Advertisement
Published: August 9th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Quito is a fine city in my estimation. Bustling city of 2 million, 9,000 foot elevation, US dollar economy. It is to the visitor what one makes it. And of course, attitude is everything. Personally, I had to check in my Ameri-centristic attitudes at LAX with the intentions of leaving them there at least until I reluctantly return to smogsville in the early fall. Oh and it is so easy to espouse pop culture magnanimities so early in my forty-seven day vacation. Like, after a recent 60 days in SE Asia I was sure quick to kiss the tarmac upon touchdown LAX a couple years back. For many of us, it's all about resumption of comfort level. I was comforted in return to my ridiculous 500 broadband channels and triple X supersonic T1 internet hook up.
But even so, the world she is a-changing exponentially. We come to places like Ecuador, Thailand, Vietnam not wanting to be typical tourist pigs like those before us. We even pay to volunteer hoping to make a difference, even if the difference is mostly in how we think about ourselves and our good intentions. We want to vacation on selfless self-thoughts that disassociate ourselves
from guilt by association to the specters of yanqui imperialism, foreign interventionalism, and the negative trickle down effects of neoliberal economic policy on the Spanish, French and Portuguese speakers throughout the bulk of the Americas.
But there is no denying that Quito is trying--trying like the rest of Latino America to "sobrevivir" (ride out) the double digit inflation that has wracked its poor, working poor, and middle classes particularly in Ecuador since 2007. And even though the izquirdista (left leaning) government sets the tasa de desempleo (unemployment rate) at around nine percent, astute and ernest Ecuatorianas will tell us that the actuality is that up to 20 percent of those willing to work are unemployed--especially in the alrededores (outskirts surrounding the big city).
Coming up quick in September, el Presidente Correa puts to vote his campaign to fundamentally restructure Ecuador's political system. According to my informal surveys of voters a new constitutional convention meets the approval of almost 80 percent of voters. If the results of September's vote show a victory for Correa, Ecuador will soon start choosing delegates to the convention for a socialistic process that has been similarly carried out in Bolivia and Venezuela. Indeed, Hugo
Chávez said that he wished Correa the best of luck from Venezuela, and he appeared on TV with President Evo Morales of Bolivia to commemorate the opening of aplant built in western Venezuela with financing from fellow OPEC-ker, Iran.
Constitutional conventions are a common feature of Ecuador's political system. Ecuador's most recent Constitution took effect in 1998. Since then, however, the country has been among the most politically capricious in Latin America, at least according to the Ameri-centric corporate media, because Ecuador has experienced eight presidents in the past decade. One priority of Correa's supporters in writing a new constitution will be limiting the power of Congress, which many Ecuatorianos see as corrupt and adept only at taking bribes from the multinationals and toppling seated presidents. Another will be supporting the establishment of a South American equivelent to the IMF Bank so that Ecuador's enslavement to servicing the interest on her external debt does not remain her eternal debt.
But Quitenos in Quito are trying to survive economically by meeting the turistic needs of us truly fortunate foreign visitors. Even Quito's tourist-trap area aspires to the trendiness of Chiang Mai Thailand with seemingly nominal prices for many of
us westerners freshly smarting from the grossest stagflation since the end of Carter's overly blasphemed regime of the late 1970s. In La Mariscal, I visit grubby little I-cafes, countless tour hawkers, and cheap but hip little hostals everywhere, and what is more, the areas near the famed streets known as Amazonas, Luis Cordero, Reina Victoria, and Juan Calama are spotted with such emergences as a trendy chocoholics bar named Xocoa, a fledgling gaybar, Diablos, and a glitzydeco cafe, La Boca de Lobo. But is Quito trying hard enough? One cannot avoid the dozens of globally despised yet profitable business icons known as McDonalds and KFC Chicken, but simultaneously nary a Starbucks Coffee shoppe or clone thereof to be savored and patronized by I dare say 1000s of Frappe-slurpin White Chocolate Mocha suckers.
Possibly, thousands of tourist dollars are being lost by Quitenos who could be selling us privileged, comfort-level seeking guests our latte-fixes right a long side those mandatory Skype connections. What gives? Quitenos ain't dumb. Surely there are entrepeneurs who can envision coffee service to surpass those obiquitous little Nescafe instant coffee dispensor machines--the cheesy one's that invade Latin American coffee stands like locusts.
Surely budding Quiteno entrepreneurs
have to know that Starbucks coffee is so much more flavorful and well received by western tourists in other touristy destinations such as Chiang Mai, albeit Starbucks is widely despised by the American counter culture (even though we drink it in lieu of nada) due to its grandiose corporate proportions. None of that withstanding, it doesn't take a sophisticated connoisseur to distinguish between the undesirability of south american conglomerate Nestle's harsh freeze-dried chemical caffeine injected instant coffee globules and the marketability of rich robust Starbucks (or trendy clone equivalent) Sumatran 18 dollar-a-pound blend in three dollar a 16 ounce cup increments. Tourists visiting Quito who are accustomed to the broad appeal of the western coffee culture might very well support at least one little Starbucks clone Java store in the touristy zona La Mariscal.
How curious that there are few-to-none real cappuccino or latte machines are cranking out high profit drinks to the 1000s of Quito visitors. And aren't rich gourmet coffee beans grown and harvested in or near these Andean cities? Maybe the beans for making gourmet coffee treats are available but some powerful entity doesn't want Starbucks to gain a foothold in Quito. Could it be that
mega-corp Nestle with its glut of freeze dried dispenser machines has a cocaine-cartel-like grip on the coffee market in the region? Can you picture Nestle Corp coffee thugs smashing in the windows of a would be emergent coffee bar, intimidating the courageous start-up Latte/Mocha providers with threats of kidnapping their children if they persist in selling real coffee?
I can picture that, because recall that Nestle, scandalous all-controlling mega corp that it is has many Latin American mothers believing that breast feeding is inferior to Nestles NAN baby formula. Nestle came under fire in the 1970s for the way it marketed infant formula in the developing world to poor, illiterate women who often misused it. Health professionals at the time found bottle-fed babies sometimes became undernourished and suffered from chronic illnesses because their mothers were watering down the costly formula to make it go further or they were preparing it with contaminated water.
Conclusion: Quito is a fine place and the Ecuador economy could greatly benefit in these difficult financial times by amending the constitution to include a coffee clause that would loosen the Nestle Cartel strangle hold on both regional and visiting coffee drinkers by providing for
that good coffee can be finally be served in Quito and other Andean cities
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.039s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
milespeed
non-member comment
coffee snobery is a universal language
i hate starbucks...but alas, they be on every street corner, beckoning me to green on in......Ma and pa Smith would do well to set up their bean shacks anywhere in the world across from a starpukes and thrive...and so it seems Roberto is right ..there must be corporate/state level cartel/government mordida (payola) going on globally nowdays ..wish we could have a constitution rewrite party here in the US by and for the people..perhaps siting starpukes as the cause for more auto accidents than cell phones, make then the next enemy of patriotism and all things right and just like pedophiles ...chop the legs of giants like Nestles with dull axes til they.....well... I am moved by this awesome enlightening article ...enculturating me , immersing me , and feeling like am there with you Roberto ready to Skype fiends and strangers and yell..(scuse, while i sip my red eye)...I'm just not gonna take it anymore you damned baby killers!