Prestiños: Fried Magic

There are no stories about monkeys or jungles in this post. In reality, this post is about doughnuts. 


Carnaval was this past weekend, so I had Monday and Tuesday off from training for the holiday. One could compare Carnaval in some parts of Ecuador to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I suppose. However, here in Tumbaco, there aren't street parties, there are small children armed with espuma (essentially colored, scented shaving cream), water balloons, eggs, flour, and buckets of water. They target everyone, but they especially like to target unsuspecting gringos. For instance, on Tuesday, I was walking out of my house, turned left down the street while marveling at what a beautiful day it was, and suddenly several water balloons burst on the pavement in front of my feet. I looked over and several kids were giggling from the second story window of the house across the street. Overall, I made it through fairly unharmed--I didn't get any espuma to the face like many other trainees did.


So, if children with copious amounts of water were the worst part of Carnaval, then prestiños dipped in cinnamon syrup were the best part. Most of my posts seem to at least have one section about food, and I swear it's not just me. Food is a big deal down here; the weekends and holidays revolve around eating. Anyways, back to prestiños. You may be asking what is a prestiño? It's like the Paczki of Ecuador. Or an elephant ear. Or Native American fry bread. Eggs, butter, flour, yeast, salt, sugar. Mix. Knead. Let rise 1 hour. Make rings out of the dough. Deep fry in oil. Dip in cinnamon cane-sugar syrup. Eat. 


My host family and I made over 100 of these little delicacies. They took about 30 pictures of la gringa (I found out that this is sort of an endearing term in Ecuador) making prestiños. Apparently it was entertaining. Everyone was not satisfied that I had actually "tried" prestiños until I ate at least 10 in one sitting. Then, we proceeded to eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two days. I'm not sure if these fit into Peace Corps nutrition planning. Nonetheless, I love them. 

Rosa and me rolling, cutting, and folding the dough. 

Yum!

Lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast.

During my four-day weekend, I also went to the town of Mindo with some other trainees for the day. Mindo is a fairly touristy town about two hours from Quito in the cloud forest. The journey in itself was quite an adventure, as public transportation always seems to be down here. We took three buses (one was extra as a result of bad directions) to get to the station to catch the bus to Mindo. Once on the bus, we waited as they checked our ticket once, twice, three, four, five, SIX times. It turns out the women in the office had accidentally written the same seat number on two tickets, so, after an hour of sitting on the bus, we finally left for Mindo. Time doesn't work quite the same way here as in the States--long waits are fairly common. While the traveling was a lot for only a couple of hours in the town, it was worth the trouble. The cloud forests are really beautiful: rolling hills, lush vegetation, waterfalls, raging rivers. We had lunch and then went horseback riding for a bit through the forest. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Emily, Saira, and Me in Mindo

Muddy muddy ride to get to the horses.

The tamest horse of all time.

Just a little waterfall, there are many more--I'll have to go back and hike soon!

Not much more to report. During this short week of training, my NRC training group had presentations about our technical trips and we went to a beautiful research center and tree nursery owned by the government. On Thursday of next week, I find our where I'm going to be living for the next two years! Keep your fingers and toes crossed that it's a good site!