Ecuador photos Page 1

On the Equator of the World

My sister, Elaine, demonstrates the difficulties of walking a straight line on the equator

Quito from the city cable cars

In a restaurant overlooking the city (Phyllis left, Elaine, right)

My sister (left), who lives in Ecuador, and Theresa (right) work with a number of
indigenous communities like this one that we visited.

Indigenous Children in a village three hours drive south of Quito.

A classroom supplied by the project for students in this mountain village outside of Latacunga.

Yours truly welcomed to the village: my kingdom for one of these cool hats.

We visit the cooking shed of one indigenous family (which used to be their home).

By her cooking fire in the cooking shed.

Andes volcanos shrouded in mist

Volcan Cotopaxi

Outside an abandoned textile mill: monument made by the workers

Close up of monument.  Workers of the world must unite.

Ecuador Photos Page 2

Our train that took us through the Andes to the coast

At the station ready to roll.

Our engine being turned around by hand (four workers pushing)

Phyllis on the train with her cappuccino.

On a tour of a factory-farm that produces only roses by the hundreds of thousands.

At a Rose Plantation that sells roses worldwide: tightly controlled mass production for private profit.

The Indigenous man who still cuts ice from the glacier Chimborazo and sells it in the mountain villages.

          On the road: not quite like Jack Kerouac who wrote: “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion“

The impressive Andes pass by as we ride the train: Volcan Chimborazo.

Rivers in the gullies

Magnificant: sheer slopes and many curves from Riobamba to Bucay. A spectacular ride.

The tracks from the caboose observation car.

Stopping for a break in one of the towns on the way.

Indigenous man and his sheep: properly entirely uninterested in our train.

Ecuador Photos Page 3

Banana Plantation: It’s the same in Costa Rica, bags with pesticide, etc., around the bananas.

Cacoa Plantation: these pods will grow to a good size.

Our tour leader, Marsilo, describes cacoa production to produce a variety
of kinds of chocolate.

The Plantation hacienda: the old ways of the Aristocracy still survive.

Lunch by the Hacienda: we were served by an army of waitresses undoubtedly making top wages.

Our steam engine for the last leg of the journey.

Giant monkey statue in Guayaquil: a city that bills itself as “The New Pearl of the Pacific.”

Guayaquil Church of San Francisco. Every city and village is full of Catholic churches.

Part of the waterfront boardwalk: answer to Rodin’s The Thinker, here we have
the boredom and despair of capitalism.

Part of the waterfront boardwalk: one of the fathers of liberation from Colonialism
to the slavery of capitalism.  We arrived in Guayaquil on “Black Friday” traffic, confusion
and commercialism everywhere.

Waterfront boardwalk stretches a couple of miles. Made to attract tourists and locals alike.

A restaurant ship in the waterway.  We found some good restaurants in downtown Guayaquil,
as well as a million fast food places: McDonalds, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken
– the list from North American corporations goes on and on. The “Pearl of the Pacific,” it appears,
“wears man’s smudge, and shares man’s smell: the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.”