Today was a national holiday in Ecuador: the anniversary of the battle of Pichincha in 1822, leading to independence from Spain.
As you would expect on a big national holiday, the city was pretty much closed down. Most shops were closed, and there was considerably less traffic on the streets, giving me a bit of much-needed relief from the usually crazy noise levels.
The two parts of the city that luckily were not closed down were coffee shops and museums. Sitting in Sweet & Coffee - an Ecuadorian coffee chain - for my morning coffee, I noticed the big wall painting they had:
Do you see what's weird about this mural? Don't worry, I'll tell you: Ecuador has more than 70% indigenous and mestizo population. The only spot where they are represented in the mural are the two vendors in front, and maybe the employees in the back. All the guests are white. I wonder what this says about the company's self-image?
After the coffee, I visited the museum for anthropology and contemporary art - a bit of a weird combination, don't you think? The museum, like a few others I've seen in Ecuador, is funded by the central bank. They are all very well-done, modern museums and are free to visit. This made me wonder: since the central bank of Ecuador doesn't have a currency to worry about, has it started to create excellent museums as a coping strategy?
The museum actually turned out to be quite interesting. The anthropology section gave a detailed overview of pre-Spanish Ecuadorian history. For example, the Valdivia culture created lots and lots of these small Venus figures, thought to be fertility symbols and used in religious offerings:
Another nice exhibit were these massive beer jugs:
Of course, they didn't say these were actual beer jugs (I'm not sure if they even had beer here back then?), but that's the impression I got ;-)
Just across the street was another museum, honoring the history of firefighting in Guayaquil. The museum exhibited an impressive collection of fire trucks from different periods. Some of them were open for visitors to pose in, so that's what I did, of course:
Another much older exhibit was this beautiful steam fire engine, introduced to Guayaquil around the beginning of the twentieth century:
As you would expect on a big national holiday, the city was pretty much closed down. Most shops were closed, and there was considerably less traffic on the streets, giving me a bit of much-needed relief from the usually crazy noise levels.
The two parts of the city that luckily were not closed down were coffee shops and museums. Sitting in Sweet & Coffee - an Ecuadorian coffee chain - for my morning coffee, I noticed the big wall painting they had:
Do you see what's weird about this mural? Don't worry, I'll tell you: Ecuador has more than 70% indigenous and mestizo population. The only spot where they are represented in the mural are the two vendors in front, and maybe the employees in the back. All the guests are white. I wonder what this says about the company's self-image?
After the coffee, I visited the museum for anthropology and contemporary art - a bit of a weird combination, don't you think? The museum, like a few others I've seen in Ecuador, is funded by the central bank. They are all very well-done, modern museums and are free to visit. This made me wonder: since the central bank of Ecuador doesn't have a currency to worry about, has it started to create excellent museums as a coping strategy?
The museum actually turned out to be quite interesting. The anthropology section gave a detailed overview of pre-Spanish Ecuadorian history. For example, the Valdivia culture created lots and lots of these small Venus figures, thought to be fertility symbols and used in religious offerings:
Another nice exhibit were these massive beer jugs:
Of course, they didn't say these were actual beer jugs (I'm not sure if they even had beer here back then?), but that's the impression I got ;-)
Just across the street was another museum, honoring the history of firefighting in Guayaquil. The museum exhibited an impressive collection of fire trucks from different periods. Some of them were open for visitors to pose in, so that's what I did, of course:
Another much older exhibit was this beautiful steam fire engine, introduced to Guayaquil around the beginning of the twentieth century:
