If I Were Going...: Ecuador: The End of the Trip

Fruit at the Otavalo Market

Our last day of our Ecuador tour included excursions to three different locations outside of the capital city of Quito.

Rose Plantation

We drove to Cayambe and visited Art Roses, a rose plantation where we learned about Ecuador's role as one of the world’s major rose cultivators.

One of many plantations in Cayambe

The crop

Although roses are not native to Ecuador, the environment is perfect for cultivation.

Roses are now the country’s third main export, after oil and bananas.

Ecuadorian roses are known to have long stems and stay fresh for weeks.

After visiting the cacao plantation in Guayaquil, I had a vision of the rose plantation: huge fields with rows and rows of bushes covered in brightly colored flowers – a lot like rose gardens I had visited in New Zealand and Canada.

Becca in New Zealand, 2005

But, this was a commercial farm ...

The crop

... with the roses growing in very narrow rows inside big white tents ...

Very commercial

The whole town of Cayambe is filled with plantations, with rows and rows of these tents dotting the hills.

Rose tents; Photo: The Globe and Mail

The roses are grown like grapes for wine, with specific colors in specific places. The manager explained to us that the plantations do not do any hybridizing or color development – they leave that to scientists and companies that can properly patent the colors they develop. But, the growers are very careful about maintaining the integrity of each different shade.

A lecture in the tent before touring the processing plant

Once picked, the rose stems are stripped and the long-stemmed roses are sorted by size and color …

Hand stripping and sorting

Then, a worker carefully packs them – usually in boxes of a dozen – in a manner to protect the petals as much as possible ...

Delicate and fast

Most of the work is by hand, although there is some mechanization ...

Moving along

The packed roses go into a refrigerated room, where they are held until the middle of the night, when they are shipped out in refrigerated trucks.

Waiting to ship

Ecuador’s biggest customers are the U.S. – mainly Costco – for medium-quality flowers and Russia for high-quality flowers.

Roses in the Dann Carleton

As we left the plantation, we drove down a road lined on both sides with stall after stall selling flowers to tourists and locals. I suspect this is where all the flowers not fresh enough to withstand the trip to a foreign market go.

Roadside stand

As we were leaving, someone pointed out that Ecuador’s products seem designed for lovers and/or apologetic husbands: chocolate and roses!

Ecuadorian rose and chocolate; Photo; Etsy

Otavalo Market

Our next stop was a little bit farther north in Otavalo, where we visited a huge market famous for Ecuadorian handicrafts, as well as other goods that locals buy, like clothes and shoes. Some people love this (Jenny said it was one of her favorite parts of the trip), but I don’t particularly care for big, crowded markets. And, with my cold, I wasn’t feelin’ walking around in the sun.

At the market

Wilson then announced as a special treat, we would stay an hour longer than originally planned. Ugh.

Scott, who had originally not wanted to miss the market, but was still feeling poorly, asked Wilson to take him to bar or coffee shop to wait. I should have gone, but they disappeared before I had a chance to ask. Kathy, Fran and I shopped at a jewelry stall and then walked some of the aisles.

Pretty enamel and precious mineral jewels

The indigenous people of Otavalo are known for weaving textiles, which is the genesis of the market.

Local textiles

Wares; Upper right: Scott Stevens

Now, locals sell textiles, jewelry, musical instruments, dreamcatchers, leather goods, fake shrunken heads, indigenous costumes, hand-painted trays, purses, clothing, spices, food and yarn.

As the market has become a tourist attraction, many of the goods are mass-produced in nearby factories and sold at the market by middlemen.

Still, we saw many local people. Otavaleña women traditionally wear distinctive white embroidered blouses, with flared lace sleeves, and black or dark over skirts, with cream or white under skirts. They wear their long hair tied back.

It seemed more locals than tourists

They usually have many strings of gold beads around their necks, with the number of strands and thickness of beads representing their age and wisdom, and matching tightly wound long strings of coral beads around each wrist.

Local clothing

Men wear white trousers, and dark blue ponchos and often also have long braided hair. You often see people in fedora-type hats and they often carry bundles wrapped in bright shawls on their backs.

I wanted pictures of pretty fruits and the like and managed to get a few before I just lost my desire to be there.

This is what I was looking for

It was partially my cold, partially my dislike of gratuitous shopping and partially because a dog lunged out from a stall and tried to bite me (fortunately my long pants prevented his teeth from breaking the skin), but I was done. So, I suggested we check out the grocery store where we were supposed to meet Wilson when shopping time was up.

The results

The store was virtually empty and air-conditioned.

We walked the aisles and bought bottled water. Plus, I bought a boxed lime cake mix. The package was pretty crushed by the time I got home. But, the cake that I made with it (supplemented with extra lime peel and lime frosting) was delicious.

We then found Scott and waited until all the others – those who like to shop and who bought all kinds of stuff – were finished. And, then we left.

Don at the market; Photo: Jenny Owen

Hacienda Molinas

Next, we returned to Cayambe to one of the oldest haciendas of Ecuador, San Juan Molino, where we had a late lunch.

The old Hacienda

Owned by the same family for generations, the former Jesuit wheat farm houses a restaurant, hotel and chapel. It also has a still-working mill, where various grains have been processed since the 1800s.

The old mill

The walls are heavily decorated and graced with paintings, many of them religious in content. Jenny thought some were originals by rather well-known Ecuadorian artists.

Ecuadorian art

It is a beautiful, colorful building.

The dining room

The rooms are filled with rugged furniture and every corner has interesting historical items.

Family heirlooms

When we arrived, they served us some tea (which you could choose to supplement with a local liquor) and the Cayambe specialty, bizcocha.

The name is really just the Spanish word for cookie, but these are unique. They are made of yeast dough and twice-baked, making them rather dry and crumbly. Because they are served with both savory and sweet accompaniments, they are not sweet at all.

To me, they just sucked all the moisture from my mouth. Not my favorite.

A toast

The lunch started with a quinoa soup, which I ate because I thought I was hungry. By the time the yummy-looking chicken arrived, I no longer had an appetite. I didn’t feel sick; I just couldn’t eat – even when they served some beautiful baked figs for dessert.

Lunch

So, perhaps my negative view of the bizcocha was more about my cold than the cookie. I was rapidly losing my sense of taste.

Scott left briefly to go to the restroom and returned to tell me that he had seen Hummingbirds outside, so I immediately took my camera and started looking. I never found any. This trip did NOT deliver on Hummingbirds.

After lunch, we had a brief tour. In addition to touring the building …

Charming!

We saw the chapel …

The crosses are from each family's member's first communion

… the garden …

They grow their own vegetables

… and the guinea pig/rabbit cages in the back …

These are not pets!

The grounds – even without Hummingbirds – are gorgeous.

It reminded me a bit of Tuscany

And, the staff was delightful

The waitresses and the cat; both have roles

Back at the hotel, we had one more event: a lovely farewell dinner.

A nice dinner

I had hardly eaten, but, at this point had completely lost my appetite. So, I enjoyed the company of my traveling companions and spent the rest of the night feeling not at all well.

Fortunately (buoyed by my bag of medications), I felt good enough to travel the next day. But, I was losing steam. There is nothing worse than being sick on vacation. Scott had been suffering since Galapagos and I had been off since the flight to Coca.

Heading back to the states

We didn’t have the same malady, but we were a pretty miserable pair. And, it was going to get worse.

A Wasted Stopover in Florida

As I mentioned earlier, a change in flights was going to stall us in Miami, so we took advantage of it and added a few days. Unable to book one of Clyde Butcher’s gorgeous little cabins, we opted to stay, instead, at the Miccosukee Seminole Casino right on the edge of the Everglades

The goal

The plan was that Scott would do the Clyde Butcher Swamp Walk and I would go birding. Then, maybe we would go to Key West.

Welp, by the time we arrived, my cough was constant, I was more tired than I had ever been in my life and I had no sense of smell or taste.

I was certain I had COVID, but my test said no (and subsequent Google research indicated that the smell/taste loss did not occur the way it does with COVID). Still I felt crappy.

And, although Scott had rallied a bit, he was still experiencing digestive issues (I will leave it at that).

When he work up the next morning unable to move his neck, we decided to scrap out plans and find an emergency room.

We ended up at Baptist Hospital in Wellington, Florida, where Scott spent six hours being tested and treated. The verdict was probably parasites and completely unrelated multiple issues with his neck (bone spurs and so forth). Fortunately, he wasn't dying. Just miserable.

Feeling a bit less miserable

The hospital and doctors were wonderful. It was the best ER experience we have ever had.

The next day, Scott felt well enough to drive to Key West.

On the bridge

He wanted to visit the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, which displays some of the $450 million treasure Fisher recovered in the 1970s from the Spanish Galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sank in 1662.

Scott had worked with another photographer to chronicle the treasure for a national tour back in 19XX.

Scott's photo next to the real thing; Photo: Scott Stevens

"The Atocha Motherlode" included 40 tons of gold and silver; 114,000 silver "pieces of eight," gold coins, exquisite Colombian emeralds, gold and silver artifacts and 1,000 silver ingots.

Scott's piece of eight; Photo: Scott Stevens

And, this was only roughly half of the treasure that went down with the ship.

The site of the wreckage of the Atocha off of Key West, called "The Bank of Spain," is still being worked on and more treasures, including gold, silver and emeralds, are slowly being recovered.

I was so tired during the drive down, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I took almost no photos.