Ciclopaseo

Every Sunday in Quito, cyclists, pedestrians and rollerbladers reclaim Amazonas Avenue, one of the longest streets in the city. One half of the road is closed to motorists for the Ciclopaseo, and its a great way to see the city. We rented bikes for a couple hours and cycled out past the airport and back. There is more info on the project here and a map of the route here. I would love to see an initiative like this in Canadian cities in the summer.
Along the way, we stopped to watch this artist spray-painting graffiti on the last remaining space on a wall in a residential neighbourhood. I really love the graffiti in Quito - it seems to be embraced as a valid art form here, and public spaces often feature creative murals and surprising impromptu collages of anything and everything including cartoon characters, religious figures and bold political statements.

This artist, who goes by the moniker Starman, told us that a group of graffiti artists organized a street art event on this spot during Fiestas de Quito. The idea was to create a forum for artists to present their work while also creating an alternative activity for young people, since the Fiestas de Quito weekend tends to be dominated by heavy drinking and partying. The alcohol-soaked weekend is becoming a problem for the city. This year there was a big push city-wide to "party healthily", and yet we saw drunk men swerving around on the sidewalks in the old city as early as 10 a.m. The graffiti event was sponsored by the municipal government and a spray-paint company (their symbol is the crown in the picture above). Apparently it was a very successful event. Interesting to see street art as a vehicle for social change - and endorsed by the government too.