Saturday 21 May 2011

Green houses at the Equator??!!!!

Yesterday we hopped on a bus and headed out of Cuenca in a north east direction.
We wound our way around the rivers and dropped about 2000 feet. The scenery was amazing.  Jungle plants and cactus growing side by side. And much to our surprise, green houses pearched on the sides of hills
appearing almost. Green houes at the equator? We found out that these are used to grow roses. Roses plants can be forced to bloom every 6-8 weeks in a green house instead of once a year. Roses account for 49% of Ecuadors export business.
We got off the bus in a small  but bustling village called Paute. We roamed around for a few hours, strolling along the river, checking out a resort, and just enjoying. The 2000 foot drop in altitude resuled in a 10 degree temperature change and we soon grew hot under the 80% sun shine. We found the town square....every town has at least one.............and had a freshly made coconut smoothie. Set up around the square were several women selling various varietis of lunch items. After we perused the goods, we were having a hard time deciding what we wanted. We noticed a young Ecuadoring man  having lunch with his wife anf son and were admiring the lunch on thier table when the father said Hello, this is the best food in the square. We were a bit surprised, as we don't often get spoken to in English except by other foriegners. He invited us to join them for lunch and pointed out the proper booth from which to order.
We had a marvelous roasted pork lunch and enjoyed chatting with Gonzalez. He had lived in Minnasotoa for nine years and had been a shushi chef...of all things. He had come back to Ecuador, and was now a businessman with his own stotre in Paute. He was very proud of his village and of Ecuador and had a delightful time together.
After he and his family left, the lady that had cooked our lunch sat down with us and we had aconversation in Spanish........not sure what we talked about, but it was fun to try.
Here are a few pictures of our day.

The first picture is a poinsetta. There were two of them growing in a yard that were 10 feet tall and branched out about 12 feet across.........beautiful!
The cute little local baby was with her Mom & Dad on the bus.

We often find religious carvings and worship sites, or alters on the road side and carved into rock out croppings



 Every town or village has a square and a statue or bust of the foundinf father, with a church facing onto the square.



 Here are a few shots taken from the bus and while we were walking about town.









This wonerful outing into the country side cost us a grand total of 8.00 for lunch, two fresh coconut smoothies, and transportation!

And....one more bit of informtion that I found interesting....................in thier natural setting, tomatoes are a perrinial! They harvest  the same plalnt for about 7 years here before they replace it.

Today we are going out to explore west of the city.There is a rumor that a golf course exits there..........................

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