Adios Ecuador, Hola Colombia

In my last week in Ecuador, my Ecuadorian mum Eryka made us a beautiful dinner, so in return Elliot and I decided to make some western dishes. Elliot was in charge of the sweet sugared mushrooms and avocado (fry mushroom in disgustingly huge portions of butter, and when they are nearly done, put a few teaspoons of sugar on them to caramelise….amazing!), and for main course we had Spaghetti Bolognese. Cooking in other countries is always interesting, having to swap ingredients for those you can’t find, for whatever you can find, i.e tinned tomatoes do not exist in Ecuador. However it went a lot smoother than the time Lizzie and I cooked Butter Chicken without any butter. As a parting present for Eryka and Darwin, Elliot and I got them some roses (Ecuadorian roses are some of the best in the world), and a rug made from llama wool, with our names stitched on.

Early on the Monday morning we took a bus to the nearest town Ibarra, and then a connecting bus to the town of Tulcan, 6km from the Ecuadorian/Colombian border. From the station we caught a taxi to the border, where you have to ‘check out’ of Ecuador and then ‘check in’ to Colombia. For a few minutes there we were in no man’s land, in neither Ecuador nor Colombia, a very strange feeling indeed. Although we had heard good things about the actual crossing of the border, we were still a little nervous about the prospect of getting into Colombia. We shouldn’t have worried however, the crossing went smoothly. To get to the closest town Ipiales on the Colombian side, you have to take a taxi from the border. With only US currency (the Ecuadorian currency) vendors (or con men) try to sell you Colombian pesos for a ‘good rate’. On the taxi ride, Elliot asked the taxi driver how these people make money. He said that they manipulate their calculators, so it looks like they are giving you a good rate when they are punching the numbers into the calculators, but actually, you are getting ripped off. Funny how only moments earlier he had tried to sell us pesos! Our first stop was the town of Pasto, a place that most tourists really only spend a night on their way to/from Ecuador. Actually it was quite a nice place, even if I did have to lug my ridiculous amounts of luggage block and blocks to the hostel. The road between Pasto and Popayan is dangerous at night time, to travel even with a police escort is apparently dodgy. Instead of travelling at night, we took a bus the following day to Popayan, descending through the windy roads and into some heat. On top of a hill, we had a picnic of beer and nuts overlooking Popayan.

The next stop was Cali, the salsa capital of Colombia. I didn’t get a chance to show off my lack of dancing abilities, but we did get to enjoy some serious heat. Although we were getting further away from the equator, Cali is a lot lower in altitude than Ecuador so the temperature was climbing the further we got from the border. The shorts even came out of the bag! I knew I was carrying them around for a reason! After just two nights in Cali, we caught another bus to Salento, a little country town that had been recommended by many people we had met along the way. The hostel we stayed at offered cow milking at 4.30am, so we got up before the sun and attempted to milk a cow. There is defiantly a technique to milking, and so for the first few minutes, there was milk flying everywhere. The worker milked 5 cows to our 1! What a pro. We ended up staying at the hostel for 2 nights, before we met a hippie man at the markets in town. Him and his wife had just set up a hostel of their own, and were only taking bookings in person. Considering it was half the price of the other hostel (equivalent to $7.50 a night), we decided to stay with them for 2 nights. They lived a very hippie lifestyle, making and selling jewellery and knick knacks.

After Salento, we spent a couple of nights in Manizales, one of the hilliest towns I have been to! Luckily we didn’t attempt to walk to the hostel, considering it was basically all vertical roads, and instead got into a taxi with a lovely lady man. The next day, after walking around for hours in the hope of finding a park with grass, we settled on having a picnic lunch on the grass in the middle of a round about (a large one). I think the Colombians definition of a park is much different to ours! Medellin was our last stop in Colombia, one of the largest cities outside of Bogota (the capital). Downtown was very poor, with many beggars and dirty streets. Again after finding no park for our picnic lunch, we headed back toward the hostel, to find a cute little park just 2 streets from where we started. We got some beers and sat on a bench, enjoying our last beautiful afternoon under the Colombian sun. You can’t beat that!

Ecuador - part 3

The last week of my volunteer program was spent up at school sanding and painting like a mad woman. The first day I was yellow from sanding and the next two days I was looking more like a Smurf. A week later, I am still picking blue paint from my nails. But the eating area, desks and tables looked a million bucks from our efforts. Something exciting for the kids for the start of the new school year.

I an effort to learn Spanish, I had made it a routine to say buenos días (good morning) to the animals on the way up to school, and buenas tardes (good afternoon) on the way down, using their Spanish names (i.e. vaca for cow). My last day at Larc was the last chance I had to say adios to the cows, chooks and dogs on my way down. Much to my horror, halfway down the hill, Elliot announced to me that actually chickens were only called pollo´s when they were cooked and on your plate. When they were alive they were in fact called gallina. Thanks Elliot, that only took you 7 weeks to tell me! But none the less, it was, as always, a beautiful walk down, a walk that I will never forget.

On Thursday afternoon after a day of lesson planning, all the volunteers jumped in the GVI van and took the 6 hour journey to Baños, a small adventure town at the base of the active volcano, Tungurahua. Tungurahua is in the same ring of fire as the one in Chile that went off a couple of months ago. Offering whitewater rafting, mountain biking, massages and even colon cleansing, Baños was a great place for everyone to do as they pleased. For me, this included talking an Ecuadorian local into teaching me how to salsa dance, having a chocolate facial, and generally relaxing after 7 weeks of havoc. 

On a spur of the moment, I decided to do a climb up Cotopaxi, in an attempt to reach a glacier at 5,000m. Starting at Latacunga at 2,760m, we drove up to a base at 4,500m. As soon as we stepped out of the car, the horizontal snow started, followed shortly by screaming winds. Our guide had said that we needed to get up and down as quickly as possible, because some bad weather was coming in (could it get any worse?). So off we set, at quite a slow pace compared to what I was expecting. I soon figured out why the guide was going relatively slow…after we hit about 4,700m the altitude sickness kicked in. At first it was only a bit of dizziness, but after passing the refuge at 4,800m, a headache and nausea also took me by surprise. At every stop I had made sure to eat either nuts or chocolate and drink water, but by 5,000m, eating was the last thing I felt like doing! Being that snow and I generally do not agree, it was a little scary (and slippery!) to be walking on the side of a volcano with a huge slope right next to me. Exhilarating though! We got back to the refuge and had the best hot chocolate known to man and some lunch, then headed back to the base. I would defiantly do it again, but boy was I buggered that night!

Ecuador - part 2

It continues to surprise me how fast time goes when you are truely loving life. The past 6 weeks have been a blur of teaching, lesson planning, hiking and playing cards. So much so that I have decided to extend for another week. Our school, Larcacunga, is so beautiful, on one side is the mountain Cotocatchi which has a bit of snow and ice, and on the otherside is another mountain that is completly covered in snow. Such a rewarding view after the tough walk up the side of the mountain. I never thought I was an exercise in the morning person, but the early morning hikes in the Andes has changed my mind! Maybe it´s the incredible farm land we walk through, or greeting the locals on the way up, but this place is a bit enchanting really. The kids at Larc are so beautiful, their brown eyes, long dark hair, wind burnt cheeks and permanent smiles make it so easy to enjoy everyday, looking at the world in a simpler way, through the eyes of happy and kind kiddies. The kids especially take to the guys, as generally it is the women who play the parental role in their lives. In the photo below, Elliot chats to one of the year 1´s.

Below, Lizzie (another Aussie from Tassie) plays with the kids.

Below: view from my workplace

Weekdays are a bit crazy, between the early mornings, teaching, lesson planning, spanish lessons and early bedtimes, we don´t really have a chance to travel. So on the weekends we try and do something outside of Otavalo. One weekend we jumped in the mini van, and went to some hot springs about an hour and a half away. Being the only gringos, we got a few funny looks and people even asked to have photos with us! But the sauna´s and spa´s were amazing, there was even a hot pool that absolutly no-one was in because it hurt too much! Another weekend, we went up to the top of a volcano, which we walked around because it is now a lake. It was very beautiful and such a perfect day for it. Then last weekend we summited at 4,300m volcano called Fuya Fuya (which translates to Cloud Cloud in the local language, Quechua). The altitude definatly made it hard, every few steps I would have to stop and get my breath back! We ascended 700m in just under 2km´s. Unfortunately when we got up to the top, the cloud came in and we couldn´t see anything!

Incredible!

Ecuador - part 1

After a 26 hour flight, I finally arrived in Quito, Ecuador. At 2,800m it took a couple of days before I finally caught my breath. The city of Quito is like most big cities, only it is surrounded by mountains and from the centre of the city you can see the paddocks on the hills. After 2 nights at a hostel, I moved to another hostel and met the GVI project manager and some of the other volunteers. The next day we all jumped in the mini van and went to a tourist hotspot, the equator. After some egg balancing the guide pulled out a human head that had been boiled to shrink. Apparently they are super expensive on the black market being that they are no longer legal! 

After a stop for a bite to eat, we finally reached Otavalo, my home for the next 6 weeks. My homestay parents Eryka and Darwin live on the Panamericano and myself and two other volunteers live out the back in the granny flat. Such a perfect set up, we share a bathroom and a lounge, have all our meals cooked and our washing done! Amazing. Our house is about a 15 minute walk right into the centre of the town, to Plaza de Ponchos where there are markets which date to pre-inca times. The first week was pretty intense, having 4 or 6 hours of one-on-one lessons. Being that my Ecuadorian parents dont speak english, I really needed the lessons (and definatly still need them!). The town of Otavalo is really nice, there are some serious mountains around and a few volcano´s. On the first weekend we went for a walk to a waterfall just out of Otavalo. There was a little cave which we crawled through and came out at the river which feeds the waterfall. There was a hill that we decided to walk up, but it was super steep and couldnt get back down so we had an hour long hike to get back to the base of the waterfall, fail! But there were some incredible views. 

The first week of teaching was interesting, teaching only in spanish to  second graders. I generally have no clue what they are talking about, not just because of my lack of spanish, but spanish isnt their first language. Getting up at 5.30am every morning is getting easier which is lovely, then I have a 10 minute walk to the bus which goes up into the mountains. We get off at the last stop after about 20 minutes then have a 30 minute walk up into the community of Larcacunga. The walk is tough but so beautiful. We pass cows, chickens, pigs and puppies and are at school by 7.40ish. After making a poridge type breakfast for the kiddies, we start class at 8.30 and then lunch is at 10.30, which we do all the shopping for and carry the food up. The kids are super cute, a bit wild, but cute. 
 

Milano, Verona & Venice

A friend of Kim’s Mum lives with her family in Milano, so we went to stay with her for 2 nights, attempting to fit in Milano, Verona and Venice in such a short time. After a few tears from me, and many many from Kim and Nellie, we took the push bikes and had a personal tour around Milano. On the way we passed 2 fashion shoots (plus the one which was happening right outside the train station when we hopped off the train!), the street where Gucci was assassinated (which was organised by his wife none the less!) and past the Duomo di Milano (cathedral). 

 

For dinner, Nellie cooked up an incredible meal, starting with the traditional melon and prosciutto and moving onto the best rice salad of all time! I even started my own recipe book, thanks Nellie! 

The next day we woke before sunrise to catch an early bird train to Verona and Venice. Stopping at Verona for only 1.5 hours, we were stretched to visit Italy`s thrid largest amphitheatre, the Arena (which is still used even though it was completed around 30 AD) and Juliet`s window, which I was most excited to see. The Arena was incredible, obviously it has had continuous maintenance over the years, but to be inside an ampitheatre which is so old and has so much history was humbling. Walking under the arch to Juliet`s window, the walls were covered with scribbles of poems and love letters, written by visitors for their speacial person. For anyone who has seen the movie `Letters to Juliet` the brick wall under the balcony is exactly the same as in the movie! Two ladies were working full time to scrape off the peoms and other script covering the walls. If I had my time in Verona again, I would definatly stay a few days, not only for the romance of the city, but the city itself was beautiful and peaceful.

 

Venice was exactly how I pictured it, canals, boats and people EVERYWHERE! The best way to see the city is to throw the map in the bin and get lost, seriously lost. There is no other way to see this unbelievable place. All I could think of when we were walking around Venice was of The Italian Job, when they use the boats in the canals to make their robbery! There are thousands of different masks made and sold in Venice, mask shops are everywhere! Casanova has his own style of mask to protect his identity, but you can literally get any kind you like, with or without feather, animal masks, gold plated masks...everything! The canals were absolutly filled with tourists doing the totally overpiced and typically touristy thing of riding in a gondala, Kim was devestated after months of believeing we would receive a free ride with our Eurorail tickets, but we had no such luck finding the elusive stall. Don`t fall into the same trap people, it doesn`t exist! 

Cinque Terre

Our first stop in Italy proved to be a great choice. Cinque Terre is a coastline made up of 5 villages and is incredibly beautiful and picturesque. Good value accommodation is pretty hard to find in any of the villages, so we stayed in the next village along the coast (just 5 minutes by train) in a place called Levanto. By the end of our time in Cinque Terre we were happy to stay there, slightly out of the way of all the tourists and subsequent hike in prices.

 

The first full day in Cinque Terre was my birthday, so we walked from Levanto along the mountainous coastline to the first of the five villages, Monterosso. Monterosso is home to the only beach in Cinque Terre, although you can swim in all the villages. We worked on our tans and worked up our appetites, so that night we went out for a typically Italian meal of pizza (me), pasta (Kim) red wine and gelati. What a way to start a new age! Kim gave me a lot of little Italian pastries as a cake, and boy were they good! She even sung happy birthday! 

The following day, we planned to take the train to the furthest village Riomaggiore, and walk back along the path which links all the villages. We were a little late to start walking however, when the train stopped in what we thought was the tunnel between the fourth and the fifth village. That however was the train stop, and we didn’t realise until the doors closed and we kept going onto the next town of La Spezia. That wasn’t a problem, until we realised the next train back to Riomaggiore wasn’t for another hour! So much for getting an early start to beat the heat! Finally we made it to Riomaggiore and started walking along the path back towards Levanto. A 5 hour hike turned into an all day hike, we couldn’t resist stopping to check out the cute villages and to swim in the naturally formed rock swimming holes. In one of the towns there is a spot where you can cliff jump. I did a baby one, and Kim took on and defeated the papa one, about 7 or 8m. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to talk herself into doing it. A crowd formed and one random lady was like ‘just push her!’ Finally when she jumped everyone clapped and went their own separate ways. In the weeks prior to getting to Cinque Terre, there was a landslide which had come down between two of the villages and cut off part of the walking path. This was a pity because otherwise we could have walked the whole way from the fifth village to the first. The final 3 or so hours of hiking was really good, it was the hardest part of the track (but compared to some of our previous hikes, it wasn’t dangerous or super hard) and we did them in record time, powering past everyone! By this time in the afternoon however it was super hot and we were so sweaty! Kim even took a photo to show how sweaty she was (I don’t think she wants me to publish it!). It felt good to pump out a few km’s though and it was perfect terrain for walking. 

In Vernazza we found a cool little place that served takeaway focaccia's, pizza's and calzone's. There was one dude working there, he would take whatever it was you wanted and put it in the oven so it was yummy and hot when it came out, it was such good value we went back! I had a calzone with ham and cheese and a focaccia with olives! Best focaccia ever! 

 

On our final full day in Cinque Terre we took the ferry which stops at 4 of the 5 towns, and again went swimming and took a look at each of the towns. It is always nice to get different views of an area, and it was also pretty cool to see the track where we had walked the day before. It was a very relaxed day, perfectly in tune with the seaside setting. 

Interlaken

We were very lucky to have found a Couchsurfing host from Canberra, who has been living in Interlaken for 3 years. Hayden lives in a barn on the outskirts of Interlaken, a perfect spot for his extreme sports, paragliding and the like! 

We were originally staying with Hay-dog for 3 nights, but on the day we were leaving for a hostel, he invited us to stay for our whole time in Interlaken (8 nights). We loved the barn so much, it became a second home! We also became friends with some people from one of the hostels who were from Canada, the US and the Netherlands, so it was lovely to feel such at home in the middle of Switzerland. Hay-dog (Kim was K-Dizzel and I was E-mu) even had use of an electric car! 

The day that we arrived in Interlaken, the Tour de Swiss was passing through the mountains not far from Interlaken, with the stage finishing in the next town of Grindelwald. Hayden and Mark (the Dutch dude) were riding part of the track after the competitors went past, so we caught the train up with some new found friends and sat on top of a building overlooking the finish line. The crowds were cheering and ringing cow bells, what a sight!

Being that we were staying in the Apls, we decided one day to do a hike to Schynige Platte which has an elevation of 2068m, starting in Interlaken at 567m. The first 3 hours was climbing the entire way! No rest for the wicked. Laura, a girl from Toronto who was also staying with Haydon was like a little mountain goat! What a gun. After about 2 hours we reached a train stop which had the best facilities (a working basin, soap and hand towels) considering we were literally in the countryside on a mountain…only in Switzerland would you find such convenience! Reaching the top was incredible, we had another incredibly scenic lunch overlooking Jungfrau (which falsely claims to tourists to be the top of Europe) on one side, and the two lakes which meet at Interlaken on the other. On the way down we took another route and got midly lost, trampling through a farmers paddock and a track that (we didn’t know at the time) had been cutoff from hikers. Oops!

Another day a group of us borrowed some tandem bikes and the electric car and headed to Neuhaus which is a nice picnic spot on one of the lakes. We hired a kayak and two paddle boards and cruised around on the lake for a bit. It was a perfect day until we got onto the water, when the weather changed and it became very windy and choopy. Kim and Laura were out on the kayak paddling around in front of the ferry stop. Blasting its horn once, Kim and Laura took no notice of the ferry which was trying to get back onto the lake. When it did it again for a good few seconds they still had no clue that it was telling them to get out of the way. By this time everyone on board and on the shore was watching the unfolding of events, I was standing there going ‘get the hell out of the way’, but the wind was coming from the opposite direction so there was no chance that they could hear anyone yelling. By this time the captain of the ferry was just about sitting on the horn, but the girls weren’t too frantic in moving out of its way. When they got back to shore a crazy old lady started yelling at them, telling them that she was going to call the water police and report them. What a hectic arvo!

 

In true Swiss tradition, one night we decided to make cheese fondue. Normally fondue is eaten only in winter because it is so heavy, and although we were in summer, it was lucky that it was quite a cool night in the barn. We had the fondue with the traditional bread, potatoes, capsicum, apple, broccoli and of course white wine so it didn’t set in our stomach. Sooo good! Nothing better than cheese covered food! Yum!

During our travels we have been very lucky to accidentally stumble across events that we didn’t even know about until we are in the middle of it. Jodlerfest was no exception. What is it you ask? It is a Swiss festival of Jodlers and Alphorn players which is held every 2 years, and the location changes every time. We were lucky enough to be in Interlaken the exact week that Intelaken was hosting the event. At any moment the Jodlers can form a circle and start Jolding right there on the street. It was amazing the amount of people from Switzerland who Jodle, everyone was dressed in the traditional dress, and some men even had one dangly earing in which I assumed (and hope) was also a tradition of the Jodlers. 

We also did a day trip to Luzern which was nice, but the weather was pretty shocking. To cheer ourselves up we did a trip to the supermarket where Kim consoled herself with 1kg of ice-cream, claiming that it was a bargain at 12euros.

 

The hike to Harder Kulm (1322m) was a really nice walk, where we could hear the Jodlerfest and have a view of Jungfrau. When we were at the top, there were some Alphorn players who put the horns on the brick barrier and played as if to the valley and the mountains on the otherside. 

Our last day in Interlaken however was by far the most memorable. Haydon and another Aussie friend had told us about a hutt called Glecksteinhutte (2317m), where you can hike up to and stay for a night. They had pointed out the path when we were at the Tour de Swiss in Grindelwald, and it followed the edge of a mountain. Then and there we decided to do it, so we called ahead and booked for a night at the hutt. We took a train to Grindelwald and then a bus, where we told the driver where to drop us for the start of the hike. And what a hike it was! The path was about 2 to 3 foot wide, and clung to the side of the mountain nearly the whole way up. At parts there was a metal rail that you could hold onto (or cling to for dear life!). The view was spectacular, overlooking the valley and mountains on both sides. About 50 minutes into the two hour hike we turned to check out the view, and noticed some dark clouds forming, some really dark clouds. The temperature had dropped and we could see rain in the distance. Having little experience in the mountains we had forgotten how quickly the weather could change and hadn’t checked the forecast because it was such a beautiful day when we left Interlaken. After passing under a waterfall and getting a little wet, it started to rain. Having left the rain jackets at home, we put our jumpers into our backpacks (we had to carry our food, water and clothing for the next day as well) so they didn’t get wet and pressed on. The path was becoming more and more dangerous, not only because of the rain, but some of the path was slate which was extra slippery. At one stage I had a bit of a panic attack because the thunder and lightning rolling toward us, and the track was getting worse and worse. We were already too far gone so we pressed on, passing a glacier (we saw a small avalanche!) and an Ibex. The Ibex started following us up the track, probably thinking ‘what are these fools doing!’, I like to think he was somewhat of a guardian angel looking out for us! Finally we could see the hutt, and when we were less than 100m from it, the clouds rolled in. We were literally in the middle of the storm! Kim was only a few meters in front of me (less than 5m) and I could barely even see her. The hutt which we could easily see just a few minutes earlier was swallowed up by the cloud. When we fell through the front door, the lady who looks after it gave us a bit of a serve about not checking the weather and leaving so late. The hike was meant to take a good couple of hours, but we did it in 1 hour 50 minutes! Legends! But the bad news was, was that there were no hot showers! The storm fully hit when we got in however, and after an hour or so was basically past. We went outside to check things out, and there was group of bachelor Ibex’s which the lady from the hutt was feeding salt to. They were pretty tame considering they are completely wide. That night we had an early one, with no-one else in the 90 bed hutt (obviously they had all checked the weather!) and got up early to hike back down before the storm which was forecast for noon. No major catastrophes on the way down, except I slipped holding onto the rail and ground 3 knuckles against the slate. Ouch! Looking back on it, it was a pretty cool hike, but boy was I glad to see the bus on the way back down!