Loja - so chilled out it was practically horizontal

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I think that leaving Arequipa marked a turning point in my travels. With only three or so weeks left, I felt that I wanted to start taking it easy and winding down my travels before my impending return. To that ended I decided to splurge on a stay in the Galapagos Islands before my flight home from Quito. However, this meant getting up to Ecuador pronto, and so in true road trip fashion "we've got a lot of driving to do!!”

I broke up the journey north for one day at the tiny desert oasis of Huacahina, in order to both watch the England match against Ecuador, and partake in some dune-buggying. I was really looking forward to Huacachina, as sand dunes and desert are one of the landscapes that I had never viewed on my travels and also, to me, sand dunes and desert implied scorching temperatures - something I was beginning to crave.

Unfortunately my arrival at the pleasant little oasis was a crushing disappointment - chilly and overcast with the taxi driver informing me that it gets very cold at night - d'oh!! So it was time to bust out the fleeces once again!!

Just a little aside on the taxis in Peru: as Huacachina was to prove to be almost my final stop in Peru, it also was one of the last times I got to take a Peruvian taxi. Everywhere I visited in Peru the taxis have been cheap, plentiful and have almost always been identical - the slightly comical Daewoo Tico, (no I’d never heard of one either). Anyway, this venerable little car is about as small, go-kart like and cheap as you could possibly imagine with build quality so shoddy that a collision with anything more substantial than a grasshopper would probably see it shearing open like a tin-can!! Despite all this obvious cheapness every single Tico has both electric front windows and air-con, (both of which I lack in the motor back home), - not that we ever got to feel the air-con in action as the penny pinching taxistas relied on an open window for cooling no matter what the midday temperature!! Also, Chris, Matt and I found that we could fit 3 hefty blokes and all our backpacks into one of these tardis-like contraptions without too much bother - leading to the phrase “tico-tastic” being bandied about with quite sad frequency (especially by me I have to admit!!). I may have viewed many great sites in Peru, but one of the enduring memories I know I’ll have is those bumpy rides in the back of all those Tico’s!!!

Anyway, back to Huacachina, and the dune buggying was an absolute riot. We were in a small group - just three of us plus the driver - and we simply took off onto the dunes in our buggy, which basically consisted of a tubular steel chassis, four tyres, four seats and a huge engine strapped to the back. For a couple of hours we sped around this amazing landscape, stopping occasionally at scenic points to take pictures or at especially steep dunes in order to try some sand boarding. Our driver didn’t spare the horses, and hooning down the very steepest dunes with your stomach approaching your chin was a huge amount of fun.

My plan post Huacachina was then to get to Loja in southern Ecuador, a small city where a friend from university, Julia, has been teaching English for the last 10 months. Thus, it was a simple task of traversing the northern two thirds of Peru and getting across to border to Loja - all in one stint. It turned out to be surprisingly easy, thanks to the wonders of the Pan-American Highway and three very comfortable buses of 5, 13 and 8 hours that saw me to my destination feeling remarkably refreshed.

The journey across the border was beautiful too. There were stunning views as we swept through the valleys, and at one point we had clouds above us, but were also looking down on a valley of cloud penetrated by peaks as if we were flying. It was a beautiful sight, even though it was viewed from a bus window.

Having come from Peru and Bolivia, (I think slightly to Julia's surprise) I found Loja incredibly westernised: one of the main things that struck me was that there had been parking spaces painted around the main square. Now this may not seem an exactly startling level of development, but it was something that I had not viewed for many months. To me the provision of parking spaces implied that there was a high enough ownership of private cars that parking spaces were required, (coming from Peru and Bolivia I had found very few private cars on the roads, (apart from Sucre), the locals seemed to either take taxis or public transport). Also, it implied that the society was “ordered” enough to respect the parking spaces - something that anyone who has seen the traffic around the main squares in other Andean countries would find very hard to believe.

Loja was a very pretty, easy going and relaxing place to spend a few days in. If the weather had been a bit hotter it would have been pretty much perfect, but as tends to be the case with me it was still a bit chilly and gloomy even though I was now virtually on the equator!! Because it was Julia’s final week in Loja before returning to the UK, there seemed to be any number of farewell parties to go to and quite inadvertently, (ahem!!), I managed to end up getting drunk pretty much every night I was there, which is never a terrible state of affairs!!

I headed out of Loja for a couple of days to the nearby village of Vilcabamba, where things were even more peaceful and tranquil - apart from the force nine gale that seemed to be blowing intermittently through the valley. I splashed out on a lovely cabaña, ate some of the most incredible food and devoted hefty portions of the day to reading in a sheltered hammock. The winding down and relaxing part of my travels was definitely coming into play!!

After Julia left Loja to begin her journey back to Blighty, I jumped on what will prove to be my final overnight bus journey. It was to the biggest city in Ecuador, the port of Guayaquil. I only had 24 hours there, but I had finally found what I had been looking for: (unlike U2 in the 80’s) blistering hot Sun that actually moistened my brow when walking, and the ability to be comfortable after sundown in nothing more than shorts ad a t-shirt!! Guayaquil used to have a reputation as one of the biggest holes on the planet, with a dirty crime ridden port and not much else. However, a flagship regeneration project known as the Malecon 2000, (reputedly the most successful regeneration project in South America), has transformed the 2.5 km long waterfront as well as the main downtown thoroughfare 9 de Octubre. I didn’t do much in Guayaquil; simply wandered through the Malecon and basked in the Sun, but I enjoyed it immensely.

It was in Guayaquil that I had a big change of heart regarding what to do for my final two weeks. I had been planning to fly to the Galapogas Islands and spend ten days relaxing there and seeing if I could get on a cruise. However, upon arrival in Guayaquil I could virtually taste the adventure and began to get very excited. Thus, when I got offered a Thailand-style “last minute special special more cheaper” price on a tourist class boat, (rather than the bargain basement economic class that I was expecting to find upon arrival in the islands), I decided to throw some money at it and the next day I was winging my way to the famous Galapogas Islands full of excitement and looking forward to viewing the incredible landscapes and wildlife all with the promised luxury of air conditioned cabins and hot showers!!!!

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Photos

Dune Buggy
The simple contraption that provided a lot of enjoyment!!

Huacachina
The oasis town of Huacachina - yes it really is that small!!

Sand Dunes
The landscape we went dune-buggying through.

Guayquil
The Malecon 2000 in guayquil - a millenium project to be proud of!!!