What do I want for my 50th birthday? I was not really sure. In the pre-merger days, 50th birthday was the magical line separating those who could be fired from those who would be more gracefully encouraged to early retire. The line has now been moved to 55 and so there is not really that much to celebrate. Except that 50 seems very, very old. I knew I did not need any more toys, the move to Houston and the amount of objects I have managed to accumulate were still in fresh memory. How about a trip to the southern hemisphere? That idea seemed to take care of several things at once:

1. I have never been south of the equator.
2. It has been years since my last trip to Guatemala and in spite of faithfully following telenovelas in Spanish I had a feeling that I was getting quite rusty.
3. A trip like that would not increase the amount of things to move during our next relocation and
4. I was sure that in South America I could find something reasonably priced.

There is in fact a well established system which applies in all Central and South American countries. It is far superior to any type of travel I know if the objective is to learn something, rather than take pictures and shop. This is how it works. For a fixed fee one gets Spanish lessons (typically 4 hours per day) and lives and eats with a local family. With a bit of discipline this means total immersion - really the best way to learn a language. In addition, it opens several windows on what is really going on inside the country - windows which are closed to the typical tourist. The prices and amount of luxury vary, from basic (Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru) to rather pricy (Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina), which I assume are rather posh but being a cheep skate by nature I cannot offer any personal experience.

Quito
I quickly settled into a daily routine. Every day I woke up at dawn -thanks to a choir of roosters. Little bit surprising, after all the apartment was in a central part of town, next to the national university. It was only a week later, when I was looking for a used book store and took a different turn that I realized what was going on. The roosters were ( I assume unwilling) participants in a roasted chicken restaurant around the corner.

Leisurely breakfast, typically including freshly prepared fruit juices (to my surprise I discovered there were still tropical fruits I did not know) and then a 5 minute walk to school which started at 9, One on one tutoring, with a break long enough to get a fresh croissant from the bakery on the corner and then two hours more. Lunch at civilized 2:30, afternoon salsa class and then several hours exploring Quito. All in all a balanced diet of mental and physical activity - ideal vacation.

There is a lot to explore in Quito. It is a city with a rather unusual geography because it is located in a relatively narrow but long valley (geologically speaking, it is a graben). This has two interesting effects. First, one can see green mountain tops (click on any highlighted word and you will see a photo) no matter where one stands in the city - the valley is that narrow. Secondly, since its founding in 1534 the city has grown substantially, but because it can really grow in only two directions, south and north, it resembles a time line. You can start in the baroque old town and walking north you pass through successively younger parts of town and in about an hour you can end up in a thoroughly modern shopping center which would not be out of place in any global metropolis. Five hundred years of history in one hour.

Like most visitors, I spent most of my time in Old Quito , which with its baroque architecture (and colors) reminded me of Prague. After all the city was built during the time when the sun did not set on the Habsburg empire to which both Prague and Quito belonged. It is similar, but not the same. There are plenty of little "added touches", local flavor, that make it even more fascinating: church walls and ceiling completely decorated in Moorish designs, cherubim with parrot wings and so on.

The newer part (early 50s) part of town is not without its charm. One charm close to my heart are prices. Ecuador decided to give up totally on its own currency (sucre) and instead totally switched to the US dollar. This makes prices seem even lower than they are - it is like traveling back to the 40s, when a dollar could still buy something. For instance, a cup of café con leche at a side walk café on Avenida Rio Amazonas (the main drag), get your shoes polished and leave a tip. All together for under a dollar.

Beginning of December is a time of a big, two week long fiesta celebrating the founding of the city. The are parades, exhibitions, street dancing, night discos, but the one item that impressed me most were chivas. Chivas are double decker busses, except the upper floor does not have a roof. In fact it is a regular bas roof with a rather flimsy rail around it. These busses normally operate only in the lowlands and come to Quito only during the festivities. The system works something like this: the chiva has several musicians sitting on the roof and playing few cords from the Chulio Quiteno song, over and over. People pay money to get on the chiva and that entitles them not only to a ride but also to free drinks. I think in the beginning people ride inside the bus but as they drink more they climb up to the roof. With additional drinking they feel no need to hold on to the rails and even though I did not actually see this I think sooner or later they fall off, because the chivas drive around pretty fast and do not slow down when making turns. This way the drunk people make room for more paying customers and thus create a nice little self contained system. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of a chiva and will have to go back.

50th birthday
I had a feeling that celebrating my birthday in Ecuador will be more memorable than a blowing out fifty candles on a cake. And it turned out it was. Since there are no classes on weekends, the school usually organizes a short trip. On the first of December, early in the morning we took the bus heading to Otavalo, which is a small town north of Quito known for its large indian market . The market is partially aimed at tourists but there are still lots of fascinating things to see. Most of the locals still wear the traditional costume which with its black and white combination looks very elegant. Almost all women wear long necklaces of metal beads and one has to wonder if before the arrival of the Spanish they were all made of gold. The region is best known for its weavers and it is definitely the best place to buy a poncho, hammock or alpaca sweater. All very inexpensive.

The next day we headed to the Fuya Fuya caldera. We made it up to a little lake in a landrover (all 7 of us) but then we had to walk up to the peak. In reality it was not much higher, I would estimate 300 to 400 m higher, but the thick is that the peak is at 4263 m, that is meters!! not feet!). At that height oxygen is in short supply. I think if I had been on my own I would have gone up a little, looked around and walked back again. But I was in a group of people in their twenties and they kept waiting for me and so I had to keep going. Towards the end I had to rest just about every ten steps. But I eventually crawled up to the very top. As it turned out it was just before noon on December 2. Since I was born on that date, just before midnight and the time difference between Ecuador and central Europe is 6 hours, I made it to 4263 m at the exact moment of my birthday. So now I have something to brag about for a while.

Quilotoa
The destination of our trip the next weekend was another lake in a crater of an extinct volcano. This one is located south of Ecuador and a little bit more off the beaten track than Otavalo. First we took a bus headed south along the Pan American Highway to a town of Latacunga. The road goes through the central valley which is on both sides bordered by many volcanoes. When Alexander von Humblold passed through here he called it the Volcanic Alley. Really, quite impressive.

In Latacunga we changed busses and headed west, towards a town of Zumbagua which is known for a very authentic indian market . Sheep stew, bananas, carrots, live pigs, chickens and guinea pigs (local delicacy). Even though the busses still carry a big load on the roof they are quite modern and comfortable, much more so that the busses one takes in Guatemala.

In Zumbagua we found a ride on a pickup which was going to our final destination. The Quilotoa lake is quite spectacular. It comes in and out of clouds and changes appearance every few minutes, it is impossible to do it justice with a few photos .

We spent the night at the top of the volcano. The accommodation was basic , but the price was right and there was no other choice. Over the last few years the lake, in spite of its location, has become quite popular with the backpacking crowd and so the supper in the main hut was very international, mostly European, but also a young man from Calgary. Supper was also reasonably priced, and since they just ran out of chicken I had to go for the most expensive item on the menu - guinea pig with potatoes. Since this is basically the birthplace of potato cultivation it I could not get a more authentic meal. At night I started to understand the Inca worship of the sun. When it goes down, even though we were at the equator, it got very cold. I was thankful for my Andean hat which I bought in Otavalo for a dollar. When the sun came up though, everything was fine. Took a picture with the owner don Humberto and his family and headed back to Quito. Going down is easier than up and so we walked for a couple of hours before catching a ride on a pickup. The area is fairly dry and so in spite of the low temperatures the roads are lined with cacti .

The equator
Of course no visit to Ecuador would be complete without a trip to the geographic feature which gave it its name. It lies on the outskirts of Quito and I could not resist the temptation to get the typical tourist photo . One foot in the north and the other in the south hemisphere. It did not hurt.