Part One
One night in 1972 I was preparing to go to sleep, when my older brother Arthur comes to me and asks, “Do you want to go to Quito with me?” I said, “well sure I do.” The next day we are aboard a Braniff to Ecuador but we had a short delay in Miami where we hired a cab that took us to a fashionable district to buy some new clothes. Man, were we styling in our threads!
When we finally arrived in the Quito airport, people started treating us like rock stars since we had two big suitcases full of the latest albums of the day, a couple of backpacks, and 4 precious guitars. Also, my full black hair was the longest it had ever been (right past my shoulders). In the states, Arthur and I practiced a few original songs and sounded really good together. Boy, I was ambitious in my early 20s. At that time, I was playing guitars three hours a day and writing my own songs and lyrics. Since we acted like rock stars, we played the part by booking a room at Hotel Colon, where we partied all week. Then we checked out Old Town and the Indian markets where we bought some cool Otavalo ponchos of Vicuna (I wore mine every day).
The next morning we took a bus (the collectivo) to our old house, which my family lived in five years earlier during my teenage years, then walked up to the corner of a long circular fence that had glass shards on top for safety. It was cool seeing our old place! We looked around and noticed a few changes but all was basically the same as it had been nearly five years before. As Arthur and I sat on a curb across the street to marvel at this wonderful house of memories, a woman came running out of the house shouting “My boys! My boys!”
The older woman approached us with open arms then asked about our mom's well-being. Just then we recognized her as the owner of a small store where Arthur and I had an account for snacks and other items. Arthur would always buy goodies, drinks, pan dulce, and American Cracker Jacks. I would always get a fresh baked baguette that was crunchy on the outside while soft and chewy on the inside. Yum! My mother would always give Arthur a hard time about not getting her permission to buy stuff from the store and I am sure this lady embellished the bill since we were Americans. All the same, meeting her again was a delightful surprise. She loved our mother dearly. Shortly after we left Ecuador, since my dad's Army service was over, she bought our house.
After the chance meeting, Arthur and I went into the surrounding Eucalyptus forest and into the quebradas we often explored a few years before. It was like paradise! The smell of the forest was intoxicating! While checking out the nature surrounding us, we saw several varieties of hummingbirds and insects. Wow! It was as if time stood still! Afterward, we walked back to a bus stop and checked out the town of Quito.
The next day, we just had to climb Pichincha for old time's sake. We hiked up our old trail, perhaps started as an ancient Andian footpath, and zig-zagged our way up the mountain. We went up with world explorer Baron Von Humboldt in mind as we marveled at the flora change from dense tropical forest at 9,000 feet (yes on the equator) to alpine at 15,000 feet. I remember the pampas-like grass and the difficulty walking through it like a checkerboard pattern while occasionally stirring up a flock of quail or a hare. Due to altitude sickness, I began to lose my breath. I went through a horrible bends-like attack as my head spun and I up-chucked so we headed back down. Even though I was sick, the view I remember was incredible! Arthur and I could see the valley of the Inca king below us. Popping out of the clouds we could see Antisana and Cayambe in the distance and like the painted canvas by Fredric Edwin Church, Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world sat in Quito's backyard. We could see the wonderment of the “Avenue of the Volcanos” stretching to Peru. I started to feel better as we descended the mountain with parrots chattering in the distance and wild alpaca coming into view. We were still resting so high on Pichincha that we saw planes fly below us as they landed at the Quito airport.
The following day we visited our old school, Cotopaxi Academy. Arthur and I held court in the schoolyard with our guitars as we played our songs for the kids. As past alumni we were welcomed guests. One guy named Eric introduced himself and told us that we were famous and that he had heard of the Balli Boys. Apparently, he had heard some of the stories about Arthur and his former Quito-based band with the Vegas brothers and about me and the explorers club I had formed. We met new friends that day: Eric Hayes and his brother, Mike Buzzo, Bruce Laidlaw, and Kim Richards. Later, we went to a party at Bruce's parents' house, which was built right out of a Frank Lloyd Wright blueprint. (I recall some kid breaking their glass entry way during the gathering.) We brought some of our records and the kids loved them since current music from the states was hard to come by in South America. We played our guitars next to the fireplace and it was the best performance I ever played with Arthur! I remember one song was a Shawn Phillips number. This whole evening is my personal time capsule memory with my late brother. It was great!
At the party, I met a beautiful girl named Kim Richards and was infatuated so we started hanging out together. I would drop by her parents' house to play guitar where I met her Saint Bernards. They were huge! Kim showed me a jewel of the tropical jungles in the lowlands that the kids called “Strawberry Fields.” We saw many wonderful plants, flowers, birds, and a rushing mountain river. As we explored the banks, Kim fell in the rapid river and I immediately reached out and grabbed her by the hand. We laughed and laughed. The Andes has that effect on you.
To be continued...