Ecuadorian Towns: Big and Small.

Well we have a lot to cover today. Since our last post we´ve been to 3 towns in Ecuador. We were in Quito for five nights, a small provincial capital called Guaranda for one, and a tiny farming/chocolate making/knitting/cheese making/salami making/salt mining town of about 1000 residents and 5700 wild dogs/farm animals known as Salinas for two nights.

Quito
The city has grown in a mish-mashed sort of way over the years, and is separated into an older district from the colonial days, and a new city from the 1980´s. The old city is spectacularly decorative. We were told that Quito has over 70 "Catholic" churches. I put that in quotes because there is a unique style to the construction of these churches known as the Quito School of Architechture. To the naked eye these churches are decorated the same way you would imagine the churches of Europe are decorated except that in Quito the builders have incorporated images and sculptures from their indigenous beliefs. In other words, a statue of the pope might be accompanied by images of the sun or moon gods! (I´m surprised the Catholic church allowed this) We were fortunate (?) to learn about this style from a man who accosted us as soon as we stepped foot into one of the churches. He took us through that one then to another. We had read that you should tip all guides so we were going to give him a couple of bucks. Apparently that wasn´t enough. He wanted five, which in Ecuador is quite a lot. Then he had the nerve to ask for ten for the "church". Maybe we had stupid stamped across our foreheads but c´mon... Maybe his english wasn´t as good as we thought and he was confusing the word church with his pocket, anyway. The churches were quite nice, and unlike the safe fun that they offer in Canada, we were allowed to scale one of the church towers at least 10 stories into the air, via a series of "ladders," and actually sit (hang on to) the roofing of the highest peak. The 11 o´clock bells tolled while we were up there and we could feel the sound resinate in our chests! (don´t go to Quito if you´re afraid of heights or shoddy construction) Apart from the churches we also visited an active convent full of sisters who have sworn a vow of silence for 23 hours of the day, and who can´t be seen by the public. The convent was also home to a creepy museum that housed a series of paintings depicting things like lambs drinking from a river of blood pouring out of Jesus´wounds, and the disciples´hearts burning out of their chests... weird. The nuns also sold things that they had made through a revolving door which allowed you to speak with them but not see them. Things like hand lotion and magical elixirs to promote hair growth etc. I bought some hair conditioner that I have yet to try but which is pink and smells nice so I can only assume will be the greatest thing ever to touch my locks. Other things we saw and did in Quito include shopping, wandering around, visiting a lot of book stores that included one that was owned by an American guy from Chicago who may or may not have killed someone with a brick at a soccer riot! Although I can see how that might happen. We also went to a friendly soccer game between the Ecuadorian champs from Quito, and the Colombian champs from Medellin. The game ended, Quito lost and the fans decided that it would be a good idea to fight with the mounted police. They threw road barriers, the police charged us with riot gear, people threw rocks, the police fired their guns into the air, and we got the hell out of there! I remind you that this was an exhibition game that meant nothing to the season. Our last full day in Quito we decided to brave the weekend crowds and visit the site of the Equator. After spending a handful of change we finally made it to the Equator. We took pictures, saw a live band accompanied by dancers, and tried to eat Guinnea pig which is a popular dish in Ecuador. After that we visited the real Equator about 240 meters away. The "Fa-quator" was calculated about 200 years ago by some French guys, then about 10 years ago GPS came on the market and they discovered they were a little off. At the real Equator we met a guy named Miguel from Bogota who was down in Quito on business for a couple days. He spoke better English than me so we were able to converse with him quite freely. The next day we left Quito for.....

Guaranda.
We didn´t have a very good start to this city. Our arrival was overshadowed by the fact that it was pouring rain and our camera was stolen on the bus. All our pictures from San Agustin, Popayan, and Quito are gone. After an hour of pouting and a night to think about how careless we were getting with our stuff we stiffened our upper lips, and bought a new camera. 200 bucks later we are pleased to announce that we are the proud parents of a closely guarded Fuji Finepix A500! Its almost as good as our old camera! Anyway Guaranda has about 20,000 inhabitants, and is famous for puttng on a vigirous Carnaval celebration. One week prior to the actual 4 day Carnaval Guaranda was already throwing daily never ending parades with dancers, bands, and some floats with a bunch of guys dressed like, cowboys, indians, cops, and well, the village people blasting "In the Navy" All while the rain came down. That place is a zoo! So after one night in Guaranda we continued on to....

Salinas.
Its a tiny mountain town, where people still take to gawking at Gringos like its going out of style. It was also pouring there, and quite cold due to its whopping altitude of about 3550 meters. (11, 650 feet) The air was thin, but that didn´t stop us from doing a bit of hiking in the rain. The best part about Salinas is that there isn´t really anything to spend money on and we were able to live there for about $8.50 a day. Except for the $2 we spent on chocolate, or the $9 we spent on hand knit goods. Salinas is a town of co-operatives that sell their goods all over the world. We saw some charts indicating a big market in Europe and Japan. Its quite a unique little place, and we really enjoyed our time there. Except for the rain. Did we mention the rain? That it was never-ending? Its true, I´m pretty sure I saw both cats and dogs falling from the sky.

So that has been the last 8ish days of our travels. We don´t have photos but we´re emailing people we´ve met along the way to see if they have photos they can send us, and we hope that with some luck and kindness we can recover some important ones. We´ve already recieved one from Miguel de Bogota, but the computer we are using is junk and won´t let us post it, maybe next time. We are currently in Riobamba and enjoying every minute of it!

Ciao!
Hasta luego

oh and ps. we realized yesterday that our iPod is gone as well...and Chris´ knife, and my sunglasses which had broken but hey....