Sat 24 March 2012 - to Mon 26 March 2012

Well, today, was going to be the day that I tried to get to the Bosque Protector Cerro Blanco, a 50 square kilometre dry coastal forest, having wildlife of howler monkeys, anteaters, deer and birds. According to my guidebook, if you want to go without making a reservation, weekends are the best, so I saved this day for my visit and got a taxi to the bus terminal.

Oh my God! The bus terminal at Guayaquil is a nightmare to negotiate, even without a big backpack. At least at Quitumbe bus terminal, Quito, the ticket booths are all arranged according to the region and then the bus companies. In Guayaquil, the bus terminal is massive, with local county buses, inter-regional buses and international buses, but which is not very user-friendly in its layout. And busy! My God, my heart sank and I was glad that I had also decided that this was also an ideal opportunity to check out the bus terminal for my onward travel to Cuenca, without being burdened by my (heavy) backpacks.

Looking at the departure monitors dotted about, you could see the various buses leaving for their destinations but they were all within about 10 to 15 minutes' time. There were so many listings, it wasn't really possible to tell if they showed any later departures, not helped by the fact that the listings would be interrupted with schematics of the bus stands.

I tried two ticket booths which went to Las Playas (one of 3 destinations that would pass the Cerro Blanco, according to the guidebook) but they both refused to sell me a ticket and mentioned something about Chongo. I, therefore, went to the information desk and asked where I could get tickets and she pointed me to ticket booths 50 and 51 - which turned out to be the two ticket booths I had already been to, and been turned away from!

In view of the chaotic, extremely busy terminal and that I didn't know what had been meant by chongo - a verb that I was unfamiliar with or a place not in my guidebook, that no one was able to give me information where I could buy a ticket direct to the place, I decided that I was going to give it a miss. Call me a quitter if you will, but if Chongo is a place that I don't know the location of or how to get there (and more importantly, return from!), and which might need a change of bus (there was a mention of otro carro [meaning other car, with car possibly including coach as a definition]), I think enough is enough, and that you can't win them all. So, there and then, I decided it was time to move on to Cuenca and took a taxi back to the hotel, packed up, checked out and was back to the bus terminal, having taken a note of a few of the bus companies going to Cuenca. (As an aside, I have since looked up Chongo on the internet, and I get lots of dubious links come up: I think it's a word relating to female genitalia…)

Of course, life is not so simple. By the time I'd got back to the bus terminal, the two bus company names I had memorised were no longer running buses to Cuenca, and I was pointed to another ticket booth who (there's a surprise!) wouldn't/couldn't sell me tickets to Cuenca. So I decided to wait till one of the other similar sounding ticket booth I had been pointed to, opened, or one of the two I'd previously noted started listing new Cuenca buses.

Some 10 or 5 minutes later, one of the similar-sounding ticket booths opened and started serving a guy, so I went up and asked and the customer (not the ticket seller) said, no, I needed a different ticket booth right up the aisle and to the right. I picked up all my stuff and made it up the huge aisle of ticket booths and as I had to bypass the information booth, got further information as to which one to make for.

As I got nearer, a guy was shouting out "Cuenca, Cuenca" and immediately pointed me to the ticket booth, where I eventually got served. Clutching my ticket, I made my way up to the escalators, having seen on my previous visit, that there are three levels of bus stands: local (ground), inter-regional (second level), and international (third level). However, checking which bus stand I needed, I saw that the hour of departure for my bus was 10:30 and it was already 10:35!

To my despair and frustration, the second level didn't go to my number bus stand (#89) and I had to ask a woman where it was, and she said arriba(upstairs). So, I got onto the escalator and saw the 89 bus stand, followed a misleading salidasign -which didn't have an opening to the outside - had to backtrack to the opening for #84, couldn't get the turnstile to accept my ticket barcode (or I was too slow to get through laden as I was with bulky backpacks) and had to queue up for a turnstile operator, who held the turnstile for me and then hurried to #89 - which was empty!!

However, at bus stnd #88, there was another Cuenca bus there and I thought I'd try to get onto that and plead ignorance and lack of time, if it was the wrong bus (knowing from previous experience to La Hesperia, that the buses are sometimes parked at the next bus stand). I could see, though, that it seemed to be the same Cooperativa company, from a brief look at the side of the bus as the similarly brief look at part of the bus ticket.

I handed the bus conductor the ticket as a test and he still took my backpack to load onto the bus so I got on and sat at a random seat as I could see it was pretty full and my allocated seat number was probably already taken. I then managed to get a good look at my ticket and found that it was issued at 10:29 am but that the hour of departure was 10:30 am - there was no way anyone could made that bus on time, if it didn't delay its departure, unless the ticket had actually been bought on the bus itself!! If it was the wrong bus company, I was quite prepared to make a huge fuss regarding the lack of time to get the correct bus, but I needn't have worried. I had managed to get the right bus because it had delayed its departure to maximise the number of passengers. It eventually left at 10:44, much to the disgust of a few passengers who started to heckle the bus driver - not as uncommon as you'd think!

Anyway, having managed to catch the bus, I could relax next to an elderly gent, who asked me if I was going to Cuenca. After about half an hour to 1 hour after departure, he'd finished reading his newspaper, eaten a packet of crisps and gotten his bible out, at which point he then decided to talk to me. However, after asking me if I read any Spanish, he seemed to feel it was his duty to tell me that "this" (his bible) was a bible, which had been translated into different languages (mentioning a few of them), that it was read/found in schools, hotels, told me the 10 commandments, and started telling me how to live a God-fearing or non-offending, blameless life (I think), because I'm sure he mentioned make-up (though I don't remember that being mentioned in the bible, at least not the bits of the New Testament I had to study at school). I have to admit tuning him out a bit: after all, I didn't particularly want to be lectured to or be converted. I did interject to let him know that I was a Christian (and he then mentioned Greek Orthodox, but in what context, I didn't get or try to), to try and stem the flow (and of course, I didn't mention that I wasn't an active Christian - that would have been counterproductive).

Anyway, eventually, he stopped trying to lecture/convert me, and settled down to a little nap, with crumbs of crisps all down his front: I was tempted to dust him off, but resisted.

At some point he roused as we passed through a small town, saying that this was "Puerto Inca" and soon after, we passed through vast fields of banana trees. Sometime during the 4 hour journey, it was obvious when we passed from the coastal region to the Sierras as the temperature dropped and I could see the very familiar cloud/mist I am used to seeing when travelling between Quito and La Hesperia. Also, my ears popped once on that climb into the Sierras, and there were some quite impressively close waterfalls beside the road.

Even before we approached the bus terminal, I could see that I would like Cuenca: even the suburbs were pretty: Cuenca is supposed to be the cultural capital, with colonial architecture. I got a taxi to my chosen hostel, which had changed names in the time from its publication in the guidebook, but at least the address was still the same: it's a converted mansion with bric-a-brac and a resident parrot (not the reason, I chose it though!).

After a brief unpacking, I had a quick reconnoitre of Cuenca and managed to find a few landmarks, some of which I explored in more detail the following day: Catedral Nueva, Catedral Vieja, Plaza de la Flores (small flower market) adjacent to the Iglesia El Carmen de la Asuncion¸ Parque Calderon, and the Iglesia Santo Domingo.

On the Sunday, I also visited the Museo de Sombrero featuring Panama hat production (there were a couple of women there, one of which was trimming/neatening the edge of a Panama hat) and the Mercado 9 de Octubre¸ which was absolutely buzzing with food stalls, greengrocers, fruit stalls, meat stalls and other stalls, eg., hats, shoes, dry and goods. I had a nice smoothie (batida: probably more of a smoothie than a milkshake? Very slight difference, here, I think) and a seco de pollo (a chicken stew served with rice, side salad and juice, although confusing, seco usually means dry) for lunch at the mercado before wandering down the Calle Larga where a lot of the museums are located.

Cuenca, being in the same region as Quito (the Sierra) has very similar weather from what I have seen: on Sunday, after a beautiful morning, there was a pretty heavy thunderstorm from mid-afternoon through to late evening, where it turned quite chilly (very like Quito!). Luckily, the hostel is one of the few hostels I've stayed in where the promised hot water is an actuality and one of the most reliable in terms of steady flow and not as variable in temperature (hot to cool, cold and colder, warm, scorching!). I just missed the downpour, having made it back to the hotel, to either have a siesta or change into shorts for the afternoon, but the rain put a stop to any further sightseeing, but as I am intending to stay for five nights, there's no rush: downtown Cuenca is very walkable, relaxed and feels very safe. That particular night, I slept so well (falling asleep at 10 pm, which I rarely ever did at La Hesperia, I think there was just too much light at night), that I didn't hear the c*** crowing in the early hours (now that's something you don't get in Quito. Their equivalent is the car alarm…). I've heard c*** crowing since Canoa; there were a few cockerels (roosters: is there a difference?), including one that sounded like it was right behind my head, although it also sounded like it had a touch of laryngitis. In Bahia, there were legions of them: all setting each other off from around 2:30/3:30 am till about 7. At first, I thought it was a group of young lads, but I realised the following sunrise, that that wasn't the case!

Monday, I visited the(free) Banco del Ecuador (formerly known as Museo del Banco, I think, at least that's no longer what is displayed outside and doesn't match what's listed in my guidebook). It was free, and had a number of different sections, including indigenous costumes, Inca artefacts, a Sala Etnografia Nacional showing the different lifestyles of the indigenous people as well as the Museo Numismatico. The museum is also on the site where they discovered some of the artefacts and although I didn't go out to investigate it, I could see parts of it from the windows. In the Sala Etnografia, amongst the different information about the various indigenous groups, were shrunken heads, with shut eyes (I remember Alexandra talking about sewing the eyes and mouth shut) and lips bound closed with three knotted "fringes" of string.

One of the indigenous people, the Shuar ,had the practice of shrinking heads and was also quite interesting in their beliefs and conduct. They believed that everyone was created as a human being (if I remember correctly), but that according to how well, or not, you behaved, you could be turned into an animal, and therefore all animals were brothers. They also didn't believe in unnecessarily killing people, but if someone was killed, they would kill in return (but as a balance, not for vengeance), but would seek authorisation from the shaman, and be issued this in the form of a bracelet. They could then kill the killer, who would be sent to the same limbo as the victim.

Additionally, they then believed that they took on the power of the person they had killed. They had various other beliefs such as loss of blood meant a loss of the soul and a great belief in the power of words, (if I remember correctly). There was one other (two?) tribes, such as the Ashuar who also practiced shrinking heads mentioned at the museum, but it also said that the practice of shrinking heads was then taken by others out of context. It's reassuring to know, however, that shrinking heads is now no longer allowed!

The Museo del Ecuador (Banco) was well worth a visit and was far more on indigenous culture than the museum, Mindalae, in Quito. After that, I visited the Museo de las Culturas Aborigenes, which housed various exhibits from Stone Age tools and flints to Inca artefacts. It included a booklet in English, which listed various "rooms" (actually areas, not rooms) with selected diagrams of various exhibits of interest, including the pestle shaped like a penis! (Hey, just mentioning what it pointed out as of interest...) Amongst other items of interest was a sculpture of Siamese twins, sculptures of women breast-feeding, tweezers for hair (really!), catapult hooks, currency axes (heads of axes) and sculptures of coca (leaf) eaters. I found that the translation of Spanish into English was hindered by some of its Latin roots: there was too much of a literal translation, for instance, phytomorfic (or whatever the Spanish spelling was) was translated into phytomorphic, as was polycromatic (or whatever) to polychromatic, instead of a more everyday "multi-coloured," lithofones to lithophones (what's that in normal usage/everyday English?). I found a similar thing in the medicinal plants book at La Hesperia. You needed a technical dictionary to make sense of the English (obviously literally translated from the Spanish), with words such as rubefacient (I bet the Spanish was rubefaciente) and like pectoral (meaning chest?).

Also, at the museum, you could see there was more than one translator: for the same Spanish phrase, there could be two different slightly English translations plus one or two typographical (phonetic? Not being able to hear the difference?) errors, such as the Spanish word aves (birds, cf. aviary, get it?) being translated as "births." It was still very interesting, anyway.

Of course, it rained mid-afternoon, but having experienced Sunday, when I heard the thunder whilst sunbathing my legs in the park (much paler than my shoulders and arms), I made it back to the hotel, despite it still being more or less sunny, before it rained.