No Cangrejo

[ErikW]

We were told the Red Crab was a good seafood place in Guayaquil. I was suspicious of the name and looked it up in the phonebook (under "Restaurantes - Mariscos y Pescados"). I figured it had to be Something-Roja. Nope, it was Red Crab.

The Reno contingent (me, ong45, Dennis) met shred in the lobby and piled into a taxi. "Restaurante Red Crab, por favor." The driver looked puzzled and mumbled something. We repeated "Red Crab." He looked puzzled and mentioned an address, I think. It didn't sound like the address in the phone book but we said, "Si, Red Crab."

When we got there, there was no "Red Crab" sign, but there was a big statute of a crab out front. Close enough. Also out front was the obligatory armed security guard. Every place of business in Guayaquil has at least one carrying at least a revolver. (The casino has multiple guards with long-barrel pistol-grip shotguns.) This place had a tiny little guy without a uniform, but with a sawed-off-on-both-ends, 20 gauge single-shot that looked like it had spent a month at the bottom of the Guayas river.

Inside, it looked like a Long John Silvers. We took a seat near the window, where I would have a great view of the world's shortest gunfight if something went down with the guard. The waiter (we saw no waitresses in Guayaquil) gave us our menus. shred ordered a Pilsener, if I recall correctly, but had to settle for a Club, despite the Pilsener neon sign. The menu was limited pretty much to camaron, cangrejo, langosto, and langostino. The menu not-so-helpfully included pidgin English translations.

Dennis and ong45 ordered langostino dishes at $19.90, double the next-highest-priced dish. I tried to order the cangrejo especial, crab out of the shell. "No," the waiter explained, "no hay." Well, they're out of that dish, I'll try the out-of-shell crab in ajillo sauce, or whatever. "No, no cangrejo." The exasperated waiter went back to the kitchen and returned with a crab on a platter. He then made drumming motions over the crab. Oh, I get it, there's no out of shell crab, we can only get it in the shell. I picked another crangrejo dish. "!No, no cangrejo!" Well, shjt. ?No tenemos cangrejo? ?No hay ninguno? "Si, no cangrejo." Finally, my pidgin Spanish skills determined there was no crab at the crab restaurant! I ordered camarones.

Not soon after we ordered, we noticed a party of gringos dining on crab. They were there before us and they must have ordered the last of it. But then we noticed some locals donning bibs and cracking crab. They definately came in after us. WTF? Another party feasted upon cangrejo. ?Que pasa?

shred noticed a nice little gecko on the wall. Nice decor. We went back outside where the guard was hanging out with an old man. We asked the guard to hail us a taxi. (This takes all of one word: taxi.) He wanted to know where we were going, we said the Sheraton. (By then we had learned not to say Sheraton, but Sher-ah-tohn with the r rolled as best we could. Otherwise the taxi drivers couldn't figure out our destination. I shjt you not.) The guard did a little thinking and then handed his shotgun over to the old man and headed over to some parked cars. He got in one and backed up to us. The restaurant guard was now our taxi driver.

He took some alleys and less-used roads and some among us got a little worried. Not me, as I figure he would still have his shotgun if he were up to no good. And it seemed we were going in the right direction. His route got us back to the Sheraton in about 1/4 of the distance the taxi driver took to get us there. But it wasn't a rip-off, as not even the more official taxis have meters. A trip is $3-5 and that's that. "They could save a lot of money by not painting lane markers on the roads," someone observed of local driving habits.

Back at the Sher-ah-tohn, I ran into Frank, one of the crab-eating Canadians. He explained a specific species of crab was out of season, but another was available. Ah, so that's what the waiter meant by the drumming motions. Yeah, whatever.

Edited September 2, 2005 by Erik Warren

[jessej]

So i take it, you didn't catch any crabs

[shred]

So i take it, you didn't catch any crabs    

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That would have been his encounter with the English-speaking "service industry" worker and is a whole nother story that regrettably I have no film of.

[Pierruiggi]

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!! I laughed all the way thorugh that story!!!

Ah...... the marvels of human miscommunication coupled with the marvels of the 3rd world. (No offense, I live in the 3rd world too)

I have this weird phobia, a fear of not making myself understood, and also, not understanding others. So if I'd been in your collective shoes, it would've been almost traumatizing.

And believe me, I've witnessed that stranged WTF? look on "gringos" when confronted with local everyday life. Heck, sometimes I make that WTF? face myself! (gringo here is used as a general slang for nearly every foreigner coming from a 1st world country, such as north america and western europe, spanish and italians being the exceptions, they have their own slang)

Also, you reminded me of a very weird day I had with a friend of mine. We went to a pizzeria, they had no pizza. He (my friend) needed a mouse pad, we went to a computer store, they had no mousepads. I wanted to do some shooting... Guess what the gunstore didn't had? Ammo. My friend's car was running out of gas... THE FREAKING GAS STATION HAD NO GAS!!! What in the flying F was going on???

We just called it a day and that was it. Everything was "back to normal" the next day.

I guess the planets must have been aligned in a weird way that day or something.....

[Flexmoney]

There may be a shopping center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia know as the "Camel Mall".

The cab driver outside the compound doesn't know it as such. But, his English is good enough to understand camel. Thinking that is what you want (what...no zoo) he will take you to see a camel.

Amazing how quick the edge of the city turns into no(few)-man's-land.

Sobering situation.

[ErikW]

Any Adam Corolla (Loveline) fans? I can just imagine him singing, "No, no, NO cangrejo! You can't have. No cangrejo!"