The Old and the New

If you were a street cleaner like this woman you would earn $320 per month. The average person takes home $700 - 800.









Food and lodging are affordable, even inexpensive. But most products such as televisions (and there are lots for sale) are very expensive.

Visiting a country in transition is both fun and challenging. You have the eyes of a child where for the new and different.You have a sense of wonder. But it's hard to get a fix on things. When we first arrived in Cuenca I thought the whole city was ancient like the historic centre.

But then we took a taxi to a theatre showing a Vive el Cine festival movie. What a surprise to tumble out of the taxi and into a shining indoor mall nicer than the Eaton Centre.









So the old and new exist together comfortably.






























Ecudorian history has been convoluted and often violent. It explains why art over the last 30 or 40 years depicts darkness and the quest for change. You often see the word 'revolution' woven in somewhere.








Here's what has been going on over the last 1000 odd years. Around 1000 CE, tribes in the north formed a kingdom which was absorbed into Inca Empire and then conquered in 1532. The Spaniards thrived by exploiting the Indians who mostly died from European diseases anyway. The Spaniards carted away all the Incan temple gold and generally made life misable for the indiginous who survived.

But people can be supressed for only so long. The first revolt against Spain happened in the early 1800s. Then Ecuador joined Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama in a confederacy known as Greater Colombia after the collapse of which Ecuador became independent.

Ecuador had 48 presidents during the first 131 years of the republic. Conservatives ruled until the late 1800s then during the next 50 years Radical Liberals implemented freedom of worship, speech, and the press.

The country was under military rule in the 1970s but the last 30 years of democracy hasn't amounted to much for the country because of a weak executive branch and a strong, fractious Congress. Sound a little like our country to the south? In May 1999, Ecuador and Peru signed a treaty ending the nearly 60-year border dispute.









But then El Nino struck in 1998 causing $ 3 000 0000 in damage. The price of oil, Ecuador's main export, plunged, its 1999 the 43% inflation was the highest in Latin America and the government was nearly bankrupt, the currency lost 40% of its value against the dollar, and the poverty rate soared to 70%.

There were massive strikes in March 1999. Men left in droves to work in Spain and other European countries. They are returning now. In fact there is a Welcome Home ministry of some sort.









The current president who is in for another four years has been trying to boost economic growth and root out corruption in the country's political system. Voters approved of referendums to rewrite the constitution. The right wing say the reforms are a power grab. Same old as they say.












Monica, a 40s something business woman, cheekily named the hotel she owns, the one where we are staying, "Santa Monica," St. Monica. She says that women can do anything, although she admits puncturing the glass ceiling is harder here than in Canada.

Cuenca is a mecca for immigrants, mostly from the U.S. We've met quite a few and among them Stuart White, the owner of an alpaca farm, textile gallery and rental apartments has been the most fascinating.














Thirty years ago, he took a sabbatical from his post as a geography prof at the University of New Mexico to conduct research in Peru. He returned some months later to fulfil his contract, moved here and bought a hacienda six hours north of here.

Then he brought alpacas in from Peru, married an Ecuadorian, created a family an alpaca wool business and now has over 700 alpaca. The family owns a textile gallery where at present Rommie Gerber-Reddington from Austria via Australia displays her lovely felt work.




















Stuart is just completing another rental apartment -- all exquisite granite and wood.








Stuart's appartments.








Many indiginous woman sell their wares on the street.






Transit police use Segways.






Elegant cars --







and restaurants






mix with people who have to work hard to make ends meet.



















There are no strollers here.














Ecuador is 95% Catholic.

Tomorrow we are going to hike and explore Parque Nacional El Caja, about 35 kilometers west of here by bus. It's 2000 feet higher than here. Yikes.

I lost my cell phone a couple of days ago. So I can't use BBM to keep in touch with Susan and family who are still in Burma. Rats.







Our grandsons in Burma.

Brian's wife and our grand daughter, Saphira, moved to Brazil last August. Brian is joining them in Sao Paulo in early December.






Saphira in an art gallery in Sao Paulo.













Our family is all so spread out. I hope I can hang onto my head, my camera and iPad so I can stay in touch with you!

Hasta pronto.