EcuadorMoving

Pelicans Waiting Diving for Food My day started out on the beach with Maya watching the pelicans fly low over the water, diving in when they saw a fish, gobbling down their food, lifting off and diving again.I was happy to stay out there all day. It is interesting that tourists fly all the way to Galapagos to see so many exotic animals, when we can ignore them in our backyards. Florida appears to be a paradise to me, with birds of all sorts. My mother and I passed over a bridge yesterday and saw a very proud and large heron standing beside a fisherman, waiting to share in the catch of the day. I was stunned to see the large bird right next to the man and oblivious to the sound of the cars driving over the bridge. He appears to know the routine and was certain that he would have his dinner that afternoon. I am enjoying this little vacation on the beach. The location is exquisite, and its best feature is how calm and quiet it is all day long. I cannot hear anything when I sleep except fo...

Eric and I are still packing presents at 1:15 in the morning, and losing energy and enthusiasm. It is the usual rush before Christmas; no matter how prepared I am, I always feel there is a increase in intensity before the celebration. This year in particular, I was unable to prepare much. We arrived early Tuesday morning, to a home that had not been occupied, and not ready for us at all. The fridge and the pantry were bare, there were no Christmas decorations up; we had to start from scratch. Just rebuilding the pantry took several visits to the local grocery store. We were lucky to find a tree at all. The tree lots were bare, and Marc and Eric picked through the remains at Publix and paid ten dollars for a perfectly respectable one. Eric and Maya put the lights and decorations up today, so the house is looking more festive. It smells good too; I have been baking sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, thumbprint cookies, Mexican Wedding cookies, and a key lime pie ( I found key lime ju...

St Pete Beach and Quito are worlds apart. I am struck here by the space, by the vastness of everything. There are huge lawns, the houses sit far back from the road, so very different from the tight streets of Quito where houses are hidden by high walls which abut on the street. Homes here are so large, generally the streets are cleaner and the houses more well kept on the outside. There are fewer cars on the road, and the cars that I see are larger and more powerful than the majority of cars in Quito. We are staying in a lovely home by the beach and it is quiet and peaceful in the house, it hardly feels as if we have any neighbours. Food is so much more expensive than in Quito,especially in the airport with substandard quality. Eric went out armed with my list for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner, and brought back a small a fraction of the items and spent our whole budget for the next week! We do have our turkey and our ham and our salmon, so we have the main ingredients for the ...

It has not taken long for Quito to become 'home', so it feels that we are abandoning what is familiar for the unknown. I spent half the night packing, woke up early, packed some more, brought our presents to the guards and had my morning cappuccino before the 'apagones' started, and we all squeezed into a miniature taxi, with bags between us and on our laps to wade through the morning traffic to the airport. Everything went smoothly, except that we had to fly to Guayaquil, go through security again and wait for the connection to Miami, but traveling is calming for me. I have so little control over anything that happens, so I just enjoy the time I have to read and relax. Aerogal treated us well (the food was edible!), and I got through customs in Miami without incident. I am accustomed to being diverted to 'the pen' where I have waited hours and hours to be processed through immigration, often missing my connecting flight. This time, however, coming in with Eric ...

Quito is in frenzy once again. The streets are jam packed with vehicles and pedestrians. We live near large shopping mall called Quicentro, and for the past week, traffic has been intense, and because our street, Republca del Salvador, leads directly to the entrance of the parking garage, cars are backed up, so much so that the police closed off the block in front of our apartment, allowing only residents to enter. I am amazed at the number of shoppers. Quicentro has expensive stores, so I wonder how it is possible for so many to afford to purchase anything. I so go to Quicentro for coffee or for a treat, but I never consider shopping there. Instead, I like to visit the Centro Historico, where even more people have been shopping this past week. One tradition here is to give an assortment of candy and cookies to your employees or children or teacher or other non-family member. Either you can put your own bag together and choose what to put into your bag, or you can buy a ready made on...

Maya had a full day of music and dancing. She committed herself to both a concert and a ballet performance on the same day at overlapping times. She had daily rehearsals all week for both ballet and orchestra at the same times, and went to orchestra Monday and Friday and ballet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. She kept insisting that she would make it to both events. I had no idea what to say to her conductor or her ballet teacher, so I avoided them both. I thought eventually Maya would decide to give up one or the other, but I was quite wrong in my assumption. Casa de la Musica She wore her ballet clothes under her concert attire, and we drove early to the 'Casa de la Musica'. The concert hall is high up the side of a mountain with a great view of the valley. As we walked in, a fellow musician told Maya that she could not play in the concert because she had missed most of her rehearsals during the past week. Several more children confirmed that they had heard the same. I was r...

I scheduled today to be a shopping day, and armed with my list and a determination to bargain, I walked across Carolina Park to a line of kiosks with Otavaleno vendors and negotiated and spent my money until there was none left. I feel accomplished and have whittled down my list so that I believe I will in fact finish by the time we leave. Hurrah! I was sidetracked today by music. Maya had her school winter concert and played the first movement of Mozart's Concerto in G Major. She was confident and played beautifully and had her own cheering section urging her on. She also played in an ensemble with a rock group, several classical guitars and keyboards and a group of violinists. I have decided that she must play more rock and roll, to round out her musical education. I had alot of fun watching her! I took the Ecovia to the Centro Historico because I had seen all sorts of shops with potential for Christmas presents, but when I arrived around 3 PM the skies opened up and I dashed int...