Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

Barely off Delta’s Nice/Amsterdam/Portland flight (vacated by Northwest post ticket purchase and now code shared with KLM and Air France… really! ) when handed a ticket to Long Beach, CA along with instructions to disburse among a half dozen farms, a container load of Flowerbud’s acrylic vases that are painfully late in from China. The approach into Long Beach takes us above the billowing smoke from the still rampant blaze that is the Station Fire,  an arson caused conflagration in some foothills east of LA. Of all the LA area airports used by me this past decade, Long Beach has never counted among them, until now. To say the least it is small, quaint almost. Eminently manageable and as far from what one might imagine an airport in Los Angeles to be as possible. No frill, no flash and quite some number of trailers operating as peoples offices. California continues showing us that the 31st state is in a state of penury… the first of many such glimpses I catch through the dried up and weedy landscaping, the endless trash blowing roadside, and for the next 1975 miles, feel… as I bounce through potholes and thump over misaligned bridge expansion joints and collapsed concrete in freeway lanes. (more…)

Hopping off the plane from Frankfurt barely affords time to toss the Corsican togs into the wash before grabbing more refined ones and re boarding the Continental flight for Houston/Quito. If you ignore the clock and keep jet lag at bay you can even find time to check in with family, stock the refrigerator and catch up at the office. It’s 6.20 AM in PDX when we speed down the runway and thanks to the past 15 hours in Lufthansa coach seats my ass fits this Continental coach seat perfectly. I am literally praying that as on the Frankfurt flight some oversized Teuton won’t recline his seat all the way back into my face and space, all the time flailing and grossly flatulent.

Houston passes pleasantly, being one of the better airports these days in terms of space, cleanliness, amenities not to mention as a port of entry. It is a bit of a puzzle that we are requested to board the plane very early, it is quickly explained once we are all herded onto the jetway where the US Customs are waiting with surly manner and swagger. They want cash… and lots of it. They seem to think that many of us may be carrying scoobies in excess of $10,000.00 and in loud voices they demand that people take off money belts should they have one. If the request is met with a blank stare it is repeated more loudly as if high volume english makes up for a lack of spanish in some cases. When I tell the guy how much I am packing he looks at me like I am a pauper. So be it. Once again I survive a landing into Quito and in minutes am through immigration and grabbing a taxi for downtown. Iberia seems to be maintaining a crashed Airbus A340 here as a monument to the results of too high a speeds and too short a runway. The need for a taxi is created by the unfortunate absence of of my good pal Esteban “Figueroa” Arboleda who apparently thinks the Thursday night rose show party is more fun than an airport run.

Ostensibly in town for the rose show and a couple of farm visits I run slap bang into Rafael Correa’s referendum whereby he consolidates power, changes the constitution, removes Ecuador off the dollar and more or less nationalizes most anything that makes the country money and provides employment, like bananas, oil, flowers, shrimp and so on. Obviously to do this he has to take from some and give to others. The sentiment on the street seems to be that the guy is a slam dunk and that his yes vote will likely garner some 80% or more. From what I can see the first industry to be hit by the coming referendum is the beer/wine/spirits industry as the country is in a mandatory tee total state for the duration of the referendum weekend. Apparently Ecuadorians can’t get out and vote after a beer or maybe Mr. Correa understands more about electorate sobriety than his opposition. Either way I am not enamored of the state of affairs. If the Government can interfere with your right to imbibe, heaven knows what they can do with a landslide majority in the referendum. It would hardly bode well for Sara Palin’s continued low class references to Joe Six-pack. On second thoughts electoral sobriety may be a useful tool after all in the choosing of the right party for ourselves.

Visiting the farms is as always a revelation. More often than not because of the conversations that ensue re the state of trade, the world and of course at this time the obscene greed that has the US looking like a train wreck, even to those whose eyes seldom see much other than such economic carnage as a fact of their daily lives. While the flowers are in all their glory and the tour de force that is pre and post harvest care along with the precise packing that is a hallmark of these farms it provides scant pleasure to learn that we (the US) are no longer the power buyers for this product. Rather the Europeans are more reliable buyers now (although that may not last so long) and for sure it is the Russians that have come to wield the purchasing power for flowers in Ecuador and just maybe in many more markets. The Russians are here to the point their women are unmistakable on the streets of Quito, their youth can be found working in the hotel lobbies and the guys are at the rose show, attracting the attention of all the rose growers. Oil and gas wealth can buy a lot of roses and of course no one wants to turn down the cash that can send a rose from Quito to Vladivostock post haste. I do wonder how the rose cossacks are getting on in this vodka-less city this weekend.

From the 9th floor of Le Parc with its floor to ceiling windows I can hear and see barking dogs, martial music and marching feet from a neighboring parade ground, I also hear canned electioneering coming from speakers mounted atop cars as they circulate around the blocs and just occasionally the peculiar whistle that is released by the hard revved diesel buses in those seconds between gear shifts and a possible collision. I can see 180 degrees most of which is high rise after high rise condominium tower and out beyond them are the hills and volcanos that line the sides of the valley that Quito sprawls in and now sprawls out of, Once in a while I see the lower slopes of Cotopaxi and a glimpse of its snow cover but it is not until the aircraft takes me out on Sunday morning that the sky is close to cloudless and the mountains are shown in all their glory. This is by far the best view in ten years of rose treks to Ecuador and on that day I wished I were on a rose farm up on the slopes. Breathless in every sense of the word. I am taken to the rose show on two occasions this weekend and as usual it is wonderful for its displays, its new varieties and its casual ability to flawlessly intermix beautiful roses with even more beautiful women. I could pretend all I want as a point of propriety that this was not the case but lets face it, there is naked intent (or nearly so) here and it is delicious! You would have to be mostly dead to be not drawn into a booth to see the creations so ably marketed by these petal pushers. If there is not a looooong stemmed Ecuadorian rose that blushes pink to red named “Shameless”… there ought to be.

Of note over the past ten years this country has had eight presidents. With this referendum and the ensuing re writing of the constitution Mr Correa is bound and determined to make number eight his lucky number and ensure his longevity. In many ways he emulates Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in his leftist leanings. While democracy has or perhaps should have something of a different face in each country espousing it there is little doubt that there are domestic demands for change in this country and others in the greater region. My own thinking leads me to wonder if the changes forthcoming will bring about anything substantively better at all or just a new system of corrupt and grossly inefficient elites. The one small blessing that Ecuador might have if Mr. Correa proves to be a bad act is in the voters having much expertise in ejecting such miscreants….It is a loophole they need ensure he does not constitutionally close.

Dinner is courtesy of Valle Verde and Alberto Cantillana. It is most all of the way up a precipitous mountainside via a cobbled street and in an establishment owned by an Irish gal. What a world! We are taken there in a coach that does not fit the road and more importantly is not equipped with oxygen masks for us mere mortals. As Irish as the owner is, her blarney has made few inroads on the unfortunate circumstances wrought by the referendum and we cluster in groups and hang on the bar sipping coffees or cokes or heaven forbid some alcohol free pina coladas. I have never, ever wanted to be a vegetarian and in like manner I have never ever wanted to be tee total. The latter has been so strongly reinforced to the point that I am now considering bootlegging to be an honorable occupation. The dynamics of this large group from around the planet, assembled in this bar/restaurant is interesting as it takes much longer to coalesce without glass in hand. The food however is grand.

The hours between Thursday night and Sunday morning are now spent and it is off to the airport with the laughter of godson Nicolas and his brother Ignacio in my ears and pictures of them running around, bouncing on the bed and pulling the blinds up and down on Le Parc’s ninth floor. Mr. Arboleda has somewhat redeemed himself with a very tasty Italian dinner in a fine establishment that just happened to have an illicit corkscrew on hand. Continental’s flight is punctual in departing and the airport’s exit tax collectors are equally so. The toll to leave now is a whopping $43 and must be in cash. It is somewhat amusing to hear peoples outrage as they go ballistic at the cold faced collectors behind the thick glass, when faced with this amount. Not quite so funny are the world trekking kids who have been backpacking through lord knows where and are doing their unkempt rounds of the airport in an attempt to scrounge up the tax cash. With my cash forked over for the requisite tax stamp I am free to head in the direction of Colombia, Panama and points beyond. It is 6.20 AM in Quito when we speed down the runway and I am sure the voting booths are readying for a day that is going to impact a lot of people. Many in ways they do not understand and some I know in ways they do not want. No doubt I will be back. I’ll make sure to consider the political calendar first….

As an addendum to this entry the result for Rafael Correa was 62% yes and 24% no with the balance being voided ballots by those in utter disagreement and dismay.

Sunday Dec 13th 2008… Chavista Correa, Illustrious graduate of University of Illinois now announces he is going to default on foreign debt saying that the people that lent him the money in the first place are “real monsters”. Cool move for a guy that has $2 billion in cash on hand and some still pretty nifty oil wells. His opening foray into the screwing of bondholders is a modest $30.6 million. In my opinion this is a pre-emptive middle digit to the world that embarrasses the rest of his nation.