Highs and lows along Ecuador’s backbone

It took us a while to decide which way to head after leaving the lush, relaxed south of Ecuador. The small country is dived into three very different sections – on the one side the hot, dry costal region, on the other the lush tropical rainforest, and straight down the middle, like a barricade separating the two, the ever-present continental divide – the Andes. Deciding not to go to the jungle again was easy – after having delved into the Amazon in both Bolivia and Perú, we felt we had seen enough of la selva. But the choosing between the costal or alpine route north was more difficult. On the one hand we felt drawn to the ocean after so long inland, but on the other, the descriptions of Ecuador’s mountain villages in our guide books were very enticing…. We finally decided to make our way north along the country’s rugged backbone – but not before promising ourselves to treat ourselves to some costal warmth as soon as we get to Colombia! J

From Zamora we bussed north to the beautiful colonial city of Cuenca and loved it immediately. Its maze of narrow cobblestone streets and whitewashed, red-roofed buildings, its leafy plazas and elegant churches, and its setting on the grassy banks of the Río Tomebamba all combine to make Cuenca a ‘charming’ place. Charming in the old-fashioned, unassuming and slightly quaint sense of the word. There is nothing conceited, arrogant or brash about Cuenca’s quiet pride in its beauty, but you can tell it is a community very much aware of how special it is. This is reflected in the care with which the inhabitants treat the city. It is extremely tidy and well-kept – the locals could even give some Germans a run for their money when it comes to keeping the patch of footpath in front of their houses swept and weed-free! J

View from one of the balconies in our lovely hostel in Cuenca

The gracefully impressive 'new' cathedral towering over the leafy main square in Cuenca

The domes of the new cathedral

San Francisco church 

Even the street-art in Cuenca is dignified :P

We spent three days in graceful Cuenca – staying in a lovely hostel with two outdoor sitting areas, one with a view over the river and green university campus, the other over the bustling streets of down-town. We treated ourselves to dinners in real restaurants (surprisingly affordable!) and coffee in outdoor cafés on the many leafy squares. We strolled along the river and through the narrow streets in the warm, spring-like sun and tip-toed, whispering through cavernous, cool churches. We soaked up the sun on our river-side balcony by day and tapped our feet to live music in the evenings.  After our stay in Vilcabamba and our love of the lush, green vegetation of the south, Cuenca only added to our feeling that Ecuador was one of the most appealing countries we had been to so far. But as they say – when things seem to be going too well, you are usually in for a nasty wake up call. And so it was with us. After having had lots of good luck on our trip so far, it was time for some of the bad. Our bad luck streak started when our laptop died on us on our last day in Cuenca, leaving us without a backup for our photos. Although annoyed by this small hiccup, we decided to forget about it for the time being and head to the little town of Baños – renowned for its beautiful setting and healing thermal baths, the town is heralded in the guide books as ‘one of Ecuador’s most enticing and popular tourist destinations’. With high expectations, we took a bus from Cuenca to Riobamba, were, instead of taking us to the terminal, the very unhelpful bus driver unceremoniously dumped us and our bags on the side of a dusty, busy roundabout on the outskirts of town. Annoyed and desperately in need of a loo, we tried unsuccessfully to hail a taxi to take us to the terminal. Just as we were starting to get seriously peeved, a passing 4x4 taxi containing a small family stopped and the young mother in the front seat leaned out to ask us if we wanted to go to Baños. Thinking they were going to the bus terminal to take a bus to Baños, we said yes and hopped in. As our only piece of good luck that day, it turned out that the family was actually heading all the way to Baños and offered to take us for about the same price the bus would have cost. Despite our still-urgent need for the toilet, we spent a very enjoyable hour and a half with the small family – answering their many questions about Germany and having a lot of fun playing with the very cheeky and extremely energetic Angelina, their 3-year-old daughter. They dropped us on the main square of the tiny town of Baños, and as soon as we got out of the car, we knew we were not going to like the place. Full of neon lights and dogged touts and overrun with gringos, the town was one huge tourist trap. To add to our bad impression of the place, it was raining. And it didn’t stop raining until we left two days later. We booked ourselves into an extremely overpriced hostel with a bathroom that smelt of something rotting and headed out in search of something to eat. Finding something affordable among the endless rows of pizza/hamburger joints wasn’t an easy task. The usually ever-present local set-menu places were missing, and even the pollo shops were exorbitantly priced. We finally settled on a pizza and then headed back to the hostel with some drinks from the supermarket to try to avoid paying the steep prices in the town’s bars. The next day, despite the persistent rain, we decided to pay a visit to one of the thermal baths that give Baños its name.  But upon our arrival at what is reputed to be the towns ‘nicest’ bath, we took one look and decided against it. The ‘baths’ were simply old, badly maintained, dirty-looking swimming pools full of milky, steaming water and PACKED with bodies. There was no way you could have found a place to sit or stand in the water without rubbing legs/arms/bums with at least 4 other people. And judging by the number of children and babies splashing around, I am guessing a good deal of the water’s warmth was likely to be pee-based. Not our idea of fun, so we squelched through the rain back to our smelly hostel room to try to decide what to do next. Activities in Baños include white-water rafting (extremely expensive, and according to several people in our hostel, not much ‘white’ water was involved), mountain biking (also very pricy, and in the rain, not really an option) and horse riding (ditto on the price, and Mic is not a fan of horses at all). We tried walking around town – usually a good way to pass the time – but the row upon row of tourist shops and travel agents do not really make for interesting viewing. The one thing that we did find in Baños that we liked was the melcocha – locally made toffee. There are countless shops producing and selling it, all with sweet-makers stretching long ropes of the sticky mass in the doorways and offering passers-by tasty testers. But all in all, after a long, boring, wet day in the little tourist town, we decided to leave as early as we could the next day and head for the capital, Quito. 

Old couple sleeping in the bus

Lovely Angelina, daughter of the couple who gave us a lift to Baños 

Hilarous roast pig's head in the Baños markets - someone has got an evil sense of humor :P

Melcocha – locally made toffee in Baños 

The next morning, on the bus north, our steak of bad luck continued, and our feelings of good-will towards the friendly Ecuadorians suffered a severe blow. Usually bus rides in Ecuador are fun – there is always music, often a film or two, lots of cheeky children who think we are the most interesting thing they have ever seen and an almost constant stream of buskers, beggars and people selling everything from banana chips to quack stomach potions hopping on and off. It is a loud, pleasant atmosphere, everyone is open and friendly and we always felt safe and welcome. But as it turns out, not all our fellow passengers were as friendly as they seemed. Lulled into a false sense of security, we had put our small backpack containing our laptop between our feet. About an hour into the trip, we noticed it was no longer in sight, and discovered it quite far back under our seat. Pulling it forward, Mic immediately noticed it was much lighter than it should have been. Opening it (the clips had been carefully re-closed) confirmed our fears – the laptop and the plastic bag containing some other electronic equipment was missing – obviously stolen by the men sitting behind us. Noticing our agitation, the conductor came over and asked us what was missing, offering to call the police. This obviously scared the men behind us, and one of them quickly suggested that perhaps the items had simply ‘slipped out’ and that we should check under our seat again. When we checked, our missing electronic equipment had magically reappeared. We quickly repacked our bag, making sure that everything was really there. When we confirmed that it was, everyone around us seemed to take it for granted that that was that – the matter could be forgotten. We sat there dazed; knowing that the men sitting behind us had just blatantly robbed us, and just as blatantly returned the items when they knew they’d been sprung, lying to our faces about what had happened. And even worse, even if not directly involved, at least four people sitting around us must have seen what had happened and said nothing. We considered calling the police, but seeing as we had all our things back, there was nothing they could have done, and it would have just been our word against the thieves’. It was a bizarre and very uncomfortable feeling to sit for the next 2 hours within arms’ reach of someone who had just tried to rob you, and surrounded by people who had, through their silence, aided in the attempt. Although we had expected to have things stolen from us on this trip, the way in which it happened surprised and disappointed us. But, despite all that, we were lucky that we noticed and thus managed to get our belongings back, and in the end we are much the wiser for the experience: No matter how friendly people seem, we will never let our guard down like that again. And that, in actual fact, is the saddest part.

We arrived in Quito still upset, and the city didn't help to cheer us up. After so long in small towns, the noisy, dirty, hectic atmosphere of the big-smoke was a bit much. Also, the southern bus terminal is miles outside the centre, and if you don’t want to pay more than 15 dollars for a taxi, you have to take a crowded trolley bus to get into town. Riding a packed bus with huge backpacks while at the same time making sure no one steals your wallet out of your pocket is not a fun experience. But we made it into the centre without mishap and checked into our cheap-as-chips hostel (pretty good deal, but not very friendly). Our shaken belief in the friendliness of Ecuadorians was once again weakened by the receptionist at our hostel explicitly warning us that walking around after dark in Quito was considered very dangerous, and that we should definitely take a taxi if we planned to go anywhere at night. Tired, still a little shocked and annoyed in general, we decided to hide in our room, have an early night and hope for a better day in the morning. But the next days did little to cheer us up. We had a list of things to get organised in Quito, including fixing our computer, changing our flight dates and extending our health insurance (we had decided to extend our trip until November). None of these things turned out to be simple tasks. After two days of running backwards and forwards, catching over-filled buses, being pushed and shoved and honked at, we were not one step further than we were when we arrived. The computer stores we went to only had Spanish or English repair disks for Windows, which were not compatible with our German version. The office listed on the Lufthansa website as their representative in Quito told us that they were only affiliated with the company and thus not authorised to change flight details. Despite repeated attempts to contact our travel insurance company, we had still had no reply.  We were tired and annoyed and getting on each other’s nerves.  But then, as often happens, everything seemed to change for the better. We finally found a little computer shop run by your typical computer nerd – slightly overweight, desk full of a random mixture of hard-drives, disks, disassembled mainboards and bare-bone towers, interspersed with a sprinkling of empty junk food wrappers. J He dragged his attention away from a cartoon he was watching long enough to take a quick look at our laptop and announce that of course he could fix it, and dismissed us with instructions to come back the next afternoon. We came back the next day, paid him 25 US dollars and left with a fully functional computer, complete with a new version of Windows 7, and all our personal files completely restored! To improve our mood even more, we finally heard back from our insurance company, and managed to re-book our flights online for less than 250 Euro. Once solved, our problems suddenly appeared much less dramatic than they had seemed, and we felt a bit silly for having been so stressed. We finally relaxed and spent a day doing touristy things, and deciding that Quito wasn’t such a bad place after all. We explored the old part of town, which is FULL of impressive churches. We took a trip to the Equator, 20km north of the city – a bus ride that took more than an hour and half and cost a grand total of 40 cents (Quito really has its public transport system worked out!). We sat on one of the many super-trendy squares in the new part of town and watched Quito’s too-cool-for-school crowd strut their stuff. Even an incident involving a truck with questionable brakes sideswiping the back of a bus we were on, swerving to avoid hitting us, and causing another vehicle to crash into the back of the truck (no one was hurt, but the car was a write-off) didn't ruin our new-found positive attitude. J  

Plaza San Francisco - one of 'Old Quito's' lovely squares

On the Plaza de Independencia in Old Quito

Plaza de Independencia in Old Quito

The beautiful Basilica in Old Quito - one of the most impressive churches I have seen in a long time - and for once in South America, NOT stuffed full of golden decorations!

The lovely courtyard in front of the Basilica - perfect place to sit and soak up some sun

Climbing the terraced gardens behind the Basilica

Inside the Basilica - immense, simply decorated and filled with quiet music. I am not a church person normally, but this one was special.

Old and new traditions mix in 'New Quito' (the tourist centre) - a family in traditional clothing selling cigarettes on the street

Trip to the 'middle of the world' - the Equator 

The monument marking the Equator - actually built about 300m too far south, but who's counting? :P

Ecuadorian pride at the Equator

Plaza de Independencia as seen from above in the miniature version of the city displayed at Mitad del Mundo

Browsing through some pictures of famous Ecuadorians - never knew Borat had led a secret life as an Ecuadorian writer! 

But despite us warming up to Quito, after four days in the big city we were very happy to hop on a bus out of there - especially after having to pay 10 dollars to get a taxi to the northern bus terminal (which is almost as far off the map as the southern one) and then standing in line for what seemed like hours to get a bus ticket. We breathed a huge sigh of relief to be out of the city and heading further north along the mountain range to the pretty little town of Otavalo. There was actually a positive side to us having been ‘stuck’ in Quito for so long – we arrived in Otavalo just in time for the famous Saturday markets. On Saturdays, the whole town turns into a market – not only the main square, but all the streets are lined with stall upon stall of jewellery, textiles, musical instruments and other assorted handicrafts. In addition to this enormous artisaníans market and the obligatory food markets (the fruits and veg here is so amazingly fresh!), there is also a very happening livestock market just outside town, full of indigenous people in traditional dress milling around between pigs, cows, chickens, goats, puppies, guinea pigs, ducklings, kittens, rabbits and more. The haggling of those buying and selling is almost as loud as the complaints of the animals who obviously resent being sold (see below). In addition to the attractions of the markets themselves, the local people who come into town on market day in their beautiful traditional clothing add colour and flair to Otavalo on Saturdays. The men here all have long, single pigtails hanging down their backs and wear white, calf-length pants, long blue or grey woollen ponchos and felt hats. The women wear beautifully embroidered white peasant blouses, brilliantly coloured cummerbunds and hairbands, long black skirts and dozens of golden necklaces. Although we usually avoid taking pictures of people for fear of offending them, this time we just couldn’t resist – and the bustle of the markets provided good cover, allowing us to get a few good shots (see below).

Overlooking the centre of the craft market in Otavalo

One of the lovely ladies in their traditional outfits - all dressed up and ready to haggle for a pig or two at the animal markets

One of the older men dressed in his traditional clothing (the younger men preferred jeans and T-shirts)

According to the salesman, when these little guys grow up, they will guard your house....can't help but think they will probably rather lick robbers to death..:P

Little girl sharing her coconut ice-cream with a kitten

Cuys and rabbits - cute AND tasty :P

Ducklings and baby turkeys

A pig protesting VERY loudly about having been sold to this couple...

Seeing this made us understand the reason for his protests! :P

Another potential house 'protector'  finds a new home

This woman made a good haul at the chook stand!

Tiny little couple off to the fruit markets

An even tinier little old man in a hurry to see a man about a dog..

Wonderful fresh fruit and veg!

Traditional, hand embroidered blouses

Hmmm, somehow I have the feeling that not EVERYTHING being sold at the 'traditional' markets is really from Ecuador... :P

Some lovely old seniors having a very serious discussion

In addition to enjoying the amazing markets in Otavalo, we also managed to find a great little pub to watch the Champions League final between Dortmund and Bayern. Although the game didn’t quite turn out the way we would have liked, L it was a good night with a couple of beers, surrounded by Ecuadorians who were more enthusiastic about the game than we would ever have expected (and we were also pleasantly surprised that most of them seemed to support Dortmund!).

So, although our trip along the backbone of Ecuador included the worst lows we have experienced on our trip so far, it has also offered us plenty of highs, and we will leave the country tomorrow for Columbia with many good memories. 

People here were slightly confused about the names of the teams playing in the final...but still, they were almost as excited as us!