That is minor stuff. If Ecuadorians have a motto, it must be, "Don't sweat the small stuff". They sure don't, and in fact they don't sweat a whole lot of the big stuff from what I can see. Nobody seems to be in a hurry to do anything until you put them behind the wheel of something with an engine, and suddenly every second counts. It took us all a long time to get used to passing practices. Nothing at all to pass a bus on a two lane road on a curve with a solid line and no visibility in the distance. When you get oncoming traffic, they just pull over on the shoulder and let you finish the pass. No problem. The roads in the mountains are so windy that if you waited for a good stretch you never would pass, so any place is a good place. Our driver was really good, and fearless.
The trip was incredible. I will give a quick synopsis, and then over time send out pictures of it in sequence or themes, as time permits me to fool around with the 536 pictures we took. Probably 100 of those should be deleted right away.
Upon leaving Guayaquil, we first passed though some very low areas on the outskirts that are very wet and used for growing rice. I think life there is very hard. People have small houses of bamboo on stilts that are over the water or over land that frequently floods. The first picture shows a portion of what is a neighborhood of houses connected with bamboo walkways. Some places there are just individual houses as in the second picture. They have a bamboo walk coming out to the higher ground by the road. Other places further from the road just have bamboo ladders going down into shallow water and people slog from place to place in rubber boots or bare feet. We saw cattle grazing in fields up to their chests in water. Some of the cattle in the rice area looked like water buffalo or close relatives.
The third picture shows a taxi in the rice area. These three wheel bikes are everywhere, and used for everything imaginable. Debbie and I saw one on the streets in Guayaquil, that was stacked four feet high with flats of eggs completely filling the box from side to side and front to back. I have seen them delivering propane cylinders (most everybody cooks with propane, and the cylinder sits right by the stove), and big jugs of water, since that tap water is not healthy stuff to drink, and all sorts of street vendors use them. After leaving the rice area we moved uphill and saw sugar cane and cocoa orchards and into the mountains where bananas are grown until you get higher up.
Number 4 shows the gardeners who were enlisted to help the temple engineer move the cores for the air conditioning system to the roof of the temple so that they could replace the ones that have been in use for ten years. I built a crate that is 10' long by 6' high and a foot from front to back that the very delicate cores could be placed in, with a hinged front , so they would be protected on the trip up to the roof. There were some minor challenges in getting the job done that seemed to have them stumped, and I had fun working with them to get it done. Did you ever play "Pictionary"? That is my main method of communication with technical things. A decent drawing is universal in interpretation, and technical drawing has been my forte ever since my first course in mechanical drawing in Junior High. Having a good rapport with the temple engineers has good advantage for me. They are willing to lend whatever tools I want whenever I want. That has been a help in getting things done at the Valaros' house.
A brief synopsis of the trip. After the rice fields, two nights in Banos. They have geothermal baths there, One hot, one medium and one that takes its water from a waterfall that cascades down the mountain and is ice cold. Great to plunge in after a hot soak. It was very relaxing after a day of white water rafting on a river that was class 3 & 4 rapids with no flat spots.
Next place was Tena, on the edge of the jungle. We were on a "canoe" ride on the Rio Napo , which is in the Amazonia, for about 6 hours. The canoe was a narrow boat about 25' long made of boards with a 75 horse outboard. The Napo feeds into the Amazon and is on the other side of the Andes range. We spent 2 nights at Tena. The first night there was a parade and celebration. We missed the parade, but the celebration was great. Lots of fireworks and street vendors. The street vendors have barbecues that are made from oil drums cut in half lengthwise, with grills made from rebar, and they cook all sorts of things on them. Some vendors sell fruit juice squeezed on the spot, or coconuts with a hole cut in the top and a straw sticking out. The fireworks were set off maybe 50 feet from the crowds and went off directly overhead. No sweat. The town where we set onto the Napo has a park in the middle and monkeys running loose. They climb on the houses, jump onto power lines and cross them tease the dogs, jump from wires to trees to ground and try to steal stuff from people, and in general cause a lot of entertainment. They are woolly monkeys, like a spider monkey only darker and larger with prehensile tails.
From Tena to Otavala, where there is a huge market in the center of town. We had a hotel room with a balcony overlooking the market. A very nice room for $16 per night. We arrived Friday evening and I thought the proximity to the market would be great. At 3:30 they started setting up. Hand carts and trucks arrived with wares. Pipe stalls were fitted together and tarps slung over. Pipe racks assembled and pipe tables and board shelves. Not much sleeping went on. By 6:30 that evening it was all gone. Then the next wave of vendors and street musicians arrived and the party began until it overlapped with the Sunday market getting set up. No sleep that I can recall. We went to Church on Sunday with the Otovalans. They speak Quichuen, which could have been Spanish or Japanese, for all that I could understand, but they were all in traditional dress and very friendly. I have learned to smile and shake hands in Quichuen and Spanish, and it all works out.
Next, was a couple nights in Quito. We saw the old part of town, and took a Gondola to the top of a mountain that was 13,400 ft above sea level. Actually , after leaving Guayaquil it was steadily up into the Andes. Most of the trip was above 10,000 feet. I didn't mind the altitude, and loved the cool weather.
After leaving Quito we stopped at "The Centre of the world". It is right on the Equator. Some pretty amazing things happen right on the line. We saw a sink full of water drain without swirling right on the Equator. Moved 6' North or South it would swirl clockwise or counterclockwise as the case might be, and strongly at that. It is fairly easy to balance a raw egg on the head of a nail and there are some other interesting things that happen to balance and strength when you are right on the line. Who woulda thunk it? Last stop was Riobamba, and a ride on the famous train (somebody has dubbed it "the gringo train", for a ride around El Nariz de Diaqblo (Devil's Nose) The track has been blasted out of the side of a sheer rock face and it is a long steep drop down to the small river below, with the ends of the ties no more than a couple feet from the edge. There are trestles that are also thrilling. Riders are no longer allowed to sit on the roof. That was a bit of a disappointment, but still, it was a great ride. That was the thrilling part. Better was the ride back to Riobamba through some very remote areas where people live and herd sheep, cattle, lamas and alpacas and raise crops on mountainsides that seem to go straight up but are probably at no greater than 45% angle. Having worked on 12/12 pitched roofs I can appreciate the difficulty. The volcanic soil is very rich and loose and deep and anything grows. Many places where fence posts were driven into the ground they sprout limbs and become a row of living fence posts. As important as the destinations was the the sights along the way. Seeing life in the Andes was interesting. Seeing people herding sheep, llamas and alpacas, driving donkeys laden with sticks or fodder, farming land that seems to go straight up with all sorts of crops, and plowing with oxen, or more often with a wide bladed mattox. That seems to be the most important farming implement. It all seems to be done by indigenas in traditional dress. Their very small houses scattered here and there of brick or wood, with no glass windows running water or electricity, and a flock of chicks running around, and maybe a pig or two, and the rangiest cattle you ever saw that are half mountain goat. There is no such thing as "well marbled" when it comes to beef here. These cattle never get grain. For a brief synopsis this has gotten way too long. Ecuador is incredible. Ecuadorians are incredible. The indigenas are tough survivors who eke out a very hard living under adverse conditions with few if any creature comforts. They have my deepest respect. Pete
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