Rico Suave

Quito – Sangolqui – San Miguel de Salcedo, Colombia

Last night we stayed with a wonderful family: Boris and Lorena and their kids and niece, in a suburb outside of Quito. 

It was a wonderful experience. They are just super generous, fun people. 

Kind of complicated how we ended up there. Our friends Mark R and Linda A spent a year in Cuenca, Ecuador about ten years ago. They became great friends with a Cuenca family led by Monica and Fabian. When Mark learned that we were going on this trip he said we would need to stay with them when we reached Cuenca. 

We talked about that back when we were in Minnesota. I remember thinking that Ecuador seemed like another galaxy. I know we were always intending to get here, but there was just so much unknown that I never gave the idea of staying with Mark’s friends another thought . . . (Maybe I secretly didn’t believe that we would ever really make it this far . . .)

Fortunately, Mark didn’t forget. Once we arrived in Colombia, Mark reached out. 

“I connected with Monica and Fabian and they are excited to host you. And Monica’s sister – Lorena, and her husband Boris, will host you when you arrive in Quito.”

And, last night, it actually happened. 

It was wonderful, but it was also a huge learning experience for us. 

To start with, before last night we really didn’t understand how Latin America works. (We probably still don’t – but at least we have more to go on now . . .) What I think we learned is that pretty much all more well-to-do Latin Americans live in what we think of in the United States as gated communities. 

We have, of course, ridden past many of these communities. But it wasn’t until we actually biked into one of them that we really started to understand what they are about. Beautiful homes. I mean, we’ve seen some nice houses, but these houses are much nicer than anything we’ve seen before. (Diana has a pretty wealthy cousin who lives in California in a gated community. This felt a lot like that . . .)

Security is just such a big issue here. It’s weird, because it feels like there is a much bigger police/military presence in these countries than in the States – but, nonetheless, people obviously feel like they are not secure unless they have private safety measures in place. Bars on the windows and doors. Security guards at grocery stores. Walls and barbed wire around yards. And, yes, gated communities. 

I guess the feeling that these measures are necessary is borne out by the statistics. From what I can find Latin America in general has the highest rate of robberies in the world. Ecuador ranks fifth in the world – with 457 robberies per 100,000 people. More than 4.5 times more robberies per capita than the U.S. Murders too. Ecuador has 4 times more murders per capita than the U.S. 

Not the place to go too far down this rabbit hole, but it’s my sense that this type of security problem is a big part of why so many Latin American countries seem to struggle with maintaining a stable government. After the last several years it may be unpopular to say in America, but law and order is one of the most basic functions of government. When the State can’t provide it – and people feel unsafe – they are going to lose faith in their leaders. 

Okay, enough on that. I was talking about what a wonderful evening we had with Boris and Lorena and family. 

Dinner was good – but it wasn’t the food that made the evening. It was the conversation and the laughter and the fun stories. And the sense that this was a family full of love for each other. 

And here is a big contrast to what you might see in the U.S.: Natalia – or Nati – is a 20-year-old college student in Cuenca. She is Lorena’s niece. Nati lives at home in Cuenca, but she is on break from university right now. So what does she do with her vacation? She goes to Quito to stay with her aunt and uncle and cousins for the month. No mall and coffee shops with her friends. No big parties. She would rather just hang out with her family. 

Boris and Lorena’s own daughter, Juliana, is 19. She is going to the University of San Francisco – apparently one of the best colleges in Ecuador – for architecture. Juliana also lives at home – commuting about 20 miles back and forth to school each day. 

Neither Nati or Juliana seem the least bit resentful about living at home for college. In fact, both of them seem delighted to have the extra time with their families. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is just not what you see in upper middle class families in America. 

Refreshing, and fun for us. 

This isn’t the place to recount our whole dinner conversation, but I did want to mention one thing. In the course of the evening I asked about a word that I’ve been confused about: “rico.” You see the word a lot. “Rico!” But if you look in Google Translate all it says is “rich.” Didn’t seem to make sense. I guess it’s one of those idioms, like, for us, “sweet” or, for the British, “brilliant.” A word that has an informal meaning that is more than its formal definition.

Boris talked about a song that was apparently popular in the U.S. in 1990 or so: Rico Suave – by Gerardo. I guess Gerardo is from Ecuador and even dated Madonna for a while. Neither Diana nor I had ever heard of the song, and in the course of trying to get us to remember, Boris sang a few lyrics. That was so fun. Because the kids were horrified. Their Dad was just so embarrassing. I loved that because our own kids are regularly horrified and embarrassed by their Dad . . .

By the way – kind of a fun song. 

Blog points for anyone who remembers the song – and double-super-bonus points for anyone who can remember a story related to Gerardo or Rico Suave. 

One other thing I wanted to mention about the visit. This morning Lorena gave me a tour of their backyard. Peach tree. Lemon tree. I think a lime tree. And an apple tree – with actual apples on it. First apple tree with apples I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe since Iowa? Very exciting! I guess you can grow anything here! (And according to Boris and Lorena they have apples year-round.)

A few other happenings over the last few days . . .

Yesterday morning as we made our way from Quito to Boris and Lorena’s house we were hailed by a younger gringo with a big beard. Joshua is from Boston and has been biking for the past three years. He explained the concept of antipode cities; the idea is that there are a few cities in the world that have another city exactly opposite on the other side of the planet. Like when you were a kid and you tried to dig to China . . . I guess to “have it count” that you biked around the world you need to bike through antipodes. He explained that Bogota is opposite some city in Indonesia or something. He biked through Bogota and is also planning to eventually go through the Indonesian city so that his trip will count. 

I think it’s fair to say that our trip will not count . . . Drat.

We also happened upon a group of young Mormons – obviously on their mission trips. I thought it was kind of funny that they were all gathered on the grounds of the very Catholic Basilica – apparently praying that they would make some converts that day. 

Love religions. Pretty much all of Ecuador is Catholic. So the Mormons are going around trying to convince people who believe that the Pope is the official conduit of God that maybe that’s not right, but, instead, God left some stone tablets in Joseph Smith’s backyard and those tablets tell the real story. Confusing. 

And then some good news. I know we’ve been kind of grousing about riding in the mountains recently. But today was great. This is the way mountain riding should be. We started the day gradually ascending to 11,500’. It was difficult. And cold. And it started raining on us a little bit. But it was beautiful – in fact, it felt like we biked into northern Minnesota – complete with 45 degrees, grey and cloudy, pine trees, and even purple lupine (which we consider to be our anniversary flower since it is blooming on June 10 – our anniversary – on the shores of Lake Superior). 

And then, after we reached our high for the day, we just biked gradually down to our final destination over the next 30 miles or so. There was no demoralizing descent to way below our target elevation – only to have to bike right back up. Just up to a nice high point and then gradually back down. Pretty much the Goldilocks of mountain days . . . It was just right.

We are going to petition the International Mountain Coalition requesting that all future Alpine rides be arranged in this way. And if that doesn’t work we may go back to Quito to talk to Elder Roger and Elder Price and company. Maybe they can do something about it. Or the Pope in Rome. We were thinking about eventually biking through there anyway . . .

Sadly, while the ride today was great, it was kind of a bummer that there were piles of clouds around – because they completely obscured Cotopaxi – this giant, cool volcano that is, I have been told, a perfect cone, with snow ringing the whole thing . . . 

Hopefully tomorrow is a bit more clear.

Going to be a tough week – with lots of gratuitous climbing. I think we will hit about 12,000 feet on four different occasions . . . 

Praying for nice weather at least . . .