Quito

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 agencies… Another world compared to the old city (ciudad vieja). In the middle of all this glamour, it is common to see on the evening children and women looking for food in garbage trays.

The economy in Ecuador has gotten worse. The total irresponsibility of the monetary and fiscal politics of the last years made the country not able to keep their currency steady and lead to the dolarization in the beginning of 2000. According to the Ecuadorians, since the currency chance, the prices have gone up and the poor people had become even poorer.

Here everything is paid and received with American dollars. Imagine the indigenous population that speaks Quechua and have Spanish as their second language having to buy their food with a currency written in English! I believe this time the government went too far…