Observations...

Wow, people here are really religious! In the middle of the city, there´s a statue of the virgin mary on top of a mountain, and practically every car and shop has some sort of reference to christianity. Either a cross, or jesus, of the fish sign, or all of the above. Below is a photo of jesus displayed in the house i´m staying. It´s rather gory, with all the blood and bruises shown! The vertical bit of the cross is about 80cm long, so it´s pretty big! i´m not really taking much notice of it; not being religious, it´s like another piece of furniture to me. People don´t impose their religion, so it´s good.

Food-wise, I have been eating a lot of white carbs (ie white bread for breakfast and white rice for dinner). Being vegan, it´s REALLY hard to go out and buy stuff to eat in cafes and restaurants, because most things have some sort of meat or eggs in it, which you can´t remove. So I´ve been eating my meals at the house, at least until my spanish is good enough that I can confidently go out and order something and make sure it´s vegan!

Interesting foods I have seen thus far:

• Fig dessert- I don´t know what it´s called, but it´s an Ecuadorian specialty. The fig is marinated overnight in sauce consisting of sugarcane juice, cloves, cinnamon, and another spice (I´m not sure what it is, although it smelt really familiar. Virginia didn´t know the name in english). The longer you marinate it, the sweeter it is. It turns the fig black. It was quite nice. Not something I´d eat everyday (it´s really sweet), but once in a while is ok.

• On the streets, there are people selling these orange balls. They´re made of flour, water, butter, eggs and sugar. It´s sweet and deep fried, so immensely unhealthy. I would try one were it not for my vegan-ness (unfortunately i don´t have a photo of it).
  
• Ecuadorians eat a LOT of rice and beans (and chilli sauce, like tabasco. It´s an Indian trait). One of the meals KFC sells is a plate of rice, beans, and fried chicken!

Ok, time for some vistas.

The photo above is a view of the mountains to the east from my street. As you can see, houses are built all over the mountains. The photo below is the view towards the west. The mountains aren´t really clear, but you can see it´s all been cleared. Most mountains have very little trees, it looks like it´s all been turned to pasture or agricultural land. But you can see the streetscape, is "back home" a fitting description?


Also, pedestrians have no right of way here. There are no designated pedestrian crossings (where you push a button and wait for the little green person to come on), but there are zebra crossings. However, in line with most countries in the world, zebra crossings are really meaningless. To cross the road (especially a main road), you have to know how to pick the right time to run across. Cars will slow down, but do so quite reluctantly and blaring their horns in the process. It´s rather amusing! I haven´t had to do too many main road crossings yet (sometimes they have overhead pedestrian bridges for that, which is good).

Oh, and people here are really short! I don´t feel short because most people are my height! In my house, I´m the tallest female, yay! What a nice change! It´s probably because of the altitude. The Ecuadorian highlands range from 1500m to 4500m above sea level. The average height of people living at higher altitudes is shorter than those at sea level, because it´s easier to send oxygen around a shorter body than a tall body.