Ecuador-Peru

As we were hitching out of Cuenca, a pick-up pulled over, with one hitch-hiker in the back already. His name was Jonathan. He had done exactly the same route as us, even starting from Montreal! As we have forgotten most of our french, we conversed in spanish(!). We decided to travel together for a bit, as none of us was in a hurry to get anywhere... After an hour or so of travelling, we came up to a road blockade, high up in the mountains. The local indigeneous community was protesting against the goverment interfering into the community´s water managment. Private companies were planned to be brought in, increasing the costs (or even privatising) the water. The traditional way of protesting in Ecuador was historically to block roads, preventing all but pedestrian traffic from passing, sometimes for days.(photo by Jonathan)
We alighted and walked to the other side of the barickades. There was very little flow of traffic on the other side, only some people going for lunch to the nearest town and taxis. We walked on a totally empty road for may be half an hour when a van stopped and took us to the next town. Then the rides came so quickly that we did not have time to even make a couple of steps of our own. By the end of the day we covered more than 200 km, way more than we usually do, and that including the road block! Jonathan definitely brought us some good luck!
We got into Loja just before the sunset and got to looking for a campsite straight away. Jonathan asked some señor if he would know of a campsite nearby, in return to which he pointed to an abandoned construction site. The four storey appartment building was perched on a hill overlooking most of Loja and facing directly west. We occupied the central living room and discovered that we are facing a small-scale version of St. Basil´s Cathedral.The sun set behind a furious storm-cloud and we went to sleep.
In the morning Jonathan´s luck only increased. As soon as we walked to the spot, he flagged the very first car down, and his fenominal thumb worked wonders the rest of the day, getting us to the border 8 hours later.There we camped behind a gas station and crossed into Peru in the morning. As we were taking breakfast, Jonathan noticed a truck pulling out. He quickly ran over and got us a ride straight to Piura!The truck was delivering a sort of humanitarian aid to the local population, and in the middle of the ride we unloaded sacks of rice and boxes of soya oil into another truck, heading the opposite dirrection. We hope the aid reached the people!
We find ourselves now in the hot and dusty city of Piura, on the northern edge of the Sechura desert. We only have to cover 6 kms to get to the desert´s edge from here, so we think we´ll stock up on fruits and water and go camp in the desert for the night.Photo by Jonathan.

Ecuador II

We left Quito late in the morning, it was overcast and we couldn´t see any volcanoes around us. We took a bus to the nearest town of Tambillo on the Panamericana. We started hitching, but somehow we got disoriented and when the car stopped the driver informed us that we were heading back to Quito! We felt stupid, turned around and walked to the other end of town. Again. There was no good take off spot, so we kept walking. It started drizzling, turning to rain later on. It started raining heavily as we were passing a truck scale station, complete with a two-storey building for the the police to watch over traffic. There was a porch on the backside of it and we sat down there waiting for the rain to stop. It didn´t. George was practising his flute and Anastasia was making bracelets. A security guard came up to the sound of music and chatted with us. The building was sort of abandoned but the guard used it to store his things in it. The key to the door was a piece of wire laying on a nearby sill. Anastasia picked the lock in under 30 seconds and we looked around the place. It was empty, had a locked toilet, an empty kitchen and a second floor with a 360 degree view of the landcape and the highway. However, we decided not to trespass and to sleep outside under the cover of the roof. Don´t mess around with the police, man!
It was getting dark and as we were boiling soup for dinner, the same guard came back, showed us how to pick the lock and invited us to spend the night on the second floor. We had a comfortable night as it rained outside.In the morning we walked a bit more and got a lift to Latacunga. There is a very high and beautiful volcano Cotopaxi near it, but the clouds were still hanging low. Another lift to Ambato, with an extremely polite and interesting Colombian, Ivan. How nice it was to get the feel and hear the expressions of that beautiful country once again.
From Ambato we headed to Baños, which we believed to be a beautiful resort town. Anastasia planned to sell some of her bracelets there. Well, Baños wasn´t beautiful. Ten years ago an eruption of the near-by volcano leveled the old town, and the new one was ugly with half-finished disproportional buildings, most of them hotels. 150 of them in a town of may be 10 000 people. Everything for the rich tourist. Lots of offices offering horse-back riding, rafting, waterfall excursions and so forth. We found the cheapest room in town, without even a window. In the morning we felt sick and didn´t feel like partaking in any of the wonderful opportunities which were offered on every corner. There was no traffic heading out of this hole, plus a walk to the hitching spot was up a very steep and long hill. We chickened out and instead boarded a bus to Riobamba and then to Calabamba for a buck. How lucky that we did!
As soon as we plunked our bags on the shoulder and did not even have time to raise a hand, a pick-up pulled over, driven by a Russian-speaking ecuadorian Luis! The ride was long and spectacular, with steep drop-offs on one side and tall walls on the other. In the meanwhile, Luis told us about his university years in Odessa back in the 80´s, his ukranian ex-wife Svetlana and we discussed traditional Russian dishes at length. What a good feeling it was to speak Russian half-way across the globe! Luis was very excited to treat us to a local specialty - cuy, which is a coal roasted hampster. To his dissapointment, we told him that we were vegetarians and therefore could not accept his offer. Instead, he treated us to a spinach soup followed by a big portion of rice with potatoes and an egg at the roadside eatery. Very tasty indeed!
After 4 hours of going throught the mountains, we rolled into Tambo, where we got off to see the Inca ruins, the most important ones in Ecuador. As we were exchanging e-mails, phone numbers and saying farewells, in his excitement George forgot our camera in the truck. Damn.
Anyway, it was raining when we got out so we decided to postpone our visit to the ruins until tomorrow. There was a train station in town with a big roof over the platform. It was the only dry spot we could see so we decided to settle there for the night. Luckily, it was quite boring to just sit and watch the rain fall, so we went to a near-by internet cafe to kill some time. When we asked the owner of the cafe if it was allright for us to sleep at the station, he invited us to spend the night in an empty room in his house instead! So we spend another dry and comfy night indoors.
When we got to the ruins early in the morning, they were just opening up. At the entrance, the lady initially asked us for $6 per person to enter. We made long faces and said that we could not afford such a huge entry fee. She then agreed to let us in for a dollar each. What a difference! It was our first taste of the perfect Inca stonework, but other then that the site left us unimpressed.
Later in the day we got to Cuenca, another beautiful colonial town, and tried to call Luis, who was in town, but his phone was off. So we had nothing else to do but to go to a hostel and wait until tomorrow to meet our friend again and to retrieve our camera.The next evening we met with Luis and he treated us to a superb drive around excursion of the town, complete with an authentic dinner in an authentic ecuadorian eatery, the type that fries its goods on a coal stove out front to lure in customers. A great finale to our stay in town, we head out tomorrow!

Ecuador

A week ago we entered Ecuador and the mountains rose all around us. Our first night we camped out on a cow pasture with a view of a snowy volcano peak, the first snow we saw in almost a year!In the morning, as we were packing up, a local indigenous farmer Luis came up to us and invited us to drink tea at his house. The day being Sunday, all four generations of his family were home, running a few errands and generally lounging in the sun. They fed us a dietary breakfast of boiled potatoes, corn on the cob and ¨agua de cafe¨, which is hot water with a hint of coffee. We talked for a good three hours, and if it wasn´t for our determination to get back on the road, they would have held us captive all day!We arrived in Quito an hour later, connected with our CS host Alec and happyly fell asleep on her floor.
The next day, we felt sick. General malaise, stomach ache, headache, no energy, diarrhea. At first we thought it was Hepatitis A, except that we did not have yellow eyes. All the symptoms came and went as they pleased, leaving us completely exhausted. The next three days we made regular trips to the local Red Cross, doing blood and urine tests. The doctor saw us pretty much right away (and free of charge, too, thumbs up for the Red Cross!), dispelled our fears about Hep A and prescribed antibiotics and vitamins to take. We feel better now and the symptoms are less violent.
We are now waiting for a letter to arrive from Canada, and as soon as we have it, we will move on, hopefully in perfect health.
In the meantime, Anastasia made a lot of bead bracelets, and even sold her first one for three bucks, and George got himself a cheap recorder and is now terrorizing the inhabitants of the appartment with the lamely-played tunes of ¨Hey Jude¨ and ¨When I´m Sixty Four¨.
We are eternally grateful to Alec for hosting us at such a time, for it would have been terrible to live in a hostel (or even worse, to travel!) in the state that we were in.
A view from the balcony is quite spectacular, too. On clear mornings we can see the snow-covered peak of 5753 m Cotopaxi (if it wasn´t for the clouds, the volcano would have been visible on the photo to the left of the tall wire fence), on wednesday night the beer-bellied taxi drivers play volleyball, and every evening we witness high-class neighbourhood soccer matches right from our balcony. We drink herbal tea and smoothies and cheer for the teams.