Ecuador is the second largest producer of flowers in the world behind Colombia. Flowers are very inexpensive here (lucky me!); two dozen roses cost between $4 and $5. On Saturday, Roman and I traveled to a convention center in the north of Quito to go to the Agriflor exhibition (www.hppexhibitions.com/floriculture/2014/ecuador/). The expo only occurs once every 2 years and features several varieties of flowers with roses taking center stage. The place smelled wonderful and there were over 200 exhibitors there to showcase their businesses. There were spectacular displays featuring everything from tremendously long stemmed roses to chairs made of different colored rosebuds. After the show, we ate lunch at a stand just outside the convention center. We had hornado, a traditional Ecuadorian dish of roasted pork, mashed and grill fried potato cake, and hominy with hot sauce.

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