Lunch with Manuelo
Monday, January 29th, 2007Today we hiked up a mountain. It was a much nicer experience than the rest of the hiking that we’ve done on this trip… in Ecuador they seem to have discovered the glories of the switchback. Hooray! We made it up to the mirador that looks out over the city (upon which stood the obligatory cross) and then decided to continue up the mountain to a small town that supposedly lay at the top. Along the way we were able to catch great views of an active volcano covered in ash (but we stupidly had taken our memory card out of our camera before the hike and so had no way to document the view. oh sad).
Reaching the teensy town of Runtun, we sat on the side of the road to eat our lunch of crackers, avocado, and queso fresco (cheese). While packing up what was left of our lunch, a man, who seemed to be somewhere between forty and fifty, approached us, whipped out some fresh herbs from his pocket and invited us back to his house for some tea. We accepted. His name turned out to be Manuelo and his house was only a few feet away. It consisted of a small room with a bed, a stove, a small end table, a bench, and a chair. We took the bench. He picked more fresh herbs (called cedrón, we later learned) and lit the stove. Soon, he had offered us heaping portions of meat, potatoes, rice, bananas, and bread. We tried to decline the food, since we’d just eaten, but he was having none of it. So we ate.
We spoke of his wife and two kids, who lived at the bottom of the mountain in Baños, the family cow business, and the reawakening of the Tungurahua volcano in 1999. The entire town of Baños, over 16 thousand people, was evacuated, He had had to sell all four of his grown cows for cutrate prices. Since most people’s livelihood is tied to the land, even three months away from their homes, animals, and farms meant tremendous economic loss. Manuelo said there was a lot of crying and a lot of merchants taking advantage of people who had to sell their belongings. We were a little frightened to hear that in the past five months there’s been a lot of rumbling and ash spewing. Lovely.
About halfway through our lunch with Manuelo, he walked over to his stove, drawing our attention to the only wall adornment (aside from the obligatory angel calendar) in his house: a mask of, get this, Richard Nixon. He took it off the wall, put it on, gave the double handed peace sign, and said “Yo no soy un ladron!” (I bet you can guess what that means). We had a good laugh. Turns out he owned it for holidays like Carnival and New Years. He agreed with us that both Nixon and Bush were locos. Good man.
After responding to all of his encouragements to “eat, eat!” we were so stuffed we started to doubt if we could make it back down the mountain. So we gave him some money for his troubles and said our goodbyes. Goodbye Manuelo… good luck with your cows.
-Las Dos
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