Ecuador part 2

Growing up, I learned a little about the nations of the world, mostly from school and a bit from other sources like the news.  Sometimes it would spark me into learning more, but it has always been just surface stuff.  Population size, economic base, trading partners, language(s) spoken, type of government and things like that.  But there are limits on what you find out, limits on where your mind takes you.  I had always thought of Ecuador as a tropical country, and gave little thought as to its climate.  Now that I am here, the place is a bit of a surprise.  Most of the people here live not on the coastal areas, but inland.  The places where the elevation makes for a cooler climate and there is little seasonal variation in temperature.

The cities  have visited, Quito, Lago Agrio, Banos and now Cuenca have all been nice in terms of climate, Lago Agrio was warm for me and fairly humid, but not to the point where air conditioning was a must, merely very nice.  Quito was too high, the 9,000+ feet made walking around a bit of a struggle.

Cuenca has been very nice and I quite enjoy getting lost in the local areas.  Standing in line at an icecream shop, the pleasant lady behind me asked me 'Are you lost?  Gringos never come to this area!'  Upon reflection, I realized I had not seen another obvious tourist in over three hours.  I had just been wandering through a section of town full of old architecture and fascinated by the number of truly small shops and how the were clustered.  Computer stores, women's clothing, men's clothing and tailors.  Auto parts made up about four blocks, shop after shop that had a specialty, all small, all seeming to be ten feet wide and disappearing back to stretch beyond what I could see in the limited light.  Shops that sold small motorized equipment, generators, lawn tractors and chainsaws were all clustered into one block.  A financial district, with small banks and large ones, government offices and lawyers offices with small hole in the wall snack shops and cafes wedged in between.

Even thinking back to how the shops were in the city I grew up in in the 70's, the shops here are tiny things, each surviving in its own niche in the economy of the city.  One of the major differences between Latin America and North America is the sheer number of tiendas here, the small places that sell drinks and snacks are everywhere.  In the older parts of town where foot traffic is heaviest the shops are mostly small ones and there is at least 2 tiendas per block.  Usually more.  It is rare that there is more than one large store per block, and for the most part malls are only on the outskirts of the cities and towns.

I am sure that no one in this town knows more than 10% of who sells what and where.  Yet everyone will know at least one place to get what they are looking for, be it a new belt, shoes or radiator, or at the very least the block where to find such shops.

And for all that there is a lot of vehicle traffic, there are far more who walk of take the bus.  The density of the shops and building lends itself well to ditching your car and walking, the narrowness of the streets and lack of parking also pressure you into avoiding taking your own car, and although there are more motorbikes than in Canada/US, there are not as many as in a lot of other places I have been.  Bicycles also seem few in number, even less than in Quito where the elevation is a drag on physical exertion.

Last up are two pictures, the first taken on the bus between Ambato and Cuenca showing a bit of how densely the country is populated, even in the more rugged rural areas, and one showing the new construction happening behind an old church.