Ethan+Kane

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= Ecuador =



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__Climate and Geography__

Ecuador has 31 volcanoes. Most of them are near Quito, the capital city. Ecuador’s highest mountains are Chimborazo and Cotopaxi. Chimborazo has a peak of 20,561 feet and Cotopaxi has a peak of 19,347 feet. Ecuador also has the Andes, a mountain chain which runs the length of the country, north and south.Ecuador has four main geographical sections; La Sierra, La Costa, El Oriente and Archipiélago de Colón. La Sierra is in the Andean highlands. It has mountains in it with snow on them. El Oriente lies at the foothills of the eastern Andes and contains tropical rain forests. La Costa has rich farmland. Archipiélago de Colón is another name for the Galápagos Islands in  the Pacific Ocean, located about 600 miles off shore. People living in La Costa might farm. They have a lot of fertile land with which to plant crops. People living in El Oriente hunt animals and find fruit. They sell the animal skins to be made into clothing or into bags. They fish and gather fruit. People along the coastline have built ports to use for international trade. Some of their major exports are bananas, oil and wool. Resident’s farm in the coastal lowlands.They ski or snowboard at higher elevations, and some are plow drivers. The Ecuadorians who live in the Amazon basin hunt or fish. El Oriente has a hot and humid climate. La Sierra has both subtropical valleys and frigid mountains. Part of the Amazon basin has a tropical climate. El Niño occasionally impacts the weather pattern in Ecuador. It causes big floods and mud slides. Ecuador also experiences the weather pattern La Niña, which can cause drought. People who live in La Sierra wear warm clothing because of the cool weather in the Andes Mountains. Those that live in El Oriente or La Costa wear lighter clothing because of the tropical weather.

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__Food__

The Ecuadorian diet includes a lot of corn as well as potatoes, beans, rice, bananas, fish, chicken, beef, and bread. They have many favorite foods. Aroz con pollo, a dish that includes fried chicken and rice, is a favorite. Locro soup with potatoes, cheese, and avocados is another, favorite as is llapingachos, which is a cake made of cheese and potato. Ceviche, which is also a common food in Ecuador, includes raw or cooked seafood soaked in lime. The people also like to eat fritadas, which is fried pork. Empanadas, another national dish, are pastries filled with meat or cheese. Ecuadorians also like to eat aroz con menestra, which is made from rice, spicy beans, barbecued beef, and plantains (a type of banana). Caldo de bola is a soup with meat and vegetables, with plantains as the base. Another common dish in Ecuador is cuy, which is roast guinea pig. When Ecuadorians serve food they eat in a specific order. First the mother will serve the father, then the boys and then the girls. The mother will eat after she serves everyone else. The girls help prepare the meal with their mother. When there are guests, they are served first and choose their cuts of meat and get the most food. It is not considered polite to leave food on your plate. Before each meal everyone says “buen provecho,” a prayer of thanks. Here are some recipes of foods Ecuadorians like to make: oven baked sweet plantains and plantain soup. To make oven baked sweet plantains, first cut the ends off of the plantains and peel them. Cut each plantain on the diagonal into 1/2 inch slices. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the plantains are golden brown and very tender. To make plantain soup you heat oil in a large saucepan, and then add onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Cook the ingredients until the onions are soft but not brown. Add 4 cups of chicken stock/broth and bring the soup to a boil. Then add plantains, a pinch of cilantro and cumin, and finally a bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper. Heat to medium-low and simmer to make the plantains very tender. Transfer half the soup to a blender; puree until smooth. If soup is too thick, add a little more stock/broth. Season with more salt/cumin as desired. Plantains []

__Attractions__

The Amazon Rivers runs through Ecuador. The Amazon riverbanks host beautiful trees and many different animals. Visitors can walk through the jungle and admire the wildlife. The Andes are mountains with beautiful views. Volcán Cotopaxi is a mountain in the Andes, and is also the tallest volcano in the world.The Galápagos Islands have a wide variety of wildlife, like the blue footed booby, the Nazca booby, the flightless cormorant, the frigate bird, the greater flamingo, and penguins. There are also tortoises, land iguanas, lava lizards, humpback whales, sea lions and more. The Charles Darwin Research Station protects the wildlife of the Galapagos islands. The scientists there research the local animals and plants. La Compañía de Jesús was built in 1605 and is Ecuador’s most beautiful church. The Monastery of San Francisco is Ecuador's oldest church. Plaza de Ponchos is a market where a lot of woolen goods are sold, such as blankets, ponchos, gloves and hats. Fake shrunken heads, hammocks, clay pipes and other goods are sold there. El Panecillo is a hill south of the old town in Quito. It has a very big statue of La Virgen de Quito. Plaza de San Sebastián is a historical landmark in Ecuador. The Church of San Sebastián is in the Plaza, and it dates from the 19th century. Numa Pompillo Llona is a street named after Guayaquileño who wrote the national anthem. The street has many houses in which past presidents once lived.

[] __History__

Among the fist permanent cultures in Ecuador were the Valdivians. The Chorrera were also among the first people in Ecuador as well as the Machalilla. Both the Chorrera and the Machalilla practiced head deformation. In 1463, the Incas invaded from Peru and conquered these early tribes and enslaved them. Their rule was pretty short because Spanish conquistadors invaded in 1531 under the command of Francisco Pizzaro, and defeated the great Inca warrior Rumiñahui. In 1534 the Spanish established the city of Quito, which is the capitol of Ecuador today. Spain ruled Ecuador for nearly three hundred years. The first challenge to the Spanish of Ecuador came in the early 1800s, after Napoleon had defeated Spain and replaced its king. This made the Ecuadorians revolt, but they were unsuccessful. A little later in the nineteenth century, Simon Bolivar, Antonio José de Sucre and others led a rebellion against the Spaniards. A final battle against Spain in 1824 freed Ecuador, Peru and Columbia. Bolivar became president of Colombia, dictator of Peru, and president of the newly founded Bolivia. His leadership of these countries was short-lived. He had awakened the forces of nationalism in South America, and these countries each wanted their own government. He died in 1830, probably from exhaustion and of tuberculosis, having unleashed a series of revolutions in South America. He is still remembered as the liberator of Ecuador. In the mid-1800s there was a lot of fighting among different groups in Ecuador, each trying to take control of the government. It ended with a military dictatorship taking control, under the leadership of Gabriel Garcia Moreno. He was assassinated in 1895. Since then, there has been very little stability in the how Ecuador has been run. One group was always trying to take control, and both civilian and military groups have run the country at one time or another. Even today the government of Ecuador is unstable.

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Material for this presentation came from the following sources: Ecuador, <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">__World Book Encyclopedia__ <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, 2008 <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Land and Climate, CultureGrams, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">History, CultureGrams, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">History, Lonely Planet, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ecuador, Encyclopedia Britannica, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ecuador, info please, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Background note: Ecuador, US department of state, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sights in Ecuador, Lonely planet, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Galapagos animals Gallery, GalapagosIslands.com, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|http://www.galapagosislands.com/html/galapagos_wildlife_gallery.html#greater-flamingo]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Volcan cotopaxi, Volcan route, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating, CultureGrams, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Most Popular Ecuadorean Recipes, food.com, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Import/Export and Trade in Ecuador, Ecuador, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eating, CultureGrams, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Most Popular Ecuadorean Recipes, food.com, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Import/Export and Trade in Ecuador, Ecuador, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[]