Hasta luego

Sorry, I did warn you that I wouldn´t have time to detail everything before I run off into the trees again.

So here are some edited highlights from the last couple of weeks...

• Eating an Argentinian grill in a Chinese run restaraunt in Loja
• Consumption - coffee, cakes and clothes
• Consumption - Sexo en la Ciudad
• The colonial influence - Ecuador with a European flavour
• The hippest hostal in Cuenca
• Inca ruins and alpaca socks
• Sharing a box of wine on the steps to the river, double dating Cuenca style
• Talking philosophy and phonetics with a fairy
• Classic cinema and sign language
• The best laid plans - communication problems, the social politics of guide searching and tension amongst travel companions
• Trying to break a spell without breaking a heart

And now I have a few things to do here in Quito before leaving for Quininde in the morning. Not very interesting.

So tomorrow morning Felica and I will part ways, for good this time, which might be a bit strange. Then I will head to La Ye from Quininde (hopefully without livestock in the camionetta this time) and look for Winter, who is hanging around with a broken foot unable to work at the moment. He says he is waiting for me there with ´una de ron´ (a bottle of rum). After a night in La Ye, probably staying in the house that Winter is building for himself, Don Armardo says he´ll be there in the morning with a mule for me. For my bags, rather, because I am hiking the 3 1/2 hour muddy road to Bilsa in my faithful rubber boots.

When I get there, after I have said hello and dropped my bags in my room, the first thing I plan to do is to go down to the river for a shower. Then I will wash the city off, wash away the dirt and smoke and dry air, and breathe only the sounds and smells of the forest.

Ciao for now.

Snow holiday

When I first flew into Ecuador it was such a clear morning that I was able to take phorographs of the mountains from the plane window. One of them was Cotopaxi, the third highest active volcanic mountain in the world, at just under 6,000m.

After having lots of practice hiking the muddy trails of Bilsa, a while ago Felicia and I decided that to climb the mountain would be a fitting achievment to seal our time in Ecuador. This became the primary goal of our travels together. Everything else was flexible, but making this climb was a detirmination, and so yesterday was the last opportunity to head to the mountain.

The altitude got to me straight away. We had driven up to the last access point and hiked an hour up to the refuge. My breath was thin and laboured throughout, and I was weak and light headed when we arrived. I put it down to the fact that we had not had chance to get breakfast before meeting our guide at 7am, and any worries seemed to clear that afternoon after we had had some lunch and gone out into the snow for an hour to learn how to walk in crampons.

After dinner we went to bed at 6pm. Felicia had a headache and was given some coca tea by our guide, and I sipped what she didn´t want more out of curiosity of trying the coca than as a precaution. I was relieved that I seemed to have gotten over that strange patch earlier.

But I was confident too soon. Between 7 and 11pm, while the forty or so other people in the room relaxed before the climb, and while I could hear Felicia sleep in the bunk next to me, I fought with a new headache and a weight on my chest that felt like my lungs were crushed to a third of their size. My heart raced like it was about to flutter its last. I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag, trying to find a balance between maintaining some body heat and being able to breathe.

I slept for maybe 20 minutes before it was time to don our gear and eat a little midnight breakfast. I told the guide about my chest pains, and he said that I needed to decide whether I would be able to make it or not. After a few minutes I decided that the headache had retreated enough, and I didn´t want to give up at this point.

So we went out onto the cold midnight mountain. We went slowly, and though I was tired my chest felt alright so I was happy to continue. And so we did, for four hours.

And so it was that I was to be found at 4am this morning, crying weak tears of frustration and exhaustion on a dark and windy mountain, as my guide clipped my harness onto another couple heading back down to the refuge, so that he and Felicia could continue to the summit without me.

I didn´t look back.

Being led by a rope down a mountain, stumbling in the snow like a toddler on reins, I was relieved to see the train of headlamps down the mountain ahead of me, of people who also couldn´t make it throught the cold and wind, and who had turned back even before I did. I had made it to 5,400m before my jelly legs could lift no more, and am happy that I made it that far.

What a fool I was to compare mountain climbing to hiking in the jungle, and to underestimate the effects of altitude on the body*. Jungle hiking has its own challenges, of course, but for me they are overriden by the benefits of being able to watch the wildlife and smell the flora. Lugging myself up the mountain in the dark, only able to see the snow directly in front of me and to smell my own laboured breath inside my balaclava, there were times that I really did wonder why people bothered to put themselves through this, for a hobby? Of course the mountain was beautiful when it could be seen, and when Felicia returned to the refuge later that morning with photos from after the sun had risen, I was so pleased that she at least got to see the true magnificance of the mountain.

But I know that it is not the climate for me. The jungle beckons.

* As a measure of how the mountain messes with your body, one American girl who came down before me was taken to hospital from the refuge because of all the fainting and nose bleeding, and a Swiss woman from our group (who had already climbed Ecuador´s other peaks), came down from the summit without her sight. When we last saw her she could see light and bright colours, but no definition. Hopefully it will be better in the next day or so.

So I feel no shame that I didn´t make it, just really proud that Felicia managed to hoik herself all the way to the top without doing herself an injury.

Tilting at windmills

It happens sometimes that you bump in to the person you were only just thinking about, but how bizarre that I had an encounter with Quixote in Loja?

Perhaps I too am tilting at windmills, and the dream of an idyll from former times is seen as little more than eccentricity. Perhaps my perception of what is real life is different now, and perhaps I prefer it that way.

Of course, I am looking forward to coming home.

I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends and having a long hot bath with a glass of wine and the Guardian magazine. I am looking forward to going to the theatre and having free reign in the kitchen again. My mouth waters for a pint of Guinness and some Marmite on toast (not necessarily at the same time), and I can´t wait to prance about in a selection of pretty clothes. I am looking forward to Radio 4 and Sackville Park, and I am looking forward to my books.

But I will still be aiming at that distant windmill on the horizon.

The flight to Cuenca

The flight took around about an hour. It cost $68.

And for that we travelled over the Andes, down from Quito towards the south of Ecuador.

Between the sun and the clouds and the earth; the mountains sprawling accross the horizon like a rumpled sheet, we could see every town, every pueblito, every casa along the way.

Update: Galapagos photos

I have managed to get my pictures up onto a computer, so if you want to see some pictures from Galapagos, scroll down to Now this is Galapagos.

Disclaimer

As some of you who have continued to read despide prolonged absences and incoherent ramblings may be aware, my itinerary and access to internet are rather unpredictable.

There is a column to the left of this blog that details my itinerary down to the exact date. Scrap it. After Tsuraku all that went to pot. Thank the stars, because that is when it got even more interesting (for me, anyway).

For you, however, it means that I just don´t have the time or facility to explain all that I am doing, so I apologise that between Tsuraku and now (and from now on, I am afraid) the reportage is bitty at best.

I assure you that I am writing constantly, and will be posting outtakes when I am able to.

So, a quick update of my movements before I take off....

I arrived in Quito from San Cristobal the day before yesterday. It took me a while to settle into Galapagos, but I did finally get to enjoy myself and see some of the sights.

As well as macheteing blackberries and being bitten to buggery by carmelitas (both invasive species that have taken over San Crisobal, brought over last century by a lady called Carmela - not hugely popular amongst the conservationists when she died last year) I got my scuba diving licence, snorkled amongst sea lions and penguins, almost stood up on a surf board, and got a tan.

I also found a shop on Santa Cruz that sold clothes that didn´t say ´Galapagos´, ´I love Boobies´ or diamantes on it, and got my hands on my first pretty clothes since march. Sigh.

I spent the night of my birthday wearing a dress and playing pool with some local guys, the only woman and the only non- local in the bar. I knew one of the guys from my scuba course, so it wasn´t as dangerous as it might sound. Although a couple were a bit flirty none of them were at all pushy, which is refreshing I can tell you after a month of being a little bit pestered.

And so to Quito. It may come as a surprise, but this time I have actually enjoyed myself here! As much as I can in a big noisy smelly dangerous city, anyway.

I flew in with Sacha, who was my partner in crime (and complaint) during our time on San Cris, and we met Felicia and Tomo from Bilsa before Sacha left to head towards Peru in the morning.

Felicia randomly bumped into a couple of volunteers who were at Bilsa while I was away. They were at San Cristobal just before I got there, and so they also know the other girl that flew back to the mainland with us. We all went out for dinner last night. A great Jatun Sacha reunion!

After dinner Felicia, Tomo and I met up with Pato (one of our scientist friends from Bilsa) and his cousin Augustin, for some drinks and dancing. Who would have thought that ´Holiday´by Madonna has a good beat for salsa dancing? Pato and I made it work, so it must be true.

We all got nicely merry and then went back to our hostal to play cuarenta in the courtyard until 4am.

What a difference it makes to have friendly faces around in a scary city!

Now I am in the airport waiting for check in time. Felicia and I are doing a little travelling before she heads back to Switzerland and I head back to Bilsa. We have some really exciting plans about what we want to do, but as we all know plans like this can never be set in stone....

Today we are flying into Cuenca and taking a bus to Loja in the south of Ecuador. The flights to Loja were full today, so we will arrive there by bus this evening. In Loja we are planning to go to Vilcabamba, which is a place where some of the oldest people in the world live, and to hike in the Parque Nacional Podocarpus, which is a biodiversity hotspot with much endemism of both plant and animal species.

Then we will get a bus up to Cuenca, Ecuador´s third city and the home of the Monticristi (the ´Panama´hat is a misnomer - they are made in Ecuador). There´s lots to do in Cuenca, but the one main plan is to take a day trip to see the Inca site Incapirca (and to buy a Monticristi, of course).

From Cuenca we head to Riobamba to meet Antonio´s friend the mountain guide, who is going to accompany us up to the top (fingers crossed) of the 6,000m Cotopaxi.

After climbing the mountain we are going to the volcanic spa town Baños for massages etc. After four months in wellies my feet are crying out for a pedicure. Then we head back to Quito to meet Winter on his vacations, perhaps go to a concert with August, and visit some museums and markets.

Phew. It´s going to be a busy ten days.

.........and then I go back into the jungle!

Now this is Galapagos

So my time at the San Cristobal station finished just as it was getting interesting. The music, the conversations, the passion and the understanding all arrived while I was readying to leave.

Asi es la vida.

But now, before I head back to the mainland, I am taking a four day tour of the islands, and I finally get to see why Galapagos is so special.

Yesterday I snorkled amongst miriad fish from the size of my finger nail to the size of me, in greys and blacks and pinks and blues and rainbows. I swam with sea lions amongst the waves crashing against the great craggy rocks around the small volcanic island. I said hello to a penguin guarding its nest in the rocks. I saw friggate birds and blue footed and masked boobies, and just missed the tail of a whale as it passed by the boat. I caught a tan lying on the front of the speedboat for an hour. And that was just the journey to Isabella.

Isabella is beautiful. Yesterday evening we went to look at the giant tortoises before dinner, and then drank cerveza on the beach front. This morning we went horseback riding up to the rim of the volcano, and then hiked along the crackled landscape. The crater of this volcano stretches 11km in diameter, which is the second largest in the world. The effect of the spewn lava is just incredible. Like the moon, some said, or a different planet. It reminded me of Beckett; of a post apocalyptic world where life has ceased to thrive except for a few survivers wandering aimlessly into the bleak horizon.

Then we rode back down the volcano, and got the horses into a gallop. I like to gallop, I have found; to have the wind whip by as you soar along is absolutely exhilerating. Then he broke into something faster than a gallop, and we were flying down the mountain. My right foot came out of my stirrup, and I held on with my leg against his neck, swerving vigorously from side to side on the saddle. I knew I was going to fall, because pulling the reins did nothing to slow him down and I had no hold on him as he careered along. So I saw an approaching area of grass, let my other foot out of its stirrup, and threw myself off to the right.

The horse jumped past me, inches away, as I rolled onto the grass.

Another thing to add to the list of near misses and daredevil stunts.

I am writing this on a computer set up on a table outside a house they have converted into an internet cafe. They actaully brought me coffee, so I rate the service even though I am being eated alive by tiny flies. I have just come back from surfing for the first time, but I don´t have time to describe it because I have to shower before dinner and then head to the beach again for a bit of night swimming.

Life´s tough, eh?

Familia

Last night, during a conversation with an ecuadorian whose opinion on volunteers is very much worth noting, I explained (politely) a little of my disappointment, and noted that the volunteers are much more touristy here, and less interested in the conservation work.

We had been talking about how it was necessary to demonstrate to volunteers the objectives of the conservation work, be it through experiencing the attractions of the locale rather than just seeing brambles all the time, or through explaining the history, politics, economics and science behind the work. This way, we were agreeing, people would be more motivated to continue the often monotanous and physically trying work.

However, my companion noted, this is often very difficult to do, because the volunteers are often here soley for a cheap means to get on Galapagos, and have no interest in hearing about the technicalities of reserve work.

Most of them are not like you, I was told. They are tourists, but you are a member of the family. The family? The Jatun Sacha family. You know how it really is.

Yes, we were both a little less than sober when I was told this. Even so, apart from the fact that it is an enormous compliment, it also illustrates what had been missing earlier and what had made my last week on the San Cristobal station so much more enjoyable than earlier.

It was not that I wanted to connect more with the other volunteers and other gringos, though of course it is nice to get along, but that I want to speak (in Spanish) to the Ecuadorians and the people who have more of a personal attachment to the work and the environment.

This week I got to converse about the reasons we are here, with people who care, and that makes all the difference.