So last weekend known as the Dry Weekend, was pretty much dead everywhere including the nightlife, which we kind of expected but was hard to learn first hand. We decided to go out of town for a day anyways to tour Ibarra’s Yahuarchocha lagoon with a backpack full of booze but it turns out that some places do serve beer… illegally! Either way we were prepared but not as prepared to be in a coma state after eating gigantic and delicious fish plates.
Election Chaos and Charcoal Grills
Travel during election weekend is a pain. Many people need to travel back to their home town to vote, so the terminals and all destinations are packed! We were quite surprised how crazy it was. We had hoped to catch a bus on the roadside but they kept passing us. Since we didn’t plan ahead we ended up waiting for almost an hour to catch a bus.
When we finally got back into town, Malena needed to go vote and on our way to the election posts, there was soo much FOOD! The street leading to the school where polling took place was closed to car traffic and lined with food vendors selling empanadas, hornado (stewed pork), and all kinds of other yummies.
On Monday we found out the election result…drum roll… Runoff due in April, winner needed 40% for outright victory, got 39.09%. Basically top two candidates now get to run head to head in a political Thunderdome.
Survey Says!
We’ve learned to ask multiple people to get multiple answers to uncover which is correct. Unfortunately even people working at government offices have provided us with wrong answers. Malena had gone to replace her lost voters card at the official voting office and was told by the person behind the desk that she wasn’t required to vote. After talking to several other people we began to conclude he intentionally gave wrong information so she didn’t go out to vote … ethically dubious but not unreasonable to believe in a charged partisan political race.
Rain Rain Go Away!
For the last week it’s been raining and overcast with short breaks of burning sun. Even this weekend which is the beginning of Carnival holiday was pretty grey. We have to keep remembering to pack our umbrella even if it looks nice and sunny, in minutes that can change to a downpour that lasts hours.
The Feline Invader Returneth
We discovered the ninja ginger kitten again one early morning. This time around 4am running out of our kitchen after chowing down on some of our cats dry food, then climbing out over the shed, along the glass topped wall. We don’t know exactly how many times this ginger cat has snuck in to eat our cats food, but it seems often enough that our cats just watch him do his thing and don’t even bother scaring it away anymore. We may have more ginger cat adventure stories in the near future.
Discovering Atuntaqui
We decided to go for a run along the mountain road to Atuntaqui, our neighbouring town to the north. It turned out to be a gorgeous 7.4 km route to the cathedral, with winding roads, hard hill climbs and crazy views of the valley. The header picture of this post was taken on that run. It was hard to keep running at all when we were happily distracted taking pictures.
At first glance Atuntaqui is a clothing store/commerce town and seemed pretty boring. However after seeing a 10k race poster we decided to sign up for the run which gave us an excuse to go back and visit a little more. $12 to register and it was a fun 5k loop around town. We got t-shirts and a finishers medal! After the run and waiting an hour for a draw to see who won a nice new mountain bike we went directly to food and beer. No shortage there.
We have had many good food and drink experiences in this town. We also got to see kids spraying foam all over each other getting ready for Carnival which was hilarious. A local brewery called Caran had a tent set up and we sampled all their wares. We especially liked the IPA and their unique Higo (ee-go) Porter which was very, very tasty.
All in all, experiencing the festival atmosphere in Atuntaqui was a lot of fun and happy our first impression of a boring commerce town was proven wrong. Tons of people out for the night, loads of musicians playing in the streets, and so soo sooooooooooooo much food!!!
More Quito, More Paperwork, More Food
We had to go into Quito just to pay $50 and continue the visa process. On the plus side we went to visit a brew pub we’d been hoping to check out for a while. Bandidos Brewery in central Quito where we tried some amazing beers and enjoyed a great pesto and ricotta pizza. The vibe around Bandidos feels like a really sketchy get-mugged-under-the-bridge kind of area at first, and their entrance is subtle so it’s easy to walk right by and miss it. But don’t be fooled, the area is very safe and once you find them it’s well worth the effort.
Container is arriving soon!
(fingers crossed)