Ecuador, Vilcabamba and Banos

Vilcabamba, is a small 'Hippy Village' with an elevation of 5500 ft and is nestled in what is called 'The Valley of Longevity' It is only 142 miles from the city of Cuenca, however, it took a good 6 hrs getting there, via various shuttle buses, and taxies. The scenery was just beautiful as we drove up/down and around the mountains, very green and lush. It's quiet and laid back, the attraction to this area is....it's perfect year round weather, crisp clean air, very low cost of living, and friendly people. The main attractions for tourists are horseback riding (many of the locals ride into town, hitch the horse to a post, do their shopping (fresh veg/fruit market at the w/e). There are not many privately owned cars. There are some great hikes, the most famous being. 'The Sacret Mt of Mandango' but unfortunately closed a couple of weeks ago due to some random attacks on tourists, when 4 men with machetes attacked and robbed them of their money, cameras and i-phones. So, we just kept ourselves safe by walking mainly in and around the village. We only had a 3 day stay there before moving on to our last stop.... Banos.




Banos
Well, It seems we saved the best till last. Situated in a valley of waterfalls and hotsprings, Baños has become a mecca for international travelers seeking year-round temperate weather, a small town atmosphere, and a base for exploring the great Ecuadorian outdoors. Located four hours by bus from Quito, Baños offers many hotsprings, best time to soak is in the am when it is still misty and cooler. Again horseback riding is popular, then there is rafting, climbing and mountain biking. We ended up doing a very challenging hike, which according to the guide books should have taken an hour and a half..... well, it took us two just to climb the vertical part! However, the views from the ridge at the top were spectacular and we rewarded ourselves with a great lunch back in the town for $3 followed by a marvellous massage back at our very comfortable lodgings. Yesterday, Ron and I took the bus to Puyo (60 km) to visit the Botanical Gardens (really nice) and a monkey rehabilation center. It was a fun day and I captured a great vidieo of one of the larger monkeys leaping into Ron's lap and giving him this big old hug (keep in mind these are wild, not domestic) so the volunteers were fairly quick to distract him (the monkey, not Ron) with some food. Another little fellow decided it was OK to be craddled in my arms while giving himself a 'bath' ..rubbing himself all over with a lime, afterwards my shirt and arms were very sticky, not to mention, smelly but it was so fun.



Ron, ever on the look out for "the" place to relocate to, loves this place, however, it's main drawback is it's rather remote location...3-4 hrs from a hospital and airport.

And so, our adventure in Central/South America has come to an end. We are presently waiting for our taxi to take us back to the sprawling city of Quito our international airport for our flight to Miami tomorrow. However, for one last quick treat, immediately after breakfast we spent a couple of hours soaking in one of the nearby outdoor hot tubs, which was almost as good as our massage.

There are always places you wish you could have seen, the Galapagos being one, but we have to save something for a return trip!!

Ecuador, Cuenca

We chose to take a bus back to Quito, rather than risk the possibility of a repeat nightmare taxi drive, then boarded a flight to Cuenca. Again, another city but smaller than Quito, which in recent years, attracted 3500 expatriates. During our 5 day stay (this time we were renting a room in a young couples home, she was Ecadorian and he, Canadian). We had ample opportunity to speak with several expats who were more thanwilling to share their stories and reasons for relocating to this much gentler city with it's 4 rivers flowing through it, and grassy pathway alongside. And here were some of those reasons:

The mountains
The rivers
The people
The culture
The architecture
Sunshine
Cost of living
Parks
Cafes
Critters (lack of)

To give a little history.... Cuenca means 'River Basin' and has an elevation of 8500 ft. The Incas conquered Cuenca in the late 1400's, prior to that the Canari' had been living here since 500 AD. There is an abundance of museums, so we chose best part of a day to explore the most famous ... 'Museum del Banco Central' which had been constructed over what was previously, an Inca Palace. Attached was an archaeological site along with some lovely Botanical Gardens.

This museum has re-creations of typical dwellings from the various regions of Ecuador and a section devoted to the chronicles of the country's currency. Along with the history of the Incas, there were several real, shrunken heads. It was interesting to note that the "white man" was not thought worthy of having their heads shrunk!



We also wandered around The Panama Hat factory .... because, as we all know, Panama Hats come from Ecuador NOT Panama. We were quite tempted to purchase a couple, but discovered the most popular hats that the tourists prefer, sell here for $25, and are categorized as being only a grade 1 ... when in actual fact, a truly decent hat (a grade 20) sells for several thousand dollars and can be more easily purchased online.


We enjoyed our usual bus tour around Cuenca, but despite this we found that we walked 30 miles over our 4 days, enjoyed decent cups of coffee, good quality, tasty, inexpensive food. Saw local indians washing their laundry in the rivers (interestingly, in many cases it is the men who actually wash the clothes, while the women supervise) It is evident that a high priority is to have clean shoes, and there are shoeshinners set up everywhere, one even tried to persuade Ron to have his Keen walking sandals cleaned, Traffic still has the right of way here, and crosswalks are totally disregarded, if anything the drivers speed up if they see you using them! It definitely felt a much safer city despite there always being a guard with a sawn off shotgun standing outside every bank.

Ecuador, Quito and Otavalo

It took all day to get ourselves relocated from Panama to the huge sprawling city of Quito, temp barely 60 degrees and raining.... could we really be on the equator? But, with an altitude of 9000 ft we found ourselves wearing multiple warm layers and our rain gear, oh yes, and where was the oxgyen ....the air seemed so thin, this was to be 'home' for the next 4 days. As always, when we are in cities, we find ourselves walking 7, 8 or 10 miles a day as we explored museums, churches and generally get the feel of the place. We found that it did warm up between 11- 3, and our day packs would be full of clothing, as we peeled our layers off. Although Quito was very easy on our wallets, large $1beers, full meal $3 each, alpaca yarn for $5/100gm, Ron had a haircut for $2.75, generally I did not care for this city - it didn't feel safe. We were constantly being warned to be vigilant for pickpockets, not to be out walking after dark. One local lady even discouraged us from walking in a certain tourist area, saying' don't look, don't smile, don't speak to anyone, they could (and here she indicates something being placed over our nose) do to your body what ever they want" .... Well .... that was enough to put me off, and this was in broad daylight! The traffic was crazy, pedestrains second class citizens, and the buses belch out black clouds of exhaust fumes.

Our Quito experience was topped off with a 2 hr taxi ride from hell, the driver, a maniac. The man beside me kept crossing himself, Ron and I were white knuckled in an attempt to prevent ourselves being hurtled all over the place. There were 5 of us jammed in like sardines, luggage strapped on the roof, the driver seemed possessed, overtaking everything, ignoring the double yellow lines on the hair raising bends on what seemed like two wheels. We were most thankful to finally reach our destination, Otavalo, a small town nestled amongst lush mountains. Our accomodation was a cabin a couple of miles out of town, with scenery that can best be described as ' Little Switzerland'...llamas, donkeys, cows, dogs, clean air and oh so tranquil.



Our main reason for coming to this area was to experience "the world famous artisans market", which was somewhat overwhelming but really impressive, especially the live stock section, where locals were buying, selling and exchanging just about everything imaginable, from your everyday farm animal to guinea pigs (on the menu here!) and llamas of course. On Saturdays the venders set up stalls on every available speck of sidewalk and alleyway, and one can literally spend all day browsing and bargaining for treasures.


On Easter Sunday I attended a Catholic church service conducted in Latin and found myself to be the only tourist. Not only that, but the only grey haired person (and I was by no means the eldest) feeling like a giant beside the 4 ft, and under, local indians, who smiled their toothless smiles with bright eyes set in weather beaten faces. We were packed in like sardines standing, shoulders touching, and during the Easter Service, several groups of local indians brought bunches of corn stalks to the alter to receive a blessing for a good harvest. It really was a unique and unforgetable service. Later in the day I went horseriding, something I had not done for 25 years.... Now what on earth made me think I could just step up and swing my leg over the saddle as I had last done! but, I managed on the second attempt with some assistance that time. The horse was no fool he knew he didn't have an equestrian on his back, but we plodded on even through the pouring rain.



After the w/e we chose to take a bus back to Quito instead of a taxi, which turned out to be not only much cheaper but more comfortable too, and then a flight to Cuenca.......but that's another posting.

Panama City/Embera Village

After spending 10 days in two quiet mountain locations, we drove to Panama City dropping off the car we had rented for the previous week, and found our next lodging, a rather quirky hostel for the next few nights. The city seemed noisy, stiffling and hot after the cool mountain air and we were thankful to have a small pool we could dip into. Our first day in the City we did our usual "hop-on/hop-off" Bus Tour in order to get a feel for the city's sights, and then explore on foot the areas which appealed. Naturally, one of the highlights was visiting the locks of theCanal, which as most people I'm sure, we found to be really intriguing. Another nice area we walked was along the city waterfront, which ended up being an 8 mile walk, and our aching legs certainly confirmed that.

Amazing Day Trip to the Embera' Village


We were picked up at 7:30 by Anne Gordon - who was an animal trainer for film & TV for over 20 years when she was hired in early 2004 to work on a film "The End of the Spear" which was shot in the jungles of Panama. The production company had contracted to use the Embera' tribe as their actors for this real life story. During the months it took to film this movie Anne became friends with many of the Embera' people and fell in love with their quality of life and how warm and open hearted they are, and as fate would have it, she is now married to one of the Embera' men from the village, so we really felt fortunate as she was the perfect guide.

Anyway, to get back to our memorable day, after picking up another couple of Americans the 5 of us drove for an hour out of the city, before climbing into a hand dug out canoe with an outboard engine for the 90 min ride up the river, we were told it would have taken a day to paddle the same distance! It was really quite a challenge for our 3 native men to navigate the river against a strong current and in places the river was so shallow it was necessary to lift the outboard engine out of the water while we all climbed out and pushed the canoe through several of these low spots. That in itself was fun, and all so peaceful, seeing turtles gathered together warming themselves on rocks, and various birds gliding overhead.

There were about 100 total, counting the many children, living in this simple village consisting of about a dozen or so round open huts on stilts, with tree bark floors, and palm frond roofing. Each 'home' had it's own open wood fire set on a sand bed, simple pots for cooking, and a few hammocks for sleeping. Access up into the hut was by a log propped against the side with wedges cut for steps, when a family were away for the day then the log was simply turned round to show the smooth side!



Clothing for the women were brightly colored lengths of cloth just wrapped around their waist, the men wore only loin cloths, and all barefoot. No drawers or closets required for clothing, only a clothes line to dry the lenghts of cloth.

The river was used for bathing and washing their 'clothing' - with downstream as the bathroom area. Everywhere was tidy and picked even though there were kids, dogs and chickens everywhere.



We were able to roam the village freely, taking photos of the children swinging on woven ropes, playing kick ball, pretending to ride a horse, which was just a stick or pulling each other on a plastic 5 gallon container cut in half, which was their 'sled'. They all had big smiles and always wanted to see the photo you had just taken on your digital camera. The women weave
beautiful hand crafted baskets, or made jewlery from various pods/ seeds/ while the men wove monkey masks or did amazing carvings of birds, turtles, hummingbirds made from wood or hard nuts.

The men would also fish (meals were not set times, and as Anne said, you could never be quite sure what you would be served, she has learned to eat many things an American would not normally consider). Much of their time was spend 'body painting' each other with elaborate designs using the juice of a special fruit. These designs only last 10 days so it was a constant upkeep.

We were introduced to an elder who was the herbalist and took us on a tour informing us, via Anne as our interpretor, of the properties of the various plants, he was a gentle, quietly spoken man.

We were given a simple but delicious lunch of cooked fish/plantains/fruit, served in large palm leaves formed into a pouch, and afterwards treated to some traditional dancing, singing and the playing of simple handmade instruments. Our return trip down river was much quicker but just as enjoyable.

It was easy to see why Anne fell in love with these warmhearted friendly people and their easy going lifestyle, and we were all a little sad when it came time to leave.

Note: The majority of this tribe lives about 300 miles further into the jungle.