Where the Dollar Still Gets You Somewhere

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Although I had read about this in advance, somehow the use of the US dollar as the currency in Ecuador has been vaguely disconcerting. Have I truly left the US? Am I in some strange transition zone between the north and south? Not really here nor there? Thus begins my South American journey.

I arrived in Quito late at night on Wednesday, amidst a crush of international flights that disgorged at one time - a crowd that the three immigration officials could barely handle. My travel weariness, coupled with the thin air, made my bones ache, my legs shake. I crashed, gratefully, into my bed in the wee hours.

During my brief stint in Quito, I am staying in an area of the New Town known as La Mariscal, though it perhaps should be better labelled Gringoland. Since this is where most hostels are located, it is the epicenter for the breed of American and European backpackers that traverse Latin America. In the radius of a few blocks, one can find all that a gringo might need - cheap lodging, cheap "international" food, cheap beer. But this is not why I came to Quito.

The transition between the New and Old Towns is dramatic. Other than La Mariscal, which has recently, it seems, gentrified, New Town has seen better days. There is an air of better times gone to seed. The Old Town, however, has received a major facelift in the past few years. The streets that radiate from Plaza Grande and Plaza San Francisco are crammed with beautifully restored colonial era buildings and a proliferation of churches that is mind-boggling, a density of faith that might be unrivaled. Some of the churches are, relatively, simple; others are ornate beyond belief. Iglesia de la Compañía is drowned in gilded wood. Iglesia de la Merced's interior reminds one of a wedding cake lathered in white and salmon frosting.

However, perhaps my most memorable experience in the Old Town was my private tour of Case de Maria Augusta Urrutia, a mansion of a wealthy philanthropist who died in 1987. My guide, an earnest high school girl, led me for an hour and a half through every nook of the home, using a combination of slow Spanish and pidgin English to convey her message. There could have been no better Spanish lesson for me, with my cave man command of the language.

After my travels through northern Europe last summer, the stretch of the dollar here is refreshing. Almost everything is at least half the cost of what it would be in the US. A good latte: $1.50. A three course meal: less than $4. My guided tour of the mansion: $2. But I still wonder: why dollars?

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Comments

[narges]

gorgeous pics!