Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

I got back from Cuyabeno a few days ago, but I've been on the move ever since, so I've got a bit of catching up to do. Here's my report from the jungle.

It took the best part of a day to get to our accommodation in the reserve. First I had to take an overnight bus from Quito to Lago Agrio, where I met up with the rest of the group. A private minibus then took us to the end of the road in Cuyabeno, and finally we had a two hour ride down the river to the lodge in a motorised canoe. We stayed at Jamu Lodge, which is one of a handful of lodges in the reserve. There were twelve of us in total, including people from the USA, France, Germany, Malta, as well as me from the UK. Half of us (including myself) stayed for five days, and the rest stayed for only four days. There's a group photo below.

We saw our first wildlife even before we arrived at the lodge. We saw a couple of different types of monkey (here and here), as well as a stinky turkey (or hoatzin to be more scientifically accurate). Time and time again our guide, Rodrigo, or our motorboat driver would spot animals in the jungle that the rest of us would never have noticed - it was pretty amazing. The exception to this was the stinky turkey, which was quite difficult to miss.

We arrived at the lodge in the late afternoon, and after a short break to settle in, we set off in the canoe again to the Laguna Grande, for a swim and to see the sunset, which was pretty impressive, as you can see here and below.

It was dark when we left the lake to return to the lodge, which made it an even better time to see wildlife, because it's estimated that around 70% of species in the Amazon rainforest are nocturnal. Luckily for us, a caiman came right up next to the boat, and we got a great view of it.

When we returned to the lodge, we realised that we were most definitely not alone there. We had quite a few visitors, including hundreds of moths circulating around any light sources, a large gold-coloured cockroach, as well as this little chap. The noise from the creatures in the jungle, particularly at night, was pretty incredible - it was probably about as noisy as a busy road, but strangely it didn't stop any of us from sleeping.

On the morning of the second day we went for a hike in the jungle, and we saw a few more interesting jungle species, including a walking palm tree (socratea exorrhiza) and a leaf frog. It was a pretty wet and muddy hike, as you can see here, and I ended up with both wellies full of water, as did just about everybody else. One thing I learnt is that once something gets wet in the jungle, it tends to stay wet, because there's so much moisture in the air. Most of my clothes got wet on the initial canoe trip to the lodge, so I ended up wearing wet clothes pretty much for the whole five days.

In the afternoon we went piranha fishing, and by a considerable fluke I managed to catch the only piranha that was big enough to be worth eating. And here is the same fish on a plate a few hours later. Because I caught the fish, everyone felt they had to ask my permission to try a bit of it, which I found quite amusing. After the piranha fishing we returned to the Laguna Grande for another swim, and this time I have proof that I actually went in. We then went for a night canoe trip to look for a bit more wildlife, and we managed to see an Amazon tree boa.

Day three was our opportunity to see how the indigenous Siona people live. On our way to the village we spotted a pink river dolphin (we saw quite a few of these, but this was the only time I managed to catch one on camera). Firstly we had an audience with the village's shaman (here's a photo of me with him), who told us a bit about the role of a shaman and answered any questions that we had. He then asked for a volunteer for a demonstration of a medicinal plant that's meant to be good for the circulation. Erin volunteered, but she ended up regretting it, because the shaman beat her back for a couple of minutes with a branch of this plant, and she ended up with a horrible-looking rash that still hadn't gone away by the end of the trip.

We then went to an isolated house about twenty minutes from the village, where we learnt how the Siona make a type of bread called casabe, which is made from a root vegetable called yuca (or cassava). We went through the whole process, starting with digging the yuca out of the ground, peeling and then grating it, drying it, sieving the dried yuca, and finally cooking it and eating it, and amazingly it actually did taste very good. Apparently this bread will keep for several months without any preservatives, and it will remain as good to eat as it was the day it was made.

This was also the day we saw an anaconda, which is a pretty rare sighting. It was just a few metres from our boat, and I managed to get some great shots of it, one of which you can see below.

In the evening we went for a night hike in the jungle, and we saw a few more fairly horrifying creatures, including a couple of types of large spider (here and here), and a venomous snake whose name I can't remember. According to Rodrigo, if we were bitten by this snake, we'd have about two to three hours left to live, unless we could get medical help in time, which is pretty unlikely this deep in the rainforest.

On day four, half of the group went home, and the rest of us went on an all-day canoe paddling trip, which was a great opportunity to see our surroundings without the noise of a motorised canoe. We saw more wildlife, including a woodpecker, and paddled to a laguna which had an interesting ecosystem of trees growing in the lake. Here we did a bit more piranha fishing, but I had no luck this time. We went ashore for lunch, and then we went for a short walk in an area of completely unspoilt rainforest, which Rodrigo told us that only his company go to. We spotted this scorpion there. We also encountered an army of giant ants, which caused problems for those of us that had left our wellies at the lodge. Here you can see Thomas having a few problems with them. The ant bite situation got so bad that we ended up running back to the canoes. An ant bit me on the foot at this point, and it hung on so firmly that I had trouble removing it. Rodrigo offered to help, but when he saw how huge its pincers were, rather than removing it, he started showing it off to the rest of the group while it was still attached to my foot, which was very kind of him!

And that's pretty much all I have to report, because the following morning the remaining six of us left the lodge for the long journey back to Quito. All in all it was a great five days, a lot of fun, and definitely another highlight of my trip so far.

This also brings an end to my time in Ecuador, even though there are so many places that I haven't had time to see (to name just a few: Cotopaxi, Otavalo, Mindo, the Quilotoa Loop, the Pacific coast, and the Galápagos Islands). I guess that means I'll have to come back one day.

Quito

I've now been in Quito for four days, in what is probably the most dangerous part of my trip so far. However, despite Quito's reputation for crime, I haven't had any problems at all so far, although I have been pretty careful about where I go after dark. I'm staying in the Mariscal area of Quito's New Town. Mariscal is a bit of a backpacker ghetto, with budget hostels on almost every street, and a huge number of bars, nightclubs and international restaurants. On weekend evenings, the centre of Mariscal looks a bit like the Costa del Sol.

However, the majority of Quito's sights are in the Old Town, which is about a thirty-minute walk or a short bus ride south-west of Mariscal. I've spent a couple of days wandering around the Old Town seeing the sights, including the Basilica del Voto Nacional, the Cathedral, the Palacio del Gobierno (which is where the president conducts his business), the Iglesia de Santa Domingo, and the Monasterio de San Francisco, below.

I also went to La Compañia de Jesús (photos here and here), which took 160 years to build, starting in 1605, and is considered to be the most beautiful church in the whole of Ecuador. And it's not just Quito's churches that are worth seeing, because there are many other buildings in the Old Town that survive from the colonial era. There are some photos of typical streets here and here.

On Thursday afternoon I went for a ride on the TelefériQo, which is a cable car that runs up the side of Pichincha Volcano to an altitude of about 4100m. There were some great views of Quito from the top, as you can see here, here and below. Through the clouds I could also just about see Cotopaxi, which is probably Ecuador's most famous volcano.

On Friday morning I went to the Mitad del Mundo, which is the place 22km north of Quito where the French explorer Charles-Marie de la Condamine calculated the location of the equatorial line to be, in 1736. Below is a picture of me on the equator (left foot in the northern hemisphere, right foot in the southern hemisphere).

Well actually, to be completely honest, that's not true at all, because La Condamine wasn't entirely accurate with his measurements, and the true equator is about 300m north of this point.

In the evening I met up with Johann, Philippe and the rest of the group I met in Baños, who had just arrived in Quito after three days travelling around the Quilotoa Loop. We went for pizza near their hostel in the Old Town, and then got taxis over to the New Town, where we had a fairly wild night out in Mariscal until the early hours. As a result, the next day was pretty much a complete write-off. The others were planning to go out on Saturday night as well, but I was so tired that I couldn't face another night like Friday, and I had a quiet night in instead.

This morning (Sunday) I went to an Irish bar to watch England get knocked out of the World Cup. I guess Germany deserved to win in the end, but England were spectacularly robbed in the first half. On the positive side, at least that gives me one less thing to worry about, now that there's no more need to organise my travels around the World Cup timetable.

I'm now seeing out my last few hours in Quito until I have to catch the 11pm bus to Lago Agrio in the north-east of Ecuador. I've booked myself on a 5-day jungle tour in the Cuyabeno wildlife reserve, which starts in Lago Agrio tomorrow morning. However, I met someone in the hostel yesterday who had just returned from the jungle, and he told me that his bus journey back from Lago Agrio had taken 19 hours rather than the usual 8 because it had rained so much that the road was impassable. I hope the road conditions have improved by now because otherwise I'm not going to get to Lago Agrio in time for the start of my tour. Again I'll just have to see what happens.

Baños

I braved the erupting Tungurahua volcano to arrive in Baños on Saturday evening. There doesn't seem to be much danger from the volcano, although I was told that the number of tourists in Baños has dropped by 40% since it started erupting last week. Baños is a small town with a pretty spectacular location in the central highlands of Ecuador, and it's a great base for lots of outdoor activities in the surrounding area, as well as for relaxing in the thermal baths that the town is named after.

I checked myself into a dorm in Hostal Plantas y Blanco, although I nearly walked straight out again because the dorm smelt terrible and was very messy, as you can see (but not smell) from this photo. However, I'm glad I didn't, because I met a great bunch of people there, who I've spent the last few days with. The majority of them were French-speaking, as well as some Spaniards, so I've been in the unusual position of being in the minority as an English speaker. At one point on Saturday evening I found myself at a restaurant table with four French speakers to my left and four Spanish speakers to my right, and wondering which language to attempt to speak in. I'd say my French is still probably slightly better than my Spanish, although having been in South America for several months I definitely feel more confident speaking in Spanish at the moment.

On Sunday a group of seven of us (Anne, Johann, Markus, Philippe, Ollie, Boyang and me) hired some mountain bikes to cycle the 60km Ruta de las Cascadas (Waterfall Route) to Puyo. We stopped off at several waterfalls on the way, including Cascada de Agoyán, Cascada Puerta del Cielo and Cascadas Rio Blanco. The photo below is of me looking a bit wet at Cascadas Rio Blanco.

Finally we stopped at Cascada Pailón del Diablo, which was probably the most impressive of the lot. There's another photo of me here at Cascada Pailón del Diablo, now very wet, and a photo taken from the bottom of the waterfall here. It was getting so late at this point that we decided to call it a day, not having even made it halfway to Puyo (actually just over a quarter of the way), and we managed to get a lift back to Baños.

The following afternoon Markus, Johann, Philippe and I decided to hire some quad bikes for a couple of hours to go up the mountain to try to see some signs of activity at the Tungurahua volcano. We did get some good views of Baños (here and below), but unfortunately the top of the volcano was blanketed in cloud, so we couldn't really see very much.

In the evening we went to the Piscina de la Virgen baths, which are one of several thermal baths in Baños. There were baths of three temperatures - hot, super-hot and freezing cold, and it was all very relaxing, except for the freezing cold one obviously. Afterwards we went back to the hostel roof terrace to try some cheese and wine that some of the French contingent had bought for us.

This morning (Tuesday) a group of four of us went canyoning in some waterfalls near Baños, the first time I've ever done anything like that. I think it would have been more accurately described as abseiling, because I'm told that proper canyoning involves several other techniques as well. Anyway we abseiled down a series of five waterfalls - here is a picture of me going down the second one, and another of me on the third one (for some reason we didn't abseil down this one, and instead our guide just lowered us down himself). The photo below is of me descending the final and largest waterfall, which was about 50 metres high.

Tonight is my final night in Baños, and I'll be sad to leave because this has definitely been one of the highlights of my trip so far. I'll be saying goodbye to the friends I've made here, as we're heading our separate ways, with most of them leaving for the Quilotoa Loop tomorrow. I've decided to head straight to Quito, although I may well meet up there with Johann, Philippe and others on the weekend.

Cuenca (part 2)

I'm now nearly at the end of my time in Cuenca, so I thought I'd post an update. I've finished my week of Spanish lessons, and to be honest I'm pretty glad they're over. My teacher, Miriam, was very pleasant, but not brilliant at her job - for example, she made so many mistakes when explaining the imperative mood to me that it started to get quite embarrassing. However, to be fair to her the last two lessons were a lot better, and we had some interesting discussions about subjects like politics, war, and the differences between the genders, so I did revise my opinion of her towards the end of the week.

To give you an idea of how much my Spanish has improved, I went back to Wunderbar this afternoon to watch England's latest dismal performance on the football pitch, and I started talking to the friendly Ecuadorian man sitting next to me, whose name was Oswaldo. We ended up having an hour-long conversation almost entirely in Spanish, which would have been completely unthinkable a couple of months ago.

I also joined in with the activities at the language school in the afternoon. On Tuesday the salsa lesson that I mentioned in my previous post started off as I expected, with four guys and no girls at all. However, about an hour into the lesson a female teacher and two female students did turn up, so the second half of the lesson was a lot more fun. On Wednesday afternoon we went to the Museum of the Central Bank, which is Cuenca's most important museum. I'd already been to it last week, so it was slightly pointless, but this time we had a guided tour, so I suppose I did get something out of it. Finally, yesterday afternoon we had a lesson in Ecuadorian cookery. We cooked plantain tortillas, which considering I don't like bananas wasn't really the best recipe for me to learn.

Tomorrow morning I'm planning to head north to Baños. Oswaldo told me that a volcano near to Baños is erupting at the moment, so we'll have to wait and see if I make it there...

Cuenca

I've been in Cuenca for five days now, so I've got to know the place pretty well. The main reason I decided to study Spanish here rather than in Quito, which was my original plan, is that I've had too many people tell me how dangerous Quito is. Also, an Australian guy that I met in Lima recommended Cuenca to me, and he also recommended a particular language school (Amauta), and that's where I'm now studying. The downside of being in Cuenca is that the weather is pretty awful, with constant cloud cover, rain almost every day, and a maximum temperature of about 18C - it's a bit like British weather really.

I've gone a bit more upmarket with my accommodation this time, and I'm staying in quite a smart hostel in the Barranco area of the city, on the cliff overlooking Tomebamba river. It's costing me a hefty US$18 a night, but I'm sure I'll be back to the US$5 dorm beds at my next destination.

The historic centre of Cuenca is quite impressive, and it's retained a lot of its colonial architecture, for example this street. Cuenca has two cathedrals - there's a small one dating from the year of the city's foundation in 1557, and a big one that was built opposite it in the late nineteenth century because the old one was considered to be too small (there are photos of the new cathedral here and below).

The reason the towers at the front look a bit stumpy is that the cathedral is unfinished. This is what the cathedral was meant to look like, but it was discovered during construction that the architect had made a serious miscalculation, and if the towers were built to their full height, the whole building might collapse. 130 years after construction began, there are still plans today to complete the towers using a lighter material.

Another of the historic buildings in the centre of Cuenca is the church of Carmen de la Ascunción, which has a flower market outside it. The church has a nunnery attached to it, where the nuns, who aren't allowed to see or be seen by the outside world, make a living by selling goods through a turntable that enables them to remain hidden.

Cuenca also has a lot of museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (nice building, not very good art in my opinion), and the Museum of the Central Bank, which is next to the Inca site of Pumapungo. And did you know that Panama hats originated in Ecuador? Well I didn't, but it's true - for some reason the hats became known after their place of international sale rather than their place of manufacture. There are several workshops and museums in Cuenca dedicated to the Panama hat, and I went to one of them, where we were shown how the hats were made (you can see some hat moulds in this photo). Below is a picture of me trying on what looks like a torture implement, but is actually a device for measuring head size.

The World Cup started the day after I arrived in Cuenca, so I've been watching quite a few of the games since I've been here. Unfortunately, because of the time zone I'm in, most of the games are in the morning, which isn't ideal. However, the England vs USA game was at a fairly convenient 1.30pm on Saturday, so I went to my local Austrian pub (called Wunderbar) to watch England's embarrassing performance. It seemed as though most of Cuenca's British population (and the few Americans that cared) had gathered there, so there was a pretty good atmosphere.

On Sunday I went on a day trip to three nearby towns, Gualaceo, Chordeleg and Sígsig, which are known for their Sunday markets. Gualaceo had the biggest market of the three, which was mainly fruit and veg. Chordeleg's was smaller, but the thing that struck me most about Chordeleg was the incredible number of jewellers around the main square - it was like being back in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. Sígsig had some strange sculptures in its main square, and quite a big indoor market, which I would guess is open every day, so there didn't seem to be anything particularly 'Sunday' about it. Maybe the Sunday market was somewhere else, and I didn't find it...

Anyway, on Monday I started my week of Spanish lessons, and they're going OK so far, but my teacher is definitely not as good as the one in Cuzco. I'm certainly learning new things though, so I think it's worth the money, particularly as it's only costing me US$160 for 20 hours, which is a fraction of what private tuition would cost in the UK. The school also organises events for the students in the afternoons. Yesterday's was a city tour, and today's is a salsa lesson - it seems as though most of the current students are male, so hopefully they'll rope in some of the (almost exclusively female) staff to join in the salsa lesson, otherwise it's not going to be much fun.

OK, there's more I could say, but I think this post is long enough, so I'll probably write some more at the end of the week.

Tumbes and Machala

You may recall that in my previous blog post I mentioned that I'd been eating a lot of seafood in Huanchaco. Well it looks like I paid the price for that, because I was violently ill in the early hours of Tuesday morning while on the bus from Trujillo to Tumbes. I won't go into any details, but let's just say it was lucky that the bus had on-board toilets, because otherwise it would have been even more messy and unpleasant than it already was.

I'd already planned to split my journey from Trujillo to Cuenca into three parts, and that turned out to be a good plan, because it gave me a chance to recuperate. It also meant that I spent two nights in towns with tropical climates, and I actually got to put on a pair of shorts for the first time since I was in Salta in Argentina, about seven weeks ago.

I spent Tuesday night in Tumbes, which is a fairly large town about 30km from the Ecuadorian border. The main reason people stay in Tumbes is to explore the nearby National Mangroves Sanctuary, but I wasn't really in a fit state to do anything like that. Instead I just had a look around town, and I thought it was quite a pleasant place. Among other things it had a colourful Cathedral and a strange piece of artwork in the Plaza de Armas.

The border crossing to Ecuador at Aguas Verdes has the reputation of being the worst in South America, because the town is full of scammers and con artists who are all looking to take advantage of the fresh supply of naive tourists that turn up every day. Fortunately it's possible to avoid all of this by getting a direct international bus from Tumbes to Machala in Ecuador, which is what I did on Wednesday morning.

I spent Wednesday night in Machala. Pretty much the only interesting thing about the town is that it's surrounded by huge banana plantations, and it's sometimes referred to as the 'banana capital of the world'. However, I didn't see anything of interest in the town itself, so I don't really have anything else to report.

I've now arrived in Cuenca, which is a much nicer place, and where I'll be staying for the next week to study some more Spanish. I'll tell you more about it next time.