We walk to the
National Museum, observing the city’s infrastructure along the way.
Along the major
arterial road, the sidewalks are of a perfectly reasonable width. In the old
town, however, the pavement can be too narrow even for a single person, or it
tapers off into a ten-centimetre strip of unclear purpose. People generally
move in single file.
The trolleybuses here are extraordinarily long, with doors set high above the ground. At the stops, boarding takes place from controlled-access platforms staffed by security personnel. It’s not entirely clear what specific problem this is meant to solve, but substantial investment has clearly gone into the system.
The most unpleasant fellow road users are motorcyclists, whose noise cuts straight through your skull. Another unwelcome presence are the men relieving themselves on street corners. Despite the frequent appearance of public toilets, many corners reek, with dark rivulets running along the ground.
We pass through Alameda Park, where we find a monument to the French geodesic expedition, complete with busts of its leading figures. Also commemorated here are the two Spanish officers, Juan and Ulloa, who were attached to the expedition and turned out to be serious scholars in their own right, later publishing a book based on the collected material. Shortly after the expedition ended, however, the question of including the Spaniards’ names caused so much dispute that the entire monument project was abandoned.
There are many parks, and more generally the city makes clever use of the fact that any piece of plant stuck into the ground will promptly start to grow. Thankfully, people here have not yet embraced the idea that nature does not belong in cities, greenery is everywhere. A tree may quite happily grow right in front of a church door.
We pass the building of Ecuador’s central bank and wonder what exactly goes on inside. The country has no independent monetary policy, because it has no currency of its own. Since 2000, Ecuador has used the United States dollar as its sole official currency. Some coins are minted locally, cents, because people find it more intuitive when the coins carry numerals.
Adopting another country’s currency was meant to stabilise the economy and halt hyperinflation. The crisis itself had multiple causes: falling oil prices (oil being the main export), the devastating impact of El Niño on agriculture, banking sector turmoil, bad loans, capital flight, corruption, and weak legislation and oversight. Prices and inflation did indeed stabilise after dollarisation. At the same time, the overall price level is now higher than is typical for Latin America, which frustrates tourists. Then again, travel need not be cheap, the more important question is how locals fare. While housing and food can be relatively affordable and healthcare is state-supported, the minimum wage is low (about $415 per month) and inequality is significant. Over time, the downsides of dollarisation have also become apparent, such as dependence on global conditions. It has also turned out that the much-praised economic growth does not automatically follow from adopting the dollar. From what one can gather, the central bank now functions largely as part of the executive branch, managing reserves for public spending, administering state assets, and issuing small-denomination coins. The budget deficit is growing. Given the generally lax administrative standards and weak fiscal discipline, it may even be for the best that Ecuadorians do not have full control over their own monetary policy.
The museum is free. Its collections cover pre-Columbian, colonial, and republican-era art, as well as a temporary exhibition of works by Irene Cárdenas, the first artist in Ecuador to do abstract paintings. Labels are in Spanish and Kichwa. Before the arrival of the Spanish, people here were doing some remarkable things.
We continue on to the La Floresta district in search of coffee and street art. We find the coffee, but the murals are scarce, despite being on what should be the right streets. Perhaps they have been painted over. Here, graffiti tends more often to be actual artwork rather than mere scrawl.
As we step out of a taxi, we encounter a crowd of shouting people at a street corner. A security guard is holding a struggling young man against a wall. We decide not to linger and investigate whether the crowd is calling for punishment or release. Being in a crowd here can be a quick route to losing your belongings. Even while walking, one might be relieved of one’s socks.
We stop by a bookshop where a knee-high child has been trained to greet customers, encourage them to browse and ask questions. He also does mental arithmetic with impressive ease. For Kalle, the place is too noisy. Usually, it’s me who finds the noise level unacceptable.
The trolleybuses here are extraordinarily long, with doors set high above the ground. At the stops, boarding takes place from controlled-access platforms staffed by security personnel. It’s not entirely clear what specific problem this is meant to solve, but substantial investment has clearly gone into the system.
The most unpleasant fellow road users are motorcyclists, whose noise cuts straight through your skull. Another unwelcome presence are the men relieving themselves on street corners. Despite the frequent appearance of public toilets, many corners reek, with dark rivulets running along the ground.
We pass through Alameda Park, where we find a monument to the French geodesic expedition, complete with busts of its leading figures. Also commemorated here are the two Spanish officers, Juan and Ulloa, who were attached to the expedition and turned out to be serious scholars in their own right, later publishing a book based on the collected material. Shortly after the expedition ended, however, the question of including the Spaniards’ names caused so much dispute that the entire monument project was abandoned.
There are many parks, and more generally the city makes clever use of the fact that any piece of plant stuck into the ground will promptly start to grow. Thankfully, people here have not yet embraced the idea that nature does not belong in cities, greenery is everywhere. A tree may quite happily grow right in front of a church door.
We pass the building of Ecuador’s central bank and wonder what exactly goes on inside. The country has no independent monetary policy, because it has no currency of its own. Since 2000, Ecuador has used the United States dollar as its sole official currency. Some coins are minted locally, cents, because people find it more intuitive when the coins carry numerals.
Adopting another country’s currency was meant to stabilise the economy and halt hyperinflation. The crisis itself had multiple causes: falling oil prices (oil being the main export), the devastating impact of El Niño on agriculture, banking sector turmoil, bad loans, capital flight, corruption, and weak legislation and oversight. Prices and inflation did indeed stabilise after dollarisation. At the same time, the overall price level is now higher than is typical for Latin America, which frustrates tourists. Then again, travel need not be cheap, the more important question is how locals fare. While housing and food can be relatively affordable and healthcare is state-supported, the minimum wage is low (about $415 per month) and inequality is significant. Over time, the downsides of dollarisation have also become apparent, such as dependence on global conditions. It has also turned out that the much-praised economic growth does not automatically follow from adopting the dollar. From what one can gather, the central bank now functions largely as part of the executive branch, managing reserves for public spending, administering state assets, and issuing small-denomination coins. The budget deficit is growing. Given the generally lax administrative standards and weak fiscal discipline, it may even be for the best that Ecuadorians do not have full control over their own monetary policy.
The museum is free. Its collections cover pre-Columbian, colonial, and republican-era art, as well as a temporary exhibition of works by Irene Cárdenas, the first artist in Ecuador to do abstract paintings. Labels are in Spanish and Kichwa. Before the arrival of the Spanish, people here were doing some remarkable things.
We continue on to the La Floresta district in search of coffee and street art. We find the coffee, but the murals are scarce, despite being on what should be the right streets. Perhaps they have been painted over. Here, graffiti tends more often to be actual artwork rather than mere scrawl.
As we step out of a taxi, we encounter a crowd of shouting people at a street corner. A security guard is holding a struggling young man against a wall. We decide not to linger and investigate whether the crowd is calling for punishment or release. Being in a crowd here can be a quick route to losing your belongings. Even while walking, one might be relieved of one’s socks.
We stop by a bookshop where a knee-high child has been trained to greet customers, encourage them to browse and ask questions. He also does mental arithmetic with impressive ease. For Kalle, the place is too noisy. Usually, it’s me who finds the noise level unacceptable.
Add a comment