The rest of our travel day went just a smoothly. Delightfully little blog-fodder. Just kids using the restroom when the fasten seatbelt sign was off, parents drifting in and out of naps, and no in-flight emergencies. I’ve never been so happy to have absolutely no stories to tell you.
I’ve talked about how nice it is in our post-kids travel era to have a ride waiting for us at the airport. I’m increasingly comfortable seeing my name on a piece of paper held by a stranger. But it turns out there’s something way better: getting picked up by your friend who lives in that country now. It’s pretty unbeatable. Isaias picked us up at the Quito airport around 10 pm, moments after we arrived. It couldn’t have been easier, but that didn’t stop Quinn from giving the place a good search.
The drive back was pretty painless, since the roads were empty at that hour. Isaias updated us on their family’s new life abroad while we took in the classic South American roadside sights of all-night food vendors and a soccer field every fourth block.
After a late night of catching up with our friends in their sweet Foreign Service apartment, we all slept in and had a lazy morning. It was perfect. The kids played like it had been just hours since they saw each other last, while Aimee and Alicia recounted some favorite Peace Corps stories on the back porch.
I came in and out of consciousness as I napped through a considerable portion of the late morning and early afternoon. We very intentionally didn’t have anything on the agenda that day, but I had been batting around the idea of going to a music shop at some point. I had my eye on a charango, a South American blend of a ukulele and mandolin. I hadn’t ever played one before, but they’re portable, emblematic of the region, and seemed pretty approachable. As is often the case when I’m more than 12 hours away from my next work shift, I figured I’d have plenty of time to learn a new instrument!
So I found a promising lead on a music shop and hopped in a cab. But when we got to the address listed for the shop on their Facebook page, there wasn’t a music shop anywhere to be seen (or really anything at all besides the backside of a large apartment building). The driver (and my cell phone map) said this was the place. So I took a chance. There was plenty of daylight left, and the neighborhood felt plenty walkable. I got out of the cab and started looking around.
Maps and addresses are always a little “approximate” in cities like this, but I figured I must be close. So I walked a couple of blocks in one direction. No luck. Then I walked a couple of blocks in another direction. No luck, but now it was also raining. So then I walked a couple of blocks in a third direction. Still no luck, and now the electricity was very obviously out in every visible direction. Stop lights? They were already pretty optional even when functioning. Glad I was on foot.
It was only mid afternoon at that point, and I figured this was still a very manageable situation. But then the cell network went down.
This is fine. We’re fine.
I had been in Ecuador for no more than 24 hours and had already found myself in a classic pre-kids, unnecessarily dicey situation. But I really wanted to find that music shop. So I kept crossing back and forth over the same massive intersection, figuring the shop must have been tucked away down some side street I missed. Mercifully, cell service was restored before I could get myself too outrageously lost. So I defeatedly called the number listed on the shop’s Facebook page. I probably should have done that before I set out, but you know, habits, adventure, etc.
The owner of the shop picked up, and I tried to decipher his uncharacteristically fast (for Ecuador) Spanish as I stood at an increasingly loud intersection. Car horns had now taken the role of the non-functioning signal lights. I told him where I was, and he said that’s where he is.
“But I’m just by some apartments.”
“Si!”
He then told me the apartment number and the name of the tenant so I could get past the guard gate.
I thanked him and told him I’d be right over. I then immediately forgot the name of the apartment tenant at the exact moment I started talking to the guard. “Es una señora…en torre roja, pienso (red tower? I think?)…” The guard gave me the exact look he should have given me as I tried to stammer my way through the guard gate at a relatively nice apartment complex in one of Quito’s fancier districts. So I told the guard I’d ask again and come back when I figured it out. I crossed my fingers that the shop number was actually to cell phone and sent a text message. Can’t forget it that way. I was so relieved to get a text back, I showed the message to the guard. “Señora Elena, Torre 12.” I wasn’t even close.
As I made my way towards tower 12, a woman in her 50s met me at the entrance and introduced herself as Señora Elena. She then opened the door to a ground floor apartment of the type that often doubles as a storefront in cities like this. I was mostly certain that I wasn’t about to get abducted, but the thought did cross my mind.
What little doubt I had dissolved immediately when I entered a charming little music shop with dozens of instruments hanging all over the walls. Even in the low light (the power was still out at that point), I knew I would absolutely be leaving with an instrument I didn’t know how to play. So I meekly plucked a few strings while the shopkeeper (who I had spoken with on the phone) showed me the intricacies of the instrument. It was delightful, and as predicted, there is now a new member of the Stone musical family.
But I still had to get home. The streets were gridlocked, so hailing a taxi was next to impossible. I tried Uber, but the spinning wheel in the app told me that the cell network was only partially restored. Our friends’ apartment was way too far to walk, so I just had to wait it out. But my ride request did eventually go through, and I made it back in time for a lovely dinner.
Putting the kids to bed was a piece of cake. Not only were they jet lagged and sleep deprived, they had been running around the apartment complex at full sprint for the past 12 hours. So with more time left in our evening than we were expecting, Alicia put on a true-crime documentary that she had been anxiously waiting to watch with us once we got there. It was about a series of murders among a bizarre group of early European settlers on the then-uninhabited Galápagos Islands. Alicia knew we were excited to visit the same islands at the end of the trip, and has a very dark sense of humor. But it was a fascinating look at that part of the region’s history. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it before spending three hours wandering around semi-lost in the same country.
