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Sunday, December 09, 2007
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Amazon
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Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Amazon
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Saturday, December 08, 2007
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Amazon
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Description: Another standard from tourists walks. You break of the flower of this plant and put it in your mouth to make it look like a set of puffed up lips! Also rumoured to be an aphrodisiac.
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Amazon
Taxonomic Name:Common name: Achoate
Description: When broken open have a bright red dye inside that is painted on the face like war paint by kids. Also a common feature on tourist walks.
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Description: These orange flowered plants were all along roadsides and rivers of the suburbs of Quito, Ecuador
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Description: A picture that survived, along with me, the night on bald mountain
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
On a desolate plain with only bits of grass, a herd of cows roamed.(Yes I know, in a National Park, there are other theories of conservation I guess). An interesting source of plant life was their dung of all things.
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Description: Looks like some type of pine tree, also from Cotopaxi
Wildflowers and Flora of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Description: Another from Cotopaxi National Park
Wildflowers of Ecuador-The Sierra
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Description: Found on a windswept peak of Cotopaxi National park. Note the tiny insect that has taken refuge on the centre of the flower. What an amazing insect plant relationship:)
Monday, October 29, 2007
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui-Basil
The collection would not be complete without basil! Here is our bountiful crop and it only got larger
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui
Tomate de arbol(tree tomato) trees growing in the school garden. These are way to close together and should have been further apart. The fruit can be used to create a great drink(with lots of sugar) or eaten on its own. Next year's students are lucky!
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui
The town centrepiece in a small town outside of Cuenca. It reminded me of the town structure in many similar towns in Brazil
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui
This purple flower was growing out of the trunk of a palm tree growing at our school
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui
Another surprise from the garden. I planted these just before leaving for the placement and got quite a shock on return!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Plants of Ecuador-Gardens of Sangolqui
While creating the garden a few random bulbs were found lying around in the soil. I thought nothing of it until in the second half of the program these amazing flowers appeared out of nowhere.
Plants of Ecuador
What follows is a bunch of pictures I took of different flowers while in Ecuador. I took many more but these are the best. Next time I'll definitely go with a digital with some sort of built in flash. So many pictures were "lost" trying to photograph under thick jungle cover with not enough light. Out in the open the sun was so strong a lot of pictures got washed out.
I've tried to organize these pictures in some way in order to give them a better context. The first batch are from gardens in and around Sangolqui. There are then species from the Ecuadorian Sierra and finally a few of my photos that survived from the Amazon.
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I've tried to organize these pictures in some way in order to give them a better context. The first batch are from gardens in and around Sangolqui. There are then species from the Ecuadorian Sierra and finally a few of my photos that survived from the Amazon.
IF YOU CAN HELP IDENTIFY ANYTHING PLEASE FEEL FREE TO POST
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
La puenta en Serena
On the right is an advertisement for the Social Christian party headed by Cynthia Viteri(see my previous posts on Ecuadorian politics) On the left some graffiti urges people to "not vote for the same old ones"
Shandia- Isaac
Near the end of my stay we went on a two day hike to some virgin jungle about four hours from Shandia. At one point we had to cross a river flowing quickly from recent rain and I snapped this shot. With only two bowls of chicha(fermented drink made from manioc) we were able to hike up and down a mountain for 12 hours. Our goal was to see the site and hunt monkeys as well but none were found.
Shandia- Jonah with Guitar
My next door neighbour with the guitar my host family in Sangolqui lent me.
Soccer- On the side lines
Soccer games were also a source of income, with all sorts of drinks and food sold along the sidelines. My favourite was the fried dough bread with sugar. In fact, it was no different from a beaver tail! Cultural peculiarities will never cease to amaze me.
Shandia- Action Shot II
Out of several action shots I attempted only these two came out any good. If only I'd had a zoom lens and a tripod. I felt, however, that that would have been too invasive. In one case a girl was taking a penalty shot and she asked me to not shoot. I gladly obliged.The girl above is attacking the goal with her usual tenacity.
Shandia- Soccer Team II
Mujeres Shandia A. During my time there they were unbeatable and frequently ran up the score against their opponents.
Shandia- Soccer Team
Another weekly community event was the soccer team that was part of the local league. Shandia played against teams from Centro Talag, Bajo Talag, Santa Rosa, Ila Yacu, Serena, 10 de Agosto, and a few others. The winner of the league would then go on to play in the provincial capital of Tena. These games were taken quite seriously and were a lot of fun to watch. The family I stayed with (Cerda Andi) was particularly active in the soccer league. The father, mother, five kids, and daughter in law all played on the top teams. Their second youngest son was on the elementary school team and his little brother was following close behind. I'm sure their youngest daughter will also be a great player some day.
Shandia-Ecuavolley
A popular sport when soccer wasn't in season was ecuavolley, a variant on volleyball. It is played with three people on each side, a soccer ball instead of volleyball, and slightly smaller and higher net. The biggest rule change is that lifting is allowed, even encouraged, given the weight of the ball. Games were played for money with many people gathered to watch.
Shandia- Cocoa Drying
A major part of Shandia's economy was the selling of cocoa seeds to the local cooperative, Kallari.Once collected from nearby farms they were fermented for 3-4 days and then laid to dry on this drying rack. The smell of the beans wafting through the village was irresistible.
Shandia-A River
A nearby river. In order to get the water looking like that I set the camera up on a rock and set the exposure for 2 seconds.
Shandia-Community Telephone
In Shandia there is one community phone installed in 2003 when President Gilmar Guittierez (from the area) was briefly in power. Calls can be received from anywhere and you can phone out with a calling card. Because the phone is communal, answering it is a very public event. When the phone rings there is often a rush to answer it and the "winner" then gets to go yelling the name of the person who has received the call. On some occasions when I expected a call I had to out sprint people to get there first.
Shandia-Community Centre
Centro Comunitario Jaime Elliot. Built back in the 1950s it was at one point the school but now has not been used for some time. There exist some ideas to renovate it and perhaps make it into a museum or tourist destination.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Shandia-My House
The following photos are all from the time I spent in Shandia, a small town in the Ecuadorian Amazon. There is so much to say but I'll try to be as to the point as possible.What better place to start than the house I lived in?
This house was originally built for a Peace Corps volunteer who was supposed to be in Shandia for two years. I say supposed to because she left after about six months. Some time later people in Shandia were still talking about her. The plus side was that there was now a house I could stay in.
The house was made completely of wood with wire meshing on all the windows. The roof was very high and made of a large leaf from a local plant(para toquilia). Approximately 20,000 leaves were used in the construction of the roof.
On the front of the house on the right you can see some political propaganda from the PSP (Partido Social Patriotica). In front of the house are the compost I built and the little garden I started with help from the kids. On the far left you can see the black plastic that formed the wall of my bathroom.
Roof of Boat
On this small 12 person boat we traveled down the river from Tena to Coca. The highlight was our stop in Santa Maria(one of about two million in Ecuador alone) where we went on a jungle night hike!
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