We embark on a walking tour of Quito, which begins in the market we went to yesterday, and wrote off as being rather drab compared to the colourful bustle of Bolivia or the beautiful bright artsiness of Peru. It sells, it turns out, precisely what we thought it sold, some fruits and vegetables and a lot of meals and juices. But, as with the country side paintings we saw in Melbourne, it takes on a new character through the eyes of somebody who loves it. We find that the juices are not only safe to drink, using filtered water and 'clean' fruits, but they are imaginative and delicious. I try a 'Mora' with coconut milk, a sort of blackberry, coconutty, paradise which imbues me with much needed energy, and M has a 'Guanábana', also with coconut, a refreshing, clean crisp taste softened by the coconut milk. They cost a couple of dollars.
"Ecuador is so expensive compared to other places" we have been not-quite saying. And not quite adding that it also simply isn't as good.
Our guide shows us fruits and vegetables we haven't seen before, despite an internal monologue I have with myself along the lines of having been in South America for months now and more attuned to the fresh produce than many people, so how could there be anything new in Ecuador?
My rather unsettling and newfound inner cynic is rapidly vanquished. We are introduced to Naranjillos, whose bitter sweet taste I have already drunk in a juice I mistakenly attributed to crisp green apples, only better, a fruit known in English as 'Soursop', the South American answer to my favourite South East Asian Jackfruit, a fruit the size of a papaya, and the shape of a star fruit, which apparently has smooth white flesh and a sweet taste, and Tomatillas, egg shaped tomato like fruits, initially sour, but used to great effect in salsas and stews.
I stand corrected. There is a tendency in both of us to find the first few days in a new country vaguely disappointing, particularly if we have especially loved the last one. Try as we might to resist it, something in us always longs for the last place, and paints it in over the reality of the new one. We can not look at the market without the ghostly images of Bolivian women with babies on the backs, bound in brightly coloured fabrics, passing through it, regretfully. It is, again, that settling instinct. For one month everywhere is 'home'. And 'home', as we know, always tastes the sweetest.
We move on, through roads and squares, many of which ate named after specific dates. Whilst it is confusing, (Avenue 6th December is easily mixed with Avenue 12 October) I am pleased to learn the significance of some of these dates in Ecuadorian history. I have set them out as accurately as I can below:
12 October 1492: the day Christopher's Columbus arrived and the Hispanic heritage of South America began.
6 December 1534: the Spanish foundation of Quito and its establishment as the capital of Ecuador.
10 August 1809: A group of citizens made a bid for independence, following news of the deposition of the King in Spain. They sent a delegation to the president to tell him he was no longer needed and established a new independent government. It was a brace act which lasted only 24 days until October, when the Spanish governers retaliated and, despite a peaceful surrender, threw all the conspirators in jail. Nearly 100 people were arrested and remained in jail nearly a year. On August 2nd 1810, an attempt to liberate the prisoners incensed the guards who killed all the conspirators and any visiting family members or would be liberators in the jail. There is a monument to the bravery of those early conspirators in the main square of Quito
24 May 1822: Independence Day. The day that Ecuador officially gained independence from Spain. Previous attempts to gain independence, most notably in 1809 had lasted only a short time but the two year Battle of Pichincha, begun in 1820 and led by Simón Bolívar, finally defeated the Spanish army and won lasting independence for Ecuador. The main square in Quito is also known as Independence Square and features a series of statues commemorating this, most strikingly the figure of a condor breaking the chains binding it's feet and spreading its wings, and a lion, symbolising Spain, pierced by a golden arrow and defeated.
If this all seems a bit mixed, the celebration of the arrival of the Spanish who were then fought bloodily against subsequently for independence, then I know how you feel. Once again life refuses to be simple. The conquistadors are not wholly ogres, the influence of the Spanish not wholly unwelcome. Viewed other ways, it makes sense. The influx of a richness of culture, new festivals, new colours, new customs, is something which most countries prize through global travel, even as they also claim to be being 'taken over'.
"The immigrants are taking our jobs and ruining everything that is British," say people, tucking into their curry and poppadoms and seeing no irony in this whatsoever.
And there is a big difference between being infiltrated by new cultures and being ruled as part of another country, thousands of miles away from your own, both literally and metaphorically.
This is all rather obvious, bit there is a darker side to this dichotomy, which is the invisibility of indigenous people, particularly in the capital. The richer the surroundings, the more Latinate the faces. I have mentioned before the absence of indigenous profiles in government and media. Models advertising clothes, make up, mobile phones or housing, all have distinctly Latin features.
"This was an important square," says our guide, gesturing towards a smart, paved square surrounded by impressive buildings and palaces, "for the indigineous people, because this was where they settled disputes, traded and made decisions."
Nowadays it is marked by colonial style palaces, built on top of old, destroyed Inca structures, and the only indigineous faces are the shoe shine boys, touting for custom among the high heels and black work shoes of the square's main users.
Moving to rather lighter topics, we walk to a sweet store selling traditional Ecuadorian sweets. Like other countries in South America, Ecuador is marked by a distinctly sweet tooth. We try sugared figs, so sweet they make your teeth tingle, and so nice that it doesn't stop you eating them, sticky sugared nuts and chewy coconut candies, and a crumbly fudge offset by a corresponding bar of a quince jelly like substance, which provides a tang to offset the sugar. Not that anyone here seems to perceive a need to offset it. Even salty snacks contain sugar and do not seem especially salty, and there is a prevelance of grown men in suits eating jelly and cream out of plastic cups on the street.
Turning our minds to more elevated topics, we enter a church and learn that there is more to the art of producing the doll like figures we have seen depicting Jesus and the Saints in so many churches in South America. The eyes, we learn, always piously turned up to heaven, are made of glass for a more "creepy... I mean...realistic effect" (says our guide). The colours, of the skin and then the blood of Christ (on the one we happen to be looking at), are applied one at a time in the correct order, before a special varnish made of animal fat is applied to give a sheen and retain brightness. It's a much more involved process than it looks.
The tour over, we make our way to the basilica, which towers majestically in Gothic grey over the majority of the town, and which is one of the most intricate and interesting cathedrals I have seen. Like many churches of its kind it uses gargoyles to scare away evil spirits, however rather than gurning goblin faces it uses animals of the region. Pumas leap out of the walls to vanquish potential evils, crocodiles bare their teeth, peacocks spread their plumage, condors their wings, monkeys prepare to pounce from above and even aardvarks poke their long noses down towards us. There are, apparently also turtles, but try as we might, we cannot find these. It becomes a bit of a challenge, peering out from windows and towers, or upwards from below, but no turtles reveal themselves to us this visit. Perhaps that is their secret, they hide and spy, alerting the other animals to potential intruders...
...maybe.
Or perhaps I am simply trying to avoid admitting the part where I chickened out of going all the way up to the top of the spires.
Well there were some concrete steps. Which were fine. And then a wooden walkway over the domed roof of the main chapel, which was fine. And a ladder up from there to the outside balcony. Which was mostly fine.
But after that it was ladders in the open, up the side of the towers. And I just couldn't.
I surveyed it. I watched people giggling in fearful hysteria as they climbed. I noted the possibility of plummeting over the side to one's certain death (though admittedly you would have to be being quite careless). I noted several children crying half way up. And half way down. And at the top. And the bottom.
I like to think that when I took my decision to let M go up without me I was simply exercising my adult prerogative to chose not to torture myself doing things which I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't enjoy. Rather than that I have done numerous things to do with heights that have terrified me in the duration of this trip and for some reason didn't rise to the challenge of this one.
"It's an incredible view from up there," says M encouragingly, when he returns.
"It's an amazing view from up here," I say firmly, "oooh look - is that a turtle?"
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