We left Mancora on a
beautiful sunny afternoon (boo) and hopped a stifling sweaty bus to the
Ecuadorean border; destination: Baños. The bus we subsequently nicknamed 'the
disco bus' (neon strip lighting and groovy 80's psychadelic designs) we were
assured was going to be 15 hours and direct. 2 changes later we found ourselves
being dropped at an abandoned service station at 4am in a small town that was somewhere between
wherethehellami and Imabouttogetrobbed to wait for a local bus to Baños. The
small group of local men standing across the road (reason unknown) watched with
amusement I'm sure as we waited nervously for a local bus while trying to apper
cool calm and collected...¨ah no I didn´t just hastily stuff my wallet and
passport in my underwear I´ve just got an itch ok?¨ Luckily a bus arrived
after 20 minutes and we hopped aboard wallets and passports intact.
Baños is a lovely small
town nestled in the foothills of the Tungurahua volcano, which has been fairly active
since 1999. There was an eruption in 2006 that killed seven people and
destroyed several small villages and in May 2010 the town was evacuated again
after a small eruption. Small eruption it appears refers to the fact no one was
killed but the eruptive column coming form the mouth of the volcano was still
apparently 10km high. We thought it best not to share this information with Mum
and Dad prior to our visit (sorry Mum; love you) as while it's not currently
safe to go to the foot of the volcano or climb it the Volcano has been quiet
since May. The town was near to deserted of tourists so we took advantage of
our subsequent barganing power and decided to hire some cheap dune buggy's for
a few hours. Cruising around town and into the foothills in a bright yellow
dune buggy is a bloody cool way to spend a day. Whilst they handled like a
rusty old tractor we managed to successfully negotiate the traffic. On the
return trip driving my buggy solo, foot flat to the floor going through a long
tunnel with no lights and vehicles coming towards you (and spraying water all
over you) is an interesting experience!
The next day we decided to
head up to a Mirador to get a good look at the town and hopefully glimpse the
Volcano. Caz and BP decided to share a fairly small quad bike; I opted for a
motorbike. The hills were very steep and the quad bike was only about 100cc´s
so I left them to limp to the top while I had a fantastic ride up the hill. We
had a beautiful birds eye view of the town and surrounding hills, but
unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the volcano. We headed back down to
town, with myself again in front I stopped at one point on the main road to
wait for them to catch up. The sight I saw coming up the road nearly caused me
to fall off my bike I was laughing so hard. Caz and Brenadan on a bright yellow
minature quad bike, knees up around their chins fanging along the road with a
GIANT truck right behind them trying to pass and a line of cars stretching
behind. Anyone who has seen the movie dumber and dumber when they are riding up
the mountain with lines of trucks and cars behind them will get the drift. If I
wasn´t struggling to keep my bike upright I may have managed to take a photo
dang nab it.
After two days in Baños we
headed to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We were not panning to stay long in
Quito as it is fast becoming one of South America´s most dangerous cities. Robbery
is rife and many a traveller has had a near miss or been done in Quito. We
stayed at a nice hostel calle the Secret garden which had a fantastic roof top
terrace which overlooked the city. At night the terrqace would become a
restaurant and bar and we had many a glass of red sitting around the open fire
watching the city lights and illuminated cathedrals. It was interesting that
the smell of the open fire had me homesick for the first time in a long time. At
the start of the trip I quite often missed home; friends, family and creature
comforts (a good bed, a good shower, speaking English and vegetables!). As the
trip has progressed I have begun to miss home less and less as I’ve become
accustomed to my new reality. I realised how far I had come from those first
few weeks when I was in Mancora and feeling like absolute death and at no point
did the thought ´I wish I was home´ cross my mind.
We headed into the city
centre on our first day and checked some of the local cathedrals and museums. We
went into the Campania de Jesus which is a famous church in South America,
largely due to the fact that the walls of the enormous church are guilded in
seven tonnes of gold. The Church was absolutley breath taking. Every surface
was gilded or intricately carved, the walls were covered in ten foot high oil
paintings. It was an incredible experience. I am not a religious person but to
sit in that Cathedral and hear softly playing classical music, smell the
ancient wood and to be surrounded by those extraordinary walls, domes and
celings it is hard not to feel the presence of something not of this world. It
was quite a moving experience.
Quito was a very sketchy
town and we met and heard stories of many a traveller being held up and
sometimes hurt. We didn’t venture too far at night as a result, but also
because the bar at the hostel was cruisy and we didn’t feel the need. On the
morning we were leaving I headed down to the ATM at 9am to withdraw some cash. The
ATM was a 10 minute walk and I intentionally waited until 9am in the hope shops
would be open and people on the streets. Unfortunately this was not the case
and I had a fairly nervy walk back with hundreds of US dollars in my bra
meeting shady character after shady character on every corner. I luckily
spotted two gringos ahead of me and caught up with them and walked behind them
back to the hostel (anyone who knows Hamish and Andy will understand when I say
I’m sure they thought I was ghosting them lol).
I was considering staying
in Ecuador longer or heading back to Mancora to work for a little while. I
looked into volunteering opportunites in Ecuador but the only farm work
available was ´woofing´ which is an organisation that organises volanteering on
organic farms. After meeting quite a few dreadlocked unfrotunately rather
twatty hippies on this trip I decided perhaps woofing was not for me. I finally
decided against Mancora as as much I would have loved to be based there for two
weeks working (and becoming a surfing pro), I didn’t really want to go backwards. I decided to press
on into Colombia and see what I might find there.
We got was was touted as
a 5 hour bus to a little town called Tulcan, on the border of Colombia. Some English boys we had met in Quito, Sam and
Michael were also on the bus. Ecuadorean buses are really dodgy. People getting
on and off, standing and sitting in aisles, they are more like public collectivos
than long haul buses. Vendors get on and try and sell you a variety of foods
and souvenirs, cross words and suitcases and at times after being in an
uncomfortable seat for a few hours it becomes bloody annoying. At one point on
the trip a man came on who apperared to be working for the company. He grabbed
my day pack and said I’ll out this up here ok? (indicating to the rack above my
head). I firmly told him no and kept it firmly between my feet as I always do. Five
minutes later Caz yelled at me from the back of the bus to watch my stuff as
Brendan had just had his jacket stolen and a friend of the ´helper´had just
been underneath Caz´s seat trying to get into her bag. Naturally before they really
realised what was really happening the guys were off the bus and gone. The bus
driver naturally couldn’t care less and when asked why he let people on the bus
who didn’t have tickets a simple shrug of the shoulders was the only response.
About an hour from Tulcan
there was a large, fatal accident (about the 4th majopr truck
accident we’ve seen on the trip so far) and we were delayed for quite a while. We
arrived at the border to find a room full of people waiting and were thrilled
to learn that their systems were down so no one was getting exit stamps. When
asked the question why not manually stamp the passports we were advised because
there is no stamp. What !%#&?/* idiot does not have a passport stamp at a
border crossing? We were assured someone had gone to get a stamp. Four hours
later the crowd had grown considerably (100+ people) and people were getting cranky.
We knew that the Colombian border closed at 10pm and it was 9pm and we had no
exit stamp. They finally came out and told us to come back tomorrow. Fabulous.
We headed into town with
Michael and Sam, found a cheap hotel and had dinner and a couple of beers,
which was a suprisingly good end to a shitty day. The next morning we arrived
at the immigration office at 6.30am to find a queue of about 200 people. Apparently
in Ecuador finding a passport stamp involves mind boggling complexities that
rival a NASA space shuttle launch. We worked out that the border had been closed for
about 15 hours by that point in which time I could have bloody run to the
Peruvian border and borrowed theirs.
The crowd of South
Americans in the long line outside (some of whom had stayed overight we assume)
were starting to become decidedly displeased. We were lucky enough to have made
it inside but outside we were starting to hear chanting and yelling and
everytime the outside door was opended to let someone out there was a lot of
pushing and shoving. The poor security guys on the door were not having an easy
time of it. 5 hours later some bright spark finally got their computers working
and I got my exit stamp (took 30 seconds) and headed to the colombian border at
Ipiales (which I passed through in about 15 minutes). I exchanged US dollars
for Colombian Pesos at the border and was totally scammed. The guy I was
changing with gave me a good rate so I went ahead. I took the calculator
from him and did the sums myself. I handed over the cash and did the exchange.
5 minutes later when my foggy, tired brain cleared and I mentally did the calculations
again I realised I had been duped. The bastard had a bloody rigged calculator (which
I’ve since learned is quite common) and I had lost about $35 US dollars in the
exchange. I will not fill you in on the range of expletatives that were
released from my mouth and the mad dash to try and find the bastard. I tracked
down who I though I had changed with and he naturally claimed he had never seen
me before. Insert expletative here. Exclamation mark.
So in total what was
supposed to be a 5 hour trip to the border and then a 20 hour bus to Bogota
ended up taking us 44 hours and costing us a lot more than anticiapted (jacket,
dollars, sanity). The upside is we met some great people who we hope to catch
up with in London and had another memorable experience.
We arrived in Bogota 30
minutes before the start of the world cup final and made a mad dash to a local
pub to watch a disappointing game. The weather wasn't great and I think after the tough ride to Bogota
energy levels were low and we consequently layed pretty low. We headed out one
day to the Botero Art gallery where we saw work by Picasso, Damas, Chagall,
Renoir, Monet and of course many many Botero (who Caz despised). Bogota felt a
little sketchy and we didn’t venture far at night. The hostel was a nice place with
a decent bar area and we met some good people. We headed out to the Gold museum
the following day and saw ancient incan relics and learnt about the traditional
methods of forging the metals which was really interesting. We ended up only
staying two nights before heading out to the coffee region that afternoon.
Phew 3 pages! There are about a zillion cranky backpackers waiting for the computers so I better leave it here and fill you in on the coffee region later. Adios amigos!
