Strikes and demonstrations against the current president and his government occur daily, with blockades of important roads, burning tyres, or marches with banners happening daily. The police are out with their riot shields, and, though we have not yet seen them use them, we are told that the main square on Thursday, as we travelled back from the Cloud Forest, was a scene of sudden violence as a small number of protestors turned in the police with stones, entailing a general chaos of tear gas and the arrest of the instigators.
In the meantime, as if in solidarity, Cotopaxi Volcano began to erupt. There has been a notable increase of activity in the volcano reported by seismologists over recent months, and, as we trudged through the forest admiring butterflies, it came to a head. Cotopaxi is spewing grey ash from small explosions, which, depending on which direction and how strongly the wind is blowing, covers its slopes and even areas of the city in a fine layer of grey ash, like dirty snow. Quito is only thirty miles from Cotopaxi, and a larger explosion is now predicted within the next four to give months. It is not likely that such an explosion would be large enough to endanger the main areas of Quito, but many people live on or near its slopes. Some have already been evacuated, the Cotopaxi National Park area is closed, trains are unable to penetrate further towards it than Machachi and must find another route and everybody simply hopes that Cotopaxi will, through this series of minor explosions, somehow reduce the underground pressure enough to reduce or prevent the expected eruption. Tourism is suffering, evacuation talks and plans are continual with respect to the villages nearest to the volcano, and the president is being called on to take action.
As suggests, given that a significant proportion of the demonstrations are by unhappy indigenous people, it is as if the mountain is colluding with a people who have always been close to it, to protest in solidarity.
So Quito is in crisis.
Not that you'd notice. We return on Thursday night to a Quito which is as 'quiet' as Quito ever gets, going about its business just as usual. As we have own own 'state of emergency' in respect of my, still misbehaving, stomach, we have a very quiet weekend ourselves.
When we go for a walk on Friday we see a few notices on walls and hear some talk of a 'paro' (strike) but everything seems to be open. We see no signs of disruption, if anything the streets are more deserted than usual.
On Sunday we have a ticket booked on the train for a day long 'volcano tour'. One of the volcano's is exploding, so we can't go as far as we normally would on such a tour, only to Machachi. But we ride perfectly smoothly through idyllic scenery, far belying its dangerous undercurrent (most volcano's are classified at least as partially active), and smiling locals come running out of their houses to wave at us, touchingly, as we go past. The train only runs for four days a week and seems to be something of a celebrity. Everybody seems to be behaving just as normal. We pass through Tambillo, the village where they still stir food with human bones and make their 'Guarapo' liquor with a small human bone inside each bottle. An expedition to recover the hidden Inca treasures, supposedly buried around here, famously failed due to the mysterious disappearance of all GPS signal and the sudden and unprecedentedly dense cloud cover which descended low over the ground. We chuff our way past and visit Machachi where we see no ash, despite one party of tourists who have gone to great lengths to purchase face masks against the sulphurous air, of which there is not a whiff, and subsequently are themselves the only indication that any eruptions - or indeed disruptions - are happening.
On Monday we take the teleferico, (cable car) to the top of Mount Pichincha where , in the past, the fierce battle to gain independence was fought. There is no battle now though. It's very peaceful. We can't see Cotopaxi due to cloud cover (one rarely can see Cotopaxi). We encounter two gigantic birds of prey, sitting calmly less than a metre away from us. Below us Quito stretches out, glittering and calm.
On Tuesday through Thursday we go to a series of short, dance related film showings as part of a festival of film and dance. People are chatting earnestly about the art, or just enjoying themselves for free. A group of young actors perform absurdist theatre skits. Large numbers of salsa dancers enter the country to compete in the championship competitions, which we are lucky enough to have secured a ticket to.
On the streets, apart from the increased police presence, standing around, leaning on riot shields, piles of helmets against the wall, eating pancakes and laughing, no one is batting an eyelid.
And then we read the press reports and they tell us that Quito is 'at a standstill'.
The 'state of emergency' seems a technical definition only. Why aren't people reacting more? There is political unrest, recent violence and a volcano waiting to explode. Why is everyone not in a permanent state of panic.
Because, whatever the newspapers say, this is life. People have to carry on. What good would it do them otherwise?
I used to wonder how people did it, when they lived in countries with permanent war zones. How did they keep themselves from entering a constant state of shock, from being cowering messes, huddled in corners, afraid to go out, jumping and screaming at the distant sounds of bombing, starving with their families in their houses because of the very real possibility that if they stepped outside they, or a family member would die, caught in crossfire, or deliberately killed.
Then I met a couple in Dalat, who lived in Isreal, and they told me that you just have to carry on. You even get used to it. That lady, living with death and bombs daily, was still afraid of heights. She was shaking with fear when she went canyoning. Famously, people who have endured terrible persecution, violent wars or terrifying political dictatorships, when offered counselling, are still, at least to some extent, preoccupied with their love lives.
We live life in a bubble shared by our loved ones. We notice, and are affected by, the flash and colour of our own small lives, our immediate circles. It is hard for us to get perspective on a pressing work deadline, a sick child, or am argument with our spouse over toothpaste. But world events, even if they directly affect us, often remain on our emotional periphery.
Of course this is not always true. There are brave leaders of revolutions, passionate believers in causes and people willing to sacrifice the contents of that bubble for the wider good. But in those cases, is it not the case that the bubble has simply changed? The outside events have been admitted inside?
This sounds rather depressing. I am not accusing human beings of being wholly self obsessed and politically apathetic. Clearly they are not. The people of Quito are holding demonstrations every day, sacrificing their financial comfort by striking. Every day, the father of the family who own our hostal tells us, people join the demonstrations after they finish work.
People do care. They do think wider than their immediate lifestyles. But at the same time, they have to carry on. It is neither useful nor possible to maintain a constant state of panic. What is interesting though is the, apparently worldwide, human tendency to understand this, to carry on through all kinds of wider situations, but simultaneously lose sleep over trivia. Are we utilising a clever protection mechanism, like the Cotopaxi volcano, releasing pressure gradually through the minor traumas, to deal with the greater ones we know less how to deal with? Or is it simply a case of how immediately we are likely to be affected by the various stimuli?
Of course it depends on the ability of the cause to penetrate your circle, and this is never better demonstrated than by an exploding volcano, when it becomes, literally, a case of proximity.
The people who live in a small village between two volcano's and near to Cotapaxi perform an annual festival to thank the volcanos for their protection from the elements - and from the larger one a little way away - to appease and honour them and to ensure safety from their wrath. The festival is faithfully adhered to every year. It is deeply important.
On the top of the slopes of Cotopaxi, we are told that some villages have been evacuated. But others, only a little further down, are refusing to move. Within the next four to five months an eruption might occur which would hit the village in fifteen minutes. Experts say that even with the most efficient evacuation protocols, only half of the inhabitants could be brought out to safety in that time.
Fifty percent of that village could die.
But the villagers liken it to crying wolf. For months now the experts have been talking about ominous increased activity, now about a big eruption. But no one knows for sure, four to five months is a long time, especially when added to nearly a year of other warnings, and they simply cannot live in a state of constant panic. They are reluctant to leave their houses, their businesses for a certain disruption of their daily lives and their daily loves, in case an uncertain natural disaster might occur, perhaps, at an unknown time. They can live with the threat. They have for decades.
Everybody adjusts far faster than you would imagine, to living with any situation. Human beings are enormous adaptable. We can accept a daily nightmare, purely because it happens daily.
As for the people in the main town, thirty miles away, nobody really seems to be discussing it.
The political situation, of course, is different. The demonstrations, the strikes and the activities of the government seem to affect everybody. Watching a demo station march past, we see banners requesting better rights for women, protesting against the hugely inflated taxes, the governmental corruption, the prejudice against the indigenous people and the associated injustices, and the current attempt by the president to pass a new law which will allow him to continue in power beyond his usual cap of two four year terms, via an election system potentially swayed by the rich and powerful close to him.
The streets of Quito may not be at a stand still, but everybody is involved in the demonstrations, everybody is out there, marching for their cause.
Because the volcano is a force of nature. But the political system is something the ordinary Quiteño could, quite possibly, manage to change.
And so the demonstrations, though fuelled by genuine anger, are dogged, rather than violent. Far from the South American reputation in Europe for uncivilised rioting, the violence on Thursday is, even admitted by the press, an anomoly created by 'about twenty people'. Such an anomoly exists at any political demonstration, and is a phenomenon well known in the UK, though our media is rarely so balanced in its reporting.
We find ourselves pulling up chairs in the courtyard of our hostal to chat in Spanglish with an impassioned Carlos (pseudonym), the father of the family who run the hostal, about the situation with the president. The key problem, he tells us, is that by trying to pass the new law, allowing himself freedom from the usual cap in term length, he demonstrates a preoccupation not with the country, but with himself. He is losing popularity anyway, the oil price falling, general feeling being that he has lost his original principles.
"But it would be alright," says Carlos, "if he just saw out his term (he has another two years to go) and then gracefully retired."
Quito has a rather chequered history in relation to presidents who have outstayed their welcome. At least two were assassinated, though in fairness this was quite some time ago and methods for the public to express their displeasure runs rather more towards a march than a machete.
And so the people march.
Meanwhile we all go upstairs to the balcony of one of the rented flats to casually view the volcano pumping out ash.
Perhaps the people of Quito have simply learned to put into practice that old adage - to have the courage to change the things they can, and the wisdom to accept what they cannot.
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