It was one of those days when so much could have gone wrong. So many connections, so many new places, so many chances to get lost or take the wrong bus, but somehow we managed without losing any time. We started the day by heading to a community south of Quito, ¨Valle de los Chillos.¨ Like nothing else in the world today, it could not be located on any map, or anywhere on the internet, including Google Maps. The purpose of our trip was the home and now museum of Ecuadorian artist Eduardo Kingman. He was one of the first artists in the mod
ern art movement in Ecuador, and painted mostly on the plight of indigenous people. His house was extraordinary; he had built all of his own doors and windows, using a lot of natural light and his surroundings. Part of the house overlooked the nearby river, and was built on three large trees, and the changes from where the house had settled and moved were visible throughout the house. Once we arrived here, it is safe to say that we were off the beaten path. It is amazing how much nicer people are the less that they see gringos on a daily basis. It is also good for us because the further we are from the gringo trail, the less the trusty guidebooks tell us, and the more we have to ask for help to find our way. In total, to get from Quito, to the museum, to our final destination of Salinas, we took one taxi, four buses, and a ride in the back of a pick-up truck for the last 19km.
We arrived in the square of Salinas after winding through magnificent countryside, and found most of the young people in the town playing soccer or volleyball right there in the center of town. We hopped out of the pick-up, and no sooner get our backpacks, when a man approached us and asked us if we need a place to stay, and that he knows of a great hostel if we indeed needed one. He then started to walk in the opposite direction from which we thought we needed to go, and as we started to walk out of town and becoming a bit nervous and wary. However, he leads us to the exact hostel that we were indeed planning on finding, and for a few moments, I am embarrassed by my lack of confidence in human kindness. It was a nice reminder of the fact that most people really do just want to help you.
Salinas is beautiful and picturesque, a town of 1200 that is a model community for successful business partnerships and tourism. In the 1970´s, a local priest started a few businesses to help the people in the community to become economically viable and independent. Today, there is a chocolate factory, a cheese factory, soybean processing, soccer ball manufacturing, salt mines, mushroom drying, and a salami factory. I use the word ¨factory¨loosely, as most of these operations employ only a few people, with the chocolate factory having two shifts, with twelve people. The businesses are run as cooperatives, and all of the workers are paid their wages, but any money that is brought in from the sales of these products is put back into the community through a foundation that spends the money on local infrastructure, education, and starting new businesses. The young people in Salinas attend elementary and high school in town, and then most go away to university, but 95% return to Salinas after school to live and work, mostly because there is valid and well paying work for them to do there. It is also a model of how small communities can use tourism to benefit themselves. During business hours, you can walk into the tourism office and receive a two hour guided tour of the town and all of the local factories, along with a little history thrown in, for $3. The products made in Salinas are sold all over Ecuador, and are regarded as some of the best produced in the area. It was surprising to learn that the majority of the chocolate made here is shipped to Europe, where it has an equally strong following. 70% of the people in town and the surrounding area own milk cows, and therefore sell their milk to the co-ops, generating even another source of income. They seem to have figured out how to thrive in a developing country, as well as maintaining their traditional ways of living that are rapidly dying off in other parts of the country.
One of my favorite parts of our tour was the salt mines. All of the local people participate in the salt cultivation, and its end products are used in the cheese that is made there. In the middle of the salt mines, there is an underground spring. As you climb down to it, you cannot see it, but are able to hear it clearly as it is pumped hard through the Earth, and gurgles so loud and baritone that it almost sounds pretend. The water is high in arsenic, and any animals that venture into the cavern will die. There is a trench that has been dug deep into the rock, and extends nearly 100ft leading from the mines, to the opening where we stood and heard the rock speak. For generations, they have been trying to find the source, but have not been able to locate it. This is a very sacred and holy place. Many shamans in the area come here to pray and literally speak to Nature. They believe that the sound they hear is the voice of the world, and is how Nature communicates with man and his Earthly surroundings. When they perform rituals here, they believe that they are talking to Mother Earth, and the mystery of the place is amplified by their beliefs. After years of digging, the sound is just as clear, and just as mysterious as before, leading most to believe that in fact, this is the voice of Nature.
Though Salinas has so much to offer, there are a few things that it lacks, which helped us design the ¨Salinas Weight Loss Program. ¨
1.) No restaurants open on Friday night at 6:00pm, except one that was only serving spaghetti, even though they had a full menu...
Dinner: white bread for the bread shop, ironically not stale (Ecuadorians prefer somewhat dry stale bread- yummy!) Dana ate raisins and almonds, and we shared the last of our emergency Larabars...a sad moment.
2.) The only place in town open for breakfast was the spaghetti place from the night before.
Breakfast: Fresh stale bread, one scrambled egg, unknown fruit marmalade and instant coffee. No electricity, but offered the bonus of the cleanest bathroom in South America to date, as it had toilet paper, soap, and of the toilets had a seat.
3.) Lunch: We learn that the only other real restaurant in town, a nice looking pizza place with a bar, is closed, as the front stairs completely collapsed. Even though they have a path and a perfectly good set of stairs on the other side of the building, they are still closed. There is one other place we passed, but had no menus, and served one option for lunch, that includes a soup with meat and a main dish with meat and some mystery things that we didn´t understand. There are no grocery stores in Salinas, only a small corner store. Apparently they have a once a week market on Monday, but it is a Saturday, and we are out of luck. When we ask if there is somewhere to buy fruit, we are directed to a store, that claims to sells fruits and vegetables, but of course they are out. We ended up eating cheese from the local factory (awesome), fresh stale bread, and one large bag of corn puffs. The saving grace, local chocolate, and lots of it!
At this point, we have gone two full days without a ¨real¨ meal, and the energy level is at an all time low, as well as morale. For dinner, the spaghetti restaurant claims to have pizza, and when we asked when they would be serving pizza, their honest reply was ¨whenever the man arrives who makes the pizzas.¨ Our skepticism was at an all time high, as this is the same place that is supposed to have pizza all the time, and even calls themselves a pizzeria. We arrived at 7:00 as instructed, after completing a ceremonial pizza dance during the walk, we were happy and relieved to see the pizza man in the restaurant. The three of us ended up eating an entire family size pizza, much to the amusement of the restaurant owners, who chuckled a bit and chatted as we took down the whole thing.
The amazing veggie pizza redeemed Salinas, and we whole heartedly give it two thumbs up, and there is definitely some magic in this place. Listen closely to the sound of nature, and don´t under any circumstances forget to bring snacks, and to do a pizza dance before dinner.
ern art movement in Ecuador, and painted mostly on the plight of indigenous people. His house was extraordinary; he had built all of his own doors and windows, using a lot of natural light and his surroundings. Part of the house overlooked the nearby river, and was built on three large trees, and the changes from where the house had settled and moved were visible throughout the house. Once we arrived here, it is safe to say that we were off the beaten path. It is amazing how much nicer people are the less that they see gringos on a daily basis. It is also good for us because the further we are from the gringo trail, the less the trusty guidebooks tell us, and the more we have to ask for help to find our way. In total, to get from Quito, to the museum, to our final destination of Salinas, we took one taxi, four buses, and a ride in the back of a pick-up truck for the last 19km.We arrived in the square of Salinas after winding through magnificent countryside, and found most of the young people in the town playing soccer or volleyball right there in the center of town. We hopped out of the pick-up, and no sooner get our backpacks, when a man approached us and asked us if we need a place to stay, and that he knows of a great hostel if we indeed needed one. He then started to walk in the opposite direction from which we thought we needed to go, and as we started to walk out of town and becoming a bit nervous and wary. However, he leads us to the exact hostel that we were indeed planning on finding, and for a few moments, I am embarrassed by my lack of confidence in human kindness. It was a nice reminder of the fact that most people really do just want to help you.
Salinas is beautiful and picturesque, a town of 1200 that is a model community for successful business partnerships and tourism. In the 1970´s, a local priest started a few businesses to help the people in the community to become economically viable and independent. Today, there is a chocolate factory, a cheese factory, soybean processing, soccer ball manufacturing, salt mines, mushroom drying, and a salami factory. I use the word ¨factory¨loosely, as most of these operations employ only a few people, with the chocolate factory having two shifts, with twelve people. The businesses are run as cooperatives, and all of the workers are paid their wages, but any money that is brought in from the sales of these products is put back into the community through a foundation that spends the money on local infrastructure, education, and starting new businesses. The young people in Salinas attend elementary and high school in town, and then most go away to university, but 95% return to Salinas after school to live and work, mostly because there is valid and well paying work for them to do there. It is also a model of how small communities can use tourism to benefit themselves. During business hours, you can walk into the tourism office and receive a two hour guided tour of the town and all of the local factories, along with a little history thrown in, for $3. The products made in Salinas are sold all over Ecuador, and are regarded as some of the best produced in the area. It was surprising to learn that the majority of the chocolate made here is shipped to Europe, where it has an equally strong following. 70% of the people in town and the surrounding area own milk cows, and therefore sell their milk to the co-ops, generating even another source of income. They seem to have figured out how to thrive in a developing country, as well as maintaining their traditional ways of living that are rapidly dying off in other parts of the country.
One of my favorite parts of our tour was the salt mines. All of the local people participate in the salt cultivation, and its end products are used in the cheese that is made there. In the middle of the salt mines, there is an underground spring. As you climb down to it, you cannot see it, but are able to hear it clearly as it is pumped hard through the Earth, and gurgles so loud and baritone that it almost sounds pretend. The water is high in arsenic, and any animals that venture into the cavern will die. There is a trench that has been dug deep into the rock, and extends nearly 100ft leading from the mines, to the opening where we stood and heard the rock speak. For generations, they have been trying to find the source, but have not been able to locate it. This is a very sacred and holy place. Many shamans in the area come here to pray and literally speak to Nature. They believe that the sound they hear is the voice of the world, and is how Nature communicates with man and his Earthly surroundings. When they perform rituals here, they believe that they are talking to Mother Earth, and the mystery of the place is amplified by their beliefs. After years of digging, the sound is just as clear, and just as mysterious as before, leading most to believe that in fact, this is the voice of Nature.
Though Salinas has so much to offer, there are a few things that it lacks, which helped us design the ¨Salinas Weight Loss Program. ¨
1.) No restaurants open on Friday night at 6:00pm, except one that was only serving spaghetti, even though they had a full menu...
Dinner: white bread for the bread shop, ironically not stale (Ecuadorians prefer somewhat dry stale bread- yummy!) Dana ate raisins and almonds, and we shared the last of our emergency Larabars...a sad moment.
2.) The only place in town open for breakfast was the spaghetti place from the night before.
Breakfast: Fresh stale bread, one scrambled egg, unknown fruit marmalade and instant coffee. No electricity, but offered the bonus of the cleanest bathroom in South America to date, as it had toilet paper, soap, and of the toilets had a seat.
3.) Lunch: We learn that the only other real restaurant in town, a nice looking pizza place with a bar, is closed, as the front stairs completely collapsed. Even though they have a path and a perfectly good set of stairs on the other side of the building, they are still closed. There is one other place we passed, but had no menus, and served one option for lunch, that includes a soup with meat and a main dish with meat and some mystery things that we didn´t understand. There are no grocery stores in Salinas, only a small corner store. Apparently they have a once a week market on Monday, but it is a Saturday, and we are out of luck. When we ask if there is somewhere to buy fruit, we are directed to a store, that claims to sells fruits and vegetables, but of course they are out. We ended up eating cheese from the local factory (awesome), fresh stale bread, and one large bag of corn puffs. The saving grace, local chocolate, and lots of it!
At this point, we have gone two full days without a ¨real¨ meal, and the energy level is at an all time low, as well as morale. For dinner, the spaghetti restaurant claims to have pizza, and when we asked when they would be serving pizza, their honest reply was ¨whenever the man arrives who makes the pizzas.¨ Our skepticism was at an all time high, as this is the same place that is supposed to have pizza all the time, and even calls themselves a pizzeria. We arrived at 7:00 as instructed, after completing a ceremonial pizza dance during the walk, we were happy and relieved to see the pizza man in the restaurant. The three of us ended up eating an entire family size pizza, much to the amusement of the restaurant owners, who chuckled a bit and chatted as we took down the whole thing.
The amazing veggie pizza redeemed Salinas, and we whole heartedly give it two thumbs up, and there is definitely some magic in this place. Listen closely to the sound of nature, and don´t under any circumstances forget to bring snacks, and to do a pizza dance before dinner.
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