The Equator, Markets, Friends, and Leather

The incredible balancing egg trick

Panama hats are actually made in Ecuador

Markets

More markets.....

...and two happy shoppers

I am now in holiday mode rather than travel mode (there is a difference, honest), I am sat in a very swish hotel having met up with friends old and new and I have my bags all packed ready to fly out to the Galapagos tomorrow. For today however I have travelled north from Quito and spent the day visiting the equator, shopping at markets, weavers and leather makers and had a very nice meal at an historical hacienda. It is great to meet up with Jill and Brian again and the crowd of divers who will be heading out to dive one of the meccas of diving. It is also great to be on a tour bus, full of people that you know, chatting away merrily and not having to worry about anyone stealing your stuff or asking you questions in Spanish that you have no idea what they are saying, and not having to keep an eye out for your stop - I did miss the people jumping on the bus and trying to sell things though. The equator line is obviously what gives Ecuador its name, and apparently you are supposed to be 1.7 pounds lighter whilst at the equator, I didn´t notice any difference but perhaps that was because I was busy watching an old guy balancing an egg!! The market was Otavalo and is a gathering place for the indegenoius peoples to sell their wears. Lots of weaved goods and jewelry and pictures and hats and bags etc. but it is mainly for the tourists, there was no one selling guinea pigs or live chickens etc.  Did introduce a few people to chochos and tostadas - the healthy 50 cents snack.  Also then visited a 'famous' weaver who mainly worked in alpaca wool and some of his things were lovely - the wool is oh so soft, and then onto a town that has many leather goods shops and again there were some amazing items and at great prices.  Call it an advantage or a disadvantage but when you are travelling you cannot really buy too much stuff, only necessities and consumables, as you have to carry it around with you.  I may consider buying stuff and then posting it home along the route or perhaps I will just leave all my shopping until Asia.  (Have bought my mum a birthday present, but sorry mum, you are just going to have to wait until next month to know what it is).   Onto an old hacienda and a superb three course lunch - very good and very filling, and based on the snoring on the bus on the way back to Quito everyone else agreed.

Hungry?

When you are really hungry

The refreshing taste?

The posh meal.

The $1.50 meal

The indulgence

The unhealthy snack 60 cents

The healthy snack 50 cents - and far more filling

All in a days work

The Good, the bad and the Ugly!

I have finished my 4 weeks of volunteering, 2 weeks in the Amazon and 2 weeks in the Andes, and it has been a great way to start my travels. Here is a run down of the good points, the points that you get used to and the down right nasty things that I could just as well do with out. THE GOOD: the animals; the variety of animals, the closeness to them, the personalities of them, and the interactions with them, from tickling a woolly monkey because it is lonely to having a coati and a kinkachoo running all over you and routing out things that you never knew you had in your pockets. The rescuing of animals is commendable but my heart lay with the rehabilitation of them and the chance that they would be released back to their natural habitats. The locations; the mile upon mile of jungle canopy and the vast views of mountians and volcanoes, spectacular. The people; it has been a good mix of ages and nationalities of people who volunteered with numerous travel stories and adventures to discuss. Machetes and power tools; they are just great. Weekends away; the simple luxury and joy of hot showers and cheap yet decent food. Travelling on local buses; despite people trying to swindle the tourists (usually only by a 50 cents or a dollar) the buses are great places, filled with locals and at every stop, or even a semi stop, people jumping on the bus trying to sell their wears, from home cooked buns to ice cream and newspapers to special healing formulas (or at leat I think that is what it was??!!). No TV; the art of conversation is not dead. Book exchange; the opportunity to read authors you wouldn´t normally read. BAD, but in the end you get used to: being constantly dirty; the dirt just becomes ingrained in your hands and your finger nails. Wearing the sames clothes for a week; you just kind of accept it, better than ruining everything you own. Birds shitting in your hair; really, I promise, you just accept it as part of your daily routine :-) Sharing a room, and getting stuck inside your sleeping bag; I have no idea where the zip goes during the night. Physical labour, working in the rain, bruises, blisters and working at altitude; so it´s only for a short time, don´t think I will be becoming a farm hand or a zoo keeper any time soon. THE UGLY: 18 year olds getting drunk on rum and vomiting in the middle of the night; oh I am so happy not to be 18. Working Saturday morings; who in their right mind would do such a thing?????? And there is always that one volunteer, the one that doesn´t want to do anything, doesn´t want to muck in, just isn´t up to the task - no it wasn´t me ;-) Oh and I´d also have to add on here Volunteer Agencies. I didn´t go through one but as I gather they charge an absolute fortune, do not offer anything in addition to going direct with the volunteer organisation and do not pass on any extra funds - forwarned is forearmed.

A great first month of travel and a great month in Ecuador, roll on the whale sharks and hammerheads, next stop Galapagos.

Quito Culture

The Basilica
Quito
Fun and Games
Sunset, not a volcano eruption.
So the little town of Tambillo has 3 internet cafes, but unfortunately the internet speed is awful and they do not open on a Sunday, doh! The lions and ocelots and pumas and coatis and etc etc are still keeping me enterained but there is not as much interaction and work with the animals here so there is far more physical, and at times, tedious manual work, so for the sake of my sanity and possibly my health for diving (it gets really cold at night) I may finish a little early at the centre and go back to Banos for a wallow in the hot springs. But we shall see how the week pans out. As for this past weekend I had a day trip into Quito and a little culture walking around the old town and visiting the Basilica with its rather high towers, which you can climb up and look out all over the city, an amazing view. It was also festival weekend - celebrating the first, thwarted, attempt at independence. There were a lot of people around and lots of music stages and people dressed in fancy costumes and bands playing with singing and dancing so quite an entertaining day. Sunday was spent reading, taking it easy and making sure I have pictures of everything that I want a picture of - unfortunately I still can not update them to the blog, sorry.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Lion
Escaped from Galapagos
Working hard!
Ocelot
Bear
Okay, no tigers but I am now living with lions and bears. I have travelled north from the Amazon and am now in the Andes, a very steep climb from a small town called Tambillo. A town that no bus driver seemed to want to take me to, but perhaps that was because I couldn´t pronounce it properly. It is a very different set up at the rescue centre here, compared to the rehabilitation centre in the Amazon, with a lot of the animals having been confiscated from circus´s and people´s houses so a lot of the animals have a very slim chance of being released - the lions obviously are not native to Ecuador and although the bears are there is currently no where to release them. A lot of the other animals are either too tame, injured, or in the case of most of the birds, talk too much. Pictures to follow I promise. It is again quite physical work and as i am at 3000m the altitude makes things just that little bit tougher, but things are taken at a steady pace so it is not too bad. I have already built a new house for the ocelot and had great fun using the circular saw - beware, women and power tools! I have to say though that the machete is even more fun and if I was heading back to the UK I would definitely have one in my pack - oh the joy of slicing a cucumber mid air with a machete. We work a longer morning here and then have a 3 hour afternoon break, hence I have time to travel down into Tambillo and update my blog - the journey however is a back breaking ride in the back of a pick up truck - the local taxi, so I will not make the journey too often.

Chocolate

Oh dear! All that hard work and exercise and I can feel/see I have muscles on my muscles, but alas, I think I may be about to undo all the good work - I have found Ecuadorian chocolate! 77% cocoa in all different flavours. Hot showers and plain chocolate, how spoilt I am :-)

2 Weeks in the Amazon

A morning mist
Always stealing the fruit
if you look closely you can see my spiderman blanket!

So it is over, and how quickly it flew! I am back in Banos and have just had the most wonderfully hot and long shower - such a simple pleasure but oh so welcome. A lot of the volunteers either fly home this weekend or are off to various other corners of Ecuador, so I will be enjoying another steak this evening, this time alone, and hopefully a good nights rest and a big bag of clean washing waiting for me in the morning. I have said goodbye to my mosquito netted bed, will miss waking up to the view over the jungle and wonder what cheeky animals will be at the next place to replace the squirrel monkies.

Wild animals will be wild.

Meet Johnny
Blue Macaw
The new addition
After a good weekend of rest, reading and getting some very muddy clothes washed it was back to the centre. The week has flown by and although I have aches, pains and bruises it was an easier week and I feel I must be getting fitter. This week one of the capachin monkeys escaped, twice, one of the peccaries gave birth, the parrots continued to practice their flight, and failed, the squirrel monkeys continued to be very cheeky, and not satisfied with the fruit from the fruit shed started to steal the fruit from the free birds, we went night walking through the jungle and frog spotting at the pond, and a volunteer got attacked, on mass, by a group of capachins. She was okay but may have the odd monkey bite scar to show off at parties. We continued to do jobs around the centre, including path mending, bamboo chopping, cage building and lots of lifting and carrying. I got a trip into Puyo to assist with the weeks shopping, both for the animals and the humans, with far more being spent on the animals - okay, so there are more of them but they are only small! And we had a first English evening for the local community. 17 people turned up from various ages and differing levels of English ability, and after a game of football, in which the volunteers got thrashed, we spent an hour on greetings in English. It was great fun and a good start to both the locals learning some English and a good way to allow the centre to be fully integrated into the community.

The weekend

The mid weekend break was spent in a town, 2 hours from the centre, called Banos - translated as bathroom rather than toilet, thank goodness. The name originates from the fact that there are hot springs here and people come to bathe. It is very touristy, but mainly touristy for the Ecuadorians so it is great to see the local people enjoying their weekend breaks as much as the gringos. It is quite small but there is a great buzz about the place and in the evenings there are local bands playing in the squares and families are out dancing to the music and strolling around town. I believe there is also a very good pub\club scene as well but I will have to take everyone elses word on that one. Banos is also good for outdoor activities with hiking and biking and pony trekking, and bridge jumping and volcano tours and canyoning and...and... the list goes on. I however was in need for some rest and relaxation and after the group checked into various hostels, (costs between $5-10) it was do as the locals do - even having a little dance in the square. We all met up for dinner and unanimously voted on a steak house for dinner - yum yum! No idea what meat it was but it was thick, tender, juicy and very welcome after a week of vegetarian cooking, and at $5 it was perfecto.