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brido · 7 years

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Mike and Vicky Go to Ecuador (Day 3)

When the Spanish missionaries were setting up Old Town Quito on the ruins of Incan temples, they didn’t really take into account that cars would exist in 400 years and an impatient tourist might come to visit from the U.S. and hate being stuck on the narrow streets in traffic, surrounded by city busses spewing an ungodly amount of exhaust in a city whose altitude already leaves you gasping for air. That’s a good place to start Day 3, when my wife and I hopped in a car with my sister and brother-in-law to see the sights of the first city UNESCO’s deemed to be a World Heritage Site.

Our first stop was up El Panecillo to see the massive aluminum Virgin of Quito statue that overlooks the city from a volcanic hill at 10,000 feet above sea level. It was built in 1976 and is actually based on a foot-high wooden sculpture by Bernardo de Legarda in 1734 that the city fucking loves for some reason. I don’t get it and I’m actually trying to. The original looks like something my Irish Catholic grandmother might have kept in her bedroom. But it’s apparently venerated throughout the Andes in the same way Mexicans see the Virgin of Guadalupe, but sans the whole miraculous origin story.

Well, I take that back. The Virgin of Guadalupe appeared at a chapel built on the ruins of a shrine to an Aztec goddess and the Virgin of Quito is high on a hill that the Incas used in their worship of the sun and is based on an original which is permanently displayed in a Franciscan church that was built over the ruins of an Incan temple. Or the home of Atahualpa. Either way, in both cases the Spanish Catholics went smashy smashy build build for Mary. Which basically means that El Panecillo is part Virgin of Guadalupe, part Christ the Redeemer, part Pieta, part Statue of Liberty and all Quito, bay-bee.

Our next stop was down the windy cobblestone hill of El Panecillo to the Basilica of the National Vow. Because no foreign trip with my wife is complete without taking her formerly-Protestant behind to some ornate monument to Catholicism. And there’d be even more of that in a minute. But the basilica is an impressive 19th Century neo-Gothic knockoff of Notre-Dame, complete with gargoyles of animals that are local to Ecuador, like armadillos, iguanas and Galapagos tortoises. Which is actually kind of fun.

The best part was that an elevator can take you to the top of the basillica, where you can walk nervously across rickety wooden scaffolding and then scale a horrifyingly steep 25-30-foot metal ladder to check out (literally) breathtaking views from the roof. I was scared out of my mind, even at the wooden scaffolding part. But when my sister and wife (who are just girls) happily sauntered across the wooden walkway, I had to talk myself into following after them. My sister bowed out at the metal ladder. But then my wife and brother-in-law basically said, “I’ll go if you go” to the death ladder. And so up we all went. Ohmygod.

The entire time I was at the top (well, there was one last set of steps to go up even higher, but fuck that shit) I was increasingly nervous about how I was supposed to get down from there. Like, do I trust myself to be able to go down backwards down the ladder? Or do I go down the ladder like they’re stairs, where I’d be one slipped heel away from an early demise. I’m getting that fight-or-flight sensation in my stomach just thinking about it now. And at the time, I actually found myself getting angry with how cavalier all the young tourists were on the ladder and the roof like we weren’t all going to die. I distinctly remember looking down and seeing actual cigarette butts on the roof up there, presumably from some health-nut European backpacker who didn’t understand how anything works.

As soon as I’d get the courage to go back down, I’d have to wait for more enthusiastic youngsters to rush up the ladder and then a wave of doubt would rush over me again. Basically, what I’m telling you is that I kind of regret going to the top of that fucking basilica.

In the end, as I was standing at the ladder waiting for that right mental moment to proceed, the sweaty tourist I hated the most asked me if it was okay if he could go down ahead of me. I obliged. The sweaty tourist I hated the most was actually the first person I saw go down like facing forwards, treating the ladder like they were stairs. So after one or two failed attempts at positioning my own body in a way I could climb down backwards, my wife said, “That one guy just went down facing forwards and I think it looked a lot easier.” That was all I needed to hear. I went facing forward. I made it down. I hated the sweaty guy a little less. And I still don’t like thinking about the way down. I just like the part when I didn’t die. In my brief moment of bravery, I didn’t even give a shit about the rickety scaffolding on the way back. Or the teenager who hit on my wife. The relief I felt from scaling down that ladder was a semi-religious experience in itself. Like I’d found my own personal Jesus at the top of ‘Chrysler 300 Notre-Dame’.

Leaving the basilica also ended up being a bit of a nightmare. At 11 am sharp every Monday, there’s a changing of the guard in Independence Plaza, right in front of Carondelet Palace, where the President, Vice President and the Ministry of the Interior of Ecuador all live. Sometimes the president even comes out and greats the public from a balcony that’s like, feet from the square. All right there in the best preserved colonial city center in the Americas. It’s nuts.

That’d be like if Independence Mall in Philadelphia still had the President’s House and Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions and whoever the Secretary of Homeland Security is all lived in that same old house. It sounds like a reality show producer’s wet dream. Or the most expensive security detail in the history of of the universe.

Since we were on a bit of a tight schedule, we had to hop out of our car on one of Old Town’s narrow streets that were never meant to have cars in the first place and rush past the traffic and through the plaza (where there also happened to be a fucking protest) to la Compania de Jesus.

It was a kind of dizzying experience. Would it have been nice to take in the super historic plaza? Sure. But part of that history is secular president/dictator Eloy Alfaro (the guy who renamed the plaza and commissioned a statue to independence) being dragged through that same plaza in 1912 by a pro-Catholic mob before his body was set on fire. Also, the Bishop of Quito was poisoned with strychnine during Good Friday mass at the nearby Cathedral in 1877. And the pro-Catholic president/dictator, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, was also murdered on the palace steps by Freemasons with revolvers and a machete in 1875. I can keep going... Okay, I will.

In 1949, a radio station in Quito did the same War of the Worlds broadcast stunt that Orson Welles pulled in the U.S. 11 years earlier. It set off a wave of panic in the city with police and fire fighters rushing out to fight the aliens, which actually got much worse when the broadcast was revealed as a hoax. Several people died in the ensuing riots and fires, including the show producer’s girlfriend and nephew. The producer had to flee to Venezuela. I mean, I still felt brave from conquering my fear of heights in the basilica, but I wasn’t taking my fucking chances with any Ecuadorian riots.

The Church of the Society of Jesus is a super ornate, and gold-leaved Jesuit church they started building in 1605 and didn’t finish until 1765. And it’s deducted major points for not allowing me to take photos inside. I had a hard time following our English-speaking tour guide. But I know she kept mentioning Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Mariana of Jesus de Paredes, the patron saint of Ecuador. All while we were completely surrounded by baroque all-gold-everything and I fumed over not being able to take pictures of anything but a stupid old bell and the outside door that makes La Compania look like a Chinese restaurant.

My wife said the tour guide did mention the Jesuits getting the boot from King Charles in 1767, but I was probably too grumpy to notice. There was also some lady that just waltzed into our tour group without paying and kept standing uncomfortably close to me. But I guess it’s okay because I was able to look it up later. Essentially what happened is that the Jesuits, who were loyal to the pope, got a little too wealthy and independent for the liking of European empires at the time. Oh, and unlike those European empires, they weren’t cool with enslaving the native populations of the Americas. That was a big factor in the decision to import slaves from Africa, who worked on their land and helped fund their universities and led them to attain the wealth and power feared by people like King Charles III.

So Charles took a page from Philip IV of France, who got rid of the Knights Templar in 1307. The Jesuits got the boot from Spanish territories, despite the threat of eternal damnation from the pope, a lot of the Jesuits died on their way into exile and the Spanish confiscated their land to be auctioned off to people whose descendants might one day give me a tour of their rose factory. King Charles III is also known for trying to convince the people of Madrid to stop throwing their shit buckets out their windows. So there’s that too.

The Jesuits were eventually restored after the Napoleonic wars. They’re doing just fine now and Pope Francis even became the first Jesuit pope in 2013. Scorsese made a movie about some Jesuits in 2016. So everything is fine. I mean, it’s really declining in numbers. And Georgetown University had to apologize for slavery a few months ago. But it’s fine. They even have a big gold church in Quito where nobody is allowed to take photos.

The tour guide told us something I couldn’t understand about a picture of Mary in the church blinking one time or something. There was another miracle she talked about that was depicted on a gold wall about someone turning food into a bouquet of flowers or something. I might have heard it wrong, but I whispered, “That’s a stupid miracle” to my wife, but she shot me a look to be more respectful. And then there was even more stuff about Saint Mariana of Jesus de Paredes, who self-flagellated with the help of an indigenous servant and starved herself to become so pure that when she died, a white lily sprang up from her blood and bloomed on the spot. Again, I couldn’t really follow what the woman was saying.

Oh, and there was a horrifying copy of Hernando de la Cruz’s El Infierno painting (what happened to the original?), depicting various sinners being tortured in hell for whatever bad thing they did during their life. My sister asked what one of the words meant on the painting and the tour guide said, “This is loan shark.” She asked what another word meant and the guide just said, “Homosexuality.” We moved on. I’m actually frustrated right now that I can’t find more about this stuff Online. Especially since I know that if this shit was in Europe some historian would take it seriously enough to write about it. No word on whether one of the sins in the painting was photography. Yeah, I’m still mad.

As we headed off to lunch, my sister tried to convince us to go into the Church and Monastery of St. Francis, the same church the Spanish immediately started building after the city was founded in 1534. It’s where the mediocre wooden Virgin of Quito statue is proudly displayed. And right on top of those Incan ruins. There’s also a legend about the church’s architect, Cantuna, making a deal with the devil to finish the atrium, but then removing a brick to get out of his deal. That all sounded great to me, but my wife and I really had to pee. So we headed across the plaza to Casa Gangotera where I found a bathroom.

Casa Gangotera was another memorable, if not stuffy, dining experience. It’s a hotel and the former home of some Spanish gazillionaire in old timey Quito. Victoria and I were talked into the tasting menu, which was way too much food yet again. But I hate to admit that some of the courses were better than the versions we got at Chilcabamba the day before. I even tried llama meat. Remember yesterday when my guide said llama meat was better than beef? Well, it’s not. And I still hadn’t yet decided whether or not I was brave enough to eat cuy.

Our final excursions of the early afternoon were to go shopping at La Mariscal craft market and then to Olga Fisch Folklore (Olga Fisch is credited with recognizing the quality of the local, traditional handicrafts and making them popular again) to see local, traditional handicrafts we couldn’t afford.

One of my favorite things to do when visiting a foreign place I’ve never been to before, besides looking at a Frommer’s guide or searching for information Online, is to see what the locals find important about their own country by looking in the gift shops. Besides the coffee and chocolate and Panama hats and blankets and leather goods and animal masks and humming bird statues that every Ecuadorian store seemed to sell, La Mariscal also introduced me to Oswaldo Guayasamin (who I’ll get to on another day) and the Cucuruchos, whose figurines looked as much like Orko from He-Man as they did the purple Klan. I should probably explain.

Spain has the tradition of the Capirote, which originated in the Inquisition as a symbol of humiliation (like a dunce cap), and that tradition was carried over into a form of public penance during Easter ceremonies. The same is true with the Cucuruchos, who parade barefoot through Old Town Quito on Good Friday, carrying crosses and flagellating themselves during the procession. The best view of the whole thing is supposedly even at Casa Gangotera. Anyway, the anti-Catholic KKK might have borrowed the costume design for their own super terribleness. I’m guessing American tourists like to buy the figurines of the Purple Klan to shock their friends at home while simultaneously being able to go, “What? It’s not the Klan!” And then pronouncing it ‘la cucaracha’ because everything south of America is Mexico.

I don’t know. I half-heartedly insisted I wanted to see a real Cucurucho for the rest of the trip. That, and I kept quoting my 2007 Frommer’s guide by saying I wanted to eat at Zazu, “the best and hippest spot in Quito.” Just because I liked saying ‘Zazu’ and also noticed that nobody in Quito thinks that statement about its best-ness or hip-ness is true.

My sister did tell me that there was a place called Cafe Plaza Grande (right next to Carondelet Palace) that has a Cucurucho serve people ice cream and pose with them for horrifying photos. On the Philadelphia president house reality show, Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump would fucking love that place! Ice cream and the Klan? Jesus. But everyone in my family was adamant that any photo with a Cucurucho could be taken out of context on social media and the whole thing would be a bad idea. It’s for the best. We did buy a bunch of other stuff at the market though. And this concluded Day 3.

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