ROADIE
As I might have mentioned before, I’m getting more and more into the grove of traveling, and I’d say I’m doing quite well with sticking to my guidelines, especially when it comes to sparing out luxury. My journey from Barranquilla to Salinas de Guaranda (where I am at the moment) was a good example. As I didn’t really stay long in one place, a few days on the road are enough to see more than enough for another post.
NOTE: Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, they’re all taken by phone as I still have no replacement for my camera. Therefore, there are no updates in the images section, too.
I got the cheapest possible domestic flight (it’s most of the times just a few quid more expensive than a coach in Colombia) for a saturday morning into Cali from Barranquilla, where I had to spend the night at the airport in order to make it. From Cali on by coach to Ipiales, a town right at the border to Ecuador, down the Panamericana for 12 hours. Maybe you remember what I told about the last coach I was on? Well this time I put on my warm jacket, but it didn’t help - the motherf***** was freezing, so I hardly slept for the second night in a row.
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A quick footwalk over the border and the Rumichaca International Bridge, and I was in Ecuador before the next bus took me down to Quito. After 2 nights there another day trip by bus as well as a little camioneta finally got me to Salinas.
All in all I spent EUR 116,- on this trip, with the flights (70) and the coach to Ipiales (20) being the most expensive legs. The transfer in Ecuador was a total of EUR 26,-, including the luxury of taking a $10,- taxi from the Carcelen Bus Terminal to the historic centre of Quito. This only happened because I forgot do download an offline map of the city, so I wanted to get to a nice coffee place quickly to bum a Wifi connection off them and take care of the next steps quickly.
The reason I’m putting the figures up is not to show you how well I’m trying to control my budget (especially after the camera f*ckup), it’s about the means of traveling I used especially in Ecuador and the things that happened on this trip. The further south I got, the more basic and local I travelled - just as it was the plan right from the beginning. It all just worked out perfectly and I already got a good taste of the charms of Ecuador and the easy traveling!
On the busses and coaches here, there is always something on – and I’m not talking about the traditional music or even the music videos on the build-in TV screens. You don’t really need music or Netflix for your travels, you’d probably miss a good show live in front of you! Constantly there are vendors entering and exiting the vehicles, trying to sell their goods – snacks and drinks, of course, but these vendors are nothing compared to their colleagues that are offering USB flashlights, body lotions or some herbs that protect you from cancer (true) just to name a few. The do proper sales presentations and just kick off talking to the whole bus - the longest presentation I was allowed to witness was over 20 minutes! Some of these vendors even bring their on mic and speaker to make sure nobody misses they are taking place right now. Credit to these guys, many of them are actually pretty good!
Very early into Ecuador I could already see the first Indigenous people in their traditional, colourful clothes and hats – very interesting society that keep their traditions alive and mostly live in the higher regions of the Andes. I definitely want to learn more about them as long as I’m here. The Indigenous people here in Ecuador are far more present and visible than in Colombia and have a stronger influence on the culture of the country. Hearing their music in the streets always brings back some childhood memories for me too, when my dad came back from his journeys and brought souvenirs like music or panpipes.
In Quito I had a 2 night window before I was to meet the host for my next workaway. Quito is a beautiful city, especially the historic part marvelous and a UNESCO cultural heritage site for a reason. Old, colonial buildings (something that I’ve also been missing in Colombia) in beautiful colours, overlooked by the virigin statue on top of the Panecillo hill. As I only had one full day left I spent the time in this district just walking about without direction.
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A funny situation happened in a barber shop there as I went to get my hair cut. The people here are a bit smaller on average, and for Europeans some locations can be simply too small. When I walked in I already had to duck my head below the doorframe, that already started where my chin was. As I stood in the room, my head exactly reached the ceiling, so when I walked to the seat I had to duck away from the lamps or walk around them – something that seemingly amused the elderly ladies sitting there, chatting with the shop owner who obviously was a friend of theirs. My Spanish is well enough in the meantime, so I could understand that they were b*itching about another lady who thinks she’s something better. How does she dare! Some things are just the same everywhere.
The following trip to Salinas even got a little adventurous. I met my new workaway host Joshua, a bloke from England who’s settling down here and is involved in the tourism activities of Salinas, and we traveled onwards together. We passed a volcanic plateau directly in front of the majestic Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest peak, who sat enthroned in this impressive landscape. Clouds covering the upper half left me guessing of how this 6.350m giant would look like on a clear day.
The Chimborazo, seen from the bus.
As we descended from the plateau, we had to swop the coach for the back of a Toyota Hilux that took us the last 20km to Salinas. Sitting only on little wooden benches we had to clinch onto the metal railing that also held the cover which protected us from the rain, while as the driver was chasing up the foggy road. The landscape had changed into a green, mounainous shape with steep hills.
Salinas itself presented itself as a charming, little, windy mountain village at 3.550m of altitude, amidst numerous peaks that were covered in constantly moving clouds. It seems that everybody knows each other, and that people live quiet, easy and traditional lives – I’ll find out more in the next 2 weeks!