Ecuador part 2

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Thursday 13th November-2nd December

On our last day at Black Sheep Inn, we went for a canyon rim walk without a guide but with a whole bunch of other people staying at the inn. We all had different instruction books, some with photos of how to complete the track. Pretty fun trying to figure it all out and such a beautiful walk, the views were amazing.
We so so loved our time at the Inn, it was one of our favourite spots.

Friday, we caught the Inn's taxi to Sigchos, a village nearby, and then waved down a bus heading towards the coast. We were aiming for a tiny town called Ayampe. It was a whole day travelling. We caught two taxis and four buses to get there! We were pretty stoked we managed to figure it all out. Its so easy to get around in Ecuador, and really cheap.
We stayed in a gorgeous little hostal in Ayampe and they were having a craft night when we arrived. So delicious eating the food and checking out the products.
Ayampe is a tiny but pretty wee town. It was the low season so it was a little too quite and the weather was a bit drizzly which is never nice at the beach.
We went for a walk on the beach and were shocked at how much rubbish had washed up. We grabbed some large rubbish bags from our hostel and, after a long walk, we started picking up rubbish on the way back. Well we had only moved less than 100 metres and the bags were already full, so we had to drag them all the way back to the hostel. We ended up getting stuck into it and filled up 5 bags! The hostal gaves us free cocktails to say thanks 😊
As we were wandering the town we were invited into a yoga class with some instructors who were visiting for the weekend. It was fun, we were outside on the grass near the beach. We ended up escaping at the end when it started getting fruity with chanting and swaying and such. We were so sore the next day but joined some other people from the hostal in another class at another establishment. It was great fun too but wow we were stiff and sore.
From Ayampe, we headed North to Canoa. It was another long bus ride but we didn't have to change many buses. Canoa was much larger and the weather was much better too.
We stayed right on the beach which was luxury but wow I got mauled by sandflies.
We ended up booking for 5 days voluntary work with the Rio Muchacho organic farm, 20 minutes North of Canoa. Well... Those 5 days were pretty awful (well for me anyway..).
The farm was really ad-hock, it was run down and dirty. The kitchen was filthy and there were flies everywhere. Urgh. We were put to work on the farm (and we paid for this) which was interesting when we were told what we were doing and why, but otherwise it was just weeding and lots of standing around waiting to be instructed (they were disorganised and vague). The absolute worst for me, that had me in the heebies constantly when i found out on the third day, was that the farm was infested with ticks! Urrrrhggghhhhh. It was apparently due to having such a long dry season. All the other people staying there were very casual about it, having competitions with how many ticks they found on themselves, but it completely grossed me out. I have to admit I was pretty hysterical when I found one on my leg on the last day. I couldn't wait to leave! Mikey on the other hand, had a great time there, he was loving getting hands on and working and wasn't phased by the bugs. Although on our last night, Mikey woke up to a bat crawling up his arm! He yelled and flung his arm and it slunk up the wall. Wow if that had been me I would have imploded.

We caught a bus to Quito after cutting short our stay by a day (the bat was the last straw) and we found a great hostal called Huasi in the old town district. We were quite suprised by Quito, we had heard mixed things about the capital, but we thought it was beautiful. Our first day there we took a free walking tour which was interesting, the guide was awesome and took us to a food market and showed us what yummy food to eat afterwards.
The next day we caught a bus to Lago Agrio for our 4 day Amazon tour the following day.
We turned up at the designated meeting spot and meet loads of other travellers all meeting their guides until it was just us left and no one had turned up for us! The bus driver helped us out and called Jamu Lodge and it turned out they had mucked up our booking. Argh. They ended up giving us a discount to join in with another group called Caiman Lodge.
We took an hour long bus to the start of the river and then a 2 hour canoe ride up the river to the lodge. It was such an amazing boat ride, we saw enormous parrots and a baby anaconda (3 metres long!) and monkeys.
Our guide at the lodge was great, he was passionate about the Amazon and animals and wouldn't prod them or make them do something. He was also incredibly good at spotting things.
Every day we would go out for a dawn boat ride and and then a walk in the jungle (eeek) and night rides to see Caimans.
When we first got on the boat to get into the Amazon, me and Mikey were on high alert, whenever a bug landed on us we would freak out thinking we were going to get poisoned or contract something deadly, but can you believe I didn't get a single mosquito bite the whole time we were there!! The jungle was pretty freaky and amazing, so many scary noises. Ram, our guide, would find the most enormous and crazy spiders and other insects to show us, everything was super sized and angry looking. Mikey spotted some Toucans with their huge beaks.
We went on one boat trip way into the jungle on the hunt for anacondas and scared some wild boars which sounded terrifying squealing and huffing through the bush. Ram was really cautious because he said these ones were really intelligent and one day they stalked his dad, circling and cornering him so he had to climb a tree and then climbing on top of eachother to climb the tree to try and get him! Argh
In the evenings we would go to the middle of the lake and everyone would jump into the water. I didn't the first night, chicken licken, but jumped in and out in lightning speed the second night. We asked why Ram wasn't jumping in and he said he had far too much respect for what he knew was under the water (which was brown by the way, so you couldn't see anything). He told us how he was once electrocuted by an electric eel, which was luckily a baby as the adults produce 800 volts!! He fainted and was sick for a few days. He even said it was an old punishment in the navy when he was there, that they would chuck guys into the tank with an electric eel! He even said some tourists had died from them. Typically he told us this AFTER we had been in the lake.
One day we went really far upriver and met a village woman who showed us how to make Yuka bread with only Yuka and no other ingredient. Yuka is a big root vegetable, like a parsnip crossed with a kumara. We grated it, she rung it out in a flax net and then we sifted it, pressed it to a clay plate and cooked it over the fire and... voila! delicious bread. We also all took a turn with the traditional blowguns that were 3-5m long. Ram shot the target instantly and we were all pretty close but no one got it. You had to aim really far above the target and it was so heavy. Great fun.

Animals we saw were: the smallest monkey in the world, a tarantula out of its hole, caimans eyes and tail in the dark, 5 different types of monkeys, toucans, parakeets, freaky spiders, freaky insects, enormous army ants, wild pigs, a baby anaconda, ant highways, boa constrictor (found in the cooks room!), red flat headed snake, heaps of beautiful birds, huge butterflies, and turtles. We also had an unidentified fish leap into the boat and hit Mikey in the chest and flop onto me, we thought it was a pirana trying to maul us and nearly tipped the boat over in panic! After this scuffle, Ram told us that majority of piranas are vegetarian.. Who would have thought.

We had such an awesome time in the jungle, the lodge was clean and had great food, and the wildlife and trees were so epic.

We caught a bus back to Quito and had a lady screaming, moaning and vomiting most of the way, it was awful, poor thing. The scenery between Lago Agrio and Quito is absolutely stunning; from the Amazon Jungle all the way over a mountain pass above the tree line, you pass through a spectrum of climactic zones and see canyons, great rivers and vast expanses of forest.
The next day we spent cruising around Quito again. We happened upon the changing of the guards at the Presidential Palace. It was an amazing parade with lots of pomp and splendour. The guards were so dapper in their uniforms and performances - they even had huge clydesdale horses come and do a performance. The president even made an appearance! He was clapping and dancing along with the orchestra playing in front of the crowd. Really stoked we saw it all.
We flew out that night to Miami and then onto New York on the 2nd of December.

What an epic adventure but wow we were so excited to get to a more developed country and see family and friends.

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Comments

[Philbert]

Pull ups on beach
Great to see mikey getting the gains!