Santo Domingo

View to the west - no more Andes, just
plain underneath the clouds

The wind was howling throughout the night and it was bloody cold. Julia had elected to sleep with me and that was a blessing (she’s like a little hot water bottle). Tom, who feels the cold more than I do, had gone to bed with a hot water bottle, socks and long johns.

Our job for the morning was to pack up as much as we could so that Jorge, who was coming up in the Toyota pick-up could load up as much as possible to bring back to Ambato, Quito, etc.

Lucy and her dad had a meeting in Simiatug. The health centre there has had a rocky record with a number of deaths in maternity. The problem is that people don’t like to use it because it’s gained a bad reputation, so they try to give birth at home and only go to the centre when they’re in trouble (and it’s possibly too late), so the reputation gets worse. An 18-year-old girl died in childbirth last week. It’s a vicious circle. Lucy and Carlos are trying to improve the message to local people to go there to give birth and also defend the centre from central government criticism.

The administration of the area is unusual for us – a mixture of central government, local community and private ownership. The colonial system of haciendas owned by remote people in Quito or abroad continued long after the Spanish were thrown out and independence gained. Gradually, people who were working as indentured labourers (little more than slaves) took back control of the land, sometimes by force (as in Simiatug). Lucy’s PhD is an account of the uprising and will be the first properly documented version of the events. The former hacienda land is now a mixture of property owned by the community and by private individuals. The community organisation operates as a type of NGO with some central government control/influence. I hope I’ve described that accurately; like I say, it’s not a concept we’d be familiar with. The British land grab was by the ruling class against the people in the Enclosures Acts, so quite the reverse of what happened in Ecuador.

Lucy went down to the meeting for 10am and Jorge arrived after 11am after dropping off Carlos in Simiatug and picking up Lucy. We’d load the pick-up, wait for Carlos to come back in the Montera, load that and then head back to Ambato.

There was a lot to go on the pick-up. We managed two settees, a large cupboard, super-king mattress, smaller cupboard, various boxes of food and pans and assorted soft-play equipment. Lucy took several bags of clothes and books down to the nursery for distribution.

It made a big hole in the house, but there’s lot’s more to take. Tom, Jorge and I will return next week to get the rest and it might need two trips.

We’d loaded everything we could, but Carlos had not arrived back, so we were stuck. During the afternoon we were kicking our heels. There’s no signal, so we couldn’t contact Carlos.

I had a bit of a wander around (see video). Santo Domingo is on a high shelf of flat land, surrounded on three sides by high mountains, but to the west, the land falls away sharply. Basically, this is the last high ground before the coastal plain. Look west and you see no mountains, just a bank of clouds covering the plain. It’s quite a remarkable view. I don’t know if you ever see the land or just the tops of the clouds.

Around the community runs a deep ditch, like a sunken road. It follows the mountains around and Tom says it was the boundary marker for the old hacienda.

I can’t understand why the relatively good buildings where Tom and Lucy are staying haven’t been utilised for living accommodation. Also, the furniture factory is just as it was when it closed down with all the machinery – drills, lathes and saws intact.

The community was established by Italians and Tom thinks there were accusations of communism which led to the leader and all the other experts having their visas cancelled. It’s a shame because the concept was quite visionary – a self-supporting community with the means to survive and thrive. They created a lake for fresh water all year (complete with fish), they planted pines to provide timber and they had a school and factory, with accommodation for the workers.

The lake is still there but many of the trees have been cut down to sell for timber (and not replanted). Some of the furniture can be seen in Tom and Lucy’s rooms – rather crude (but sturdy) chairs and benches.

During the day, several people called by to say farewell. Don Carlos, whose daughter provided child care help before running off with a chap from the next village; a group of children (Tom and Lucy taught some lessons in the local school) and an old lady with her daughter who came to offer us some beans. We went up to pick them in her fields (quite a climb) and Tom took this video.

Carlos arrived back around 5pm and Lucy and Aureliano went back in the pick-up with Jorge so she wasn’t too late. We loaded the Montera with as much as we could and Carlos, Tom, me and Julia headed back. Tom took a different route that was a little higher and more precarious than the way we came. He said Lucy didn’t like that way, but he thought it was quicker. There were lots of sheep, cows and other livestock on the road, but we made decent time. We had some wonderful views (see here) as we crossed over the pass and then, suddenly, the gravel road turned into the smoothest, metalled surface you could wish for.

That lasted about 15 minutes before the road through a deep valley and across countless bridges. The surface here was terrible with massive pot-holes. These were being repaired and the repairs were as dangerous as the holes, with big heaps of aggregate piled up in the road and no warnings. We got back quite late and Lucy had beaten us by about half an hour. It was a tiring day for her.

In the high Andes

Chimbrazo from the high pass.