Ecuador & The Galapagos

Finally, I managed to find some time to complete the last posts on our Ecuador journey. Indeed, we meanwhile already started our next trip to Morocco;-).

Quito became already a bit familiar after our fourth time short visit. Still quite some things to see though...we will not manage to visit everything worth visiting around (but then again...have you been visiting all places in your hometown the way you visit sights in a faraway country? :-)).

We continued the tour where we had to stop last time: the plaza and monastery of San Francisco, with the twin bell towers of the oldest church of Quito. Nice little museo Franciscano. Then continued to the church and plaza of Santo Domingo. We strolled around a bit at La Ronda, before 2006 a definitively nogo area, today one of the liveliest neighbourhoods with bars, artist galleries, shops and restaurants in old downtown Quito, where you are perfectly safe in day- and nighttime. I think it should be used as example how you could transform real problem areas in big cities as Brussels, Paris or London into nice neighbourhoods, everybody is willing to go to.

Anyway, after this, museum time...the museo del banco central (no pictures allowed :-() is really worth a visit. Interesting exhibits on the precolumbian and columbian art, the history of the money (interesting to see how currency and politic evolutions are closely related), and some modern art. The most important sala de oro however, with pre-hispanic gold pieces was closed for renovation (we only had to pay half the price ;-).

Then a final stroll in La Ronda, get something to eat and drink before going to sleep...Next morning early taxi to the airport for our looooooooong flight home (with an incredible 7 hour transit time in Atlanta again...never fly delta again ;-)).

Lazy as we were (and to gain some time), we took the morning flight from Quito to Cuenca. A short taxi ride to our hostel and then we can start exploring Cuenca.
Cuenca is churces and plazas paradise, its historic center recognized as Unesco World Heritage. Apart from that, the city has a nice ambiance. Only disappointment...it is sunday, and apart from the churches, almost everything is closed. So, it took s a while before we find something open for breakfast. We visit a few churches and the "barranco" neighbourhood, where, according to our bible, the "hanging houses" ought to hover over the rocky river "Tomebamba". It is far less spectacular as it sounds, but still nice to walk along the shore. Here, we meet Charles (from our Galapagos trip) again. Cuenca, known as Tomebamba, was once the shortlived northern capital of the Inca empire. There is not really much left of it, but we visit some ruins.

Again, some difficulties to find a nice place to eat in the evening. Local restaurants are mostly closed,
Recommended choices in our bible seem all to have shut down. The only ones left are fastfood joints. Finally, we find something decent.

On our way back to the hostel, we can enjoy a small free performance of the 'Nicole and Hugo' (infamous Flemish singing couple) from Ecuador.
It must have been the location and time...because, when we listen to their cd back home, it is not really bearable :-).

Next morning, we walk to the bus station to catch a bus to Ingapirca, the most famous ruins of the Inca empire in Ecuador. True, it is not Machu Pichu, but still there is quite a lot to discover. The entrance ticket includes a guided tour, and it is well worth it. Glad, we did not pre-arrange a guided tour from out of Cuenca. To take a bus, is really not so difficult:-) (even if you donot speak a word of Spanish - we encountered tourists with even worse language skills as ours, still managing to reach the destination ;-)).
The guide is really knowledgeable about the Inca, bringing the piles of stones back to live. Peculiar how they were using unimagineable advanced knowledge, combined with very primitive techniques. Their astronomical and astrological knowledge is beyond imagination, but on the other hand, they do not dispose over a written language. I always wondered if and why there was no cultural interchange between Inca's and Maya's. Indeed, despite the distance, it appears that historically, there existed some commercial contacts,
Late afternoon back in Cuenca, we say goodbye again to Charles, who joined us on our trip. He was finally going to Peru the next day and not joining us to the beautiful national park of Cajas.

The national park offers great hikes in a bleak, rough hilly countryside dotted with small shiny lakes in the valleys. After some hesitation, we
decided to start one of the signposted trails without guide. The map and signs should be sufficient, we hoped. Of course, getting lost is a rather dangerous proposition as on these high altitudes night temperatures drop below freezing. And, you can hike here for days without meeting someone else. As you are able to read this, you can imagine that we were lucky enough to find our trail back at the moments of despair :-). The fog and the misty rain added to the experience and the beauty of the landscape.

Late afternoon, bus back to Cuenca, visiting some local market and finding a nice place to eat.

Next morning, we visit the museo del banco central "Pumapungo", with a lot of animated dioramas of the traditional costumes of the indigenous people of Ecuador. (no pictures allowed :-( ) Of course, the tzantza (shrunken heads) from the Shuar culture in the Southern Oriente province draw the most attention. Weird how something cruel can become unreal and even "funny". In the archeological park, accompanying the museum, encompassing extensive ruins of the old Incan city of Tomebamba, we visit a number of cages with parrots and other birds.

Time for another museum, the museo de las conceptas. In the convent of the Immaculate Convention, we can see, apart from the dioramas how the nuns lived, a lot of religious art.

And then, it is time to prepare for our flight to Quito.

At first, we planned to continue southwards by bus to take one of the most spectacular train rides in the world: "the naziz del diablo" in Riobamba. Luckily, we checked beforehand and found out they stopped the service temporarily for maintenance purposes. Instead of spending more as a whole day in a bus - next stop would be Cuenca - we choose to take a flight from Quito. Yes, we become lazy and luxury tourists getting older :-) - Eco people must blame us for our ecological footprint :-). So, we take the early morning bus for Quito and arrive in our hostel around noon - the people in the hostel start to know us.

As garden lovers, we choose to visit the beautiful botanical garden in the afternoon with an outstanding orchid greenhouse featuring nearly 1000 orchid species. Also the greenhouse with carnivorous plants (especially pitcher plants) is worth the visit. It is large enough to spend a few hours in the garden.

In the same park, we also visit the vivarium with live reptiles and amphibians. A girl is giving a close demonstration with one of the snakes. I spent the evening, trying to update this travel blog in a reasonable time frame (without success as you can see now :-)).

Next morning leaving for Quito airport again. Remembering the last time, the boss decided not to take the trole bus this time, but spending the full five dollars for a taxi instead:-). The new airport is still not completed yet, and the old one is indeed quite close to the city center.

Early morning again - are we really on holiday? :-) - we leave for a 5 hour bus trip to Tena, a small jungle town that serves as our base camp for a rafting and a canoe jungle trip. When we arrive, still early morning, in the hostel, two swiss girls, Gisela and Karin, were waiting for us...They needed at least one other person to join for a class IV rafting trip. Kathleen is not willing to go, so we decide that I will join the two girls. After checking a few agencies, we arrange the trip for the next day. We do also check the possibilities for a jungle trip for the day after.

According to Lonely Planet, Tena should be cheerful and welcoming, a place visitors forget to leave. Is it due to the rainy weather (yes I know - rain again - it was supposed to be the dry period in the jungle :-()? Is it due to the road works in the centrum? Is it because everybody seemed to have a bad day? That first day, Tena town could not convince us.

The afternoon, we visit the 'Parque Amazonico', a small island in between two rivers (Rio Napo and Rio Tena) with self guided trails in a nice jungle setting. There were also some badly maintained animal enclosures. A few animals (a tapir, and some monkeys) roam around freely. Some kind of weird caterpillar - it had a kind of needles sticking out of its body - falls upon me and stings me. No big deal though...pain going away rather quickly. One little monkey jumps on my back and shoulder as I am examining leaf cutter ants (these ants do not eat the leaves, but cultivate fungi on them - if you think only humans can farm?). All in all, a pleasant lazy afternoon. We finish the day with a dinner and a beer at a small cosy riverview restaurant.

Next day, adrenaline day...Rafting is always exciting. The agency managed to get a larger group of 9 people together, again a good international mix. meaning two rafts...great for water fights :-). First a small drive, life jackets and helmets and some instructions. The first stretch of the river is rather quiet. For one reason or another, our guide choose me as the first victim..."What is wrong with the raft...? A leak? Can you stand up for a second...?"...and splash...pushed into the water. Water temperature is nice, so I enjoy to float in the current of the jungle river, looking for revenge :-).

Rain is pouring down from time to time, but it does not really bother us...wet anyway when we take the rapids that gradually get more exciting to become real class IV rapids. One of the rapids, you can call it a waterfall :-), is impassable. We need to get out of the raft and do some jungle hill climbing on the steep shores, with the help of some ropes. In fact, this part of the trip is the most adventurous and dangerous. Rocks are quite slippery. Back on the violently swirling water...We are lucky that for a few minutes, sun is coming out right when we have our lunch on a small jungle beach...great stuffed tacos and chocolate cake...Back on the raft, rain keeps us company again. We can swim for a moment, our guide is encouraging...yeah right...We are not even a minute in the water when the next rapid is there. "Rapid swimming" - well can you call it swimming? - gives us another adrenaline shot (and some gulps of river water). As we still did not manage to flip the raft, we need to give it a helping hand. Everybody "sitting" at the back of the raft, pulling a rope tied at the front, using the paddles to get it out of balance. Turning around the raft as in a carousel, faster and faster up tot he moment it tips over. I surface under the bottom of the raft...Fun...Difference between men and boys...? :-)

Finally, we arrive in Misahualli, a small jungle river village, to have a beer before returning at Tena. Villagers caught a boa constrictor, hanging on the railing of a fence. I have something with snakes...Love to caress the skin, soft and rough at the same time. Back to the hostel to have a shower (some water again :-)) and to pick up Kathleen, who has been lazying around a bit that day. for dinner.

A bit of repacking for the next two days jungle trip. We only need to bring the necessary minimum. Mine and Kathleen's idea about "minimum" tends to differ though :-). After a one hour bus trip, we arrive at a small river village port, where we board the motor canoe. The water levels are very low (dry season, you know :-)), and I help at one moment to push the canoe through a small canal.

The river jungle views are nice, but not so dramatic as the day before on the rafting trip. We visit a small jungle village. Our guide, Juan, speaks only Spanish and Quichua, and a bit of German. We manage however to understand about 70-80% of what he is explaining. We repeat to each other, we really need to learn some Spanish.

Our Spanish knowledge is put to test when we visit a small museum in the jungle. where an indigenous guide explains us all kind of traps and instruments from the Huari, an indian tribe infamous also for its shrunken heads. After decapitation of the enemy, the ritual consisted out of carefully extracting the bones (the skull) without damaging the skin and hair and then "shrinking" the head till it is not bigger as a fist. We did not have to worry though....Children, women and white men are considered inferior beings, not worthy of this mighty ritual:-). We also try out some blowpipe...just did not find any curare poison:-) Some great traditional lunch...

The afternoon we visit an animal rescue center, where they try to accommodate animals brought here by the police as victims from illegal hunting and animal trade, or by people not managing their puma or monkey pet anymore. Purpose is to try to put them back in their natural habitat, but of course, this is in 90 % of the cases infeasible. The rescue center lives from volunteers and the few tourists that pass by. Though I have a lot of respect for these volunteers, willing to help, I am very skeptical about the sense of this. If you are very cynical, you can say the owner has his own little private zoo, where he makes a living from, paid for by volunteers.

Another short canoe trip to our cabana, where we will spend the night. After dinner, we have the chance of doing some night fishing on the river. I will never understand what fishermen like about fishing...soooo boring...:-). After catching some bait fish at the shore (Juan uses his machete to decaptivate the bait fish - really incredible to see), we get in a wooden canoe in the deep dark night. It was fun for about half an hour. I managed to catch one fish. The rest of the fish are making fun of us (eating the bait without being caught :-)) - no fish breakfast for the next morning :-).

The second day of our jungle trip was far more interesting. After a short walk, we are lucky to catch a bus passing by, so that we can skip the less interesting exhausting par of the jungle walk. Frowning my eyebrows at first "Lazy rather than tired", I start to understand why this was a good idea when we climb up the jungle hill. A boy, half Huari from father's site, joins us, learning to become a tourist guide as well. Our guide is really knowledgeable about all plants and animals. The path, sometimes non existing, winds through dense, hot and humid forest. We learn about medicinal plants, walking trees and how plants are used for daily use (going from hair combing over transport means, communication (our guide uses his mobile though :-)) and umbrellas). I taste some live ants, living in tree leaves...lemon taste ...Kathleen had no appetite :-).

The walk is exhausting, but rewarding, notwithstanding rain showers soak us to the bone. Luckily, it is not too cold and the showers never last too long. Of course, drenching our body was not sufficient. The small river we needed to cross, has swollen so much that our rubber boots served as water recipient. Early afternoon, we get back to the cabana, where Juan prepares our lunch. Rain coming back interferes with our river swim, so we just lazy around in the hammocks. We are on holiday after all:-).

A 4WD brings us back to Tena, where the atmosphere has completely changed. Indigenous music bands are playing and we try out some local cuisine on the lively food market.

Baños was meant as our 'day on the beach' break in our holiday. As we choose not to go to the partying and relaxing resorts on the coast - though we read and heard that a visit is really a worthwhile experience, showing yet another part of Ecuador's diversity - Baños could be considered as an alternative. And a party town it is...Everything here is in sign of the tourism industry, not specifically aimed at the gringo tourists though, but much more at the middle class Ecuadorian family spending its weekend or short time holiday...and weekend it was...

That morning, we went to the hot spring pools...and we were not alone ;-)...What an anticlimax...All the clichés from Benidorm or 'Center Parks' apply here. Still, we convince ourselves to stay here for a few hours and do some people watching. If you look at the people, unemployment of dietists should be far below zero over here:-). Even most of the kids show quite some overweight. I am afraid, the local cuisine will not help to reduce our body mass neither in our short holiday break :-).

Baños is not only a curative spa resort. It is also hiking and mountainbiking country. We go for a long afternoon hike in the hills around Baños. Passing the bridge, we observe the 'puenting' (kind of bungee jumping without the bounce) jumpers. Is it my age that I do not dare do this kind of stuff anymore? I can of course argue that I do not want to spend the 10 dollars or that the used material the outfitters is really worn ;-). Truth is that I do not dare the same things as 10 years ago (I am 28 now instead of 18 ;-))...It is however bizarre that after some time - we saw people jumping from other bridges the next days as well - my mind changes from 'no way' to 'maybe another time'...It is adrenaline after all. And...I hate to admit that I am getting older, so I need to prove that age has no impact on me ;-).

The mountains around Baños are ideal for hiking...nice views and not so difficult to find your way around. Without any map, we needed to trust on our sense of orientation and on the few words of Spanish that we picked up. In the evening, a short visit to the most important church.

Late evening, though warned by other travellers, we fell in the tourist trap of visiting the active volcano 'Tungurahua' in a chiva (typical open air bus). Last December, before we left Belgium, I read in the news about the volcano's eruption. So, hoping to see at least a red glow or some ash clouds...(as you could see on the marketing video from the tour operators :-)). Check the picture for the reality! :-)

Next morning, a bit of pampering for Kathleen. A curative bath in a steam box. A real purification ceremony. The steam baths are in a kind of wooden boxes, your neck and head peaking out, Every four minutes, you come out to rinse yourself with cold water following the bath masters' 'ceremonial' correct order and process, followed later by a belly massage and a waterhose treatment.

After breakfast, we went on a chiva tour visiting the different waterfalls along the way to Puyo. The tour was recommended to us by other travellers and we thought to be back early afternoon for a mountainbike ride. Apart from a cable ride over the gorge, and a beautiful waterfall walk down into the jungle, the trip was quite boring. Beautiful landscape, but the numerous waterfalls are far from spectacular. I figured that it made much more sense to indeed rent a mountainbike and do the same trip. Once back in Baños, it made not much sense to rent mountainbikes anymore, as you really needed a day for the trip. So, instead, we decided to go for another great hike in the mountains, this time with a map ;-).