Not to dwell on it, but my first awareness of the air was the realization that, however humid it was on the drizzly night we arrived, the air was light, the dampness casual and not oppressive. The next day, the same observation could be applied to the diesel fumes and gas exhaust billowing unchecked from every bus, truck, taxi and Volkswagen bug whirling about the city's`traffic circles. Welcome to the modern age: even Quito must exist in the present tense.

Well, then again, it is a pretty place, surrounded as it is by volcanic peaks towering to over 15 thousand feet, waves of mist crashing with botanical slowness into the canyons, red tiled roofs capping stone edifices. And with the cathedrals, and bell towers, and courtyards of Old Quito, the town below could be Italian or Iberian. A timelessness somehow does surround those white towers and stone-gray spires, beneath which saints raise their hands in eternal blessing, Jesus dies the same bloody death, and Mary dances in ecstasy beneath an angel's wings.

The Dancing Mother of God? Sounds more Hindu than medieval. Yet the syncretic image of La Virgen de Quito permeates the Catholic imagery of Ecuador, and no place else -- the statue of this Mambo Madonna looms over Quito from the heights of El Pancillo, " little bread loaf hill," her tilted hips, wide-spread wings and smile of transport adding a nice little hit of surrealism to the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is old colonial Quito.

Syncretism, by the way, is the melding of indigenous images or beliefs with the overlay of a more established, rigidified belief system. This winged Virgin is a perfect example. So too is the configuration in the church known as La Campania, on the Plaza de la Independencia, where the images of Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox, heretics all, support a winged image of the Book of Revelations. In an alcove of this same cathedral, hundreds if not thousands of indios from the surrounding countryside (and doubtless no few scrapping out an existence within the city limits themselves) light candles to solicit the holy help of Jesus Cristo in their daily trial. The image of Christ they plea to is, of course, the man bent beneath the yoke of life, his own cross. The walls and ceiling of this alcove is blackened by soot, and the suffering figure itself is so dark as to be almost African.

Outside, the clouds gather, and it begins to mist. Traffic surges and stops, children play and beg, lawyers and diplomats wield their breifcases between the Presidential Palance and the nearest Banco. Under the shelter of the historic Archbishop's palace, an old blind musican plays a sprightly air on an accordian. It sounds like an Argentinian tango, or fandango, yet is also almost palpably aged, and regretful. He draws a few curious stares from the young women getting their pumps shined at the foot stools not far away, and a few hundred-sucre notes stuffed into his simple slotted box from old women who hear in his music exactly what he plays.

Meanwhile, photographer Denise Rocco and I spent the day searching down the ways to connect this syncretic, synchronetic Quito with the cutting edge modernity of TerraQuest, and 24 Hours in Cyberspace. We paid our respects to hotel managers, tour directors, and even the offices of Ecuanet -- the only internet provider in Ecuador. They were delighted to help out, and offered us on-line access so we could ftp our daily dispatches and photographs to Web pages around the world; we even set up an e-mail account (ckallen@pi.pro.ec).

While we worked to open up lines of digital communication most people in this country, in this continent, in this world, are unaware they can no longer live without. Indio women picked lice from their children's hair and bathed in the aquaducts flushed with rain, and perhaps sewage. "That the mortality rate is not higher is due only to the beneficial qualities of the Quito air," wrote Victor von Hagen in 1949. That air again.

Yet there's still something compelling about Ecuador, as if an opportunity is building, a window opening. I felt like we were a time-slipped vanguard of the conquistadores, the "wave of the future," who thought they crushed the Quito Incas beneath their horses and firepower in 1534. No matter how much we wire this ancient land, with its volcanoes and cloud forests, its people will still endure... on barefoot pilgrimage through strange city streets, wrapped in rough black blankets against the falling rain , fingering lightly the ivory keys of an accordian to lift the burden of a time too long past, and turn it into a dance, floating on air.

-- Christian Kallen

 

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