The Art of Bargaining

When I arrived in Santiago, Chile two years ago, I received an orientation packet from the University, which included a section on shopping. We were told that in Chile, unlike most places in South America, people don’t bargain, or regatear. While in Ecuador and Peru, however, I got a chance to flex my bargaining muscles. In these countries, there are rules for shopping in markets and artisan fairs:

1. NEVER buy anything from the first stand you see. You have to scope out the competition before you even think about buying something. And trust me, you will find another dozen stands or so selling the same thing, so odds are you’ll find someone asking for a cheaper price right off the bat.

2. Whatever price you’re told, offer to pay half and work from there.

3. If the seller hasn’t budged for a while and you’re still not satisfied with the price, walk away. I’ve been told that you may get called back (although that’s never actually happened to me...)

4. As I mentioned before, most of the vendors in any given market are selling similar products, so the more you buy from one vendor, the more willing they are to lower their prices.

However, no matter how much you master the art, if you’re a gringo, you’re going to pay a higher price. So you’re best bet is to make an Ecuadorian friend and send them to ask about price. That being said, it’s likely that a lot of time and effort have gone into making these handicrafts, and one dollar or one sol or one peso means a lot more to them then it does to you, so don’t worry about it too much.

Bargaining goes beyond shopping. In Quito, the taxis have meters, but they only run during the day. Any time after 6pm, you have to negotiate. In Peru, traveling at any time required some pretty heated negotiations. In fact, it was in Lima that I had my greatest triumph – you remember rule # 3 about walking away? Well, that trick had never actually worked for me. I’d walk away all the time and no one seemed to be bothered about letting me and my money go. But one night, Colleen and I caught a cab from San Borja to el Centro, and after negotiating from 15 to 12 soles, I told the cabbie 10, he stayed on 12, I walked away, and he called me back! It was only 2 soles, which is the equivalent of less than a dollar, but nonetheless, it felt like an achievement.

To be honest though, while a successful transaction may give you a sense of satisfaction, I’d rather not have to argue with cab drivers, or wear down the sellers at artisan markets. It’s kind of tiring, for me anyway, and I can’t avoid those nagging thoughts afterwards: if I got them down to that price, could I have gotten them to go even lower?

Christmas in the Sun

Down here in South America, it seems that the most common way to celebrate Christmas is with dinner on Christmas Eve. While in Lima, Colleen and I met a lovely Peruvian family (the family of one of Colleen’s friends), who went on to invite me to spend Christmas Eve with them. So I arrived around 9pm, but we didn’t actually eat until midnight. Instead we were just chatting, the two sisters, their parents, and the Irish son-in-law as well as his father, who had arrived a few weeks earlier to spend the holidays. And the person it was hardest to understand? The Irish son-in-law’s father, who has a rather thick Irish accent, and speaks no Spanish. So there he was, rather excited to have someone to talk to other than his son, and all I could do was smile and nod and pretend like I understood most of what he was saying… The other father, Lucho, was also excited, but for a different reason – he’s a coach and wanted to recruit me to play basketball… Anyway, at the stroke of midnight, they grabbed a blanket, put baby Jesus in the middle, and started dancing around the living room, each person holding an edge of the blanket (Yes, they made me dance too). After baby Jesus finally made it to his crib, we went outside to the patio to watch all the fireworks – yes, fireworks, all over the city, and we had a good view because we were on the 13th floor. Actually, we set off some fireworks as well (though I stayed far away from them, lol). After all that, we finally sat down to eat.

So after getting back to my hostel around 2, 2:30am, I woke up at 7:00am to go to the airport – I’ve never seen one so empty. Needless to say I had a lot of time to kill before boarding the plane. When I finally made it to Santiago, the airport there was even more abandoned - no need to wait in long lines for customs or immigration.

So I had Christmas lunch with my friend Josefa and her family, outside in their backyard, as it was probably about 80 or 85 degrees outside. You see, right now, it’s summer in Santiago, and the sunset isn’t until around 9pm.

Since then I’ve been here in Santiago, not really doing anything exciting; just catching up with old friends and my host family, taking a mini-vacation from my backpacking trip.

Next time I’ll tell you about that backpacking adventure through Ecuador and Perú that I had with Colleen.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!

Crime in Quito

Have any of you ever seen anyone get robbed at gunpoint? (on a side note, did anyone ever think that gunpoint was a place? Because I did, for longer than I'm willing to admit...)

But, let's get back to the seriousness of the topic at hand. Diana, Mauricio, and Jose Mateo just came home - they were out buying milk. On their walk back, a few blocks away from our apartment, they saw, across the street, a man robbed at gunpoint. Needless to say, Diana is a bit shaken up. What do you do when you see something like that? There were three men - one with the gun; the other patting down the victim, cleaning out his pockets; and the third passed by in a gray car to pick the other two up. Diana tried to catch the license plate, but it was completely white - no number.

I didn't see this happen, but it shakes me up a bit as well. It makes me think about the time I was robbed on the bus - I'm thankful I didn't realize it until after the fact; I'm grateful that I wasn't attacked. (Most of you probably know already, but about a week and half after I got here, my bag was slashed on the bus and someone took my phone and my camera).

Rainy Season

I don’t think that it was just my imagination when I looked up Ecuador online, and read that the weather was supposed to be “spring-like” year round. And yet, here I find myself shivering in the V!VA office, wearing shirt, sweatshirt, scarf, and rain jacket, wishing I also had a hat and gloves. If you can believe it, it’s actually colder in here than outside.

So what does the rainy season entail? Well, every afternoon, without fail, it doesn’t just rain – it POURS, often accompanied by thunder, some lightning AND, every now and then, HAIL. I experienced my first hail storm this past weekend. On Saturday, after a rare sunny morning (which I took advantage of to go for a jog in the park), it began hailing around 1 in the afternoon. I mean, in a matter of minutes the terrace outside of my room was COVERED in little white balls – it looked like snow on the rooftops nearby. And it sounded like a mob throwing rocks at my windows.

As I mentioned, my room is on a terrace, accessed by a sliding glass door. It’s not very well insulated, and so most of the time I'm in my room is spent under the covers. This all reminds me of my apartment in Chile, where I spent part of the winter. We had no heat there either, but at least I had my hat and gloves…

By the way, I apologize to the few people that actually read this blog for not having written in a while. Lately I’ve been consumed with sickness (nothing serious, just the general colds and slightly feverish states that often accompany prolonged periods of cold and wet) and/or graduate school applications. Therefore, there has not really been anything exciting to comment on. As far as work goes, I’ve been given more editing tasks, for which I am grateful. At the moment I’m becoming an expert in the wildlife of the Galápagos Islands. On a sadder note, all of the writers/editors/interns who were in the office when I arrived are now gone – the last one, Allison from Arizona, left today. Other writers/editors have come in to replace them – but I am now the only intern – which, on a positive note, means more copy-editing for me – yes, I do actually enjoy copy-editing.
I’m sorry I don’t have any exciting trips to tell you about. As I said, it’s the rainy season, I’ve got applications, and next weekend is the Census, which means that everyone, citizen and non-citizen, has to remain in his/residence on Sunday the 28th from 7am to 5pm – there will be no public transportation, and you will be fined (I think it’s just a fine) if the police find you outside during those hours. Oh, and there’s no alcohol buying or consumption from Friday night until Monday afternoon. Talk about hardcore. Needless to say I won’t be able to take a trip next weekend. I guess I’ll have to settle for seeing Harry Potter :-).

On Holiday in Ecuador

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week (everyone else in Quito has off today as well – it’s like a ghost town. For once I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes to cross the street to get to the office.)

I woke up Friday morning without any definite plans of what I was going to do. That quickly changed when Carlos and Diana invited me to go with them to the coast – they said they were going to follow “La Ruta del Sol” (Path of the Sun) working their way from North to South. I was like, sure! So I left work early and we hit the road at 4:30pm, and arrived in Esmeraldas a little after 9pm (the trip usually takes about 6 hours, but with Carlos driving…) So it was Carlos, Diana, Mauricio, Sabrina, Jose Mateo, Peluche (the puppy), me and a couple of suitcases. We had dinner at a Cuban restaurant owned by one of Carlos’s friends. Then we crashed at a hostel and set off early the next morning to start visiting the beaches. First stop: Atacames. Here we had breakfast, where breakfast can be anything from green plantains and coffee to a full plate of fish, rice, and lentils. I had the bolones de verde (balls of green plantains stuffed with cheese) with coffee. And, of course, there are jugos y batidos naturales everywhere (fresh fruit juices and shakes). After breakfast we took a quick walk on the beach, just long enough for the kids to make a little habitat for hermit crabs out of sand and water in a plastic cup. These cangrejitos kept them thoroughly entertained in the car throughout the rest of the day, and they kept adding to their collection at each new beach. My sister used to collect cups full of hermit crabs in North Carolina – of course she would actually bring them back to the house and leave them on the back porch until they died and left a HORRIBLE stench – ah, memories…

La Playa Escondida

One of the more memorable beaches we stopped at was completely deserted, which makes sense I suppose, since it was called Playa Escondida (hidden beach). I’ll have to see if I get some of the pictures from Diana.

We decided to stay the night in the tiniest of towns, Mompinche. The beach here was also relatively deserted, and it was actually a little cold, too cold for me to get in the water anyway. And the town was basically one dirt road leading to the beach. After we had dinner, Carlos said, let’s go walk around – 5 minutes later and our walk was over. Although back at the hostel I met a guy from Barcelona and a girl from Switzerland, and chatted with them for a while.

Well I decided that I needed a little more excitement, so on Sunday I hopped on a bus back to Atacames to meet up with a friend. There were actually parts of the beach that weren’t crowded at all, so it was quite nice. Both Sunday and Monday were mostly cloudy though, so no tan L. The water felt great though. And Atacames has a very lively nightlife, to say the least. The bars that line the edge of the beach start blasting music in the late afternoon and keep it up until the wee hours of the morning. Luckily we were staying with a friend who lived outside of Atacames, so we got to sleep in peace and quiet (except for the roosters’ cocka-doodle-doo-ing in the morning).

But the best thing about the beach… fresh seafood J and so far my stomach is okay, so even better!

Another word on food:

I always find it funny the way Ecuadorians react to the things I eat/cook. In terms of eating habits, I’m no typical American by any means – in fact lots of people in the States consider my gastronomical choices with a curious glance. Anyway, anytime I’m snacking on something I’ve bought from the supermarket, Jose Mateo always wants to try some. Here’s the tally of his likes/dislikes:

Peanut Butter: like

Raw Carrots: Dislike

Raw Celery: VERY STRONG dislike

Whole Wheat Crackers: Like

Raw, unsalted almonds: BIG like (I was quite surprised at this one, since Ecuadorians, my family included, LOVE their salt)

Now, back to this past weekend. My friend made us breakfast on Monday – there were eggs, onions and tomatoes – and I had bought a carrot the day before that I still hadn’t eaten, so I asked him to throw some carrots in there too. So he makes an omelet of sorts, except he didn’t do much chopping, because the tomatoes and carrots were dispersed in big chunks. I found it quite satisfying, as did my friend, but when he offered it to our host, she declined with a look of disgust on her face, and an exclamation of how feo (ugly) it looked. She’s like, you two can eat what I cook, but there is no way that I can eat what YOU cook. I think that pretty much sums up the situation in my house too, I doubt the family could tolerate anything that I’d make for myself. On the other hand, I eat just about everything (EXCEPT intestines).

What? Christmas Already?

Did I mention that my family has a puppy? That means, that when they decide to keep him in the laundry room (right next to my room) – I’m the one that has the pleasure of hearing him yelping and banging against the door….

So today is October 23. I think it’s the 23 anyway. You want to know what the family did today? They put up a CHRISTMAS TREE.  Actually, there’s a huge Christmas tree next to one of the malls by the park that has been up for about a week and a half now. I guess this is what people do when they don’t celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving.

I should probably mention that I went out for the first time last Wednesday, and was reminded of how much I take the good old non-smoking American bars and restaurants for granted.

Ok, you knew it was coming – I always have something to say about FOOD.

After eating rice, soup, and potatoes, with a little bit of meat for most of the last 2 and a half weeks, you have no idea how psyched I was when the girls and I went to lunch on Thursday at this place called Magic Bean, and for $5,  we got soup (with avocado it – weird I know, but surprisingly good) and a plate of, get this, GRILLED chicken, BROWN rice, AND salad. Oh and a jugo gigante (gigantic juice – freshly squeezed of course).

And today, after my jog in the park, I found, get this, BAGELS, REAL bagels, of ALL kinds, even MULTIGRAIN. I actually tried a Quinoa bagel – someone needs to start doing that in the states because it was a-MA-zing.

And that’s all for now – time to get ready to go out, as I listen to soundtrack of sirens, alarms,  airplanes, and barking dog that I’ve become so used too…

WEATHER

So, it’s a lot colder here than I expected. The only time it’s hot is when you’re in the sun, which really isn’t a good place for me to be, given that I’m pretty much as close as you can get to the sun right now (the equator’s only about a half hour away). Not to mention that we’re in the rainy season, so the sun doesn’t even come out that much anyway… That being said, it’s not THAT cold, at least not enough to warrant the big winter jackets, gloves and scarves that the Ecuadorians wear at night. (Although if you go up into the mountains those things are indeed necessary). OH, and hats – hats are essential – every time the family goes out when it’s sunny, everyone wears a hat.

The sun rises around between 6 and 6:30am every day – so on those clear sunny days, it’s impossible to sleep past 7am (I have rather transparent white curtains covering the very large windows in my room). It gets dark pretty early, between 6 and 6:30pm, basically by the time I get home from work.

School

I’m not going to school here, but the kids I live with do. They start at SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Who DOES that? Then they get out around 1pm. So that means they get up at 6am and have to go to bed around 9:30pm. Actually both Diana and Carlos go to bed around that time as well, so no late-night Skype chats for me (the Ethernet cable is in the kitchen).