Domingo, 22/11/2015: Digital city, Ecuador house boats, forests of the Gods

Hola, Todos – 

Pagina cultural – 

No Agenda items, but articles about – 

The 5th La Orquídea Film Festival winners were awarded yesterday.

El mágico mundo de las marionetas de Francisco Cisneros (the magical world of the marionettes of Francisco Cisneros) He has a group of 8 people to operate the puppets for shows which can include anything from public performances to birthday parties. Contact: panchocisneros77@hotmail.com.

Otras cosas –

Titular – Desfile de promociones por 70 años del Garaicoa (Promotional parade for 70 years of Garaicoa HIgh School).  (So if you got stuck in El Centro traffic yesterday, it might have been because Bolívar was closed for the 4 hour parade.) The classes walked as a group.  Older grads rode in classic cars.

Cuenca is projected – to become a “Ciudad Digital”  (Digital City) It was the only South American city to attend the World Congress of Digital Cities, ending this week in Barcelona.  One of the first things Cuenca wants to do is digitalize city services. One service would locate available parking places and another service would tell ETAPA about water consumption and detect leaks. (Well the citizens are certainly ready – seems like every Cuencano has a smart phone.)

The prosecutor general – is developing a new system that would reduce the time to return stolen cars to their owners.  The cars are kept for evidence and it takes 5 months to return them to their owners. The new program would reduce that to 2 months. (All of a sudden all those car alarms are starting to make sense and this is your sliver of life for today.)

Actualidades – 

Articles about –

Elia Antonio Liut Giustil – the condor of the Andes.  Liut was born in Italy, served as a flyer in WWI, came to the attention of an Ecuadorian official in Italy who invited Liut to start aviation in Euador.  He arrived on 26/7/1920 and the owner of “El Telégrafo” bought the plane for delivering mail over the Andes. Liut was called a suicidal maniac because no one had dared do that before.  He started flying schools for the military and flew the length of the Ecuadorian Andes. (He has a street near the airport named after him where the MIraflores Shopping Center is.)

Bosques: el lenguaje de Dios (Forests: the language of God) – which about sums this article up.  The writer visited the Laguna (lake) de Yaviuco which is in a glacial valley surrounded by forests. This extremely biodiverse area has 3 ecosystems: montane rain forest, lagoon-water surface, and grasslands. (Needless to say, the photo shows the most beautiful place on earth.)

The last houseboats in Ecuador are along the Babahoyo and are in danger of dying out.  The number has gone from 150 in the early 2000’s to 50 in 2014 and 22 now. A historian is trying to develop it as a tourist attraction.  (They´re pretty primitive looking and at least piped water and sewage service short of Pontoon B&B.  This ain’t Sausalito, CA. where millionaires live in multi-story houseboats.)

Amenidades – 

The Delicatessen Federer was inaugurated and Roger S. and Ricardo D. were in attendance.  (I’ll save the paper for you guys.)

Internacional – 

Argentina – goes to the polls today for a presidential run-off election.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne