After spending a month in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia each and three weeks in Peru, I was left with only a week for Ecuador. I entered the country with a list of places to visit recommended by a Swiss girl who had been living there for a year. During my short stay I went to all of them - and two more! How did I manage to do that? And was it worth it? I think it was. Let me tell you how it happened:
Monday 26.7.2010
After travelling the whole night in a bus to Aguas Verdes I cross the border to Huaquillas. Everything is a bit chaotic, it's a new country, and I don't know what's happening and who to trust. Money. I need Ecuadorian money. I am told that the official currency of Ecuador is US dollar (which I could have read in my guidebook in advance). How can an independent country use the currency of another country?! As my trip is soon coming to an end, I decide that later in Ecuador I'll use the 50-dollar bill I've kept hidden under the inner sole of my hiking boot for emergencies. Before my busride to Vilcabamba I try to draw more money from an ATM, but it refuses my credit card. I don't panic, but do get a bit worried. I realise how important it is to always carry a bit of cash. In the evening - after a beautiful 6-hour busride on the green mountains - I try to draw money in Vilcabamba. The ATM says there is a problem with my card. I go to an internet cafe to check my acoount in my internet bank. There is still money and I haven't exceeded the credit limit. Finally, after trying the same ATM five times in a row, I am able to do the withdraval. My hostel, a French-owned place called Le Rendez-Vous, is a very pleasant place. European quality at Ecuadorian prize. After sleeping two nights in buses it feels so good to take a shower and have a good night's sleep in the doublebed of my clean and cosy little room.
Photo: At the border
"There are many great day-walks throughout the area" claims my guidebook, and after updating my blog at an internet cafe, I head for the Rumi Wilco nature reserve. There are nice views from the slope trail, but after recently hiking among the majestic mountains of Cordillera Blanca in Peru this place fails to impress me. I enjoy the tranquility of the village of Vilcabamba and the beauty of the mountaineous coutryside around it, but I still can't understand why the authors of my guidebook have chosen it to the "Don't miss"-list of Ecuador.
In the evening I have a massage and finally get the chance to watch the movie Motorcycle diaries. By paying 4 USD I get a TV and DVD-player in my room. I have enormous expectations for the movie, and it just can't meet them all.
Wednesday 28.7.2010I get up at 5 am to catch a bus to Loja at 6 am. In the bus I wolf down the packed breakfast prepared for me the night before by the friendly hostel owner. Mmm... homemade integral bread after eating so much tasteless and unhealthy white bread in all these countries. From Loja I continue to the beautiful colonial, UNESCO World Heritage listed city of Cuenca, which I explore for a few hours in the afternoon.
Thursday 29.7.2010Early in the morning (7-am bus) I head for a town called Baños. The curvy road high in the mountains is stunning, but unfortunately makes the girl sitting behind me vomit time and time again. For a short while a native Quichua woman with a brown-teethed toddler licking a lollipop sits next to me. I'm anxious to give her a lecture on health and hygiene, but manage to remain silent and just smile to the little boy. A little before changing buses in Ambato a man called Jaime sits next to me and we immerse in interesting conversations. He's returning home from a lecturing trip to some universities. He gives me advise how to improve the quality of my life by practising a concentration/meditation technique, then recommends me to rent a bicycle in Baños for exploring the road towards Puyo with several waterfalls as well as encourages me to travel all the way to the coast the next day, which I hadn't planned to do. So, after arriving to Baños and getting a hostel room, following the advise of Jaime, I start my bikeride. Every now and then I stop to photograph the waterfalls and the mountains covered with tropical vegetation. I only have a couple of hours before the sunset, and unfortunately it gets dark when I reach the most spectacular waterfall, El Pailón del Diablo (the Devil's Cauldron). I return by bus and hurry to the thermal baths of Baños de la Virgen before it closes. The place is crowded and there's a lot of noise, which disturbs my relaxation in the hot pools. I muse about my visit to the natural, sand-bottomed and quiet thermal baths of Termas Los Pozones near Pucón in Chile.
Friday 30.7.2010I have another early wake-up (at 5:30 am) as I have a very long day ahead. Before catching a bus I walk with my two backpacks, the big one on my back and the small one in the front, to the nearby San Francisco bridge to snap a few photos of the deep rocky canyon with river Pastaza below. It's a pity that I don't have time to do any of the walks in the area. I take a bus to Ambato, another to Latagunga and one more to Zumbahua. There I take a taxi to Quilotoa, a volcanic crater filled by a beautiful emerald lake. For an hour I walk around taking lots of photos and admiring the scenery. Then it's time (actually I'm a couple of hours behind the schedule) to continue; I take a bus to Quevedo. I feel euphoric when the bus climbs above the clowds on a mountain road and I'm almost squeezed to the front window, as the bus is absolutely packed with people. I always prefer the panoramic seats in buses - now I have a "panoramico extremo". When we travel down from the clowds through banana groves and small villages I feel like spreading my hands like Scarlett Johansson does at the front of the ship in the movie Titanic (which I recently saw in another bus). From Quevedo I take a bus to Esmeraldas on the coast. In the bus I notice the big number of black people, who I haven't seen in other parts of the country. Later I learn they are descendants of ship-wrecked African slaves. It's a six-hour busride, and I arrive at midnight. Too late to go to the beach, so I take a taxi to a nearby hostel, where I sleep until the morning.
Saturday 31.7.2010Somebody has recommended me the beach of Atacames, but because my guidebook says it "is a real 24-hour party town", I opt for Súa, "a quiet and friendly little beach resort, set in a beautiful bay". But as I miss the right busstop, I end up further along the coast, to the beach of the village called Tonchigüe. Finally I'm at a Pacific beach warm enough for sunbathing and swimming! I enjoy the sun for a few hours, as well as the company of some local teenagers that have stopped to chat with me and play in the sand. Until I realise that my phone and money are missing! I've never been robbed or haven't lost anything before, and have almost arrogantly wondered if people who get robbed are stupid and careless. Now it has happened to me! I'm shocked and angry at myself for being so blue-eyed, trusting the guys too much and not keeping enough eye on my belongings. The police in the village is not much of a help (it's hard for me to describe what happened, when and who did it, as I didn't notice anyone opening my backpack), but there's a friendly naval officer who will do everything he can to help the crying tourist. He had seen me with the boys, knows them and starts asking and calling around. The power of the community, people knowing each other in a small town, is amazing: after a while I get my phone back! Ask me back home, and I'll laugh at all this. What a scene! I got my lesson, but luckily it wasn't the hardest one. In the evening there's an annual celebration of the Fishers' Day in the village, but I can't stay as I have already bought a ticket to a nightbus to Quito, and anyways I've had enough of the village...
Sunday 1.8.2010I arrive in Quito before 6 am and have another busride: two hours to Otavalo. What a beautiful area, and the indigenous people here are the most beautiful I've seen during the whole trip! South American Handbook describes their clothing as follows: "Men here wear their hair long and plaited under a broad-trimmed hat; they wear white, calf-length trousers and blue ponchos. The women's colourful costumes consist of embroidered blouses, shoulder wraps and many coloured beads." The girls wearing traditional clothes are very beautiful and the youngmen, even in jeans and hoodies, with their their braded hair are just gorgeous! So, despite the challenges (problems with ATMs, the robbery, and stomach problems I'm having) I still enjoy travelling.
After getting a hostel room and handing over my dirty clothes for laundry I do a few hours' walk over a hill to a lake called San Pablo. I return in the afternoon and admit that "running" so fast through the whole country and taking the nightbus have taken their toll. I really need a nap! And find it hard to get up after two hours to enjoy the last sunbeams.
Monday 2.8.2010In the morning I take a bus to Quito, the capital. My plan is to walk around the Old City for a few hours, load my photos to a memory stick and go to the airport for my flight to Asunción, Paraguay. First I visit Basilica del Voto Nacional and climb to its belltower to enjoy the views. The city seems enormous to me. Although later I check in my guidebook that it "only" has about 1.4 million inhabitants. The colonial buildings of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Old City are beautiful, but I'm starting to get too tired to fully enjoy them, especially after somebody tries to steal my camera. In the airport I hear that my TACA flight is overbooked and there's no seat for me in the plane. I get flight tickets for the next day, a room and dinner at Holiday Inn and a voucher of 200 USD for TACA flights.
Tuesday 3.8.2010I'm not in Ecuador anymore, but feel inspired to tell you about this day, too. In the morning I fly to Lima with a plan to spend the day in the city waiting for my connecting flight in the evening. But after arriving I am told I need to pay an airport tax of 31 USD when entering again the airport. I reckon MALI (the art museum of Lima) or the colonial buildings in the centre are not worth paying the tax. When I hear there's no computer with internet for passenger use at the airport - and I have to spend ten hours there - I get really pissed off. I know I need this day of relaxation for reading, drafting my blog and planning my final week of travelling, but it's still annoying to be stuck at the airport without internet. For my next trip I'll definitely buy a small laptop! To calm myself down I read a chapter in the book 'Travelers' Tales. Central America'. I didn't have time to travel to Central America, so I familiarize myself with the area with this book I've found on a book exchange shelf. Reading the book always makes me admire the authors' writing skills and sharp observations. The trick works: I cheer up a bit. By noon I've gone through all the shops at the airport. There's a lot of time for souvenir shopping. Dangerous for my wallet... but luckily "I just physically can't buy anything" (to understand the quote read my first blog update from Chile). I finally call Mum - it's the first time on this trip - and I can hear she's overwhelmed with joy to hear my voice. The food at the airport is expensive, so I buy only a sandwich for lunch. And look, thanks to the day spent at Lima Airport, you can now enjoy reading this text.
From Puerto Iguazu I travelled about 20 hours in a bus to Buenos Aires and then crossed the bay to Uruguay. On the ferry a Finnish guy, Tuukka, came to talk to me. He had noticed my Halti backpack and figured that I'm a Finn. The same thing has happened to me once before, in a local bus to a small village in Fiji in 2003. On this trip to South America I didn't see many Finns. After meeting the tango enthusiasts in Buenos Aires, there was a Finnish couple on the same daytrip in Mendoza. In Chile two Finnish guys had stayed at the same hostel just two days before me. In San Pedro de Atacama I saw the Finnish flag in a bar and was told that the owner, Reijo, is a Finn. In Bolivia there was my friend Kati, and - in the Bolivian jungle I spoke Finnish with a traveller called Zamir, or Sami. He was from Stockholm, Sweden. His mother was a Finn and his father an Israeli.
A couple waiting for the sunset and drinking mate by the sea in Montevideo:
Restaurants at Mercado del Puerto in Montevideo:
Big trees lining a street in Colonia del Sacramento:
On the morning of my last day in Uruguay an American man from my hostel asked me if he could join me for a walk in the Old Town of Colonia. Old man (recently retired), American, abdominous, wearing a baseball shirt. I wasn't thrilled with his suggestion. But I wasn't horrified either. I guess I was indifferent. "Sure, whatever, why not", I thought. And he turned out to be excellent company for my last day of travelling. After walking around taking photos we had the most delicious lunch and long conversations at a nice restaurant. We talked about his plans to buy a house somewhere in South America, about travelling, relationships, work, cows and bulls... anything. I would just sit and listen admiring, soaking his wisdom of life in. He said something very beautiful about his girlfriend and their relationship, comparing it to finding an excellent wine, after which he doesn't want to drink other wines anymore. I wish I had written down what he said about travelling, commenting about me taking the risk of leaving everything for a while and going backpacking. It was something like "sometimes people get too involved in their routines and don't see the crystals in their lives. Breaking the routines and experiencing something new broadens your mind, gives you perspective on things".
