Travels
from February 17 to March 11, 2002:
Ahoy,
We
had closed the last e-log with me discovering that my glucose meter wasn't in
the carrying case where it resides between uses . . .
My
heart slowed slightly, that organ apparently recognized what this clue meant
before my brain did. My brain still had
a positive outlook telling me to look in the rest of the backpack, to see if
the meter had fallen out of its case.
But as I looked around in the backpack, another reality hit; I realized
that the handheld radio wasn't there either.
Still hoping for the best, Nancy looked on the overhead shelf carefully and
then checked it again before it sunk in - the meter and radio had been
stolen. This was very upsetting and
Nancy broke into tears. She was overtaken because the radio had been a gift
from the Emery Cove Marina, a treasure, a thanks for all the work I had done
while on the Board of Directors. Luckily
though, the thief left my insulin, the syringes and the passports; the
situation could have been a lot worse than it was. After she got control of her emotions, Nancy accompanied Sharon
off the bus to find a wall to potty behind.
Life must go on and there were no baños to be seen along side the road. Meanwhile, I paced around the bus checking
and rechecking my backpack, the shelf and the seats at the rear of the bus,
figuring that the meter was of no value to anyone but a diabetic and maybe the
thief discarded it after that was determined.
I found nothing. On a burst of
negativism, I expectantly looked in the soft carry-on bag that I had stuffed under
my seat, the one that we had brought all of our clothes and toiletries in. I unzipped it and bigger than life, the
travel-kit that Bonnie had given Nancy was gone, as were our umbrellas and my
baseball cap. All of Nancy's cosmetics,
our toothbrushes, etc. were gone . . . only a small container of Head and Shoulders
appeared, having fallen out of the kit.
The
remaining part of the trip to Guaranda was anticlimactic.
Anticlimactic
was the highest roadway in Ecuador, taking us over 13,000 feet, above tree
line, into the swirling clouds, a stark countryside. Anticlimactic were the wild llamas we passed, foraging in the
bleak, cold Andes mountaintop.
Anticlimactic were the mud huts built into the contours of the
landscape. We saw them but we were in
shock and were feeling abject disappointment; our love affair with Ecuador and
its people had been tested.
Upon
arriving in Guaranda, a sizable town built into the mountainside at 9700 feet,
we caught a cab to a hotel we selected out of the Lonely Planet guide. It was fine and we dropped our bags and
proceeded to do what we had to in order to bring our life back into control -
find some glucose-measuring reactive strips at a farmacia. In Mexico these strips were readily available
and offered to us whenever we inquired about Life Scan One Touch glucometer
strips. If we could find that basic
alternative, glucose readings would be a little less accurate but still doable.
It
was Sunday in Guaranda and almost everything was closed. We found a bare few farmacias open and none had
the glucose reactive strips we expected to find. We then went to the hospital.
After some effort, we found their pharmacy, which couldn't help us
either. Next we tried their lab, where
the attendant understood what we were looking for. After verifying that the hospital's pharmacy really didn't have
what I needed, the lab attendant put on her coat (this town may be near the
equator, but it is high in the Andes and COLD) and accompanied us into town, to
the farmacia she felt was most likely to have our needs . . . they were
closed. However, it was a 24-hour farmacia
with a buzzer to get their attention . . . but the people were away,
visiting. We decided to return after
dinner.
The
hotel we stayed at was a little more expensive ($13+), but we had to stay at
the best we could find. The others were
below our minimum standards. Our room was
fine, including cable TV, new wallpaper, hot water and very nice looking (but
the pillows still gave us neck aches, as in the hotels before). Unfortunately Steve and Sharon's room wasn't
as nice as ours, and after our theft, this shortcoming began to build on Sharon.
When
we went to find a restaurant, everything near the hotel was closed for Sunday. Finally, in the main square, a couple of
20-something people (a guy and a gal) took it upon themselves to locate a
restaurant for us. After about 20
minutes, they directed us to some fast-food shops, which didn't totally appeal
to our desires. But before we had to
make a decision, a couple of pre-teen boys led us to a street-kitchen on wheels. There Nancy, Steve and Sharon had chicken, rice
and lentils and I had a pork chop, rice and a potato-and-?? mixture. We sat on stools mounted on the sides of the
"kitchen", eating at the counter just outside of the kitchen, where 3
young women brewed the chow. We each
paid $1 and were stuffed. Although we were
the first 4 people there, a taxis would stop, the passenger would jump out and
order some take out (para llavar); others ordered and sat on the curb. Later that night when I went past the
kitchen, on the way to the farmacia, the place was filled with people eating. It was about the only place to get food in
Guaranda on Sunday and was doing a fantastic business.
By
the next morning, we had decided that we would head back to Bahia to get the
backup meter I had on Nanjo. We were
going to be in Ecuador for a long time and we could return to continue our
tour. Steve and Sharon wanted to go
back too. We caught a bus to Guayaquil (5
hours).
In
this largest-city-in-Ecuador, the bus terminal is next to the airport, outside
of town. We used a taxi to get to where
Lonely Planet indicated hotels were. We
soon found one but for $14. It didn't have covers (it was too hot for that),
didn't have hot water, but a comfortable bed and good security. Sharon and Nancy found another hotel across
the street for $5 more, which had hot water and looked nicer. But since we were merely staying the night
and catching a bus the next morning; we stayed where we were.
The
next morning, we caught a taxi back to the bus terminal, got breakfast and then
went looking for a bus. Eventually, a
one-legged man (agile on his crutches) led us out of the station and across the
main boulevard to a corner. In a few
minutes, the bus that had left the terminal moments before our arrival at the
gate stopped and we climbed aboard along with many locals. I tipped the man a quarter when we realized
what he had done to help us and he smiled, helping us aboard the bus.
Ecuador
is an economically troubled country.
Until oil was discovered, bananas was the main export. By the 1980's oil represented over half of
all export earnings. First, the El Niño
floods severely damaged the agri-exports, and then the drop in oil prices added
a devastating blow. About 40% of the
national income goes to the richest 5% of the people. More than 60% of the population lives at the poverty level. I don't know what value "poverty" represents in Ecuador,
but rest assured that it is a number that we can not relate to in the US. We have met people in Quito who are educated
and speak several languages and are without steady employment, doing odd jobs
to survive. Ecuadorian citizens do what
they have to in order to survive.
Unfortunately,
thievery from those-who-have is more popular than the average Ecuadorian wishes
it would be. As it turns out, a set of
cruisers traveled inland a week before us, had experienced another example of
the main risk in Ecuador. One of them
was distracted for "5 seconds" only to find that one of his travel
bags had been stolen from his side in a bus terminal. Another boat's crew was pick-pocketed in Quito on the BART-like
"trolebus" which transits the length of Quito. In this case, the wife recognized what was
happening to her husband and grabbed the second pickpocket team member. Only after the police had departed,
recovering their money, did the wife discover that she had been stripped of
several items and she never felt a thing.
Those thieves were young ladies, just average looking, everyday
citizens.
The
government appears to be unable or unwilling to curb this problem. After all, more than 60% of the population
is unable to make ends meet. If the government
makes it impossible for them to do what they do to survive, the majority might
rebel; there might be a revolution. The
upper-class politicians don't want to stir up internal conflict. They leave individuals with the
responsibility to protect their own property.
Residents, businesses and travelers must be wary.
It's
nice that we are currently anchored at "the safest port in
Ecuador". With just one road in or
out of Bahia, security is facilitated.
Added to that is the contemporary attitude that the city's government has
taken: Protection of property is the city government's and the Police's
responsibility. They promote this
concept to all townspeople. The
citizens have bought into the concept that Bahia is a model of how a city in
Ecuador should be like. They have pride
and satisfaction in their reputation.
As one elder shop owner worded it to us in Spanish, "We respect other
people and their property."
Bahia
is a friendly place . . . A friendly place where everyone in the Ecuadorian
Armada's office waves and greets us, as do the fishermen, the crew on the car ferries,
the pedicab drivers and the bus "swampers" (men who hustle up
passengers). Their faces change from
business-like concentration to an attractive beam of recognition. We joke and converse with them.
A
friendly place where on the first night in town, Super Bowl Sunday, a
restaurant owner answered my wish to watch the Super Bowl. After finding the spectacle on his cable, he
served Nancy and me a plate of pork chops and other goodies. We regularly have his lunch special, which
includes soup, fish, planticanos (plantain chips), rice, salad and a drink for
$1.50. It seems like the monetary
denominations should be multiples of $1.50 in this country.
But
I stray from our story. Back to the glucose-monitoring
dilemma - my backup meters stored aboard Nanjo didn't work. So I had to develop a strategy for insulin
dosage.
All
of our careful record keeping and meal designing paid off; I took amounts of
insulin at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed based on standard menus Nancy
and I made. We knew how much certain
amounts of food equated to specific amounts of insulin. Nancy's weighing of protein-laden foods and
measuring carbs, especially the quantity of rice, in the past made meal design
easy. Having recorded insulin dosages
for these standard meals in the past had given me a clear record of what was
needed to maintain an acceptable glucose level. While we didn't eat out much after we returned to Nanjo, we still
could use those measures to make adjustments to insulin dosage, if and when we did. It was limiting to a freer eating style, but
the procedure provided comfort while we came up with a plan to get my meters
repaired or replaced.
I
contacted my friend at Life Scan, who said that she would send me a new meter
by FedX or DHL. Unfortunately, some new
people at Life Scan got involved and I was told that they would ship the meter ONLY
to a stateside address. I tried to
contact a cruiser-couple who had flown home from Ecuador to get them to bring
it back, but they didn't respond for over a week and I was a little
discouraged. So I began to check with
Raymond and Mary to see if they could send the meters through their company
accounts, looking for a corporate discount.
Just as I began receiving responses from them, my friend at LifeScan contacted
me again (I hadn't heard from her in a week and I had wondered if she had left
the company or worse, as her email address yielded a standard company response
'thank you for contacting Life Scan . . . '). She stated that she was shipping my meter directly to me in Bahia.
The
next day our luck improved more: the cruisers visiting in the U.S. replied to
my email. They would be willing to
bring a meter back when they left Texas within the next week or so. Not knowing how successful the first shipment
would be, I sent the Texas address to the "new people" at Life Scan
and they sent two more meters. Now we
felt that the meter situation was in control.
After
hearing nothing about the first shipment for about 10 days, we emailed my
friend. After a series of contacts, we
discovered that her shipment had been held in Guayaquil for several days by
Customs, waiting for the import duty to be paid. Using a tracking number and telephone number provided by email, we
enlisted the owner of the main Internet café in Bahia to help us track down the
shipment. He quickly found that it had
been moved to Quito and determined that the duty was a hefty $54+. He arranged to have it delivered to Bahia
the next Monday.
Nothing
was delivered to the Armada office on Monday and no confirmation had been
emailed to the Internet café, so we decided to check at the DHL office. Low and behold, a box was waiting! After paying the duty, we headed back to
Nanjo to take my first glucose measurement in three weeks. It was 174 at lunchtime, about one unit of
insulin high. But the next reading was
52, after taking the same lunchtime dosage I had taken for the last 3
weeks. The historic method appeared to
be a very effective way to engineer my diet and insulin intake.
Well,
that's the "long" story of our first 5 weeks in Ecuador. I just heard the macaws flying down the waterfront,
meaning it's late . . . an appropriate time to close this e-log.
Crew
of Nanjo
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