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Banana Republic

Saturday, August 12th, 2006

Ecuadorian bus
Whilst not a Banana Republic in the true sense of the phrase (it has a `democratic´ government at least), Ecuador is largely reliant on its banana exports for its economy. It´s other major resource is oil, but as the US and UK oil companies export most of the profits with the oil this leaves the yellow phallic fruit, and you´re not surprised when you´re bussing it across the country passing miles and miles of banana plantations. The buses may be a bit shit (although they do sport a certain 70´s bad-boy paint job – see above), and break down regularly, but at least the scenery is beautiful.

Cuenca
My first proper stop in Ecuador, cool little city in the south with beautiful colonial architecture, a river running through the middle and a lively nightlife scene at the weekends. Of the two live bands we saw the second one was by far the best, playing a latin rock sort of thing with a few crowd pleasers like `La Bamba´ thrown in. Cuenca was a nice place to chill out for a long weekend before moving on up through Ecuador.

Central Cuenca
Cuenca skyline from the central plaza

Riobamba
I took a bus north on the Tuesday afternoon to Riobamba, a crap little place for travellers, but for the train that leaves there three times a week for the Nariz Del Diablo (Devil´s Nose). This journey takes around 5 hours and starts at stupid o`clock in the morning, but even this non-morning person has to admit it was worth it. The Lonely Planet, being full of shit as usual, builds it up to be some kind of rollercoaster train ride like nothing in the world, which leads a lot of people to be disappointed. If you just expect a ride through some some nice scenery, watching the locals go about their daily lives in the countryside, topped off with a journey at the end down a very steep canyon, through a set of switchbacks to a rock that looks like a nose then you won`t be disappointed. The added bonus is that you get to sit on the roof of the train – I´d like to see them let you do that in Europe.

Riobamba Train
Train ride from Riobamba down to the Devils´ Nose (Nariz Del Diablo)

Baños
Having picked up a couple of new friends on the train ride we departed together the same afternoon to get up to Baños (and to avoid spending another night in Riobamba). Thankfully the bus journeys in Ecuador are relatively short compared to the rest of South America, so two hours to Baños was like blinking and being there. The towns name refers to the local hot springs that you can bathe in (Bath would be the closest equivalent town in England), heated by the nearby volcano, Tungurahua. This is the same volcano that was in the news recently for blowing it´s hot load all over the shop. It´s still spewing lava but calmed down a lot now, though unfortunately it´s usually too cloudy to see it at the moment. Rebecca and myself took a quad bike up the nearby hillside to see if we could get a glimpse, but sure enough the clouds shrouded it. The bike was fun though so I wasn´t bothered.

Baños, Ecuador
Baños

Rebecca left Friday so myself and Noa, the sweet but mental Swiss girl in our group hired mountain bikes and headed off down the valley. The scenery was full of lush green hillsides and waterfalls all along the way. The best of the waterfalls had a viewing platform from where you could get completely drenched in the heavy spray off it – had to be done really. On the return journey we stopped at one of the cable cars and took a trip over the river to the other side of the valley, passing right overhead of one of the waterfalls before continuing back to town, which was an uphill bastard of a climb that I would not care to repeat. When we returned the bikes, with me on my last legs, the guy in the shop said they were going rafting tomorrow and did we want to come? Needless to say he received an earful of sarcasm from me! Today I´m enjoying being a lazy git, the sky is clear and the sun is out so I´m enjoying a well earnt rest after a hard weeks work 🙂

Life in Lima

Saturday, August 5th, 2006

I`ve lost track of the time I`ve spent in Lima, though I think it`s close to 3 weeks, so much for a long weekend there! The last week and a half were somewhat justified as I was waiting around on Lufthansa in London to reply to the Lima office with details of penalty fees to change my flight dates and location. German efficiency was not at it`s best at this time, so until I had confirmation I was stuck in Lima with the perfect excuse to get bolloxed and enjoy the city life.

Lima doesn`t have the best reputation, but staying in the Miraflores area and visiting the neighbouring areas of Barranco and San Isidro you would think you were in any developed western city, pretty safe, convenient and full of diversions. Working in the hostel bar in Loki helped keep me amused as well, working with a good bunch of people and meeting loads of sound travelers passing through. Debauchery would sum it up in a nutshell!

Lima coastline from Miraflores
Lima coastline from Miraflores

Observations of this city and Peru in general:
You can walk down the street in Miraflores and see money changers stood around in the street with a fistfull of Soles (Peruvian currency) in one hand, and a fistfull of dollars in the other – so much for it being dangerous.

It`s taboo to burp in Peru, but you can happily stop in the middle of the street and go for a piss.

The cops are corrupt as fuck and can often be found sleeping in their cars or using their flashing lights to get them to McDonalds quicker for their happy meals.

Peru has just voted Alan Garcia back into power as President, even though he was in this position 20 years ago and devalued their currency into the ground and ran away amid accusations of corruption and stealing the country`s money. Admittedly the second candidate was a right-wing nazi who wanted to kill all gay people amonst other policies, so you have to give the people some credit.

Rather than having people juggling (!) at traffic lights to earn some money, Lima featured breakdancers, the best of which was doing a headspin in the middle of a very busy road in the Downtown area – jugglers take note.

Unfortunately, whilst being set on the coastline, the atmospherics at this time of year mean that the skies are generally grey and cloudy and it`s hard to see the coastline and beaches, but we had a couple days where the sun broke through and the skies were blue – couldn`t help be envious of the 3 weeks of heatwave going on at home.

One of the local brands is called Fanny, and in their product line they have tuna, mustard and jam:

Fanny jam

And finally, even though I`ve come to the conclusion that all the British newspapers are full of shit, it did make me happy to be able to buy a copy of the Guardian (albeit a day old) from the geezer across the road. How they got here I don`t know, but nice to sit and read a paper for once, even if they do talk out of their arses.

A couple of event highlights while in Lima were The Big Wong Parade (sponsored by Wong, the local version of Tescos) which was a warm-up to Peru`s independence day on the 28th July. The parade passed around the park that we overlooked right in the centre of Miraflores and was quite amusing, if only for how much commercial product placement was going on. Ended with fireworks and over the top classical music before the huge crowds dispersed.

The other highlight was the Playboy party in the hostel for Independence Day, where I came dressed in a dazzling silver jacket, bare-chested and with white trousers. I thought I was quite the man (in a super-twat kind of way) until I looked into the bathroom mirror half-way through the night only to realise that I looked like Gary Glitter! What a shitter! Luckily there was no children around. No I`m kidding, really I am, though come to think of it the lady I ended up with that night was dressed in a schoolgirl outfit – next stop a holiday in Cambodia.

Gary Glitter rides again
Uhhhhhh…

Anyway I apologise for these dubious ramblings, needless to say that I left Peru with a lot less brain cells, and integrity, than when I entered it, but it`s been a blast. Now, after 28 hours, a dodgy border crossing and 3 buses I `ve finally made it to a nice colonial city in the south of Ecuador called Cuenca. It`s a month later than planned but what the hell, life is good, and thanks to my brother lending me some money I`ll return home a month later than last planned. So until the next time I get around to putting fingers to keys I`ll say adios and enjoy what`s left of the British summer.