November 18, 2002, 10:05 pm, Hotel Alexander, Guayaquil, Ecuador

I had forgotten to mention that in Otavallo, the afternoon of my departure I asked the woman who appeared to run the place what type of aguardiente and brand they used that I might purchase some to make canelaso at home. She told me Drago Puro, but that I couldn't buy it anywhere - some man down the street makes it privately. She offered to fill a water bottle for me; instead I fetched my 1/2 liter nalgene bottle. She had a gallon water container labelled Drago Puro from which she filled my nalgene for a dollar. I then went ovr with her (Mercedes Guevara) several times the recipe for their canelaso. Boil water with a cinammon stick in it for five minutes. Remove from heat. Add a tiny bit of cold water - to settle the color or something. Then put one or two shots of drago puro in a glass and top off with the cinnamon flavored (hot) water.

I went to the Mitad del Mundo (center of the world) monument today.


A large monument built to mark the equator at the location where a French cartographer first mapped it in Ecuador


The monument built on the equator
was wrongly located 300m south of the real equator!


the real equator with the grandiose monument in the background


A llama!

The bus ride there exceeded an hour but the taxi ride back was about half that. 35 ¢ versus $12. I bought a plane ticket at one of Tamé Airlines' offices on Avenida los Amazonas for a 6:30 flight. I then searched for a bag to hold all my Otavelleno purchases and found a black canvas military-style duffel bag. A quick lunch, pack up at Los Alpes hotel, where I found that the desk clerk is from northeastern Italy, and then a taxi to the airport of Quito. The taxi driver spoke passable english and he told me of all the myriad countries he has travelled to all over the world. He finds work as an auto electrician in various countries. He also said that Ecuador was very cheap for Americans right now and also that Argentina was extremely cheap. Perhaps I should consider Argentina for next year... I said it would be hard for me to find work overseas - but he claimed that it is easy to find work if you try.

My flight was cancelled. I arrived at Mariscal Sucre airport at 5:30 to be told that the 6:30 flight was cancelled due to lack of equipment. I was put on the 7:45 flight. I had two hours to kill so I wandered the drab thoroughfares adjacent to the airport in search of a café. Two places advertisig coffee had none. It was a pretty dreary neighborhood so I was not happy looking. Finally had some quite bad coffee in an ice cream joint.

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