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Bird of Paradise
As the blossom springs open like a fan more and more beautiful details emerge. I love the little blue petals. I have now left the coast and am back up in Banos, looking out the window at majestic Tungurahua volcano as I type this blog entry. I am usually in bed by 8:00 or 9:00 pm at the latest, sleeping thru long and peaceful nights (with only occasional startled awakenings thinking about something I forgot to do at Mandala!) No more doggie howling sessions (with Lalo taking the lead and the others joining in, BonBon’s high-pitched, pre-adolescent yip audible above the rest). No more late nights, wishing I were already in bed while waiting for the kitchen staff to finish cleaning and then waiting for the guardians to return from driving them home.
When they got back from their short visit to Florida, Maja & Aurelio sometimes sent me off to bed early and they closed up. I was able to “escape” one day for a few hours and have lunch with friends at the Magic Dolphin Restaurant in the nearby town of Salango. I had a bit of a shock one early morning when it was my turn to open the restaurant. I awoke to 6 am weak light filtering in my windows but my cell phone clock
Maja and "the kids"
Just hanging out on the terrace, nice to see Maja so relaxed. When I handle most of the reservations and billing, she can enjoy her home, Mandala. read 5 am. I quickly realized that I’d set the phone’s satellite time to a US time zone, so it automatically “fell back” for daylight saving’s time. We don’t have DST here in South America , so I reset the clock to the Bogota time zone!
Exciting moment when Anthony Bourdain came to stay at Mandala. I only knew of him because I’d watched his show, “Without Reservations”, in Atlanta with my friend Michelle who adores him! For several weeks I’d been working with his lead man, Maxim, to coordinate their two nights of lodging at Mandala (Yes, they came "with reservations” to our hotel!). The day before the film crew was due to arrive, I was moving a fan into storage and the top part began to fall off the base. I quickly twisted and bent to catch it….VERY bad move. I threw my back out and was in excruciating pain for the next few days.
Ever since a car crash in ’88, I’ve had a weak link in my lower lumbar spine and this is the 2nd or 3rd time a disc has become inflamed. The zinging hot & cold pain and numbness in
BonBon smoking a twig!
That puppy fixation - always something in the mouth! my right leg was proof that a nerve was being pinched. A German doctor tourist told me that sciatica is commonly known as “Witches’ Shot” in Deutschland. I called my chiropractor and since I wouldn’t be able to head north to see him for more than a week, he recommended an anti-inflammatory injection. I planned my naptime so the cleaning gal could give me butt-cheek injections twice during that painful week. I was terrified when my left leg went out from under me a few times, but the chiro says it’s the collateral nerve which caused that weakness and I shouldn’t worry since it didn't continue beyond the first few days.
Every day I wore my back compression belt (like a girdle, complete with metal stays) and I laid on ice packs whenever I had a free hour. I had never before realized just how much I bend and lift and twist and climb up and down the stairs on any given day. For a few days I was unable to do these actions and I carefully calculated my treks upstairs to the office. I had to ask the waiters to pick up something I’d dropped, and I
Mandala Cabana
The skylights on the terrace and the windows over the doors have brightened the interiors of the small cabanas. Since they were built about 10 yrs ago the garden has grown so much, blocking out light. needed help to lift up a ledger book or the billard balls. Back pain can truly be incapacitating, and this episode was a sharp rap on my knuckles - reminding me that I must stay active (regular exercise!), keep my weight down (yup, this protruding gut is definitely a factor), and wear back support when I have to be on my feet a lot (not wait until it starts hurting! )
But back to Anthony Bourdain…I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats since I first mentioned his name! I tried to explain to Maja just how famous this guy is in the US (and anywhere satellite TV viewers can watch his show). I showed her a clip on YouTube of his show in Peru. I warned her that if he mentions Mandala on the show she’ll likely have a huge surge of reservations from the US. (I’m not sure when the Ecuador show will air, so if you watch his show regularly, please record it for me so I can see it someday!) Theycame to southern Manabi ao Tony could eat “percebes”, which are tubelike barnacles that have the consistency of rubber bands. He and
Jill & Tony
OK - the obligatory groupie photo. This one's for you Michelle. Anthony Bourdain was really a nice guy - very laid back and pleasant. the crew were really chill, hanging out with their feet up on the railing, drinking lots of caipirinhas. He’s worked with the same folks for a number of years, so they’re like family together. They had dinner at Mandala both nights (Maja was in a panic that the octopus dish Anthony orderded wouldn’t turn out tender enough!)
Since most of hotel’s guests are European, practically nobody recognized him which I’d guess was a nice relief. In Quito he had top security clearance at the presidential suite of the Marriott. In Puerto Lopez he could just be a regular guy. After much urging from Michelle, I did ask him for an autograph and I had my photo taken with him. The whole film crew signed a page in the Mandala Guest Book, and I was amazed by how many Ecuadorian hotel guests read the page during the following week and exclaimed, “Anthony Bourdain was here?!?! And I missed seeing him!?!?” Where there’s satellite TV, he’s got exposure!
Even as the Bourdain crew was checking out, we were receiving a huge influx of “national” tourists. It was a holiday weekend “bridge” (puente ) for Day of the Dead
Indoor Dining Option
During the cool, drizzly garua season some of thehotel guests choose to eat inside. This French family smiled for the camera, this shot taken as I was walking up the stairs. (Dia de los Difuntos). Halloween in many parts of the world is, in most of Latin America, a time for families to visit & decorate the gravesites of the departed. During any long holiday weekend, people who live in the mountains traditionally come down to party on the coast. With the back pain I was suffering, it was a little more stress than I needed just then to have the hotel filled with Ecuadorian families. It’s a whole different rhythm and ambience.
As always, the best part of my Mandala job is the fascinating people I meet each and every day. A delightful Spanish couple gifted me a sandalwood bracelet they had purchased in Egypt; the sweet, musky smell of the beads calms my often frazzled nerves. A woman who was a teaching colleague of mine 20 years ago came down for the holiday weekend. She is now the director of the school in Quito and we reminisced about the old days and people we both knew. An American couple, living in the Ecuadorian highlands but not loving the cold weather of the Andes, came down to the beach to scout around. They are now renting my cabana
Terrace Dining
I prefer the outdoor area of the restaurant. The music of the waves, views of the ocean, and lovely breezes. at Alandaluz for six weeks while they ponder their options of moving to the coast.
There was an Irish family meeting the relatives of their son’s Ecuadorian fiancee. They often asked me to act as intermediary to interpret their exchanges of warmth and gladness - a joyful task! We hosted a group of senior citizens from Holland who travel together to exotic climes each year. One of the couples was upstairs playing guitar and singing in heavenly harmony. I paused from my hurried daily tasks to sit and listen. They told me about how they had met as children, but her parents said she was too young when he asked permission to take her to a dance. The years passed and each married someone else, but they met again after her husband died. Wim told me, “I was almost 60 but felt like 16 when I realized I’d always loved her” . They gave me a private “concert” and he sang, in his deep baritone, the song he had written to ask her to marry him. She joined in with a soprano melody line in the last verse and with tears flowing freely down my cheeks, we all
hugged farewell.
The last week at Mandala was one of the toughest, mainly because of the death of our beloved BonBon. He was throwing up all one morning, and by noon he had died. We don’t know if he ate something poisonous or what, but he had a violent allergic reaction, his tongue swelled up and he lost consciousness. It was heartbreaking to watch his sweet puppy spirit slip away. BonBon is surely in doggie heaven, reminiscing with Chaco about the great times they had with the Mandala pack: Lalo, Bruna & Julieta.
The hardest part for me was to keep it together emotionally; to go on greeting guests, figuring up bills, answering the phone while holding my grief in check. Very few of the tourists realized what was going on; they’re on vacation - they don’t need to be exposed to my grieving and sadness. When I could finally escape the reception area for a few moments and fall apart, I realized how much unspent emotion I was holding from Chaco’s passing and how much BonBon had been helping me to deal with his loss. I continued through the next few days with a stone
The Pack in Mourning
I left BonBon's cushion on the terrace for the few days and the other three were clamoring to occupy it. Usually one or two claims the soft spot, but they all cuddled together in the days following BonBon's passing. on my heart; the heavy mourning feeling literally felt like an actual weight I was carrying in my soul. There were two teenaged girls from Quito visiting Mandala and they had been completing a drawing of Bruna & Julieta in the guest book at the moment that BonBon died. They then added a black angel dog, flying up to heaven.
Just before finishing up my last days at Mandala, I got a call that my friend and neighbor, Henry Short, had died in the hospital in Guayaquil. His wife, Esther, was my English student. They aren’t sure if he had a ruptured hernia, appendicitis or stomach cancer, but it seems clear that he died (at age 62) of internal bleeding. The plan was for Esther to bring Henry’s ashes back to the house they’d just finished building and had been living in for only a few weeks. The road leading to the house had not yet been completed, and I waded thru shin deep mud to drop off cookies and soft drinks for the wake (I’d been advised by local shopkeepers that sweet things were the most appropriate contribution). I nearly got my truck stuck in the deep,
Cemetery Decorations
In the week following Day of the Dead (Dia de los Difuntos - Nov 1) the cemeteries are festooned with flowers, the tombstones freshly painted. Many cemeteries, like this one, are right near the ocean. rutted mud only to find out that Esther hadn’t returned yet from Guayaquil. I left the food with the caretaker and told him I’d be leaving for the mountains the next day. I have since spoken with Esther, and I’ve been in email contact with one of Henry’s Merchant Marine buddies who’s now living in New Mexico. With his help we’re trying to get Henry’s pension payments transferred to Esther’s name.
The day I finished at Mandala, I had made plans to invite my whole adopted family for pizza at Whale Café. There was to be a 16 hr scheduled power cut, so I called Diane at the café to confirm our reservation. She said she wasn’t planning to open (keep the freezers closed so the food wouldn’t spoil) - but had planned on making the pizzas only for us. When I called Beatriz to reconfirm with her family, she told me that her Grandma was on her death bed, so of course our dinner was cancelled.
I loaded up my truck and left Mandala, passing by Salango to greet my adopted family. They took me to the house where Beatriz’s maternal grandmother lay struggling in
Monica's Mosaic Mermaid
Come see the whole mosaic wall at Hosteria La Perla in the fishing village of Las Tunas. and out of consciousness. Her skin was a waxy greyish yellow and in the tiny airless room were more than 40 people- crying, murmuring, sobbing. Her 7 daughters sat around her on the bed, stroking her arms, massaging her feet, touching her breasts, calling her name. I was propelled through the crowd of onlookers encircling the bedside, 3 & 4 rows deep. The room was stiflingly hot, the lack of air exacerbated by the many faces pressed from the outside against the one, small open window. Several of the daughters and granddaughters were trying to fan grandma’s face with school notebooks. I managed to stay in the room about 2 minutes before having to scramble and push my way out.
They asked me to drive to Lopez to get the doctor, and I was glad to be able to be of help. He was just finishing up with American tourists who were suffering from food poisoning, and said he would come immediately. Just then Beatriz’s phone rang - they had already brought another doctor from another village. We drove back, only to learn that the oxygen tank the other doctor had brought was not working, so we set
off again and found a mechanic who was willing to let us use his oxygen tank and regulator.
Beatriz had told me that before she started slipping in and out of consciousness, Grandma had been talking coherently. She said she’d seen her two children who had died at a young age. They were calling to her and she wanted to go join them. Beatriz and I discussed how her living relatives felt the need to do everything in their power to keep granny with them for even one more day…but it seemed apparent that she wanted to go, was ready to cross over - but they were holding her back, calling and caressing her, keeping her with them. They insisted that there was someone, or something she was waiting for.
When I went back to visit the next day, they had moved Abuela back to her own home (on her insistence), and only her direct family members were in the room (also her insistence). She was conscious, alert, and grabbed my hand asking “Who’s there?” I told her it was Beatriz’s friend, the “gringa gorda” (each time she saw me she’d say “You’re so fat!! -
meaning it in a good way, they assured me!). She seemed to realize who I was and it seemed important to the family that I stay awhile, stroking her hand and arm and hair. It’s not the first time in my travels in developing countries where I’ve had this sensation of being viewed as some sort of “demigod” - the foreigner is here! Now everything will be all right. The following day as I was on my way up the coast to cut over to the Andes pass, I received a text message from Beatriz telling me that Abuelita had passed away. In this case, instead of grief I felt relief. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that oppressive room full of people waiting for her to die. Is it a morbid fascination that runs deep in the culture? Is it some bizarre need to be present in the moment that a person leaves off living?
With the help of 2 dear friends, I packed up the rest of the junk I still had stored at my Alandaluz cabana. Ceci helped me clear out the kitchen cupboards, Dexy wrapped the pots and pans in sheets and towels and
Crossing the Andes
Sharing the road with all kinds of traffic! we got everything cleared out in a few hours. I was able to fit everything in the suitcases I had stowed back in my bodega (storeroom closet). I had the feeling that once ALL my stuff was moved out and I had said my own good-bye to the place, it would be TRULY ready to be sold. Certainly 2010 is the year that the right buyer will find me. I whispered my farewell as I hung in the hammock and reflected on the good times I've shared with friends in this home, and the peaceful times I've had here on my own and with Chaco.
My truck splattered with mud, I set off with Marianne for Manta. It was hard for her to leave her Dalmation puppy, Nena, but she was just going to be away for a few days. Marianne was going up to sell her tagua free trade handicrafts at an artisan fairs for arriving cruise ships. Sweet little Nena was licking the mud from my wheel wells (some mineral deficiency??). Arriving in Manta (2 hr drive), I dropped off Marianne and spent a self-indulgent day, first at the chiropractor’s, then getting a facial and manicure.
Roadside Assistance
No journey is complete without a bit of adventure! Changing a tire at high altitude is not an easy task. In the evening I met up with Sue, a gal from Colorado who had previously volunteered at the library in Banos but had just spent a month building a retaining wall at the beach home of an American retiree living in Manta. Once again, even as I was planning to take the long drive on my own, a companion showed up just in time!!
Sue assured me that I’d be welcome to spend the night at Linda’s luxury apt, but she added that there was some sort of party or gathering that evening. I made it very clear that I really needed to just curl up with my book and then fall asleep early. I’d had enough of socializing with people I didn’t know during my 2 months at the hotel. I was physically and emotionally exhausted and needed to gear up for our long drive the next day. She said there would be no problem!
I politely greeted the 6 or 8 large, loud American retirees gathered in Linda’s opulent 4 bdrm ocean-view apt. I explained to Linda that I wouldn’t be joining them for dinner, as I inwardly heaved a sigh of relief and
crept off to the guest room. Sue had commented that I was rescuing her, and I understood what she meant as soon as I met these folks. Not a single one speaks a word of Spanish and all they do is sit around and complain about Ecuador. Sure they can live here more cheaply than in the US, and Manta has all the comforts of home - but what kind of gringo bubble are they living in? It's frightening that these kinds of clueless American retirees are coming down in droves!!Now that Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama are all but saturated with American retirees, it's Ecuador's turn. I can't bear to think about what this stretch of coast will be like in 20 years.
Sue and I took off for the mountains, leaving Manta at 6:30 am. I was able to confine most of my junk to the truckbed and Sue's things were crammed into the back seat. Since we had just met, we had a lot to talk about, telling each other our life's stories. Our worlds have intersected or run parallel at various times in several places. Because I was not driving alone, I decided to
take the most direct road, which was still largely under construction when I drove down in 2 1/2 months ago. I was amazed how much work had been done - we rarely had to stop and wait for construction vehicles and a LOT more of the road had been paved. As we neared the highest altitude part of the road (over 12,000 ft!) we saw a guy with the hood of his truck up flagging us down. He told us he had run out of gas and Sue and I both had a sense that he was ok; we wouldn't be putting ourselves in danger if we gave him a lift to the next town.
About 20 minutes further up the road, I took a curve too tightly and grazed a razor-sharp rock which slit my tire right open. I pulled forward a bit so I wouldn't be too close to the curve. I opened my hood and dragged a rusted sheet of metal behind the truck to alert drivers of my stopped vehicle. We had to UNLOAD everything to get to the jack which is stored under the back seat. Got the spare unlatched from under the
Pointsettia - leaf to blossom
The brilliant red petals are actually the green leaves changing colors! truckbed and had just loosened the bolts when a pickup truck stopped to help us. Lo and behold, it was the guy we'd taken to the gas station! Road karma really does come back around! We arrived in Banos just shortly after nightfall. I always try to avoid driving at night -- if Ecuadorian road are dangerous they're doubly so after dark!
SO- back in Banos for the next 6 weeks or so. Shana and I have decided that we are ladies of leisure, playing Scrabble whenever we want, lounging in the mineral hot baths 3 or 4 mornings a week, watching movies when it's light out (so decadent!!). Due to lack of rain, Ecuador's hydroelectric plants have been unable to meet the country's needs so we've had rolling blackouts 2 or 3 hours a day to conserve energy. I've been trying to get this blog published for days, but the power keeps cutting out (and with it the internet) right at inopportune moments....well, if you're reading this you can see that I've finally managed to complete this most recent chapter in my Ecuador adventures. PS I do love to have visitors!!!
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Marianna Cacciatore
non-member comment
great to hear from you
Jill, It was lovely to take the time to read through your Blog entry this time...I don't always give myself this treat. I am sorry about the pup, glad that you are done working, loved seeing the photo of you with Anthony Bourdain - whom i watch with regularity - and good to hear that he is as laid back as he seems on film. All is well here. Bread for the Journey still hanging in there; my manuscript is getting some attention - hoping to have a full fledged book by spring 2010. Greg and i are still hanging out. (He was the one who turned me on to Anthony Bourdain!) He wants to come to Ecuador for a visit. Sending my love, dear one. Marianna