Mountain roller coaster

(very out of date entries from now on, i was too busy travelling)

After leaving Quito i headed straight for Riobamba. I had previously planned to visit Sasquilli, Baños and some other locations, but was running out of time for my meeting with Matthew in Cuenca. An overnight stop in Riobamba for a ride on the train called El Nariz Del Diablo (The Nose Of The Devil) wouldn't consume a lot of time. Already i had spent almost a month and a half in Ecuador and had a lot more countries to see.

The train ride involved getting up early and climbing on to the roof of the train carrying a padded cushion. It was cold and there were a lot of grumbling tourists and hawkers selling coffee. The first part of the train ride was picturesque and serene, with lots of local kids expecting handouts of candy to be thrown off the train to help rot their already rotting teeth. I stood up on the roof like the conductors for a little while, the conductors made it look really easy but it was difficult. Further along the route became so steep we needed to use the switchbacks by changing the direction of travel back and forth as we descended into the valley.

At the end of the trip i met a bloke from NZ named Joe. We waited about for a later bus and were jammed in standing for the first couple of hours, the only tourists on board. I was further back so i (by fact it was too hard to change positions) got the first seat, only 3 more hours to go... I sat next to a Peruvian who could not speak any English, but i managed to have my very first "conversation" in Spanish (Castellano to be more correct since there are several languages in Spain). I was quite proud of myself.

Found some cheap accommodation in Cuenca, sent an email to Matt to let him know i was there since we were to meet here, went out for some drinks. Cuencans are a friendly bunch, the first three nights we went out drinking we encountered locals that were very willing to share their drinks and show us around various establishments. At first we were careful in case any of the shared drink being drugged, but we didn't get sleepy from the first sips and they were obviously drinking harder from the same bottle, so we relaxed somewhat. Cuenca is probably the prettiest large city in all of Ecuador with a large old quarter with cobble stone streets and very pretty domed churches. From Cuenca we did a daytrip to a place called Ingapirca, the first Inca ruins i would visit in South America.

Left Joe behind and went to spend a night in Loja since we had met 2 girls in Cuenca who studied here. From there to Vilcabamba and it's beautiful valley and ridged mountains and psychaedelic cacti, oh, and it's also called the Valley of Longevity 'cause everybody here supposedly lives to around 100 years of age, there's a picture of some old fella that is torted to all the tourists on mugs and coasters and everything else, to strengthen this reputation i guess. Moved into a resort hostal just out of town which supplied bikes so you could get down to town, then load up the bikes into a taxi-ute to get back since it was all up hill for 2 kms. Met Matthias at the hostel who would join us for our 2 primary reasons for coming to this town, the 1 night trip in a San Pedro cacti ceremony and the 4 day trip in the mountains.

The day before the ceremony we had our last heavy meal at lunch and only fruit and salad for dinner because the compounds in the cacti react uncomfortably and less psychaedelically with solids in the digestive system. Woke up hungry, drank some fruit juice, went shopping for ceremonial supplies, drank water like a fish while pretending it was a meal, survived the day somehow... whew!

We had two extra ceremonial participants, he (G, a German) was going to consume the drink while she (V, his Columbian girlfriend) would not consume. I'd heard some bad (and good) stories of Columbian girlfriends and made sure i was comfortable with the security of my personal items, i was comfortable, so i relaxed after that. V was shapely and it was easy to see that G was rather possessive of her, also he boasted of being a dive instructor who countered his marijuana intake with cocaine before diving. So he was a little wierd but we didn't worry too much since Matt, Matthias and myself knew each other well enough to do this kind of thing together. The ceremony involved some smoke blown and rattles shaken over us all (including non-consumers) and then we drank some of the concoction.

Then at around 9pm we sat around the fire and relaxed in our shamaness-recommended-silence-till-near-dawn wait since it normally takes 2+ hours to activate in the system once consumed, though once it starts it is active for near 10 hours. Kind of meditated, then shifted around uncomfortably as the physical effects of the mixture began, sometimes laying down, sitting, standing. Around 11pm it became difficult to tell if the fireflies were as many as it seemed there were, there were some before since they are common in this part of the world. Towards midnight as i closed my eyes i started to become entranced by mild visions.

At various times, all i would want to do is sit or lay near the fire mulling over things in my head or while mild cramps would pass. Other times, i would get up and wander outside the fire circle to go exploring the 10m2 yard in fascination at small and large details i found. Some time later in the night (maybe around 1-2am it seemed) our shamaness offerred us another cup of mixture each, Matthias declined, but the rest of us accepted a small serving. Things continued quietly as before for a while with various halucinations, aural and visual.

Then i laid down for a couple of hours and maybe passed out while it was still dark and dreamed some very vivid and strange dreams. I roused as the dawn light was breaking, G was laying with V and the Matts were talking quietly out in the horse paddock enjoying the view, they giggled occassionally. I was not sure if i wanted to try exploring outside the yard yet. The hallucinations were coming much stronger now and everything was more surreal.

Then Pepi, the large resident macaw, woke up! The following description happened within the space of 30 seconds... his cage cover came off, cage opened, quick stride across the porch, up a tree, across a rope to another tree, further up that tree, out on a limb, massive squirt shit expertly aimed deep into a ground hugging succulent plant below already covered with many examples of previous morning's ablutions. He then faced away and proceeded to stretch his beautiful wings while looking over his shoulder to make sure we were watching, he would alternate this with another pose where he would stand on one foot and slowly grasp the air in front of himself while talking or one other pose which was very much like a bodybuilder's full frontal neck-pecs-down-arms flex. We couldn't help but laugh our heads off.

A few hours later we were getting ready to perform a finishing/thankyou ceremony but G was acting a little strange with possibly some paranoia. Our shamaness at one point came over and quietly told us that G had a problem with her being a strong female leading the ceremony, though i think this was a bad move on her part as it may have increased his paranoia as she could have been "conspiring" with us in his eyes. Anyway, the situation came to a boil when G almost seemed ready to come to the ceremony and he freaked and grabbed a machette from under the porch and started waving it about. What the golly-damnation are they keeping a machette near people on halucinogens for anyway! Thankfully the shamaness' partner and Matthew were close enough that the swings were ineffectual and they were able to subdue him quickly. Matthias and i were too far away, both metaphasically and physically to help at that stage, and i was unable to determine whether the incident was done for a bit of show since it was all very surreal in the state i was in.

From there the situation calmed and we finished the ceremony and slowly headed towards a solid meal and our hostel. The next day we prepared for the trek and caught a taxi to the trailhead in the Podocarpus National Park and the refuge located there. Had the best dinner we expected to have for a few days and crashed early.

The trek was mostly uneventful but a very beautiful location to go hiking in. Some points of note: it was bloody hard work since the trail started around 3000m and ascended peaks up to 3600m, but always going up or down 200-300m between each peak. We lost Matt's gas bottle for the stove near the lakes as we broke through scrub and bamboo forest believing we were on the trail when we weren't, it was near dusk and beginning to rain, but i took my torch and went to have a quick look unsuccessfully while the others set up camp. So we ate cold food and drank 2 bottles of wine between the three of us to keep warm since we were soaked, this didn't agree with Matthew who decided to waste the perfectly good wine. On the last day we had to descend a ridge all the way down to a town to find transport and the micro climates changed so dramatically that it was hard to find a stream to filter water from and we narrowly avoided minor dehydration.

Then spent another day or so back at the hostel relaxing and planning the next leg of our trip. This involved crossing the border from Ecuador into Peru on the road less travelled, an inland route that rarely sees tourists and up until recently had been under dispute between the 2 countries. The route is not even shown on many maps, it passes from Vilcabamba to Zumba (a great place to get a serious food poisoning, Matt found out), the Ecuadorian military border town, from where you need to catch an open air truck-bus to the border at the river, proceed through formalities and find a car-taxi (that has a great opportunity to overcharge) to the nearest civilization, San Ignacio, where a regular minivan bus is available to travel to Jaen, the nearest city in Peru.

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