Passing Through Ecuador

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I got to Quito at friday evening, and went to the
house of Isabel, my couchsurfing host, who lives in
the north of the city (far from the center). After a
while a found out that the Habad house is actually
quite close to her house (actually, the only thing in
the city that is close to her house...), so I hopped
by. They were at the end of Arvit when I got there, so
I stayed a while for the Shabbat dinner and to ask
about when to get there tomorrow for the seder, and
then went back to the house to meet Isa (before she
wasn't home and I only met her mother and other family
members...). So me and Isa went out to the New City
(Quito's nightlife and tourists area), we sat at some
bar and then walked around, and I randomly met in the
street Baska (my CS Polish friend from BsAs), we
talked a little but she was just about to go back
home, and 2 minutes later I randomly met Lara, my
German friend from the hostel in Rio (I knew that she
is in Quito studying Spanish, but it was still
surprising to see her at the street), so we went out
with Lara and her friend from the Spanish School to a
club which was nice.
The next day I went to meet Lara, but she was sick, so
I walked around the New City a little (quite boring
during the day), saw some parks and mainly emptied my
mail after 10 days almost without internet. I went
back to the north and came to the Habad house just in
time - about 5 minutes before we started with Arvit.
The Seder Pesaj was pretty nice and intimate, we were
about 40-50 ppl around one table (some I knew from the
Shabbat dinner), we read the Hagada (pretty slowly,
Habad style...), sang, ate, drank, the usual stuff...
The next day I walked around the city's historic
center, which is, like every colonial city around
here, full of nice old buildings, churches and plazas
- basically the only nice part of Quito, in my
opinion. Then I met Lara at her school and we went
with one of her friends to the New City. There I
randomly met Thomas, the German guy I travelled
through Bolivia with, so we sat down with him and his
friends, caught up, ate, drank and went each to his
separate way.
The next day I went with 2 guys I met at the seder to
Laguna Quilotoa - a nice lagoon inside the crater of a
volcano. We took 2 buses and a pick-up to get there,
looked at it from the top for a while and I also went
down the crater (the lagoon was really nice from up
close, but it was a very difficult climb back...). We
got back the same way, and after eating I went back
home.
The next day I did some arrangements at the New City,
and then wanted to go up a cable car that goes on a
mountain with nice views near the city, but
appearantly nobody in Quito, including the bus
terminal, knows where and when the bus that goes to
the cable car go through, so about an hour or 2 before
dark I (quite angrily) gave up and went to Lara's
school. We went out with some of her friends drinking
and dancing (my last night in the city, her
almost-last) and said goodbye. The next day I went to
the cable car, but the whole mountain was one big
cloud, so I gave up on going up and instead took a
ride on 2 of the rides in the amusement park that was
under the cable car (a small rollercoaster and a
private ride on a sort-of-wheel, so the bored operator
gave me an extra long and crazy one...). Then I went
back home, took my stuff and got the bus to Baños.
It is a very nice little town (finally everything is
in walking distance and I don't have to take inner
city buses for hours like in Quito) and I was staying
at a very nice Israeli hostel with great brakfasts and
free internet (that isn't always busy!). The area
around Baños is gorgeous and full of waterfalls (I
love waterfalls!), and on my second day there (arrived
at the evening) I went on a tour through some
waterfalls with an open truck-bus. We (most of the
group was an Ecuadorian young theatre group from
Tulcan that had a lot of energy) drove through (!) and
near some beautiful waterfalls and scary tunnels, I
did sort-of-bungee from a bridge on the way (jumping
head-down is quite scary, but it was definately fun),
we took a cable car near one of the falls and to the
last falls we walked down and saw (and felt) from very
close and then went into the water. Overall - lots of
fun. On the way back I left the truck to walk to
another waterfall, on the way there I met a bunch of
guys from the hostel that did the same route with
bycicles, we walked there together and then I took the
bus back. This day was a lot of fun...
On the next day me and Nir, another guy from the
hostel, went on a 3 day trip to the jungle with Eloy,
a guide that works with the hostel that has
connections with one if the indigenous communities
that lives there. So we took a bus to the next town,
stayed there for a while, and then went with a pick-up
to where we started our trip. We put on our backpacks
and started walking, quite fast, and through the very
muddy ground of the jungle. It was quite hard, and
since forests are not really one of my favourite
views, I didn't really enjoy it. When we got to the
river it was too high to cross, so instead of spending
the night at the cabin of one of the locals we opened
a tent and slept in the forest. The next morning we
met the local guy that guided us and hosted us for the
day - walking around the forest with him was more fun
because, unlike Eloy, he walked with us and not far
away from us and explained about different plants that
grow in the forest and their use. We also went to his
mother's house (the old woman and her husband live
alone in the middle of the forest), but she wasn't
there. Then we went to his house, where Eloy waited
for us, and then we walked some more with him - we
basically wanted to visit another family, but it was
time to get back because of the sunset before we got
anywhere (although Eloy had no problem to keep
walking), and Eloy was running away from us the whole
way and my feet hurt (big blisters...), so the whole
experience wasn't fun. The night was even worse, as me
and Nir didn't feel very good and spent most of the
evening puking. Nir woke up ok, I woke up with my
blisters and a bit of a stomach ach, so the walk back
was really painful and annoying for me and I only
wanted the whole thing to end, and Eloy again always
walked away from us and kept annoying us (him and Nir
werw arguing with each other over most of the last 2
days...). Before the end of the trip we got to a
village where some of the native ppl live and got to
meet some of them and rest there, and then took the
bus back. To sum it up, we didn't really get the
insight that we wanted to the lives of the natives,
and I really didn't enjoy most of the trip (I was on
the verge of a nervous breakdown from the pain during
the last day).
I got back to Baños falling apart, did some
arrangements, went to sleep and woke up almost like a
new person. At noon I went to do Canyoning ('snapling
mapalim') with another 2 girls (Ecuadorian and
german). We put on the special suit and gear, drove a
little with a jeep, walked a little and got to the
first waterfall of the canyon. The first one was a
small practice waterfall, afterwards we went down
another waterfall, rapeling through the water - this
was actually the hardest one to go down, and I hit my
arm a little bit and got wet and cold from the water.
Then we rapeled through 2 bigger waterfalls and some
smaller ones (but mostly not straight through the
water). Me and the German started getting the hang of
it, going a little faster and enjoying it more (and
not hurting myself any more...) , and waiting for the
Ecuadorian that was still afraid in the last one...
The last waterfall we slid down on our butts. Overall
very entertaining couple of hours. Actually, I really
enjoyed my time in Baños, it is a very nice and
relaxing town in a really beautiful area, and the
hostel had a really good atmosphere and nice views of
the church (that had really cool lighting at night)
and the town's waterfall. It was the only place in my
short stay in Ecuador that I really liked.
The next morning I slowly woke up and arranged my
stuff, and took 2 buses until the Colombian border. I
got there quite late and didn't want to cross it at
night, so I slept at Tulcan, the city at the
Ecuadorian side (just slept and ate - even the
internet was closed when I got there). The bus rides
in Ecuador actually had the best bus views in my trip
so far - the whole country is green and beautiful
waterfalls and rivers randomly appear in the middle of
the road (actually Colombia is like that too until
now), and besides the usual green mountains, every
once in a while a huge snow-capped volcano appears at
the side of the road, and the sky where also very nice
with cool cloud patterns and many colors at the
sunset.
At Wensday morning I crossed the border, and after
(unwillingly) wandering around a little in the town in
the Colombian side (changing money, going back to the
border to stamp the passport...), I took a 12 hour bus
to Cali, and again spent the whole day on the bus. I
got here at night to my couchsurfing host's house -
Yonatan has been to Israel before volunteering in a
Kibbutz, and his family is a really warm Jewish family
(well... technically not really, but they are at
heart) that really make their best to make me enjoy my
stay here.
Today I went to San Cipriano, a really nice town close
to the beach, that you go to through a motorcycle that
drives on a railroad (well you go on a
wooden-sort-of-cart that is connected to themotorcycle
- pretty cool). It has a very tropical feel and some
nice river beaches, but the bus ride to there was
quite long and since I was there on my own I got bored
pretty quickly.
So I will stay here in Cali another day or 2, I guess,
and then will move on. I have less tahn 3 weeks to see
Colombia, and then I am finally coming back home.

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