Hazy lazy days...

For those of you who are awaiting news of mountains we have climbed, rivers we have rafted, and snakes we have wrestled, you´ll be a little let down. Vilcabamba is the kind of town where you can walk down the middle of the street with no fear of traffic, but maybe having to dodge the odd donkey poo. There are only about ten streets anyway, and while we thought we might be bored, we found we settled right in. Lots of good food and good people, including a very interesting woman shaman who lives on the edge of town with her menagerie. So we spent some time hanging out with her and her four dogs and four cats, as well as her muy guapo scarlet macaw, Pepe, who waved to us from the trees and did everything he could to attract our attention. This included assuming numerous poses to show off his gorgeous feathers. He used to get kidnapped from time to time, including a trip to the local whorehouse where he was held to ransom for $30, but apparently he sticks to his own back yard these days. We´ve been here about six days and tonight we´re heading off to Piura, to start the Peruvian leg of our adventure. Ecuador has been brilliant and beautiful, and we´re looking forward to what´s to come. Lots of Incan ruins in the near future we suspect.

Colour therapy

So, what was going to be a few days in Baños turned into a week of relaxing and merry-making. We followed our fantastic waterfall escapade with a tour of the local drinking establishments. And I´m not sure if Sue mentioned the fabulous yellow poncho she purchased following our drenching in La Pailon del Diablo cascada, but it was beeeaautiful and has now become our source of happiness on off-days. Sue might need it now because she has yucky flu. It may be the result of our visit to the local drinking establishments, but it might just be one of those things. So we´re holing up in Cuenca for a couple of days. Anyways, I digress. The other form of colour therapy we indulged in involved several cocktails of all the colours of the rainbow, yellow piña coladas, green mai tais and red strawberry somethings, mixed by the expert hands of Susanna, our favourite bar keep. We took our friend Marg out for her last night in Baños, supposedly for one drink, which turned into several, which resulted in Marg not actually leaving the next day. So we all went to Cuenca together the day after. And the night after our first trip bender, Sue hiked up to the Statue of the Virgen to pay her respects (or penance) at 8am after which we headed to the local thermal baths to sweat out the toxins. A soak in the ultra hot baths, followed by a dousing under the icy cold waterfall, followed by subsequent dips in the hot and cold water was just the ticket. No hangover! Amazing! Either that or Sue´s trip to see La Madre worked a treat. Baños was lovely all in all. We stayed in a fantastic hostel (Timara), owned by a lovely ex-pat Brit called Paul who is about the most helpful and kind hostel owner I think we´ll ever meet. We didn´t want to leave but as Marg put it, it´s not really travelling if you don´t go anywhere. Although we seem to have adventures plenty even when we stay in one place. Oh, I also went to a spa for the afternoon and paid to be shut in a steam box and periodically doused in icy cold water by a lovely lady called Estella. After the steaming I had a massage from another lovely lady who was a bit older and farted quite a lot during the session, but perhaps it was all part of the service!

Getting wet

It´s a struggle staying here in Baños. How do you decide between hotpools, facials, massages, and about a million outdoor activites? We´re pretty close to the jungle too so you can dart off into the amazon for a few days and swim with the barracudas, have your face painted by tribesmen or whatever takes your fancy.
Our adventure yesterday was slightly more sedate but lots of fun. We ran into a dude called Mario, who hooked up his brother Angel to take us on a jeep ride along the valley running out of Banos towards Puyo. It´s surrounded by volcanoes here, some of them quite active, and the countryside is incredible, lots of deep river canyons and the most amazing waterfalls, especially after quite a few days of rain.
We took our chances on a cable car ride across a ridiculously deep river canyon. After a couple of weeks observing the languid approach to health and safety here you find yourself hesitating and tossing up the odds about doing these sorts of things but a sense of adventure won the day. The ride was very fast and we shared it with half a dozen large planks of wood that were loaded on. This mystified us a little, until a little old lady showed up at the other end of the cable car ride and unloaded them. We helped of course but i think she could have managed it quite nicely herself.
We drove a bit further after this and Angel provided us both with a pair of gumboots and guided us down a very steep walk to the Devil´s palion (the religious overtones of this weren´t lost on us) , a very spectacular waterfall. Meg was then foolish enough to ask whether we could go behind the waterfall which made Angel smile quite excitedly and indicate that indeed yes we could. So we ended up scrambling around some rocks and through a very narrow rock tunnel until we ended up in a little refuge under a thundering wall of water. The waterfall was periodically throwing off huge surges of water so parts of it were a bit like running the gauntlet. We were wearing our little semiwaterproof jackets, while Angel was wearing a big plastic poncho down to his knees. We were wet to the bone - he was fine. He giggled and said the waterfall wasn´t normally anywhere near that big.
Anyway, we discovered afterwards that it´s quite a lot of fun to climb for 20 minutes up a steep track dripping wet with gumboots full of water. We then sat dripping in the restaurant at the top and had the three course menu of the day which cost the grand total of 2.20 NZ each.
Such are the small adventures we are having. Our highlight adventure on the previous day had been a jaunt in a kiddy type ride (with a rhinohead at the front, rock music blaring and a bunch of carts behind). We thought it might be a sedate ride through the town but the driver was a maniac, we lurched from side to side in our little carts while he zig zagged through the streets and took 90 degree turns at the last possible minute. Petrol´s quite cheap here...
Anyway we´re chilling out here for a few more days and then we´re thinking of heading to Cuenca which is 7 0r 8 hours south of Banos.
Enough for now. Hope you are all doing well.

Meg and Sue

Getting high

Aloha,

We have just spent a few days in Cotopaxi National Park, staying in an adobe mud house near Cotopaxi Volcano. So beautiful. We did a few walks to check out the local flora and fauna, but didn´t venture up the volcano because...well because we couldn´t be arsed. Just seemed like exercise on that scale didn´t appeal and that we were far better off with chilling out and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Strangely, aside from the view of the volcano, it reminded us of New Zealand, and even the volcano and surrounding farmland bore a resemblance to Taranaki. We were staying at 3 500 metres though, and we definitely noticed the effects on our lungs and heads...a bit spacey and a bit out of breath at times, but very good practice for Machu Picchu I guess! We´re now in Baños, a town famous for it´s mineral baths and hot springs. Which seems like an excellent place to relax for a little while. So far we´ve done a walk up a hill to see a statue of Mary overlooking the town and discovered a magical health food shop in the middle of town, where we found brown rice and fresh spices. I know, not exactly party central but it could be that, dare I say it, we might be past that!

Fiesta Loco!

We were pleasantly surprised with the magnificent welcome that the residents of Otovalo put on for us last night. A small welcome committee would have been enough, but we really didn´t expect a full parade, complete with dancers from Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, as well as some startling body-builders and Miss Otovalo contestants distributing roses. The streets were thick with Ecuadorians, many of which Meg was delighted to discover only came up to her waist. An uncommon experience for her. The prize for the most bizarre float went to the scantily-clad nurses (mini skirts and red stilettos), accompanied by a very large papier mache Egyptian cat. They were advertising something, it was either bikini waxes or viagra. By the looks of the number of babies in the crowd, it should have been contraceptive pills.

Everywhere we looked there were squat Ecuadorian women with tight baby bundles strapped to their backs. Looks like a fantastic way to get around. We´re thinking of finding a couple of Ecuadorian women to carry us around for the rest of the trip. They seem built for carrying heavy loads, we saw a little old man yesterday who came up to our knees, but had a large bundle on his back about four times as big as he was. Made us stop complaining about our packs for five minutes.

We´re so glad to be out of the city. We´re staying in a fantastic hostel (http://www.rosecottageecuador.com/) with a family who speaks no English so it´s a Baptism of Fire with our spanish. Much fun. Sporting a little bit of sunburn after a fantastic jaunt in the countryside yesterday. Life is beautifully slow here. Everyday we see a little man sitting by the side of the road while his herd of 6 cattle grazes - he looks happy as Larrio. Our next-door neighbour is a farmer who we see ploughing his field with his oxen in the morning. We´re pretty sure he´s not just doing this for our photo opportunities. Chilling here for a couple more days before heading south, we hope on another bus with as much character as that we arrived on.

Chau for now!

Estamos Aqui!

Contrary to what some of our more doubtful friends might have thought, we managed to meet in Quito on the right day, in the right place and with very little stress. And yes, even we were surprised. So we´re just hanging out in Quito for a day or two more, before heading out into the wilderness to chill out. Neither of us are city girls at heart, especially given the manic-ness of crazy Quito, and we´ve found a couple of lovely places to rest for a while.

We´re heading up to Otovalo tomorrow, two hours north of Quito, where there is a huge market on a Saturday and a fiesta happening this weekend. We´ll be staying outside of Otovalo with views of the volcanoes. Should be great! So tomorrows job is tackling the south american bus system for the first time... might need a couple of coffees beforehand.

Hope everyone is well and happy...chau for now! Meg and Sue