Blogs from Centre, Ecuador, South America - page 3

Un mot sur les bus avant de continuer de vous raconter nos aventures (ça va se corser!), on a BEAUCOUP pris le bus en Equateur, les distances sont longues et c'est le moyen de transport privilégié. Les terminaux dits terrestres sont bien organisés, ressemblent à des aéroports avec plein d'agences qui proposent chacune une destination différente en les criant a tue-tête, souvent même en les chantant. Dans les bus, c'est vraiment tout confort, sièges réclinables, clim et films à longueur de trajet sur écran géant, souvent du Bollywood doublé en Espagnol (pur bonheur), ou des monstres marins et autres films d'action américains de 10e catégorie! Apres la jungle donc, et une journée de repos/lessive bien méritée à Quito, nous prenons donc le bus pour le Cotopaxi, un volcan qui culmine a 5897m, 1m de plus que ... read more

You might have noticed a passing reference to El Nariz del Diablo in our last blog. WELL this amazing feat of engineering deserves at least a blog spot of its own and maybe more than one! In the late 1800s the Ecuadorian government decided to build a railway from Quito to Guayquil to link the two main areas of the country and stop every one fighting with everyone else. They started in Guayquil on the coast and proceeded splendidly through the coastal plain until they hit THE ANDES. The Andes are one heck of a obstacle and the railway ground to a halt and over the next few years began to be overgrown and abandoned. The story goes that an English born financier, Archer Harman, who had a brother John who was a civil engineer, was ... read more

Today was a first for me (Jan) when I was heard to pronounce that going up was easier than going down…...sounds a bit unlikely? Unlikely but true! Today was funny old day…..We left our hostel at 0630hrs in a cross country vehicle with 9 bikes on its roof and 8 people in the car- 2 Brazilian geologists (very useful when on a volcano), 2 Dutch youngsters, us, a driver and a guide. Our goal was Mount Chimborazo, which is the point on the earth that is nearest to the sun. It's not as tall as Everest at 6263m but because of the Equatorial bulge, it's actually furthest away from the centre of the earth and therefore nearest to the sun! Well we weren't trying to climb to the top (thank goodness) but we were dropped at ... read more

Our move to the Quilota Loop didn’t start well, when the taxi that was meant to take us to the correct bit of the hard shoulder of the Pan American highway for the Latacunga bus, failed to arrive. We leapt on the local bus and sped down the hill to the town of Otavalo where we jumped into a taxi and arrived at the aforementioned hard shoulder spot in time to wait for an hour and and half until we could get onto the right bus. (There was an earlier bus and we had got there first but there was no point arguing with a group of Ecuadorians who felt they had a right to get on the bus rather than us.) Luckily we were able to leave our stuff that we didn't need for the ... read more

Heute blieb Jan zuhause, währen Mathis, Margit und Ich einen Fahrradausflug machten. Wir mieteten in der Stadt 3 Fahrräder und fuhren dann an der Straße entlang in Richtung des großen Wasserfalls, an dem ich auch gestern schon gewesen war. Unterwegs fielen uns viele Gruppen von (vor allem Jungen) Leuten auf, die sich als Frauen oder als andere, oft gruselige Kreaturen verkleidet auf die Straße stellte, den Verkehr aufhielten und tanzten, vermutlich war das ein Silvesterbrauch. Bei einer Gruppe fuhr Margit auf die andere Straßenseite, weil sie dachte Sie würden sich ihr in den Weg stellen, und musste dann ihr Fahrrad über einen Grünstreifen auf ihre Straßenseite zurücktragen. Wir aßen unterwegs in einem kleinen Lokal Mittag, gegenüber war eine Orangenfarm. Nach dem Essen ging Margit sich kurz die Orangenfarm anschauen und kam gleich mit einem Sack voller ... read more