FEAR & LOATHING IN QUITO

Side note: (Nothing like beginning an entry with a side note) I have to apologize for slacking so much on this blog. What you are about to read or skim or pretend to read actually happened nearly two weeks ago. And yes, I could have acted as though it occurred fifteen minutes ago but I chose the honest route instead. Cast it into stone: I am a slacker with this blog, at least for now.

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Anyways:

One night in Quito my buddy Grant and I, feeling a bit too tired to hit the bars and clubs but too awake for sleep chose to stroll into a casino. The appropriately named “Casino Win” lies in the middle of the bar district of New Town in Quito and seems to be passed over by most patrons of the night scene whenever I ‘ve looked inside. The same was true that night.

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Save for a few other souls at a blackjack table we were the lone customers, definitely the only gringos. The casino was cramped with blackjack and poker tables and men in suits looking smug and serious. Overwhelming flourescent light made the place seem smaller that it was, and certainly added to its comical appeal. The place resembled a casino you’d see on a cruise boat or maybe in a truck stop outside Reno. If the cramped space and shabby lighting display wasn’t enough to ease the soul, the staff more than made up for any infirmities in the decor. The casino was teeming with suits and ties looming, glaring, nodding as if they were at the helm of a major Vegas casino. Any slight air of significance they bring to the casino is elimated at once when one caught sight of the dealers. All the dealers were adorned with little brimmed hats with neon polka-dots covering them. Class is in session.

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Though I have never considered myself a high roller at a casino, we were in fact at the high stakes table. Two dollars a hand minimum. Heavy shit, man. A few hands into balckjack and I realized how the fabulous “Casino Win” gots its name. The staff was quick with a drink, and the dealer was even quicker to send my nineteen and twenty hands to defeat. The feeling of losing to a small man in a neon polka-dot hat is not one that fills me with pride. It’s like playing basketball and losing to the guy who shows up in jeans. Thoughout the game there were at least a dozen times when the dealer showed a five or six and I failed to cash in on about ten of them. In most of those cases the dealer ended up with twenty, nineteen, and even twenty-one a few times. I even caught the dealer do a small fist pump when he flipped a four on his sixteen hand. True professional. I really did, and still do when I think about it now, despise the thought of losing to that little flourescent shit-box of a casino.

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But we had to laugh. We had to rely on our sense of humor to get us though. Afterall, it is quite depressing knowing that we gave this hapless little joint more funding for more stupid hats and abrasive lighting. And we really didn’t lose that much money. We took a quick tour downstairs where some band was setting up in a tiny alcove between stalls of slot machines. A few stalls over drunk local women sat smoking butts and feeding the one penny machines like mindless animals in a science experiment. Staff seemed oblivious to our laughing and covert picture taking, they were busy strolling around looking important in a place that makes it very hard to look important.