Baños: part 2

I was also going to say, there´s a big church in town, and they have so many services! Practically one every hour. We wanted to visit the church (apparently there´s a church museum of things people have donated to the church because they´ve experienced some miracle and were healed after years of being incapacitated), and when we got there, the church was actually full! And people looked like they were in serious prayer/having a religious moment! Not that I expected all the people in a tourist town to be heretics, but I didn´t expect them to be THAT religious (to have mass every hour and for the church to be reasonably full every time). Anyway, here´s a picture of the church. The funny thing is, at night, the church is all lit up, and it looks like a disco from far away. So we called it the disco church. Church by day, disco by night, where you can get down with Jesus! Here´s a photo. Sorry if it´s not very clear, but you get the idea (it took me a while to work out the appropriate lighting required, and in the end I sort of got it. I could´ve taken a better picture but after standing there for 10 minutes, I couldn´t be bothered anymore).Oh, there´s also a volcano near Baños (it´s called Tungurahua, and it´s active). Here´s a map of the town.
As you can see, it´s really close to the town, and if it erupted, it would probably be devastating. But the people of Baños have thought of everything. In case of an eruption, they´ve marked on the roads the direction in which to run. I thought it was awesome! (In a lonely planet book (or some other travel book) that one of the german volunteers had, it also said which direction to run in order to get the best view of the volcano while running away from it! The ultimate touristy gesture!) I´m not sure where we´re supposed to run to though, because from the map above, it looks like the whole town is within the volcano´s eruption range. Maybe the town has some sort of shelter or something...

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.