Going bananas in Ecuador

What a contrast from the Andes in Ecuador to the coastal area. It really is like a completely different country. A total change in plant life, buildings, food, people, transport and, of course, heat. It was only three weeks since we had left northern Peru but we had managed to forget what temperatures well into the 30s combined with high humidity felt like. And it was even hotter than when we left.
We were going to spend a week in Machala, the 'banana capital of the world' visiting banana producers and local projects funded by fair trade premium money. However, after four days of visits we departed for Northern Peru to write up the information because Southern Ecuador is a not only hot and dusty with nothing much to see but miles of bananas but it also has overpriced hotels, more mosquitoes and less friendly locals.
Banana plantations as far as the eye can see.
2okg of bananas on that there 'racima'. Not too bad to lift but before the workers had rails to hang them on and transport them it could have meant walking back and forth for a few hundred meters all day long. They would feel very heavy then I think.

Mmm, lovely banana. If only everyone we tried to take pictures of would smile this nicely.

All aboard the banana bus. This minibus pictured below takes children from the countryside to schools. We had a fun hour in a car in the rain with our sometimes helpful guide/driver/cooperative worker trying to track the bus down. Things often conspire to cause difficulties on these visits and it so happens that Ecuador is in the middle of long school holidays. So when we eventually found the bus we then, quite ridiculously, had to round up some confused local children, who happened to be where the bus pulled over, to pose for us with local bananas that we put fair trade stickers on. It is a big cooperative we visited, very used to showing people around, so you might think they would organise things to run smoothly for us but that is seldom the case.
A highlight was one of the organic farms we visited. Large, conventional plantations are depressing places where nothing lives but banana plants, mosquitoes and the occasional spider. The chemicals (overhead sprayed) and fertilizers necessary to maintain production see off anything else on the farm as well as the area around and in the local water courses. Workers get poorly, the land is ruined but we get cheap bananas.

Fair trade certification puts limitations on chemicals and, when it works well (it often does), has a big impact on farmers, workers and the community with health and education projects.

Visiting a good organic farm is when you notice a massive difference. Flowers grow beneath the plants and parrots nest in the trees; birds and brightly coloured lizards feed on ants, worms and bugs in the earth. There are various types of fruit trees growing around the bananas providing food for the family and workers. And on this one farm we found a wonderful first- an uncontaminated fresh water source not only feeding the farm but teeming with little fish and this fresh water shrimp.

Having visited banana farms I can say that buying fair trade when possible is a great thing to do but if you care about the earth and the health and future of the people who grow the fruit, then, certainly for bananas, organic is the most important certification of all.
From now on we will always aim to buy organic bananas and if we can find fair trade + organic bananas then all the better.

Banana truck

In South America you see some great names and some great trucks and sometimes some great names on great trucks.

Cuenca and Goodbye to family

Cuenca is Ecuador's third largest city and very nice it is too. We spent a few days here wandering, admiring the colonial architecture, eating, drinking and visiting thermal baths and the ruins at Ingapirca.

The local museum was fairly interesting for its indigenous cultural history and very much so for its extensive gardens arranged around Inca ruins.
Not sure what this chap did to deserve the shrunken-head treatment. There were a few of these, about the size of a grapefruit.
The ruins were above and below a typical terraced hillside with traditional crops laid out and views over downtown Cuenca.

Cuenca was also where we said goodbye to John, Erica, Joan and Brian. We had a great couple of weeks holidaying with them in the Andes and, stomach problems aside, we believe they very much enjoyed themselves too.
Bye bye!

Ingapirca

From the city of Cuenca we went by bus to Ingapirca, Ecuador's finest Inca remains. As ever in the Andes the scenery was splendid whenever we were above, below or between the clouds

A wandering llama admiring us admiring it.
Worshiping the sun. The main building is believed to have been a solar observatory. The fine quality of the stonework indicating that the site was an important place of worship.
Rain coats were the sensible attire of choice.

A pleasant one kilometer walk led us to the Face of the Inca, a natural rock formation which was probably chipped away at to make it even more face-like. A nice touch was the shrubs growing above the eyes that look just like eye brows.

Some Art

We have found some pleasing art recently on our adventures. In the hills overlooking Quito we visited the Guyasamin museum. Oswaldo Guayasamín is a well-known C20th Ecuadorian painter. The collection is housed in a pretty colonial house and as well as his paintings there is also a room of indigenous art and a room of colonial art. Unfortunately the artist's great project 'The Chapel of Man' was closed- despite being next door to the museum it opens on different days. Very South American. So we didn't see the Chapel that symbolises not only man's cruelty to man but also the potential for greatness within humanity. Pity.
There are lots of sculptures like this happy chappy in the indigenous section.
We interacted with some of the art in a light hearted manner.



The work of Guayasamin from his 'Age of Wrath' was the highlight. The paintings were produced from the 60's to the 80's and influenced by the political injustices, atrocities and military rule across much of South America at the time, especially the Pinochet regime in Chile. We both liked it very much.



Colonial Art means religious Art, heavily featuring bleeding Christs. Interesting to see the scale and gruesomeness of it but once you've seen one..


In Cuenca we went to the modern art museum which was also in a great old colonial building. It had been a monestary, prison, asylum and old people's home in its time. The art was fairly random and of mixed quality but it was a very interesting place to explore.

Espumilla (or foamy fruity egg white stuff)

Basically you make a merague mix but don't bake it and add some fruit. Its a sweet treat traditionally sold to kids as they come out of school. Rachel thought it was ok. My sweet tooth has been finely honed over many years of dedicated pudding consumption and I soon identified this food item as yummy. This one was a mix of berry and babaku. By the end of the next day I had tried Guanabana and Strawberry from local sellers. All were highly enjoyable.

Devil's Nose Train Ride

That´s not a train, its a lovely giant bug. They were all over the town of Alausi.
Of course, we didn't travel to Alausi to spot bugs, we were there with lots of tourists (some of them incredibly pushy and rude- we are glad to be avoiding the gringo trail for most of our travelling) to take a train ride along the famous section of track passing by the 'Devil's Nose'. The line originally went from the capital city, Quito, to the largest city, Guayaquil, but now only a short tourist section remains. Only recently has the train ride made any money and it was originally built not from necessity but as a display of engineering prowess. The railway is of a fairly narrow gauge; unfortunately the steam train is no longer running so we climbed aboard a diesel cart; more like a bus on rails really.

There were rumours of being allowed to ride on the roof but this was not an option for us apparently.

A stop to admire the views.

The major feat of engineering is the descent of the Nariz del Diablo. To get down the steep hillside into the valley the train had to change direction twice on two switch backs. In places the side of the tracks were supported by sheer concrete walls which made for a spectacular journey through the landscape of steep hills with a river below.

That there tiny orange blob is a train in the valley. There are no homes or roads which adds to the experience.
End of the line. The train approached this before reversing to turn round on a little triangular junction.
Choo choo. Well, brumm brum really. This would be the best way to ride but alas the train was not moving at the time.
The great views and the apparent inaccessability of the valley, overcome by bloody-minded engineers, made for a great Andean excursion.

Riobamba and a nice village called Guano

From Quito we caught a bus to the town of Riobamba. It was a nice place to spend two nights with its lovely churches and friendly hotel lady who cooked us a lovely meal.
There are some magnificent statues in Riobamba.
On our second day we caught a local bus to the next village which is called Guano. We went in search of a little tatty swimming pool which turned out to be a huge water park complex which turned out to be closed on Tuesdays.
Luckily Guano was a sweet place to wander round. A local official opened up the museum for us where the star attraction was a dead lady. Or gentlemen.

Climbing a hill at the end of the village near to the museum we found 'Inca' carvings in stone dotted about. These had in fact been made in the 1940's as a homage to genuine Inca works.

Sadly, or maybe luckily, the local cable car was not running. Apparently it only operates on Sundays and it is a pity we missed it in all its glory just to prove that it can in fact carry people across the valley without them plunging to their deaths. Never before had we seen or heard of a home-made cable car but this had all the hall-marks of a contraption knocked together in a shed by a local crazy boffin. The pictures show fairly well how brave you would need to be to cross. The small car is suspended from a wire which is tied around a brick building at each end of a wide valley. Supporting the cable as it leaves the 'station' are some stones. You've got to love the South American disregard for personal safety.




All around this part of Ecuador, whenever the clouds clear, there are fantastic views to be had of the surrounding volcanoes.

Toasted cheese ice-cream.

In a restaurant in Quito one night the food was largely unremarkable except for the dessert that I shared with my Dad. The toasted cheese ice-cream tasted very cheesy indeed, successfully combining the cheese course and dessert into one dish. It was home-made, creamy and nicely presented. Strange but good, 7/10.

Quito cathedral

I have always loved the slightly more random tourist attractions- the run-down Soviet-built television tower in West Prague or the disused mountain-top fairground in San Sebastian; places with lots of character that are often much more fascinating than more polished, mainstream attractions. With that in mind the New Cathedral in the Old Town of Quito was a great find.

The Cathedral was mainly built about 100 years ago from concrete and was never quite finished. The gargoyles are of native Ecuadorian animals like monkeys, turtles and parrots but in places there are only rusty steel reinforcement rods poking out of the walls. There are also piles of fallen or abandoned concrete about the place. 

Walking past the building you would assume it to be an old and well built Cathedral but once inside the fact that it is a big, relatively modern lump of concrete is very obvious.

The ceiling looks great from below but really tatty from above, in the roof space. In England this blemish would surely be hidden away but in Quito it's part of the visit. There's even a lift most of the way up which was great for the older, unacclimatised members of the group, though Rachel and I chose the stairs.

We climbed both sides of the Cathedral. One side was reached by passing along a walkway in the roof space then climbing a series of very steep steps. At the level at which my Dad and Uncle Brian decided to abandon this climb there was a poor local fellow spread-eagled and stuck like glue to the side of the tower trying to get it together enough to go down again. Almost every part of the church towers would be deemed unsafe in England when in reality all that's required is common-sense and sticking within your own comfort zone.

The second tower was firstly up stairs to a lovely cafe and then up a series of ladders, past broken clock workings, to a final wire floor in the top of the highest towers. Brilliantly, once up there it was also possible to squeeze out of a small hole on any one of the corners and sit on a ledge with fantastic open views across the city. This was no place for anyone worried about heights but was quite safe really as it was a fairly deep ledge with strong rusty steel to hold on to .

Rachel disappearing into a hole to a spiral staircase below.

The visit to the Cathedral was great fun. The experience of clambering about at the top of such an unusual building, combined with the excellent panoramic views, will be one of the highlights of our time in Quito.