A Very Good Day

Quito, ~1545

Exhaustion is setting in and I'm doing my best to pay attention.  Honest, I am.  It's also about accepting limits and being smart.  That's very hard to do here.  Elevation is tough on a fat (but thinning) and balding dude.

Today's sole destination: Science! (For kids)

My two favorite museums, in the world, are Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and Muenchen's Deutsches Museum.

[Immediate digression, to live in the moment: While it has rained here everyday, it sounds like a doozy is about to blow in.  Thunder for the first time.  Big temp and light drop just now.  Glad I'm blogging rather than logging footsteps  at this moment.   I hear the stores shuttering; I do not hear the touts.  Oh, shit...

20 minutes later...

I now have 3 bananas, some cookies and chips - perfect for a rainy night dinner.  Plus about 4 litres of various fluids.  Hydration matters at elevation.

Supermercado Santa Maria must be one of the nice girl Santas Maria.  Much better than that #$%!! Supermercado TIA.

I am in for the night.  At 1615]

I was going to try to sleep in this morning.  Told Don Jorge I'd be skipping breakfast.  I forgot today is Saturday.  Which makes a difference when staying in the tourist zone.  The touts are out early to catch the early suckers.  (Few of whom are American.  Good?  Bad?)  And the crowds are noisy.  I swear, a marching band passed by at 0730.  I tried, I really tried.  Oh well.

At 0900 I rolled out.   Breakfast was the freshest orange juice available, short of being in the orchard.  $1.25 for a giant frothy mug of squeezed in front of me OJ.  Wonderful.  Not enough though in hindsight. Mercado Central for the win, again.  

(On the way to breakfast.  The sky...!)

A TroleyBus, and that right hand turn, again.  Up the hill but east of the Mean Girl this time.  To the MIC in Chimbacalle.  That just sounds delicious to me.  No, I have no idea why.  It just rolls off a gringo's tongue.  Easy to remember too.

Which would have been great had it been the proper bus stop.  Ughhh, a steeeeeeeep climb on foot to the correct one.  And then a another climb up the side streets.  I was panting like a dog and sweating like a pig when I got there.  I refuse to take my hat off when in the midday sun.  That does not help.  But in the end it beats a sunburned scalp.  IYKYK, kids.

What a strange and neat museum.  And serendipity was on my side.

It's the site of an old textile factory of great import.  When the Conquistadors arrived there was a sudden switch from camelid (Llamas, Alpacas, Vicunas, etc.  [Yes, Silicic, Guancos too. 😜]) to sheep based wool.  It really prospered when the railroad came to town 3 centuries later.)  Like rivers, natural fibers,  and railroads are the threads of history.  

"La Industria" made a mint.  And, it was a dangerous place to work.  Fast moving very heavy machinery ate fingers and arms.  Not pretty.  So, like much of LatAm, unionization happened pretty quickly.  The subsequent cooperative was a success.

Evidently the depreciation is not an accepted accounting practice here or the ownership never invested in upgraded machinery.  I find management to generally be short term focused so let's blame the suits.  After a couple of bankruptcies and nearly 100 years, the mill eventually shuttered and fell into disrepair.

The city stepped in 10+ years ago and turned it into a nice little museum. $2 is a steal

There's no real rhyme or reason to it.  It caters to kids.  And, I'm still one at heart.

There's a bit of history on display:

('Site Museum: Historical threads connecting to you.')

Alas, no explanation was provided for the machines.  Best I can tell these were mostly for spooling freshly wound thread.  They're not looms.  They'd still devour limbs.

On the subject of danger and damage.  I stumble into a miniature version of BattleBots!  1 pound class robots fighting to the death! It's Robot Fightin' Time!  Just good fun.  Except for the team from Mexico - they got slaughtered.  Horizontal spinners are outdated.  The little vertical spinners will win in this weight class for a while.  Until something 'Huge' comes along (again, IYKYK)

Violence made me hungry.  $1 yielded this

Ham and cheese...with pineapple marmalade.  Should have had 3.  YUMMY.  

There were a bunch of, mostly broken, displays about physics as well.  Sure, most were beat to crap but it was fun.  For the record, I'm unhappy with this explanation of pulleys:

(1/3rd?  It should be reciprocals of the powers of two!  

I.e., 1, 1/2, 1/4. No?  And, they start with 1 pulley.  

This sequence should read 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 if this sailor's memory isn't shot.)

Still, I loved it.  The best part is a basketball court sized diorama of the city.  It's not as "canyony" as I had thought (although my legs tell me otherwise.)

That big green strip is the OLD airport.  What a great thing to do with it - it's a park now

Left red circle = Plaza del Gran Siglo XVI; right red circle = Big Mean Girl; Lil Blue dot is my best guess as to where I am.

It's a freakin' huge exhibit,  At least the size of a basketball court.  Massively impressive.

After all that I was hungry.  The museum is focused on community:

They seem to get it here.  They wanted to support local businesses too.

A steak sounded good.  But it was a long walk.  Uphill.  Of course.

$10 for the grisliest cut of under-cooked meat I have ever had.  (Sure, I could have sent it back.  But I'm fine with rare to be honest.) $5 for a jar of incredibly delicious lemonade. All-in-all a ripoff.  But, I got ripped off as if I was a local.  I loved it!

And, as I posted the pic of the address placard, I just now realized I was there 2 hours before they open.  So, I have far less to complain about.  The lemonade really was worth $15 as I was parched and dehydrated.

The walk to the Troley passed the train station.  In disrepair.

(Ominous clouds!)

Back to the 'Grand 16th C.' for this

$3.50 and worth every penny.

Today has been my most expensive day yet.  I don't think I spent half my daily non-lodging budget.  And that includes the $10 in snacks from the super market.  Wow.

Good night.  Too tired to edit or proof.  Maybe I'll clean up this rusty train wreck later.  Maybe.



Progress.



Jim