Si o No

I caught the dawn this morning. The hosteria has views that, well, I just can't believe. Clouds poke in & out of the green peaks. The hills are topped with what look like bansais from a distance. The sun is white bright, the clouds gleaming in the light. Patches of blue sky look like lakes in the clouds. Is this my life? How did I get here? And do I have to leave? The sun rises so quickly into the sky. In the moments that I've been writing, it's moved the length of a finger held a foot away. I'm glad to see the sun.

My room has a desk with a window and a view of roses, the parking lot & up into the mountains. I can't recall the last time I sat at a desk. Or the last time I wrote in my own hand at a desk. On the bus, at a meal, in the bathroom--hee, hee, just a joke. I feel scholarly sitting at a desk. The objects around me on the desk: a towel, a padlock, a pair of earrings, the Chilean travel guide, insect repellant--100% DEET, a jar of peanut butter and hair gel.

Today I took a 4 hour horse ride. Well, we paid for 4 hours but got shorted a good bit of the last hour. My horse Arafat preferred to be the lead horse. Maybe it's me, not the horses. I treated the horses to bananas. They eat them whole, including the peel, and it turns into a yellow, gooey mess. And this evening I played ping pong. We didn't keep score. I think the last time I played was when my family lived in the first house. We had a ping pong table in the basement, which I think one of my brothers broke. We moved into the new house when I was 11. Almost 20 years without ping pong. That's just silly.

There was a fire show tonight too. Everyone headed down to the bar for it. All of Ecuador is dry right now. Tomorrow there is a mandatory vote, si or no, to change the constitution. Correa, the new president as of January, wants to take power away from the Congress for himself. Most of the people seem to support the action. Congress is apparently quite corrupt. From what I hear, Correa is sharp. The US has troops stationed here that supposedly spray the land to kill any Ecuadorian cocaine supply. Correa said he'd allow the US troops to continue to occupy that land as long as Ecuador could have a part of Miami Beach. Nice argument. I met Priscila & Veronica at the bar, two Ecuadorian girls who live in Loja. They came to the hostel knowing they'd be able to get a drink. Because the hostel owners are German and aren't allowed to vote, they can serve & drink liquor. The weekend has been declared dry so that all of Ecuador will reflect on tomorrow's vote. An English guy at the hostel laughed at the notion. He said that were they to ban liquor in England prior to an election, there would be rioting, insurrection, perhaps even revolution. Priscila & Veronica have both tried to visit the US but were denied visas, Priscila twice. It's a matter of luck & random selection. People with none of their papers in order get visas. People with everything set get denied. How frustrating.