February 18, Macara

Macara
a border town in Eucador next to Peru

It is noisy, very very noisy.
Trucks and vans with giant loud speakers
Continually blast down the streets;
Men shouting their pitches.
In front of the shops large boom boxes
Blare dance music.
The streets are full of trucks, buses,
Motorcycles, dirt bikes and ATV'S;
All are loaded with entire families.
All are blowing their horns.

It's hot, very very hot.
Empty hammocks are hung above
The steeply steps sidewalks.
Next to the hammocks,
There are cookers and people
serving up cerviche, sopa,
Swatting flies, deepfrying chicken,
Hustling teeshirts or sunglasses.
The children with their dark eyes
And hair, are all beautiful.

Draging my overstuffed wheeled packback,
While Jim lugs his,
It's a choice of dodging traffic
On the cobbled street,
Or humping up the steps on the sidewalk.
We reach Hostel El Conquistador.
The tiny dark room on the forth floor
Seems decadent with it's roaring air conditioning,
a toilet seat, limitless toilet paper,
And a print on the wall.

The art says nothing about
The charism or challenges that are Ecuador.
The image is a very pretty English thatched tutor cottage,
With leafless apple trees laden with blossoms,
A flower garden with a kalidoscope of blooms,
A stone bridge, a decorative water pump and a pond;
Only the swan is missing.