9 January 2014 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
I did some administration in the morning, and then got a bee in my bonnet about looking at guitar music. I’ve not been practising on my guitar very much recently because I’ve got into a rut, playing the same things every session. I was very impressed by the guitarist that we saw on the bus to Canoa a few days ago, and I’d like to have a repertoire of well-known songs that I can play when there’s a group of people around.
For the next twelve months, I’m going to concentrate on playing rhythm guitar rather than finger style. It’s a technical challenge to play finger style songs, but it doesn’t work well around a camp fire – people want to sing along to Van Morrison and Buddy Holly, not listen to a classical passage. So it’s out with finger style and in with Rhythm and Blues - I spent most of the day downloading lessons and tabs on how to play new songs.
I popped out on a couple of errands and spotted this guy using a cast net from the shore. To my amazement he was catching large, 5 inch long prawns - perhaps I should buy one of these nets...
Glenys pottered about making some mango chutney and hot pepper jelly then canning it. She’s doing an experiment on canning foods and, if it still tastes okay in a month, then she’ll probably have a big session to preserve food for our trip across the Pacific. She’s struggling to find some things here that are very common elsewhere – for example, tinned tomatoes are like rocking horse droppings in Ecuador and she uses tomatoes a LOT in cooking.
Fri 10 January 2014 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
We go to traveling inland in two days, so we decided that it’s too late to do any more big jobs and spent the day just mooching about. I started to make some drawings for a stainless steel bowsprit for our asymmetrical spinnaker. At the moment, we attach the tack of the sail to the bow anchor roller and it keeps catching on the pulpit and a couple of times nearly ripped off one of our navigation lights. The idea is to have a small removable bowsprit that will hold the tack of the sail a couple of feet in front of the pulpit and keep the sail out of the way.
We went for a walk and explored some of the outer area of town that we haven’t seen. There’s another cross high on a hill next to the cliffs, so we went to see if we could walk up to it. Unfortunately, that end of Bahia is a bit of a shanty town with a very run down houses and shacks made from bamboo canes, so we gave up on our exploration as we were the only gringos in sight.
11 January 2014 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
We had a quiet day, lurking around, packing and sorting out a bit of admin. I finished off the drawings for the bowsprit and composed an email in Spanish which I sent off to get a quotation. It was very difficult even using internet translation tools – I would have preferred to talk to the engineer face to face, but this is the only way I can ask for a price.
My damn hips have been aching for a few days and I’m worried that it’s getting worse. I used to take cod liver oil tablets to lubricate my joints, but I ran out a few months ago.
Supplementary vitamins like cod liver oil tablets are not very common here. I walked into town and visited a couple of pharmacies, but they don’t seem to have any cod liver oil or don’t understand what I’m asking for. I’ve resorted to taking a couple of Ibuprofen tablets to try to get rid of the inflammation.
12 January 2014 Bahia de Caraques to Quito, Ecuador
The eight hour bus trip to Quito was pleasant, but my hips were hurting by the end of the journey, so I had to take some more ibuprofen – it’s not good to keep taking this stuff. I think that the problem has been caused by going horse riding and running last week, but might be exacerbated by my diet, in particular, the water that we make from our water maker is completely devoid of any minerals and vitamins – perhaps I need to take vitamin tablets to give me more calcium?
Having settled ourselves into the Hotel Antinea in the Mariscal area of Quito, we walked around the corner to Gulliver’s Travels and paid the $900 balance for our climbing & riding trips. We were very glad to pay them because it’s worrying walking around with that much cash in our pockets.
It threw it down in the evening, so we didn’t wander very far and ended up in one of the posh bars on the main square – expensive burgers. They weren’t serving any beer because it’s a Sunday, so in a bit of misplaced banter with the waiter, I said that the president was “loco” for this law, which didn’t seem to go down well – perhaps I should keep my political quips to myself.
13 January 2014 Quito, Ecuador
First thing in the morning, we wandered around the sports shops in the Mariscal area, trying to get a rucksack for Glenys. The only ones that we saw were either the wrong size or very expensive, so we gave up for a while and went into the old town to do some sightseeing.
Every Monday morning there is a formal changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace, so we stood with the crowds of tourists and locals watching the soldiers parade around in their traditional uniforms. There was a big cheer when the President himself walked onto a balcony in the palace and waved to the crowds. I believe that he does this fairly regularly, which must take up valuable time in his busy weekly schedule.
We then wandered around the old city looking at some of the tourist sights. I was particularly impressed by the Ingles de la Compania de Jesus - a beautiful church, which took the Jesuits 160 years to build. It’s fabulously decorated inside - every square inch seems to be covered in gilt. We also walked up a steep hill to the Basilica, which has three tall spires. We were able to climb to the top of two of the spires which was good fun - climbing up very steep steps that certainly wouldn’t be allowed in the UK. The view of the sprawling city of Quito is very impressive from the top of the spires.
Having had our fill of tourism, we caught a cab to the El Jardin Shopping Mall, where we managed to find a small 25 litre rucksack for Glenys for only $60, which was a bargain after looking at ones for up to $150.
Another great success was finding a Pharmacy that was open-plan instead of just a having counter. We wandered around the shelves and found some multi-vitamins; some cod liver oil tablets and some Glucosamine and Chondroitin, which is a dietary supplement that is supposed to help joint pain. So each day, I’m now taking one blood pressure tablet; one multivitamin tablet to counteract the water produced by our water maker; one cod liver oil tablet to lubricate my joints and three Glucosamine and Chondroitin tablets to try to repair the cartilage in my hips – I’m rattling...
Back in the hotel room, we packed our small rucksacks with enough clothes to go walking around the Quilotoa area for a few days and put the rest into our big rucksacks to drop off at Gulliver’s Travels to be delivered to the Papagayo Hostal for us in the next few days.
14 January 2014 Quito to Isinlivi, Ecuador
We were up early, dropped off our big rucksacks at Gulliver’s Travels and caught a taxi to the Terminal Quitumbe. Instead of haggling a fixed price with the taxi driver, we did this trip on the taxi’s meter. Normally this works out cheaper for us, but we got caught this time because the taxi had to do a huge detour around a major traffic jam, so it cost us $15 instead of $10 - I hate watching taxi meters rack up money
It didn’t take long to buy tickets and jump on a bus to Latacunga. As usual, it was cloudy as we went past the supposedly impressive Cotopaxi Volcano – will we ever get to see it? We had a couple of hours to kill in Latacunga before our bus to Isinlivi, so we walked into the town centre, which is a pleasant place with very narrow streets and even narrower pavements, but lots of traffic.
Just after midday, we caught the bus to Isinlivi, which was packed. On the way, about 20 school kids piled aboard, so it was total chaos and very “friendly” with people pushing past all the time. Once again, the scenery along the route was stunning.
We checked into the Llulu Llama hostal, then went for a short one-hour walk to the top of a hill overlooking the village. It was good to stretch our legs, although I had to take a couple of ibuprofen again to ease my aching hips.
While walking around Ecuador, we often see a shrub with a trumpet shaped flower, which is called Brugmansia. I’ve found out that this plant has narcotic and anaesthetic properties and is used in modern medicine to produce drugs like scopolamine and atropine. It’s been traditionally been used in many South American indigenous cultures as a ritualistic hallucinogen for divination, to communicate with ancestors and as a treatment for unruly children making them more compliant – sort of like a super Calpol... The Incas mixed it with maize beer and tobacco leaves to drug wives and slaves before they were buried alive with their dead lord – nice!
15 January 2014 Isinlivi, Ecuador
After a filling breakfast, we went for a walk to a nearby village called Guantualo. From the hostal, we walked down the hill to a river crossing and then up to the tiny village of Guangumala. Once through the village, I unfortunately missed a path and we ended up at the head of the valley. We could see the track up on the top of the ridge, so there was nothing we could do except take a deep breath and trudge up a very steep meadow – I wasn’t in Glenys’s good books...
We followed the dirt track for a while and eventually, with more luck than planning, came across the village of Guantualo. We’ve been told that there’s a very good market here on a Monday, but being a Wednesday, it was like a ghost town with more dogs than people.
Once through the village, we followed a dirt path down the valley. It’s an old trading route and the path is mostly in a steep sided gully that has been formed by a multitude of feet over hundreds of years. This path led us to a dirt road that brought us back to Guangumala and from there it was a short walk up the steep path to Isinlivi. It was a very pleasant four hour walk and, even better, my hips haven’t been hurting, so one or more of the pills that I’m taking are working.