Oct 10th, 2005

mmmm yummy I love it when I know where my meal comes from.

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I met a woman named Emily, who lives in London and is originally from New Zealand. We watched the futbol game Ecuador v Uruguay at a local bar- it was projected on the wall. No toilet paper but they have a TV projector. At half time I went to another bar where we watched the rest of the game. The streets were totally deserted during the game, then all hell broke loose afterwards. Thank god Ecuador won. At the bar, we met a friendly drunken local man who raises guinea pigs. Apparently they are not only a pet and good to eat, but they are used for rituals. A healer rubs the guinea pig all over a sick persons body, then cuts it open and interprets the innards to determine what is wrong with the person. I tried not to think of my little pig at home. I will eat one soon however.

Emily from London (New Zealand)

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Sunday we took a bus to the nearby (took an hour to get there- cost 50 cents) town of Gualaceo where they have big sunday markets. The road is winding and up and down through the mountains, and the bus was packed full of people and hot. After I recovered from motion sickness, I bought some carrots and choked on a fresh pineapple chunk. Emily and I watched an animal market also where people were selling mangy pigs and sheep. We took a bus to Chordeleg but there were only small stores, so we went back to Gualaceo for lunch. There are rows and rows of cooked whole pigs and you sit down next to one and a woman rips off chunks of meat and you eat them with your hands. It was not clean but it was very good. Im not sick yet, so must be ok. There were also little guinea pigs on skewers, but I couldnt bring myself to eat one quite yet.

Eating with my hands

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I had the misconception that the locals dressed up for the tourists during markets, however, it appears they dress in their typical outfits every day.

I am becoming very distrustful of the lonely planet guidebooks, as several things in the ecuador edition have been incorrect, including locations of places and how interesting a place actually is. Chordeleg, for example, has little to it- not worth the trip.

Since everything is so cheap, nobody even has change for a $5 bill, or if they do, they wont give it to you, so you have to carry a bunch of ones and quarters. Luckily between the two of us, we always had some change. I am going to the bank today to get a bunch of ones, also to stop at a travel agency to set up some trips.

Update- even the banks do not have $1 bills or coins for change. The best I could do is get $5 in 50 cent pieces.