Using notes from my travels, in 1986 I put together this account
as part of a larger body of work on all my South American travels
in 1985. I intended to find some method of self-publishing this,
but the never got beyond the first draft stage. The text below
was scanned from the original document. I went through it to
format for HTML and correct scanning errors, or at least those
that I found. I made no attempt, however, to do a much needed
editing for style, sentence structure, etc. This is a first
draft, and I am sure it reads like one. The station information,
of course, is at least somewhat outdated.
On Monday morning we were on our way back to Quito. A day's rest
there and it was off on a short side trip to visit two of the
last three stations of the trip. We arrived in Saquisili early
Wednesday afternoon. There were two objectives to the visit. One
was to visit that rare Ecuadorian station, La Voz de Saquisili
4900 khz. I needed a QSL from it to have the dozen Ecuadorian
provinces verified that are required for the NASWA Senior
Ecuadorian DXer Award. It was a visit I wouldn't miss! Secondly
there was the weekly Saquisili market held every Thursday
morning. It was said to be one of the best in Eucador.
First thing to do was to verify the station. I knew from DX
bulletin reports that the owner/manager Arturo Mena was a school
teacher at the local high school. I figured I had better get the
station verified Wednesday afternoon, or I wouldn't have the
chance with him in school on Thursday morning. Even so, it took
multiple visits to get the verie. The first time Arturo wasn't
there but a phone call to him at school said he would be back in
an hour. He wasn't, and after a third trip later in the afternoon
I still had to wait an hour.
La Voz de Saquisili is located along one of the main dirt streets
of the town. It is in the second story of a tiny two story
building. A sign hangs from the balcony, and another round one
hangs from a cable suspended across the street. Upstairs there is
one huge room that serves as a combination office and reception
hall and a studio in the back, seen through the usual plate glass
windows. Among the usual girlie and record posters were a number
of certificates given to the station for civic contributions and
some Ecuadorian tourism posters.
Arturo Mena finally arrived and, in a rather business like
manner, stamped and-signed my prepared QSLs, one each for myself
and two DX friends. He also took the time to find me a
certificate card the station had had printed up in February, 1984
for its 2Oth birthday.
Senor Mena then inquired into what I thought of Ecuador and told
me a little about how much he liked receiving reception reports.
He then asked me if I could send him replacement transmitter
parts once I was back in the states. He expected it as a gift on
my part, and what else could I do but take a list of the parts
and promise to look into it. In the end they were way too
expensive to be gifts.
Even if there had been no station, we would still have had to
visit Saquisili for its market. Unlike Otavalo, this is not a
handicraft market but rather a market for day-to-day things the
local campesinos need and use. The market is held in eight
different plazas in the town, each one having a different type of
merchandise. In one area livestock is brought in and sold -
sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and horses. Its a feast for the eyes
(if not for the nose!), with people bringing in their pigs on
leases being the most amusing.
In other areas clothing, baskets, kitchen goods, & food products
are sold. One form of livestock - guinea pigs - are sold in the
food section. That way one can buy the guinea pig, and the onions
and carrots to accompany it, all in the same plaza. There were
cages and cages of guinea pigs, enough to fill three dozen pet
stores, or hundreds of Andean skilllets.
The best areas of all were the fruit section, where there were
truck loads of bananas, and the basket section, where the baskets
were piled up in small hills. Although we spent several hours
exploring, the only things we bought were some huge carved wooden
spoons and a felt hat for Theresa. What would we have done with a
Pig on a leash anyways?
Our stay in Saquisili over and it was time to start bus hopping
again. We had three short rides ahead of us to our next
destination. First it was Saquisili to Latacunga, the shortest,
then another bus to Ambato, and finally our last bus, Ambato to
Quero. The town of Quero cannot be found on many Ecuadorian maps,
but it is in the province of Tungurahua, a little southeast of
Ambato. Quero is home to Radio Panamericana, 3290 khz
(25k jpeg photo).
The station is entered through a small courtyard. The first room,
or office, is dominated by a huge wall map of the Quero area.
There is very little furniture in the room, nor other wall
decorations. Through the plate glass window the studio was
visible. It was one of the largest studios I visited and also
served as the station's record and tape library.
Cesar Fiallos Sanchez, an administrador, was there, as was a DJ.
After Cesar showed us around, he asked if would consent to an on
air interview. Well used to those, we of course said yes. When
asked how long we planned to stay in town, we said all afternoon,
so that we would have plenty of time to enjoy the beauty of
Quero. Actually we needed to get back to Ambato, and planned to
take the next bus out.
When I asked Cesar to stamp and sign the verie cards, he was
unable to find the Radio Panamericana rubber stamp. What he found
were ones for the station's previous identities. Thanks to this I
learned a little station history. The MW station used to be known
as Radio Viracocha. At the same time, in the 1970s, the family
that owns it had some relations in Lago Agrio, out in the Napo
area of the Eastern jungles. They decided to open a station
there, which was Radio Amazonas on 3290 khz. As a business
venture, this station failed, so the shortwave transmitter was
brought to Quero for use by Radio Viracocha, which became Radio
Panamericana to reflect its new long distance coverage. Since
then the shortwave has been used rather rarely, so it really
isn't very Panamerican in nature any more!
It still wasn't that late in the afternoon when we arrived back
in Ambato. We knew from our previous visit that Ambato had a lot
of fine music stores, so we spent several hours visiting those,
and ended up buying six folk music albums. The following day we
were in Quito to meet a friend of Theresa's who was flying in to
spend ten days in Ecuador with us before we ended our trip. The
first place the three of us went was back to Cuenca, it being one
of our favorite spots in Ecuador, and one of the best places to
buy handicrafts. A visit to Cuenca also gave me a chance to visit
one final radio station, Ondas Canaris, in Azogues, just a little
north of Cuenca.
Ondas Canaris was only two blocks up the street from the Azogues
bus station and had a huge sign out in front, so I couldn't have
missed it. The station was in the third story of its three story
building. Visiting it it reminded me more of Bolivian stations,
rather than Ecuadorian ones in that there were lots of huge empty
rooms. Only the announcer on duty was present. He promised the
station would return to shortwave soon, and verifed two reports I
had brought along for friends. Finally, he used a screwdriver to
pry open the locked drawers of the manager's desk, searched
through piles of papers, and came up with a 25th anniversary
pennant from 1982 for me. Such an odd way to end my last station
visit, with the DJ pilfering things for me from the manager's
desk!
We splurged and flew back to Quito from Cuenca. Actually the
forty-five minute flight was only $14.00 dollars each and offered
spectacular views of snow-capped mountain peaks. The most scenic
forty-five minutes in a very scenic six and a half months. We
visited nearby Otavalo for the market and Banos for the scenary
and hot mineral baths again. We saw Wanda off at the airport,
which left just two more days for Theresa and I. We made last
minute trips to the shops on Avenida Amazonas in Quito for
souvenirs, and to Avenida Guayaquil for records. The morning of
August 5th we boarded the airliner at Quito's airport. A few last
looks at the Andes and we were over the Pacific heading north.
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Tumbes, Peru is just across the border from Machala, so in
crossing to Machala we were able to visit Theresa's college
friend there one more time. She had moved since we last visited
her and now lived in a one room apartment on the roof of a five
story building. She had the entire roof for her terrace, part of
it being covered over. I strung up an antenna to see how
reception would be. Although she was only three blocks from city
center, it was amazingly quiet, static-wise. Indeed, DX there was
probably better than anyplace else of the entire trip, excluding
places that did not have electric service. I spent most of our
three days in Machala there milking my Sony for all the out-of-
band Peruvians I could get. Who knew when I would have another
chance like that?
The trip to Quero was one of the better bus rides in Ecuador for
the scenary: a dirt road winding through hilly pine forests. It
reminded me somewhat of parts of Honduras. The town itself was
picturesque but nothing special. It was a very small town to have
a radio station. However, that made it very easy to ask
directions - everyone knew where the station was. Although the
front of the station looks very rundown, especially with an old
trash can by the door, the inside was very attractive.
Association of North American Radio Clubs
DXer of the Year for 1995.
