Getting back to mainland Ecuador from our Galapagos cruise ended up being another little adventure. Our cruise started on Santa Cruz but ended on San Cristobal from where all other passengers flew out. Except for us, our flight departed from Santa Cruz. When booking the cruise, our travel agent confirmed that this would be no problem at all, all we had to do was to take the water taxi from one island to the other. What he forgot was to inform the ship of our itinerary, so when we talked to the crew the evening before our departure, the first reaction we got was a 'That's not possible, you should change your flight'! The ship was not scheduled to arrive at San Cristobal before 8am, but the last watertaxi was leaving at 7:15am... fantastic! :/
After some back and forth and talking to the captain, they confirmed it would be possible to arrive around 6am, so that we'd have enough time to catch the water taxi. They also called them and reserved two spots for us. So we got up very early the next day, packed our bags and were ready to go. However, looking out of the window we unfortunately noticed that we were still far away from the island. Time to get a bit nervous maybe?! The purser then also confirmed our concerns, we wouldn't arrive in the harbous before 8am.... BUT they called the watertaxi and arranged with them to wait a little bit longer and then pick us up straight from the ship. So while the other people slowly got up and had breakfast, we were jumping from one boat to the other and were finally on our way back to Santa Cruz island. A very bumpy 2hr ride later (so, so happy for my seasickness pills) we arrived, took a taxi to the airport and off we were back to Quito.
The next day we visited Otavalo, famous for its weekend markets. You can pretty much buy everything here, from handicrafts to live ducklings. Although I'm really not a fan of markets, this one was actually pretty interesting. On our way back we also visited a few waterfalls, Cotacachi (famous for its leather products, we just had a few beers) and Cuicacho Lake and Volcano.
On Sunday, we jumped on a bus to Mindo, where we first of all did a chocolate factory tour. Yumm..! For some strange reason I still don't get I agreed to do a night tour through the forest to find frogs, possums, owls and other nightly creatures. If anybody ever asks me again what the worst experience on these travels was, this was it (so far... keep on reading to find out what happened in the Amazone...). There were no possums or owls, all we saw was spiders, grasshopers, bugs, moths etc. Yuk! I still can't believe I paid money for this!
The next activity we booked proved to be way better, 6am the next morning we ventured out with a local guide to do some bird watching. We're both no big bird lovers so we didn't expect too much but it was actually pretty cool! We saw 46 different species of birds, including tucans, parrots and vultures, and we walked about 9km so we got a little bit of a work out was well. As Mindo was such a nice place we decided to take it easy and stay a day longer to just relax, catch up on emails, make a few phone calls, drink hot chocolate and one or the other beer. Being on the road for so long now, we were both feeling a bit tired of everything, so taking a day off from travelling was what we needed.
At 5pm we caught the bus back to Quito, and then took a night bus to Coca, a town in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador, where we arrived 1.5hrs early at 4:30am! Our pick up was only at 11am, so we tried to get some sleep at the bus station... didn't really work as you can imagine.
Coca itself is quite a dirty oil town (Ecuador is digging for oil in the Amazon rainforest, well done, well done..) and not much more than a gateway to the number of jungle lodges along the Rio Napo. The Rio Napo is one of the main tributaries to the Amazons and over 1000km long. We got picked up by our tour guide in Coca and embarked on a 2.5hr boat ride eastward to our accommodation, the Yasuni Eco Lodge, our home for the next 3 nights. As we were the only two guests arriving that day, we had two guids to ourself. One of them a local guy from the community who only spoke Spanish and Kichwa (a local language spoken in parts of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) and the other one a tour guide who also translated for us. The lodge is located within the Kichwa Anangu Community and its people work in the lodge as cooks, waiters, tour guids, etc. The money coming in is then used to build schools, healthcare facilities etc. So, although this whole trip was quite expensive at least we were able to see what they are doing with our money ;)
The first activity after arriving was a walk through the rainforest (very muddy, they gave us wellies to wade through the water) to an observation tower from where we spotted birds and monkeys and watched the sunset. It would've been so beautiful if I wasn't constantly watching out for spiders and bullet ants - they are called bullet ants because when they bite you it hurts like being hit by a bullet...!
Next morning a very early rise at 5am to get to the so-called 'parrot clay lick'. This was basically a spot visited by hundreds of parrots who bite off little bits of a clay wall to suck out salt and other nutrients. Afterwards we had a demonstration of a local dance as well as a talk about local life by the women of the Ananga community including a taste of 'Chicha', a fermented drink made from Yucca (Maniok). Not our favourite to be honest. What we do love though is Yucca bread or Yucca mash, very very tasty!
After lunch and a short siesta we had another boatride and walk to another observation tower. And at night a catamaran cruise down the river.
Our last day started with a canoo ride down a little side river to a small lake. This was definitely one of the hightlights of our stay as we saw sloths, lots of monkeys, giant otters, caymans, a boa constrictor and even an anaconda! Wow! In the afternoon we did a short walk where our guides explained about medicinal plants and also about the community.
And then it was time for dinner... they already told us that on our last evening we'd be getting traditional delicacies, so we started off with a plantain soup, fish in a banana leaf, very tasty, and... chontacuros = grubs or caterpillars... hmmm... after our guides told us that they are actually quite tasty and pretty much taste like bacon, I decided to give it a go.
Stefan's not very fussy with that stuff anyway, probably after being in China so often..?! So he ate one straight away. Well, all I can say is, it tastes nothing like bacon, and far, far worse than you imagine it to taste. It's very, very slimy on the inside, the skin is very chewy (so that you can't just swallow it but have to chew it for like 10 seconds and the head is crunchy and sticks in your teeth. I've never ever tasted anything that disgusting in my whole life. I'm still getting goosebumps thinking about it. Absolutely grose!
So, in summary, our jungle experience was really interesting and absolutely beautiful! The rainforest was just amazing, all those beautiful parrots, and so many funny monkeys! Also, the lodge was fantastic, our room was really beautiful and the food was great! BUT I don't think I'd ever want to go back again, there's just too many disturbing things there, starting from the previously mentioned bullet ants, to spiders (3 tarantulas are 3 too many), moths (the size of the Giant Lunar Moth from Dr Doolittle), huge butterflies whose only aim is to land on me, bees, wasps, mosquitos, grasshopers, cockroaches... you name it. If anybody ever again says Australia is full of disgusting things that want to kill you, I know where I will send them.
The next day we left our lodge at 7:30am, 2.5hrs boat ride back to Coca, then a 4 hr bus ride to Tena and then another 4 hours to Baños. Riding a bus here is really easy and also incredibly cheap, usually $1 per hour. And they always make sure you get out at your intended destination which is very nice of them.
Baños is the adventure capital of Ecuador, activities range from rafting, canyoning, bungy jumping, mountain biking, climbing to hiking and are really, really cheap! We started off a little quieter (the Techno music in the bus was anything but quiet though ;-) ) with a 'Chiva' bus ride along the gorge passing lot's of waterfalls, a zip-lining experience and Jesus' face - look closely:
Our full day canyoning trip cost us US$55 per person including all gear and lunch - and was almost a bit better than the one we did in Tasmania (which cost us US$180 by the way...). And with $30 we also had to do the rafting trip. And if it wasn't enough adrenalin yet, Stefan also jumped off a 150m bridge (for $20); they call it puenting as it's not a normal bungy jump but a 'swing' jump, where you then swing underneath the bridge once the rope catches you. The final step you have to make to actually jump off is the same :)
Baños is surrounded by volcanoes, the closest one, Tungurahua is still very active and had its last major eruption in March this year; unfortunate for us, there's no lava flowing at the moment and even if it was we wouldn't have seen it as the mountain was in clouds pretty much all the time. Due to this volcanic activity there's lots of hot springs in Baños. We opted for a very cool mountain bath, with fantastic views over the town and surrounding mountains, especially at night.
Maybe it was the rafting, maybe the cool wind on the mountain but I woke up a little sick the next day. Lucky for us, our only plan was to take the bus to Cuenca (another 8hrs). Cuenca is a very pretty town in the Andes and the bus ride was absolutely scenic. Still not feeling well, Stefan ventured out on his own the first day in Cuenca, a UNESCO world heritage site. Lots of churches, beautiful, old, colonial architecture, a museum with 'shrunken heads' (wow) of the Amazon tribes and an Inka site. The city also has heaps of opportunities for "Happy Hauer"-drinks, bars, craft breweries, international food, etc. Unfortunately we couldn't enjoy it much as we had to recover.
We decided again that we really love Ecuador, there's so much to see and do, everything's just really picturesque and the people are very friendly! But after almost 5 weeks here it's time to move on to Peru. So we' re making our way to the Peruvian border to continue on towards Lima where our booked tour through Peru starts off in about a week's time.
