We travelled from Latacunga to Baños, a touristy town and certainly one of the best places in memory for purchasing inflatable Spongebob Squarepants pool toys. After checking in to our Baños hotel we headed to a nearby market for lunch, shunning the many western-style restaurants. This market had many delicacies on display, including entire smiling roasted pigs with sausages hung around their necks and chillis sticking out of their ears, along with whole guinea pigs on spits. I ordered yahuarlocro, assuming it was a variation on locro, the cheese and potato soup recommended by the guidebook. It was, and the variation included half an avocado on top and the inclusion of pigs intestines. Not just a few either, this soup was laden with intestines. It was served with a plate of brown stuff, which may have been dried blood, and certainly the local girl across from us recoiled when her boyfriend was served the soup with the brown stuff already in it. I ate it all (it was tasty!), averting my eyes to avoid the gaze of the pig whose bowel I was consuming. Coming up in the next edition of the Cook`s Companion, a section on possible combinations of avocado and porcine digestive tract.
Baños is so named because of the nearby natural hot springs, which are channeled into swimming pools at a complex on the edge of town. On consecutive nights Mel and I shared these small, hot pools with many, many, many Ecuatorianos; being relaxed about body contact with strangers was a prerequisite for entry. Many serious-looking older men grabbed the benches around the pool edges, and earnestly discussed important themes, although I only know this through the interpretation of body language. The cloudy yellow waters were very relaxing, and we returned to our luxurious $34 room each time with our well-being enhanced.
We hired bikes to ride along ¨La Ruta de las Cascadas¨, a series of waterfalls along the road from Baños to Puyo. The bike hiring went something like this (some language embellished, some completely made up):
Sam: I say friend, word is you have bikes for rent for to enjoy the Route of the Cascades?
Bike Hire Guy (BHG): Yes, they are $6 a day
S: And, my dear boy, can you elucidate said route for me on this map?
BHG: You just follow the road as shown here (pointing to map).
S: The road? Surely you jest mi amigo. I have seen the roads, no cyclist with sensibilities intact would attempt riding within many arms lengths of these roads.
BHG: It is very safe, you just keep to the right. And why are you talking like that?
S: Sorry mate, forgot who I was for a second. No worries. The road'll be apples. See ya this arvo.
And we rode on the road, and all was well. The cacscadas were numerous and beautiful, and the final stop was for a swim in a cleverly designed "natural jacuzzi" along the Rio Pastaza. The views were so lovely that my camera was overwhelmed and could not capture the loveliness we were seeing. Most of the ride was downhill, meaning the ride back was for pros only, and we were fortunate to share a bus back to Baños with three incredibly beautiful Argentinians. I didn't know where to look so stared out the back of the truck and occasionally gave Mel a squeeze on the arm. I was feeling guilty about this until Mel later confided that she could not stop staring at the gorgeous red head, wondering where the ginger genetic line was prominent in Argentina.
Baños was nice, but was also the first place we had visited that felt very touristy and developed for that. We weren't too sad to move on to Cuenca.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tight-Arse Tours Inc
A blog hazard: too much stuff happens to bother writing it all down because what if you miss something?
Ummmmm, at the time of the last entry I was in Latacunga? Yeah, the yanks behind me were watching Mr and Mrs Smith on DVD, apparently tiring of Ecuador´s treaures. I wonder what they wrote in their blog that day? We were in Latacunga to visit Lake Quilotoa, some distance to the west. A private tour was offered to us for $40 per person; "too much"! we replied. A public bus ($1.25 each) dropped us in Zumbahua after another almost tediously gorgeous ascent into green hills, with the inevitable massive mountains looming above. At one stop a lady jumped aboard selling "frittaras": so this was the name of the corn-and-pork-in-a-bag dish we ate between Lago Agrio and Quito! We were ecstatic. Upon alighting from said bus we were immediately offered a ride in a ute up to the lake ($5 per person). This ride proved to be just about the highlight of the trip so far, the wind nearly freezing us (thank you Mel´s parents for my Gore-Tex jacket) but enabling many bumpy photos of...yes, the hills and mountains. A small child screamed "¡Hola!" to us as we went past and celebrated wildly when we returned in kind. At the top were a couple of hostels and the lake itself, striking green water in a volcanic caldera. The clouds formed shadowy shapes on the water as they passed. I angled for the harder of two possible walks, all the way around the rim. "Cuatro horas" said our driver: he must be a fast walker.
We tackled the walk the Melbourne way of going, so that we had the lake on our left and the surrounding scenery on our right. This latter consisted of more verdant hills and valleys, with a crevasse (what a disgusting word) running through the middle. Each few steps were thus bittersweet: we gained some more magnificent view at the cost of losing the view we had already enjoyed. Ahead we spied a large group of indigenous people and one llama (which may have been an alpaca). We had gone through a gate and feared they might attempt to charge us to pass, but all they wanted to do, every man, woman and child, was to shake our hands and say "Good morning"! to us in English. Again, there was much rejoicing when we responded in kind.
The walk was harder than we expected, "up" bits that from a distance looked manageable being less friendly once we started to walk "up" them. We were repeatedly embarrassed as locals under huge loads (some recently harvested crop in sacks, a small child or two, a horse of similar fitness to us) sprinted past us effortlessly. After something more than four hours we arrived at the starting point, relieved not to be camping out on the lake rim. I negotiated a "camioneta" back to Zumbahua (I walked into a hostel and said "Zumbahua" and was directed to a car outside; cost: $5 per person again) and we leapt onto a bus back to Latacunga ($1.25 each again). We arrived late and, not having eaten lunch stopped at the first stall for frittara ($1 per person). Just to be sure, I asked the lady what it was called, and she replied "choclomonte". The confusion continues.
Total cost of above described day (with water and snacks): $33, representing a saving of $47 on proposed private tour cost. Let´s go again tomorrow!
Ummmmm, at the time of the last entry I was in Latacunga? Yeah, the yanks behind me were watching Mr and Mrs Smith on DVD, apparently tiring of Ecuador´s treaures. I wonder what they wrote in their blog that day? We were in Latacunga to visit Lake Quilotoa, some distance to the west. A private tour was offered to us for $40 per person; "too much"! we replied. A public bus ($1.25 each) dropped us in Zumbahua after another almost tediously gorgeous ascent into green hills, with the inevitable massive mountains looming above. At one stop a lady jumped aboard selling "frittaras": so this was the name of the corn-and-pork-in-a-bag dish we ate between Lago Agrio and Quito! We were ecstatic. Upon alighting from said bus we were immediately offered a ride in a ute up to the lake ($5 per person). This ride proved to be just about the highlight of the trip so far, the wind nearly freezing us (thank you Mel´s parents for my Gore-Tex jacket) but enabling many bumpy photos of...yes, the hills and mountains. A small child screamed "¡Hola!" to us as we went past and celebrated wildly when we returned in kind. At the top were a couple of hostels and the lake itself, striking green water in a volcanic caldera. The clouds formed shadowy shapes on the water as they passed. I angled for the harder of two possible walks, all the way around the rim. "Cuatro horas" said our driver: he must be a fast walker.
We tackled the walk the Melbourne way of going, so that we had the lake on our left and the surrounding scenery on our right. This latter consisted of more verdant hills and valleys, with a crevasse (what a disgusting word) running through the middle. Each few steps were thus bittersweet: we gained some more magnificent view at the cost of losing the view we had already enjoyed. Ahead we spied a large group of indigenous people and one llama (which may have been an alpaca). We had gone through a gate and feared they might attempt to charge us to pass, but all they wanted to do, every man, woman and child, was to shake our hands and say "Good morning"! to us in English. Again, there was much rejoicing when we responded in kind.
The walk was harder than we expected, "up" bits that from a distance looked manageable being less friendly once we started to walk "up" them. We were repeatedly embarrassed as locals under huge loads (some recently harvested crop in sacks, a small child or two, a horse of similar fitness to us) sprinted past us effortlessly. After something more than four hours we arrived at the starting point, relieved not to be camping out on the lake rim. I negotiated a "camioneta" back to Zumbahua (I walked into a hostel and said "Zumbahua" and was directed to a car outside; cost: $5 per person again) and we leapt onto a bus back to Latacunga ($1.25 each again). We arrived late and, not having eaten lunch stopped at the first stall for frittara ($1 per person). Just to be sure, I asked the lady what it was called, and she replied "choclomonte". The confusion continues.
Total cost of above described day (with water and snacks): $33, representing a saving of $47 on proposed private tour cost. Let´s go again tomorrow!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Dieciocho de febrero
A trip to the northern Ecuadorian Amazon basin requires a stopover in the town of Lago Agrio, or "Bitter Lake". This is a seedy mining town that seems to contain more uninhabited buildings than inhabited ones. Upon seeing a new building being constructed one wonders why they just don´t do some rewiring and decorating of one of the empty buildings seen on every street. This is also the place where a man driving a ute, not obviously a taxi, reversed down the street alongside us for several hundred metres, expecting a delayed reaction to his suggestion that we get in. We were walking exactly the wrong way at the time, so perhaps there is some kind of backwards-forwards symmetry here.
Luckily we were rescued by the staff of Samona Lodge in Cuyabeno reserve and we boarded another bus to the town (? jetty more like) of El Puente, where we boarded a motorised canoe to the lodge. This was a thatched hut on stilts affair, with a good kitchen and dining room and running hot water from the Cuyabeno river, perfectly luxurious for the price we had paid, but lacking in privacy so that we were treated to some virtuoso dirty talk in Spanish by the couple in the adjoining hut on Monday evening. Tarantulas were spotted almost immediately, and a boa constrictor was found attempting to suffocate a pole holding up a solar panel. The other notable wildlife were the many North Americans, who filled the air with so much verbiage that formerly loquacious Australians seemed timid and almost rudely shy in comparison. We spent three full days boating along the waterways, hiking in the rainforest, and swimming in the Laguna Grande (a big lake, the Spanish is really coming along) at sunset. The sunsets were invariably beatiful but different each time, a cloudless sky and glassy water one night, built up tropical clouds creating "God rays" (Judy from Montana´s term) and vivid pinks and golds on another.
We saw many spiders, colourful and poisonous frogs and toads, numerous monkeys, gigantic crickets, a pink freshwater dolphin, small caimans (like crocodiles), herons, kingfishers, macaws, swallows, and nearly a toucan. We also caught piranhas, non-seasoned fisherpersons hilariously panicking when seeing this killer fish on their line and more than once swinging the fish into some other group member´s head. No human was hurt.
Our tour guide Miguel was charismatic and spoke good English, and made many high-minded statements about his great desire to conserve the Amazon and its ecosystems. However, we were piloted around in canoes with poorly maintained and smoky engines, and one of the other guides lathered himself all over in soap and shampoo before jumping right into the river to wash himself off. If these guys won´t take proper care who will? Miguel also found time to divulge intimate details of his romantic life, including that he was in love with a girl who was jealous of his status as tour guide to overseas backpackers, some of whom were pretty (not in our group, besides the recently engaged members) and attracted to charismatic Ecuadorianos while abroad. He added that he was conflicted between the attractions of monogamy and the aforementioned female backpackers, his past exploits with whom having earned him the nickname "the Alligator of the Cuyabeno". We left him with this conflict unresolved.
After passing through Lago Agrio without incident we returned to Quito via the same road by which we had come. However, last time it was night, and this time we could see outside as the bus ascended from 300 to 2800m above sea level. We climbed up green mountains, the road zigzagging back on itself and improbably carrying us over ridges and lovely rocky rivers. Even the locals gasped and pointed. We didn´t dare open a book as within three words we were sure to have to look up for another beautiful sight. Sure-footed cows grazed on the slopes, and there was a lot of road work and signs suggesting a grand patriotic cause was behind such work.
We stopped in some mountain stopover town and ate something served in a plastic bag and consisting of boiled corn kernels, fried corn kernels, pork crackling, pieces of pork chop, and a little salad. This was eaten with a spoon while dogs waited at our feet for leftovers. Mel said "Now that we´ve had that we don´t need to have it again", and she was right. The second half of the trip was in darkness, and gave all the passengers the pleasure of viweing two of the worst movies surely ever committed to tape. The first involved three macho Americans parachuting into Bolivia to break up a coca trafficking empire, and largely consisted of the three Yanks shooting automatic weapons from the hip constantly without changing magazines, slaughtering wave after wave of coca militia who unaccountably couldn´t hit a single one of the good guys despite using the same weapons and technique as their enemies did. The coca militiamen were, however, excellent at doing flips in the air when grenades exploded nearby. The coca empire was inevitably crushed with an incredible amount of bloodshed. The second movie was apparently Colombian, and the plot incomprehensibly followed some guerillas led by a psychopath, a good looking guy two-timing his girlfriend, and a drug dealer whose pregnant wife was killed by the psychopath guerilla in the opening scenes. This movie included more than one scene of rape being perpetrated by the guerillas, and if I spoke enough Spanish I may have thought to ask one of the many very small children on the bus what they thought of this. Luckily, I don´t.
We are now in Latacunga, south of Quito, waiting to travel to Lake Quilotoa tomorrow. We braved Quito public transport this morning without being pickpocketed, take that guide book and paranoid hostel guy! We have had a major setback: our Inca Trail hike has been cancelled due to the mudslides there. We have recovered fairly quickly by considering alternative hikes elsewhere in Peru and Bolivia. South America has an answer for everything so far.
Luckily we were rescued by the staff of Samona Lodge in Cuyabeno reserve and we boarded another bus to the town (? jetty more like) of El Puente, where we boarded a motorised canoe to the lodge. This was a thatched hut on stilts affair, with a good kitchen and dining room and running hot water from the Cuyabeno river, perfectly luxurious for the price we had paid, but lacking in privacy so that we were treated to some virtuoso dirty talk in Spanish by the couple in the adjoining hut on Monday evening. Tarantulas were spotted almost immediately, and a boa constrictor was found attempting to suffocate a pole holding up a solar panel. The other notable wildlife were the many North Americans, who filled the air with so much verbiage that formerly loquacious Australians seemed timid and almost rudely shy in comparison. We spent three full days boating along the waterways, hiking in the rainforest, and swimming in the Laguna Grande (a big lake, the Spanish is really coming along) at sunset. The sunsets were invariably beatiful but different each time, a cloudless sky and glassy water one night, built up tropical clouds creating "God rays" (Judy from Montana´s term) and vivid pinks and golds on another.
We saw many spiders, colourful and poisonous frogs and toads, numerous monkeys, gigantic crickets, a pink freshwater dolphin, small caimans (like crocodiles), herons, kingfishers, macaws, swallows, and nearly a toucan. We also caught piranhas, non-seasoned fisherpersons hilariously panicking when seeing this killer fish on their line and more than once swinging the fish into some other group member´s head. No human was hurt.
Our tour guide Miguel was charismatic and spoke good English, and made many high-minded statements about his great desire to conserve the Amazon and its ecosystems. However, we were piloted around in canoes with poorly maintained and smoky engines, and one of the other guides lathered himself all over in soap and shampoo before jumping right into the river to wash himself off. If these guys won´t take proper care who will? Miguel also found time to divulge intimate details of his romantic life, including that he was in love with a girl who was jealous of his status as tour guide to overseas backpackers, some of whom were pretty (not in our group, besides the recently engaged members) and attracted to charismatic Ecuadorianos while abroad. He added that he was conflicted between the attractions of monogamy and the aforementioned female backpackers, his past exploits with whom having earned him the nickname "the Alligator of the Cuyabeno". We left him with this conflict unresolved.
After passing through Lago Agrio without incident we returned to Quito via the same road by which we had come. However, last time it was night, and this time we could see outside as the bus ascended from 300 to 2800m above sea level. We climbed up green mountains, the road zigzagging back on itself and improbably carrying us over ridges and lovely rocky rivers. Even the locals gasped and pointed. We didn´t dare open a book as within three words we were sure to have to look up for another beautiful sight. Sure-footed cows grazed on the slopes, and there was a lot of road work and signs suggesting a grand patriotic cause was behind such work.
We stopped in some mountain stopover town and ate something served in a plastic bag and consisting of boiled corn kernels, fried corn kernels, pork crackling, pieces of pork chop, and a little salad. This was eaten with a spoon while dogs waited at our feet for leftovers. Mel said "Now that we´ve had that we don´t need to have it again", and she was right. The second half of the trip was in darkness, and gave all the passengers the pleasure of viweing two of the worst movies surely ever committed to tape. The first involved three macho Americans parachuting into Bolivia to break up a coca trafficking empire, and largely consisted of the three Yanks shooting automatic weapons from the hip constantly without changing magazines, slaughtering wave after wave of coca militia who unaccountably couldn´t hit a single one of the good guys despite using the same weapons and technique as their enemies did. The coca militiamen were, however, excellent at doing flips in the air when grenades exploded nearby. The coca empire was inevitably crushed with an incredible amount of bloodshed. The second movie was apparently Colombian, and the plot incomprehensibly followed some guerillas led by a psychopath, a good looking guy two-timing his girlfriend, and a drug dealer whose pregnant wife was killed by the psychopath guerilla in the opening scenes. This movie included more than one scene of rape being perpetrated by the guerillas, and if I spoke enough Spanish I may have thought to ask one of the many very small children on the bus what they thought of this. Luckily, I don´t.
We are now in Latacunga, south of Quito, waiting to travel to Lake Quilotoa tomorrow. We braved Quito public transport this morning without being pickpocketed, take that guide book and paranoid hostel guy! We have had a major setback: our Inca Trail hike has been cancelled due to the mudslides there. We have recovered fairly quickly by considering alternative hikes elsewhere in Peru and Bolivia. South America has an answer for everything so far.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Doce de febrero
There is a Herbalife convention in Quito, Ecuador. Herbalife acolytes with their matching branded jackets and "I love Herbalife" badges are visible at every gallery, museum, and basilica. While Mel and I ate omelettes for breakfast on Wednesday a man across from us placed four heaped spoonfuls of a pink powder into some water and used the mixture to wash down a dizzying combination of pills. He looked pretty healthy I guess. But he was the only person at the table dining alone, surrounded by chattering Gen Y types. I bet he couldn´t wait to get down to the convention centre.
We have loved Quito. In the daytime it is noisy and smelly but energetic, and a lot of walking over the past four days has revealed to me some interesting little touches. The traffic is dominated by clean electric buses and horribly polluting diesel buses, most decorated with a calligraphic name on the front (Garcia Moreno or Los Pueblos or some other patriotic name or slogan) and golden curtains along the windows. On one the Entrada (entry) and Salida (exit) signs were inexplicably written as if in blood, drips falling from the text like in vampire movie titles. The gulf of luxury between the worst bus and the best bus in town reflects the gulf between the poor eight year old shoe shine boy with the joyless look on his face in the main square to the opulence of president Rafael Correa´s residence (that he doesn´t even use) in the presidential palace. Another eight year old served us in the mini-mart we stopped at today, and one assumes that a crackdown on child labour is not imminent.
There are numerous delicacies available to buy on the street, my favourite being the man who scoops ice cream into cones and then inverts them onto an ice block, patiently rotating them so they don´t melt before they are bought. While crossing the road to buy such an ice cream one needs to be vigilant, because the cars are coming from the right and they don´t necessarily stop at red lights. Red lights appear to be just a suggestion to consider stopping, and the green man walking signal should be shaped like a figure shrugging, saying "by all means attempt to cross but don´t hold me responsible for the outcome". Roads and sidewalks are sometimes poorly demarcated, the colourful cobbled pattern of the path continuing onto the road, and as such I continue confidently onto the road in the same manner only to dance backwards at the sounding of a bus horn.
However, for the alert (and let´s face it, quite anxious) tourist it doesn´t really seem dangerous. Every person we have engaged with has been friendly and forgiving of shattered Spanish, although many have continued to speak Spanish very quickly to us long after it has been clearly established that we don´t understand. Today we stopped in at an innocent looking restaurant only to find the menu dominated by what appeared to be seafood. We were too exhausted to move, so bravely ordered as safely as we could manage. It is now five hours since I ate the fishiest soup in the world and followed up with a paella-esque rice dish laden with shellfish, and I´m yet to experience any ominous rumblings. Perhaps it will come four hours into the eight hour bus trip tonight.
Our Quito highlight has been La Capilla del Hombre, a gallery designed by major Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamin (if it sounds like I had heard of him before Wednesday, I have fooled you) and featuring only chosen works of his. I´m not sure how to write about art, except to say that I was very moved by his renderings of the human misery of the Potosi silver mines in Bolivia, and the shock of the killings and disappearances that followed Pinochet´s coup in Chile in 1973. One painting was dedicated to Pablo Neruda, providing a nice connection to our visit to his house in Santiago. Tucked away in a corner was a painting of Pinochet, painted chaotically with sharp teeth, covered in splashes of blood and hung from a real rope that extended down and around the figure´s neck. This hateful image contrasted uncomfortably with the obvious sympathy and humanity of every other work in the gallery.
Yesterday we drove and hiked up Volcan Cotopaxi, the second largest in the "Avenue of Volcanoes" streching south from Quito. I can´t properly describe how enourmous and intimidating this perfectly cone shaped mountain is but hopefully the photos will show it. Google it or something. We achieved an altitude of 5000m above sea level and touched the bottom of the ice that covers the summit. For this we paid a heavy price, arriving back at the hostel headache-y and nauseous, although this passed early enough in the evening for the following.
I have checked out of our hostel a hero after winning the trivia night. I was required to break a tie by catching a lime in a salad bowl. The fellow (English) from the other team almost missed the lime completely with his bowl, while my lime ricocheted from the bowl onto my person, being briefly caught between my wrist and my groin before being manouvered to it´s preferred destination and sweet victory. For this some other people received a voucher for a hostel near the above-mentioned volcano, and I got a free beer and was permitted to keep drinking it even after the hostel bar had closed. Mel was reading quietly in bed at the time (engagement in Spanish is "compromiso") and she later reported that the serenity was broken by a loud Australian voice shouting ¨You beauty!". Good times.
Today appears to be the start of some holiday, and it is marked by young men spraying young women in the street with water and perfumed foam. Mel made it to five pm before she caught some cheeky Ecuadoriano´s eye and received a spraying of her own. Perhaps I should have defended her honour but instead I laughed and took her photo. Does this mean we´re locals now?
Tonight we bus to the Amazon for five days. Another almost mythical location that I won´t be able to adequately describe. Google it or something.
We have loved Quito. In the daytime it is noisy and smelly but energetic, and a lot of walking over the past four days has revealed to me some interesting little touches. The traffic is dominated by clean electric buses and horribly polluting diesel buses, most decorated with a calligraphic name on the front (Garcia Moreno or Los Pueblos or some other patriotic name or slogan) and golden curtains along the windows. On one the Entrada (entry) and Salida (exit) signs were inexplicably written as if in blood, drips falling from the text like in vampire movie titles. The gulf of luxury between the worst bus and the best bus in town reflects the gulf between the poor eight year old shoe shine boy with the joyless look on his face in the main square to the opulence of president Rafael Correa´s residence (that he doesn´t even use) in the presidential palace. Another eight year old served us in the mini-mart we stopped at today, and one assumes that a crackdown on child labour is not imminent.
There are numerous delicacies available to buy on the street, my favourite being the man who scoops ice cream into cones and then inverts them onto an ice block, patiently rotating them so they don´t melt before they are bought. While crossing the road to buy such an ice cream one needs to be vigilant, because the cars are coming from the right and they don´t necessarily stop at red lights. Red lights appear to be just a suggestion to consider stopping, and the green man walking signal should be shaped like a figure shrugging, saying "by all means attempt to cross but don´t hold me responsible for the outcome". Roads and sidewalks are sometimes poorly demarcated, the colourful cobbled pattern of the path continuing onto the road, and as such I continue confidently onto the road in the same manner only to dance backwards at the sounding of a bus horn.
However, for the alert (and let´s face it, quite anxious) tourist it doesn´t really seem dangerous. Every person we have engaged with has been friendly and forgiving of shattered Spanish, although many have continued to speak Spanish very quickly to us long after it has been clearly established that we don´t understand. Today we stopped in at an innocent looking restaurant only to find the menu dominated by what appeared to be seafood. We were too exhausted to move, so bravely ordered as safely as we could manage. It is now five hours since I ate the fishiest soup in the world and followed up with a paella-esque rice dish laden with shellfish, and I´m yet to experience any ominous rumblings. Perhaps it will come four hours into the eight hour bus trip tonight.
Our Quito highlight has been La Capilla del Hombre, a gallery designed by major Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamin (if it sounds like I had heard of him before Wednesday, I have fooled you) and featuring only chosen works of his. I´m not sure how to write about art, except to say that I was very moved by his renderings of the human misery of the Potosi silver mines in Bolivia, and the shock of the killings and disappearances that followed Pinochet´s coup in Chile in 1973. One painting was dedicated to Pablo Neruda, providing a nice connection to our visit to his house in Santiago. Tucked away in a corner was a painting of Pinochet, painted chaotically with sharp teeth, covered in splashes of blood and hung from a real rope that extended down and around the figure´s neck. This hateful image contrasted uncomfortably with the obvious sympathy and humanity of every other work in the gallery.
Yesterday we drove and hiked up Volcan Cotopaxi, the second largest in the "Avenue of Volcanoes" streching south from Quito. I can´t properly describe how enourmous and intimidating this perfectly cone shaped mountain is but hopefully the photos will show it. Google it or something. We achieved an altitude of 5000m above sea level and touched the bottom of the ice that covers the summit. For this we paid a heavy price, arriving back at the hostel headache-y and nauseous, although this passed early enough in the evening for the following.
I have checked out of our hostel a hero after winning the trivia night. I was required to break a tie by catching a lime in a salad bowl. The fellow (English) from the other team almost missed the lime completely with his bowl, while my lime ricocheted from the bowl onto my person, being briefly caught between my wrist and my groin before being manouvered to it´s preferred destination and sweet victory. For this some other people received a voucher for a hostel near the above-mentioned volcano, and I got a free beer and was permitted to keep drinking it even after the hostel bar had closed. Mel was reading quietly in bed at the time (engagement in Spanish is "compromiso") and she later reported that the serenity was broken by a loud Australian voice shouting ¨You beauty!". Good times.
Today appears to be the start of some holiday, and it is marked by young men spraying young women in the street with water and perfumed foam. Mel made it to five pm before she caught some cheeky Ecuadoriano´s eye and received a spraying of her own. Perhaps I should have defended her honour but instead I laughed and took her photo. Does this mean we´re locals now?
Tonight we bus to the Amazon for five days. Another almost mythical location that I won´t be able to adequately describe. Google it or something.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Nueve de febrero
Hi readers,
I write from Quito, Ecuador, where we arrived yesterday from Santiago de Chile, um...Chile. All is well, except for very minor altitude sickness, probably more accurately called laziness with associated unfit-ness. As a result, blog time!
The exceptionally long flight got us as planned from Melbourne to Santiago within the alloted time frame, although an unusual confluence of bad luck and incompetence reduced our stopover in Los Angeles from five hours to about five minutes, necessitating some sprinting through terminals and judicious defiance of instructions from overwhelmed airport personnel. We had the pleasure of being passengers on the NEW, AMAZING Airbus A380 between Melbourne and LA, although all I can say for it is that it´s shiny and provides a dizzying choice of Simpsons episodes for in-flight viewing. While seated in economy one can take a virtual tour of the First Suites section, which seems pretty rad, although this was an empty experience as the First Suites sections pricing structure eliminates me from being allowed physically near it, let alone take a flight in there.
We arrived in Santiago at about 7am, and it immediately impressed as a more modern and developed city than we had imagined. Good public transport, nice buildings, terrible "river", pretty real and smelly markets, and many abandoned dogs (some quite healthy, some...less so). Santiagans seem to love kissing passionately in public, and to my mild surprise my attempts to immediately participate in this local custom were not totally rejected by Mel. Tragically Quito does not appear to encourage this kind of behaviour quite so much.
A highlight of our Santiago stay was a visit to poet Pablo Neruda´s house. My entire previous knowledge of Neruda was from a Simpsons episode where Lisa high-mindedly quotes Neruda to Bart, who wearily replies "I am familiar with the work of Pablo Neruda". And now, so am I. A little bit. Well, I bought a book after the tour. Neruda was a communist and as such did not fare well when Pinochet took over in 1973. In fact, he died of a heart attack 12 days after the coup many of his friends having "disappeared" in the ensuing days. This tour was a good source of 1973 coup goss, this being a subject I´m interested in but too scared to talk to Chilenos about.
Mel and I were separated on the flight from Santiago to Guayaquil and the Quito, and so I was a bit lonely sitting next to a taciturn lady reading some trash fiction in Spanish, and a broad shouldered chap constantly playing backgammon on his iPhone. At some point I glanced out the window and saw the Andes cutting through the blanket of cloud below. As the thrill passed I concentrated hard to avoid thinking about rugby players eating each other.
The flight took most of the day and we got to our hostel about 10pm. Just as I began to sulk about a lost day travelling and achieving nothing I arrived at the hostel deck which provided a magnificent view of the city of Quito, the buildings climbing the hills in a fantastic contrast to dead flat Santiago. Quito is at 2800m above sea level and even getting up to go to the toilet last night resulted in an unusually elevated heartbeat. After checking in I strolled up the street to a mini-mart and bought two bananas and a chocolate bar. After successfully deciphering the proprietors request for payment (setenta y cinco = seventy five cents) we parted with a mutual "¡Buenas noches!". As I stepped from the store a voice screamed through my head: HOLY SHIT, I´M IN FUCKING ECUADOR SPEAKING FUCKING SPANISH!!!!!! My excitement is hardly dimmed by the daytime realisation that this latter claim is stretching reality a little.
I write from Quito, Ecuador, where we arrived yesterday from Santiago de Chile, um...Chile. All is well, except for very minor altitude sickness, probably more accurately called laziness with associated unfit-ness. As a result, blog time!
The exceptionally long flight got us as planned from Melbourne to Santiago within the alloted time frame, although an unusual confluence of bad luck and incompetence reduced our stopover in Los Angeles from five hours to about five minutes, necessitating some sprinting through terminals and judicious defiance of instructions from overwhelmed airport personnel. We had the pleasure of being passengers on the NEW, AMAZING Airbus A380 between Melbourne and LA, although all I can say for it is that it´s shiny and provides a dizzying choice of Simpsons episodes for in-flight viewing. While seated in economy one can take a virtual tour of the First Suites section, which seems pretty rad, although this was an empty experience as the First Suites sections pricing structure eliminates me from being allowed physically near it, let alone take a flight in there.
We arrived in Santiago at about 7am, and it immediately impressed as a more modern and developed city than we had imagined. Good public transport, nice buildings, terrible "river", pretty real and smelly markets, and many abandoned dogs (some quite healthy, some...less so). Santiagans seem to love kissing passionately in public, and to my mild surprise my attempts to immediately participate in this local custom were not totally rejected by Mel. Tragically Quito does not appear to encourage this kind of behaviour quite so much.
A highlight of our Santiago stay was a visit to poet Pablo Neruda´s house. My entire previous knowledge of Neruda was from a Simpsons episode where Lisa high-mindedly quotes Neruda to Bart, who wearily replies "I am familiar with the work of Pablo Neruda". And now, so am I. A little bit. Well, I bought a book after the tour. Neruda was a communist and as such did not fare well when Pinochet took over in 1973. In fact, he died of a heart attack 12 days after the coup many of his friends having "disappeared" in the ensuing days. This tour was a good source of 1973 coup goss, this being a subject I´m interested in but too scared to talk to Chilenos about.
Mel and I were separated on the flight from Santiago to Guayaquil and the Quito, and so I was a bit lonely sitting next to a taciturn lady reading some trash fiction in Spanish, and a broad shouldered chap constantly playing backgammon on his iPhone. At some point I glanced out the window and saw the Andes cutting through the blanket of cloud below. As the thrill passed I concentrated hard to avoid thinking about rugby players eating each other.
The flight took most of the day and we got to our hostel about 10pm. Just as I began to sulk about a lost day travelling and achieving nothing I arrived at the hostel deck which provided a magnificent view of the city of Quito, the buildings climbing the hills in a fantastic contrast to dead flat Santiago. Quito is at 2800m above sea level and even getting up to go to the toilet last night resulted in an unusually elevated heartbeat. After checking in I strolled up the street to a mini-mart and bought two bananas and a chocolate bar. After successfully deciphering the proprietors request for payment (setenta y cinco = seventy five cents) we parted with a mutual "¡Buenas noches!". As I stepped from the store a voice screamed through my head: HOLY SHIT, I´M IN FUCKING ECUADOR SPEAKING FUCKING SPANISH!!!!!! My excitement is hardly dimmed by the daytime realisation that this latter claim is stretching reality a little.
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