Today we find ourselves in the middle of Vilcabamba, the village from which we springboarded to El Condor. After 10 days straight on the farm, we have arrived back here with pleasure in seeing other people, stomachs poised and ready for good cuisine, and an appreciation for our experience on the farm.
Although the work we did there was by no means easy, we can´t say that we did enough work to feel the full brunt of "pure" farm living. To start with, we were the only people consistently staying the night on the farm and remaining there through our 10-day stretch. The only other person that we really had contact with was a kind man by the name of Vicente, the caretaker of the farm. Apparently, the owner of El Condor recently passed away, and his two sons are living in the U.S. and attending university in a coastal city of Ecuador, so Vicente is the only one attending to the farm and the animals on it. He takes care of nurturing seedlings to be planted (like coffee, broccoli, alfalfa, and others), and he maintains the amount of plants already there. He uses the alfalfa and corn grown there to feed the chickens and guinea pigs that he has been raising.
We arrived on a Thursday, and while there, we helped do a few things on the farm; principally, we helped by arranging bovine fertilizer (cow poo) into piles along a very steep hillside where the (pregnant) cows had been grazing. Although the work wasn´t too hard by itself, going up and down a steep hill with full buckets of fertilzer proved fairly tiring after a couple of hours. Focusing on not touching my face with my gloved hand was definitely a mental difficulty. Other tasks included weeding thickly grown plants from the coffee patch and the upper garden with shovels and helping to mend fences with bamboo. However, on the whole, we can say that we probably had more free time than we did work time. We filled this mostly by studying our Spanish books on the porch or in the dining room and preparing/collecting various kinds of food.
Anyways, Vicente was there roughly every other day - or less - during our stay there, which was nice because we had days where we were free to simply sit and ponder about what hard, physical, farm labor SHOULD be like. His absence did, however provide an obstacle or two during our stay there.
Usually with WWOOF organizations, it is expected for them to feed the volunteers (us) during the stay there, but seeing as how they only offer foods that they grow on the farm, we made sure to bring in whatever extra food we would need from the stores in town. Anyways, after we had exhausted our two loaves of bread, avocado, and other staples(a few days in), we were primarily left with lentils, beans rice, and potatoes, as well as a few veggies we still had left. By this time it was Sunday, and we had already prepared and eaten a few of the foods just mentioned earlier in the week. We anticipated Vicente to come back on Monday to take down our shopping list so that he could run into town with his motor bike and buy us a few more staples on Tuesday to last us the week.
Long story short, he did not show up when we thought he would, and we ended up eating nothign but lentils, beans, rice, and potatoes for longer than expected, which had gassy results for both of us, as you can imagine... Once he delivered our food, however, we were unusually ecstatic about simple things such as german pancakes and toast; I never thought something so simple as toast would give me so much pleasure in life.
I would say that the things we enjoyed most were picking blackberries (and making an improvised cobbler out of it), collecting oranges and bananas for fresh juice and smoothies, hiking around just for the fun of it, witnessing inexplicably beautiful sunsets over the Andean mountain range every evening, and having a perfectly stress-free 10 days where all we really had to worry about was feeding ourselves (and the critters) and bathing, in that order. We are really glad to have had such a unique experience in Ecuador, and we can´t wait to have more similar experiences at WWOOF organizations in other countries as well.
For now, though, the rough plan is to travel to Cuenca tomorrow where I will start attending a language school for a month, and Kait will explore volunteer opportunities. We have already found very promising prospects on both of these fronts, so we are excited to see how things work out. Wish us luck!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Banos and Cuenca
I’m afraid the Oregon weather has followed us. Since we left Latacunga after travelling the Loop we’ve been plagued by rain.
Our next stop was Baños, a smallish city in a gorgeous, lush area with tons of waterfalls. It’s pretty touristy, and lots of people end up spending quite a bit of time there doing all t he fun adventure tourism there is there- bungee jumping off bridges, rapelling down waterfalls, ziplining, horseback riding, etc. We thought we’d do the stuff on the ground first, and got in one really beautiful hike on the mountain above the city. Along the way, an ancient woman with a bundle of sticks on her back came along us on the path, gave Ace a huge grin, and said something along the line of “well hello gorgeous, where are you from?” We spent the evening in the very popular outdoor thermal baths that the city is famous for. Glorious.
The next day we went for a bike ride along bright green mountains and above a river in a canyon with tons of waterfalls dropping in to meet it. The rain caught up with us about half way, though, so we caught a bus back. The rain was showing no signs of letting up for a day of ziplining or canyoning , so the next day we caught a 6 hour bus ride South to Cuenca.
We’ve seen a lot of lovely villages so far, but Cuenca is definitely our favorite city. It’s charming in a very colonial way- lots of old cobbled streets, restored historical buildings, etc. Unfortunately our first evening there, I got a pretty brutal bout of what must have been food poisoning. I had a pretty rough night and woke up with a fever the next morning. Fortunately the hostel had a lounge and movie room, so I spend most of the next day watching movies while Ace took care of me :) The next day I felt much better, so Ace took me to a museum he’d seen the day before where we got to scope out shrunken heads. Cool. There was also a beautiful garden and bird area and the most adorable little baby llama in the world. The rain continued, so we took a bus to another outdoor thermal pool- who cares when it’s cold and rainy if you’re ear-deep in a swimming pool full of perfectly toasty bathwater?
Today we said goodbye to Cuenca and took the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, then caught our connection to Vilcabamba, our home for the next few weeks. One thing that continues to amaze us is that although we’re travelling between major cities right down the center of the country, we’re still winding about mist-shrouded volcanoes, bouncing through remote villages on unpaved section of road, and hurling around the most unbelievably curvy roads we’ve ever ridden. I spend the entire ride today with my eyes closed trying to sleep as I knew I’d throw up if I looked out the window- a shame, as I’m sure the scenery was stunning. Vilcabamba greeted us with a classic tropical downpour, which actually felt pretty good as we were still pretty woozy from the ride. We found a room at the lovely Rendez-vous hostel, a French-run place with gorgeous gardens and a cute pudgy cat. We got our groceries to take up to the farm, including such essentials as wine and dark chocolate, and we’re ready and excited to make the trek to El Condor, our first WWoofing farm, tomorrow. We’re really glad we’ll be staying in this area for a while- it ‘s small, laid-back, and fairly tropical here- absolutely lovely. We’ll be away from the internet on the farm, but will fill you all in as soon as we get back!
Our next stop was Baños, a smallish city in a gorgeous, lush area with tons of waterfalls. It’s pretty touristy, and lots of people end up spending quite a bit of time there doing all t he fun adventure tourism there is there- bungee jumping off bridges, rapelling down waterfalls, ziplining, horseback riding, etc. We thought we’d do the stuff on the ground first, and got in one really beautiful hike on the mountain above the city. Along the way, an ancient woman with a bundle of sticks on her back came along us on the path, gave Ace a huge grin, and said something along the line of “well hello gorgeous, where are you from?” We spent the evening in the very popular outdoor thermal baths that the city is famous for. Glorious.
The next day we went for a bike ride along bright green mountains and above a river in a canyon with tons of waterfalls dropping in to meet it. The rain caught up with us about half way, though, so we caught a bus back. The rain was showing no signs of letting up for a day of ziplining or canyoning , so the next day we caught a 6 hour bus ride South to Cuenca.
We’ve seen a lot of lovely villages so far, but Cuenca is definitely our favorite city. It’s charming in a very colonial way- lots of old cobbled streets, restored historical buildings, etc. Unfortunately our first evening there, I got a pretty brutal bout of what must have been food poisoning. I had a pretty rough night and woke up with a fever the next morning. Fortunately the hostel had a lounge and movie room, so I spend most of the next day watching movies while Ace took care of me :) The next day I felt much better, so Ace took me to a museum he’d seen the day before where we got to scope out shrunken heads. Cool. There was also a beautiful garden and bird area and the most adorable little baby llama in the world. The rain continued, so we took a bus to another outdoor thermal pool- who cares when it’s cold and rainy if you’re ear-deep in a swimming pool full of perfectly toasty bathwater?
Today we said goodbye to Cuenca and took the 5 hour bus ride to Loja, then caught our connection to Vilcabamba, our home for the next few weeks. One thing that continues to amaze us is that although we’re travelling between major cities right down the center of the country, we’re still winding about mist-shrouded volcanoes, bouncing through remote villages on unpaved section of road, and hurling around the most unbelievably curvy roads we’ve ever ridden. I spend the entire ride today with my eyes closed trying to sleep as I knew I’d throw up if I looked out the window- a shame, as I’m sure the scenery was stunning. Vilcabamba greeted us with a classic tropical downpour, which actually felt pretty good as we were still pretty woozy from the ride. We found a room at the lovely Rendez-vous hostel, a French-run place with gorgeous gardens and a cute pudgy cat. We got our groceries to take up to the farm, including such essentials as wine and dark chocolate, and we’re ready and excited to make the trek to El Condor, our first WWoofing farm, tomorrow. We’re really glad we’ll be staying in this area for a while- it ‘s small, laid-back, and fairly tropical here- absolutely lovely. We’ll be away from the internet on the farm, but will fill you all in as soon as we get back!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Quilotoa Loop
Kait and I just finished the Quilotoa Loop, which starts and ends in Latacunga. At first, we we had to choose between two different paths to take: starting in Quilotoa, or starting in Isinliva, a small, 80-person town with only one hostel. Being that Quilotoa, with it´s massive crater lake, was the main attraction of our trip, we decided that we would start in Isinlivi, leaving the best for last.
To prepare for our trip, Kait and I generally agreed that it would be easier to condense our massive backpacks into one (and leaving the other bag in Latacunga at the hostel) due to the fact that we would be doing quite a lot of hiking. Unfortunately for me (the one who decided to carry it), it was actually heavier with both of our "essentials" than with all of my stuff alone. Next time we will pack much less. Anyways, after leaving Hostel and Cafe Tiana in Latacunga, we started on our two-hour bus ride to Isinlivi.
Now normally bus rides are nothing of particular interest to us; usually we try not to get too hot or nauseous while taking the necessary-but-generally-unpleasant trip between two places. This ride, however, was much different than any others that we have taken. Once we were on the bus for 30 minutes, we began the ascent into a vast network of mountain-top farmlands that continued unceasingly for the rest of our trip. For miles and miles, we could see that nearly every square inch of hilltops along the bus route were covered in farms, and particularly beautiful was that each individual segment of farm was a different color than the next. This combined with excellent views of nearby volcanoes with their peaks in the clouds made for one of the most beautiful bus rides (if not THE most beautiful) that we have taken. To make things even better, we met yet another awesome Canadian named Danny on the bus who ended up coming with us for the entire Loop.
Before too long, we arrived in Isinlivi, and stayed at a hostel called Llullu Llama, a hostel run by the same people that run the Hostel Tiana in Latacunga. Once we arrived, we found a Dutch couple volunteering to run the hostel as well as teach a few subjects at the local high school. After taking in the view of a gorge from a nearby peak, Danny, Kait and I decided to have a few beers before dinner, both of which were excellent.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast provided by the hostel, we immediately began our hike into the valley using a ridiculous set of instructions explained in broken English provided by the hostel. An example of one description was “Start going up when the wáter comes to the edge.” After only getting lost for part of the way – nice farmers helped us get on track – we eventually heade in the direction where we needed to go. Unfortunately for us, after traveling for so long at the bottom of the valley, we eventually had to go up… Normally this would be no problem, but I, with my 40-pound pack on my back, was dreading it, no matter how much it needed to be done. So up we went, and I, sending Kait and Danny ahead of me, took baby steps up to the top, stopping when I could to catch my breath. After what felt like 30 minutes of this, I finally caught up to Kait and Danny at the top where there was a road that would take us to our next stop: Chugchilan. Before that, though, we descended once again near the bottom of the valley to a very small village where we rested a bit, and learned that we, once again, had to climb an even steeper, longer hillside than before. After we all recovered from the shock that I did not collapse and fall down the hillside, we continued along the road (which was still generally uphill) and eventually made our way to our next hostel, The Cloud Forest Hostel in Chugchilan.
After consuming much-needed food and soda, we rested for the night and planned for our next trek to Quilotoa. All of us agreed, however, that with my idiotically heavy backpack, I should not nearly kill myself for two days in a row, and therefore we planned to take the next leg of the loop, the hardest leg, by horseback. So early in the morning after breakfast, we met our guide and got on our three trusty steeds. Our guide, a silly man who kept asking us if we were single or not, kept us going fast along the road to Quilotoa. (He would whip our horses for us; apparently he was in a hurry.) Danny´s horse, however, was a grumpy mother who, once whipped by the guide´s rope, would buck just enough to make things fairly uncomfortable for her… I couldn´t help but laugh just a little… My horse was a very smart one who, upon hearing faster horse hooves behind her, would speed up, likely out of a fear of being whipped, so I was always in the lead. I liked to think I actually had some control over the horse, but she basically just responded to the guide´s sounds behind her.
After a very short two hours, we made it to Quilotoa, got off our horses, checked in to our hostel after bartering to get a cheaper price, and promptly made our way down the crater´s rim. After a beautiful hike downwards, we found a cheery old guy at the bottom who was eager to sell one of us a horse ride with his horse back to the top for the same price as our room for the night. After declining, we made our way back to the top in an hour less than the guidebook said it would take. (We were quite proud of ourselves about that!)
Then we stayed the night, hiked along the road to Zumbahua to catch a bus back to Latacunga. The road hike was nice, but at the end of it, we were all really tired and ready to recharge our batteries, so we ate lunch, and caught a bus back here without incident. We are happy today, after all that hiking, that we have a chance to rest and get ourselves in order before heading to Banos, a city two hours south of us. Once there, we will likely do some trekking, visit some thermal baths, and possibly some other adventure tourism if it looks good.
To prepare for our trip, Kait and I generally agreed that it would be easier to condense our massive backpacks into one (and leaving the other bag in Latacunga at the hostel) due to the fact that we would be doing quite a lot of hiking. Unfortunately for me (the one who decided to carry it), it was actually heavier with both of our "essentials" than with all of my stuff alone. Next time we will pack much less. Anyways, after leaving Hostel and Cafe Tiana in Latacunga, we started on our two-hour bus ride to Isinlivi.
Now normally bus rides are nothing of particular interest to us; usually we try not to get too hot or nauseous while taking the necessary-but-generally-unpleasant trip between two places. This ride, however, was much different than any others that we have taken. Once we were on the bus for 30 minutes, we began the ascent into a vast network of mountain-top farmlands that continued unceasingly for the rest of our trip. For miles and miles, we could see that nearly every square inch of hilltops along the bus route were covered in farms, and particularly beautiful was that each individual segment of farm was a different color than the next. This combined with excellent views of nearby volcanoes with their peaks in the clouds made for one of the most beautiful bus rides (if not THE most beautiful) that we have taken. To make things even better, we met yet another awesome Canadian named Danny on the bus who ended up coming with us for the entire Loop.
Before too long, we arrived in Isinlivi, and stayed at a hostel called Llullu Llama, a hostel run by the same people that run the Hostel Tiana in Latacunga. Once we arrived, we found a Dutch couple volunteering to run the hostel as well as teach a few subjects at the local high school. After taking in the view of a gorge from a nearby peak, Danny, Kait and I decided to have a few beers before dinner, both of which were excellent.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast provided by the hostel, we immediately began our hike into the valley using a ridiculous set of instructions explained in broken English provided by the hostel. An example of one description was “Start going up when the wáter comes to the edge.” After only getting lost for part of the way – nice farmers helped us get on track – we eventually heade in the direction where we needed to go. Unfortunately for us, after traveling for so long at the bottom of the valley, we eventually had to go up… Normally this would be no problem, but I, with my 40-pound pack on my back, was dreading it, no matter how much it needed to be done. So up we went, and I, sending Kait and Danny ahead of me, took baby steps up to the top, stopping when I could to catch my breath. After what felt like 30 minutes of this, I finally caught up to Kait and Danny at the top where there was a road that would take us to our next stop: Chugchilan. Before that, though, we descended once again near the bottom of the valley to a very small village where we rested a bit, and learned that we, once again, had to climb an even steeper, longer hillside than before. After we all recovered from the shock that I did not collapse and fall down the hillside, we continued along the road (which was still generally uphill) and eventually made our way to our next hostel, The Cloud Forest Hostel in Chugchilan.
After consuming much-needed food and soda, we rested for the night and planned for our next trek to Quilotoa. All of us agreed, however, that with my idiotically heavy backpack, I should not nearly kill myself for two days in a row, and therefore we planned to take the next leg of the loop, the hardest leg, by horseback. So early in the morning after breakfast, we met our guide and got on our three trusty steeds. Our guide, a silly man who kept asking us if we were single or not, kept us going fast along the road to Quilotoa. (He would whip our horses for us; apparently he was in a hurry.) Danny´s horse, however, was a grumpy mother who, once whipped by the guide´s rope, would buck just enough to make things fairly uncomfortable for her… I couldn´t help but laugh just a little… My horse was a very smart one who, upon hearing faster horse hooves behind her, would speed up, likely out of a fear of being whipped, so I was always in the lead. I liked to think I actually had some control over the horse, but she basically just responded to the guide´s sounds behind her.
After a very short two hours, we made it to Quilotoa, got off our horses, checked in to our hostel after bartering to get a cheaper price, and promptly made our way down the crater´s rim. After a beautiful hike downwards, we found a cheery old guy at the bottom who was eager to sell one of us a horse ride with his horse back to the top for the same price as our room for the night. After declining, we made our way back to the top in an hour less than the guidebook said it would take. (We were quite proud of ourselves about that!)
Then we stayed the night, hiked along the road to Zumbahua to catch a bus back to Latacunga. The road hike was nice, but at the end of it, we were all really tired and ready to recharge our batteries, so we ate lunch, and caught a bus back here without incident. We are happy today, after all that hiking, that we have a chance to rest and get ourselves in order before heading to Banos, a city two hours south of us. Once there, we will likely do some trekking, visit some thermal baths, and possibly some other adventure tourism if it looks good.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Quito and Otavalo, Ecuador
So far so good! Ace and I arrived safely in Quito after 23 or so hours of travel. We missed one flight but were put o n one leaving an hour later, so made the rest of our connections.
We stayed in a friendly little Ecuadorian-run hostel named Chicago Hostal for $16 total a night . We spent our first full day in Ecuador exploring Quito, walking all around and between the old city and new city. There were a few lovely examples of colonialist architecture, but other than that I was a little surprised by the city- I was expecting something a little more Cosmopolitan, I suppose. The people are wonderful, though- friendly, always ready to offer good advice, and very patient with my Spanish.
The next day we grabbed a bus to Otavalo, a village about 2 hours north of Quito which is famed for it´s Saturday handicrafts market. During our two nights there, we wandered around markets, took pictures, hiked around a cráter lake, and bought some cozy wool sweaters and hats for when we move to higher elevations. We´ve been surprised at how quickly it cools down at night here!
Today we cruised around the animal auction and market in Otavalo, then moved on to Latacunga, a smallish city about 2.5 hours south of Quito. We´re enjoying the lovely hostel Tiana here, which has everything a traveller could want- an $8 place to sleep, hot wáter, internet, a book Exchange, helpful staff and places to hang out and talk to other travellers. Tomorrow we´re excited to do a walking tour of the city and then take a bus to a nearby village to start our several day trek around the string of quaint villages, mountains and the cráter lake that make up the Quilotoa loop.
A major highlight of everything so far has been getting to speak so much Spanish. I´m having so much fun getting to remember words and learn new ones, but even better is getting to chat with the cab driver, ask for directions, make small talk with the street food vender, bargain…all without too much trouble. So empowering! Ace is studying every night and picking the language up astonishingly fast. The food has been cheap and plentiful, but i would have to say that the two main food groups here are meat and french fries. Can´t complain about getting a huge meal for $3, though, and the soups and fresh fruit juices are really nice.
That´s it for now- we´ll write again after we get back from the Quilotoa Loop. I´m trying to upload photos on shutterfly, but I´m afraid the fact that only two photos have uploaded while i type this is a bad sign. All our love to everyone!
We stayed in a friendly little Ecuadorian-run hostel named Chicago Hostal for $16 total a night . We spent our first full day in Ecuador exploring Quito, walking all around and between the old city and new city. There were a few lovely examples of colonialist architecture, but other than that I was a little surprised by the city- I was expecting something a little more Cosmopolitan, I suppose. The people are wonderful, though- friendly, always ready to offer good advice, and very patient with my Spanish.
The next day we grabbed a bus to Otavalo, a village about 2 hours north of Quito which is famed for it´s Saturday handicrafts market. During our two nights there, we wandered around markets, took pictures, hiked around a cráter lake, and bought some cozy wool sweaters and hats for when we move to higher elevations. We´ve been surprised at how quickly it cools down at night here!
Today we cruised around the animal auction and market in Otavalo, then moved on to Latacunga, a smallish city about 2.5 hours south of Quito. We´re enjoying the lovely hostel Tiana here, which has everything a traveller could want- an $8 place to sleep, hot wáter, internet, a book Exchange, helpful staff and places to hang out and talk to other travellers. Tomorrow we´re excited to do a walking tour of the city and then take a bus to a nearby village to start our several day trek around the string of quaint villages, mountains and the cráter lake that make up the Quilotoa loop.
A major highlight of everything so far has been getting to speak so much Spanish. I´m having so much fun getting to remember words and learn new ones, but even better is getting to chat with the cab driver, ask for directions, make small talk with the street food vender, bargain…all without too much trouble. So empowering! Ace is studying every night and picking the language up astonishingly fast. The food has been cheap and plentiful, but i would have to say that the two main food groups here are meat and french fries. Can´t complain about getting a huge meal for $3, though, and the soups and fresh fruit juices are really nice.
That´s it for now- we´ll write again after we get back from the Quilotoa Loop. I´m trying to upload photos on shutterfly, but I´m afraid the fact that only two photos have uploaded while i type this is a bad sign. All our love to everyone!
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