The Dirt Cricket Abides

Well the most memorable part about Montanitas was the journey to get there. It all started with me flagging down a bus on the side of the street at about 6AM to take me to the port town of San Vincente…$0.35. Then I had to take a water taxi across an estuary to Bahia de Caraquez…$0.25. Then a bicycle ride to the “bus station”…$0.25. Then a bus to Jipijapa (looove this name, pronounced hippeehapa)…$4.50. Then eat GROSS food in this god-forsaken bus station filled with more flies than you would find on a steaming pile of cow shit in July. Then a bus to Montanitas…$3.50. Now the bus to Montanitas was where I was starting to get a little worn down…my Spanish had been tested to its limits to make it this far; I was rolling solo and not seeing one other person who could utter even ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in English. I was the only person who looks like their W2 from last year was north of $5,000 so I was receiving the expected stares and rudeness from all along the trip. Anyhow the bus to Montanitas shows up and they attempt to put my bag under the bus in the luggage hold. A very stiff argument ensued when I would have nothing do with it. The man opened the luggage hold and out poured a putrid liquid. A liquid that had obviously been the water and guts that had sloughed off of some sort of seafood and ripened to a nice odiferous joy after 10 hours in the sun. Finally when I was demanding my money back and I wanted another bus they relented and allowed me to put my pack next to the driver. Excellent I am on my way…nope, wrong, not even fucking close. Again the sardine factor has come into play and the bus slated to leave at 1PM does not even make wheels until 3:30PM. Whatever, I am moving.

Now mind you the bus I chose was the cheap option so this brought on my first full on chicken bus. I am not talking about a little clucking or chirping but me throwing left hooks at a hen that is getting a little to close to my eyeballs. I mean this is a hen that is flapping and flaying all over the bus with the owner constantly trying to stop it from making it out the window. This bitch of a bird has already dropped a turd on my pack and on half the other passengers, but she was not going to get me!

Eventually the bird was knocked out, flew out, or didn’t like me after the Lonely Planet caught it square in the beak. Nice! I found another use for my guidebook—chicken defender. Anyhow, I was able to enjoy the amazing views of the Ecuadorian coast. This is a country with so much undeveloped coastline I couldn’t help but wonder why. The water is warm here, and I was seeing surf break after surf break with not one soul anywhere in sight.

Well back to the travel odyssey. Now we stop in Pedro Ruiz and I hop off for an ice cream and bottle of water because the temperature has soared to an easy 100 degrees (remember I am basically right on the equator…Ecuador, equator…get it folks?). Yep I get back on the bus and someone has attempted to take my seat…nope I am not going to have it and one death look from me an the grumpy old man relented and I was back in my seat. Unable to sleep because I had to keep an eye on my bag at all times I finally was in spot to drift off. Next stop Montanitas. BANG, WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP….PSSSS stop. NO, NO, NO, NO…yep flat tire. My damn driver was not paying attention and drove right into some rebar sticking out of fresh construction on the side of the road and we had a flat. The only good to come form yet another mishap was the I did meet two ausies and a brit who were hiding in the back of the bus. Good, I had friends to keep me company while we waited while the idiocy of not having spare tire dawned on the driver. All said and done another bus picked us up and we redefined the sardine ass-pucker factor as we all squeezed onto the next ride. Finally we arrive; only 14 hours after I started what was to be a seven-hour day.

Now the town was not my style. Everyone was insanely beautiful and either Argentinean or Chilean and about 20 yrs old. They also wanted nothing to do with this old man. Yep, I felt out of place. Also this is one hippie heaven if I have ever seen it. I smelled more weed being smoked than I had ever smelled at a Grateful Dead concert back in the day. The clubs were packed with kids snorting piles of cocaine, and the atmosphere left me feeling a bit too old to be there. The clubs opened at 1AM and closed around 8 or 9 AM and as I was more keen on surfing and reading a book than anything else I had to go. Yep, only 3 nights 2 days at this place, that for some is heaven and for others is one of the grossest representations of tourism ever. This apparently was once a fishing town…now there isn’t even a fishing rod in town…everything has been transformed to some form of consumerism, surf shops, hippie trinkets, etc, etc. If I wanted dreadlocks, there were plenty of people that would have knotted my hair up for me (oh my hair is getting long so I thought about it). I wanted any drug on the planet it was only offered 10 times per hour to me. There was a time and place, but not at my age.

The one redeeming feature was that I finally had my first bottle of ice cold Inca Kola in South America…ohhh how I missed thee. Yummm, a uniquely Peruvian flavor that you either love or hate.

Back to the mountains and off to Cuenca to study Spanish.  Chirp quiero comprender mass Chirp

Canoa = Canoe in Spanish

So eager to run away form the high altitude and non-stop rain of Quito I left ass early in the morning (5AM) to head to the bus station and find my way to Canoa. It had been a long-term goal of mine to study Spanish on this trip and hopefully return fluent in the language. Yes, even though I half Peruvian I do not speak any Spanish…something I still am marginally upset with my mother about. Anyhow, originally I was planning on spending a month in Quito to study but after realizing how much I detested that city I was looking for a warmer option. Specifically I now had two goals: 1) study Spanish 2) not wear a shirt for one week. I suppose I had one other goal and that was to get away from the hoards of tourists. The Lonely Planet outlined a different route through Ecuador the masses were sure to follow and that route did NOT include the coast. Bingo!

As always, the bus rides took longer than advertised and approximately 10 hours later I was hopping off the bus and making a beeline for the two other obvious westerners who disembarked at the same spot. Quickly standing next to them I listened carefully and heard English. Not exactly Sherlock Holmes style work but goal was accomplished. We agreed to share a moto-taxi (essentially a Tuk Tuk…half motorcycle, back half bench seat for 3) to the town.

I had read about this place called the Sun Down Inn that also had the Canoa Spanish School and surfboards for rent. I spotted the joint about halfway to town and jumped out. After quick conversation I found they wanted to charge $17 a day for my own private room and 3 cooked meals per day. Sounds good, the only catch was that they would have no available teacher for 5 days…at which point the rate would go up to $25. Sounded good and I accepted. How could I turn this down, an inn right on the beach and our closest neighbor was the town 5-6km down the beach?

I could try to write much about my time there but truly the next 10 days went something like this. Wake up, surf right out front, eat breakfast read my book, surf, eat lunch, surf, read my book, eat dinner, and sleep. Oh yeah, every moment I was not surfing our reading I was playing table tennis with one of the other travelers there. It was rather ideal because I was losing lots of weight form surfing, and well the fact that I had non-stop travelers diarrhea helped, and I was working on my tan. The food was marginal at best, but I did not have to lift one finger for anything so I could not complain. My only gripe was when I had my first Spanish lesson it was a total joke, and my teacher never showed up for the second class. At which point I knew I had to cancel my courses and move on to somewhere a bit more organized.

The owner of the inn did show up at one point and brought with him all the hostesses of his Kentucky Fried Chickens he owned in the Guayaquil area. Yes I guess KFCs in Ecuador have a hostess. Well everything changed when Jaime brought his gaggle of low class Ecuadorian honies. Now this sleepy stretch of beach included bonfires at night and drinking till you passed out in the sand. This man was hilarious…recently divorced and ready to drink until you could not stand each an every evening. After 5 days of gratuitous partying with Jaime and his sons (it turns out the cooks of the inn were his boys) I decided to start bee-lining it to Cuenca where I had heard there were some reputable Spanish schools. Well actually there was another popular beach town on the way so I couldn’t resist…next stop Montanitas.

Chirp finally tan Chirp

Feeling a bit chirpy because the fever “seemed” to have broken I pack up my bag in good spirits and head down to the highway with Thierry. This is a new adventure, we have to flag down a bus from the side of the Pan American Highway and hope we get it right. Once all that nonsense was taken care of we were off to what has proved to be my least favorite spot thus far.

A new trend of bus travel has shown itself on this leg of our journey. Let’s call it the sardine quotient. Essentially the driver will never stop picking people up from the side of the road until we are packed in like sardines. Besides the obvious discomfort, I was now witnessing a 3-hour trip take 6 hours. Eventually we arrive and I ask a taxi ABOUT how much should it cost to get to our hostel of choice…”three dollars”…I reply “no way is it more than two”…”Bueno”. We arrive and the meter clearly states $1.50. I hand over my $2 and dutifully wait for change, only to get into a Fred style patented spitting match over my $0.50. He relented when he realized this gringo ain’t gonna take shit from nobody, even if he cannot understand them. Nice, strike 1 for Quito…first person I encounter wants to rook me.

As I check out the hostel, the swarm of international travelers and the generally cool atmosphere instantly turn me on. Feeling content to meet folks and unwind from a day of travel I decide to hang out and relax. The day winds down, the night comes, and now I am feeling the damn fever creep into my bones. No denying what’s going on, but there were a couple cool folks and a cute girl and I had a few drinks…fast forward I am down with a full blown flu. It sucks! Here I am in a generally loud hostel with the flu and basically unable to do anything. The elevation of Quito—approximately 2,900 meters—and the illness have me crippled. I at one point try to walk out of the hostel and can make it no further than one block before I am left gasping for air. Yep, I’m stuck in this loud ass party hostel until I recuperate.

Nothing to write other than after 6 days of feeling really sorry for myself and infecting everyone else in the hostel I was finally on the upswing. Good thing because I was very tired of the view (see above).

Some commentary on Quito: of all the people I met, spending any significant amount of time in Quito, they were mugged. Some of the muggings were as violent as being choked from behind in BROAD DAYLGHT, to guns, or knives and the typical demand for all your money. You also must be kidding yourself if you think any cop in Quito gives one flying shit about a foreigner. It was so discouraging that everyone was always on edge when outside. Every day another person would share their story of a mugging or attempted mugging…really Quito is such a god awful dangerous place it is a disgrace. Realizing at this point that I hate this filthy, dangerous, diesel fume choked city I am hightailing it OFF the gringo trail and heading right to the coast as soon as I am well. The weather is miserable and it rains non-stop, I mean I am just baffled why there are so many tourists here. Then it hits me, The Lonely Planet guidebook highlights Quito as a great jumping off point for your South American adventure. There you go, the single most popular guidebook says so, so it becomes etched in stone along with the other commandments that were handed to Moses. Really the city of Quito needs to be careful and clean up its act. It will not be long until the tourists realize how nasty a pace it is…and if you are curious, STAY AWAY there are dozens upon dozens of cooler places in South America.

I did manage to climb to very highest point of this gothic cathedral (look on the left upper most point just below the cross, and that is where my vantage point is from)…yep it is lawless down here and I was ale to sit outside and hang my leg over the edge. It was scary as hell being that high up and looking over to certain death.

Tomorrow at the advice of a friend I met in Bogotá I am off to the coast to study Spanish and hopefully not wear a shirt for one week!

Chirp Wheez Chirp…getting better

So after my friend Thierry and I had secured rooms in the town of Otavalo we wanted to explore a “Bright and Vibrant” market town. There were instant adjustments to be made that perpetuated throughout most of Ecuador.

First and foremost there were no more dormitories, which put a small dose of fear in me. Was my budget going to be broken to pieces? Well not exactly, I had already proved that traveling for less than $50 per day was not only doable but actually quite easy to do. I had many a day in Colombia where I was able to find dinner for less than two dollars, breakfast of fresh fruits & juice from street vendors would run maybe $1.50, and a lunch could be had for about $2.00. Remember the lunch is the most important meal of the day hence tending to be more expensive. With dormitories running about $7-8 a day I was running a budget that often did not exceed $20. Yes there are larger expenses such as bus tickets, drinks, and trying to woo girls that could run the budget a touch north, but all in all I have realized that those who travel with an eye towards frugality could “stay out” for a very long time on very little money.

Second adjustment to be made was that Ecuador is smack dab on the backpacker’s trail. What does this mean? Well bluntly it means that there are an abundance of hostels, restaurants, and every attempt to be more western where it simply does not fit well. In a town like Otavalo where indigenous persons wear the heavy wool alpaca petticoats, colorful shirts, carry babies with slung blankets on their backs and are mingling with boys & girls (I think their children) wearing bright Reebok tracksuits, Nikes on their feet and cell phones everywhere. I could not help but feel a touch depressed. The backpackers who are there to see the culture are the entire reason it is rapidly disappearing. “Ahhhh” I say to myself, “this is why people reject the global economy.” If I were an older Otavalon I would feel left behind in a world where it seems even their children reject the traditional way of life. Yet another inner monologue to contend with…(as always more to come)

Further more, the weather in this town consistently sucks (and I mean London rainy cold why do people live here sucks), and the city is downright ugly. This is the third adjustment to be made; ugly cities and towns. This is also the moment I realized how amazingly special Colombia is. They are light years ahead of Ecuador in terms of social awareness (no trash on the ground) and simple aesthetics (the buildings are completed). I felt like Otovalo was a city filled with blight because every damn building was either tilted further than the tower of Pisa or they had raw iron rebar sticking out form the roof, and a concrete floor now serving as their roof of a floor that had never been completed. In essence there seemed to be this odd trend that every person had started a 3-story building to only quit after 2.5 stories of concrete had been poured. Oh, and before you even think of this, it is not forward planning or thinking for future construction.

Finally the last major adjustment was that with sooooooo many hostels in Ecuador the concentration of Backpackers had been dispersed amongst each sleeping option to make it feel downright lonely, and more importantly the coolness factor of the people traveling has taken a sharp nose dive. The only person who travels in Colombia tends to be generally adventurous and interesting. People who do not let fear rule their decision making visit Colombia, people who fall for antiquated public perception and the Hollywood portrayal of an incredible country start their journey in Ecuador. OK, can you tell that Ecuador started off on the wrong foot? Fuck I also miss Greg & Christie.

Having reconciled that Otovalo is a stop over point I decide to make the best of it and Theirry and I wandered up to the Condor Sanctuary. This is as it sounds as well as a sanctuary for all birds of prey. The general thrust is that the folks who work here nurse and revive all sorts of birds of prey until they can be returned to the wild. It was interesting and worth the $2.00 entrance…feel free to check out the photo page to see all sorts of owls, eagles, hawks, falcons, etc. One interesting specimen was a Bald Eagle tethered at the leg allowing me to come within inches of it’s flesh tearing claws.

After checking out birds that kill, we wandered a little further off the beaten track to get smacked in the face with some real poverty. One could tell that the higher slopes of the town were filled with people living in abject poverty who were born there and were going to die there. It was palpable and could be seen in the faces of the people and the buildings.

Settling into the hostel and after chatting with some amiable companions I went to bed shivering uncontrollably…oh shit, is this a fever or the humid cold penetrating every possible pore of my skin? I am definitely worried as I have on every stitch of clothing with me and am under two heavy wool blankets and freezing. Yes folks, this is the first time I was lonely and really longing for home. Tomorrow I am off to Quito, hopefully I will find more friends and get out of this cold….right?

Chirp cough Chirp

Sorry for the extremely long delay in postings but two different illnesses and some of the slowest internet on the planet really took away form the motivation to keep up. Anyhow back to the journal….

Greg, Christy and I had gotten off to a rough start at one point, but by the time they were leaving i was very bummed. They had been an awesome anchor to lean upon, and it was really special to spend time in a way like that together. You really begin to realize after you have been traveling for a while that 2-3 week shots just do not seem to cut it. A certain sense of relaxation settles in, and I seem to live in a general absence of stress that makes life so much more enjoyable than it had been for most of the time while working and living my standard life. It’s fabulously selfish to be doing this and saying this but it is true. I am more concerned with finding a hostel that is clean and has hot water than just about any other aspect of life. Anyhow, dribble aside i was very sad to see Greg and Christie go. Feeling slightly lost i decided to stay in Popoyan until I finished the huge honking Che Gueverra biography I had been carrying forever. So a couple more days in the hammock reading and then I was off on my own.

Grabbing two buses to the town of Popoyan I arrived and it was dark, late and dodgy. I knew the hostel was about 7 blocks away but i was spooked so i grabbed a cab. Thank God for that decision, after arriving at the hostel a girl was dealing with having her purse and passport stolen…yuk!

The town had been described in my guidebooks (this will surely be a recurring theme…”being mislead by the guidebook” or the “J. Peterman Catalog” for old Seinfeld fans) as a whitewashed gem of Spanish Colonial city in the mountains of Colombia. I suppose this would be true but i really did not enjoy the town at all. It exhibited little soul, and seemed stuck somewhere between tourist spot, big city and small city. Either way here I was and while in the town visiting there was one redeeming feature. A festival of sort–surely the remnants of the mid Dec to mid Jan fiesta period–started moving through the town streets. Just like all festivals there was some sort of beauty contest with Colombian girls on flatbeds wearing terrible outfits and cheesing up the joint something awfully Stinky Wheel of Gouda like. As well as the girls, there were kids throwing bags of flour and trying to hit every person in site. There were dozens upon dozens of people looking very upset covered in flour; I too was forced to run for it at least a half dozen times in an attempt to protect my camera.

The hostel had a good internet connection but a shitty sleeping situation. I slept in a 14 person bunk room for two nights and needed out in a big way so I jumped a bus for the border town of Ipiales.

There is no way to describe what I saw on the trip to Ipiales. The mountains I stared for hours upon hours at appeared to be the most amazing displays of dramatic valleys and peaks of my life. I know the elevation was not amazing (peaks around 11,000 is my guess) but the relief form top to bottom was the most dramatic I had ever seen, and the faces were 100% covered in jungle and high-altitude grass giving everything a very surreal look. This rise in elevation definitely started giving way to another climate at this point. The mountains as I arrived in Ipiales were certainly starting to change in climate. Now everything was beginning to be very dry and I was feeling the air in my chest. In northern Colombia everything was much more humid and green thus not making the elevation nearly as unpleasant…this perception–as it turned out–might have also been the beginning of my first illness. The city of Ipiales was as you expect a border town…felt dangerous, was ugly and generally full of seedy characters.

The next morning my new found Australian buddy Theirry and I decided to go for the border around 6:00AM. My Spanish, still very rusty at this point but better than most backpackers, unknowingly had taken us straight to the Ecuadorian border. After 2 hours of muttering “what the fuck is wrong with these people” under our breath they finally opened the front door and about 40 people were suddenly let in. A wave of sarcastic applause came up which turned back to grumbling after the 200+ person line didn’t budge for another hours plus. Realizing we didn’t get exit stamps for Colombia we actually had enough time to go up one at a time and clear the Colombian customs. Geeeezuz the Ecuadorians are slow…another persistent theme I am learning to live with. All said and done we stumbled into Otovalo, Ecuador in the afternoon and found a hostel and just collapsed in our own private rooms (oooh the luxury of it all).

Chirp Chirp country one is done

Now everyone knows the sorry story of my numb ass but boy was it well worth it. The goal of the team was to wake up in Salento, no matter what the odds against it happening were. This is a truly dreamy town in the mountains that I had fallen in love with instantly despite the annoying fiesta. Damn these effing Fiestas…Salsa music so loud it surpasses any rock concert I have ever been to. It physically hurts the ears yet every person (except the gringos) meanders on with their normal business like it is OK to eat dinner next to 4,000 decibels of horns.

Well moving on Salento another one of those perfect Spanish Colonial towns; set in rolling green mountains lush with vegetation and copious rain it become obvious why this is Coffee Country. The setting is idealic and enchanting. I spent hours in the hammock reading and enjoying the peace and quiet (only during the day…damn fiestas) while glancing up from my book every once in a while to admire the mountains.

However all the relaxation aside Greg and I did want to go see the fabled Wax Palms. Now apparently this is the national tree of Colombia (hey anyone actually have a clue what is the US’s national tree? If you use google that does not count) and the Colombians are quite proud of this behemoth. I say behemoth b/c this monster of a Palm stands up to 200 feet tall and is in fact the world’s tallest palm. Furthermore, this tree only exists in one single solitary canyon on the entire globe and you guessed it…off we went.

So Parque Nacional de Cocora is just a short jeep ride away, but that is not to say it wasn’t an interesting ride. On the way there we somehow got 11 people into a Jeep Willy (WW II surplus Jeep) and I believe we had 14 on the way back. So if you imagine people sitting on the roof, hanging off the back, and basically crammed in like sardines you are spot on. To add to the “adventure” we were told it was muddy enough that we should use knee high Wellington boots and it prob was not a bad idea at all.

As with all hikes it was crowded until we hit the 90% point–the point at which 90% of the population turns back b/c they are either too out of shape or do not get joy from exercise. However it started to break up when we entered the jungle…many hours later and much mud later we were at the summit. 2860 meters in elevation and still it was lush jungle and a cloudy one at that. Yep as we were hoping for amazing views the cloud forest has us socked in.

It was not until we started descending and found a valley opening up in front of us did we truly understand what all the hype was about. Just amazing is what i would say…never seen anything like it and i doubt i ever will again. I was taken back by the natural beauty that felt prehistoric in nature, and was waiting for either King Kong or a brontosaurus to come crashing through the trees.

I know there is more to write but I am exhausted and going to bed shortly…currently in Popayan and facing yet another god damned 8+hr bus journey. It’s easy traveling here as the bus system is organized and simple to understand…but to say it is highly inefficient is an understatement

Chirp zzzzzzzzzzz

Well after a raucous New Years Eve (read: me projectile vomiting like a high school punk) and a full day of recovery on New Years Day it was time to move on. The general plan had been to visit Zona Cafeteria, Cali, and then potentially Quito, but as time was compressing and the physical size of Colombia was becoming a harsh reality we scrapped the lofty ambitions and decided Team Mcwangster & The Dirt Cricket would have their last stand in Salento.

Before I begin on Salento it was very hard to leave Medellin. The beautiful (better than NYC & Miami combined) women, and the opportunity to live with our friend Paul in his pimping penthouse really created an appealing environment to begin my Spanish studies. Had it not been for the fact I had just started my travels I likely would have stayed but I needed to move on. So off we went….

Now back to the fact the entire country is in Fiesta…Jan 2nd we show up early and there are no bus tickets left for Salento. OK, we take a minivan to get us half way there, then a bus to get us another 2/3 of the way there and finally a taxi for the last leg. It was all dramatic stressful and quite trying when one considers our level of Spanish. Ordering a burrito in Spanish and trying to understand complicated travel routes are an entirely different thing…oh how i long for my Spanish lessons in Ecuador. We made it after 14 hours of hell but the nice part was that there were no meltdowns and we actually all kept great humor and steed about the situation. But hear this….if i ever half to sit with half an ass cheek on the back seat of a minivan for 6 hours ever again I will go postal and choke out the person who sold me that “seat.”

Ass is numb…Chirp Chirp