Month: April 2013

Our first day of a three day mountain biking excursion had us meet up in a restaurant before it even opened in time to be piled into the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser with a rack of decent mountain bikes up on top. The group of seven all seem nice and predominantly American with one guy from Germany. The guide, an Ecuadorian, speaks excellent English and is very nice, very enthusiastic, and seemingly very knowledgable of all things Ecuadorian.

The ride out of town sees us battling with rush hour traffic while we snuck through back roads, cobblestone streets, and switchbacks down steep hills reminiscent of San Francisco as we aim to get on the famous Pan American Highway and head south.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotopaxi

Today’s ride starts near the top of Cotopaxi, an active, snow covered volcano. We’re driven up to around 4300 meters (14,000 feet) above sea level. I certainly have been feeling the effects of the altitude, but have been pleased to find them diminishing. After a few dizzying moments getting geared up and admiring the peak.

The plan is to ride down the switchback road we drove up on until we find a small four wheel drive track shoot off on the right. Our guide, Fernando, rides out in front to ensure nobody missed the turn while our Land Cruiser drives behind us to make sure nobody needs support or to bail due to problems adjusting to the elevation. It is quite cold on the ride down, but not as windy and cold as usual, so we’re all rugged up in pretty warm gear and full fingered cycling gloves that could almost pass for Michael Jackson’s jewel studded gloves from a distance.

The ride downhill is lots of fun and very enjoyable, but the sweetest part of the ride came after we got off the main road and on to some very nice cruisy four wheel drive trails that led us up along a creek to the source of a underground freshwater spring. It wasn’t a steep incline to get there, but the elevation made it very difficult to gasp for enough air. From there we cycled on a very nice path down to see some archeological Inca ruins, eat a scrumptious furnished pasta (carbo-loaded) lunch, admire Cotopaxi and the view over the plains of the national park with its wild horses and lost cattle that weren’t supposed to be there.

Most of the riding was either level of downhill on this trip, but every time I came to the slightest incline, I really struggled to get enough energy to climb it. I will chalk it off to a combination of being out of cycling shape and not quite fully acclimatised to the elevation. Our guide told us that full acclimatisation normally takes about 21 days, which made me feel better!

As is typical of Ecuadorian weather at this time of year, the morning was beautiful, but the rains came in during the afternoon. Fortunately, we peddled just far enough around a major thunderstorm to miss it completely before piling back into the car at the end of the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilotoa

From Cotopaxi we drove another few hours to get to the site of our next day’s ride, near Quilotoa Crater Lake. Unfortunately, a few hours were added due to construction along a new highway that had us sit in traffic for a bit longer than we had hoped. Although most of Ecuador’s major roads appear to be in excellent condition, they are still working hard to put in others in some of the more remote parts of the country.

Once we arrived at our guesthouse near the rim of the Quilotoa Crater Lake, we gathered for a big Ecuadorian meal around a long candlelit dinner table. The candle lighting was nice, but the result of a long power outage that only seemed to let up for a few minutes at a time. Due to the lack of power and most of us being knackered from a long day of oxygen deprived cycling, we retreated to bed fairly early that evening.

Still awaiting my 3 day bike excursion, I headed out for another long walk to the old part of Quito to visit the Museo de la Cuidad (Museum of the City), which has been highly recommended. The building housing the museum is an old hospital that has been preserved to recognize its own history as well as the history of Ecuador. There were lots of very interesting dioramas depicting life in the region from indigenous times through the Spanish colonization and up to more recent times. There were also displays of how the hospital was set up with cramped infirmary wards and the horrifying surgical and medicinal tools used during the period.

Afterwards I had a local feed of chicken, rice, and beans at a nearby family restaurant. I think Ecuador is probably the first country I have ever visited in which I have been perfectly content eating only local food. I usually will have at least one local meal every day and alternate with more familiar fare, but perhaps I have just grown too comfortable with South American food.

I’ve had my eye on Quito’s Teleferico for a number of days now, but every time the weather is looking good over the city, I turn my head to see a lot of clouds smouldering the mountain tops. One of these days I will get up there when the skies are clear, but until then I am running around town doing a few other things and trying to do some planning for my last week here.

In lieu of the cable car ride to the top of the mountains, I decided to head to the financial and cultural district of Quito to see a few highly recommended museums. Interestingly, there were two combined museums of modern art and musical instruments in a huge round cultural building that were pretty run down and neglected, but charged an entry fee ($2!), and another modern, well presented, well maintained archeology museum next door in the same building that was free. Go figure.

The musical instrument museum housed many indigenous musical instruments from South American countries as well as from many other countries around the world. It also had very old artefacts of prehistoric musical instruments made out of bones and other similar materials. It was quite fascinating, but a bit dark and neglected. There were plenty of school kids there, however, so it wasn’t totally forgotten.

Upstairs in the same museum was a collection of dusty modern art from Ecuador that included, among other things, some impressive and intricate designs made from thousands of nails being hammered into a plywood canvas. I couldn’t help but wonder how much they weighed!

Just a short walk around the building was a far more impressive archeology museum full of artefacts from around South America. It explained the cultural histories of three major regions in the area: The Amazon, the coast, and The Andes mountains. Included were dioramas depicting sacrifices and head shrinkages. Good stuff.

In one particular section there were many displays of gold metalwork in the form of masks, jewellery, and other items used for religious purposes. There were also extensive displays of historic maps from early days of European settlement that were quite interesting.

Having had my cultural fill for the day, I proceeded to head back towards my guest house, but not before taking a shortcut through the Hyatt hotel to remind myself how sterile, cold, stuffy, and corporate my accommodation could have been.

As soon as I stepped back out of the building and onto the street, I started to hear a few gunshots ring out. I’ve heard many loud noises that sounded like gunfire in various city around the world that turned out to be cars backfiring or other false alarms over the years, but these sounds had everyone on the street in the area freeze in their tracks and then dive for protection. I couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but I knew it had to be gunfire and so did everyone else. The shots were being fired just 10-20 meters down the street and behind some bushes on a corner I was heading towards. I took refuge behind a big cement wall next to the Hyatt along with several street vendors.

After about 5-10 shots and some screaming, it became quiet again and people began to start slowly moving – many towards the shooting location to investigate what had happened. An English couple I crossed paths with immediately afterwards said they were sitting at a cafe just across the street from the incident. They said that a man had been shot in his leg and the gunman fled down the street (out of my view) afterwards. By the time I got up to the scene of the crime (which I had to pass through to get home, anyway), a huge scrum of 50’ish people swarmed around a man talking on his mobile phone, possibly as he made a call to the police, to eavesdrop on his conversation.

My feeling was to just get out of there and not hang around, but I never did hear anything more about the incident. I mentioned it to my hosts at the guesthouse and they seemed genuinely alarmed, which I guess is a good thing because it shows this sort of thing doesn’t actually happen around here very often.

After another nice breakfast and a visit to a few tour operators down the street to try and nail some things down, I decided to heel it to Quito’s Old City district to check out the fabulous historic Spanish architecture. There were endless cobblestone streets along rows and rows of beautifully preserved buildings and massive cathedrals.

Unfortunately, for me, finding English translations or speakers has been a bit difficult to find around Quito. Yeah, sure I took Spanish in high schools years ago, and many words are beginning to come back to me, but it isn’t a language that gets much airtime in Australia. There were some nice exhibits in some of the cathedrals, but not a word of English to help me understand exactly what I was looking at. It’s one of those experiences I’ve had while traveling the world that make you realise that you are possibly on the back of a sleeping giant that is too big to really care much about what us in the 1st world think is important. This sleeping giant being South America. The experience reminding me of my visit to India in 2005 – where the focus in the media was primarily on themselves with rare mentions of what was happening in the U.S., Europe, or Australia.

On my walk home from the Old City, I was drawn to a massive Basilica on top of a big hill overlooking the rest of the city. Not knowing whether it was something you could see the inside of. I finally found a guy selling tickets near the side who told me I could climb to the top of the spire there. Sounded pretty cool to me, so I forked over my $2 and headed up a stone staircase hat lead up a corner of the building through windowless channels. There were a few floors to stop at on the way up that gave views looking down inside over the cathedral interior, along with some intermediate external views, but I kept climbing as long as I could find stairs.

Thinking I was at the top, I found a creaky plywood board walk that lead directly over the top of the length of the church over the ceiling but below the roof that led to a steep staircase up to some daylight. I kept going, thinking this must be it, only to find a few more scary looking steep steel staircases proceeding up to the very top of the spire. Or at least to it’s highest platform. A few people were going up and down, but I had to wait a few minutes to psych myself up for the last bit of the journey.

From the top you could see the entire punchbowl of Quito, surrounded by volcanoes and snow-capped mountains on another beautifully clear, sunny day.

After arriving at Quito’s new airport at midnight via three flights from Philadelphia (including a very tight 35 minute connection in Panama City), I was greeted by the son of my guesthouse manager for the long drive into town. Perhaps I should have been a bit more concerned when he asked me whether I would mind if he drove fast. I just shrugged my shoulders and said fine, thinking “as opposed to what? Slow?”

Well, I think I won’t clear that request again. The roads were mostly empty at that hour, and it seemed he was keen to put his Chevy through its paces. With his girlfriend in the back seat and me in the front, he reached speeds of around 140 kph on a number of stretches along the mostly new but twisty and hilly highway. Numerous cops were passed along the way who gave no response as my driver turned what was normally supposed to be a ninety minute drive into fifty minutes.

Upon arrival at the guesthouse in a trendy restaurant district on the far side of town, a large metal door slid open to reveal a secret, secure, small compound surrounding a nice little two story house surrounded by high cement walls embedded with broken glass on top. The compound was just big enough for him to reverse his car, Bat Cave style, before the gate rolled shut again. Ecuador has a bit of a crime problem, you see. He quietly led me to my nice comfortable room upstairs and showed me the things I needed to know about staying there. Among the quirks was a shared coed bathroom with two toilets and two opaque glass showers facing each other.

The guesthouse is run by a very friendly hard working family who go out of their way to make sure everyone is happy and comfortable. For a mere $20 a night, which includes a generous and tasty home cooked breakfast every morning, the accommodation is easily better than many places I’ve stayed in that have charged a lot more money.

My first day on the street in Quito was consumed with finding tour operators who could speak English well so I could investigate what options I had for doing tours around the area. The Galapagos Islands were always high on my list, but I was a bit put off by the high prices that didn’t even cover all the expenses – an 8 day tour blitzing the total expenses I have had in every individual country I have visited so far. And these prices were 30% off last minute ‘bargains’!

Seeing as I was already getting my body acclimatised to the 2800 meter elevation of Quito and really enjoying the perfect humidity-free and mosquito-free sunny climate, I thought it might be wise to work my way up The Andes rather than down. There are quite a few day tours out of the city that I could do, but a 3 day mountain biking excursion up around a number of very high volcanic and snow covered peaks sounded like the most fun. So far. Still seeing what’s out there.