Mas South! Saraguro, Loja, Vilcambaba

I need to access the internet more often, otherwise I will forget everything we did. Eek. Okay, going back a week or so ago to our stop in Saraguro...

We took the world's fastest hike in Saraguro before we caught our bus home. We happened to stumble across the tourist office in town on our walk around the streets and the nice woman in the office managed to convince us it was a good idea to take a hike to a nearby waterfall. (¨How long are you staying here? Oh, not even for one night? Why? There are some nice things to do around here...¨said with a sad puppy dog face.) She called a camioneta who whisked us away to the waterfall, well, after he got lost and asked for directions. The ¨walk¨to the waterfall, called Baños del Inka, turned out to be an incredibly steep, muddy hike. The waterfall at top is used once a year, I believe in June, for ceremonial baths. Our driver said he´d be back for us in 40 minutes. Somehow we made it there and back just in time to meet him as he was pulling back up. Perfect timing. The hike was beautiful, if not a bit hot and muddy. There were some gorgeous views of the valley below and all the little houses and farms.

We got back to town just after the 5:30 bus was about to leave. The incredibly bored man working the Viajeros bus office told us that the bus was a bit late so we could still probably make it. Then a few minutes later he changed his mind and told us it wasn't coming and we'd have to take the next bus at 6:45. So we went to the store to buy some snacks, only to glance back down the street after a few minutes and discover that there was a bus in front of the office! We ran down the street, pushing down any locals in our way (maybe not) and made it just in time. We had a lovely (scary) 2 hour ride to Loja from there. I happened to sit next to a strapping young lad of 19 who was singing along to Aventura (Puerto Rican pop band that sings in bachata style) songs blasting through the bus´ speakers. To make conversation, I asked him what he was singing and that turned into a long conversation in Spanish lasting for the rest of the bus ride. I got to practice my Spanish, but since the music was loud and the bus ride bumpy, I had to ask him ¨Que?¨more times than I want to admit. However, he understood me overall and it was nice to get to practice my Español! (Warning!... you don't want to know this Mom and Dad, so cover your eyes for these last few sentences): The bus was a bit bumpy towards the end and was lurching a bit from side to side, so I casually asked the kid if there were a lot of bus accidents. He said yes. I asked if there were a lot of deaths. He said yes. Then he made a motion with his hands indicating a bus tumbling over a cliff. That made Rachel and I feel real great. Luckily we made it to Loja without incident, but we were really glad to get off the bus!

Unfortunately, Loja wasn´t as amazing as our guidebooks suggested it was. The descriptions in both of our books painted a picture of a picturesque town in a valley surrounded by green mountains (which it was). The books also said it was super clean and cute and had won numerous awards for its trash and recycling programs. Let me tell you a secret... Loja's not that clean. The streets had a lot of construction with dirt flying around, there was trash on the streets and by the river, and just a lot of cars and exhaust. We were a bit disappointed and started to miss Cuenca at this point. Not to mention that when we ventured out after 8pm to go find some dinner on our first night, everything was closed and the city had turned into a ghost town. Where the people had disappeared to, I really couldn't say. Bedtime at 8pm? Playing cards? No sé. We managed to find a nice Mexican restaurant, however, and had some trusty burritos (they were good here). Y guacamole! Wahoo! We soon discovered that we were the last customers, though, and the poor owner was waiting for us to finish our meal so he could close up.

Later that night we met a lone traveler from Portugal who was hitch hiking throughout Latin America. Rachel was tired at this point and read a bit before goin to sleep, but I decided to go out and try to find some signs of life in Loja (a bar) with my new friend Miguel. After walking through some deserted streets and stepping in some yellow paint on the street (I guess they didn't think to put a warning sign out since nobody goes out after 8pm anyway), we found a tiny hole in the wall place with a few people called ¨El Viejo Minero¨(the old mine) and talked a bit in there for a while. My new friend had grilled cheese and fruit juice. What a crazy guy. I learned a lot of odd facts about Portugal that night, such as the fact that the entire university system is huge on hazing its incoming freshmen as a giant group, from the first two weeks up until the entire year long. Plus the freshmen are forced to wear the graduation robes to differentiate them from the older students at the same time they´re made to do all sorts of silly things.

The next day Rachel and I walked to Parque Japiro, a ¨15 minute walk¨from the edge of the city center. It turned out to be a bit longer walk and it involved walking a main road with cars belching fumes into our faces the entire time. Once we arrived at the park, it turned out to be quite odd... it had everything from a skate park, a pool, and a basketball court... to a playground including a replica of St. Basil´s Cathedral in Moscow complete with slides (wee!)... to ducks, miniature horses, llamas, and OSTRICHES. Hmm...

That night we went to our favorite mine and managed to make friends with the Ecuadorian bartender and a Swiss German volunteer who speaks fluent Spanish and made me jealous. Again, it was great to have the chance to practice our Spanish and the guys were both very nice. The bartender enjoyed Rachel very much, I think he could have cared less about me. Perhaps it was because I started to fall asleep while he was talking to her later on in the evening? They spent most of the time trying to convince us why we should stay in Loja one more night so we could see the musical performance the next night (playing hits by U2 and all our favorite 90s bands), but we had to refuse... Vilcambaba was next on our list! The guys told us that it was filled to the brim with tourists, but it turned out to be anything but...

When we arrived the next morning, Vilcambaba turned out to be a tiny little town in the junction of 5 valleys... with NO tourists but us! Interesting. We got some curious stares as we took a tour of the tiny 10 street town. Just like in Loja, I was the only blonde one there. On our way back from the river, we stopped to buy some water at a mini market and somehow ended up caught in a conversation with an old, drunk New Zealand man who told us he was trying to teach his daughter and her friends about the dangers of talking to strangers. Then he proceeded to ask us to go on an overnight trip on horse to his cabin in the mountains with his Swedish and British friends, and then to come to his house ¨just down the street¨so he could cure our colds with ¨something¨. After asking him 5 times he finally let on that that something was a bitter tea, but we politely refused... and refused again. We walked away with him muttering ¨I didn´t frighten you guys, did I?¨. Turns out that this guy is written about in our guidebook, as he runs a famous horse rental place and apparently has great tours in the mountains. I am not quite sure what to think about that. Ironically, as we were trying to avoid him, we discovered that his tour shop was right across the street from our hostal. Oops.

Speaking of which, our hostel was one of the best we´ve stayed at so far. The rooms were great and they all were situated around a central garden. Breakfast was included and there was a restaurant with awesome Mexican food (finally!). The cooks also made some delicious homemade oatmeal chocolate cookies and orange chocolate cake. Mmm mmm. Plus, there was a TV room where we spent a good deal of time watching our favorite trashy TV show, The Girls Next Door... though here it´s called ¨The Girls of the Playboy Mansion¨(said in a very thick Spanish accent).

On our last day we went on a ridiculous hike in the Rumi Wilco reserve (part of a hostal with the same name). We felt like bushwhackers yet again even though we were on marked paths that even had little tags hanging from the plants with their names on them. I don't think the trails had been walked or cleared in a while. It was all fun and games, though, until I walked into a spider web. I screamed, Rachel screamed, and I ran away down the path. Rachel made fun of me. It was my turn to laugh hysterically when just 10 minutes later she walked into a spider web and this time the spider was actually on her. She screamed and ran away, trying to get the spider off. I think we scared the living daylights out of the poor thing. Granted, it was kind of creepy looking because it looked like a black crab.
On the way back to town after our adventure in the jungle, we came across the saddest dog I think I've ever seen. I am not sure what was wrong with it, but it seemed to be asking us for help and kept hoping up to both of us, clearly in some kind of pain. Something was wrong with its hips/back legs and it seemed to be squatting as it hopped along (it couldn't even walk normally). We had to leave it because we didn't know what else to do... I don't really want to think about it anymore, but I hope it's okay...

That night there was live music at our hostel. Turned out to be live folk music... played by French Canadians and some hippies. All the middle aged, hippy tourists came out of the woodwork that night and were there watching the show. An old hippy who looked a bit like Jesus got a bit drunk and started demanding that the musicians play ¨Yellow Rose of Texas¨every five minutes. Then he tried to dance with all the women but he didn´t succeed in wooing anyone, probably because he was a drunk Jesus. I sat and had milk and cookies, Rachel ate her cake, and everyone else got drunk. They played a few popular songs, but always reverted back to good old folk. We finally had enough of it and went to watch some more trash tv.... only to discover that Dexter had arrived in Ecuador, so we watched a few episodes of that and scared ourselves silly. When we finally went to bed, we heard a noise on our roof that sounded like a rodent gnawing on wood and were so scared after watching Dexter that we didn't fall asleep for quite some time. Eek.

The next morning we woke up early and started to make our way to Peru... this involved busing back to Loja, only to get on another bus to go back south again to cross the border at Macará in the jungle and then end in Piura, Peru. More on Peru next time!