Guayasamin, the Badass Artist of Ecuador

Blog 8: Weekend Update. Quito, Ecuador.

Hello, friends. I understand that this blog post is wayyyy overdue. I apologize deeply.

But in my defense, it’s been a pretty awesome late-night kind of weekend. On Friday, after we took the 8 hour train back from Chone to Quito, I arrived at my host mom’s house. I spent a few minutes locked out (because my host mom didn’t know when I was coming home, which might have been my fault) but eventually got into the house. I met the two other guys that I’m living with, a public health student who just graduated and a pre-med student who are both from the same school. Both are pretty nice and at times hilarious to be around.

On Saturday, we decided to hang around Quito and headed to the museum of Guayasamin, the most famous contemporary artist from Ecuador in the history of Ecuador. His art was absolutely amazing — as a fellow artist, I really, truly admired his work — he’s phenomenal not only for what he produces but also what he believes in. He’s also a low-key poet. Like, look at this beautiful quote that describes his credo:

“Por los niños que cogio la muerte jugando, por los hombres que desfallecieron trabajando, por los pobres que fracasaron amando, pintare con grito de metralla, con potencia de rayo y con furia de batalla.”

“For the children that death took while playing, for the men that dimmed while working, for the poor that failed while loving, I will paint with the scream of a shotgun, with the power of thunder and the fury of battle.”

de Guayasamin.

After touring the giant edifice that was solely dedicated to Guayasamin’s enormous (literally, his painting span a wall) paintings, we had a tour of his house, which was filled with all of these creepily religious relics, like bleeding Jesus in different contortions on every well-carved wooden table. We still took some cute touristy pictures.

Sitting on his pool, overlooking the city of Quito, with the Temple of Man in front of the city.

His workspace, replicated and preserved.

His house was absolutely enormous, a mansion with an enormous workspace dedicated to his craft. We walked back home, and got to see the city of Quito on a weekend — there were so many people playing soccer or volleyball in the park, and couples were shopping downtown, and children were walking around with their parents, and it was just a nice view of life in Quito. Along the walls we saw spray-painted messages saying things like FUERA CORREA.

That night, we went to a little hole-in-the-wall bar called La Reserva, which had really expensive craft beer ($5 a pint) but was really popular and used to be a garage and, I’m told, has a vibe that’s a lot like Oregon. Definitely would recommend if you’re a beer snob (jkjk, but people who know beer will definitely enjoy this place) and you’re into chill bars and chatting with your friends.

On Sunday, we decided to head to Papallacta to see the hot springs. It started raining once we were up in the mountains, and we were shivering in our odd assortment of t-shirts and thin jackets (Travel Tip 101/ Duh Common Sense: check weather conditions before going out to an unknown place). The hot springs, which were sort of glorified hot tubs with their hot water source coming from a spring somewhere, were absolutely amazing — relaxing and super warm and surrounded by a fantastic view of the green misty mountains. It was raining, too, which made the hot springs experience almost 100% better. Except for the fact that I left my jacket out in the rain, and forgot to bring a shirt, the trip was awesome, though slightly cold.

We came back and grabbed dinner at an Ecuatorian fast food restaurant and then watched The Grand Budapest Hotel — it was the first time that I had ever watched the movie, and all I can say is that Wes Anderson is a genius. The cinematography is amazing and it definitely deserves its title as a classic.

Anyways, good weekend for hanging out with friends and getting to know a little more about Ecuadorian culture.

xoxo,

Diana