I finally, after a rather gruelling week of bus schedules and large capital cities, made it to Argentina. I'm now in Mendoza, which is in the central eastern area, about 6 hours east of Santiago, in Chile. This place a rather startling resemblance to the Okanagan, it's dry, desert-like, hot and they grow a lot of wine around here. I bought a kilo of cherries in the main market today, so as I delight my taste buds with them, I shall recount the time since my last update.
Back last Thursday, which now feels like a millennium ago, there I was sitting there in the bus station with my ticket to Chiclayo, and came to understand by the growing crowd in the room that the bus in fact was going all the way to Lima. What with being stuck in the Peruvian boondocks and all, I found this opportunity too much to resist, and changed my ticket to take me all the way to the capital. The lesson that has been learned is, if you want to get across Peru quickly, don't use remote border crossings. Duh!
At 6:30 the next morning, with the sun now fully up, I pulled back the curtain to see the vast miles of sand that is the Peruvian coastal desert, which basically constitutes all of Peru's coast. For the first several hours of the trip, the desert had clumps of small bushes, interrupted with irrigated areas where people lived in mud-brick houses. Then the villages disappeared, along with any sign of life, and it just settled out to 360 degrees of barren wasteland. At around 4, we arrived in Lima. As I quickly discovered, the bus station for the company I was traveling under (Peru doesn't have central bus terminals, unlike every other country on the continent) wasn't actually in Lima proper, but out in the middle of one of the impoverished suburbs north of the center, and was forced to pay for a taxi with a rather uncompromising middle-aged bloke at the wheel, who seemed to regard me as a hassle. Before we pulled away from the station, the taxista locked all the doors and rolled up the windows, he said it was for a little security. Okay, I was not going to be in Lima for very long. First, I went to the bus station of a company that ran buses to Santiago, and discovered if I wanted, I'd have to wait 3 days for the next one. Abandoning this plan, and the first taxista because he'd decided he didn't want to take me anywhere else, I got in a new taxi to the more upscale district of Miraflores. Being in Lima proper now, the next one didn't bother with security, saying it was really 'tranquilo' in this part of the city, he did insist I wear a seatbelt though, the first South American to do so. Now, Lima, by this point, had made a horrific impression on me. The 6-lane freeway to Miraflores was lined with massive billboards advertising everything from American cable networks to Scotiabank, the first that I'd seen of any of these multinationals since arrival on the continent. Getting off on a street corner that would have looked upscale in Vancouver or Seattle, I came to a hostel that beared the english name of "The Flying Dog." This is the heart of gringo territory, the doorman spoke English, with considerable added profanity, but at least prefered to talk to me in Spanish. Going out to look for dinner, I was shocked and disappointed to discover that nowhere in the vicinity was there a restaurant that sold local food, EVERYTHING was imported, brought in from somewhere else for the benefit of vast numbers of gringos that visit the city. I SAW A STARBUCKS! I ended up settling for Middle Eastern food, the only foreign cuisine I've found that is done well down here. Finally back in the modern world, but despising where I was.
Packing up the next morning, it being Saturday, (my bag seems to getting steadily smaller each time I repack it) I got a ticket to Tacna, on the Chilean border, at for 6 that evening, another 20 hour ride, but at that point, I was so disgusted with this Peru I was seeing, and the time it had taken me to get there, that I didn't really care. Overnight I went to Tacna, the woman sitting in front was immensely fat, wore a massive amount of makeup and wore a choking amount of perfume. Fortunately, she slept for most of the journey. Regularly, we'd see piles of old pavement by the roadside and the occasional work crew, the region appears to have recovered quickly from the earthquake. After the endless emptiness, we drop suddenly into a dusty bowl that holds the city of Tacna. Possessing no more merits than being large and plopped in the middle of the desert, got help from the tourist office and rode in an ancient Oldsmobile that passed as regular transportation across the plain to Arica, in Chile. Having no problems with Chilean immigration, I arrive in Arica, which is basically a small port city, and by sheer dumb luck and timing I arrived at the terminal 5 minutes before a bus to Santiago was due to leave.
Welcome to Chile!
It was the first bus I've been on that left on time. Again, by chance, I was sitting next to a Bolivian gentleman, from La Paz, the only other foreigner on the bus. Over the course of the trip, I found this was his 5th trip to Chile, where he has relatives, he was diabetic and was interested to know his meds had been invented by a Canadian. His snoring had the quality of sounding like the sucking sound made through a straw when you drain the cup. What made this bus trip really outstanding though, was sunset and sunrise. Sunset, the sun had arms of gold that were painting the plains and hills around the area (it still was desert) in all the shades of brown and dark reds. Despite being given a pillow and blanket to sleep, I can't mostly becayse of the regular interruptions of provincial border checks, which the Chileans have to prevent duty-free and animal or plant products from getting into the country. Sunrise, over the Atacama Desert; the horizon became white, like God was cleaning the canvas to begin the new day. Then up rises a line of red, which turns violet as it rises into the sky, followed by bands of deeper and deeper golden yellow, fanning outward, illuminating the driest desert on earth. the colours blossomed out along the horizon, a sunlight symphony warming up to begin the movements of the day, and a line of small clouds, left like a set of stairs by yesterday for the morning to climb up on, each step turning hot pink until finally, the sun flashes up. Then, the world I was in changed.
The sudden presence of modern car dealerships and green grass boulevards. Gone now is the economic inequality and general disarray and chaos seen in Ecuador and Peru, I have arrived at the developed end of the continent. Arriving in Santiago, at around 7 in the evening, with my total long-distance bus ride time now at around 70 hours, and my butt thus aching from the inactivity, was very much a "We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto" moment. Santiago is a modern metropolis, it even has it's own subway. Cleaning up again, still sick and cramped from the bus, I managed to find a place for dinner that served massive empanadas. Feeling full and sociable, went back to the hostel tried to sleep.
My nasal passages had become completely clogged with mucus, I had a scorching fever, dizzying headache, and a sore throat. It was an uncomfortable night. Got up the next morning and found I couldn't stand up straight without my head spinning. With my sickness and resolve that I'd managed to finally arrive in Santiago, I went out for a look around the city. Santiago is beautiful, is a bit smoggy, a sort of hybrid of Vancouver and London. If only it wasn't so expensive, costs here had caught with what things cost back home, doing murder to my budget. Going to the international bus terminal, I found this very flamboyant ticket vender and got a ticket to Mendoza. Finally happy that I was getting to the destination I'd been aiming for for last week, I celebrated with a big bowl of ice cream while I waited for the bus. The ride to Mendoza was pretty cool. 6 hours only, a nice change. Going up over the Andes, they've gotten much taller since Ecuador, with tracts of snow here and there, even though it is the middle of summer here. Driving up through a series of avalanche bunkers, we arrived at the complex that housed customs.
Yay! I made it to Argentina!
Coming down out of the mountains, tidy green farms and forests line the landscape, giving it the appearance of the European countryside. And really, it's a deliberate imitation. Argentina is white dominant, with almost everyone and everything that goes on it's borders examples of habits imported from Europe. It feels very odd now, as it is now difficult to distinguish between a foreigner and a local before they speak. And even then, many Argentines appear to speak fluent English. I've essentially left South America, as what is here is far more like Europe than anything to be found elsewhere on the continent. The cars are all French and German built, although I've seen several Chevy pickups. The classy boutiques and franchise stores have reasserted each other. Argentines appear to live on meat, pizza and pasta and the idea that Argentina is in disrepair from economic collapse is not visible here in Mendoza, although other have told me that other parts of the country are looking a little more run down. Mendoza, in fact, bears an uncanny resemblance to Kelowna, it's large, well-kept, the climate is hot and dry, and they grow a LOT of wine grapes and other fruit here. In summary, this part of the continent is almost the antithesis of what people think of when they consider South America. Argentina is simply... fabulous.
Arriving at the bus terminal in Mendoza, I'm immediately crowded by a group of men vouching for me to come stay in the hotels they are advertising for. Losing them I attempt to find the direction of the hostel that I would like, and find a voucher in the terminal, Pablo, who gave me a free ride to the hostel. As well, there was a Japanese girl there, the first Asian foreigner I've met, and unusual to see anyone Japanese travelling alone, and in South America. Getting a bed at the hostel, I got directions to the nearest pharmacy and had a difficult discussion, not knowing illness-related Spanish words, with the woman there. Eventually she figured out what I wanted, gave me some pills, which I verified to make sure I was being given the right meds. The hostel has a much more eclectic group of travellers ,many many Brits, an Israeli, and several Germans, amongst others. There was a BBQ party that evening, and went around meeting everyone including a 60 year old called Tom, from California, who apparently is running away from home because he's afraid he's going to die soon and Pete, from Manchester, who knew John, the over-the-top Irishman I'd met in Quito. The BBQ itself was rather disappointing, with nowhere near enough food to go around, but lots of beer.
Woke up the next morning, feeling less sick, filled myself with medication, and went for breakfast. Breakfast is not a big thing in Argentina. In fact, the daily pattern in general is odd. No one gets up before 9 am, and breakfast is basically bread and coffee, most stores open at 10, then everything closes at 1 for siesta, and a generous lunch, and they reopen at 4, in time for afternoon maté, then close at 8. No one eats before 9 pm, many restaurants don't open before, and dinner is a long, social affair, ending around midnight, at which point everyone goes out drinking and partying until very late. Still haven't figured out when they sleep, except for siesta.
Yesterday was needed to understand this warped living pattern. Lunch was a considerable amount of pizza and just watching the city go about it's business, it's a university city, with students everywhere, followed by nice long siesta. Last night was a pizza party, and I discovered you can't actually buy beer in small bottles apparently, only large ones in excess of 1.5 L seem to be sold. The party was much better than the first one, and I was out dancing until late last night. Met Kaylee, from Calgary, the 4th Canadian I've met so far. This brings us to today, I went and got information on winery tours, as I'd like to see some of the wineries around here, and compare them to what's back in the Okanagan. The highlight of my day though, was easily the Central Market. There are no ifs or buts about it, these people know what's good in life. The market was an array of wine, olive oil and olives, chocolate cheese, fresh meats, herbs and spices, and fresh fruit and vegetables. I'm definitely going to have to start cooking my own food, screw the nice restaurants. Got roped into lunch by a waiter scouting the square down the street, and listened the collection of street musicians serenade the patrons of the cafés while I had lunch. Met my first Argentine beggar though, a little child. Overall though, it's been a fabulous day in a fabulous city in a fabulous country!
17.11.07
Day 61 and 69, this is long...
So I've made it through my first 2 months here. Yay! Has been good so
far, I expect it will continue as such.
So I'm in Cuenca. It is AMAZING here! The whole city still has all
its colonial architecture, but it feels very classy and
sophisticated. There are very modern stores selling things that I
didn't even see in Quito. It's generally cool everyday, with rain
showers around 1-4 in the afternoon. Interestingly, there are much
fewer beggars here than in any other city I've been to so far, but
the ones that are here tend to congregate around the doors of the
many churches in the city. Altogether though, this place has a very
high-end vibe, and I've been living a bit jet setter while I've been
here.
So, going back to last Thursday, it had become apparent, talking to
the visitors from other cities that were congregating for the party
the next evening, it being the Dia del Muerte, that I was living in a
singular cloudy, wet, mudhole, while most of the rest of the coast
was in sunshine. Decided to leave soon. My walk on the beach that
morning that the beach there seems to be "the" place for sea turtles
to come and die. Didn't really too a terrible amount that day, helped
Miriam and Fernando move muddy strips of bamboo in the pouring rain.
After dinner, I went with Aurelio to his father's house, where a
bunch of guys, Aurelio's nephew, a friend and one fellow who was
quite drunk, were all drinking rum. Listened to them talk, in fast
Spanish, about car accidents and the weather. The drunk kept asking
if I liked the rum, as I'd had a little taste of it.
My Spanish must be getting better, I can pretend I don't understand.
Friday. After dinner, for reasons unclear, David and Fernando decided
to go surfing in the freezing ocean. Very entertaining to watch them
try. We went down after to their grandfather's house, where the party
was getting started. There was dancing all night long, but I found I
got really tired after the first few hours, so I came home early.
Saturday being wholly uneventful, everyone was recovering from the
party, I move to Sunday. I spent the morning saying goodbye, although
I am coming back, when it's sunny again. Packed up, Miriam made
ceviche, a fish and veggie speciality from this part of the world,
for lunch. On to the bus to La Libertad, where I changed to another
bus to Guayaquil. Uncomfortably, I was standing for a large part for
the journey on the first bus, my head kept hitting the roof. The
buses here are built for shorter Ecuadorians. The sun finally made
it's appearance, after a week long hiatus on my trip, as we rolled
south along the Santa Elena peninsula. Then the high end vacation
homes of Ecuador's rich began to appear; this is the resort end of
the coast, despite the land around looking like the Alberta badlands.
Arriving in La Libertad, I found, after asking for directions 3
times, a bus to Guayaquil. The highway in was the most modern road
I've seen here yet, a well-maintained 4 lane highway. My pack was
jammed in my lap because the girl in front had her seat back. The bus
terminal in Guayaquil is massive, modern, and, as well as most of the
northern suburb area I went through, very clean. It wasn't
oppressively hot like it was the last time I was there, at least not
in the evening. I took a cab to the Dreamkapture Hostel, in the
Alborada neighbourhood. The place was fabulous, with a small pool,
couches, clean tile floors, and a soft bed. Very higher-end, not
surprising, as it's owned by a Canadian woman. I slept really well,
and when I woke up, I didn't feel sticky, my clothes were all dry and
had a good breakfast. Life can be so good to you sometimes. They have
a collection of tropical birds and what look like three marmosets in
one of the cages.
So packing up and heading back to Guayaquil's enormous bus terminal,I
proceeded to navigate through the throngs of people heading to all
kinds of places and got on a bus to here, Cuenca, via Parque Nacional
Cajas. Out we rolled, last as usual onto the Panamericana. The man
sitting next to me appeared to be carrying some unknown animal, it
sounded, and later smelled, like a puppy, but he had it in a bag, and
quite honestly, I didn't really want to know. It made regular
squealing sounds throughout the journey. We passed through a small
town which had the distinct feature of every building having at least
3 TV stick aerials on top of it. I suppose the reception must be
appalling there. Heading south, here be banana country. Plantations
crowded the roadsides and stretched off into the horizon. This is the
part of Ecuador where the bananas that we buy in the supermarkets
back home come from. This is also the area of some of the gravest
human rights abuses in Ecuador, involving underage children working
on the plantations, often for the powerful American multinationals
that control the world banana trade (Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita).
Out we rose out of plantations, back up into the cloud forest. When
we finally got out of the clouds, it was unbelievable. The Andes here
are rocky, much like some mountain ranges in BC, rather than the
forested look from the northern highlands, the valley is this
pastorial setting with long grassy fields with little creeks running
through them and little homesteads, all colonial style, some quite
expensive looking, dotting the hills. I'm going to try and go out
there for one day, either this week or later on, I'm almost certainly
coming back here.
Now Cuenca, besides being extraordinarily beautiful, with large
colonial-era buildings with clay tile roofs (check my gallery
www.andres-paz.deviantart.com ), cobbled streets, with men and women
walking around wearing suits and generally dressed very well, sitting
on park benches in the plazas reading the daily paper, little
children in school uniforms everywhere; this could be some city in
Europe. It was raining when I arrived, so I took a cab to the Hostel
El Monarca. It is extremely colourful, in bright oranges and greens,
with paintings of half-naked women on the walls, tye dye ceiling
hangins and extremely creaky floorboards. Bed is the saggiest I've
slept on so far. Had dinner in one of the city's numerous cafes,
hell, the entire city seems to compromise shoe stores, women's
fashion boutiques, cafes, and internet places. I walked through the
streets after, all the churches and plazas are lit up at night, gives
it a very noble feel. Some in the middle of the night, I woke up to
what I imagined sounded like a small monkey playing with flip-flop
sandals. Whatever it was went down the hall and it got quiet again.
The next day, I went out and wandered through the streets, selling
just about everything under the sun, lots of jewelry and cooking
utensils though. Visited El Calderon, the city's central, iconic
cathedral (gallery, the one of the distinctive blue domes). Bought a
newspaper (I favour El Comercio, it's like Ecuador's Globe and Mail),
I've decided while I'm here, living expensively, that I'd work at my
Spanish reading skills, and went to the Cafe Austria. On the way
down, I got caught in a crowd of people, a man was having a heart
attack on the floor of a movie shop, and the ambulance and paramedics
were everywhere. Watched him get helped into the ambulance and driven
away. It's interesting how events like that always draw a crowd very
very quickly. Now, the Austria. This is, by far, the best cafe I've
found in the city, and I'm going there for lunch everyday, reading
the paper, watching the city go about it's business, and having the
best damn coffee I've found yet, it's supplied by the Illy Coffee
Company, one of the largest and most prestigous Italian companies in
the business. It has a very Euro setup, with classical music in the
background and lots of pastries and cheesecake. In general, for my
time here, it's been a much different way of life than anywhere I've
been so far, much more higher class, and generally contrasting a lot
of what I've seen in Ecuador so far. It's interesting to wonder how
Cuenca ended up so different from the rest of the country, even Quito.
I came back to my hostel after an afternoon of exploring, and
managed, for the second time on this trip, to lock myself out of my
room. Went and had dinner while I waited for the hostel owner to come
back, he'd gone out somewhere earlier in the day. The El Moliendo
cafe is run by a Colombian bloke, Miguel, who is extremely friendly
and seems to like to chat with the many foreigners that come in, this
place is highly recommended in almost all of the major guidebooks. I
met a woman from Holland, Teresa, who was staying here for one night
on her way south, she's heading to Peru, where I will be following
her, probably in a couple of weeks. I bought an umbrella on my way
home, the rain here doesn't really justify a coat. Arriving back at
the hostel, the owner and I proceeded to try every key he had to open
my door. It appears, that he has a spare key for every lock in the
entire place EXCEPT for the door to my room. Feeling rather pissed
off, with myself and the owner, I took another room, and we'd deal
with the door this morning. Waking up the this morning, I found the
owner trying to jimmy the catch on the interior window to the room. I
went down for breakfast, and he'd managed to open it with some steel
wire when I went back up. I had to crawl through the window down onto
the bedside table to get back in, with the key sitting on the bed.
This is actually cracking me up now, writing about it, and knowing
me, it will probably happen again before this trip is over. Once
again with access to my things, I did some research and checked
travel warnings for Peru, I hope to be down there in about 2 weeks or
less. Apparently, due to the Shining Path rebel group, there is a
heavy warning against travel to a whole whack of places throughout
Peru, so it looks like I won't be spending that much time there, with
many places considered too dangerous to travel at this time. Went and
checked the exchange rates for the Nuevo Sol, Peru's currency, (3
soles=$1US), I also saw that the Cdn. has reached $1.10 against the
greenback. That's freaking awesome, and makes my travel here a bit
cheaper! After lunch, I went out looking for a new blank journal, as,
with the entries and poetry I've been writing, the one I have is
running out of pages. Spent 2 hours looking, without success. Lots of
datebooks though. Since I've been feeling particularly spoiled today,
I went to place called El Fornance, and had pizza and ice cream. In
the middle of my dinner, a protest march, anti-xenophobia, came down
the street. They were a bunch of young people, all of them with signs
and posters expressing tolerance and acceptance, (check gallery, my
camera was a little tempramental). This was a truly brilliant way to
end my day, and right now, honestly, I feel great! Went for walk down
by the river, watching couples kissing on the bridges and everyone
going home from work.
Day 69
Soooooooo, things, as they tend to do, have not worked the way I hoped they would. I'm in in the town of Chachopoyas, in the northern highlands of Peru, still 2 or 3 days travel from Arequipa. I have to wait 8 hours for the road to the coast to open, so I figured, seeing as my budget is already skyrocketing, I'd do my emails.
So allow to fill you in on how I ended up in this predicament.
So going back to Thursday. Thursday is Cuenca's market day, although the market is not tourist orientated (aka polyester, poultry and papaya), but it was nice to go around and see the comings and goings of the people. In the paper, I found that the road I took from Las Tunas to Guayaquil has been blockaded by protestors, apparently feeling a little neglected in the face of government reforms. Friday, the newspaper reported that the Peruvian Congress ratified a free trade agreement with the USA (ironically, the Spanish acronym for it is TLC). So, although I haven't seen anything in the 2 days I've been in Peru so far, there is general unrest amongst the people right now. Feeling pampered, peaceful and ready to move on, I got things together to leave the next day.
So, Saturday morning, packed up and rolled out on the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, the last big city before the border in the Andes. In the station, I chatted with a Swedish woman, bound for Quito. She was in Ecuador doing her thesis on migration, and had been conducting interviews here in Cuenca, she told me the reason Cuenca is wealthier is because a large concentration of families here have relatives working abroad. Now we know. Out on the bus, we gained a lot of elevation and very briefly, for the first time since arrival, saw snow. The man sitting beside me kept craning to look out the window, despite it being foggy for much of the trip, with not much to see. He got off, and a few stops later another man sits down next to me. It became quickly evident taht this one had been in the rum, and asked me several times where I was heading, even after I told him the first time. He was difficult to understand; he kept slurring his words. Sometime after he fell asleep, his head lolling all the way out into the aisle. Arriving in Loja, drunk man asks if we have actually arrived, with half the bus already getting off. A few other foreigners who'd been on the bus asked if I wanted to get in a shared taxi to Vilcabamba, but it being late, and the rate being $5, I declined, and took a cab downtown to a hotel. We drove by a wedding on the city bridge on the way there, the taxista slowed down, not sure if it was out of respect or simply to gawk at the beautiful bride. All in all, I great way to start out a new leg of the trip.
Sunday. The place where I went to breakfast made these large, fabulously decorated cakes, they looked so good it was hard to believe that people could bear to eat them. Listened to a group of three American girls talk about their dissatisfaction with Ecuadorian food and restaurant service. Why did you bother leaving home? Went around on a brief wander of Loja. I sat through almost all of a church mass at the rather pretty Church of San Sebastien. The process is, more or less, like the way it's done back home, maybe a little less orderly though. Hiked up to a statue of the Virgen de Loja, with a beautiful view of the town and the mountains (check gallery in a few days). It looks like the city has carpeted the hills and valley, but is about as busy as the forest around it. Packing up again, I went to catch the bus to Vilcabamba. On the way, I helped a very old, slow moving indigenous man across the street, mostly to make sure a car didn't shmuck him and to get him onto the sidewalk. Arriving at the terminal, a bloke called Pepito, looked to be in his mid 50s, came up to me and insisted to show me where to buy a ticket to Vilcabamba. This seemed a little suspicious, as the terminal is very small, he seemed a little over-eager, but he spoke English, which I think was why he approached me, so he could test his language skills on me. He kept telling me that my Spanish was really good, despite the fact that I couldn't have said more than 15 basic words to him. Saying goodbye to Pepito, I got on the mini-bus to Vilcabamba. The driver, evidently, had a fetish for classic, Western rock, and a very limited selection of music, which meant I was listening to Van Halen and Pink Floyd, over and over for the hour and half to Vilcabamba. The geography here is surprisingly like B.C. with large, forested, mountains that look so neat as plate tectonics have folded the land up and rivers carve designs down the sides. Quite beautiful, and it made me think about how beautiful the area where I live in Canada is.
Arriving in Vilcabamba, there was a mountain bike show in progress, whereby a group of bikers went off a couple of jumps and went down stairs, nothing particularly spectacular. Setting up in a rather hostel with a really nice room, I went out looking for dinner. I found this one place, Natural Yogurt. A pair of men were sitting out on the patio, and one, Royo, immediately greeted me and made room at the table. The other's name was Alonzo. Over dinner, I talk with them; Alonzo is an English teacher at the local school, having learned from all the foreigners that come to this little town. Interesting note, the slang term for a young person is a 'pollo', lit. chicken. Royo works at a horse riding establishment in town. Met another bloke, Isaac, from California, who has been here for 6 weeks teaching English at the school with Alonzo. I like that I finally can have an intelligent conversation with a local, in Spanish without stumbling too much over the words.
Monday, I woke up to brilliant sunshine coming over the mountains, with the clouds rolling back off the mountains, leaving golden landscape painted in blue and green. Had breakfast watching the valley wake up, the relaxing vibe here is so strong, like Mindo. On a quest to find a place that did laundry, I discovered, that in the year since the publication of my guidebook, one hostal, and one lavanderia have gone out of business, haven't found that before. Took a hike up the road to a restaurant out of town for lunch, taking postcard-worthy photos of the valley, and the huge mansions of expatriates that have moved here, no doubt because of it's beauty. A woman I met on the road tried to get me to buy some local natural medicines, which I declined, it being mostly plants for sicknesses I didn't have. Arriving at the restaurant, I learn that it is only open for breakfast and dinner, not lunch. Coming back to town for lunch, it was at this point that I would make the fateful desicion to go to Peru the next day, via the crossing at Zumba. More on that in a minute. Went to the place in town I'd been assured exchanged for Peruvian Nuevo Soles, the Peruvian currency, they didn't have any, told me to check the following morning. So, Tuesday morning. Packing up, I went to find the next bus to Zumba. Going to 3 different offices, I am told the next one is at 3:30. Checked with the store, still no soles, but was told there was another bus to Zumba at 10:30. As it turned out, the bus at 10:30 was coming FROM Zumba, cleared that up and waiting until 12 for a bus out.
Here is where the fun begins.
The road from Vilcabamba to Zumba is unpaved. Bumpy. The road also has, literally, no straight sections, it's all switchbacks and curves. Swaying. Add in the fact there's a lunatic driver at the wheel and a cliff drop off the right side of the road. Very unnerving. Winding our way along, we pass through a collection of villages and hamlets, with no evident economic activity, in probably one of the most remote areas of Ecuador. Often it would just be 3 or 4 homes perched on the side of the mountains. 5 hours this went on for. The glances from the other passengers suggest that while it isn't surprising to see a gringo out here, it doesn't occur very often. Finally, we arrive in Zumba. Zumba is not actually on the border, but simply the point of no return before the border. The rain is coming down, and I've got this guy who will take me to the border for $20. Had lunch and waited until 5:30 for a ranchera, an open sided truck, to come back to take me out, $1.75. They told me it was an hour and a half to the border at La Balsa. It was 2. So off we go in the truck, the brilliant tropical green wilderness rolling by. Passing more odd little villages, we're now racing a large thunderstorm across the valley, with the truck roaring along and the valley, now dark, illuminated every so often by sheet lightning. The storm caught up with us at the military checkpoint, my 1st military checkpoint. Determining I was a foreigner (the young soldier lisped the word, extranjero, which made him difficult to understand), I had to write my name in a little book. It would appear, that the only foreigners that venture out there are all either French, or Canadian. Go figure. Going on, now with rain coming in at the side of the truck once in a while, I was slightly damp when we arrived at La Balsa, on the border. It was around 7:30pm. With no real idea of where I was or where to go next, I get my exit stamp from the official and cross the bridge there.
Welcome to Peru!
This side looks exactly like the other, expect the Peruvians had a few ducks and small pigs running around. Trying to get to San Ignacio, the next town of signifance into Peru, I find this rather stubborn taxista who was going to charge me $20 to San Ignacio, this was reasonable, due to the 2.5 hours there, and the time of night, and with no actual other transportation, I end up having to take it, after chewing him a bit for the high cost. The road was absolutly appalling, no one has evidently checked on it in years, but the driver, with experience, managed to navigate it. Over the course of the trip, we nearly hit dozens of donkeys, pigs and dogs. The Peruvians, as I have found out, love their donkeys, and can be found everywhere, employed in many different ways. We arrived in San Ignacio, the man takes me to a hotel and being exhausted, fall straight to sleep. This closes the truly grueling leg of the travel from Ecuador to Peru.
Yesterday. Was woken up by some bastard in the street bleating away on a bicycle horn. Still without any clear idea where I am, I decided to try and get to Cajamarca. Went to change to soles, found that the greenback is losing ground against the sol, and lose about a dollar in the transcation as a result. Finding a rather odd breakfast of rice and potatoes, I get on a minibus for Jaen, the next major town in from the border. Rolling along in the bus, the geography and climate has changed a lot. It is much warmer here, the Andes are now much rockier, the middle cordillera region now, from the tropical Ecuadorian section. There is a large, muddy, torrent of a river on the left side of the road, and now, instead of banana plantations, there are kilometers of rice fields. Dodging the occasional herd of cows being herded along the road, which, was really a long road of potholes, interuppted by a patch of old tarmac. Then quite abruptly, several things changed. Tarmac, smooth and without potholes appeared beneath the wheels of the bus, and road signs appeared, telling the distances to towns, the name of the road (5N Cajamarca Highway), signs that say "respect the rules of the road" in Spanish, and speed limit signs (which the driver was doing double the speed of). The highway was in far better condition than most of the roads I'd been on in Ecuador. The valley began to widen out, so the Andes disappeared, replaced with huge bluffs of bright red clay, and the rice fields interuppted with the occasional patch of papaya trees. For most of the trip, the guy sitting next to me kept fiddling with a small radio, trying to get something, without success.
Then the back tire blew out.
The tire, which I saw was balder than Patrick Stewart's head, basically blew because the pavement had burned a hole through the rubber. Stand around watching the driver, quite quickly, change the tire. On we go, dodging more livestock, and overtaking with bare feet between us and oncoming traffic. Arriving in Jaen, I take a mototaxi, one of the 3-wheeled, open-air, motorized trikes to another station and get on another minibus to Bagua Grande, where I could get transport to here, Chachapoyas. I must have dozed off a few times on this bus, I seemed to keep falling into the shopping bag of the woman next to me. At last we get to Bagua Grande, another mototaxi, and with no buses at this time of day, a shared taxi to Chachapoyas. This is the memorable part of the journey, the part that made it all worth it. We arrive at the provincial checkpoint from Cajamarca province to Amazonas. The land suddenly took on a surreal, breathtaking quality. It was sunset, so massive soaring peaks that had risen up were inlaid in gold light, clothed in bright shades of amazonian green. The river running alongside the road isn't as muddy as the last one, and is flowing in the opposite direction. The hills have circlets of cloud with these massive walls of banded rock and huge cliffs. The place shrieks, mystic, forgotten land. The driver senses my interest and points out a waterfall and various interesting point along the route. What strikes me is that only a handful of people that visit Peru see this, with almost all foreigners going from Lima to Cuzco to Machu Pichu, and see nothing else in this country. There are road signs that pop up every so often with an environmental bent, things like, "Water is life, don't pollute it", "Garbage has its place" and "Deforestation prohibited". The evening is cool in this rainforest area. We come to a road stop, they were doing survery work, and we had to wait an hour and a half for them to finish. I talked with the driver, who was probably one of the most friendly and helpful people I've met in the whole time I've been in South America, and told me about beautiful ruins and other things to see in this area that doesn't see that many tourists. I'm definitely coming back one day to check this part of Peru out. Overall, as well, I've found that the Peruvians I've come into contact with, are very friendly, tolerant people. They are the people though, that call me gringo, a term which I only heard once in Ecuador. The sun goes down, and we finally get moving under the moon and stars at 7:15. The next section of the road was unpaved, which meant for most of the way to here, we were choking on the dust of the cars in front of us. Then we encounter the convoy of vehicles coming from the other end of the closed section of the road. Pulling into the cliff side, we watch as monolithic, overnight buses from Lima, various freight trucks, and a few cars go by. Going along, at some point we got back onto paved road and arrived here in Chachapoyas, which was very alive and busy, even late at night. It got up early this morning too. Found a good hotel, with ice-cold showers.
This brings us up to now. I found that getting to Cajamarca is extremely difficult to do from here, despite the direct road, so I have a ticket on the 6 pm bus to Chiclayo, on the coast. They have the road closed until this evening, which is why the bus doesn't leave until that late. I tried to persuade the ticket man that his competion was selling tickets for less than 30 soles ($10US, more or less), he came up with some excuse why that didn't matter. Changed the rest of my allocated moeny to soles, as apparently the greenback has lost even more ground. I should be in Arequipa, where I want to be, by Sunday. Met a few other foreigners here, having the same travel difficulties I am. All travel seems to be related to Lima, literally, all roads lead to Lima.
This has been a wild week, and I can't say it's been boring.
far, I expect it will continue as such.
So I'm in Cuenca. It is AMAZING here! The whole city still has all
its colonial architecture, but it feels very classy and
sophisticated. There are very modern stores selling things that I
didn't even see in Quito. It's generally cool everyday, with rain
showers around 1-4 in the afternoon. Interestingly, there are much
fewer beggars here than in any other city I've been to so far, but
the ones that are here tend to congregate around the doors of the
many churches in the city. Altogether though, this place has a very
high-end vibe, and I've been living a bit jet setter while I've been
here.
So, going back to last Thursday, it had become apparent, talking to
the visitors from other cities that were congregating for the party
the next evening, it being the Dia del Muerte, that I was living in a
singular cloudy, wet, mudhole, while most of the rest of the coast
was in sunshine. Decided to leave soon. My walk on the beach that
morning that the beach there seems to be "the" place for sea turtles
to come and die. Didn't really too a terrible amount that day, helped
Miriam and Fernando move muddy strips of bamboo in the pouring rain.
After dinner, I went with Aurelio to his father's house, where a
bunch of guys, Aurelio's nephew, a friend and one fellow who was
quite drunk, were all drinking rum. Listened to them talk, in fast
Spanish, about car accidents and the weather. The drunk kept asking
if I liked the rum, as I'd had a little taste of it.
My Spanish must be getting better, I can pretend I don't understand.
Friday. After dinner, for reasons unclear, David and Fernando decided
to go surfing in the freezing ocean. Very entertaining to watch them
try. We went down after to their grandfather's house, where the party
was getting started. There was dancing all night long, but I found I
got really tired after the first few hours, so I came home early.
Saturday being wholly uneventful, everyone was recovering from the
party, I move to Sunday. I spent the morning saying goodbye, although
I am coming back, when it's sunny again. Packed up, Miriam made
ceviche, a fish and veggie speciality from this part of the world,
for lunch. On to the bus to La Libertad, where I changed to another
bus to Guayaquil. Uncomfortably, I was standing for a large part for
the journey on the first bus, my head kept hitting the roof. The
buses here are built for shorter Ecuadorians. The sun finally made
it's appearance, after a week long hiatus on my trip, as we rolled
south along the Santa Elena peninsula. Then the high end vacation
homes of Ecuador's rich began to appear; this is the resort end of
the coast, despite the land around looking like the Alberta badlands.
Arriving in La Libertad, I found, after asking for directions 3
times, a bus to Guayaquil. The highway in was the most modern road
I've seen here yet, a well-maintained 4 lane highway. My pack was
jammed in my lap because the girl in front had her seat back. The bus
terminal in Guayaquil is massive, modern, and, as well as most of the
northern suburb area I went through, very clean. It wasn't
oppressively hot like it was the last time I was there, at least not
in the evening. I took a cab to the Dreamkapture Hostel, in the
Alborada neighbourhood. The place was fabulous, with a small pool,
couches, clean tile floors, and a soft bed. Very higher-end, not
surprising, as it's owned by a Canadian woman. I slept really well,
and when I woke up, I didn't feel sticky, my clothes were all dry and
had a good breakfast. Life can be so good to you sometimes. They have
a collection of tropical birds and what look like three marmosets in
one of the cages.
So packing up and heading back to Guayaquil's enormous bus terminal,I
proceeded to navigate through the throngs of people heading to all
kinds of places and got on a bus to here, Cuenca, via Parque Nacional
Cajas. Out we rolled, last as usual onto the Panamericana. The man
sitting next to me appeared to be carrying some unknown animal, it
sounded, and later smelled, like a puppy, but he had it in a bag, and
quite honestly, I didn't really want to know. It made regular
squealing sounds throughout the journey. We passed through a small
town which had the distinct feature of every building having at least
3 TV stick aerials on top of it. I suppose the reception must be
appalling there. Heading south, here be banana country. Plantations
crowded the roadsides and stretched off into the horizon. This is the
part of Ecuador where the bananas that we buy in the supermarkets
back home come from. This is also the area of some of the gravest
human rights abuses in Ecuador, involving underage children working
on the plantations, often for the powerful American multinationals
that control the world banana trade (Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita).
Out we rose out of plantations, back up into the cloud forest. When
we finally got out of the clouds, it was unbelievable. The Andes here
are rocky, much like some mountain ranges in BC, rather than the
forested look from the northern highlands, the valley is this
pastorial setting with long grassy fields with little creeks running
through them and little homesteads, all colonial style, some quite
expensive looking, dotting the hills. I'm going to try and go out
there for one day, either this week or later on, I'm almost certainly
coming back here.
Now Cuenca, besides being extraordinarily beautiful, with large
colonial-era buildings with clay tile roofs (check my gallery
www.andres-paz.deviantart.com ), cobbled streets, with men and women
walking around wearing suits and generally dressed very well, sitting
on park benches in the plazas reading the daily paper, little
children in school uniforms everywhere; this could be some city in
Europe. It was raining when I arrived, so I took a cab to the Hostel
El Monarca. It is extremely colourful, in bright oranges and greens,
with paintings of half-naked women on the walls, tye dye ceiling
hangins and extremely creaky floorboards. Bed is the saggiest I've
slept on so far. Had dinner in one of the city's numerous cafes,
hell, the entire city seems to compromise shoe stores, women's
fashion boutiques, cafes, and internet places. I walked through the
streets after, all the churches and plazas are lit up at night, gives
it a very noble feel. Some in the middle of the night, I woke up to
what I imagined sounded like a small monkey playing with flip-flop
sandals. Whatever it was went down the hall and it got quiet again.
The next day, I went out and wandered through the streets, selling
just about everything under the sun, lots of jewelry and cooking
utensils though. Visited El Calderon, the city's central, iconic
cathedral (gallery, the one of the distinctive blue domes). Bought a
newspaper (I favour El Comercio, it's like Ecuador's Globe and Mail),
I've decided while I'm here, living expensively, that I'd work at my
Spanish reading skills, and went to the Cafe Austria. On the way
down, I got caught in a crowd of people, a man was having a heart
attack on the floor of a movie shop, and the ambulance and paramedics
were everywhere. Watched him get helped into the ambulance and driven
away. It's interesting how events like that always draw a crowd very
very quickly. Now, the Austria. This is, by far, the best cafe I've
found in the city, and I'm going there for lunch everyday, reading
the paper, watching the city go about it's business, and having the
best damn coffee I've found yet, it's supplied by the Illy Coffee
Company, one of the largest and most prestigous Italian companies in
the business. It has a very Euro setup, with classical music in the
background and lots of pastries and cheesecake. In general, for my
time here, it's been a much different way of life than anywhere I've
been so far, much more higher class, and generally contrasting a lot
of what I've seen in Ecuador so far. It's interesting to wonder how
Cuenca ended up so different from the rest of the country, even Quito.
I came back to my hostel after an afternoon of exploring, and
managed, for the second time on this trip, to lock myself out of my
room. Went and had dinner while I waited for the hostel owner to come
back, he'd gone out somewhere earlier in the day. The El Moliendo
cafe is run by a Colombian bloke, Miguel, who is extremely friendly
and seems to like to chat with the many foreigners that come in, this
place is highly recommended in almost all of the major guidebooks. I
met a woman from Holland, Teresa, who was staying here for one night
on her way south, she's heading to Peru, where I will be following
her, probably in a couple of weeks. I bought an umbrella on my way
home, the rain here doesn't really justify a coat. Arriving back at
the hostel, the owner and I proceeded to try every key he had to open
my door. It appears, that he has a spare key for every lock in the
entire place EXCEPT for the door to my room. Feeling rather pissed
off, with myself and the owner, I took another room, and we'd deal
with the door this morning. Waking up the this morning, I found the
owner trying to jimmy the catch on the interior window to the room. I
went down for breakfast, and he'd managed to open it with some steel
wire when I went back up. I had to crawl through the window down onto
the bedside table to get back in, with the key sitting on the bed.
This is actually cracking me up now, writing about it, and knowing
me, it will probably happen again before this trip is over. Once
again with access to my things, I did some research and checked
travel warnings for Peru, I hope to be down there in about 2 weeks or
less. Apparently, due to the Shining Path rebel group, there is a
heavy warning against travel to a whole whack of places throughout
Peru, so it looks like I won't be spending that much time there, with
many places considered too dangerous to travel at this time. Went and
checked the exchange rates for the Nuevo Sol, Peru's currency, (3
soles=$1US), I also saw that the Cdn. has reached $1.10 against the
greenback. That's freaking awesome, and makes my travel here a bit
cheaper! After lunch, I went out looking for a new blank journal, as,
with the entries and poetry I've been writing, the one I have is
running out of pages. Spent 2 hours looking, without success. Lots of
datebooks though. Since I've been feeling particularly spoiled today,
I went to place called El Fornance, and had pizza and ice cream. In
the middle of my dinner, a protest march, anti-xenophobia, came down
the street. They were a bunch of young people, all of them with signs
and posters expressing tolerance and acceptance, (check gallery, my
camera was a little tempramental). This was a truly brilliant way to
end my day, and right now, honestly, I feel great! Went for walk down
by the river, watching couples kissing on the bridges and everyone
going home from work.
Day 69
Soooooooo, things, as they tend to do, have not worked the way I hoped they would. I'm in in the town of Chachopoyas, in the northern highlands of Peru, still 2 or 3 days travel from Arequipa. I have to wait 8 hours for the road to the coast to open, so I figured, seeing as my budget is already skyrocketing, I'd do my emails.
So allow to fill you in on how I ended up in this predicament.
So going back to Thursday. Thursday is Cuenca's market day, although the market is not tourist orientated (aka polyester, poultry and papaya), but it was nice to go around and see the comings and goings of the people. In the paper, I found that the road I took from Las Tunas to Guayaquil has been blockaded by protestors, apparently feeling a little neglected in the face of government reforms. Friday, the newspaper reported that the Peruvian Congress ratified a free trade agreement with the USA (ironically, the Spanish acronym for it is TLC). So, although I haven't seen anything in the 2 days I've been in Peru so far, there is general unrest amongst the people right now. Feeling pampered, peaceful and ready to move on, I got things together to leave the next day.
So, Saturday morning, packed up and rolled out on the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, the last big city before the border in the Andes. In the station, I chatted with a Swedish woman, bound for Quito. She was in Ecuador doing her thesis on migration, and had been conducting interviews here in Cuenca, she told me the reason Cuenca is wealthier is because a large concentration of families here have relatives working abroad. Now we know. Out on the bus, we gained a lot of elevation and very briefly, for the first time since arrival, saw snow. The man sitting beside me kept craning to look out the window, despite it being foggy for much of the trip, with not much to see. He got off, and a few stops later another man sits down next to me. It became quickly evident taht this one had been in the rum, and asked me several times where I was heading, even after I told him the first time. He was difficult to understand; he kept slurring his words. Sometime after he fell asleep, his head lolling all the way out into the aisle. Arriving in Loja, drunk man asks if we have actually arrived, with half the bus already getting off. A few other foreigners who'd been on the bus asked if I wanted to get in a shared taxi to Vilcabamba, but it being late, and the rate being $5, I declined, and took a cab downtown to a hotel. We drove by a wedding on the city bridge on the way there, the taxista slowed down, not sure if it was out of respect or simply to gawk at the beautiful bride. All in all, I great way to start out a new leg of the trip.
Sunday. The place where I went to breakfast made these large, fabulously decorated cakes, they looked so good it was hard to believe that people could bear to eat them. Listened to a group of three American girls talk about their dissatisfaction with Ecuadorian food and restaurant service. Why did you bother leaving home? Went around on a brief wander of Loja. I sat through almost all of a church mass at the rather pretty Church of San Sebastien. The process is, more or less, like the way it's done back home, maybe a little less orderly though. Hiked up to a statue of the Virgen de Loja, with a beautiful view of the town and the mountains (check gallery in a few days). It looks like the city has carpeted the hills and valley, but is about as busy as the forest around it. Packing up again, I went to catch the bus to Vilcabamba. On the way, I helped a very old, slow moving indigenous man across the street, mostly to make sure a car didn't shmuck him and to get him onto the sidewalk. Arriving at the terminal, a bloke called Pepito, looked to be in his mid 50s, came up to me and insisted to show me where to buy a ticket to Vilcabamba. This seemed a little suspicious, as the terminal is very small, he seemed a little over-eager, but he spoke English, which I think was why he approached me, so he could test his language skills on me. He kept telling me that my Spanish was really good, despite the fact that I couldn't have said more than 15 basic words to him. Saying goodbye to Pepito, I got on the mini-bus to Vilcabamba. The driver, evidently, had a fetish for classic, Western rock, and a very limited selection of music, which meant I was listening to Van Halen and Pink Floyd, over and over for the hour and half to Vilcabamba. The geography here is surprisingly like B.C. with large, forested, mountains that look so neat as plate tectonics have folded the land up and rivers carve designs down the sides. Quite beautiful, and it made me think about how beautiful the area where I live in Canada is.
Arriving in Vilcabamba, there was a mountain bike show in progress, whereby a group of bikers went off a couple of jumps and went down stairs, nothing particularly spectacular. Setting up in a rather hostel with a really nice room, I went out looking for dinner. I found this one place, Natural Yogurt. A pair of men were sitting out on the patio, and one, Royo, immediately greeted me and made room at the table. The other's name was Alonzo. Over dinner, I talk with them; Alonzo is an English teacher at the local school, having learned from all the foreigners that come to this little town. Interesting note, the slang term for a young person is a 'pollo', lit. chicken. Royo works at a horse riding establishment in town. Met another bloke, Isaac, from California, who has been here for 6 weeks teaching English at the school with Alonzo. I like that I finally can have an intelligent conversation with a local, in Spanish without stumbling too much over the words.
Monday, I woke up to brilliant sunshine coming over the mountains, with the clouds rolling back off the mountains, leaving golden landscape painted in blue and green. Had breakfast watching the valley wake up, the relaxing vibe here is so strong, like Mindo. On a quest to find a place that did laundry, I discovered, that in the year since the publication of my guidebook, one hostal, and one lavanderia have gone out of business, haven't found that before. Took a hike up the road to a restaurant out of town for lunch, taking postcard-worthy photos of the valley, and the huge mansions of expatriates that have moved here, no doubt because of it's beauty. A woman I met on the road tried to get me to buy some local natural medicines, which I declined, it being mostly plants for sicknesses I didn't have. Arriving at the restaurant, I learn that it is only open for breakfast and dinner, not lunch. Coming back to town for lunch, it was at this point that I would make the fateful desicion to go to Peru the next day, via the crossing at Zumba. More on that in a minute. Went to the place in town I'd been assured exchanged for Peruvian Nuevo Soles, the Peruvian currency, they didn't have any, told me to check the following morning. So, Tuesday morning. Packing up, I went to find the next bus to Zumba. Going to 3 different offices, I am told the next one is at 3:30. Checked with the store, still no soles, but was told there was another bus to Zumba at 10:30. As it turned out, the bus at 10:30 was coming FROM Zumba, cleared that up and waiting until 12 for a bus out.
Here is where the fun begins.
The road from Vilcabamba to Zumba is unpaved. Bumpy. The road also has, literally, no straight sections, it's all switchbacks and curves. Swaying. Add in the fact there's a lunatic driver at the wheel and a cliff drop off the right side of the road. Very unnerving. Winding our way along, we pass through a collection of villages and hamlets, with no evident economic activity, in probably one of the most remote areas of Ecuador. Often it would just be 3 or 4 homes perched on the side of the mountains. 5 hours this went on for. The glances from the other passengers suggest that while it isn't surprising to see a gringo out here, it doesn't occur very often. Finally, we arrive in Zumba. Zumba is not actually on the border, but simply the point of no return before the border. The rain is coming down, and I've got this guy who will take me to the border for $20. Had lunch and waited until 5:30 for a ranchera, an open sided truck, to come back to take me out, $1.75. They told me it was an hour and a half to the border at La Balsa. It was 2. So off we go in the truck, the brilliant tropical green wilderness rolling by. Passing more odd little villages, we're now racing a large thunderstorm across the valley, with the truck roaring along and the valley, now dark, illuminated every so often by sheet lightning. The storm caught up with us at the military checkpoint, my 1st military checkpoint. Determining I was a foreigner (the young soldier lisped the word, extranjero, which made him difficult to understand), I had to write my name in a little book. It would appear, that the only foreigners that venture out there are all either French, or Canadian. Go figure. Going on, now with rain coming in at the side of the truck once in a while, I was slightly damp when we arrived at La Balsa, on the border. It was around 7:30pm. With no real idea of where I was or where to go next, I get my exit stamp from the official and cross the bridge there.
Welcome to Peru!
This side looks exactly like the other, expect the Peruvians had a few ducks and small pigs running around. Trying to get to San Ignacio, the next town of signifance into Peru, I find this rather stubborn taxista who was going to charge me $20 to San Ignacio, this was reasonable, due to the 2.5 hours there, and the time of night, and with no actual other transportation, I end up having to take it, after chewing him a bit for the high cost. The road was absolutly appalling, no one has evidently checked on it in years, but the driver, with experience, managed to navigate it. Over the course of the trip, we nearly hit dozens of donkeys, pigs and dogs. The Peruvians, as I have found out, love their donkeys, and can be found everywhere, employed in many different ways. We arrived in San Ignacio, the man takes me to a hotel and being exhausted, fall straight to sleep. This closes the truly grueling leg of the travel from Ecuador to Peru.
Yesterday. Was woken up by some bastard in the street bleating away on a bicycle horn. Still without any clear idea where I am, I decided to try and get to Cajamarca. Went to change to soles, found that the greenback is losing ground against the sol, and lose about a dollar in the transcation as a result. Finding a rather odd breakfast of rice and potatoes, I get on a minibus for Jaen, the next major town in from the border. Rolling along in the bus, the geography and climate has changed a lot. It is much warmer here, the Andes are now much rockier, the middle cordillera region now, from the tropical Ecuadorian section. There is a large, muddy, torrent of a river on the left side of the road, and now, instead of banana plantations, there are kilometers of rice fields. Dodging the occasional herd of cows being herded along the road, which, was really a long road of potholes, interuppted by a patch of old tarmac. Then quite abruptly, several things changed. Tarmac, smooth and without potholes appeared beneath the wheels of the bus, and road signs appeared, telling the distances to towns, the name of the road (5N Cajamarca Highway), signs that say "respect the rules of the road" in Spanish, and speed limit signs (which the driver was doing double the speed of). The highway was in far better condition than most of the roads I'd been on in Ecuador. The valley began to widen out, so the Andes disappeared, replaced with huge bluffs of bright red clay, and the rice fields interuppted with the occasional patch of papaya trees. For most of the trip, the guy sitting next to me kept fiddling with a small radio, trying to get something, without success.
Then the back tire blew out.
The tire, which I saw was balder than Patrick Stewart's head, basically blew because the pavement had burned a hole through the rubber. Stand around watching the driver, quite quickly, change the tire. On we go, dodging more livestock, and overtaking with bare feet between us and oncoming traffic. Arriving in Jaen, I take a mototaxi, one of the 3-wheeled, open-air, motorized trikes to another station and get on another minibus to Bagua Grande, where I could get transport to here, Chachapoyas. I must have dozed off a few times on this bus, I seemed to keep falling into the shopping bag of the woman next to me. At last we get to Bagua Grande, another mototaxi, and with no buses at this time of day, a shared taxi to Chachapoyas. This is the memorable part of the journey, the part that made it all worth it. We arrive at the provincial checkpoint from Cajamarca province to Amazonas. The land suddenly took on a surreal, breathtaking quality. It was sunset, so massive soaring peaks that had risen up were inlaid in gold light, clothed in bright shades of amazonian green. The river running alongside the road isn't as muddy as the last one, and is flowing in the opposite direction. The hills have circlets of cloud with these massive walls of banded rock and huge cliffs. The place shrieks, mystic, forgotten land. The driver senses my interest and points out a waterfall and various interesting point along the route. What strikes me is that only a handful of people that visit Peru see this, with almost all foreigners going from Lima to Cuzco to Machu Pichu, and see nothing else in this country. There are road signs that pop up every so often with an environmental bent, things like, "Water is life, don't pollute it", "Garbage has its place" and "Deforestation prohibited". The evening is cool in this rainforest area. We come to a road stop, they were doing survery work, and we had to wait an hour and a half for them to finish. I talked with the driver, who was probably one of the most friendly and helpful people I've met in the whole time I've been in South America, and told me about beautiful ruins and other things to see in this area that doesn't see that many tourists. I'm definitely coming back one day to check this part of Peru out. Overall, as well, I've found that the Peruvians I've come into contact with, are very friendly, tolerant people. They are the people though, that call me gringo, a term which I only heard once in Ecuador. The sun goes down, and we finally get moving under the moon and stars at 7:15. The next section of the road was unpaved, which meant for most of the way to here, we were choking on the dust of the cars in front of us. Then we encounter the convoy of vehicles coming from the other end of the closed section of the road. Pulling into the cliff side, we watch as monolithic, overnight buses from Lima, various freight trucks, and a few cars go by. Going along, at some point we got back onto paved road and arrived here in Chachapoyas, which was very alive and busy, even late at night. It got up early this morning too. Found a good hotel, with ice-cold showers.
This brings us up to now. I found that getting to Cajamarca is extremely difficult to do from here, despite the direct road, so I have a ticket on the 6 pm bus to Chiclayo, on the coast. They have the road closed until this evening, which is why the bus doesn't leave until that late. I tried to persuade the ticket man that his competion was selling tickets for less than 30 soles ($10US, more or less), he came up with some excuse why that didn't matter. Changed the rest of my allocated moeny to soles, as apparently the greenback has lost even more ground. I should be in Arequipa, where I want to be, by Sunday. Met a few other foreigners here, having the same travel difficulties I am. All travel seems to be related to Lima, literally, all roads lead to Lima.
This has been a wild week, and I can't say it's been boring.
6.11.07
Day 54, late post
So, I´m in Puerto Lopez now, this is the south coast, so distances are now judged from Guayaquil, which is about 6 or 7 hours south of here. I´m staying with the family that hosted me the last time I was here, in Las Tunas, about an hour south of here.
Going back to last Thursday, I managed to get locked out after finishing my last update, despite being promised that the door would be left open, this worried me at the time, because Cherie was stark raving drunk because it was full moon, and she might have passed out and I'd be out on the street for the night. Anyway, she did eventually hear my pounding, I nearly put a hole in the door. There are no, ifs or buts about it, Cherie is still living like its 1972. She's from California, and apparently visited Ecuador back in the 70s and moved back here 4 years ago. Notably, Sasha stayed in her room the whole time the full moon celebration was occurring, listening to punk rock. Drug use is a way of life in the place, with a HUGE pile of empty wine cartons on the upstairs veranda, and the ubiquitous smell, and I later found, presence of weed. There is a woodstock-themed garbage bin out back. Cherie seemed pretty sober the next morning, and I'd gotten used to the constant chatter of the birds in the cages. After breakfast, I went out looking for a nearby magical tree, El Lechero, but somehow lost my way and ended up going to Parque Condor, a raptor rehabilitation center above Otavalo. There are photos of some of the birds on my gallery, the King vulture and Andean condor were easily the most bizarre. The road up was really beautiful, being able to see Otavalo on one side, and the huge Lago San Pablo on the other, with the Andes covered in low cloud. There were groups of people out working in the surrounding fields, I find something familiar in the smell of freshly turned dirt. I helped a woman push a wheelbarrow full of cement. I think she found it highly amusing that I, a padfoot gringo, was pushing a heavy wheelbarrow. Leaving Parque Condor, I spotted El Lechero on the hill coming back down the road and hiked up. The tree is very old and knobbly, all by itself on the top of this hill, and, according to the locals, it imparts magical healing powers. So I got my little bit of magic and walked home through a farmer's field. It felt really good to be out and about, I'm not as fond of Otavalo now that I've been in it for a little while.
Got lost on the way back, found Mi Otavalito, a local restaurant the Colorado girls had recommended. The food was the best Ecuadorian food I've ever had, and it came at the huge cost of $6. It being Friday, this was yet another excuse for Cherie, this time with friends, to drink and be merry. Sat with Sasha and talked about life, the universe and all that good stuff.
Woke up the next morning to find I'd picked up a really good sunburn from my romp the day before, it hurt like hell, in fact, as of today, day 52, it's stopped hurting and the skin has flaked off. Feeling stupid that I'd left my hat in Quito (I'd accidently left it on the kitchen table at Ivan's) I put aloe on it and went and bought a new hat in the market, it being Saturday, the big market day in Quito. The streets were all jammed full of vendors selling just about everything under the sun. The man I bought the hat from was so happy, because I was his lucky first sale of the day. Spent the afternoon contemplating where to go next, as I had decided I was decaying in the creature comforts of Otavalo. I went and sat in on a church service in the evening, its easy to figure out what's going on, but I understood almost nothing that the priest was saying. Coming back, I found the 2 girls from Maine in the Casa de Frutas having dinner, and drank mojuitos and played cards and backgammon all evening with them. I found with I get very talkative with the very sugary mojuitos. Over all, Otavalo is a nice city, but it's a little too commercial, and conservative, for my liking. It's nothing more than a commerce city, so I shall be back later to do my shopping.
So, the day before I'd gone and checked the travel warnings of the Canadian Embassy in Quito, and apparently the whole area north of Ibarra, except for, surprisingly, the border city of Tulcan, has a heavy warning against travel in the area. So, this being first first major independent trip, and traveling alone, I opted to miss the north coast, and took a bus back to Quito and tried to find one to the coastal village of Pedernales, where I'd decided to pick up the route. No luck. Next, tried for Bahia, the next major town south, still no luck. I managed to find, with the help from other ticket vendors, a bus to Manta, at 3 pm. at 3:30, I pulled out of the station in a rather posh (very clean, spacious, soft, reclining seats) bus, that was supposed to take 7 hours to Manta. It took 10. For his credit, the man at the wheel was an excellent driver, that would overtake convoys of 3 or more tractor trailers coming down the steep winding road to Santo Domingo, with the added bonus of low visibility due to cloud coming off the mountains. It was already dark by the time we reach Santo Domingo, about a third of the way to Manta. Several times, people got off and on, and on we'd go off into the darkness, on paved and gravel roads. Around the time we arrived in Portoviejo, still an hour from Manta, I was getting really tired of sitting on the bus. Almost everyone else had gotten off at previous stops, with their potted plants, large boxes and wailing infants, and I was feeling unpleasant, tired, and hot and sticky, because I was back in coastal Ecuador, where that is the general norm. At around 1 or 2 in the morning, we arrived. Went to the recommended hotel across the street. They wanted to charge me $12. Went to the one next door, The Puerto Azul, $6. For 6, it was incredibly nice, and spent the night with the fan going full blast. What a hell of a bus trip!
Getting up the next morning, I decided, seeing as I was only a little ways from there, to go to visit my friends in Las Tunas (subnote: Las Tunas translates as The Prickly Pears). Breakfast, and a glass of cold orange juice from the man by the bus station, I went south to Montecristi, home, supposedly, of the best panama hats on earth. A little note about some of the stores I've passed. They good and eat whole pigs here, and going along on the bus, you pass these stores with these HUGE pink pig bodies, suspended by their back hooves from the ceiling, with the bodies stretching from all the fat, so you have these very elongated, whole pigs dangling from the ceiling out in front of some stores, and it just looks revolting! Montecristi, with its enormous white church, and hat and weaving makers, seems a little depressed. It looks like it used to be wealthier but has slumped lately. All of the sidewalks are wheel chair accessible. After poking around, I went back to the main road and caught a bus to here, Puerto Lopez. At the town of Jipijapa, my friend David, who I'd met in the villages from my last visit, got on the bus, coming back from school in Portoviejo (he's studying athletics, with swimming and running), but I didn't realize it was him until we got off the bus at PL. It turns out this week is a break week for students in Ecuador, after exams. The ride down was interesting, with forest giving way to dry brushland until Parque Nacional Machalilla, where it goes back to forest again. This is not the coast I remember from last year. I have arrived, for better or worse, during the coast's 2 month long rainy season. It's overcast, cool, all the streets are extremely muddy, and it rains or mists, constantly. It's more like a misty haven, rather than any kind of paradise. At PL, David and I took the bus to Las Tunas. We went to the house of Rosa first, out she came, with little Emily, who is now 1 year and 3 months. took one look at me and greeted me by the association I'd pickedd from last time "Coca-cola", then out comes from Fernando, "Loco!" A big pulava ensued, while we went around and said hello to everyone. Found Aurelio and Antonio, my host father and brother, working on the site of the cabins they've built on the beach front, the first one is finished, and they're working on the second one I came to Miriam's house, my old host mom, and she has put me in her guest room for the time being. All the time everyone is asking me about how everything is, friends, family, do I have a girlfriend, when and where am I going to school, when are the others from my first trip here going to come back and visit, etc. After dinner I go around some more and say hi to more people, at Elsa's house. Much to my surprise, they have a good picture of Wesley, on album, something I find difficult to get most of the time. I figured I will stay for the week, as the kids are here from school, and head out south after. They keep telling me tath I'm so much skinnier, taller and with shorter hair than my last visit, I don't think I've changed that much. I was exhausted by this point, having been doing the bus thing, and now having to explain the same thing, in Spanish, at least 6 times.
I woke up yesterday morning, feeling characterstically icky, because of the 100% humidity here. I went out after breakfast with my host brother Antonio, who is now 7, collecting shells and skipping stones in the surf. I played pool with the local boys in the afternoon and played cards. I spent yesterday afternoon walking along the beach and after my walk, I went for a run along the other part of the beach with David and Fernando, it felt good to blow off energy. I slept very well last night.
This morning, it being All Hallows Eve, is special here. It isn't a big commercial fest like in Canada, its a prepartion for All Souls Day, tomorrow, which is a memorial day for the dead. I walked along the beach this morning, something that I think I will get into the habit of while I'm here. There was a group of frigate birds eating what was left of a sea turtle carcass. For you Mrs. R, there is a LOT of garbage that has washed up on the beach. If the group thats supposed to come in March has any time at all, maybe even just a few hours of picking up the huge piles of garbage would go a long way to changing the atmosphere of the beach. There is a large fishing boat shipwreck, the San Eduardo II, a way down the beach. Coming back, I went up to the cemetery, where Fernando, David, and a man they call Zorro, were painting white wash on the tombs of Fernando's father and grandfather. I had a nice long conversation about the dead in the family, the problems of language barriers and the nature of traveling. Interesting story here, Fernando's father passed away in 97, heart failure, before his grandfather, who died in 2000. There are 2 other tombs related to the family, both still births, one of a brother of Fernando, another a brother of Antonio. There were other families in the cemetery tending to the tombs of their dead family as well. Went up and had cake with some of the others and played blackjack and got letters for my friends back home. Elsa wrote a good letter, in easily translatable Spanish, to Kalina, which I translated and emailed to her earlier this afternoon. David, Fernando and I went up here, to PL, to do emails. They got me to send english translations of messages to Ali and Kalina, who they'd both been fond of while they were staying here. Fernando was funny, because he ran out of things to say, he was the one sending something to Kalina, blushed, and left.
Life, good stuff...
Going back to last Thursday, I managed to get locked out after finishing my last update, despite being promised that the door would be left open, this worried me at the time, because Cherie was stark raving drunk because it was full moon, and she might have passed out and I'd be out on the street for the night. Anyway, she did eventually hear my pounding, I nearly put a hole in the door. There are no, ifs or buts about it, Cherie is still living like its 1972. She's from California, and apparently visited Ecuador back in the 70s and moved back here 4 years ago. Notably, Sasha stayed in her room the whole time the full moon celebration was occurring, listening to punk rock. Drug use is a way of life in the place, with a HUGE pile of empty wine cartons on the upstairs veranda, and the ubiquitous smell, and I later found, presence of weed. There is a woodstock-themed garbage bin out back. Cherie seemed pretty sober the next morning, and I'd gotten used to the constant chatter of the birds in the cages. After breakfast, I went out looking for a nearby magical tree, El Lechero, but somehow lost my way and ended up going to Parque Condor, a raptor rehabilitation center above Otavalo. There are photos of some of the birds on my gallery, the King vulture and Andean condor were easily the most bizarre. The road up was really beautiful, being able to see Otavalo on one side, and the huge Lago San Pablo on the other, with the Andes covered in low cloud. There were groups of people out working in the surrounding fields, I find something familiar in the smell of freshly turned dirt. I helped a woman push a wheelbarrow full of cement. I think she found it highly amusing that I, a padfoot gringo, was pushing a heavy wheelbarrow. Leaving Parque Condor, I spotted El Lechero on the hill coming back down the road and hiked up. The tree is very old and knobbly, all by itself on the top of this hill, and, according to the locals, it imparts magical healing powers. So I got my little bit of magic and walked home through a farmer's field. It felt really good to be out and about, I'm not as fond of Otavalo now that I've been in it for a little while.
Got lost on the way back, found Mi Otavalito, a local restaurant the Colorado girls had recommended. The food was the best Ecuadorian food I've ever had, and it came at the huge cost of $6. It being Friday, this was yet another excuse for Cherie, this time with friends, to drink and be merry. Sat with Sasha and talked about life, the universe and all that good stuff.
Woke up the next morning to find I'd picked up a really good sunburn from my romp the day before, it hurt like hell, in fact, as of today, day 52, it's stopped hurting and the skin has flaked off. Feeling stupid that I'd left my hat in Quito (I'd accidently left it on the kitchen table at Ivan's) I put aloe on it and went and bought a new hat in the market, it being Saturday, the big market day in Quito. The streets were all jammed full of vendors selling just about everything under the sun. The man I bought the hat from was so happy, because I was his lucky first sale of the day. Spent the afternoon contemplating where to go next, as I had decided I was decaying in the creature comforts of Otavalo. I went and sat in on a church service in the evening, its easy to figure out what's going on, but I understood almost nothing that the priest was saying. Coming back, I found the 2 girls from Maine in the Casa de Frutas having dinner, and drank mojuitos and played cards and backgammon all evening with them. I found with I get very talkative with the very sugary mojuitos. Over all, Otavalo is a nice city, but it's a little too commercial, and conservative, for my liking. It's nothing more than a commerce city, so I shall be back later to do my shopping.
So, the day before I'd gone and checked the travel warnings of the Canadian Embassy in Quito, and apparently the whole area north of Ibarra, except for, surprisingly, the border city of Tulcan, has a heavy warning against travel in the area. So, this being first first major independent trip, and traveling alone, I opted to miss the north coast, and took a bus back to Quito and tried to find one to the coastal village of Pedernales, where I'd decided to pick up the route. No luck. Next, tried for Bahia, the next major town south, still no luck. I managed to find, with the help from other ticket vendors, a bus to Manta, at 3 pm. at 3:30, I pulled out of the station in a rather posh (very clean, spacious, soft, reclining seats) bus, that was supposed to take 7 hours to Manta. It took 10. For his credit, the man at the wheel was an excellent driver, that would overtake convoys of 3 or more tractor trailers coming down the steep winding road to Santo Domingo, with the added bonus of low visibility due to cloud coming off the mountains. It was already dark by the time we reach Santo Domingo, about a third of the way to Manta. Several times, people got off and on, and on we'd go off into the darkness, on paved and gravel roads. Around the time we arrived in Portoviejo, still an hour from Manta, I was getting really tired of sitting on the bus. Almost everyone else had gotten off at previous stops, with their potted plants, large boxes and wailing infants, and I was feeling unpleasant, tired, and hot and sticky, because I was back in coastal Ecuador, where that is the general norm. At around 1 or 2 in the morning, we arrived. Went to the recommended hotel across the street. They wanted to charge me $12. Went to the one next door, The Puerto Azul, $6. For 6, it was incredibly nice, and spent the night with the fan going full blast. What a hell of a bus trip!
Getting up the next morning, I decided, seeing as I was only a little ways from there, to go to visit my friends in Las Tunas (subnote: Las Tunas translates as The Prickly Pears). Breakfast, and a glass of cold orange juice from the man by the bus station, I went south to Montecristi, home, supposedly, of the best panama hats on earth. A little note about some of the stores I've passed. They good and eat whole pigs here, and going along on the bus, you pass these stores with these HUGE pink pig bodies, suspended by their back hooves from the ceiling, with the bodies stretching from all the fat, so you have these very elongated, whole pigs dangling from the ceiling out in front of some stores, and it just looks revolting! Montecristi, with its enormous white church, and hat and weaving makers, seems a little depressed. It looks like it used to be wealthier but has slumped lately. All of the sidewalks are wheel chair accessible. After poking around, I went back to the main road and caught a bus to here, Puerto Lopez. At the town of Jipijapa, my friend David, who I'd met in the villages from my last visit, got on the bus, coming back from school in Portoviejo (he's studying athletics, with swimming and running), but I didn't realize it was him until we got off the bus at PL. It turns out this week is a break week for students in Ecuador, after exams. The ride down was interesting, with forest giving way to dry brushland until Parque Nacional Machalilla, where it goes back to forest again. This is not the coast I remember from last year. I have arrived, for better or worse, during the coast's 2 month long rainy season. It's overcast, cool, all the streets are extremely muddy, and it rains or mists, constantly. It's more like a misty haven, rather than any kind of paradise. At PL, David and I took the bus to Las Tunas. We went to the house of Rosa first, out she came, with little Emily, who is now 1 year and 3 months. took one look at me and greeted me by the association I'd pickedd from last time "Coca-cola", then out comes from Fernando, "Loco!" A big pulava ensued, while we went around and said hello to everyone. Found Aurelio and Antonio, my host father and brother, working on the site of the cabins they've built on the beach front, the first one is finished, and they're working on the second one I came to Miriam's house, my old host mom, and she has put me in her guest room for the time being. All the time everyone is asking me about how everything is, friends, family, do I have a girlfriend, when and where am I going to school, when are the others from my first trip here going to come back and visit, etc. After dinner I go around some more and say hi to more people, at Elsa's house. Much to my surprise, they have a good picture of Wesley, on album, something I find difficult to get most of the time. I figured I will stay for the week, as the kids are here from school, and head out south after. They keep telling me tath I'm so much skinnier, taller and with shorter hair than my last visit, I don't think I've changed that much. I was exhausted by this point, having been doing the bus thing, and now having to explain the same thing, in Spanish, at least 6 times.
I woke up yesterday morning, feeling characterstically icky, because of the 100% humidity here. I went out after breakfast with my host brother Antonio, who is now 7, collecting shells and skipping stones in the surf. I played pool with the local boys in the afternoon and played cards. I spent yesterday afternoon walking along the beach and after my walk, I went for a run along the other part of the beach with David and Fernando, it felt good to blow off energy. I slept very well last night.
This morning, it being All Hallows Eve, is special here. It isn't a big commercial fest like in Canada, its a prepartion for All Souls Day, tomorrow, which is a memorial day for the dead. I walked along the beach this morning, something that I think I will get into the habit of while I'm here. There was a group of frigate birds eating what was left of a sea turtle carcass. For you Mrs. R, there is a LOT of garbage that has washed up on the beach. If the group thats supposed to come in March has any time at all, maybe even just a few hours of picking up the huge piles of garbage would go a long way to changing the atmosphere of the beach. There is a large fishing boat shipwreck, the San Eduardo II, a way down the beach. Coming back, I went up to the cemetery, where Fernando, David, and a man they call Zorro, were painting white wash on the tombs of Fernando's father and grandfather. I had a nice long conversation about the dead in the family, the problems of language barriers and the nature of traveling. Interesting story here, Fernando's father passed away in 97, heart failure, before his grandfather, who died in 2000. There are 2 other tombs related to the family, both still births, one of a brother of Fernando, another a brother of Antonio. There were other families in the cemetery tending to the tombs of their dead family as well. Went up and had cake with some of the others and played blackjack and got letters for my friends back home. Elsa wrote a good letter, in easily translatable Spanish, to Kalina, which I translated and emailed to her earlier this afternoon. David, Fernando and I went up here, to PL, to do emails. They got me to send english translations of messages to Ali and Kalina, who they'd both been fond of while they were staying here. Fernando was funny, because he ran out of things to say, he was the one sending something to Kalina, blushed, and left.
Life, good stuff...
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