entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Kim and i are heading to Ecuador on Saturday.  The original impetus was attending my 20-year high school reunion; then i got miffed because it was classmates-only (i.e., no spouses), so i was no longer interested in going.  But then i got over it because, hell, i'm going to be there and i might as well go; in all likelihood, it's the last reunion i'll attend, so i should make the best of it.  The timing is dicey because the World Cup's starting on Friday (and i will be missing USA-England while on the plane, damn it); some of us asked the organizers to reconsider the party for July but they ignored us so... whatever.

It's been almost four years since we last visited Ecuador, which really is way too long.  I'd really like to go every two years, at most.  I hope that i can keep that up in 2012.

The next right-wing fucknut who whinges about Barack Obama being a "polarizing president" is going to get their nose rubbed deep in the shitpit that is the current political situation in Ecuador and Rafael Correa.  I just had to bitch out over email a whole bunch of family members on the pro- and anti-Correa sides for behaving like fuckheads at each other.

Today, as part of Cinequest, Kim and i went to see Cuando Me Toque a Mí, mainly because it was filmed in Quito.  I started feeling a certain nostalgia as i saw the familiar streets, landscapes, and people.  The story itself is grim, which is probably not much of a surprise given that it's mostly set in a morgue.  But neither of those got me down as much as the dialogue did, when it outlined the double-faced tragedy, inherent to Ecuadorian culture, of despair and apathy.

To me, Ecuador is a childhood friend who was instrumental in forming who i am, but whom i outgrew while it remained locked in its doomed immaturity; i love it dearly, miss the good times, and enjoy the memories, but every time i hear from it now, i almost always find the news mortifying.  I've often said that it's a beautiful country — and it is — but i couldn't imagine living there, despite missing my parents and the rest of my family quite a bit, because i couldn't deal with the way of life there.  It's not just the corruption, although that's definitely a big deal; it's more the general sense that people just don't care about doing things the right way, or for the right reasons.  I doubt there's anything unique about Ecuador in this sense, but it feels to me that they've distilled it and then incorporated into the societal DNA.  And it's the enormity of this endemic flaw that permeates the story of this movie, which made watching it progressively more painful to me as it played.

The movie itself is very good; cinematography, writing, directing, acting.  The pacing is a bit languid, and there are a good amount of scenes where there is no dialogue and none is needed.  It'll be playing at the Camera 12 next Saturday at 13:30; if you feel up to a movie that's a bit of a downer, and want to see more of my adopted country, you should definitely check it out.

¡¡¡¡¡LIGA DEPORTIVA UNIVERSITARIA DE QUITO CAMPEÓN DE COPA LIBERTADORES!!!!!

Ramiro Salazar, a high school classmate, is a photographer, and he put up a Good Friday pictorial from 2006.

hannibaltaburss: Heck, while I'm here, you're actually *from* Ecuador -- could you do something to educate a Yanqui POW about what's going on?
ronebofh: colombia kills rebel leader in ecuador territory, causing sovereignty angst. hugo chavez is probably funding rebels.
ronebofh: chavez is tight with correa, ecuador's president, and also with fellow leftist presidents lula (brazil) and morales (bolivia)
ronebofh: leftist assholes have a point, but they're dicks. US supports Colombia, and they're dicks, too. The rebels are also dicks.
ronebofh: i hope this has been helpful.

<muzzy> It's always good news that OPEC is favoring throwing away the dollar.
<todd> Is Ecuador dumping the dollar yet?
<ronebofh> not yet.  they probably feel a certain nostalgia to have a currency that's devaluing before their very eyes.

I never wrote a recap of our trip to Ecuador three years ago.  I never even bothered to link to Kim's recap.  It's because i'm lame.  I've had a bunch of notes lying around since then.  I might get around to it.

Summary: eleven days in and around Quito, plus two spent in gravity-defying aluminum sausages.  Quito is still beautiful, although it's more crowded than ever with cars.

We spent the first two days adjusting to the altitude (2850 meters above sea level).  Then it was the day of my cousin Iván's and Cristina's wedding.  The less said about the ceremony, the better.  The reception party, though, was killer fun.  My cousin Francisco gave me and palecur each a Cohiba cigar, which was really a quite enjoyable smoke, although so massive that i only finished two-thirds of it.  Good wine, good music and lots of dancing (including the Macarena, which caught me on the dance floor; i steadfastly refused to "do" it, and danced on my own).  Only the food was the weak link; when Mom and my aunts sampled the food, it had been fantastic, but when the food showed up at the party, it was underwhelming.  We went home "early" at around 02:30.

While there, we went to:

• The hot springs in Papallacta (3300 m ASL) with my aunt Martha, where we all got sunburnt except for Kim.  The skies opened up there to give us a gorgeous look at the Antisana.
• Cayambe to have lunch at La Casa de Fernando, where i had my old usual, the steak au poivre, and Kim had the largest filet mignon she's ever had (almost twice as large as your average filet mignon).  We washed it down with a fantastic Santa Ema carmenère.  Dad knows Fernando, and Fernando knows when my dad is there because my dad orders his steak well-done-to-burnt, so when the order comes in, he pokes his head out of the kitchen.  I bought a bottle of Viña Dávalos 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, produced and bottled in Mira, in Ecuador's province of Carchi, up against the Colombian border.  The wine was lost by Continental Airlines between Quito and Houston, but it was fortunately found and delivered last night.  I eagerly await the day when i open it; i think Ecuador has huge potential for wine (indeed, due to its weather, two harvests are possible each year [!]).
• Otavalo for the fair to buy gifts for the chilluns.  We did all right, despite my being hungry and subsequent crankiness.  Otavalo is right next to Lago San Pablo (St. Paul Lake, or Imbacocha), which is at the foot of the Imbabura (note: 'huarmi' means 'woman', not 'son').  We drove down to Cotacachi for lunch (we had their famous carne colorada, lean pork chunks cooked in a spicy annatto sauce).  After lunch, we bought Kim a new purse/backpack (Cotacachi is also famous for their leather goods), and then we drove to Cuicocha, a lake at the foot of the Cotacachi mountain that has a very large island in the middle.
• A museum of colonial-era art housed in what used to be Quito's first university, and a display of Goya, Picasso, and Miró sketches at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador.
• Mom's cousin Piolín's and Chío's (or Gustavo and Rocío, if you want given names) house for ceviche, hominy with pork rinds, toasted corn with garlic, and beer.  The hominy and pork was especially good and i ended up finishing it off after everyone was full (thus, my remark in the subject which spontaneously occurred during one of those mysterious lulls in conversation that happen at every gathering).  Their house is at the top of a hill and you can see the Chimborazo (the tallest mountain in Ecuador and the tallest mountain in the world measured from the Earth's center) on a clear day.  Their youngest son, Felipe, is an artist of some renown, and he had his work shown at the Miss Universe pageant, which was held in Ecuador two years ago (i hope to have the chance to scan in some some pictures of his stuff; it's really good and the medium he's using is, as far as i know, unique).  Later, after seeing my aunt Martha off at the airport, Mom took us to the Panecillo for an awesome view of Quito at night.
• The new TelefériQo cable car up the side of Cruz Loma, one of the foothills of the Ruco Pichincha.  The top of Cruz Loma is 4100 m ASL, and we hiked farther up the side of the Ruco Pichincha (maybe another 100 m of altitude).  Kim and i chatted with Merlin ("Like the magician," she said), who was from Holland, and Alex, who was from Minnesota.  He was in Ecuador working with WWOOF.
• My aunt Inés's place, where we played telefunken, where i managed to beat everyone via batatazo (laying down all your cards as "melds" and discarding a card before anyone has laid down) for the first time.  That felt real good.  We also learned to play canasta, which is a lot of fun.  And, naturally, we played a fair bit of cuarenta.

I missed out twice on seeing Liga de Quito play.  I have to catch them in their stadium next time, no matter what.

I hope i haven't forgotten much.  I gotta get to bed now.

Volcanic eruptions in the Philippines, Ecuador, Colombia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.  Even Montserrat is getting into the action.

Bonus fun: click on my Current Location, hit the Satellite button, then scroll South a bit to see the ash plume.

I learned that Abdalá Bucaram, whom i've mentioned before, has managed to return to Ecuador.  Mom writes:

If only you could see, it's all shameful.  We have a de facto [Supreme] Court since December 8 [after Ecuador President Lucio Gutiérrez dissolved it under a pretext that sounded a whole lot like "activist judges"], and its president was hand-picked by Lucio; and yet, he recused himself after the opposition started applying pressure.  The rest of the court got together and named one of Bucaram's brothers, who is also a fugitive from justice [i know what you're thinking; remember, this is the Third World], and this is how this imbecile annulled all judgements against fugitives.  Dahik arrived on Friday, Bucaram on Saturday, and Noboa on Sunday; only Mahuad remains [in exile].  I feel sorry for Noboa, because i feel his exile was unfair, but not the rest, especially Bucaram, because it's a revolting development and he's the biggest thief in history [well, probably Ecuadorian history].  Without exaggeration, he took millions of dollars, literally stuffed in garbage sacks; there are photographs of his people loading them into his plane, and receipts from the Comptroller's office that show the money he took out of the Central Bank and exchanged into dollars.  The country's about to explode, and i'm glad i'm on my way out [she and Dad are going on a trip to Japan and China]; there's going to be a general strike on Tuesday, and i doubt this government won't take much more.