Which way does it flush?

Quito at last!!! And it only took 2 weeks and 9 different busses… Now I have to turn around and head all the way back down to Santiago again…

But first an update. I spent my last day in Baños wandering around the hills. Started out at about 10ish in the am, and made it back to my hostel by around half 5 in the pm. Wore myself out well good and proper. I had a headache for the next day, combination of too much sun and altitude. But I had fun, I even had tea with some old dairy farmer in his little shack up in the hills. I was walking along minding my own business when this guy came running out and invited me in for tea. So I spent a good hour or so having tea and chatting away in Spanish with this old guy. He kept trying to feed me, I had to physically stop him from cooking me up some eggs. Crazy, but fun.

Quito! The northern most point of my journey, and the farthest north I have ever been. Quito sits across the equator so I am no sure if I have crossed into the North Hemisphere yet, would be the first time for me. I’ll have to check which way the toilet flushes when I get back to the hostel.

Today I went out to Otavalo to see the market out there. Absolutely amazing, this was by far the biggest craft market I have ever seen. Fortunately I went on my own, so I was able to wander through, make a purchase or two and be done all in about an hour. Pretty good huh? I reckon if I had of had female company (i.e. Sophie, Mum) I would never have made it out of there.

Anyway I’d show you my new groovy hat I bought, but the computer here doesn’t like my new camera. I blame the computer, it can’t be the camera, it’s new!!! And boy do I love it, though I haven’t a clue what half the buttons do, yet. But fear not I have a week on a river boat ahead of my to work it all out. And when I do I’ll put up a photo or two of me, in my brand new Roy Ban sun glasses. I look like a pimp in them, they are great! The guy who sold them to me said they were Ray Ban, but I figure for $12 there is no way they are, so Roy Bans it is.

Anyway have to go, much to do and so little time. Tomorrow I am off to the Jungle to try my luck catching a river boat back into Peru. Could be quite the adventure.

LaterZac

The wheels on the bus...

I've moved on up into Ecuador. Quite a change from the costal desert of Peru, I am now in the middle of mountains, but it all feels tropical. Apart from the freezing cold overnight bus to get here. Anyway they say the half the fun is in the journey itself. Well I had a rather interesting journey... But I will get to that in a bit.

First Chiclayo and the Witchdoctors market. The market was impressive, one of the biggest markets I have seen in South America. And full of all kinds of crazy stuff, I didn't spend too long looking around, but it would have been good to have a guided tour of the place. Someone to explain what all the different things were for. True my Spanish is good enough to ask, but I am not sure I would trust the answers or my translation enough to actually try anything. I had one guy offer me some Ayuasca, but once was enough. I don't think I need to be trying that stuff again. There were also great mounds of dried and green cactuses for sale. Again another hallucinogenic thing that the locals seem to make. And again not something I need to be trying, especial not when I am traveling on my own.

Anyway after Chiclayo I caught the bus up to Piura (still in Peru) and from there a bus onto Loja in Ecuador. This was the interesting bit. Now I have been on quite a few busses in South America, and I thought I had pretty much seen it all as far as crazy bus rides go. Well I was wrong, agian... I caught the day bus as I was told the secenry was spectacular, and true enough it was. The excitment came as we were crossing a section of road that had been covered by a recent landslide. I am not sure how recent it was, but it looked safe enough. The bus did have to stop and wait while the driver's helper got out to clear away some stones and make the track a little bit wider for us. It was during one of these breif pauses that I hear an almighty BANG! And feel the bus shake. I though something had exploded. The people up the back of the bus start screaming and running for the front. At this stage I look up the hill and see a few smallish rocks rolling down the slope at us and I realised that we had been hit by a rock or two. So the driver steps on it, and the bus doesn't move for a good 10 to 20 seconds. Felt like a lot more than that from where I was sitting watching more rubble come sliding down the slope. Well the wheels on the bus went round and round, and we got out of there safe and sound. The rest of the ride was uneventful compared to that. I stoped at Loja to change busses, and almost got talked into staying there for a couple of days by the nice young lady at the tourist information booth. What can I say, I am a sucker for pretty girls, and there are just so many of them down here...

So I am in Baños, which seems to have it all. You can go rafting, kayaking, cayoning, bungee jumping, horse back riding, mountain biking, hiking, trekking. You can take a tour of the Volcanoes or a 1 day to 1 week tour of the Jungle. This place has it all, if you have the money... I do, but I hate to spend it. So I am enjoying myself by doing the walks around the valley, free and spectacular. They also have a bunch of thermal baths, hence the name "Baños" so I might check them out as well.

Oh and I have a question, what the hell is a dime worth? They use US$ here, along with a bunch of coins which are only good here in Ecuador. So some times you get a US quarter, and other times you get an Ecuadorian 25 centavo coin. This is my 3rd country, and 3rd currency in 2 weeks and I getting a little confused. I keep converting everything back to Peruvian Sols, so I can compare prices with there, then I also convert to Chilean Peso as that is the money I am earning. Then my head hurts and I just pay what ever they ask. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don't.

I have to say, Ecuador is a pretty amazing place. It seems to have it all, I only wish I had a little more time to spend here. Though I am already thinking about trying to come back again one day...

Later
Zac

You'd think I'd know better...

Time for an update. I am in Chiclayo tonight, seems like a cool place, but I don’t plan on being here too long. Though I will hang around long enough to check out the witchdoctors market tomorrow…

Ok so after Huaraz, I caught the night bus down to Trujillo. Trujillo, very cool place. I could see myself living there. Great weather, and the ladies… Well I’ll leave that to your imagination. But the weather, it doesn’t get cold in winter and not all that hot in summer and I was told it hardly ever rains. Maybe I am just unlucky, but it rained the whole night last night. I woke up this morning to find the hostel half flooded with water due to the lack of a full roof over the place. They say they don’t really need a full roof as they get an average of 6mm of precipitation a year. They are on the other end of that wonderful el nino/la nina weather system that we are all so fond of in Australia. Though where as we get drought at home they get floods over here. Doesn’t sound too bad to me, until they explained that the last time this happened it washed away the paint from a 2000 to 3000 year old temple. Now my question was obviously, if the painted had been there for more than 2000 year, why would it wash away so easily with a little bit of rain. Surely it has rained at least once or twice maybe even thrice in the past 2000 years. Come on… Well the explanation for this was that for most of that time the site has been buried under the desert. It was only excavated sometime during the past 10 years and they didn’t have any serious rainfall until la nina came along and wreck the thing. Bit of bad luck I say. But I am getting ahead of myself again.

The reason I stopped in Trujillo was to see Chan Chan and the pyramids of the sun and moon. These are archeological sites that predate the Inca empire, by a lot. I think Chan Chan is around 3000 years old. Though I don’t really remember and I don’t have my guide book with me (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). Chan Chan is a massive adobe city with a total of 9 palaces. It is really impressive, I was blown away by this place, absolutely incredible. I might be able to get a few photos up of it in a month or so. Sorry, still waiting on the new digital camera, but I snapped a few shots with my high tech disposable number. The pyramid of the Moon was also incredible. These places are built total out of mud bricks and then painted over with some amazing images. Which have managed to survive for 2000 to 3000 years, until someone came along and dug them up… The current idea is to excavate some areas and then recover them with sand as this seems to be the best way of preserving them. It is also interesting to see the damage done to some of these sites by grave robbers. When I hear the word “grave robbers”, I think of a bunch of guys sneaking in at night and stealing a few things. Not quite. When you see the damage some of these guys do… They were not exactly sneaking around during the night. The pyramid of the Moon has a massive tunnel dug through the side by people searching for buried treasure. And at the pyramid of the Sun and entire side was washed away with permission form the Spanish, so that they could look for gold. Apparently they found quite a bit.

Huanchaco is a little beach village just outside of Trujillo. Apparently it is a popular spot for surfing. Well on the way home from our tour of Chan Chan we stopped by to check out the beach. To be honest, it wasn’t that impressive. The sand was grey, the water freezing, and dirty. The whole beach just felt dirty. Call me a snob, but I like the beaches in Australia better. I’ve yet to see a beach in South America that even comes close to those at home, though I haven't been over to Brazil yet. So I wont write them off completely just yet. Anyway on the road to Huanchaco you have to pay a toll. It’s to help fund the clean up of the beach as basically everyone comes down from Trujillo for the day, leaves the place a mess and buggers off back home in time for tea. Not cool. Well when we arrived with our little combi full of gringos, our wonderful guide tried to tell them that we were all friends of the local lady who we were giving a ride. She sat there straight faced and tried to argue with this guy. Absolutely hilarious. The guys keep point to us in the back saying “gringos, gringos” and she is sitting telling him “no, amigos, amigos”. I was cracking up, eventually we paid and did a little tour of the beach town.

I’ve also been putting my stomach to the test, trying to toughen it up for what is to come on this trip. How you ask? I’ve been hooking into the Cheviche with reckless abandon. Reckless abandon? Eating at the market, and this morning I bough a cup of cheviche off some lady on the street. That one had my stomach in knots for a while. Cheviche for those who don’t know is a raw fish dish. The fish sits in this lemon juice mixture which in theory cooks the fish. Though you should always be a little careful with this kind of stuff. I wouldn’t exactly call eating of street vendors careful, but I think my stomach can take it. Though check back tomorrow and I’ll confirm that, or maybe not. You’d think I’d know better by know…

Later
Zac

I was wrong...

Oh so very wrong. There is a worse smell than me after 50 hours on a bus... Other people... I had forgotten all about that wonderful aspect of public transport in Peru. Needless to say I had a crap bus ride last night. Didn't sleep too well at all. But I made it to Huraz, arrived about 7am and promptly found a hostal. Got a good deal on that so I was happy, then sorted out a tour to Chavin..

Now this is where it started to go wrong. The guide on the bus did all the explanations in Spanish, not too big a problem as I understood most of what was said, though don't ask me to repeat it. My listen skills are the same in Spanish as they are in English, in one ear and out the other. Anyway, we were an hour or so into what was meant to be 4 hour bus ride to Chavin when we were told the road was closed. From what I could make out it had something to do with construction and explosives, great combination. Well the guide said we would press on so we could see some lake and then check out the road for ourselves. Though from the first mention of the road being closed he was quite clear that the tour would continue in some way, so there would be no money back as it wasn't his fault.

Anyway, saw the lake, woo freaking hoo. Nice lake but nothing special. Saw the road block, I am not exactly sure where the construction and explosives came into it, but there was a minor land slide and the road was defiantly closed. I think it may remain so for a few days to come. So we turned back, and the tour continued to some town, which looked just like 100 other towns I have seen in Peru. Then we had the choice of what to do next. Or so we were told, it seemed to me like the choice was made for us. We were going to head to some thermal bath and then some other minor archaeological site in the area. We came back to town so people could pick up a change of cloths for the baths and this is where I gave up. The guide seemed only to be explaining what was going on to the few people up the front of the bus. It seemed as if we were going round to people's hostals so they could grab some stuff, well that theory was right, except we went no where near mine. When I asked what was going on, he said I could go back and they would wait for me, but I only had 10 mins. Half way back to my hostal I decided to hell with it, I wasn't keen on the thermal bath to begin with. So I ditched my group and went and had lunch.

Not that impressed with Huaraz, I think I will bail tomorrow night and keep on moving up the coast to Trujillo. Hopefully things will work out a little better there.

Oh yeah, and I found part of Lima I don't like. Where my bus left from. For some reason the bus terminals are all in the seediest part of town. Not an area I want to be walking through after dark, or in the day for that matter.

The other thing I forgot about Peru was that February was not a smart time to travel. They have their crazy month long water fight going on, I've already had a few close calls and it's not even February until tomorrow.

I’ve had whinge and I feel better already.

Later
Zac

What's that smell....

That smell would be me. Or at least it was me. I've discovered the worst think about a 50+ hour bus journey isn't the uncomortable seats, or the cramped little toliet on the bus. It's the smell. After more than 50 hours with no shower, sitting in the same seat, sleeping in the same seat. You start to smell... I was glad when we finialy made it to Lima, first thing I did was have shower. Ah so good.

So obviously I made it to Lima. I survied the 50 plus hours on the bus, and managed to avoid using the little toliet on the bus. I think that has to be some kind of record. Well at least it should be. So Lima. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I've found a part of Lima I like and I think it would be a great city, if it ocasionaly had some blue sky. I've been to Lima 4 times now, at different times of the year and not once have I seen blue sky... But other than that it's cool. I got interviewed on the street about Australia's chances in the football world cup, but I forgot to ask what it was for. Doh!

Anyway I am off to Huaraz tonight and then Chavin tomorrow. So if you have a map of Peru check it out and you'll know where I am. If not, check back here, and I'll tell you all about it.

Later
Zac