Another post from the past to fill the time before we launch for our three year cruise.
This was to be our day to see an Ecuadorian weaving family and learn traditional Ecuadorian cooking.
It all began with a drive to the northeast of Quito with a stop at the equator for a presentation about the importance of astronomy and the sun to early civilization here and around the world. By the way, it’s named Ecuador because…
It all began with a drive to the northeast of Quito with a stop at the equator for a presentation about the importance of astronomy and the sun to early civilization here and around the world. By the way, it’s named Ecuador because…
We drove to a popular mountain lake area that had a family who had been weaving for generations. The Tahuansu weaving workshop made everything by hand in a style similar to what we had seen in Peru on a smaller scale, using not only alpaca but also sheep wool. They had a huge hand-operated spinning wheel to process the fibers into the yarn that would become everything up to the size of a bedspread.
Then we were off to lunch with Claudia. When we arrived at her home, we first saw her little daughter toddling around the yard. Claudia greeted us with a traditional sweet corn beverage and told us that we would be making lunch together, learning about some of their history, foods, and medicines.
We all put on aprons. The men wore hats and the women had red scarves wrapped around their heads. We would be making quinoa soup, carne colorado, a side salad, fried sweet potato patties, and sweet puffy corn tortillas with honey.
We went outside where Claudia put quinoa into a bag, and we washed, rubbed, and rinsed it until the bitter outer layer had been removed. This would go into a traditional soup. We cut up the meat and rubbed a marinade onto it with oil, paprika, cumin, and garlic, adding some papaya as a tenderizer. Dusty peeled and cut up potatoes to be mashed and mixed with cheese and paprika to make patties to fry on a hot earthen skillet. Claudia told Dusty that peeling potatoes was one of the skills that in-laws looked for in a potential bride-to-be. Dusty told her that I did most of the cooking in the house. The guide, Henry, made the tree tomato juice. Oh yeah, a little salad too.
While the potatoes, meat, and soup were cooking, our chef, Claudia, took us out to her garden to show what was there for eating as well as the medicinal benefits of some plants. I mentioned that I had been trying to get rid of an infection from a hangnail on my thumb that was swelling, red, and hot. I had tried draining it, using hot water, antibiotic ointment, and it was only getting worse. She said after lunch she would show me something to help.
Back in the kitchen, we began putting things together. I was volunteered to go back to the traditional kitchen where a 2’x3’ ancient stone mortar lay on the ground with their oversized corn kernels dried in a pile next to it. The grinding stone was made of the same type of grey stone, but just large enough for me to fit both my hands on it.
Claudia showed me how to put a handful of corn onto the mortar and rock the grinding stone back and forth until it was a fine powder with bits of the hull and germ left. I pushed the ground material into a sieve that was made from a four-inch-high ring of wood about ten inches across with what looked like window screen on the bottom. What shook through was a perfectly acceptable white corn flour.
I took the corn flour back to the conventional kitchen where it was blended with white flour, butter, brown molasses sugar, and baking powder. This was hand-flattened by us into tortillas that were to be cooked and served with cane syrup for dessert.
Yes we did it. Yes it was good.
After lunch, Claudia and I went out to the garden again, and she showed me a small bushy tree that she said was a treatment for infections. She cut the tip of a branch with about a dozen small pointy leaves on it. She said to clean the site and scrape open the top surface of the leaf, exposing the interior. The inside of the leaf had a consistency like aloe, but just a small amount of the gel. Rub the gel on the site and put the leaf on it, then wrap it with a bandage. Repeat for 3-4 days. I did this for three days, combining the leaves with the same antibiotic ointment I had used unsuccessfully for two days, and the swelling and drainage stopped.
After lunch, we went to a large lake where we hoped to see some birds. Cuicocha Lake is in a volcanic caldera and is a deep blue because of its depth and mineral content. We saw a few birds. We got a little cold. It started to rain pretty seriously, and we moved on to the city of Cotacachi to see some of the leatherworks they are famous for.
Henry said there were shops and stalls for blocks and even some street kiosks. We got out of the van knowing I needed a belt and Dusty might want some shoes or a bag. We turned into the first door at the corner of the block to find dozens of little 10’x10’ stores of leather goods with a narrow corridor between the glass fronts.
We wandered into the first store we saw displaying leather goods and looked at what they had. Nothing was quite right. The next stop had what I wanted, but the belts were either too long or too short. The owner took the too long brown leather belt that I had in my hands and wrapped it around me, checking the length. He asked in Spanish if I would like him to shorten it. I said if it was no trouble, I would appreciate it. He whipped out his hand tools and in less than a minute and $9 later, I had the right belt.
I asked Dusty about shoes or something, and she said she was not in a shopping mood. Later, she wished she had.
There were stands with dozens of hats of different styles. The classic driving cap was something that I had been looking for when I drove my convertible. Two shops and five tries later, I converted $12 into a cool leather driving cap that I wore for the rest of the day.
Having completed my shopping in Cotacachi we moved on to one of the most famous open air markets in Ecuador. Otovalo market.
A full city block with varying sizes of canvas, cloth, and blue tarps covering at least one hundred stalls. The bright-colored weaving and artwork screamed for your attention, but the vendors were polite enough to accept a simple “no, gracias” to allow you to pass. Cool. Interesting. Beautiful. But it was time to return to Quito because early the next day, our birding adventure would begin in the cloud forest of Ecuador.
We drove back through beautiful landscapes that had a multitude of white tarped greenhouses up to fifty yards long, growing their famous roses. Since they are on the equator, the sun is directly overhead every day, making the stems long and straight. Imperfect flowers, with 34” stems instead of 36” stems, would be sold in dozens for a dollar or so. We saw a lot along the drive back. Unfortunately, carting around a dozen long stem roses on our long drive the next day was not practical.
As we entered Quito, rain began to fall and the traffic ground to a halt. For nearly two hours, we moved one car length at a time.
Through the drizzle we were helped back into Casona de la Ronda for the night.
The next day, we would leave for the Andes cloud forest for three days of birding. It was a place I had been hoping to visit for nearly ten years. This trip through South America was the perfect opportunity to make it happen.
Comments