Cuenca

 

Today was a free day in Cuenca, the most European-feeling city of my trip. They call the style here “colonial,” by which they mean it reflects the aesthetic of the country that invaded Ecuador, stole all of its wealth, destroyed its culture and religion and got everyone speaking Spanish, which after all is one of the reasons I’m here. Thanks, Spain!

I’m staying here, in one of the nicest hotels in Cuenca. It’s a beautiful place. I figured since it’s my last stop before heading back to Quito I wouldn’t worry about my budget and splurge a little, so I bit the bullet and committed to shelling out the $50 per night this place costs. Including breakfast.

After the non-stop action of the past week, the Germans and I took a day off from this grueling thing we call a vacation and spent the day drinking coffee in the park, taking a taxi to an obscure restaurant in the next town, having a couple of drinks at a rooftop bar and having dinner at another rooftop bar. And that pretty much sums up our city experience. Even though today was a little anti-climactic, I enjoyed not walking on any dangerous bridges, driving on dangerous roads or slamming my head into the doorframe of a small, indigenous person’s house, which I did two days ago. Tomorrow we’re all off to Cajas National Park. But sadly, not together.

Who knew that you could polish hiking boots and gym shoes? I saw that happen today.

One of Ecuador’s largest exports, behind oil, shrimp and fruit, are flowers. 

Our rooftop view of the Cuenca Basilica made me wonder what exactly a basilica is. Turns out it’s just a church that the pope, at his sole discretion, gives a seal of approval to for whatever reason he likes, and then it’s a basilica. My guess is that he thought the blue lights reminded him of a Led Zeppelin concert he once went to.

Alauisi to Cuenca

 I left my room this morning really early looking for coffee and ran into one of my German buddies looking for the same thing. Along the way, I walked across this railway bridge above a river valley. Why? Because Nadine was already doing it and I wasn’t about to let a girl beat me at something. It was a little uncomfortable because you have to look down to make sure you’re stepping on solid wood, but in between all the wood slats is a view of the river way below you, which is very disorienting. But if you look up to avoid the discomfort of the view of the river, you can’t see where to step. Win win. Regardless, I’m still here and I did find coffee.

The Pan American Highway is the main artery through Ecuador (actually it runs from Chile to Alaska). In March there was a major landslide that closed a large part of the highway. It’s a little hard to see in this picture but basically a large part of the mountain collapsed over the road. Ecuador is doing the best it can, and is predicting that the road will reopen in 2 years or so.

As a result, we had to take what I’ll call a “secondary” road yesterday, which is essentially a rutted dirt road carved into the side of the mountain and which looks something like this. I’m just going to say that the trip on that road was by far the most harrowing drive I have ever been on in my life and leave it at that. Bottom line, despite the train bridge and the secondary road, I continue to still be here.

We hiked today to a famous overlook near Alauisi called Devil’s Nose because it has a beautiful view of the valley. How do you like it?

Then we drove to an indigenous family’s lodge to have lunch and participate in a traditional cleansing
ceremony. We helped pick the plants for it, which the family grows in their backyard because they do it every Friday. I will say that the whole experience was pretty serious and pretty intense, which coming from me means a lot.

And finally, we visited the largest Incan ruins in Ecuador. I’m not posting pictures of the ruins but rather a picture of these stones, which have a story from which you can draw your own conclusions. In the 1950’s, local people were clearing some fields and found some odd rectangular stones. Figuring that they had uncovered an old quarry, they took many of the stones and used them as foundations for their houses and barns. Ten or fifteen years later, some archeologists visited the site and said “Hey everybody, this isn’t a quarry, it’s a priceless, once in a lifetime discovery of an Incan village. So would everyone who took stones in the last ten years please return them.” And amazingly, many of the people dismantled their buildings and returned the stones. But then the archeologists realized that they didn’t know where the stones should go, so they just placed them all gently on the ground as a modern monument to peoples’ good nature. 

Guamote

 I knew that quinoa came in small plastic bags and sometimes boxes, but it turns out that it also grows
in fields. From what I understand, Ecuador doesn’t exactly have a big organized quinoa industry, but there is a lot of it growing in small-scale farms. We drove by a lot of them today and this is what it looks like.

Ecuador has hundreds of small indigenous communities. They have limited resources and survive with small home-based business or micro-farming. Because they don’t have easy access to a lot of what they need, they rely on local marketplaces to meet and trade. One of the biggest indigenous markets in Ecuador is the Guamote market, which takes place every Thursday. And today is Thursday, so . . . why not swing by?

The group I’m driving around with has as part of its mission the goal of helping the indigenous communities in Ecuador, so we’ve spent a lot of time in small, rural towns. Our afternoon plan was to have lunch in the tiny town of Ozogoche (pop. around 200) at Margarita’s place. But first the Guamote market.

This place is like controlled chaos without the control. You can buy light bulbs, ducks, drain cleaners, guinea pigs, Adidas and sugar cane along with other necessities of life. 

When we went to the fruit vendors, our tour leader asked us to point to whatever looked interesting and we bought up about 15 pounds of Ecuadorian fruit like, oh I don’t know, Tuna, Guanabana, Chirimoya, Granadilla, Taxo and Sapote. We had way too much to eat, but the plan was to leave anything we didn’t eat at Margarita’s because it’s hard for her to get to the market.

Then off to Margarita’s, pictured here. It took about an hour down a dusty, rutted road, and my review
on Trip Advisor will definitely mention that the outhouse to the left of the restaurant could use a deep clean, but otherwise this was a terrific experience. To be serious for a moment, just a few years ago this place was a woven hut. But because groups now stop by once in a while for the $5.00 lunch (cooked to order by Margarita) it’s now a concrete building with a roof.

There is so much back story and side trips to this, which I would write if I had more energy and if I thought anyone else was interested, but instead I’ll just say that we had a great lunch and, as always, we finished up with a hike, this time to a glacial lagoon, and called it a day.

Baños 2

When I woke up this morning, I had a big decision to make. Option 1 - Take a 3-hour drive to Chimborazo volcano - the highest mountain in the world if you measure from the center of the earth instead of from sea level (I know, but it makes the Ecuadorians feel good so I’m not going to argue), hike up to the top at an altitude that makes many people sick, then a three-hour drive back. Option 2 – Take a picturesque drive in the mountains and then soak in local hot springs that are created and heated by the Tungurahua volcano (water that I am trying so hard not to refer to as “volcano juice.”) After an agonizing ten seconds that felt more like 15 or 20 seconds, I opted for the latter.

But first, a drive to some viewpoints above Baños, which I am leaving tomorrow. Not much to say about these.

I went on this swing, which is more of an experience than it may seem at first glance. Sure, it’s just a swing. But when you’re at the top and there’s nothing but blue sky above you and a 1,000-foot drop below you, you feel it. 

Then two of my German travelling buddies and I (I call them that despite that fact that I learned last night that Lucas’s father is only one year older than me) had lunch at the mercado central. We strolled around, sizing up the various vendors with various animals in various states of disassembly, and discovered a stand that made fresh cheese and banana empanadas, fried to order and served too hot to eat right away. We got a whole bag of them for $1 (my treat) and had lunch. Lucas also had some kind of fried pork dough ball. We’ll see how he’s doing later tonight.

But I couldn’t hang around too long because I had a date with a large pool of brownish volcano juice. The contents of the water reads like the ingredient list on the back of a Doritos bag - sulfur, silica, sodium and potassium chloride, potassium sulfate, magnesium bicarbonate, calcium and iron. They have three pools at three different temperatures and the recommendation is to gradually build up to the hottest one, which I did.

When I got back to my room I was feeling pretty relaxed. I took a shower to remove whatever horrible things I was surely exposed to in that pool, then lay down for a moment. At which point it started pouring outside so I opened the balcony doors and passed out listening to the rain. Yes, I would be envious too if I were you. 

 

Baños 1

I had a date this morning with four waterfalls, so I was a little disappointed to be awakened early by what sounded like rain. But when I opened the doors to my patio, I realized that it was just the sound of the waterfall outside my room and it was actually a beautiful day.

So off we went to the waterfall experience of Baños:

After a while, my German friend Nadine and I had a hankering for some cevichocho, so we each got a cup of it from a vendor at one of the falls. Oh, you don’t know what that is? Bottom layer of marinated beans, second layer of salted corn kernels, top layer of fried plantain chips, all doused with a salsa of tomato and onions. I figured that of all the foods here that might wreck me, this was a pretty safe combination. That was eight hours ago – so far so good.

And along the way we saw a contraption made out of a large metal basket hanging from a cable that travelled above and across a canyon for a close up, if not exactly stable, look at one of falls called the Lover’s Veil (Velo de la Novia).  The whole thing was powered by an engine that looked like it was lifted from an old Chevy truck, dropped here and connected to a rusty cable. Seeing absolutely no reason not to eagerly get aboard, the four of us took a ride above the canyon to the falls. I know that success wasn’t guaranteed, but it didn’t seem any riskier than the cevichocho.

I’m settling into a little bit of a rhythm here and enjoying being in a smaller, cleaner, safer place than Quito. And things are simpler here too. Ask yourself the following – do you (a) really need hot water or will (b) “not cold” water suffice? Do you (a) really need to be able to flush toilet paper down the toilet or (b) can you just wrap it up and toss it in the trash? Do you (a) really need separate hand soap, face soap, shampoo and conditioner or can you (b) just pour some green slimy generic cleaner out of an unmarked tub and use it for everything? If you answered (b) to these questions, then you should plan a trip to Baños!

Quito to Baños

 Long story short, I am on day one of five days of travelling with my three new German friends Lucas, Caroline and Nadine, along with our wild-haired tour guide Jose and our driver Jonathan who is careening us through the Andes in this little van. It’s not his fault, I think careening is the only way you can do this.

Included among the many things we did today was a hike around Cotopaxi National Park, which is named for this volcano, Cotopaxi. The trails close the volcano are closed right now because the magma is getting suspiciously warm, and since scientists can only predict eruption dates with a margin of error of “from tomorrow to someday,” prudence dictated not having us out there if it blows. And I didn’t realize this, but once she does blow, it can go on for a long time. They measure volcanic eruption durations in years.

After hiking around the park at 12,000+ feet above sea level without passing out, we were all very pleased with ourselves and celebrated by driving to this canyon where I admired how much money the government of Ecuador must have saved by not putting up any guardrails or signs on these 18-inch wide spits of land that drop down several hundred feet on both sides and also provide great photo opportunities for youngsters and large groups on multi-generational family outings.

On the ride over to the other side of the Andes (happy to provide more geographical information for anyone who’s interested) I marveled at how severe and steep these hills are and wondered how people could travel, work and thrive in an environment. I was also thankful that our morning hike didn’t include any steep grades. 

Big mistake. Because our afternoon hike was down to a lagoon at the top of an inactive volcano. We all sort of slid, hopped and sashayed our way down the trail because it was way too steep for normal walking. At the same time, we saw lots of people on their way back up, mostly looking like they were thinking about what to put in their will in case they didn’t make it all the way. In the meantime, a heavy fog had rolled in and we could barely see ten feet in front of us, let alone the water in the lagoon. We had passed a nun (not kidding here) on her way up and she reassured us that when she got down to the water, the fog briefly lifted and she enjoyed the view very much before she headed back up. But realizing that in terms of modifying natural phenomena, we don’t have nearly the pull that a nun does, Caroline and I decided to turn back and have a cup of coffee at the top while everyone else in our group kept going. Which turned out to be a good decision because when they finally showed up, they were soaked. “Oh is it raining?” I asked, taking a full-face inhalation of my café con leche. “We hadn’t noticed.” 

And one final note. On our way to our destination this evening we got delayed at a police checkpoint. Turns out Ecuador just recently passed a law allowing people to possess guns, so the police do random checks to make sure that anyone with a gun also has a license to own it. Fresh set of eyes here – it seems like if you’re a country that relies on tourism and has a problem with armed drug gangs that are keeping the tourists away, maybe that’s not the optimal time to change the laws to allow guns. I know that reading this you’re probably all upset and now want to write to the Ecuadorian government to register your opposition. But don’t bother because the President dissolved the entire government a couple of months ago when Congress was about to try him on corruption charges and there is an election scheduled in August to elect a whole new government. So now there’s kind of no government here at all.

Quito

I started the day with what I’ll call an educational stroll through town. I say educational because I learned that traffic signals in Quito are more like polite suggestions or aspirations rather than tools to let drivers and pedestrians have a shared understanding of what will happen in a street at any given time.

But I made it to my Quito Walking Tour and was the only person who had signed up, so I spent 3 ½ hours leisurely strolling through old town Quito and speaking Spanish with my new friend Malena, a charming young woman from Quito who hopefully now thinks American senior citizens aren’t all as bad as she’d thought they were.

Quito is enormous, larger than Philadelphia and stretches in a narrow north-south line in a valley
between a volcano and some mountains so it seems larger than it is. In the cab ride here last night the lights seemed to go on forever.

The dominant religion is Catholicism of course because Spain conquered Ecuador and improved everyone’s lives here by stealing everything of value and imposing its religion on the natives. So, as in Spain, on top of one of the highest hills in Quito is a massive church. It is very beautiful, and the stained-glass windows and gargoyles reflect the flora and fauna of South America rather than scenes of war and torture, which I’ve seen more commonly in old churches (not that I know anything about old churches). But two things of note here. I took the picture above of Quito from the highest tower of that church, which meant starting at 9,000 feet above sea level and then climbing 12 floors up and then two more floors of ladders. You’re welcome.

Second, that one church has multiple huge clocks. None of the clocks agree on the time and all of them show the wrong time. This is either careless or profound.

I have so much more to share but I think I’m hitting everyone’s attention span limit so:

Sure, I could spend $20 for an intestinal cleaning, but isn’t it cheaper and easier to just drink some of
the tap water here? (bada boom)

So many interesting street foods, none of which I will ever get within 20 feet of. This guy has a tub of chilled egg whites. When he gets a customer, he shoots some of the egg whites into a cup through compressed air to make them foamy, then squirts them with cherry syrup. Cold treat on a hot day. 

I ate a couple of these this morning. They’re called granadillas; they combine an amazing
rich, sweet flavor with a disgustingly slimy consistency. Every bite is both highly satisfying and slightly repulsive at the same time. Like many things in life.