To Quito with love, and very few dollars in my wallet.

“I do not know why more tourists from the US don't come to Ecuador” commented Mario.  “They think that Ecuador is like Africa, and they want to go only to Galapagos, as if Galapagos is a country of its own” he complained.

I nodded my head as we walked up the steep rise on the way to the Itchimbia Cultural Center from where, Mario assured me, I would be able to have a fantastic view of Quito, with the statue of Virgin Mary off on a hill in one direction, and the basilica in another direction. 

Mario was really getting into this tourism topic.  “The challenge is to figure out how to get the tourists who go to Europe and Thailand, because they are the big spenders.  The tourists we get now are not the tourists who spend money in France and Italy.”

I didn’t know whether I was supposed to feel complimented or insulted at that point.  It was true, however, that as a tourist in Ecuador I was spending very little money.  I was staying in a budget hotel and counting my dollars every night before I went to sleep.  

The tourists I encountered did not seem to be big spenders either.  Quite a few were students—undergraduate and graduate.   Two undergraduate students I met at a pizza place were from Saint Michael’s College in Vermont, doing research on how much Ecuador has met the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.  A larger contingent at another table seemed to be graduate students and, boy, did they carefully count the dollar bills and coins when they had to pay up!

The tourists I met on the tour to Cotopaxi –the Romanian, German, and the very bubbly Polish guy who was working and living in Austria—also seemed like budget travelers like me.  In fact, the Polish guy said that even Ecuador seemed to be more expensive than Argentina, where he said food and lodging cost even less.  I was then reminded of a Wall Street Journal report from a year ago that Argentina was the place to visit for the very reasons of the best return on the US dollar.

As we continued walking and panting, I thought about the typical question I was asked: “why Ecuador?” 

When people talk about their plans to travel to Ireland or Japan or even the Galapagos Islands, the listener has only appreciative things to say or ask.  But, with Ecuador itself, it is a question that almost seems like it is meant to question the mental capacity of the person wanting to travel to that country.

I had always wanted to go back to South America after my only visit there over the years—back in the summer of 1988, I went to Venezuela with a few fellow graduate school students.  We were to work on an economic development strategy for the region surrounding the city of Maracaibo.  The first two days we spent in Caracas, after landing there on a PanAm flight.  It is new world now where PanAm has been condemned to history!

The three weeks in Venezuela were wonderful.  I ate a lot of arepas with cheese and ketchup—I had yet to shed my vegetarian upbringing.  I was pleasantly surprised when charming Venezuelan girls tried to strike up conversations with me, much to the amusement of the gringo grad students I was with.  One day, John seriously asked me, “hey Sriram, what is your secret?”  My guess was that it was all because I looked like a local, and was less a threat compared to their very alien looks and John’s aggressive behavior.

Ecuador was not on the top of my list, however.  It was Argentina that I wanted to get to because of my interest in that country going back to my younger days in Neyveli when, as a news junkie, I was intrigued by the Peronistas who were screwing up the country.  Later, when the Falklands War broke out between Argentina and the UK, I was cheering Argentina only because I wanted the colonizer Britain kicked out from yet another place.  And was so disappointed when Britain and Margaret Thatcher prevailed.

Watching Evita much later in life confirmed all the more that I wanted to check out the Casa Rosada. 

Ecuador was, thus, my second choice.  Nonetheless, it was a preferred choice.  So, when I was asked “why Ecuador” my immediate thought was “why not?”

I didn’t tell Mario all these, but agreed with his bottom line that not many tourists from the States seemed to want to visit Ecuador.  I made sure I said “States” and didn’t repeat the earlier mistake of saying “America.”

We reached the top of the hill and the Cultural Center itself was a gorgeous sight.  Mario said it was also referred to as the Crystal Palace, and it certainly looked like one.

An Indian among Andeans. Otavalo, I love you!

A typical impression about Kerala is that anywhere you go on the planet, you can expect to run into a Keralite.  Hence, the joke that a Keralite welcomed Neil Armstrong with a cup of tea when he landed on the moon.  (BTW, the Keralite population living outside the state and remitting money, particularly from the Middle Eastern countries, has led to the state earning a dubious recognition as the "money order state.")

It was yet another experience along those lines when I was in the city of Quito, in Ecuador.  Even in this South American country, the only one in the world to be named after the equator, is an Indian restaurant—Chandana Tandoori.  It is located in the busy commercial part of Quito, very close to where many foreign tourists hang out, and is owned and operated by a Gujarati, who has been living in Ecuador for more than a decade. 

Is there any decent-sized city anywhere on this planet that does not have any Indian eatery?  

To some extent, Chandana Tandoori’s location is logical—in the contemporary global village, tourists and locals alike are typically used to various cuisines from around the world and, thus, an Indian dining place in Quito makes as much sense as a Thai restaurant, which was only a couple of blocks away.

Even more interesting was “Govindas,” which served up a hearty vegetarian lunch for a ridiculously low price.  It is run by the Hare Krishna folks in Quito, and the small place quickly filled up with foreign tourists sporting backpacks large and small, along with a couple of locals as well.

It was not the food at this Hare Krishna center that was surreal as much as the fact the women wearing saris and the men wearing dhotis were all native Spanish-speakers.  Thus, while the spectacle of saris and dhotis rushing around chanting “Krishna Krishna Hare Hare” was tempting enough to think that I was back in India somewhere, and while some of the women looked like they could easily be from India, I was pretty much the only Indian there.  Well, an Indian-American, to be precise.  

One of the women seemed to be delighted at the sight of me, because of my Indian roots.   She knew enough English, immensely more than the couple of words I know in Spanish, to ask me whether I wanted to pray at the temple.  After declining her offer, I felt rather bad to see the disappointed look on her face.  

I thought there couldn’t be anything more Indian to top Chandana Tandoori and Govindas as examples of how far geographically ideas from India have diffused.  I was soon corrected when I went to Otavalo.

Otavalo is a small town, about two hours of a drive northeast of Quito.  This town, with a population of less than 50,000, has for centuries served as the market for various indigenous groups who engaged in trade by swapping textiles, precious stones, etc.  Even now, Otavalo has a huge open-air market where the Andean men and women sell, among other things, jewelry, coats and ponchos made of wool from llamas and alpacas, and a whole bunch of hats of different types.

After spending a few minutes in the market, I walked around and less than half a kilometer away was a prominent sign that loudly announced a center for “kundalini yoga.”  Yes, kundalini yoga in this very old and historic small pre-Incan town of Otavalo, in a far, far away Ecuador.  

 I do not know whether the instructor in this center is a Keralite though!

US' standing in the world. What, me worry?

It was a pleasant and sunny midday in Quito, Ecuador, when I was waiting for the pedestrian light at the traffic intersection on my way to the basilica.  I nearly jumped when I heard “are you from India or Pakistan?

“India” I replied, and added for a good measure, “but I live in America now.” 

The guy laughed and said that Ecuadorians are Americans too, and rather sarcastically suggested that I was referring to Estados Unidos.

Our conversation continued even as we started walking after the light turned green.  He identified himself as Mario and that his mother was from Ecuador while his father was Brazilian.  I ditched any tour-book’s advice to be cautious with strangers and instead took up on his offer to walk to interesting sights away from the main touristy areas.

As we walked, Mario turned out to be the stereotypical college-educated left-sympathizing middle-aged person who was very well-informed about the world.

Mario’s commentaries became even more animated when I asked him about Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in comparison with the Brazilian version of left-leaning politics.  Mario promptly dismissed my question and the underlying interpretation of Chavez’s politics: “you are repeating the US media and commentators who have never even set foot in Venezuela.”

Mario recognized the economic, military, and cultural hegemony that the US has in the contemporary world, but made no attempt whatsoever to hide his very dramatic love-hate feeling towards the US. 

The following day, I went with a tour group to Cotopaxi, which is one of the highest volcanoes in the world.  The drive took us from Quito’s elevation of 2,850 meters (about 9,300 feet) to the base at about 4,500 meters (nearly 15,000 feet) while the summit itself peaks at about 5,900 meters.

My three fellow travelers were from Poland, Romania, and Germany.  Triggered all the more by the feedback from Mario, I asked these three also questions that drew them to comment about the US.  Caesar, from Romania, was the most vocal of the three.  And, like Mario, with strong convictions.

“It is not a country, but an empire” emphasized Caesar.  “I am all pro-USA, but even until today cannot support what the US did in Bosnia” he added.  Through their polite quietness, the other two made it clear that they didn’t want to get into a controversial topic.

But Caesar was more interested to offer at considerable length his critique of the economic recovery efforts led by the US government and the Fed, even at the risk of completely losing the companions from Germany and Poland.

“The US is inflating the rest of the world’s economies because it is printing money without control. It is all because Nixon abandoned the gold standard” was Caesar’s thesis that he elaborated at lunch when we stopped at a restaurant located in an old hacienda.

Of course, conversation was easy because the three were fluent in English, and more.  The German and the Romanian were fluent in Spanish as well. Caesar said he was at home in Dutch and French, and was now beginning his lessons in Chinese.  I perhaps represented the stereotypical character from the US who is barely conversant even in the English language!

In a strange way, through their harsh criticisms, Mario and Caesar presented me with a comforting thought—these people talk about the US so much because the country continues to play an influential role in the world.  Even though they were fully aware of my roots in India, they could not be bothered to say anything other than their fondness for Indian food and yoga.  Caesar did comment at one point that he hoped to travel to China and India sometime soon because they could be superpowers in a few decades.  But, otherwise, with an occasional nod to the German economy, it was the US that captured their focus.

Despite the struggle to get out of the Great Recession, the continuing high unemployment, and other economic  issues, the US continues to command worldwide attention.  Perhaps we need to really worry about our global standing the day when the Marios and Caesars stop caring about whatever the US does.  I hope that day never comes.

Oh, by the way, I never did go to the basilica!