FOGG Odyssey » Ecuador

Things You See in Ecuador That Make You Wonder, WTF? Ecuadorian Math

T-roy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:10:28 +0000

I went out a few Saturdays ago to eat out. The price for this meal was a little high by Ecuadorian standards but it’s good to splurge every once in a while. At the end of the meal I asked for the check and the total was $29.96. I put two $20s in the bill holder and waited for the waitress to come back with the change.

In Ecuador there really isn’t a need to tip because all bills will have government tax (10%) and service (12%) included in the cost. That being said I still leave a tip most times when dinning out and have no reason to other than I’m gringo and it’s in our nature to do so. It’s how we were raised you know.

The waitress finally brings back my change and when I opened it to make sure all was good all I see was this $10 bill. Do the math for a second ($40-$29.96 = $10) and tell me how that adds up?

So now I’m in this situation of do I ask for my $0.04 that they owe me or do I let it slide? For me personally, it’s like stealing and the principle of this gets me going to no end. If I ever get worked up fast over something it usually involves money. Ask me sometime about getting punched in the nose by a Thai Taxi driver over a penny (alcohol was involved in this case which didn’t help).

Now this isn’t the first time this has happened to me in Ecuador, in fact I can recall at least 4x this has happened and it’s not always in Mom & Pops places either. The time before this it happened to me at KFC and the girl didn’t bother to give me back my nickel. When I asked her about it she just shrugged and said she didn’t have the change. Told her that wasn’t my problem and that she owed money and should pay what is due. She handed me my food and said if I went and sat down that she would get the change and find where I was sitting to give it to me. I never seen her again and didn’t bother pushing the issue.

So the real question is:

Do Ecuadorians not know how to do math?
Is it a cultural thing and people think it’s no big deal?

I believe it’s #2 and is typical Ecuadorian. They just don’t think it’s a big deal as it’s only a few cents. Me being gringo I’m sure makes it worse but my gringo ass will stop and pick a penny up off the street. A penny is a big deal to me and feel if you said something was “this” price, then it should be “this” price when I give you good money. Then again I’m not in America anymore and this is TIE land.

TIE: This Is Ecuador

Follow Me:

Subscribe to FOGG Odyssey Email Updates

Twitter

Facebook

StumbleUpon

Before & After Photo: Converting photos to Black & White

T-roy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:00:32 +0000

Wedding flowers in Quito, Ecuador

This photo was taken at a wedding in Quito, Ecuador. I wasn’t the official photographer for it but did try and get some good photos of the event to give back to the bride and groom later. To see more photos of my first “non-official” wedding event click on the links below:

FOGG Odyssey: Before & After Post-Edit

This photo wasn’t Photoshopped and used Adobe Lightroom only to edit it. I used the adjustment brush (my favorite tool in Lightroom) to highlight all the area around the flowers. Then I turned down the saturation all the way to give it the Black & White feel, leaving only the flowers in color. This is a very simple way to add a different perspective to your work and people really like this style. It can be a little hard depending on the photo you take, as this one took a little more time as I had to zoom in around the flowers to clean it up.

After I got everything desaturated that I wanted, I then highlighted again around the flowers to add more clarity and contrast to give the background more depth. In total this took me about 15 minutes of editing, most of which was spent on zooming in around the flowers. If you have tried this technique and have a photo you want to share, please leave a comment with a link to show us. Would be great to see what others have done.

Follow Me:

Subscribe to FOGG Odyssey Email Updates

Twitter

Facebook

StumbleUpon

Road Tripping with Outlaw Venezuelan Bikers in Ecuador: Part II

T-roy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:10:22 +0000

After we took the bikers around Quito the night before, they decided they wanted to see Quilotoa the next day and finish the day in Banos. This would ultimately change 10x before the day was over, as we never made it to Banos and instead we stayed in Ambato.

The ride out of Quito was quick and fun. I somehow lost the cover to my iPod Nano while riding on the back of the bike doing 90 mph on the Panamerican Highway. I was praying it wouldn’t rain that day and thank God it didn’t but it came close at one point with a slight drizzle when we were leaving out of Quilotoa. Other than the wind burn on my face and red eyes from not wearing any goggles the ride was pretty comfortable.

When we got to Quilotoa, the bikers walked up to the edge of the crater and looked around for about 10 minutes. Then turned around and said “Lets eat!’ and that was that. We were gone in 30 minutes heading to Ambato.

The only time we stopped that day was when we would go through the military check points along the highway. Either they would wave us through or make us pull over just because we were a bunch of bikers. When they did make us pull over for a check, the cops never checked anything and instead just wanted to talk with us. They asked where we were going, from and had been. Pretty much they were bored and wanted someone to talk with, which cracked me up. Also, we got a lot of people who would honk at us when we passed them on the highway. We never got flashed but I guess everyone digs bikers in large groups no matter where you’re at in the world.

View from the back of the bike. This is the country side of Ecuador and you can never get tired of seeing it.

Just before Quilotoa there was a dirt road you had to take. I changed up the white-balance on this picture to give it that dirty feel of the road.

Group shot in front of the crater lake in Quilotoa, Ecuador.

Edgar entering the town of Quilotoa, Ecuador

Follow Me:

Subscribe to FOGG Odyssey Email Updates

Twitter

Facebook

StumbleUpon

Road Tripping with Outlaw Venezuelan Bikers in Ecuador

T-roy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:10:31 +0000

A few weeks ago a friend in Ecuador, Julio, asked me if I wanted to ride some bikes with a bunch of Venezuelans. I didn’t have anything planned and said “Sure, why not!” This all came about because a year ago my friend Julio had been riding his own motorcycle around South America when he ran into one of these guys in Venezuela. He had his own hotel and told my friend to stop by and he’d give him a place to stay, food and any advise needed. Fast forward a year and now that nice Venezuelan is one of the riders and my friend was helping them see the sites in Ecuador as a favor back.

They started in Venezuela on January 4th and rode through Colombia, picking up another rider. They only spent 3 days in Ecuador total as these guys had big bikes and love to ride fast. Their trip will be 90 days and countries visited will be (in order):

Start: Venezuela
Colombia
Ecuador
Peru
Chile
Argentina
Paraguay
Brazil
Finish: Venezuela

These guys were all business owners or made men somehow back home. All but two of them had 1200 cc BMW bikes (avg cost in the US $23,000). When I asked them why they were making this trip I was really surprised by the answer I got. Since Chavez has been in power in Venezuela he’s been converting the country over to communist control. One of the big things that he’s pushing now is for the government to buy up businesses and this will directly affect almost all these guys. They all stated that more than likely in a year or two they all would lose their business to the government. Because of this they all decided to forget it and take off, henceforth a motorcycle journey around South America to forget the problems back home. You got to totally admire that and in a way it does make them outlaw bikers!

Follow Me:

Subscribe to FOGG Odyssey Email Updates

Twitter

Facebook

StumbleUpon

Before & After Photo: Indigenous Market in Saquisili, Ecuador

T-roy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:10:46 +0000

This photo was taken south of Quito, Ecuador in a small town know famously for it’s indigenous market. The town of Saquisili, Ecuador is well worth a stop if your in Ecuador. The market is open every Thursday and you will find things sold here that you wouldn’t anywhere else; from rabbits, pigs, cows and guinea pigs to cheap vegetables, exotic fruits and handicrafts. The best part of being at an indigenous market is it’s full of indigenous people and the worse part about being at an indigenous market is thats it’s full of indigenous people who hate having their photographs taken.

I’m serious when I say people here in Ecuador are really sensitive about being photographed. I took this photo about 60ft (18m) away and when I lifted my camera to take it (thinking I was all sneaky) she turned her head away and down. How she seen me I don’t know but I knew she did as I held and was waiting for her to look up. She did once to see if I had put the camera down and quickly put her head down. I snapped one shot and walked away as you never want to make a local mad.

Before & After- Indigenous Market in Saquisili, Ecuador

The original photo was way over blown and didn’t know if I would be able to recover any of the highlights because so. I decided to crop it as well as I wanted to focus the image on the indigenous lady surrounded by her produce. The light was actually pretty striking, as there was lots of dark shadows and highlights everywhere in this photo.

I started first with highlighting the lady. I wanted to lighten her blue jacket and hat some. Then I highlighted the background around her to darken it some, thus brining more attention back on her and the produce. Last I highlighted the ground in front of her to blur some stuff out and to darken it just a tad. This left a circle of light directed on her which brought your focus to the middle of the frame.

Before & After: side-by-side view

Again, you can see below on the sidebar where I brought the contrast and clarity up. Notice though I pulled the Recovery tool all the way up to bring it back within range. This shot was seriously over blown at the start and is a good reason why one should shoot in RAW all the time. If it had been captured as a .JPEG I might not have been able to recover those highlights without adding a bunch of noticeable noise.