Thursday, November 6, 2014

Costa Rica: Peaceful Naranjo


In the peaceful central square of Costa Rica’s Naranjo, two fountains featuring representations of children are attracting three siblings watched by their mother, sitting on a bench behind. The way to the Catholic church in the background is enhanced by natural arches.
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Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Ecuador: Quito’s San Francisco Church and Plaza

I traveled so often to Ecuador since 1971 that I sometimes lose track of the dates of some of my pictures there. It’s the case with this one, shot with a panoramic camera, which shows Quito’s San Francisco Church and Plaza. The cars’ styles should help date it, but in those days Ecuadorian drivers held on to their old cars to their last breaths, so that the picture could be 10 years younger than it appears. So it may be safe to say it was shot sometimes in the eighties.
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Sunday, November 2, 2014

Ecuador: The Lure Of A River


In Ecuador’s Guayas Province near Salitre, a teenage cowboy can’t resist a dip into the warm Vince River as a canoe just brought him across it.
    
Most travelers visiting Ecuador limit themselves, no doubt for lack of enough time, to its Andean region. The reasons are its spectacular snow-capped volcanoes, its picturesque indigenous villages and markets, and its capital Quito, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
     But Ecuador’s western lowlands and coast hide equally wonderful sights and culture. They include, from north to south, jungle villages of Indians and Afro-Americans, a colorful fishing activity, a Panama-hat-weaving industry, cattle ranches and cowboys, banana plantations, beaches and surf, and a net of rivers that periodically floods the surrounding country, transforming its whole landscape.
     There, too, is Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and, under its palm trees, a world apart from Quito in appearance and culture. But it has its own charms, including the stunning four-kilometer long malecòn, or promenade, and Las Peñas, an area of the city built on a hill (Cerro Santa Ana) whose 400-year-old wooden houses have been artistically remodeled. The top of the hill gives a panoramic view of the city and Guayas River.

     The wonderful thing about Ecuador is that it’s small enough, by South American standards, to allow you to drive from Quito to the Amazon, to its most impressive Andean mountains and markets, and to the coast in only a few hours.

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Saturday, November 1, 2014

Ecuador: Blue-eyed Mestizo


Man of an Andean tribe known in Ecuador as Cholos Cuencanos, or Indians of Cuenca, the country’s third largest city. These people are cholos only in the way they dress and live. But they are really mestizos, and to me this blue-eyed man could easily pass for a European.
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Friday, October 31, 2014

Ecuador: Bringing Home The Flock At Dusk


Little indigenous girls herding their family’s sheep home at dusk near Ecuador’s Andean town of Ambato, south of Quito. The  sheep are all dragging leashes behind them.
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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Ecuador: Eating Breakfast At The Market


Hearty indigenous market breakfast at Ecuador’s Zumbahua, an Andean village in the Cotopaxi Province. The female cook is dropping a plate to be washed in  a pot of hot water on the fire.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Ecuador: Starting A Cold Day On Chimborazo's High Slopes


Hiking up a high slope of Ecuador’s snow-capped Chimborazo Volcano at dawn, I surprised this indigenous man as he was ready to herd sheep to pasture from the saddle of his horse. To protect himself against the biting Andean cold he had covered his legs with sheep-skin pants. His people, whose tribe name I failed to learn, live a harsh semi-nomadic life among their sheep, sleeping in small straw huts.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Colombia: Misty weekend at Ladrilleros Beach


Misty weekend at the Ladrilleros beach along Colombia’s Pacific Coast near Buenaventura. The beach is a popular with the people of hot Cali.

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Monday, October 27, 2014

Colombia: Travel On The Magdalena River


At Colombia’s Puerto Boyacá, passengers board a boat for a trip on the Magdalena River. Colombia is one of the world’s most beautiful and geographically varied countries I have had the fortune to explore. And its people, no matter their cultures and racial origins, are Latin America’s friendliest.
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Sunday, October 26, 2014

Colombia: Mompós, A Spanish Colonial City


Sleepy Mompós and its charming Spanish colonial architecture are built on an island of the mighty Magdalena River that bisects Colombia.
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