A lovely day out in Bogota

We travelled by bus from Puerto Lopez, in Ecuador, to Bogota, in Colombia. It was long, but with the assistance of some loud Colombian music, we made it. Puerto Lopez to Quito, then on to Tulcans, where we crossed the border into Colombia at Ipiales and straight to Bogota from there. We settled in a nice colonial house in the embassy district of town. The first picture is taken in Quito. The angel adorns the hill over looking the city.

We discovered that a trip on a steam train was available, so we wandered the city trying to get more info. It ran on Sunday....about 8ish....the office opens at 7am.....on Sunday?? So at 6.30am we climbed out of bed and wander through the streets of a Sunday morning Bogota. We arrived at the very run down pillared train station and went in the side door. A ticket counter and many colombians drinking coffee. Being the only true stangers there, we had discovered a wonder of Bogota. So, we bought tickets, had a coffee and TOOOOOOOTT , went our train outside. So we all squeezed out the door and found our carriage

and got comfortable in our seats. TOOT TOOOOTT went the engine and we slowly chugged out of the station. We started to pick up speed and crossed many road junctions. All the shops are closed on Sundays, so Bogatonians are heading to the park, kite ander arm or cycling or walking the dog or enjoying beers by the moring sun. Us, as passangers, were kept quite busy, dutifully waving at all the passers by. We were also entertained by a small jazz ense,ble. This meant they had to turn down the other music that was blaring on the train. All part of the colombian travel experience!

Our destination was Zipaquira a town which is home to a huge salt mine. Beneath the mountian in the salt mine is a huge cathedral. Well a huge labarintyh of passageways and large rooms. It is all lit by coloured lights and rammed with tourists wandering in the dark. We stayed a while and wandered about before getting back on our train.

Train entertainment!

Puerto Lopez

We made our way to Puerto Lopez which is on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, for a couple of reasons. The first being that you can take whale watching tours from here, the second was that there is meant to be some good diving around Machalilla National Park with the possibility of seeing Manta Rays (giant rays that grow up to a 6m wing span). With giant animals on our minds it took us a day of bus journeys to get from Cuenca to Guayaquil.

We spent two days diving and another walking the long beech that fronts the town. The diving was great, fully suited up in thick wetsuits, balaclavas, booties etc I could hardly move but I managed to stay warm in the cooler Pacific! It´s not that cold really, I reckon the Ecuadorians have gone a bit soft under the hot sun! We dived in four different locations but we unfortunately didn´t get to see Mantas! While we were eating our sandwiches on our dive boat the second day, we chatted to a couple of marine biologists who had seen the rays just beneath the boat not 20 minutes previous. I put on a mask and fins and jumped in for a snorkel, but alas none to be found!

We did get to see lots of hump back whales though on the boat trip out to Isla del Plata, I have posted a short video below. Isla del Plata so called because Francis Drake used to stow his silver there, treasure that he nicked off the Spanish who had in turned nicked it off the Bolivians. Legend has it there are chests of treasure still to be found on the island!

Joe and Sue go treasure hunting under the sea

A Humpback Whale

Cathedral in Cuenca

Just thought I¨d put up a few pictures of one of the fabulous Cathedrals in Cuenca. Also, at the side, there is a line of flowers sellers with a wonderful array of flowers. Can you find the lady snoozing? If you click on the photos it makes them bigger to help the search!

Cajas National Park, Ecuador!

Cajas National Park is situated close to the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. We travelled by bus from Huanchaco, back to Trujillo, to Piura, across the Ecuadorian border to Loja and finally to Cuenca. A beautifull colonial city enclosed by 3 rivers, peppered with wonderful churches and very different from Peru; fine filtered coffee, high speed internet with wide screen monitors and streets full of fashion (victims!) We took an early morning bus to the national park. With hundreds of lakes it is a very popular fishing location for the locals. We had our first encounter with some Ecuadorians who insisted we join them for a gin and coke to welcome us to their lovely country. It was 9am, they had a long drive ahead of them and we were going for a long walk, so why not!

Off we went into the park, back at altitude and recently refreshed. We wandered on through the park for our three day, two night hike, bags on bags with equipment and usual supplies. The terrain was quite similar to home and as the fog closed in and the soft rain fell we could have been in Ireland. In fact, I can offically report that the rain was more like an Irish experience than a New Zealand one. As I retrived my sodden boots from yet another deep squelchy muddy hole I thought, yes, just like connemara on a grand soft day.

So with our love of hiking high on our minds we passed three fine days in the hills. We saw some lovely flowers and some little scorpians, ate some fine sandwiches and got quizzed by some locals who wondered what the hell we were doing in the rain and mud when we should be down town on a tourist bus, or visiting a cathedral. We were greatly rewarded however and having managed to keep the huge fold out pictures of park birds dry, we identified four beautiful grey breasted toucans flying above our heads and sitting in a nearby tree.

Huanchaco and Chicama Surf

We returned to Trujillo and travelled just out of town to a town called Huanchaco. Huanchcao is on the coast and it was here that we met up with our Irish friends who had arrived out for a bit of surfing. We spent the guts of ten days surfing and eating sea food in the various forms that the Peruvians had come with! (raw with lime juice and onion, grilled, soups, cooked with milk, etc, etc).

Huanchaco has a long history of surfing on the reed boats you can see in the picture, these are used for fishing and can handle really big waves with relative ease. You sit or kneel on the boat, paddle with a split piece of bamboo and put your net and catch of fish in the bath shaped hole at the back.

There is several good waves in Huanchaco which we could easily walk to from the hostel. However half an hour up the road in a place called Chicama there is a world famous wave. This town isn´t nearly as nice, hence we stayed in Huanchaco. Chicama claims longest left hand wave in the world, this means that when you are standing on your surf board with the wave breaking behind you, you can surf the clean or unbroken wave towards your left for distances of up to three kilometers on a good day. We managed to catch Chicama on two "good" days and surfed waves maybe one to two kilometres long which we all pretty delighted about!

Huanchaco was great, the weather pleasant, everything was easy and we could and would have stayed there for much longer however we were keen to try to get north to Equador and Columbia. Our time in South America is now getting noticeable shorter and the list of "oh, we must go and check that out" is getting longer by the day. Sadly we moved on.

Menu del Dia

After lounging in the hot baths near Cajarmarca we were a bit peckish and headed off for some lunch. We found a not too grotty restaurant, with a table of eight happily munching, a good sign. We browsed the menu to find most regular items available.Pollo (chicken) this and pollo that. A bit of res(meat) with salad and beans. No guinea pig. Not that I could bear to watch Joe eat one again. Why the serve them with their heads on and the teeth peering up at you I cant understand! Caldo de Gallina, a broth with bits of veg and pollo into. Mystery bits that is. A red meat version is also available but bits of meat are more mysterious so we usually stick with the chicken(pollo). Most restaurants have a menu of the day. Its the cheapest and you can usually decipher what your eating. It also comes with a fruit cordial to really test your stomach. We decided to splash out a bit and instead of going from the Menu del Dia , Joe had some trout and & I had a well beaten piece of beef. It went down nicely and we settled it with a cold beer. We soon became aware of a constant thumping out side the window. Like someone chopping wood with a blunt axe. It would stop occasionally only to start up again , thump, thump, thump.

We finished our lunch, paid the billl and as we left the restaurant the curious noise was explained. A young lady was outside the restaurant, preparing the meat for the menu del Dia. On the table in front of her was half the head of a llama. In one hand she held the remaining half, the other hand careful scraping out the meat with a sharp knife, before dropping the bits in a bucket. Another head sat on the table, a hatchet firmly stuck in it. Tired of chopping she was having a bit of a break..........

Glad we didnt order the menu del dia

Leymebamba

Hey just wanted to let you all see the band that were waiting to greet us when we had a brief break from the bus on the way to Tingo!

Tingo, Kuelap, Chachapoyas & Chiclayo

We were sorry to say goodbye to Celendin. Such an attractive small town full of friendly people with very fine hats!!Our next destination was Tingo, 10 hours away on a bus. I was lucky to be entertained most of the way by a box of chickens sitting at my feet. One passenger was complaining that the box was too small for 8 chickens and insisted that the owner open the box so they had more room. This meant that every now and again a chick did try to make a bid for freedom and was soon grabbed and tucked back into the box. All then had to be counted and given out too. The situation was eventually improved as the lady got another box in a town we passed through, transferred some chickens to provide all with more room and let the most troublesome one sit on her lap! Everyone was happy. Well apart from most of the other passengers who were busy filling plastic bags handed out by the bus man!!! A small boy sitting on his mothers lap was the first to start. Once his bag was full his mother started. She was deep green and had passed her now pale son to his father to mind. Sure enough it was daddys turn and the little boy was passed to a stranger on the bus while his parents recovered. When they weren¨t getting sick and holding their heads they were busy eating fruit and biscuits and popcorn and everything else they could buy through the bus window. An endless cycle, but seems to be what one does on a long bus journey. Joe enjoyed the view out the window and I avoided the chickens!! We stopped briefly in Leymebamba where I was greeted by a brass band as I got off the bus to strech my legs. We arrived in Tingo in time for dinner, both delightd to have another long bus journey behind us.

From Tingo we left very early in the morning to avoid the heat and had a three and a half hour walk up the hill to Kuelap (approx 3000m). Lying along the top of a mountian ridge Kuelap is a huge walled city with spectacular views across numerous valleys. It was built by the Chachapoyas culture in 800AD, occupied until about 1570 and is about 600m long and 110m wide. The outer perimeter walls are 19m and access can only be gained by 3 openings up steep steps. The dwellings inside were all circular and some have a fancy stone pattern on them. High in its jungle setting there are trees growing throughout the site now and many flowers are frequented by hummingbirds. We had a lovely wander about Kuelap and marched down to Tingo to lounge on our balcony and listen to the river.

We headed to Chachapoyas the next day and went to see the small museum on the plaza. Another colonial town all bright and painted up for July 28th , the national holiday. From there we went to Chiclayo where my mission was to see the gold from Sipan. In 1987 a wonderful discovery was made. A pyramid containg the tomb of a king was discoverd in Sipan. Looters had started digging but the authorities managed to stop them and a wonderful collection of gold items was found. They have built a special secure museum for what they found, three floors of gold and silver and wonderful artifacts. We walked around with our mouths open gaping at all the gold. No photos were allowed but I have found a good web site where you can have a look at some of the treasures. http://www.go2peru.com/cix_foto1.htm Look out for the gold spider necklace and earrings with mosaic inlay. We also went to Tucume which is the remains of a vast city. There is a ceremonial centre and 26 pyramids of various sizes. All built in adobe and boasting the largest adobe structure in the world. Another museum displays some wonderful gold pieces which were found at the site.