Day 9: The Andes January 9th, 2018
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This day was again, filled with a ton of travel. We all first grabbed a delicious breakfast at the hotel before leaving at 9am. We drove for a few hours to another Inca ruin site called “Ingapirca”. While we spent a good half hour walking around the place, Diego described some things about the Incas and their home. Inca people had a system of both burying their people and ‘marking’ their graves.
More on Ingapirca:
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Right after, we were back on the bus heading to the more northern part of Andes. Most of us slept the entirety of the ride, for we were on the bus for several hours! Eventually we stopped for lunch, which was absolutely delicious. I had quinoa, soup and vegetables!
Around 6pm we were in la Riobamba, which is at the foothills of Chimborazo. Here we also took time to go inside one of the oldest churches in Ecuador. We then headed to the hotel that we were going to be staying that night: Hacienda Abraspungo.
I really liked this hotel, it was like a mini cottage on it own. We were also really close to Chimborazo which was exciting. After getting dinner at the hotel, we all met in Jacklayn’s room for two presentations: Hunter & John’s as well as Kevin & Aidan’s. Notes for both of these presentations can be found below !!!!
Although the presentations were very interesting, it was very hard to stay awake after all the traveling we had done that day. It was about 12:30 by the time Victoria and I go back to our room, which was awful since we had to be in the bus by 6:30 am the next day!
Around 6pm we were in la Riobamba, which is at the foothills of Chimborazo. Here we also took time to go inside one of the oldest churches in Ecuador. We then headed to the hotel that we were going to be staying that night: Hacienda Abraspungo.
I really liked this hotel, it was like a mini cottage on it own. We were also really close to Chimborazo which was exciting. After getting dinner at the hotel, we all met in Jacklayn’s room for two presentations: Hunter & John’s as well as Kevin & Aidan’s. Notes for both of these presentations can be found below !!!!
Although the presentations were very interesting, it was very hard to stay awake after all the traveling we had done that day. It was about 12:30 by the time Victoria and I go back to our room, which was awful since we had to be in the bus by 6:30 am the next day!
Hunter & John’s Presentation: Ecuador’s Top Five Chief Exports
- Petroleum, shrimp, bananas (plantains), cut flowers, cocoa beans
- Shrimp:
- Species known as the pacific white shrimp
- Large farming pods are used to help control the shrimp populations and prevent disease
- Using aeration techniques and deep trench seeding keeping the conditions natural
- Overall 2,000 shrimp farms with more than 50,000 acres being taken up, the size of land for shrimp farming is large than Aruba
- Produces over 150,000 tons of shrimp annually
- Cocoa:
- Hybrid vs native
- One of the largest exports of it in the entire world
Produces about 255,000 metric tons of Cocoa as of 2014 - Use almost 565,000 hectares
- In 2014 generated over $755 million dollars
- 4th largest exported in the world
- Petroleum Emergence in Ecuador:
- 1967- Texaco discovers petroleum in Napo province
- 1972- Extraction begins in ne Ecuador in “oriente”
- 1973- agrarian reform law revised
- Ecuador if the fifth largest producer of oil in south America & smallest oil producing member of OPEC
- Country’s pipeline infrastructure is old & limited
- Bananas:
- Largest export of the world
- Increased land use
- Mainly to north America and European have been reduced
- National companies: dole, del monte
- Accounts for about 50% of country’s exports
- Why Ecuador has an advantage
- Sunlight, deep soils with good structure, good internal draining
- Helps avoid excessive use of chemicals
- Sunlight, deep soils with good structure, good internal draining
- Ecuador’s Cut Flowers:
- Was one of the largest export from the country
- Only starts to flourish due to banana plague in the 1970’s and the political unrest in the 1940’s
- Ecuador’s second largest agriculture. Export
- Communities from indigenous people groups with environmental groups provide a sustainable mapping
- Large use of pesticides influenced the health of both the people and the environmental.
- Pesticide poisoning is large