This will be more of a show-room for Ecuador/Cotacachi, or a very specific part of it. It was Friday when I realized that I hadn't taken many pictures. Not a good start for someone who likes to put out a series highlighting his favorite shots each week. But truth is that I was just behind on many things. Still am.
Saturday came around. Another tired day. But I had been invited to a party, a curious one. Yes, organized by an US American, but nothing like a 4th of July as the statler usually do. She's more of a socially critical person, and has immersed herself into Kichwa culture - hence, the party was very much like the indigenous here do them. Which is not my favorite kind, but I went anyway, as I estimate her a lot. She had reunited with her son after 20 years. Given my current situation, that merited walking there and back and giving her a huge hug.
There are many broken down places here in Cotacachi. One after the other, they will be restored, as the population grows. Both by more expats coming in as well as locals multiplying and, quite importantly, other Ecuadorians seeking the tranquility mixed with accessibility here. It's a great spot to be.
Most of Cotacachi were Haciendas once, meaning huge farms owned by noblemen, cultivated by slaves. As in every slave-run economy, it took a while for the system to really change. That, plus inheriting broke up most of the old haciendas. There are few that are still run by the same family, and I don't know any in Cotacachi. Maybe one, it's now a flower farm. But you can find them all over Ecuador, some in good shape, others like the one above.
Normally, water canals are just dirt ditches at the side of the road. There is one road though that always surprised me. It goes from Cotacachi to Piava Chupa. It's paved, while most of Cotacachi roads are "adoquines", weirdly shaped concrete bricks. This one goes to a very remote part, basically a plateau. It's a dead end street that goes for around 4km. And it has concrete ditches for watering on the side, even two lanes of different height and depth, to later split into two different directions.
You can imagine Piava Chupa a little like that hill in the middle. Just with steeper slopes. You get there, and then you have to go the same way back. It's awesome for running and bike riding, as it's good, but easy training, and very few cars run through. I liked this picture because of the little creek running on the right. It all reminded me of old computer games, where one had to accommodate the environment before building cities and such.
I tried to make this door to look even, and I tried really hard. But then I realized that it wasn't my alignment of sky and ground. It just was incredibly crooked.
The new chocolate bread is ready. I wrote a post about it a while ago, but didn't have a decent picture yet. It was a cloudy day with sudden bursts of sunlight, so I had to wait for those to take a picture. I just left the loaf there and went on cutting the remains of the fallen tree, and whenever the sun came out, I sprinted back.
The tree was another story. I do like this picture as I had to align the camera with the tree in order to get it all in, instead of with ground and/or sky.
I did another try of the blurry-leaf-foreground picture coming back from the party on Saturday, and I think I'm getting closer. Picture by picture, it's all practice.
That's it for last week. I hope I'll be able to make some more pictures this week. Today has always passed way too quickly. But I'm making progress on other fronts, and that counts.
As always, any feedback and especially tips and tricks are very welcome! As long as it's not AI generated content or comment spamming... 😅
Thank you for stopping by!
All pictures are taken by myself with a Motorola Edge 60 Pro and I reserve the copyright - but you're welcome to ask if you'd like to use one of the pics!
