Peru - Ecuador

  Quito, Ecuador
Monday, September 10, 2007

Well, you will all be glad to hear that we survived the earthquake and our South American adventure continues. The earthquake hit Peru on 16th august which was our last night in BA. We didn't know the extent of the damage, or what one does in such circumstances so we decided to continue on as normal. We arrived in the capital Lima, which is about 200km from the worst affected area. One could be forgiven for thinking that Lima had seen a little earthquake action however, the drive from the airport aint the most scenic of routes. We noticed that here, and in lots of South America, buildings seem to be unfinished with exposed brickwork and steel structures sticking out the top. Apparently, taxes do not have to be paid on a building until it is complete and thus the reason for the 'Baghdad chic' look about the place. Miraflores however, where we spent our time whilst in Lima is a lovely part of town and the suburb of San Isidro close by even nicer- magnificent houses built by wealthy WW2 escapees. We took in a city tour of Lima, the best part of which was the fact that the guide referred to me as M.C. Donnell the whole time. In Da Houuse!!!

peru women

Carnival Child

On then to Cuzco, the gateway to one of the new 7 wonders of the world, Machu Picchu. While at the airport in Lima, we experienced an aftershock, which was an experience, although in reality nothing more than the structures of the building wobbling for about 10 seconds. Obviously the Peruvian tourist board have their hands full with Machu Picchu, but should anything ever happen to it; it has occurred to me that they could market Cuzco as a detox type destination, sort of like a health farm. The altitude (3500metres above sea level) makes it impossible to drink, smoke or do any sort of debaucherous activity should one be so inclined, and to let even the smallest drop of the water supply pass the lips... well lets just say, one can lose a few pounds pretty quickly. All of these factors led to a pretty dull first few days for us in Cuzco, where I took to the bed, mostly in a delirious dehydrated state and Barry braved the altitude to get me Peruvian lemsip, mashed potato and whatever else might cure what ailed me. Altitude sickness is an experience in itself, and apparently, even the fittest people can suffer from it. Walking up stairs was like running a marathon, and there is a general woolly-headedness feeling that just doesn't go away as well as blue lips and tingly fingers! We had planned to do a trek in this part of the world. The traditional Inca Trail trek, a 4 day affair that ends at Machu Picchu is booked out months in advance at this time of year, but we had planned to do an alternative; however, the maximum height of 4100m would have been way too much for us to bear in our fragile states so we had to give it a miss. To those of you who have done the Inca trail or similar, we salute you.

classic view

The city of Cuzco is really beautiful, and notwithstanding the altitude, an easy place for a tourist to spend a few days. This is the most tourist-y place we have been, it's all about the tourist dollar here, from scores of internet cafes, pizzerias, souvenir shops and tour companies. Its impossible to walk anywhere without being stopped by hawkers selling all sorts of handmade Peruvian crafts- straight from a sweatshop in Lima no doubt. And the kids! These babies are born hustlin'! Children as young as 5 selling postcards and sweets and singing on the street for money. While there is a real sense of poverty here, there is also a strong sense of pride in the culture, and we were surprised by impromptu parades of groups of locals on many occasions, from groups of men in their best suits chanting up the street, to kids in colourful indigenous costume banging drums and blowing horns. What summed Cuzco up for me was the sight of a toothless, shoeless old man feeding breadcrumbs to pigeons in one of the city's many plazas. He probably had nothing, but feeding those birds sure brought a very gummy smile to his face.

On then to the jewel in the crown here, Machu Picchu. We got the tourist train there, a 3.5 hour journey to Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of MP and then the bus the rest of the way. Doing it this way means that you arrive at MP along with hundreds of other tourists at around 10am but despite this, the first view of the ancient city is amazing.

Llama Kingdom

The Incas, according to Darwin our tour guide (who had been working there for 26 years and had written loads of books on it) were very clever people; the design of the city was so well thought out, and was even irrigated for water. The craftsmanship was excellent too, and has survived all the earthquakes that have caused so much damage in the country. What is amazing is that the city was never discovered by the Spanish, and was only found by an explorer being guided by a local boy in 1911. Not even 100 years ago! After lunch, it seemed that most of the crowds disappeared and we spent the afternoon there soaking in the atmosphere in relative solitude. We spent the night in Aguas Calientes, which is a bit of a mish mash of a place, and our hotel was well dodge, from the duvet with no cover to the waiter/bellboy/gopher who stood over us while we ate breakfast the following morning. We set off early and trekked for about an hour up to the Sun gate, which is where the trekkers would get their first glimpse of MP coming to the end of their trek. We could only imagine the feeling that one would experience walking through the gate to that view, tired and emotional after walking their little bums off for 3 days. The view is breathtaking, and surely makes it all worthwhile. The trek is no mean feat by all accounts, but it appears that it attracts all types of people, the majority of whom probably aren't normally into trekking. There were lots and lots of very senior folk at MP, mainly North American tour groups, all braving the steps and altitude in brand new trekking boots and MP hats bought from the persistent folk back in Cuzco.

peru woman

The train back to Cuzco was a little strange...after the staff had finished serving food and drinks, they proceeded to entertain us with a fashion show, sporting clothing made from Alpaca wool and available to buy there and then (?) Unfortunately, the alpaca wool jumpers were not best complimented by the standard issue rail employee Farah slacks.
We headed back to Lima for a couple of days and then on to Quito, Ecuador, where the altitude was more bearable, a mere 2850m above sea level. The old town of Quito is full of churches, convents, monasteries and lovely plazas in which to sit and watch the world go by. It is full of police which does make one feel safe walking around, although some of the police are probably dodgier than the criminals. Ironically enough, among such centuries old history, one of the first things we did was go to the Andy Warhol exhibition which was being held in the cultural centre. Entry was $1. Incidentally, The currency of Ecuador is the US Dollar, which in one view just makes official how most of the other south American countries we have visited operate anyway; but in another makes it the 51st state, or 52nd after Ireland, har har.

We stayed in the old town in this beautiful old colonial building overlooking a central courtyard. Whilst there we met Rekha and Will, a London-SanFranciscan couple who told us about a trip they were taking to the jungle that weekend. We had not decided whether we were going to the Galapagos Islands, or the jungle, the budget wasn't going to allow both, and on further investigation, it wasn't going to allow the Galapagos at all so our decision was pretty easy. It is only right that it is very expensive to travel to the Galapagos Islands, and appreciate them properly, and it's something we will do when we are older and richer, along with the Inca trail...! We booked our jungle trip on Rekha and Wills recommendation and that Friday headed off to Sani Lodge, on Rio Napo in the Amazon Jungle. It has been hard for us to pick the best of the trip so far, and I think that we will know what the best bits were when the memories keep returning to us months down the line, but if you have a pain in your heart leaving somewhere, as I did leaving Sani Lodge, then its got to be up there as a highlight of our trip, nay, our lives so far.

Sani Lodge

We flew from Quito to Coca, a swelteringly hot, dirty, dingy oil town full of facilities to cater for the oil workers who regularly fly in and out of its airport. This is oil country, and Rossport, eat your heart out! You can bet your bottom new energy shares that when Texaco and the boys came in here in the 1960s there were no protests hindering their progress, rather hundreds of indigenous communities unaware of how it would impact them and a poor, but greedy government who allowed the oil companies to operate however they wished. As a result, the jungle has been irrevocably damaged by the quest for oil, whole communities have been wiped out, and it has caused mass deforestation and polluted rivers. There is an ongoing case taken by 30,000 Ecuadorians against Texaco claiming that Texaco dumped 18million gallons of waste water into the Amazon in the 1970s and 80s causing all sorts of damage. It wasn't illegal for them to do so, but they had developed much more environmentally friendly methods of disposal which were being used in America, and obviously weren't pressurised by the Ecuadorian government to adopt them there.
It is against this backdrop that made the trip to the jungle all the more interesting. When you buy into capitalism, getting screwed by the big boys is bad enough, but when you are an indigenous community living off the land, it just makes it all the more worse. Anyway... from Coca we travelled by boat to the lodge, first by speedboat up the Rio Napo and then a dugout canoe for the last hour.

Jungle

The sights and sounds around us as we paddled up to the lodge were out of this world amazing- this is the jungle baby! Lush, green, and full of all sorts of life, including a storm of butterflies that greeted us as we stepped off the canoe. Once your mouth is kept clamped shut, its fine..

Sani Lodge is owned and operated by the indigenous Kichwa community, a community of about 300 based along the river and their way of life is really fascinating. The jungle is their supermarket, chemist, playground and so much more. We spent 3 magnificent days and nights getting up to all sorts of jungle fun. Our guides, Javier and Mauro were brilliant, and almost tiger- like in their ability to sense animal sounds from way off. Mauro was HARDCORE! He walked ahead of us in the jungle carrying a machete, whether to clear our path of plants or to chop the head of a threatening jaguar we weren't sure, but we hoped it was the former. He spent most of the time using it to swat mosquitoes away from him. Most of our time was spent hiking, we saw monkeys, deer, snakes, tarantulas, monkey spiders and loads and loads of cool birds. We went caiman watching at night, and piranha fishing during the day. Barry was the fishin' king, catching 2 Piranhas and a big ole Paco fish which was cooked up for dinner that night.

My big Piranha

We had great fun with the rest of the group, Will and Rekha and David who was also from England and it all added to the experience. We ate really good food, although invariably there was some sort of fly type thing floating in the soup or resting under the banana bread. They don't sleep in these Kichwa folk and breakfast was served at 6am, so night-time was pretty low key, and we were under our mozzie nets by 10pm lulled to sleep (although it took a while) by the sound of the Rio Napo philharmonic orchestra, with a special guest appearance from the night monkeys. It was an absolutely brilliant few days, and the experience of paddling slowly up the river in such serene tranquillity will stay with us for a long time. Despite the heat and humidity (finally! and we're still complaining!), the cold showers (when there was water), the insects and their bites, we were really sad leaving, Will compared it to the end of summer camp, and that's exactly how it felt. Boo hoo!

Jungle Buddies

Luckily we had a lovely few days in a place called Baņos to cheer us up (not to be confused with 'banos' which is Spanish for bathroom). Baņos is a really nice town about 4 hours drive south of Quito with thermal springs (sans sulphur smell a la Rotorua NZ), lovely waterfalls and a volcano that last erupted in August 2006. There are night tours available to view the volcano, advertised outside the travel agents as 'Volcano in activity'. However, perhaps it meant to read 'Volcano inactivity' as our trip was less than eventful from a volcanic perspective. The event came in the shape of the drive up to the viewing station; a stomach churning, white knuckle ride, as most of our vehicular jaunts in South America have been. The only rules of the road here appear to be:
1. Drive the Oldest, Crappest Vehicle (OCV) possible; ideally one that is made up of a number of even older, crapper, preferably crashed vehicles.
2. Make sure there are no seatbelts for passengers.
3. Drive as fast as your OCV will allow (surprisingly fast), overtaking other road users only when there are oncoming cars.
4. Only drive your suspension-less OCV on bumpy, unsealed, windy roads.
5. Stop randomly at the side of the road, for no apparent reason.
6. Stop for petrol only when your bus is full of passengers
Anyway, we had a great time chillin' in Baņos; the food was lovely, the weather balmy and the people friendly. An accessible, welcoming little place.

Finally, we must mention our trip to Mitad del Mundo, the middle of the world, the equatorial line about 22km outside of Quito. This is where we got to jump between the northern and southern hemispheres and went to a great little museum, the Museo Solar Inti Nan where we did all sorts of fun experiments with water (it goes straight down on the equator!) balancing eggs on nails (can only be done on the line apppppparently) and energy. Great fun, and according to GPS the site of the actual line. There is a big equatorial monument which is actually 240m off the real line according to GPS. D'oh!
So this concludes the voting of the South America jury. What a great place, although definitely a challenge, particularly without speaking Spanish. However, we are experts in ordering beer, getting our laundry back the same day and finding the toilet. And that's all you need really, isn't it?

Peace Out
M.C. Donnell and B Diggy
PS Jungle is Maaasiiive! Booyakashah!


Barry's Cliff notes:

Altitude aside, sickness aside, Peru is the most interesting country I have been in, I would love to explore and understand the local cultures more, as the photos suggest they are still living in a world not like our own. With that we got to see Machu Picchu, and an ambition fulfilled, amazing place! And really makes you consider 'how the hell, did they do that????!!! Loved it, got bitten by lama flees and am still recovering though!!!

Ecuador. As above we went to the Amazon Jungle!! Brilliant and something we are truly privileged to have experienced. Nuff said! See above from Eva

On to North America and a new challenge and a country well worth seeing and hopefully route 66 will show us a slice of it. Hope your all well.

Cheers

Barry