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I guess it´s been a while since I´ve posted an update-sorry! We´ve been bopping around Ecuador and have spent time in Baños, a cool mountain town with tons of adventure things to do and tons of beautiful waterfalls to see; stopped to see the beautiful Quilotoa crater lake in the mountains; and finally made it to the beach here in Ecuador. It took us a couple of days to make it here from the mountains in the center of the country, and in our journey we spent one night in the worst place yet. We got into this town called Portoviejo late at night, and didn´t seem to have many options in a safe neighborhood-so we ended up at Hostel Pacheco, for $3.50/night. It was horrible...Yucky bathroom with no toilet seat lid, no shower curtain (and you had to ask for tp), cot beds, dirty walls and a broken window...Good times! We stayed out a bit late trying to avoid spending an unneccesary amount of time in the room, but this town didn´t have much happening. We got up the next morning and we on our way, thankfully! We will just mark that place as our ¨worst place we stayed´, and move on...
Now we are in Puerto Lopez, a dusty little beach town on the coast of Ecuador. It´s a cute little town with not much going on. It´s been very nice to chill and relax here after the journey here and after being in mountains for a bit. The beach is nice and long and is great for a long walk or a jog. We spent our Thanksgiving here walking on the beach and eating seafood (a little different from all my previous Thanksgivings!).
Today we went to an island close by called Isla de La Plata (or otherwise known as ¨The Poor Man´s Galapagos). Since we can´t afford the Galapagos this time around, we figured this was a must do. It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get there on the boat, and the island looked quite nice from afar-tall cliffs dropping down to the ocean. When we started walking around we noticed how arid and desert-like it was. After a bit of a walk we started to see some of the cool birds-mostly the Blue-Footed Booby and the Frigate Bird. The cool thing was that these birds were all just sitting along the side of the trail, or sometimes on the trail-so we got a super closeup look at all of them. Many of the birds were sitting on just laid eggs, or warming about newly hatched baby birds. As we walked we started to see baby birds at all stages of growing, so that was pretty cool. The birds didn´t seem to mind our presence too much, but we would get a good sqwack if they thought we were too close. We walked for a couple of hours and saw more birds, but no other animals. After the walk and lunch we went snorkling but the visibility wasn´t very good. I enjoyed myself on the tour, but it was a bit overpriced for what we did. It was worth maybe $25, not $40...Oh well! I´m glad I saw the Blue-Footed Booby, check him out!
The other night A and I went to stay with a local family in the community of Tunibamba, about 30 minutes from Otavalo. We were told there would be ¨activities¨ and we would get to know how the locals lived here in Ecuador. When we arrived we met Carmen, the woman of the house, and after a few minutes of chatter, she said she needed to go get some beans- so of course we followed. She took us to one of their fields, where they were growing frijoles and corn. Such a good use of space, they planted the frijoles in between the corn so they would have both. She showed us which ones were ripe and we helped her pick some and just asked all these questions about the farm. It was great to finally get some answers about why and how they do things on the farm. After picking the beans we helped shell them all for dinner later while Carmen told us about the traditions for Day of the Dead, which happens immediately after Halloween. Families bake bread in the shape of animals for the people in there life who passed away in a way of honoring them, and keeping away the evil spirits. They spend all Saturday baking the bread, and then visit the cemeteries on Sunday. It is a pretty big event here, so it seems.
After shelling beans we relaxed a bit. I saw Marco, the 8 yr. old son playing soccer in the yard. I couldn´t resist going over to play with him-and he loved it! I love that just playing with a kid can cross all sorts of language and cultural boundaries. Before we played soccer he was a little shy, but that definetly broke the ice. Even later that night he asked me to play again, after we took the cow to drink water and put her away for the night...I had to let him win- so he gloated over dinner, saying that Ecuador beat the United States!
In the afternoon the husband, Alfonso, came home and took us for a walk. We went to see the community potato field. Such a good concept, they have a few fields that they grow crops for the people in the village. If you participate in harvesting the crops, you get to take some home for your family. ¨Working for Food¨ is really the motto here. Alfonso explained that they have 3 or 4 days to collect all the potatoes, and they have to do it when it´s not raining. There were about 40 people there when we arrived, all taking a break. Before we knew it, we walked into the field and were handed a bag to start collecting potatoes! Of course, this brought a few rounds of giggles from all the locals, but we tried our best. Adrian and I filled about 3 huge bags of potatoes, and then everyone was done for the afternoon-except for the loading of the potatoes into the tractor. I left that to Adrian, as the bags easily weighed 70 to 90lbs!!! Good times.
We had a lovely dinner that night and we chatted with Carmen and Alfonso. It was really interesting and we had a great time. The two were really involved in their community and thinking of ways to improve it. They were trying to establish an animal market in the town in addition to their weekend vegetable market, and she also volunteered to help people with medical problems in the community. Who knew that goat milk cured so many things?!
I really enjoyed our day there, it was nice to catch a glimpse of how the Indigenous people of Ecuador live. It was great of them to open their homes to us and share their lives with us, if even for a short time.
It´s exciting to be in a new country!! And even better to pick up your Mom at the airport and explore a little of it with her...We met up in Quito and were off to a town a few hours south called Baños. Baños is located at the base of an active volcano, and it is a beautiful setting for riding bikes around and checking out the beautiful scenery. I lost count of how many gorgeous waterfalls we saw on our bike ride ...We cafe hopped and shopped, and chatted about everything. From Baños we hopped back up to Quito and met up with A. We explored the Old City of Quito and then went the the Equator!! There is a museum and monument there with an actual painted line on the ground to tell you your latitude and longitude. We couldn´t resist taking some corny pictures straddling the line between the hemispheres...
Since we were cramming a lot in in one week, we then went north a few hours to a town called Otavalo, which is where I am now. There is a really great market there on Saturdays, and we had just enough time to check it out. What a great market!! So many beautiful crafts- sweaters, blankets, purses, hats, jewelry...Oh, my! The products were hand-made in this region, and often you could see people at their stand knitting more wool hats or scarves. We could not get over how beautiful the fabrics were, and how cheap everything was...It was a bit painful to not be able to purchase gorgeous blankets, tableclothes, and other things for decorating my home-since I don´t even have one! I did manage to find myself some a few little things, most of which I sent home with my mom. It would almost be worth it for someone to buy a plane ticket and come to the Saturday market at Otavalo just to outfit your home and fly back with a new bag of goodies.
It was so fun to have my mom here, to catch up and to just spend time with her. I like that she gets to see that I´m doing well and am happy being on the road, but having someone from home with you is just so nice and comforting at the same time. It was so fun to have my mom fall in love with the non-U.S. things that I have become so accustomed to, like the people that get on the bus at random places and sell food and drinks. This has been happening in most of Central America and here in South America too, and I think it´s a great idea. Just picture, you left early in the morning and are on a long bus ride. Three hours into the trip you start to get hungry but are not even close to your destination...No need to worry, someone will get on selling chips, ice cream, peanuts, banana bread- you can always find something to get you through the trip! Why can´t we do this in the U.S.?! Well, I know why-but I think we should rethink that policy.
My mom is always up for anything, and we had a blast! I was so happy she came for a visit. So, if anyone else is interested, come on down- I´ll find some great things for us to see!
Right now I am in a town called Ipiales, close to the Ecuadorian border. I plan on moving into Ecuador tomorrow, but had to stop here to see the beautiful Las Lajas Sanctuary. It was built in a gorge, spanning a river, which makes the whole setting quite beautiful. I spent a nice couple of hours wandering around it and admiring the scenery. Apparently many people come here to make religious pilgrimmages and there are many testaments to the miracles that have occurred here. Placques line the walls surrounding the cathedral with people giving thanks for their miracles. Even not considering myself not very religious, I still found this very moving...
Oddly, there were a ton of military at the cathedral, but not in an official way. They all raced down the stairs and lined up in front of the church. I could not figure out what they were doing until I saw them all file into the church-I guess when you are in the Colombian military they make you attend church too! I spent a little time talking with a very nice Colombian family and another Colombian girl that was learning English. Colombian people are so friendly and curious, so it is always fun to talk to them. Even with my not-that-great Spanish we still managed to have a nice conversation.
I have spent the last week travelling on my own here in Colombia, and it has been very fun and interesting. Tomorrow I will head to Ecuador, where my mom is coming for a visit and I cannot wait! I have had the best time in Colombia and am looking forward to Ecuador!
Especially when we get to do crazy things like bungee jumping, paragliding, and rafting...For unbelievably cheap prices! We went to San Gil, an up-and-coming mini adventure town that offers all this great stuff...We went bungee jumping for $12.50! I was scared out of my mind to bungee jump, but I watched Adrian go first, so that made it easier. I saw that the equipment worked fine and he was still in one piece, and then I was ready to go. I just forced myself to jump off that bridge-and screamed the whole way down! My heart didn't stop beating like crazy until about 15 minutes after I was back safely on the bridge. Bungee jumping was so scary to me that any other "extreme sport" seemed tame-like the paragliding. Paragliding was so fun, and not scary at all. You are standing on the ground with the guy, strapped in, and then all of a sudden you are flying like a bird. It was pretty tranquil up there taking in the beautiful scenery. It got exciting when the guy would drop the paraglider into a spin-it was just like a roller coaster! I got to check two things off my life's to-do list. Not bad.Right now we are in Bogota-and damn-it's cold!!! It's 8661 ft. above sea level, so it is not hot up here. Quite a shock to our systems that have been lounging in hot temps for the past 8 months. We actually have to go out and buy a few articles of warm clothes. So far I only bought a hat, but I need to get a warm sweatshirt and some more pants...We will be going to a lot of high elevation places from now on South through Ecuador and Peru. Bogota seems like a pretty cool city, there is a ton of museums and parks and cool things cities have to offer. Today we went to the Botero Museum, named after probably the most famous Colombian painter (Fernando Botero Angulo). He's got a bit of a strange style, but I think the paintings are kind of amusing. They call them "Fat People". What do you think?
Traveling on the cheap, as we are, means a ton of bus rides to get where we are going...Going all the way from Mexico to Panama you see a ton of different buses, and you start getting used to the shitty chicken buses, or being packed in like a sardine. But it is never easy to get on city buses that are jam packed with your giant pack and not make a scene...I would rather take a taxi!The longest bus ride we took in Central America was about 10 hours, but here in South America, that is a small-distance ride. The countries are bigger and the buses have longer to travel, so getting used to 15-16 hour-plus bus rides (and usually overnight!) is not going to be easy. Especially when taking a ride on a bus here is the exact equivalent of trying to sleep in a meat locker. I am not joking! They blast the air conditioning so much that it is just so uncomfortable. And we even come prepared-we change into long pants and bring a sweatshirt and socks. Last night, it wasn't enough...Instead of sleeping comfortably and waking up at your next destination- you go into hypothermia and just lay there shivering. Not to mention that other interesting things happen on the bus rides. Take last nights' 9 hour ride, for example. First, the bus leaves late-and there were only 9 passengers...Then, about 30 minutes into the ride, the lady and young guy in the front of the bus turn around and ask Adrian if we saw a furry creature running around our feet?! What the Heck?! The bus lights are all off at this point, and all I can hear is Adrian say "A raton?" and I immediately start to get a bit grossed out. I have just been riding on a bus with a rat or a mouse crawling around my feet?! Yuck!! So Adrian gets out a flashlight and we start looking around our feet, and about the same time- I hear the translation- "You think it's a hamster?" A hamster?! This must be what they call mice in Colombia...So after some scuffle and looking around-the thing crawls by my feet and the young guy dives under the seat in the dark and catches it. It really was a hamster! A cute little orange and white guy!! What the hell was it doing on the bus?! This guy picked it up and asked all the passengers if they lost a hamster...No one had...So the two proceeded to put him in a purse for safe keeping, and feed him a cooked potato...He seemed pretty content in there. I had no idea what they were going to do with it but I just figured they would keep it as a pet. So after we watched the little guy eat the potato and wonder why he was on the bus, they decided to tie the purse closed and put it in the overhead compartment until we arrived. Needless to say the hamster chewed through the purse and is back loose in the bus somewhere, now in the overhead compartments! Good stuff...We fall back asleep after we caught the hamster and wake up for the 2am rest stop. I go to the bathroom and come out, waiting for the bus to get going. I am standing outside the bus talking to this Australian guy we are traveling with, and we notice that Adrian is talking to some locals and has a little crowd gathered around him...We were so amused watching this scene-at 2 am, this little restaraunt in the middle of nowhere was packed and jumping and Adrian managed to enrapture a group of locals with who knows what...And we were sort of sleepy and wondering what he was doing. It was a really cool scene from afar- you could see them all asking questions, and every minute a new person would come over to hear what was going on-and there is Adrian in the middle, waving his arms around telling some story...So it turns out he was just buying a snack, and starting talking to the restaraunt owner, who asked about his trip, and they all got so curious about him, and us and they were asking him all sorts of questions. They were just so excited to talk to him, you could see it-it was cool. I think the Colombians are so far the friendliest people in all the countries I've been to. And I also think that they are really excited to see tourists in their country, after years of travelers avoiding the country because of the previous dangers.To top it all off, on our second leg of the bus trip today-the bus broke down! Let's hope my first bus break-down is also my last...I slept for most of the time and only noticed when they turned off the bus and therefore the AC slowly died out and I had to strip off all the layers I had put on. One interesting point, I didn't hear anyone complain about the holdup (or maybe it's just because I was sleeping), but everyone just patiently sat and waited, knowing that they were trying to fix the bus. I'm not sure if that happened at home people would idly sit and wait like that...So those are just some random thoughts about bus travel...It's weird, even though you may sleep alot, and are just sitting there-taking a bus ride really wipes you out! Time for bed...
So I just did my first trek!!! Yeah!! When we were in Cartagena, we ran into a few other travellers we met in Panama and they told us about this 6 day trek to a place in the Colombian jungle called ¨La Ciudad Perdida¨. We hadn´t even heard about it before, but were immediately interested. We decided to tag along with a new group of people and go to the next city and check out this trek. We didn´t know much about it, but got into the city the tour was arranged from and realized that our friends booked the trek to start the next day! Mind you, we got into this city at about 9pm, and the tour was supposed to leave the next morning at 8:30...We talked to the tour operators and decided to go for it, even on the short notice. Who needs sleep before a 6 day trek anyways? We paid 30,000 pesos (=$150 US) and then immediately had to get supplies and pack our bags...and we still hadn´t even eaten dinner :)The guide company supplied all our meals and water for the trip, so we just need to bring dry clothes, long pants, bug spray, toilet paper, extra shoes, plastic bags to protect our gear from rain, etc. We crammed all that we thought we might need for the 6 days into our small daypacks-the lighter the better.On the first day we drove about 2 hours to the turnoff to the park, and from there we drove another hour up and down a horrible dirt, mountain road to a small town in the mountains that we would start from. After a lunch of stale sandwiches, we were off. There were 8 people in our group- a nice mix of a few Americans, a French guy, Spanish guy, Swiss guy and and Aussie dude. We were to hike a total of 22km to the Lost City, mostly about 3-5 hours a day, with one long day of an 8 hour hike on the way back down. The first day was a bit rough, getting back into hiking after a while is always hard. Add in torrential rain and the fact that we were hiking uphill through mud canyons and basically a mud river at our feet. Oddly enough- it was really cool to hike in the torrential rain. Knowing that I had no choice but to keep going and plug on, I think made it fun to be out in the rain (and I was so excited that I had decided to put my dry clothes into a waterproof travel bag inside my backpack!). A strange thought, because it also meant that we would probably see a lot of rain on the rest of the 5 days! After the first days´ hike we made it up to a little house in the mountains where we were to camp, and we got into dry clothes and had some dinner. Our guides really knew how to cook-we had great food the whole time! We slept the night in hammocks and were off early the next morning...The next couple of days were great hikes. I was a bit sore, but tried to do a lot of stretching to keep the soreness at a minimum. Oddly enough, I think the best remedy for the sore muscles was to just keep hiking! The scenery and the terrain was gorgeous throughout the whole hike. I especially enjoyed that the terrain changed frequently- we´d hike through the jungle, along mountain ridges, up mud canyons, alongside a river, through a river, by little shacks in the forests...We saw a lot of Indigenous families living way out in the middle of no-where. They were mostly very wary of the hikers, and not smile or say anything to us. The adults would mostly stare, while the kids were sometimes a bit more curious. The children were amazing...Wearing little potato sac dresses (boys and girls alike) with long brown hair...Some smart Indios even sold Gatorade at their little houses! If it was cold, I probably would have bought some :) The hike was such a great hike that I was excited to be doing it, even before I made it to the Lost City!On day three, we finally made it to La Ciudad Perdida. After a pretty tough hike of about 4 hours, we got to the base of a stairway. The stairway looked like it just started right out of the river, so we waded across and started climbing the stairs...I have never climbed so many stairs in my life!!! There were at least 2,000 stairs to get to the city!!! And after already hiking the whole day-our legs were pretty shot. It was tiring, but a cool, mysterious walk up mossy covered stairs into the jungle...We got to the top and were greeted by a small troop of the Colombian military...They all seemed friendly and amused at our exhausted looks of climbing all those stairs. The military was stationed there to protect tourists from any residual FARC guerilla activity in the jungle-which was fine by me. I was glad to see them instead of rebels...We spent the next day exploring the city, founded by Tayrona Indians (discovered only in 1975). Our guide didn´t have the complete history of the place as we would´ve liked-but it was still really cool...They had basically built all these round circular stone terraces linked by tons of steps. Set high up in the mountains, it was such a spectacular sight. The toughest part of the hike was the 8 hour hike down, which started with a descent of all those 2,000 stairs!!! My legs were wiped out immediately...But I made it to the lunch stop and the lunch gave me a second wind for the last 3 hours-whew!So if you can´t tell, I really enjoyed this hike and was proud of myself for having done it...It wasn´t as difficult as I expected! Maybe that means there will be more treks in my future-who knows!
