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Published: April 9th 2008
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My second last country is the second smallest in my trip, Ecuador. I didn't take the most crossed border in the North west of Peru(Tumbes) this because of my travel 'buddy' in the Peruvian jungle and the amount of robberies and/or scams at this crossing.
Few stories I heard and which are prove that they, in a weird way, nice: * If they rob your belongings they will give you back you memory card of your camera * They will ask you if you want to fight them or just pay them
So I crossed over somewhere else, no problems whatsoever just a really nice area where we were waiting for the bus to head into Ecuador. Untill..on my left hand side I heard some little piglets roaming around, which turned in to horror; 2 boys bought I guess 3 piglets. How? You lift them up, lie them down on a little wall, wait till they're lying still, and then you slit their throat, easy as that. And of course instead of just looking away, I watched this happen one after to other.
Vilcabamba is a peaceful town where people easily become 120, at least that is what the story tells. It has something to do with the minerals in the water, the climate, but overall
only working in the mornings. I found a great Belgian bread shop and encountered some really nice girls from the States who offered me a bed when the hostel
was full. With one of them I created some new cocktails with fancy names.
These girls were all studying in
Cuenca which is such a beautiful colonial town and I will head to after. Here I stayed in a hostel which is actually actually created around a tiny plaza which is a restaurant with doors around it which are the dorms. Which means easy access to food, just sit down outside your door. But walking in your towel to the showers was a different story though. I also met 'the stalker' I was warned for beforehand. He 'caught' me first night as I was sitting by myself with book. Heaps of blahblah with in the end a sex request, yeah like a dessert thing.
Meeting up Wieke in
Baños to celebrate her birthday. The bus I took had really nice purple velvet curtains with golden strings hanging down and cosy daylight coming in. The brothel bus😊 Baños is a very touristy spot again but again clean and pretty. I did some great rafting here, joined in in some drinking games, celebrated Wieke's birthday(including a lousy stripper), I met Wieke's travel group, stared at bonfires, ate marsh mellows and
a danced with a skinny rasta guy in denial. After this nice warm place with hamburgers, sports and a smoking volcano I was heading to a dead volcano with a gorgeous lake.
I stayed over in
Chugchilán in a place called mama Hilda and Hilda is still the owner. Such a cute old lady. From here we arranged finally with 6 a jeep ride for the morning after to walk from the crater lake in
Quilotoa back to Chugchilán. This is more or less a 5 hour walk. I did read the book -Achter de bergen- (behind the mountains) beforehand. It is about a Dutch family who run a hostel up there and a murder of a father and his 10 year old daughter in that time, for 20 bucks and a camera. Always good for the mood. This day was beautiful and a disaster at the same time. Few things happened. At the loop itself we were absolutely impressed by the green colour and the colour changes by light and movements. We walked down to the edge. After catching our breaths a few times in the hike up, we started our hike back to our town. Which first
goes along the rim, allowing us to keep enjoying the beautiful view. After deciding the trail, it went from bad to worse: kids lying to us that they didn't know the way, another guy didn't want to help us either. This while we didn't see anything anymore because of the incoming fog. We decided to walk back and take a vehicle back to Chugchilán. We didn't see anything and one of us was sick and felt worse by the minute. To arrange a ride back was a hassle, send back and forth. The many discussions with lying locals, unbelievable. We ended up in the back of a truck with people, products and chickens, halfway home we stopped and had to change vehicles. This guy asked relatively so much money. I lost it, started to talk Dutch, so I asked 2 fellow travellers to continue the discussion-bargaining. Within a few minutes I interrupted them saying: "quieres ganar dinero o no? 10 dolares, no mas, vamos!" And of we go. The saddest thing: we passed by jeep a man on horseback and a little foal, the poor thing got scared by our jeep and started running, after passing it it kept running
after us and making horse sounds, so sad. A whole family on the road luckily managed to stop the scared youngster, 15 minutes down the road. Enough for this day.
Because of my sort of self created timeframe combined with my dislike of big cities I decided to go straight up to
Montañita, a beach-surf town. Finally warm weather, waves, beach:great. The only thing I didn't think of before: Semana Santa (Easter) was coming up and everything was booked full after one night I got there or got four times more expensive. This is how I ended up in a tent;cheapest in town😉 I met a couple I've seen before at the coast in Peru and 2 girls I've met in Vilcabamba, good times. Only very busy. And not to forget: I met the most romantic love of my life. This guy approached me in the street and asked me what I was up to that night? Nothing really. So what about you and me together in my room? I beg your pardon..I'm from the Dominican republic and we're gonna have wild, steamy sex? Hmm let me think about this marvellous almost irresistible offer, what about NO? I wonder
if this seriously work sometimes.
Puerto Lopez is way more relaxed, palm trees on the beach, blue footed boobies etc. What do you do if you're with nice weather in a beach town? Sit in an internet place for 5 whole hours, applying for jobs back home. I also made time to do a boat trip which caused a few days later that my back looked like I have some scary contagious disease.
From here I went directly to
Mindo, which is (besides again on the other side of the country) a quiet town, with a cloud forest, waterfalls and tons of hummingbirds! I ran into a Portland guy I 've met before and we did a hike together. Also a Mum and daughter, also from Portland, joined in. It was a great hike, with beautiful waterfalls, we've seen a snake, lots of butterflies and a cool spider with a 'face on his back'. And "a small world" is yet proven again: we found out that he knows a guy I travelled with my first (Central America)trip.
My final city in Ecuador will be
Ibarra, this is easy to cross the border with Colombia and also to
bring a last minute visit to the famous market of
Otavalo, where I bought myself a few presents. I finished my short Ecuadorian adventure with the famous and delicious ice cream of Rosalie Suarez. Who doesn't know her?
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Bartje B
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Cocktail
Noukster, Goed verhaal, mooie foto's! Nog ff en dan kunnen we weer kroelen! Ciao bella