Christmas In Coca

This feels weird again, writing. I realize I haven't been very been very communicative this month so here is my attempt to make it up. 

I am in Coca right now, sitting on the balcony of the place we are staying at. Its night, about 75 degrees F (24 C) and as humid as anywhere I have ever been. There is a massive river flowing slowly behind me and the lights of factories on the other side cast golden glimmers onto the dark surface. 

Coca is in the eastern part of Ecuador, the Amazon. My family are partners in a Hotel here and my host Dad's construction company is based here. This is sort of a second home for m family but it is the first time I have been here. 

We left Quito on the 23rd pretty late at night, I think we got to the bus terminal at about 10 PM. The bus terminal is a really weird place, it has the feel of an airport, in that time seems to stand still for all the people waiting and there is a very anxious feeling in the air. But then again its different too, you have to walk with one hand on your luggage and the other on your wallet as the place is renowned to be full of thieves. We caught our bus just in time and got ready for the 8 hour journey ahead. 

Normally the time would have passed quickly because I would have slept the whole way, but by some unfortunate roll of the cosmic dice I ended up next to a large woman. She seemed to have perfected the art of overflowing and made my leg room, her leg room, my arm rest, her arm rest and part of my seat, part of her seat. This resulted in my passing a restless 8 hours, constantly waking up to find myself a bit too close for comfort to my seat-mate. Not fun.

We arrived in Coca at about 5:30 in morning on the 24th. The hotel my family has here is really cool, it has a sort of main courtyard with an office and then buildings with rooms and other offices around the courtyard. There is a big dining room with a balcony that looks over the river too. When we got there everyone went to the rooms they always stay in, which left me in sort of a tricky spot. Obviously I am no regular here so I had no idea where to go, anyway my host Mom just said, "Oh you can stay in the suite". Sweet! Its nice, big bed (but not very long, my feet hang over the end, like in most beds here haha), huge windows and a fridge, sadly an empty fridge though. 

I put my stuff in the room and despite the fact that it was 5:30 in the morning and my body was about to shut down from lack of sleep, i decided that I had to explore. I found the river pretty quickly, being about 500 meters across, it was kind of hard to miss. The sun was rising, pink and gold light danced on the slow moving water. I decided that it would make a nice picture so i took out my camera and starting figuring out the shot. I took one which turned out badly because I forgot to turn of the flash, then when I went to take the next, I looked through the viewfinder and saw nothing but mist. I turned my camera around to find the entire lens covered in fog, then it dawned on me that it was the humidity. Yes, thats how humid it is, when the sun isn't out, glass literally fogs.  So I kept exploring, half asleep. A little while later I found myself on the hotel roof, which was unexpected but really cool. Finally I could take it no longer and went to bed. 

I woke up at about 1, walked out of my room and was hit by a wave of heat. The difference between my air conditioned "suite" and the temperature outside was crazy. I was forced to retreat back to my room, and reasses my clothing choices. 

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Ok I am back in Quito and am going to finish this Christmas Eve / Christmas Post.

So Christmas Eve was pretty relaxed. We rode around town doing some last minute gift shopping. I didn't need to buy anything but I came along for the ride to see the town.

Coca has a strange feel to it. Its sort of a big town / small city. It looks like it was literally built in a month and then has just kept expanding from there. All the streets are arrow straight and laid out in a perfect grid. Most of the buildings are made out of cinder blocks and look like they were never properly finished. There are very few buses and small cars, which was certainly strange to see after being in Quito for 4 months. The majority of the people have pickup trucks or dirk bikes. Its hard to describe the feel of the town, but all these things come together to give it a sort of rustic / frontier persona. The best comparison I think I can make is to St. Kitts in the West Indies. I can't think many people other than my family know St. Kitts, so I guess that part is just for them. 

After my Mom and sister did some shopping we stopped to eat a place on the side of the road cooking whole chickens inside a 55 gallon drum that had been cut in half. We actually hadn't planned to eat there but when we passed by the smell was so amazing we had to stop and try it. It was so good. The guy who owned the place was really nice too, he sat down with us for a while a chatted, asking me tons of questions about where I am from etc. He left to attend to some other customers that had stopped in and when he returned our conversation changed course a little. I instantly saw my sister had changed, she was smiling at this guy a lot, complimenting the food and little things like that which were so obvious to me but I think the owner was oblivious to the fact that he was being buttered up. Then she asked how many suppliers he had for chicken, he seemed a little confused but replied by telling us he had three. Then she tilted her head a little, smiled big fake smile and asked if she could be the fourth. I hadn't really seen where this was going and I was a bit surprised, for I had no idea where my sister was going to get several hundred chickens every month, but sure enough she knew someone with a farm and details were exchanged. This is how a lot of business is done here,  no one wants to be in the office so you make the office wherever you happen to be at that time. My sister and her boyfriend are full of strange money making schemes that seem hardly legal at times but all I can do is laugh and then write about it. 

Here in Ecuador Christmas is either a huge event, or not much of a celebration. My family tended to make it more of the latter, but I know friends here who are celebrating every last religious detail, making it more than a 2 week event. We had our big Christmas dinner on the 24th. Dinner was quite strange. A big table was set up in the dining room and all down one side were the hotel employees and all down the other were the family and friends. A few toasts were made and we started eating, in silence. I thought this was just due to the fact that we were all pretty keen to dig into the food, but the silence continued. It was truly peculiar, I don't know if they were all busily thinking of the baby Jesus or what, but all I could think of was, "well this is dull...". The silence was broken when my host Dad's phone rang, he answered, mumbled a few words, then got up and excused himself from the head of the table. He never came back. He is kind of a strange guy, nice, but strange. 

After dinner my Mom, brothers, sister and I went into the office to exchange gifts. I got a really nice sweatshirt from my Mom and a set of cards from my brother. It has been a really low-key Christmas this year, but being able to have the opportunity to be here is the most amazing gift of all. 

That covers pretty much all of the Christmas celebrations we had here. Obviously we did lots more things in Coca, so I will continue to write about them this week. 

I don't have any picture of Christmas Eve, so I will leave with at least something to look at, I took it on Christmas Day. I did edit it a bit on the computer which is why it looks, well, edited. Anyway enjoy!

Oh Yeah I Have A Blog To Attend To

Let me begin by saying sorry, primarily for not posting anything here in a while, almost 3 weeks, and secondly because this will probably be a disappointingly short post. 

I was really sick last week, again. This time it was different, some respiratory virus, so I missed a bunch of school and was pretty much dead last weekend. Therefore I didn't really have anything to post that might interest you. 

However hopefully I will make this up to you all with my next post. I am going away with my family for Christmas which will be really fun. We are going to Coca which is in the amazon (east) part of Ecuador, about 5 hours from Columbia. My family are joint owners of a hotel there, it is also where my "Dad" lives.

 I don't think I have explained my family dynamics here before, its a bit complicated so I'l give you a brief outline. I have 2 brothers, Robert,  32 and Fernando, 29. They are both engineers and work in the family business along with my Dad. The business is based out of Coca because Dad lives there. I am not quite sure of all the details of my parents separation but I think its a touchy subject. Anyway, my brothers spend about half their time in Quito and the rest in Coca. My sister Carolina lives here in Quito with Mama.  So I will be meeting my host Dad for the first time tomorrow, I'v been told hes a really funny guy so I'm looking foreword to it. 

I was actually supposed to take the bus to Coca tonight with Robert but there was only one ticket left so I am going with rest of the family in the car tomorrow night. I will be sure to take tons of pictures (with my new tri-pod, thanks Mum and Dad!) and there will surely be a lengthy post to go with them. 

I am bringing my computer with me, only to talk with Mum and Dad on Christmas day. If anyone else wants to chat on Christmas I would love that. However the computer is really the only option, if you have Skype my username is: itsLadam, the same as the URL of this blog. So take a look sometime on Christmas to see if I am online and give me a call! I will be missing family and friends alot I know so I would love to hear from some of you.

I think thats it. I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas! 

Las Fiestas de Quito

As I mentioned in my previous post all last week was Las Fiestas de Quito, starting on the 28th of Nov. and ending on the 6th of Dec. The City was actually founded on the December 6th of 1534, but give an Ecuadorian any excuse to party and they will make a week (or 9 days!) of it. The city was founded by Sebastian Benalcazar, this is only significant because my school is named after him. Anyway enough history, to the festivities!

There are bullfights every day during Las Fiestas, many people go on several days if not all of them. I want to take a moment here to further explain my feelings about the bullfights.

I have been catching a bit of grief about my post and pictures from animal lovers and normal friends alike. This took me by surprise because I thought I was pretty clear about my stance on the issue in my last post, maybe not? So here is my official statement: I loved the atmosphere of the event, I loved the cultural aspect, and as an experience, it was thoroughly enjoyable. I did not care for seeing the bulls die, the suffering is definitely cruelty towards the animal. This being said, those people who came at me saying how it was all animal torture and morally unforgivable to kill bulls, I want to you to take note that hamburgers and steaks do not grow on trees. This is not meant to attack anyone's beliefs, I know that killing animals is a touchy subject, but I just don't want to hear any more comments on the issue. There are protest groups that will gladly listen, and I encourage you to take action to support your beliefs.

Beside the bullfights, there were other things going on pretty much every day. Parades were common, usually shutting down some of the main avenues in the city. This made for horrendous traffic and many of the bus routes were altered to accommodate the available streets. Also there were tons of things going on in the Historic Center of the city. I passed through on several days and saw outdoor plays, protests, and live music. I also managed to buy my self a pair of awesome shoes for $5, which is completely irrelevant to this post but the frugal Scotsman in me felt like sharing.

Another big part of Las fiestas are chivas. A chiva is basically a party bus that drives around the city until the wee hours of the morning while tons of people climb on board and sing. They look quite different from your normal bus though. Imagine a flat bed truck with benches on the bed, then build a cover for the benches and put railings onto of the cover so people can stand up there too. Finally make a platform on the back with more railings. They are usually painted cool colors and many have names like "the spirit of Quito" or "The Quiteño Chiva". They start their rounds at about mid-day and finish at about 3 or 4 in the morning. They have set routes which they drive on at about 10 mph, its actually a pretty good way to see some of the city. Some families rent their own chivas and make it a safer, more family oriented experince. I say "safer" only because I think any bus packed full of mostly intoxicated people singing at the top of their lungs could be deemed somewhat a hazard. I rode a chiva briefly with Alex and some friends one night after a party, it wasn't really anything special, but I can now say that I have been on one.

I can't really figure out how to string all these aspects of the celebrations together so I am just listing them I guess. The next thing is a card game called "Cuarenta". Cuarenta means 40 in spanish and as you may be able to guess the aim is to get forty points. I wont go through all the rules, because there are a lot and because I still havnt quite got all the little ones worker out. It is played in two teams, so it cn either be a 2, 4, or 8, person game. I learned to play earlier in my first few months mainly by watching people play at the house and occasionally giving it a go myself. The learning was so difficult because at the time my Spanish was still only so so and when 4 people are trying to explain a rule at the same time, things get confusing. I pretty much have it now and Mami and I got 2nd place in a family and friends tournament on Sunday. There are much bigger competitions in the city with prizes getting as big as cars and vacations, for this reason you can always see people playing in the street, practicing for next year.

And then of course there are the parties. The first weekend was pretty quiet, but the second was crazy like no other. There are tons of private parties which you have to buy a ticket to get into, these range from $15 parties in bars, $30 parties in closed down malls, and then there are one which cost into the hundreds, I don't even know where they are held but they are for the super rich youth. I didn't go to any of these private gatherings, the usual nightclubs were packed with people like myself who don't want / need to pay to have fun. I can't exactly give you a normal account of these nights, due to the fact that I have no idea / control of who reads my blog. If you really are desperate to know, ask me sometime, a real teaser huh?

I can't think of any other things involved with Las Fiestas but if I remember I will update this post.

Sorry, no photos.

Ok so heres a 3 minute later update:

Today was my 100th day in Ecuador, kind of a crazy thought for me. That means I only have 200 more days!

Futball and Bullfight

Sunday found me cheering on Liga de Quito in their match against Deportiva Quito. The whole thing was kind of a disaster, ending with a 2-0 loss but the experience of going to the games is always fun. There is lots of singing, mostly about how homosexual the other team is or alternatively how truly amazing Liga de Quito is. I always feel bad for the referees at sporting events here. When most of you readers get angry at a referee on t.v. or whatever usually words like idiot, moron, and maybe even jackass come to mind, but here its different. The things they get called would be enough to permanently destroy any normal person's self esteem, maybe they wear earplugs?

So like I said, the whole game was pretty disappointing for Liga. However during the game spirits remained high for last season Liga were the champions of all of South America, nothing could take that away from the dedicated fans. The guy I was sitting next to had the teams logo tattooed on his bicep, it looked to be pretty new, most likley he had it done following last season's victory.

Probably the most exciting part of the game, actually happened afterward. I was kind of expecting huge brawls inside the stadium, but the police, who were out in force and dressed in full riot gear, seemed to have things under control. I got on the bus, which was almost empty, leaned back and closed my eyes to rest, glad to be away from all those sweaty, screaming men. All of a sudden my peaceful moment was rudely interrupted by shouting outside the bus window. Annoyed at the disturbance, I opened my eyes and looked out to see what was going on. Two guys, one wearing a Liga jersey, the other wearing a Deportiva Quito jersey, were shouting at each other in a parking lot. The two andvanced and shouts quickly turned to blows. After about a minute the Liga fan was on the ground getting pummeled by his opponent and someone tried to pull them apart, unfortunately for him, he only succeeded in getting punched in the face. So, pissed off, he grabbed a few of his buddies and jumped into the fight as well, within seconds the two man scuffle in the lot turned into a full out brawl of about 30 people. I was pretty thankful to be on the bus, it looked pretty nasty. It all ended when one side fled for cover inside a fast food restaurant.

On monday Alex and I went to one of the bullfights that take place every day this week. We knew practically nothing about what we were doing. Only that the first of December was going to be the best day and that we should get to the Plaza de Torros at about 10. We sort of had a choice, buy cheap tickets and go on the best day, or buy better seats to a not so good day. So we figured best day + cheap seats to be the better decision.

We got there at about 9:30 thinking we would have to look for our tickets a bit, but no there were literally scalpers everywhere. They are sneaky too, I think they must all meet and agree on prices because no one would bargain or anything. So we paid about 110% mark-up for our tickets but whatever, they were still pretty cheap.

The plaza was pretty empty when we went in, so we walked around for while. The bullfights are obviously hugely endorsed because everything was covered in logos of phone companies, beer companies and the likes. There were a bunch of stages being set up, presumably for dance parties after the bullfight.

We went inside the ring after a little while to secure our seats. It wasn't until we were inside that we saw that our seats were actually pretty far apart, obviously this wasn't going to stand so we just ignored the numbers on our tickets. We met up with another exchange student from Alex's program and his friend so we all sat together. They told us how the had bought their tickets in September, at retail price. This made me feel a little dumb, but we were there so nothing really mattered. In fact, Alex's friend was had been to the two fights previously and was also going on Tuesday. I can't say that I would want to go 4 days in a row, but thats just me.

It seemed like every 15 minutes or so a group of people would come walking down the row, stick their tickets in our faces, and ask that we vacate their seats. As the ring filed with people, finding 4 seats together every time we moved proved to be more and more difficult. Eventually we just ended up sitting on the stairs, packed like sardines along side people who were probably kicked out of their seats too.

As soon as the first bull came out everyone forgot the discomfort were instantly captivated. Actually beforehand, all the matadors, picadors, horsemen and everyone else who was to play a role in the fights marched into the ring and presented themselves to the president of the event.

Like I said before I really had no idea what to expect, seeing the bull inside the ring for the first time was strange, definitely seemed out of place. Anyway, Il give you a breakdown of how each fight goes.

So first, obviously, they let the bull into the ring. It usually runs in, stops, looks around very confused and then charges and one or more men waving bright pink capes. These guy wave he capes and then jump behind wooden barricades on the side of the ring. Sometime the bulls rams into the barricade and the crowd gasps, but usually it stop just short and looks confused as to where the cape went. Then someone on the other side of the ring will do the same thing. All the initial running tires the bull out a bit hence making the whole process easier.

Next a man enters on a horse, he carries a long spear with a very sharp blade on the end. One side of the horse is protected by a large, elaborately decorated sheet of armor, as is the horseman's leg. Upon seeing the horse the bulls usually attacks, but doesn't get very far due to the armor. The job of the rider is to plunge the spear into the back of the bulls neck, this cuts some of the muscles and tendons and starts the bleeding. The muscles are cut so that the bull cannot raise its head easily and gore the matador, or anyone else for that matter. If the horseman spend too much time with his spear in the bull's neck, the crowd whistles and jeers, signaling that they think it is unfair. The bull is right up against the horse this whole time and thrashing around violently, several times the bull nearly toppled the horse which would have been bad news. It is kind of disturbing to see the bull bleed for the first time. After the spear is removed, you can literally see blood gushing rhythmically out of the wound in time with the bull's heartbeats.

After this two or three men, picadors, enter the ring each with nothing but brightly colored bandilleras. These are barbed stakes, about 2 and a half feet long, that the picadors stab into the neck of the bull. In my opinion this is the most interesting part of the fight. You have to think about the situation first, the picador, being Latin American is generally a pretty short guy, and the bulls, usually selected for their size and power are pretty big. So in order to get the bandilleras in the bulls neck the picadors must jump really high and have perfect aim, all while dodging the charging bull and his horns. If it is done right, both bandilleras enter the bull at the exact same point and at the exact same time, if the picador fails to get both in he is usually whistled at by the crowd and does not get another try. Again, this process weakens the neck muscles of the bull and makes it bleed more.

After the picadors are finished the matador, or torreo, enters. He has the well known red cape and a sword. For about 10 minutes, he manipulates the bull to do his biding. Charging at the cape, running in circles or simply standing there, slowly dying, the bull is at the mercy of the matador at this point. The better matadors show off during this time as well, they kneel on the ground and get the bull to charge, dodging the animal by inches, other times they touch the bulls head while it is standing still, one even put his head in between the bulls horns and stayed like that for a few seconds. The crowd love these kinds of things and cheers loudly. Every time the matador makes a successful pass with the bull the crowd shouts "Ole!", I always thought that was just some kind of western perversion of bullfighting, but no. It is slightly different though, the accent is on the "o" not the "e" so its more like "Ole", not "oLE", I hope that made sense.

When the bull is obviously tired to the point where it is not longer a fight, the matador draws his sword. He stands in front of the bull, who is panting, bleeding and generally looking miserable. Sword extended fully, the matador takes careful aim. The idea is to go through the bulls neck and into it's heart, ensuring a quick(er) death. When he feels he is as ready as he will ever be, the matador begins to run at the bull, who also starts to charge, at the last second the matadors steps aside and plunges the sword into the bull. When done correclty all that is visible of the sword is the handle. If the matador misses, the sword hits the bulls shoulder blade and sticks out about half way. Instantly two more men, the same ones from the very beginning, enter the ring to distract the bull. They wave the brightly colored capes in front of the bull. The bull cannot decide which to charge at and pretty much remains in the same spot, waving it head back and forth. I have to say I didn't find this part much to my liking. Such a powerful, elegant animal is reduced to a staggering, confused mess in its final moments of life, soon it stumbles and hits the ground, not dead, but seconds away. A man with a short, wide knife carefully approaches the bull and finishes it by stabbing it just behind the skull. One final shudder and it finally dies, rolling over on its side, legs out stretched.

At this point the president of the Plaza makes the decision of how well the matador performed. In theory he can award up to two ears and a tail, but that is only for a truly historic show. 5 of the 6 matadors we saw on Monday received one ear, which is cut from the bull and presented to the matador. The bull is then harnessed to two huge horses and dragged out of the ring. If the bull put up an amazing fight, the horses drag it all the way around the arena, if not a small circle is made and then it is brought out. The matador then walks around the edge of the arena with the picadors and the horseman. If he did well, bouquets of flowers, and hats are thrown at hit. He and the other men try and throw the hats back to those who threw them, the crowd is really good about passing them back to their rightful owners.

So that is a brief description of a bullfight. On Monday we saw 3 matadors and 6 bulls. I was told that apart from some in Spain, Quito's bullfights are regarded as some of the best in the world. The main matador of the day was called Fandi, he is Spanish and is currently ranked the best matador in Spain.

The whole experience was really amazing. I do have mixed feelings about the morality of it all, it really all depends on the skill of the matador. For instance, Fandi killed the final bull perfectly, the sword went straight in, the men with the capes didn't even enter, the bull just collapsed. They didn't even need to the knife for its neck or anything. However another time, the bull refused to go down, it literally took minutes of just standing there for it to fall and die.

There is a big movement against bullfighting, but I doubt they will be able to do away with such a deeply rooted tradition.

I don't have school on Thursday which is nice, and we only have class until 10 on Friday. Yay Fiestas de Quito.





This is the ring before the first bull.





Here the horseman is cutting the neck muscles of the bull who is trying to gore the horse.





This is the picador putting the bandilleras in the bull's neck.





The bull's final moment, look carefully and you can see the matadors sword.





A job well done.