If yesterday was about religious pageantry, today was about political pomp. We attended the changing of the guard in front of the presidential palace, which sounds like it would be quick, right? But man, they don’t change guards easily in Ecuador.
Expressionless soldiers in Napoleon-like blue uniforms on horseback ride in circles around the plaza while a marching band zigzags back and forth in front of the palace, playing a fierce oompa music that can only portend national strength or national insecurity, and usually both. At the same time, a couple platoons of Sgt. Peppers holding long bamboo spears topped with little flags jog in place until they break out into a march and join their brothers in arms in the plaza.
And it just kept going like that.
After the unrehearsed ecstasy and adoration at the basilica yesterday, this all seemed a little grim. And long. We decided to take a mango break, flagging down one of the many women darting between the blue-coated soldiers selling cups of sliced mango covered with lemon juice, salt and pepper. I gave her a dollar coin and picked my cup of mango out of the tray. As I turned to go, the woman grabbed me and said I hadn’t paid her yet. I protested that I had. We argued in Spanish. Other mango buyers eyed me uneasily and Sarah, arriving late, asked what was going on. I told her, and for a second I questioned whether I had already paid her. The altitude has been wreaking havoc on all of our brains. It’s become the family’s running joke: “It must be the altitude.” Last night at dinner, Cleo asked us a hundred times why the rice was yellow, and Julian said, “I’m eating so much and it’s just breakfast.”
But this wasn’t the altitude. I knew I had already paid. So I continued to defend myself to the woman, saying that she was mistaken, and then hastily retreated, looking, for all appearances, like a guilty mango thief. Later, when we couldn’t take much more of guards changing, and the soldiers showed no sign of tiring, we started to leave the plaza. Sarah suggested we leave to the east, but I told her we couldn’t go that way. Why? “That’s where the mango woman is.”
Jesus, why couldn’t I just have given the mango woman another dollar? What’s my problem?
Well, it’s complicated. I realize that of all the fears I deal with when traveling (which will occupy more than its share of blogs), the most ongoing may be the fear of being taken advantage of.
Which is tragic, because when you’re a tourist in a country like Ecuador, of course you’re going to be taken advantage of. That’s basically what you’re there for. You’re a giant sack of dollars on legs walking around. You have no idea how much things should cost. You’re anxious not to make a scene. You have much more money that the average Ecuadorian. SO…you are going to be charged too much for souvenirs. You are going to sometimes pay a special impuesto gringo on top of the normal cab fare. And every now and then, you’re going to pay two dollars for a cup of mangos when everyone else pays one. BFD. But still I resist, I fight it. It’s somehow important to my self-image that I not be an easy mark, that I not be just another giant sack of dollars.
So I take my plastic cup of mango slices. And I run.
