The Finale

After a month in Lima, I returned to Quito for the finale. This last week was planned to wrap up any loose ends and to enjoy my time in Quito without the frantic movement from place to place. Thankfully, there wasn’t much to accomplish, allowing me to pass time with friends and work on some other projects. In addition to enjoying the last week with Santiago and his family, one of my friends, who I met in La Paz last year, arrived to Quito to complete some of her own field research. She, too, is a graduate student working on her dissertation. Added to that mix is another student who is in the process of starting his dissertation. We all have a feeling that we’ll be seeing each other a lot in the future, given the topics and region that we study. If anything, we are an attractive bunch.

Santiago and I have both been raving about our last cookout and we threw another one together for my last weekend in Quito. Like the last, this devolved into a drinking and eating marathon. As promised, I showed up with bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapenos. Oh yeah. We only had a few casualties with the jalapenos. The first was during production, when jalapeno juice shot into my right eye, causing temporary blindness – unfortunately my right eye is my primary eye because my vision in my left eye is 20/300. The other casualty resulted primary from Santiago’s ill preparation for the spiciness of his first jalapeno, there was a lot of movement in his dance.

While at the park, we had some close encounters with some llamas. While the local adults (Santiago and Heidy) weren’t too amused, the foreigners (Amanda, John, and me) and the two year-old (Matius) were extremely entertained. You just can’t get enough llamas! During our encounter, I was forced to break-it-down for one of the llamas.

Spending time with some great people and new friends was the best way to finalize a productive research trip and start my return to Houston. The past few months have been really good.

Lima Entertainment

Time in Lima is passing pretty quickly. Just a week and a half ago my friend from Quito, Santiago, arrived and has been staying with me while he completes his own field research. His presence has made the time pass very quickly. We've been keeping each other well entertained. Fortunately he thoroughly enjoys the food in Peru and we've been getting as much as we can before we leave. Of course, there's a fine line between maximizing your consumption of Peruvian food and getting sick of Peruvian food. The pace we are going, it looks like I'll be nearing that threshold before taking off ... which is ideal. It helps that we save these moments for the weekend and have only lapsed once during the week.

For the most part, we are on the same work schedule. I captured some evidence that we are actually working and that I actually have a friend staying with me. No, this is no figment of my imagination - I would never reveal my secrets and post something regarding the life and adventures of Brando, that would be embarrassing (oops, wink).


As a side: I occasionally find images on currency to be interesting. Mostly these images are relatively predictable, ranging from popular heads of states and/or heads of government to famous liberators. However, one image on the Peruvian 10 Sole bill struck me. First of all, I'm no historian---just a political scientist---but I don't recall Peru being particularly well-known for their contribution to aviation. And, by the looks of the image on the bill, this pilot is either really great or is in some real serious danger in the next few seconds.


Why is the plane upside down? Let's assume he's not in the process of crashing. An image like this is generally reserved as the third or fourth image in a series after using the first few images to demonstrate the pilot can fly correctly. Image number one would show the pilot pumping his/her fist from the cockpit during a fly-by. I just don't understand.