Ecuador: Salasaka Boy Weaver

Salasaka boy weaving wool from his family’s sheep in Ecuador’s Andes Mountains near Baños.

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Chilean Rodeo: An Elegant Affair, Not A Very Exciting One:

Here’s a picture of what I described yesterday, in my last post. Taken during a national championship of Chilean rodeo in Rancagua, it shows two huasos, or cowboys, pinning a young bull against the wall of the arena after chasing it around it. It takes skill to do this following the tight regulations, but can be boring to watch if you don’t know their details. Just as it may be boring to watch other sports you don’t understand. North American rodeos are considerably more exciting. And everything in them is so obvious and spectacular.

What teased my attention much more was the general elegance of both huasos and spectators. Some huasos wore suits under their colorful ponchos. You might have thought they were not cowboys but wealthy aficionados of the sport.

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Chile: Rodeo Contestants

Gauchos, known in Rancagua, Chile, where this is happening, as huasos, are milling about, waiting for their turn to enter the arena to the right. A man is opening the arena’s gate to give way to the next two-man team to compete. These men’s task will be to chase a running young bull and use their horses to pin it against the arena’s circular wall. The colors and elegance are impressive. And every man wears the same pretty hats. But the stunts are not very exciting to watch if you have been at rodeos in America’s and Canada’s West. Or in Ecuador, for that matter. There I have seen cowboys, known there as vaqueros, lasso a galloping horse using a bare foot instead of a hand. And even teach young children to do it.

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Chile: Puerto Montt’s Boat Market

Buyers in Puerto Montt’s Angelmo harbor, Chile, crowd a boat filled with farm products just arrived from Chiloe Island.

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Chile: Old Blue-Eyed Shepherd

Away from countries that fear terrorism and believe everyone with a camera is a possible threat, to photograph people is a delight. And such a great excuse to make new friends, start a conversation, and learn something new. The better if you speak the local language.

I learned a lot from the people I photographed—from Africans; Latin Americans, Asians. And they always treated me as a friend. Why can’t so many of us not act similarly?

I photographed this gentle old blue-eyed man near Puerto Montt, in Chile. He was herding sheep but was happy to give me his time and chat with me for a while. We both ended up a little happier and wiser that day.

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Paraguay: Where Have Those Times Gone?

In 1971, picture-hunting one early morning in Ita, Paraguay, during a seven-month journey around Latin America, I came unnoticed upon this heartwarming street scene. Protected against the already fierce sun by an umbrella, this little girl was peddling her mother’s bread from house to house.  

I had one of her rolls for breakfast, and how I wish today I could find one as good in the Pennsylvanian town where I live these days. But there are things, like good bread, that American amazing technology can’t make.

Or should I say, can no longer make? When visiting my mother in Belgium, still alive 30 years ago, and asking her for some of the delights she had served me while I grew up there, she already had to warn me that, even in our own country, “food was no longer what it used to be.” Big industry had taken over.

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Paraguay: Slow Life, Happy Life

In this 1971 street scene of Encarnación, Paraguay, those young carefree people, sitting on part of a harvest to be sold at market, were patiently waiting for a fourth passenger.

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Once Upon A Time In Paraguay

In 1971, under the warm light of a setting sun in Yaguarón, Paraguay, the woman shown here was a street vendor entering the cavernous darkness of a café to try to sell some of the stuff she was carrying on her head. It was common in those days for people there to walk barefoot.

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Paraguay: Oxcart Rolling Out Of The Past

In 1971, during a seven-month exploration of Latin America, this sandy path leading away from Encarnación, Paraguay, offered me this scene of a time long gone in the rest of the world. Armed with a stick long enough to whip his first two oxen, this farmer was taking his harvest to market. 

     I had recently traveled down from Bolivia’ high and icy Altiplano desert and could not have been more grateful for the heat and surrounding greenness. Also, Paraguay in those days added the attraction of a travel machine. Walking its dusty paths plied by people on horses and oxcarts threw me back 100 years.

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Panama: Female Beauty Is On Display on Corpus Cristi Day

Less young than the dancer whose photo I posted on this blog yesterday, and much less enhanced by external artifices, this other dancer animating the Panama City Corpus Cristi procession is just as ravishing.

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