Ecuador Travels & Trevails

I don't know why, but I just couldn't get back in the mood to blog for a long time now. I think I have so many things to blog it's so overwhelming. But I've decided I'm just going to have to start and then if I forget some things and have to come back later and tell you about them I will.

So the last your heard from me, I had a horrible traveling trip but I was finally with my in-laws enjoying the fresh fruits and other tasty foods of Ecuador. Here are a few pictures of some of those tasty foods. These are called Achotillos (they might be achetillos and I'm just pronouncing it incorrectly. Marcelo isn't here to double check so you'll have to forgive me if I'm spelling it incorrectly.) From the first pictures, these little fruits looking menacing















They look spikey and a little hairy all at the same time. That is actually a very good description of them on the outside. However, when you crack into them they look like this:


Yeah, they are like a nice peeled grape inside. You peel of the spiny but soft outer shell, and inside you find a soft flesh not unlike a grape who has married a mango. The taste is very sweet, and the texture is very peeled-grape-ish, but the mango reference comes from how the fruit clings to the large pit inside and how the little strings get caught on your teeth. But these things cold are the best on a hot afternoon or a hot night for that matter.

Here is another food item: Chifles.














Chifles are a gift from Heaven.They are made from "verdes" also known as plantains to you English speaking folk and they are much more related to a potato than to a banana. They look like unripe bananas, but they are completely different. You have to cut off the skins and if you get some of them under your nails it will give you a splinter like you wouldn't believe. That's right, the SKINS will do that! There is no easy peeling going on with these bad boys.

So the reason they are in the bag is because we bought them from the "chifleros" down the street. They do nothing all day but use a mandolin slicer and take these verdes and slice them into big vats of hot oil. They make thousands of them every day. And this whole bag cost like 50 cents. It's good they are so cheep because Marcelo's family loves them with ceviche and 2 of them can finish off a whole bag. Heck! I can finish off a whole bag myself! They taste like potato chips but fresher. Uggh, I'm getting a little salivated just remembering them again!

So enough about the food. You know that the food was good. It was great! But that was one of the only good things about being there. I hate to say it, but it was true!! It was so different being down there. Just so different and more difficult. The heat, the location and the fact that our baby didn't adjust so well all made things so difficult.

A typical day involved the following:
2:00 am, 3:30 am and 4:30 am: The family dog (who's name is León) sleeps up on the roof. However, you need to know that they have a sheet metal roof and he likes to put himself under the edge of it. If you know anything about big metal buildups, you know that the sounds travels EVERYWHERE in them. So when he is under that edge and starts barking, he might as well be inside the house right next to my head. It's honestly that loud. So at those times posted above, León hears other dogs in the neighborhood barking and decides he wants to get in on the action. The barking action I'm always terrified it will wake up Evi, but it actually doesn't! Never! She's used to the craziness already

6:00 am: Marcelo waking up and sweeping the floor in the house. My baby also wakes up at this time. I count the number of mosquito bites I accrued over the night. The number is always in the double digits.

8:00 am: Breakfast. Usually some sort of fried meat. I did not like breakfast. I would avoid it. Much to the annoyance of my mother in law. She hated when I refused food. One day my sister in law made tuna, onions, tomatoes and cilantro in lime juice for breakfast. BREAKFAST!! Again, I would avoid it. While trying to find something my child would eat. She usually didn't want to eat anything.

8:30 am Marcelo leaves to goodness knows where. Honestly, I have no idea where he is or who he goes to see!! But I know he won't be back before 1 pm, sometimes as late as 3 pm. I never go with him. Why is that? Well, we tried it one time and put the baby in the stroller and once we hit the sun she started screaming. It was way too hot for her and all the little bugs kept biting her! It just wouldn't work out. So he just left without me and went to make his visits alone. He had to go alone and I was left in the house alone with my mother in law. . . .

10:30 am: Nap time for me and baby. I LOOOOVED nap time. Especially when I had dengue. Evi and I put the fan on and just slept.

11:30-3 pm. Nothing. Nothing at all. I would maybe listen to my iPod, maybe talk to my sister in law. But usually nothing.

3:00 pm: Lunch. Usually something I didn't want to eat. But what could I do. They never ask you if you are hungry, and they never ask you how much you want of the food. You sit down and a plate of food is in front of you, and you eat it. Those are the rules. Don't like tamarindo juice that tastes like rotten fruit? Then plug your nose and chug it! Seriously, she had this tamarindo paste sitting on her counter for like 3 days and on the 2nd day I lifted the lid and my head snapped back because it was so strong. It smelled very rancid, almost alcoholic in it's rancidness. I asked what it was, and they said it was for the "business" (The business is "health juices". Whatever) And then they put it in front of us to drink!! I did not like it! But like the good daughter in law, I ate it.

Most days I wasn't hungry. It's too hot to eat. Or I only wanted a little something. No luck. You didn't get to choose your portion size. At the beginning I would fight through it, but at the end I was tired trying to make everyone happy and I just left the food that I didn't want.

3-9 pm: More of nothing. Another nap for Evi, maybe another nap for me. Maybe some more hammock time. Marcelo gone visiting people: Me alone.

And that was my day. Over and over again. I was so tired of all of this, it was too long being there.

And my baby was sick. She got persistent diarrhea. And she didn't want to eat. My father in law really got to see how strong willed my baby was. If she doesn't want to eat, she won't. She would go meals and meals without eating. And my mother in law would whine and try to get her to eat something, but she wouldn't have it. There was nothing we could do to make her eat. So that was so nerve racking.

And then she started the vomiting. She would vomit at least once a day. She wouldn't eat anything all day, and then we finally got some food in her, and she would puke it up 4-6 hours later. Everything. I was so nervous. I could see her losing weight in front of me. It was scary. I am so thankful I was still breastfeeding. Sometimes it was the only thing she would eat. And I knew that she was getting it at least 4 times a day. So I at least I had that going through my mind saving me from running to the nearest airport and jumping on a plane directly home!!

And I almost did lots of times. My in-laws have cement floors. That's right, just cement on the floors. The front room is a smooth cement, but quite slippery. The dining room, bedrooms and kitchen all have a rougher uneven cement. Which does not bode well with my baby flinging herself on the floor in the middle of a tantrum. Or slipping out of your arms trying to get away and falling on her face. She did this over and over again. And I got a picture of it:


Nice, right? It was huge for like 4 days, then it went away. And then the very night it went away, she did it again!! I swear people thought that we were smacking her around. On the picture on the right you can see the sheen off the smoother cement in the background.

Anyway, my kid was always smacking herself or trying to eat the dirt off the floor. (No wonder she was so sick all the time!!) It just wasn't an enjoyable trip for me!! I wish it were! I wish I could say it was better! But it was just torturous.

Oh, and I didn't get to go to the beach. YUP, remember how excited I was to do that? Remember how I had never been to a warm beach and I was so excited to go while in Ecuador? Well, it didn't happen. I got dengue fever. What is dengue fever you ask? Well, Healthline.com says:

"Dengue fever is a virus-based disease spread by mosquitoes. Dengue fever begins with a sudden high fever, often to 104-105 degrees Fahrenheit. A flat, red rash may appear over most of the body early during the fever. A second rash, measles-like in appearance, appears later in the disease. Infected people may have increased skin sensitivity and are very uncomfortable. Other symptoms include: Headache, Joint aches, Muscle Aches, Nausea, Swollen Lymph Nodes, Vomiting."

It's basically like mono for a week. With a rash. I had all those symptoms except the vomiting. It did last a week, and I didn't take anything for it. No reason, the recommended medicine is Tylenol! Obviously just for the discomfort. I can stand it, so I didn't want to take anything. It ruined the last week of our time there. I just slept all the time. And I had a rash. And Marcelo had me take like 3 showers a day. I was SOOOO tired of showers.

Did you know my in-laws don't have hot water? So when I say shower I mean cold shower! Cold showers are horrible first thing in the morning. And cold hair first thing in the morning? LESS EFFECTIVE!! I was so done with Ecuador and dengue and just everything in general by the 24th. ALL DONE!! (Say that the way my niece Isabel used to say it with the accompanying sign language. I know most of you don't know it, but you can make it up in your mind)

Ok, that's all I'm going to write for right now. I'm going to leave you with a few more Ecuador pictures. These are the Bibi and I with some chicks that my in-laws bought. I don't know why they bought them. Probably to raise so they could someday eat them. That's usually why they have animals!! But here we are looking at them and I'm trying to keep her from pulling a Lenny and snapping their little heads off. She loved how soft they were!


More Ecuador stories tomorrow!!