Only in Ecuador

Just a brief, photo-free post for today...  So I just went up to Quito for some Peace Corps meetings on the always-enjoyable 13 hour overnight bus ride. I'm sitting in my seat waiting for the bus to leave, when a man and woman board holding something that looks peculiar. If it were a rooster prepped for its next cock fight or a cardboard box filled with newborn chicks, I wouldn't have looked twice. But this thing is like 5 feet long and all wrapped up in plastic grocery store bags and clear packing tape. What is it?

A live male peacock!  The body is wrapped up in paper and tape with its head sticking out through a little hole, and the 4-foot long feathers that it uses to impress the local female peacocks are all wrapped up like a big tail to ensure that that this Pavo Real (or Royal Turkey as it's called in Spanish) is not going to show off on this bus ride. The man is holding the body and the woman is following a few feet behind to support the "tail". They then proceed to put the thing in the overhead compartment above the seats! At this point all the Ecuadorians on the bus are staring and smirking, and you know if they're reacting to something like this then it's weird even for Ecuador!

So at 3 in the morning I decide to head to use to the bathroom in the back of the bus. As I'm making my way down the dark aisle, some guy starts shining his cell phone screen light on the floor. I don't think anything of it until I hear a slight crinkle under my foot. Yes, I just stepped on a peacock tail. Apparently the royal turkey was not happy up above so the owner had moved it to the floor. Since it was so long, it went almost all the way across the bus, with it's wrapped up tail across the aisle. Luckily i didn't do any damage and the guy wasn't angry at all.

Oh, and when I get to the bathroom, some other guy is sleeping in the back of the bus without a shirt on. Weird.

Just thought I should share!