Banos and Cuenca

We headed from the Amazon back into the Andes.  Banos is a small town, surrounded by mountains, and a very active volcano.  Unfortunately clouds obscured the view of the volcano most of the time.  Banos is also action central, with horse riding, canyoning, zip-lines, canyon swings, mountain biking, as well as hiking.  We did the short walk to a spectacular view, and mooched around town.  Peter went mountain biking, but they cheated, went up with a truck, and rode down.  He got to see the smoking volcano just before his descent.  

From Banos we drove to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador.  We had a private bus for this trip, so we each had a seat to ourselves. 

The trip was about 7 hours of driving through the Andes, with stunning views, but unfortunately too much cloud to see the "Avenue of Volcanoes".  We did get glimpses of one.

During the afternoon, we stopped at the Incan ruins at Ingapirca.

In Cuenca, we visited the old town, here the lavish new cathedral was built in the 1940's.  We also visited the market and a Panama hat factory.

Papallacta Hot Springs and the Amazon

After a magnificent buffet breakfast at the Quito hotel, we headed to the bus station in the south of Quito.  This was very modern, a cross between a bus station and an airport.  We must have got the slowest bus in the fleet.  Two and a half hours later, we were just down the hill from the hotel we had left from.  The bus plodded on, complete with loud horror movie with screaming, slowly climbing through mountainous country.  When the clouds lifted there were excellent views of snow capped peaks.  Eventually we arrived at Papallacta, and headed to our hotel.  They had public pools, and we also had guest only pools in front of our cabins.
We all lazed around in the pools, and admired the scenery.
We are very lucky with our group, a mix of old and young, couples and singles, and everyone is getting on well.

The next morning, after breakfast we headed out for a walk in the national park, before another dip, and back to the bus stop.

The bus trip to Tena was downhill all the way,  as the road got straighter, the speed of the bus increased.  Another movie, much better without screams.  Tena is on the Rio Napo, a tributary to the Amazon.  We finally had some warm weather, hot and humid.

We stayed in a home stay for 2 nights, with Delfin and his family.  They have built huts for tourists.  Several grown up children and partners help Delfin and his wife. We were all issued with rubber boots, the footwear for the next 2 days.

 Our first walk was to see the Rio Napo from a lookout high on a cliff.  We then went down to the creek, where there was a swimming hole we could take a dip in.

The next morning we headed up the creek to the waterfalls. Pam stopped at the first waterfall,  while most continued to the 3rd waterfall.  Going up the second waterfall required a safety harness and ropes.  Beautiful rainforest and water.  This was a 4 hour excursion.  In the afternoon, there was another walk, looking at local plants and their uses by the locals.  Most of the photos are on the waterproof camera, and we can't transfer these at present.

Between all these walks, there was eating and drinking.  We had great soups twice a day, and main courses with rice, veges and protein (fish, chicken, beef,  cheese at different times).  We get huge portions of rice each meal, if there is no sauce on the protein, it is all rather dry.  Beer comes in BIG bottles.  We pay $2 a bottle at the home stay.  Coffee is strong and black, tea is available, we are amused at the brand (Hornimans).

The last morning at the home stay required as decision, Peter and 4 others went rafting, the rest of us took a walk in a local garden, then made and ate chocolate.

What a process!  First the beans were roasted, then the skins were rubbed off, the beans roasted again, then ground, then mixed with milk and sugar and boiled.  Finally we dunked slices of banana and pineapple in the warm chocolate, and enjoyed eating the product.  The kids from the family finished off the leftovers.

After lunch, we changed accommodation, moving to a Jungle Lodge thee other side of Tena. The lodge is right on the river, and we all appreciated the hot showers,  and the wonderful view.

The next morning, we went by taxi and motorised canoe to an animal refuge a bit further along the Rio Napo.   They look after distressed animals, and rehabilitate as many as possible back into the wild.  They do good work, but it is never nice to see animals in cages.

The tour begins

We have just met our fellow travellers.  We are the only Aussies.  More Brits than anything else.  A good mixed crowd.

Sounds like there is no WiFi for several days.  We head out to the hot springs, and then the Amazon  jungle.

Quito Old Town

The buildings are amazing, with churches, convents and monasteries on almost every corner.  Some of the more magnificent churches are

The Basílica del Voto Nacional

The sixteenth-century Iglesia de San Francisco is very ornate with lots of gold

But the most amazing is Quito’s most extravagant church, La Compañía de Jesús  built by Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It took 163 years to construct, with seven tonnes of gold to cover the interior from top to bottom.

The next photo shows the guards at the palace

Finally a couple of interest shots from the park,

Young kids on their "walk bikes" - no pedals

And the police patrol in the park - the dog on the left looks a bit out of place

Spanish classes and food

We have graduated, we received our diplomas, and had a night out at La Ronde

Our teacher was Tomas

La Ronde street

Giant empanada, eaten with sugar, hot alcoholic juice drunk as shots, very large bottles of beer

Food has been fairly ordinary, lots of rice and lentils, but we found a steak house.  300 gm steak and a drink for $8.

We have not had the KFC with rice and lentils.

We had a cooking class at school and made cheese empanadas

Middle of the earth

We headed off on Sunday for the Middle of the world, where we could stand in both hemispheres.

We watched water go straight down the plughole on the equator, and swirl one way 3 metres away in the northern hemisphere, and the other way 3 metres away in the southern hemisphere.

We also balanced an egg on the head of a nail, and got certificates for doing it.

A great day, 40cents each way in the bus, $7 each in entrance fees.

Quito

We arrived in Quito at 9pm after a 5 hour flight from Santiago.  We cleared immigration and customs quickly, then shared a taxi into town with an Australian girl we had met on the plane.   The taxi could not find our hostel.  It had no GPS and the driver did not have a phone, only a handheld radio.  We found hostel after about an hour, and hoped the other girl had some luck finding hers.  We rang the bell, and eventually were let in by one of the guests.  The 24 hour reception was sound asleep somewhere.   We checked through the desk and found which room we were booked into, and headed off to bed.
The next morning we paid, and headed off to our student accommodation, walking distance away.  Our host had expected us the night before, but we did not know that, and our one page of paperwork did not show that.  But all is well.

We are staying in accommodation at the rear of our host family's house, which is a 4 bedroom house.  We are not sure which one was built first.  There are 3 Germans staying here as well.   They are volunteering at an orphanage in Quito, and are having Spanish lessons before they go.  They eat with the host family, and we are having our evening meal with the host family.

We took it very easy the first couple of days, firstly due to altitude 2,800 metres, and now are heads are spinning from the Spanish.  Peter and I are in a class of our own, we filled in our name on the top of the entrance exam.  Today we requested we focus on Spanish for travel, we don't really care if we know the colors if our clothes.

This afternoon we ventured into the old part of Quito by bus.  Very easy.  The bus has its own lanes and named stops, that are like stations.  It cost 25 cents to catch the bus.  Ecuador uses US$, so that is easy.  Quito is very long north to south, and we are living in the north, so it is about half an hour into town.

We have several days in Quito after classes and before our trip starts, so will focus on Spanish for now.

Santiago Cooking Class

Kerryn and Mark gave us a cooking class for our birthdays.  We met our teacher at the central market at 10am.  It was a very wet morning, but we donned our rain jackets and headed out.  There was just the two of us for a private lesson.

After shopping for fish and fruit and veges, we headed off to the kitchen, where we made a sauce (pebre) tomato, chilli, coriander, onions, olive oil and salt.  This was served with a deep fried pumpkin fritter.  We had a cocktail, Pisco sour to accompany it.

The next course was ceviche ( fish for Peter, mushroom for Pam) served with white wine.  We mixed our fish/mushroom with lime juice, red onion, diced chillies, salt, coriander, ginger and avocado, and served with watercress and plantain chips

Then came the Empanadas with red wine.  It had meat, onion, sultana, egg and olive in a pastry case.  And of course, red wine (even though Peter was still on the white when the photo was taken)

The final course was Leche Asada, a kind of creme caramel.  We had made it early on in the cooking lesson, so it could cool down in time for eating.  As you can see, we need to work on our plating skills.  Finished off with coffee

We finally left about 4.30pm with full bellies after a very enjoyable day.  We will try and replicate these when we get home.

Santiago

We awoke yesterday to a glorious day.  Sun was shining.  Headed out on foot to get our bearings.  We were amazed at the number of police around, then we discovered that the unions and students were having a protest march.  Streets were blocked off, and police and riot squads were everywhere.   The roads they were marching along were all fenced off and closed to traffic.  Shops and banks were putting up their shutters, a hotel even covered its statue with a cage.

This left us in a quandry, to stay and watch (never recommended), or move on quickly.   Due to the fences and the large police presence, we stayed and watched at a place where we could make a quick exit.  And they had a peaceful march.

Santiago central is flat, and has a river through the middle of it.  Snow capped peaks can be seen from the city.

The final photo shows Peter outside our accommodation, Travesia Bed and Breakfast.