Casi Ubicada: Piropos, Otavalo, Eating Dog Poop & Hoof Soup

They say you haven’t lived in Quito until you’ve gotten a “piropo” (catcall) from the police. As of last Wednesday, I’ve lived in Quito. Apparently three young women walking to class are fair game to shout piropos at… Piropos are pretty standard-issue here. It’s sad that you can tell what guys are gringos because they AREN’T giving you a once-over.

Anyhow, I am pretty well settled here in Quito, I know my way around pretty decently, etc. It’s a big city but as long as I can find Avenida Amazonas, Avenida 6 de Diciembre, or Avenida America, I’m good. Living pretty far north is all right, but there’s not much to do so if any of us want to go anywhere after dark it’s a taxi ride down south.

This past weekend I went with 12 other students to Otavalo, a little city about an hour and a half bus ride up north from Quito. Otavalo is the home of the largest market in South America, which takes place every Saturday morning starting at around 7am (it’s busy by 9!). We had a fun time catching a bus just as it was getting dark on Friday (read: 6:30p) and getting in at around 8:30. Saturday morning we got up early, ate breakfast at our awesome hostel (double points for scoring rooms for 13 people last-minute during a festival), and headed to the market.


It is enormous, to say the least. As I was attempting to not appear totally gringa/turista, I didn’t get any good pictures of the market. However, I do plan on going back and not only taking pictures but actually haggling to get some of the incredible wares that they sell. Interesting item for sale: chess sets where the pieces are two teams—indígenas and conquistadores. Thank you colonialism… and all the more interesting to see that they were being sold by an indígena as well. Oh, and I have never wanted to eat street food more—it looked so good! In a few weeks I’m sure my stomach will be strong enough.



I came back on Saturday in time to hang out with my Ecuafamily and stroll around El Centro (aka Colonial Quito, where it looks like you’re in Europe). It really is amazing at night. We ate “caca de perro” (dog poop), which is tostados (toasted maize) covered in carmelized sugar…it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “this tastes like poop.” This is a picture of me with my hermanita Alegría and our massive empanada...


Choque Cultural #2: HOOF Soup—A number of my classmates have come to school with stories of foot soup, so I knew that my time would come soon enough. Sunday night, my Ecuamom put a bowl of soup in front of me, saying, “Sopa de patas” (foot soup). I’m almost grateful that it was hooves and not chicken feet. So I told her I would try a pata but I could make no promises that I could eat all of the hooves that were in my bowl. Needless to say, I only made it to one and I’m never eating that again. I am, however, proud of myself for at least trying it.

Monday night I went with my Ecuafamily to Teatro Sucre in El Centro to watch a free orchestra performance. All of the songs were by U.S. composers/artists, and my personal favorite was the performance of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Trying to explain why that was hilarious to my family was a fun one…