Travel Snapshots

Oh dear...it´s all turning to proverbial shit isn´t it?...the old blog that is. I am in Argentina and I haven`t posted for two months. Naughty. And I can´t say I haven´t had anything to write about - I´ve been exploring new countries in Spanish-speaking South America with my boyfriend. My only excuse is that the adventure of real life took over for a little while there...

Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina. They are the six we have given ourselves six months to explore. One month each. We are nearing the end of our trip, with time in both Argentina and Chile left (save the most expensive ´til last eek)! There is too much to say to compress into one catch-up blog and in months to come I will write more about our experiences and encounters (and about our continued struggle to learn Spanish, complete with all of the embarrassing faux-pas' we made along the way).

For now, I want to write about the little things that make travel worthwhile.

This fine dog specimen wearing a neckerchief was, for example, one of the many little things that has made my trip.

So...we have been bussing our way around South America for 4 months. We are still thoroughly enjoying the experience, however we both agree that at this stage of the trip we are both feeling the inevitable niggles. Firstly, there's the itchiness of our wafer-thin travel towels after 4 months use, and then there is the mind-itch of the impending end of our trip - home time, job time, down time, broke time. After 4 months of freedom, excitement, adventure and beauty...we have both also started to feel a little lethargic! I feel very spoilt saying that, as we wake up with the promise of discovery at our feet every day, and the hardest decision in a day usually consists of what to have for dinner. What luxury! But...can too much beauty and freedom be a bad thing?...well, not really. But we do miss our friends, families, beds, home-cooking and a decent cup of tea (so British).

I remember experiencing a similar feeling at the same time during my last trip in Asia too. Carla and I both felt a bit depleted and lethargic in Cambodia. The thought of home was on the horizon and frankly, we just didn't give a shit about seeing 'another waterfall'. Travel, is in many ways, similar to the consumerism we indulge in at home. It depends how we travel of course. But consumerism is our way of life and it invades every aspect. We often think we travel to escape it, but is buying into all this quick-dash sightseeing not just another gulp of it? More about that another time...

 I know this is just a week of ´travel blues´ and I know it will pass. We have two good friends coming to meet us in Santiago, Chile in 2 days and are so looking forward to it. They will definitely put the spring back into our step. And for now, we are enjoying relaxing, and drinking copious amounts of Argentinian red wine...yes, life is still very, very good.

Relaxing in Mendoza (Argentina) with Jorge the turtle (I'm sorry, a lot of this is inadvertently animal related).

Anyhow, whilst sinking coffees a few days ago in a lovely cafe in San Pedro de Atacama (Chile), we pondered (somewhat sullenly) what to do with the day. Silly to be sullen, but we had just made our way to Chile from Bolivia and were still in shock over the prices and mulling over the inevitable work options upon our impending return home. At that moment, a llama happened to strut casually up to the table next to us on the cafe terrace. He sniffed around until the cafe owner came and offered up a nectarine. The llama was chuffed. He sloshed and slurped away on the thing in that comically slobby way that llamas eat; crooked mouth, blubbering lips, chowing down in opposite directions and overlapping all over the place.

                                      Llama eating nectarine - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

In 30 seconds he was done and spit the nectarine stone neatly on to the table, directly in front of a woman enjoying her morning cappuccino. He sniffed around some more and took a tentative step towards the entrance of the cafe. The owner anticipated his hunger and returned, proffering an orange and a banana. The llama had a good go at the orange, but it was too big (peel and all) and kept rolling out of his mouth. The banana went in whole though, and somehow the full banana skin slipped out after a little chewing.

Little did this llama know, but having skulked up to the table and swallowed a load of free fruit, it also swallowed my sullenness. How can one be sullen in the presence of a llama?

This made me think about the little moments that are some of the best. I wanted to note some down in a bid to share the joy, and to not forget them.

* Quito, Ecuador - beautiful little Grandma's and Grandpa's (they already have a previous post dedicated to them). There was one particular little lady who got on the bus one day when we were on our way to Spanish school. She was tiny (of course, they all were). She had a curly cherobin-like halo of hair nested on top of her head. It was sort of golden and orange and reminded me of an orang-utan in the way that the sun hit and went straight through it, exposing the thinness of her hair and the whiteness of the top of her head. She had the kindest round face, with so many smile wrinkles etched around her eyes. She sat down and her legs swung from the bus seat. She was great. It was too obvious to pap her so no photo evidence.

* Trinidad Square, Cartagena, Colombia - a group of the same boys would turn up to play football in this square every evening. It became our favourite Cartagena date. We would arrive every evening (lazy, cold beer in hand) and sit on the stone bench that surrounded the square. The boys would turn up at the same time, barefooted and ready for play. They all had such big personalities in little bodies that it was easy to come up with nicknames for each of them. Little did they know we were giving a running commentary of their actions from the bench. The boys would play an energetic hour or two of football, and then at bedtime, they would hand over to the older boys. Suddenly the energy levels dropped. Self-conscious guys would make smooth, slow passes, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. The little boys were far more fun, but the contrast was funny and recognisable.

              Trinidad Square, Cartagena, Colombia. Unfortunately without footballers at this time.

* Trujillo, Peru - we visited an old temple built from sun-dried mud bricks called 'Huaca de la Luna' (literally translates as 'Temple of the Moon'. We were not expecting anything particularly spectacular, but thought we better slot in some culture as we had recently arrived in Peru. Peru is described by many as the 'Egypt of the Americas'. This sight was incredible. It is still undergoing excavation and I found this added to the experience.

I felt in awe that what we saw was recently uncovered and more will be discovered in years to come. The excavation is particularly tricky work as the pre-Inca's who are responsible for the existence of the site built five temples on the very same location. It seemed to be some sort of unknown ritual to build a new temple directly on top of the old one every ten years or so, complete with engraved and painted decoration covering every inch of the mud-brick walls. Somehow, bright paint was still intact and many parts of the designs were on show.

Men were lying in the sun, radios tuned in, injecting water into cracks and carefully brushing away earth as part of the excavation effort. Across the desert land we could see a huge dusty mound. This was 'Huaca del Sol' ('Temple of the Sun'). Excavation has not even begun here, as the project lacks funding. Between the two temples was the dusty maze of the ancient town, also undergoing excavation.

                                    Excavation work at 'Huaca de la Luna', Trujillo, Peru

* Virgen Hogar de Fatima, Obrajes, La Paz, Bolivia - I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer for two weeks at an orphanage in a district of La Paz. My time here was short (boo), but I loved it. I worked with the same nine under-one year old's every day. I'm not particularly broody or 'cooey' over babies, but they were adorable. I fell in love with each and every one of them, even the annoying ones. Abel, Tito, Alejandro, Victor, Catlin, Angela, Rosita, Isabelle and Jasmin.

I am dying to put up a photograph of Alejandro, but I don't feel right doing that. I have one snap as a lovely memory. I would like to say I didn't have a favourite, but I had such a soft spot for him. He was seriously chubby with beautiful brown eyes. He had a cleft lip that meant he dribbled immensely and we had to tie a pair of trousers around his neck as a bib to soak it up. He had the funniest soft giggle, and he knew when to use it (usually when he was doing something cheeky). He had just grown his top and bottom two teeth and feeding time was hard work. He would bite down on the spoon, intrigued by the power of his new enamels, simultaneously dribbling all of the soup on the spoon out of the corners of his mouth. I would tut and sigh and bid that he eats (I was good at baby-language-Spanish)...and he would giggle, and then my heart would melt. He was good. I miss him now! :(

* San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - we went stargazing in the desert. We learned lots from a lovely young Chilean astronomy student and saw what the sky looks like in the Southern hemisphere. We saw the milky way and Jupiter with four of its moons (apparently it has about 83 moons)! We also saw nebulas, which made me think of Laura Kenwright :)

It's hard to take a picture through a telescope, but here is Jupiter with four of its moons

* San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - birds playing football with a grape. No, seriously. To combat the high prices in Chile and adhere to our budget we bought fruit for breakfast and ate it in the main square. This was the same square with the cafe where the llama had visited us the day before. One of our grapes rolled on to the ground. Before long, a group of tiny sparrow-like birds landed to examine the unidentified object. They tried to eat it, but their tiny beaks just pecked at it, causing the grape to roll off in different directions. They were playing 'beak-ball', or 'grape-ball'. It tickled me.

* Mendoza, Argentina - drinking the delicious glass of Malbec in front of me, while I type. YUM.

                   Vineyards in Mendoza with grapes that make some of the world's finest wine

Right, I'm going to finish this glass of red and get to bed. We have a bus to catch to Santiago early tomorrow.

Goodbye Ecuador, thanks for all the volcanoes

The time has finally come to say goodbye to this old 1990s musical chestnut! Thank God. It has been whirling around my head all month.

                                                   Sash! - Ecuador (press play at your own risk)

Our month (and a bit) learning Spanish in Ecuador is up. Tomorrow, Murry and I are off to navigate our way across the Colombian border at Tulcan. When I say 'navigate', we won't really do much. We will probably be groggy from sleep on a bus, perhaps watching some strange film or other, maybe featuring a wolf. 

We are heading for Popayan, a town close to where the 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit in south west Colombia last Sunday. Luckily the tremor was deep enough underground not to cause too much damage. 

The previous earthquake to hit Popayan in 1983 was not so kind. At 5.5 on the Richter scale, it destroyed/damaged many homes as well as old Colonial buildings and churches. Over one hundred deaths were counted, and many citizens were left homeless. The quake occurred at 8.15am during Easter Week, and as a result, sadly, many died due to damage caused at the main Cathedral, where Holy Friday Mass was underway. After careful and costly restoration, the city retains its old colonial charm. 

If the news is anything to go by, fingers crossed not much of the restored city has been ruined again by Sunday's earthquake. We shall see. How frustrating it must be to build a city on unhappy fault lines? All that work, and then the earth moves, and you have to go again and rebuild it all like a game of lego, except far less fun. 

I've been thinking the same about some of the other towns and cities here, built menacingly close to volcanoes. Beautiful places, but dangerous places for town planning, no? Quito is the most obvious example; a sprawling, thin capital city that stretches itself like a cat in the valley between the Andes and at the foot of Volcan Pichincha. It's huge and developed. I imagine it as a cat that's getting all cosy and doing that morning-cat-stretch-thing where they remarkably change shape completely and become really thin and twice as long. Yet, it is the only city in the world, supposedly, to be nestled at the foot of an active volcano. 

          That's Quito the cat down there somewhere, poking out from below Volcano Pichincha

Volcan Pichincha has many peaks, we climbed to the top of one of them: Rucu Pichincha (4700m). Guagua Pichincha is the active peak. The largest eruption occurred in 1660, when ash covered the city. The most recent eruption was in 2003. Fingers firmly crossed that Quito never has to have a full on brawl with the volcano. I think we know who's likely to win. 

                                           At the top of Rucu Pichincha (4700m)

If you look straight ahead between the clouds, you can make out the mighty snow-peaked Cotopaxi volcano in the distance.

In other volcano related news, we stayed in one of the only inhabited and farmed volcano craters in the world. Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve is not far from Quito and up the road from the Mitad del Mundo (Equator monument). 

            Looking down into Pululahua crater from the top before hiking down for the night

It was quite eery in the crater at night as it seemed deserted, bar the quite creepy chef in our hostel. We couldn't get the horror film 'Wolf Creek' out of our minds as we tucked ourselves up in bed. And then the cows outside started screaming, which didn't help. At first it sounded like a human man letting loose the most piercing scream, and then we realised it must be cows. I think they were having sex, I hope it was more enjoyable than it sounded.

                                        Waking up in Pululahua volcano crater

                                            Volcanic rock

   We found a geothermal pool where you could see bubbles rising to the top of the water from    the earth's core

Volcanoes aside, Ecuador has much more to offer. I might write about that another time though...will let the volcanoes have their say for now...

I love old people!

I have changed continents, and so far, the above is what I have learnt.

Murry and I woke up at 5am in London on 1st September, and ended up in our rented apartment in Quito, Ecuador exactly 24 hours later.

Flying into Quito was exciting. It was 10pm so the night outside was dotted with those glittering white and yellow city lights that always look so inviting from the sky - a bit like a man-made attempt to recreate the stars up above. What made it really exciting though, was the contours. Quito is all hills. On the outskirts of the city, where the lights stopped, we could just about make out the dark looming triangles of volcanoes.

This morning we woke up to a view of Pichincha volcano outside our window. The hills above us, and below the volcano, were scattered with whitewashed houses. What is it about hills and mountains? I can't get enough of them.

  View from our bedroom window, Quito, Ecuador

 Then there's the steep ups and downs of the cobbled streets in The Old Town, where we are staying. When we arrived we had to crouch with our arms out ready to catch our bags, by the car boot, as the steep hill would have seen them tumble out the boot and straight down the hill. 

After a big wander around Quito's Old Town today, I can confirm that my other instant love in this city is the old people.

The old people here are amazing. I have gathered this much just by watching them, like some kind of creepy reverse paedophile. I think I have a fetish. I am already scheming some kind of 'grab a granny/ adopt a grandpa' plot. The old faces here are so weather-beaten and wonderfully wrinkled. Maps of lives and stories to be told. The grandmas look so kind and wise; really open faces and lots of toothless grins. Many of them have shrunk to tiny proportions, and oh my! Their feet! Old people in Ecuador have the smallest feet I have ever seen!! Their shoes are tiny.

My favourite grandma so far is an old lady I spied in The Plaza Grande who can't have been more than 3 feet tall. She was wearing a white dress and a big colourful woolly cardigan with slippers on her feet (tiny slippers of course). She was wandering around eating an ice-cream cone. That was it really. I didn't speak to her, I just fell a bit in love from a distance.

Murry sometimes gets annoyed when I say old people are cute. They are, after all, much older, wiser and more experienced than we are, so it's pretty patronising. But I mean cute in a lived, totalled, whole, shrunken again, and 'they-don't-give-a-shit' kind of way. They tend not to rush about like us younger folk, preoccupied with forwards and back, ups and downs, ego worries and life strains. They are sort of done with it and let go. Sometimes it seems people revert to a sort of childlike form in old age. Maybe we shed all of those other layers, keep the lessons we have learned and perhaps just learn to be a bit still with it all? 

Anyhow, still a bit jetlagged. I had a huge siesta earlier (could get used to this lifestyle).

Tomorrow we are going to look for a Spanish school to try and get our tongues rolling out the lingo. Then perhaps, once the language is on my side, I can start making my moves on some of the old folk...

All very wrong, I apologise. I really just mean have some innocent chatter with them.