From Masapán to Bizcochos. Rolling in the dough

We had barely past the northern edges of Quito, which is one long north-south city thanks to mountains that restrict its east-west dimensions, when I could feel Oscar beginning to slow the vehicle down.

Ivan turned around from his shotgun seat in order to face me and the Canadian, who was seated in the rear.  "This is the municipality of Calderon.  It is famous for dolls and other art objects made from bread dough."

The nerd that I am, I quickly grabbed the guide book from my backpack.  "Calderon is a famous center of unique Ecuadorian folk art; the people make bread-dough decorations, ranging from small statuettes to colorful Christmas tree ornaments."  I jumped to the sentence after these. "These decorative figures are inedible."

We stopped in front of a small store.  Ivan and Oscar shook hands and hugged and kissed the people there.  A regular spot they bring the tourists to, I thought to myself.

"Masapán" The board made it clear that it was bread dough.  As we walked to the back of the store, three women were working at a table as if they were preparing cookies for a party.

"We have been doing this from when we were kids" Ivan translated their words for us.

As I watched them, I wondered why they hadn't automated a few things over the years. Like the mixing of the dough. And the flattening of it. And, definitely, a more efficient way instead of the cookie-cutter.

I suppose it is not easy to get rid of the engineering and economics background within me!

It is the same way I used to feel back in the days when we visited Pattamadai, where grandmother lived.  Pattamadai was, and still is, known for its exquisite mats made from "korai" grass.  Some of the mats are so soft they can even be folded as if they are from cloth.  Why not make it more efficient, I would think, on noticing that enormous labor was being spent on activities that do not add a whole lot of value.

I walked around in the store.  I rarely buy mementos, and definitely rarely anything like this for myself.  No surprise then that I didn't purchase anything from this unique masapán folk art store. (BTW, the store board did say Masapán and not Mazapán.)

As we got into the van, Ivan commented that the time spent in the store is almost always very short whenever there are only male tourists.  "With women, we have to keep reminding them that it is time" he added.

The urban landscape disappeared completely as we drove.  It was now nothing but hills, which Ivan said would soon turn brown as the rainy months had ended.  And then, as if he heard my stomach's growls, Ivan said, "we will take a break where you can eat the famous bizcochos of Cayambe.  You will also have a restroom there, if you need to use."

Despite his descriptions of bizccochos, I had a tough time imagining what they might look like. "You will soon see it" Ivan said with a smile.  I figured it was time for me to shut up from asking more about bizcochos.

When we pulled to a stop, the huge graphic on the wall made it abundantly clear.

Ivan placed the order for bizcochos, and turned towards us.  "The tour will pay for the bizcochos. Anything else, you pay."

If it were in the US, I would have ordered myself a cappuccino.  But, here, I noticed that it was one of those automatic vending machines that would spew out a mix of milk and coffee.

"A hot chocolate, please." I knew it would come from that same vending machine.  Why automate this, and not the masapan doll-making, I wondered.

A few minutes later, the waiter brought us the bizcochos and the drinks.  Ivan and Oscar explained that the bizcochos are eaten with a salty cheese or with dulce de leche--a rich and soft caramel.  I didn't like it with the cheese.

With the dulce de leche it was awesome.  It was like dipping something softer than a shortbread cookie into caramel fudge and gobbling it up. Who in their right minds would not like that!

I looked around at the few customers at the cafe.  The Canadian and I were the only tourists.  The rest were locals, from a kid who looked to be barely five, to people much older than me. But, despite all the bizcochos and dulce de leche nobody was obese.  Yet another reminder that I was not in the USA!

Was going to Ecuador an Andean or a Mediterranean vacation? Or both?

The northernmost I have been to on this "third rock from the Sun" was during the trip to Alaska, when a bush plane took us from Fairbanks to an Inuit village a mile north of the Arctic Circle.  The southernmost point I have been to is Melbourne, Australia, where my brother lives.  But, not often have I crossed the Equator--most of my life has been only in the northern hemisphere.

Going to Ecuador meant that, for all purposes, I was just about walking along the equator all those six days.

La Mitad del Mundo (The Middle of the World) is, of course, the most well known monument that marks the equator.  But there is a lot more to the equator in Ecuador, and this predates the French astronomers' scientific expeditions in the 18th century.

As tour guides and museum exhibits repeatedly reminded me, the more archeological activities are carried out, the more the world is finding out about the peoples who lived in this part of the Andes, and how much they had understood the world while living at the earth's equatorial bulge.

On the way to Otavalo, we stopped at yet another marker for the zero degree latitude--at Cayambe.  Apparently the equatorial line at this spot has been determined to be within millimeters of accuracy.  While this determination itself is a modern one, studies by anthropologists and archeologists are apparently providing new insights into how the hills nearby were sites where in the past the indigenous Andean groups held celebrations marking the equinoxes and the solstices.

In other words, the people in the past knew they were high up on the equator.  The real "mediterranean" people, in contrast to those Europeans who incorrectly named the sea by their lands to be the middle of the earth.

It was a scenic spot where this marker lies.  But then, which place in Ecuador that I went to wasn't scenic!

Every one of these markers for the equator comes with stories--some of which might be exaggerations, of course--of the Andean peoples' knowledge of the equator. There was one point that the guide here said that made sense.  On a world map, as you trace a path along the equator, you notice that a lot of that is the rain-forests.  These places, naturally, did not lend themselves into understanding the sky, which was how we developed an understanding of the earth, its round shape.  If you lived amidst the jungles of the Amazon or the Congo, you had a very limited view of the sky.

The Ecuadorean northern highlands are a wonderful contrast to the forests--the open skies gave the indigenous groups, more so in the old days before electricity, one of the most expansive views of the sky ever possible on the planet.  They noticed the Sun moving around, and systematically.  The Sun went and came back.  The figured that there was a limit to which the Sun moved--the limits that we recognize today as the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

The guide there was obviously passionate about the cultural heritage, and the urgency to preserve the sites with archeological significance.  I asked her, "when you think about it, don't you get upset that the Spaniards wiped out your peoples and their histories?"

I get charged up thinking about this.  It is horrendous.

"Yes. It upsets me even more that the ancient sites are being destroyed. All the mining is blowing up the historic sites" she replied.

I was beginning to feel the pain she walked around with.

"Even the churches at Quito were all built on sites that were of importance to our people.  They destroyed them."

There is simply no way to compensate for the injustice, I thought to myself. Here was this beautiful young woman struggling to deal with her own identity, her cultural heritage, and has to do that with fragmented stories from the past even while fighting to protect whatever remains from being destroyed.

"I am surprised that you are able to smile even as you say all these" I told her.

"It is all in the past. There is nothing we can do."

I asked for her permission to take a photograph, and she said "sure."

"You speak very good English.  Where did you pick it up"

"Mostly from talking to tourists" she said.

I wished her well, and dropped an additional dollar bill as my contribution to ensuring that the ancient sites will not be dynamited away.

It is difficult not to think about the Andean peoples.  I feel one with them.