Honk if you like Ecuador PARTE DOS

Now that Dan Weitz has experienced ¨The Ecua¨life that I live, he was nice enough to record his experiences and give his ¨dos centavos.¨ So let´s hear it for my first guest blogger!

Transportation: Local busses never come to a complete stop, people literally jump on and off the bus while it is still moving, and bathrooms on busses are for women only. Every car is at least 15 years old and honks about 3 to 5 times per minute. It’s also popular to ride in the back of pick-up trucks (the “Click It Or Ticket” rule clearly isn’t enforced here). There are no trains, no metro, no BMWs, no limos.

Vendors: You can buy everything from machetes to electric chords from people on the streets. One guy was walking around with a 3 liter bottle (yes, 3 liter) of Coke and selling little plastic cups of soda straight from the bottle. Also, there are legitimate stores with security guards that sell bootleg video games and DVDs for $1.50 (the quality is surprisingly good, too). There are little bodegas everywhere you turn, and if you need some bananas, no matter where you live, it will be at most a 15 second walk.

Cost of living: A three course meal with a chicken soup appetizer, grilled meat with rice, beans, and plantains, a small dessert, and delicious fruit drink costs $2 (includes tax, and you don’t tip here). For 6 tomatoes, 3 green peppers, a sack of potatoes, 3 limes, 1 pineapple, 2 avocados, 2 large carrots, 1 large head of broccoli, and cilantro is cost us $4.50. Monthly rent is $70. A 10 minute taxi ride or 1 hour bus ride each cost $1. Ice cream bars are 25 cents. A jumbo sized beer at a restaurant is $1. Nuff said.

Lifestyle: If you want someone’s attention, such as a waitress at a restaurant or a girl at a bar, you hiss at them. Every day is laundry day, there are always clothes hanging end to end on clotheslines. There’s no such thing as eggs and bacon for breakfast, instead it’s chicken and beans. At bars there are no gin and tonics or rum and cokes, but just beer that comes in half liter sized bottles with small plastic cups to pour in and share with everyone around you. Bugs like to bite you in the most random places such as your index finger knuckle or pinky toe. No matter how many times you take cold showers, it’s just as cold today as it was yesterday.

Walking the streets: Roads don’t have dotted white or double yellow lines (after all it’s pretty difficult to paint rocks and dirt). There are stray cats and dogs everywhere, and it’s common to be woken up by roosters in the morning (though something just doesn’t sound right with the way they cockle doodle do down here). There are beautiful mountains in the distance everywhere you look and the view just never gets old. People are very friendly and talkative and it is common to say Good Afternoon to just about every person you pass on the streets. Many buildings are only half finished and appear to be abandoned projects.

As poor as this country is, the people here seem very happy with their lives. While they may never watch the Super Bowl on a 50” plasma TV or talk to friends on their brand new iPhone, they are perfectly happy sitting outside their small cement apartments on plastic chairs watching cars drive by on a Saturday afternoon. Corrie loves it here and her Spanish is incredible. She was a great host and this was definitely a worthwhile experience that made me appreciate a new culture and admire even more Corrie’s devotion to this country.