In Baños ("Bathrooms")

In the bus to Salasaca we met a Polish trio, also known as "Las Blondynas" - check out their blog http://lasblondynas.blogspot.com/ Ana, Marta and Ola were going to Baños, half an hour further than Salasaca. We had a very nice conversation about their and our trip. The girls are travelling around the world for 6 months - they started in Venezuela, planning to get to Buenos Aires and from there to Australia, Southeast Asia and India. Soon we realised that all we knew about our volunteering in Salasaca was the name of the school - Katitawa - and the name of the coordinator - Robert. It was getting dark and the bus driver told us that there are no hotels in Salasaca and it would be better to get there by day and find a place to stay for this night in touristic Baños. So finally we decided to change our plans, get to Baños for a couple of days and go to Salasaca on 1st of May, as we originally agreed with Robert. We are so glad that finally we got to Baños! In a group of five (Jordi and 4 blondynas :) it was easy to get a cheap hostel $5 per person. We were all very hungry and we found some cheap and fast food. After that we decided to go for a last-minute 2-hour night tour by Chiva (a kind of bus with lights, loud reggaeton music and a small dance floor). We were supposed to see the Tungurahua volcano but it was too dark but at least we could have a nice view over the illuminated city. We were also invited to a short-comedy show (sadly for the girls it was in Spanish) quite funny and had a typical Ecuadorian drink called "canelazo".

Ola, Ana, Karolina and Marta in the "chiva"

Baños by night

The next day we woke up early and went for a nice breakfast to the Mercado (market) for $2 - just like locals!. After that we met with girls to go for "La ruta de las cascadas" (The waterfalls route) by bike. We hired a bike and equipment for $5 and started the trip around 12. This route is an amazing experience of 18 km with stunning landscapes and waterfalls. The first part you share the road with other vehicles but after the first few kilometers you take the "old road" which is now used only by cyclists.

Pajaros in the "Manto de la novia"

 The first waterfall of the "Ruta de las Cascadas"

Close to some of the waterfalls there were some activities you could do such as canopy or bungee jumping. In the "Manto de la novia", an amazing double waterfall around 40 metres high, there was a canopy system around 500 metres long that we decided to try. First we got to the other site of the valley and then go down the hill to the waterfall. Then we crossed a nice bridge and came back by "tarabita" (a suspended cabin). All this for $10. We decided to do it together - Jordi in a "Superman" position and Karo sitting just behind him. Here is the result: 

Ready to go!

 

The 4 blondynas on the way down to the waterfall 

"The Bridge"

Karo in the "tarabita"

It was an amazing experience, not only because of the canopy ride but also because it gave us the chance to get close to the waterfall, see beautiful surroundings and have a beer in a small improvised bar just next to the waterfall. Later we carried on riding the bikes, seeing a couple of waterfalls more. Blondynas decided to come back to Baños and we reached the last waterfall before the sunset, "El Pailón del diablo", the largest in this area. We had to leave the bikes and walk around 40 minutes in order to get there. It is an incredibly strong waterfall and we could hear it already in our way. There were several "balconies" from where you could admire as well as a low tunnel - we had to crawl - leading behind the waterfall.

 

In one of the balconies at Pailón del Diablo

 

The low low tunnel

  

This is hell!

After that we were exhausted and luckily we found a camioneta (small truck) that drove us and our bikes back to Baños for $3. Almost straight away we got ready and went to "Aguas termales" (hot springs that give the name to the city) where we were relaxing in hot water with an amazing view of one of the city's waterfalls for a couple of hours. After this exciting and exhausting day we had to eat something and went to a small restaurant with lots of paintings on the walls. We got there one of the best pizza we ever had in our lives.

Next day, just after breakfast, we said goodbye to our travelling friends and finally took a bus in direction of Salasaca.

Welcome to Ecuador - Quito!

We finally got to Quito, after a nice and interesting journey. As always there were people entering the bus to sell something: from food, drinks and phone chargers to miracle medicines and healthy diet books. Jordi bought a tasty burger while Karolina was less lucky and she paid $0,50 for a bottle of tap water (the bottle was reused...). In Quito we decided to take a taxi and get to the town centre - there is no central bus station in Quito so the bus left us somewhere in the north. We had no room reservation as always, so we went to the neighbourhood which is full hotels, hostels and guesthouses, commonly called "Gringolandia". There were also many western-style restaurants, bars, cafes, shops and clubs, so it wasn't the best place to experience "real Ecuador". At least we found a place to sleep without a problem. In the morning we were treated with a descent breakfast which was included in the price of the room ($24 per night). 

Later we took a bus and got the Old Town. It's a really well-conserved example of colonial architecture. Instead of following our guide-book we decided to get a bit lost and follow our intuition. This way we got to the Basilica del Voto Nacional (an immense neo-gothic building), Plaza Grande with the Palacio de Govierno, Quito's Cathedral and Monasterio de San Fransisco which is oldest city's church. It was a very pleasure sightseeing without rush or schedule. 

Plaza Grande (also called de la Independencia)

Palacio de Gobierno

Going down-hill wasn't a problem...

From the Old Town we spotted a huge figure on a hill which seemed to be an angel. We decided to get there the next day because it started to rain. We went back to Gringolandia and had an expensive and not even tasty dinner there. The only good thing about this place was the trio concert (2 guitars and a djembe) playing Ecuadorian an Spanish music. The idea for the rest of evening was to go out but as soon as we got back to the hostel we fell asleep and... woke up the next day. 

                                                 

Basilica del Voto Nacional

San Fransisco

Plaza de San Francisco

In the morning we took a bus and got to theTeleferiQ which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Quito. We are not sure whether we were very unlucky or it's so cloudy everyday. We paid $8,5 for TeleferiQ ride but when we got up we could see only clouds... It was already 4100 metres above the sea-level so we decided to drink some coca tea which is supposed to be helpful in altitude sickness. We walked around the place - there was only cafe, small church, bridge and few benches. At least we could see clearly from there peaks if mountains.  

In the TeleferiQ

Before the clouds came...

We got down and took another taxi to get to Panecillo - the place we had seen from the Old Town the day before (the traffic in Quito is crazy so the taxi was the only way to get there and not loose half a day just for it). it turned out to be a Virgin Mary (not an angel), surprisingly with wings - made of thousands of pieces of aluminium. It was much better view point than TeleferiQ and we could clearly see all the city, for free:)

Much better view for free:)

Aluminium Virgin Mary with wings

We noticed there a bus with a direction: "Mitad del Mundo" (Middle of the world) and although we were planning to go there the next day, we decided to hop on. It was almost 2-hour ride. Once there, we headed directly to the main entrance. The complex consists of few museums, planetarium, shops and restaurants. Everything looks a bit surrealistic: the colours of the buildings are weird and you can feel that Mitad del Mundo is not a place where people actually live. It was created due to its location - equator - 0º00' latitude. There is a monument indicating this information, but we learnt that it's false and 'real middle of the world' lies around 300 metres further. We got hungry and went to one of few restaurants there. This time it was very important to ask for set menu which was only for $4 per person (soup, main dish and drink) while simple dish in the menu was for about $3-4. 

Karo in the southern hemisphere, Jordi in the northern one

Mitad del Mundo

After that we headed back to the hotel. This time we were really motivated to go out, but as always we fell asleep as soon as we lied in bed... Fortunately we woke up around midnight and decided to go out. We were pretty hungry so we had some junk food in the nearest bar opened. After that we went to the small salsa bar with a good atmosphere. We were having lots of fun dancing although we're still not sure about right steps:) After a while a great drum band appeared. There were three huge djembes and some other percussion instruments. The band was supported by a very fit girl, dancing like crazy:) After this fascinating show, salsa music was back and we danced till three in the morning. 

The next day, after small shopping at handcraft market (lots of bargaining!) we made our way to the southern bus station to catch a bus to Salasaca - a place where we wanted to do short-term volunteering in the local school. 

Amazing girl playing flute in one of the parks

You can buy there freshly-made hats and scarfs:)

Cheese & Chocolate, Minutos y Arepas

Our flight from out of the jungle to Cali was via Bogotá and we had to spend at the airport over 6 hours.That's all we saw from Colombia's capital city: pretty uncomfortable chairs, but the worst was the airport TV which was located all over the place, making lots of noise. When the finally switched it off we enjoyed few minutes of silence until the airport shops started to open and play loud music.

Colombian hygiene - wipe the can before you drink

On Monday 23rd of April we arrived to sunny and dry Cali. After two weeks spent in hot and humid climate of the rain forest it was a big change for us. The biggest advantage was that finally we could dry our towels and we also decided to make a laundry. In Cali, we were hosted by Leonardo and to be more accurate we slept at his mum's place. She was very kind, helpful and the hot chocolate made by her in the morning was simply wonderful. Leonardo is also a hard-working person (it seems to be a rule among couchsurfing hosts in South America) but he managed to spend with us some time. On the day of our arrival we didn't visit too much as we were pretty tired and Karolina got sick after eating arepa (ground corn pancake filled with cheese).

Jovita - the queen of Valle del Cauca

The graffiti in Cali is pretty impressive (the girl on the right looks just like Rebeca;)

More graffiti and fruit seller

The next day, Leonardo invited us for lunch. He advised that we could easily get to the restaurant in around half an hour from his mum's place. We were late because it turned out to be a 1-hour walking at midday when the sun was, let's say, really unpleasant. The lunch was delicious and relatively cheap as there was a Tuesday two-for-one promotion. We had two big plates of seafood for 20000 Colombian Pesos (10 US$) in Bella Mar Restaurant. Leonardo and his girlfriend had to go back to work and we decided to watch Barcelona vs. Chelsea in one of the bars in the centre... Fucking Chelsea!!! They didn't play football at all and they didn't deserve t get to the final, but "el futbol es asi" in J. Cruyff words. At least the atmosphere at the bar was nice, with supporters of both teams and the beer cold and tasty.

No need to go to Rio to see Jesus - come to Cali...or to Swiebodzin (Poland:)

After the match we decided to follow the route proposed by Leonardo. From the bar to the monument "El gato del río y las novias del gato" (The cat of the river and its girlfriends), then to el mirador de Sebastián Belalcazar (Spanish founder of "Santiago de Cali", as the city is officially known) and from there to the "Iglesia de San Antonio", a beautiful church in a hill with a nice park and good views from the city.

the we called Leonardo and waited for him in a small and cute bar called "El alcornoque", already in the way down of San Antonio's hill, where a crazy cat made us laugh while drinking our first "Costeña" (One of many Colombian beer brands).

View from San Antonio

No idea what is a root and what is already a branch

Gato del rio

And Las novias del gato (cat's girlfriends)

When Leonardo and his girlfriend arrived, we took a road up to the mountains for around 18 km through a thick fog up to a restaurant conveniently named "La neblina" (The Spanish diminutive for "fog"), already at around 2000 m above sea level (Cali is around 1100 m). There we finally enjoyed very nice arepas and tried the typical Colombian Chocolate & Cheese. Sounds weird but tastes delicious.Put the cheese into the hot chocolate, let it melt for a couple of minutes and yammi!

Chocolate&cheese

El Alcornoque - a really cool spot discovered by chance

With Leonardo and his girlfriend in Neblina

We came back home having a nice chat about Colombian, Spanish and Polish cultural differences and went to sleep, in order to wake up early and head to Ecuador the next morning.

Cali's street in the morning

We left home quite late finally (what a surprise ;p) and took a bus to Pasto around 1pm. We bargained the price of the ticket, as almost everything in Colombia, and got it for 10000 Pesos cheaper each (around 5 US$). Even with that, probably we still payed more than locals. However, the journey was horrible. The road was a mess (bear in mind that is a main road between Colombia and Ecuador) and the drivers drove like crazy. There are always two of them in such a long journeys, and although one more than the other, both were crazy.

"In case of dizziness ask for a bag" 

Gas station?

We arrived to Pasto around 9pm and just getting out from the bus there were already few people surrounding us offering everything: "taxi, hotel, drugs?". We decided one of the guys that looked all right and offered us a room for 3 US$ per person in a private double room. We walked few "quadras" (blocks) and got to the Hotel Paola in a suspicious street. The price was true (12000 Pesos for both of us per night) and the room didn't look bad (TV, a bathroom with hot shower and a double bed), so we decided to spend there our only night in Pasto. The guy that took us to the Hotel asked then for 1000 Pesos (0.50 US$) which was a good price for finding for us what we were looking for (a cheap room close to the station) and taking us away from the crowd that gathered around us in the station when they all realised how "gringos" we are. Once we left the backpacks and accommodated in the room, we decided to go for a walk and try to eat something. Paola advised us that was a pretty dangerous area but we decided to go anyway. We came back after few minutes... We were in Pasto just to spend the night, not to get robbed and it really looked pretty bad. So, we ate some bread that was left from the journey, drank a juice from the hotel and watched a movie in English with Spanish subtitles and went to sleep.

Minutos - the points where you can use mobile phone to call different operators - are simply everywhere 

Finally in the morning we got to Ipiales (Colombian border city) in a van. Of course, again we had to bargain the price of the ticket. Once there we got a stamp and crossed the border walking to Ecudaor.  After that we met a couple from Medellin who were travelling with their child in the same bus from Cali to Pasto. We recognised them cos people from this region of Colombia use the word ´parsero´. We shared a taxi to Tulcan bus terminal. Before we even left the taxi there were already people around the car offering us tickets to Quito. We´ll soon give you some more details about Ecuador which so far is our favourite South American country.

Welcome to Ecuador

Jungle experience II

On Saturday, 14th of April we took a boat from Manaus to Tabatinga. The ship was leaving at midday but we arrived before 9 a.m. in order to get better place and install our hammock: far from bathrooms and on the side closer to the shore to have wonderful views. There were already lots of people who had similar plan:)

M Monteiro, 'The boat', literally packed with hammocks

 
At the beginning we were concerned about how many children there were on the boat  that they would cry a lot or make noise in the night. At the end watching them was one of very few entertaining activities and all of them were pretty calm. We had a 3-year old neighbour called Pedrinho who was vary nice and cute. He looked very smart and was calm and a good observer. At the beginning was observing us (mostly Karo) concerned of how different we looked to people he was used to see. But finally we got on well with him and he started to trust us:) When he and his mum left on the fourth day of journey we got a bit sad but at least we got some more room for our hammocks.

 Pedrinho and his mum

 Karo lying in her hammock

It was a problem when waking up to find out that someone had put their hammock just next, above or under yours while you were sleeping. So, during the stops you have to be careful and keep as much place as you can for yourself, lying broadly for instance.

New passengers entering the boat in the middle of nowhere

Amazonian Sunset I

 Amazonian Sunset II

The food wasn´t bad, but it was just boring. Every day we were waking up with the sunrise and first thing to do was going to the kitchen to get your bread with butter and tiny piece of cheese and extremely sweet coffee. Already at 11 we could see people waiting for their lunch. During first days we decided to have our meal after 12 - just before closing - but finally it was a bad idea because  there was a risk nothing would be left for us. Lunch and dinner were almost the same: rice, pasta, beans and some chicken. Right now when we can already choose what to eat we try to avoid those ingredients as much as possible. There was also farofa - kind of manioc flour which Brazilians add to all their dishes. It is very tough and it's almost impossible to chew it - imagine to eat small stones. It seems European teeth aren't adapted to this kind of accompaniment while in Brazil people use it only to change the consistence of their meals.

Selling stuff even without stopping

Amazonian village of Amatura

We arrived to Tabatinga after 5 days instead of 6 and a half and to be honest we enjoyed it so much that we were a bit disappointed having to leave the boat earlier. It was very relaxing time and we got used to daily routine on the boat. We spent most of the time lying in our hammocks, watching beautiful landscapes, reading books or playing cards. We also met three more 'gringos' (Olly from England, Andy from Germany and Robert from Poland!) so we could hang out together in the top-deck bar.

After arrival to Tabatinga (still Brazil) we headed directly to the police station in order to get leaving stamp in our passports and the we walked to Leticia (already Colombia). We found there a host on couchsurfing but because we arrived earlier we decided to stay in the hostel for one night. We really liked this small border town. Everything was walking-distance what we really missed after visiting big cities. The next day we visited harbour which is at the moment floating due to rainy season - to some shops close to there you can get only trough primitive wooden 'bridges'.

Simpson Bar - Krusty burgers, hot dogs and others Homer's favourites

Close to Leticia's harbour

School parade in Leticia I

School parade II

We contacted Sevi - our German host in Colombia who together with his three flatmates lives in the most incredible place we ever seen. His house is located outside Leticia (11 km away) in the middle of rain forest. 

 Sevi's neighbours

Rainforest fruit (we can't remember the name of it)

That's Sevi's garden

 

The house is made of wood and instead of glass in the windows there is a very thick net. This way when you're inside you can hear and smell the jungle. We liked this atmosphere very much and spent there lots of  time, lying in our hammocks and listening to rain.

Sevi's house

 Upside down

 Crazy octopus-tree in Sevi's garden

 Find a frog

 Beautiful worm (Jordi didn't eat this one)

 Chia, the Amazonian cat

Walls in their house are full of drawings and we also left our sign there

We also went out with Sevi and Sofia to a small bar. It was Jordi's birthday so were happy to have a chance to try for the first time our salsa dancing skills and drink caipirinha (Jordi got one for free from the bar staff). 

 Jordi's birthday breakfast

25th Happy birthday

 Sevi and Sofia - thank you guys for wonderful stay at your place!

After three days we had our flight back to 'the civilization'. On Sunday, 22nd of April we went to Cali, also called 'capital of salsa'. You can see that we aren't very regular bloggers but we promise to tell you all we find interesting during our trip, although with a small delay.