A trip through southamerica

      After a lot of experiences including my unforgettable  trip to Argentina in 1.992. I decided to undertake a new one again. I began by traveling to Ecuador over the past year, when I visited the village of Baños in  the middle of this beautiful country. After staying there for fifteen days I decided to continue my trip through the andean mountains and came back to Colombia along the coast. I arrived in Bogotá on October  2.014. I worked as university teacher for a semester, and when the contract finished I decided return to Ecuador.

      I caught the bus at  Bogota Terminal to San Agustín, where I was visiting the arquaeological park and its sorroundings.  I didn't agree with some guides who speculated about the extraterrestrial (alien) origin of these statues. They always say the everyday cliché about the unknown origin of the pre-Columbian people of San Agustin. According with their conjectures, the origin of this ceremonial place is still in the  mistery.

      I left that village,  took my pack, and gone out to Simbundoy, where I couldn't  find lodgin. So that I had to look for a place to put my tent. Unfortunately, when I tried to pitch my tent, I realized that I had forgotten the bendy poles, so that I couldn't assemble this one. Therefore I had to sleep in my sleepingbag, under a tree. Then, in the morning I found a Hotel in downtown. I was stayed there for two nights, then I went out to Ipiales towards the border. At dark, I passed the migration post in direction of Tulcàn, the provincial capital of Carchi.

      When I got Tulcàn, I called a friend o mine, whose name is Marcelo. I passed one night at his house. I love taking a coffe or chocolate in a lovely placed named  Tulcan's Cafe. After two days I went out to Baños located in the Tunguragua Province, where I stay right now. I have been here for six months, but now I am preparing my travel to Perú and Bolivia. For this purpose I'm saving some money.

I visit Ambato frequently, and I have seen a scene on the street that got me speechless. A grany sorrounded by her relatives who were looking for lice in her head. The women were using a comb to trap the lice, but I saw something pretty  disgusting. One of the women was eating the lice, as It were a scropcious dish. This one seems be an indigeneus costume since the Inkas's epoch. The question is: Why? Why this people, in some cases, need to eat lice? However, this is a costum very spreded around the world; for example, Malinowski cites some cases among the islanders of Polinesia. In accordance with a functional expanation It could be a costume whose purpose is to show affection towards the raltives, in this case, the granny, or maybe to keep the family united. The cultural materialism would say: this is on account a deficiency of proteins. So whatsoever it be, this is a quiestion of the culture, and needs beeing explained in more detail.