Market Day

Well Mike finally got a chance to upload some more pictures, so I'll fill you in on the wacky and wonderful Guamote market. I think it truly was one of my favorite experiences thus far.

As usual the locals woke us up at the butt crack of dawn, though we opted to put in ear plugs and stay in bed until 7 or so. With all the hubbub outside we just couldn't sleep any later than that though. Mike grabbed his camera, we both donned our money belts, and we set out to see what was what in the famous highland market.

People were pouring into the town from all over. I would guess that just about every town within a 75 kilometer radius turned into a ghost town while Guamote swelled. We saw buses full of people, trucks full of livestock, and bike carts full of just about everything else. The entire town was transformed into one giant market.



There are just a few people on their way to the market in this picture, but you get a taste of the scene. You can see people in a pickup truck, a bike cart (not nearly as loaded as usual), and a live piggy in the back of another truck.

There were entire sections dedicated to different types of goods, too. For instance, there was a soccer field dedicated to cows (of the live variety); a street for knit sweaters; a square for ponchos; a train platform for fruits and vegetables; a covered pavillion for grains; and at least several blocks each for jewelry, bike parts, dairy products, herbs and spices, hats, sheep, pig parts, kitchen utensils, etc.



This is where you come if you're in the market for a cow. I'm not sure where the pigs and goats and sheep and chickens were being kept, but we saw one woman literally dragging a sheep down the road. I thought it was dead because it looked completely limp, but a minute later it was on its feet.



This man was hard at work in the poncho district. Not only were there ready-made ponchos for sale, but there were also a dozen old-school foot-pumped sewing machines cranking out new items.



The train station served as the premier spot for fruits and veggies. As you can see, the stands encroached upon the tracks. Luckily the train only runs three days a week. Can you imagine the havoc if one came barrelling through on the wrong day?



This is the grains pavillion, although there was a little overlap with the veggies section. You could literally buy a 50 kilo sack of rice or pasta or carrots. What would you do with so many carrots?



The highland women favor necklaces with at least 8 strands of colorful beads. I got a pretty blue necklace, which you will undoubtedly see in later pics of me.



The herbs and spices were attractively displayed in full sacks, from which you could acquire the necessary amount of product for your cooking needs.



Here are the oh-so-popular Panama hats. Quite the variety, eh? Now picture at least 20 more haberdashers, most of whom are set up on the same street.



This picture reminds me of Lord of the Flies for some reason... But seriously, who would buy such a thing? The people running the stand would offer chunks of pig to passersby for a quick snack -- kind of like the sample people at the gorcery store. And we did see one woman purchase a head, which was promptly stuffed into a plastic bag. Gross.



These women are haggling over the price of a guinnea pig, which will undoubtedly end up as someone's dinner.

We went crazy shopping for souvenirs. We both picked up a Panama hat (complete with a peacock feather), knit llama socks, and a knit llama hat with ear flaps. In addition, Mike got a hammock, a purple poncho, and llama gloves, and I got a beaded necklace and beaded earrings.



Here Mike is displaying his recent purchases. He almost blends in now.

The food was tasty as well. For breakfast we had fried empanadas de queso and arroz con leche. We eat a lot of empanadas de queso, although we usually just get them from a bakery and they aren't fried. The arroz con leche was new though. Basically, it consists of hot milk with chunks of rice in it. It's pretty tasty at first, but by the time I got to the bottom of my rather small glass I was ready to hurl. It's pretty sweet and very thick.

Mike and I have also grown accustomed to the very cheap and often tasty almuerzos (lunches) you can get in Ecuador. You don't get a lot of choice when you order almuerzos (restaurants usually have a very fixed menu), but sometimes you get to decide if you want your meat fried or prepared in some other manner. We're not sure what the other option is, so we usually get it fried. At any rate, lunch usually starts out with some kind of soup. This often consists of a broth seasoned with onions and cilantro, which contains potatoes and chunks of unidentifiable meat (often covered in gristly fat and still attached to large bones). If you ignore the meat, the soups are generally very tasty. The second course usually consists of rice, an ensalada (salad of lettuce, onions, tomatoes, etc.), and that fried meat I mentioned. Once again, I'm not really sure what the meat is, but unlike the fatty soup meat, this stuff is usually lean and marinated in something yummy. Often, the lunch is topped off with some kind of juice (maybe piña) and sometimes a few banana chips or fried plantains. Mike and I usually both eat almuerzos and order a couple of cokes in addition to the juice for $4 or less. It's quite the deal.

After spending all morning perusing the market and after eating lunch, we took off on our bikes for Alausí. The ride was cold and foggy, but we made it to town. Our goal for Alausí was to ride the famed train over la Nariz del Diablo (the Nose of the Devil), which is an especially steep section of the Andes.



This foggy view of Alausí is from about 1500 feet above the town. We dropped that much in elevation during the last 3 kilometers of our ride. Needless to say, it was a steep approach into town.

From now on I am going to try to make my blogging coincide a bit better with the pictures that Mike uploads. Therefore, you'll have to wait until next time for the pics and stories of our train ride. It's kind of fun this way, right? I get to play Scheherazade and keep you hungering for more! Bwa-ha-ha!

Lonely Planet Sucks!

Well, our plan to bike all the way up the Andes failed, but not for the reason many of you might suspect. My thighs were handling the ascent quite well; in fact, on our first day we made it up to about 6000 feet (around 3000 up from where we started). We made it a grand total of only 25 kilometers, though. The elevation gain wasn’t the problem, oh no; the problem was that the road is in horrendous condition.

According to our Lonely Planet guidebook, “The old mule trail joining Macas with the highland town of Guamote is now a paved road.” Lonely Planet can kiss my ass. Lonely Planet needs to do a bit of fact checking before putting something like that in print.

Like the road between Puyo and the Rio Pastaza, sections of this road were simply not meant for bikes. We had to wade through some creeks that went over the road, swerve constantly around rocks, and even walk our bikes for significant stretches. At one point we came across some construction workers and heavy equipment toiling in a giant mud pit. We thought there had been a landslide. After 4 kilometers of pushing our bikes through 6 inches of sticky, sloppy mud we realized that the “landslide” was really just a poorly executed road-expansion project. Yuck!



This is not the result of a landslide, nor is it a paved road.

After our first day of biking (a whopping 25 kilometers!) we camped out in a lookout tower on the corner of Sangay National Park. It afforded wonderful views of the mountains and provided an excellent spot to pitch a tent. It also left us with only 3 kilometers to bike to 9 de Octubre (yes, they name their streets and even towns after important dates in Ecuador) in the morning – which is just what we did.



Here's an early morning pic of our fantastic campsite.

Once we got to “Nueve,” as the locals call it, we reassessed our situation. Considering the heavy rain that we woke up to, the more and more frequent patches of mud, the painfully rocky road, and the kilometers we’d have to make up from our shorter-than-planned ride the previous day, we decided to take a bus for the next stretch. Mike really wanted to make it to Guamote by Wednesday since the Thursday morning market is supposed to be one of the best in the highlands. We knew we couldn’t make it in time riding the whole way on dirt/rock roads. We had planned for pavement (thanks again, Lonely Planet). Given all of this, we took the bus from 9 de Octubre to Cebadas.

From Cebadas we biked the last 15-20 kilometers to Guamote, and we were both glad that we rode that stretch. The weather had improved and the scenery was great: highland pastures full of cows, wooly sheep, and hairy black pigs. The people along the way were also very friendly and wore the colorful traditional garb of the highlands, which includes Panama hats (which originated in Ecuador), shawls or ponchos, heavy wool skirts or slacks, and galoshes. You’d be surprised what these people can haul on their backs with just a piece of fabric as a sling, too. Sometimes we’ll see women with huge bundles that make them look like hunchbacks, but when we look closer there are inevitably tiny feet sticking out the bottom. That’s usually all you can see of the kids who get carried around in such a bizarre manner. Once we saw a woman carrying what looked like half an acre’s worth of hay, too.



We encountered beautiful mountain scenery after our bus ride.



Can't you almost smell the crisp mountain air when looking at this photo?



Here's a trio of indigenous women sitting on a curb. The Panama hats are much more popular than the strange beanies with pom-pons, so this in an atypical photo. The bright colors are pretty represetative though. Just wait until the next post which will feauture market-day photos!



This is what I mean when I say that it is amazing to see what these people haul on their backs!

After our pleasant 20 kilometer ride to Guamote from Cebadas we settled down to wait for market day on Thursday morning. We arrived Tuesday night instead of Wednesday since we cheated and took a bus for part of the way. If we hadn't we probably wouldn't have even made it by Thursday night, though, so I don't feel too guilty. And I'm definitely glad we were able to witness the market because it was probably my favorite experience in Ecuador so far!

I don't think I can do justice to the market without the pictures to go with it (and Mike hasn't uploaded them yet), so I'm going to save that story for the next post. Suffice it to say for now that it was quite the spectacle. We had a blast people watching and we walked away with quite a few souvenirs as well. That's the teaser -- now you'll just have to wait until next time. In order to appease you, I'll post a few more pictures from earlier on:



Mike wanted me to pick up the bug so that you could see how big it is, compared to my hand. It was squirmy and its feet had tiny hooks that clung to my skin -- I didn't like that.



Here's a picture of two of the bugs together. We found them on our ride from Puyo to the Rio Pastaza. As you can see, they are quite large. We also saw a moth that we thought was a bat at first -- it was huge!



Our first campsite on the horrible road between Puyo and Macas was in some nice family's yard.



I told you that I kissed the pavement after 40 kilometers of riding on that horrible rocky road -- here's the proof!



We really like the photos of dead pigs for some reason -- perhaps because they are so gruesomely amusing. Like this one. It almost looks like this piggy is enjoying a day at the beach, but he's not...

Since I know you've been anxiously awaiting the answer to the latest poll, here it is: $0.72. That's right, you can buy a dozen roses in Ecuador for less than a dollar! We saw a sign advertising 25 roses for $1.50. Valentine's Day must not be quite the money-making holiday for the flower shops here as it is in the States! Now that this poll has been resolved, take a stab at the latest. Also, don't forget to look at our travel map every now and then. Our Ecuador travels make us look pretty schizophrenic.

From the Andes to the Amazon

It turns out that our ride from Baños down into the Amazon river basin was not as white-knuckle a ride as the one into Baños. We dropped another couple thousand feet in elevation, but the road was graded nicely. It was also a very scenic route. We started off twisting through mountain roads at the base of the Volcan Tungurahua, and we ended up in the jungle with views of some enormous rivers that feed the Amazon. Along the way we passed about a zillion spectacular waterfalls.



One of the many, many waterfalls we passed.



The enormous river basin.

We reached the rather large town of Puyo last night and stayed on to explore it today. It's hardly what you'd expect of an Amazon jungle town (more like a concrete jungle), but that's just because it's so big. It's really like any other city. The surroundings turned much more jungle-y once we started biking in the river basin (I am pretty sure I saw a panther or some large cat cross the road at one point -- it was definitely bigger than your average house cat and there weren't any houses around anyhow).

In Puyo we visited a "Pedagogical Ethnobotanical" park called Omaere. We didn't really know what to expect, but for $3 each we got a full tour of the premises. I really enjoyed the park.

The man who guided us through the park was very knowledgable and quite the character. Originally from California, he is now clearly invested in this park and other related projects (such as educating everyone about water purification and ecological waste management). His wife, an indigenous Shuar woman, helped found the park in 1994.

I won't bore you with every little detail of our fascinating tour, but allow me to hit a few highlights:

We both got to paint our skin orange with one plant, chew on another leaf that tasted like cinnamon, and drink the red wine-like juice that our guide squished into his palm from another plant.

We learned about plants that neutralize snake bites (that usually are handled by amputation), serve as birth control (or female sterilization if you have too much), and help treat cancer and other serious illnesses.

We learned about the Shuar people who still exist in large numbers in Ecuador. Many of them still live very traditional lives deep in the Amazon as well. The Shuar people are the head-shrinkers of the Amazon.

(The Zysman's will appreciate this one.) Our guide treated us by proudly displaying a specimen of his feces from two years ago. He's really into promoting ecological dry toilets, so he showed us the facilities and then his poo. He's even had it examined to determine that there are no more worms or diseases in it. The wonders of waste management!



The dry toilet.



And our guide's poop from two years ago.

The following day we left Puyo to complete our very trying two-day journey to Macas. The route was only 130 kilomenters, but 40 of those kilometers were unpaved. And that is the understatement of the year. Sometimes the dirt road was well packed for a stretch of up to 5 kilometers, but other times we were practically carrying our bikes over fields of rocks. The going was very tough at times, and never before had I considered biking a full-body exercise. I was using all the strength in my abs and arms just to keep my bike upright most of the time.

After our first day of biking we stopped at dark in a small village. Our best guess is that is was called Tsantsa, though we're not really sure. It's definitely not on the map. Nonetheless, someone informed us that there was a house that ocassionally rented rooms. We never found it, but we did find a sympathetic family who let us camp in their yard and use their toilet. For dinner we cooked up some ramen since there wasn't much for restaurants or stores in town.

We got up bright and early the next day, although it was more rainy than bright outside. After 20 more kilometers on our favorite dirt/rock road we made it to a large bridge crossing the enormous Pastaza river. This also brought us back to the heavenly pavement (I kissed it; I was so happy). Even so, we still had about 60 kilometers to bike. By the time we pulled into Macas, right at sunset, we were pooped.

We stayed in Macas today just so that we could recover a bit before our next harrowing trek: tomorrow we start biking back up the Andes. That's right, over the next few days we will be biking something like 10,000 feet up. Feel free to include my thighs in your prayers.

Well, that's all my news for now. Keep us in mind and write us every now and then. We miss all of you! Sorry I haven't been as consistent with my posts lately -- good Internet connections are a bit harder to find in South America (and I've been busy grading).



Here I am on our canyoneering trip from Baños.



Here's Mike on another waterfall in the canyon.



This is a picture that we took on a hike above Baños. Although you can't really see it, that's the town in the background.



Some of that famous Baños taffy, which tastes pretty good!

Laffy Taffy

You wouldn't think that bitching about the weather would have any impact whatsoever on Mother Nature(or at least not a positive one), but since I wrote my last post (about the cold and the rain and the hail) we've had a couple of gorgeous days. It has been nice and sunny....

We've been hanging out in a touristy little town called Baños for the past several days. It's at the foot of a giant volcano called Tungurahua which means "little hell" in the native language. It's supposedly a pretty active volcano that spews ash quite frequently and often has active lava flows, but we haven't seen much. The mountains surrounding the town are so steep that we can't see the volcano from where we are. We saw it on our bike ride down to Baños but didn't catch any amazing eruptions. That's okay with me though because in the not too distant past they had to evacuate the entire town for a few months. The town is only on yellow alert now, so we're relatively safe. On a less scary note, the town is known for its taffy (hence the name of this post). We haven't tried it yet, but we're going to pick some up on our way back from the internet cafe.

Anyways, we had an awful lot of fun getting to Baños too -- I wouldn't want to cheat you by failing to mention our adventures on the way here.

We left Latacunga in the morning to head south once more. On our way out of town we spotted the local dairy: a man had two goats tied to a street light and was milking them on the spot. Nearly every woman who passed by with a small child bought a dixie cup of fresh milk for the kid. The kids all walked away with goat milk mustaches.



Tempted though we were, Mike and I did not have any fresh goat milk.



Mike went on a photo mission in Latacunga. Many of the fruits were nicely displayed in baskets.



The chickens weren't displayed quite as prettily.

On the route between Latacunga and our next overnight spot, Ambato, we passed through some fun little towns. We're pretty sure that Salcedo must be the ice cream capital of Ecuador. As we approached the town we kept seeing more and more ice cream shops. We'd see one, then three stores down there'd be another. Soon they were lined up as many as 5 in a row. We're used to this ridiculous phenomenon that is common abroad (in Hanoi, Vietnam there are entire streets devoted to selling pot holders, for instance), but Salcedo really took ice cream selling to an extreme. At one point we stopped to consult our map and discovered that we could see seventeen ice cream stores from that one stationary position on the road. They must eat ice cream for breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch, diner, and bedtime snacks in Salcedo!



"I scream; you scream; we all scream for ice cream!" You can only see three ice cream shops in this picture, but Mike estimates that there were 200 in town. And it was not a very big town.

Shortly after Salcedo we rolled through a town that is not pig friendly. On the one street of that town we saw at least a dozen hogs hanging in front of restaurants. None of them looked too happy about it. We also saw some cuy (roast guinnea pig), which is a specialty in both Ecuador and Peru. We haven't tried any yet, but I supposed it's inevitable.



An unhappy pig.



This photo was actually taken in Baños, but I thought I'd put it here since I explained about the cuy in the above paragraph. Don't they look tasty?

We stayed in Ambato for one night and enjoyed walking around the town, despite the fact that our guidebook said there was nothing to do there. We passed several interesting churches, some nice parks, and an interesting mausoleum for Juan Montalvo (an Ecuadorian writer from the town). We also tried this really odd dessert that seems popular in Ecuador. Basically, an old woman sits by the road with a giant bowl overflowing with what looks like frosting. When someone wants to purchase some of this concoction, the old lady will scoop a big glob into an ice cream cone and send the person on his/her merry way. We had to try it. Turns out that the frosting look-a-like is actually a bit more like some kind of gelatin. I thought it was kind of weird -- especially the texture -- but Mike and I managed to finish one between the two of us.



Here's a pic of that weird frosting/gelatin dessert.



This is Ambato, on our way into town. Population: 150,000 -- Most of the cities we've been to in Ecuador so far have been quite a bit bigger than most of the cities in Central America.



The inside of this church was HUGE! It was pretty in a more modern way.



Juan Montalvo's mausoleum and museum. Sorry, but I'm not familiar with his writings.

After Ambato we headed toward Baños, where we are currently. That ride was certainly memorable because we dropped a good 3000 feet in elevation. Mike loves the downhill rides, but I'm not such a big fan. My brakes were pretty hot and my wrists were pretty sore (from all the pressure on them) by the time we pulled into Baños. Mike had to keep stopping to wait for me, but at least that gave him time to take pictures of the ridiculous views! At one point we had to pass through a section of road that had been taken out by a landslide, which was fun. When we got to Baños, I was ready to stay for a few days, so it was lucky that we were already planning to do so.



A view of the mountains.



And another. I'm not really sure that the photos capture how very large these mountains are or how steep and long the hills that go down them are.



You're just going to have to trust that I'm in this picture, because even with the arrow pointing directly at me, you still can't spot me. You need a powerful zoom!



Some pretty flowers and a scary spider.



The landslide clean-up is in progress.

So, this is our third day staying in Baños. We've been staying in a $10 hotel room that affords us pretty nice views of the city. October is apparently the month in which Baños residents celebrate their patron saint, so we've seen some fun parades and parties. They even have a little train with Flinstones characters on it circling the town. The church is pretty cool too -- it's lit up like a Disney castle and the inside features paintings of all the miracles that Baños' saint is responsible for.



The night-time view from our hotel room is lovely.



Voila! the Disney church of Baños.



A roasted (hornado) piggy on display in the Baños covered market.



I love how colorful this market photo is!

Today we went on a guided canyoning trip near town. It only took us a couple of hours, but we got to rappel down 5 or 6 waterfalls. Although we would have preferred to do the trip on our own, we enjoyed ourselves. The waterfalls were pretty and they weren't too cold.

From here we will bike down another 3000 feet to the Amazon jungle town of Puyo. I think we pass at least a dozen waterfalls on the way down. I'm not looking forward to the steep hills, but I think it will be a neat ride nonetheless. We'll keep you posted.

And now for the poll update. The answer to the last poll was the donkey. We saw all kinds of animals jutting out from the basilica, but we didn't see any donkeys. Maybe they're too boring or common. Anywho, congrats to those of you who guessed right. Now there's a new poll/trivia question, so be sure to put your guesses in before the answer is revealed!

Here are a few more catch-up photos, too:



I'm trying another version of the Quito panorama photo. Mike saved it differently, so if you click on the picture, you might be able to see a larger version of it.



This is a lovely decoration on top of one of the churches in Quito.



I'm standing on top of the church where the nuns sold their home-made lotions and potions.



This photo is from last week when we were leaving Lasso -- it features the Volcan Cotopaxi. We were at 11000 feet when Mike snapped the photo, which makes this a pretty tall mountain. Note how it is covered in snow despite its proximity to the equator.



I have no idea what this sign means, so this is not a trivia question with an answer, but if you have any guesses let Mike and I know!

P.S. Since one is passing by right now, Mike wants me to let you know that the garbage trucks in Baños are musical. Sometimes they sound like an ice cream truck and sometimes they sound like a slot machine, but you always know they're coming!