My wife and I adopted two children from Paraguay in 1992. Rocío was two years old when we adopted her, Carlos just one. Since we both spoke Spanish, it wasn't a leap of faith to decide to teach our children the language. Some day they might want to explore their birth country, talk to the birth mothers and family, learn about where they came from, etc.
Three days a week they were enrolled in regular day care in a day care facility which was culturally diverse (Rocio was the SECOND one with that name!). They spent two days a week with Anabel Castillo, whose husband, Raúl, was attending the University of Wisconsin finishing his Ph.D. Raúl had been working for many years on a biological diversity project in Ecuador for the World Bank with his long-time friend, Eduardo Peralta. Raúl had the potatoes, Eduardo the legumes.
Raúl and Anabel had two children when they arrived in the United States, Sofia and Anabel chica. While living in Madison a third child was born, Alejandra.
Anabel really got along well with our kids because, as her friends said, she was just like a kid herself! The children adored her. Anabel was very social, so we knew our children would meet people from many Latin American countries during the course of a normal day. Their friends were from Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, Brasil, and from throughout South America.
In this photo Anabel is in the middle back row, flanked on the
right by Anabel Chica, and on the left by Sofia. Alejandra is
in the front middle. Rocio is on the front left, Carlos on the
front right.
One day during the spring of 1994 I mentioned to Anabel that we were thinking of taking the kids to Latin America to give them a good dose of Latin American language and culture. Anabel replied "Why don't you stay at our place?" We had no idea that they had retained their apartment while in the United States. They had just closed the doors and left.
We could hardly believe it, a completely furnished apartment available for our use in the Andean highlands! Anabel added something about getting us needing a maid while we were there. With that offer, my wife was hooked! I told my sister we would be spending a month in Ecuador and asked her if she was interested in coming along. She jumped at the chance. In a short period of time all the normally difficult elements of our normal vacations had melted away.
We exited the airport through this "cage" that was lined wall to wall with friends and relatives of the people arriving on our flight. Anabel's father, as expected, spotted us from quite a distance. Eduardo Peralta and his two brothers had commandeered several taxis to make the long trip over from the far North of Quito to the far South side. After the 45-minute drive, some of the worst Spanish I have ever spoken, and a brief introduction to our apartment, we all fell into our beds exhausted.
The first few days
Eduardo and his wife Roxanne proved to be marvelous hosts from
the very next morning. They set about telling us the ground rules
of the Conjunto del Sur, arranging for the maid, Rosa, to come
to work, and letting us borrow food and money until we were able
to get out and pay for them. Roxanne took us to the bank later
that first day to cash some money her bank. They treated us like
family.
Rocí had an all-Spanish experience that first day. She was very excited, weakened by the 9,000-foot altitude, and not quite up to snuff with her Spanish. By nightfall all she could manage to do was stand outside the door and shout "Mira! Mira! Mira!" (Here I am!) Carlos, the shy one, never did say much from that first day onward. He would scream at any kid who came within shouting distance of the iron grill outside on the front door. That got to be his little game with them.
Don Ernesto, Anabel's father, showed up on that first day with a beautiful floral display of gladiolas about three feet wide. He welcomed us to Quito and volunteered to help if he could be of service.
We found out that our maid, Rosa, would work for us 5 1/2 days per week. She did our laundry, picked up items at the grocery store within the Conjunto, fetched me my morning paper, and cooked wonderful meals. From time to time we would look through an Ecuadorian cookbook and ask her to prepare some of the native dishes, many of which were quite tasty. She was an excellent cook. Often she would bring in local spices from home to enliven the meals. Hers was the best food we had while in Quito.
The kids of the Conjunto had a lot of curiosity about us and about our children. They thought Rocí an exotic creature from a far-off land and immediately started calling her "la Rocí" to indicate her independent ways, by their standards. Gabriela, the 11-year old neighbor girl, took Rocí around by the hand those first few days, introducing her to everybody.
Kids of all ages played together in the Conjunto, and the big kids not only tolerated the little ones but also kept a watchful eye out for them so they wouldn't get in any trouble. Nataly and Ivan, Eduardo and Roxanne's children, were equally nice to our children those first few days. Mary and I were able to quickly brush up on our Spanish by talking to these children, and to the Peraltas.
We had wondered how the Ecuadorians would react to our obviously adopted, obviously Latin-American children. It seemed OK by everybody, since after all they were from Paraguay, which was a great relief!
By the third day Rocí was running out the door in the morning and disappearing with her friends for hours on end. Her Spanish was getting better by the day, and she was having a great time. Carlos, only 2 1/2, still stayed close to the adults. The doors to each house had a locking grill on the inside and a door on the outside. Everyone left their doors open, with the grill closed. Carlos had obviously interpreted this arrangement as an invitation to scream at anybody who walked past the door.
Looking for an ideal climate? Quito is 70 by day, 55 by night. The only difference in the weather depends upon the wet or the dry season. By arriving in June we were just at the beginning of the dry season. There was a chill in the air in the morning and after sunset. The air was crystalline, and the sky was bright at night.
The prevalent tree seemed to be the eucalyptus, which is not native. Quito is in a long, narrow valley, surrounded by high mountains on all sides. The nickname of the city is "un hueco en el cielo", which translates as a "hole in heaven", which captures the religious convictions of the populace as well as its altitude, at over 9,000 feet above sea level.
We were at first a little alarmed by what sounded like cannon fire in the distance. I asked some of the children what it was. They said I had guessed correctly. There was a military base in the mountains above Quito, and it was quite common for them to practice their marksmanship every day. Sometimes we heard machine-gun fire as well.
We were robbed once while there, early on. It happened in front
of the old San Francisco church, a very professional job by a
large gang of people headed by an elderly woman. Nobody was hurt,
and they only got a little bit of our money, since I had taken
only the amount I was planning to spend that day. Still, it was
rather unsettling. What was much worse was that I read in the
guidebooks the next day that anybody going near San Francisco
church could expect to be robbed! This pattern apparently had
been going on for years, with the collusion of the police. Rosa,
our maid, told us not to feel too bad, the bad people robbed everybody,
not just the tourists.
Walking anywhere in the "casco antiguo" (old town) requires caution. The modern, Northern part of town is much more prosperous and much safer.
We took taxis that were assigned to the our apartment complex to minimize the risk of any hanky-panky on that front. The taxis were plentiful and cheap. Except for the occasional Che Guevara picture hanging from the rear view mirror, we were comfortable letting someone else drive us around. One can't reasonably expect to make record time around Quito. There is always an accident somewhere, landslides, crowds, etc. There were also a large number of tunnels connecting the various parts of town, which also had their share of accidents.
It's a little strange being on the equator, surrounded by huge mountains. Every day and night is 12 hours long, but we had maybe an hour less light than that due to the tremendous mountains surrounding the valley.
Prices were cheap by American standards. Some of the things I bought while there, of high quality, were a fraction of what one would pay in the United States. A leather coat cost $80. Alpaca sweaters went for $70. A beautiful cotton sweater was $60. I wish I had not been so cheap and bought more sweaters! Our clothier here in Madison says that Ecuador is the last place to have the great old looms for making quality sweaters.
Good meals out, with what passed for wine, were around $8 per person, usually. We didn't eat out much since we genuinely looked forward each day to what Rosa would whip up for us. Lots of delicious soups. We would find the name of a recipe. She would tell us what she needed to make it. Often she brought her own spices once she determined that we were really interested in the local food.
We rented an all-day taxi for about $70, and took a trip north
to Ibarra. On the way we shopped, sampled some local cuisine,
and passed through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery
imaginable. At San Francisco de Ibarra we stopped at the central
park and ended up admiring the humming birds. Driving toward Ibarra
we saw a rainbow that must have been 60 miles long. We also saw
an incredible procession for a miraculous statue of the Virgin
Mary who had spend a week in Quito, who was being returned to
her home village. Every telephone pole along the side of the road
was decorated in flowers, as were the wires passing over the highway.
Lots of calla lilies. People were walking en masse from the villages
up to the Pan-American highway to catch a glimpse of the small
box that held the statue.
The PanAmerican Highway was fascinating. It was nearly the only means of communication between the different parts of the country. The traffic was chaotic, with people, animals, trucks, and cars all vying for a piece of the road. Washouts were not uncommon. The stores, the food stands, the towns seem to go on forever. We saw dozens of huge, skinned pigs hanging from outdoor meat vendor stands.
In recent years some of the Indian activists have been shutting down the road for extended periods of time. I think they're still doing it. Prudence dictates that somebody make some inquiries to make sure that the "Pana" is open in the direction that you might be headed.
Car rental was not recommended to us. Better to have a local person navigate the highways and byways. Police and military patrols stopping people for papers, vehicle inspection, inquiries, etc. were fairly common, according to our friends. Ecuador has the misfortune to be next to Columbia on one side and Peru on the other. Each neighbor creates a particular set of problems for Ecuador.
Eduardo and Roxanne took us up to the foothills of Cotopaxi, a
volcano similar in shape to Mount Fuji, but at 19,348 feet a good 2000 meters
higher. It is an active volcano. We got up around 14,000
feet or so, where the wind gets cold and the breath gets short.
Naturally, Eduardo had brought a soccer ball along just in case
we wanted to kick the ball around some and get completely out
of breath! Watching from the sidelines, I noticed they didn't
kick that ball around for very long…
There was a domestic herd of llamas in the park, several hundred of them, of all shapes and sizes. We went to an alpine lake that had an large variety of wetland Andean birds, some of them rare.
Within downtown Quito a surprising number of the old churches were closed. The Cathedral in the plaza central was closed. The famous Jesuit church of La Compañia was also closed. There is a problem with protecting sacred art, not uncommon to Latin America. These beautiful old churches have much to risk by staying open at night.
Changing money at the casas de cambio (money-changers) was relatively straightforward. Using credit cards worked well, with quite favorable conversion rates when the bill came. There was enough inflation and the possibility of losing money that we went several times rather than having a huge lump of bills sticking out of our pockets. At 2,200 to the dollar, the wad of bills you end up with is sizable.
Keep your change, particularly the small stuff. You will need it. The simplest of transactions can take 15 minutes to half an hour if the right amount of small bills and coins are not present. Otherwise you can simply donate the difference to the local economy, but sometimes that won't even work.
Anabel had cautioned us to always leave a window in the apartment cracked open a bit. We didn't know why until one day we saw the gate guard show up with a couple of kids and a rope, one of which he proceeded to lower from the floor above so that the kid could crawl down the side of the building into the window and open the apartment from the inside.
One day we did manage to lock ourselves out of our apartment. Fortunately, Miguel, Eduardo's brother, had a spare key which eventually worked after jiggling it in the lock for about 35 minutes. I was pretty sure they weren't going to lower me over the side of the building to get in there!
Doña Monica, our neighbor, invited the kids over to a birthday party for Enrique, turning 4. She had a 3-hour dance contest for the children. We were really disappointed when little 3 year old Ernesto, who had danced his heart out, didn't win!
One night Eduardo pulled his records out and had some people over
to dance. I don't like to dance, and usually don't unless browbeaten
and lobbied for several hours ahead of time. My wife started shooting
daggers my way, our pre-dance ritual. Not to worry. A couple of
5 and 6-year olds came over and asked both my wife and my sister
to dance!
We went to two markets. Otovalo on an off day was pleasant. There
were a lot of woolen goods, rugs, hats, trinkets. Etc. Favorite
T-shirt at Otovalo: "You've obviously mistaken my for someone
who gives a damn", worn by a local merchant. Otovalan indians
have commercial ties reaching far outside of Ecuador. I would
not have been surprised to find out that the merchant bought the
shirt in the United States.
I bought a nice lacquered painting there. We bought the kids a couple of stalks of sugar cane, which they found good but mysterious. Sugar was white and came in little crystals, as far as they knew.
Another, smaller village we visited, Latacunga, was quite different. It was the type of place that has a Christ stature at the top of a nearby hill. All the strange (to us) local produce was out on display, as well as the usual woven products. We enjoyed the village, but became anxious as the afternoon wore on. I suspect the stories are true about some of the locals getting drunk during the course of the day, and things turning potentially ugly late in the afternoon. We decided not to find out if it was true.
We had a great time in Ecuador. Towards the end Eduardo prepared
roast guinea pig for us (cuy), shipped fresh from the family farm
down south. His uncle, who had been a diplomatic chef most of
his life, stopped by to make sure we were doing the cuy justice.
Also a few possibly tall tales. Once under way, he turned the
task of roasting over to his nephew. 
The
little rats were skewered on the ends of broom handles, then
roasted over coals for several hours. The meat was savory inside,
and was sucked from the bones. I must admit that Rocío had
the largest serving. 
By the time we left, we thought of Eduardo and Roxanne as true friends. Nataly and Ivan, their children, were both great kids who would make any parent proud. We saw a side of the Andean people that I had not seen while traveling through many years previous as a student.
Rocío's Spanish was superb by the time we left. The kids
at the apartment complex were wonderful to her, and to this day
she still misses them. She keeps a picture of her main squeeze,
Andrés, by her bed. The
trip was a great success, and we would like to go down some day
to revisit Eduardo and Roxanne as well as Raul and Anabel. The
country was as beautiful and mountainous in my memory as that
of Switzerland.
For English-speaking visitors my unsolicited advice is to stay on the North side of Quito in one of the nice hotels. Great shopping, good restaurants, very much like the Zona Rosa of Mexico City. Staying anywhere else in the city might require doing a bit of homework. Certain parts of town can be dangerous, particularly at night.
Some day when the kids are older we would like to take them back to see some of the ecological wonders of Ecuador. Of particular interest is a stretch of Pacific cloud forest. There are also tours of the jungle available. The biodiversity of the country is amazing, containing roughly 25% of all the plant species in the world, if I recall the number correctly. About the only thing I remember that they don't have is good coffee! They boil the stuff down to a tar-like mass, then add it to water.
I'll add this, though I feel a tad foolish for mentioning it. Coca tea is a local beverage often consumed to ameliorate the effects of altitude. It is perfectly legal in the Andean countries, and the tea itself could hardly be classified as a drug. Don't be cute and try to bring some back to the U.S., however.