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Published: October 15th 2006
The Good Life Ecuador!
Hard at it at on the Voluntary Project. And to think we paid for this!(Apologies for the delay in this update!)
Saturday 23rd September 2006
Fantastic breakfast at the Magic Bean café in Quito, two huge pancakes with as much maple syrup as you want, and we both have large fresh fruit juices, oh yes!
We spent the morning visiting a few Galapagos travel agents for quotes for trips to the islands. Seems best to wait to try and get a late deal when we get back to Quito in three weeks. By late deal we hope they don’t mean on the back of a dodgy fishing boat!
We manage to blag our way into the best hotel in town with an outdoor pool and bar in the afternoon. Great place and good views of the city but as soon as we get into the pool the sun goes in and it clouds over, typical!
In the evening we head back to the hotel and finally meet up with the other nine members of our voluntary project who we are going to be traveling with around Ecuador with for the next three weeks; oh no! The tour leader, Elly, a New Zealander seems nice and a girl from Manchester is
Dee cutting some bamboo down to size!
Watch it sunshine, I´m an expert with one of these! fairly literate. Otherwise, we’ve not met a bigger bunch of misfits and social outcasts since I sat in with the Nottingham Forest fans at a home game (which they lost three nil to Sheffield Wednesday so it wasn’t all that bad!). Having very serious doubts about this but unfortunately we’ve already paid for the trip.
Elly tells us what the plan is for the trip. The first week is to be spent carrying out voluntary work at a nature reserve in the Alto Choco reserve in the cloud forest to the north of the country. We have two days in the town of Otavalo, then from there we have three days in the rain forest in a jungle lodge called Cotococha (fantastic!), we then spend the rest of the time visiting various other cities and parks throughout the country before returning to Quito on 9th October.
We have a big dinner and a couple of very large beers at a local Mexican in Quito worrying about what we’ve let ourselves in for!
Sunday 24th September
Breakfast at the hotel, not great as no free maple syrup!
We have our own bus for the next three
weeks on the tour which is a big relief. Even better is that it’s a large bus with enough space to get away from the other occupants!
Bus ride to Alterchoco takes about 5 hours with a couple of photo stops on the way. Strange having someone telling you what to do and where to go after a month of doing our own thing, panic starts to set in!
We have a chat with a few of the other members of the group. A nice lady from Jersey (who must be at least 65), a very loud Chinese Australian guy who seems permanently attached to his camera and seems to love telling you about his big lenses and battery life (Doesn’t have a girlfriend though, surprise surprise! ) an Asian lady involved in the testing for disease and possible termination of unborn fetuses from Cambridge. A vegetarian, non egg eating couple from Heaton Norris in Manchester, and a woman from Switzerland who looks like a psychopath dressed as a clown, what a mix! Should be some fireworks over the coming weeks!
We eventually arrive in the reserve in the late afternoon. Some fantastic views and hair-raising roads
Clearing the ground for reforestation
Clear the grass, save the trees.... or was it the other way round?! on the way! The last hour of the journey being spent in think cloud forest on a narrow road overlooking what appeared to be a bottomless abyss! How the driver saw anything is a mystery!
We have a quick dinner with the family who run the reserve. Milton the father, Anez his wife, their young son Robertito and two dogs. To say that the place is remote is a very large understatement! The nearest ´shop´ is over half an hour walk away, there is no electricity and the road is a dirt track. Some good news though is that the shop does sell beer!
From the family house it takes twenty minutes to walk up a path to the lodge where we are going to be staying. Luckily Milton´s jeep takes our large rucksacks and luggage up but still a steep climb.
The accommodation is, as expected, in very basic wooden huts with bunk beds. There are two toilets and a ´sometimes´ warm shower powered by a scary looking gas cylinder! There is a kitchen where Anez usually cooks the meals for everyone and an open sided barn with various machines, tools, safety gloves, rubber boots and
Here´s one a made earlier!
We thought we’d leave our mark on the local library with some homemade bricks!
p.s. We accept no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of these bricks!
other implements of hard work (shiver down my spine!)
Milton takes us on an evening walk through some of the forest to a lovely waterall. He explains that the lower area of the reserve, close to our huts, was a cattle farm for some years which totally destroyed the natural environment. He is trying, with the help of volunteer groups such as ours, to return the habitat to its original state.
Dinner back at the lodge where we meet some other volunteers who were at the reserve for two months (two months of no champion’s league football, madness!) Nice bunch from Holland and Denmark. Apparently there is also a German volunteer although luckily they´re away for a few days!
We sat round a camp fire after dinner chatting and getting to know the other volunteers and members of our group. Not actually all that bad, well not as bad as initially thought!
Bed early.
Monday 25th September - Friday 29th September
The week was fairly similar from day to day so wont bore you all with daily details!
Started with a great breakfast of homemade pancakes, fresh milk from two cows on the
Dee and daisy spending some quality time together!
Right you bugger, I want a milky coffee for my breakfast! reserve (Dee and I actually had a go at milking them one morning!), fruit juice from fruit on the reserve and coffee of tea.
The days were spent doing a wide range of manual work. The most interesting, rewarding and generally most dangerous being the chopping down the intrusive bamboo with wild swings of razor sharp machetes (my personal favourite!)
It appeared that the volunteers tried to get as close to other people as possible, preferably standing where no one could see each other, before swinging their machetes behind them and bringing them down in a wide ark with their eyes closed in an attempt to scythe the bamboo into space. Great fun but not sure what Health and Safety would have said! Or our travel insurance company!
The bamboo was taken to the lodge and shredded in a very loud and unsafe looking machine (perhaps brought over from Spain by the Conquistadors themselves!). The bamboo pulp was mixed with copious amounts of mud, which we had to dig and carry down from above the lodge in large sacks, with water from a leaking hose pipe! Then we all had to trample the mix together in a
Lunch time with the other volunteers
"Do pizza hut deliver to the cloud forest?" large pile for what seemed like hours before adding the muddy sludge to wooden blocks to make bricks. Milton explained that the bricks were to be used for the construction of a local library, (hope they bloody like reading!)
Other tasks included cutting down more bamboo (yer!) and using this with ´Tarzan´ vines to build fencing on the reserve, clearing thick grass and shrubs and then planting new trees on the reserve (much harder than it sounds, give me chopping bamboo anyday!) and making lettering for the sign for the library out of more bamboo mush and PVC glue!
We had an afternoon visiting some local thermal springs which was a nice break. Only our group and a large toad occùpying the various hot and cold pools!
Friday 29th September
After a morning spent building fencing and searching for ´dragon blood´ tree seedlings in the woods, we have a final lunch with the family and other volunteers. After this, Anez, Milton´s wife, gives us a presentation on how they make goods produced from dried and coloured twine collected from the leaves of local cacti. Dee ends up buying some ´essential´ goods including two hand bags and
The toilets at the voluntary project!
And to the rear of the property we find a DIY enthusiastics dream...
Friendly ´neigh´-bours too!! two place mats! All for the local cause of course!
After this we say our goodbyes to the family and other volunteers and make our weary way back down the hill to the bus.
Bus ride to Otavalo only takes about an hour.
Check into the hostel and everyone takes a well deserved shower.
As they haven’t supplied the cloud forest lodge with a dry cleaner, everyone has piles of washing to be done. Spent about an hour walking around the town looking for a launderette to no avail, they have all closed. We have dinner in a nice local café with everyone’s dirty washing lying around. The aroma of smelly pants and socks adding a nice touch to the evening’s atmosphere!
Take our opportunity to escape the group after this and head to an internet café.
Bed early ish - nice to have a proper bed with sheets rather than a sleeping bag with spiders!
Saturday 30th September
Breakfast at the hotel - omelets and coffee but no pancakes!
Otalavo has one of the best known street markets in South America and we head off into the town to risk
Making use of the facilities!
Good aspect to the master bathroom!! the crowds. Ends up not being as busy as we expected, maybe as it’s slightly off season or perhaps because we all headed back into town with our dirty washing once again!
The market fills the two main streets in the town, the main squares and all the side roads throughout the town. There is a huge range of products for sale from all types and colours of ponchos and other traditional clothes, beaded and silver jewelry, wooden goods, pots and pans, native North American head dresses (!), dodgy DVD´s and deep fried chicken feet, yum yum eh!
We could have spent a fortune (admittedly a fairly modest fortune!) but thankfully we didn’t take too much money with us. Dee got some great jewelery, some silk scarves and some more belts (again essential!). I purchased the essential Ecuador football shirt, very ropey copy but for 75p I wasn’t complaining! And we brought some great pictures by a local artist which I’m hoping won’t get totally ruined in my bag over the next few months!
Spot a nice looking café which we head to for some refuge from the bartering. Its run by a Belgian woman and her
Our Imaginative Traveller Group
Three weeks, three weeks, why oh why!!!! husband and she tells us they are having some live music that night. Sounds like a plan so we head back for a quick shower after picking up our now clean washing, yippee!
Head back to the Son y Luna café ready for the music to start at 8pm. We have still to remember that there is actual time and South American time! At half nine it finally gets going. Its one guy with a guitar and another with some maracas (the instruments your teacher gave to the special or difficult kid at junior school!). It’s actually really good and he plays some Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Chilean classics, we think! End up buying a CD of their music to ply to the rest of the group on the bus tomorrow.
Toward the end of the night the barman gives me a shot of a local brew. Not sure what it is or what it does to your sanity. He takes great pleasure in pointing out the dead black scorpion at the bottom of the bottle which is apparently put into the bottle alive!
Bed late after a good night.
Sunday 1st October
Breakfast at the
The view from the bus window in the cloud forest!
No I actually quite fancy the walk if you´ll just let me out here; please!!! hotel, good effort but no pancakes.
We catch the bus to the Cotochoca Amazon lodge at 8-30am.
Arrive at the lodge at 5pm after a long but very interesting drive. You can see the Amazon basin opening up in front of you and the type and density of forest changing throughout the day. See lots of plants which look like your typical British house plants but these are about the height of a house!
The lodge isn’t quite as remote as we expected, I had hoped to see Ray Mears sitting in a bush making a fire with some leaves and a praying mantis or David Attenborough getting excited about some monkey droppings in a near by tree! Still we manage to get the best cabin, right on the riverside with a balcony, warm shower and complementary shower cap, luxury!
We were actually expecting very basic accommodation but our cabin and the rest of the lodge are fantastic. We have a good look round to discover a restaurant, fully stocked bar (they have to bring ice daily from the local town!), lounge area with open fire and a maze of paths between the 17 individual cabins.
Tasty three course evening meal in the restaurant before a couple of beers by the fire with some of the local guides.
Each cabin is given two miner style lanterns which give a very romantic feel to the rooms, although they don’t actually help much with regards seeing and not tripping over your rucksacks!
Bed early
Monday 2nd October
Nice shower in the cabin with a lizard peering in through the wire mesh window.
Quick read on our balcony overlooking the river. The river is the Napo, a tributary of the Amazon. I would guess this tributary as being the width of the Thames at Tower Bridge!
Breakfast in the restaurant with the rest of the group (boo!). Then we don wellies, ponchos and insect repellant and head down to the riverbank to take a motorized canoe upstream for a waterfall walk.
Not the most stable of vessels the motorized canoe! Very long and thin and any movement from any of the 10 passengers made the boat rock wildly one way of the other. Sometimes the tops of the waves spilling into the boat! The driver had it all under control apparently!
Fantastic views of the local wildlife as we sped up river.
After about half an hour we arrived at the start of the walk. Very interesting walk and we see lots of BIG insects including millipedes, spiders and what must have been one of the worlds biggest ants! It could easily have picked up a log or two if it had wanted, well maybe!
The guide pointed out numerous plants and trees, explaining what medicinal properties they have (mostly aphrodisiacs it seemed!). He cut down a large cocoa pod and gave us the seeds inside to try.
The waterfall whilst very impressive, it was unfortunately masked by the huge deluge of rain which began falling just before we reached it! We had made the unfortunate decision to leave our ponchos in the boat and therefore got totally soaked!
It was quite amazing and scary to see how fast the level of water in the stream rose once the rain started falling. Rocks which had been 6 inches clear of the water were suddenly a foot under it. We nearly got caught the wrong side of the stream and Dee ended up helping the guide from falling
in!
We returned to the canoe and head slightly further upstream for a surprise. If we want to (or are stupid enough to want to!) we can ride on large rubber rings back down the river back to the lodge. Great idea! Most of the group takes the guide up on the opportunity, despite the biblical deluge of water we had just received, and carefully selected our rings.
After getting settled in the rings we all tried to group together into one big raft. Unfortunately I pushed a little too hard from the bank and went straight into the main flow of river and disappeared out of view in about five seconds, heading towards Brazil at great speed!
The rest of the group managed to stay together for a few seconds before being flung down the river too!
As the river banks and exotic foliage either side of me blurred into a mass of green, I realized I was heading straight for the rapids. Despite much frantic splashing of hands and feet, which only seemed to help turn my ring to face the wrong way, I went into the rapids! It was great fun, if
Amazon Rubber Festish Ball!
Last one in Brazil is a nut!
a little unnerving when whole trees with full foliage bobbed past!
Unfortunately after some big wave riding I managed to get myself stuck in an eddy about half way through the rapids and even with great effort, only succeeded in getting swept back to the same spot on the riverbank over and over again! Most of the other members of the group soon passed me by, staying out of the risky rapids.
Then out of the deep blue, I spotted something heading my way at breakneck speed and clearly out of control! No, not a log or unfortunate primate but Dee on her big black ring!
Luckily I managed one final push from the river bank and got myself back in the main current. Dee however, managed to get stuck in exactly the same place that I had, nearly getting flipped out of her ring in the process!
A few rapids later we made it back to the lodge. Dee arriving at the jetty stopping point whilst riding her ring in the middle of the river, some 200m from the correct bank! The guide made a quick rescue mission in the motorized canoe to save her
from ending up in the cooking pot of some undiscovered tribe in the middle of the Amazon!
We both had a great time but for some reason weren’t allowed another go!
Shower and drink on the balcony of our riverside cabin before dinner with the rest of the group to compare notes on aquatic monsters spotted earlier!
Couple of beers with the guides by the fire before another early night.
Tuesday 3rd October
Big breakfast in the lodge restaurant, neither of us are not too keen on the tree tomato juice though!
The group took the motorized canoe down river about an hour to firstly visit a butterfly park in Misahualli. We were told to watch out for the monkeys who hang round the town trying to steal anything from the tourists! The park was interesting and they are breeding some amazingly colored and huge butterflies. I was more interested in the massive beetles and tarantulas they also breed at the park!
We were allowed to enter the main pen where the butterflies fly round. They kept landing on everyone, apparently to have a feed on the salt from our sweat, nice!
Make sure you keep you feet facing downstream!
And make sure you don´t get too close to the river bank! After this we made our way further down river to an animal sanctuary, set up by a Swiss company to look after injured, abandoned or unwanted pets. Fantastic first few minutes as a large male monkey came swinging down the path towards the group! He hung from a branch above the path trying to grab hold or everyone and taking especial fondness to Dee! He took his chance and jumped from the vine to the path and straight up onto her leg, then onto her upper back, hanging on as she ran up the path for the safety of the guides! Very amusing if a little scary at the time!
We spent a couple of hours walking through the sanctuary, with a Danish guide and an ant eater for company! The sanctuary looked after all sorts of wildlife including several types of monkeys, parrots and toucans, capybaras (which used to run wild in the area where our lodge is), caiman, various wild cats and turtles. Got some great photos.
One of the earliest inhabitants of the park was a spider monkey. Unfortunately, some years ago he had gone a bit ape, (if you excuse the expression), and killed
10 other male monkeys before being put in isolation. He had then pulled the limbs off three other monkeys who had got too close to his pen. Not the best example of animal sanctuary!
We had a picnic lunch by the river on the way back up stream then onto a local community to see how they make ceramics and potent local brew, chicana. Very interesting and we all had a go with a blowpipe which the locals use for hunting. Didn’t get chance to try the local brew though which was a disappointment! We also saw how they pan for gold at the local river bank. It takes them one day to pan one gram of gold which they can sell for $11, looked very hard work!
We got back to the lodge at 6pm and had dinner before settling in round the fire with marshmallows heated over the fire on forks and spoons (one spoon actually ending up in the fire with marshmallows attached courtesy of Dee!)
I went with our guide Alfonso to have a look at a tarantula which lived on a tree close to one of the huts, thankfully not ours! Much
bigger and hairier than expected!! The guide had been bitten by one once and had spent several days in a serious condition in hospital. Didn’t take his lead and poke it with my fingers to ´get it going´!
Went back to our room to find a small green frog in the shower and a couple of big spiders trying to come in for a nightcap!
Wednesday 4th October
Early breakfast at 7-30am, more tomato tree juice!
Most of the day was spent in the bus to Cotopaxi Volcano and reserve. We stopped off for a lunch of local trout at a village near Banos (famous or its hot springs which unfortunately we didn’t visit due to the possibility of a volcanic eruption!)
We also stopped for a waterfall walk at a place called el pailon del Diablo, or the devils cauldron. Good views but with a very rickety, Indiana Jones style narrow bridge over the river gorge which swayed wildly when any more than three people were on it!
After this we drove on, passing the massive dried rivers of larvae from former eruptions of Tungqurahua volcano.
We eventually arrived at our hotel
Shared bathroom facilities with the locals
"If you don´t mind I was in the middle of shaving my legs!" near Cotopaxi at 6pm, nearly 10 hours spent on the bus, arrrgh!
The hotel was remote but cozy and called Cuello De Luna. Open fire in the room although the wet wood takes an age to get going. Unfortunately forgot to pack any meths to help!
Dinner at the hotel and bed quite early
Thursday 5th October
Early breakfast at 7am and head into a local town to see the livestock and fresh food market.
Hundreds of pigs, sheep, llamas and wild locals all creating a huge racket in a large outdoor area. Got some great photos of the animals and owners.
Head back to the hotel for lunch and a couple of hours reading in the sun outside our room, nice to be away from the squealing pigs and squawking locals!
In the afternoon we take the bus up to the Cotopaxi national park, up toward the volcano summit. We have a walk round a lagoon (actually a small muddy lake at 3,800m!) and see some wild horses and bulls on the way round.
Unfortunately the summit of Cotopaxi, 6,000m is under cloud.
Head back to the hotel for evening
meal and a couple of drinks by the fire.
Friday 6th October
Another early breakfast at 7am and no pancakes or cornflakes and cold milk (which were both craving!) in sight!
Spend another day on the bus heading for the city of Cuenca, the last stop in our tour.
Uneventful except for a stop at some interesting Inca ruins just north of Cuenca at Ingapirca. Typical Inca stone work but great views and good museum. There was a stone throne, called the Sillon del Inca (Inca´s chair) which I took the opportunity to sit on with a few catalogue poses! Actually much comfier than the seats on the bus, plus no piles of crumbs where the Ritz biscuits have spilt!
Two hours more on the bus and we arrive in Cuenca at 7pm and all very ready to get off the bus!
Lovely hotel called Posada del Angel with fully working shower, free shampoos and soaps and close to the centre of town. Perfect!
We all head to a local restaurant in the main square, Parque Caulderon. Good touristy food. A few of us then head to a nearby cafe recommended to us
by Danielle, one of Dee´s friends called Café Eucalyptus. Run by an English and Ecuatorian couple. Good atmosphere but very strong cocktails and a few too many for some of the group! Rather lengthy and windy walk back to the hotel!
Bed bit too late!
Saturday 7th October
Both woke up feeling a little jaded, (must have been the altitude and not the drinks last night, probably!)
Dee stays in bed for a few hours with a mix of a cold, flu (and maybe a little hangover!)
Explore some of the town and have a good look round the shops, nothing like some retail therapy!
Lovely cathedral in the main square with blue and white domes.
Meet up with the rest of the group (boo!) for a couple of non alcoholic drinks and some nibbles in a local bar. We then leave the group (yer!) and head to a local café for some simple dinner.
Bed early
Sunday 8th October
Get up shamefully late and head into town for some breakfast and some sightseeing.
Cuenca is a colonial city with some great buildings which we explore at leisure. Nice
Well hello young lady!
One of Denise’s admirers swung over for a quick chat before climbing up her back and onto her head! breakfast at a café overlooking the Parque Calderon square.
We then head to the obligatory Panama Hat factory (Panama hats actually come from Ecuador and are only called Panama hats because they used to be exported through the Panama canal!) Spend about two hours going round the museum and both trying on the multitude of hats they have! Great fun and some fantastic designs! Dee ends up with three hats, (just in case we get invited to a wedding or two in the near future) even though she was definately not going to even buy one!
Buy a fruit juice afterwards to recover and sit in the square. Lovely afternoon sunshine on the New Cathedral.
In the evening we head out with the group for a last meal at an Austrian run restaurant overlooking the river Tomebamba. I decide to push the boat out and try some exotic dish, hamburger and chips! Dee plums for a lovely local chicken dish.
Quick drink in a local bar with some of the group before bed.
We fly back to Quito tomorrow to hopefully book our Galapagos trip!!
Monday 9th October
Morning spent walking around
A Tucan at the jungle sanctary
You should see some of the birds they´ve got over there, and oh what outfits! the town looking for a nice café for breakfast. End up in a really Healderio or ice cream café. We enjoyed two large glasses of fresh fruit, yoghurt and squirty cream, lovely! Take a taxi to a mirador, view point, above Cuenca town in the early afternoon and visit a ceramics studio and workshop. Could have brought everything in there but unfortunate lack of space in our rucksacks due to earlier ´essential´ purchases!
Dee decides on a pedicure with a beautician but ends up with three bleeding toes; more like a butchers by the sounds of it! Still a bargain though at $3
Most of the shops are closed, for a change and we end up having a nice coffee and cake in a local café before making our way back to the hotel to catch the bus to Cuenca airport for our flight back to Quito.
Flight at 6-15pm and no problems! Only takes about 40 minutes and we catch a taxi in Quito back to our original hotel.
Last meal with the group at a great restaurant round the corner from the hotel called The Magic Bean. Large chicken and pineapple sandwich for me
Chilling our capybara style!
Here George, come and have a look at that human over there, needs a bloody good shave!! and a roasted vegetable kebab for Dee. Lovely!
Buy a couple of takes outs from the local off license and we have a good chat with some of the other group members until late.
Tuesday 10th October, Quito
Firstly, we make our way round several of the local hostels. The hotel we stayed in last night as part of the tour costs $36 per night. End up in the Amazonias hostel on the next street which is only $22. Only problem is the low ceiling on the stairs which I firstly got my bulging rucksack stuck on and then banged my head twice on, once going up the stairs and again coming down. Never learn! Oh, and also a rather obvious lack of any windows!
Our numerous bags safely stowed in the room we make our way onto the main road, Via Amazonias to search for the elusive bargain Galapagos trip! After several hours visiting various agents and using our highly honed bargaining skills, we agree to a week tour on the Angelito, a tourist superior boat (don’t you know!) leaving on the 15th October. Slightly later than we had wanted but otherwise the choices were
Leaf cutter ants in the sanctuary
Where did you want this love, it weighs a tonne?! limited to a small fishing boat with a one legged, one eyed captain with parrot or a suspicious looking budget class boat which looked like it had been to the bottom of the pacific on more than one occasion!
Evening meal in a local pizzeria (culture vultures that we are!) for pizza and crepes.
Wednesday 11th October
Breakfast at the café underneath the restaurant. Nice, no pancakes but big mug of tea hurrah Dee cries!
Stressful morning trying to sort out our letting agents in Manchester. We are still waiting for the rent for our house to be paid into our account. Their office monkey is absolutely no help! Apparently the manager has got himself a nice new BMW though!
Rest of the morning spent trying to get enough money out for the Galapagos trip from various cash machines in the city!
Afternoon we walk into the old town, ´oh it’s only a twenty minute walk´ takes an hour but some good shops on the way. Dee buys some new sunglasses, other ones now scratched so badly she can only see out of the right lense, and ten minutes later decides they’re wrong!
Turtles in the Amazon Animal Sanctuary
Well well well, three uglier animals I´ve never seen! And what are you looking at eh?! Long visit to a magnificent church called the Basilica overlooking the town. The building was begun towards the end of the 1890´s and was never really finished! I found this out whilst climbing up one the great towers and realising half way up a ladder that there was no floor on the level above! Some good views of the city, through the hammering rain and cloud!
Spent much longer at the Basilica than expected due to the torrential downpour, lack of coats, oh and that there was a great café and shop in one of the towers!!
Taxi back to the hotel in the early evening and we make our way to the Turtle Heads Brewery and Bar! A very British establishment where they brew there own beer, some more palatable the others, and make a great fish and chips. Get chatting to the owner, a Scot who used to import car parts from scrap merchants in the UK before it was banned. He then took over a former brothel and turned it into the Turtles Head! Good fun evening infront of open fire but no rugby on the TV. The wrong side of the Andies apparently!
Hunting Amazon style!
Your only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! Bed late
Thursday 12th October
Leisurely lie-in before a great breakfast at a German run Café Colibri. Fruit salad and big croissant , very German!
We decide not to spend any more time in Quito than we need to and search our South America travel guide to look for some inspiriting cultural opportunities.
Ten minutes later we find an inviting thermal spring just east of the city at a place called Papallacta, our type of culture! Quick check out of the hotel and we make our way to the bus terminal via a very expensive taxi; (mental note not to agree to ´just use the meter´ in dodgy South American taxis!
Take the 11am bus to Papallacta (just out of town) which actually takes two hours up winding dirt roads!
Arrive at the hostel we booked in the morning and make a hasty exit! The pool and small thermal baths within its grounds are closed for maintenance and the bedroom has a horrendous smell of damp and hairs all over the bed! Decide to make our way up the hill to the main ´posh´ spa and thermal springs which sound good in the guide
Local resident of number 17!
Hold it there Borris, hold it.... book!
We decide to stay in a small, cheaper and very quiet hostel just outside the main gates. After dropping our bags off, we head into the main complex.
We pay the princely sum of $6 to use the thermal baths and pools and its fantastic! There are six large pools which range in temperature from ´hot´ to ´bloody hell you could boil a bunny in there´ hot! We spend the next few hours jumping in and out of different pools and generally behaving like five year olds at Centre Parks!
Eventually settle and have a good read with our feet in one of the pools with a tasty instant Nescafe from the shop, fantastic!
We head back to the hostel in the early evening for a shower and spend some time enjoying the cable TV; all one channel of it!
We have our evening meal back up at the hot springs restaurant. Nice set meal with a litre of great Chilean wine! A local whole trout with almonds for Dee and chicken with stuffed red peppers for me. Yum! Spend an hour sitting by the open fire in the restaurant before we get the
Dee´s little friend who landed on her foot!
Dee get´s a quote for a pedicure from a local who´s knows a thing or two about feet! impression that the staff want to go to bed!
Bed late (but not as late as we had hoped for after spending some time by the open fire!)
Friday 13th October 2006
Not a very early start and we headed back up to the hot springs complex for a great breakfast, including pancakes! We decide to splash out and head to the spa for $15 each!
Worth every penny! The Spa has some even more fantastic hot pools in a breathtaking setting at the foot of the hills with hot steam rising over the whole complex. Humming birds buzz about the tropical plants as cascades of hot fresh water pour into the pools while nasty looking insects land in the water and get instantly cooked! Best of all, we are literally the only people there!
I decide on an hour long relaxing massage in the Spa building leaving Dee to her book in one of the cooler pools. What a great day!
We decide not to spend another night in Papallacta as we need to do some shopping before the Galapagos trip and so we get changed and manage to flag down the afternoon
And a resident on our doorstep!
No don´t be silly Dee, of course it´s made of rubber, give it a stroke! bus back to Quito.
Horrible bus journey with some very smelly locals who refuse to allow us to open the window to breath! (Take us back to the pools!)
We arrive back in Quito old town later afternoon and decide to stay at a hotel there for the night to allow us an ´early start´ to see more of the city. Check into a four star (wooooo) hotel just off one of the main squares. Manage to wangle a mini - suite (not sure how to be honest!) with a view over Santa Domingo Plaza.
Dinner of chicken and rice before heading to our ´suite´ to watch Rocky 3 on satellite TV!
Saturday 14th October
Rather disappointing American breakfast in the hotel. If most American people ate that breakfast every day, obesity in the US would be a thing of the past!
We head out into the old town and almost immediately it begins to rain, great! Make our way to the main square which is much more impressive than the guide book would have us believe. Very impressive colonial buildings including cathedral and town hall round some really well maintained gardens. Shame about
Friendlier Llama than those in Peru!
So whats a nice girl like you doing.... the rain though!
We spend some time visiting the Quito City Museum which has some modern, fancy displays but with no information on what the artifacts actually are, how old they are or where they came from! Still a great building with café.
Rest of the day spent visiting several churches and squares in the Old Town before we head back towards the New Town and the Amazonias hostel on a rather rapid and shakey electric trolley bus!
Get to the hostel and drop our bags off again! Then head to an English bookshop round the corner and buy a good guide to the Galapagos islands. Cant wait now!
Buy some more essential provisions including insect repellant, sun screen, wine, rum and chocolate! Due to the national election on Sunday (which is mandatory for all citizens) the shops and cafes are not really allowed to sell alcohol. However, we manage to persuade the shopkeeper that these are essential to our intrepid expedition and he agrees (the fact we were buying a few bottles may have helped!). Although we have to sneak the wine and rum back to the hostel in brown paper bags!
We head
Locals at Cotapaxi market
What a load of pigs! Like Brannigans on a Saturday! back to the Magic Bean café for a big late lunch and to have a look at the pretty pictures in our new Galapagos book! Dee had chicken and pineapple in pita bread and me chicken kebabs.
Very stuffed, we head back to the hotel to pack our bags for the flight to the Galapagos in the morning and to put a large bag of all sorts into storage!
Internet café early evening, which is where I am now, then we´re going to get an early night as the flight leaves at 6am tomorrow!
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Tom C
non-member comment
Haz - you cant resist getting a comment in about the migthy Forest (reds)! Great read first thing on a Monday and look forward to the next chapter. Have fun. Tom and Jo..