Parque de la Madre

Friday 18th March 1988

I had a moderate lie-in until 09:00 hrs. when I joined Jackie for breakfast at another branch of “Mi Pan”. Although the breakfast was identical there was a greater range of cakes for afters. Jackie then set off for the Post Office and I headed for the Bus Terminal on Avenida España.

Again, it was a new modern efficient building with a range of well organised company offices. I bought a 400 Sucre one-way ticket to Machala for tomorrow at 07:00 hrs. Machala is a city in south-west Ecuador. It is the capital of the El Oro Province and is located near the Gulf of Guayaquil on fertile lowlands. Machala is the eighth-biggest city in the country, and the second-most important port. It has been referred to as the Banana Capital of the World.

On the way back I bought an old-style plastic safety razor which took razor blades rather than head units. In the 1700s, a French cutler by the name of Jean-Jacques Perret added a protective guard to a regular straight razor, which became one of the first safety razors. In the 1900s, King Camp Gillette invented the double-edge safety razor, which used a disposable razor with two sharpened edges.

Back at the hotel I did some laundry and hung it in my dingy room to dry, not trusting to put it on the lines in the communal area, where myriad people came and went unhindered during the day. I then scraped off my stubble, finding that the old-style single blade razor got clogged up just as quickly as new twin-blade affairs.

At dinner time I went with Jackie to the Parque de la Madre across the river. We bought granola and yoghurt for our lunch and ate it sitting on the grass. A group of youths in school uniform clustered around a bench singing. Other small children returning to school peeped shyly at us.

Behind us some men set up a rope between two posts and began to play volleyball for 20 Sucre stakes. I washed my bowl in the river where the usual washday activities were underway on the banks. I bought a grain sack and some shoelaces to rig up protection for my rucksack from the dreaded bag slashers.

The shops were closed for lunch and a Sunday afternoon feeling descended on the town. At 14:00 hrs. the temperature dropped and the sky began to cloud over. I retreated to my hotel room and put the radio on.

At 15:30 hrs. we went out to the Casa de Cambio to get some $U.S. cash dollars for Peru. There was 1 Sucre commission per $U.S. dollar. The lady cashier broke down in uncontrollable giggles after a short exchange with Jackie and she cracked and changed his $50 U.S. dollar travellers cheque despite saying that there was a $50 U.S. dollar minimum limit.

We browsed in a music shop and returned to the prison-like galleries of El Inca Residential. I finished off plaiting my pulsera, which was coincidentally in the Ecuadorian flag colours and had a really welcome hot shower.

At 19:30 hrs. Rupert and Helen joined Jackie and I for an evening meal. For a change we went to Balcon Quiteño No.1, which was a bigger establishment a few doors along from Balcon Quiteño No.2. We soon polished off Rupert’s half bottle of dark rum with Coca Cola and quickly wolfed down a meal in order to get to the cinema in time for the start of the film showing at 21:00 hrs.

We dashed down Mariscal Lamar to the flicks in between Tomás Ordóñez y Manuel Vega. We paid our 95 Sucres at the wee window and dashed in to see some very amateur adverts and some unintentionally hilarious trailers for Mexican films which were mostly of a religious nature.

At last the film started but it was not “Children of a Lesser God” as we were expecting, but an average B-movie called “Fire with Fire”, and improbable romance between a teenage convict and a girl from a convent school. In this 1986 film a young woman from a Catholic school and a young man from a nearby prison camp fall in love and must run away together to escape the law, the church and their parents.

At 23:00 hrs. “Children of a Lesser God” came on. This was a great film, starring William Hurt, about romance between the janitor, a troubled deaf woman (speechless by choice) and her Speech Tutor at a School for the Deaf. It was a real treat.

We walked back through the cold streets where only the drunks were out, and kids chasing each other and attacking each other with leather belts. At the El Inca Residential Jackie took great delight in waking up the kid who usually demanded our money to open the front gates of the hotel.