Camping

When I go to the states, the trip practically pays for itself through my side job : Courier.

Goods are expensive in Ecuador. Well, imported goods and electronics. You can't find an ipod here for less than twice retail in the US. A Nintendo Wii is $600. The cheapest, ugliest, synthetic sweaters cost $10, only a little bit less than what you would pay for post Christmas cashmere. Granted, food and services are cheap. Lunch is $2, which includes soup, meat, rice, juice, and dessert. A haircut is $5.

I digress. When I was last home I brought back, among other things, a tent and an air mattress for Carlos. As I mentioned in a previous post, he goes camping for work. Therefore it is worth investing in a Thermarest since he will be more productive the next day than if he slept on a half inch of foam.

So over the weekend we decided to camp in his parents yard. We wanted to test out his new tent and air mattress (I slept on the half inch of foam). The day was beautiful. We had a nice lunch, some wine, read a bit, napped in the tent, watched the sunset, saw the starts, etc. Beautiful day. Of course, you know what that means...rain.

It rained all night. A little got into our tent. Not much, but it was damp. It was just enough to keep me up all night, trying to protect the books. Carlos slept through it. I guess the air mattress was that good.

Before bed we were talking a bit. I was telling him stories of my trip around the world and how we would sometimes pitch our tent in the middle of nowhere and keep food in out tents and never really worried about animals or strangers (that was dumb, I know that now in hindsight). He was surprised. He said that when he was camping in the Andes for his thesis, one night they heard a puma. They were scared, but he wasn't as worried about animals as he was about people. Especially the small man with a big penis.

Wait a minute. I had thought he would be worried about land owners attacking him for being on their land or getting robbed. But a small man with a big penis? That's a myth, right? Oh! Is he related to the tokoloshe?

Now it was Carlos's turn to be confused. I explained that my parents (and aunt and uncle) had told me and my siblings (just this past year) about mythical African creature that has a penis so long that he throws it over his shoulder. I couldn't remember anything else about him.

Carlos thought he sounded similar, but that night he didn't really explain more about the chuzalongo. I googled him the next day and found that sometimes unwed mothers claim to have become pregnant by him. Carlos then shared some other variations the next day, like he is a hairy creature and his penis is wrapped around his body like a boa.

Does anyone know of more "small men with big penis" myths?