Thoughts on Ibarra

I´m still trying to decide if I think that Ibarra is a beautiful place. Sometimes, as I´m walking through the park with palms, a million kinds of flowers and people lounging on benches in the near perfect weather, cute old men selling newspapers in sidewalk stands, I think it is. Even the little boys shining shoes don´t trigger the feeling of despair as they do in many latin american cities. But more towards the commercial district it seems as though an experiment in 1970´s architecture has gone very very wrong. The huge tacky signs, advertising jewlery, hotels, cellphones, and ice cream. Man do they love their ice cream here. And of course there´s the electricity cables. At least they have electricity.

I´m living with a Columbian painter, who has a nice house a little bit outside of town. As soon as you step out the front door your hit with huge views Volcan Imbabura (apparently inactive) on one side, and an impressive mountain range, on the other. There´s definitely a breath of fresh air there.

Overall, people seem to be fairly well off in the city. And not from tourism. I´ve only seen one group of tourists since I got here. Now, to be fair, I have been sick in bed for the last 3 days due to an unfortunate incident with some bbq chicken...but things seem to be bussling along just fine without tourism, which is nice to see.

I´m working out in the rural areas outside of Ibarra, and life is defintely harder in those parts. I´m still figuring out the details on the project but it´s looking good, and there´s less electricity cables out in the ´campo´(country).

Tomorrow I take off for La Libertad, a smallish town on the coast, to carry out some survey´s for FINCA. It´s right next to what has been described to me as the Miami beach of Ecuador, so that´s at least worth a look. As long as my stomach cooperates I´m looking forward to it.