Hostel life during a pandemic

It was a Friday March 13th, the last day before our break from construction started, to allow the recently poured roof to dry. We were happy that after 4 weeks of construction we weren’t going to have a crew around for the next while. We’d have the whole place for ourselves. And although we had already been hearing about the first corona virus case in Ecuador at that point, we were more worried about friends and family abroad than ourselves.

That same evening a couple, Tere and Dadu booked our Buena Vista room for the weekend. Tere had planned to leave on Sunday towards Quito and Dadu was set to leave on Monday to try and catch a bus to the coast.

Two days later we got news that our town was shutting things down. Tere had literally caught the last bus out of town on Sunday. Dadu on the other hand was not so lucky as he planned to leave Monday, and all buses in and out of town had stopped running that morning. A 9pm curfew began and this was starting to remind us of the nation-wide strike we had back in September. Thus began the uncertainty of what this whole pandemic meant.

Laying down the rules and the routine

So back in September due to the strike, we lived almost two weeks without being able to buy eggs, milk, veggies and mainly fresh food. Yep you heard that right. But that is a whole other story. Ultimately it was a learning lesson to stock up on canned and dried food, spend more time pickling or making sauces and freezing veggies. Basically this time around we went into Canadian Winter prep mode.

Wearing masks

So that first week of shut down everything pretty much closed down except for places that sold food. Finding hand sanitizer was a bit harder than normal but toilet paper was plentiful. So the news from back home in Canada of TP riots were quite funny. At that point masks were required to get into larger grocery stores as well as limiting how many people per family could go shopping along with age restrictions. We provided both Mati and Dadu with masks and gloves for going out. We had already been in contact with each other before the shut down so we didn’t think wearing masks inside our hostel was necessary. But leaving and entering the hostel became a very strict process. None of us entered any room until hands had been washed or sanitized, spraying down grocery bags and purchased items or money with bleach water and leaving it outside for a day or two before bringing stuff inside. Every time we entered kitchen we sanitized our hands.

Social Distancing

At this point there were only about 100 cases in the country and globally the news was very unsettling. But the pandemic was still surreal and we all thought things would go back to normal sooner than later. It was a stark contrast with our friends and family back in other countries. Cotacachi was implementing very strict measures at that point, meanwhile friends from back in Toronto were talking about bars being open for St.Patricks. If there was no pandemic, we would have definitely taken advantage of this celebration to run an event. But instead we settled with a fun zoom call and invited Matias to join. It didn’t feel strange yet as this was already how we communicate with family and friends back in Toronto. We had no idea how dependent on video conferencing the whole world would turn into.

Should I stay or should I go?

That was the question both our volunteer and guest had to weigh every week as the news about the pandemic kept changing. Matias, from Argentina decided to stay, as his plan was to continue traveling South America and into Colombia next.

He had already been traveling for over a year and had left his home to travel indefinitely, so staying a few months longer in Ecuador in the scheme of things was not so bad. And given the situations his traveling friends were facing in different parts of the world, he knew that staying at our hostel in a tiny town secluded from everything else was safer than trying to go anywhere else.

Dadu was willing to stay for a few weeks to see how things would play out. The Ecuadorian government had announced rethinking the shut down by mid April and Dadu was optimistic about continuing his travels towards Honduras.

Originally from France, Dadu tended to chill out on the balcony chatting with family. As long as we had beer, whisky, cigarettes and a functional oven, he seemed to enjoy the relaxing nature of our hostel.

The chaos of the pandemic was not a pretty thing to see in the news, but being quarantined in a hostel with other people and furry butts to cuddle with, wasn’t so bad. He would end up staying for about a month and a half, spending his birthday here with us, along with his girlfriend Tere who came back to stay for a few days.

Her trip from Quito to Cotacachi was extremely difficult as interprovincial travel was prohibited and travel into Cotacachi was limited to doctors or food vendors. Many checkpoints, spraying of vehicle, temperature checks later, she made it into town, and only because she has a medical id.

Eating and drinking like kings

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So like everyone else on the planet, during quarantine we all got a little creative when cooking. We ended up going through a lot of flour between Malena, Dadu, and Mati whom all love too cook while Roger was busy brewing or bottling. The result was home made chocolate, caramel, mayonnaise, chimichurri, bread, cakes, muffins, tortillas, chilli and other random dishes. In addition we got to eat home made fanesca which is a typical Ecuadorian Easter meal prepared by Tere when she came to visit.

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Usually we don’t share as many food pictures, but honestly these past few months have been a culinary experience we won’t forget.

Hostel routine continues… well mostly

Before Dadu and Matias got stuck at our hostel, we thought it would be nice to have the whole place for ourselves during the pandemic. But having two people, Dadu a very outgoing social butterfly who spoke little English but decent Spanish, and Matias, who spoke Spanish with decent English, created an interesting dynamic. We mainly spoke in Spanish, or Malena would translate to get the conversations going. Although occasionally Roger’s intense history conversations (rants) would be spoken in English.

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Having people at our hostel for over 6 weeks allowed us to get to know each other really well. We had lots of conversations, figuring out our plans in the future, excited to get back to traveling. We also made it a habit to eat lunches and dinners together, playing board games, cutting each other’s hair, drinking around the fire, or the brewery rooftop, hanging with the dogs. These were things that brought us all closer together. In a time where everyone was ending their trips to go back home, or choosing to quarantine with family, we were here with two travelers that felt safer with us. It’s a good thing we have plenty of space (and beer) on the property to chill out.

So despite the pandemic, Roger continued to brew and Malena continued to work remotely. At times it was hard to feel like good hosts. Our guests would lounge around, read books, play with the dogs, watch Netflix and eventually get bored.

Also without a car we were limited to shopping within our small town which was mainly shut down. The streets were empty, nowhere to go eat out. Shopping for things like paint or soil or plaster to clean up the walls was impossible. Which left Matias our volunteer with little to do. Eventually he would take over the kitchen, doing a lot of the cooking and even brewed his own beer, but it was definitely a time where having sincere conversations on how to get through this pandemic would play out.

There was also lots of Whisky, rum, hard lemonade and beer. Roger also brewed up a mango wheat beer and the four of us almost burned through a keg in two nights on one weekend.

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Dogs

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Just a few days into the shut down we discovered that one of our local street dogs was in heat. She was being chased and assaulted by dozen of male dogs. It was very disheartening, so over several days we tried to capture her. She was extremely scared and kept running away followed by all those males.

One day we followed the heard of dogs to an empty property just a block away from where we live. We were able to shoo the male dogs away and we found her hiding under a bush. She was so tired she couldn’t run away anymore. Malena tried to entice her out, but she would keep digging herself into the bush. Eventually (after over an hour) she warmed up to Malena who was sitting there patiently trying to get her to eat some food. Eventually Malena managed to tuck a blanket under her and slowly burrito her into the blanket. Once she was wrapped, Roger carried her out and back to the house, while Malena used a broom to scare the remaining male dogs.

The next day she was picked up by the local rescue, fixed and given all her shots. Because of the shut down, the veterinary wasn’t open overnight, so they had asked if it was okay to hold on to her for a week while she recovered. Because everything was shut down, there were no food vendors for dogs to mooch from. This dog was also extremely frail and scared of even her own shadow. We decided to call her Scooby for that reason. And she is still a part of our home even today. She occasionally “escapes”, which we are okay with since she is familiar with the local area. We hope to get her adopted into a real home eventually.

Before

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After

Speaking of dogs….

After living here for over three years, it’s official, that there is at least one dog in Ecuador that is not Roger’s friend. It chewed up his left fore arm pretty bad. We ended up going to a clinic and at first they recommended we go to the hospital, but since it wasn’t busy at the clinic, they ended up patching him up.

Needless to say, Roger did not have control of the situation, but also does not blame the dog at all.

Leaky water pipes

So the shut down in town meant everything non-essential was closed. Unlike other places around the world, hardware stores were not considered essential, so it was a little difficult to get things fixed. Our maestro called in a few guys to come and work on this long-standing problem which at that point had gotten worse. We had to take the same precautions we took with our guests and ask them to sanitize their hands when coming and leaving. Shaking hands with our Maestro was no longer something we did, and of course the workers always came with masks.

Donating beer to the abyss

We brewed up a Yuca beer and decided to donate 100 bottles to our town to be distributed to hospital, fire station and police. Matias spent a few hours making nice labels that said “Thank you for all your work!”

Beers were picked up by local police for distribution, but unfortunately we are not entirely sure where the beer ended up.

Things going back to normal… sort of

After months of complete lock down, at least some stores are back open so we can get some materials for Matias to continue working on some stuff we had intended to do from the beginning. But wearing masks is now legally required and part of life.