Alex's travel blog

Cuzco, Peru

(This is still in Ecuador, about 2 weeks ago...Monday 20th Feb to be exact). After Cuenca, I went back to Quito. This took 2 days: on the Monday I went from Cuenca to Riobamba. The journey was horrible. Buying a ticket in Ecuador is usually stressful enough. In the bus stations, there isn´t a single place you go to buy a ticket...all the companies have separate windows, so it takes you a while to work out where you should buy your ticket. The stations are always noisy, crowded and scarey. Men walk round shouting out destinations...within a few seconds of entering the building you always get aprehended by one of these men...they find out where you want to go and bring you to their window. So I never know if I'm using the best company.

Anyway, instead of getting a direct ticket to Riobamba which I wanted, I got sold this ridiculous roundabout route. I had to go to some unknown town right over to the west, then change buses. Well, the journey to this town took longer than expected and it was dark by the time I got there. I didn´t know where to catch the next bus from...the conductor had just indicated vaguely accross the road. There certainly wasn´t a map of the town in Lonely Planet - it was well off the tourist trail. It was also raining. Well, I probably waited about 1 1/2 hours in all - I've got no idea how long it took really. During this time I missed one of the buses I should have caught. I had no idea if another one would pass that night. I didn´t know what to do - it was the worst situation I´d been in thus far. I considered my options: spend the night in this place (although I had no idea if there were any hostels there) or try to get to Guyaquil, Ecuador´s largest city, and spend the night there. Guyaquil...if you know Ecuador, you'd know this means I was getting really desperate. Just when I was resigned to going to Quyaquil, a guy pointed at a junction along the road...and...joy of joys, there was a bus for me! In the end I was in bed in Riobamba by midnight, so it could have been worse. The worst thing about the episode was that I didn´t get a chance to buy the paper which, as I mentioned before, I might have been in!

In Riobamba, all I had to do was collect a raincoat that Suzannah, a friend from Jatun Sacha had left behind. I then went to Quito - a lovely, fast, incident-free journey.

I spent 6 nights in Quito (although it should have been 5!) On one of the days I took another walk around Quito's old town, which is really beautiful. I've sent my best Quito photos home, but this one gives some idea of what it's like. The most exciting thing I did was climb up a big cathedral. You know if you climb up any sort of viewpoint in England, you get to a safe and boring platform...you can see the building goes higher, but you´re not allowed up. Well here, I got to that point...then found a ladder which took you further up. Then another one to go further! You could get right to the top. And...2 for the price of 1...then you got to climb up another tower of the cathedral! Great.

Another day was spent visiting the indigenous market at Ottovalo, which is the biggest market in the country and a big tourist attraction. I felt I couldn´t leave without buying something, and hence I bought a load of touristy crap. How could I resist that brightly painted wooden parrot? I was fun haggling - my best achievement was reducing the starting price of $10 to $6. The day turned out to be pretty expensive, though!

The rest of the time I just hung around in Quito...but I was kept busy: I took some more Spanish lessons. This place was great! $4 per hour for good, one-on-one tuition, and I sorted them out with only 1 day´s notice.

I also managed to meet up with people I knew on several nights, which was great. The most fun and drunken night was Saturday, my last night in Ecuador, when I went out with Suzannah and John from Jatun Sacha. Behold these things they had in one of the bars (ignore the bad photo of me)

They filed it up with beer and you could vend your own. Brilliant! I can't believe it hasn't caught on in Britain yet...surely only a matter of time. At about 2 or 3am, this crazy guy was inviting us to get in a taxi and go to another party. I had a Spanish lesson at 9 in the morning, so decided it was time for bed for me. I couldn´t believe Suzannah and John actually got into the taxi and went, especially as they had, LITERALLY, no money at all between them. When I got back to my hostel, I felt really guilty about using the buzzer to get in and waking someone up. And it looked so easy to climb in through the gate. The gate is in a door frame, i.e. no room above it, but at the top of the gate there was a person sized hole. It actually proved to be more difficult than it looked...I got to the stage of clinging to the top with one leg through, but then I thought I should come back down and rethink. Eventually some other people came along and rang the buzzer, so I got in the conventinal way.

Although not strictly about me, I´ll mention what happened to John and Suzannah because I think it's funny (although maybe it's only funny if you know the people). They ended up being taken to a strip club, and didn't leave until 6 in the morning. The bill for their drinks came to $50! As they had no money, they slipped out while the guy who brought them was passed out, and let him pay. They then got lost on the way home, and lay down on the pavement to have a nap. To top it all, Suzannah lost her raincoat again. This is the one I'd made a special effort to pick up in Riobamba...she´d been reunited with it for all of 5 hours!

On Sunday I was, of course, late to my Spanish lesson, but the teacher didn't mind. Unrelatedly, I turned up too late to the airport, and the bastards wouldn't let me on to the flight to Lima. I think it was their fault rather than mine, but I won't bore with the details here. So I ended up spending another day in Quito. Luckily, they let me onto the same flight on Monday, without any charge.

Well, I do the Inca Trail the day after tomorrow which I can't wait for! After that, I'll try to drag this blog up to date and write about Peru.