Ecuador Trip

Wow, what an adventure…

Galapagos was simply amazing and literally blew me away by its beauty. But actually I didn’t really have time to enjoy and reflect on the trip yet, because I was being expected in Quito and there was no time to fuck about.

So after my one night in Montaloca during which I just had enough time to change some cloths from my backpack, say Hi to a few friends and have 2 or 3 cocktails on the street, and head to Guayaquil lo antes que possible (= ASAP).

Unfortunately, there was no seat left in the early morning bus that would bring me to the terminal terrestre straight away, so I took a cab around 6am to Salinas in order to get another bus there with the same destination. It worked out somehow, but indeed was unnecessary hassle that could have been avoided by buying a bus ticket from Montanita early.

Upon arriving in Guayaquil I found out my cell phone with the German Sim card was gone, and I had no idea whether I lost it on Galapagos, on the bus to Montanita or the bus to Guayaquil. Never mind, no time to cry, my plane was already waiting for me and I wasn’t sure if I could board, as my Visa for Ecuador had just run out 4 days ago. It all went smoothly though, and about an hour of flight later I landed safe and sound in Quito, ready to be pickd up by my dearest Chris and Wladi.

That day we felt like our reunion had to be celebrated in a special way, and as it happened to be, we had the amazing impossible drinking game printed out and another 3 guys ready to get it fired up… After about 2hrs of playing, the first participant was already passed out and we decided to make some food… The food tasted all right, so we thought, but being spaced out of our minds doesn’t usually support adequate evaluation of tastes or smells. Anywho, the game continued after about two hours of break and somehow we stopped playing after another hour as everyone was too drunk to continue.

At the same time, Carina a friend from studying in Freiburg, was visiting Chris for two weeks and wanted to tour around Ecuador with the two of us. And as Chris had already seen most of the stuff in Quito, she and I went on a hike at the local Mountain, El Pichincha. It was a perfect day for it, and we took some amazing pictures of the city.

Also, we hit the local Mercado Artesenal quick and hard, but like always without buying any of the stuff: It’s just too much unnecessary things we’d be carrying around, although some of the articles they sell are quite nice.

Wednesday we all went to the Bungalow with a few of Chris’ friends, a place that I haven’t been to in a long time. The last time on the 15^th of December, to be precisely. It was the place that we all went to, on the Saturday night that I wanted to leave for Montanita, and that I missed my bus because (again!!) not seat was available anymore. Anywho, it turned out to be a messy night, once again, and we happily hungover left for our first stop on the Ecuador trip: Banos.

As we arrived there Thursday afternoon, we had a quick stroll through the city and came across a few friends of mine from the paradise at the coast. Stefan (CH), who was attending the Spanish lessons there, and Giselle (Peru) and Johana (Peru) who were dancing and entertaining in some of the clubs. With all of them, we decided quite quickly to go rope-swinging from the big bridge in Banos before the light would fade. I was the first one to jump and it was already really dark and so I was the only one to jump that day. And since it is a bit colder in the area due to wind and the lack of sun, we finished the day off by abusing one of the local thermal baths, which feed from volcanic hot springs:

Moreover, the next days were extremely sporty and for the most things, Giselle and Johana, along with a new friend we made (Adam / US and A) joined us on exploring the rainy mountain ranges and hot thermal baths of the Andes. Among these activities were:

-         Rafting

-         Canyoning

-         Biketour

-         And Canopy

All of the things were not really cheap, but absolutely worth the thrill and due to our big group we even got some discounts out of the greedy tour agencies. It might have helped that we had a Tourism Student among us. :D

Saturday night we joined Johana and Giselle on a few drinks just before they went to work (= dance) in one of the local clubs and asked us to take some pictures and videos (of them) for them, as for promo-reasons. The favor was luckily returned and drinks were on the house. Despite that really tempting offer, we were absolutely knackered from the previous days activities and thus we called it an early night. Carina wasn’t even out with us, because she was too tired and the next day we wanted to rent Quads, which would become a tiring tour, once again. In the end we returned home early in order to be fresh and funky for the next days challenge.

The Quad-tour (on which only Adam joined) turned out to be horrible. Originally, we wanted to drive up the mountains to watch the volcano from there, but on the way two of our Quads somehow refused to restart after taking a few pictures and since we didn’t see a point in continuing with two Quads only, we returned and got half of our money back. That same day we packed our things and left for Riobamba, which we heard was also one of the places to see.

It turned out, it was even uglier than Guayaquil, and as it didn’t have anything to show and the weather was complete crap, we left reasonably early. Next stop Cuenca, which I was told would be an breath-taking city. Unfortunately I cannot say the same from my point of view; at least not to that extent. It is a city that has a lot of museums, but none of them but one was really appealing to us (of course we checked that out and were NOT swiped off our feet). The city itself is nice, and the river passing through gives it a nice touch. Still, we ran out of things to do after a while which is why we started playing drinking games in one of the bars and got beer for less than a dollar. :D

GREAT TIMES!!!

After Cuenca we went to Alausí, which to be fair, really is a lousy place. There is nothing but one main street with nothing but cyber cafes and the place is dead from Sunday to Thursday. The only reason why we were there was because the train towards the famous “Nariz del Diabolo” leaves from there, as well as some old Inca ruins are within driving distance. The Inca ruins were unfortunately another slap to the face, as we did the trip there and upon arriving found out that we didn’t have enough time to check out the ruins, if we wanted to catch our train that same afternoon.

Basically, we enjoyed two 2hrs bus rides for nothing and then hopped on the train to the devil’s nose. This ride whatsoever was actually really nice, the weather could have been better, but I’m not gonna complain for stuff I can’t change anyways. It was a 3hr ride and it was crazy to see where and by which means and efforts they built a train track into the mountain, which later was abandoned because some dude said he’d seen the devil somewhere around. Culture, huh? Sometimes one cannot grasp the way people thought back in the day.

Moving on, that night we waited for about an hour at the big road while we were waiting for a bus that would take us back to the shithole Riobamba, in order to catch a bus from there to shithole Guayaquil (again). The good news it, there came buses to take us, the bad news is that Carinas cell phone was stolen on the last leg of the journey, and (understandably) pissed her off BIG TIME!!! I actually could relate to her emotions that night, as my cell was too recently lost.

We spend exactly 9 hours in Guayaquil during which we slept a little bit (after arriving at 3 in the morning) and then did a quick run along the Malecón 2000 and again left for the bus station in order to go to the coast, and finally some more sunshine. It took us 2,5hrs to get there and encountered clear sunshine, warmth and a beautiful beach at which people were playing 3on3 Volleyball. This of course called for us to join and the first match was lost to some freaking old locals, but in the second match the young and wild showed that bunch of graveyard potential how it’s done!!!

The night was finished off by a 2for1 Family Pizza promotion for 18$ and we happily sunk into our two, put together beds. Yes you read correctly, two beds. The place that we stayed in didn’t offer any beds for a 5er a night, and the only option there was, was an old kitchen in which two beds had been jammed and which were ours for the desired 5$ per person. It too had an outdoor gym and made fantastic juice-shakes, that we sucked on for about 2 hours the next day, just before we headed to the “Ruta del Sol / Spondylus” in order to find a Camionetta (pick-up truck) that would take us to Montanita.

Just after sunset we arrived back home (my home) and were startled by the emptiness of that elsewise so pumping and busting place. As we found out within 60mins the state police had raided the town and shut down every place that operated without a license in the first place, but also every employee without working permit (if foreigner) was “let go”, as well as the narcotics police hovered around and patrolled every street frequently. We still enjoyed ourselves in cocktail alley and had a drink or 5 and finally fell into bed after a long day of doing nothing.

The next day my work started one more time and despite Chris and Carina staying for one more night, I knew that it would be some tiring weeks lying ahead of me.
Well, let’s see how it turns out.