Quito to Iguazu

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Saturday 9th October

We arrived back in Quito yesterday and we are staying in the New town for a few days. Hotel Eugenia last night and Cayman Hostel for the next 2 days. It has a great garden and lounge room and the single beds we have become so accustomed too LOL. Brekky is great
too.....eggs any way you want them!!!
Have travelled up by Teleferico (Cable car) today to get a better view of the city. I cant believe how big Quito is - 50km in length through the valley. We cant see Mt Cotapaxi from here today as it is quite cloudy over the mountain, but we will see it first hand tomorrow as
Shane wants to go for a climb. Its 4810 metres to the base camp.
Soooo looking forward to THAT! :-)

Also visited Parque La Carolina and its Botanical gardens. As usual the parks here are amazing. Very interactive and this one even has a water way where they have paddle boats. Got a good giggle watching
a chubber and her friend with their two kids on the back trying to navigate the circuit. Needless to say the chubber wasnt doing much peddling at all and they were just going around in circles for ages.

Its quite lovely in the new town but its reputation as a dangerous city is increasing. The Mariscal Sucre neighbourhood,which is where we have ended up, is apparently very dangerous after dark. It is plagued by drugs, muggings, assaults and prostitution and the
city has only in the last couple of years taken even the most token steps to control it., and the police corruption that allows this to continue.
On our first morning here, we were approached by an addict who wanted money to help him go home to his family in the Esmereldas.
He told us a long story about how he was from the UK and was busted for smuggling 2 kg of heroin and spent 8 yrs in jail. He has a bag in one hand and a crack pipe in the other. I just wanted to keep moving. He didnt hassle us when we told him we didnt have any money though and he went on his way. Yeah, we all want to give our hard earned holiday dollars to drug smuggling junkies.
Lots of narrows little streets with huge trees lining the cobbled streets. It has rained here every afternoon since we came here, but its still quite humid.
We have had a call tonight from the guy who is taking us to Cotapaxi tomorrow. Apparently we are they only people going to Cotopaxi today with this agency so we will have our own guide. They also want to charge us and extra US$20 now because it is a private tour. Now I'm a little bit tired of being short changed and over charged in Ecuador. They pull this sort of shit all the time! So I ask Shane to call the agent back and tell him that we are not going if we have to pay an extra $20. We have a contract that says we are going for $120 and if they want more then we will cancel. And whats more, we didnt book a private tour.
Reluctantly, Shane calls and says "the wife doesnt want to go if we have to pay more". Thanks Sixto!
Make me out to be the tight arse!! LOL

As a result we are still going at the original price and the guide is collecting us at half 6 tomorrow morning. Guess that means we are missing our eggs for breakfast tomorrow.

Tuesday 11th October

Our guide Antonio collects us right on time at 6.30am. We drive the 2 hours to Cotopaxi National Park to climb to 4810 metres. It is part of the chain of volcanoes around the Pacific plate known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, and at 5897mtrs or 19,347 feet is the
second highest mountain in the country. Actually locals claim that if the mountains were all measured from the centre of the earth, that Cotapaxi would be the highest mountain in the world, as it is taller than Everest by several metres when they are both measured from the centre of the earth!
I must confess, the cark park is at 4500 metres, so we only have to climb to 4810 to get to base camp. I make the mistake of thinking I only have to walk a mere 300 metres more in distance. How on earth can that take over 1 hour???? I misunderstood. We had to walk a couple of kilometres to increase our ALTITUDE by 300 meters. Honestly, I never understood how climbers in high altitude took a few steps and had
to stop to catch a breath. I was lucky to go 100 steps and I could barely breathe. But we did it in 40 mins, which according to Antonio is very good. It can take up to 80 mins :-)
Shane is keen to walk another 300metres to the start of the glacier so he and Antonio can do that on their own. I can see the glacier perfectly well from where we are, and I can also taste the hot chocolate at the
table we are sitting at, so its a no brainer for me.

They return about an hour later. It has just started to hail lightly, and as we reach the car park again, the clouds roll in, the hail begins to pelt down and the mountain can no longer be seen.

We are so glad we left early this morning to get there early so as not to miss blue skies (despite my protests this morning). We end up driving back through a massive thunderstorm on , and it follows us all the way back to Quito where it stays until we leave for the airport.
Our flight to Iguazu Falls stops in Guayaquil to collect more passengers before we touch down in Buenos Aires tomorrow morning.
We will then have to get ourselves to the domestic terminal about an hour away, for our connection to Iguazu at 10.20am.


Wednesday 12th October

What a freaking nightmare last night!!

1. We waited an hour to get a taxi to the airport because of all the rain.
2. We have stacks of time to get to the airport - and then the taxi driver loses concentration talking to Shane and runs the front left hand side tire up on to the top of the concrete divider on the highway and down again. He has completely shredded the tire.
No problem right? Just change the tire and be on our way again right?
Um, no! This is Ecuador. This poor man doesnt know how to use the jack, so the taxi keeps slipping off the jack. Once the car is finally on the jack, he cant get the wheel off, then when the old wheel is off, he cant get the new wheel on. Shane tries to help him but he is so embarressed he tries to do it all on his own. I sit in the back quietly cursing to myself.
40 Minutes later and we are on our way. Poor man has to finish his taxi run now as he doesnt have a spare. We feel a bit for sorry for him really. Taxi's are cheap here so it takes alot of rides to have a profitable night.

3. Our flight is right on time from Quito. Our flight in Guayaquil is delayed for over one and a half hours!! Mechanical problems apparently. I begin to think about all the signs today that tell me we perhaps shoudnt be on this flight. Sixto just says, "oh well, when your times up, its up!" and closes his eyes and goes to sleep. Thanks darling xxx

As we are about to land in BA, the screen info tells us that it is now 8am in BA. We were told the time difference was 2 hours not 3, so we barely have a hope in hell of getting our connecting flight.
We havent even collected our bags or been through customs! We get to customs and the man says "where are your visas?".
We say, "we dont need visas, we're from Australia." He just points to another booth and says "Go and get a visa!". So we race to the booth and the girl says "You dont need a visa. You have a connecting flight. Go and show him your boarding passes for your connecting flight" So we race back again, and he says "You still
need a visa" So we go back again and she looks at us blankly and say "0h, you're going to Iguazu. Thats in Argentina. (no shit Sherlock!!!).You'll need a visa."
Christ Almighty - why is everything holding us up???
I explain we have already been in Argentina. We dont need a visa!!! Then she explains its a reciprocal fee we pay when we come to Argentina through an airport. You dont pay it when you come in on the bus.
"Then dont call it a visa! Its a bullshit US$100 fee per person. Its not a VISA!!"

That done, and our bags the last off the plane, we go to the taxi company in the vain hope that we can still make this next flight.
He says "no worries, it only takes 45 mins to the other airport and its only 7.45am. Plenty of time!" We look at each other. The airoplane had advised the landing time incorrectly! BA IS only 2 hours ahead.
Crisis averted!!


We arrive in Iguazu safely and check in to Garden Stone. My face cant hide the disappointment in our room. And we have to share a bathroom...ewwwww! The gardens are lovely though, as is the town.
We are just so grateful to have made it! It has rained most of the day and we are hoping its a better day for the falls tomorrow.


Thursday 13th October

It has poured all night and is still raining this morning. Despite this, we are getting the town bus to the falls. We could wait until tomorrow and hope the weather improves but we wouldnt have very much time as the bus back to BA takes off at two.
We don our coats and leave our bags behind. I have discovered that my wind proof jacket is not water proof. YAY! Good one!

Iguazu Falls are nothing short of amazing. They are breah taking and we would almost go as far as to say, they are up there with some of the most amazing things we have ever seen. It certainly deserves to win the number one natural wonders of the world!
This world heritage listed park is made up of sub tropical jungle, and I think we saw more animals in a day here than we did in 5 days in the Amazon!!
We have spent about 7 hrs here today. There are so many waterfalls to see and so many aspects from which to see them.
Due to the rain over the past few days, the currents are strong and the rivers running fast, and there is some talk that the Devils Throat aspect may be closed
tomorrow as there wont be any access the the ridges. Just as well we went today, sunshine or rain :-)
People talk about the amazing energy that you begin to feel as you walk about the falls. They are right. Its hard to put in to words but we both feel it... enlightened and enlivened by the power and sound of this amazing place.


Friday 14th October

We walked out to Tres Fronteras this morning before we leave Iguazu. This area is a tri border area along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where the Iguazú and Paraná rivers meet. So you can stand on the river banks in Argentina and the Brazilian and Paraguayan borders are on the other sides to the left
and right.
The bus is delayed by half an hour. Not a bad thing given that we cant check in to our apartment until 2 tomorrow.

We have booked Cama Suite - flat beds! YAY!! Well I did. Sixto complained that we could have slept in our seats, so I agreed and said he was welcome to travel on the cheaper bus if saving $20 was important to him, but that I was going to sleep flat with a pillow and blanket.
Guess who was sleeping right along side me?? Funny that!

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Photos

Quito
Lunch time

Parque Le Carolina
Because I could

Cotapaxi
start of the glacier

Iguazu Falls
Devils Throat