News This Week

It's interesting to read about young people and kids from Ecuador who are doing something a bit out of the ordinary. Here's a story about a high school girl from Cuenca who is now enjoying her time in Pittsburgh as an exchange student. http://goo.gl/yqjf8

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I've read about the reckless drivers in Ecuador. Here's the story ( http://goo.gl/sAEFg) of a tragic crash between two buses, caused by one trying to pass another vehicle on a curve. An initial report said that the buses could have been going as fast as 75MPH.  Too  bad some of above-the-equator focus on highway safety hasn't made it to Ecuador. 

One post at tripadvisor spoke about the trip from Guayaquil to Cuenca: "Took the bus last year from Guayaquil to Cuenca as I hoped to have a good look at the landscape between these two cities. Turned out to be a terrible bus ride of more than 5,5 hours in a bus that was overcrowded, the television with a terrible movie with the volume at the maximum. The view was not at all what we hoped it would be. When we got to the hills/mountains it became foggy and it was quite scary in the bus with the very narrow roads with cliffs just besides you. I definitely would not take the bus again, but would fly."

Another poster said: "It´s almost a six hour ride when you´re going up the mountains. DO NOT TAKE EJECUTIVO SAN LUIS. The driver almost went over the side twice and he was passing people in an even crazier manner than usual for an Ecuadorian driver. Everyone on the bus was screaming at him to slow down (Dale suave) but he just laughed and drove faster on a road inundated with landslides and subsequent gravel sections. He was texting the entire time, and re-arranging the pictures in his wallet. Even other drivers in passing buses were motioning at him to slow down."

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Journalists from around the world have filed complaints with the President of Ecuador over one of the ten initiatives that will be put to a public vote on May 7th. Journalists feel the President, who reportedly has an antagonistic relation with the press and media, wants to seriously curtail freedom of expression.  This article http://goo.gl/qNcq0 spells out the concerns. Let's see what happens.  I'm curious to find out what May 7th will bring.