The Muddy-Pants Diaries

23 September 2005 (Friday) – Quito, Ecuador

Ismael had asked me to call him at around 2:30pm to see if we could do something together. I happened to be in the Old Colonial City at that time, and so we arranged to meet there. I met up with he and his friend, Patricia, at Plaza de Santo Domingo in the late afternoon. As I had observed yesterday, he was oozing with enthusiam to show me around the Old Colonial City of Quito.

I was totally enchanted by the Old Colonial City of Quito. It is thoroughly beautiful, with the colourful colonial houses, the narrow alleyways, the sloping lanes that go up and down, thereby providing some lovely views of the city, the arched bridges… Ismael explained that way before, all these areas were terrible-looking, dirty, full of street-stalls and very dangerous.

About 5 years ago, the government pumped in a lot of money to clean the whole place up. They relocated the street-stalls to some centro comercial. They repaved the pedestrian walkways. They literally cleared the rubbish off the street. They provided coloured paints to the residents to paint their houses to add diversity as before, all the houses were white, with only blue windows and doors. The most interesting thing they did was to add special lightings to the most important buildings like the churches of San Francisco, La Merced, Santo Domingo and the Basilica, making the whole place truly enchanting at night. For example, there are some fancy blue lights coming out of the plaza in front of La Merced and the lights shining upon the Basilica changes colour all the time. That was what I saw last night as we made a quick midnight spin around the Old Colonial City.

While the place is much safer now, Ismael and Patricia still preferred not to carry any bags, putting all they need in their pockets and well, they had to keep touching themselves all the time just to be sure. I did the same as well, tugging tight at my bag.

The President’s residence at Plaza de la Independencia was lined with a row of riot police. Hmmm… yet another protest to oust the President? Ismael told me that they overthrew about 6 Presidents in the past 6 years.

Near the Plaza de la Independencia was Centro Cultural Metropolitano and there was a photo exhibition World Press Photo 05 happening now. They featured photos of the major events of the world from the press – from the tsunami, to the Haitian riots, to tornadoes, to African rites, to the Iraq war, to the abuse of Russian women, to Olympics 2004, to the Beslan School Number One hostage situation… Truly, the photos speak a thousand words. They are not meant to explain the world, they are meant to provoke one into thinking and reflecting. Marvellous selection.

We happened to pass by La Merced and there were guys out there preparing some form of structures with bamboo sticks. Ismael excitedly explained that these tall structures were called castillos (castles) which have a series of fireworks that get ignited from the bottom to the top by one light. It was typically Ecuadorian, he explained. We asked when these fireworks would go off and why. Well, tonight at 8pm, to celebrate the Virgen de La Merced.

La Merced was also the place where Quito held the Miss Universe Contest 2 years ago, Ismael and Jose Antonio had proudly told me last night.

We popped into more churches, including the magnificent San Francisco which truly looked very old, with creaky wooden floorings and magnificent frescoes. There were many structures inside as the church was being restored at the moment. The legend has it that the guy who was supposed to construct this church, squandered all the money on drinking. On the last day before the deadline, he made a pact with the Devil. If the Devil could construct the entire church in one day, the Devil could have his soul. Well, the Devil constructed the church but just as the deadline was up, he missed out on one stone. So, the Devil could NOT have his soul and the guy still got the church (nearly). Apparently, there IS indeed one stone missing somewhere behind the church.

Ismael brought us to the indigenous market area where there were herbs, barks, leaves, seeds… that were sold to be used as whatever form of medication used by the indigenous people. We even passed a shop where shamans dispense treatments for Mal Aire (Bad Air), Ojeada (the Evil Eye), or Baño para la Suerte (Lucky Bath), etc…

Apparently, the people here were so religious that there is a street called Calle de Siete Cruces, Street of Seven Crosses. If you know where to count, there are indeed 7 crosses down the entire street stretching over a few blocks.

We stopped by a centro comercial called Palacio Arzobispal at the Plaza de la Independencia for a drink in a cafe. Ismael wanted me to try a typical drink chocolate con queso (hot chocolate with cheese). The centro comercial is in a converted colonial house, oh, how very lovely. There are now many restaurants, cafes and shops. To our surprise, a little band started playing pasillo in the cafe we were at, which Ismael and Patricia quickly pointed out as yet another thing very typical of Ecuador. This is very sad music from the mountains. Sad old men would drink their nights away listening to the tearful moans of pasillo.

Soon, we spotted people in traditional Ecuadorian costumes outside the cafe. It looks like there would be some dance presentations! Wow, so many activities happening now! We finished up our drinks and headed outside to the courtyard to join the crowd. Little children in traditional costumes were putting up a dance at the moment. One boy must be just 2 years old! Then some very happy adults bounced into the courtyard, dancing their very happy traditional dances with handkerchiefs. It was absolutely delightful!!

Well, it was close to 8pm now and we headed back to La Merced. There was even a band called Banda del Pueblo (Village’s Band) playing trumpets and drums. To me, they seemed to be playing horribly yucky tunes with no beats, no rhythms.  But to my surprise, Ismael and Patricia told me these were traditional music, some of which even have lyrics, all singing praises of Quito, Ecuador and other Ecuadorian delights. They were being played during all festivals.  In fact, Ismael and Patricia were singing along to some of these riotous tunes!

We waited with the rest of the expectant crowd and soon heard some pounding. What???? Some guys were breaking through the ancient stones laid down by the Spanish conquistadores!! They were trying to break a hole through to install the huge castillos. When the holes were ready, a handful of guys carried the two gigantic structures and erected them on the stone ground. Gosh, if they break a few stones every year, I wonder what would happen to this area here in the future.

Meanwhile, the church was dispensing free liquor! This drink is called canelazo which is an alcoholic version of the agua de panela mixed with cinnamon, aguardiente and sugar. There was a massive queue as people lined up to get the free drinks. Some people later even came with empty bottles to fill them up! At the end of the night, you can be sure there would be a large number of terribly plastered people.

Then, the first of the fireworks was ignited. Gosh, I had never seen anything like this before! There were about 3 or 4 layers of fireworks. As the first one lights up, there may be a display of spinning or normal fireworks. As that gets burnt off, somehow, the next level of display will be lighted up automatically and another set of display will continue. So, we had words commerating the event being lighted up, a rabbit that dances as the fireworks lit up around it, then, structures that appeared to fall down, but were actually ‘flowers’ opening up upon being lighted… Wow, it was such a fascinating sight!!! We screamed and hid from the spits of fire as the fireworks advanced through the structure, and then, oohed and aahed over the beautiful spinning or twirling or dancing or whatever displays. At the very end, there would be fireworks being shot into the sky, seemingly endlessly! I could not believe how dangerous this was, because some of these fireworks that shot up into the sky, had burning sticks that fell back down to earth! Imagine, being struck by one such stick-on-fire!! I did not think there were any paramedics around.

The second structure got lighted up in pretty much the same way, to more shouts and delights. I was thoroughly floored by how these structures with fireworks were created. They were made of bamboos!!! And yet they opened up into displays like a church with a scroll of the Virgin unfolded, display of a star, etc… Terribly impressive!

Ismael and Patricia claimed that today could not have been better because we saw every little things that were typical of Ecuador… all in one night… all by pure chance! The pasillo music, the traditional dances, the fireworks castillos, the Banda del Pueblo, canelazo… Ismael said that he had to perhaps search 5 years to see each of these and I saw everything in one night!

Then, just as we were leaving to collect the car, we came upon ANOTHER typical Ecuadorian custom. A girl is celebrating her 20th birthday and she was being whacked on her bottom with a belt by her friends and family members – all of 20 times!! Oh poor thing!!!

I had an absolutely amazing time today. It was all totally unplanned at all and yet, so delightful. Gosh!! Perhaps, I had had the Baño para la Suerte without knowing it.

[photo credits IE – Ismael Escandon / PV – Patricia Vaca]

Tags: 07) Crossing Ecuador Line, Quito

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