Where the sun had been » Ecuador

Ecuador – Quito + Semana Santa = Terrifying

rbosinger — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:17:33 +0000

We stayed a week in Quito, Ecuador. I think I can say that so far it’s been the only bigger city in South America that I’ve actually liked. People generally left us alone (in most other places they try and sell us stuff with force), it was quieter (honking seems to be a major pasttime everywhere else), and I actually enjoyed the cooler weather after coming from Costa Rica and Colombia. Also, our hostal (Hostal Chicago) was awesome and we met alot of cool people on their roof top patio.

Our reason for staying a whole week in Quito was that we were able to take cheap personal Spanish lessons at the hostal, and we thought that would be a good idea. However, it just so happened it was Easter Week (Semana Santa) and in Quito they do some weird things to celebrate.

During the days leading up to Easter, Brianna and I would:

start our day off with Spanish lessons
take a walk around the city and stop for some cheap chinese food at a Chifa (we could both eat and drink for about $6US and walk out so full we would complain)
hang out with people on the patio at night with a few beers (or rum and yogurt) until we got too cold
watch Spanish versions of Passion of the Christ and other Jesus-based films while I tried to explain to Brianna the difference between God and Jesus and where babies come from…

Then came Easter day and we went to watch the procession, and that was scary for the following reasons:

thousands of people dressed in robes similar to that of a certain infamous racist clan (only in purple) walking slowly down the street while…
creepy church music blared through the city (that type of dark choir music they use in horror flicks)
people dressed as Jesus wearing real thorns and dragging real heavy crosses up the street
a scary blind guy with no eyes walking around asking for money (more like “moaning” for money)

and it doesn´t end there. On the hill overlooking most of Quito there’s this statue.

so we start climbing up these stairs to go up to the top. A local family on the way down tells us to take a cab because it’s too dangerous. A man in the family points up, and then to us, and then makes the international “you gonna get murdered” sign by running his finger across his neck.

We ran into two other travellers and decide to all go anyway. Nothing happened, except a little boy asked us for our cameras (really). He didn´t have a weapon, and he was only 6 years old or so, so I beat the shit out of him. When we got to the top we got a good look at the statue….

an angel holding a chain which is attached to an alligator/turtle/dragon beast which she is standing on while it lays on top of the world

Makes as much sense as thousands of purple dwarves running through the streets, but I liked it.

and this is scary too…

Ecuador – Biking Baños to Puyo (extended edition)

rbosinger — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:41:46 +0000

In the last post about the same subject I wrote something like this:

In the town of Baños in Ecuador, the hip thing to do is rent a bike and hit the highway between Baños and Puyo. Puyo is over 60km away, but most of it is downhill. Along the way you see different waterfalls and sights.

Actually, that’s exactly what I wrote. At that time I only had a video (check it) to post of one small part of the journey. Now I have a few pic-tures online from Brianna’s camera and a little time to write about thangs.

So we’re actually in Arequipa, Peru right now and way behind on this blog. I’m also drinking some cheap rum (15 soles – about $6 CAD) but I’ll do my darndest to recall the events accurately…

We were in Quito (Ecuador, the big city) hanging out for a week and taking Spanish lessons and then we decided to go to Baños. We didn’t know much about it except that it had many hot springs and it was a popular excursion to rent mountain bikes and attempt to bike to Puyo (a nearby jungly city – about 65km away).

We didn’t arrive in Baños until the afternoon so had to save the biking for the next day, so, like most of our trip we began by walking around. It tookabout 15 minutes for this guy to show up:

This guy was funny… and drunk. He guessed we were Canadians (there has been tons of Canadians on this trip) and we started talking to him. He works as a jungle tour guide and just wanted to hang with us and practice his English.

- Where you from?

- Soy de Canada, de donde eres?

- Canada! Is cold, no?

- Si, mucho frio.

Unfortunately this the only level conversation we can ever get to with the locals, but the practice helps and they sure are patient.

Baños is surrounded by mountains and small waterfalls. Our amigo took us to a spot where the locals can fill their water bottles up for free with fresh mineral water as well as wash their clothes.

You can walk up these stairs beside the falls.

Can you see how happy we are? Notice our “thumbs up”.

We walked around a graveyard on the edge of town. I thought this site looked like a an apartment building with mini balconies. I would pretend to be a big monster. Brianna wouldn’t laugh.

Here we are on our bikes. Brianna is making a rude face and I am not impressed. These helmets are mostly for show because they wouldn’t stay on our heads properly.

You’re not suppose to bike through most of the tunnels (there a giant signs telling you not too); except for one. It’s a scary deal, because it’s fairly long and pitch black inside but all you can see if the bright light at the end (which starts as a small speck of light in the distance). It’s really disorienting and you lose your sense of speed and distance. We were lucky a vehicle didn’t come through while we were in the tunnel because they drive fast and there’s only a little room on the side.

And then you can stop and cross a bridge! And we laughed and laughed and laughed…

You pay a dollar and go see a set of waterfalls where they’ve built a series of stone balconies that get closer and closer to the falls. Brianna was so happy.

If we don´t make it back, this is the picture they’ll use on the news.

I climbed in a little cave that brings you even closer to the falls. There is so much water in the air that it’s pretty much raining.

Here’s a shot of the cable car we rode in the video (check it).

Baños from afar.

Proof that God exists. It’s right here, baby.

And when we got back, we nurtured our tired bodies with some fresh street guinea pig meat.

Actually, we skipped the guinea pig. We probably had chicken and I probably washed it down with a couple of giant beers. And we probably had mayo on our fries and got so full we complained about it.

Also, we never made it to Puyo, but we must have been damn close. We made it farther than anyone else we met, but it started raining and civilization had been out of sight for some time and we hadn’t seen a bus for hours and there were weird noises coming from the jungle and Brianna probably had to take a poop… so we caught the next bus we saw back.

Ecuador – Biking Baños to Puyo

rbosinger — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:00:00 +0000

In the town of Baños in Ecuador, the hip thing to do is rent a bike and hit the highway between Baños and Puyo. Puyo is over 60km away, but most of it is downhill. Along the way you see different waterfalls and sights. There’s also this crazy cable car you can take across a canyon for a dollar or two. I’d like to post more about this when the pictures finish uploading, but I haven’t done an update for a while and have free access to internet so I thought I would post this video.