Happy Birthday, Mom!

***

My camera still won't work. We're going to bring it to a camera shop to see if they can clean it out.

***

Moving the artifacts out of the house was far easier than moving them in. For one, there were no stairs to negotiate. For two (?), there were less artifacts due to putting some in a museum display and the disposal of some others. They are now all in storage at the museum in Sicalpa.

The best part about moving the artifacts was transporting the giant, egglike pot that José-Luis reconstructed. Jim and I rode in the back of a pick-up truck with it to Sicalpa. Many people stared and gawked. One man pointed and yelled angrily, for what reason we aren't sure. One woman took pictures. It was fun.

After packing our dinosaur egg pot (actually, it was a giant storage pot for grains or chicha or some such thing) into the museum, we did some fun bureaucratic things then had lunch.

Cuy!

It was pretty good. The freshly roasted one was far better than the one which had likely been roasting for a few too many hours. Jim compared eating cuy to picking the meat out of chicken feet. That seems about right. It tasted good, though.

The place we ate at was basically a wooden shack beside the highway to Guayaquil. It had dirt floors and there was a distinct lack of cutlery and plates. The potato salad which came with our roasted guinea pigs, while tasty, was a little scary looking. No one got sick, though, and the food tasted good so I can chalk it up to another interesting and harmless cultural experience.

After lunch, we offered a ride into Sicalpa to two ladies standing on the side of the road. However, Eduardo, our truck driver, decided to take us all on an impromptu tour of the hills south of Colta Lake. It was pretty, but I think the two ladies were less than impressed with the extra time it took.

***

We got back into Riobamba in the early afternoon and were told by Ross that the work portion of the trip was done. He instructed us to take the rest of our time and enjoy it however we saw fit. Out first thing, though, was to run some errands. I needed to drop off some postcards at the post office and take my camera to a repair shop. Jim needed to buy a train ticket for Riobamba's biggest (only?) tourist draw, La Nariz del Diablo (the Nose of the Devil), a train ride through the mountains to the edge of the drop to the coast. It sounds great, but as I'm heading to Baños tomorrow, I had to count myself out. Ross had a variety of things to do (a full list, in fact), but a top priority for all of us was to phone home.

We got it all done. My camera is being checked out. The place we found is a certified Sony and Panasonic repair shop (how lucky is that?) and the guy said that he'll check it out and I can come in at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. We told him that if it's a simple job, just fix it but if it's complicated I'll wait until I get home to Canada. I hope it's simple so I can take pictures in Baños. I may end up picking up a disposable camera or two if the repair job fails.

***

We sat around drinking beer and eating hearts of palm before dinner. It was a strangely tasty combination. We discussed the plan for next week. We'll move out of the house on Monday and go to a huge volcanic crater, called Quilotoa, on Tuesday, where we'll spend the night. Then we'll go to Quito on Wednesday and spend Thursday in one last orgiastic spree of tourism. We fly home on Friday.

***

We had dinner at a "French" restaurant here in town. The food was really good, possibly the best I've had in Ecuador. It wasn't French by any means, but it was quite nice.

I'm continuously amazed at how cheap food is here. José-Luis and I had excellent steaks, Jim and Ross had chicken cordon bleu, we shared a bottle of wine and had espressos after dinner in what is one of the nicest restaurants in Riobamba, all for $40. That's expensive here. For four people to have the equivalent at home would easily cost 2-3 times that, perhaps more, depending on where one went. And I thought food was cheap in Korea!

After dinner we dispersed to make phone calls or internet (yes, it's a verb now). I called my mom and Laura then went to bed. Tomorrow I get organized and head out for the weekend.