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Published: January 7th 2006
Museum of Natural History
Some scuzzy-looking Andean Condors.While I was in Quito, I decided to visit the Museum of Natural History. It was pretty much a bust. The displays were falling apart, and were not very informative. I did use the library to look up what that little amarillo creature was. I think it was an Andean Porcupine, but there was no picture, so who knows? One interesting thing at the museum was that among many deserved slots, Walt Disney was featured on their wall of "Important Men of Science." He was honored for his great animation of animals and the natural world. Hmmm. And not one woman was among them.
Well, after much indecision, I ultimately decided to head to Baños for a few days. Baños is a laidback vacation destination for gringos and Ecuadoreans alike. It was nice. The town gets its name from the thermal baths that are the main attraction. Some pools are heated by the active volcano nearby!
I arrived in the afternoon and that day I just walked around the town (it's pretty small). The local gastronomic speciality is called "melcocha" and is a really delicious chewy kind of taffy. They make it in all the little shops in town.
Museum of Natural History
One of the decaying animals at the museum. They throw big globs of it against a peg in the doorway to mix and soften it. You can buy a 25 cent hunk right off the fresh one that's mixing on the doorway and it is really good. Most of it is just flavored with fresh sugar cane syrup, but some batches have fruit flavors or coconut. The coconut was definitely the best. You will probably observe in the picture that the guy is just using his bare hands. Yes, it's true, food handling hygiene is not exactly popular in Ecuador.
Which leads me to - sickness! Yes, I have been slightly ill for like a week now. It's not bad enough that I want to go to the doctor, but I have started taking antibiotics. We'll see what happens. I think I'll survive.
My first full day in Baños I spent the afternoon taking a tour of some surrounding waterfalls in an open-sided bus called a "chiva." We all sat on top of the bus, which was pretty scary, especially when we went through the highway tunnels. The only other tourists were a really nice Mexican - Ecuadorean couple. We ended up hiking a lot to
Museum of Natural History
Display of Galapagos wildlife in an old pool? see the waterfalls. We even crossed a couple scary suspension bridges. There were a few cable cars "tarabitas" that stretched across river gorges that the tour guide kept trying to get me to do. I pretended that I was scared of heights, which is just not true (spend 10 weeks sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon and you kind of get over that). I am scared of dying in a rickety high-altitude cable car. The waterfalls were beautiful, and it was nice to get a little taste of the jungle. After the tour, the friendly couple treated me to some sugarcane juice with lemon. The vendor made it right before our eyes with a press and a bunch of sections of sugarcane. I also tried just raw sugarcane (you chew it and spit it out), and it was pretty good.
The next day (yesterday) I was going to hike to the top of a little mountain near town then go to the hot springs, but unfortunately my illness came back with a bit of a vengeance, so I just relaxed most of the day. The hotel I was staying at had a really nice rooftop terrace, so
I spent a lot of time up there reading.
Today I came back to Quito, and I'm getting really excited to start work on Tuesday! I'm going to meet the field station owner, Harold, tomorrow night. Tomorrow during the day I'm going to tour some churches and other sites in the Old Town of Quito. I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to take my camera (high theft risk in Old Town), but if I do, I'll post more pictures in the next few days.
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Dad
non-member comment
Nice Tiger
I guess we sometimes take for granted all the nice things we have in this country. That tiger looks really bad. Love Ya Dad