Within thirty minutes of Cuenca, right on the highway not far from Gualaceo, is an orchid farm that grows, cross breeds, and sells orchids worldwide to collectors and aficionados. Ecuador is home to thousands of varieties of orchids and Ecuagenera is a business that grows, researches, and promotes conservation of orchids in Ecuador and South America.
Orchids are epiphytes and attach themselves to trees, rocks, and other hosts. Interesting enough, there is one orchid that only needs light and water to survive. Andres, my guide,says people in Ecuador hang them in their showers instead of using a fan.
Ecuagenera, according to its brochure, ” does research to find the best cultivation medium for each orchid group and the best micro climate in which to grow them. ” In their nursery and showroom are gorgeous variations of color and shape.
If people are spending all this this time to come up with newer, stronger, more beautiful varieties of orchids, it is not inconceivable that some farmers would want to shape the human race to match their needs.
Humans don’t match up well to orchids.
Orchids just have to be themselves to be exquisite.
Walking through the Museum, and the grounds below, gives footnotes of the past.
All that is left of the past here are rock walls of homes and stone walls built to terrace land so crops could be grown on hillsides. The soil is deep, dark, rich, and, with light and rain, it is not impossible to see it feeding an Empire.
Standing on this hill, clouds seem like you can touch them.
It is hard to reconcile this peaceful place with human sacrifices but blood has always been how you pay Gods back for transgressions.
The Incan Empire grew through conquest and peaceful assimilation. They built roads, like the Romans, and developed infrastructure and capabilities to organize large numbers of people.
When you climb over hills, look out, stomp in the dirt and see water, flowers, birds, animals, you can understand the Inca civilization that grew out of nature.
The Incan Code was do not steal, do not lie, and do not be lazy.
We sacrifice humans today, but we do it in slower, more treacherous ways.
The Incan’s, very slowly, are starting to look less savage than I have been taught to see them.
From the street, this exposition seems promising.
There is a huge dinosaur on a flatbed in Parque Calderone. There is also, nearby, a tall movie poster featuring a reptile with big teeth, the word Dinosaurs in big letters, and an offer to children to get in to this exhibit absolutely free if with their parents.
Dinosaurs are still one of the first topics in grade school science and movies like Jurassic Park have kept interest fanned in the large creatures who, by their fossils, we know to have existed.
These modern man made show beasts are fabricated from steel, plastic, with rubber like skin. They are brightly painted and dwarf us little humans, hardly sand grains between their toes.
I don’t see any animal here I would want to take home and have to feed but any one of them would keep riff raff out of my back yard.
Dentists, I have no doubts, would love to get one of these guys or girls in their biggest chair but doing a root canal would not be easy because peering into this Rex’s mouth, and going in with the biggest drill you have, would take nerves of steel and several drums of anesthesia.
I bet their dinosaur breath would be the kiss of death.
These two couples, just married, are getting their wedding photos taken in Parque Calderone.
When I first see them they have, with them, a young bearded tenor sax player playing ” Here comes the Bride ” on a street corner.
Their little photographer is contorted to get the right angle for his shots, the young women are smiling and laughing. Their new husbands look bemused and eager to please.
The entourage crosses the street, the ladies lifting white gowns so they won’t get them dirty, They take more photos by the spot where I witnessed official ceremonies celebrating ex pats, good business prospects, and a new transport system.
The last wedding I happened upon was in Montevideo, Uruguay on Sarandi Street.
This is just as memorable.
Everyone is happy, and, if they stay that way, they will be together when they are old.
They are, as a friend once told me, about rapping his knuckles on stones on a square in Russia, ” Marking the Moment. ”
The last accident covered in Scott Treks was a rollover in Montevideo, Uruguay on the Rambla.
In this case, in the Cuenca Historical District, by the time I walk to see what the crowd is about, the scene is just a crashed blue bus with its front end partially inside the front door of a corner retail shop, a fire engine and ambulance on scene, yellow plastic tape roping off the area, cops in lime colored jackets keeping people away, no bodies lifeless in the street.
The funny part is the difficulty cops have in keeping people from ducking under their yellow tape, bypassing the scene, and continuing on their way. Authorities have roped off the entire intersection so people coming from all four directions are stopped from moving forward and told they have to go back the way they came.
Some people shrug shoulders at this nuisance, some approach the cops and are let through barriers with special permission, others lift the yellow tape and go through the intersection when the cop is distracted. It is difficult to get people to do even the simplest things when they don’t feel it makes sense or makes them change their behavior.
The accident happened in a second but it will take hours to wrap up the investigation and pin ” cause ” on something or someone.
This accident looks like it might go back to failed brakes, but human error is at the heart of most accidents.
This afternoon us humans have made yet another mess.
The domes of the New Cathedral can be seen from most high ground in Cuenca.
The New Cathedral was built in the last hundred years but still qualifies to be called new. The Old Cathedral, on the other side of Parque Calderone, is smaller, less ambitious, and is used now for events, occasional ceremonies, and as a museum.
The New Cathedral is simple on the outside but grandiose inside.
Standing inside, on marble floors, with enormous space above and around me, I am humbled. Modern man is not accustomed to being humble until events spiral out of control and they are looking at their homes destroyed in a flood, earthquake,hurricane, or fire.
In older days, there weren’t as many screens shielding us from reality or ideologues trying to shape the way we see the world around us.
People died young, the fact that some are rich and most are poor was accepted as normal, and armies marched across borders with fire and brimstone. These days no one on television tells you problems are insurmountable and the only thing you can do is pray.
This morning, people kneel in prayer, some light candles, some quietly sit in the pews, touch their beads or read catechisms on I phones. There is no official ceremony today and Christ is eclipsed by gold trim. Flat screen televisions ,mounted on stanchions ,help those in the back of the church see services when church is in session.. There is one confession box open and a sole lady waits to go inside and confess her small sins that aren’t likely to sink our boat.
Outside,city life continues without repose, or reflection.
Vendors are selling candles, rosaries, beads as you reach the Cathedral’s front steps. On another side of the church are stalls selling Christmas stockings, cards, and tree ornaments. A man selling lottery tickets does a brisk business and cops ensure that thieves know there are earthly punishments to add to spiritual ones.
Knowing what I know about the Spanish conquest of South America, and the part the church played, I find it hard to stay here and be respectful.
You can buy flowers all over Cuenca, but one of the best places to buy is at a small flower market in front of the Sanctuario Mariano, across from the New Cathedral, down the street from Parque Calderone. Daily, under white canvas tents, ladies and men do flower arrangements, sell flowers, meet the public.
Cut flowers are one of Ecuador’s big exports, number 3.
Roses are the most popular for export to the U.S. and the industry employs 103,000 people and generates 800 to 900 million dollars annually to the Ecuador economy. Despite stiff foreign competition and changing likes of customers, the industry has improved its working conditions. Ecuador roses are world class quality and benefit from a longer growing season with no winter and lots of natural light. Cool Andean nights give the roses time to add coloration.
Facts are facts, but roses are a way to a woman’s heart.
Men, with a briefcase in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other, leave the market today with quiet hopeful smiles.
This band is from Otavalo, Ecuador and is playing on a corner by the Cuenca New Cathedral.
Dressed in costume, the musicians play, sing, dance,and pose with a European tourist who wants his wife to take a photo of him playing an Andean pipe. Managers and friends sell band CDs and crafts on the sidewalk in front of the performers as they entertain.
While the group is performing, a policeman asks for the band’s permit papers, stamped and signed.
The bands leader produces their authorization,and, moments later, the cop returns papers to him and walks away, satisfied.
Winay, is energetic, surprisingly contemporary, and draws a crowd.
We all like to be entertained and when these musicians dance they look like feathered dervishes drawing circles on the sidewalk with their toes and bare feet.
The spirit that makes them dance captures us too.
The police man, like all government officials, satisfied with seeing proper paperwork in order, has moved on.
I see him, emotionless, slipping a traffic ticket under the windshield wipers of a nearby delivery van, illegally parked by the flower market.
Laws, after all, are laws.
If we don’t have our laws, aren’t we the same as savages dancing to multiple Gods, under sparkling stars ,on dark windblown mysterious nights?
There are surprises on walks, many of them small, many that will be missed if you are not in the right mind to see them.
My first surprise this morning is horses in Calderone Park that kids can ride, pushed by a man. These equines roll easily on park paths. They look well fed, have saddles and reins, and come in all sizes. They appear real till you see their marble eyes and tongues that look like the end of Santa’s sock.
Another surprise is on a bridge crossing the Rio Tomebamba.There are three sets of locks, knotted together on a bridge railing. This might have begun as a protest, but, more than likely, a prankster kicked it off with one lock and chain with others jumping on board later. There is a similar, much larger, collection of locks knotted together like this in a Montevideo business district so I know even the zaniest things happen all over the world and I, or you, will not likely come up with something new under the sun.
A third surprise today is street art on walls leading down stairs to the river. Colorful, eccentric, imaginative, even obscene, the shapes, colors, and graffiti are difficult to ignore.
Even though I go looking for odd , I don’t want too much of it.
Without a lot of sameness, odd is not very interesting.
I speculate that Heaven is the only perfect place only a few are ever going to see. and, even in Heaven there will be a few loose strings and butt cans to be emptied.
Even angels have a hard time quitting cigarettes.
Looking where you walk in unfamiliar places is a very good idea.
On morning walks down Luis Cordero, through Parque Calderone, I ramble down stair steps, take a quick scamper over a bridge across the Rio Tomebamba, and park my creaking bones at the Gringoland McDonalds where Wi-Fi is still free and the coffee cup is almost bottomless. Customers come and go throughout the day and sometimes are entertaining.
Sidewalks and streets in Cuenca’s historical areas all have bumps and grinds that would make a stripper happy and there are multiple opportunities to take a tumble if I didn’t pick my feet up.
When walking here you keep eyes open because if you fall in Ecuador it is never the sidewalk’s fault. In a foreign port you can sue if you have a mind too but you will be assigned a lawyer that speaks a language you don’t understand,the jury will never be of your peers, and the courtroom will be full of strange rules. In a foreign country, the best thing to do is watch where you step, all the time.
Sidewalks,it seems, aren’t worth a look until you spend a morning taking pictures of them.
Looking at the world, from shoe level, gives you a different perspective.
Even in 2015, we still spend a lot of time on our feet.
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