Recently, on an Internet forum for expats in Ecuador, a woman asked whether she should make the trip from the states to see if she might retire in EC.
As you would expect, the answers varied but the consensus is “sure, why not”.
There is one character, though, who is consistently negative and, according to the veteran posters, consistently wrong.
He admits to not living in EC but says he has visited several times anticipating his retirement.
In his opinion, Quito is a dump. This is based largely on his assertion that the Holiday Inn Express in which he stayed was sub-par. Make sense to you? Me neither.
Generalizing like that about any city, thing, person, or people locks you into an illusion from which escape improbable. The walls are only thickened by the justifications and rationalizations necessary to sustain it.
I'm in Quito and Quito is no dump. It is a vibrant, thriving city of 2 million people living as they will – just like in any other city in the world.
Our curmudgeonly friend apparently hasn't found the astonishing architecture built in praise of God. He hasn't visited the cultural museums, concerts, and native dances that express the history of this endlessly interesting people.
Those same people who have shown me such kindness and patience as I stumble through their language and customs.
Nor has this fellow gazed at the towering volcanic mountains from any window large enough to allow you to look up.
Perhaps he hasn't observed the thriving commercial economy from tiny tiendas and street carts to modern malls with international corporations employing thousands of people.
How did he miss the enormous parks like La Carolina, with a stunning garden and where families gather to, well, just be families?
Was our guy sleeping in when they closed Avenida Rio Amazonas to motor traffic so that hundreds of cyclists from children on training wheels to spandex clad cruisers could mingle on Sunday morning?
Perception, my good man, is everything. I'll bet that that Holiday Inn Express is actually pretty damn good.
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