Mancora to cusco - from the sublime to the ridiculous

Apologies in advance for the even worse than usual typing errors- still haven't got the hang of the iPod yet. If anyone can tell me how to make the return button work and how to turn of predictive text I will give them a shiny penny!

Anyways.... I dont have many photos of mancora but i assure you it was nice.
The town itself is just a bunch of hostels built along the pan american highway and directly on a stretch of white sand beach with palm trees and decent surfing waves. we spent four days there, surfing and hanging out with two english couples we had met on our travels in ecuador. it was a kind of holiday from our  holiday! : )

Or at least it was supposed to be- turns out dermot has been offered a phd post in Manchester! So we spent most of it trying to work out how to change flights and whether we could get him to buenos aires in time. To say nothing of the whole "manchester" thing. Talk about first world problems in a third world country!

Anyway, we managed to fit in a couple of surfing lessons in between all that. They have a great system here where you go out on an extra long board. you lie on the board and your instructor hangs of the back helping you to paddle out - then he chooses the wave sets you up and keeps you balanced while you stand up. On the first lesson we had great conditions and caught about 10 waves! its definately cheating but soooo much more fun then what i believe can be quite a frustrating skill to pick up.

My teacher was hilarious- when we got to the school he was dancing on the sand, shaking his ample booty with his shirt off and his two silver teeth glinting in the sun. When i asked his name i thought he said Jafij or something - so he just sighed and pointed to the tattoo on his arm - DAVID. oh. I couldn't understand a word he said when he spoke english so we had to do the lessons in spanish - which probably wasnt the best way to learn but we managed!

After Mancorra we had to embark on our most gruelling bus journey yet - 19hours - one night in Lima - then another 22 hours to arrive in Cusco in time for our Inca trek.

the first bit was fine and we arrived in Lima on time. What we hadn't expected was that the whole journey was going to be through red sand deserts. It felt like we were on mars and our first glimpse of Lima looked like we were somewhere in the middle east. We didn't see much of Lima when we got there, but as we entered by bus we drove through miles of dusty "squatter" communities. They are like shanty towns built out of wood that surround the city. Many developing countries have this phenomenon as the population move to the City, but I don't know why this is referred to as " squatting" in Lima. Apparently some of these communities are as big as 350,000 people and have won awards for there organisations. Definitely worth looking into I think.

Back to the buses - They are always quite an expereince on this continent however we have both been quite impreessed at how smoothly it has gone so far.

In colombia and ecuador the coaches were pretty basic - but not bad - we only had one bone rattling experience. In both countries they have quite a blazé approach to the term ´direct ' and would stop in all kinds of places, with people running to jump onto the coach while it was still moving. You would also get vendors regularly coming onto the bus to sell their wares.  i quite liked that as you got to meet some real characters. The majority just sold fruit or crisps with their bird-like calls, though we've had people coming on with freshly cooked kebabs and curry. But my favourites were the 'delboys of south america' who come on with a box of chocolate bars or whatever, put one in your hand, and then wax lyrical at the front of the bus about latin american spirit or whatever before come back round to see if you'll buy the thing.
The most bizarre guy so far, was a middle aged gentleman who got on our bus from baños; the way he was talking and holding himself I thought he was a preacher, then suddenly he opened his book to reveal various pictures of people with dental hygiene problems! We still don't quite understand what he was trying to sell.
Then the next guy got on and insisted on reading aloud the entire cook book that he was trying to flog!

One of our more surreal coffee stops while travelling through ecuador...

In Peru 'direct' does seem to mean 'direct' - and the buses are more like planes, with seats that go back nearly all the way, tvs, wifi (thought that hasnt worked yet) and a hostess who serves you dinner and breakfast!

So we were feeling pretty confident about the mega journey ahead of us...

Unfortunately we were much mistaken. On the second 22 hour journey we were seated directly in front of the tv and deafening speakers. I dont know why, but they feel the need to play you movies constantly throughout you journey with only a break between midnight and 7:30 am. You never see any locals reading a book even on the longest journeys. Normally this is cool because i just see it as an opportunity to practice my spanish - but they dont seem to have any problem with showing the most GRAPHICLY violent films at 7am. Followed by various lads comedies with embarrasingly explicit sex scenes. Bearing in mind this is latin america, there are always young children watching it with you. The whole thing made me feel very British.

This was all nicely topped off by the fact that we had at least three people throwing up more or less constantly through the whole night. I really hope it was travel sickness and not some horrible bug. So I am now at the stage in my trip where i can no longer count on my hands how many people have thrown up near me on a bus. mmmm.

Well, i think its probably just good training for bolivia...

So anyhoo, we are now in cusco, in a nice hostel getting ready to celebrate Peru´s independence day. Struggling a bit with the altitude but that should pass by tomorrow.

So next stop - the Inca trail and Machu Pichu! 

Cuenca

  From Baños we made our way to Cuenca, a city of around 500,000 in the south of ecuador. Its by far the prettiest city we have seen in ecuador. Im not a massive fan of colonialism but they do win hands down on architecture round here. probably because they raized everything else to the ground - but ive had enough of breeze block buildings!












Cuenca is a university town with a really nice feel to it. What made it extra special was that we were able to meet up with two friends we have met on our travels - charlie is english but lived in cuenca for a while - we met her in medellin where we spent hours in the science museum together. Despite being ill due to some dodgy guineapig (no we havent tried it yet), she valiently took us round some of the city and took us to an amazing market where we ate delicious roast hog with special local corn. It was great to get a more in depth perspective on the culture and history of the place. I've been looking in vain for a good book about the countries we are in for ages now.

 I did find a book documenting a year with the Cañari people - the indiginous group from this area which i think helped a bit. Its from 2000 though, and i can only hope that the political and social situations have improved for them, beause its a very sad book. One thing i did learn is that sex out of marriage and teenage pregnancy is not considered to be a taboo amongst indiginous communities. Although once pregnant, the woman must marry as sinlge motherhood is considered to be a problem. It shows the complex relationship these cultures have with the catholic church. and also explains why you rarely see an indiginous woman (or teenager) without a baby on her back.

Actually, these women always seem to have something strapped to their back with a scarf; if not a baby, then a huge basket of market produce... even those huge heavy gas canisters for stoves!! You dont really see the men carrying anything though.

One mystery she cleared up for us was regarding all the middle aged men we saw who looked like they had been in a fight- turns out nose jobs are very common here!


Our other friend is Vladimir (communist mum). He is a real life cuencan who we met at lake quilotoa. we met him at his mum's book shop on campus to invite him for lunch and ended up piling into his car for an impromptu tour of the city while he delivered his sisters chocolates! He really was very generous, and it was great to meet someone who takes such a pride in his city and culture. luckily he was the first to bemoan the bad planning and conditions in the other cities in the country! he´s a big fan of the current left wing government and it was great to hear about some of the forward thinking projects that are in place. Cuenca has had a no dumping policy in its river for over 15 years - which means in 5 years time it can claim ´living´status - people can swim in it! in a city! in ecuador! (this constitutes a big achievement)

He also took us to see his friends rock reggae band. Rock is huge in ecuador - as we realized when our taxi driver took us over the border while blaring out metallica and ozzy classics. unfortunately, Vladimir is yet another lovely person we have met who i dont have a photo of. so you will just have to trust us that he exists.


We really enjoyed the feel of cuenca it felt a bit like brighton with mountains of cultural stuff going on everywhere.

nevertheless, while we were there the was nearly a riot as a rumour of a bank closure swept the city. it turned out to be false, but ecuador has a history of naughty bankers running off with the cash and leaving everyone unable to access there own money - no doubt a contributing factor to their economic meltdown and adoption of the american doller in 1999.

Unfortunately, everyone we spoke to in Cuenca also told us that crime is on the increase, and its doubly unfortunate that the blame seems to be set squarely on the shoulders of peruvian and colombian immigrants. colombians in particular seem to get a hard time outside of their counrty, in part due to a steady influx of refugees from the guerrilla conflicts. Bigotry abounds everywhere it seems.

I think that the main problem for cuenca is that it has been voted the best place in the world for retiring north american and european ex pats. This influx has pushed many ecuadorians out of the housing market and the sudden increase in wealth inequality has lead to a rise in opportunistic crime - bloody immigrants!!

Me and dermot also took the opportunity of a city break to have some spanish lessons. I cant believe we didnt do this before! My teacher was great - her opening discussion question was ´what do you think about religion?´ (eeek!) and we covered everything from feminism, the royal family, dieting, squatting rights and the treatment of minority cultures - not exactly light hearted stuff but it stretched my spanish nicely!

From Cuenca it was a hop over the border to the surfing town of Mancora Peru!

VOLCANOOOOOO!!!!!

Hello!

We are now in Baños (Bath) - a small town at the foot of a live volcano where you can bathe in natural hot springs!

The scenery is beautiful here and the volcano evacuation signs are only slightly off-putting! Everyone assures me that when the volcano erupts all the lava lands on the other side, just like it did in 2006 - so im sure its all fine!

Baños is a really popular tourist destination for Ecuadorians - who have all flocked here for the weekend to enjoy raftings, bungee jumping and all sorts of other stuff.


It also has lots of gringo run cafe´s where they serve VEGETABLES - which is AMAZING!
It is one of the contradictions of south america that although they have an abundance of tropical fruit and vegetables (i am currently obseessed with the human head sized avocados - to the point where dermot is rationing them) they only serve plain rice and chicken or deep fried things.


So for the first time since we left England my stomach feels completely normal. Which of course means that its Dermots turn to be ill! yeay.
As such we´ve been taking it easy and we´ve only managed to do a bike ride down to see some waterfalls.

Where i decided to celebrate my normal stomach by eating loads of stuff from the stalls - bbq plantain stuffed with cheese, and some amzing freshly made empanadas, served up by a very friendly lady whose dog took a shine to dermot.

Everytime that we have been to a nature reserve in south America there are always loads of signs reminding us of the importance of these areas. Here however, these signs included some very surreal religious ones such as : Are you ready for a surprise!? God Exists!!!


















The mineral baths were too busy, so we decided to take up our very smiley hostal owner on his offer of a ´steam bath´. I dont have photos of it so ive uploaded one in order to give you some idea of the ridiculousness of the situation.

We sat in these medieval torture style steam boxes for 5 minutes at a time. then had to get out and throw FREEZING cold water on us in various manners. We went through this three times - then smiley man got out a high pressure hose and sprayed even more of said freezing cold water all over us. AND we had to pay him $4 at the end of it! I have never laughed and screamed so much in my life. And I will never be able to look at smiley man in the same way ever again.

Ecuador - a land of extremes

 Once again Ive left it too long so Í have a billion things to say but wont for the sake of all our sanities.

Here is a quick round up of the trip so far ...

countries: 3

things the name ´dermot´ have been mistaken for : German, thermos and Delmod

number of children who have puked near me on a bus: 3

numbers of hours on a bus: dont get me started.

casualties: one kindle, one pair of sandals, several things we have forgotten in hostals but havent noticed they´re gone yet.

 Anyhoo...

I was pretty surpised at how different Colombia and Ecuador are.

The first thing that hit us was how much more índigenous Ecuador is. Indigenous people constitute 25% of the population here and another 60% are mestizos (mixed race). Although they generally dont identify themselves with the indigenous groups. Many of the indigenous people still wear traditional dress, even those that live in the cities. They have a really striking look, especially the children, many of whom have amazing rosy cheeks that make them look like dolls.

Another thing that is different is the scenery. You cant move in ecuador for volcanoes - many of which are still active and the resulting landscape is the most dramatic i have ever seen. green and brown craggy mountainous countryside that sometimes looks  like scotland (complete with thistles), gives way to huge canyons and volcanoes so high they have permanent snow on top even though we are literally bang on the ecuator. All of this is dotted with small bungalow farms and ugly breezeblock towns and villages.

Finally, the graffitti has changed - in colombia it was all leftist pro bolivarian stuff - but the only political things we´ve seen here are anarchist.

To get here we endured a 20 hour journey from Popoyan to the small market time of Otovalo on ´the worst road in colombia'. Blergh.

After a short but sweet stop in Otovalo we went to Quito. We had no real intention of staying long in Quito as we have both decided that the smaller towns and villages are much more interesting and friendly than the big  cities, but dermot needed to finish his application.

And we didnt bother staying any longer because in the two days that we were there we met 5 people who had been robbed that weekend! One had chilli sauce thrown in her face in a church to rob her bag, another couple had dog turd thrown in thier face and the last one was threatened with a knife for his camera in broad daylight!

Now ive heard that the architecture is nice and everything but it would have to be pretty fucking spectacular for me to risk getting dog shit thrown in my face for it! (sorry grandma)

Although obviously this was just particularly bad luck as we have loads of friends who have been to Quito and been absolutely fine -  i didnt really fancy walking about on my own so we just hung out on the roof terrace in the hostal which was actually really nice anyway as we got to meet loads of different people.

Thankfully the other places we have been - Mindo and Quilotoa were much friendlier! Both are tiny villages next to nature reserves. The villages themselves are both building sites - we get the impression that ecuador is preparing for some serious tourism. But the sites were amazing. Mindo is in a cloud forest where we went zip lining with two very bored ecuadorians. We also went on a ´frog concert´ night walk to see some of the wildlife. Ive never seen so many fire flies in my life! And we saw a microorganism that make logs glow in the dark. very wierd.

Ecuador has the highest concentration of different species of wildlife in the world. Its a tiny country that combines mountains, coast and rainforest. Unfortunately it also has the highest rates of deforestation in the world. Having seen the lack of infrastucture and the low qaulity of housing in the cities, I can imagine that its a huge temptation not to start opening up the rest of the country to the multinationals to tap the billions of dollars of natural resources sitting directly under all this nature. The current president suggested that the rest of the world should pay Ecuador not to do it - as ultimately it is in our benefit that all that oil stays under the ground. That suggestion makes a lot more sense to me now that I'm here, although the fact that Ecuadors government is almost comically corrupt adds a depressing complication to the state of affairs.

In Quilotoa we stayed on the rim of a volcano - 4000 metres up. The volcano itself has a lake inside. it really was the most stunning environment to be in. We didnt quite manage to do the 7 hour trek round it though. We stayed in the indigenous run village in Hostal Pachamamma. Nearly everyone in the village wore traditional dress and spoke Quichua between themselves. Many of the older woman didnt speak much spanish at all.

Apparently the current president spent a couple of years there in his youth, so there is alot of development going on there, incuding schools and hospitals. Nevertheless, it was clear from our short stay that the levels of literacy and numeracy amongst the adults is quite low.
I beleive that only primary school education is currently compulsory in Ecuador, and those who do continue to secondary tend to go to private schools ($20 a term) as the quality of teaching in the state schools is not high. The current president is trying to resolve this by making further qualifications for teachers compulsory - unfortunately he seems to be doing this in a bit of a hamfisted way. As this reform has left hundreds of teachers out of work, just before the start of term and only a few months before an election!

The family we were staying with went to a niece's birthday that night - so we were left to sit around the old wood burner with the other guests; two french, one czech, one kazakstanian(?) and an ecuadorian from Cuenca. We switched between english and spanish all night and swapped stories and advice. The guy from Cuenca was really interesting and explained a lot about the systems in Ecuador and the laws that have been put into place to preserve and encourage indigenous culture. These kinds of nights are turning out to be one of my favourites things about this trip - just meeting all kinds of people and swapping stories.

Till next time Colombia!

Hello all,

So we finished our trip in colombia in the university town of Popayan. Its a really lovely town that has kept its colonial architecture despite being completely flattened by an earthquake in 1983. Dermot was working so I indulged myself by buying and trying all the different wierd and wonderful things they sell from stalls on the streets, including hand made slushies and fruits i have never seen before. I love the machines they create to make them, its like being in a  Jean Pierre Juenet film. I also love the way in this part of colombia you are everybody's amor, heart, sister, daughter and neighbour - "claro mi corazon" (of course my heart) "a lá orden" (at your service) "con mucho gusto" (with great pleasure).

Popayan also turned out to be a unesco city of gastronomy, which we were a bit surprised by - I've heard fellow backpackers referring to the country as ´the land of the bland´. But it really lived up to it and we had what was probably the best steak we´ve ever had - twice!

Wedecided to celebrateour last days in colombia in style; I got one of the amazing pedicures all the colombian women love - and dermot got a massage from a sexually deviant manwhodidnt have the first idea of what he was doing!

So we both really liked colombia - it was in many ways not what we were expecting - extremely americanised. But the people and the amazing scenery blew us a way. We felt very safe and welcomed every where we went. Though admittedly we have only seen colombia from the tourist, middle class perspective.

On our penultimate evening in Popayan we saw the army setting up a tent in the square. Lots of people were crowded round, and when we asked one of the soldiers what was happening we couldnt quite work out his answer. We assumed it must be for conscription or anti farc propaganda or something and went home. Next day I returned to discover that it was a tent for an arts and crafts jumble sale to raise money for charity!

At any rate, I have no doubt that as the bad reputation of colombia dies down, tourism will rocket there. I just hope that it is controlled to allow the benefits to reach the people who really need it.


When we arrived in Quito we found this news story on Colombia - its worth a read.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18791301

So its ´hasta luego' Colombia, 'Hola' ecuador!

Salento

So we stayed far longer than we had planned to in Medellin. And on our last day there it dawned on us that we now have exactly 30 days to get to the south of Peru for the inca trek! AAAARRRGGGHHH! after lots of frantic internetting and guide booking we worked out a route that would allow us to do most of the things we wanted to do and still get us there in time. Although it meant missing out on Guatape and San Agustin which breaks my heart a bit. I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE COLOMBIA.

But we left Medellin and took the bus through Armenia to Salento. Its in the heart of the coffee region and we had heard that the scenery was beautiful, mountainous and full of cloud forests. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen! Its like a kind of tropical switzerland. But because of the clouds my photos dont do it any kind of justice.

Salento itself is a small, sleepy village that comes alive every weekend with tourists. We were worried that it would be a bit like taganga, but salento seems to have retained its character and is very well looked after. This could be in part because the vast majority of tourists are colombian. It also turned out to be full of friendly characters, including an american inventor who made excellent peanut butter.

A short jeep ride away is the Cocora valley, home of Colombia's national tree, the wax palm, so we started off there. It was cloudy in the morning (what do you expect from a cloud forest?) we met a french couple on the way and decided to do the 5 hour trek together. You start off in a valley that looks a bit like ireland.

Then you get into the cloud forest, at which point the heavens opened on us! I thought it added to the adventure but the french couple were less impressed. Especially as the bridges were becoming less and less sophisticated as we got deeper into the forest.

Luckily there is a hummingbird sactuary half way up! you pay about a pound to enter but you get a huge bowl of hot chocolate and a big lump of cheese in return. i didnt really understand the cheese bit. It stopped raining then so we dried off, ate some lunch, spents ages trying to photograph the hundreds of hummingbirds and got some directions from the super friendly man who owned the place.

The problem is, that the intructions involved walking for one kilometer. And i dont know what a kilometer looks like. So we got very lost. We picked up an equally lost english couple on the way and ended up walking up a giant mountain for two hours for no reason!

Eventually we found our way out of the cloud forest and into the actual valley of the cocora - which was like being in the middle of Jurassic park. the clouds made it feel really spooky, and because we were late, we were the only ones there which made us feel extra special. It was a real adventure and a great day - although we were all exhausted by the end.

When we got back to salento (by hanging onto the back of a jeep!) we all decided to go to play Tejo. Tejo is the national colombian sport. You have a square of wet clay with a metal ring in it. You stand on the other side of a large room and throw a metal wieght - aiming for the middle of the ring. Its a bit like boules. Except to make it a bit more exciting and a lot more colombian they put four paper triangles full of gunpowder on the ring - so if you hit the triangle you get a very loud and incredibly satisfying explosion! You play in a barn at the back of tiny bar - as long as you keep buying beers you can play as long as you like. The bar was full of men wearing non-ironic ponchos and cowboy hats, who had obviously been playing it there whole lives. We on the other hand, were rubbish! between six of us we only got two explosions in a whole hour! I am obliged to point out that dermot hit one.

We took it easier the next day, and just went to the mirador. Although we managed to take a wrong turn again and ended up in an army camp - that was guarded by a very young soldier who was watching the spain versus italy match on his phone. We had noticed before that the soldiers and police officers in colombia are very young. Colombia has compulsory military service for men at 18. But its widely known that you can bribe your way out of it. We've heard that it costs about $500 to get out of doing it.

The next night me and dermot decided to go and play pool in the Billiards hall. I mainly wanted to go, because the bar was exactly like the one in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story I was reading at the time., with groups of old men playing billiards, poker and dominos. We met the friendly waiter who we'd chatted with on our first night. A love lorn poet who was teaching himself English by talking to the tourists in town. He taught us the rules of billiards while showing off his leopard print three fingered billiards glove.

 We finished our time in Salento by doing a Coffee tour in a small Finca just outside of town. The owner of the Finca (farm) showed us round and although we knew it was going to be in Spanish, nobody had told us that he didnt have any teeth! luckily we still understood most of it and it was really interesting. He runs a small farm of four hectores which is organic and everything is done by hand. Although the term ECO is probably the most overused word in Colombia at the moment, it still hard not to be impressed by the commitment many people have towards the conservation of their environment. Salento is such a beautiful and peaceful place, even when the farmers grandson is playing dubstep while he does the house chores!

When we finished we walked back down the river into town, past all the colombian families who were celebrating the bank holiday (the third one this month!) and got a bus to Cali.

Cali has a reputation and we decided to stay for only one night to break up the journey to Popayan; our last stop in Colombia. So I imagine my next post will be from Ecuador!