Random sights and smells of Cuenca

First of all, Ecuador is the home of the Panama hat.  There is some confusing story about why the hat is named after Panama, but this is the official home and Cuenca boasts the Panama hat museum.  Also, for reasons that I cannot explain, the hats are traditionally worn here by women, not men.  The hats are woven into a shapeless semicircle out of the leaves of a native palm.  Then the hat is pressed into shape, and later a ribbon is added.

A hat press/shaper

On a walk in the market, I saw a grill with four prongs and couldn't figure out what it was for.  The wooden prongs were too close together for chickens.  Later I walked in the market with my teacher and she explained that the rotisserie is for the Ecuadorian (and Peruvian) specialty cuy - guinea pig.  Duh, of course.  More on cuy later.

Also in the market ... it is really hard to tell from these pictures, but the old women in traditional clothes and Panama hats are shamans.  They sit under an awning and people bring them their children, or themselves, to be "treated."  When we first arrived, the woman in the middle was treating a baby, but I didn't realize what was happening and didn't get my camera out fast enough.  Next, the little girl in the light shirt sat down.  For the treatment, first the shaman shakes some leaves all over the girl's body.  Then she rubs an egg over her body.  Then she breaks the egg into a plastic baggie, but I'm not sure what happens to the egg then.  They take it home and eat it?  I think the shaman "reads" something from the color of the egg.

In the park on Sunday ... the park was full of families picnicking and playing.  In one section, there was a track for children on tricycles or pedal cars.

Back to the market.  There were so many different foods available but I wasn't familiar with a lot of the names so I wasn't sure how to order anything.  So I went back with my teacher and she explained to me what everything was.  Then we sampled the pork roast - meat only for me and a full plate for her, which includes potatoes and motes - a type of corn.

I have not seen homeless people here and I never saw anyone standing with a sign at an intersection asking for money.  But, at some of the intersections with long lights, enterprising young men do an act of some kind, and then solicit payment from the drivers.  A thirty second act every three minutes.  Juggling fire or doing backbends on stilts or just bouncing a soccer ball on one's head.

That reminds me, one more tradition on New Year's Eve was to to hold a rope across the street and not let the cars pass until they pay a few cents.  I was not clear what the money was for ... maybe to buy the manigotes.

Also on my walk I saw what looked like space men in a plaza.

This one took me a while to figure out.  Notice that the figures are as tall as the three story buildings behind them.  Pretty clearly the two tall figures are a man and woman; there is a donkey on the left and a bull or cow on the right.  But the basket in the middle holds something that looks like a grenade.  Huh?  Then I saw a Christmas sign behind the figures and realized that they had haloes on their heads, not space helmets.  So the grenade in the basket was a stylized body and small head with halo.  Feliz navidad from Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.  I still say that Jesus looks like a grenade.

Back to cuy - guinea pig.  I avoided eating it in Peru and fully intended to pass it up in Ecuador, too.  But my school arranged an outing today to a restaurant to try cuy, so I went.

Cuy on a rotisserie behind the restaurant

The feast included potatoes (the plate with the eggs), mote which is some kind of corn (on the left), roasted corn (the small dish), salad, salsa, and the cuy cut into eight pieces.  There are no more than three bites of meat on each piece.  No, it did not taste like chicken; it tasted like pork.  I had one piece with three bites, and mostly had a huge plate of salad.  I was willing to taste cuy, but as they say in Spanish, no vale la pena.  It's not worth the effort.

And that's it.  I leave Cuenca tomorrow.