Kulture Shock. ‘I’m not in Kansas anymore.’ I admit it, they warned us! Guayaquil is noticeably poorer than Quito, and it has neither the Colonial history nor the panache of being a capital city to help it along.

Nor is there a sense of ‘poor, but proud’ hereabouts. Nothing seems to be complete. For want of a few buckets of paint concrete-block walls look like crap-ola. Nice houses abut lots where people are living w/o water or electricity [or sewers], under plastic sheeting. There hasn’t been a drop of rain in the week that I’ve been here, and the smell isn’t all that pleasant. People throughout Ecuador drop trash without a 2d thought.

I understand more than ever why the immigration problem in the States will never be solved: a ‘hot cot’ in Jackson Heights beats living poor in ECU by a country mile.

Still, there are some nice things, too: