Last day in Quito, reflections and Sandy's art

A colorful example of Sandra's work. The camera can never capture the feeling and depth of these paintings.

My time is almost up. While this computer's batteries have sufficient charge I will leave some last impressions of Quito. Its been good here. Sandy's house is very much a home and I have been welcomed into it. That is very Latin, sharing with people and including them in your life. Without that its just a travelogue. Ive met a lot of people, Sandra's relations, friends. I have forgotten most names but not the warmth and eagerness to welcome and help.

My favorite of Sandra's paintings. It reminds me of Van Goegh's wheat/olive tree fields.

As a bonus I've gotten to know a very good artist. Seeing her work on the walls throughout the house everyday has reinforced my positive impression of her work. Very personal stuff, totally personal. That's what gives it its worth. The technique? Makes me feel like that dog watching the clock, I am looking at it but I don't have a clue how its done. The take away from this is, do your own thing...whatever it is. Copying style and technique is a short ride down a one way street, sterile and cold. So I will make my own art in Cuenca.

This might be my second favorite work by Sandra, of what I've seen. There is so much going on, a different palate too.

For the past few days on the internet and on the phone I have lined up places to investigate in Cuenca. On Monday I meet a realtor to look at apartments. This is what has drawn so many old gringos to Cuenca and Ecuador, the cost of real estate. I am only renting for a month but the prices reflect the underlying costs of property. Lots to choose from too. I will try to be within walking distance of the parks and gringo haunts and buildings of artistic interest. So long for now Quito.

Navidad in Quito and gone New Years

Nochebuena is the night before Navidad, which is Christmas day. At Sandra's house I spent Nochebuena with Eugen and his wife Ximena, Sandra and daughter's Nichol and Lauren, boyfriends who's names escape me (I should keep notes). There was an amazing meal prepared by both Coli (Nicole) and her mom. Pavo which is turkey, soaked in Coke (the stuff in a bottle) before cooking. I was shocked seeing a liter of Coca Cola being poured over a turkey. But it worked, At dinner the meat just fell off the bones. It tasted great too. Another example of the effect of that product from Atlanta on mortal flesh. I have been fortunate in Ecuador and at Sandra's house that people speak Spanish 90% of the time. That's the way I learn. So I was following the conversation to some degree, asking a question now and then. Very educational. On Christmas day we went to Sandy's mom's house and I met more people. Navidad had great weather, sunny and warmer.I met more new people. Had an interesting conversation with Sandra's sister's guy. He told me I should check out Mendo, in the jungle to the west, toward Esmaralda. He said the gringos are flocking there for eco tours. There is huge diversity of bugs and humming birds I guess. Its on my list. The young people roll their eyes and say, you will be soooo bored. its hard to get an idea without visiting it myself...so I will. Starting with Cuenca. I just bought the ticket so Friday morning at nine I will be on one of the jets that roar over Quito several dozen times a day. The new year will dawn with me on leg two of this exploration of Ecuador. So far so good.

A trip to the north of Quito

This little piggy got too close to the horno (oven). He was hanging out on main street across from my hotel

Friday I took a bus from Quito to Otavalo. My first long bus ride, an hour and a half, into the countryside. We traveled with Sylvester Stallone in the form of a couple of movies playing on a screen at the front of the bus. Some kind of multimedia having Mister macho wrecking police cars on a highway at the same time our bus lurched along hundreds of feet above steep ravines. He arrived and we arrived so it was ok.

Chickens in the Saturday market in Otavalo piled high in one of the hundreds of stalls, yum!

Saturday I awoke in Otavalo to the sound of stalls being built in the main square and in the streets. Saturday is the big market day for the whole province (Imbabura). A friend from the expat forum on the internet met me that morning and introduced me to many of the merchants. For twenty years she had run a restaurant in the town and she knew lots people. She also spoke Quitchua, the inca language spoken by most indians in Ecuador.

A couple of spices and in volume, I was told what they were but it escapes me, no plastic packaging here!

Sunday I left Otavalo for Cotacachi. There I investigated apartments and a house. Unfortunately my ATM cards would not work in the only two machines in town....so I couldn't grab any of rentals I saw. Monday afternoon I took the bus back to Quito. If I am able to get money in Quito I'll return to Cotacachi. I think I'll finish the winter there. I can always continue exploring after I get the residence status, that hopefully, before March. A different environment in Otavalo and Cotacachi vs Quito, much more to my liking.

The Otavalo market has a wide variety but two major catagories are Food and Fabric, this is fabric in the raw



Getting to know Quito

An equestrian statue just south of Parque Caroline, An example of the heavy jet traffic over the city, Chantal shows Sandy the technique of Tie Die and a cross on the west side of Parque Caroline

On the days since the last of these entries I have gotten to know more of the city. I better understand some of the bus routes. The streets around several destinations are in my spatial memory now. The medical missions undertaken since I arrived two weeks ago have driven some of this exploration. The Diagnostic Center is on a street called Maria Jesus. Its not too far from my Ecuadorian Cardiac doctor on the third floor of the San Francisco building. Here, of course, San Francisco is a saint not a city by the bay or a song by the chairman of the bored. I have wondered two of the malls. The one within walking distance, El Bosque. Another on this end of Parque Caroline, QueCentro. I am not a shopper but it is interesting to compare prices. The crowds are at maximum with Navidad (Christmas to you gringos) less than a week away.I even managed to stumble into one of the very few electronic parts stores in the country. Its not far from the statue in the photo. Between it and Radio Shack (I've found two of them) there will be some support for my electronic hobby here.

The medical thing went well. Turns out I have no heart. The symptoms have all been gas. I should have gone with the lay opinions flung at me over the years, they were right after all.

A couple more observations on this early research into medical practice in Ecuador. The Echo Cardiogram I obtained for $75 is mine. It was given to me as a paper report and on CDROM for my stateside doctor. I took it to Doctor Gaibor, he studied it and recommended I stay on the drug regime prescribed for me in the States. I saw him during his "Office Hours". You young people (under 50) will not remember Office Hours. They have not existed in the USA for a long time. You show up during a three hour window in the afternoon and the doctor sees patients in the order they arrive. The cost for this medical nostalgia was $20. I repeat this is not mud hut stuff (I need to fight the brain washing of decades in USA readers). These are competent people with equipment from Germany and Asia (surprise, this is where it comes from now). The difference is that medicine here is not a highly profitable business operated by insurance companies who have bought the government. I repeat, using the health of the public as a tool for profit is fundamentally immoral. It may take several generations for this to sink in. Meanwhile enjoy your $400 Echo Cardiograms, mine was $75 and just as good. Rant over.

This is not for everyone

This isn't for everyone. Remember Frodo's
attachment to his house? Attached as he
was he still managed to rise to circumstance
for the adventure that awaited him. Well,
it was a story. In this world people are
divided into those who hold tightly to
the certainties they have struggled to
attain and those, at the other extreme, who
like Frodo, turn away from the familiar and
walk into the unknown.

All things imagined and beyond imagining
lay shrouded in the mists of the unknown.
The most compelling and the most horrible
side by side in darkness...until we arrive
and encounter them. Then they become resolved
and illuminated and we navigate around or
toward them. That challenge beccens some.
Others will descend into a funk if the least
of the objects in their home is moved from
its ordained place.

I guess I am with the wondering group. I like
learning everyday a little more of the language
and culture. But even so I'm judged a conservative
on the gringo trail. The young travelers seem to
charge into the unknown. Nature's design I guess.
Otherwise nothing new would be discovered. We old
people do tend to reinvent the wheel. We are
reassured by its round regularity and predictable
rotation. The new is not for everyone.

A friend researching this idea of moving and
Embracing change was taken aback by references
to earthquakes and spiders the size of dinner
plates and razor wire on walls. If you change
the spiders to active volcanos you would be
describing a couple of Ecuador's wonders. To
be fair to the country, there may be spiders
in the east, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, at least
the size of cup saucers . Plenty big enough for
my imagination.

Yes I told her, there is all this and more.
She was looking at Central America but its also
true for Ecuador. But these things are not what
drives gringos away. What ends the quest for so
many is the different mindset of the people here.
Things like time, distance and direction for
example are often vague concepts in these cultures.
This is relative to the North American's mind.
There are fewer absolutes. Northerners who thought
they wanted a slower pace discover they can't
stand one. The silence they've achieved for the
first time in their lives Screams at them louder
than the city traffic they left behind. Mix in the
variations in individual personality and one size
does not fit all. Fortunately, Ecuador is one of
the most diverse countries in the world. somewhere
there is a climate, topology and society for me.
I have started my search here between volcanos
high up in the mountains of Ecuador.

A walk to the Bosque Mall

"el Bosque" is a park and a mall about 15 minutes by old feet from
where I live. It is up hill but not bad, not as bad as coming up to
the house from nearer the center of the valley.Sitting in the food
court in the mall I nursed a cola and drew pictures of the scene. The
view is amazing. It looks down on the airport's runway far below the
horizon. Beyond the runway a complex mosaic of little tiny colored
tile, thousands and thousands of them carpeting the eastern slopes of
the valley. These are houses and apartment buildings, businesses and
shops. Within each of those little tile are smaller dark rectangles,
windows. Unique view. I doubt there is anywhere else on earth like
it. Did I mention the Volcanoes? No, can't see them, the clouds are
hiding them. The clouds are fantastic. Massive floating sculpture
which drifts and changes moment to moment. Their shadows are cast on
the mosaic of the eastern slope of the valley of Pinchincha, the Inca
city which Quito grew from. Its terrible to be inspired by these
scenes to do paintings when every ounce packed is a millstone when
the time comes to fly out. Solution, don't fly out, stay.

First Solo into Gringolandia

The photos (cheap cam) are, Basilica del Vote Nacional, Sandy being cute and Statue of Simon Bolivar near Banco Central

My first day out solo. Took the training wheels off to visit the lawyer and a cardio doctor. Rode various busses. Next time I will spend the money and take a taxi. Not because of security although that's an ever present thought.  More because of the hills and the wear and tear of walking twenty blocks a day. Plus, after six days I doubt I am fully adapted to the thin air. The lawyer got the $350 needed to launch the visa application. That process will take a while but I believe it is in good hands. Residence status is the goal, then I can find my quieter spot and root a little.

The cardio doctor gave me an EKG and recommended a local diag center for an echo cardiogram. I will be setting that up soon. Today's visit was $40, the cost of a few Q tips on a stateside bill. Don't know what the echo diag will be, much less than stateside I expect.

I saw the statue of Bolivar near the Banco Central late afternoon. The advise to take a jacket is sound. The air cools in the late pm in a predictable way. There were rain showers as I left the last bus. They thankfully ended as I started up the hill to the house. This hill, part of the volcano's skirt I believe, would do credit to San Francisco's topology. It's no trek for an old guy was today's message.

Sunday with Sandy in the city

Sunday was another day out in Quito exploring. Sandy took me round to the city center, showed me the bus system and introduced me to a couple of malls. Chantal, the student from California, came with us. She met up with friends in a park we landed in. Lots of people out in the parks, malls and streets. It is sort of a holiday weekend. Monday is Quito's birthday?, not quiet sure, but a celebration of the city. This will lead into the pre Christmas party. I expect that like Madrid it will be horns and firecrackers all the way to January.

First impressions. The mix of racial types. Not just Indian and Spanish but the black people of Ecuador. I didn't realize the country had any Africans. The black Ecuadorians are taller generally, the Indians shorter and the Spanish in the middle. I am taller than most Ecuadorians so I can get a good view in a crowd. We were in plenty of crowds on Sunday. Saw a few tourists too, we stand out. Dress, size and body language. Also, the natives don't look up every time a jet passes overhead. Quito, most of the city, is on the glide path for the airport. A 737 passes over the center of the town, old Quito, about ever 20 minutes. I look up, most people don't, the jets are fairly loud. But when you have a range of mountains studded with volcanos on either side, down the middle is where you must fly.

The malls. Sandy (to the right in the photo) took me to two malls. I've forgotten the names. Found an outlet strip and an extension cord for my room. I have the usual number of electronic gadgets and the house has old wiring and a limited number of outlets. The prices for this type of stuff was very low! Shockingly low for electrical items. USA or less. It would not have been worth it, bringing a power strip that can be had here for $3. In the food court I had a burger and Sandy ate fries with Mayo. Prices for the various food outlets ringing the court were high. These malls are more like USA theme parks and the prices reflect this. The food is not local (what I noticed), it is exotic and thus expensive. It was an indulgence after trudging several miles.

Monday is for resting while the locals party. Tuesday I visit the lawyer in the late morning and get the visa process going. In the afternoon I visit a cardio doctor, my first contact with medicine in Ecuador. Sandy is suggesting the town of Cotacachi for a first expedition away from the capitol. Two hours by bus. The idea of being close to the city yet living in the quiet countryside is appealing. We shall see.

The overall impression is just what I had expected. The details and flavors I could not have anticipated are being filled in for me as I go about the city. This is just one little rincon (corner) of Ecuador. Lots more to see.

In Ecuador at last

At last I have arrived in Ecuador. In Quito to be specific, just south of the airport. The flight down was as expected. The security wasn't bad but for the fact I had three legs to the trip. But, I got here so...alls well that ends well. No flight missed, no baggage lost. Just paid $50 for one overweight suitcase, my fault. I couldn't believe I was so strong so I guessed (wrong) that it wasn't heavy. It became heavier. Lugging it into this house I think it was up to 300 lb.

The house is Sandra's. She is an Ecuadorian painter. Third generation European emigrant. Excellent English, lived in the states for many years. Its a big house so she takes in foreign visitors, students and tourist/visa hunters like me. Living out of hotels for three months is just not on. It would be expensive and not at all secure. I doubt the inexpensive hotel rooms would have space for the tons of stuff I've brought. So its a family situation. Her daughter, twenty something, lives here as well as a student from California. Spanish is the language 75% of the time. Friday night after dinner we had fun doing the newspaper crossword in Spanish. Not as difficult as you might think...the subjects are often USA movie stars. A good exercise. Sandy is long used to people needing the exercise of conversation in Spanish and corrects pronunciation with patience.

The altitude, which I thought might be a problem, hasn't been. I am encouraged now and then to breath deeply but beyond that I haven't noticed much. Walking to a mall on the slopes of the western volcano on Friday stressed me a little but I rested and that was no problem. Looked at the prices in the stores. Hit the ATM. Sandy was with me and we sat and drank coffee while looking down on the airport. Quito is like a curled ribbon running north and south. Walking east or west from the center of the ribbon is walking up hill.

I am giving myself a good rest today, Saturday. Monday is a holiday so I might go out and walk around some. Tuesday I see a lawyer and cardiologist. Investigating the medical possibilities here is a major goal for me. This first doctor visit with EKG will be $40. The lawyer I see tuesday specializes in the visa process. I want to get residence status for stays longer than three months a year. That way I can find my oun little corner of the country and settle in.

Day two, lots of time. More later.

Leaving on a Jet Plane (don't know when I'll be back again)

What seemed to take forever is here. Just a day and a half until I lift off from Portland. Now at the last minute I am still thinking of things to do. Getting Mom and my sister ready for the winter is part of the prep. Getting myself kitted out for three months in a new culture is the rest. staying here, for you who are, is in a sense moving into a new place, the winter...lots to do prepairing for that cold country. I'll not be back til March, at the earliest, so Thanksgiving Day I put snow tires on the truck . Today I added 360 pounds of frozen traction sand over the rear axil. Thats what I want in the back when I head north from Portland in March. If I return in the summer no problem. For these trips I leave the truck at my daughter's house in Portland and getting up the hill from her back yard is a challenge.

Trying to anticipate what I might want down below the equator is difficult. Sandy (my host in Quito) says, "if you want it: bring it because here its unavailable or expensive" (caro). But there isn't room for everything. There is now a charge for EACH checked bag. Last year the first was free. I read in the NYT a few days ago that the airlines made $1.5 Billion ( Fifteen hundred million $) last year from baggage charges...As Homer Simpson would say, "Duh, do you think they will ever go back to free?", not in any universe I'll be inhabiting. Between the airlines and TSA !...don't get me started.

Hmmmmm think sheepish thoughts, Hmmmmm. I am Just getting ready for the screening. They look for angry people. Today's model citizen will be sheepish no matter how they're treated. As James Cagney famously said, "When you're slapped you'll take it and like it!" Anyway, I'll be there soon, and with red cheek.

Next post, the visa process. A game unto itself wherein "Jubilado" in Spanish is "retiree" or "Pensioner". The Pensioner visa will let me go back and forth as I wish...allowing me to maximize my interaction with the crazy wonderful TSA and their lovable friends, the airlines.

saludos (health)

Big feet in the fall

The fall is firmly established on this part of the Maine coast. About half the leaves are on the ground. The colors this year were OK but not spectacular. That seems to require luck, the wind, the sunshine, in those critical weeks of change. A noreaster removed lots of leaves from the trees last week. I got out a couple of times with the camera to document whats left.

My friend in Quito, the woman I will be renting from, is seeing the dentist today. I am trying to give spiritual support from 3500 miles away. When it comes to dental pain I can commisurate. Speaking of Dentistry and Ecuador. I have decided to cancel my $130 teeth cleaning scheduled for next month and doing it in Ecuador for $30. To save money and checkout the practice of that black art south of the equator. In the forums and blogs out of EC I've noticed only good reports about those who work in the mouths of others.

The days dwindle down to a precious few as Kurt Weil put it in 1939. About five and a half weeks until I am winging thru the hostile skies toward Quito. Still a bit of time for ordering new glasses and maybe sneakers. Time for guessing at what clothing will accomadate the several climates I might visit this winter. Light and heavy jacket, poncho, layers. I might get leather sandles down there. I need custom, having feet 17 wide. Thats fifty something European. I might leave the leather guy a plaster cast. Their jaws tend to drop on seeing my feet. After I'm gone they're sure it was just imagination. Pies muy GRANDE!! (very big feet) Yet at the convention of big feet, I can barely get accreditation and have to sit way in the back. Size seventeen is not considered much by some. Barely enough to get your foot in the door.

You can't go out and play till you finish your BLOG!!

I don't think I should have a blog. I started this one and I was hot to do it and I produced copy and graphics for a week....then lost interest. Its not like there is much happening. The clock counts down the days till I cram myself into an aircraft (three in a row actually) and speed thru the sky to America de Sur. Less than two months. So there isn't much to report. Trying to keep this on the subject declared at the beginning is tough. I gave myself permission in advance to drift off subject. Still, I try not to.

Today I thought about a large suitcase I need to buy. One with wheels. The one I got for the return from Madrid last year has one last trip in it....to the dump. It was cheap to begin with and the hop across the Atlantic March first pretty much sucked the remaining life out of it. So I will take it to the bolsa (baggage) Valhalla and bid it farewell. Then I will be at wallymart with a tape measure picking out another one. I think the dimensions for these things have changed often enough that the manufacturers haven't kept up. I don't want to risk being an inch over. I suspect that lots of people just eat the $50 here and $100 there oversize fee for an extra inch or an extra bag but my jaw would lock up. The airlines are sticking it Mr. Passenger enough as it is. I want to travel for what I paid. They can keep their F**king peanuts.

Walk south but carry a big stick?

Since I centered my attention on Ecuador I have participated in an expat blog (http://www.expatexchange.com/). Its regulars are expats of long standing in Ecuador. It gets lots of traffic from people about to go there or thinking about it. I was one of the latter but now I've bought the tickets ($724, Maine to Quito R/T) so it's serious. The forum is a skewed sample as just about all samples are. The most popular theme seems to be fear. Close behind that is money, then climate.

So the forum tends to fear (of crime), Money (cost of living) and climate (personal taste). If you don't factor in this "skew", this bias (overwhelmingly fear) you will get a inaccurate picture. Every view is subjective. So every answer and question is as well. Objective truth (surprise!) is not to be found. Everyone has an angle, contrived or innate. Sometimes it's commercial, nothing wrong with that. Usually it's to shore up a personal world view. The world (Ecuador) is out to get me or the world loves me. You can prove either view (to yourself anyway). But anyone bearing "Truth" somehow needs to convince others (like the truth can't stand alone?). The ones who think the world is out to get them show up briefly, feeling exposed maybe?. Those who are living this dream or those wanting to stay around.

The regulars will tell stories collected over the years of bad things that happened to tourists and other foreigners. They relate personal experience, crimes that were committed against them. Some strive to educate the new wannabe expat with these stories. Others argue that in their decades of experience they have never been afraid. Proponents of both these views advise caution and common sense. Paradise is apparently not to be found on Earth, in either hemisphere.

A statistical analysis (dubious because of data quality) seems to suggest that on average you will be just as safe in Ecuador as in the USA. "on average" covers a huge area.... big city or rural area?, do you fit in or stand out?, have you street savvy or are you clueless? In Maine the tourists are culturally clueless and to them I don't stand out. To the Mainers I am clearly from "away". In Ecuador I will be as inconspicuous as an elephant in a flea circus. So I will need to ramp up my situational awareness and work at reading the people around me. I think these skills have atrophied over the years. And then there is good luck. For that I'm thinking of a good luck charm. A walking stick maybe, with a really hard handle and a lanyard. Think of a traveling Buddhist monk or Little John, peaceable but ready. We shall see.

Fear and Crime, Here and There

The recent labor unrest in Ecuador seems to have excited a lot of the fear Gringos have of crime. Not all gringos but many vocal ones. A strike by police wanting to keep their perks is worried into a revolution. I would say this bidding up of events was because US citizens have such a tranquil existence...but it's not true. Plenty of the run of the mill human emotion spills over and onto the street here. Why should it seem more extreme when it happens elsewhere. Does it reinforce the perception that the world hates us?

Anyway, the president of Ecuador will survive this and the Ecuadorian government will deal with the law that prompted it. One government ratchets up the benefits given to its political base and the next government, unable to pay these perks, attempts to reduce them. Same situation was happening that week in Europe. Strikes over new labor laws in Spain.



Its Fall and what TECH to take

It is fall. It's the first day of fall 2010. Arguably the best season in New England. There are many warm days before we relinquish the land to winter. The air is dry and crisp, perfect for working out doors. Splitting and stacking fire wood and waving at passing tourists. The great buses full of what we call "Leaf Peepers" are on the highways. The "colors" sweep down from north and the leaves drop. The Peepers are driven up from the south. I encourage them to take the leaves when they go. Only a few do and those don't take enough. We still have too many to rake up. 


It was a fantastic summer by all accounts.  The summer of 2009 was awful. It was damp and sunless and gardens suffered. The dampness brought a blight that infected potatoes and tomatoes. The same scourge that sent the Irish across the sea a hundred and sixty years ago. At the end of that year I crossed the sea as well, to Madrid. I thought Madrid's winter would be mild. I understood from the web that it would be winter but tolerable. Just reaching the mid 30's at night then warming to 65F during the day. Sunny and dry. It wasn't like that. It was the wettest, coldest winter Madrid had seen in 50 years. All of Europe set records for winter's discomfort. The train that passed under the English Channel froze up and didn't run. Airplanes sat on tarmac aprons and didn't fly. I decided this winter would be different, for me anyway.


I am taking a lot of technology with me to Ecuador. A laptop computer, a page scanner, camera, MP3 player, Ebook, batteries and a charger. I could go cold turkey for three months. I don't know what I would gain by doing that. Less crap to haul thru airports and streets? Would my character improve? I'd find plenty to do. But I wouldn't listen to Spanish language broadcasts and lessons on internet radio. I wouldn't be able to listen to all the old BBC comedies I like. The great novels I want to write wouldn't be typed. This blog and others would have to wait for my visit to an internet cafe. There are substitutes for all this. The camera and scanner I'd take to support the web page(s), scanning drawings of things real and things imagined. Photos of Ecuador and the people I meet. There are programs on the laptop to let me manipulate the images and scanned drawings. I'll limit the stuff I do take. I'll not take anything I can't afford to have grow legs and walk off. If everything did suddenly disappear I could be content with a pad of paper and a couple of pens. With that I could write those great stories and accounts. A pad and drawing pens would be enough to render scenes of the towns and mountains. The story could be told in ink, as was done hundreds of years ago.

The new book

I love to read. Reading has been my education. All my life I have read books and collected books. I have hauled tons of books (I'm sure its been tons) as I've moved from place to place. I have haunted book stores. The titles that wouldn't sell, the remaindered books on the tables in front of the store, I've bought so many of them.

Now that I work less or don't have to work I'm reading even more. Up until the last decade or so I could take enough books when I traveled to keep me reading until I was home again. Not any more. The friendly skies have turned greedy and every pound beyond the essentials must be paid for. Also, every pound of baggage has to be pulled and pushed and now rolled on tiny little brittle plastic wheels thru the hells called terminals.

Modern electronics to the rescue. The flash memory is the star of semiconductors. It has gone beyond the wildest expectations anyone had for it thirty years ago when it was first introduced. Together with the microcomputer it has enabled something called the "Ebook". The "book" will never die but it will no longer be ink on paper. The ebook pictured cost me about $100 a month ago. I got it from J&R in NYC and I love it. There are tens of thousands of books available on the web for free so content is not a problem. It takes the same 2 Gig SD flash sticks my FujiFilm camera uses. Same batteries too, rechargeable AA NiMh (two sets of 4). Text is loaded into it simply as files transferred to a (virtual) hard drive.

Hundreds of five pound novels can be stored on one SD flash drive. These SDs are $6 each. So I'll truly have a half ton of books (or more) when I fly. A black day for the English language book stores frequented by tourists and expats the world over.

So what is loaded now? Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game and The Shadow of the Wind (in Spanish and English). Alexander Solzhenitsyn - the First Circle. The complete works of Vladimir Nabokov. The complete works of Raymond Chandler. The complete works of John Cheever. Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths. Hesse - Magister Ludi. Kafka - The Castle. Mann - Doctor Faustus. Marquez - In Evil Hour and Memories of my melancholy Putas. Saramago - Seeing.

Thats just some of the stuff I have recently loaded into it. I've already gone thru everything P.K.Dick ever published and a ton of Science Fiction from the pulps of the 50's, stuff I was weaned on - the reading that hooked me for life.

Bringing the theme full circle, when I am waiting in the terminals on my way to and from Ecuador, I'll not be bored. In line or on plastic seating I will be with Solzhenitsyn in a Soviet prison camp or following Carlos Zafon thu the streets of Barcelona.

The wonderful world of Jet travel

There was a time when the journey was much of the experience. There wasn't any choice. It took such a long time to travel via road or sail. Weeks or months of uncomfortable contemplation of the home left behind or the unknowns ahead. Now the transition is close to seamless, by comparison anyway. Half a day to anywhere in the world. As for the contemplation, stressful. Information overload. The ill fitting experience of others.

In this case, going from the mid coast of Maine to Cuenca Ecuador the options are narrow. Flying, of course. There are two places to arrive, Quito and Guayaquil. From there its a short hop on a domestic jet to Cuenca. The arrival in Quito seems to be just before midnight. I haven't found any exceptions. For Guayaquil there is mid evening or early morning. I am favoring the 6am Guayaquil arrival as I hunt Orbitz before plopping my money down.

The two directions to go after arriving in Guayaquil are a jet to Cuenca that morning....or, Getting a bus for the Santa Elena Peninsula. I would still make it to the Coast if I flew that morning to Quenca, but I would do it later, after setting up a base camp in Cuenca. That way I could explore with just a backpack. Lesson one is travel light whenever possible.

The cost seems to be stuck at $800. It might go a little less on the tickets, but it'll be substantially that. About what going to Madrid (via Barcelona) cost last year. Somewhat like telecommunications its not (just) about distance. The deals seen in the last ten years have gone, maybe for good.

A Gringo's Ecuador Blog

This is my Ecuador blog. For most of 2010 I've been learning about Ecuador and the possibility of living there. At the end of 2009 for the first time since I was twenty and foot-loose I had the means of living where I chose for the winter. So I lived in Madrid for three months. It was very interesting & educational but not too warm. It was also fairly expensive. Those factors, the climate and cost, made me consider Latin America for the winter of 2010/11.

At first I considered Panama. In the mountains west of Madrid I met a native of Panama. She had me pretty much convinced that I should spend my next winter abroad there. As I investigated the country on the web I learned that Gringos had been pouring into Panama, in a flood, for ten years. What had been very attractive, over that time, became less so. Then there was the climate, humid. I reconsidered Panama. When I looked around I found the new Gringo magnet was Ecuador. The qualities and circumstance of the country made it a magnet. It also seemed that 2010 was still early enough in the Gringo Tsunami that Ecuador's qualities could persist, at least for a while.

One experience expats have to compare is the reaction of family and friends when they first announced they were pulling up stakes and leaving the country. It does go to the heart of some of our cultural comfort and assumptions. When I told everyone I was going to spend the three months of winter in Madrid one co-worker ask, "What will you do?". That struck me as so interesting. Not, how will you live without the familiar, the language, the cultural....but how will you pass the time. It was a great question to push thinking. I proposed that I would (and subsequently did) pretty much what I do here. Spend time with friends and associates, draw and paint, learn Spanish, surf the web, visit interesting venues (museums, exhibits, galleries). I knew from previous experience overseas that people everywhere are friendly, usually very friendly and welcoming and curious. This truth is the gate thru which everything else flows, leading to an enriching experience and much learning.

In this blog I want to record my thoughts as they occur. I will go back and forth and hem and haw, roll and yaw, but eventually land somewhere specific. That's just my way. Look for the bits of useful information and references. I do drift but the sea of ideas and imagination is very wide and the ports are conjured so we will arrive eventually. I have one of my daughter's cast off laptop computers for the trip. I will buy a portable page scanner (I draw) for the trip too. With these I should be able to contribute my day to day or at least weekly experience. I hope you find my efforts interesting or useful as you require. Thanks