Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Strolling in Quito

After the slight disappointment in Otovalo we were still able to leave having had a positive experience. We grabbed an evening bus to the capital city and arrived at a great hostel situated conveniently on the top of a high, steep hill between the old and new parts of the city. Quito is quite huge and at night the valley is a stream of endless lights stretching far and trailing off into the distance. It was pouring when we got in, a daily event like clockwork beginning in the afternoon. After consulting a native Quitonian (?) on the bus we decided to leave our stuff and hit up Plaza Foch, a young, poppin neighborhood with a lot of bars, resturants and discotecas. We shared a burrito on a roof top along with some yummy margaritas, overlooking the crowded plaza and sea of people in their own world. Each cafe/bar was blasting it´s own music, making sure to play the few staple songs that we´ve come to know and love over the past couple of months. We later came across a small club boasting free drinks with cover, which we were able to get down to 2 for 1. We could choose between vodka, rum or aguardiente (no thank you, we´ve had enough), and enjoy the elbow to elbow space. After a few hours of dancing we called it a night, sneaking quiety into our dorm room of sleeping patrons and dozing off quickly ourselves.
In the morning we enjoyed hot showers and consulted our map to plan out the day. We opted to walk to the old city making a necessary stop at the Mercado Central for breakfast/lunch. We sat down and got amazing juice which we demanded the waitress to choose the combination for us. It was delicious and had a new component - alfalfa sprouts! Golly good! We then were given a bowl of fried fish and perfectly cooked potatoes, shrimp ceviche (you know we love that!), with a small dish of partially popped corn (big feed kernels that are commonplace in the whole country. After eating we took a lap around the market that was packed with fruits, veggies, candies, meats (including bowls full of freshly prepared lard) and various eateries. Mostly women who worked their, the staffs were dressed in uniforms that resembled that of nurses in pastel pinks and purples with little white caps and aprons. We strolled along Avenida Gran Colombia, one of many street names that appear throughout Ecuador and Colombia, and probably Venezuela since it originates from Simon Bolivar´s plan for a united South America(a.k.a. Gran Colombia). This only got as far as these three countries and their flags indicate the relation, all sharing yellow, blue and red horizontal stripes with a bit of variation. Bolivar is another name of streets, plazas and regions that appears everywhere. We hit up plaza central where the main cathedral is, a beautifully ornate church that is also the site of the tomb of Mariscal Sucre, the former general and president of Ecuador. His name is also everywhere, kinda hard to get away from if you tried.
We walked and walked and walked and walked. Churches, plazas, then plazas and churches. All these give way to views of the enormous angel statue atop a hill overlooking the city and the various other narrow streets that would all of a sudden come to a 60º angle and head up the sides of the valley. We had our sights set on the basilica whose steeples were visible from around the city. On the way there we got our first taste of the Ecuadorian obsession with volleyball (there are courts everywhere, city or country, it´s incredible). But then right on schedule it started to down pour so we saught shelter in the massive, gothic basilica. It was absolutely gorgeous, probably the most beautiful church of the entire trip, dare we say our lives. We were happy to sit and dry off for a while, watching the start of a wedding ceremony and admiring the marvelous yet simple wonder.The rain let up and we were ready to return to the hostel after a long day on our feet. We gradbbed groceries with another hostelite named Jason and cooked dinner while admiring the splendid view from the hostel rooftop (remember how we said it´s on the top of a hill? Well that comes with the perk of a spectacular view). We discussed what our night activity was going to be over quinoa, veggies and beer, and decided to check out what the old city had to offer for a change of pace. We hopped in a cab with Jason and Josh, from Boston and England respectively, seeking out a place to hear traditional, live Ecuadorian music. These places are called peñas and are really common, but the only ones we heard of were apparently nonexistent and boarded up. But we didn´t give up! We walked further deep into the city per the recommendations of some pizzaeria workers, wondering where all the people were. These streets were deserted! There was not a soul around. What gives?
Just a blocks further revealed where everyone was - the tiniest street in the whole capital city. There were beats pounded on drums and beautiful indigenous women with huge smiles persistently saying "Baila! Baila! Venga! Venga!" We joined in for a bit before we realized the procession didn´t really go anywhere, and it was shortly over. We wiggled through the crowd and found ourselves sitting in a little empanada joint drinking enormous beers and hot, delicious fried things. Of all the holes in the walls this was the liveliest. A woman standing by the door nearly demanding passerbys to come in while she maintained the foot-high flame beneath the castiron caldron of boiling oil, cranking out empanadas by the hundreds (or so it seemed to be that many).
Afterwards we joined the crowds once again for laps back and forth along the street, stopping frequently to drink the hot, hard cider that was sold from other huge caldrons (a true witches concoction, sweet and deceptively strong). We also made numerous stops to the bathroom as you can imagine. The night was catching up with us so we decided to going into a dark, cavernous peña to hear some music and soak up some more ambience. Through a hallway from the front we crept into the back room which was larger than that in the front. On the back wall beneath an umbrella (not sure why that was there, but it served as an upside down stage) were two guys who were playing national Ecudorian music in synchrony. The place was packed with people young and old, singing along to every word. Think classic rock or Beatles - cross-generational, relatable music that brings people together. We definitely felt the love and enthusiasm that came with each song although we couldn´t have been more clueless to what was being said. The singers sounded fanastic, but sang so fast we could only pick up on the slower ones. Even so it was a splendid night. Tired from all the walking we packed it in and went to bed. After walking through an artesian market and getting coffee in the morning we hopped on a bus to head towards Salinas, a tiny town in the mountains. High in the mountains. We left satisfied with Quito and our adventures walking about. Not too much else we needed.
Sophisticated Koala

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Ecuador... A mixed bag?

After a less than pleasant night on the bus, we found ourselves at yet another border crossing, making this the sixth one of the trip. We felt a little out of practice though, since crossing into Colombia basically consisted of getting off the sailboat, getting to our hostel, and picking up our passports later in the day from our boat captain, who handled all the border formalities for us. Our most recent experience was therefore the crossing into Panama, which some of you may remember was a total, disproportionately frustrating nightmare. So we braced ourselves and pulled out our passports and our wallets, only to basically waltz across the border with hardly any interaction with the officials, and absolutely no fees to pay. Amazing! Once done with the Colombian side, we started walking across to the Ecuadorian side, only to be mobbed by a group of men who started shouting unintelligible things at us, something about amarillo and vaccines. They kept pointing to a poster, which said something about the H1-N1 flu virus, to which we frantically responded that we dont need it, or that we already have it, whichever would make them go away! They kept insisting on amarillo, amarillo (the H1N1 poster happened to be yellow, I should point out) and they said we couldn´t get into Colombia without this vaccine, whatever it may be. After a push and pull where the men triend to convince us to come with them and get the vaccine, and we nervously exchanged glances and shook our heads and tried to push past them so we could get to the border office and see what exactly this was all about, we finally figured out that they were talking about the Yellow Fever vaccine, and that that was what we needed to be allowed into Ecuador. We breathed a sigh of relief, announced loud and clear that we already got this vaccine at home and had cards to prove it, and finally marched past them, basking in the relief of not having to get stuck by some Ecuadorian needle and injected with god-knows-what. We got to the Ecuadorian border office, wielding our vaccination cards like protective weapons, got our passports stamped, and.... thats it. Nobody so much as insinuated anything about Yellow fever or vaccinations to us at all!! Incredible. These things will just never get old.
Next we made our way to Otavalo, or rather to the farm near Otavalo where we were hoping to stay and volunteer for about a week. I had been in contact with the woman running the project, and she had said that we should just let her know when we would be arriving, and that there was work for us in the garden and at their small school. After all the moving around we had been doing, and especially after our wonderful experience on the farm in Salento (and given how awesome farming is in general) we were really excited to stay in one place, relax, work outside, and just help out and be part of something. Unfortunaly, after a couple of email exchanges, the woman at this farm (which claimed to call itseld Aroha Village) stopped responding to my emails. After three of four unanswered messages, we figured we would just write down all the information we had on them (they are listed on a website that is similar to WWOOF, and helps place people in volunteering positions around the world) and then figure out how to get there once we got to Otovalo. Well. Thats not exactly how it went. Once we got off the bus, we started asking around to see if anyone knew anything about this place, or the town where they claimed to be located. One kindly cab driver agreed to chauffeur us around for a while, and even asked several people on our behalf, to see if anyone could help. Nobody that we spoke to had heard of it, or knew anything about any of the information we had. Not one person! After about two hours of being on this wild goose chase, we had to give up, and asked the cabbie to drop us off at a hostal in Otovalo. We had done all we could. It seemed that this farm just didnt even exist. We had to cut our losses, let the disappointment set in, and go from there.
And that we did. Our hostel in Otovalo was beautifully cheap, as is the rest of Ecuador, which was quite a relief after the unexpected expensiveness of Colombia. The woman who ran the place was a truly special individual. She was English, with ruddy skin and buck teeth and everything. She also happened to have the most beautifully sculpted mullet we have ever seen in our entire lives. It was... a work of art. Very impressive. To boot, she was super weird and anti-social... let just say that she didnt seem cut out to run a hostal at all. In fact, judging by how clearly frustrated and even angry she became when we dared to ask her about anything, I would say that her job makes her quite miserable. Why people do these things to themselves, I will never understand. Anyway, we didnt exactly hang around, and as far as a place to sleep it was quite comfortable and even entertaining.
Otovalo turned out to be pretty cool. There was a huge craft market which we spend a significant amount of time browsing, and even bought some pretty gifts for ourselves and others. There were also many huge, filling, cheap lunches to be had. For US1.75 we each got a delicious fresh squeezed juice, a huge bowl of hearty soup with all kinds of veggies in it, and a steaming pile of rice, meat, and ´´salad´´. Paying seemed like a downright joke!






We also used the time to get on the internet and figure out what our next move should be. We were pretty bummed about not working on the farm, so we searched and emailed and hoped and prayed, and pretty soon we got a response from a very sweet-sounding person named Alicia at a nature reserve in the south of Ecuador. She said that they always needed help from volunteers and that we could come whenever we wanted, stay however long we wanted, and to whatever work they needed to be done at the time. Now this sounded like our kind of place. We also found some cool places in between Otovalo and the nature reserve that we wanted to visit. So we laid out a tentaive plan, confirmed things with Alicia, crossed our fingers that her nature reserve did in fact exist, and continued with out journey. Our next stop would be Salinas, a small town in the mountains that makes its own cheese and chocolate. How could we pass that up? We couldnt. After stocking up on another hefty lunch, we were on our way.

It´s never easy to leave...

...literally.
But we left Salento, trudged up that muddy, slurpy trail and caught a collectivo to Armenia in order to move south in Colombia. We headed to Popayan. Supposedly 3 hours to Cali from Armenia, then supposedly 5/6 hours from Cali to Popayan. We always know to add a couple of hours to the end of that but we didn´t know what we had coming.
Getting to Armenia was a sinch. We were out of Salento by 10:30 and made it to Cali in time for a bus around 4:30pm. Originally we were going to stay in Cali. We heard the night life was supposed to be wild, with tons of Salsa and stilettos. We opted for the mud and coffee of Salento so we only saw Cali to and from the bus terminal. In through the north, out through the south, making sure to pass every mechanic and hardware store on the way. For all we know, that´s all the city is, thus making our decision to not stay much easier.
One frustrating thing about buses here is that there´s a terminal, and one would think that´s where people go to wait for and embark on the buses. No. That´s only a select few. Everyone else waits just outside the terminal, perhaps just across the street. Why? We wait and wait and wait to leave the terminal, then when we finally do we stop done the road and pick up a whole slew of other passengers. This makes little to no sense, and is aggravating when you think you´ve finally managed to leave. This happens EVERYWHERE! I´m starting to think we should just wait with them all. But then we´re part of the problem right?
So we finally get out of Cali. The congested city took over an hour to get out of, but it was smooth sailing after that. NOT! After only 2 hours of driving, things start to slow down, significantly, and we realize that there are tons of tractor trailers all along side the road, parked. The bus inches up and up, and then pulls over, as well. It´s dark, it´s almost 7pm. We just want to get there. Please. What is up? We only have a couple more hours to go. We see people getting out of their cars - this is never a good sign. Of course, this isn´t the NYC Subway where a garbled voice gets on and tells you there´s a rat in the tracks and we´ll be moving shortly. No one says anything. Everyone on the bus looks calm but annoyed. The bus inches up past a few more trucks, then pulls over again. Light traffic is coming towards us, but nothing is moving in our direction. This is a dark, mountain road, no lights except for those of the vehicles. A half hour goes by as we continue to creep up the road, stopping and starting every few hundred feet and getting feedback from people that walk up to check out the  situation. We hear the word "derrumbe" and think there must be an accident of some sort. Great!!!
No one seems to know at this point how long it will take, but we are just gratelful that we´re not far from Popayan, while others of the bus are continuing another 10+ hours to the border with Ecuador. The bus pulls up in front of an overcrowded restaurant and we´re told to go get something to eat while we wait for more information. This place has never had so many customers at once. They are running around like elves before Christmas, but way less organized and without enough toys. We decide we might as well sit and have some soup with a man and his adorable daughter until we know more. At this point we´ve been stopped for over an hour, maybe more. The bus ayudante is at the restaurant, too, so we ask him how many hours he thinks we´ll be here for. He says 3 - 5 hours. Our jaws thud on the table and we can´t help but laugh. Excuse me? He shrugs, smiles and says again "Derrumbe". What the hell is this? He goes back to his table and keeps eating. We then decide a proper meal may be in order if we are spending the greater part of this night on this road. Awesome.
After all the food runs out at the restaurant, and the passengers feel they´ve killed enough time there, everyone heads back to the bus to get some sleep. We stretch our legs a bit outside the bus and talk more with the ayudante. Again "derrumbe" comes up. Okay, we need to know what this is. "Y que es derrumbe?" we ask. With a mixture of hand gestures and the use of the word "tierra" we realize it means landslide. Lightbulbs go off and a sudden sense of clarity takes over. Well, a landslide would definitely cause hours of delay on a tiny mountain road. It would also explain the blatant abandonment of 18-wheelers. We are going to be here all night. What would have been just another couple of hours has now turned into an all evening activity. We get on the bus, plug in a podcast and hope that when we wake up we´re in Popayan.
That we were...at 12:30 am. We were groggily awakened by the ayudante, "Popayan, Popayan". Oh yea, right, we don´t want to stay on this bus for the rest of our lives. Forgot about that. We jump up, gather our things and get our backpacks on. We get in a taxi that takes us to a hostel that doesn´t have any free beds. Great. Perfect. Why on earth would we want a bed right now. We walk around the corner to another hostel that does have room, and we walk up the tiny, spiral staircase and fall into sleep.
We are just happy to not be on that mountain anymore. We wake up and do a few laps of Popayan. A beautiful colonial town, with white washed buildings and a beautiful main plaza. We had a delicious breakfast at a small place close by where a family of women cooked and cleaned together in a very calm, familiar atmosphere. We were able to try pasamor de maiz (spoonfed to me by an older woman waiting for her grandson to join her for lunch), a chilled/room temperature, milky, cereal-like soup with corn and added chunks panela (sugar cane). Soooooo good. Made us happy after a night of bus torture. We strolled around some more, bought cute earrings with feathers while enjoying our last serving of raspao on the plaza, and walked up to the mirador to look over the city. We attempted to mail postcards but we didn´t want to pay $2 per card, so opted out until the next stop, hoping Ecuador would be cheaper. We heard there was a soccer game on, so per the recommendation of the hostel walked to a pizza place on the other side of town. Apparently no one else cared about the game, so instead we got sucked into a dramatic tela novela of betrayal and love. Favorite line - "Dejame sola!" (Leave me alone!) Very entertaining.









We went back to the hostel and gathered our things. We were orginally going to spend another night in Popayan, but we just wanted to keep moving to Ecuador. Popayan was preciosa, but wasn´t enough to keep us around for longer. We went to the bus station that night to get an overnight bus to Ipiales, just before the border. 8 hours, and it was. But rather than a coach bus it was a minibus, freezing cold and very uncomfortable. The only seats left weren´t together and it was sketchy! I was in the very first seat with a clear view of the front window, front row to death defying turns tempting fate and my stomach. Once people started getting off at various places we managed to sit together, and proceeded to move another 3 times to seats that were either warmer, or reclined, or didn´t have anyone next to them. Finally we arrived to Ipiales, shaking a bit after two bus rides from hell. It´s never easy, but fresh air and solid ground felt nice.
"Taxi, taxi, taxi!!!" Wait. Let me get my backpack on and my jacket zipped first, please. I know you´ll be there in 5 minutes anyway, still repeating you´re Pokemon name in my face whether I need a taxi or not. Be with you in a moment.
We need to constantly remind ourselves in these instances - Sigh, breathe, you´re alive and well. One step at a time. At least we´re here and not stuck on the road for hours. Breathe. In the near distant future you can sit, maybe eat, even possibly shower. All is good. Life is good. Nothing is that bad. Breathe. Smile.
Sophisticated Koala