Ecuador

‘Paradise’  is perhaps the most over used word in South America. The word seems to be optimistically slapped on all manner of things and places by over enthusiastic tourist agencies. As previously documented our first encounter with the word was at Tayrona in Colombia, though in that case paradise was somewhat tainted by the myriad variety of insects trying to feast on our flesh. The second incongruous encounter occurred in the small village of Papallacta, our next stop from Quito, and a sign welcoming us to its thermal baths which we had been informed were the best in Ecuador.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit some pretty awesome ‘bath-type’ places where the moniker paradise could arguably be applied, most spectacularly in Pamukkale, Turkey. With such visions in mind my expectations for Papallacta were, consequently, set unreasonably high and initially I found the bath complex somewhat underwhelming with its cracking concrete pathways and general dilapidation reminiscent more of a soviet training camp than a land of milk and honey. The waters themselves were, however, pretty pleasant and we spent a relaxing couple of hours splashing about getting wrinkly amongst the multitudes of visiting Ecuadoria, most of whom were wearing what can only be politely described as ‘unflattering’ swim ware.

From Pappalacta we continued South to the town of Tena, a place with little to recommend it apart from the fact it offers some of the best white water rafting opportunities in South America. Arriving fairly late on in the evening we planned on staying only for one night but unfortunately found that rafting trips were unavailable for thw foloowing day and we were instead forced to organise a trip for the day after. Annoyingly this left us with an empty day in a town with seemingly nothing in it, thankfully our English rafting organiser was sensitive to our plight and gave us a few tips so we could fill the empty hours. The first recommended place was sold to us as a monkey sanctuary, a prospect which did not exactly fill Paul with expectant joy seeing he hates monkeys following the theft of his camera by one in the jungle.  Despite his protestations my will prevailed and off we traipsed. In actuality the sanctuary was nothing of the sort, with the place consisting of a deserted hotel with 4 vicious monkeys prowling around, all of whom seemed intent on jumping and biting us. Perhaps this place was once a peaceful haven of monkeys but if it was these 4 vicious bastards had almost certainly driven them any nice ones off.

Trying to avoid rabies/rage virus was not much fun so we quickly ran off deeper into the jungle surrounding the hotel. After a bit of aimless wondering we chanced upon a couple of crumbling bridges with children spear fishing underneath, a rather more tranquil scene hat banished the images of monkey evildoers from our mind.

Jungle bridge complete with children

Monkeys drawing blood

Our second tip was for a cave a couple of miles up the road, the entrance to which came replete with another sign stating ´welcome to paradise.´ My conception of a cave is just a big hole you go in for a few minutes to check out a few ‘mites and ‘tites in before leaving. Thus the revelation that we would need a guide to examine a th site came as somewhat of a surprise. This surprise was ratcheted up a couple more notches when the first thing our new guide told us to do was take off our clothes and hand over all the contents of our pockets. Thankfully this was not, as we feared, a pervert mugging but instead was due to the fact he expected us to descend into the darkness in just swimming shorts and shoes. Not being prepared for this we had to explain we only had shorts on, which he met with a shrug of his shoulders and the passing over to us of us headlamps.

Descending into darkness for the next hour or so we clamoured around underground with our headlights providing just about enough light so we didn’t crack our heads and die. The reason we had to get mostly naked was also made clear when it turned out that the walls were made out of brown substance which quickly made my white shorts look like I´d shat all over thme. This and the fact we had to actively swim across a pool to get out made us look like total states when we emerged blinking into the light again. Compounding things we also had a pretty embarrassing bus ride back to Tena, in our wet and dirty states the driver didn’t allow to sit down and so we spent the 40 minute ride being stared upon by dozens of quizzical looking Ecuadorians. Arriving back in Tena we found a televised volleyball game in mid flow on the main square and sat down to watch for a couple of hours, tired but pretty happy with the days events.

Ecuadorian underground scene

The following day we woke up bright and early for white water rafting to be told by our guide that 5 people out of our group of 8 had to pull out due to contracting food poisoning. Despite this, our rafting group of Paul, me and a tiny swiss girl went ahead and we had a lot of fun going down class IV rapids. Our joker guides were also pretty cool, repeatedly pushing us into the water and trying to topple our raft. Although rafting itself was a good adrenaline rush the periods of quiet where we floated along silently observing jungle sights was in many ways just as enjoyable. Birds, butterflies, monkeys and, most unnervingly, giant spiders were all out abundance, flitting around attractively amongst beautiful waterfalls and dramatic cliff faces.

Face melting solos

Returning from rafting exhausted we immediately jumped on a bus bound for Banos, a place described in Paul´s Lonely Planet as ´perhaps the most perfect destination in Ecuador.´ Once again the reality did not quite living up to the billing with Banos being a pleasant town unapologetically geared towards the tourist crowd, with tour operators vying with each other for our dollar dollar dollar. Unfortunately for them we had no money to spend, with our plan to do bridge jumping sadly curtailed when we discovered that it cost the frankly extortionate sum of $25. Instead of leaping off things we made a wise decision in taking a trek around the surrounding hills before deciding to blow our daily budgets on some extremely tasty foods, Banos´s tourists having ensured that it is one of the few places in Ecuador where food transcends the merely bland.

Equestrian masters in Banos

Leaving Banos we continued South to Riobamba with hopes of catching a train (actually a bus retrofitted to fit rails) which descends the mountain el Nariz del Diablo (Devil´s Nose). This journey is famous in Ecuador as it involves a zigzagging descent to the bottom of the mountain via multiple track changes. Adding to this thrill we were also hoping to ride on the top of the carriage, so providing us both with spectacular views and a sketchy travel experience.

Arriving at Riobamba we were annoyed to find that the train no longer went from the city and we were instead informed we’d have to travel 2 hours further South to the town of Alausi to buy tickets. We were also told that rides on top of the train had been cancelled, probably related to the fact that two Japanese tourists had tragically died whilst riding the train in 2007. Grumbling away we travelled to Alausi anyway, arriving early evening and encountering a strange place, with the town dominated by mist and a huge statue of St Peter, strategically placed to look on the town as sternly as possible. Wondering up to Pete we were somewhat disconcerted to find huge numbers of gigantic moths and beatles skittering around the area, seemingly lured inexorably towards the giant halogen lights that gave him the P-dogg his religious glow. After I ran away from a giant moth (seriously, it was more like a vampire bat) we decided to eat some chinese food, I say Chinese food, what I actually mean is brown slop on top of overcooked noodles. This was Paul’s third experience of Chinese food in South America and this 9/11 of a meal was apparently par for the course. Moral: never eat Chinese food in South America.

The next morning we rose at ridiculous a clock in order to get a ticket for the day’s journey. Arising so early hour turned out to be a somewhat needless move, as the queues we were told to expect resolutely failed to manifest themselves. Easily procuring a ticket we chugged off at 10 o’clock and quickly found ourselves immersed in the spectacular mountain scenery which Ecuador seems excel at. Despite being attractive the journey was not quite as dangerous as we’d sort of hoped, with our retrofitted bus feeling disappointingly secure, despite all the tourists being asked a couple of times to get off in case it derailed. In partial recompense to this lack of excitement the historical narrative of the Ecuadorian railroads was pretty interesting, with us learning that the ‘devil`s nose’  being so titled due to the fact that hundreds of slaves and workers died in the railroad’s construction.

Chillin on the train track

Leaving Alausi we headed for our final destination in Ecuador, Cuenca. Once again our guidebook waxed lyrical about this city but thankfully this time the city deserved such plaudits in being an extremely agreeable and attractive colonial city, blessed with great restaurants, hostels and nightlife. It was also blessed with plenty of water balloon wielding mischief makers who prowled the balconies and streets due to the fact that carnival was in town. Carnival seemingly being an excuse for people to get other people as wet or dirty as possible and have the odd parade. Though the festivities are mainly reserved for the youth anyone can, and does, get involved, with us memorably encountering a spritely 70 odd year old man chasing after kids spraying their faces with foam (in a non paedophilic manner).

Cuenca Cathedral

Later on in the nighttime we also bumped into a couple of Americans who we’d met on the previous days train journey who were getting into the spirit by throwing water balloons indiscriminately at as many passing locals as possible. We hung around with these guys for the night getting into one hairy situation when one of them threw a water balloon into a fast moving car leading the driver to get out and berate us, eventually getting so worked up he tried to phone the police. Fleeing quickly from the scene we proceeded to get extremely drunk, waking up late on Sunday 14th, also known as Valentines day. Valentines day 2010 consisted of feeling hung over and discovering multicoloured foam stains akin to a leprechau’s jizz on all our clothing from the club we’d ended up at the night before. In the evening Paul became all wierdly chivalrous, buying me a Rose and a balloon bearing the message ‘Te Amo.’ He then forced me to take these items out for dinner with us in the evening, which I did (totally under duress) and we found ourselves eating the pre set Valentines menu in a rather nice restaurant. It wasn’t gay or anything.

After our Valentines escapades we left Cuenca the following morning bound for the Peruvian border and what was to be a pretty rubbish experience involving two knob heads which I’ll relate in a few days when I can be arsed. Bye for now.