Temple Turf

Just to put the temple in context, I have included some shots of the surrounding neighborhood. Ten years ago, some people in the area were building houses on savings. The country switched from the sucre to the US dollar as its currency. The savings that were to complete these houses were wiped out. The sucre became valueless. Work on these houses stopped then and never resumed. The current economic difficulties are impacting Ecuador as well, as exports of flowers, fruit, and the small amount of oil they sell has been cut back. Peru stole most of their oil patch.

This picture shows a house that actually has a family with several kids living on the first floor. Hammocks are slung for beds. They share the space with a small flock of chickens. The third picture shows a very nice house on the top of the hill. It might be a condo, with unfinished houses in the foreground. There are several nice houses in the area, that people were fortunate enough to complete before the change. The bottom one is showing an outdoor furniture refinishing business. The cars were parked for safe keeping off the street by neighbors on New Years eve. New years eve is wild. More on that later.

Lots of contrast in this area. Dirt poor to wealthy living side by side. Other areas of the city seem to have one or the other . Pete