Day 40: Ecuador – 14/02/10

We mean to leave at 7 am (according to Mike) but it is nearer to 8 am by the time we are at the yacht club’s reception waiting for our taxi.  Gratifyingly, it is down to Mike that we are late although to be fair, he was still making the boat safe to leave.  However, no excuses – it just makes a change from it being me!

We are told that our taxi will cost $60 to Guayaquil (not the $35 we have been told previously) but when we look at the distance involved and the time it takes to get there( about 80 miles and one and a half hours) we are not surprised.  Our taxi is clean and air conditioned and the driver actually drives well.  Funnily enough, the only thing that is worn out in his well looked after vehicle are the two areas where you honk the horn.  They obviously get lots of use!

Away from the concrete, heat, dirt and dust that is La Libertad (my view anyway from what I have seen), we head inland and the scrubby, brown vegetation soon changes to greener scenery, although we see nothing special at this point of our journey.

At every opportunity (traffic lights and speed bumps) people are standing trying to sell their wares.  Balloons, sombreros and strange arm stockings which are printed with pretend tattoos so that you too can look like a navvy.  We notice that lots of people are also selling flower arrangements and heart shaped balloons and it is Mike that eventually realises that today is Valentine’s Day.

We arrive at the airport to pick up our car from Avis, Mike clutching his car reservation printout, but are told that there is no car reservation on the system in our name and they have no more cars.  Basically tough shit to us! The girl is uninterested in helping and conveniently speaks no English.  We can do nothing.  We watch as the other hire car companies turn people away and are just deliberating whether to get the bus (yuk, 5 hours in a smelly school bus) when I suggest we ask at one of the kiosks again.  Unbelievably, the one I approach has one car left.  Of course it is an expensive one and we have to wait for nearly an hour while it is cleaned, but our Suzuki Grand Vitara eventually turns up, sparkling clean and with hardly a mile on the clock.

We have very limited maps – a town map of Guayaquil and one of Cuenca, and a scrappy photocopy of the whole country.  The internet yielded nothing better.  We find our way out of the city and head along the dual carriageway, one of their motorways, but the traffic moves quickly, even though the road sometimes reverts to single line carriageway.  At every opportunity there are still people approaching cars attempting to sell their wares only it has now changed to food items – nuts, sliced pineapple, huge chunks of water melon and disgustingly brightly coloured fizzy pop.

We go through banana plantations (Ecuador now supplies most of the world’s bananas), rice fields, corn fields and eventually the mountains start to appear in the distance, cloaked with misty clouds. 

Photos:  After going through the plains, the mountains start to appear 

We have been told that there is a new road through to Cuenca but fail at first to find it, having to return 15 kilometers back the way we have come, but at least this affords us a lunch stop in the shape of baked bananas filled with cheese from a roadside grill.  When the girls tells me the price I don’t understand her but she is happy enough with the $1.50 that I give her and we are more than happy with the food once we taste it, strange as it might sound.

Photo:  Fast food – Ecuadorian style

Photo:  Fried bananas filled with cheese – yummy!

Photo:  Banana capital of the world – Ecuador

Passing through a town, and as it is still carnival time, everyone is out and all seem to want to eat.  Horrified, I stare transfixed at a rotisserie that seems to be roasting guinea pigs (or worse, are they chinchillas?).  Mike assures me that they are probably iguanas but I am not convinced.  Everywhere people are throwing water over each other or squirting that stringy stuff or foam.  It all seems very strange to me.

We start to climb the mountains and very soon the weather changes and we are enveloped in swirling clouds.  As we climb, the temperature starts to drop, one degree Celsius for every one hundred metres.  We started at 34 degrees at the coast; we get down to 8 degrees!

Photo:  Climbing through the mist

The road changes from good solid concrete to rubble strewn, pitted  mud baths and pretty soon our car looks in a sorry state.  Even worse, I realise I desperately need a toilet and there isn’t one in sight.  For the second time in less than a month I have to brave the outdoors, half way up a mountain in the pouring rain between the two open doors of our car.  Mike puts the radio on and Jim looks the other way.  How ladylike.

Photo:  Che Guevara depicted on the back of a bus

All of a sudden, we round a corner and we are out of the clouds.  It is absolutely unbelievable – and unbelievably stunning!  There is pinkish brown pampas grass at the edge of the road, which a little further up disappears, as do the trees as we edge higher and higher.  Eventually it is just rocky mountains, small lakes and glaciers.

Photo:  Just above the clouds

  Photos:  Stunning scenery as we pass through the National Park

We stop for a while and watch some llamas grazing.  They are remarkably stupid looking creatures, then we begin the slight descent to Cuenca.

Photos:  Stupid looking creatures

Arriving in Cuenca, we stop the car and I get out to open the boot and look for details of our hotel.  Suddenly a pick up truck comes roaring up behind me and I am soaked from head to toe in freezing water.  I have been caught by the carnival water-throwers and I can hear them laughing as they speed away.  They must have thought all their Sundays had come together to find a tourist and score a hit!  It actually also goes over my head and lands on Jim sitting in the back seat.

Drenched I get back into the car, annoyed but not taking it personally as there are plenty of other wet people around on the streets.  Apparently the water lobbers are called ‘carnavaleros’ and it is their job to get as many people wet as possible.  Some of them throw flour.  I’m glad I got the water!  We find the hotel and I drip into the lobby.  When they bring my bag up I get changed immediately, then we go out for a walk.  We walk for about half an hour to stretch our legs and are almost back to the hotel when another pick up goes by and they score a hit on all three of us although this time Mike gets more of it than anyone else, although nowhere near as wet as me the first time round.

Photo:  Hotel Victoria, Cuenca

Photo:  The river behind our hotel

He gets changed then we read the tourist information, make plans for tomorrow and head down to the restaurant for a really nice dinner.