Living on the beach – I never thought I would end up taking the beach for granted but when you live right there, it’s easy to forget how special it really is. Now that we’re living in a city, I miss the beach more than ever. I miss watching the incredible sunsets, hearing the waves, and commuting to work walking along the water. Max also really misses the beach – he used to run around chasing birds and sniffing the piles of trash.
The fruit – Although our local open air market in Palmar wasn’t the best place to buy it, good and inexpensive fruit isn’t too hard to find. This time of year on the coast you can find dozens of stalls selling watermelon by the side of the road in addition to the ubiquitous coconut stalls. Here in Quito, there are any number of (usually) indigenous women selling mandarines and other fruits on the street. It’s amazing to think of how expensive fruits like pineapples are in NYC – here they cost pocket change. Ecuador is known for bananas and before I came here I had no idea how many different kinds there really are. One way to say banana, like the one you eat with your cereal, is guineo. One day Paul went to a local store to get some bananas but he asked for gusanos instead. A gusano is a worm!
The clouds – The clouds in the Sierra are incredible. I’ve enjoyed photographing clouds in Quito and Cuenca especially. I don’t know what it is about the Ecuatorial light but there is something magical about the way it plays off of the many different kinds of clouds here. We recently went to the Teleférico – a cable car that travels up a mountain so you can see all of Quito spreading out below you. When we went up the cable car it was hard to see much since the fog was rolling in. By the time we had walked around a bit on the hiking trails up top the clouds had cleared and you could see the city below just in time for the ride back down. As they say in Quito, “if you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes.”
How time passes – I used to be so good at the rat race in NYC – rushing around, catching trains, walking long blocks in a single bound. Now, I’m happy to live a life more tranquila – never setting an alarm (these days I just wake up early without prodding), not worrying about being late (the Hora Ecuatoriana means I’m usually the first to arrive anyway), and taking things as they come. I think this has also resulted in a higher tolerance for waiting. I’m definitely more patient than I was before – if I wasn’t I think I’d go a little loca.
Being part of a community – One of the nicest things about living on the coast was being in a small community. I’ve never really lived in a place where I knew so many people and they knew me and said hello to me on the street. It’s a bit like summer camp in that way – you have your place in the culture and it’s comforting to learn the rhythms and the gossip of small town life. Although on the flip side, it means that lots of people you barely know hear about your business but mostly it’s just benign.