Ecuador - A smelly bag and a fake experiment

Arriving about a week too late, I still didn`t want to rush it too much and allowed myself 7 days to see at least some of the most important places in Ecuador. Within one week I made it to the super pretty city Cuenca, to beautiful Baños, to the amazing crater lake of Quilotoa, to the obligatory tourist destination of Mitad del Mundo and of course the capital Quito.

My first impression of Ecuador was the shitty bus service. Although I don`t really need the alround service of Peruvian bus companies, which sometimes take security a bit too serious I think (fingerprints, passport checks and video filming before departure), I really like to have more than 15cm leg space, especially on a night bus. So in addition to no comfort, one company returned my backpack soaked in fishwater when I got off in Baños. First I didn`t recognize the smell but later it was pretty obvious. Fortunately I had my cover on the backpack and only a little bit soaked through, but even hard handwashing couldn`t kill the smell entirly so far. Obviously I am not the first one with this experience, because the staff at the hostel in Baños was quite unimpressed and just asked me if I came from the coast.

But apart from that, Ecuador really is a nice place. So much greener than northern Perú and friendlier people in the streets. Everybody likes to help out and answers questions whenever you are lost or just not sure. Laguna Quilotoa is a place not to be missed when going to Ecuador I think. An impressive crater lake that makes for stunning views and good hikes. Remembering that Melbourne is supposed to be the city of 4 seasons in one day - Ecudor is the country of 4 seasons in 4 hours. On my way from Baños to Quilotoa i went through everything from fog, to burning sunshine, to rain, and finally to hail. Then sunshine again - pretty impressive when you don`t know what the weather will be like in the next 15 minutes.

Finally Quito is a pretty nice place, too. The Equator is only 22km away and has some nice museums. At the new one, where there is supposed to be the real equator line measured with GPS, they do a lot of demonstrations like the classical sink experiment which shows water flowing clockwise on the southern hemisphere and counter clockwise on the northern one due to the Coriolis force. My group was unlucky because I disillusioned them by showing them that the experiment is fake and that this force doesn`t have any effect on such small amounts of water. After we put the sink on the equator, then 2 meters to the South and then 2 meters to the North, I asked the guide if I could move the sink around to another position. Suddenly the water spun around in the other direction and the guide admitted that it should just give an idea of how it works - buhu!! However I didn`t say much more about the egg and the strength experiments - I guess the guide would have been mad at me...

Then after one week of restless traveling I thought Saturday night might be the right time to hit the nightlife scene of Quito and see what bars and clubs would have to offer. Unfortunately at 9pm I had to find out that it was election week and nobody was allowed to sell alcohol or be drunk??!! That meant no bars, no clubs, nothing. A city of 2million people just dead on a Saturday night. I couldn`t believe it, but I had to face this sad truth. They say Ecuatorians are irresponsible when they drink, and especially during election week they would drink too much and then kill, fight, drive cars and walk around the streets without caution - hmmm anyone for a drink with Ecuatorians to prove the statement??

I already arrived in Colombia and again received a tourist visa that exceeds the expiry date of my passport by far. I really would love to try an cross a border with a totally invalid one now - I am sure it`s possible!!

soon ST SB CT

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Gone MAD!

Wow, what a week! Somehow I have the impression that all my reports from Perú have to start either with the words wow, or amazing, or incredible. Why is that? Maybe because I wasn`t expecting much when I first came here. Maybe because I meet incredible people all the time here. Maybe because I stay longer in every place than I actually planned. I mean during the first week Perú was pretty much what I expected - with touristy Lago Titicaca, tourist trap Cuzco and Machu (Rip off) Picchu. But after that... wow!

So anyways, let`s not waste precious time and words. The last week I worked for M.A.D. (Make a difference) Voluntarios in Pisco. In this little city of 90.000 inhabitants an estimated 80% of the buildings either collapsed or were seriously damaged during the last earthquake in 2007. As there were "only" about 600 deaths and some 2000 injuries, the president declared this earthquake of 8.0 on the Richter Scale as not serious and therefore Pisco didn`t receive any international aid. Only desaster relief voluntary groups like M.A.D., Burners without Borders, or Pisco sin fronteras arrived to help people sort out their lives and housing situations.

So I thought I might be able to use some of the strength I gained during my last weeks at high altitude to do some good for a couple of days. Planing to stay only for a couple of days I moved into the M.A.D. House. Immediately I had to find out that the work is very rewarding and the people I worked and live with were very clever, ambitious and really keen to Make A Difference. Thus my 3 day plan turned into more than a week and leaving was not easy. I would have loved to stay longer but time`s running out and there´s still so many places to visit on the way to Bogotá...

To just give you an idea of what I did while I was there. First, we moved a house and poured a concrete floor for this lovely old lady who has to look after her disabled sister. She lives in a hut with mud floor and walls of straw since the earthquake. We went to a school to paint and renew tables and chairs, we dug holes to errect a wall and a roof for another disadvantaged lady, we taught English at the house as well as at an institute, and we improved our own house to host more volunteers and set up signs in streets so they can find us. I also operated as a translator since spanish speakers are somehow scarce amongst volunteers.

The learning part for me this time not only included practical things like woodworks, concrete and paint but also how to talk to the people and how to find out whom to help and how. It`s not easy when people know how volunteers assess personal situations and then hide valuables or make up stories to get their work done for free. Unreliability is the next big problem. So it just happened that 8 people were waiting at 9am on Thursday for a guy who has been promised help with his concrete floor. He was supposed to pick us up but never showed up - no phone call, nothing. Obviously help wasn`t that necessary.

A nice thing is to walk around with the Voluntary T-shirt. All of a sudden prices are only half as much and shopping at the market gets incredebly cheap. So maybe help is appreciated.

Going fishing, playing chess, having lunch at Chicho`s, dancing like crazy in the front yard and taking care of the mental cat called Fleebag added some unforgettable flair to my stay. I really wish I could have stayed longer.

Thanks Jun, William, Robin, Hanna, Ashley, Katie, Dom. Keep doing the shit you do, you are doing it really good - the concept of the house is perfect, just maintain it!! I will look for new smart volunteers...

Check Mate!

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View from the Summit

Wow, this has been an experience. One of the greatest ones ever I guess. I climbed the Chachani - a volcano that is just a little over 6km high. 6075m to be precise. In a two day approach me and 5 others of my group reached the peak. The first day we just did a little warm up and carried all the equipment from 5150m where the Jeeps dropped us off to 5400m where the base camp needed to be errected. After some sort of dinner everybody went to bed (tent) and tried to sleep at some degrees below zero. Nobody really slept. Tim, who claimed to have slept 1 hour while we had our breakfast at 1:30am was envied by the rest of the group .

At 2:30am we begann the ascend. 6 hours of crawling uphill followed. 6 hours in which everybody was constantly contemplating their own physical and mental condition and probability to reach the peak. I must say that I never walked that slow before. At an altitude of more than 5000m every step costs a lot of energy. If you do one step to fast, your lungs and your heart will immediately remind you that their power is limited. The closer we got to the top the more breaks we took. While we more or less walked the first two hours without any breaks, towards the end sometimes breaks were neccessary every 15 steps.

The weather was perfect for the ascend, almost no wind and moderate temperatures. They say Chachani is a good mountain with a good spirit and good energy. Well, he (actually in Quechua this mountain is female) more or less took all my energy but the feeling that you get standing on the top compensates for everything.

At this point I really have to thank my tour guide Yudy so much. Without her I certainly would not have made it to the top. She taught me many important things like how to breathe, when to eat, when to drink, how to walk. I doped myself with coca leaves and Nasenspray to fight my cold and any possible altitude sickness and apart from some stomach aches (because of wrong breathing) I only had to fight against my inner Schweinehund to accomplish my mission.

I am very happy I did it and actually can only recommend doing it to everyone, because words cannot describe what it feels like. And in the end it definetly is something that changes you and your perception of things - and 100% positive

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Machu (Rip Off) Picchu

I doubt that I have ever felt more like a dumb tourist. Well, some might argue now that I am, but I usually don`t feel like one I must admit.

Machu Picchu is the top tourist destination in South America and once you go there you won`t doubt it a second. Wherever you look, there are well equipped gringos with all their professional camera and outdoor gear or my so loved hippies, with all their beards and hair and odor and fancy dresses. Simply everyone goes to Machu Picchu but not everyone refuses to pay the $120 for the 4 hour train ride.

Some people like me take the cheap version. Instead of taking the direct train for 4 hours from Cuzco, I had to catch a bus to St. Maria (6hours), then transfer to St. Theresa (1hour), stay there over night, get the first taxi at 6 a.m. to Hydroeclectrica (40min) and then walk 2 hours on disused train tracks. Of course I wanted to save the $7 rip off fare for the shuttle bus to the top of Machu Picchu as well, so I had to walk or rather climb another hour to the top, where a super friendly lady (this is ironic!) took my $40 entrance fee.

Pretty exhausted from the first 10km walking that day I decided to take the bus down and was willing to pay the 7 Nuevas Soles until I was friendly reminded that the sign means Dollars, not the Peruvian currency. So I put my 10 Soles bill back in my pocket and walked the 2km track down again. Then I thought, wow man you saved so much money, just pamper yourself a bit and take the train half way back and from there the bus, so you avoid walking all the way back and save about 6hours. But when the super friendly lady at the counter of the Peru Rail (monopolies are bad, very bad!!) told me that the 1,5 hour train ride would cost me $66 (btw. for Peruvians $1) I resigned one more time, turned around and once again set foot on the disued train tracks with my super hiking boots for another 2 hours. I started calling my 20km walk that day, the longest foot massage ever, as I guess my 5mm soles are not exactly proper boots for train tracks. Anyways, I ended up paying about $60 for the 2 day trip including food and accomodation or let`s say I ended up saving $130 or so. I call that success.

Apart from all that, Machu Picchu is nice, very nice, even nicer and more spectacular set than I expected. Only tourists will eventually trample it down. Experts say, the walking paths draw back by 1cm per month...

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Bolivia - du schönes Land

Having said that Chile gave me back my travel spirit, Bolivia doubled it! Un País tan diferente! As my photos have already been online for a while, some impressions are already comunicated. But even they cannot reflect the actual beauty and the feeling that you get traveling this country. From the High Andes, the largest salt flat in the world, the highest city, the most dangerous road, the highest capital, the largest indigenous population and the highest mayor lake to the Amazon - Bolivia has it all. It has all but beaches. But honestly, nobody will miss them, given the mentioned abundance of sights.

Of course all this beauty has its price and that comes as follows:

• Single room (including breakfast): $4
• Set lunch (soup, main, desert): $1,40
• Taxi (2h inter city): $3,90
• DVD: $0,90
• Cinema: $1,10
• Internet (per hour): $0,28
• Shoe cleaning: $0,28

Traveling the country is pretty easy and although some mugging stories can be heard every now and then, accidents are more of a danger. The poor hospital facilities receive regularly tourists from the Uyuni Salt Flat tours or the Mountain Bike tours just outside La Paz. Amongst Backpackers horror stories about drunk drivers and bus crashes are quite popular and unfortunately mostly true. So one should be quite careful but if you use common sense, Bolivia is beyond limits.

Every day dozens of tourists take the famous Camino de la Muerte - a road that has only been closed for traffic a mere 3 years ago. Until then 150 people died there every year in bus, car or truck accidents. The road winds itself along a steep mountain range with cliffs of up to 800m deep. Of course it is not paved, in some sections only 3m wide, has no guardrails, and allows traffic in both directions.

Por sopuesto, I had to take that adventure. We started with our mountainbikes at an altitude of 4766m and rode downhill for 67km. 3 hours later and 3600m closer to sea level I thought I survived the most thrilling. We stopped about every 5 to 20mins to watch car and bus wrecks in the abbys while being told when and how many people there died. 3 years ago 102 people here, 5 tourist here 2 years ago, one Israeli here just last year and one Spaniard fell down this cliff just a couple of months ago. And so on and so on...
Anyways, as I said I thought downhill was already enough, we were asked if we wanted to take the new road or the death road on the way back. I don`t know for what reason the 3 Australians immediately yelled Death Road, but it seemed to be my destiny. Another hour of adrenaline followed, while I was sitting at the window of the cliff side not being able to see the road anymore and thinking if the rain could have any serious impact to the road conditions or our minivan.

However, I survived that as well as I did the thrilling mine tour a week earlier in Potosí. Those mines are just another chapter for themselves. People working under the worst imaginable conditions, blasting themselves with self-bought dynamite through the mountain, without anybody mapping the routes they are taking (collapses only predictable). Life expectancy is still a mere 45 years and the average miner doesn`t survive his 10th year working there because of some sort of lung desease. To visit those mines you just find a former miner, buy some dynamite and coca leaves in the streets as a present and then you start crawling through the mountain. You`ll loose orientation in an instant and if you turn off your light there will be nothing but darkness. You`ll visit some devil shrines and get yourself really dirty while crawling, climbing and walking through the mines. If you are man enough you try a sip of the 96% alcohol that your guide brought and which is usually partly sacrificed to the devil and mostly drunk by the miners.

Sin embargo, now I am in Peru, got a 90 day visa although my passport is only valid another 68 days and already saw some more really impressing things but I will tell in a later post...

Liebe!

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