Photo Roundup -- March 30, 2013

Time for another Photo Roundup.  I love gathering photos and sometimes they just don't go with a whole blog post so you get little bits and pieces of life as I see it.

Even the police use internet cafes.  These three police officers as well as another one who isn't visible in this picture, are busily typing away on the computers in one of the tiendas we have that serves a multitude of purposes.  There are a few computers to rent for 50 cents an hour, they sell minutes for phones, make copies, and have "Cabinas." Cabinas are little phone booth things where you tell them where you want to call (local or long distance) and they charge you by the minute depending on where. I think they may have a beverage cooler ("cooler" is what it's called when they keep a beverage around 50 or 60 degrees).  Ah yes, one of the ads is for "Red" juice.  I think that's a high caffeine drink.  They also have someone who sells Avon here.  Oh, and there are the gum machines out front.  All of that is in a space the width you see in the photo and it only goes back another 5 or 6 feet from the wall you see to the right of that last police officer.  They are very good at squeezing in value for your dollar.

Navigating on narrow streets can be an issue here, just as it is in other cities I've lived in (I'm particularly reminded of some of the very narrow streets in the older parts of Minneapolis, in the winter, with snow piled up all over the place making the streets even narrower).  Here there was room, though.  There must have been at least a foot between the bus and the white car on the right of the photo and possibly six inches on the left.  It was a tight squeeze but there wasn't a single scratch to be found.

I was in Otavalo last week and I looked up a very high hill and there was this building with a hummingbird as part of it.  What a lovely addition!  I will always look for it when I'm in that part of town now that I know it's there.  I reminded myself that there is always more to look at than we see at street level.  Look up, look to the sides, look down--much awaits.

We have a man in town whose feet are very deformed.  He can actually walk a little but it's completely on the sides of his feet since the ankles are bent that way.  Anyway, he doesn't have a standard wheelchair.  This little three-wheeled conveyance was made for him, possibly by the man who repairs bicycles or who knows who might have this skill.  Anyway, it is propelled by "pedaling" with his hands.  I think it's absolutely ingenious and it has a little place in back for his purchases.  I told him I wanted to take his photo so I could show my friends in the United States (it's all over the world, I know, but I don't know how to say that in Spanish) the different things we have here than we have in other places.

This is an example of how photos just don't turn out as well on a photo as they do in person.  It's that whole difference between two dimensional and three dimensional.  Those flowers hanging down behind the tree are just so lovely that I had to share them with you, even if they don't look as lovely as they do in person.

One thing you almost never see here is a dirty vehicle.  This guy is wiping down the outside of the bus before it gets ready to take off for the next trip to Ibarra. Before I could get my camera out he was using an old broom to clean the tires and wheels.  I don't think I've ever seen a dirty bus or car here.  Well, I did see a dirty pick-up truck but it had dirt bikes in the back of it.

This guy has a cart he pushes to various places in town depending on the day and time.  Right now he's at the bus terminal.  What he has in those pitchers is aloe vera.  He adds various "healthful" things to it to help with everything from acne to diabetes and just about everything in between--and things outside of that.  He puts on quite a show as he mixes the aloe with the additives he puts in.  You can also get a straight shot of some of the other healthy things he has as evidenced by the shot glasses on top of those two bottles.  No, I haven't tried it.  I just can't quite imagine swallowing the slimy aloe juice.  Maybe someday.