Week 26: In This City

Aside from Cusco, Cuenca in Ecuador was probably the one place I stayed in for the longest. It is a colonial town (surprise surprise) with lots of lovely architecture and seemed like an appealing place to stop for a week or so and learn some (more) Spanish.

One of the main rivers at night

After a day of exploring the town and sorting out some Spanish lessons, I went on the Monday to my first one-on-one class. It was quite interesting to see how my knowledge and use of the language had developed and been influenced by so many different countries and cultures. My teacher sometimes told me things which completely contradicted what I had picked up.

Quaint plaza #714

In the evening I went to a cooking class with 2 other people from my school where we made some sort of well-known regional dish, which I can't actually remember the name of. I used the following day to read up on my notes and have another wander around the city, as there were so many hidden plazas and beautiful buildings. Tuesday night was free salsa classes at the language school, which turned out to be a lot more popular than the cooking class. It was really good fun (as we all know you don't actually have to be good at dancing to enjoy it, much to my advantage), and was topped off by a visit to an almost-pub with its own brews. I had to leave in a bit of a hurry as I was supposed to be meeting a girl from my hostel for dinner. I got stood up. Again.





Thankfully, I decided to do the usual meeting-other-travellers trick and just took a seat in the bar with two girls I had seen around the hostel. Lifesaver. Hannah and the-other-girl-whose-name-I-unfortunately-can't-remember were very welcoming and after a few drinks we all decided to go out to a club. I, as usual, decided I knew the way (I actually did), and we got there pretty safe and sound. It was a fun evening with a lot of impressive casual salsa but a little bit too many creepy South American men. I also bumped into the girl who had stood me up at dinner who, to be fair, did apologise profusely.

The main plaza

The next few days were filled with swimming at the local pool where Hannah and I got chatted up by a rather strange 17-year-old boy who claimed to be a football player, drinks in the bar, lessons and school and after school hot chocolates as well as ice cream. Another of the after school activities I partook in was a visit to a local guinea pig restaurant (yes, my second of the trip). And sorry to tell you this but we did see them on a spit roast. I even took a video. Later in the week after one of my Spanish lessons I went for some private salsa lessons which were fun but also frustrating because when all the attention is on you, it isn't always possible to just breeze through and hope nobody will notice.

A lot of artsy street work going on in Cuenca

One evening Hannah and I did manage to get into a bit of an argument with an ignorant (North) American. Naturally I can barely remember what it was about except that we all knew he was wrong. Unfortunately many of the high number of American expats in Cuenca who see themselves as "free spirits" when they really aren't, fail to educate themselves and many, even after years of living in the country, barely speak a word of Spanish.

Charming buildings

I did meet one nice American though, a girl called Davi from my school, who I was going to visit the national park with but didn't. On my last evening I was lucky enough to bump into her and we went for a delicious ice cream. (Always end on a high note. Ice cream is always a high note.)

Another very important point to mention about Hannah is that she basically convinced me that I needed to go to the Galapagos islands, something I had been telling myself for 6 months I wouldn't do. Anyway I made a few phone calls and...

Week 25: I Feel The Earth Move

Only 2 months later than originally planned...

My journey frmo Cusco, Peru, to Vilcabamba, Ecuador, was one of the most epic I have undertaken yet. From the bus station in Cusco I took a 22 hour overnight bus to Lima, the capital, arriving in the late morning. I had about 4 hours to kill before taking yet another overnight bus of 19 hours to Piura, in the north and close to the border with Ecuador. In the 4 hours I managed to somehow delete the pictures on my camera from the preceding 2 weeks, I blame the computer, but on the upside I booked my ticket to go to Shambala festival, near Bristol, over my birthday this year with my friend Carys. After another couple of hours wait I managed to take a bus from Piura to Loja which incorporated the border crossing and took 9 hours. The final leg was a local bus from Loja to Vilcabamba of 1.5 hours.



I arrived in the evening and as I'm sure you can imagine, was in dire need of a refreshment. I sat in the bar where a met an American lady named Sheila, who lived in Cuenca and was on a spiritual journey to Ecuador. It was extremely interesting to talk to her about her journey and the way she looked at life and the things she did, as I have never really met anyone in the same place as she is before.

A hostel with one hell of a view

Luckily I had a whole dorm and a double bed to myself so I slept like a log that night, and had a big lie in the morning which I fully deserved. A bit later 4 belgian medical students who were living in Cuenca arrived for their weekend break. I mostly spent the day by the pool and reading as I needed to recuperate after time sitting cramped on the bus.

The next day the belgians left early for a walk, and I met Sheila and another girl to go into town. We had a delicious mexican lunch before wandering round the shops and stalls, where there was some really beautiful jewellery, so I had to really restrain myself. We then had "afternoon tea" (cheesecake!) in the inner courtyard of a lovely hostel, before heading back to Izhcayluma, our well-run hostel up on the hill with beautiful views.

In the evening we had a fire outside the bar, with a couple of drinks, and chatted with the belgians and a few other people. I went in the pool while it was raining because that is the most fun time to go.

Incredible vistas of rolling hills

The next day all of the Belgian students left apart from one guy, Bob, we went for a hike together up to a  beautiful ridge, unfortunately I forgot to change the memory card in my camera so don't have any pictures (still waiting on Bob to send me some). The end of the walk was a little bit tedious as we were hopping from rock to rock on the river and trying not to break an ankle or get wet.

A bit of low-res photography on the old iphone 3

Bob had told me he was going to hitchhike back to Cuenca, where he was studying, and as it was my next destination, I asked if I could join him. So in the morning we walked down to the main road from the hostel, laden with out bags, and managed to pick up a ride within about 10 or 15 minutes. The guy told us he would drop us in town. When we explained to him where we were going he said he had an appointment at the hospital but that if we were willing to wait he would take us into Loja. He dropped us in the city about an hour later and we grabbed lunch at a chicken place (there's a disguise), it was one of my worse experiences and I thought I wasn't going to be able to get it all down but I just about managed. We walked along the road a while until it turned into the main road north to Cuenca. We had been standing for about 20 minutes and we just about to give up and grab a cap a few miles further north where we were more likely to get picked up, when someone pulled over. The guy took as as far as a town called Saraguro, although I had to grip the JC handle all the way as he was rather erratic. From Saraguro we were picked up within a few minutes by a camioneta (4x4), although he told us he could only take us about 10km, and we soon realised it was a local collective taxi, so we were going to have to pay. He dropped us at the end of his route and to our surprised didn't want any money from us. We walked 100 or 200m up the road to where we would be a bit more visible (who realised there were such tactics to hitchhiking?), where a few cars and trucks passed us by before one guy obviously made a last minute decision to take us and stopped about 50m up the road. We ran up the road and climbed up into the cab of his truck. They were full-time truckers transporting motorbikes through Ecuador. It was really interesting talking to him in Spanish particularly about how much he loved his country ("Ecuador has everything... Sea, mountains and jungle, why would I ever need to leave?"). After another couple of hours, which would have been less in anything a bit smaller, but it was fun all the same and thankfully at no point did I need the toilet!

Excited to be setting off on my first ever hitchhike!

He dropped us just outside of Cuenca and Bob knew the local bus to take to get to my hostel, and so he could get home. After a quick turnaround we met up again with the other girls I had met in Vilcabamba, and another couple to go for dinner and a few drinks. All in all I had thoroughly enjoyed my first hitchhiking experience and would certainly think about doing it again.

I hear you ask, why the blog title? On the second night I was sitting on the toilet (necessary detail, sorry) when I was sure I felt the whole room shaking. It had nothing to do with me I can assure you, as I saw the lightbulb swinging in the main room and was sure there had been a tremor of some kind.
The following day I was sitting at the computer adjoining the restaurant when I felt the room shake, but nobody else around me seemed to react. I did later realise that it was another tremor, I hadn't just been imagining it. Earthquake experiences 3 and 4!

Week 24: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

Having not quite recovered from my eye infection, I decided to start my trek regardless, as I was feeling much better and ready to face the world (apart from the fact I still looked like a pirate). On the way to the pick up point I bumped into a... erm... friend? of Steve's, and then continued on for the drive up to the starting point of the mountain biking.

Unfortunately for me, it was my left eye that was the issue and therefore on the ride down I couldn't tell if anyone was overtaking me until they were almost past me, and if I wanted to overtake anyone I had to twist my head round exorcist-style to check that I wasn't about to have a fatal collision. However it was all pretty incident free, apart from getting absolutely soaked going through rivers which crossed over the road. By the end I had perfected a technique to not get wet, but by that time everything was soaked anyway.



We had our lunch stop in the small pueblo of Santa Maria, it was probably chicken and rice but the lemonade was delicious. After lunch some of the boys went white water rafting and the rest of us were left to explore what little of the small town there was, and thankfully our hostel had a pool table so we were able to entertain ourselves for the afternoon.

In the evening we returned to the same place for dinner. There were two spanish guys (with an uncanny resemblance to the two heroes from The Road to El Doraado) and it was one of their birthdays that day so we organised a cake for the evening, and afterwards headed to the only bar in town (I think it was actually called that) for a couple of drinks and a little bit of dancing.

In the morning we had a pancake breakfast before setting out on the actual day of trekking, which was, I must admit, not all that strenuous. Halfway through the day I had to remove my eye patch as sweat was pooling in it, attractive I know...
We had quite a few stops on the way in the morning, including at a lady's house who had rescued a monkey from the jungle. It stole the insole of a guy's shoe, which was pretty funny because I'm sure it was a real mission to get it back. About another half an hour later, and one hangover vom from a spanish guy, we had another stop to learn about some of the medicinal plants of the forest, and also the amazing jugo de maracuya (passion fruit juice) touched my lips for the first time.

Lunch was pretty chilled out and even though I was raring to go again we had an enforced break to let everyone's food go down. The rest of the walk was pretty easy apart from one serious uphill for about ten minutes. When we needed to cross the huge chasm above the river we pretty much had to pull ourselves across in a trolley. It was fun and a little bit nerve-wracking.

At the end of the walk we arrived at the hot springs of Santa Teresa, which were very welcome, especially once a bit of a chill had descended. We spent an hour and a half or so there before heading to our hostel in the town. Myself and the other girl in the group, Christiane, had a twin room to ourselves which was a bit of a privelige as the boys had to share a bigger dorm.

After dinner, we had a few drinks and were hoping to go dancing but the one place in town had closed, so the woman at the restaurant cleared the floor for us, even though they had already laid the plates for breakfast, and we danced to the one CD they had, which was played over and over again. We eventually braved the rain to run home, and one or two of us stayed up on the balcony chatting till it really was time for bed.

The next day certainly wasn't a highlight as they had told us ziplining was "optional." Read: it isn't really, if you choose not to do it we aren't even going to give you a guide for the day and make you walk in the blistering heat with no shade on the road for three hours. Shouldn't have told us it was optional.

At lunchtime we arrived at the meeting place, from where everyone else went on the town of Aguas Calientes close to Machu Picchu, as I had only come for the trek I went home on the bus. I waited up for Matt and Gemma to get back to the hostel, and as we were all pretty shattered everyone went to bed.

I can well and truly say the next day was reserved for recovery but I did go for a walk in town, and the group had said we would meet in the square at midnight to go for a drinks. Apparently they had all decided against it.




Saturday was pretty eventful as after breakfast we went to the Inca Museum in town, which was good value for money and I highly recommend to occupy you for an afternoon. In the evening we hosted a bit of a dinner party (baked potatoes, again) As well as Matt and Gemma, Steve, Ant, Harry and a friend from their hostel also came. We went to a bar afterwards for a coupe of the well-loved caipirinhas, and afterwards to a club called Temple, where it was cheaper to buy a whole bottle of rum to share so I had to keep it in my pocket (didn't even think that was physically possible.) Then some of us had to help some others home...

As we had got in quite late we didn't rise too early as I am sure you can imagine. It was raining most of the day so we stayed in and watched films (The Patriot and The Guardian) and I caught up on a bit of Breaking Bad. Not a particularly cultural day I know.

The time to part from Matt and Gemma was approaching fast, although all of us kept trying to put it off, but we decided that on Tuesday we would finally have to split. And so it was that on our last day we crammed in lots of culture. First we went to the markets in the morning (where Gemma and I mostly just cooed over tiny baby clothes - and I bought quite a few for my little nephew!), then we visited the Temple of the Sun, a former Inca palace, which was very interesting particularly as we splashed out on getting a guide. In the evening we went to a well-named Indian restaurant for curry. It was the first time I had had lamb in a number of months and was absolutely exquisite, the joy went on even longer as none of us could finish our meals so had doggy-bags for lunch the next day.

The Inca Sun Temple

D-Day had finally arrived and after a hectic morning for me of running back and forth to the post office to send a parcel of goodies home, we all headed to the bus station together. In the taxi Matt and Gemma gave me a really thoughtful gift. I promise you, I didn't cry, I would never do that.

After some delay and lots of hugs(!) we finally went our seperate ways. Matt and Gemma to the East and Bolivia, and for me it was time to finally leave Peru before my visa ran out in 10 days time. I had half-planned an epic journey to get to Ecuador. It was going to be a right mission.

Sad on the inside