Ay up,
Well peeps, how are we all coping as the cold dark nights draw in?? Here in Ecuador, there is no such thing as a cold dark night. Just thought i´d let you all know that.
Its a while since i have wrote anything substantial, and i seem to remember that the last post was a lot about nothing. So in todays presentation i shall do my damdest to entertain you with witty anecdotes, detail daring adventures and accurately describe the past two weeks for myself and my dearest chucka.
I´ll pick up the story where i last left off. Lima, and i believe it was on the eve of Englands gubbing in the final on the Rugby world cup. Despite our fears it turned out that alcohol was indeed permitted on the saturday of the game, it was on the sunday it was banned, so we gleefully and excitedly hopped our way to the English pub prompt and early ready to enjoy the afternoons events. Unfortunately, as you are all very much aware, England were a bit pish, and rather than celebrate victory i found myself sat drinking in the company of the only South African in the pub and my scottish girlfriend who began the game cheering on her neighbours from down south, but then some posh, Eton type insulted Scotland, so she understandably realigned her allegiance to her traditional scottish viewpoint of "f**k the english." For me, the day wasn´t quite as i had hoped, but at least i was able to drown my sorrows sufficiently.
The following day was just a little bit bizarre. As i mentioned previously, alcohol was banned due to a census. That was fine by me i was in no state for more beer, but what was weird was that Peruvians weren´t allowed to leave their homes between the hours of 8am and 6pm, leaving us turista´s bewidered by the sight of deserted streets in a city of 8 million people. It was a bit creepy.
Eventually the day came when Maya and myself were finally ready to leave Lima. The city is a bit shite really, but we decided to hang on to watch the rugby, something of a mistake but nevermind. Lima is just too big, with very little to actually do there. But hey, its all an experience.
Our next destination was to be the mountain gateway of Huaraz. From this average town great exciting adventures can be organised into huge glaciers and snow capped mountains, which were the setting for "Touching the Void". Unfortunately it was just abit too expensive for myself and the Maz to readily justify another trek to more mountains in Peru. It was a shame because the scenery was quite spectacular from the ground, so i can only imagine how beautiful it would have been from up high and in amongst them. Ultimately the best thing about Huaraz for us was a restaurant there called ´Chilli Heaven¨. Maya was indeed in the proverbial palace in the sky when she received her best Indian meal in months. In fact it was so good we went back the second night. Another bonus for me was the fact the restaurant was joint owned by a man from Blackburn, that in itself didn´t exactly get me leaping for joy, but what it did mean was that he had a varied selection of traditional english ales, so i treated myself to a lovely pint of Abbot Ale. A nice blast from the past from my working days at the Dead Poets Inn in Derby.
By the time we left Huaraz we were both getting a wee bit fed up of not actually doing anyhting. In totoal we had spent about 8 days in Lima and now another three in Huaraz doing nothing but passing the time. We were both desperate for some excitement, so we headed for the beach and a lovely coastal town of Huanchaco, where we spent another three days. In the end, once again we did very little, but it was a least a change to be doing nothing in coastal surroundings with a nice beach and cold beers for entertainment. In fact our final night there was something of an event. We somehow ended up getting adopted by some locals who were determined to show us a good time and we were more than eager participants. I´m pretty sure we saw every bar the small town had to offer and had a fair few drinks in each one, but the night just doesn´t end like it does back home, it just goes on and on and on. So much so that we ultimately found ourselves in a wee bar at 5am, where Maya was being taught the salsa by two guys that were both just a bit shorter than her. Very amusing for myself, who by this time was casually slumped in a chair in the corner wondering when it is a might actually be allowed to see my bed once again.
The night was a hoot, but the next couple of days were most definitely not. The following day was without doubt our worst hangover so far in South America.
We said goodbye to Huanchaco with stinking hangovers and had the pleasure of crappy buses to look forward to. First it was a taxi ride back to the city of Trujillo then a bus north to a town called Piura, which i can´t really comment on as we only saw the bus station there. If i was to judge the town on its bus station then a would not reccommend it unless you like pish stinking rooms, with plastic chairs and stray dogs for company. Anyhow we only had to spend roughly an hour there before we where able to catch a nightbus that would carry us over the border, terminating at a small city in Ecuador called Loja. In total the journey was roughly 15 hours and wasn´t a great deal of fun, but it was nice to finally arrive at a new country with much to explore.
We spent a couple of nights in Loja, still doing very little other than recovering from the journey to get there. Loja itself is a fairly average town with not a great deal to offer other than the surrounding mountains and national parks. Rather than explore them from there we decided to head south on a local bus for roughly an hour to a one horse town known as Vilcabamba. This was a great idea as it is a beautiful place, that is perfectly setup to provide nice walks during the day, prior to nice food and relaxing beers in the evening. We found a lovely hostel, which i think Maya would gladly have made her home, mainly because each room came complete with a hammock on its outside terrace. Also the hostel had some pretty cool gardens, which isn´t really something that gets me drooling but i have to admit the plants were pretty i guess and it was cool to see huge banana and avocado trees.
In total we stayed for three nights and during the two full days we spent there, we undertook two different walks that were both equally satisfying for various reasons. The first was a sufficiently taxing four hour hike to a waterfall. The second was to the highest point in the area and was supposed to be abit shorter although we got abit lost and wound up walking along mountain peaks for a hour or two longer than anticipated. What was most memorable about the second days adventure was the vast amount of humungous spiders. I discovered how huge they were in quite an unfortunate fashion; i.e. i was walking along quite happily when all of sudden i had a spiders web smeared all of my face and arm. That in itself was uncomforting but nothing too alarming. My heart started to beat a little faster however when i looked down to see a huge black and yellow spider crawling back up its web to my arm. Now, i´m not especially frightened of spiders in any way, in fact i quite like the wee buggers. However, i don´t particularly like big ones crawling all over me. After that point we had to continue walking through various bushes and trees and soon discovered that there were loads of creepy crawlies to keep an eye out for. A fact that certainly did not please Maya. I´ve never seen her sprint down a mountain at such a break neck speed.
After three nights we said goodbye to Vilcabamba, known as the valley of longevity as it has an dis-proportionate number of people who live over 100 years of age, and we left with good memories. It was a great place to be active during the days and be able to enjoy the satisfaction of a well earned beer in the evening. The bus journey away was also memorable for slightly different reasosn. We hopped on a bus no problem, a bus that was intended for roughly 20 or so people judging by the number of seats. How wrong we were. After about 15minutes of tootling along and picking people up, the seats were taken and the isle was full of standing passengers, myself being one. By that point i counted at least 35 people on the bus and assumed due to how tight and compact it was that that would be the limit. How wrong i was. It seems their is no such thing as a full bus and at least another ten people bordered after i thought there was no more room. People were hanging out the windows and doors and everything. Quite amusing.
Anyhow, it was only for an hour or so, after which we were back at a familiar place; Loja´s bus terminal. We booked a bus to Cuenca and had roughly two hours to wait at the station until it left. It was to be two hours spent living the life of a goldfish as so many kids just walked up to us and stared at us for minutes at a time. It was quiet a bizarre sensation to be the reason for such attention. We couldn´t move without some children just observing our every move. I think the goldfish lifestyle started to grate on Maya pretty quickly, which was understandable, but i found quite intriguing to watch the kids as much as they watched us and wonder why we were quite so interesting to them.
Anyhow, eventually our time acting as a circus freak show was at an end as it was time to board our rickety bus, which in six hours was to take us to the city of Cuenca. We arrived here on the Friday night of a celebratory weekend which encomposses a whole host of feista´s, parades, parties and fireworks in aid of the annual celebration of the cities independence, from what i do not know.
Soon after we arrived we headed for the main square, which is understandably where most of the festivities take place. We were greeted by a host of bands and performers strutting their stuff for a packed square of spectators. What became obvious is the lack of any sense of safety concern when it comes to fireworks. In the middle of the packed square, rockets were being set off with no specific direction intended. If they went skyward, then grand, but it didn´t seem to matter too much if they went into the crowd. One even was set off straight into the bandstand! And what was even more bizarre was that nobody seemed to mind too much. And i´ll admit this, firework displays are normally abit tedious to me, but when there´s a danger of getting hit they´re a hell of a lot more exciting!!
We made through the celebrations safe and sound. Today there were huge parades, much like the cavel cade in Edinburgh, only alot more Ecuadorian. One thing that really amused me is that all day there has been low fly overs by fighter jet planes, which entertains no one and simply scares the living bejeesus out of every man, woman and child.
Currently i have no idea what tonight has install, but i would say its a fair bet that it will involve more extreme fireworks and drinking and dancing until the early hours of the morning. Activities that i´m quite happy to enjoy.
And that is about all there is to say just now. Congratulations to anybody who stuck through all of that. It seems i´m not quite succeeding in my promise to keep these babblings short and succinct. I guess i just get a bit carried away.
Hope all is well
Rob
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