Gandalf has officially made herself at home, even took her for a bath at the vet and got her shots. It took a while to completely adopt her, since we weren’t sure if she had an owner. Everyone seems to know her but no one owned up to being her people. So after asking around, noticing her bad street dog habits and basically her not wanting to leave our place we decided to finally keep her. Guess we’re her people now.
She is… NOT fixed. So the inevitable crowds happen, and one slobbery sweetheart dog in particular named Crixus has made himself comfortable in front of our gate, but more on that later.
So we’re getting Gandalf fixed as soon as we think it’s safe to take her out without being swarmed by a horde of horny boydogs trying to get some. For the time being both her and Tali have been cooped up so during Inti Raymi we grabbed them a treat of a nice pork dish one of our neighbours was selling.
It’s a small world, it’s a small town
We go to a small bar down the road sometimes and realized that the owner’s son is the architect who helped out with some last minute changes, her other son is the municipio/inspector who came to inspect our place and guess what? Crixus, the slobber dog outside our door crying for the past week is their dog! It’s how we even found out his name. We found out the grandfather raised him, now belongs to their daughters family who lives just down the street from us.
Crixus also has a brother (we think) and they are great buddies. His name is El Capitan. A giant slobbery buddy. Also owned by the same family and the pair follow us absolutely everywhere. And when we say everywhere, we literally mean everywhere. They followed Roger into the Tia grocery store, into bakeries, ferreterias, neighbours yards when drinking chicha, anywhere. People are either absolutely terrified of these two monsters or go goo-goo over them because they know them and how adorably harmless the goofs are. El Capitan especially gets recognized everywhere.
Inti Raymi (Sun Festival): Lots of stomping, lots of chicha, lots of police
So the Inti Raymi festival overlaps with Canada Day this year which is convenient. Now let’s get this out of the way: it can be batshit crazy. It’s a week long Incan festival predating the Spanish invasion, celebrating the Winter Solstice (Southern Hemisphere remember), still celebrated today not only to honour the season but a reclaimed heritage. It’s a beautiful festival filled with food, costumes, dancing, music, and heaped in centuries of tradition.
As for the crazy? People board over their home and storefront windows, police use tear gas, and people can die drunk and fighting kinda crazy. So yah of course we wandered through it to see what was going on. From what we’ve heard some people have had some pretty serious injuries this year and we were lucky to miss the tear gas. Lots of drinking. And fighting. Seems that it’s the time for some to punch out their grievances collected over the previous year and start anew.
We had police in riot gear with shields in town all week and on the first Saturday night (Sabado a la noche) we had them literally right outside our door while shit went muy loco. Cotacachi is a very quiet and peaceful town the other 358 days of the year. The worst of the ruckus happened that first Saturday. Glass bottles were being thrown at the police, some general disarray, and plenty of noise well through the night and the only thing keeping it outside is our rusty old gate. The rest of the festival was much much calmer, still some obnoxiousness happened but for the most part it was chill.
We walked around, ate these awesome little fried dough balls with sugar (no replacement for a sour cream timbit but yummy none the less), fried fish and hornado (stewed pork). The usual food tents and chicha vendors set up shop right on our street (great way to meet the neighbours we haven’t met yet), which seemed to be the rest stop for everyone needing a break from the main event in Parque Matriz which goes on strong the entire week. Matriz is Circus Maximus for the festival here and just down the street from our place. The marching goes on for days and we can hear the music, marching and whistling at all hours, combined with the drinking it must be completely exhausting. Plenty of people (*cough … men) passed out on the sidewalk while their wives kept them company and out of trouble. Marching happened here on our street too, and the volleyball court only a couple doors down is ground zero for certain tribal groups to hang and dance. Was a lot of fun watching the party from our recently added second floor.
All in all, it’s a pretty amazing experience. Minus the broken glass of course.
Construction week 8: We have a roof!
Construction is going well. We are finally getting a roof on, and even putting in the chimney. Shits getting really real.
Visa Update: Still no. Still in progress. Still waiting.
Brewing Update: No tiempo, mucho dinero
We finally have ingredients again! So now just need time. Sure. Easy. Simple right? It’s been almost impossible to find time to make ginger beer let alone brew actual beer. Some day.
Recently we found “Levadura De Cerveza” at a health food store in Ibarra for a whopping $8.50/kg (for comparison, the yeast we use in brewing can range from $80-$150 for 500 grams depending on the strain). We thought “hey why not!”. Well not having a clue, Roger figured it was something like the baking yeasts you find at the grocery store and while might not make something amazing let’s just see what happens. We discovered after some reading that it’s a nutritional supplement version, not active and would not lead to any fermentation activity. So no sodas and no beers. So yay we can toss a bit into our meals for extra nutrients but we didn’t find a magical less expensive substitute for our good old beer yeast strains.
And Happy Canada Day and 4th of July folks!!