The People

Few people here are not indigenous. Generally they keep to their own. My Spanish instructor here has medium dark skin. I'll ask her on Monday if she is indigenous. I don't think so. She has a university degree. Most native people here have a business of some kind. 

Most people buy food on the street here -- food you can't even imagine. More later on this.

Men and women who don't have carts lug stuff around on their backs.

A smartly dressed family. Babies are carried around in white sheets tied in a mysterious way. You can't see tiny babies at all. Don't know how they breath.

Ecuador's future.

Antonio, the chef at SISA, the restaurant next door would like to study business and own his own restaurant one day. He doesn't have the money to attend university though. So I mentioned MOOCs -- Massive Online Open Courses to him. Many of these courses are translated into Spanish now. He doesn't speak English.

Students at the bus station in Riobamba.

A man pushing a cart loaded with his wares.

In the early morning the streets are deserted. Then all of a sudden around 8:30, huge metal doors slide up and low and behold, there's a store.

Few people out and about.

Street sellers.

Looking down into town.

These garbage trucks move around town in the evening playing a particular musical tune. Regular garbage is collected Monday, Wednesday and Friday, organic waste on alternate days. There is an active recycling program here.

A street market.

Street cleaners. This city is very clean. The countryside not so. But there are signs on the highway warning people not to pitch garbage our of their car windows -- much like the 50s and 60s at home.

The first barefooted person we've seen. If there are homeless peole here, they aren't visible.

Today is the Saturday fair -- an unbelievably enormous market selling products manufacted laboriously -- not in factories. Many streets are closed now for the fair. Set up started at 3:30 am on the street below our open hotel window, with the clanging of metal poles. Soon I'll post the amazing variety of products sold.

Tomorrow we're going to Cotacatchi, a small city 10 kilometers from here. Many Americans have settled there because the countryside is beautiful and it's quiet. They live in big houses in gated communities. They don't speak Spanish. The locals don't resent the Americans because they provide business opportunities. There are few bars and discotheques in Cotacatchi; so the young don't flock there. 

Hasta manana.