This is local eating in Ecuador (in fact all over South America and we've seen it in South East Asia too). Often these places are in indoor markets, they sell the fresh food downstairs and, on the first floor are restaurants or, at least open areas with tables and chairs surrounded by different restaurant outlets. You find spare seats at a table, that may be shared with other people and a waitress from a nearest one takes your order. Each outlet offers limited or one choice. In this case they are all offering 'Hornado' which is slow cooked pork with crackling, roast potatoes and veg. We had a $5 plate and it was more than enough for us both for lunchtime. If you want a drink, someone comes round from another outlet and sells you one
Day 55 Monday
Thoroughly enjoyed our Indian, though nothing changes, I only ate half my dinner, but I blame Brian for ordering a plateful of pakora too. We didn’t eat all of them and he didn’t eat all his dinner either. Fortunately the hotel had a drinks fridge they let us put our takeout in. Perhaps they took pity on us getting in in the middle of a huge rain storm!
Here's the one we chose. See that whole roast pig?
Anyway, up on Monday to go on a free Guru walk of Cuenca. It was pretty much the walk Brian had taken us on the previous day, and he wasn’t the most dynamic of guides, but it was just us and we learned a few things. He took us into the market which was much livelier than on a Sunday, and showed us hornado. Whole roast pigs with amazing crackling. Don’t know how quickly they get through a pig, but it wasn’t there yesterday so hopefully it’s fresh today. We went back for lunch after the walk, it was fab. He did take us up the tower of the cathedral which had been on the cards so that was good. We also went into the crypt of the old cathedral which we wouldn’t have done without him.
And there's lunch - fabulous!
Back to the hotel from where we were going to be collected by William, one of Cheryl’s tame drivers who sadly doesn’t have any English as he is much more local for short journeys than Edwin. William was taking us to the house.
We arrived about 3pm, after a holdup on the main road as a tree had fallen across most of it, fortunately not on anyone. Lovely greeting from Cheryl, Mark and Darla, Asia and Suki, and the talking started. The welcome guide is very important and useful but there is nothing like seeing things in the flesh. Cheryl’s daughter Ailee said hi and sensibly left us all to it, as did Carlos, her man, who arrived back with chicken for dogs, and take out for humans. It is amazing how long a good handover takes, though it’s not just the practicalities, we are all trying to get to know one another too.
We went on our Cuenca city walking tour and this is the new cathedral, built between 1885 and 1967. It's got two towers, you can just see one and they are square on top with no spire or upper structure. The original design had structures planned, as per the photo below, but it was found the weight would have been too much as cracks appeared. If you look at (and zoom in) the circular window, above it is a crack up to the top that appeared during construction. It was concluded that the foundations and/or lower structure was not capable of taking more weight
Suddenly it’s 21.00 Edwin is arriving at 06.00 to take them all to Guayaquil so sleep is necessary. We are in the master bedroom, downstairs, as this is the one the dogs expect to sleep in, and they did, with us, all night long. It’ll take a little bit of getting used to , but it’s the furry fuss we are here for and we are certainly getting it.
The picture on the left is how it is, on the right was how it was meant to be
Day 56 Tuesday
We got up to have coffee with the family before Edwin arrived to take them all away, when we fed the dogs and all went back to bed. The power outage was scheduled for 07.00-09.00, but no sign of it at 07.00. We decided to go out for breakfast, on our way to the Supermaxi supermarket for supplies, back to our regular fruit and granola for me and fruit and porridge for him. No more scrambled eggs for a while thank goodness.
We went inside and found that the towers are completely open inside. Perhaps they decided the weight from floors inside would have been too much
Supermaxi is relatively expensive, but it’s here and stocks a great selection of stuff, I’ve just got to remember what I cook! So far we have walked there and back, though it is up a stiff hill. If I could get my head round a big shop it might be worth a taxi, but it’s going to be little and often to begin with.
We got bad to the riotous welcome that is so nice from dogs, unpacked the shopping and our suitcases, put some washing on and hit the hammocks. It’s a strange dog sit in that the dogs don’t go out walking, they were rescue dogs and a not leash trained and, as we found in Mexico, there are so many dogs running around, actually walking dogs can be very stressful, both for them, and us. They get loads of exercise though, running around the garden as the dogs go past, and the school bus, and the binmen, and as for people who turn round just outside, well!
Higher up looking down. It was at this point our guide admitted he has vertigo so couldn't come to look down here
Having eventually found some tonic water we had treated ourselves to a bottle of gin. Mmm G&T, crisps and the crossword, how nice. We’d realised the family aren’t drinkers, but hadn’t realised that there are no glasses in the house. Brian couldn’t face drinking out of a mug, so we did a quick dash back to Supermaxi. It was only a quick dash, 45 minutes, but apparently my flip flops were too big a temptation, fortunately only them, my freebie, end of the night flip flops from Fiona’s wedding, that owe me nothing. The G&T tasted fab however.
On the walkway between the towers and there's our guide pointing out animal prints in the manufactured bricks. Mmm, they were there but were obviously part of the mould
Day 57 Wednesday
The power didn’t go off at 07.00 today either, though it did go off at 08.00 for an hour. In theory we are going to be incredibly lucky. From the 20th there will be no more domestic outages. They are closing two mines and some other industries for 15 days so whether it’s really the end of domestic outages I suppose depends on how much rain we get. It does seem a little short sighted, but it’s an election year and it’s people, not industry who vote!
We went back down to the village, Challuabamba (we are not really in Cuenca at all, it’s just been easier to say) so Brian could get a haircut. A lot more effort went into it than the No3 all over he gets from me, but $6 so no complaints. Popped into Supermaxi, as it was discount fruit and veg with our loyalty card, not that we know how to redeem our money, but I’m sure we’ll find out. Well stocked now, it’s amazing how heavy a cabbage, a large bit of watermelon and other assorted produce can be. Back again for another afternoon in the hammocks, joined by dogs, Darla for me and Suki for Brian. It’s a tough life!
Nice views from up here. There's the christmas tree in the nearby plaza that we took a photo of in the last blog
Day 58 Thursday
It’s only day 3 but Brian is exercise twitchy, despite buying a cheap pair of trainers on Monday he hasn’t been running, but decided today was a walk. It was all a bit stiffer than expected and we met many dogs on the way. They come running out of their houses, woofing till you’ve gone past. I was glad I had my walking poles for both of those reasons. Mostly the dogs aren’t really an issue, it was just when we got to the end of the road and started up a small track where obviously not many people go, the last dog was a little over the top. He had teeth, obviously they all have teeth, but he showed his, and followed us a long way. So much so that we walked a bit further to avoid coming back past him. This did mean we would come back past three restaurants and a bakery, perhaps there’s a silver lining. There wasn’t, they were all shut. Eventually found a little shop and bought an icecream to keep us going!
The trees in the plaza below and, on the right is one of those modern buildings that they thought made them look more European and modern. Apparently they tore down a perfectly good and architecturally pleasing building to build a concrete 'modern' bland building as that's what they've done in Europe! Opposite is the white tower of the original cathedral built in about 1540 that is much smaller than this one but altogether more interesting
The walk ended up at 4 hours, not the 3 we were expecting and we were glad to get back to the girls who were, as ever, riotously pleased to see us. See our Relive short video of the walk with photos: click here
We bumped into Brian, the local teenage, cow herd. We had been introduced by Cheryl and Mark and he seems a nice lad, it was really bad timing though, we both needed to eat and pee, not necessarily in that order. He invited us to see his cows which we are hopefully going to do tomorrow. He did also take the opportunity to tell us that his cows eat fruit peelings which we had been told, but had forgotten. We’ll take some with us.
Down in the old colonial building next door and there's an impressive view of the cathedral and its domes
I’ve now got to cook my first dinner, leftover curry on Tuesday and leftover fried rice on Wednesday. I guess it’ll be sausage and mash today, as my other option is chilli, in the instant pot (like a pressure cooker) but that’ll be rice as well.
Mid that last sentence young Brian walked past so we ran out to say hello to his cows and feed them all the fruit skins I’d raided out of the recycling bin. Very cute.
This is inside the old cathedral, built during colonial times. Much smaller, but with lots of character
Extra bits were built onto it by people with money and they used to bury their dead in the crypts underneath. They used to be sealed but look, the trapdoor is open and there's stairs down. It was during a power outage, so no lights, we went down with only our phone torches...
I forget how many bodies they said were found in here, but I feel it was in the hundreds. It certainly wasn't just one person per shelf. Why they opened it up and cleared the bodies out I don't know
Watch out for the hole in the ground in the gloom. Good job we had torches. That highlight tape round the edges will make it perfectly safe!
Quite a few rooms down here
And some pretty steep steps in and out. I suppose they were never intended for tourists to go in and out
Just watch where you're walking! A moments lack of attention and you could be down there but, of course, the highlight tape comes to the rescue once more
A side chapel built by a wealthy benefactor. There's another hole in the floor up there, but its OK, its covered with a bit of glass. Like I say, lots of character in this old cathedral
On our way to our housesit in Challuabamba, about 8km from Cuenca along the three lane E35 Carr. Panamericana motorway, but a tree has fallen across all three lanes of the eastbound carriageway. We crept by in the outside lane, crunching across the upper branches. Fortunately it had only just happened so we were quite near the front so were only held up for 15 minutes or so
Here's the three dogletts, Suki, Asia and Darla, we're looking after for 5 weeks and given half a chance, this is where they prefer to be (if not being fed or barking at passing cars)
But at night time they prefer to be curled up on the sofa next to us
Looking at the computer screen with Cheryl to determine when we can expect power outages. On Monday (Lunes) it's 07:00 to 09:00 but, as from today (20th) all cuts are suspended, how long for depends on the rainfall which, to date, hasn't been much
We've got a pleasant house to make our home for 5 weeks
And outside two hammocks, which we're loving! I'm writing this blog from one now. I want to get some of these for our house at home, but 'where are they going to go and how will we store them when it rains' she says being very practical. I don't know, but we'll think of something, they are fabulous!
It's not so easy when dogs decide to join in whilst drinking a cup of tea though
Darla likes to help Jackie with her reading
And she does look quite cute
Right, time for some exercise and that hill up there is the objective. It's a mere 14.5km circuit from the house with an ascent of 500m, which takes us from around 2500m altitude at the house to about 3000m at the summit. Some of these roads are pretty steep and most houses seem to have three or four dogs who bark our arrival, notifying those further on who start up as well. It's the one's that are running free we worry about who come bounding up, teeth bared. Good job she has her walking poles!
Then it got to some overgrown, steep bits with some very snappy dogs at this point. They were all talk though as they kept their distance
Finally we arrived at a col with fabulous views over the city one side and mountains the other
Mountains that side
And in the distance over there is the city of Cuenca
Some quite impressive drops on the way. We had a long ridge, like this all the way and our route out was back along that road below
At the Mirador, but actually we'd had much better views further back on the summit
Down on the road below looking back up to the ridge we'd walked along
A tiny old church we passed on the way back
The final bit back to the house. I think we were both glad to get back, feeling quite tired. We did stop at a roadside shop for a welcome ice cream
We did find the energy to go out and feed our fruit peelings to young Brian the cowboys cows who are in the field opposite. He's a friendly lad but our Spanish is not up to fully understanding him. Turning the microphone on to Google translate, however, revealed his cows eat banana and orange peel and would we like to feed them. Friendly cows and neighbours!
Having written the blog and had lunch we thought we'd have a go in the swimming pool. It's double meshed, but we learnt today that that is only to keep the giant otters out. They look cute, but have very big teeth, and are the apex predator. There may be piranha, anaconda and all sorts in the pool, but we were blissfully unaware and didn't stay in long anyway!
Out on our evening paddle along another channel in the jungle
At some point just before lunch Severin got stung by a wasp, or something which was obviously quite painful despite the magic ointment management provided her with. They decided that they wouldn't come out in the afternoon as the heat might make it worse. So that left the two of us.
A short YouTube of the Capuchin monkeys who came to play. Who was looking at who?
Into a canoe for a little paddle through yet another different channel. We were lucky enough to encounter a troop of Capuchin monkeys who came right over us and seemed really interested in looking down on us as we were looking up at them. We finally found ourselves at another jetty, short walk to another tower built around a kapok tree. Although this structure is only 10 years old I suspect it is the original tree that had a previous tower that Helen and Ian will remember. We weren't the only ones there, a couple of guys with 2 guides who had obviously been there a while, but there was plenty of space. Not however that much to see, not even that many birds. The other guys left and suddenly Geranio started giggling as he showed us the sloth that we could clearly see with our naked eye. This is what the guys had been staring for for ages before they left. It was almost too close to be seen with the binoculars. He was quite cruel, making a noise like a harpy eagle which made it look up and all about. This is apparently why they move slowly when in the tops of trees, so as not to attract the eagle's attention, speeding up quite considerably when at a lower level.
There's the tower up and a platform on top of the huge tree. It was one of the tallest trees around so, other than some of the tree branches in our view we had an uninterrupted view all around
He was very cute, but didn't do much so we left him to it, just as it was getting dark. More fireflies, an olingo, which is a tree living member of the racoon family, and finally a baby caiman were our prizes on the way out. Back just in time for dinner and, yet again, an early night.
Although there were three guides up there and two guests with professional looking cameras we didn't see very much. This little bird came into view, not sure what it is though
Day 52 Friday
We didn't meet till 06.30 this morning for our jungle walk. Has to be said we didn't see much. We got to a small lagoon and into another canoe, and still didn't see much, except the rain, over there, coming towards us. Poncho's on, though it never got too bad, we had just arrived at the boathouse when it was at its heaviest. The rain did make it more humid, and did bring the mosquitos out which was not ideal.
And this Toucan, but the other two guests and guides gave up and went down. Shortly after Geranio spotted the sloth in a nearby tree, so near all the others missed it, looking further away...
Wasn't sure we were going to see much, then we got to the pygmy marmoset area where they weren't in evidence. Finally Geranio saw one which he videod for both Brian and Valerian, but that didn't really count in my book. Fortunately they did then show themselves and there were perhaps half a dozen coming past, two of which really came quite close to give us the once over. They really were quite cute. See our Relive video of the walk and paddle, with photos: click here
Here's the YouTube of the sloth taken by Geranio through his telescope and a few photos of mine at the end
Back about 10.30 and I needed my snack. Brian got to work putting things on YouTube as the WiFi was behaving much better than yesterday, possibly due to there only being 8 of us in residence of whom 4 were still out. It got hotter and hotter and I had to leave him at the restaurant working and retire to the room and the AC. It wasn't long however before the wind got up and it started thundering so I grabbed my brolly and went back. I'm so pleased I went when I did as it wasn't raining much, though the wind did blow my brolly inside out, as I ran the last few steps, just before the heavens absolutely opened. It was an amazing sight and sound, and a much better temperature!
Lunch was served at 13.00, though it appeared there were only the 4 of us here. The other 4 arrived looking very wet having obviously been caught in the storm, but as for the new arrivals who knows. Perhaps they had them wait rather than get drenched on the walk or the slow canoe....
Dawn breaking over the jungle from our restaurant deck
Our last outing this afternoon, after a touch of piranha fishing, I'm just going to sort out my bag, which has to be outside by 04.45 tomorrow morning as we start the trip back to Coca to get our 10.30 flight back to Quito!
So having been the least bothered about piranha fishing I was the only one, apart from Geranio, to catch one. He did have big teeth, but they have been given a bad press by Hollywood!
Walking under and through a particularly large tree on our Day 52 morning jungle walk
Caiman spotting was the order of the afternoon, but sadly apart from a couple of tiny ones they were not to be seen.
Day 53 Saturday
Not a good night sleep, but it never is when I know I've got to get up early. It did all go very smoothly. Little canoe, walk, fast canoe and we were in Coca. Boarding passes but no luggage tags till we got to the airport where again, they had no electricity. So hand written luggage labels and a team of porters to ferry the bags to the scanner and the gate. Of course until the power came back the scanner wouldn't scan so the bags mounted up and we were not allowed through.
Arriving at an overgrown lagoon to be paddled through the channels that were clear
It did all happen on time though and once arrived the bags came very quickly. No customs or immigration so out to find Edwin, our taxi from Cuenca.
We've slept a bit, chatted a bit and just stopped for something to eat midway through the 8 hour journey. It's all going fine. We've just stopped to look at a tiny Catholic church, the oldest in Ecuador and the second oldest in South America. The countryside is green and pleasant and I had to put my jumper on when we stopped. Hurrah.
It was a pleasant paddle round the lagoon, but nothing much came out to play
Sacha Lodge was lovely, the rooms, the staff, the food and the walkways and towers they've built in the rainforest. The rooms had no locks, which was nice in a way but a bit weird that we were to trust everyone and yet the WiFi was password protected and we had to relogin every time we went to our room and back to the restaurant. Who is going to steal the WiFi out here?
The rainforest however was just as I expected, hot, humid and full of mosquitos. We did see more in the trees than I expected, but apart from the pygmy marmoset nothing that we haven't seen before elsewhere as sadly (though not unexpectedly) we didn't see a jaguar, a tapir or even a poison dart frog!
On the walk back, in the rain, Geranio showed us various plants used for medicinal purposes and then proceeded to weave a basket from a large palm leaf
As the journey continued, just before dark, so about 18.00 we hit fog, not mist, serious fog. 3 1/2 hours of fog. Poor Edwin, but we arrived safely and fell into bed, in our tiny room!
Day 54 Sunday
We've walked the streets of the old town and had a good look around, including lots of little Christmas stalls all over the place. We have also located two of the local Indian restaurants. Guess what we are eating later? See our Relive video with photos of our walk round: click here
Also pointing out things to avoid. These very thin red cup fungus are very toxic to humans. If consumed he told us you will fall into a near immediate sleep, followed by a short period of violent spasms, then death!
And don't tread on the millipedes!
However, the best was yet to come, as creeping on through the jungle we came upon the worlds smallest monkey, the pygmy marmoset...
There he is the little cutie! They are tiny, but we managed to get some video of quite a few who came really quite close as they were curious about us. We kept still and absolutely quiet so as no to frighten them. Have a look at the video below
Then came the huge storm, which reduced the temperature and humidity to something resembling pleasant!
Late afternoon preparing for piranha fishing. Lumps of meat on a hook. Unlike the horror movies they just nibble at the meat and then back away, coming back in for another bite, so we needed to jerk the line to hook them
On lowering our hooks into the water they were on it almost immediately and we felt an almost constant light tug on the line as they swarmed in to have a taste. Hooking them was a different matter. Geranio was, predictably first to catch one (he has done it before) and there's it's little teeth
I nearly caught one, I got it out of the water, but it wriggled free. This, however, was my catch - it's a sardine! Geranio dropped it back in whilst laughing!
But Jackie got the biggest one. Look at the size of that!
And it certainly had teeth! They were all returned to the water to live again
Out in the evening on our last outing and, first off was anaconda hunting, which didn't take long. Here's a huge beast lazing in the long grass alongside the lagoon. I did another YouTube of this one and another we saw a few days ago...
Another slightly disappointing outing after the excitement of the anacondas. This is a Crimson Collared Tanager we saw on the way
We slid almost silently along the channels to a landing stage, turned round and came back in darkening to night skies as we hoped to see some caimen, we did, but only some babies
The near full moon accompanied by the silent jungle, bats flying past and fireflies in the trees added to the atmosphere
At last we found a baby caimen hiding in the long grass and pretending we hadn't seen him. Good food for anacondas if they find him
Still hoping we hadn't seen him
He obstinately wouldn't move
Finally we left him to it and headed back across the lagoon towards the lights of our lodge
Next day it's the long journey out for us, starting with a 04:15 alarm, a paddle across the lagoon, 20 minute walk and a two hour motor boat ride upstream back to Coca. On the way Geranio made us various mementos from palm leaves. Suspect none of the ones he made for us will survive our travels, but we'll try!
The flight back to Quito passed, we were met at arrivals by Edwin and whisked off in his big car for the 8 plus hour journey to our hotel in Cuenca, arriving there at about 22:00. This was the small church we stopped at briefly that he wanted to show us. It's the oldest church in Ecuador and the second oldest in South America and, although is a catholic church it exhibits indigenous symbols and beliefs as well in a blending of religions
Cuenca seems a pleasant city, clean, safe and with lots of colonial buildings. It's small enough to see the main highlights in a day, although there are quite a few museums we didn't go in as, being a Sunday, they were all shut. We have half a day tomorrow before being picked up for our housesit so we hop to climb the towers of the cathedral, seen through the trees here in the main plaza and maybe visit a museum or two
