Zurich – Quito – Guayaquil – Salinas
The flight was long and arduous and we didn't sleep well. It also didn't help that we did not fly directly to Guayaquil from Madrid, but had a small layover in Quito to get gas and change the crew. All of the sleepy people were herded out of the plain for this, a blue card, that doubled as a boarding pass, was shoved into our hands and we were deposited into the waiting area. This was the first time where the US influence became apparent. The restaurants were mostly burgers and fast food, proclaiming US quality as a marketing value. I thought that was interesting and wondered whether the adoption of the US currency had something to do with it, and what exactly the relationship between the US and Ecuador was.
The flight to Guayaquil was short and painless and we arrived at a much busier and bigger seeming airport. As soon as we got our bags we got some money at the nearest ATM and then headed to the taxies. It would be another two and half hours to Salinas beach. Our taxi driver was great. In spite of my less than adequate Spanish we managed to have an entertaining conversation. He was a poorer person. He had a wife, a daughter and a granddaughter. He was also a Christian and likes to listen to Christian church music. As he played us a piece, it sounded very much like European 80s music to me, so, not altogether bad. He was also very impressed by our GPS, as we tried to find the hotel.
Compared our taxi ride the hotel was almost too quiet. But we nonetheless fell asleep soon to the sound of ocean waves.
Shopping, sunscreen
and beaches
Our awakening was a rather rude one: at 7:30 to the sound of birds (aras, cockatiels etc.). It was the first real impression we got of this country in daylight. The hotel was almost ridiculously tidy, to the point where you were afraid to wear shoes in the yard (the grounds-keeper scrubbed it every day). Breakfast was good, but disappointingly European, with bread, milk and eggs.
Our first order of the day was to go to the nearby mall for water and sunscreen and we ventured a walk. After all, you never really know a place until you have walked the streets. We started off with a rather surreal meander through a suburban area with dusty streets and walled in and guarded residential areas that almost looked more like prisons from the outside than actual places where people would want to live. Over all of this hung a tune that sometimes came and then faded away again. I wondered what it was. A mystery.
We soon hit the main street, a heavily trafficked, four lane band, that knotted together Salinas first with La Libertad and then slithered off towards the rest of the east all the way to Guayaquil. In spite of all the traffic, the sides of the street were remarkably clean. Barely any trash was lying around, we would soon understand that this was the norm. Even though not many people were on the street, a lot of them were busy. Some were painting a house, another was prying off a tyre from an axle with a crowbar, again another was shouting out which bus went to where from the bigger bus stop near the shopping mall, and some were selling chewing gums, pretzels and coconut water in small plastic bags around and inside the buses when they stopped. Here and there you could also observe some stray dogs.
The mall was a decent size, the architecture white with a colonial touch. The main store had pretty much everything you could imagine. From household goods, to toys to home improvement gear. We were quite surprised to see that sunscreen was only available from 50 to 100 SPF and didn't realize why until Luke burned himself even under a cloud covered sky. Of course. The Equator, the sun was coming down here at an almost 90 degree angle! For lunch we bought some yucca bread. The parking spots were under guard here, so I assumed that the black market for stolen vehicles is flourishing.
We had a doze in the afternoon, then a small walk around on the hotel grounds, visiting the parrots that greeted you with a slightly bewildered “Hola.” and watching pelicans hunting for fish in the ocean waves.
Finally we decided to go out again. At first we tried to walk along the road towards the city centre, but that soon became uncomfortable. We had thought we would find a bus stop along the way, but soon realized that there was none. After a good long walk along the street, as well as through the suburbs, we observed some local ladies stopping a bus with a hand wave to get on, and the lack of bus stations soon became clear. We mimicked them and came to know the wonderfully simple bus system of Salinas. You just stick out your hand, pay the driver 25 cents, stay on the bus and when it's time of get off you stand in a place near the door, signal the driver and he would let you out at the next possible stop, usually a junction. It was great.
We walked down the beach for a short while and had a nice churrasco at the Amazonas restaurant after.
Encouraged by our bus experience, we also took the bus back. We also didn't want to walk since it was already after 6, meaning after nightfall and that automatically means: more dangerous for unsuspecting gringos such as ourselves. But as we walked from the bus stop back to our hotel we came across two guys jogging, so we assumed that at least this neighbourhood couldn't be as dangerous as all that.
Some more relaxing
We woke up a little later this time, had our usual American breakfast and then just hung around, doing nothing.
In the afternoon, we started another expedition to the mall to buy a SIM card, since my phone didn't have one and Luke's phone did not work. It was an interesting, rather chaotic experience and the girl selling me the card soon started talking to me in idiot Spanish since she quickly realized that my Spanish wasn't all that. At the big convenience store, we went to get more water and paid with a 50 dollar bill, something that made the cashier look at it twice and then type off the registry number.
Once back at the hotel, we called the taxi, our dear old taxi driver that had already brought us here, to tell him to pick us up tomorrow.
We took another bus to the beach. This time a lot of people went in with us, too much for the bus, in fact. This bus went through an area in the south that was distinctly poorer than the ones we had walked through before. Unfinished, single houses rimmed the dusty streets, children and people were playing in them, mostly soccer or basketball. There were a lot less fortified walls and there was a lot more life. We got out at the beach, at the very end, near a military facility, and strolled along the beach again, over the sand, observing the pelicans, oyster catchers, gulls and other birds.
We ate dinner at a very cute little restaurant. I first bought something at a stall to try the food and then thought it was so good that we just ate some delicious noodles there. Funny small thing though: when Luke ordered a Coke, the guy just went to buy it at the store next door.
On the bus home I finally managed to talk to a local. He talked to us, because he thought it was funny that Luke's legs got squished by the too small seats and we had a nice small conversation.
At the traffic lights we saw people doing stunts and back-flips for money. Another sight we would encounter often.
At the hotel we watched TV for the first time. Apart from the omnipresent telenovelas we were astonished at how many of the shows were either influenced by American trash TV or a direct dub of those shows.
Guayaquil's Malecón 2000
This night we were woken up by the alarm from the house next door twice and at around 5am I just gave up on the general idea of sleep. The waking up early solved one mystery for us though: we found out what it was that had created that music on the first day: the garbage truck! And it is just soo awesome!
In the early afternoon the taxi came to pick us up. Our taxi driver, who was called Wellington and who I definitely overpaid the first time, was incredibly happy to see us again (of course, more money). He had bought us a SIM card (which was unfortunate, since we already had one) and a CD with horribly cheesy songs that he tried to teach us and that, as a consequence, we sang up and down throughout almost all of the journey. When we arrived in Guayaquil, Wellington suggested, that the two of us and his wife should go out for a drink together in the evening. Luke and I both thought this was a good idea.
What we saw of Guayaquil's streets was very reminiscent of US cities of the south. Wide streets, big billboards, huge pick-ups and mostly new cars. We also noticed that there were a lot of white people on the bill boards, in fact, most of the ads were with white people. The same was true for television.
So when we arrived at the hotel, we slept all afternoon. Once evening came, however, Wellington called us to tell us that the two of them could not come, since his wife had to work late. So we called a taxi from the hotel (which was not an official taxi, but seemed to be someone known to the hotel owner wanting to make some extra buck) to the Malecón 2000 to get some dinner. On our way there we noticed that even on the main shopping street, the prevalent restaurants were US fast food chains.
The Malecón 2000, malecón is usually another word for street that runs along the water, is hard to describe. It is a promenade with playgrounds, tree-like colourful architecture, restaurants overlooking the Guayas river and shops. It has two stories at some point, restaurants above and stores below. Starting at the rotunda, a large statue of Bolívar and San Martín, we walked down until we stopped at a restaurant that was a mixture between Chinese and local food and had something local. Our little excursion lead us then from all the way to one end of the malecón, which was also framed by statues, to the other, which was framed by an IMAX. Even though it was 11 o'clock, there were a lot of people out, and even families with children, that played in the playgrounds. It was interesting to note that the whole of the malecón was shut off by a large fence and under guard by the police, so I guess that made people feel safer.
As per instructions from Wellington, we had kept the number of our taxi driver and took the same taxi back.
Going to
Galapagos Islands
We took the same taxi to the airport as yesterday and it wanted the same 5 dollars for a trip that took about 5 minutes (which was too much, in my opinion). There was a huge queue in front of check-in and we met two Swiss girls in it that had been travelling for a good month now. They told us that before going through check-in, we first had to get a form for the Galapagos Islands in another queue just about as long as the one for check-in. So Luke and I decided to split. He queued in the one for the form and I queued in the check-in line. Luckily, we all got what we wanted in time for the plane, even though the whole procedure was more than chaotic. However, our bags were searched in case we intended to bring something organic to the islands (and this happened every time we would change from island to island, which was very annoying, not to mention not well done, since the people controlling the bags were very lax).
After a rather uneventful flight to Baltra, we arrived at the airport and paid the entry fee of 100 dollars per person (luckily Luke had been getting money from an ATM the night before, so we had enough cash on us — there are no ATMs in the airport!). Then we took a bus to the Baltra–Santa Cruz ferry and from there a driver (yes, a driver, since this was a guided tour), took us to the travel agency.
After a short input session we armed ourselves with a lot of sunscreen and took off to the Darwin Station. It was hot, and quite a walk from Puerto Ayora. When we finally arrived there, the main building of the station was under construction. That meant that the entry was free, but that we didn't get to see a portion of the information. What the Darwin Station finally boiled down to, apart from the science houses that were out of bounds for tourists and a small house with information about the Galapagos fauna, was... a sad little zoo with turtles and iguanas. After a short stay, we headed back.
Puerto Ayora was very touristy with a lot of stores selling T-shirts, hats and all the other junk you would usually find in places like these. We steered well clear of all that and just trundled along the water.
When it was time we went back to the agency and then took the boat from Santa Cruz to Isabela island. The trip was over two hours long and I promptly got sea sick. I wasn't the only one, though, another guy was far worse off than me. I didn't have to puke, my blood pressure just dropped and so I lost the feeling in my arms and legs, he, on the other hand, used the bag pretty often. So it was at least nice to have a partner in misery. His name was Franco and he was here with his wife Dolores.
The harbour at Isabela is amazing. It is literally teaming with life both human and animal. Pelicans, penguins, frigate birds, fish, iguanas and, of course, sea lions. Sea lions everywhere.
We met up with Paco, our go-to person for the stay on Isabela. He was a nice surfer dude and told us a bit about the island. Around 2,000 people live on Isabela, as opposed to Santa Cruz where about 27,000 live.
We walked a bit around Puerto Villamil and tried to find an pharmacy to buy anti sea sick pills for future boat rides. We also found a store where we could buy water and a bit of food for the hike tomorrow. Since Puerto Villamil is very small, we ran into Dolores and Franco again, when we had dinner (or they found us, rather). They decided to join us and we had a nice evening. The two of them were from Buenos Aires. They told us a lot of interesting things about their culture. For example, that most people used black market dollars as a currency, because it seems more secure. I had a Ceviche, a very sour, but good soup, in this case with mussels and fish, though you can make them with all kinds of meat.
Later we still walked a bit around Puerto Villamil and had a milkshake. It was great!
Volcanoes and the Wall of Tears
We woke up early, at around 6:30, for the Volcano Sierra Negra and Chico tour. Breakfast was served to us at a restaurant in the centre and it was also there that we got a lunch pack. We got picked up by a car we shared with a German woman, a botanist, and a Columbian guy who worked in marketing. The ride took about half an hour. After we had all gathered at the meeting point at the foot of the hill we walked uphill for quite some time. First it was very misty and humid, with slight rain and forest areas, but soon the forest lessened and the sun peaked through the mist. It became a lot hotter. On my way up I talked to the German botanist and she explained to me that not all trees here are indigenous and some are cut down and uprooted, since they otherwise displace the native ones.
We soon arrived at the Sierra Negra Volcano, a huge expanse of dark earth with Opuntia cacti on its slopes. We saw a lot of different birds in the undergrowth like vermillion fly catchers, for example.
We walked on to two great trees in the landscape and further to volcano Chico. It was now midday and rather hot and we hiked into desert territory with nothing but under-brush and cacti and next to no shelter. I walked with a Spanish lady, who was a lawyer. Especially on the way back from volcano Chico she had trouble walking, so I stayed with her to make sure she was ok.
We had lunch at the two trees and then walked back down from the Volcano.
On the way down I talked to an Australian lady and one of her daughters, Tess, who told me about her life and her dad. It was a very pleasant conversation.
Back at Puerto Villamil, we changed our tour for tomorrow from our original plan to Los Tuneles, since everyone had recommended them to us. Then we rented some bikes and went to El Muro de Las Lagrimas, the Wall of Tears. Luke had trouble on the bike ride there though, since it went slightly uphill, so we only stayed there for a little while, since all he wanted was to go home and recover. It was nice and peaceful though with only bird calls to cut into the silence. We even saw a turtle sleeping in a puddle of water. Luke went home after that, but I still wanted to see the flamingo lake the Colombian had recommended to me.
We noticed that there was always a bell in the evening and soon came to realize that this was probably the call for the evening mass. We entered a church once (since the doors were open) and even though the bell had sounded, it was, oddly enough, very empty.
In the evening we had dinner with the Colombian, Rafael Canon, and Dolores and Franco. Again, a very pleasant affair.
Turtles in Los Tuneles
We had an early start again to get our snorkelling gear for the Tuneles tour. It was a one hour boat ride and the anti sea sick pills worked well, luckily. Los Tuneles are a formation of lava arches not far away from the island shore with nesting grounds of blue footed boobies and an abundance of those red crabs that you find everywhere. We walked around on those formations for a while and saw plenty of fish and even two sea turtles swimming between them.
After this short excursion it was time for snorkelling. Unfortunately my neoprene suit was very bad and I was freezing, but it was still very interesting. We saw sea horses in the seaweed, a sleeping ray and some sleeping sharks and, as a highlight, we swam with a giant sea turle for a while.
On the way back I sat in the boat together with a German girl called Tinette and had a nice talk with her. After our excursion and before our transfer to Santa Cruz iland we still spent some time at the harbour, relaxed and observed the spectacle of life there. The photos don't do it justice.
As we transferred to Santa Cruz in the afternoon, we met Tinette again on the ship and continued our talk. At Puerto Ayora we met Rafael again and this time took his phone number, so we could contact him in case we wanted to go to dinner again. We had dinner at La Giardina, a very nice and very touristy restaurant with good food, and then walked around the town a bit, before we went to bed.
South Plaza island
Today was our excursion to South Plaza island. The strange thing about this trip was, that we had to take a bus first to the other side of Santa Cruz island and only then we took the boat to Las Plazas that was almost halfway back around Santa Cruz again. We met a nice family of three from Rio de Janeiro on the boat trip there. The daughter was sea sick, so I offered to give her an anti sea sick pill, since I had more than enough. Once we arrived on Plazas, we were greeted by an almost surreal landscape of red ground plants with thick leaves and of cacti. Our excursion took us to see land and sea iguanas and the obligatory seals.
After our trip to the island, we had lunch. The boat was really good in this case. We had tables and a real two part meal with a main dish and a desert. After that went to a small lagoon for snorkelling. There we saw white tip sharks, a beautiful species of shark, and all kinds of interesting fish. Among others a giant parrot fish I swam with for a while.
Then we returned back to Puerto Ayora. When we walked to our hotel, Luke broke his shoe and so our next objective of the day was to find a store where we could buy him new walking gear. The problem was though, that Luke has pretty big feet and that Ecuadorian men usually do not. So we couldn't find shoes in a fitting size. Finally, a woman at a store recommended us to go to a zapatero, a shoe repair shop. There we actually met Tinette again. Luke's shoe was fixed with an old Singer sewing machine and glue, something that was fascinating to watch. After that we went shopping for food in the large local supermarket and then walked around some more. One thing that I observed when walking around, was that the cars here were newer than on the main land. Even though the most frequent cars were still Chevrolets.
El Chato and los Gemelos
We had the morning off, so we rented a taxi to get to the Gemelos and the El Chato park. Our taxi driver in this case also doubled as our guide. First, we went to los Gemelos, two big craters formed by the erosion of the underlying soil through water.
Then we went to el Chato park. In the park, we had to wear boots because the ground was very muddy. Now, if we hadn't seen land turtles before, this is where we got our fill of them. El Chato is several hectares big and the turtles found there could roam around freely. People could just walk among them and observe them eating or relaxing. Needless to say we took a lot of pictures. There were also lava tunnels in the park and our guide told us about how they were formed. He also explained to us that agriculture was very difficult on the island, since in most cases the humus layer was less then 20cm deep. It was a bit rainy and so in the end we were glad to have some tea and a few treats at the park's café.
Our guide's name was Luís and he was a really nice guy. He told me he had three children, two daughters, one of them a house wife, the other also working in the tourist industry, and one son, who, because of his epilepsy, helped his father at the hotel they owned. After the tour he showed us his hotel, a really nice place that I can recommend to people who do not want to stay in the middle of the tourist areas. We requested our drive drop us off near the beaches. Even though we knew it was a close call, time-wise (we had to catch a boat to San Cristóbal today, after all), we still walked to Tortuga Bay, a really nice, calm beach, and back again.
Back at our hotel, while we were waiting for the boat, we had an ice cream at La Giardina. There was some confusion at the hotel though and no taxi seemed to pick us up, so we just walked to the harbour. The confusion continued at the dock where a lot of people wanted to get on ships. Luckily we were on the right list, though, so that cleared everything up. This time it was a three hour trip and very rough, especially on the back.
After a short trip to the local contact on the island, we went to the hotel and took the time to relax a bit for once. We stayed a bit at the hotel, slept, watched TV and then, at dusk, went to eat at a restaurant called Las Playas. As per usual I had patacones with my meal, something which has turned into my favourite dish in the last few days.
Isla Lobos
The breakfast in our hotel provided us with a nice view over the town and with a bit of strange entertainment in form of a DVD about an Ecuadorian Indio competing in DSDS. As almost per usual, we were the only guests. After getting our wetsuits we took another boat trip to Isla Lobos where we saw a lot of blue footed boobie nests and frigate birds. Here, the group mostly consisted of Ecuadorians and only a few non-South Americans. I tried to strike a conversation with a Canadian guy called Wade, but he didn't seem too talkative.
Snorkelling on this trip was interesting, since we were swimming with seals. They swam around you and even towards you, but turned at the last second, something you needed to get used to. I found the fish much more interesting, though, as usual. We even saw a small sea turtle, but it was soon stressed by so many people, so I asked the guide to leave it alone.
This tour, unlike any other before, was characterized by its captain and first mate. They were both so funny. The first mate was making jokes, although most of them in Spanish, and most of them rather harsh. The guide was nice, too. After snorkelling, we had a little time to relax on Ochoa beach where we were met by seals again. Those seals were very curious and a small one came really close to some of the English people in the group. They liked that. Unfortunately, where there were seals on this beach there were also a lot of stinging insects. They bit me so hard and so often, that one of my calves was pockmarked with small bloody craters by the end of the afternoon. The other creature that could be seen, small hermit crabs, was a lot more pleasant. The sand was also very interesting. More like small, flattened almost white rocks, than sand.
Back at the harbor, we walked to the hotel and later went to a rather full restaurant near the beach called Calypso, where we had pizza. We also met a German couple which we had met on the boats before and talked with them for a while. It was interesting, because they told us that they had been in Ecuador and parts of South America in the seventies. They said the country had been very different back then, a lot less touristy.
The final day on Galapagos
We had our usual breakfast and then walked around the town for a bit before our flight back to the main land. I wanted to visit the Centre of Interpretation — or rather, the information centre. It taught its visitors a lot about the history, population and life of the Galapagos Islands. I left Luke at in the town centre, since he wanted to relax for a bit. Since our flight was soon, I felt I had to rush quite a bit and so I didn't read everything at the centre. It was enough to get a general idea, however.
After a rather fast-paced walk back to the hotel and a taxi to the airport, we were told that the flight was about three to four hours delayed. The reason for that being that the airport was currently under construction. The upside of this was, that we could eat a nice lunch at a good restaurant near the beach for free as a compensation for the inconvenience. We met a German guy during this lunch who had travelled to South America to learn Spanish. After, we walked around some more, had batidas and patacones in another restaurant and just relaxed for a while.
The flight, scheduled for 1pm, finally took off with us at about 5:30pm and so we had to wait for a fairly long time in a makeshift waiting area with wooden benches and loudspeakers that really did their name justice.
As with the flight from Madrid, this flight had a small stopover at Guayaquil. This time, though, we didn't have to leave the plane for the half hour it waited at the airport.
When we finally arrived at the airport of Quito we walk out in search for a taxi, but before we reached the doors, we were stopped by this Dutch guy, Leonard, who asked us, if he could share a taxi with us. We agreed, of course, and were treated to some fascinating and strange stories. He had been travelling through South America for quite some time now. He told us that he was lucky as far as scams were concerned, but that someone he had met had become a victim of a scam where he was stopped by a false police officer, who claimed that his documents were not in order and, since there was another “tourist” with him, who told him to cooperate, he went with the two. Both were in on the scam though, and robbed him blind. Leonard himself had almost become victim of the “shit” scam, where shit is thrown at you and some very “helpful” Ecuadorians are then more than ready to help you getting cleaned up, stealing your backpack and wallet and everything. He noticed the thread with which they were going to steal his wallet though and ran off.
He was a bit less lucky in the beginning of his journey. His iPad and other computer equipment was stolen right out of his hotel room. When travelling through Bolivia he had been in a severe bus accident. Two buses had collided, one was driven off the street and people went flying through it, since there were no seat belts. Four had died and many were injured. Luckily Leonard himself was unscathed, but they had to wait for about 12 hours in the cold of the desert until another bus came to collect them. I have to admit that's probably the thing that I'm most afraid of. Bus accidents.
Our hotel this time around was in a higher price class than usual. We were greeted by a nice quiet man called Luís. Since we had travelled quite a bit, we went to bed soon.
The old town, the botanical gardens and headaches
Today was our first day in Quito. We first had breakfast, together with the only other guests staying in this hotel, an elderly American couple. Those two had been less lucky than us. The husband's backpack had gotten stolen at the airport together with all his medication. We offered them our sympathies as there is nothing more you can really do at this point.
To head out we got some advice from Luís, and then were off into the spectacle that was Quito. We first had a look at the old town. It was Sunday and there were a lot of people, mostly well dressed churchgoers. You also heard street traders announcing their wares, mostly women and mostly Indios. They were selling everything from ice cream (“... a lot of sugar, a lot of fat, little salt...”), apples, passion fruit, small house hold things, chewing gums etc. all for one dollar. You could also observe shoe cleaners going after their business and men with scales people could weigh themselves on in some corners. We soon found ourselves in an area of the town with a lot of open stalls and shopping malls overflowing with cheap wares.
Walking not only made us very thirsty very fast, but I also soon had a splitting headache whenever I attempted to walk faster. Luke and I assumed it was mountain sickness.
After having been to the center of the old town, we climbed to the top of the Basilica del Voto Nacional for a great view over the city.
On midday we took a bus to the Mariscal and had lunch at some fast food place called “La Manestra del Negro” (which we chose because it sounded so unintentionally racist), then we took another bus to the Parca Carolina. It was overflowing with people, families buying ceviche for their children, couples riding in the boats on the artificial looking lake, children running around, youngsters riding their skateboards and of course, the obligatory beggars and musicians.
It probably would have been quite amazing go people watching there, but since our headaches were killing us, we decided to head for an area that was a bit calmer and visited the Botanical gardens. Apart from all kinds of rain forest plants, there was also a huge orchid collection to appreciate.
By the time we arrived back at our hotel, my headache had gotten infinitely worse, so we decided to bury our plans of hiking in the Andes and do a more relaxing itinerary instead and visit sights on the same height. After taking an ibuprofen, I went to sleep.
La Mariscal
and el TeleferiQo
My headache was almost gone today, luckily, so we went to town again. Our plan was to make two two day tours, one to villages north of Quito and one to Mindo, a cloud forest town to the north-west of the capital. We had talked to Luís and he was kind enough to let us leave our bags at the hotel for the nights we did't stay there. But that also meant that we had to go shopping for a backpack. After a bit of searching, we found a nice one in one of those shopping malls. I also made sure to listen to other people's conversations and the prices that were asked for bags. At $38, the price was similar to what the indigenous also paid, apparently. No gringo prices here.
As we went on the bus I noticed for the first time that not a lot of people were wearing glasses and I wondered whether this was either because people have better eyesight than in Europe, or whether it was culturally more acceptable to wear contact lenses, or if it was just a matter of not being able to afford any of it.
We had lunch at a KFC, because, why not. It is maybe interesting to note that a lot of rich looking well-dressed people are found in there. Next, we went back to the Mariscal and walked through it properly this time. First, through a market, then through its streets. We actually met Leonard and his parents, who were visiting him, there. I love the houses of the Mariscal and the whole almost surreal, Disneylandish atmosphere of it.
After our feet were sore from walking, we took a taxi to the TeleferiQo. As the name suggests, this is a teleferic, or cable car, that goes up to 4000m above sea level, so up one of the two mountain ranges enveloping Quito. It was a risk; we were courting with the possibility of headaches again — and we did have a headache while we were up there, but it disappeared again as soon as we got back down, so it was fine. Theoretically, going up this far would provide you with a spectacular view over the city, but we were out of luck. It was very misty up top and you could see only about 10 meters far. Undeterred, we had some small meat pasties to eat at the local restaurant and then went back down again.
The weird thing about the bottom station was that there was this amusement park there called the “Parco Volcano” and it seemed that no one was around to use the attractions. It was open though, and that made it a little sad and a little eerie.
Since this was a touristy area there was already a taxi waiting for us at the foot of the cable car station and we took it home.
Otavalo markets
Today was our trip to Otavalo and so we got up early. We took one of the buses to its final station and actually one station past it (it felt like going off the map, since this station was in no official guides) to get to a second bus and take that to the big bus station. In spite of some confusion we got to the bus in time. The city to city buses were awesome! All of them colorful with images of Jesus and other holy things on them, so colorful, in fact, that you almost couldn't see their numbers and where they went.
The bus trip was rather nice and comfortable. There were movies shown on a small screen in the front (“Smoke Jumpers” and “God's not Dead”) albeit in Spanish, and at certain points the bus stopped, so that people selling snacks could get in or that people travelling with it could get on or off. I tried not to look out the front too much, since I knew that most bus drivers here were horrible at following traffic rules and I didn't want to stress myself. As with most other buses, this was a bus that let you get off wherever you wanted to, so we got of close to the centre of Otavalo, or actually, not close enough, so we had to walk to the centre for quite a while. We later found out, that it would have been better to just drive to the final stop. Ah, well... The first order of the day was to find a hotel and a place to put our bags. I just took the first hotel in our Lonely Planet guide that looked interesting, and we checked in there. It was a fine choice.
After all our bags were safely stowed, we walked around a bit. Otavalo was a lot calmer than Quito and quite a bit smaller. The people were also really friendly. We went to the Plaza de Ponchos first, but weren't really impressed — people had been telling us to go on Saturday, since market day was then, but our flight was on that day, so that unfortunately wasn't possible — so we walked on to a different plaza with food stalls and benches and had some lunch there. It was the first time that I felt I had a real indigenous experience, eating with the locals and interacting with them as best I could.
After that, we took a taxi to the Parque de Condor a little way out of town, but when we arrived there, it was closed, contrary to what our Lonely Planet guide had said. We met another Swiss person there, just as out of luck as us. Her name was Seraphine and she suggested that we could go and drive to the Lechero, an old tree. So we decided take the taxi there. She convinced us to walk from there though, so we walked all the way downhill through fields towards the city below. We met some nice ladies, working at a farm on the way down, with whom we had a nice little banter — or we tried to, anyway, Seraphine and I could speak enough Spanish between the two of us to at least try.
At the city centre Seraphine told us that she would be meeting a friend of hers in an ice cream café and asked us if we wanted to accompany her. So we met up with Melanie, who was here, teaching English to children in two of the local schools for a few months. She told us a few nice stories about her life here and that teaching here was entirely different from teaching in Switzerland. Mostly because there was no curriculum at all. You just taught what you could.
Seraphine asked us if we could meet up later in a restaurant called “The Black Cat”. She stayed there with the couple who owned the place. When we arrived there, however, she wasn't there. So we just went to the pizza place around the corner (I know, fast food again). It was a nice place, but the lady at the counter spoke rather fast Spanish, so it was hard to understand her and order something, but I still managed somehow. After dinner, we went off to bed, since we wanted to have an early start for Cotacachi the next day.
Cotacachi leather
We took the bus from the main station. This drive wasn't as far. Once we arrived, we walked around a bit. Cotacachi was even smaller and quieter than Otavalo. The town was known for its leather manufacture and the city centre consisted mostly of leather ware shops for tourists. We walked around for a bit and stumbled upon a school race of what looked like a catholic school, since there were a lot of nuns around the goal area.
The final stretch was on a big plaza with a church. We decided to take a taxi to a small lake in the area of the town there. The driver was a young and nice guy, but in hindsight he probably screwed us over, because when we arrived at the lake, there was so much mist that we couldn't see a thing and we had to head back.
We ate local food at a small restaurant — I still can't believe, that usually a menu only costs about $2. Then I went to buy some fruit and we walked into some stores — and I actually managed to buy a leather jacket.
Since there was nothing more to do in Cotacachi, we took the bus back to Otavalo and then called Seraphine, since she said she wanted to come back to Quito with us. She said she could meet up with us in the evening and so we decided to try and visit the Parque Condor again for the afternoon and this time we succeeded.
We waited for her at the ice cream café again and I had some really nice pasties, I forgot the name of now. On the way back all went as planned, even though we were a bit on our guard, since we arrived in Quito a good bit after nightfall. When we arrived at our hotel, we almost didn't get in, since our landlord didn't expect us to come back this late. He had turned off the door bell, as he had been praying with his family.
Rope parks,
colibris and frogs
Today we went to Mindo, petty much by the same route through Quito to the same bus station that also has buses to Otavalo. It was a close call, but we made it to the bus. We watched “Rambo” on this bus trip, but that couldn't always distract me from the landscape: steep cliffs close to the street and more and more trees. Mindo was almost 1500m lower than Quito and in the middle of the so-called cloud forest.
Once we arrived there, we realized how touristy it was. We were asked whether we needed a hotel almost immediately after we had descended the bus. Finally we stayed with a lady a bit on the rim of this little jumble of mostly wooden houses.
After we had left our bags at the hotel and had gotten our bearings with a little help from said lady, we decided to go to a rope park. After an about one hour long hike up a hill and about 3 signs saying it was only 500 more meters to go, we finally arrived there. It was a nice experience, albeit a bit scary in the beginning. It almost felt like you were flying over the trees.
After going back down we had a pizza at a restaurant and then walked around town a bit, before going to a place where you could see a lot of humming birds. The guy who owned the place had beakers filled with sugar water that attracted them, but when I asked him if that was healthy for the birds he admitted that it was not and that he was currently actually slowly removing the beakers one a year and replacing them with flowers.
As a last stop, already after night fall, we went to the so called “frog concert”, a place built by a pond where you could hear a lot of frogs squawking. At first we thought that we were only supposed to sit there and almost wanted to go back to the centre of town again, regretting having spent $5 entry for almost nothing, but then a guy came and took us and the other couple on a tour around the pond and the forest nearby to show us all kinds of frogs, spiders and finally also a piece of rotting wood that glowed in the dark because of bacterial decomposition! It was quite magical! Unfortunately it was also raining during this trip and although I was wearing a raincoat my shoes and trousers were rather wet at the end.
Since we did't want to walk back, we took a taxi back with the other couple. The two of them were from Israel and, truth be told, rather impolite. Although I believe that it may have been a cultural misunderstanding, but they downright ordered me to communicate with the guy at the frog concert to order a taxi, since they didn't speak any Spanish. We took the taxi together with them and split the costs. We even took their number, to get in contact the next day, but somehow I didn't feel like calling them.
The waterfalls of Mindo
We had a very bad night. Since the house was made from wood and not insulated at all the walls were very thin and this meant you could hear everything! Every few hours there were people coming in and they stomped around and talked loudly. Needless to say that I was rather cranky in the morning. And then we found out that, in spite of reviews on the net, there was no breakfast here. That pretty much ruined my mood. So we went to a place where we had a nice breakfast, but nothing helped. I was still so angry that I pissed off Luke.
So I decided to go hiking to the waterfalls on my own. I took a ride in a really nice little cable car that went over the gorge near Mindo. It was a tourist attraction, of course, and it had a long queue until people could get on. Most of the tourists were Equadorians.
I took the trail that took me from small waterfall to small waterfall and ended at a big waterfall where most of the people were bathing or picnicking. The interesting thing about this place was that there were a lot of people of all ages walking on a track I found took quite some concentration. Most of them were faster hikers than I was and I'm usually not that slow.
Unfortunately I slipped on a wet stone at one of the waterfalls, at first I didn't feel it, but later, when I was back on the other side of the gorge again, my ankle hurt quite a bit, so I took one of the pick-up taxis down. I rode in the back, in the open, like a pro.
So, I met Luke at the hotel and we made up and relaxed a bit. After some confusion about payment and luggage and all (the hotel really was very bad, there was almost never any staff there), and some walking around town, we took the bus back. We also arrived after nightfall, but this time Luís knew we were coming in that late, so he was ready for us.
Museums and
travelling back home
So, this was our last day in Ecuador. Since the weather wasn't all that good, we decided to go to the Guayasamín museum. It was quite impressive, but it's also really hard to describe. I will let some pictures of the artist speak for themselves.
Apart from that we didn't do much, but walk around in the old town again, eat at the “Vista Hermosa”, a rather posh restaurant.
Then we went to the museum of shamanism, which I found equally impressive, somehow.
At the end of the day, Luís drove us to the airport and we had a nice talk about his life and about driving practices in Ecuador (people usually don't care about the rules). In the end, we parted with a hug and I thought that was a perfect end to our little vacation.
Oh, and as an afterthought: if someone who reads this ever thought about watching the new Godzilla movie (the one that came out in the year this was written) — just don't. It's not worth it.