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Published: November 15th 2006
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On the Road with the Dragon People Hi all, sorry it´s been a while since our last blog this trip is incredibly fast moving & getting time in an Internet cafe is almost impossible we are now in Lima for a couple of days so it´s blog time!
There´s a couple of things I´d like to tell you before I begin ... firstly everything you read about high altitude warns you about the effects on your breathing & it´s true the first walk we took in Quito had my heart beating so fast it felt like I´d run a marathon.What "they" don't warn you about is the effect it has on your bodily gases for the first week or so. I must have burped every five seconds & the are not small ones either quite embarrassing for such a demure English girl!
Secondly & then I´ll get on with the blog never EVER go for a wee in a sugar cane field. There are mosquitoes in there so evil, mean & so fast working that by the time you are done your face will look like the Elephant man & it will be uncomfortable to sit down for
the rest of the day.... actually the one thing I have learned so far is that if you´re in the jungle or anywhere else the little B******* like to hang out it is a really good idea to slather your bottom & the top of your legs with enough repellent to kill all the fish in Lake Titicaca!
right then on with the blog
Saturday 28th October onwards ..... Ecuador Quito We had our last breakfast on the roof top terrace @ the secret Garden. We had had a lovely time there. All the people were incredibly friendly but we were more than ready to move on & get out of Quito. So we hauled our ooooooh so heavy packs down the stairs & jumped into a cab to the modern area of Mariscal aka Gringolandia to meet our new trip mates. There are 13 of us on the trip all together Martin the Trip leader, And & I, Vicky, Nessie, Becky & Dave, Maggie, Kayleigh, (all from dear old Blighty,) Sarah from Scotland, Ben from Canada, Des & Lyn from Oz. We´re a funny old bunch but mostly we all get along
Otavalo
Traditional woman carrying stuff & are having a great time together.
Our first night together & last night in Quito was spent at an Irish bar which was having a Hawaiian night with waitresses in hula skirts handing out garlands ... (very authentic) then a Mongolian barbecue. Mariscal was buzzing with people that night. It felt as though we were in a different town. The next morning Martin introduced us to our truck "Rita" who he said was a bitch & gives him a lot of trouble. She must have heard him as she immediately got a flat tyre & we all had to wait for a couple of hours while he fixed it. Finally we were on our way out of Quito.
We drove to Mitad del Mundo to partake in cheesy fun at the equator museum .... I´ve heard about the water going the other way down a plug hole but it was still fun to see it. What amazed us more was when we were all lined up two meters from the equator & were told to hold our thumb & forefinger together as hard as we could. Our guide then went long the line trying to force our
fingers open with no success but when she did the same thing on the line of the equator all of our fingers came apart with no resistance .... very strange. Andrea also balanced an egg on a nail (I was so impressed!!!)
Otavalo We spent a day in the market town of Otavalo. Unfortunately the famous market takes place on a Saturday so we had well & truly missed it but there were still enough stalls in the market square for us to buy lovely warm Alpacha wool ponchos to keep us warm when our trip to hits the high Andes. In the afternoon the rest of the group took an organised tour around the area but as it was 15 dollars And & I decided we´d rather just go for a walk so we followed the railway tracks out of town in search of a waterfall. After a while we came to a river which a local lady had told us to follow up to the falls. What she hadn´t told us was that on one side of the river there was a beautifully constructed track all the way to the falls while the other side of
the river was little more that a sheep track through prickly bushes which would disappear into a muddy quagmire about halfway up. Bet you cant guess which track we took! We had quite an adventure I can tell you especially when we came face to face with a bull on our little track. By the time we realized we could get no further it had rained so hard that we were soaked so instead of back tracking along the path we opted to take of our boots a paddle across the torrent stream laughing like a pair of idiots. The falls were worth it & we were awarded for our efforts by meeting some delightful & photographic children & then got a lift back into town in the back of a pick up truck, local style. All in all a highly enjoyable day.
The next morning we had breakfast off the truck in the hotel garden. God knows what the other guests made of the bunch of scruffy Herberts frying egg outside their bedroom windows. Then we headed back into town to watch the a parade of what must have been every school kid in a two hundred mile
radius. The streets were lined with locals all trying to catch a glimpse of there little darlings who were dressed up in all there finery twirling batons or marching in their bands. I felt for one little girl with symbols I watched her for 5 minutes & she didn´t get to bash them once, she looked bored stiff ... that would have been me if we´d done such a parade at my school I´m sure of it!
When we had had enough of the parade we headed to local chemist to buy insect repellent for our upcoming jungle trip. In My best Spanish I tried to tell them that we were heading to the jungle town of Coca but what I managed to say was "Vamos a caca" ... we´re going to poo. We both got some very concerned looks until we managed to set the record straight. Then (& I´m still amazed at how this happened) we got stuck talking to an American Jehovah´s witness who managed to turn the conversation from mosquitoes to whether the miracles of nature were gods will. She had us trapped until she made the mistake of using the Galapagos as an example & we made our escape behind the shield of the theory of evolution ... thank you mister Darwin!
Papallacta The thermal springs of Papallacta are located high in the mountain tops of the Andes about a four hour drive from Otavallo. it´s a beautiful spot & it was our first time camping. We unloaded the truck put up our ancient scout camp style tents then headed straight into the springs. It was fantastic to lie in the pools as the sun went down steaming away our aches after a very bumpy ride in Rita. We almost had the whole place to ourselves which was good as there were more than a few screams when we introduced the other to the joys of the plunge pool. brrrrrrrr. After a dinner of sausage & mash cooked off the truck we sat around a campfire & had (more than) a couple of glasses of Clos (a cheap Chilean wine which comes in a carton but is surprisingly good) then And & I headed back into the springs until they closed at 11pm. We chose a different part of the baths & this time did have it to ourselves. The plunge pool for this section was actually in the river & my god it was colddddddddddd!!!!
Now over to Andrea who´s going to tell you about our time in the jungle .....
K x
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