Guayasamín

Quito, trapped between two mountain ranges, is a long and thin capital city, running from north to south. We ventured slightly to the north of centre today thanks to one of the three public bus lines plying the vertical avenues. Taking the Ecovia costs a measily 25¢ for a single trip and runs on its own dedicated lanes.

Alighting at the Bellavista stop presented us with the familiar sight of a hill to be scaled, which soon revealed the origin of the area's name, meaning "beautiful view".

La bella vista at Bellavista

Our destination was the house and now museum of the Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín. He is, to my shame, not someone with whom I was previously familiar. As well as bring a prolific painter, influenced heavily by Picasso (in style) and Goya (in his depictions of the effects of war), he was also an avid collector of precolumbian art and his house is full of interesting artifacts as well as other odds and ends he picked up from his artist friends, some of which hang in the bathroom. All of his collection he donated to Ecuador. Wandering around his house, which was left untouched after his death, down to the paint-spattered shirts hanging in the wardrobe, was endlessly fascinating, but as the tour was obligatory we were ushered out far before we would naturally have left. The tour ended with a view into Guayasamín's studio and a video of his splendid and rapid technique being exercised on a one-hour portrait of famed flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucia.

Oswaldo Guayasamín's studio

Paco de Lucia by Guayasamín

Fortunately, next door to Guayasamín's house is his masterwork - the posthumously completed La Capella del Hombre (Chapel of Man). A cube of a building that reaches underground contains floor-to-ceiling depictions of man's inhumanity and capacity for creating suffering in his fellow human beings, but also his compassion. However, the artist unfortunately had far more of the former on which to draw, as he personally witnessed his friend murdered at a protest rally, and was an acquaintance of Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda and Victor Jara, all of whom died during the Chilean dictatorship. The atrocities perpetrated against men and women of South America, especially the indigenous people, were sufficient fuel for a thirty-year period of art known as "The Age of Anger", especially when coupled with worldwide examples of cruelty and genocide. The 'Chapel' is decorated with homages to the miners of Potosí, the villagers of Lidice, the people of Vietnam, Girón, Nicaragua, and more. It is a profoundly affecting and emotional installation.

La Capella del Hombre

Crossing the enormous Parque Carolina, we reached Bocabierta, where we had lunch. In an artsy setting, we enjoyed the set lunch of quinoa soup, followed by soy meat and red pepper stew, with chickpea salad and sweet potato mash. I'm sure this particular dish had a name, but the waitress rattled it off in Spanish too fast for me to pick it up. Strawberries for dessert confirmed that it was indeed summer in Ecuador.

Lunch at Bocabierta

Accordingly, we crossed back into the park to enjoy the fruits of the summer season at the Jardín Botánico. In actual fact, the stars of the botanic garden were the dozens of orchids in the hothouse, which reminded us very much of being in the humidity of Langkawi.

Orchids in the hothouse