Into Peru

We left Ecuador ahead of schedule. Flew to Loja in southern Ecuador , and stayed one night instead of two. Power cuts in Ecuador didn´t help. Waiting aroud 2 hrs at bus station to book ticketsbecause of lack of power... wandering in unlit streets geting lost, a bit.
Bus from Loja in Ecuador to Piura first major city in Peru . 8 hr bus trip . First part through incredible mountains- mountain passes in Ecuador. Then down to the desert. at the last stop in Ecuador the temperature had climbed to 40 degrees. Stopped overnight in Piura. Seeing incredible poverty on the way and fantastic fruit and rice growing . Piura centre city quite rich contrast to the areas outside the city. Decided to bypass Chiclayo and go straight to Trujillo, a big city in northern Peru. Centre of the city is beautiful with old and colourful colonial buildings

Booked hotel in Huanchaco 14 km north of city just past the airport. A Beach resort. Staying in the best hotel in town, with own swimming pool, and enclosed garden. Very relaxing. The town is in the desert.

The beach is fascinating. Traditional craft built with reeds are in daily use a s a fishing craft. By accident came across the reed beds , and the reed drying operation. got talking to a fisherman who explained the different types and sizes of reed used, ¨las madres¨ the long ones and ¨los hijos¨ the short ones used for different parts of the boat. These boats a genuine working fishing boats. Overall length is about 3 mts and about 1mt wide at the back They use a split bamboo 2 mt long ans the paddle . The oarsman- fisherman kneels while paddling . See pics above

//ªªªThor Hyerdal where are you now did the Kontiki sink in the end it was a boat made of these reedsºº ªª yes the keyboard is funnyªª . /// quality of photos not great because of a grain of sand BUT I found a shop in Trujillo , within hours had stripped it down , replace a damaged cog , cleaned it , and had it back in working order. What have we lost -- here they still believe in repairing things!!! ///

Next walking on the beach we saw the crabs- small pink- orange running around- then noticed that they and the seagulls were picking something from under the sand as the surf washed over , not sure what it was , but it was either turtle eggs or some sort of baby cuttlefish.

Will put up pics later

Food delicious fresh fruit,, fish causing ¨deposiciones liquidos¨ requiring toilet roll in back pocket but not too serious, the matter is under control!

Great foods in Quito

Currently there are power cuts in Ecuador. Why? Not enough rain! We are dependant on hydro-electric power and there has been very little rain. Pictures on the papers of dams with no water behind them. Security warnings are part of everyday life in Quito, but when there is a blackout put on your chastity belt, lock the door and cover your head with the blankets. Apart from that there are some great foods here and some that push the boundaries for westerners .

Great foods in Quito

Cachos.. first go to the market or street vendor and buy a bag, say 1 kg, of white beetles. They are alive and crawling over each other. The are only available at the end of October , start of November, after heavy rain. The smell is strong, think of almond essence with an overtone of stewing rabbit. Next decapitate each and pluck off its wings. Soak in salted water for 24 hrs.. Strain. In a lightly oiled pan fry very hot for 5 min, add water and stew for 2 mins. Meanwhile prepare and roast “popcorn” . When water has evaporated serve with prepared corn. Eat with fingers. The flavour is nutty and the texture crunchy. It is a dish prized by the few and hated by many. Well worth the experience
Moracho. Buy your moracho corn in the local corn supplier, (don’t confuse it with the 79 other types of corn available, particularly the moracho fed to chickens). Stew with an equal volume of milk and water. Add cinnamon and sugar to taste. Serve in a mug and hey presto! You have something that tastes like across between rice pudding and porridge, great for a cold morning in the Andes!
Humitas. The best cooks prepare at home but the vulgar masses listen for the Humita woman’s car horn to honk, and buy from the cardboard box in the back of the van. What is it? A special maize flour flavoured with spices, and sometimes sugar, plenty of oil, pounded for hours on end , All wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed for hours. Quite tasty, eaten as a snack or the main part of the evening collation. But it is just another addition to the long list of carbohydrates.
Colada Modada y Guagua de Pan This is a traditional food for All Saints/Souls day. The Morada refers to the colour—purple- It is a thick fruity” soup” made with dark fruits—blackberries, blackcurrants and others unknown. It is strained to takeout the seeds etc and fruit chunks added mainly pineapple(I think). It is served with Guagua de pan. Guagua is the qitchua word for baby. The bread is a plain bread shaped into the shapes of babies and decorated with a coloured “plastercine”. It is a very tasty warming supper dish. Don’t make the mistake of buying the bread shaped like camels, horses, llamas, etc, these are sold from the same stands but are purely decorative. I assume you just put them with the other junk in the house to collect dust
Bread Bread Bread to the power of n. The bread shops ,(every 4th shop) outdo each other in advertising how many types of bread they have at 10 cents. Most of the bread is sweet in some manner. The frequency of bread and other carbohydrates does not help the digestive system—the less said the better.
Cuy.. Guinea pig—I have not had the pleasure yet. But Janio , the 16 yr old in the house refuses to eat it on the grounds that he does not eat "rats"!
Cuero , tripa.y pata de gallina In Santa Isabel, I declined the lunch of pig skin and tripe. Only once have I had the pleasure of Cuero the pig skin—all texture and fat and tripe(beef tripe) did appear on one dinner plate—a texture that Goodyear would be proud of.. If you are so inclined you can buy the cuero from the wandering vendors with the bag of cuero over the shoulder. 95% of soups provide an endearing surprise in the bottom of the soup plate—a hen’s foot. If you are unlucky and don´t get the hen´s foot some other unidentified offal will appear. All these things add flavour and if you can overcome your western sensibilities the soups can be quite nice.


Nex time -- Random thoughts and impressions

Chainsaw man inter alia

Chainsaw man
You have to be prepared for surprises in Quito—I already mentioned the man juggling the flaming torches in the middle of the traffic.---
-----Think a crowded Luas tram or a crowded tube in London
-----the doors are closing
–----- Man shouts----- –“ Wait wait Let me in”
—---doors open man steps in holding a chainsaw aloft.
Now live chickens and geese I accept are part of everyday life on the transport system, but chainsaws?
Now is that normal or am I just over-sensitive?
Why do the words Texas and massacre spring to mind?

Markets
Sometimes you can judge children harshly. Maria is the worst behaved child in the market in Sangolqui. When the others are singing she shouts, when the others are colouring she throws the ball. If you hug her, (no that is not against the law!), you feel a skeleton. As I was bringing Maria back to her market stall Anita, the social worker , told me the story.—She effectively has no parents, they are both drug addicts, and she comes to work in the market with her granny. Maria is seven with the body of a small four-year old.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Danny, who runs the activities for the children in the market , is fantastic with the kids, not simply amusing them but providing learning through play,eg a pre-writing skill –exact manipulation with the finger and thumb—stringing pasta pieces – Jonathan’s joy when he succeeded in stringing two pasta pieces. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent)
In the markets and in the homework club we weighed and measured all the children. 80% are under weight for their age. (Now the standard we compared to may not be totally appropriate for Ecuador, but it shows the general trend) That’s the easy part—doing something about it is the hard part. At the same time many of the children are sucking candy the time, but not proper nutrition, yet there is such a wealth of fruit and veg in the markets. You can see it in the children, so many are small and puny.


Homework Club
The homework club in Santa Isabel has many challenges but it too has its lighter moments. Doing the “times tables” with a group I asked Carlos (he is bright at everything) to be the teacher and lead the rest through one of the tables. He not only led them through one of the tables but put on an act of being an old and cranky teacher, lifting the whole exercise to the level of fun.
I am no educationalist but some of the methods employed I think may not be good for the child’s self confidence. – There is a multiplication to be done on the board, say 784x49,-- the teacher runs a game of chance - an “eenie, meenie, minie, moe” –type –so some unfortunate has to do the sum on the blackboard in front of his or her peers, who can be unkind at times. For me memories of failure doing a geometry theorem on the blackboard for Fr. Scully flooded back. . Frequently the process of doing homework seems quite futile. Today Domingo had about fifteen statements such as:
+ + (the formula wont reproduce here) but it is like the square root of ((x-1)squared /36 )+square root of((x+3)squared /25 ) to reduce to the simplest form, I’m sure such an exercise has its value, but not when the child doesn’t know the first thing about square roots or squaring functions, but the priority was to get fifteen correct answers on the page so that he wouldn’t get a bad mark, so his sister and another person worked furiously so he could copy down the solutions.. Frequently the English exercises are approached in the same manner—just get the answer on the on the page, regardless of understanding or ability to actually say the sentence. There seems to be no attempt in the English teaching to develop oral ability. We try do some teaching through simple songs—all suggestions welcome of songs and simple activities/games to teach English ages 6 to 12 with practically nil oral ability in Englosh.

The tourist things—Quito

9 Oct 2009
Capilla del Hombre
Oswaldo Guayasamin is Ecuador’s most famous artist. He was from an ordinary market family, but spent his time drawing. One of the Rockefellers bought a work in the market ,this was not a disadvantage. He spent a lot of his life outside Ecuador, much in Cuba. There are many photos of him and Fidel.
Much of his work is about the suffering of the poor of S America, particularly the indigenous peoples. The best known and most published works feature faces and hands . The faces are frequently distorted with pleading, exaggerated but haunting eyes and begging boney hands. Many also show a great tenderness despite the poverty. Every tourist shop and stall has copies of his best known works many of which are in the Capilla.
He designed and built the Capilla in the grounds of his house in Bellavista in northern Quito overlooking the city and with views over to Volcan Pichincha. He also has umpteen paintings of the volcano which dominates Quito. La Capilla is about 50x50mt on two floors, with central dome.The entrance hall is dominated by his painting , in eight panels ,of The Mutilated—in remembrance of the Spanish Civil War. Another wall is devoted to his famous drawings of the poor. Downstairs there are two sculptures paying homage to the Inca traditions and another major oeuvre the “condor and the bull”. One quote on the wall is “ No llore porque no tenÍa zapatos hasta que vi un niño que no tenÍa pie” (Hope I have my Spanish correct) Don’t cry because you hadn’t shoes when you see a child who had no feet
It was well worth the visit ,if only to see the drawings of the downtrodden—powerful,moving (Mind you the people there were well heeled!)

See

http://images.google.com/images?hl=es&q=capilla+del+hombre&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=06TTSpaLPISMtgfS_JX2Aw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBYQsAQwAw

10 Oct 09
Otavalo Market
As the condor flies Otavalo is about 75 miles from Quito. I left my house at 10.00 and arrived by bus at 14.00. Barrio Villaflora to La Marin bus station, metrobus to La Ofelia bus station in the north of the city , bus to Carcelen Alto interprovincial bus station still in northern Quito then two hour bus journey to Otavalo (having paid my $0.25 bus station tax and fare of $2.00).
Journey is through the mountains with farming land in the valleys. On the way you can see several snow-clad volcanoes. In Otavalo you arrive at the normal chaotic bus station . Walk about 10 mins into the city centre, but hey! The footpaths are not all broken, they are tiled and relatively smooth, unlike Quito. You come to a street, with street furniture, benches, decorated lampposts and they are not vandalized and full of graffiti—what’s going on?
Then you come to the market. The area is probably about the size of St Stephen’s green . All the streets leading to the central market are also full of stalls. There is no traffic, no buses belching black fumes, no camionets honking, no music blaring from every second stall, on the approach streets all the stalls are numbered and constructed in a standard, regulated manner---- This can’t be Ecuador.
The stallholders, mostly women , 90% of whom are in traditional costume, from the youngest to the oldest. See photographs. Many of the men are in part of their costume—beige felt hat, blue poncho, mid calf white pants and sandals. Few have the poncho, but you do see it. Available in the stalls are; woven tapestries showing stylized Andean scenes, ponchos, knitwear of every kind, traditional costume particularly for the ladies, musical instruments many flutes and pipes of pan, one zillion copies of Guayasamin pictures, and another school of naive native art plus the cottage by the stream school, and also some very different original art. Then there are knick-knacks, belts, woven bags, woolly alpaca toys. There are one or two stalls with different, original clothing.
When you have had your fill of the craft market there is the food market with fruit & veg known and unknown and the butchers’ shops with the meat hanging outside . There is an amazing variety of grains, milled and unmilled—maize comes in so many shapes, sizes and colours and the great thing about it is that you can have maize in some form at every meal, provided of course that you have rice and potatoes on the same plate! I missed the animal market ,but just got the tail end where there were several cages of pups for sale . They looked to be a couple of weeks old at most.
Compared to Quito I felt safe in Otavalo, I still had all the vitals tightly secured. And they all went home tired but happy.

11 Oct09
Mitad del Mundo.
Ecuador gets its name from the ………….. yes you guessed it.
In 1736 Charles-Marie de La Condamine made his measurements here showing where the equatorial line was. His measurements also gave rise to the metric system. (Thank you Lonely Planet). What’s there—a dirty great monument –a line in the ground –several scientific exhibits- a lot of tourist shops,( a bit like Bunratty on the equator) –a cold wind coming down from a nearby volcano—dust in the air from the nearby quarries. There is however a great display of folkloric dance and some lovely Ecuadorian music.
Worth the visit? Just about, but takes a lot of work to get there from southern Quito, the accident on the motorway didn’t help. When the carriageway going north was blocked all traffic proceeded to the wrong side preventing anything from moving in any direction, and people got out of every car and bus to see the blood

Latest from Quito

To day is a national holiday, the freedom of the city of Guaquil in the south 9 October, so there are streets named 9 October. Ther are also streets named-- 18 Dec, 10 Aug, 24 May and any other random date you wish to mention. I think they are mostly commerating the liberation, from the Spanish, of each city in the country. The fight for freedom started in earnest in 1809 and continued until 1822 when Simon Bolivar added his weight to the freedom fight. The streets are named also after all the heros of the fight for independence, Mariscal Sucre, Olmeada, Montafur etc etc.
The other big event is Ecuador vs Paraguay in a World Cup qualifier to morrow,, and the tension is building up( May also be part of the reason for bringing the army onto the streets!)
The government has put in place measures to allow the army take to the streets to combat crime! I have only seen the army once in action at a roadblock, but the reality of street crime has come a little closer to one of our group.

In the UBECI world yesterday I was giving the kids in St Isabel school an introduction to Ireland. Questions.. "is it in Ney york? " "is it in Africa" etc, but I think they enjoyed it and perhaps even now know it is in Europe, wherever that is-- oh yes that´s in Spain because Tio Miguel is there-- Many , many have relations in Spain.

Measuring height and weight of all children. Their BMI for 80% is below the norm, (but is the norm appropriate for Ecuador?). Next is to move to nutrition. The diet here for the children is a combination of carbohydrates and ice cream or other sweet pacifiers.

News from Quito

The Trole can be amazingly crowded, up very close and very personal, but all the same there is almost never a smell of BO. In the streets however there is regularly a waft of urine. The gentlemen of Ecuador have no qualms about peeing in public, The stray dogs have even fewer qualms about their functions, both digestive and amorous. Even the dogs are exploited-- you regularly see people holding cute little puppies for sale in the street "Mami buy me a puppy -- I want to cuddle him "
In the markets we are now going to some of the mothers talking about "la gripe" swine flu , with the help of the UBECI staff, and talking about disinfecting their hands with alcohol, which UBECI supplies , when they can´t get to a place where there is water and soap. It´s a delicate balance to avoid being patronising at the same time as getting a hygiene message across. Some of these ladies leave their house at 5.00am and dont´t get back till 10.00 pm. I have 4 particular ladies to talk to each Thursday in Sangoiqui (spelling?) market, all with the help of UBECI staff.

This afternoon I went with Danny, one of the UBECI staff, searching for particular chicos who sell candy or mandarins near one shopping centre. Didn´t find them so went to another Centro Commercial where we sat on the entrance steps and played Xs and Os , then Chinese sticks with three shoe shine boys. Gave them an hour of light relief f from their daily grind. This is a new programme started three weeks ago with these child labourers. Today was the first time they brought a gringo along. When I meet such kids in a park or plaza I recoil and dismiss instantly for fear I´ll be robbed , mugged, infected, etc But when I sat with them, Juan-Carlos, Luis and Javier they are ordinary kids who enjoy playing, yes their hands are black, yes their tracksuit and jumpers are stained and old and torn, but they are children between 8 and 12 . (Could only understand about every 100th word , but so what?)

Quito by night

This is Grand Plaza Sat night -- look quite peaceful on the outside you can´t see the hassel going on all around, but has it´s own charm