FISH OR CHICKEN?

Breakfast is certainly the best meal of the day here in Ecuador. Cafe Tortuga served me up some great fried eggs, ham, bread, fruit salad, real coffee, and strawberry juice. After that, it´s downhill from there. Yesterday I ate grilled chicken both for dinner and lunch. Same side-dishes and everything: rice, yucca, beans, and some wierdo onion salad. Food options in Ecuador are minimal and here in the jungle it´s even less. Hope you like chicken or fish because that´s all that´s on the menu. Every day. No matter what.
      The best part about the jungle here in Ecuador, or El Oriente, as they call it, is the people. Everyone in town is quickly learning my name and everyone wants to sincerely be my friend. A taxi driver I had met four days ago pulled out of traffic to shake my hand like a bicycle pump and talk to me. He wondered why I hadn´t called him to be my personal driver and do I want to meet his family for lunch later. No. I already had plans with other Ecuadorian friends I had met earlier. 
               We walked to the corner store together and purchased dinner: live tilapia from a fish tank. With flapping fish in a Zip-Lock bag we took a taxi to a bus stop and I accidentally left my umbrella in it. I´m pretty bummed about that still. Then we took the bus to a town 20 minutes away called Archidona. It´s a small pueblo with a great view of the Andes mountains in the background. Most of the natives are Quichwa, the indigenous people. The women carry their pocketbooks from long straps on their heads. They smiled toothless smiles at me. I smiled back and gave them a greeting in Kichwa.
         At my friend´s house, the women scaled the fish, beat them in the head with the knife handle, then gutted them. Eerily, they still flapped around. The men built a fire and peeled the yucca. I helped make that terrible onion salad. The owner of the houser, Tito, asked me to go around the corner and buy a 3 litre Coke. When I came back with the Coke I heard one of the women whisper it was the wrong Coke. I determined that Coke means any kind of soda and next time I should ask what kind. DUH! 
     David wrapped the fish in banana leaves and cooked them on an open fire. He saved one of the leaves to wrap chicken in also. Chicken surprise, mmmmm. As we ate they explained that I was eating a meal only typical of the jungle. Yeah, right, I wanted to say. I wonder what I´ll eat tomorrow. Fish or chicken?