Just a little bit about this country called Ecuador...
It´s a tiny country, really, around the same size as Colorado, however it is very diverse in terms of geography. I didn´t realize until I came to South America, that the Andes are HUGE. Much bigger than the mountains we have in Colorado. Ecuador not only has huge mountains, but rainforest, coastline and then the Galapagos. I would totally recommend that if you are thinking about a new place to visit that you put Ecuador on your list.
I also didn´t know how big Quito is in terms of buildings, people, traffic, etc. I like big cities, but only for a short time. I´ve been here for 20 days now and I´m reaching my limit with the big city. There are a ton of other places to visit and I´m headed out on Saturday to do a little exploring before I head to the Galapagos.
So, what have I learned about this little divese country... well I´m not much of a history person - like my sister - so when I went to the big Museum here in Quito I was fascinated by all the artifacts, but couldn´t tell you much about the actual history of this place, except that there were a lot of native people here for a long time and they believed in the earth and mother nature and prayed todifferent gods, until of course, the Spanairds came and killed a bunch of people, took control and built ridiculously large churches. Then of course the US started to become a power house and other countries started to aspire being like us, so 10 years ago the government of Quito decided to change their currancy from the Sucre to the US Dollar! I know, they use the US Dollar as their official currancy. The paper money is from the US, but they make their own coins here, but are the exact size as our coins, only they use coins a lot more since things are cheaper. The 15 minute bus trip to school is 25 cents... they mostly use dollar coins so I have bought a separate little purse for coins.
Also there is no visa requirement to visit Ecuador for US citizens, which is rare in South America. Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay all charge for US citizens to enter their country. I´m not sure about the other countries, but I do know that Ecuador and Peru are free for tourist visits. See you are packing your bags already, huh?
The number one source of money for Ecuador is... petroleum - I know - I was surprised too. The petroleum is east of the mountains, away from the cost in the forest near the Columbian border.
The number two source... bananas - now this I can believe, but number two??? How many bananas do you think that is?
Number 3... tuna and shrimp - from the coast of course...
Number 4... people living in different countries sending money here! That is crazy... didn´t we hear a while back that the leading legal source of income for Mexico was people sending money to their families?
And finally number 5... tourism... I´m shocked that this is so low on the list, but after being here for a bit, they haven´t quite perfected tourism. Maybe they could hire me to tell them what the people want.
1 comment:
Kyle's aunt wants to go to South America. We are going to try to convince her that is the trip she should plan for next year!
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