Guaranda and Salinas

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Guaranda is a pleasant country town and known as the 'city of the 7 hills'. I stayed there one night and a morning, and then went on to Salinas.

Salinas is interesting, as the whole town lives from the production of various goods in cooperativas. Especially famous is the cheese cooperativa and they are selling their cheese throughout the country and also export it. Furthermore, they produce other milk products, chocolate and other sweets (mmmm), dry mushrooms, artesanía, footballs (with 'Made in Japan' printed on them...), cosmetic products etc.

Together with Anne, a German aspirant to be a protestant pastor, I went on a tour of the fabricas which was very interesting. We only regretted not having been given samples of the products to taste. ;-) Especially fascinating were the huge loafs of cheese. And I loved the dried mushrooms (actually, the one product that we did get to taste). Some thirty years ago the salinerito have introduced pine trees which are in fact not native trees to this paramo region. They are now everywhere around the area and at the foot of these trees grow the mushrooms. So the mushroom production has become one of their big businesses. However, the pine trees are not too good for the land, as they are dehumidifying the soil.

Here the hikes were difficult to find, as there are no signs anywhere (although in the tourist office they always claimed some hikes were signposted). Also, apart from a very sketchy picture, there is no map available. However, the place is beautiful for hking and there are lots of options. Luis of the tourist office assured me that this summer they were going to build a network of signposted trails and were going to generate maps. At least they seem to be very open to this here, not as in other regions, where the guides want to protect their domain and are not in favour of signs and maps. On one day I went to the villlage of Yacuviana, and the other day to Verdepamba and Yuraugsha.

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Comments

[CORINA]

GUARANDA
ES UN LUGAR MUY ERMOSOSO ME ENCANTAN SUS PAISAJES Y ESA DANSA CRNAVALEÑAS. SU GENTE ES MUY HUMILDE Y ESO ES LO MEJOR A ME OLVIDAVA SUS HORNADOS SON LO MAXIMO CONSERVEN LO QUE TIENEN PORQUE ES MUY VALIOSO