Loja, Chiclayo and Huanchaco

Not much to report from Loja. The plan was... we're not sure what the plan was... but it was raining so we mostly camped out in the internet cafe. Do you like our new map?

[crooked] Loja city gates

From Loja we took a night bus to Piura, Peru, including a 4am border crossing. Not at all like Canada-US borders. They weren't concerned in the least about your bags... actually... they didn't even say 2 words to us. We even filled out different customs forms? Who knows what was going on. We arrived around 6:30am to Piura and were hit with a whole new [unexpected] wave of culture shock. Bus terminals in Peru are set up differently; there aren't regional and international bus terminals like in Ecuador, rather each bus company (and there are MANY) has it's own terminal, and operates services to different places. You have to do is figure out where you are going, which company goes there, and where their terminal (not their ticket office) is.

Note the extensive damage on every taxi; a testament to the driving habits around here

From Piura we decided to keep going to Chiclayo. When you've spent 16 of the past 24 hours on buses, you aren't up to a whole lot. We checked out the massive market in Chiclayo, and then retreated to yet another incredible hostel - Hostel Amigos Chiclayo for an early night. Some of the most interesting sightings at the market;

- A woman carrying around a screaming kitten tied up in a plastic bag. A local told us it might have been destined for the dinner table.

- The market was about 4 city blocks, squared. Our goal was to find the witches market, which (according to 3 different sources) was in there somewhere, but after several laps we gave up.

Lisa wanted to take pictures desperately, but it just wasn't safe to bring out the big Nikon (we were attracting way too much attention as it was), and we'd forgotten to put memory card in the little camera (again).

The landscape between Piura and Chiclayo

Local "taxis" are more like dirt bikes turned into small carriages.

The poverty of Peru is very evident in some places

From Chiclayo we headed to Trujillo, 3 hours south. The landscape in Northern Peru was completely unexpected for us. It's a desert! Who knew? However, it was nice change after the Ecuador buses to drive along a flat road, in a straight line, without stopping every 2 minutes to pick up locals who flag the buses down. We too, started flagging buses down in Trujillo - it's what you do here. We took a Cambio (micro-bus/shared taxi) to Huanchaco, a small surfing village on Peru's north coast. It's what you'd expect from a surfing village, but with Salsa Discoteques (open until the sun rises) instead of bars. We learnt to dance Salsa and had a blast practicing our skills until early morning.



Huanchaco beach



Two little boys had a blast playing with the Nikon (while Lisa held onto the strap firmly)

We visisted the Chan Chan ruins, which were quite grand, an unbelievably huge. We pretty much had the place to ourselves because it's low season here.

Note: after 3 weeks of spending 24hours a day together, we are still getting along fabulously.



Some of the Chan Chan ruins with Andes in the background

We then spent the afternoon learning to surf with our instructor, Carlos. We have pictures of us surfing, but you'll have to wait because we are having issues uploading them from the waterproof camera. For some reason, a whole crowd of local mothers kept trying to get pictures of their children with us. It was cute at the begining, but not 20 pictures later. We found (for the first time) a self-serve laundromat, and decided our clothes could use a real wash (sinks only do so much). Simple pleasures! (Note the appropriate Macchu Picchu mural in our hostel room!)

Alex enjoying warm, lovely-smelling laundry. You have no idea how excited this made us.



The food in Peru so far has been incredible. Above is some Pescado Sudado (literally "sweated fish") which was out of this world good (and for $4 too!). It a typical speciality of Peruvian cuisine. We tried Pisco too!

We are off on yet another night bus to Huaraz, in the Cordillera Blanca.

Banos & Cuenca

Thanks everyone for the comments! We appreciate them very much; every time we sign into the blog we are eager to see them. We'll send you a postcard if you leave us comments ;)

Lago Agrio > Banos (Day 10)

On our last night in Cuyabeno, we had decided to gift the deck of Canada cards that we had with us to Jimmy, the local 9-year old who we befriended in Cuyabeno, but he stole them before we had the chance to do so! Luckily, we haven't had anything major stolen/lost yet on our trip.

We had 5 hours to kill in Lago Agrio before boarding our night bus to Banos. It was difficult to leave the terminal because we had our big packs & all our valuables with us, and the city had a bit of a dangerous reputation. Most of the time was spent in the bus terminal, the scent of street meat teasing us all the while. We caved and enjoyed some delicious bone-in chicken breast & potatoes on a stick!

Banos (Days 11 & 12)

We felt that our adventurous week in the jungle warranted a day of R&R in Banos, so when our night bus arrived (at 6am!) we headed straight for the local thermal baths. The baths were situated under a waterfall, and consisted of several pools of varying temperatures. You could also dip right into the freezing waterfall water if you so desired. Even at 7am, the baths were crowded with locals, and we stood out horribly with our white skin & colorful bikinis.

After the baths (which were probably not the cleanest, despite the "shower police") we headed back to our hostal to shower, then wandered around the cute city of Banos. The afternoon was spent at one of MANY local spas, because who can refuse $6 french manicures and $25 full-body hour-long massages?! (Facials too).

On day 2 in Banos we hiked up the 657 stairs to "La Virgen" statue which overlooked the town. The valley was very hazy both days, as you can see from the pictures. At the base of the climb was the local graveyard; a maze of little white buildings and cobblestone streets which was at first mistaken for a small village.

There was huge parade in town that day; we can only guess it had something to do with a soccer tournament, because teams (small children and dogs included) paraded through the streets towards the stadium.

Cuenca (Day 13)

We were told at the tourist office that the easiest way to get to Cuenca was to just hop on a bus to Riobamba, and catch one of "many" buses from there to Cuenca. He didn't seem concerned in the least so we took his word for it. Unfortunately, we arrived in Riobamba to find that the only bus leaving for Cuenca (6 hours away) was at 7:30 that night. Lisa called around to a number of hostals in Cuenca (practicing her best Spanish) trying to find somewhere that would let us in at our predicted arrival time of 1:45am.

We have been amazed by the incredible value of the hostals in South America. So far all of our accomodations have exceeded our expectations, especially considering the most we have paid thus far is $10 a night (most have been $8)! Both in Banos and in Cuenca, we stayed in cute private rooms, with two beds & a private  bathroom. Our hostal in Cuenca (La Cigale) even included a full breakfast. The only major flaw thus far was our first night in Cuenca, when we arrived at 1:30am from our night bus. A half-asleep hostal employee let us in, and [presumably, an accident] gave us keys to a room which hadn't been cleaned yet. He was gone by the time we noticed, and we were so tired, so we just let it go (but slept in our sleeping bags). The next morning he moved us to another room, but due to the language barrier we couldn't actually tell if he cared or not that he'd checked us into a dirty room.

The city of Cuenca, appropriately dubbed the "jewel of the south" is unlike any other city in Ecuador that we've been to. It's colonial arcitecture, clean street, and modernly dressed inhabitants set it apart from Quito or Banos.

We visited an amazing cathedral in the central plaza; built in 1880, at the time it could accomdate 9000 of the 10,000 inhabitants of the city.

We are sad to leave Ecuador already, as we've really enjoyed our time here. Some of our favorite little things about Ecuador have been the tiny women (seriously, under 5" tall) in traditional dress, carrying anything from food, to infants in slings on their backs. In fact, carrying infants around on their mothers backs has been the norm; we've seen a grand total of 3 strollers the entire trip (yes, we've been counting).

The food has also been a good experience. Most meals come for under $3US, and are usually more than we can eat; rice, beans, meat (chicken or "carne"), sometimes a few veggies, and most often a second carbohydrate. We've tried colombian food too (amazing!), and some street treats; plantain chips, coconut balls, "street meat". We've avoided any major illnesses so far.

We are off to Loja tomorrow for the day, then will catch a night bus to Piura, Peru. We've been told that internet will get increasingly poorer as we head south towards Bolivia, but we will do our best to keep up with the blog!

We'll leave you with a random sighting. Stairway to heaven?

Amazon Jungle Adventure

Day 1.

We survived our first South American overnight bus - it was actually quite pleasant. The chairs reclined, but our knees were painfully sore from the lack of leg room. We arrived in Lago Agrios in the pouring rain at 6:30 in the morning. The city exists mainly for the oil and gas industry. From there it was a lot of "hurry up and wait". We took a bus from Lago Agrios a few hours down a windy road to "the bridge" and from there a motorized river canoe that seated 10 somewhat comfortably for another few hours. We saw lots of wildlife on the way to the lodge; monkeys and birds mostly.

Neiser, our extremely knowledgeable guide

A spider monkey jumping between branches across the Cuyabeno river

Stinky Turkey birds (as our guide called them) were everywhere along the river banks.

A heron

A capuccino monkey

We arrived at Samona Lodge, in the Cuyabeno Nature Reserve around dinner time, "Checked into" our huts, and got our mosquito nets ready. After dinner we went for a night trek in the jungle - not for the arachnophobic! We saw tarantulas, spiders which fish (and eat their catch), colourful spiders, big spiders, little spiders, poisonous spiders... and some other bugs (and fish).  Jimmy, a local 9-year old, came with us and caught a fish with a knife... in the dark. We swung on "tarzan ropes" hanging from the canopy.

A spider with it´s catch. It injects enxymes into it´s catch to digest it prior to eating.

Lisa crawled into her bed to find a nasty cockroach, but then all was good and we slept well to the rucous of the jungle. We thought we should record the sounds and sell them as nature tapes for a good price.


Day 2.

When we woke up it was sunny, but minutes before we embarked on our jungle trek, it began to pour... amazon style. We tried to wait it out, but our guide figured it probably wasn't going to stop, so we donned our panchos and set out anyways. It was a wet morning! Unfortunately, pictures are limited because the Nikon remained safely sealed in it's waterproof bag for most of the day.

Standing next to one of the largest species of trees in the amazon.

Highlight of the day? Definitely not when had to jump a log which contained a very angered bee hive. We were the last two to cross, but came out relatively unscathed. Most other members of our group got at least a few bites. Our guide wasn't worried... apparently they weren't poisonous bees! (Whatever that means) Why didn't we go around the log, you ask? Because it was amazon bush-wacking.. and was therefore impossible.

Back at the lodge we found a sweet beetle, then got ready for a Pirhanna-fishing/ Caiman-finding trip.

How to catch a Pirhanna:

1. Find a stick... any will do.

2. Attach a short length of fishing line and a rusty hook.

3. Use some questionable meat as Pirhanna bait.

4. Lean over the edge of your canoe, and using the end of your stick, thrash wildly in the water, immitating a struggling animal which has fallen into the water.

5. Wait [patiently, or not] for a bite, but don't wait too long because the smaller fish will just pick away at your bait, until it's gone.

6. If you catch a pirhanna, remain calm and pull it out of the water.

7. Find someone braver (stupider?) to pull the hook out of the Pirhanna's mouth.

8. Take way too many photos, of various poses, then release the Pirhanna.

9. Repeat, as desired.

After the Pirhanna fun, we casually waited until it was dark enough (around 6:30pm here) to spot Caimans (river alligators) with our flashlights. We saw many, and got WAY TO CLOSE to a few. Apparently, Caimans assume you don't see them, even when the canoe is literally right over top of their 4-meter long bodies. It was terrifying, and thrilling at the same time. Here is the head of a "mama Caiman" as our guide called it.

Day 3.

Today we went further downstream to visit a local indigenous community. The neatest part of the day was making Yucca tortillas from scratch. Literally, we went into the jungle, harvested the roots, grated them, drained them, made it into a powder, and cooked the fine meal on a stone over an open fire until toasty. We are told that raw Yucca is very toxic, but very nutritious when cooked. The local kids were curious and adorable.

Village elder (90 years old!) harvesting Yucca (Cassava) with a machete

Shaman and his wife preparing Yucca cakes

Local children playing with their school supplies

We saw a lot of wildlife along the river on the way to and from the community. Here are some happy turtles. After dusk, we did some more fishing, snake-searching, caiman-spotting, and even happened upon a rare owl (whose name we forget at the moment).

Day 4.

Today we witnessed, first hand (maybe participated a little) a standoff between a 7meter long (and 30cm thick) Anaconda and a 1.5meter electric eel. It was definitely the highlight of our trip so far... if not one of the coolest things either of us have ever done. Our guide took us (and two of our friends; Josh & King) out in the canoe into the depths of one the Amazon tributaries. From there we hiked by foot looking for signs of an Anaconda. We began to find pieces of freshly shed skin and followed the trail.

It wasn't long before our guide found the snake in the bottom of the creek... shortly after we discovered the electric eel. The two were fighting, and the whole situation was just unreal. Even our guide, who sees these things pretty regularly was as excited as we were. We were chasing the Anaconda up the creek, and our guide, Naiser, grabbed it by the tail. Both of us got to grab the tail of the anaconda as well; something we aren't sure would have happened without the adrenaline rush that accompanied the whole situation.

On the way back we went for a quick dip in the river in our muddy clothes to refresh ourselves from the scorching hot adrenaline-pumped day! The rest of the day was spent lounging, napping, rehydrating, and recapping the days events in hammocks in a hut at our lodge. Oh, and Lisa got brave enough to pick up a tarantula. They are actually quite chill! (Alex dissagrees with this statement)

Day 5.

Today we did the reverse day-long trip as on day one, and saw more wildlife still. All in all, it was an incredible adventure. We took a night bus from Lago Agrio to Baños, where we are now (details to come in a later post), which was nowhere near as enjoyable as the first night bus. There were military checkstops on the road, apparently for purposes of minimizing drug smuggling from the Colombian border. The TV (right in front of us on the bus) blaired terrible, loud, Spanish stand-up comedy until early in the morning. Not long after this quit (around 4am) the bus started stopping to pick up people every 5 minutes. But we are safe and sound (and happy) now. Adios for now!