Ecuador/Peru Trip |
Last updated: Man-O-War Cay, 19 Mar 2009 |
For a while now,
I've been wanting to take a trip on one of the cargo river
boats going to Iquitos on the Amazon River. I've also wanted to scout out the
coast of Ecuador. It's supposed to be a nice area to visit with a small
sailboat.
The plan: fly into Quito and bus down through Cuenca crossing into Peru south of Vilcabamba, then over to Yurimaguas. From there, take one of the Eduardo riverboats to Iquitos. Then take one of the Henry riverboats upriver to Pucallpa. Then loop around through the Cordilleras returning to Ecuador to see the coast and spend some "quality time" getting to know one area well. Duration: 5 months (Sep 2008 - Jan 2009)
Ecuador apparently changed their visa policy in July - now limiting a visitor on a tourist visa to 90 days total per year. I had hoped to spend more time there (I don't know why they don't want more of my tourist dollars). Otherwise, the trip has been problem-free so far.
I'm just going to describe some highlights from the trip. If you're thinking about going there, go down to the bookstore (or amazon.com) and pick up a guide book. I like Lonely Planet but there are a number of them to choose from.
If you are thinking about going, here are some of my suggestions.
The plan: fly into Quito and bus down through Cuenca crossing into Peru south of Vilcabamba, then over to Yurimaguas. From there, take one of the Eduardo riverboats to Iquitos. Then take one of the Henry riverboats upriver to Pucallpa. Then loop around through the Cordilleras returning to Ecuador to see the coast and spend some "quality time" getting to know one area well. Duration: 5 months (Sep 2008 - Jan 2009)
Ecuador apparently changed their visa policy in July - now limiting a visitor on a tourist visa to 90 days total per year. I had hoped to spend more time there (I don't know why they don't want more of my tourist dollars). Otherwise, the trip has been problem-free so far.
I'm just going to describe some highlights from the trip. If you're thinking about going there, go down to the bookstore (or amazon.com) and pick up a guide book. I like Lonely Planet but there are a number of them to choose from.
If you are thinking about going, here are some of my suggestions.
Quito to Riobamba |
I flew into Quito and stayed in Old Town for a couple days. Old Town is the
recently restored colonial part of the city. I got to see some of the old
cathedrals and monasteries. Very nice. The trolley is pretty convenient and
only 25¢. The trollies have a reputation as being rife with pickpockets though, so be
especially careful. I also heard a number of accounts of street robberies in the new part of Quito (the La Mariscal area where everything is located), even in broad daylight, so be careful. It's like the question put to the bank robber: "Why do you rob banks?" His reply: "Because that’s where the money is." From Quito, I bussed down to Baños to go to the hot spring baths. Probably because it was a weekend but the main one (Baños de la Virgen) below the waterfalls was jam packed. So I didn't bother going into the water. Oh well, I'll try again some other time. Then I bussed over to a little town in the highlands called Guaranda. The scenery was real pretty, all shrouded in mist. Unfortunately, no photos. From Guaranda, I went to Riobamba. |
Nariz del Diablo |
In Riobamba you can catch the train that goes down the Nariz del Diablo. The
Nariz del Diablo is a steep section where the train sort of zig-zags back and
forth. It goes down the first part and stops. The conductor gets off and
switches the track behind and it goes backwards down the next section. Then it
stops again where the conductor switches over to the next section. It would be
kind of neat to make a sped-up movie of it - there's probably such a movie out
there.
[Todo: look for said movie and post a link here] Thank you Talitha for the photos. |
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Cuenca to Yurimaguas |
I really really like Cuenca. It is a very "livable" city. Nice climate, very
clean and orderly, fairly quiet, very friendly people, nice plaza, not too big
but having a fair mix of restaurants and services. Did I say I really like it?
It's where I think I'd like to settle eventually. I'm going to try to rent
an apartment there for a month or so on the way back to Quito. From Cuenca I bussed down to Vilcabamba - another spot with a nice climate. Vilcabamba is a little more touristy and there are a number of gringos settled there (somebody there said there were about 150 I think). From Vilcabamaba I followed the guidance in Lonely Planet for crossing the border to Peru. Leaving on an early bus from Vilcabamba, I caught the midday "ranchero" from Zumba to the border at La Balsa (called that I guess because it used to be simply a balsa raft before they built the bridge). I think I might have been the only gringo using that crossing that day. I thought that was kind of cool until it came time to get from La Balsa to San Ignacio, the first town of any size in Peru (a 2 hour ride over a pretty rough dirt road). The only transportation are "collectivos" - a small car (usually one of those tiny station wagon) that they cram 5 (usually 7 or 8) passengers into. I ended up paying nearly the full amount ($20) compared with the 14 soles ($5) it would have cost. And when we arrived in San Ignacio, the driver tried to renegotiate the price (it really was a rough ride and I kind of felt sorry for the car) but I said "No, not one centavo more" (in Spanish of course), paid him, said "Buenas noche" and walked away. From San Ignacio, I took the mini-bus to Jaen, then an overnight bus to Tarapoto. The road from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas was blocked for several days due to a landslide, so I waited in Tarapoto until it was cleared. |
Down the Huallaga and Marañón to Iquitos, then up the Ucayali to Pucallpa |
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The Eduardo boat had much better food - a good variety and well prepared. You
had a feeling that the cook liked her job. On the Henry boat it was pretty much
white rice with a tiny piece of chicken and a plantain for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner - for 5 days. The cabin on the Henry was pretty nice though, with a
private bathroom and shower. There was a fancy new terminal at the dock in Yurimaguas so this may be different now (when I was there, it looked like that terminal hadn't opened yet). For each trip, to book the cabin, I went to the dock (a couple times a day.. you'll get to know the proper mototaxi fare from town to the docks) and simply looked for a boat with a sign saying it was going on to Iquitos (in the case of the Eduardo) and Pucalpa (for the Henry). Then the guy to talk to for a cabin was the same one who was keeping the books for arriving cargo. In each case, I found him at the entrance to the cargo hold (on the first level of the boat, just aft of the open deck space). He's the guy writing in the little book as the cargo is hauled into the hold. A cabin berth was twice the fare of sleeping on-deck (ie. in your hammock). I opted for the cabin mainly because I had read and heard lots of stories about theft on the boats. I didn't hear of any theft on the two passages I was on, but it was easy to see it being possible. The cabins on both boats had bunk beds. I paid a single fare on each, hoping to get the cabin for myself. On the Eduardo, at the last minute somebody showed up and as mine was the last unfull cabin, I ended up sharing the cabin with him. On the Henry, very few of the cabins were occupied (less than half) so I got the cabin to myself. You can pay a double fare if you want the cabin guaranteed to yourself. There is a padlock on the door but you get just one key. It was too hot during the day to stay in the cabin - they're bare iron inside and out. So you definitely want to have a hammock for the daytime. The guy who rented the cabin on the Eduardo also rented hammocks for the trip (about 1/3 the cost of buying one at the market in town). It was surprisingly cold at night, so if you're sleeping in a hammock on-deck at night, you might want to make sure you have a warm sleeping bag or bring an extra blanket. I'd like to make the trip again. But this time with a good camera. |
Miraflores |
From Pucallpa I went to Lima and stayed in Miraflores. I've been to Miraflores a number of times before. It has a nice plaza with several sidewalk cafes on the corner near the cathedral. It's a nice place to have dinner and just people watch. There is an area in the plaza near the cafes selling antiques, craftwork, and other oddities. There are usually a bunch of people selling their oil paintings. And there's usually something going on in the little sunken amphitheater - band music, poetry reading, etc. On this visit, there was a horticultural fair going on. |
Huaraz |
Huaraz is located next to the Cordillera Blanca mountain range on the edge of the snow-capped mountains. I went up to a lodge called the Lazy Dog Inn, right next to the mountains. I walked on the road towards the mountains a little while but think I was having trouble with the altitude and didn't quite make it to the snowy bits. Maybe next time (with a good camera along). |
Cañon del Pato |
From Huaraz you can take a bus to Trujillo through the Cañon del Pato. The
road is a little rough, but well worth it. The canyon is where the Cordillera
Blanca and Cordillera Negra mountain ranges come together. Thank you Andreas for the photos. |
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Chachapoyas |
Chachapoyas means
"Wariors of the Clouds",
a name given to them by the Incas who conquered them. I visited
Kuelap, their
fortress near Chachapoyas. It's not as impressive as Machu Picchu say. But it
doesn't have many tourists nor is it so commercialized so it makes for a very
worthwhile trip. I stayed in a hotel right on the town plaza. My room had a balcony that looked out over the plaza. A couple neat things in the plaza:
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Máncora |
Máncora is on the coast about 70 miles down the Panamerican Highway from the border. It's very popular with surfers (lots of surfer dudes and dudettes) and Peruvians on the weekends. The ceviche and seafood are very good. Good place to hang out (waiting until I can return to Ecuador). |
Cabo Blanco - Two months and fifty years too late |
30 Nov 2008
My Lonely Planet says that Ernest Hemingway was inspired to write The Old
Man and the Sea here. It was famous for it's fishing back then. I
wanted to see it and maybe do some fishing. Cabo Blanco is a little ways down the coast from Máncora - about 45 minutes by bus to El Alto, then a short "collectivo" ride down to the town. The anchorage was full of local fishing boats - most of them sporting a mast for a sail. Cool. The Lonely Planet said there was a hotel here that was little used. It turned out that the hotel was completely booked by a film company and was closed to the public. This turned out to be a good thing. Too often I find myself simply hitting the easy spots - the ones in the guide book with a map and recommendations on where to stay and where to eat and what to see. Now I needed to find my own way a bit. I started by asking people if there was another hotel or hospedaje around. I got a couple "No"s, a couple "Well, you can try the Fishing Club but I think they are closed", and then I got a "Go down to the house with the satellite dish and ask the señor. He often rents a room.". The señor turned out to be a very gracious host. The room was VERY basic (though cheap). I asked about the fishing. He took me down to where the fishermen hang out and we started asking. After a while, I was introduced to a captain and we talked about the fishing. I was interested in tuna. He said, No, this is the wrong time of year. September was the time to be here. At this time, I could go out for small fish (a foot and a half or so long) and a half day would be S/200 (about $60). It would have been kind of interesting - the boat has sail (which it looked like they use for the most part - downwind anyway) as well as a motor. But, I decided to pass on it. I'll try to get back someday. I was two months late (or 10 months early :-). We headed back to the señor's house. He asked if I wanted to see a video of the fishing. I said sure and he popped a DVD into the machine. It had a couple 1950's black and white clips on it. The first was a young Ted Williams narrating a 10-day trip in 1954 when he caught a 1240 pound Black Marlin. Apparently that was the hey-day for sport fishing there. The Fishing Club was their private clubhouse. In the Ted Williams clip, he said that there were no regulations on fishing and in one year (in the 60's) there was 12 million tons[1] of sardines caught. He suggested that this level of fishing of the bait fish is what pretty much ended the sport fishing. I guess I'm fifty years late. Of course I could never have afforded "their" kind of fishing. In the clip, Williams mentioned that the local fisherman did spear Marlin though and that might have been an option. And I assume there was some fishing of the sort depicted in The Old Man and the Sea. Easy to fantasize about it anyway. I did get to watch the film company shooting some scenes on the pier and beach and that was fun. I was chatting with a local watching one of the scenes. He said that the film group was there for about a month and a half. He had brought them out on his boat for some ocean scenes. He said the name of the film (I'm guessing a "tele-novela") is Contra Currientes (Counter Currents). I didn't see any Spencer Tracy look-a-likes. But I did get a real sense of an inner calmness coming from the fishermen I chatted with. And a feeling of timelessness watching them haul their boats up onto the beach to clean and repair them, probably much the same as their fathers had done, and their fathers' fathers.. |
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[1] 12 million tons seemed like an awful lot and I got to thinking that I got it wrong but I found it also claimed here. They state Beginning in the 1950s, a lucrative industry to harvest the anchoveta and convert them to fishmeal was developed in Peru. The landings increased rapidly to a peak of about 12 million tons in 1970, then dropped to 2-3 million tons for a few years. After 1977 the catch hovered around 1 million tons but in 1985 there began a recovery which has persisted into the twenty-first century. |
Back in Cuenca |
5 Dec 2008
I arrived back in Cuenca on Monday. They
surprised me at the border
by giving me a 90 day visa so I changed my return flight to add 2 weeks to my
stay. On Wednesday I took an apartment in a nice location near the plaza,
next to the cathedral. And yesterday had my first class at the
Spanish language school
about 2 blocks from the apartment. The plan is to "try out" Cuenca for a
couple months. I think it is the most livable city I have ever been
to. |
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![]() ![]() I broke down and bought a camera (a Canon XSi). The image quality looks pretty good. Here are some shots from this weekend. |
Back on the coast |
Bahia de Caraquez, 1 Feb 2009
I returned to the coast where the air is so thick and sweet you cut it with a
knife to spread on your toast with breakfast. At least that's how it feels
after 2 months in the highlands of Cuenca. In Guayaquil I stayed next to the
Parque Bolivar, home to lots and lots of iguanas. Then to Salinas for a night (where they wouldn't even let me in to see the yacht club - I guess I have that "boat bum" look .. maybe not such a bad thing), Puerto Lucia (very nice facilities for hauling and making repairs - but pretty expensive) and Bahia de Caraquez (looks like a good place to leave your boat to visit the mainland but not a place to "just hang out" for a year, say). Here are some photos of the iguanas and Malecon. And here are a couple photos of Salinas and Bahia. |
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Otavalo |
Quito, 9 Feb 2009
Quito |
Man-O-War Cay, 19 Mar 2009
After a couple days in Otavalo, I returned to Quito to see Old Town again (and get
some photos) and go to the Mitad del Mundo exhibit
where the Equator was measured in the 1700's
(Ecuador gets it's name from being located on the Equator).
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Back (home) in the Bahamas |
Man-O-War Cay, 19 Mar 2009
I've been back in the Bahamas for about a month now. When I got back, I
couldn't resist starting on the
dinghy project and have
been at it pretty steady. So I didn't get around to updating my journal until
today (it's been raining all day). Here are some photos of "home"...
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Next... |
Man-O-War Cay, 19 Mar 2009
I had been planning to spend the summer in North Carolina, returning to the Bahamas
after the hurricane season, then maybe going south from here. But I'm now
mulling over keeping Breakaway here for another year and making another trip to South
America in July. I'd like to see Bolivia, Northern Argentina around Salta, and
Chile. I've never been to Bolivia before. Sucre - supposed to be similar to Cuenca but maybe a little simpler. Salar de Uyuni - large salt flats in the Altiplano. [Bring the camera!] Tupiza, San Vicente - last haunts of Butch and Sundance. Salta - supposed to be some very pretty country. Mendoza - heart of wine country. Malbec and Argentinean beef.. ahh.. heaven on earth. |
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