Alaskawilds

Oh how great if felt to be on the road again, adios Cuenca. Refrigerator, fuel tank and water tank full, we headed toward the little town of Guadalupe in the Yacuambi valley in the southeast of Ecuador.

This little town has a great mission and hospital, staffed with volunteers from Europe and the US. Padre Jorge Nigsch from Schoppernau, Austria: “El Jefe” as the sisters at the mission call him, has spent the last twenty-five years here in the Amazon region and is busy with his congregation and the hospital. The mission is in a beautiful location across the river from the town itself. People come down from the hill towns to have their medical needs attended to, at any given time there are several physicians taking care of sick and insured people. When we were there a group of eight doctors and nurses were arriving from Germany.

Padre Jorge (Georg) welcomed us with open arms, gave us a great spot to park the camper behind his house and a key so we could use the facilities. I loved waking up in the morning, quiet except for the birds singing up a storm. The Amazon area is lush and wet, it rains almost daily, but if you are from Southeast Alaska you don’t even notice it. There is a dirt road into a side valley where there are several Shua settlements, I walked part way but did not want to bother them since they do not like to have their picture taken and do not like it if you take pictures of their poverty. I did not. We spent three days at the mission, ate with them and enjoyed talking with the padre and the visiting health workers. Vergelts Gott!

There are several frog farms in Ecuador and one of them is in the next town, Piuntza. They raise bull frogs and sell them restaurants, needless to say, in Zamora and around you can order frog anytime. But 80 % of their production goes to New York and Europe. Two tons a month between May and November.  They have breeding tanks, tadpole nurseries, wet and dry growing areas. Ramon Costa  has 15 warehouses, which contain around 300 000 frogs. They are covered by a fabric that allows the free flow of air to maintain an optimum temperature. The frogs grow best at temperatures between 24 and 29 degrees. The metamorphosis of a frog food lasts between 10 and 12 months, at which time it will be ready for sale, weighing 150-180 grams. Worth a visit.

You can get to Guadalupe via Zamora, the drive from Loja is spectacular, with orchids growing along the road and the Podocarpus rain forest, countless waterfalls and lush hillsides. There is also a new road that leads from Saraguro east to Yacuambi (28 de Mayo) and the Yacuambi valley. Padre Jorge said that on a nice day it is spectacular up there “it makes you feel like you are in an airplane looking down”. From Guadalupe you can also explore the Nangaritza river, but we never did because rainy season was approaching in Peru and we wanted to move south. So we said farewell to Padre Jorge and the sister and left for La Balsa on the Ecuador/Peru border.

This waterfall at Podocarpus Park hit half the road after a rainfall.

The same waterfall three days later.

Das Pfarrhaus. We had very quiet neighbors.

Four bodies were stolen from the graveyard and presumably sold. So tombs are frequently enclosed like this.

El Jefe !

A visitor on the hood of the truck.

Guadalupe bridge from town to the mission.

Our truck has held up really well and we are happy with it and the XP Camper it hauls around.
But it needed some attention and we found a shop (Tecnicentro Chicago) in Cuenca whose owners, two brothers, are US trained mechanics (and speak English).

We ordered some parts from the US and had them sent via FedEx, well that worked well, but we spent days trying to get it through customs in Guayaquil. It was ridiculous and nerve wrecking at the same time. After many emails and phone calls to customs the the package was finally released and the repair was done. After five weeks we were excited to leave the city and head south,  but at the edge of town we noticed that the alternator was not charging, so back to the shop we went. Cuenca just did not want to release us.

This time we decided to do it differently, we could not find a new alternator and a used one that “might” work was over USD 700.00. So Günter took a “red-eye” flight to Florida where our friends Sharon and Robert were a great help and they had a great reunion at the same time. Günter bought a new alternator for $ 160. Four days later he as back in Cuenca, alternator in his backpack. Customs was a breeze and the alternator was installed the next day. Finally we were off.

While Günter was in Florida I decided to go to the Amaru Zoologica in Cuenca. It is a quirky zoo and very interesting. You need at least three hours for this zoo, it is located on a hillside east of downtown. Bring water and good shoes, it is a hike too, the great views invite to sit here and there. Most animals are native to South America, but there are lions and a pair of ostriches (who were eating their own egg while I was there) from Africa as well. For the monkeys there are chicken wire tubes throughout the compound so they can follow you on your stroll. You can enter the bird house and get up close with them, no touching though. There were giant tortoises from Galapagos and tiny lizards from the Amazon jungle, snakes and Andean fox, bears and even a rhino (lignea hippo) way up on the hill.

I had a great day !

Puma!

Andean bears like to sleep on platforms.

Spectacled Andean bear.

Condor

uhu

Blue headed parrot.

Monkey Yoga

Tapir.

Monkey trail.

He ate the egg his mate had just laid.

Well, we are taking a break in Cuenca.

We are not really city people and usually spend very little time in towns or other large metropolitan areas.

We love quiet spots in nature, fresh air, endless vistas and birds singing.

We like little villages and like to watch the people go about their daily lives, work in the fields or do their laundry on the banks of a river.

But there where some repairs that needed to be taken care of on the camper, so we decided to have it done here, before crossing into Peru.

The eight Araucarias were brought  from Chile and planted by Luis Cordero at the turn of the century.

Cities like Cuenca have many stories to tell, there is a lot of history here and walking around for a day just isn’t enough.

Todos  Santos bells.

In the old cathedral.

We found a little apartment on the top floor of an old colonial building owned by a dentist, his office is downstairs, he is 85 years old and still fits dentures for the indigenous. It came with a roof top terrace where we ate our breakfast or just went to read or watch the comings and goings down below. Outside the entry, on Plaza de San Francisco, is a daily market, the women in their beautiful outfits sell alpaca shawls and other nice and not so nice items. They are mostly from Otovalo, you can tell by their clothes.

First apartment, top floor of the dental office in Plaza San Francisco

In the museum we found a photograph of or “home”.

We are intrigued by the changing outfits as we move south, skirts, adornments and hats might look the same to us, but the native people here can tell by the clothing which village they are from. Just like we can back home in Austria. So to us, it is fascinating.

At night they store their wares in the building, so it was always interesting when we came home in the evening, we had to pass by their stored items – checking out the table cloths (loved them) and bags stored on the shelves.

Plaza “Pancho” 7 am.

Canari women

We had to vacate the apartment after a week, Dano, the owner came through with another apartment, down by the river. We liked that one too.

The courtyard of apartment # 2

Apartment # 2 view!

There is always something going on in a City, cultural happenings, fiestas, street musicians. It took us days to visit the churches and museums on foot. Then we got our bicycles out and started to explore more, it has been fun. The two rivers make all the difference, they are mostly green belt with walking and bicycle trails. Thanks to a state of the art sewage treatment plant the rivers are clean and we saw fishermen fly fishing within city limits and catching nice sized trout.

A nice trout!

Bulli station!

At the edge of town are some hot springs where we went to soak and do the steam/mud/shower/steam/soak/nap/tea routine, spent most of the day there and LOVED it.

                                                                Piedra de Agua

Magic mud!

A steam box!

The daily market is huge, and we can find all the food you need just steps away from our little home away from our “home away from home” called camper.

Having an oven has been nice too, makes baking bread a lot easier than doing it with the Cobb grill. Apricots and blueberries are everywhere at the market right now so I made an apricot/blueberry cake today. A little taste from home, Ecuadorian food is not really what we are used to, but we try. Günter even ate a roasted “cuy” (Guinea Pig), I passed.

I am not going to write a Cuenca guide book, but will let the pictures speak for themselves.

We spent Dia de los Muertos and  Independence day on November 3rd  in Cuenca and enjoyed the festivities.

Popsicles, they were really good!

Espumilla, yum!

Guaguas and colada morada are only consumed on Dia de los Muertos.

Preparing the pig.

We are both hooked on hot quail eggs with cumin.

We would just follow the music and hang out!

Something always blooms in Cuenca!

Adios Cuenca, ist’s been good to get to know you!

Chimborazo is over 6000 m high and beautiful with its snow-covered peaks. During our stay at Chinipamba it beckoned us every day. Longtime considered as the highest mountain on the planet, Chimborazo was dethroned by the Himalayan and Peruvian peaks. Nevertheless, considering the geometry of the Earth, this summit is known as the farthest point from its center, that’s what a plaque at the park entrance says.

Up up and away.

A herd of vicuña.

Not that we had any plans to climb it, but we wanted to hike to the first refugio (Carrel) and since it is at around 4800 m it required the acclimatization.

So we spent a night at the park entrance and then took off the next morning.

We didn’t sleep too well at that altitude.

It doesn’t seem far when you go up, but the slow pace makes it a longer hike than expected. Günter went up to the lake while I crawled up the trail with my body calling for more oxygen. I was also enthralled by the hundreds of vicuñas that can be seen poking around in the area. They had been hunted to extinction in Ecuador and were imported  again from Peru, Bolivia and Chile in 1980. They are a protected species of the Andes.

No, we were not up there at 6310 m, this picture was taken near the 5000 m level.

Foggy

Here the name Alexander von Humboldt cropped up again, he did amazing work during the years he spent in South America. In 1802 he and a French climber made it to the 5883 m level of Chimborazo, but had to turn around just short of scaling the peak. The Italian J.A Carrel and British climber E. Whymper eventually were the first to reach the top.

Alexander von Humboldt at Chimborazo

When we came back down there were several people headed up the trail, it seems to be quite popular. We had enough of the cold and thin air and went to Riobamba. A laid back town, nice to just walk around. On day two we did just that and heard music coming from the area of the train station, we followed the music and suddenly were confronted with an incredible sight. A sea of colours, people, dressed in the native costumes, from all the areas of Chimborazo province. On the stage were politicians holding fiery speeches, the band was playing local music and the people were cheering. We read in the paper the next day that there were over 30 000 people at this demonstration. It was great for us to be able to see so many people from different mountain towns. Their outfits, colors and hats changed by town and area. White alpaca felt hats with baubles, or gold bands, short brim, wide brim, dark felt fedoras with peacock feathers or flower pins.

A woman’s pride and joy is the pin that holds the shawl together.

We used to call that a “sit in”…..

They do not like the sun in their face, note the long straight skirts, different from the other towns skirts.

The guy is the only one not laughing 🙂

Alpaca felt hats.

Cuenca is a beautiful colonial town and has it all. Great weather, nice restaurants and a tree-shaded river to go for walks. It has thermal pools at the edge of town where you can get pampered, great hiking trails in the hills surrounding the town. And it has “Gringolandia”, an area that is very popular with North American Expats. We met three of them in a coffee shop and got some insight into expat life here. It sounds some of them are now moving to Colombia and Bolivia, the new “hot spots” for foreign retirees.An adventurous bunch those baby boomers (we are boomers too, I keep forgetting).

Cuenca

The cathedrals towers were never finished, Germany donated the bells to these towers in 1880. The bells where too heavy, the towers never finished (because of a miscalculation by the architect) and the bells are now ringing in a town near the coast.

Saint Marcus chapel, religious order of the Oblate.

We camped at a hacienda near Cuenca, Hosteria Caballo Campana is a colonial family-run Hacienda hidden in the forests. They breed horses and have beautiful stables and arenas. The owners were very welcoming and nice. I loved waking up to the smells and sounds of horses, could have hung out longer.

Three hours old and ready for the world.

He liked to nuzzle me.