Happy birthday, pulpo and a long drive

It is Margaret’s birthday today. By the time we were up at 6.30am, it was already afternoon in Thorney. We made videos singing happy birthday to share on WhatsApp. Aureliano enjoys singing and harmonises the “to you” in “happy birthday to you” in a very cute way. We sang in English and then in Spanish as a novelty.

It was also our last day on the coast and we were facing an eight-hour drive back to Ambato. The plan was the same as driving out here – we’d have lunch a little early and then hit the road.

So, we made one last visit Last visit to Margarita’s for early lunch. It was camerones again for me much to Tom’s disgust. He wants me to try all the different types of fish, but I am a conservative eater and I like prawns in breadcrumbs. I did have them in garlic one day to ring the changes. The children are also creatures of habit. They run into the restaurant shouting “pulpo, pulpo” which has become their meal of choice and then they dash to swing on one of the hammocks strung between posts in the restaurant. It seems odd to have hammocks in a restaurant, but there are three of them, so people must find them useful. Click here to see video.

I have eaten lunch at Margarita’s every day, except one (when we went whale watching) and none of us have been ill. Lucy did get a peek into the kitchen one day and it didn’t fill her with comfort, but there are probably much worse. The owner sits in the front of the restaurant reading a newspaper; there’s no menu, just a list of fish on the board in front. He’ll tell you if one isn’t available or if there’s a recommendation. Whether you get what you ask for is a different matter – apparently the tuna didn’t taste like tuna, but whatever it was it tasted very nice.

Scoffing pulpo

Full of pulpo and camerones, we set off on the long drive back. We went a slightly different way to Portoviejo and it seemed a much faster and smoother road. We drove through virgin forest on the hills (it’s surprisingly hilly by the coast), and this is very interesting to see. There are low trees dotted with taller ceibo trees which really stand out. They are taller, have thick trunks of an unusual shape and aerial roots. There are no leaves on them at this time of year (the dry season) and so the ceibos stand out like sentinels. They could be Ents walking through the forest. In spring, the trees blossom and then are covered with a fluffy down which is gathered and used to stuff pillows and garments - we know it as kapok, although that’s not a word I’ve seen for some time.

In Portoviejo (one of the older Spanish settlements in Ecuador, going back to the 16^th Century) we saw in daylight damage that the earthquake did. There are lots of small earthquakes in Ecuador that don’t make the news or even get remarked upon, but once in a generation where you live, there’s a big one. I guess buildings are more earthquake-proof than they used to be, but some of the cracked and boarded-up buildings looked pretty modern and substantial. Reinforced concrete alone is not the answer, you need sophisticated construction techniques to survive a 7+ quake.

Our route took us on to San Sebastián, Pichincha, Velasco Ibarra, Quevedo, Valencia, La Maná and then the long climb over the Andes before dropping down past Latacunga and on the Pan American to Ambato.

It was hot and humid outside and when we crossed a couple of big rivers (Rio Daule and Rio Portoviejo) where people were bathing in the shallows.

Motorcycles were everywhere (more often with two people on board and often with more). They look precarious and cars and buses show no duty of care to bikes. If a car wants to overtake, it will run a bike into the gutter and buses just squeeze through, then stop suddenly if someone wants to get on or off.

We saw two bike crashes, one outside what I thought was a bikers’ café because there was a row of bikes parked up outside. Everyone thought that was hilarious because it wasn’t a bikers’ café, it was a brothel. Prostitution is legal in Ecuador, although abortion isn’t (a strange paradox for how women can control their bodies). There is a road in Ambato with a line of brothels. They call them Night Clubs to give them an air of respectability, but often the letters get mixed up and you see Nihgt Club instead. On the Pan American (when it was 9pm and dark) there were girls in short skirts and heavily made up. In a poor country, packed with refugees from civil war in Columbia and the economic crisis hitting Venezuela, I’d be surprised if prostitution was a profession that people selected as a lifestyle choice. Even in a rich country like the Netherlands, I find prostitution uncomfortable, but in a poor country like Ecuador, with even poorer refugees, and where women’s equality is still miles behind what we’d find acceptable in England, it takes on a far more desperate and depressing complexion.

We stopped in La Maná for ice cream as we had on the outward journey and it was getting dark quickly as we began the climb over the Andes. The cloud closed in, the rain came but we eventually crossed the high pass and the air cleared as we descended past Latacunga. I was glad to be on the Pan American and we were back in Ambato around 9.30pm. It was a long day’s driving for everyone.

Restaurante Margarita