My very last blog post. Permit me to get a little cheesy here as with a lump in my throat I try and sum up our amazing adventure. Here goes.
Seven months, eleven countries. The highest mountains, the most beautiful seas, sparkling lakes, myriad flowers. Humming birds, southern right wales, mountain gorillas, elephants and lions. Music. Street parties, African singing that made our hair stand on end and tears fill our eyes, South American rhythms forcing our feet into action. Remote villages, camera shy children, old men with heavy loads and kind smiles, con artists, crowded buses.
We've travelled thousands upon thousands of miles, eaten hundreds of delectable meals and met people who have shown us immeasurable kindness. We have shared memories that will last forever and a sense of perspective on our own lives that we will endeavour to employ to good ends.
We were happy - every day - even when floods stopped our progress and when we were stranded in places we never meant to go. We were free - to go where we wanted, when we wanted and to change our plans at the last minute. Most of all we were lucky. Lucky that we were able to do this trip, lucky that we could do it together, lucky that we returned home safely and lucky that we have what we have - so much more than so many people we met along the way.
Monday, 18 May 2009
It's not a Panama
1. The balcony of our enormous room in Cuenca 2. Hats, hats, hats 3. View from our balcony 4. Local market 5. A very damp Mike at Parc Nacional CajasCuenca. A world heritage centre - stunning architecture, cobbled streets a-plenty, flower markets outside gorgeous churches, atmospheric squares, funky bars and restaurants and - most important of all - one of South America's finest cake and ice cream shops. Oh, and they sell hats. The straw ones that most certainly are not from Panama.
Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.
We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).
We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.
On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.
And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.
Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.
We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).
We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.
On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.
And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.
The loop and the devil's nose
1. View on the Quilotoa Loop 2. Laguna Quilotoa 3. Saqsuili market 4. My new husband 5. The Devil's Nose trainFrom Cotopaxi we headed for Latacunga, gateway to the Quilotoa Loop - a string of highland villages clinging to impossibly steep cliffs where the infrequent buses screech past llamas at breakneck speed to a soundtrack of manic and relentless cumbia. Now when the Lonely Planet say somewhere is 'remote and untouched' but then feature it as one of the top places to visit I always smell trouble, but this time I was wrong - there were a few tourists kicking about but the people were still pleased to see them and the atmosphere was unblemished by their hiking boot-clad presence.
We checked into Mama Hilda's in the village of Chugchilan. Roaring stoves in every room, the elderly owners playing cards in the dining room through a cloud of smoke, home cooked food and humming birds dipping in and out of the flower-laden balconies. Paradise!
The next morning we set off for Laguna Quilotoa. We took a local boy to guide us through the myriad pathways down and back up the steep sides of the plunging valley. It was a really tough walk but at the end we were rewarded with the most incredible view of a perfect cone of azure blue within the volcano's collapsed crater. We packed our guide off on the return bus, bought a few souvenirs from the straggling market at the crater rim and headed back down again, constantly checking ourselves that we were following the right path. We trudged back through thunder and lashing rain along the slippery paths before finally reaching Mama Hilda's where we steamed ourselves in front of the stove sipping a very welcome hot chocolate after 7 hours of walking.
The next day we set off on horseback to visit the local cheese factory. Horses and cheese - what a perfect day. Our horses were uncharacteristically crazy for South American mounts and we galloped haphazardly up sandy roads with the promise of cheese at the end. The cheese wasn't bad so we bought a large hunk and set off again. Our guide managed to fall off his horse and it proceeded to gallop on without him so he ran on in front of us into the cloud forest until we finally found his horse waiting patiently at the lunch stop. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the forest before ambling back down the mountain for a relaxing afternoon swinging in the hammocks, nibbling cheese and watching the humming birds.
The next morning we were up and out at 2am for the only bus of the day around the loop to the famous Wednesday market at Saqsuili. It was worth the ridiculously early start and the freezing cold temperatures on the two hour bus ride. There were several different markets but the highlight for both of us was the animal market. It was pulsating with life - throngs of people in ponchos and felt hats bedecked with peacock feathers chatted and bargained over a cacophony of grunts and squeals. The locals didn't resent us wandering through the slippery mud in amongst the livestock and I spent a happy hour chatting to vendors about the price of llamas, piglets and sheep. It was all going well until the local horse trader spotted me. He called forth a crowd and announced that he was going to buy me to be his new wife, explaining that there was a slight problem as I was already married. Someone from the crowd shouted out 'everything is negotiable' and to much hilarity my new husband wrapped his arms around me. And where was Mike? Shrinking into the crowd whilst capturing the whole thing on camera like any good husband would.
From there we headed south again to Riobamba, hopping on point for the famous Devil's Nose train. Except the train wasn't actually running properly due to some severe landslides. In for a penny, in for a pound, we caught the bus down to a little village further south where we boarded a fake train to nowhere and went for an hour long trip with a carriage full of noisy Germans up and down the nose (a series of steep switchbacks), complete with photo stops and a Japanese trainspotter wearing the guard's hat and taking notes in his spotter's notepad. It was a bit surreal but the scenery was incredible and the sun shining.
From there, onwards to Cuenca, our final stop on the 'crouching rhino hidden llama grand tour'.
Balancing eggs at Easter
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1. Old town, Quito 2. The real equator 3.Basil and Milo, Cotopaxi 4. A glimpse of Cotopaxi
From the Galapagos we landed back with a bump in overcast Quito. Some people rave about Quito but Mike and I found it one of the only cities in South America unable to seduce us. Perhaps it was the interminable grey suburbs and perpetual clouds? Or the fact that every morning over breakfast in our hostel yet another backpacker would recount their scary mugging tale from the day before?
So we caught a few buses out of the city to the centre of the world to cheer us up. Now, just to confuse things, there are two equator lines. The old one, before GPS cleared things up, where you can straddle the fake equator in front of a grand stone monument and buy 'maybe' Alpaca jumpers. Or the real equator - in a tarted-up parking lot around the corner - where you can balance an egg on a nail head, watch water go down the plug hole in different directions and walk along a painted line with your eyes closed and your thumbs up. It was gimmicky but fun, we were duly cheered.
After a few more days in the big smoke, with our wallets shoved in our underwear and eyes in the back of our heads, making repeat trips to see our new best friends at the immigration office to sort out the visa issue, we headed onwards and ever upwards to the foothills of Volcano Cotopaxi for Easter weekend in a remote lodge. It was a lovely few days spent sitting by the fire, risking our marriage over fraught games of scrabble, hiking and playing with the dogs at the lodge, all the time waiting for the clouds to lift their skirts and reveal the jaw-droppingly beautiful conical volcano underneath.
On Easter Sunday we gasped our way up a steep slope of scree to 5000m and had a hot chocolate at Cotopaxi's base camp. I surprised Mike with a Kinder egg which I had frantically run around Quito trying to find a few days before - explaining to bemused old ladies in corner shops that 'los huevos de chocolate' were very important to our Easter celebrations. They keep it simple and while we tuck into our hot cross buns they parade around the streets dressed as Jesus with heavy crosses, in a gory exhibition of mass self-flagellation.
It was an Easter different to any other, tucked up in our cabin with a roaring log fire, far away from the raucous family gathering we usually enjoy, but there are worse places to be than up a volcano beating your husband at scrabble (I am going to get crucified - excuse the Easter-related pun - for that comment).
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Galapafantabugos
"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."
Charles Darwin
Nowhere in the world is this brought home more clearly than in the Galapagos - a string of volcanic islands which literally rose up out of the sea as their tectonic plate mooched slowly over a hot spot in the ocean floor. Some of the islands are still growing - reshaping with each new eruption. Others are in the last throws of life, sinking slowly back into the Pacific. Every example of indigenous flora and fauna either floated or flew to the islands - tortoises carried on their backs from the mainland, penguins and seals getting lost somewhere and finding themselves in an equatorial paradise. On each and every island the species have evolved differently - the finches on Santa Cruz have different shaped beaks to the ones on Isabela, on some islands the giant tortoises have shells shaped for pushing through the undergrowth, on others they have an arched shell and longer necks to help them reach up to hanging vegetation.
The animals you see there today are there because they were flexible and inventive enough to adapt to the inhospitable environment. Perhaps the most impressive example is the land iguana that learned to swim and took to the waves in search of lunch when he couldn’t find anything tasty among the lava. His ancestors are still braving the pounding surf.
In this slightly surreal world where you almost expect your passport to be stamped by a pelican and for seals to be driving taxis, the wildlife is smack in your face before you’ve finished your airport transfer to the harbour. Pelicans and frigate birds circle overhead as you head towards the dock, blue-footed boobies whistle at you as you step off the bus and on the way to your dinghy you have to step over seals lounging on the gang planks.
We had booked ourselves on to a pretty swanky 14 berth catamaran called the Nemo II and it was worth every penny. The crew and guide were excellent and absolutely lovely. Our fellow passengers were also great – a fantastic Canadian family of four travelling the world for a year with two lovely kids of 10 and 12, a Russian-American family and their bubbly friend and a Viennese opera director. We were all leveled at about the age of twelve and a half in the face of the hopping, splashing and leaping wildlife about us.
The Galapagos is a tough proposition when you’re on a tight budget as one week there is the equivalent of 5-6 weeks travelling on the continent. But, this was yet another opportunity to put my friend Cheryl’s favourite saying into practice ‘Long after the price tag fades, the memories remain’ (I’m misquoting, but you get the picture). I can’t disagree - we will never forget our ten days on these mesmerising islands.
It’s almost spooky how completely unexcited the animals are by your flat-footed or splashing presence. Not for the Galapagos is the experience of stumbling across a flock of rare birds only to step on a twig and flutter them into oblivion before you’ve taken off your lens cap. When the Bishop of Panama washed up on the Galapagos after taking a wrong turn somewhere near the Columbian coast in the 1500’s he wrote, in a letter to the King of Spain, that the birds were ‘so silly that they didn’t know how to flee and many were caught by hand’. Legions of rich middle-aged Americans in high-waisted khaki walking pants and factor 480 suncream has done little to change the animals’ behaviour. Thank goodness.
I am lost for words with how to bring the beauty of the islands to life, so let me just sum it up in 20,000 words. I’m kidding, please keep reading.
Galapagos is all about the fauna, every minute of every day was spent watching seals, twitching in the bushes or tripping over heavily-camouflaged marine iguanas lounging on the lava. There were a few stars of the show.
White tipped reef sharks. Your guide has told you that they’re friendly, but that does nothing to quell the fear as that slithering, eerie shadow of a shark passes beneath you in the dark water. When you realise there are four of them and you’re surrounded, the pulse rises a bit more. But they largely ignored us and went about the important business of devouring fish.
Blue-footed boobies. Thankfully our fellow passengers were far too cool to be irritated by the fact that every time I saw a boobie I just had to shout “BOOBIES” at the top of my lungs in a silly voice. These birds are very cool. They have blue feet. They attract females by lifting their feet and whistling. They nest in open ground and lay their eggs on lava. Plus they are called boobies. What’s not to love about them?
Marine iguanas. They look like miniature black dinosaurs as they lounge about, draped over each other in an orgy of scaly skin on the roasting hot lava rocks. When they fancy a bit of tasty, crunchy algae they take a deep breath and dive deep before resurfacing to spend the rest of the afternoon snorting salt out of their noses.
Frigate birds. I’ve never really got hot under the collar over men with enormous goiters, but that’s what gets female hearts a-fluttering on planet frigate. “Oh check out that guy over there Mavis, he’s got the biggest and reddest goiter I’ve ever seen, I think I’ll go and nestle my head into it like a big squishy pillow”. Love takes many forms.
Pelicans. Yes, yes, I know you can see them all over the world but they seem to fly and swim closer on the Galapagos. Plus they actually can talk. (Oh, actually, that might have been part of a dream I had the other night- see below.)
Giant tortoises. They floated a long way to get here which is pretty impressive even before you take into account their enormous size, their fragrantly audible mating grunts and the fact they live to be 150 years old. It was rather odd looking at the teeny tiny little baby giant tortoises in the breeding farm and thinking “I’ll be pushing up the daisies when you’re still in the throws of middle age”. We met Lonesone George, the only surviving tortoise of his kind. Match.com is, as I type, scouring the earth for a Mrs Lonesome who may have been smuggled off the island way back when in someone’s handbag and sold to a petting zoo in Western-Super-Mare. Apparently however, even this may not work as George may have problems down there. A very competent Swiss lady with industrial strength rubber gloves and years of experience extracting sperm (now that’s a resume I’d like to read) couldn’t even fill a thimble with Lonesome’s seed. Poor sod.
The sea lions. I have fallen head-over-heels with sea lions. They might have slightly fishy breath, a tendency to poo in the bath and the burping habits of a student rugby player, but god they’re lovely. Our first few experiences of seals were in slightly murky water where a dark and streamlined shape scared the bubbles out of us as we snorkelled by. “Oh my God. It’s a shark!” I spluttered to our captain as the dark shape passed beneath me. “ Don’t worry Sarah. That’s just a seal. That’s a shark over there.”
But then came a day when Mike and I hung back at the edge of a small bay as the rest of the group moved on. The water cleared and three medium sized sea lions swam up to take a look at these strange neon-clad monster fish. We stared back, they stared back. They did back flips, we did back flips. We dived down deep, they dived down deep and tumbled in the water, eyeing us under water to see what would come next. Mike and I splashed and rolled in the water as the three happy seals darted around us. Eventually we swam around the corner and joined up with Charles, a fellow passenger, and the three of us were joined by three pups, even more playful than the last crew. They were playing ball with some chunks of cactus and span and darted around us at a ferocious speed.
I was so astounded by what happened that when I got back on the boat for lunch I couldn’t say a word for over an hour. That doesn’t happen very often.
That was the first of many amazing encounters with our slightly furry friends and I left the islands today feeling sad that I will no longer be able to frolic in the water with them. The last two nights I actually dreamed I was a seal and woke up very disappointed to find myself in bed with legs.
The Galapagos really is another world - supremely remote, untouched, captivating and magical. The animals are undoubtedly what draws the tourists, but the islands themselves are a spectacle. Barren lava landscapes, white sandy beaches, gently sloping volcanic cones, cacti. Each island has its own character and ecosystem distinctly different from its neighbour.
I really could wax lyrical about the Galapagos for many tortoise lifetimes but rather than hear it from me, start a piggy bank, save those pennies and one day make the trip of a lifetime to surf with seals, trip over iguanas and dance with boobies.
Check out some photos of the Galapagos here
Charles Darwin
Nowhere in the world is this brought home more clearly than in the Galapagos - a string of volcanic islands which literally rose up out of the sea as their tectonic plate mooched slowly over a hot spot in the ocean floor. Some of the islands are still growing - reshaping with each new eruption. Others are in the last throws of life, sinking slowly back into the Pacific. Every example of indigenous flora and fauna either floated or flew to the islands - tortoises carried on their backs from the mainland, penguins and seals getting lost somewhere and finding themselves in an equatorial paradise. On each and every island the species have evolved differently - the finches on Santa Cruz have different shaped beaks to the ones on Isabela, on some islands the giant tortoises have shells shaped for pushing through the undergrowth, on others they have an arched shell and longer necks to help them reach up to hanging vegetation.
The animals you see there today are there because they were flexible and inventive enough to adapt to the inhospitable environment. Perhaps the most impressive example is the land iguana that learned to swim and took to the waves in search of lunch when he couldn’t find anything tasty among the lava. His ancestors are still braving the pounding surf.
In this slightly surreal world where you almost expect your passport to be stamped by a pelican and for seals to be driving taxis, the wildlife is smack in your face before you’ve finished your airport transfer to the harbour. Pelicans and frigate birds circle overhead as you head towards the dock, blue-footed boobies whistle at you as you step off the bus and on the way to your dinghy you have to step over seals lounging on the gang planks.
We had booked ourselves on to a pretty swanky 14 berth catamaran called the Nemo II and it was worth every penny. The crew and guide were excellent and absolutely lovely. Our fellow passengers were also great – a fantastic Canadian family of four travelling the world for a year with two lovely kids of 10 and 12, a Russian-American family and their bubbly friend and a Viennese opera director. We were all leveled at about the age of twelve and a half in the face of the hopping, splashing and leaping wildlife about us.
The Galapagos is a tough proposition when you’re on a tight budget as one week there is the equivalent of 5-6 weeks travelling on the continent. But, this was yet another opportunity to put my friend Cheryl’s favourite saying into practice ‘Long after the price tag fades, the memories remain’ (I’m misquoting, but you get the picture). I can’t disagree - we will never forget our ten days on these mesmerising islands.
It’s almost spooky how completely unexcited the animals are by your flat-footed or splashing presence. Not for the Galapagos is the experience of stumbling across a flock of rare birds only to step on a twig and flutter them into oblivion before you’ve taken off your lens cap. When the Bishop of Panama washed up on the Galapagos after taking a wrong turn somewhere near the Columbian coast in the 1500’s he wrote, in a letter to the King of Spain, that the birds were ‘so silly that they didn’t know how to flee and many were caught by hand’. Legions of rich middle-aged Americans in high-waisted khaki walking pants and factor 480 suncream has done little to change the animals’ behaviour. Thank goodness.
I am lost for words with how to bring the beauty of the islands to life, so let me just sum it up in 20,000 words. I’m kidding, please keep reading.
Galapagos is all about the fauna, every minute of every day was spent watching seals, twitching in the bushes or tripping over heavily-camouflaged marine iguanas lounging on the lava. There were a few stars of the show.
White tipped reef sharks. Your guide has told you that they’re friendly, but that does nothing to quell the fear as that slithering, eerie shadow of a shark passes beneath you in the dark water. When you realise there are four of them and you’re surrounded, the pulse rises a bit more. But they largely ignored us and went about the important business of devouring fish.
Blue-footed boobies. Thankfully our fellow passengers were far too cool to be irritated by the fact that every time I saw a boobie I just had to shout “BOOBIES” at the top of my lungs in a silly voice. These birds are very cool. They have blue feet. They attract females by lifting their feet and whistling. They nest in open ground and lay their eggs on lava. Plus they are called boobies. What’s not to love about them?
Marine iguanas. They look like miniature black dinosaurs as they lounge about, draped over each other in an orgy of scaly skin on the roasting hot lava rocks. When they fancy a bit of tasty, crunchy algae they take a deep breath and dive deep before resurfacing to spend the rest of the afternoon snorting salt out of their noses.
Frigate birds. I’ve never really got hot under the collar over men with enormous goiters, but that’s what gets female hearts a-fluttering on planet frigate. “Oh check out that guy over there Mavis, he’s got the biggest and reddest goiter I’ve ever seen, I think I’ll go and nestle my head into it like a big squishy pillow”. Love takes many forms.
Pelicans. Yes, yes, I know you can see them all over the world but they seem to fly and swim closer on the Galapagos. Plus they actually can talk. (Oh, actually, that might have been part of a dream I had the other night- see below.)
Giant tortoises. They floated a long way to get here which is pretty impressive even before you take into account their enormous size, their fragrantly audible mating grunts and the fact they live to be 150 years old. It was rather odd looking at the teeny tiny little baby giant tortoises in the breeding farm and thinking “I’ll be pushing up the daisies when you’re still in the throws of middle age”. We met Lonesone George, the only surviving tortoise of his kind. Match.com is, as I type, scouring the earth for a Mrs Lonesome who may have been smuggled off the island way back when in someone’s handbag and sold to a petting zoo in Western-Super-Mare. Apparently however, even this may not work as George may have problems down there. A very competent Swiss lady with industrial strength rubber gloves and years of experience extracting sperm (now that’s a resume I’d like to read) couldn’t even fill a thimble with Lonesome’s seed. Poor sod.
The sea lions. I have fallen head-over-heels with sea lions. They might have slightly fishy breath, a tendency to poo in the bath and the burping habits of a student rugby player, but god they’re lovely. Our first few experiences of seals were in slightly murky water where a dark and streamlined shape scared the bubbles out of us as we snorkelled by. “Oh my God. It’s a shark!” I spluttered to our captain as the dark shape passed beneath me. “ Don’t worry Sarah. That’s just a seal. That’s a shark over there.”
But then came a day when Mike and I hung back at the edge of a small bay as the rest of the group moved on. The water cleared and three medium sized sea lions swam up to take a look at these strange neon-clad monster fish. We stared back, they stared back. They did back flips, we did back flips. We dived down deep, they dived down deep and tumbled in the water, eyeing us under water to see what would come next. Mike and I splashed and rolled in the water as the three happy seals darted around us. Eventually we swam around the corner and joined up with Charles, a fellow passenger, and the three of us were joined by three pups, even more playful than the last crew. They were playing ball with some chunks of cactus and span and darted around us at a ferocious speed.
I was so astounded by what happened that when I got back on the boat for lunch I couldn’t say a word for over an hour. That doesn’t happen very often.
That was the first of many amazing encounters with our slightly furry friends and I left the islands today feeling sad that I will no longer be able to frolic in the water with them. The last two nights I actually dreamed I was a seal and woke up very disappointed to find myself in bed with legs.
The Galapagos really is another world - supremely remote, untouched, captivating and magical. The animals are undoubtedly what draws the tourists, but the islands themselves are a spectacle. Barren lava landscapes, white sandy beaches, gently sloping volcanic cones, cacti. Each island has its own character and ecosystem distinctly different from its neighbour.
I really could wax lyrical about the Galapagos for many tortoise lifetimes but rather than hear it from me, start a piggy bank, save those pennies and one day make the trip of a lifetime to surf with seals, trip over iguanas and dance with boobies.
Check out some photos of the Galapagos here
The day the earth moved
Warning: quality of blog will be temporarily poor as I have been let loose on the keyboard.
There are several differences between Sarah and I. One of them relates to timing. Having had a fantastic stay in Vilcabamba, we had to catch a flight up to Quito. Someone had mentioned there had been landslides on the road to the airport, so Sarah wanted to take the 60km transfer the day before. I of course thought this was way too conservative and somehow managed to persuade Sarah that we should stay in Vilcabamba one more night, and get an early taxi to the airport. However as the rain poured and poured all night, I wondered if we’d made the right decision.
We shared a taxi with a lovely couple from the States and soon hit smallish landslides. Unperturbed we carried on in the morning darkness until we hit the big one. We were told by our taxi driver in no uncertain terms that we would not be going anywhere and missing our flight was inevitable. There were lots of “I told you so” faces being pulled, and I had to admit we’d made the wrong decision. But salvation……if we walked with our bags in the pitch darkness through a thick slurry of rocks and dirt, with the very real possibility that more big boulders could tumble onto us, then we could get another taxi on the other side. As missing our flight could have screwed up our Galapagos trip, we took the risk and waded through. After one false alarm, which sent the crowds screaming from a clatter of falling rocks, we set off. Of course this kind of adventure was like water off a ducks back to us.
We clambered over barbed wire fences listening for the ominous sound of falling rocks as others came towards us through the darkness, muttering ‘buenos dias’ as we passed. The American couple made an observation that seeing the locals coming the other way moving quietly, clad in blankets with bags and cases, it looked like some illegal crossing from Mexico to the States.
Our saviour arrived in the form of an Ecuadorian business man who was due to catch the same flight. Ironically he was working for a road construction company that had just started tarmacing this same stretch. He called for someone to pick us up on the other side, and we were taken at breakneck speed to the airport and just made the flight. Once again we have proved that the journey is our destination.
Arriving in Quito we booked into a hostel overlooking the old town, and instantly met a friendly couple of guys that we ended up chatting to for ages. For the first time in a while we acted like proper gringos, and pretty much stayed on the hostel terrace drinking, eating and talking the universal language of English - sacrificing a cultural stroll around the city (shock horror). We picked up our tickets for the Galapagos, and I tried unsuccessfully to postpone the trip for a day when I realised that Brazil were in town for a key World Cup qualifier against Ecuador. I seem to have managed to be in the right place at the wrong time on several occasions for such things, but a trip to the Galapagos is a pretty good alternative.
We got up nice and early on Saturday to catch the two hour bus ride to the famous Otavalo market. There were seven of us that went along and we rather cleverly got separated when we took two taxis to the bus station. Even more clever was that Sarah and I were in separate taxis, and I ended up spending the day with two lovely ladies instead. I also had all the money, umbrellas, cameras etc. I thought a cheap day was on the cards with Sarah stranded with no cash but I had underestimated my wife who had begged and borrowed enough money to acquire an array of souvenirs.
We all managed to stay together long enough to go into the new town in the evening, and were surprisingly treated to dinner by Horacio. Cheers mate (real name Nick by the way). We would have partied long into the night, but we had an early flight to the land of the boobies. The anticipation was quite frankly too much.
There are several differences between Sarah and I. One of them relates to timing. Having had a fantastic stay in Vilcabamba, we had to catch a flight up to Quito. Someone had mentioned there had been landslides on the road to the airport, so Sarah wanted to take the 60km transfer the day before. I of course thought this was way too conservative and somehow managed to persuade Sarah that we should stay in Vilcabamba one more night, and get an early taxi to the airport. However as the rain poured and poured all night, I wondered if we’d made the right decision.
We shared a taxi with a lovely couple from the States and soon hit smallish landslides. Unperturbed we carried on in the morning darkness until we hit the big one. We were told by our taxi driver in no uncertain terms that we would not be going anywhere and missing our flight was inevitable. There were lots of “I told you so” faces being pulled, and I had to admit we’d made the wrong decision. But salvation……if we walked with our bags in the pitch darkness through a thick slurry of rocks and dirt, with the very real possibility that more big boulders could tumble onto us, then we could get another taxi on the other side. As missing our flight could have screwed up our Galapagos trip, we took the risk and waded through. After one false alarm, which sent the crowds screaming from a clatter of falling rocks, we set off. Of course this kind of adventure was like water off a ducks back to us.
We clambered over barbed wire fences listening for the ominous sound of falling rocks as others came towards us through the darkness, muttering ‘buenos dias’ as we passed. The American couple made an observation that seeing the locals coming the other way moving quietly, clad in blankets with bags and cases, it looked like some illegal crossing from Mexico to the States.
Our saviour arrived in the form of an Ecuadorian business man who was due to catch the same flight. Ironically he was working for a road construction company that had just started tarmacing this same stretch. He called for someone to pick us up on the other side, and we were taken at breakneck speed to the airport and just made the flight. Once again we have proved that the journey is our destination.
Arriving in Quito we booked into a hostel overlooking the old town, and instantly met a friendly couple of guys that we ended up chatting to for ages. For the first time in a while we acted like proper gringos, and pretty much stayed on the hostel terrace drinking, eating and talking the universal language of English - sacrificing a cultural stroll around the city (shock horror). We picked up our tickets for the Galapagos, and I tried unsuccessfully to postpone the trip for a day when I realised that Brazil were in town for a key World Cup qualifier against Ecuador. I seem to have managed to be in the right place at the wrong time on several occasions for such things, but a trip to the Galapagos is a pretty good alternative.
We got up nice and early on Saturday to catch the two hour bus ride to the famous Otavalo market. There were seven of us that went along and we rather cleverly got separated when we took two taxis to the bus station. Even more clever was that Sarah and I were in separate taxis, and I ended up spending the day with two lovely ladies instead. I also had all the money, umbrellas, cameras etc. I thought a cheap day was on the cards with Sarah stranded with no cash but I had underestimated my wife who had begged and borrowed enough money to acquire an array of souvenirs.
We all managed to stay together long enough to go into the new town in the evening, and were surprisingly treated to dinner by Horacio. Cheers mate (real name Nick by the way). We would have partied long into the night, but we had an early flight to the land of the boobies. The anticipation was quite frankly too much.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Centegenarians ahoy!
1. Hammock action at Izhcayluma 2. Vilcabamba butterfly 3. Corazon and me on my birthdayVilcabamba. Even the name has a nice, round, clean and friendly feel to it. Our first glimpse of the town was no disappointment. It is nestled in the bosom of a circle of lush green hills where clear mountain streams rush through meadows of colourful flowers, butterflies of many shapes and sizes loop through the hedgerows, the cows munch the grass and centegenarians potter down the middle of the wide streets, passed more frequently by horses than cars. People come here to relax and watch the clouds race up the valley, and to swing in hammocks whilst listening to the patter of the various types of rain that falls each day.
We checked into Hosteria Izhcayluma, perched atop one of Vilcabamba´s hills with sweeping views of the valley. We have a cabin with a hammock on the terrace and views into a secluded valley. There is a pool, fed by a mountain stream which trickles down through the flower-filled gardens. There are birds living in the wall above our bed and we awake to the towns of hungry chicks chirping for their breakfast.
We have now been here for 6 days, and although it doesn´t come naturally even I have been able to sit still and while away some hours swinging in the hammocks, watching the rain, devouring books. It was my birthday on Sunday and we went horse riding in the morning, cantering lazily through the lush green fields on beautiful, spirited horses and then I had a massage and a facial in the afternoon and a fantastic dinner where Mike had organised a surprise cake. Yesterday we went for a whole day ride, sitting tight while the horses clambered up and down impossibly steep and slippery paths to the Podocarpus National Park. At the end of the day, having reached the bottom of the mountain safely, the horses needed to burn off some energy and we galloped home in a huge thunderstorm, as rain drops the size of golfballs soaked us - and the horses - to the skin in seconds.
They say that the water, fresh air and healthy diets of the Vilcabambans contribute to the extremely high numbers of healthy golden oldies cruising the streets here. Perhaps though I have gained a year in Vilcabamba, I have lost a few months in the process. Let´s hope so!
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