deal with it, so we hedged our bets and got an early start. The views during our hike to and from waterfalls were incredible — endless forest and brush.
Mindo is called "cloudforest" because the clouds hug the tops of the trees. Its elevation is lower than Quito but higher than the Amazon, so it creates an interesting atmospheric dynamic.
After dinner I read in the awesome hammocks on the deck outside our room — looking out into the forest and the small town below. Peoplewatching is always fun as well.
The following morning — after another disastrous night of sleep — we checked out the butterfly collection. Nice. Then back to town for lunch and the bus back to Quito.
Every interaction is an opportunity to deploy our Spanish language skills. We did so with varying success. Often, we’d remember a better phrase (or any phrase at all) after the fact. Either way, I know I’m very close to being fluent — if I spent 6-12 months immersed in the country, I’d experience quantum leaps in improvement. Hopefully.
Descriptions That Don’t Quite Work
It’s hard to physically describe someone in a way that’s vivid and interesting. Tired descriptions like "Tall, well-built, and blond hair" do nothing for the reader. Stephen King, in his essential guide On Writing, advises writers to pick a single distinctive physical trait, preferably one that in some way illuminates the character’s personality or message.
I always enjoy seeing how writers describe their subject and whether they listen to King. Atul Gawande, in his otherwise excellent article on how ICU doctors use checklists to reduce infections, describes one of his characters thusly:
Forty-two years old, with cropped light-brown hair, tenth-grader looks, and a fluttering, finchlike energy, he is an odd mixture of the nerdy and the messianic.
This doesn’t generate any kind of image in my mind. What are tenth-grader looks? What exactly is "fluttering, finchlike energy"? And when I try to call to mind a mix of nerdy and messianic, I come up blank. For me, the one sentence devoted to physically describing the guy fails to do the job.
By contrast, here’s Nick Paumgarten describing Eliot Spitzer:
Spitzer, who is forty-eight, has a prominent nose, chin, and forehead, a hard jawline, and deep-set eyes whose intensity can give the extremely mistaken impression that he wears eyeliner. When he smiles or gets angry, his jaw juts out, underbitishly. The vigor in his features and in his manner, and his lean frame, tend to inspire descriptions of a man tilting into the wind.
This does more for me. The eyeliner image is effective.
One of my favorite descriptions — I have many — is this David Foster Wallace line:
A slim calm kindly lady of maybe 45 who wears dark tights, pointy boots, a black sweater that looks home-crocheted and a perpetual look of concerned puzzlement, as if life were one long request for clarification.
Any favorites of yours?
Day 1, Quito, Ecuador
Random musings from day 1:
- The popular route to Quito from the US is via Houston. Houston is really halfway to South America. SO much Spanish speaking.
- Quito is a nice city — various signs of third worldness, but also some surpringsly cleaned up and laid back sections. Not nearly as loud or dirty as Indian or Chinese cities.
- Spanish – accent neutral – wonderful.
- Almuerzo – you order almuerzo and they give you the special of the day. No menu.
- Ecuador uses US Dollars as currency. This makes it so much easier to buy stuff. You know exactly how much you’re paying.
- Living – my brother has an apartment here (he teaches English) and living in an apt in foreign city is much different than hostel /hotelling it. Obvious, I know, but it really is different, and I like it.
- Indigenous women are interesting. Much darker skin, wear distinctive hats.
- Quito as a city is really LONG. North/south. The Andes border the city on either side.