Guayaquil

Day 158 – The Hidden Hostel

After breakfast on the back deck of the hostel in Cuenca, we headed for the bus terminal and got on a bus to Guayaquil (where our flight to the Galapagos would leave from the following morning).

Once at the monstrous bus terminal/shopping centre in Guayaquil we stopped in at an internet café to get directions to our hostel off the reservation confirmation they had emailed us.  Using this and the address from our guidebook I started trying to find a taxi driver to take us there, the first three didn’t have a clue.  The fourth acted confident and we were getting desperate so we hopped in.

Once we got to the general area he pulled over, wound down my window, and made me ask for directions!  The first two people didn’t have much of an idea, the third gave us good directions which the taxi driver refused to follow.  In the end I insisted he take us where I though it was, we passed a sign with the hostel’s name on it, but still couldn’t find it!  In the end the driver spat the dummy and refused to take us any further.  He then had the audacity to demand more money because he’d had to drive for so long.  I politely pointed out that he had claimed to know where he was going and it was not our fault that he lied!

Thankfully it turned out we’d gotten within half a block of the hostel before being evicted from the cab, but when we rang the buzzer nobody answered, this was not going well.  Finally Erin managed to attract the cleaner’s attention by waving and whistling and we were eventually let in.  Thankfully after all the trouble the hostel was very nice, had huge landscaped gardens backing onto a treed hillside, a swimming pool surrounded by faux rock, a huge deck looking over the city and much to Erin’s delight, a bulldog.

 
One of many photos we seem to have of the bulldog!

That afternoon we headed straight back out to try and find a polarising filter for the new camera, but two shopping malls later we had no luck.  But all was not lost, Anna did manage to find a nice new bikini and I got a beard trim.  I also tried a couple of pharmacies to find some new sea-sickness tablets, the first one brushed me off very abruptly, the second one discretely took me aside to explain that the drug I was asking for is illegal in Ecuador as it was commonly used for robberies and date rapes, oops!

For dinner we continued our big city trend (whilst Quito is the capital of Ecuador, Guayaquil is the biggest city) and headed out for Japanese.  This time the prices were very reasonable and we ordered enough food to feed another three of us.

Now armed with knowledge of the hostel’s secret location we didn’t have so much trouble directing the taxi back there.  It was still really warm when we got home sometime after 10, so while Erin sent some last minute emails I went for a dip in the pool.  Then we hit the hay ready for our early morning trip to the airport.

Cuenca

Day 157 – Money bags (and shoes!)

With heavy shoes (crooks are wise to money belts these days) we were in a shared taxi to Loja by 8.30am.  From Loja we hopped on a bus and from the terminal we got a taxi to the centre.  About 6 hours later, the taxi driver dropped us almost at the door of the bank, we entered, drew out the rest of the cash needed, emptied our shoes, deposited the lot and went out for ice-cream to celebrate!

Matt has never felt so rich!

After that it was only an hour or two until dinnertime so we went for a walk around, stopped in at ‘Zoe’ for a happy our cocktail and then on to El Maíz for dinner.  El Maíz served delicious Ecuadorian influenced dishes and while Matt and I had a couple of standards (lamb and fish), Anna tried the goat!

After dinner we returned to our snazzy room at Casa del Barranco.  Having arrived late and with no other rooms available they gave us the nice one, which meant Matt and I had the ´master bedroom´downstairs, whilst Anna had the ´kids room´in the loft!

Vilcabamba

Day 156 – Bloody banks!

We woke up in time so as not to miss the breakfast of scrambled eggs and homemade bread toast and decent coffee. Seeing the hostel in the day was a lovely surprise as the rooms surrounded a lush garden (hence the name), swimming pool and it housed two German Shepherd puppies, one a little older than the other.

Tara, the bigger puppy, drinking from the pool!

Our money had still not gone through to our Galapagos tour boat, so while Matt did his best to work out why the bank wouldn’t fork over the cash (despite us advising a number of times that it was OK to be transferring the hefty funds to a South American bank account) and plead with the boat owner not to give our places away, Anna and I got out of his hair and went for a stroll around town.

We had wanted to climb the couple of hours up the nearby Cerro Mandango to the lookout, but the hostel owner warned against this plan as recently tourists had been attacked up there. This made us immediately worried about wandering the streets, but it turns out that it is only happening up there over a land dispute (ie who gets to charge the tourists for hiking up the big hill) and that everywhere else is perfectly safe. And it looked it! It reminded us very much of Daylesford in Victoria.

We didn’t get around to organising any massages, or even go to the chocolate shop for a coffee, but we found a great little jewellery shop and got to know the general lay of the land. Once Matt was off the phone (with Plan C agreed with the boat owner, more about that later) he joined us and we walked out of town a bit to a second hand book store to replenish supplies and also round the back of town past Rumi-Wilco Nature Reserve.

The bridge near Rumi-Wilco. Me thinks it’s a bit broken.

Streetscape in Vilcabamba.

Teaching Umber, the smaller puppy, to play fetch!

OK, so with the tour boats for Galapagos…. I ended up getting a fantastic deal on a first class boat called Nemo II. It was already last minute as it was, hence the deal, but it was starting to become too last minute as we were to be on the boat in 3 days and we weren’t going to be let on the boat if we hadn’t paid!

Plan A was to organise a transfer to the agency’s account. You would think that would be simple, but Australian banks seem to have a bit of a prejudice against transferring large sums of cash to South American accounts (I can’t imagine why?) without getting their customers authorisation and their first born child in triplicate, which is a little hard to do from outback Ecuador! So given we had warned them of the transaction, transferred money into that account in order for it to go out again, the bank agreed that authorisation could be obtained over the phone. But it couldn’t be given over the phone now, of course not. The bank had to call us, despite us already being on the phone to the bank! Grr! And who knows when they would have gotten around to calling us? It ended up being impossible given the rate at which we had to get to Guayaquil to catch the boat and the fact that we don’t have quad band mobiles to even get roaming in Ecuador.

So Plan B was to pay by credit card. Not an option offered by the agency, but for us they would do us a special deal and let us do it at 8% commission. EIGHT PERCENT! You have to be kidding. That almost negated the discount we got!

So it was down to Plan C, withdraw and then deposit the cash into the account ourselves. Not entirely happy as it involved carry a fair bit of cash on a bus, but worth the risk if it would save us a few hundred US dollars each. Given the daily limits on our accounts we had to draw out half today and half tomorrow. This meant carrying a few hundred dollars each in our shoes to our next destination Cuenca. So after dinner we were off to the ATM to draw out the cash. Bank machines in Ecuador only dispense $20, $10 and $5… so we had about $900 each in $20 notes!

Peru/Ecuador Border

Day 155 – The long way up

Despite this journey being billed as a two day trip, we decided that we were brave enough and stupid enough to attempt the journey from Chachapoyas to Vilcabamba (in Ecuador), plus a border crossing in one LONG day, mainly in order to enjoy time resting in the lovely sounding Vilcabamba and give Anna at least one day on her holiday without transport.

Up at 4.30am, we were catching our first shared taxi to Bagua Grande (2hrs, S22) at 5am. Following this, the journey went something like this:

• Bagua Grande to Jaén: 45 minutes and S9 in another shared taxi;
• Jaén to San Ignacio: 2.5 hours and S15 in another shared taxi, plus transfer from ‘in’ transport area to ‘out’ transport area in motorcycle taxi;
• San Ignacio to La Balsa: 1.5 hours plus a wait of one hour, costing S12 plus S10 to pay for the shared taxi to just go without the share part.
• La Balsa… wait outside immigration door for someone to notice us, exit Peru border formalities, answer “No” to all questions regarding the carrying of firearms or drugs or attempting to launder money, cross border bridge on foot, entry Ecuador border formalities, drop packs, search for food, cross back into Peru for said food, wait three hours more for truck to Zumba with beers, cards and good friends, watch pouring rain, hope dirt road doesn’t close, hope we don’t get stuck in Zumba for the night.
• La Balsa to Zumba: 1.5 hours and USD$1,50 on wooden bench seat on back of truck.
• Zumba to Vilcabamba: 6 hours in dodgy road coach for USD$6.50 each.

We arrived in Vilcabamba at a bit after 2am, knocked on the door of Jardín Escondido (Hidden Garden) and were kindly granted some rooms. We passed out after that.

Scenery somewhere in Northern Peru.

Yay, we’re off to Ecuador.

Waiting at San Ignacio. After about an hour and too many chocolate Sublime bars (hey, we had to spend our small Peruvian change on something) we just paid the driver to go. We had a schedule to keep!

Peru/Ecuador border bridge. We decided to take the country back way after hearing about the nightmares at the main entry point further west. Still pleased with our choice, despite the long day.

The place we didn’t choose for lunch.

Beers at the border, just before it began to pour with rain.

Mucking around on the truck.

Chachapoyas and Kuélap

Day 154 -  The Living Pantry

Thinking we would arrive in Chachapoyas at around 7am ready to start our day, we actually arrived at around 5am, exhausted.  Luckily there was a night watch man who kindly organised a room for us at the first place we knocked on the door of and we had a bit of a nap, before getting up for our tour of Kuélap at 8am.

We were picked up, along with about a dozen others and driven out of town two hours to the site where the ruins of Kuélap are located.  Kuélap is a 600m long 110m wide fortress associated with the Chachapoyas culture.  It was occupied from around the 6th century AD until the 1500s.  After that it lay untouched until 1843 when it was ‘rediscovered’ by a local judge carrying out a survey of the area.

Our first glimpse at Kuelap, high up in the cloud forest.

The path leading around the walls to the main entrance.

The remains of the main entrance, originally reserved for royalty.

Before entering our guide warned  us the be careful of the llamas, one of them had bitten an American tourist recently.  With no American tourists we though we might be safe, but a Quebecois guy in our group certainly qualified for a llama attack, he was so obnoxious I though I was going to have to separate him and Anna at one point.  He also seemed to have a way of getting in everyone’s photos…

The site is mostly unrestored, but picturesquely covered in bromeliad covered trees and cute orchids.

The sheer cliffs to one side of Kuélap and high walls on the other helped protect it from invasion for centuries.  When it was eventually conquered it was via siege, as Kuélap has no fresh water source and insufficient rainfall to sustain the population. 

Our guide secretly removing a stone from the wall of the central building to reveal…

… a huge area filled with human bones.

Another interesting tale our guide told us was about a ceremonial platform where shamans would wash their own blood down a drain that lead to a narrow ledge below.  On that ledge Chachapoyas warriors would fight to gain access to the blood which they believed increased their vitality and general warrior-ness. 

 
That’s the main entrance from above, you can see why invasion wasn’t a successful technique for conquering the place.

Stone ‘Puma’s eyes’ decorate the circular shelters of the Sharmans.  Our guide explained that there were three levels of ‘living’ or classes, with all the royalty living in shelters at the top of the site and the knights living on the bottom level.

 
The offending (some might say heroic?) llama, now safely tied up out of reach of tourists.

 
The remains of a dwelling.  The circular thing in the centre would have originally had a human corpse or two stashed in it (good luck apparently, don’t try it at home though, it’s probably illegal).  The low wall to the left was the guinea pig enclosure (otherwise known as a pantry!).

More dwellings with their corpse holes and guinea pig enclosures.

One of the few restored buildings, this is one of the dwellings.

Erin and Anna huddling in the wind that sweeps through the entranceway.

On the way back to Chachapoyas we stopped in the tiny hamlet of Maria for lunch.  A few brave souls had the cuy (baked guinea pig), but my tum wasn’t feeling too great, so I just opted for the trout.

Just before dark we were back in Chachapoyas and absolutely exhausted.  After running a few quick errands in preparation for the following day we were all in bed, without the energy to even go out for dinner.

Trujillo

Day 153 – Architecturally designed mud pie

Arriving at Trujillo in time for breakfast we ate, organised our next bus to Chachapoyas, left our backpacks at the station and were off again on a minibus to Chan Chan.

Occupied by the Chimu people, Chan Chan was built in around AD 1300 and is a huge citadel of crumbling mud walls that must have been an awesome place in its day.  The city once formed the largest adobe (mud brick) city in the world and also the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas.

For 30 soles we hired ourselves a lovely English speaking guide who took us all around the restored parts of the city, explaining each of the sectors and their significance and a bit about what it may have looked like back in the day.

An artist’s impression of what Chan Chan may have been like.

The main entrance.  The walls currently stand at about 4m tall and 2m thick at the bottom, but were once up to 10m tall. 

There were many large squares with altars on one side where sacrifices to different natural elements were performed.  The diamond patterns around this square represent the nets of the fisherman who would go out and fish for the people and the altar is facing the nearby mountains to bring good weather.

This is the ‘professionals’ sector where doctors, accountants, etc had a ‘room’ to receive clients.  Although the fishing net pattern is a common theme throughout the city, along the bottoms of these walls there are different friezes of fish, pelicans and geometric patterns for each of the professions.

  

 
Patterns of squirrels with alternating three and four pronged tails adding to seven and 14 ‘waves’ along the top.  Many of the stories etched into the mud brick walls relate to the number seven and natural elements and cycles such as the sea and the moon.

A main hall leading to a well.

 
The major spring fed well in town.

A king was buried in this crypt with 44 of his servants and many of his treasures and ceremonial objects for the afterlife.  In fact much of the city was lined with gold and other precious metals.  Today there is an empty tomb, not even any bones.  Despite the Incas having conquered the Chimu in around 1460, the city was not looted until the Spanish arrived looking for gold.

We had a little bit more time until our night bus, so we decided to check out the nearby sea side village of Huanchaco for lunch.  After a nice vegetarian meal, we stopped by the internet to check if our payment for our chosen Galapagos boat had gone through and as it hadn’t (stupid bank), we tried to fix the situation, leaving us rushing to catch our bus to Chachapoyas, getting there just in time.

Local fishing boats stacked against the seawall in Huanchaco.

Lima

Day 151 – Authentic Peruvian experiences

Before we left for Lima, Anna and I walked up to the top of one of the dunes to get a birds eye view over our little oasis:

The water in the middle is a natural fresh water spring, not a mirage!

Then we loaded up, got a cab to nearby Ica, a bigger town, to get on the next bus to Lima.  After a painless 4 hour journey (in comparison to our last bus ride!) we were in the delightful comfort of Villa HQ Hostel in the Miraflores area of Lima.

Following our usual format of hitting a big city, we found the nearest Japanese restaurant and for around $20 each we had our fill of sushi rolls, sashimi and few other interesting sounding things on the menu.  Poor Anna came at the wrong time for us to be introducing her to the delightful Peruvian food, most of it grease and meat anyway, so with Japanese being one of her favourite foods, we think she was happy to oblige!

 

Day 152 – Old town Lima and more authentic Peruvian experiences.

The next morning we were off to a slow start, but were out and about on a walk around the old town by mid morning.

The central square, Plaza de Armas, with its bronze fountain erected in 1650.

The Peruvian President’s house, Palacio de Gobierno.  We just missed the changing of the guard by 5 minutes!

Around the square.

We also went inside Monasterio de San Francisco to visit its bone filled catacombs and the dusty library with texts dating back to the Spanish conquest.  We couldn’t take any photos inside, but saw lots of bones! 

We went to an upmarket, but all-you-can-eat, Peruvian fusion place for lunch in anticipation of yet another night bus.  This was dessert, but sadly Anna didn’t make it this far, feeling the effects of catching Matt’s cold made worse by an upset tum : (

With Anna tucked up in bed for an afternoon nap, Matt and I went for a quick spin around LarcoMar the local shopping mall to look for a polarising filter for the new baby.  LarcoMar’s location was actually more spectacular than the mall itself, built right into the cliff side over looking the ocean.  We also bumped into Jacqui and Peter (the Canadians) who were killing a few days in Lima before flying into the jungle at Iquitos.

Back at the hostel, we spent a bit of time catching up with internet chores and then it was off to catch our night bus to Trujillo.