Quilotoa, Baños

Cold, lucid night inside the crater on the sand by the lake in our tent, shores shared by a mother, two children, horses and a cow, team 50% ill, howls and barks from the brim echoing in the crater, smiley moon shooting up to light the hills purple, watch morning rays crawl down and steam the lake, up and away on dos caballos maron tentative on loose rocks, the mares kissing hello to the third horse on the way, dodging a kid and his twenty sheep on their way down, all intact, truck it to Zumbahua and back to Latacunga for some films and fever-abatement.

Next day to Baños de Agua Santa for some holy water bathing beside an active volcano, Tungurahua (where all the locals and almost as many tourists go to cure ails), some class III-IV rafting and plenty of drinks, then Cuenca, a well-sized city in the South for all-round nice times, some salsa in a small smelly sexy den with an Argentinian called Israel and Ecuadorian-Freiburgian ladies fluent in German, Finnish hips not quite liquid but decent attempts made, the last leg in Ecuador soon over as sandy North Peru beckons.

Quilotoa Crater Lake

We zoom through Quito with wisps of smoke rising here and there, a plethora politicans, police and industry heads talking of the People and Democracy on the radio, all the way down to the small town of Latacunga.

Next morning rent a tent and get on a bus to Zumbahua climbing high with Cotopaxi jutting cloudhatted beyond the valley, a bus crammed with locals in their thick ponchos, emerald green shawls, bowler hats, chickens in paper bags and a sheep standing bewildered on top of the bus. The newspaper frontpage shows a bomb passing the president by half a metre.

From Zumbahua we hike the dusty road to Quilotoa, a stunning path past children playing and working, farmers, elders, mothers, dogs and a million cacti, get caught in the rain and afternoon thunder resounding off the mountain walls, ascend finally up the volcano slopes into the tiny community living on its brim.

Cali hop

Short stopover at Cali, the home of Salsa, on the way to Ecuador – scorching hot after cloudy mountain towns, with dozens of pound shops, mime artists, busy locals, hare krishna tomato juice, raw veg salad and purple cauliflower.

Just a quick spin around town, then the rest of the day taken up by the stories of Jairo, an animated Colombian advocating Ontologically Liberating Pedagogy in the jungles and favelas of South America (plus stories of old girlfriends).

Then we´re finished with Columbia (far too soon) jumping on a nightbus to the border again with just enough time to glimpse some maximally authentic salsa at the station

¡Bogota Caliente!

A dip into this boundless blocky city. Sleeping in the bohemian La Candelaria,  baroque and colonial candy-colour casas (don´t go out at night)

Things seen: the Museo del Oro, gold everythings, coca pipes and sacrifical parrots (if it can talk it must have a soul)

The National Police Museum, its teenage troubaours and Pablo Escobar’s Ray Bans

Felipe G. takes us around amidst the iglesias, palacios and military surplus stores

then a  steep tram up the Monserrate for a sunset bouncing off a million little roofs

tasty town of empanadas, shawarmas, pizzas and chocolate donuts plus countless hot nalgas

Monday down the Zipaquira salt mines which once fueled an empire now with added Cathedral fun

At night a tiny club and tons of tequila, sweet kosher wine, fat electro tropical beats, some ripaska and impromptu salsa lessons

muchos Caliente = hot like dogs are hot, try saying that to people on the dancefloor, un poco un poco

Not at all enough time, we tear ourselves away and nightbus it to Cali…

More photos

medellin (take a look at me now)

cooped up in a hostel in medellin with an israeli crew, a feminine fighter pilot, an economist, and a cosmetics salesman singing hebrew songs + nasal and out-of-tune phil collins, in the sweaty city centre observing botero´s bulging bits and bobs, obsessed with over-indulgence or perhaps an odd fetish… escobar being shot matrix-like on the rooftops and a colombian endlessly snogging bolivar´s statue, a toothless man tells us of a guerilla general being bombed in the jungle…

Industrial city, lies in a valley with the ghettos on the outskirts rising up the slopes.  we take the shaky cable car up the mountains (regular transport for paisas) with !felipe! and stop for arepas con queso in what we found out later to be one of the most dangerous places in the city… tranquilo, tranquilo with a huge library smack in the middle of the slums, courtesy of the spanish royals.  imbibing hundreds of cups of mate (which felipe bought from quito, never stops filling the cup).  he takes us for a fiesta at his friends’ house, who of course turn out to be old punks turned english professors, artists, singers drink aguardiente (aniseed aftershock), salsa, chat till 4am in the small patio full of all kinds of plants…

the next day we make arepas (con queso, con chocolo) for breakfast with felipe and lily and head up the mountainside in the middle of the city as the sun sets and the city lights up, thunder and lightning and torrential rain blanketing all and accompanying us on our way to bogota…

Silvia cerca Popayan

On Tuesdays the Guambiano folk gather in the nearby mountain town Silvia for trading in the market in their traditional uniforms. We take a 1.5 hour bus winding up the Andes, passing coral mountains, emerald valleys and self-sufficient houses dotted over the landscape, feet dangling off the bus to the beat of vallenato.

Hardly any tourists around this village as the indigenous folk trade their handicrafts and food produce for essential equipment, as well as $5 casio watches and  machetes.  It is perched between the mountains, so high the bus travels amongst the clouds. After wandering through the market we pet unchained Guambino horses grazing by a stream and meditate in a cove amidst the vines.

Captain´s log

Itinerary

15th-16th Glasgow-London-Amsterdam-Bonaire-Guayaquil-Quito

17th Quito

18th Quito, Otavalo, Peguche

19th Quito

20th Quito, Mitad del Mundo, Tulcan, Ipiales, Popayan

21st Popayan, Silvia

22nd Popayan

23rd -25th Medellin

26th Bogota

27th Bogota, Zipaquira

28th Bogota

29th Cali

Colombia, drug lords and armed bandits; crossing the border at night

“I like Colombia… I really like Colombia!” dodged the druglords and armed bandits, hanging out in popayan…

Quito – centre of the world, as the ancient quitoans knew 2500 years ago through the movement of light and shadows… trooped as the sun rose to mitad del mundo to experience the equator, the real one which lies 200m from that established by the French, where the gawdy monument stands.  Made eggs stand on nails, and saw the water sink directly downwards bang on the line, clockwise south of the line, and anti-clockwise northwards, even by a metre…  in a few days on the equinox for three minutes shadows will vanish and ecuador will celebrate.  Learned of indigenous tribes still living in the rainforests, the Wuaorani fighting off the oil lords with cerrated spears, and the traditional meal, “cui cui,” the sound of guinea pigs squealing – “sorry, but in ecuador we like your pets with potatoes.”

Colombia, Colombia, Colombia… after hearing people rave on about colombia we decide to go north immediately.  But it’s already afternoon. Everybody says not to cross at night, our guidebook: “avoid nightbuses as armed bandits have been known to attack these even when they are travelling in police guarded caravans…”  So, we get the bus anyway and head to tulcan, arriving just an hour before the border closes. Felipe, a colombian from medellin, embraces us excitedly and tells us we shouldn’t worry “si, si, es tranquilo,” though I think he thought we were asking about the view.  With Felipe, there are no problems, he helps us cross the border, haggles great taxis on both sides, gets us a good rate of exchange in damp squalid boxes, everything goes smoothly. He sets a high standard for Colombians, enthuses about everything (mi amigo! mi hermano! marvioso!) and invites us to his hometown to feast and try some ayahuasca. We say farewell before dawn as we stop off at Popayan and he continues onwards, no armed bandits so far…

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plastic ketchup bottle

19/09/10

squeezing ketchup from a plastic bottle