Advertisement
Published: June 22nd 2007
From the fresh chilly air in the heights of La Paz, Bolivia, we set off for a mammoth bus journey to tropical Ecuador. The distance between La Paz and Lima, as the crow flies, is 1,061 km. A further 1335 km to Ecuador really tested our travel-exhausted bodies. As always, there are bad bus companies and good ones. We managed to find some of the worst. In all, we spent roughly 71 hours commuting from La Paz, to Baños, Ecuador. The stops in between were worth the travel.
We broke up the La Paz - Lima trip with a stop in Arequipa. One of our favourite stops in Peru, the laid back vibe, stunning landscapes and quality wine made it an easy choice for a few nights rest.
Feeling refreshed, a few days later we pushed on through to Lima on an overnight bus. Not wanting to spend any more time than we needed to in Lima, we boarded the first available bus to Trujillo. Being a coastal town, we were looking forward to getting our gear off and having a dip. But Trujillo is no Surfers Paradise!
Set in a valley in the desert, the centre
itself felt very unsafe. It was dirty, run down, and the constant fog over the entire city contributed to an already unpleasant appearance . Our hotel on the other hand was very much the opposite. Warm and welcoming, besides the bars on the windows and 24 hour security guard. We would sit at the dinner table and eat with the old Irish owner as if we were sitting at our grandparents house. It was lovely and felt worlds away from the city outside.
They took us on a guided day tour of Chan Chan, one of the largest pre-Colonial city's in the world. The Chimor built Chan Chan around 700 AD, before being conquered by the Inca's somewhere in the 15th century. We were taken to 4 sites around the impressive mud city, including the heavily excavated Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Here, we were shown near perfect scluptures and carvings, believed to be better preserved then anywhere else in the world.
Keen to continue our journey north, we had heard many great things about Mancora, so we made that our next stop. A tiny beach town close to the Ecuadorian border, we were pounced on at
the bus station by annoying taxi drivers trying to persuade us to stay at their hotel. We made the right choice, and enjoyed 3 days in the sun, surf and sand. The seafood was divine, and the Spanish to English translations on the menu were hilarious. Our favourite, "Lobster of the Natural one." Hmmm?
A full day of travelling got us over the border and we arrived late at night in Cuenca. A typical Colonial town, it is apparently much more peaceful, safer and cheaper then Quito. Unfortunately, we were greeted with endless rain that stayed with us until our departure. Although we were unable to view the magnificent cliffs and volcano's surrounding the area, we didn't let the rain stop us from seeing the many churches, museums and other sights in the city.
Moving on to Puerto Lopez proved much more difficult then we thought it would be. We caught an early morning bus from Cuenca to Guayaquil, the country's largest and most unattractive city, where we were dropped off on the side of the road. After a lengthy amount of time, we finally found the bus station, and caught a bus to Jipijapa, where we were
Baños, Ecuador
Awesome shot from the waterfalls. told there would be a connecting bus waiting for us to go to Pto. Lopez. There was no such bus, and we were left stranded in this tiny little town. Thankfully, after 2 hours sitting on the side of the road, at 10pm, a lovely local family helped us out, and organised a spot in their van for the hour and a half trip to the coast. They spoke as much English as we did Spanish, so the conversations were interesting, but we are forever grateful for their help and have no idea what we would have done if they hadn't come along.
Safe in Puerto Lopez, the next morning we organised a trip to Isla la Plata to hopefully see the humpback whales, the main reason we came to the coast. Every year in June, the whales come to the warmer waters of Columbia and Ecuador to breed and give birth to their young. There were no guarantees of a sighting.
The hour boat trip to the island resulted in nothing, but once on the island, we were treated to a 4 hour walk to see the thousands of birds that nest here. We saw the Red-Billed
Arequipa, Peru
This man alone is one of the highlights in Arequipa, but you need to meet him to understand why. SHOE LACES! Tropic bird and the Magnificent Frigate bird. There were also many Blue-footed Boobies, Red-footed Boobies, Masked boobies and the Nazca Booby. There were a lot of Boobies.
On the return trip, we were disappointed we hadn't seen any whales, and wondering how we would explain it in the blog, when the tour guide spotted a group of 4 right in front of us. The boats aren't allowed within 100 metres, so we cut the engines at a safe distance. But the whales popped up only 30 metres away, and Lia was able to snap an awesome photo. They are very acrobatic creatures, and the males often breach out of the water to impress the females. We only got a few slaps of the tail and that was it. A massive shark thrashing about in the water next to the boat gave everyone a bit of a scare, until Lia and the guide pointed out that it was a marlin... 4 metres long!
We moved on, still a tad disappointed they didn't put on a better show for us, when in the distance we spotted a whale breaching right out of the water. It breached several times and we
Trujillo, Peru
The historic site of Chan Chan. captured one on photo, but to see it with our own eyes was one of the most amazing natural spectacles. Unbelievable!
A couple more days in the sun and we moved on to Baños, via Quito. The overnight bus was a shocker. They turned the lights out at midnight, but kept the terrible music playing at full ball. At 3am, we'd had enough, so asked the driver to turn it down. He did, and when back in our seat, he turned it up louder for the remainder of the bus ride. We caught the bus from Quito to Baños and arrived very grumpy and weary that morning.
Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot to do in Baños, so we filled our days with boring activities like white-water rafting, canyoning, hiking, horse riding and quad bike riding.
No seriously, this town is the best. It's very small, with beautiful parks, the food is fantastic, the people are awesome and it's surrounded by mountains, rivers, waterfalls and hot springs. It also sits at the base of the Tungurahua Volcano, which last erupted only 6 months ago. We still haven't been able to see it because of the thick clouds
Trujillo, Peru
Pyramid of the Sun, from atop Pyramid of the Moon. Mud city ruins in the foreground. hovering above the city. Each of us picked 2 activities each. Canyoning and rafting for Ryan, and horse riding and quad-bike riding for Lia, who would later also add massage and facial to her list.
Because there's been so much rain, the white-water rafting was more like chocolate-water rafting, which made it harder to see rocks and meant Lia had to wash her hair again. She wasn't happy. It was grade III to III+, and while it was awesome fun, twice we had to rescue the guide in the kayak, which took up a lot of time. Only one doofus fell out (guess who?), but we didn't get a photo cause the photographer was retrieving the kayak of the guide we rescued. Shattered. Sadly, not everyone made it back to the car safely, and an elderly gentlemen in the group behind us collapsed and fell unconscious after the rafting and was rushed to hospital. He didn't look very healthy at all, so we hope he made it through.
We had already planned our canyoning, and set off straight after the rapids to the waterfalls. For those who don't know what canyoning is, it is ab-sailing down waterfalls. Stupid,
Trujillo, Peru
The Peruvian hairless dog. This is one from the wild. I know, but it turned out to be awesome fun. The water was freezing, which Lia hated. The largest waterfall was 41 metres high and Lia still did it after saying she wasn't going to. Everyone back home should be very proud of her.
The next day we set off on a leisurely horse ride through the countryside of Baños. It was great fun, and we stopped at various points to take photos of waterfalls and the city itself. 4 hours on the back of a horse was probably a bit too much though.
It has been raining heavily since last night and continued today. We were not going to go quad biking but we decided to brave the muddy tracks and torrential downpour. We had a great time whizzing around the mountain side getting extremely dirty. Tomorrow we might push on, find some dodgy bus company to continue our journey to Quito, then Columbia and hopefully make it to Panama City for some dudes 26th Birthday next week.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0537s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
farley
non-member comment
i hate you
no fair no fair no fair no fair i wish i was having crazy adventures. keep up the good work, your blog gets me through the day. be good you crazy kids!