My duty today was to go with our neighbours to Montecristi to do the grocery shopping for the housewarming party tonight. As I wrote yesterday, every day brings new adventures. This one included the rental vehicle of our friends breaking down 4 times on the trip. The first breakdown was half way to Montecristi when we detected steam coming out of the hood. Not a good sign. Out went the 3 guys and out I went. I knew I was useless to assist so I strolled down the street to take pictures of a really beautiful little church. I then took pictures of a chicken, a pig and several stray dogs. Then I turned my focus on the menfolk who were busy pouring water into the engine.
Off we went to Montecristi and just got to the main drag when we ha to stop again. Fortunately we were able to walk up and down the strip while the engine cooled. The young fellow who will be our cook tonight went with me to a bakery where I had quite the time asking for a dozen buns. I tried “six et six” but that didn’t work, so I tried the finger display and even that didn’t work. The poor guy and I ended up counting them together one by one as they went into the bag. Believe it or not that was the easy part.
We then wandered off to look for fish since they had not been able to find it earlier in the morning at this other place they had gone to (without me). Eventually we came upon a big two storey market but I was aghast to see the meat hanging about with flies being wafted away and there we did end up buying the fish. Suffice to say, I am eating the hotdogs which we procured in a grocery store that had a freezer. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen meat hanging about like that before but I have never contemplated eating it myself. It will be a real test to my tact tonight to avoid eating the fish. Yes, I did take the Dukoral for just such an event but there is such a thing as not putting your head in a noose or your stomach in a bind! J
That done we tried to procure cervasa (aka beer) and that was interesting because “Pilsener” is posted everywhere in this town (as elsewhere) but not a case to be discovered. Fortunately for us as we broke down just at the next village and while we sat on the roadside waiting for the car to cool down we saw a cantina a few steps away and sat there, for the entire world like an American movie about Mexico breakdowns. I had my water while the menfolk had their beers.
Then we were off to the next stop, back through the village where we originally broke down. We made it all the way to the intersection that would take us back to the resort, a matter of five minutes. Another cool down and we finally made it home. Instead of the expedition taking 90 minutes it was a bit more than 3 hours.
Such is life in Ecuador. Everything eventually comes down to manyana!
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