Quito

Along the beautiful road to Quito we had our first views of the wonderful Ecuadorean countryside, local people, and cuy BBQs. Cuy is a popular local cuisine. Cuy is guinea pig!!

After a long, uncomfortable bus ride we finally reached ‘The Secret Garden’ hostel in Quito. A lovely hostel with an amazing roof terrace looking over Quito.

After starting to read and investigate what Ecuador has to offer we quickly learn we are in trouble! There is TOOOOOO much to do and see. Not sure where to start we booked ourselves a week of Spanish lessons with the hilarious Santiago. Our lessons were solely conversation based on the tenses we have learnt to date and very good for us. We found ourselves able to chat about all sorts, although Gio broke it to me after one lesson that we had been slipping in to English to fill the gaps without even realising it! But still, it’s all progress.

Saturday we headed on the bus back out of town to a town called Otavalo and a great local market:

We were so tired from the journey a lot of our time was spent sitting, eating and people watching rather than shopping. My lunch in Otavalo looked like this:

But it was great to see lots of Indigenous people in their traditional outfits.

A week in Quito meant plenty of time to explore and we visited the amazing churches, ate local cuisine – amazing seabass in the local market (and a tiny bit of the cerviche – raw clams!!), home made ice cream, tapioca pudding in a glass and empanados, crazy hot drinks like boiled wine or cinnamon liquer. Some great Chinese food, local pizzas, set menus (soup, rice/chicken/plaintain, pudding) for US$3. But not cuy!

A lot of the week was spent looking for a last minute Galapagos cruise! A boat is the best way to see the islands but choosing one and getting a last minute deal proved a little bit stressful. We had heard a sufficient amount about the crime in Quito to be cautious about what we took out with us and to take the normal precautions of not carrying much money. However, the travel agents with whom you book Galapagos don’t take credit cards, only cash. So Gio and I had some interesting trips to cash points, hiding money in all sorts of places and dashing around to withdraw sufficient funds for our trip. In the end we didn’t deposit the cash, and therefore book our trip until about 3.50pm the day before we flew to Galapagos! And ten minutes before the bank closed! The whole bank experience was a new one as they don’t have counter clerks you can talk to, only tv screens and shoots to send your money up! With assistance from a lovely security guard we sent our precious cash in to the never never and looked at each other nervously. Then the screen came to life and there was someone counting our cash. And with that we were going to the Galapagos! We celebrated with ‘Pan de yucca’ and yoghurt drinks. Slightly strange cheesy, yucca bread filled with chocolate!

The Basilica in Quito - with great opportunities for climbing and exploring every inch of it!

Great people watching in Quito:

Beautiful churches:

Christmas, New Years and new country

Christmas lights, Medellin

Christmas is rapidly feeling like a million years ago, and we have already managed to cram a lot in to 2010.

From the coffee finca in the middle of Colombia we moved back up the country to a city called Medellin. We had been told that the people of Medellin enthusiastically celebrate Christmas and there were an abundance of apartments to let, and so we hired ourselves a very, very lovely apartment for 11 days over Christmas and new years.

First stop, after a complicated cab ride was the supermarket. The supermarkets in Medellin were vast and fun to wonder round. They start with food courts and mix your own salads where people love to mix fruit, yoghurt, cereal, cheese...yes cheese altogether in giant containers for their lunches. We also happened across the clothing section and a lovely pair of pants with added bum padding for those who favour a more curvaceous look – not something Gio or I needed to invest in!

Christmas ended up being a quiet affair, but filled with great food – especially as mum had amazingly organised about 5 or 6 deliveries for Christmas eve including chocolate, wine, cheese, bread, cakes and flowers! Christmas eve Gianni and I hit the local shopping centre and gave each other a small budget and an hour to buy gifts for each other. The gifts had to fit the criteria of light weight or consumable, that plus the budget made it somewhat challenging, but it was great fun running around with everyone else doing their last minute shopping. So our Christmas was spent chatting to family, eating, napping and watching the wonderful movie ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Lovely.

Between Christmas and new year we explored more of Medellin including their amazing Christmas lights – yes just when we thought that we had seen the best, there was Medellin.

Their lights are centred along the river and everyone goes down for the evening and there is live music, food stalls and entertainers.

I enjoyed trying the local sweet – still not sure what it was called but I was sold by the guy making it’s claim ‘mi amore it took 3 hours to make and only cost 50c’, and it was delicious!

Gio, having let his hair grow for a record number of weeks finally chose a hairdressers in Medellin, I was promptly sat between two hair dressers (and their giant hairdryers) whilst waiting and the whole experience for both of us was very hot! But, as always, very entertaining.

Despite expectations for Medellin as a party town, New Year also turned out to be a quiet time as Colombian’s spend it with their family. So we found a nice little restaurant called ‘Barcelona’ and counted in the new year over pasta and cocktails.

We also organised a few days of Spanish lessons with the lovely Dora, whom I considered to be extra lovely as she bought chocolate prizes for the winner of her Spanish quiz (me). And so the challenge continued with our struggling Spanish.

With the arrival of new years day we started thinking about what next and realised we had somehow spent 7 weeks in Colombia and could easily spend 7 more but then we wouldn’t ever make it to Argentina! And so we packed up and headed 10 hours south to Cali. Another great city, we stayed in a gorgeous district and ate under the stars – but much to the owner of the hostel’s distress at our missing Cali we moved on the next day and headed to Popayan. A significant step closer to the border.

Popayan was a gorgeous town,

unfortunately with another hard Colombian bed so not the most restful time but we found Juan Valdez (Colombia’s excellent answer to Starbucks) and spent our day filling up on various coffee concoctions and catching up. Obviously not on the blog!

The food was also great in Popayan and we found some great steak restaurants, the first waiter questioned that I, as a girl, would manage the steak I had ordered, of course I surprised him with my eating abilities!

Popayan art:

As we moved to our final destination in Colombia, a border town called Ipiales, we also encountered local celebrations of the festival de blanco y negro – a day where historically owners of slaves allowed them to paint their faces white for a day and then the next day the owners painted their faces black. Now this means a lot of people with cans of white spray foam or black spray paint! So our bus was witness to lots of street side spray ‘attacks’ which was hilarious (from the protection of glass windows!).

Ipiales is not a very beautiful city to end your time in Colombia, it was hectic due to the festival and lively – and had a very beautiful monastery just out of town.

But also had the worst hotel we have stayed in to date (a bank breaking US $8) and we were glad to step out in to the sunshine and a taxi for the border.

The border crossing to Ecuador was very uneventful, and easy – and straight away we realised how cheap Ecuador was going to be for transport, about US$1 per hour of travel! Next stop Quito.

Medellin, the birth place of Botero

Coffee

19 - 23rd December 09

When we left Ibague there were more tears as we said farewell to Berenice, William and Carolina, and hopped in a taxi to the bus station to get the 12 o’clock bus to Pereira. Being the weekend before Christmas we should probably have anticipated it might be busy and we found the bus was full and the next one not for another hour at least. But several families making similar journeys adopted us and advised we get a bus to Armenia and change buses there with their assistance. So with that we found ourselves travelling in a merry group and exchanging broken Spanish for much of the journey to Armenia. We fielded several amusing questions including ‘if you are both from the UK why does one of you have dark eyes and one light eyes?’ and ‘don’t you think bull fighting is beautiful’ and ‘why don’t you have children, I have 7’!

Unfortunately we arrived in Pereira about two hours later than we had hoped and the owner of the finca due to collect us had been waiting around for us. To make it worse we later found out it was his birthday and so we felt really bad about messing him about – we should have known better with Colombian buses! However, we were warmly welcomed on arrival to Finca Villa Martha; both buy Martha and buy their three giant Alsations.

Gio and Mateau:

One of the amazing birds on the bird table outside the finca:

The first thing we were given, as you might expect at a coffee hacienda, was a cup of coffee. We can’t even begin to describe how good it was. The best coffee we have ever had. This was followed by a giant dinner and we crawled in to bed and fell asleep quickly. Sadly the sleep didn’t last long as a house just down the track was having a party, and when Colombians party they do so loudly and for days. This one lasted until Sunday evening and favoured techno music!

Still it couldn’t detract from the beauty of our surroundings, the land in the coffee zone is gorgeous,

Raphael gave us a tour of the coffee process from picking to grinding beans (and drinking of course) ..

My excellent bean picking:

Raphael and the drying/sorting machine (not it's official name):

The roasting machine:

He only makes enough to sell at the finca, but that needs to be a fair amount – for example the French couple with us bought 13 x 500gram packets!

We spent a blissful few days at the Finca, longer than originally planned, walking and swimming and studying Spanish. And of course drinking A LOT of coffee.

It’s probably just as well it was time to leave when it was as we rapidly started to reach the point where we couldn’t fit our clothes! Breakfast alone was made up of at least three carbohydrates (rice, arepas, bread), lunch the same and dinner even more plus soup and dessert!

Having a little rest after a walk around the gorgeous countryside:

Ibague Week two (yes sometime last year!)

The neighbourhood's christmas lights.

For our last weekend in Ibague we happily enjoyed chilling out and catching up on emails and Spanish. We did manage to venture out on Saturday with Berenice, William and Carolina (Berenice who runs the centre and her two kids). Having failed to find a bowling alley, and having spent some time watching all the locals play a game that involved clay and gun powder, and then we settled for a slap up meal in a fried chicken joint! Seemingly the place where a lot of families spend their Saturday night as it was buzzing. Possibly not the healthiest meal we have ever consumed but surprisingly good.

A very attractive mannequin in an Ibague shop window!

We made our first proper Spanish mistakes, well turns out I have been making the same mistake for some time. In order to avoid asking for coke in a bar I have been trying to order a ‘ron y cola’ for my entire time in latin America and without success. This weekend we finally figured out why. I have been asking for a ‘rum and bum’. Oh dear. That explains a lot.

So, to make me feel better I am sure, Gio followed suit and said to Berenice ‘Necesitamos pegarte para la cena anoche’ – feeling quite pleased with ourselves we were confused by the look on her face. Until she asked why we need to punch her for the dinner last night!

Towards the end of the week Berenice and Lina (the teacher at the centre) took us for a walk down the river to see where most of the kids lived. Although we had an idea about their homes it didn’t make it any easier to see. We visited the home of the gorgeous Vanessa – she and her two sisters and brother live with their mum (who is 8 months pregnant) in one room which serves as kitchen/bedroom/everything. Corregated iron roof, tarpaulin walls, dirt floor, five people in a bunk bed and a single bed with a baby to come. Yet the kids are always smiling, proud to show you their rooms and the toys they have. As was the case for every family whose homes we saw.

The adorable Vanessa:

The second visit we made was to a set of homes further up the river that were balanced precariously a bit higher up. The house/room we visited had bamboo floors and nothing else underneath and we walked very gingerly thinking they weren’t made for our weight! This time six people and one double bed with some sort of fold out mattress, a gas stove top and a fridge that wasn’t actually plugged in. We felt rubbish that we had been moaning about the cold showers and bunk beds back at the house. The visits also made it clearer why the kids love coming to the centre each day.

The week was filled with the usual eating far too much, Nury seemed to pick up on our enthusiasm for food and gave us more and more tasters throughout the week. Friday we ate the most, including a new favourite food discovery. Chop up plantain, deep fry it, smash it flat with a stone, fry again – and serve with a freshly made omelette on the top. We had 4 each...

Some one else enjoying the omlette:

Friday crept up on us, as did the time to start saying farewells. We were both taken aback by how lovely our final afternoon with the kids was. There was a farewell presentation and kids stood up and sang a couple of little songs that meant they will miss us – apparently! They had all made us cards, and we were given t shirts and had a giant group photo. After only two weeks at the centre it was really lovely to feel like we had made any kind of impact on everyone and there were a fair amount of tears with the goodbyes (mostly mine admittedly).

Xiomara and Marina:

And so we finish our first volunteering experience, it’s with a giant dose of perspective, some marked improvement in our Spanish (maybe not with any style but we can communicate at last), and two very round bellies!