El Laguna de los Condores Trek: Part 2

Most of you will know that feeling you get when you hear the rain falling on the roof, or tent, early in the morning. It's somewhere between depression and laziness, where all you want to do is pull the covers around your head and forget you heard it. We felt it around 6am on Sunday, just as our watch alarm went off. With the bathroom light on so we wouldn't hurt our sleepy eyes, we packed up our stuff, leaving behind a few things we didn't think we would need. Grabbed some breakfast around the corner from our hostal and met up with our new Guide.

He had the horses all saddled up in the hostal courtyard, so we brought out our backpacks all ready, packed to perfection, the lightest we've had them yet, only to find out that they are too big for the horses. He wanted us to unpack our waterproof backpacks, stuff everything into thin plastic bags and then into woven saddle bags. I was looking up at the rain falling thinking about how nice and warm and dry the bed was right now. We switched over to the Peruvian way of tripping and hopped up into the saddles grumbling to ourselves inside our ridiculously looking ponchos.

For the last three days of our trek we decided to go see some Mausoleums that are located on a cliff above a Lake, a days ride from Leymebamba. They were created by the Chachapoyan culture that lived in the mountains around northern Peru before the Incas came and told them how to live (who in turn got told by the Spanish how to live). To get to El Laguna de Los Condores (Lake of the Condors) it's about a 9 hour ride/hike up a muddy trail through some beautiful country.

We rode out of Leymebamba on our horses early and because of the rain it was pretty quiet. It rained through most of the night so the trail was completely swamped. I haven't ridden many horses before, and the few times I did, was on flat dry trails. Needless to say the rocky, wet, muddy trail was a little bit nerve racking, especially after falling off a few days ago. After leaving and suffering through the gloomy morning, the day turned out to be allright. We crossed two very swollen rivers, climbed up to 3000m, peered down a hole that was supposedly 300m deep. We arrived at the Cabaña just after 5pm, thoroughly exhausted and ready for a sleep.

The Cabaña is on a slope just over the hill from the Laguna, surrounded by lush mountains. We peeled off our raingear and got into some warm clothes. It was getting dark, and the nights up in the mountains are pretty chilly, so we relaxed by the cooking fire and drank tea. Clement prepared some glorious spaghetti, and we bonded over the meal. Clement San Ignacio is a farmer from Leymebamba, a small town south of Chachapoyas by 3 hours on a very very bumpy road. He farms corn, wheat and potatoes mostly, and works as a guide when he can. He worked on the restoration of Kuelap for awhile, and has two children. He had just returned from another trek, and was leaving the next day with us, but his son didn't want him to go. Easily persuaded, his son caved when it became apparent that if he didn't work he wouldn't be able to buy chocolate anymore.

Also living at the Cabaña was a family, husband, wife and their son, who looked after the cows and sheep that grazed on the fields nearby. He works out there for 6 months, a long time to be so isolated from everyone. No phones, no electricity, no cars, no internet.... paradise no? We crawled into our bed under 5 blankets that were as heavy as lead and drifted off. The sleep was fairly restless, because of the cold, and because of the relentless barking of the dogs. They keep a few dogs on the ranch to scare off the foxes and pumas that try to eat the sheep. Not quite paradise afterall.

We woke up on our own time with a light rain falling, drank some more tea to warmup. Breakfast was avocado and bread, so I tried explaining to Clement about porridge and how good it would be right now. We suited up in raingear and set out on our archeology hunt. It really felt like we were the ones discovering it for the first time, as Clement hacked through the bamboo on the trail there. Up sketchy(heh) ladders, over rivers, through cloudforest. We discovered ruins from a very large Chachapoyan city beside the Laguna, numbering three to four thousand citizens. The ruined houses are all round, except for a few rectangular ones that had been built by the Incas after conquering the area. The Chachapoyans built round for the strength since they used small stones. Most Inca buildings were constructed using larger carved blocks so were strong enough without needing to be round.

After walking for about 2 hours and hacking our way through the jungle we arrived at the Mausoleum site. It's about 30 meters up from the lake, and situated under a very large overhang that protects it from the elements. There were a number of different mausoleums that contained about 30-40 mummies in each one. Back in 1997 archeologists excavated the site and transported over 200 mummies to a museum in Leymebamba. The site is still in fairly good shape, and they left a few artifacts behind for us diehards. The walls were painted with pictures of animals and spirals that might have meant longevity. We sat and ate lunch with a few skulls that still remain at the site, one still had hair. It was amazing to see how well preserved most of the stuff was. There was cloth that was used to wrap the mummies, rope made from a plant, and some wood carvings. They think that the Chachapoyans believed in reincarnation, and that the closer you were to the sun and heaven the better chance you had of getting a good gig in the next life. That's the reason they built these crazy tombs up on hard to get to cliffs. Most of the tombs overlooked cities or faced towards the sun as it set or rose. I can only hope my kids put me somewhere cool when I die.

Relunctantly we left and hiked back haunted by thoughts of ancient peoples. It's definitely not comfortable up here, or easy to get to, and it's not much fun unless you can make it, but it's really very cool. The ride back to Leymebamba was a little drier, the rain had let up a little bit and the creeks we crossed looked nothing like the raging rivers of two days ago. We arrived at the Museum around 3pm and the sun was shining without even a hint of guilt. It would have been nice to see it yesterday. The museum itself was full of pottery and artifacts recovered from the Laguna de los Condores tombs, and was very well laid out. I couldn't help but feel a little disinterested after actually travelling to the site and seeing the ammount of work and devotion that went into the Mausoleums. The best part of the museum was seeing the room that had shelves and shelves of mummies, all wrapped up. Some of the wrappings had deteriorated or been removed and you could look at someone maybe 1000 years dead looking back at you. Creepy.

It was really worthwhile week, we learned a ton, saw even more and got to practice our spanish talking to our guides. There wasn't another tourist to be seen the whole time, and most of the registar books showed lists of peruvian tourists. It's neat to learn so much about a culture that lived here that isn't Inca, since that's all we ever hear about in Canada. We are back in Chachapoyas now, after a long and very very bumpy road from Leymebamba. Taking it easy today, updating our epic, and we head out tonight on a overnight bus for the coast, where it will hopefully be sunny, warm, and perhaps a hammock.
Cheers.

fotos to follow...

Gran Vilaya Trek: Part One

So, for the past 7 days we have been on a trek around northern Peru! This means that there are lots of stories and photos to share. We are breaking our update up into two parts. This is part 1.

We left Chachapoyas 8am in a taxi with our chauffeur, Hermando, and our guide, Carlos (who is only 18 years old, and takes out treks as his summer job!). Within 10 minutes we could tell that there was some sort of problem because the two were talking nervously upfront, and then we pulled over as our driver started searching through his papers. They didn´t find what they were looking for, so we kept driving, and then in another 5 minutes or so, our guide was explaining to us that we were going to get out of the taxi and walk down the road for a bit and that Hermando would meet us a bit later. Hmmm. As we walked down the road we approached what apeared to be a police check point (we had no money or passports though because we were told to leave anything of value behind) and Carlos was telling us that if the police man asked, we were just on a day hike in the valley. Hmmm again. The police man didnt believe Carlos so he explained the real story (we think). We tried to keep up with their conversation, but they still talk way too quickly. What we think happened was that the taxis are not allowed to work outside their province, unless they have special permission, and Hermando didn´t have that permission. Thankfully we were allowed to continue on our trip, but we never really knew how they resolved the issue. A great way to start off.

Our first stop was Karajiha, an old burial site for one small village of the Chachapoyians (this is a preInca culture about 800A.D., that was eventually overtaken by the Incas, and then the Spanish...this is not the modern city we were just coming from). We left the taxi behind and hiked for a good twenty minutes before arriving at the bottom of a small cliff face. Pearched on a small ledge in the middle of the cliff were six statues (each holding one mummy). They used to be people of great importance, and so were buried here so they could look out over the small valley and the village. It was really great to see something so ancient still intact and sitting amoung farmland (and we were the only people there too, an extra bonus).

We had lunch in the next small town and then headed up further into the mountains on the very bumpy dirt road. We even had to stop and pile out of the taxi to move a fallen tree off the road because the road crews had not been up that way in awhile. We were finally able to squeeze the taxi between the tree and the road´s edge (which dropped steeply into more cloud forest) and we continued down to the valley bottom, Valle de Balen. We left Hermando to breve the long drive back up the mountain, and the three of us hiked down through the flood plains to the trekking company´s cabin. The valley was very green and had hundreds of cows and horses spread over its length, grazing between the meandering river. As Carlos went about fixing the cabin up and searching for Victor (a man who apparently looks out for the cabin while it´s not in use), we explored the rivers and streams and Colin tried to make friends with the cows.
That night after dinner we tried some Liquor de Leche, and Colin braved chewing coca. That whole process seemed very complicated, chew very slowly in your cheek and then add powdered chalk (or something else...language barrier) with this pin to the center of the chewed coca...Carlos was telling us his brother wasn´t careful and stabbed the pin through his cheek! Colin says it ´tasted like leaves´. The locals chew coca as they hike from village to home because with the long distances and high altitudes it helps their energy or blood flow but we´re not sure on the science of it quite yet. We played cards with Carlos and another valley friend, Arturo, and swapped teaching games... Go fish was the popular game of the evening. We slept in bunks in the cabin and layered our beds with five or six blankets, the valley is very cold at night, especially living in a mud and log cabin.

Day two of our trek we hiked from Valle de Balen to the much larger Gran Vilaya valley. We hiked across the flood plain and up into the mountains, following an old preInca road (basically an old rock pathway that has deteriorated over time). Carlos took us on a side trail into the jungle\cloud forest to see some ruins from another Chachapoian village, which have only been known for the past three or four years. Apparently the Valle de Balen has many similar ruins, but there isn´t enough money to research or excavate right now. Where the houses once stood were now fallen circular walls with trees growing in them. We walked several trails and everywhere we looked were buildings, we felt like we were in an old Indiana Jones movie. We had lunch in the forest surrounded by all the trees and roak walls and then started on a two hour hike straight down the mountain. Our knees were crying by the end, but we reached the nest nights accomodations, a family´s house and where they grow coffee and raise chickens.
We got to try some of the coffee and (with a lot of sugar) was surprisingly good. The chickens were very amuzing too... at dusk, all the chickens wanted to roost in the top branches of one of the trees. The process of watching them flap and sqwack was histerical. We even took a photo.
Day three we rode horses up out of the valley and then met up with Hermando, who took us the rest of the way to Maria. The large horse (which was brought for Colin originally) endded up carrying me and our two large backpacks, and Colin rode the slightly smaller horse with fewer things. Our guide and the horse driver walked and chewed coca as we climbed up through the cloud forests. The paths were very muddy and rocky and slippery, not ideal conditions for horseback ridding. We walked a few times in dangerous areas and to give ourselves and the horses a break. We reached another site of Chachapoian ruins and explored the old village. It was almost identical to the first village. A five minute walk from the ruins is a house where we ate lunch, they have convieniently named the spot Launch after the english word. We climbed back on the horses after our feast and continued the climb. Within the last five minutes of the ride (as we could see the top) the rocks were getting steeper, more slippery, and we could tell the animals were having more trouble than earlier, but we kept ridding to the insistance of Carlos and the horse driver. As I became more and more nervous, and my horse kept slipping, eventually his back legs comepletely slipped and he fell, but the horse driver was there in miliseconds pushing the horse up the rock. As I recovered and turned around, Colin´s horse began slipping and fell and Colin fell off his horse and somersalted backwards twice down the rock!!!!! He only scratched his hand, and the horse was alright too, but he walked up the last two minutes, and I was quick to jump off my horse at the top of the hill. Woah.

Our taxi was not at the top to meet us, so we began walking down the road, and Carlos eventually caught us a ride to the next small village where he called to find our taxi. As he was talking on the phone, Hermando came zooming up the hill and we flagged him down and were all piled in the car within minutes to Maria, where we ate dinner, showered, and slept slept slept.

Day four started early because we had so much ground to cover that day. We headed off to Kuelap, yet another Chachapoian village, but this one has been excavated and is being restored, and is sitting up on the highest mountain and overlooking a cliff. It is built on a large base, which only has three entrances. Anyone army wanting to attack would have to file through the long entrance ways single file and risk being pelted upon by thrown rocks from above. It being still before 7am, Carlos tried to sneak us through the impressive first entrance, which has been under construction for the past two years and is off limits. We almost made it through, but were caught, so had to walk all the way along the village´s outside wall to the next long entrance way. After climbing up the entrance to the top of the base, we explored the restored village, the houses (with kitchens and exterior balconies), and were able to see the village without the jungles that the other two sites had. It was pretty amazing, and the more famous ruins of the area.

We had breakfast then had a long drive to our next site, Revash, another burial site. We hiked up for about an hour to the cliff face where we saw some house-like structures pearched on the cliff face. Inside each of these ´houses´ there were 20-30 mummied bodies, and along the whole cliff face were several other buirial sites. The Chachapoians buried their dead on the cliff faces to overlook their villages and so the bodies were closer to the sun (also to protect them from robbers). Sadly, when this site was discovered, the archaeologists took their discoveries back to their countries, so now the mummies, ceramics and other findings are in museums in Vienna, Italy, and LaLouvres in France. Peru doesn´t have the money to buy back these things. We ate some of the best oranges everWe hiked back down to the taxi and drove off to Leymebamba, several hours away and had lunch at 4:30. From there we said ciao to Carlos, because the next three days we were to have another guide. We skipped dinner, having just eaten, and packed for a 7am departure for the next day.

The first four days of the trek we had great weather, lots of sun and saw tonnes of old preInca sites (we are starting not to like the Incas actually because they came and took over everything). Sadly the photos aren´t loading fast enough and we leave for the coast in a few hours...be patient and they´ll be here soon!
Later gaitors!

Ecuador Declares War On Canada!

What is it about border crossings that make us so nervous? Maybe it starts when you miss your bus in the morning that takes your there? Or perhaps it's the 3 hour wait in small town Ecuador where a waterfight breaks out with the local army base? It could be the converted flatbed truck with benches (camionettas) that drives you on an increasingly smaller dirt road towards the border? If it's not any of those it's probably going to be the point in the trip when your camionetta comes to a washed out bridge, so you have to walk across on a tree that spans the river, and catch the next camionetta on the other side.

So we made it to Peru, it was quite a trip here, not your average border crossing by any means. Missed the 6am bus from the muy tranquil Vilcabamba by about an hour, so waited around until 9:30 for the next one. It's about a 5 hour ride along a dirt mountain road that is barely one lane. We had to back up numerous times to let busses travelling in the other direction past. The views out the window tended to be breathtaking an terrifying all at once, as the driver sped around blind corners with a courtesy "honk". We rolled into Zumba, only to find ourselves waiting for the next camionetta to the border, which left at 5:30pm.

The central plaza in Zumba borders on a large army base left over from border skirmishes with Peru back in the 90's. The local batallion we're keeping themselves busy by lobbing waterballoons down at passerbys. They seemed to really enjoy trying to hit the gringos, but luckily we picked a spot just out of range to sit and wait. After about an hour of on-and-off shelling, the army became frustrated with their inability to actually hit us, so one of them ran out from the base and dumped a bucket of water on Sarah. Priceless! Only now they had started something, and it was my duty, to my country and my woman, to finish it. I ran over to a nearby store and bought a bag of baloons, filled a few up in a washroom, and snuck over to the base. I hit behind some large walls, and with Sarah as my lookout, waited in silence.

By now the whole Plaza was watching us, eager to see what would come of the gringos. When the time came, and the enemy came into range, with lively inaccuracy I unleashed a flurry of watery revenge, barely mangaging to dampen their spirits. It was fun though! Realizing their walls and hill were too much for my weak arms, I turned my attention to three boys that had decided to join sides with their countrymen. Since they were much smaller than me, didn't have a big army base, I felt much better about fighting against them. Things went back and forth for quite awhile, and I finally gave up after jumping off a roof and hurting my foot. They drove home their victory with one last brutal waterballon to my ear. Then our ride came, so we took off for the border!

Camionettas are basically flat bed trucks, converted into busses by putting a few rows of benches in the back. They look rediculous, are very uncomfortable, and are the only way to get around between small towns in the mountains. The road from Zumba started off pretty good and wide, but slowly became smaller and houses and farms became less frequent. It was pretty nervous to begin with, since we were behind schedule, would be crossing at night, but when the truck stopped in the middle of no where and the two guys in front got out, all that was going through my head was "oh crap, this is it, we're being robbed, why didn't we choose the other, bigger border crossing?" It's a good thing they were only asking for the fare. Gladly we paid our $2, midly confused since it was only half what we should have paid, and at the randomness of the location they chose to ask for it. It all became clear a few minutes later as the truck turned around, backed down the road around a corner, revealing a bridge that had been washed out.... 3 months ago. This was the first anyone had told us of the bridge, news travels slowly I guess. We walked down to where the bridge used to be, and where prospective entreprenuers had set up a makeshift cable box for shuttling across luggage and stuff. We loaded our packs into the box, and walked down some steps carved into the mud banks to a tree that somebody had wedged across the river. On the other side we paid our $1 for use of the cable box and hopped into another camionetta. This was all very strange considering this is one of only three border crossings between the countries. I guess it's such a small one, and underdevelopped that there is no rush to repair a bridge. Oh well. The rest of the trip was uneventful, crossing the actual border consisted of walking across a fairly new large bridge, useless now that the road doesn't go anywhere, and getting our pasport stamped on the other side. We hopped into a taxi collectivo, and shared a ride to the nearest town, San Ignacio, which is two hours away.

So we're in Peru! Hoorah! It's pretty much the same as Ecuador so far, only the money is now Peruvian Soles, not American Dollars. It's taking some getting used to, but not that bad.

Yesterday we left San Ignacio in the morning and caught two taxi collectivos, two mototaxis, and a bus to get us to the town of Chachapoyas. The first taxi from San Ignacio was the most interesting, we were packed into a 15 passenger van, that was the size of a mini-van. At one point there were 20 people in the van, and the top was loaded with so much stuff, everytime we went aroudn a corner the wheels would screech and I envisioned us rolling into the fields of rice. It was a beautiful day, really sunny and hot, and the road was covered in pot holes, to which the driver either couldn't see, or didn't care about. No less than four people threw up! Four people! We followed a beautiful river most of the way to the town of Jaén (pronounced Hchkahn, sortof), where we hit up the bank and changed taxis. The most breathtaking part was on the bus ride south, that went up a canyon. The walls of the canyon rose thousands of feet on either side and you could have jumped into the raging river from the bus. Parts of the road had been carved into the canyon wall, in a half tunnel, so the bus was driving under a rocky overhang. Hard to explain, but it was terrifyingly ingenious engineering we were witnessing.

We're here in Chachapoyas for a few days, trying to set up a trek into some jungle or cloudforest to visit some pre-Inca ruins, then we'll continue south.

sorry for the lack of pictures, we forgot to charge our batteries :(

here's a crab from Ecuador though.

Relaxing in the ¨Valley of Longevity¨

We spent 2 nights in Loja (pronounced Loha). There´s really not much there, except for the nearby park of Podocarpus. So that´s exactly what we did! But for our first dinner there we went to a chicken place which served 1/4 chicken dinners!!! Swiss Chalet? Unfortunately not. There were not enough fries, and definitely no sauce. Snif, but it was good none the less.

We were up early and by 8:30 we were in a taxi with our gear on our way to the Northern entrance of the park. The reason we had to take a taxi was because of the 8.5 km of uphill, bumpy, muddy, curvy, dirt road into the ranger´s staition from the entrance. At one point on the road our taxi fishtailed around one of the corners! Eep! He slowed down after that, especially to drive through the huge ´pond´that had formed on the road. Our plan was to hike the park´s trails and then walk those 8.5 km down to the highway in the afternoon to catch a cheeper mode of transportation (yes, a bus) back to the city.

We arrived at the same time as a birdwatching-tourist group, but were able to pass them on the trail quickly (Colin recieved another comment on his TimHorton´s t-shirt!). We did a small, muddy 700m warm-up loop before beginning the 5km ridge trail we had planned on. The trail climbed up and up and up through cloud forest on steep muddy trails (we were trying to be careful considering we both only have one pair of pants each). After about 30-45 minutes we arrived at the mirrador (lookout) on the top of the ridge which was very impressive. We could see down into the vallies on either side and in the distance we were able to make out the highway and the road our taxi had come up on. The vegetation had changed from the larged leaved trees and flowers, to short grasses and bushes. The trail continued up along the ridge into the clouds, so we follwed. The wind picked up and at some points I felt like I was going to be picked up and tossed over the other side. Unfortunately, the very higest point of the ridge was clouded in (and even windier) so there are no photos to comemorate the event, but we decended from there on another steep, muddy trail (at this point both of our pants were covered in mud, so we weren´t worrying much anymore) into the cloud forest.

Back at the ranger´s staition we ate our lunch and were offered a drive back to Loja by a really nice Argentinian couple and their son. We threw our muddy boots in the back of the truck and rolled up our pants before hopping in the back seat with their son, Gabrielito (who had a spanish-talking Buzz Lightyear! A la infinidad y más allá!). They had driven in the night before and had stayed over at the ranger´s staition, so had not yet seen the sceenery from the road. We stopped several times to take photos. But we also saw a huge beetle with pincers, so we all pilled out of the truck to take a closer look, and from our horrible translating, we understood that his pincers could kill you! So, Colin and Gabriel (the father) started poking at it. We arrived back at our hostel 4 hours earlier than expected, so just relaxed.

We left the next day for Villcabamba, a little town about an hour south of Loja, known for relaxing. Apparently people can live to be very old here, but scientific studies have not proven anything about it yet. But they do have their own bottled water, Villcagua, with an older, white haired man on the front. Hmm. We are staying in another ecolodge, Rumi-Wilco, which focuses on the protected lands it borders and organic gardening. It´s just outside of town and so it is very peaceful, though we can still hear a donkey in the distance and sometimes loud dance music from the school. There is also a small path leading to town which crosses the sketchiest bridge yet. It was washed out many years ago and it´s now on a huge slant.

Tomorrow we plan to leave for Peru, which should be an adventure in itself. Lots of bus/taxi transfers, and a border crossing, and money exchange! Woah. Thank goodness they still speek spanish.

Later, Gaitors!

Lets see YOUR house last 500 years...

Cuenca is a very nice city, full of old colonial buildings and churches. Most things are within walking distance, and they have lots of sings and maps up everywhere for tourists like us. We took a walk through the town and checked out the river, where lots of people still come and wash there clothes, then leave them to dry on the grass nearby. Down near the river is a Pre-Inca ruin, whose name escapes me, but it was only accessible if you went to the museum next to it, so we did the cheap thing and just walked around peering through the fence. We did go see another museum though that housed the best collection of Indigenous artifacts we've seen. They touted it as "a gift to the Indigenous people of Ecuador" and it had everythign laid out in the many different cultures that inhabited Ecuador before the spaniards arrived and pillaged everything, heh!

To keep with the history theme we took a day trip up to Ingapirca, which is Ecuador's best Inca ruins. It was a great thing to see the walls and temple that had been partially rebuilt, and catch a glimpse of what it looked like 500 years ago. They took us on a tour of the site, which had originally belonged to the Cañari peoples, but they got conquered by the Inca who built a bigger and better temple beside the Cañari one. The whole site supposed to be a religious place, where only important people lived (priests, rulers and their servants/women), and they grew the medicinal herbs and plants in a half moon garden. The two temples, of the Moon (Cañari) and Sun (Inca), were both aligned in such a way that on the soltices, and equinoxes the sun would shine through the doors and onto figures or statues (or a special rock) as it rose or set. We got a tour around the place and checked out some nearby baths that were carved right into the rock, and fed by aquaducts. All in all it was very cool and got us excited for Machu Picchu and some other sites in Peru.

We were going to head out of Cuenca for Loja and some hiking but heard there was a Football game on Saturday, so we stuck around one more day. We spent the morning and most of the afternoon outside Cuenca in the small Village Town of San Bartalomé, which has a number of different Guitar Craftsmen. The busses don´t really go to San Bartalomé regularly so we go there around noon, which is when most people take their Siesta, or extended lunch break, so we had to ask around quite a bit to actually see some guitars. We went to two different shops and saw some really nicely made guitars, all made by hand. It´s amazing how intricate some of the inlay is and how much work goes into the guitars. Where we were staying in Cuenca, a graduate student from Holland is writing his thesis on the town and it's guitar makers. He explained that unfortunately the town which is historic for its Maestros (guitar makers), has been struggling due to pressures from the global market. It's much cheaper to buy a guitar from China than small town Ecuador. Even so, I did some inquiring and to have a completely custom built guitar by hand would run you around $300. Incredible! I've been seriously thinking about taking one off their hands on our way back up here.

We left San Bartalomé a little late, due to infrequent busses and made it back a little late for the soccer game. The game seemed to be a University match between Cuenca and the capitol Quito. The whole stadium, except for a small section in the corner behind a net was dressed in Red and Black (Cuenca´s colours). Quito´s small section was sporting White. It was a great event, but most of the entertainment came from the crowd not the game. The game was kinda boring actually, lots of guys falling down "hurt", getting carried off on a stretcher then jumping off and running back onto the field to play. The crowd however, uncontrollable! They had drums and cheers, waterballons, fireworks... there were riot police and national guard there. The best (or worst) place to sit was behind the players benches, which were covered, so the barrage of waterballons wouldn´t get them too wet. They would also set off large and noisy fireworks right in the stands. One time a Quito player got a red card (kicked out of the game), and had to be excorted from the field with two police with big shields. It was hilarious. They let the Quito fans out first then after a short wait they let out the rest of the Cuenca fans. Outside there were police on horseback, more waterballoons flying, and it seemed like a full scale riot was about to ensue, but I think it was just par for the course at a University game here... lots of fun.

We needed a bit of home and went out to the Multicines movie theater for some english hollywood (with spanish subtitles and previews). Took in "Un Noche en el Museo" with Ben Stiller and others, very good funny flick, kinda Sappy, but that´s ok.

We're in Loja right now and most likely off to Villecabamba for some more hammocks and relaxing. Although it is Carnaval right now everywhere, so maybe some waterfights or dancing might happen!

Speaking of Carnaval, it seems like everyone participates in a full scale, country wide water fight for the month of Febuary. Several busses we've been on have been pelted with waterballons, or buckets. On our train ride we passed a small hill with some kids on it who doused the roof with a bucket of water. Yesterday we were dodging rooftop snipers who would launch baloons and buckets down on the street below, and we´ve been hit a few times from drive-by shootings from a watergun. We're serously thinking of investing in a watergun to retaliate.

taker easy!

Bikes and Trains

Well, we spent a few more days than planned in Banos. Both of us needed some rest time, apparently some of the food we ate didn´t like living in our stomachs. So we slept, ate sim

ple foods (if any) and got better. Phew! Banos is a very touristy little town. It got it´s name because of the baths that make this town so popular. The naturally heated springs (due to the nearby volcano, Tungurahua) have a lot of their water re-routed and used in these mineral baths. The volcano last errupted in August, but we were fortunate enough not to have any problems. There are hostels and restaurants on everywhere, and every corner has a tour company trying to sell tickets for rafting, climbing, horseback riding and biking trips. They also seem to be slightly more aware about the environment in Banos, because there were actually garbage bins on the sidewalks...only these bins were shaped like clown heads and Bart Simpson heads, and others. Anyone with a clown-phobia would not do well here.

We did a few small hikes around the hills here. One went up a huge staircase to a large statue of La Virgen del Agua Santa, who watches over the town. We also hiked to a HUGE canyon where we entertained ourselves with throwing rocks over the bridge. That day we were able to see the volcano, which lived up to it´s name (as a volcano I mean); it was very dark and cone shaped and big. One other hike took us to the other side of the valley where we had some great views of the town, and got the chance to cross yet another sketchy bridge. Ecuador doesn´t seem to have enough waterfalls or sketchy bridges. We also seem to be finding these little locked windows set into the rocks everywhere which are all holding some sort of shrine or monument to some saint. Hmmm...

We got up early one morning and went to the baths, but even at 7:30am on a Sunday they are crowded. There were three pools, a cold and chlorinatedpool , a hot mineral pool and a very hot mineral pool. We only braved the hot pools as the sun wasn´t even over the hills yet.

And then on Monday we went on a bike ride! There is a famous ride from Banos down through the valley to Puyo, 60 km away. We rented some bikes and got a map and some lunch packed and set off. Most of the ride is down hill, but there are a few stretches which had us working hard. The highway goes through tunnels at several points, some of which are up to 2 km long! Fortunately we only had to ride our bikes through the first one (which was scarry enough) and all the others had bike detours. Colin took a video of his ride through the first tunnel (he almost wiped out while filming) and we´ll try and get it uploaded at some point, it´s very funny! We stopped and locked our bikes and hiked down to see a waterfall, Pailon del Diablo, and stood on yet another sketchy bridge, this one much more so than the others. Then continued the bike trip down a great hill (missing another waterfall) to a small place called Rio Negro, where we ate lunch and swam and played in a cold, clear river. Since the final stretch of the trip to Puyo is mostly uphill (as we were told), we decided to end our trip and jump on the next passing bus back to Banos (bikes fit perfectly underneath). A great bike trip!

We left Banos the next day and went onto Riobamba, where we stayed one night and woke early the next morning to catch a 7am train down to Alausi. This is the only stretch of train tracks that have been repaires in Ecuador after numerous landslides due to El Ñino, and it has become very touristy because they let you ride on top of the single train car to see the scenery. Unfortunately the tickets were sold out, but we waited and eventually were able to buy tickets to sit inside the car. After passing Alausi, the train takes a little detour down to La Nariz del Diablo (the devil´s nose), an area where there was alot of difficulty in building the tracks due to the cliff. The solution was to create several switchbacks, and so the trip has one of the conductors jumping off the train every so often to switch the tracks before the train decends backwards down another stretch. Once at the bottom of the valley they switched everyone from the inside to the top of the car, so we got to ride on the top afterall! It was very wobbly and uncomfortable, but well worth the wait!

After our trip on the roof of the train, we had to catch a bus to Cuenca (4 hour trip). The bus was mostly full of gringos (tourists) doing the same trip as ourselves. A few times along the way our bus was stopped by the cops to check the driver´s papers, there was obviously some sort of problem, because we had to pull over for several minutes both times while the driver and bus-boy got off and were talking with the cops. The second time we drove into a nearby town with the cops, and then were eventually taken to another bus and had to switch! We´re not sure exactly what happened to the driver or bus, but our trip took an hour and a half longer than it was supposed to. Argh.

We decided to go out for sushi, having passed a sign for it and not being able to forget, (Cuenca is a larger city, so we have those options right now), and ended up treating ourselves...sushi, wine, dessert ...yum ! It was a fun evening. We are here for a few days, planning to see some pre-Inca ruins and some other art and then continue south.

Updated map.

Ciao!

Quilotoa Loop

Bare with us, this one is long....

Checked into Residencial Santiago, and after a wicked bowl of self-made potato, carrot, broccoli stew, we set in for a nice sleep.... or so we thought. Apparently people in Ecuador check into their hotels at 6:30am and make lots of noise doing it. We had thought we might sleep in for once, but after the couple yacking about the washrooms outside our door, and a group of men turing their TV up really loud and leaving their door open, we gave up and went in search of some breakfast at the nearby market. Some delicious fruit smoothies, and a few Pan de Chocolate later and we were good to go.

We hopped on a bus headed for the town of Zumbahua. The bus started out empty save us and a few other passengers, but soon after leaving the terminal every seat was full. It wasn´t long before the aisles were packed with bags of potatos, chickens and people. I don´t think they have a work for Safety Hazard in Ecuador. It´s all "part of the experience" though right? Sarah rode most of the ride with someone´s child in her lap.

About midway we jumped off the bus to check out some local indigenous art, known worldly as Tigua Art. It´s very colourful and depicts lots of landscape and traditional themes. We caved and bought a few pieces, but the real gems were the masks, some as big as the Regatta Turtle Shell at camp, or near a metre big for those non-campers. They were really cool, demons and local animals, and the biggest ones only fetched $50 or so. I wanted one badly but realistically carrying around a giant mask isn´t very fun.

Catching the next bus and arriving in Zumbahua later that day, we were expecting a bit of a party night. Our guide book stated that "on Friday Zumbahua is hopping with tradition Andean music and dance. The night involves heavy drinking and sometimes spills over into the saturday market". Well the guide book was wrong, and the only people up for a party last friday was a small group of scraggy backpackers. Somewhat disapointed we went to bed in our Hostal, across from an empty Plaza. The next morning around 6:30 (again) music and loudspeakers were going off full blast, and we peered from our window to a Plaza now teeming with activity. Everyone had setup shop overnight and you could buy pretty much anything you needed. We picked up some fresh fruit and lunch stuff, and sat on the balcony overlooking the Plaza drinking our fruit smoothies. Some boys were all setup along a wall with their shoe shining kits, once corner was dominated by banannas. Here, you can buy small bananas, regular bananas, large bananas, green plantains, yellow plantains, large red bananas... and that´s just the fresh ones... they fry 'em, mash 'em, grill 'em... it´s quite impressive.

We walked around the market a bit more, then caught a bus to our next destination, Laguna Quilotoa. On our way to the bus we passed a few Camionetas which are basically pickup trucks that let you ride in the back for some money. They are pretty common way to get around to places that busses don´t go, or run more frequently than busses. The only problem is that they cost $5 a person, wheras the bus that is just about to leave only costs $0.50. We ran and caught the bus before it completely left and piled into it with all our stuff. Relegated to standing in the aisle straddling our packs, we got dropped off about 10 minute walk from our actual destination. Oh well. We paid less and we metup with two other girls that were heading to see the Laguna too.

Laguna Quilotoa is a volcanic Lake that sits 400m down in the crater. It´s pretty impressive view from the top, looking down into the emerald green water. There is a small town that has been created because of tourism at the Laguna, so we checkout out the community run hostal and unloaded our bags. We joined up with the two other girls and braved the 30 minute hike down to the lake. At the bottom we ate some lunch and watched as some people rented boats to explore the lake. Some bright entrepreneur had lugged some sit on top kayaks and a small zodiac down and was offering them up at $5 a pop. We settled for a look around, and even touched the very alkaline water. They say you shouldn´t drink the water, and the fact that it was slimey solidified that notion in my mind. Now hiking 400m down isn´t the same as hiking 400m up... two hours or so later we arrived back up at the top and at our hostal. Some of the locals have setup stands right on the crater rim lookout, and were selling local handmade goods. It was pretty chilly, and all the sweaters and hats looked really nice. I caved and bought a pretty nice wool zip-up hoodie for $15 bucks. I know people have bought stuff for less here, and I didn´t even have to bargain her down, she dropped the price pretty quickly, but I was happy to pay $15 for something I´d have trouble finding handmade in canada for less than $80. The community hostal I mentioned before is run by a group of people in the community and all the proceeds generated are put back into the little village. It was a nice quaint little place, and we were the only people staying there. Breakfast and dinner were included in the $8 a night, so we relaxed and enjoyed some 'typical' ecuadorian fare.

The next morning we woke up and set out on our big hike. We had planned to hike to the next village, which was about 20km away. The hike starts out going around the laguna crater rim and then drops off about a third of the way around and heads down to the small village of Guayana down into a very large canyon, and then back up the other side to the town of Chugchillan. Everything started out great and we made it around the rim to the designated spot. But soon after leaving the crater, the paths started splitting up and getting smaller and smaller. Signs that a local hostal had put up were conveinently removed by prospective guides, making us wish we weren't too cheap to hire one. After and hour of being 'lost' we eventually found the trail with the help of some farmers and made it the rest of the way allright. The hike was amazing, dropping into a giant canyon on a path that starts out like a tunnel. Lots of sketchy bridges and barking dogs to keep us on our toes, and the last hour is straight up the canyon to the finish line. Definitely a highlight of our trip so far.

The next day we decided to head up to a nearby cheese factory, and made the trek with another couple (from Belgium) and a Mother-Daughter team. We all are staying at the same hostal and thought it would be a good idea to hit the cheese factory up for some cheese together, since they only sold in large quantities. The hike there was great, with some spectacular views across the canyon valley and over the next ridge to the Iliniza North and South Volcanoes that were dusted with snow. We had a map provided by the hostal that had instructions in english, unfortunately the drawn map didnt match the instructions and the six of us ended up walking down a wrong road for an hour or so. That hour down meant about two hours back up, so what started out as a nice 4 hour easy hike turned into a 9 hour epic on the back roads of Ecuador. Two for two, on our hikes so far. The rest of our time in Chugchillan we spent recouperating and relaxing.

One reason Chugchillan and even the Quilotoa Loop are popular now is because of the Black Sheep Inn. The Inn is a Eco friendly hotel type place that is practicing Permaculture and sustainable practices, aswell as community development in the area. It´s owned by an American couple and they have done a really impressive job of realizing their goal and developping the community in a positive way. Most of the families around the area work as farmers and the land they cultivate is incredibly steep. A major problem is land and soil erosion and deforestation due to farming. It can be depressing seeing the never ending hills carpeted with farm after farm. On our hikes we've been seeing the families tilling the 45 degree incline fields by hand, and we know that sooner or later their land will just wash away. The Inn has been trying to help through education and demonstrating sustainable organic agriculture and permaculture, so perhaps change will happen. It's interesting to think that hundreds of years ago the Inca, who farmed the same slopes, practiced sustainable methods through terracing and natural fertalizer, but their decendants don't know how to.

We decided to splurge for one of our nights in Chugchillan and stay at the Inn, since it costs a little more. Last night we relaxed by the woodstove, drinking tea, eating brownies and even broke out the guitar they had there. It was a good experience and a place that shouldn't be missed if you ever come down here.

This morning we woke up super early to catch the 3am bus. Getting to Chugchillan is easy, but getting away seems to be an early affair no matter how you work it. The only busses out of the town are at 3am and 4am, or you can hop on the milk truck at 9am and catch a bus in the next town. The 3am bus fit our schedule best, so we rolled out of bed and down to the road. We wanted to get to the town of Saqusili for their big market early. We rolled into town just after 7am and lugged our packs down from the roof of the bus. We had caught the bus with another lady from the Inn but unfortunately her bag, which was on the roof right beside ours, must have fallen off at some point on the bumpy ride. The bus took no responsibility for it, claiming someone must have stolen it. SOL as they say... we will certainly remember to go up and personally clip our packs to the rack in the future.

The Saqusili Market is amazing. You can buy anything there from used tires, used clothings, water guns, ornate wooden cross tombstones, shoes, knives, crafts, woolen goods, art, fruit, veggies, grains, spices, illegal music and dvds, live pigs, goats, horses, cows, sheep, llamas, chickens, donkeys, raw wool.... i could go on. It was great. We spent a few hours wandering around and bought some breakfast fruit which we had pureed at a roadside stand into a smoothie. The best part was the animal market that was full of screaming pigs, angry cows, and hundreds of locals barganing and dragging their new bought sheep through the town. I took some recordings of it and will try to post them in the next few days.

We left Saqusili and caught two more buses to get us down here to Banos. Spend a few days here relaxing in the volcanic baths (el banos), and go for a bike ride perhaps!

Check out the pictures for the past week.

Art and Culture

We took a quick look at a Art Gallery/Cultural Museum (Fondacion de Guayasamin) in Quito before heading south. The Museum consisted of a private collection of Pre-Colombian and Pre-Inca artifacts, a Religious art collection and some of Guayasamin´s modern art. Guayasamin was a pretty famous Ecuadorian artist who was part of the Quito School of Art. The school did quite a lot of religous work, which was really valued for the quality that the indigenous artists (that had converted) created. It wasn´t that interesting and looked like every other religious art I´ve seen. But Kudos to them!

The artifacts were pretty neat, and Guayasamin has collected quite a number of them. Everything from musical instruments, to ceramic and stone bowls, Shaman Idols and some large pedestal looking things they thought might have been for baby sacrifices. Coool. We got there and they started giving a tour in spanish, which was very fast and we felt left out so we just hung at the back and tried to let the group lose us, but the lady was very insistant (i guess they don´t want people putting their grubby hands all over the ancient artifacts). After the tour she came up to us and we explained that we only spoke a little spanish, but knew english and french. She gave the tour in French just for us! It was neat, and we were pretty surpised how well we understood and took in everything, having not spoken much french in recent years.

In the last part of the foundation we took in some of Guayasamin´s art. Very picasso-ish according to Sarah. I thought it was pretty neat stuff, and wouldn´t have minded having one of those scary guys staring back at me in my room. Then i looked at the prices of the prints... someday Colin, when you win the lottery.
Actually speaking of languages, we´ve been running into people from all over. So far we´ve encountered, Belgians, Germans, Aussies, Dutch, Americans, and Canadians! It´s neat because not everyone speaks english, so most of the time we either talk to them in Spanish, or get to practice our French.

We left the Art Foundation feeling very socially and culturally enlightened, devoured a bowl of fruit and Helado (ice cream), then caught a bus south to Latacunga. We figured out that if you catch the bus as it leaves the bus station you get the next bus that is leaving, and you miss out on the $0.20 terminal fee... practially locals now!