¡Adios Ecuador!

Today is my last day in Ecuador, my last day in South America. I fly out of Quito to Madrid this afternoon.
On the one hand I am super excited, of course, to see all my family and friends and to eat delicious home-cooked food (you´d be surprised how quickly you tire of restaurant food) and to sleep in my own bed and have a choice of what clothes to wear and so many other things.
But...at the same time I am really sad to be leaving too. This whole trip has been amazing. I´ve met some awesome people, done things that I´ve never done before, improved my Spanish A LOT, learnt how to salsa, lived in the jungle, taught in Spanish, travelled alone, learnt how to cook, and a whole bunch of other things. Of course, there were ups and downs, but I expected that, and all in all I think I´ve probably grown up a whole lot over the last 5 months.
¡So it´s bye for now South America and hola Inglaterra!

Shopping and Salsa!

Thankfully the strikes seemed to have disappeared by Friday and I managed to get to Otavalo by lunchtime. I checked into a pretty little hostal and then went to check out the town. Otavalo is known in Ecuador (and in South America) for being the place to buy handicrafts, especially woven ones. However, I promised myself that I couldn´t buy anythink until the next day (Saturday) which was proper market day. So that afternoon I went to El Parque Condor, a small park about 4km from town where a dutch couple rehabilitate birds of prey and owls. It was nice, except for the cages seemed kind of small. The most awesome thing was that just as I was about to leave I bumped into a very good friend of mine (Texas Megan) who I knew from the GVI project in Arequipa. It was amazing. She was travelling with a couple of friends and they were on their way up to Colombia but got stuck in Otavalo because of the strikes so had decided to stay a few days. It was so nice to finally get to talk to someone who actually knew me rather than having to introduce myself! I also got to hear all the gossip from Arequipa. On Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day shopping and on the Sunday I went back to Quito. I did have plans to go to Mindo, a small town about 2 hours north of Quito, but was worried the strikes would start up again and that I´d get stuck there.
On Monday I spent the day wandering around the old town, this time actually using my guidebook to know what things were. i watched the changing of the guard at the president´s residence on the Plaza Grande, it was extremely elaborate and pompous! I also went to this amazing cathedral which was built in the 20th century and instead of the traditional gargoyles, it has lizards and birds and other animals that are famous to Ecuador. I also got to climb up the bell tower and the clock tower. Climbing the bell tower was a slightly hairy experience, you had to walk along a narrow walkway over the inside roof of the cathedral and then climb up a few precarious feeling ladders to get to the top. It was worth it though, the view was awesome.
On Tuesday I began my salsa lessons, I squeezed 10 hours into 3 days. I had an amazing teacher, Luis, who spun me round and round until I was completely dizzy from not ´spotting´enough or completely out of breath from the lack of oxygen at this altitude! I am hooked though, salsa is so much fun. There are basically three steps that you do the whole time and you just follow the signals that your partner gives you for when you should spin or turn or move this way or that way. I miss it already and am definately going to have to look for a salsa club or class or something when I get home.
Last night, I met Pilar, a cousin of one of Dad´s friends who lives in Quito. She took me out around the city and then we met her sister and went for dinner in a little cafe that had amazing views of the city. It was really nice and we ate some amazing ecuatorian food.

Going it alone...

Unfortunately, all but two of us stayed on in the jungle for the next 5 weeks. This means that I am going it alone, a slightly daunting prospect to begin with but I am definately getting into it. After my slightly depressing alone time in Cusco two months ago I have decided that keeping busy is the most important thing to do. So after managing to shift my flights forward by ten days (3 and a half weeks of flying solo seemed like a little bit too much!) I am now cramming as much into ten days as possible.
I got back to Quito from Tena on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday I simply changed my flights and enjoyed some nice civilisation by going to see Iron Man 2 in the cinema...in Spanish. It´s not great...but it wasted a couple of hours!!
On Monday I wandered around the Old Town for a while after going up to a hill over the city on a cable car called the TeleferiQo. It was cool, in both the slang sense and the literal sense. Quito is huge. But it was to cold to stay up there for long so I came down pretty sharpish.
Tuesday morning I took a bus to Riobamba, from where the Devil´s Nose Train Ride goes from. The train is apparently a really cool ride which switch backs down a mountainside. Unfortunately, on arriving at the station I discovered that it was shut for repairs for 6 months (of course there was nothing on the internet to tell you this!) and so after being accosted by two, very charming, Ecuadorian guys who wanted to interview me in English for their class, I headed back to the bus station and sped off to Baños.
Baños is a pretty little town set right below an active volcano (I think it´s active anyway). It´s famous for it´s hot baths and good spas and is generally considered to be a good place to chill out. I booked into a hostel and then went out for an early dinner at hte pizzeria next door. Halfway through my meal a group of 4 gringos wandered in. I quickly recommended that they have the pizza (there was pasta on offer too!) and was invited to eat with them. They were all staying at the same hostal and were going to the baths that evening, they once again graciously invited me to join them...and I did. We had a good time warming up in the hot pool and then jumping into the cold one, although it did very strange things to my head! Afterwards we went and chilled out for a while at their hostal, they were all heading off the next day though so I couldn´t make any more plans with them.
Nevertheless, the following day I got up bright and early to hire a bike and ride 18km down a slightly sketchy road called the Route of the Waterfalls, unsurprisingly passing a lot of waterfalls on the way. Sadly, I was on a man´s bike, which caused serious pain to my butt, I think it might be bruised, and so ended up pushing it a bit of the way. When I got to the last waterfall, I then hopped on a ranchero (basically an opensided bus) which raced back Baños at petrifying speeds.
Today (Thursday) I decided to head up to Otavalo (North of Quito, Baños is South) where there is a great artisan market. I hopped on a bus and we made it about an hour of the way before we were stopped by the police. Apparently there is some huge strike on today by the indigenous peoples over water. Basically they blocked off the Panamericana which is the main artery from the South to Quito. So we turned round and went back to the nearest town, Ambato. I decided to wait a couple of hours and then tried again. This time we made it about an hour further before we were told "no hay paso" (you can´t get past) and had to turn back around. I jumped out at the little town of Latacunga and am spending the night here in the hope that the government will have come to some kind of deal by tomorrow which will open up the roads again.
Fingers crosssed!! (Actually, I tried that for Machu Picchu and it didn´t work...so uncross your fingers!!)

In the Rainforest it Rains

Hellllooooooooo!
I am out of the rainforest as you may or may not know and am currently in Quito.
I think it´s probably going to take a little while for me to put up all the things I did. So I thought I´d write a little piece just to let you know! Kind of pointless, but oh well.
I can give you some rainforest facts though!:
It rained on 42 out of the 45 days I was in the forest.
Butterflies are awesome and you can touch their wings and they won´t die!
Anti-malarial tablets do not agree with me one little bit.
Bird-watching can actually be interesting.
I do not like bugs at all.
Wellies are jungle cool as are socks and sandals.
While I was in the forest the Rio Napo experienced its worst flood in 50 years and the water rose where we were by 12 steps.
Chickpeas and lentils are actually pretty nice, as is porridge.
You can make almost anything taste good with ketchup.
I never ever want to be a vegitarian.
Cold showers are pretty nice when humidity is 80 to 90 percent and the average daily temperature is 25 to 30C.
Living without internet is harder than I thought it would be.
Monkeys are as cool as you expect them to be.
Catching and killing a chicken to eat is pretty hard work.
Big trees are awesome.
Biology lessons suddenly make sense in the jungle: "so that´s what competition is!"
Trekking in hot and humid conditions is blooming hard work!
I have come to love and respect the jungle, despite a wobbly start.

Jungle Highlights (weeks 1-2)

Squeezing five weeks of living in the jungle into a blog post that people will actually be bothered to read seems like a pretty tough job so I think I´m just going to try and cut it down into a short(ish) week by week recap and if anyone wants any more details they´ll just have to ask me in person!
Week 1
We arrived at camp after a night in the jungle town of Tena on Saturday afternoon. After walking up something like 200 odd steps with our packs on our backs we were all feeling pretty tired. But beds needed to be baggsied and mosquito nets put up, so we all set about it and end up dripping in sweat by the end of it. In the rainforest it´s between 80 and 90 percent humidity most days.
The next day we had an introductory walk in the forest which was interesting and exciting but unfortunately hunger ended up ruining it a little bit for me.
Monday was spent doing EFR training, which ended with ridiculous scenarios of piles of severely injured bodies that our fellow volunteers have to detangle and rescue! I am now, however, a qualified Emergency First Aid Responder.
The rest of the week was pretty much spent doing various training exercises. We were given 30 bird calls to learn and 43 different species of plants, birds, butterflies, frogs and lizards to be able to identify by sight. Miraculously I got 43 out of 43 on the test which I was super surprised about. We ended the week with a trip to Agua Santa market on the Saturday, where we indulged in treats like cold drinks and crisps, and a trip to the Yachana Lodge and Colegio across the river (GVI Amazon works with Yachana) where we played an extremely muddy game of football with a bunch of the local kids.
This week, the Rio Napo also experienced its worst flood in 50 years, loads of houses were washed away further up river and the water climbed 12 steps above it´s normal height at base camp. We saw whole trees and fridges and bits of house floating past, it was pretty bad.
Week 2
Sat Camp week. This means trekking for about 45 minutes to get to a little clearing where we set up jungle hammocks and stay for the night, ready to do some mist netting in the morning. We ate and slept well and stayed dry despite the heavy rain. Mist netting is effectively where you put up really fine nets that birds fly into and then you get them out, band them and take all their details, weight, length etc. It´s pretty cool to get so close to the birds.
However, all the fun sat camp and mist netting was ruined a bit for me by the dreaded anti malarials. I was on Lariam and had been fine for the first 3 weeks of taken them. Then after the 4th pill everything went very wrong very quickly. At the start of the week I noticed my mood changing dramatically, one minute I would be completely depressed and the next I would be back on top of the world again. Then on the hike back from sat camp, halfway up a hill I started to feel like I couldn´t get enough air into my lungs and started to hyperventilate and cry and had to be sat on a rock and talked to to calm down. This happened again on another walk the next day. That same night I also had a horrendous dream that bugs were crawling all over me and pushing me into the ground and woke up screaming "help me help me help me!" I cannot remember ever having a dream where I have woken up screaming. It was horrible, I really thought I was turning crazy. So I came off them, and after another week or so I felt pretty normal again.
That weekend as part of our Saturday Night Entertainment Me and one of the staff organised a Fright Night. This involved getting dressed up as scarily as possible with the limited resources we had (most outfits involved copious amounts of talc, mud or ash!) then telling scary stories and the night was rounded off with a walk from the road back to camp in groups of 4 with only one torch between you while everyone else jumped out and scared you. Needless to say I ended up in a ball on the floor with my eyes squeezed tight shut! And the story of the ghost of a little girl at the toilets made me petrified of going down there by myself in the dark for the rest of the phase!

So that´s a round up of the first two weeks...I need to check my diary to check what happened when the rest of the time!
PS. Might add some pictures when I have my camera with me.

A Big Fat Machu Picchu Failure!

Mine and Marrik´`s attempt at seeing Machu Picchu failed miserably. We had booked a train at 3:50 pm on Monday but when we arrived at the station we were told that there weren´t enough passengers for the train so we would have to wait 3 hours for a later service. So we waited and read, and sang and played stupid games until 6pm when we hopped on some buses to take us where the train was leaving from, about a half hour`s drive away. We finally got on the train and were on our way, to arrive in Agaus Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo) at 9 pm with no idea where exactly we were and where to stay. We rushed around the streets until we found a relatively clean hostel. As we signed in we saw that the last guests to stay at this place had been in January. This was a town that had suffered.
The next morning we got up bright and early to go to the ticket office and see if MaPi (as it´s called by the locals!) was open. Obviously, it wasn´t. So then we decided that breakfast was needed. This town is probably the most tourist orientated places I´ve ever been to but nothing was open. In the end we ended up going to a local market and eating jam sandwiches elbow to elbow with the locals! The town apparently wasn´t going to get started up properly until the 1st April, when MaPi opened. Heartened, however by our breakfast we decided to tackle Putucusi, one of the huge tree covered rocky outcrops that towers over Machu Picchu, apparently with great views. We followed the train tracks out of the town until we found the path and began, a little apprehensively after reading in our Lonely Planet Guides about snakes and ladders (literally!), to climb the steep steps up the mountain. A humid half hour later we reached our first ladder which we climbed with trepidation, only to round the next corner and meet the sight of a huge muddy, branch-laden landslide. There was no way we were getting up that. So we turned around and headed back to town. Luckily we found a place willing to serve us lunch so we stocked up on soup, pasta and crepes before heading back to our hostel armed with wonderfully expensive western supplies of Pringles, ice tea and Twix bars! We spent the evening playing stupid guess-the-song games and stuffing our faces with trash!
The next morning our train was scheduled for 9:56 so we dutifully arrived at the station half and hour before, an hour and a half later we were stil waiting, having been told nothing. I angrily approached one of the crew and asked what was going on and was told that it would only be another ten minutes wait. About twenty minutes later we got onto the train and began to make our slow and noisy way back. About half an hour into the journey we met a train coming the other way. We have absolutely no idea what was going on but basically after some more waiting around we had to push the train back to a siding before continuing on our way. Theroute was beautiful though. The Sacred Valley is so green and fertile and we followed a terrifyingly strong river most of the way. However, the damage from the floods could be seen all too easily. On both banks of the river landslides were obvious, there were even places where you could see twisted train tracks trapped in the debris. It was pretty depressing.
Despite our failed attempt, it was still and adventure, and we tried the best we could!

I am now sitting in Lima airport waiting for my flight to Quito.
Tomorrow I make my way to the jungle for my five week long project there. That means no more internet for five whole weeks...I think it´s going to be harder than I think to live without this extremely useful communication tool!!
So...I´ll be writing more in a little over a month!
X

The Sacred Valley

Firstly, a mini apology for the overall slight depressing edge that my last post had to it! I was lonely and fed up but now I have a buddy and am in the Sacred Valley and so I´m back on top of the world again!
I met up with Mariko on Friday afternoon and we went and bought our train tickets to Machu Picchu, despite the fact that no one knows whether it´s going to be open or not! We decided that we absolutely had to try because coming to Peru and not seeing Machu Picchu would suck a bit, so at least this way we know we are doing our absolute best to get there.
Yesterday we got a bus to Pisac in the Sacred Valley and spent the afternoon scrambling about the ruins that are high above the town and getting thoroughly lost and a little bit sunburnt! The setting here is beautiful, there are lush green mountains on every side you look and the remains of Inca terracing can be seen climbing its way up almost all of the hills. Sadly though, the effects of the terrible rain and flooding in January and February can be seen clearly. Driving up to the ruins yesterday and on our way to Ollantaytambo today you could see where houses had been washed away, where cliffs had crumbled down onto the roads and where whole fields of corn had been ruined. It´s sad, and the economy in the Valley has suffered because of the reduced influx of tourists.
We are now in Ollantaytambo, tomorrow morning I´m going to go look at the ruins and in the afternoon we are catching our train to Machu Picchu Pueblo with the hope of seeing Machu Picchu itself on Tuesday. Fingers crossed folks!