Centro Historico in Quito, EcuadorAs soon as I arrived, I had a good feeling about Quito, the centre of the earth as it´s often called. The people seem very calm and generous here as I discovered when the local watch repair shop gave me a free part for my watch, the card shop called a friend to translate the Spanish on a couple cards for me and a taxi driver offered me a free fare because he didn´t have enough change.
Another reason I am enjoying Quito is for the food. You can order full and delicious 2 course meals from any number of local restaurants including a variety of fresh squeezed local fruit juices such as the Mora berry, similar to a blackberry. There are also other local fruits I can't even pronounce let alone that I've ever heard of and if you're feeling less adventurous, there are your standard strawberrys, bananas and pineapples. Sometimes these meals even include dessert, ALL for just $1.50 US including tax!
Another highlight in Quito was stumbling upon a vegetarian restaurant and Yoga/Meditation centre on my second day and being offered a 1 hour private yoga class including a delicious homeade tea for free! I actually donated $7 to the instructor as she was AMAZING! Next, I will back up and share a little about my travels through Panama and Colombia in the last month and a half.
Arriving by bus from Costa Rica, I almost didn´t get across the border into Panama since I didn´t have an onward ticket, which is technically mandatory. Instead, I haggled with the border crossing lady for not only charging me the standard $5 tourist entrance fee but also an extra $1 for some kind of postage stamp looking scrap of paper that was being sold by a woman patrolling the line, looking suspiciously like a street vendor. Having been haggled enough by similar looking vendors throughout Central America, I declined payment. When I got to the front of the line and was once again asked to pay it this time by the border officer, I first thought to rightfully ask the unsmiling, stif lipped woman why this stamp was necessary. Big mistake. Apparently, if I can´t even afford the $1 stamp fee and I don´t have a ticket out of the country, it is grounds not to let me in. When she told me via a translator that I would need an onward plane ticket before entering Pnanama, after I´d already spent 5 hours on the bus, I began to panick. Instead of arguing further, I took the plea for mercy approach and instead smiled sympathetically and agreed vehemently when she spat at me that it wasn't fair that just because I am Canadian I can visit her country any time I want but that she can´t do the same due to her finances and our stricter government policy. Sure, this was also not directly my fault but at this stage I needed her on my side as she held my travel plans at least in the near future, firmly in her knobby knuckles.
Luckily this strategy worked and once we were on good terms again, she was satisfied by me paying the $1, showing her (not giving) my credit card and some US cash I had withdrawn from the ATM. These all acted as assurance that I could afford to visit and then leave the country without trying to stay illegally past my standard 3 month visitor visa. Whew.
Once in Boquete that evening, I checked into the Palacio Hostel and was ready to have an early night. As I made dinner at the hostel, I sat in the quiet courtyard, envisioning my plan of crashing at around 8pm after a long, hot day on the busses. What I hadn´t planned for was that Pancho the hostel owner, having a few friends stop by and join me in the courtyard. One of them was a guy named Juan Carlos who was friendly enough and mentioned that it was his birthday so he would be performing in David a nearby town that night, which is an hour away by car.
He turned out to be something of a Panamanian pop star and emphasised this by playing his new CD, which was rather catchy, for all of us at the hostel. Next, he and his friends invited me to join them in David and after some persuading and assurance by Pancho that they were good guys(and girl), I agreed to go.
Next thing I knew, I found myself driving to David with him and his 2 other friends from the area with the assurance they would have me safely back at the hostel by 12 or 1am at the latest. Once at the casino, we were sitting at a table in a big room away from the gambling area that had a bar along one side, a stage in front with a dance floor directly behind it and further to the back several tables against the wall. While drinking a Balboa (Panamanian beer) and chatting with Juan Carlos, I got distracted by a big screen behind him with his music videos playing one after the other. All of them seemed to have a central theme: Him falling for a girl who then fell even harder for him before he broke her heart, walking off into the sunset(or similarly romantic setting) as she was left crying and devastated by the side of the road. I thought it a fairly random coincidence at the time that he was right there next to me while this was going on. Later I realised that when he excused himself to go upstairs and talk to the sound crew, he must have also slipped them a DVD before innocently sitting with his back to the screen while offering me the seat facing the stage (and the screen).
Next, he was up on stage singing while one of his friends insisted we get a good spot next to the bar directly behind the stage and dance floor. Juan Carlos sang several songs during which he was lip synching, swaying his shoulders back and forth and doing a cheesy move of tossing his microphone in the air for a neat 360 before, you guessed it, catching it again- what a move! His friend kept saying, ¨Wow, isn´t he amazing?¨.
What could I do but agree and appear to be grinning in amazement instead of laughing myself silly on the inside! It was all just so cheesy and Bollywood and let´s be honest, was it really necessary to lip synch for an audience of around 30 people at the local casino? I knew it was really him singing because I recognised his voice later in the evening, while spontaneously breaking into song at his friends´ houses, the various pubs we were at, driving in the car etc.
Unfortunately, the 12 or 1am promise of safe return was broken as Juan Carlos and his friends, including around 10 others who had met us at the Casino, were up for a much bigger night than I was. At least I got to see the local night life and they were all really friendly albeit artificially enhanced with substances I care not to mention here. Having no idea where we were and realising after a certain point that no one was fit to drive as well as there being no taxis around, I crashed with the others at one of his friend´s parents house as the sun was coming up and then ended up having to take a taxi back to Boquete around noon. I would have left much earlier but was a little too trusting as, rather than drive me home in the morning or even give me a lift to the bus station as I´d politely asked them to do, Juan Carlos and his friends decided it would be more fun if instead we all went to the beach as it was a really hot day. I was exhausted and without a swimsuit let alone shorts, so made my escape by flagging down a taxi in the street, when we stopped to pick up one of their friends who lived in a busy area. Who knows, I may have even ended up at the beach out of stupid politeness if I hadn´t reached my breaking point.
Fortunately, the taxi fares are much more reasonable than back in Melbourne so for just $20 I got dropped off the 1 hour drive to my hostel. I found out later the fare should have been just $10 but felt it was still a small price to pay for leaving Juan Carlos and his posse who had already started on the beer when I left!
Later, I found out that Juan Carlos´s cheesy style of performance is quite normal for Panamanian pop stars, which I discovered on a 4 hour bus ride from Panama City to Las Tablas. During the ride, the busses TV showed a number of Panamanian pop stars gave similar styles of performances, including an apparently very famous and rather portly man with a moustache who shook maracas and did a little shuffle throughout the song, while mutually falling in love with a much younger and more beautiful woman.
After Boquete, I caught a bus and a boat to the island where Bocas town is in the island archipelago of Bocas Del Toro. I spent 8 days here mostly on the island of Bastamentes with the beautiful Red Frog Beach. I was in heaven here as it was peaceful, with great people, warm weather and nice beaches. The guys who ran Bocas Bound, the hostel I stayed at would organise evening events such as a bonfire on the beach or dinner at a secluded Thai restaurant on another part of the island. With around 10-15 of us who all got along well, it was the perfect setting to share these adventures. There was also good snorkelling, jungle trekking & surfing leaving lots for us to do when we all didn´t feel like hanging out in the hammocks on the beach swimming by the rustic ocean side bar and spotting sloths in the trees while doing a lazy imitation of them ourselves.
The rest of Panama included a stop in Santa Fe, which is a beautifully peaceful mountain village and a perfect change from the busy fun in Bocas. I stayed here for a few nights. Highlights included chatting with the really friendly and welcoming locals and walking to a beautiful waterfall deep in the jungle. There was a bit of excitement here though.
It started when a few of us at the hostel watched the DVD ´Into The Wild´ one night. The next day a guy from Germany named Rhees did the same trek as me into one of the waterfalls but at a different time. I was on the trail ahead of him, swam under the secluded waterfall and was walking back on the trail when I noticed a pair of sunglasses on the ground. I didn´t know at the time they were his but I thought it strange they were there on my way back but not on the way there since I hadn´t passed anyone on the trail or at the waterfall. I carried them back to the hostel and asked one of the other guests if they were hers to which she said no. I then forgot about them until that evening when I found out Rhees still hadn´t returned to the hostel! I retrieved the sunglasses from my bag and his friend confirmed they were his. That evening the police were contacted and went out looking for him along with the owner of the hostel and a guy who worked there. The next day he had still not returned and we were all terrified. Any number of possibilities were discussed including abduction, getting lost ´Into The Wild´, attacked by a wild animal such as a Puma (this was unlikely as attacks on humans are rare, particularly adults) or being bitten by any number of poisonous snakes known to be in the area.
At noon the next day, Damian, the Argentinian guy who worked at the hostel had found him. Apparently, he had gotten lost as he took a wrong turn on the trail and walked on a different one into the bush. After awhile he realised he had taken a wrong turn and cut directly towards the river due to hearing water. Apparently it was a different, higher waterfall upstream from the other one. Once there, he tried to follow the river downstream and fell from the height of 10 meters or so the length of the waterfall onto the ground nearby. He cut his leg on some rocks right to the bone and was unable to walk back to safety. He thought he was at the correct waterfall at this point and that someone would find him, little did he know he was a good several hundred meters up stream.
Luckily, Damian having worked at the hostel for 4 months already knew the area quite well and managed to find him. He said later the police were barely even looking! I suppose he and Rhees are around the same age, in their early 20´s so maybe in some way thought alike as well in terms of the routes they would take. So Damian, carried him back to the road a good kilometre or so where he got a local to carry him on his mule back to Santa Fe!
We were all relieved that he was reasonably OK even though the public hospital was apparently quite dirty and understaffed. He did end up getting switched to a private clinic as the cut was likely to get infected in the local hospital, which would be a disaster given how deep it was. The last I heard, he was looking into flights back to Germany for further treatment and is hopefully in good hands!
After Santa Fe, I continued to Panama City briefly and then to Las Tablas where I rented a house with 9 other travellers I´d already met in Panama so far. We spent 5 nights here celebrating the infamous Carnaval. Las Tablas is the original capital of Panama and well known for being the best Carnaval celebration. It was really nice and had a very local feel to it as there were not many other tourists there at all. Five days straight of music, dancing and daytime beach excursions left us all exhausted but happy as Niamh my Irish friend and I waited in the 2 hour long line up for the bus back to Panama City (another 4 hours by bus).
This is where I began my visit just off the Caribbean coast of Panama to the beautiful white sand beaches and untouched tropical paradise that is the San Blas Islands. There are over 365 islands in an archaepelago governed by the native Kuna Indian Tribe. Amongst these islands lie beautiful coral reefs abundant with fish and sea life. Until recently, the Kunas apparently traded everything both locally and across the border into Colombia in coconuts as they didn´t have another form of currancy! Now they are capitalising from tourism and have introduced the US dollar into their culture.
From here, I stopped on the peaceful Sanidub Island for 3 nights which is a tiny island less than 500 meters square covered only by sand, palm trees and little thatched huts providing accommodation. It was cool being in such a place where there is little else to do but completely relax either on the beach, in the water or in any number of the hammocks provided with ocean views. I did start beach yoga here though amongst the 2 hostels situated right next to each other for those who were interested teaching what moves I could remember from all the classes I have taken in the past.
After the island, I boarded the Sarconagem 40 foot sailboat with 11 other passengers and our captain Federico for the 5 day sailing excursion to Cartagena, Colombia.
Highlights of our voyage included visiting small Kuna villages and meeting some of the locals, snorkelling in colourful reefs full of fish, eating fresh seafood caught off the boat or other delicious meals prepared by our French Brazilian Captain and standing at the front of the boat while a dozen dolphins swam and dove righ next to us!
The rest of the time was spent reading in the sun or shade below deck, playing chess (or losing at chess as was the case with me!) or cards, swimming or unfortunately for me and Mel, getting sea sick during our day and a half on the open sea!
Once in Cartagena, I spent 4 nights here at a budget hotel and fell in love with the city more each day I was there. It is beautiful, colourful, friendly, has a great night life and interesting arts scene such as the free museums on Sunday or the International Film Festival, which was in town. We happened to walk by a stage that was set up where presentations were being given and saw Isabella Rosselini on stage giving a speech.. well we saw her on the big screen above the stage as it was fenced off and quite far away but she was there!
I also got to visit a beautiful island with a beach called Playa Blanca. As the name suggests, it was a long stretch of fine white sand surrounded by blue ocean on one side and little huts on the other, which you could rent for shade in the hammocks under the thatched roof. The huts belonged to various families who for a small fee would provide food or drinks upon your request and keep an eye on your stuff whilst in the water. It was pure heaven!
One day wandering around the streets in Cartagena I also came across a baseball tournament, which was being played on a small patch of grass next to a local road. All the locals in the area had their lawn chairs out in front of their homes and were watching the games. I was invited by one of the onlookers to join them and immediately given a nice, frosty Aguila, which is a local Colombian beer. So I watched one of the games and chatted in my broken Spanish to the friendly locals.
After leaving Cartagena, I stopped in Bogota to visit my good friend Mauricio. We journied on to Cali where his family was having a reunion in celebration of his great aunt´s 60th birthday.
It was great to see the family life here especially since they were so welcoming and generous about including me in everything and letting me pay for nothing!
A Mariachi Band at Mauricio's Great Aunt's 70th Birthday Party
Mauricio and I also did a day hike to a nearby cloud forest at Kilometre 18, which was a nice steep ascent up a mountain to a radio tower. The view at the top was overlooking the local countryside. There were lots of flowers and birds flying around. It was generally very peaceful and a nice break from the busy city traffic.
Once back at the bottom of the hill where we waited for our bus back to Cali, there was even a stand set up with fresh cups full of strawberries and real whip cream laced with caramel sauce for around $1! Such a delicious treat after 3 hours in total of strenuous walking:p.
After the weekend in Cali, Mauricio, his cousin Jairo Humberto and I drove the scenic route back to Bogota where I had a flight the next day to Quito, Ecuador. This route was beautiful but long and unfortunately quite foggy as I ended up missing what Mauricio assured me was a snow covered mountain!
We did get pulled over by the police at a road block for passing another car over the solid yellow line and onto the inside lane of oncoming traffic going around a blind corner- not safe at all but seemingly normal driving in Colombia as many other cars were also doing it!
Back to the road, I couldn´t help but notice the many warning signs posted on the side of the road picturing things such as two cars having a head on collision or rocks falling on the road over a car and real rocks scattered on the side of the road around the signs as though to further prove the poing!
There were traffic control workers at various points on the road holding signs that Siga(Go) or Para(Stop) in each direction to control the flow of traffic, which you would think would increase the safety of these particularly narrow sections of road but I was unsure since the sign holders were unsupervised children of no more than about 12!
The scariest part for me though, were the crosses and shrines posted on both sides of the road at various intervals to commemorate lost lives. Mauricio pointed out they were mostly old and weather beaten since the road had been improved recently but I saw a few fresh ones I´m pretty sure! With a rock face going up on one side and a cliff going down on the other, as the narrow windy road inclined steeply, I was under the impression you couldn´t be too careful... not to mention wandering livestock, dogs, cats and children on either side of the road! Fortunately, for the most part Jairo was a good driver and we made it to Bogota safely, albeit bleary eyed after 15 hours in the car with short breaks for breakfast and dinner.
Back in Quito, Ecuador I am enjoying the atmosphere of this city. I have been joined by Itay who is an Israeli guy I met in Panama who is now travelling with me for a little while in Ecuador. We walked up into the clock towers of Basilica del Voto Nacional, a huge Cathedral via many stair cases and several steep ladders for an amazing view of Quito and the surrounding mountains!
Tomorrow, bright and early we are taking a 2 hour bus ride North to Otavalo for the Saturday morning market and doing some hiking in the surrounding area.
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