"Fish Don´t Get Sick"

We´ve been on the run through Ecuador for almost a week and half now and are currently in Baños, which literally means bath or bathroom. Needless to say there are many hot pools here which we are going to head to as soon as I finish this blog (jealous?). I´ll write more about our adventures here in Baños at a later date, let me first start at the start which was last Saturday when we left Quito for the sunny locale of Canoa.

We began by catching a 9 hour bus to the town of Bahia de Caraças located on the thin peninsular on the pacific coast. Labelled as an "ecocity" we expected big things but unfortunately we didn´t get much chance to explore. We got in late on Saturday night and as we have discovered, apart from a few rickshaws doing the laps nothing happens anywhere in Ecuador on Sunday mornings. We made our way via ferry, moto-rickshaw and ute (I was jammed on the back with 12 others as we swerved round potholes and passed busses at high speed) to sunny little Canoa. A very chilled out and easy place to visit, many tourists seem to get "trapped" in Canoa and spend the rest of their travel time lying in hammocks, surfing and eating delicious fresh seafood. Almost every building in town was made of bamboo, the dirt streets were full of sand and fishing boats lined the near end of the beach. There seemed to be a strong contingent of "gringos" who had married locals and settled down, which made it quite an easy tourist destination. Unfortunately it also made me forget at times that I was in Ecuador.

Tessa and I had a surf lesson which was a lot of fun if not terribly successful. We both got up on our giant floaty surfboards on a few occasions but after an hour or so we were beat and headed for some hammock time. The highlight of our stay in Canoa was hiking through coastal forest (complete with the racket of nearby howler monkeys) to a beach north of Canoa with some folk from our hostel. The beach was beautiful and deserted save for a group of fishermen camped up halfway down the beach. They spend a week at a time camping out at the beach and fishing from their boat in the mornings. They shared some freshly caught crab with us as we sat with them under a tree sheltering from the sweltering sun. We spent the rest of the day exploring the rock pools at the end of the beach and swimming in the sea. A very relaxed day.

I should mention at this stage that two days after we began our travels in earnest, we were subject to our first theft. I had (foolishly) left my beloved Vans shoes outside our room in Canoa along with everyone elses swim gear and shoes. When we returned from the pub that night someone had carefully removed my smelly socks and had swiped my shoes, but everything else was strangely untouched. More of an inconvenience than anything else, I think I´ll be glad if that is the worst thing that happens to us on this trip.

Unlike many we managed to break free from the wierd vibe that traps so many travellers and we took three buses and a ferry to Puerto Lopez. Despite what we had heard from other travellers, when we arrived in Puerto Lopez, we found a vibrant, if a little dirty, beach town complete with intense beach football, hordes of bobbing blue fishing boats and streets packed with motorbike rickshaws. Its common for visitors here to take the rickshaws out to one of two sights out of town, so whenever we walked anywhere near the centre of town we would be harangued by multitudes of rickshaws offering to take us there.

On Thursday morning we met some folks from our hostel who were heading out on a tour to Isla Salango. We had planned to do a similar but more expensive tour to Isla de la Plata (the poor man´s Galapagos) but had decided we were too cheap even for that. The tour to Isla Salango was heaps of fun, we went out on a small fishing boat with a couple of local fishermen and caught a pile of fish, the smaller ones were made into cerviche (a tasty lemony raw fish soup) on the boat and the bigger ones we took home for dinner.

After a spell of snorkling around the island we spotted a huge fish flapping and floating among the rocks and we hauled it aboard. We asked the captain if the fish would be safe to eat as it might be sick, the captain replied "Fish don´t get sick". Apparently... Anyway, it seemed as though the fish had been bashed against the rocks and was now ultimately destined for our bellies.

Saturday saw us leave the coast and return to the highlands in Cuenca, a city which we quickly fell in love with but with which we ultimately had some poor travellers luck. Cuenca is a maze of cobbled streets, colonial buildings, and busy markets which give the city a lively atmosphere. It is also the cleanest city we have seen in Ecuador. Unfortunately when we got up early on Sunday morning to explore some nearby Inca ruins, we discovered they had been closed by a protest for the last week and because it was Sunday, everything else in the city was closed... all day. Hence we wandered a somewhat deserted city peering through fences at museums for most of the day.

On Monday we resolved to get out and about and head to the nearby Cajas National Park with a Swiss couple we had met at the school. The park is a highland moor with beautiful lakes and dramatic cliffs. Unfortunately after about 20 mins of walking we started to get well and truly rained out and had to abandon our planned hike after only two hours. This was topped off the next day by our bus trip to Baños taking two and a half hours longer than we expected. Yikes. So despite loving Cuenca, I left feeling a little like our stay there had been less than successful.

I´ll write a bit about our time here in Baños soon. Stay tuned.

If it´s good enough for me, it´s good enough for FIFA

So a quick bit of background. As most of you probably don´t know, FIFA (the international football association) is introducing a rule to prohibit international matches above 2600m in altitude. This has obviously proved pretty unpopular here in Quito (at 2850m) and countries like Bolivia and Peru.

As an aside I thought it appropriate at this point to chuck in a sneaky long exposure night shot of Quito from the roof of our house. This has nothing to do with football. Ahem, please continue.

So last night I was invited to play my first game of football in South America. At first I thought it was just going to be a quiet kick about at the park but when we arrived at the indoor football arena and I fronted up in my Vans, I knew I was gonna be outta my depth. The stereotype that all South Americans are good at football is completely accurate and I soon realised that the only way I was going to hold my own was to run around frantically in defense and just generally try and get in the way as much as possible. I think I managed to mostly succeed in these endevours but after madly running around at high altitude with my baggy shorts, skate shoes and red face and after diving in for some ridiculous tackles I earned the nickname ¨loco¨. Seems I´ve brought down the bright reputation of NZ soccer and reversed all the good work of the 1982 All Whites.

Last week Tessa and I visited La Capilla del Hombre (the Chapel of Man), another Guayasumin museum which was designed by the artist himself with construction completed shortly after his death. His premise was to design a space for art dedicated to the struggles of man as opposed to one dedicated to a deity, as he had travelled through much of central and south america during some of the worst times in their history, his artwork strongly reflects this idea. The museum itself was enormous, the proportions of which made us feel dwarfed. There was an interesting area showing pictures of Guayasumin rubbing shoulders with such luminaries as Fidel Castro and Chairman Mao. The whole area of the complex was peaceful but felt somewhat out of place in a reasonably working class neighbourhood. Just over the fence from this fancy museum were rows of concrete block houses complete with washing hung on every available space.

We were just out to lunch at a spot near the university which serves delicious empanadas and giant menestras (a huge plate of rice, meat, fried banana and beans). Unfortunately a Canadian girl who we were with got her bag swiped from the back of her chair while we ate! It really sucks because she only had spanish notes and her glasses in the bag, nothing of any value to anyone else. The owners of the restaurant were really helpful and drove round trying to spot the people who had done the deed but to no avail. We have to try to be careful with our stuff all the time here, very different to back home.

We were invited to a BBQ for couch surfers on Saturday, in fact we didnt have to go very far cause it was at our house. It was a good chance to meet some new folks and to try out our spanish on poor unsuspecting locals. It happened that the BBQ coincided with the birthday of one of the ladies and her husband had organised a very traditional Ecuadorian surprise for her, Mexican Mariachi Singers. Before we knew what was happening they had bowled up the stairs and had us dancing, singing, clapping and stamping our feet. Very fun and very random. After downing many more drinks we bowled into town for some Schwarma (kebabs for those back home) and a bit of a boogie. All in all a pretty good night.

We have 4 more days of lessons left! Hoorah. Not that we are sick of learning spanish or feel that we have in any way mastered the language but our feet are getting itchy and its not athelete´s foot this time. On Saturday we head for the coast for some new adventures.

JUST WHAT YOU¨VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

HELLO WORLD!! I promised my younger, blonder sister that I would write some of this blog thing as a special birthady present to her. She turns 23 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! So finally you will all get a much awaited piece of my mind (can I hear groaning.....).



Hmmmmm........so a few things about Ecuador that you may or may not know that we have discovered since our arrival:

• There are 100´s of weird and wonderful fruits here that we had never heard of before. My personal favourite is this thing that looks like a strawberry that needs a good wax job. I´ll try and post a picture of one soon.


• You can buy an almuerzo (set lunch) here for $1.50 - $2.00 US. This includes fresh juice, soup, a main (rice, random unidentifiable meat and salad - which consists of a slice of tomato or a slither of lettue) and dessert! That´s a bloody bargain of you ask me.


• Bottled beer is cheaper than bottled water....this is a good excuse.


• People will give you directions to places regardless of whether or not they actually know where it is.


• Regardless of trip length, there is still space for more passengers on a bus if the door can close (note: the floor above the motor really burns your arse).

Wilson and I have just completed our 6th week at the Spanish school here and now have only one more week to go. We are itching to hit the road. We have discovered that it isn´t possible to become fluent at a language in 6 weeks, but are hoping that one more week of lessons should iron out any remaining creases... I have also noticed that it is very important to use the correct person when speaking. My host mother was both slightly offended and amused when I said, "You need to buy deodorant" instead of "I need to buy deodorant".. Ooops, I think she forgave me.

Since this could quite likely be all that I ever write in this blog (due to my sheer laziness) I hope that you have savoured every last morsel. I will tell Wilson to write some more interesting stuff once we hit the road.

I hear that cheese in NZ is now $15 a block...!! Is it true?