Hola Everybody:

I know I had said yesterday's would be my last email but today I had access to a free computer so it would be silly not to take advantage of it.

After thirty-two long distance buses, excluding tour buses, and thirty hotels we finally reached our last destination. If you will allow me a few observations of a more anthropological nature regarding this vast continent. These are not in any particular order of importance.

-pissing in public, for men, and breastfeeding in public, are perfectly acceptable

-show up at any bus station and you will inevitably find a bus ready to take you to your next destination.

-buses will stop for you anywhere, anytime, there is even a person whose job it is to do just that, round people up. It's fierce competition because there are so many companies.

-there is absolutely no law preventing bootleg CD's and DVD's from being sold legitimally in stores.

in Peru and Ecuador these stores are everywhere

-one of the curious facts with money resides in the difficulty of obtaining change for even small bills. This is particularly true of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. It is absolutely common to have a person running around trying to get change from other stores so they can pay you back.

-local T.V. programming is generally shit - total paucity of locally produced quality programming and as a result there is a deluge of american programming avalable.

-sadly the best news is to be found on CNN, en espanol - the news available on regular stations is also very poor and too often of a sensationalistic nature.

-most newspapers are poor and tabloid like - there is a particularly lurid one which comes from Guayaquil, in Ecuador. It always features a naked to the waist bimbo side by side with a gruesome murder victim. If there's more than one murder they drop the bimbo.

-in this teacher's eyes education is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma, yes it's that confusing.

children are out at all times of the day, in uniforms, there is school at night or they are out at 12:30 or sometimes at 1:30 - kids are out with their parents when they should be in school. there always appears to be a school trip going on - I suppose it doesn't feel very regulated and since many other things aren't that shouldn't be a surpise.

-Quito is the most heavily policed city we've been in so far and that's saying a lot. There are cops, military, private security, transit cops and they are all armed to the teeth.

-irony in the whole religious legacy is not lost on me but certainly lost on many here - after having been an excploiter of incomparable magnitude the church and its attendant colonial past are now heavily exploited for the purpose of tourism-South America remains a deeply religious continent but it's no longer just catholicism. There are many other religions here vying for new converts and winning.

-cellphones are everywhere - it's almost as bad or worse than in Canada. Twelve million people now use cellphones in Ecuador.

There is much more but will save it for later. This is definitely IT. Don't forget to keep in touch if you don't live close.

Adios,

Josiane

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