El Inca Residential

Wednesday 16th March 1988

We were up and out into a sunny morning at 09:00 hrs. We had breakfast in “Mi Pan” which was just down the road from the hotel. First, we went to the Tourist Office to find out where the Thursday market was situated.

Also, Jackie was interested in finding out about high altitude trout fishing in the area. Apparently, the lakes and streams in the Andes Mountains are full of Rainbow Trout. During heavy rains in the Andes the lakes and streams flood, sending tens of thousands of Rainbow Trout down into the rivers of Cuenca.

Next on the agenda was the Post Office where once again, we were compelled to look at the whole range of postcards on offer in the kiosks. At the Casa de Cambios we shopped around for the best exchange rate, which turned out to be 402 Sucres to the $1U.S. dollar. Throngs of Indians queued up with huge rolls of dollars and Sucres, obviously not as poverty-stricken as most of them appeared!

Jackie changed up a $50 U.S. dollar travellers cheque into Sucres and then changed $20 U.S. dollars back into cash with a local clutching a huge wadge of American greenbacks. We then scoured the town looking for bicycle shops, of which we found several, but none had the 27 x 1¼, 100 psi tyres which Jackie needed. Unrequited, he consoled himself with a new cycling cap.

In the bustling market the locals were stocking up on fruit and vegetables as well as live chicks and ducklings. Nasty looking hunks of meat, plastic wire and toiletries were also on sale. We then devoured a splendid Arroz con Pollo (rice with chicken) in a restaurant which became our local.

Yesterday we walked out without having anything because it was a couple of Sucres more expensive than other cafés, but today we discovered that it was worth it. We walked down to the River Tomebamba and Jackie sat on a rock and tried to meditate while I wrote an aerogramme home.

At 15:30 hrs. we left the riverbank and went in search of a bar for a cold beer. After a ridiculously long search we found a hot dog vendor with a fridge full of Pilsner. We sat in the small shop and with a clap of thunder the heavens opened.

We drank Pilsner and picked at a plate of chips while the rain hammered on the road and bounced back into the air in a fine mist. Flashes of lightening lit up the interior of the poky little shop.

Bang on schedule after two hours the rain stopped, and we went for a browse around the tourist craft and souvenir shops. Jackie always got a laugh when he entered a shop with his quizzical expression under his cycling cap and dressed in shorts and flip-flops.

We didn’t buy anything. A lot of what was on offer was junk and there were a lot of bizarre wood carvings such as a skeleton forcing his way between naked lovers or a carrion bird eating its way into the stomach of a man chained spread-eagle to a rock.

Our walk took us on to discover another bicycle tienda (shop). Here the owner had just what Jackie needed, and he knew it! He had bought a bicycle from a French cyclist and had dismantled it to sell it as parts and spares. He had two second-hand tyres and one new one with the specifications that Jackie was after.

The shopkeeper chortled with glee, knowing that he had Jackie over a barrel and wanted 5,000 Sucres for the three tyres. He wouldn’t sell them separately, at least not for a sensible price. After a think and a talk Jackie was forced to concede and pay for the three as a bundle. He would fit one on the bike and carry the two spare tyres. It was better than no tyres at all.

We walked back through the wet dark streets to the El Inca Residential at 19:00 hrs. A few more gringos were arriving in town for tomorrows not-to-be-missed Thursday market. I sat reading in my room for a while and then suddenly there was a loud explosion.

Half an hour later I discovered that Jackie had put the new tyre on his bike wheel and on pumping up the inner tube it had exploded, throwing the tyre off the wheel rim. Jackie was shocked and his ears were still ringing.

We went out to eat at 20:30 hrs. and met an English couple that I had seen in Baños. Rupert and his girlfriend joined us for beer while we ate, and Jackie kept us entertained with tales from his adventures.

We sat chatting and laughing until 23:00 hrs. and when we came to pay the bill, we had to wake the cashier, who was slumped over the counter, snoring gently.

Cuenca

Tuesday 15th March 1988

I got up OK and set off for the Bus Terminal. The bus was quite comfortable, and I had plenty of leg room in seat No. 1 behind the driver. The passing scenery was a joy, with a huge contrast in relief. The hills varied from grey sandy peaks covered with tufts of hardy grass, to rounded, cultivated mounds patchworked with fields.

The road and lanes of crops followed the contours along deep valley sides. Indigenous Indians in traditional dress herded black pigs, goats, grubby sheep and cattle along the road. Many of the herders were small children with sticks.

The road was mostly tarmacked, some recent and perfect, but in some places it was little more than a dirt track or dry river bed. There were several stretches of road improvement and road works along the way.

We stopped at a few small towns en route, each with a Wild West town feel. There were also quite a few mashed dogs on the road. At one stage, on a bend, we passed a lorry on it’s side bleeding oil into the road. Farmland was being ploughed in the old traditional way with two hefty oxen pulling the ploughshare.

Finally, we pulled into the modern massive Terminal Terreste of Cuenca. It was hot (23°C) as I walked into town and luckily, I found the El Inca Residential almost straight away. Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, commonly referred as Cuenca is the capital and largest city of the Azuay Province of Ecuador. Cuenca is located in the highlands of Ecuador at about 2,560 metres above sea level.

The town has a warm, friendly feel and appears to be quite modern. The valleys on the way to Cuenca were really what you would expect to see in Austria or Switzerland in the summertime. I booked into Room 2 at the El Inca Residential for 250 Sucres – can’t be bad!

I went out to recce the town, initially walking through the smelly food market which sold fruit, vegetables and butchered bits of meat including whole cow heads. Another area had all electronic equipment shops and towards the centre were all the new bank buildings and the most impressive churches.

The centre of the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its many historical buildings and its historical importance as an agricultural and administrative centre. “The plateau is a place treasured by empires," comments Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera. "The Cañari then Inca and then Spanish occupied the region in the last two millennia, each renaming it in their own language. Now the capital city is called Cuenca and the province Azuay.”

According to studies and archaeological discoveries, the origins of the first inhabitants go back to the year 8060 B.C. in the Cave of Chopsi. They were hunters, hunting everything the Páramo offered them, and nomads, following the animals and seasons. Their culture is represented by tools such as arrows and spears, which have been found throughout the Andean valley. The culture was most present about 5585 B.C.

Later the early indigenous people used the stable climate, fertile soil and abundant water to develop agriculture. They grew potatoes, melloco, chocho, squash and quinoa. They also domesticated animals such as cuys (guinea pigs) and camelids: llamas and alpacas.

I got my bag repaired and reinforced in a small tailors shop and then wandered down to the Rio Tomebamba. Cutting through the city, Rio Tomebamba divides Cuenca cleanly into a residential area on one side, and a historic colonial neighbourhood on the other. Here, as was anywhere where there was any water, there were local Indians doing their laundry.

On the way back I changed up $20 U.S. dollars in a Casa de Cambio where the exchange rate was 399 Sucres to the dollar. This made things even cheaper, so I splashed out on a little red transistor radio for 1,600 Sucres. Now I had music at my fingertips!

Back at the hotel I was settling down to a quiet night when there was a bellow: “Weer are ye, ya English bas?”! Jackie had arrived, complaining about hail and rain en route in addition to the roller coaster nature of the road.

I listened to my new radio while Jackie had a shower and then we went out to get an evening meal. We ate in a non-descript café, but I could only eat half of my churrasco as I was still stuffed with sardines, brown rolls, milk, peanuts and chocolate that I had consumed throughout the afternoon.

By 21:00 hrs. everywhere seemed to be closed so we called it a day and hit the sack.

Riobamba

Monday 14th March 1988

We were up at 06:00 hrs. and off to the baths, after which Baños is named. Dawn was just lightening up the cloudy sky. We woke ourselves truly up by jumping between the icy cold pool and the hot brown pool. Jackie was in his element.

We also went out and sat under the waterfall with freezing water pounding on our backs for as long as we could stand it before scampering back to the warm embrace of the hot pool. What a great way to start the day.

Quite a few of the local indigenous Indians were here to start the day in similar style, most of them content to stay in the warm pool. We went on to the Panderia (bakery) for a mountain of warm croissants and hot chocolate.

Back at the Timara Jackie loaded up his bicycle and bid “adios” yet again to Annika, Anja and Hannes. I will meet him again in Cuenca on Wednesday if all goes to plan. I trooped down to the Bus Terminal and bought a ticket for the 10:45 hrs. minibus to Riobamba for 90 Sucres.

Riobamba, full name San Pedro de Riobamba; Quechua: Rispampa is the capital of Chimborazo Province in central Ecuador, and is located in the Chambo River Valley of the Andes. It is 200 km (120 miles) south of Ecuador's capital Quito and located at an elevation of 2,754 m on the Avenue of the Volcanoes.

The city is an important regional transport center and a stop on the Pan-American Highway, which runs through Ecuador. Riobamba is one of the largest cities in the central portion of Ecuador's Sierra region.

Riobamba takes its name from a combination of rio, the Spanish word for "river", and rispampa, the Quechua word for "plain."

The women in the sugar cane stalls around the Bus Station yard were busy hacking up lengths of sugar cane with machetes. On the bus we passed Jackie pedalling furiously uphill at 11:30 hrs. There was little to see apart from green hills and political graffiti. At 12:00 hrs. noon we arrived on the outskirts of the town and I alighted the bus and walked into the centre with my bag on my shoulder, reminding me, by it’s discomfort, to get the handle repaired.

After a lot of frustrating wandering about on vague directions I found the Hotel Metropolitano by the train station at Borja and Lavalle. It was 600 Sucres, relatively expensive, but it was only for one night and I was pissed off with trudging around the streets with a faulty bag on my shoulder.

The room was like a traditional old hotel room with a desk, a chair, a wardrobe, a footstall and a coat stand in matching brown hardwood. There was a wash basin in the corner and when I washed a couple of T-shirts, I was astounded to find hot water coming out of the tap.

I went out for a wander around the town. There were a new style of indigenous Indians here with white bowler-type hats instead of trilby hats. I walked up to the Terminal Terrestre on the outskirts of town at the junction of Avenida D. L. Borja with Eplicachima. Here Micheal Jackson’s “BAD” blared out as I perused the efficient transport offices and bought a ticket to Cuenca for tomorrow morning at 07:30 hrs. for 625 Sucres.

Next it was on to the Post Office to despatch some postcards and letters for Jackie. I found the Correos on the second floor of a shopping precinct on Primero Constituente. Here there was the familiar collection of kiosks selling cards and stamps.

I wanted to buy a couple of postcards and the excessively nice old lady insisted on showing me every card that she had in stock, which was about a thousand of them! She then took about fifteen minutes painstakingly sticking on the stamps, skilfully tailoring the size of the stamps to fit between the writing on Jackie’s postcards. Next each one was slowly but accurately stamped with an “Airmail” rubber stamp.

I popped into the Parque 21 de Abril which was on a hillock offering fine views of the town and the surrounding volcanoes. On April 21 of every year, the so-called "Battle of Riobamba or Tapi" is remembered, when in 1822 on the plain of Tapi, there were clashes between the troops of independence, led by Antonio José de Sucre, against the royalist forces.

It rises on the historic hill called Loma de Quito, for its resemblance to the famous Panecillo, a hill located in the centre of the historic part of the Ecuadorian capital. However, the weather was dull and cloudy and the smell of sewage from the wooden hut on top precluded one from loitering for too long.

I got a couple of photographs of the local indigenous Indians in the main square and then decided to get a haircut. I found an old-style barbers’ shop which looked like one that you would see in a gangster movie set in the 1920’s. There was a huge mirror in which you could watch the Indians outside the shop coming and going with their bundles and babies.

I failed to find a shop that would be able to mend my bag and returned to the hotel for a shower at 17:30 hrs. The water was lovely and warm after it had run for a bit. I went out to eat at 18:30 hrs., walking into the town centre.

Indians were cooking, eating and chatting in groups of two or three along the sidewalk. A young child dressed in scruffy rags walked past me carrying a grubby baby on his back. In contrast to this poverty, some of the shops are very modern and American-looking with brands such as Levi Strauss (the genius who decided “I think I’ll make a pair of trousers out of this old tent”) and Fred Perry carefully copied/counterfeited.

I ate a poor Chop Suey in a Chifa Restaurant and called in to one of the fast-food cafés along the 10 de Agosto for half a chicken to fill me up. On August 10, 1809, the First Cry of The Independence of Ecuador was proclaimed in Quito. The half chicken was massive, and I was forced to admit defeat on the huge mound of rice and salad that came with it.

I was tempted to buy a small transistor radio, but didn’t really have enough Sucres, and decided maybe I would wait until I got to Cuenca. Back in the hotel a woman buzzed impatiently on her staff summoning bell and was completely ignored. Music from the funfair behind the hotel is blaring.

Riobamba is like a bigger version of Ibarra with a few old colonial buildings and a lot of non-descript streets, but lots of picturesque quaint Indian folk. Around the Ferrocarril Station there are a few stalls with braziers selling hot food and many poor people trying to sleep under sacks and blankets.

The Ferrocarril Railway Station in Riobamba was designed by William Alanson Wood, its construction was financed by the Banking Society of Chimborazo and was inaugurated on January 1st, 1925.

The story goes that the layout of the railway began in 1873, during the government of Gabriel García Moreno and culminated in 1960 during the presidency of Velasco Ibarra. There were 13 presidents who worked for this project of vital importance for national development, however it was General Eloy Alfaro who during his government gave the greatest impulse to this work.

The younger, more affluent Spanish descendants wear Western-style fashions and there a few Amusement Arcades to keep the teenagers off the streets.

My alarm clock is definitely “up the Swanee” (broken), with the minute hand hanging down loosely. Probably shaken to bits by recent bus journeys. Hopefully, I will wake up in time tomorrow without having to rely on it.

Cuy

Sunday 13th March 1988

I woke up at 09:00 hrs. and decided “bollocks to a ten-hour bus trip to Cuenca”. Instead, I went for a hot shower and a leisurely breakfast in the now familiar hotel restaurant. I chatted with the Swedes who were exchanging addresses as the more affluent of them were departing for the Galapagos Islands.

I decided to return to Baños where I heard that Jackie was nursing a bad ankle after being hit by a rock on the volcano. At 11:30 hrs. I walked back to the Terminal Terrestre, carrying my bag on my shoulder as the handles were already to starting to come unstitched.

I got my minibus ticket for 230 Sucres and sat on my pack drinking coffee while waiting for the bus to depart at 12:10 hrs. On the bus and underway I had an interesting talk with an English train driver who had been travelling with his girlfriend for ten months in South America.

En route we passed the scene of an accident. A group of people stood around the inert body of a little Indian girl in the middle of the road. A stream of blood was running from her head. Further on we had to halt in Ambato while the road was used for a car rally.

After about half an hour police with ornate cowboy hats waved the traffic on and we raced down the valley towards Baños. The hills got greener and higher, and we saw the huge volcano across the gorge.

Finally, we pulled into the dusty crowded bus station. I showed the English couple to Residential Patty and then went to find the Residential Timara where I heard that Jackie was staying. It was a pleasant family-run guest house with nice rooms for 250 Sucres. The landlady confirmed that “yes, the Scottish cyclist was here”.

I just got settled in my room when Annika and Anja came up the stairs – most unexpected. Together we went up to knock for Jackie who was having a siesta. He feigned disgust at our appearance and then invited us in to share his banana supply. Once again, his excitement and enthusiasm was infectious and he soon had us all laughing.

We went for a meal in the Central Chifa Chinese Restaurant, which was excellent. A banal variety program featuring a sickly young girl singer and some performing seals was showing on the television. The waiter repeated the story that we had heard from Jackie, that two Germans had a big fight last night and one of them was in the town jail.

We went on to sample chocolate-covered ice cream cones and returned to the kitchen at our hotel to make tea. A stall by the marketplace was doing a roaring trade in roast cuy, guinea pigs skewered longways and grilled.

In the mountainous regions of Ecuador people love to eat roast cuy (pronounced kwee). A cuy is a guinea pig raised for meat. Ecuadorians raise them in small pens, caring for them until they’re large enough to make a good meal. That could be a few weeks or a little longer. No matter how long, each guinea is eventually headed to the grill.

There are a lot of holiday makers in town. I finished off my pulsera whilst listening to Jackie singing loudly on the roof. At 20:00 hrs. we trooped into town en masse. There was Jackie, Annika, Anja, Hannes, and a couple of other Germans. The Central Chifa was closed so we went to the other Chinese Restaurant in town.

Here we tanked into churrascos while the waiter tried to get the best out of a scratched, warped vinyl rock music sampler LP on the record deck. Twice boisterous behaviour resulted in beer bottles being overturned into Anja’s lap.

We went on to find out that the Banana Pancake Emporium and the local disco were closed. This left only the street corner rum bars. Here women served rum with hot sweet orange juice at a trestle table for 20 Sucres a nip. There were two drunks to provide entertainment, an aggressive footballer and a happy one with a runny nose who smiled at us and rambled on incoherently.

There was also a small man with only a couple of teeth, who laughed uproariously at everybody. We sat on roadside benches and drank these rum toddies until the stalls packed up at 23:00 hrs. running up a bill of 100 Sucres each.

The indigenous Indian woman serving the drinks poured the white spirit from a respectable looking rum bottle, but the illusion was shattered when the bottle was empty and she refilled it from a grubby plastic motor oil container!

Cafeteria Susanita

Saturday 12th March 1988

At 02:00 hrs. we stopped at the Cafeteria Susanita, which was more like a barn, which flickering fires which gave it a primitive feel. I had slept for a lot of the way so far, with my feet propped up on my rucksack in the aisle, but I was glad of the chance to get off and stretch my legs.

Towards dawn it began to get cold. This was a vast change from the uncomfortable humid heat of the Oriente and I had to dig out my anorak. At first light we climbed through the hills towards Quito and eventually arrived at 08:00 hrs.

I was now back in familiar territory. I strolled back across the Plaza Santo Domingo and passed the lady setting up her familiar live crab stall on the bridge on Calle Venezuela. I booked into the Gran Casino gringo hotel where a single room cost 350 Sucres. I felt sad because of the happy memories of my last stay here.

I had breakfast and set out to change some money and buy some postcards. I got stamps and cards from one of the kiosks and had to change up $20 U.S. dollars on the street because all of the banks were closed. I trekked over to the Terminal Terrestre to buy a bus ticket for Cuenca for tomorrow at 09:30 hrs. which cost 750 Sucres for the ten-hour journey. The exchange rate on the street was 372 Sucres for $1 U.S. dollar.

Back in room 6 at the hotel I sat down to catch up with my diary. Next, I wrote the six postcards, making the task less monotonous by starting to make a green/brown/yellow pulsara (bracelet) and weaving a few rows between writing each card.

When I went out to post them, I met Kent and discovered that all of the Swedish contingent were here and that Jackie was now in Baños, having cycled 120 miles. A lonely drunk danced outside a record shop as I headed down to the Post Office. Indian street trading was in full swing.

In the Post Office I danced back to avoid a lunatic tramp from grabbing my Brazilian pendant, which was on a cord around my neck. Back at the hotel I had a long chat with an American chap who wanted a companion to climb a volcano, and a French bloke who had made it through the Darian Gap into Colombia.

I went down for evening meal and while the Swedes played cards (what else?!). I got into a lively discussion with an Irish bloke, an American cyclist (maths teacher), an English-Australian and Monica from Sweden. The talk ranged through the usual world politics themes with Monica condemning American intervention in everything!

We polished off a good few beers until, finally at midnight, the hotel staff begged us to go to bed. I was extremely tired by then, so I was happy to oblige.

Putumayo Bus

Friday 11th March 1988

We were up early again, packing our last few things for the jungle expedition. We paid our hotel bill and put our excess baggage in the hotel left luggage store. We then all trooped down to the dock on the river. We were all loaded down with food and water for nine people for four days.

No boats seemed to be going our way, which was towards Nuevo Rocafuerte, and the few that did demanded extortionate fares. A few enquiries revealed that our disappointed “ex-guide” from the Marine Barracks had spiked our guns by telling all the boatmen not to take us.

After a couple of fruitless hours our final resolve cracked, and we decided to give up the whole venture. Ben and Manuel went off to retrieve our passports from the Army Base while the rest of us waited with the kit and provisions. The French and the Swiss declared their intention to try the scheduled boat to Rocafuerte tomorrow.

Before long Peter-Paul threw his hand in with them and before long everyone had done an about turn, except me. There were too many tensions and differences of opinion within the group which threatened to erupt at the next difficulty or problem. I decided to cut loose while the going was good.

I repacked my gear back at the Hotel El Auca and sold my food to the group before going for an excellent Chinese Churrasco with Peter-Paul. Next, I tried to get a flight to Quito with TAME, the military airline, but there were no available seats for the next two days, so I settled for a ticket on the 20:00 hrs. Putumayo Bus to Quito. This cost 1,000 Sucres and was scheduled to arrive at 07:00 hrs. tomorrow.

I felt relieved now that I was out of this ill-fated jungle expedition. Earlier when I decided to opt out on the jetty steps I felt a load lifting and it was like being in a film as I stood there watching indigenous women and children washing in the river, porters loading concrete pipe sections into dugout canoes and military helicopters whizzing about like dragonflies overhead. Even the theme music was supplied by somebody’s Sony Walkman.

The rest of the day was spent killing time before the bus departed. I had a few fun moments walking about shopping for hammocks and machetes with Peter-Paul and his atrocious Dutch-accented Spanish.

While the others went swimming in the nasty dirty river, I wandered around Coca drinking fizzy drinks which varied in temperature as there was no electricity during the day in Coca. Prices also varied wildly from stall to shop. It was very hot and sticky here in eastern Ecuador.

Peter-Paul returned with a new military permission document for the trek and we had a good laugh trying to get it photo-copied in a friendly tienda with frequent power failures. The copies were for the almost inevitable situation of the group splitting up in the jungle.

We had supper in the Chinese Restaurant – Chop Suey by candlelight, with all the men topless and dripping with sweat. At 19:30 hrs. I said goodbye to the group of intrepid jungle explorers, consisting of Manuel and Alia, Peter-Paul, Ben and Nicky. I wish them well.

It was dark when I boarded the comfortable coach and sat there sweating until we departed just after 20:00 hrs. Fairly shortly we had to jump off of the bus while it was ferried across a river. I stood in the darkness with the other passengers hoping that the bus would wait for us on the other side.

Once across we chased the bus up the far bank and scrambled aboard. The coach jostled along through the night with the cassette player blaring along a dirt semblance of a road.

Hotel El Auca

Thursday 10th March 1988

We had breakfast at the Hotel El Auca, supplementing it with warm, fresh baked rolls from the bakers around the corner. We then went down to the Marine Depot to haggle and debate about prices and conditions. Several times the jungle trip was in jeopardy, but eventually we decided to give it the green light and drew up a rough contract.

Several of us were still dubious about the changing terms and conditions, but Peter-Paul was so enthusiastic and had worked so hard, that nobody wanted to disappoint him. We then went for a litre of cold mineral water.

Back at the hotel we were lounging around when Manuel came into our room with a new proposition. There were boats down to Nuevo Rocafuerte, which was a gateway to the National Park where the Auca Indians live, close to the border with Peru.

We decided to scrub the organised trip and go for this new option. Our next step was to get permission from the 19th Army Camp across the river. We walked across the bridge and waited under a straw shelter. A lot of soldiers, fit and well-built (a change from the young striplings of Central American armies) limbered up and jogged about in the heat.

Despite an attempted block by our spurned and disappointed guide, we got our permission and received a typed list of our names on a permit in return for our passports, which would be retained until we returned.

We then went shopping for food and provisions. This was a simple act which was made difficult by frayed tempers and impatience due to all the doubt and uncertainty of the impending trip. The Frenchman and the Swiss pair seemed to be wondering who they had thrown their hands in with!

I bought some more laundry soap powder and some embroidery thread to make pulseras during leisure breaks. The night was covered with the pall of smoke and dust, which covered you in grime as soon as you emerged from the shower. Copious sweating added to the personal hygiene hell.

Lit and unlit vehicles zipped about maintaining the smoke screen. We sorted out our kit, deciding what to take and what to leave behind, and then went out for a much-needed meal. We got this in the Chinese Restaurant down the road, a good meal which helped to restore our morale a bit.

The Chinese service was courteous, which made a change in Coca. I bought a plastic bowl for 100 Sucres and on the way back we stopped for our usual ice cream fix. It is extremely hot. The staff of Cremys Ice Cream Parlour still failed to raise a smile for us.