15 December 2013 Chugchilan to Machachi, Ecuador
We walked up to the village at half past eight ready to catch the nine o'clock bus to Latacunga. By quarter past nine, there was no sight of a bus, but there were lots of locals coming into town on various trucks, so we were kept occupied by watching people. Many of the ladies were dressed up in their Sunday best with white knee length socks, shawls and the inevitable felt hats. Quite a few of the men joined in a game of Ecu-volleyball - interesting to see forty year old men playing street volleyball, it’s a very popular game here.
The bus finally turned up at quarter to ten, all the locals poured off and a few of us gringo backpackers climbed aboard. It took three hours to drive to Latacunga and although the road was bumpy and winding, time soon passed. The highlight for me was watching the conductor deal with a guy with a sheep. The conductor had to rearrange the underside luggage locker to free up some space and the owner of the animal then pushed & squeezed the poor animal in before slamming the door. Fortunately, no one wanted to get into that locker until we arrived in Latacunga.
Once in Latacunga bus station, it didn't take long to get a bite to eat and board the next bus towards Quito, which was soon speeding North along the three-lane Pan-American Highway – a massive change from the dirt roads that we’we've been on for the past five days. We needed to get off a few miles before the town of Machache - it’s always a bit nerve wracking wondering if you’re going to miss your stop, but the conductor was on the ball and the bus stopped right opposite the turning for the Papagayo Hostel.
The hostel is nice, but for $75 per night, they just haven’t got it right. The main problem is that it’s bloody cold. They should have their heating going as soon as the temperature drops in the afternoon. I asked for a pot belly stove to be lit in the lounge area. One of the staff grumpily had a go, but they only had large, wet logs, which didn't catch fire, so he gave up. I was a little pissed off having to sit in a fleece and goose down gilet in this “luxury” hostel.
It was even colder in the restaurant - it's not right to be sitting in a nice restaurant wearing outdoor clothing. I asked for a gas fire to be lit, but there was only one burner out of three working, so the fire made little impact on the room while we were in there. Also the food was very poor, I had a lasagna with garlic bread, which turned out to be a single slice of thin white bread that had been slightly toasted with no sign of any garlic. This experience did not make us want to try any of the more expensive dishes.
The manager, Raul, is from Cuba and we had a long chat with him. He’s only been here for a week and seems to be struggling with providing the requisite level of service. It sounds like they’re short staffed and he’s been brought in to sort out the issues.
16 December 2013 Machachi to Quito, Ecuador
We had an awful night. There are four or five dogs that live at the hostel, which are very nice, but they bloody things woke us up four times during the night, barking outside our window. I don’t think that they were barking at anything in the grounds, but were hearing other dogs barking in the distance and having a bit of a conversation – nice for them, but not for us.
By morning, I was really annoyed with the place, so we decided to leave for Quito later in the day – - why be cold, have a poor quality evening meal and then have a sleepless night?
We went horse riding after breakfast, which was very good. The horses were very “forward going” and well trained. Before we left the hostel, we were given the opportunity to ride around a paddock to get used to the horses, which was a good job. Glenys was given a horse called “Montana”, which was very highly strung and twitchy. She nearly got thrown off the damn thing, so she insisted on changing it. Her next horse, “Achilles” was feisty, but at least was controllable.
Our guide for the day, Xavier, was a "Chagra" (the name for the local cowboys) who was wearing an impressive pair of chaps made from Llama. He led us up the lower slopes of Corazon, which is one of the many volcanoes in the “Valley of the Volcanoes”. Unfortunately, the cloud was really low, so we only got one fleeting glimpse of the peak of Cotopaxi, which was only 20 kilometres away across the plains. We did lots of really nice, slow, controlled cantering, which I loved, but Glenys was struggling because she's pulled something in her back when wrestling with “Montana” earlier.
Back at the hotel, we checked out and I promised to send Raul an email saying why we were leaving a day early. We’re still planning to come back here in January, to do some more horse riding and climbing, so we hope that they will have improved things by then.
One of the staff dropped us off at the toll booth on the Pan-American Highway, where we were able to quickly catch a bus back into Quito and then a taxi back to the Hotel Antinea. Once settled in, we walked to the nearby bus station and booked a ticket for the bus back to Bahia de Caraques tomorrow and then went out for a Mexican meal, which was very bland (“Red Hot Chili Peppers” is much better.)
17 December 2013 Quito to Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
The bus for Bahia didn't leave until midday, so I walked around to see Gulliver’s Travels, who own the Papagayo Hostel. I asked a load of questions about a five day climbing trip and a 3 day horse riding trip for Glenys. The lady was very helpful and I came away ready to book some trips with them in January.
The bus trip to Bahia was boring – an eight hour bouncy ride. While at the bus station, we spotted Dominique from “Kea” and caught up on the past three months. He and his wife (also called Dominique) have just spent three months travelling in Peru, Chile and Argentina, so he was keen to get back to the boat. Back in Bahia, we had something to eat in the marina restaurant and hitched a lift back to Alba from the night watchman (and pilot), Pedro, when he did his nine o'clock patrol of the mooring field.
Everything looks fine on the boat, we've had a great two weeks, but it’s nice to be back home.
18 December 2013 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
We had a lie-in and then pottered about for the day. I spent a few hours planning our next trip inland, trying to work out the logistics for Glenys to do four days’ horse riding and me to climb Cotopaxi. We’ll hike the Quilotoa loop again, then do the climbing & horse riding at Papagayo Hostel before heading further south down towards Peru. It’ll be a three week road trip in January.
Glenys had to clean out both of the fridges – we’d turned one off while we were away, so it had grown a little mouldy and the other one needed defrosting. Her back is still hurting today, so it was a bit of a mission for her to keep stretching down to the bottom of our deep, top-loading fridges.
We wandered into town to get some groceries and had some trouble with our bank cards. Both of our debit cards were blocked by a cash machine and, strangely, the supermarket wouldn’t accept any of our credit cards because they’re chip and pin cards – it’s the first time that we’ve come across this. Glenys managed to get our debit cards unblocked when we got back to the boat – thank God for Skype, otherwise it would have cost us a fortune to ring the UK bank.
We've now nearly run out of fresh water in our on-board tanks. This is the last of the good water from Costa Rica and we can’t run our water maker here because the water is horribly dirty and full of silt. Consequently, we’re going to have to fill up with water from the marina by carrying jerry jugs. The water from the marina is supposed to have extra treatment and will be okay for cooking and showers, but we don’t want to drink it, so we’re going to have to buy big 20 litre bottles of drinking water – it only costs $1.75 for 20 litres, so it isn't too painful.
I transferred our photographs on to my laptop and discovered that I've got over 300 pictures to review and edit - that will take a while. In the evening, I played the guitar for the first time for two weeks and found that my fingertips have become soft already, so I had to give up after 30 minutes - very frustrating.
19 December 2013 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
I had a planning day, creating a To-Do list of all the jobs that we need to do before we leave Bahia. There’s quite a few projects that we’ve been putting off like varnishing and deck work that we’ve not been able to do in the wet weather that we had in Panama. I managed to avoid actually doing any jobs, but I’ll have to start tomorrow.
Glenys is still suffering from a bad back, so she spent most of the day browsing the internet and reading. She went over to chat to Alan on “Victoria” and we’ve been invited to spend Christmas Day with some ex-pats that he knows which will be nice.
We’d heard that there’s a guy who sells cheap booze from the back of a van on Thursday evenings, so we walked into town to find him. It was easy enough because there was a crowd of ex-pats huddled around the van buying alcohol – this seems to be a weekly meeting point for the various Canadians and Americans who have moved here. The German guy selling the booze owns a restaurant in San Clemente, which is 20 kilometres south of here, and the cheap liquor is a small side line of his. We bought a couple of bottles of rum for $3.50 each, which seems a bargain.
20 December 2013 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
A couple of days ago, I sent an email to our agent, Bolivar, in the Galapagos asking him for advice because our Ecuadorian visas will expire just after we arrive in the Galapagos and I want to know if we should go through the pain and expense of extending our visas before we leave main land Ecuador. Bolivar doesn’t speak any English, but he uses some kind of a translation tool to communicate in English. This morning I received a response from him - “Passports selles NO output in Ecuador blanket, I'll help you in Galapagos”. What on earth does that mean? I send him a reply back asking him to give me more details, but next time in Spanish.
I managed to avoid doing any jobs apart from lugging a few jerry jugs of water from the dinghy dock. Instead I booked a 5 day climbing tour in January when I’ll attempt to climb 3 mountains finishing off with Cotopaxi (5,896m). I also booked four days of horse riding for Glenys and our accommodation.
Glenys spent most of the day, resting her back and planning the second half of our next road trip by looking at what we can do in the southern part of Ecuador. She made some Pan de Yuca rolls, which were consumed with great gusto, when we cracked open a cold beer in the evening.
21 December 2013 Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador
I had a rush of blood to the head and went for a run this morning. The prospect of five days’ hiking and climbing has put the fear of God into me and I need to get aerobically fit. There’s a huge white cross standing on a hill above Bahia, which has steps inside it giving a panoramic view of the town and the peninsula. I managed to run for fifteen minutes and then walked up the steep winding road to the viewpoint. My aim is to be able to run all the way up the hill to the top of the cross - I reckon that it’s one kilometre up. It will be a “Rocky” moment if I can achieve my goal.
I've pulled a muscle under one of my shoulder blades, which gave me some pain while running. I suspect that I pulled it lifting the 20 Kg water containers onto our deck yesterday – stupid idiot. It’s five foot from the dinghy to the deck, so we’re going to start using the spinnaker halyard to haul the heavy jerry cans on deck instead of me snatch-lifting it over my head from a rocking dinghy.
I managed to motivate myself to do some jobs this afternoon – I've re-fitted a couple of brackets on the stern toe rail and the Hydrovane that will allow me to connect a small auto-pilot to the Hydrovane auxiliary rudder. This will let us use the small Hydrovane rudder to steer the boat if the main rudder fails. It’s not that I'm lazy, but I removed the bracket over two years ago, when we fitted our stern arch, and I've only just got around to refitting it.
There’s a lot of dust and grime building up on the boat, so while I was messing around at the back of the boat, I suddenly decided to wash down the solar panels. Not thinking, I climbed up the arch without turning off our wind generator and, as I stood up, I stopped the spinning four foot diameter blades with the top of my head. I was really lucky because the fibreglass blades didn't cut my scalp – I've just got a couple of big lumps on my head now. These high speed blades are pretty dangerous, we met a guy in the West Indies who had broken his arm in three places, by doing a similar thing – I was very lucky this time.
We went over to “Aros Mear” for sun-downers and met Buzz and Maureen from “Encore”.