Social and Landscape Diversity

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As we set this last week traveling to many different locations, the diversity of the Ecuador became more evident to me. By diversity, I mean not only the landscape diversity, but the social diversity. As we spent the first 2 weeks primarily in Quito, generally living with middle to upper class families in the business district of Quito, we were pretty well off. In any city you will take notice to beggars on the streets or people trying to sell various things to make a little money, and Quito was no different. The landscape changed from going from roughly 9,000 feet elevation of the city of Quito to 5,000' feet in elevation in Baños. Baños was just a small town itself where we walked around some, but it was a bit more of a rural city, not as crowded as Quito. Moving onto Misahaulli (1,3000 feet elevation) I noticed not only the landscape change to the jungle where it was hot, humid, and there were bugs and plants everywhere, but I also noticed a social shift. Although as we drove in different places we could see some poor living conditions, it was made very evident in the jungle. It is not my place to judge, or to act like I know what the people who live there think of the circumstances, but I took notice that most of the houses were more like very fragile structures more resembling a hut. Now I do not know if the people there are content with what they have, because they are used to it, and that is their way of life, or if they recognize the widespread poverty. I tried to look at this from a non ethnocentric way, as we were taught to not view the cultural differences as what is better and worse, just what differs. The last leg of our trip was spent as under 24 hours in Papallacta (almost 11,000 feet elevation), up n the mountains. The landscape difference was very drastic here even compared to Quito as it was very much a small mountain town, and chilly as it tends to be in the mountains. The lodge we stayed at really encompassed what I think of when I think about the mountain. The rooms were stone, had fireplaces, and were cozy. This region reminded me of some landscape near myself in the states and also gave me fond memories of gong to the mountains with my family when I was younger.

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