Day 85 Thursday 15 July – Birthday

Quite a busy day today. Even though I had prepared a lot of food the day before, I still spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Luckily the cake and the lasagne sauce were both ready and waiting. I spent the day making the cake’s frosting, finishing the lasagne, preparing salad, snacks and guacamole. And besides I had to buy beer and other things.

But the food was a success. Made the best lasagne I had ever made and I’m hoping that wasn’t because of the cheese I put in. The cake was very heavy, but good. I’ll post the recipe later. And everybody liked the food.

After preparing everything, I had some minutes to myself before the first guests called for me to open the gate. I had practically invited everyone I know in Quito and some of them brought more guests. So people started to drip in slowly. We started out with the snacks, then out came the presents, among which the T-shirt I’m wearing in the pictures, a lot of chocolate, an alpaca scarf and very warm woolly slippers. For sure I won’t be cold this winter. Then we got a box as a drum and everybody sang songs for me. Some in Kichwa, some in Spanish. I put one on my Facebook.

When everybody had finally arrived, we started on the lasagne and cake. In the meantime we kept drinking wine and beer and afterwards we opened the bottle of tequila, which was very much liked by me and Victor. It was a relatively cheap bottle, but it was good stuff. Next morning we didn’t feel a thing, though the people who drank other stuff had a bit of chuchaqui.

They had warned me before, but I didn’t believe them. The birthday-boy (or girl) gets to be ‘beaten’ with a belt the amount of years. Everybody takes turns. I didn’t feel much of it, it was just a bit weird standing there like that, receiving a ‘beating’. We danced some after that and just past midnight, the booze was gone and it was time to let the neighbours sleep. So the end.

Saturday I will go to Tena, the town where Kallari chocolate is. Again, this moving means I don’t know whether I will have internet on a regular basis. I do, however already have a place to stay. Expensive, but including 3 meals a day.

July 30th, I won’t be reachable at all for 5 days, because then I will spend some time with Mariela in the Amazon. The national park of Cuyabeno to be exact.

Day 84 Wednesday 14 July – Meeting Carlos

I finally met with Carlos today. He was in the café for just a while. I can come on Saturday to Tena and I may get to work with chocolate recipes and packaging designs. Very interesting!