Friday 17 February 2012

I left for Quito after breakfast, with the intention at some point of replacing my lost pink alpaca jumper at La Mariscal (what I call mini-Otavalo) and ended up buying a purple hooded cape as the first several stalls didn't have cardigans/jackets that I liked or were the wrong size for the ones that I did like.

This evening , at the hostel, I was told by the two Argentinian girls that I was sharing with that I might have difficulty getting tickets to the coast as they had wanted to leave today for Manta (Quito being too cold for them) but they had been unableto and had had to settle for tickets for tomorrow. I determined to go to Quitumbe bus terminal Saturday to try and see if I could get an advance ticket for Atacames for departure on Sunday.

Saturday 18 February 2012

Went to Quitumbe bus terminal after breakfast and got there before midday, but it was jam-packed with people at all the ticket booths, plus people were lining up/waiting on the gangways and staircases. It was as busy as Heathrow airport, which of course, as bus transportation is the major mode of travel, it is the equivalent of. There was no way I was going to get to the front without several hours' wait and since Anya couldn't confirm that there would be accommodation Sunday night, I decided to leave and maybe try again in the evening or Sunday morning.

Instead, I went to the Mindalae museum, which houses various indigena exhibits, including weapons, various different indigena costumes, looms, woven products (including toquilla - the straw used for panama hats) and musical instruments.

Sunday 19 February 2012

Tried to get a bus to Sandolqui, which according to the (insufficient) information in my guide book could be caught from Plaza Marin. I asked the lady at the kiosk where you get your correct change for the Ecovia bus, I was pointed to go across the road where I asked about 6 or 7 bus conductors if they were going to Sandolqui.

Eventually, one bus conductor motioned behind so I then asked a police officer who then told me a different location to get the bus and at which I waited for about 20 to 30 minutes, but no buses apart from the Trolebus passed; all the buses turned off earlier. So I walked down to where the buses turned off and whilst waiting at the corner, a guy kept gesturing and shouting, I assumed at a couple of the guys near the food stall close by. However, as I walked up the road, the same guy - who was in the doorway of a shop - started to talk to me, trying I thought, to sell me some ceviche. To cut a long story short, he offered to accompany me to Sandolqui in a cab, because he thought it was dangerous for me on my own, especially when it was clear I didn't know where I needed to be. To reassure me he didn't intend to rob me, he initially offered me money for a cab and then started pulling notes out of his pocket. I ended up in San Roque, which must have sounded similar to Sandolqui and wandered round the market, which sold lots of fruit and crabs all tied up together side-by-side, in an easy-to-carry package. It was very odd to see them stacked as these layers, much like egg boxes or even stacked sideways in boxes. I had ceviche (shrimps marinated in lime juice and chilli, served with raw onion) as brunch, just barely finishing the soup-like mixture (spiced according to taste, with oil, mustard, chilli sauce, and topped with popcorn, like croutons), let alone the ubiquitous rice it was served with.

After getting back to Quito, I ended up going to a coffee shop for a hot chocolate and was tempted by the brownie on sale but such were the frustrations of this weekend, that when I was given a slice of chocolate cake (not a brownie) and a cold chocolate milkshake - not a hot chocolate - I couldn't make the effort to get it corrected.

I assumed that she hadn't seen where I'd pointed to (or heard me) re the brownie and that there must be a cold version of the Republica drink I'd asked for as well as a hot one and that I should have been more specific. It was only after I'd finished the chocolate cake and was nerving myself to drink the cold milkshake (it was cold and I'd only sat down at the table so I could make use of the gas patio heaters nearby), that the waitress realised that she'd given me someone else's order. I saw the exact same order go to the lady across from me, but hey, at least I got my hot chocolate. I then had to stay there a lot longer than I wanted as it poured down for about a half-hour and when it lightened up a bit, dashed back to the hostel.

Monday 20 February 2012

Today I took the TelefériQo up the lower slope of Volcán Pichincha, in Quito. This was the weekend when I got very frustrated with Ecuadorians, because according to my guidebook, you could get a TelefériQo minibus from Rio Coca, which is one of the terminals for the Ecovia bus system. I asked the lady that hands out the change for the turnstile and she said yes , you could get the TelefériQo minibus from there, but when I got there, the security guard said no, I could get it at Naciones Unidas. Once there, I got further directions to the corner of Parque Carolina but there were no signs for where they set off from, although there was a hop-on, hop-off tourist bus tour ($12), which happens to stop off at TelefériQo.

I just ended up hailing a taxi and asking for the TelefériQo. He then switched off his meter; when I pointed it out, he said it was a long way and high up and said it would be $4 (which agreed with my guidebook). It was quite a way and it was high enough that my ears popped, and he drove me through to the entrance. The express ticket (which seemed to be the default for visitors) cost $8.50 and I caught the next cable car which takes about 8 minutes to get to the top.

There's a great view of Quito on the lower part of the ascent but after that, even though it was fairly sunny day, once we got above the cloud cover, you couldn't really see anything below. It was cold and I got a slight headache from the altitude, which I could have alleviated (or tried to) by buying a cup of coca de té but as I intended to go down fairly soon (and not hike up to the top, since there wasn't the lack of cloud cover), I didn't. I did, however, decide to get those touristy souvenir pictures of me in the cable car with the possibility of different backgrounds, as I hadn't brought my camera to Quito. As there was only guy taking the digital photos and digitally adjusting and printing tem (the specialty seemed to be people falling out of an open cable car and being grabbed by their friends and family), it took so long that when it was my turn, I went for the simple version of just a standing pose, so I could get back down faster; for two photos (different backgrounds), it cost just $6 (discounted from $3.50 each, as a multi-buy).

Back on the ground, I took a taxi to see the Museo Fundación Guayasamin: curiously, the taxi driver asked me where it was, so I looked it up in my guidebook and told him. When I got there, though, I found that it wasn't open until Wednesday.

By this time, the taxi had turned around so I got back in asked to be taken to the nearest Ecovia bus stop (the museum was uphill, and it had started to rain). When the taxi got to the bottom of the hill, he asked me whether to turn left or right (getting worried here) so to make it simpler, I asked him to take me to the corner where my hostel was. As we approached one block from Joaquin Pinto, I started to get my purse out ready to pay, only to have him totally bypass it! I told him he'd passed it by and he seemed very surprised and was about to go down the one-way streets to get back but I stopped him and said he was 2 blocks away (actually, I knew it was more but it was the quickest thing to come to him), just paid him and got out, muttering to myself, "what kind of taxi driver are you?). I mean, he didn't know where the museum was, where the nearest Ecovia stop was or the road I asked for! You see, what I mean, about being really frustrated dealing with people, this weekend…

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Left early as most shops in La Mariscal are treating this Tuesday as a Sunday, that is, everything apart from food places, some internet places and lavenderias are shut! I did find one nice hat shop still open, but it was pretty much dead. Not so, old town Quito, I found, as the Ecovia zoomed me past: everything seemed to be open; wished I'd known, maybe old town is also open on Sundays, too.

I was the first back to have returned to La Hesperia, and whilst doing laundry met a new volunteer, Eva, from Bavaria, who had had a bad experience in the showers: she found a snake in the volunteer shower, which had been hidden behind the door. When she turned around to do her hair, she noticed it (it was small and curled up) but carried on, thinking it was probably harmless. Turned out, it was dangerous, especially as it was young (apparently they can´t control their bite as well as older ones, or something)! Walter took it away and we almost had it pickled in cane sugar spirit (aguardiente): we have a nice collection of snakes in jars in the outdoor kitchen. Ian had the job one morning of changing the alcohol for them - I must remember to try and get a picture of them.

The others arrived about an hour later and had had quite an eventful weekend, terminating in Anya having her bag stolen, with her debit card, camera and Deanna's card all inside. They had all survived on what cash they had, and on Ian's card, especially the Tuesday, as Joe had only brought $100 and forgotten to bring his plastic! I was to have brought Joe his wallet if I had been able to meet up with them in Atacames. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the ATM network ran out of cash and they had to take a taxi to the next town (25 minutes) on only $3.50, gambling that they could withdraw money out there - which they couldn't. The motorised taxi driver tried to get the police onto them, but they were let off, luckily, for non-payment of their fare (which cost more than they had on them). They had to borrow some money from Michael to get back to La Hesperia.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

We all spent the morning levelling the ground in front of the school so that they could start making some foundations and extending the area. It entailed a lot of hoeing, digging, and wheelbarrowfuls of soil up an increasingly muddy, and therefore difficult, path away.

I mostly got bitten in the gap between the bottom of my top and the top of my leggings: 30 or so, from the feel of them and from what I can see by twisting round.

We saw a baby tarantula and another scorpion (with its tail present, this time), large ants carrying eggs, and a spider with an odd-shaped body with very long thin legs as well as a spider with an unusually large long abdomen.

In the afternoon, Anya and I weeded the tree nursery. Deanna helped Ian finish the fencing (barbed wire and stakes) but got something in her eye, which made it sting really badly, and later gave her a fever.

Thursday 23 February 2012

Did the mula run: 55 litres of milk to the milkman who was half an hour late. It was a gloriously hot morning. In the afternoon, Anya and I worked in the tree nursery, planting tangare seeds. After dinner, all of us bar Michael went to see Alexandra and Juan Pablo about switching the hike day to next week as it's carnival weekend. In the evening, it rained really hard so that the path was awash and the rainfall noise was as loud as if we were at Niagara Falls, I kid you not!

Also saw a bat in our room: Eva was the (unlucky!) person who found it near her sleeping area - she has the mezzanine level and wasn´t too keen on it. Walter had to chase it out of our room (using a machete he got from his room - why has he got one there, I ask myself. Of course, it would be a machete that´s used here to prise it out) and that´s how I got to see it.