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Food
Every day (except Sunday) I find a place with an Almuerzo menu to my liking. The lunch usually costs between $1.20 and $1.60 and includes soup (usually my favorite Timbushca, which sounds quaintly Russian and is basically potato-and-cabbage stew), a main course (usually some variation on chicken or fish with rice. Often it's corvina fish, which I've never tried before, and it is my new favorite fish, it tastes like turkey, but better) and desert (either wonderful fruit salad, or nasty fruit jello). And fruit juice, which I usually sub for a soda if I am not sure of the water quality in the place.
It took me about a week to get over the fear of eating street food, but now I am all about it. The best is mote con chicharron, which is, like, corn that's sort of like popcorn, but if it was soaked in water before being cooked, with deep-deep friend pieces of pork, with some hot sauce served in a little plastic bag. You eat it in the go with a spoon.
Ceviche is like sushi, when it's good it's really good, when it's not so good it's really disgusting, that's probably a universal rule of raw seafood. Mixed ceviche from camaron (shrimp) y concha (which I am a little unclear about what it is, I think it's like octopus) is the best.
I have been eating much, much more sugar than I usually do. In New York I barely eat any sugar (probably because I get it all in the form of glucose, from the 2 lbs of grapes I eat daily): I take my coffee with milk only, I virtually never eat candy or sweets, and I drink either water or non-sweetened fruit juices. But again, I think it's the altitude, I have gotten over most of the other altitide glitches, but I am still easily exhausted, and I don't think it's going away. Coffee does not quite do the trick by itself, but sugar does, so I've been drinking a lot of Coke (which I haven't touched in years), and eating fruit salad with yoghurt and ample, ample honey every day.
Sleep
I am on, like, a radically different schedule from my normal one. I go to sleep around 10 PM and wake up, without an alarm clock, at about 7.30 in the morning. The last time I even approximated anything close to that was when I was working at an archaeological dig in Israel and we had to be up at 4.30 in the morning and in the field by 5 AM in order to return to the base by 1 PM when the sun became intolerable. But as anyone who knows me, when not forced by circumstances, my natural circadian rhythm puts me to bed somewhere around 3 AM. The current schedule is due to the fact that I rarely go out after dark (except an occasional glimpse at US news in the expat pub across the street), and I am usually done with all of my daytime stuff by about 5 PM. I sleep very heavily without my usual insomnia, which I also attribute to mountain air.
It is freaking cold at nights (and yesterday I spotted snow on the Pichincha volcano, which meant it was extra-cold last night) and there is no heat, so I sleep with two wool blankets and a hot water bottle. I have become a connoisseur of hot water bottles. Too-thin plastic will be uncomfortable and will lose heat faster than thicker plastic, which will warm you gentler and for longer. It storms a lot, and since Quito is so high up, thunder is particularly loud. Showers in the morning have to be quick because warm water can be cajoled out of the shower for anywhere between a minute and a half and two minutes at a time. There is also inverse relationship between water heat and water pressure, i.e. to get the warm water, albeit briefly, you have to turn the shower on halfway, then slowly turn it off until a hot trickle remains. Then it turns cold.
Transportation
Quito has a really well-developed public transport infrastructure. There are busses, trolley busses and ecobusses. Also there are fleets and fleets of dilapidated cabs. Which brings me to a question, and it's not hypothetical, so if anyone knows a statistically substantiated answer, please share, because this is something I have to entertain at least every couple of days:
In case of a car accident, am I more likely to die in a front seat with a seatbelt, or a backseat without a seatbelt? It should be noted that 75% of cabs don't have functioning seatbelts at all, which does not bother anyone except for me. It also does not bother anyone except for me that 50% of the time a red light is interpreted as a challenge to increase speed, rather than an invitation to brake.
Books
As other travellers know, when you are nomadic, you read whatever is around--books left around by previous tenants, the random assortment of book exchanges, etc. While I am reading an Ecuadorian book about Galapagos in the 1950s in Spanish, I have also breezed through some readily-available English-language literature, including:
Jim Lehrer's The Last Debate. Did y'all know he wrote novels? Because I didn't. Anyway, even though the narrative voice is a bit...peculiar the book itself is pretty interesting. Basically, there are four journalists who are picked to moderate/host the only presidential debate between a well-meaning, but totally undynamic and uncharismatic-type liberal (think Lieberman but well-meaning) and a totally crazy fucking racist fundie who's got charisma. The journalists agree that the win for the fundie would be a catastraphe for the US, and, as they come into possession of some incriminating info about him hours before the debate they make a decision to dispense with the rules and throw it, ensuring the liberal's victory. It's half-suspense story, half-meditation of journalistic ethics in the corporate day and age. If you need something to be distracting but not escapist in the next few days, this book is your friend.
The first two Left Behind books, which, while totally insane, are addictive like crack. I am sad there aren't more around. I want to see what happens now that the Antichrist has been installed into the UN and has moved the UN to New Babylon. Has anyone on my friends list actually read them? Because now I really want to discuss them. Like, were you as shocked as I was when it turned out Buck was a virgin? Is there implicit criticism of corporate media ownership as it exists today? Are Jews: Revelations = Eliza Doolitle: Pygmalion? There are so many questions.
I have more to say, but it's almuerzo time.
Also I had an interview today, and it looks like after I get back here from San Francisco, I will be off to the Jatun Sacha biostation in the Upper Amazon rainforest for a month. Christmas and New Year's bonding with the local flora and fauna. Woot.
Every day (except Sunday) I find a place with an Almuerzo menu to my liking. The lunch usually costs between $1.20 and $1.60 and includes soup (usually my favorite Timbushca, which sounds quaintly Russian and is basically potato-and-cabbage stew), a main course (usually some variation on chicken or fish with rice. Often it's corvina fish, which I've never tried before, and it is my new favorite fish, it tastes like turkey, but better) and desert (either wonderful fruit salad, or nasty fruit jello). And fruit juice, which I usually sub for a soda if I am not sure of the water quality in the place.
It took me about a week to get over the fear of eating street food, but now I am all about it. The best is mote con chicharron, which is, like, corn that's sort of like popcorn, but if it was soaked in water before being cooked, with deep-deep friend pieces of pork, with some hot sauce served in a little plastic bag. You eat it in the go with a spoon.
Ceviche is like sushi, when it's good it's really good, when it's not so good it's really disgusting, that's probably a universal rule of raw seafood. Mixed ceviche from camaron (shrimp) y concha (which I am a little unclear about what it is, I think it's like octopus) is the best.
I have been eating much, much more sugar than I usually do. In New York I barely eat any sugar (probably because I get it all in the form of glucose, from the 2 lbs of grapes I eat daily): I take my coffee with milk only, I virtually never eat candy or sweets, and I drink either water or non-sweetened fruit juices. But again, I think it's the altitude, I have gotten over most of the other altitide glitches, but I am still easily exhausted, and I don't think it's going away. Coffee does not quite do the trick by itself, but sugar does, so I've been drinking a lot of Coke (which I haven't touched in years), and eating fruit salad with yoghurt and ample, ample honey every day.
Sleep
I am on, like, a radically different schedule from my normal one. I go to sleep around 10 PM and wake up, without an alarm clock, at about 7.30 in the morning. The last time I even approximated anything close to that was when I was working at an archaeological dig in Israel and we had to be up at 4.30 in the morning and in the field by 5 AM in order to return to the base by 1 PM when the sun became intolerable. But as anyone who knows me, when not forced by circumstances, my natural circadian rhythm puts me to bed somewhere around 3 AM. The current schedule is due to the fact that I rarely go out after dark (except an occasional glimpse at US news in the expat pub across the street), and I am usually done with all of my daytime stuff by about 5 PM. I sleep very heavily without my usual insomnia, which I also attribute to mountain air.
It is freaking cold at nights (and yesterday I spotted snow on the Pichincha volcano, which meant it was extra-cold last night) and there is no heat, so I sleep with two wool blankets and a hot water bottle. I have become a connoisseur of hot water bottles. Too-thin plastic will be uncomfortable and will lose heat faster than thicker plastic, which will warm you gentler and for longer. It storms a lot, and since Quito is so high up, thunder is particularly loud. Showers in the morning have to be quick because warm water can be cajoled out of the shower for anywhere between a minute and a half and two minutes at a time. There is also inverse relationship between water heat and water pressure, i.e. to get the warm water, albeit briefly, you have to turn the shower on halfway, then slowly turn it off until a hot trickle remains. Then it turns cold.
Transportation
Quito has a really well-developed public transport infrastructure. There are busses, trolley busses and ecobusses. Also there are fleets and fleets of dilapidated cabs. Which brings me to a question, and it's not hypothetical, so if anyone knows a statistically substantiated answer, please share, because this is something I have to entertain at least every couple of days:
In case of a car accident, am I more likely to die in a front seat with a seatbelt, or a backseat without a seatbelt? It should be noted that 75% of cabs don't have functioning seatbelts at all, which does not bother anyone except for me. It also does not bother anyone except for me that 50% of the time a red light is interpreted as a challenge to increase speed, rather than an invitation to brake.
Books
As other travellers know, when you are nomadic, you read whatever is around--books left around by previous tenants, the random assortment of book exchanges, etc. While I am reading an Ecuadorian book about Galapagos in the 1950s in Spanish, I have also breezed through some readily-available English-language literature, including:
Jim Lehrer's The Last Debate. Did y'all know he wrote novels? Because I didn't. Anyway, even though the narrative voice is a bit...peculiar the book itself is pretty interesting. Basically, there are four journalists who are picked to moderate/host the only presidential debate between a well-meaning, but totally undynamic and uncharismatic-type liberal (think Lieberman but well-meaning) and a totally crazy fucking racist fundie who's got charisma. The journalists agree that the win for the fundie would be a catastraphe for the US, and, as they come into possession of some incriminating info about him hours before the debate they make a decision to dispense with the rules and throw it, ensuring the liberal's victory. It's half-suspense story, half-meditation of journalistic ethics in the corporate day and age. If you need something to be distracting but not escapist in the next few days, this book is your friend.
The first two Left Behind books, which, while totally insane, are addictive like crack. I am sad there aren't more around. I want to see what happens now that the Antichrist has been installed into the UN and has moved the UN to New Babylon. Has anyone on my friends list actually read them? Because now I really want to discuss them. Like, were you as shocked as I was when it turned out Buck was a virgin? Is there implicit criticism of corporate media ownership as it exists today? Are Jews: Revelations = Eliza Doolitle: Pygmalion? There are so many questions.
I have more to say, but it's almuerzo time.
Also I had an interview today, and it looks like after I get back here from San Francisco, I will be off to the Jatun Sacha biostation in the Upper Amazon rainforest for a month. Christmas and New Year's bonding with the local flora and fauna. Woot.
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