Earthquakes & Weirdness - In Ecuador & Around The Globe

Life In Ecuador

The earthquake in Ecuador popped up quite unexpectedly for me, as I had lived in Quito for well over a year and not felt even a murmur before this. Actually thats all this really was. I was sitting on my bed when the room started shaking. It was a bizarre feeling and quite difficult to explain actually. I knew straight away that it was an earthquake, so I wasn't suprised when I went into work the next day and film crews where there, interviewing my boss about it. The earthquake was small - barely larger than a Mw = 4, but it was shallow and quite a few Ecuadorians felt it in the capital. Of all the people at work though, I was one of the only ones to feel it beneath my feet. A few weeks later however, a much larger earthquake would shock the world. The Mw = 9.0 earthquake which struck off the coast of Japan was so powerful and so devastating that it will take years for many to get their lives back in order. The tsunami, which swept across the Pacific Ocean due to that quake was the main concern for us here in Ecuador. Everyone in the institute suddenly dropped everything and concentrated soley on what was going on over on the other side of the Pacific. The Ecuadorian coast was ultimately evacuated, with some damage later being caused out in the Galapagos and Ecuador´s mainland coast. Our seismometers naturally picked up the event - with the seismic waves arriving about 20 minutes after the quake - thats how long it took to reach us from Japan. The earthquake itself was of immense scale - forming one of the most powerful earthquakes seen in recorded history. The energy released during that one event was the same as all the energy used by the United States in one month!!! It will be remembered for many years to come.

My life in Quito during this time continued as normal. A religious festival popped up, where lots of kids dressed in traditional Ecuadorian and Indigenous clothing and paraded through the streets of Quito's Historic Old Town. Flower petals were thrown over them from the sidewalk and someone was holding a large statue of Jesus on a cross, above his head. Im not really sure what it was all about but it was an interesting affair. Traditions and cultures are very different when you compare them to England for example, and I guess thats expected - but it still shocks me nontheless. In fact, some things pop up when you least expect them to in this country and shock you time and time again..............

A particularly odd thing happened to me quite recently - I got on a bus!!! It wasn't the getting on the bus that was odd - it was I got on the bus without knowing where I was going or actually what the hell was going on at all. It started when Sarah and I were walking down our street deciding where to eat. It was around 6.30pm. On the way to the Chinese restaurant - we bumped into Antonio who is part of the family that owns the La Guayunga Hostal where we both stay. He said he was taking a group of Ecuadorian dancers down south for the evening (La Guayunga has a bus service) and did we want to come along for the ride. We grabbed take-away Chinese and jumped in. It turned out that when he said south - we didn't quite understand how far south. We drove all the way to a small town just outside Latacunga which is about a 3 hour ride from Quito. When we got there the dancers got dressed in colourful but slightly odd garments. It was a small village we had ended up in and all everyone wanted to do was give out food and drink. It seemed to be a party!!!

Actually it wasn't a party at all - it was a funeral. Apparently a very important person in the village - perhaps the chief or someone like that had passed away and instead of sitting around chatting and eating sandwiches - they have a big party type affair. Everyone had gathered in the town hall and the dancers we had brought from Quito were supposedly no ordinary dancers. They were called all the way from the capital to perform two special dances and then go back home. We must have brought about 12 or so dancers. The men were dressed like munks and the women were robed in brightly coloured dresses. Then they performed some religious dance which I didn't quite understand the significance of but which generally involved dancing around in a circle and waving the cross around. During the dances I spent a lot of time admiring the scenes before me but would also glance over at Sarah once in a while with the look of 'where are we' and 'what have we landed ourselves into this time'. Once the two dances were over, we left. The villagers continued the fiesta without us as the dancers job was done. The dancers picked up a few bottles of alcohol for their own party as we headed back for the return to Quito.

Shrotly after the event, before we left for home, Antonio said to me that it was quite common for people to have a party like this when someone dies - especially someone important. He asked me how I wanted to go - one day of course.......so I said to him I wanted my body to be shot into space, to orbit the planet for all eternity - and everyone to have a dance and a big party at the space shuttle launch site. He gave me the same look I gave Sarah when we were watching the religious dance...........utter bewilderment!!!