Andrea in Ecuador

Today we had Chinese food for lunch at Chief of Hong Kong which is near the city center of Riobamba. Then we have some supplies to pick up so we can continue with floatation and washing of artifacts. The soils at the Lourdas site are very fine silts, clays and sand so the artifacts come back from the field looking like black globs. Ross has hired a couple of people (Javier and Monika) to wash artifacts. In the meantime I have been trying to get a good place set up for floatation which has been a challenge because of the amount of waste water and sludge this process produces. We have decided to move me outside of the palace walls (palace=our house) because we don't want to clog the storm drain which is what I have been using. So, this will require getting a very long hose that doesn't leak. They don't really have garden hoses like we do. Instead, you go to the hardware store and tell them how many meters of tube you want and then by hose fittings and metal clamps to put it together so pretty much everything leaks.

Javier's parents, Elva and Pepe, own a small market a couple blocks from the palace. We like to get our small goods from them and they know Ross and some of the crew from last year. They are very friendly, gracious people. They had us over for drinks and cake the other night and Mike managed to tell them jokes in Spanish which they found very entertaining. They love Maeve and sometimes she will let them kiss her cheek...other times, no way. Today Maeve had a good time washing her ponies which had been out in the field with her and got dirty. She also likes asking about floatation and doing little jobs to help me.

This weekend, Eve, Claudine, Mike and I are planning to go to Baņos which is a bit of a tourist trap with hot springs and other attractions at the base of a giant volcano. We were thinking we would splurge on some rooms at the expensive hotel which has a spa and will cost us $18 per room. Pretty spendy...but for one night we think we can handle it. Most of the hotel rooms are around $10. Besides, if we run low on money, Mike keeps threatening to charge people for touching my blonde hair. Apparently we are a fairly boring crew as trouble goes. The palace is so nice with its hot water, big kitchen, and fire place that we just shower, cook dinner, and sit by the fire talking until someone decides it's time to go to bed to read and soon after, everyone disperses to do the same. Its pretty darn civilized except for not being able to flush toilet tissue...that took a little getting used to. Hugs to all...Andrea