Categoria / Category Ecuador 2001

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  03/05/2001  One comment

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  01/05/2001  No comments

I woke up early to see the May Day parade. The city had stopped, there was not even buses circulating. I caught a taxi to the old town to wait for the parade. Arriving there I realized that there was police all over the place. All the streets that led to the Plaza Grande (where the Government building is) were closed with barricades of policemen. They did not allow anyone to pass through. It could feel a certain tension in the air.

I went to the parade street. It was very organized. It looked like that all the crowds were there represented: farmers, students, laborers, children, indigenous… It was like a carnival, it passed by groups with flags, uniforms, bands, costumes… The public was squeezed on the sidewalks attending the manifestants to pass. It seemed a party day, everybody was outside. There were ice-cream, sodas, food and flag sellers…

The parade ends up in the Plaza San Domingo, three blocks away of Plaza Grande...

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  29/04/2001  No comments

The Mitad del Mundo city is about 15km away from Quito. It is the landmark of latitude zero. Very small, it looks like a hole surrounded by mountains. On Sundays it is crowded with tourists, the great majority is local tourists who go to visit the monument, the museum and walk around the place. Sometimes there are music and dance performances. Unfortunately I couldn’t see it because the performance was cancelled due to the rain.

Some people say that the monument is not on latitude zero. They say the calculus of the location is wrong, but once there, people say that the equator line marked in the ground is correct. Inside of the tower there is an ethnographic museum. People go up by elevator and go down by stairs seeing an exhibition about the indigenous culture of Ecuador. The museum is small but well organized. There are maps of each region and models showing the clothing of each tribe...

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  28/04/2001  One comment

About 95 km away from Quito, Otavalo is one of the main open markets in Ecuador. It has been there for hundreds of years, even before the Spanish arrived. It is from the pre-Colombian period, when the indigenous people from the coast came to exchange merchandises with the Andean people. The best day to visit the market is on Saturday, when the biggest merchandises exchange happens. The streets get crowded with people and tents.

Nowadays the market is very popular among the tourists. There is a area of handcraft envisioned towards them. It is really big, I had never seen anything like this. Blocks and blocks full of tents selling bags, sweaters, bracelets, objects in wood, carpets, hats and anything else you could imagine. Everything is very colored and really well done. I wish I could take everything, the problem would be to carry it in the backpack for the next 4 months…
Something that caught my attention in the market was the beauty of the Ecuadorian indigenous women...

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  26/04/2001  No comments

I woke up early to go to the Cotopaxi Volcano. This made me feel a little bit anxious. I had been in an altitude of 2800m above see level for only two days and in two hours I would go up to a height of 4800m. I’ve never had been to an altitude like that before.

I went with a driver and two English guys, a tour arranged by a hotel. To get there was easy, as we left early we did not catch too much traffic. At 3800m of altitude there was a museum that shows to the visitors a little of the volcano history. At 4500m we stop in a sort of parking lot. There we got off the car and had to walk to the refuge (at 4800m). It was very cold, the wind was strong and snow falling. The way up was steep and slippery (it reminded me the volcanoes in Indonesia). After the first the 20 steps I was already tired, I had to stop. My heart was beating very strongly, for the first time I felt the effects of the thin air.

The way up was hard to me. I would go up a little and stop to rest...

In America, Ecuador 2001 On  23/04/2001  One comment

My flight came from Bogota. The trip was pretty! In the middle of the whiteness of the clouds I could see the top of a mountain. Now in Ecuador I could see another mountaintop. I could realize how high are the Andes in these latitudes. Quito is 2800 meters above the see level. In the city, to any side you look at, you can see mountains. It is great, I feel a relief when I can see that the city has end (in contrast to São Paulo that if looses itself in the horizon).

With its antique European architecture, the old center (ciudad vieja) is the main attraction of the city, full of centennial churches and it is crowded with street sellers. The indigenous traces were constant on their faces. The “Plazas” is the meeting point for the old people, there they sit down and observe the world to pass around them. It is easy to see children playing all over the place.

The new city, where all the tourists are, is a more modern town, full of cafes, restaurants, art craft stores and travel agen...