Christmas, Los Cedros style

It's hard to believe I've already been at Los Cedros for two and a half
weeks, but it's even harder to believe that Christmas is only four days
away! It's going to be a spectacularly un-western Christmas here, no
presents, cards, turkey, mistletoe; not even Santa Claus (I suggested to
Jose that he'd make a good SC - he really would - but we realised that our
bunkhouse has no chimney so that idea went down the drain). I'm really
looking forward to a Christmas of this style, as it's unlikely I'll ever
again be isolated from all the commercialism that comes along with
Christmas in the UK. I'm making a point of doing volunteer work on
Christmas day itself, as I may never again work on Christmas. Perhaps
I'll have more chance of spotting a Spider Monkey on the day itself, as
his paper hat from his cracker will inevitably make him more conspicuous.

Primate searching is what Rebecca and I have predominantly been doing
here, intermingled with some computer work updating the volunteer
information for future volunteers. I haven't yet seen any monkeys, but
I've heard a Capuchin on one occasion (quickly rushing over tree tops when
he heard me coming), and Spider Monkeys on two occasions (further off).
It would be quite special to catch a glimpse of the latter, being as there
are only an estimated 250 left in the whole world (they are classified by
the IUCN as Critically Endangered, the level slightly above Extinct In The
Wild). Interestingly, howlers, the loudest mammal on earth, have not yet
been heard by either of us even though they are much higher in number than
the spiders. Whilst out on the trails spotting primates, we follow the
formally laid down protocols to ensure that the data we collect can be
reliably used for the PrimeNet project (a project being run by the
University of Sussex, funded by the Darwin Initiative). These protocols
have been worked on by us, and include advice on primate habituation in
the event of encountering a primate (scratching yourself, looking
uninterested), and pace requirements (covering 50m in three minutes).
School science projects were never this fun!

I have caught glimpses of a number of other animals I've never seen before
in the wild. I've seen a couple of snakes, which thankfully are kept away
from the research centre by the cat, who takes away their prey, the rats.
I've also encountered two armadillos, several parrots and toucans, and a
beautiful tarantula about six inches across with its legs bent.
Spectacled bears are very occasionally encountered (three times so far
this year), and there is evidence of sloths and pumas, though I don't
think these have ever been seen. Most mammals in this forest do a very
good job of hiding or fleeing before humans can spot them, and I doubt
I'll be lucky enough to capture a glimpse, but it's fascinating to think
that when I walk through the forest I am sharing it with them.

In the afternoon we usually read or chat, on the porch of our bunkhouse.
The bunkhouse has electricity and can hold about 20 volunteers, but we
have it to ourself at the moment. For a few days last week, we were
without electricity, because on one particular evening we drew too much
power from the inverter and it blew. At the moment we're using a 350W
inverter, which can power a suprising number of things - numerous laptops
during the day and many energy saving light bulbs in the evening.
Sometime between Christmas and New Year, a friend of Jose's is bringing up
a 2500W inverter to replace the original one which was struck by lightning
the day we arrived. 2500W never sounded so good - the place will look
like Disneyland!

In the mean time I hope everyone has a really enjoyable Christmas and New
Year - I will be here over this period, until I head back to Quito on
around the 3rd January. I will put up photos as soon as I get there, I
just cannot do it here when my connection is a quite astonishingly slow
1.2kb/sec!

Reserva Los Cedros

I think I might just be in paradise.

Reserva Los Cedros is a 6400 hectare area of cloudforest on the
western flank of the Andes, just 60km north west of Quito but a whole
world away. I arrived on a three hour bus from Quito to a village
named Chontal, on Sunday morning. There I met up with Jose, the owner
of the reserve and the administrator of the projects that go on here
and Rebecca, another volunteer who is originally American but who has
lived in Venezuela for the past few years. We were joined by some
Spanish tourists who are visiting from a short time, and after a while
we began the several hour trek up to where we would be staying and the
base for our volunteering. I hadn't counted on getting to ride on the
mules, which made the trek much easier! By the end of the five hours
my mule was well under control, having become familiar with some
Spanish commands I also taught it some English ones. The trek took us
up and out of the lush tropical valley in which Chontal sits, over
several rivers and higher up into the forest.

The research centre at Los Cedros comprises several buildings - Jose's
house, a bunkhouse, a kitchen /communal area, several toilets and a
shower. Water is run through hoses directly from the river higher up
the hill, and electricity is generated by a dynamo in the river.
Water is so plentiful, that it is actually preferable to leave the tap
<i>on</i> in the kitchen, so that the river doesn't overflow and run
down into the mule pasture. Walking past a flowing tap initially
really went against the grain for me, but now I'm used to it! After
all, the water is simply re entering the river somewhat further down,
once it has travelled down the hand-dug drains. The internet here is
very patchy, but sometimes accessible. In order to access the
internet we dial up to the ISP on a radio phone, and the noise on the
line often means it takes several attempts to dial up. Unfortunately
I don't think I'm going to get any photos out till I'm back in Quito
in January, but you can see some photos of the place at www.reservaloscedros.org.

Rebecca and I are mainly going to be going out in search of primates
while we are here. Primenet is one of the projects that has been set
up here by scientists and students, and the primate spotting program
continues to run in their absence. Three species of monkey: the
Spider Monkey, Capuchin and Howler, are found in this relatively small
pocket of forest in North West Ecuador. Only about 4% of the original
beautiful cloudforest is left in this part of Ecuador and it is a good
job that Jose bought up this land and has fought over it because
otherwise this figure would be even lower. The devastating
deforestation has led to the drastic reduction of many animal species,
but this pocket of paradise still allows many species to survive. As
well as monkeys, spectacled bears are occasionally sighted here, and
there is evidence of big cats, though they're virtually never seen.
I'm looking forward to working on an ongoing scientific project -
tomorrow will be our first time out looking for monkeys.

As well as that, there are some other projects that sometimes need
doing here at Los Cedros. This morning we went out into the forest to
plant to begin recolonising the forest with a tree species which was
at one point felled by humans, and at some point we're going to tackle
the water supply to another building a kilometre or two along one of
the trails, in the hope that in the future it can be used for
volunteer accommodation. The trail network here is quite extensive,
and it feels incredibly exciting to go out on hikes on trails that
really no one else in the world has access to. When it is clear,
simply looking out from the research centre into the mountainous
cloudforest landscape affords me views of hillsides that have quite
possibly never had a human step on them. We even have a impressive
waterfall, a couple of hours walk away on the appropriately named
`Cascada' trail. The whole experience so far has been amazing - Jose
says he lives in the best place in the world, and it was only when we
arrived here on Sunday evening that we agreed he may be right.

As well as the exciting animals, there are stunning plant species
everywhere you look; huge tree butresses, leaves the size of my torso
and orchids abound. There are a ridiculous number of insects here,
including several species of spider (the tarantula being one). I have
yet to find anything much bigger than a grasshopper in my room, I am
glad to say, and the research centre cat keeps the snakes away by
destroying their prey (the rodents).

Right now I'm going to go and read and generally enjoy my afternoon
off (the afternoons off and the great food that the cooks produce are
two of my favourite things about the place).

Latitude zero

Today I visited the Northern Hemisphere, several times in fact. I went to Mitad del Mundo nearby, which sits on the equator. It was from Mitad del Mundo that the French scientists confirmed the location of the equator, deduced that the earth was not quite spherical, and conducted measurements that would lead to the metric system.





I´ve been in the Quito, Ecuador´s capital, since Sunday. It´s a beautiful city. You can probably tell I prefer it to Lima by the fact that I´ve managed to stay here for more than one night at a time. Lima has its plus points but Quito is much more pleasant. I´ve been staying in a cheap hotel in the Old Town ($5 a night for a whole room with three beds in it to myself), which is the quieter but more beautiful part of the city.



Quito is only 25km south of the equator, but retains a spring-like climate all year round thanks to its high elevation. It is surrounded by several volcanoes and the old town in particular is very hilly. The steep cobblestone streets are hard going if you´ve got a full rucksac on but the views from the top of the hills and church towers are fabulous. Within the space of a few blocks are several beautiful plazas, picturesque colonial buildings and cathedrals, basilicas, monasteries and churches everywhere you look. I´m not one for walking round churches all day (the Spanish art gets quite tiring after a while), but some of the interiors of these buildings are quite stunning. One church, La Compañia, is reputed to have required 7 tonnes of gold to deck out its interior, and Quiteños proudly regard it as the most beautiful church in Ecuador. Almost every church is steeped in gold, art and architecture, something quite different to the churches back home. It´s evident that the Catholic church has always been a holder of great wealth here in Latin America.





Quito´s New Town is more like the cities in North America and Europe, with skyscrapers dotted around the place. It´s not as pretty as the Old Town but it´s still a pleasant place to explore, graced as it is with several parks. Most of my trips to the New Town have been to the South American Explorers clubhouse. It´s a home away from home, what with free tea and coffee, chillout area, book exchange and a multitude of resources on volunteering and other things to do in South America. Speaking of books, I´ve just finished my fifth of the trip, Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. It recounts their motorbike trip from London to New York via Siberia and is of special interest to me because I dreamed up the exact same trip (though imagining I´d do it in a 4x4) when I was about 12. It´s good to read a book about travelling while you´re travelling yourself, and it is inspiring me to do more adventurous things in the future. I once heard of a man cycling (ie on a bike with pedals) from Holland to Nepal, and then climbing Everest. Hardcore!

One thing I love about Quito is its transport system. It has a tram network that I think is at least as good as Sheffield´s (and only $0.25 no matter how far you go). The trams generally have their own lanes so they can whisk you from the Old Town to downtown in just a few minutes. Last night however I experienced a much more fun form of transport. Starting yesterday and going on until the 6th December is the week in which Quiteños celebrate the anniversary of the founding of Quito. There are many street parades like this one



and many instances of an intriguing type of bus called a chiva, a picture of which is here, hurtling past you on the street. In keeping with the fiesta spirit they all sport bands on the roof, playing all kinds of loud music! It´s great fun, and last night, SAE organised one for all its members. We cruised round the streets of both New Town and Old Town, complete with beers and whistles. It was a good laugh! (Sorry, no photos of night time things because my camera flash isn´t working properly!).

I´ve found some volunteering to do! In the next couple of days I´m going to head up to Reserva Los Cedros, which is only 60km northwest of Quito, but which takes about two days to reach. The volunteering here will probably be a mixture of trail maintenance and building, bear tracking, admin work and plant/insect species research. I´m going to be there for at least a month, and all my accommodation and food is included for $300 per month. I´m really excited about it and I hope it will be a great experience to do over the Christmas and New Year period. I think there is internet access, so I´ll keep blogging - with any luck I might capture a picture of the famous bespectacled bear.

Quito on election night

Just a quick one - I arrived in Quito today, inadvertently managing to time my arrival at the same time as the presidential elections. I got into my hotel, turned the TV on, and every channel was showing footage of a press conference and public celebrations in the centre of Quito following exit polls which currently suggest the left-wing guy, Correa, has won. So I thought I´d pop down and join in the fun! A quick bus ride later I found myself in Parque La Carolina, and the crowds weren´t hard to find - I simply had to follow the noise and shouts of "¡Correa, Presidente!, ¡Correa, Presidente!".

I picked up a couple of photos of the madness:





The election campaign has been a bloody one, with its fair share of controversy. Correa is a renowned anti-American and once called George Bush a dimwit! The usual promises to increase employment and reduce poverty have been the central theme through the campaigns of both candidates; I wonder if Ecuador will see these come to fruition this time, or will it suffer at the hands of more corrupt politicians?

Baños and the upper Amazon basin

I left Cuenca on Wednesday evening and arrived here, in Baños, on Thursday morning. Baños is a tourist hotspot, popular with both Ecuadorians and foreigners, due to its idyllic location in the central highlands. It´s name literally means `baths´ - it is named after several nearby hotsprings. Baños sits in the shadow of the huge and humbling Tungurahua volcano, which gave the town some trouble in 1999 when it decided to erupt after years of dormancy. This seriously damaged the tourist business here, as all the locals had to move out for some months, but the town seems to have recovered. Even now, seven years on, there is clear evidence of the lahars caused by the eruption. This is Tungurahua (hovering over images will give you some extra descriptions):



On Thursday afternoon I walked up to Bellavista, an appropriately named building on a hill overlooking Baños. This was the beautiful view of the town that awaited me:



One of the main reasons I wanted to come to this area was to do the recommended bike ride from Baños down to Puyo. Puyo lies 60km by road to the east of Baños, and about 850m lower in altitude (Baños being at 1800m, Puyo at 950m). The setting of the two towns couldn´t be much more different. Travelling this relatively short distance takes you from the highlands, right down into the Amazon basin. Puyo is the gateway for the Oriente, basically the jungle area of Ecuador. The bike ride was amazing, and hard - there was more down than up but there was plenty of up! This is what the upper amazon basin looks like, on the road between the two towns:







The best part of the journey was the impressive Pailón de Diablo waterfalls near the village of Rio Verde. These falls were about 20km east of Baños, a short walk from the road, and are apparently one of the most impressive waterfalls in Ecuador. I walked right up to their base, and the noise from the water here was deafening. The force of the water crashing into the pool at the bottom sent rain flying upwards!



Near to the waterfall was an authentic jungle-style rickety bridge:



There were several other waterfalls en route, including several that dropped straight onto the road.



The whole journey to Puyo took about 4 hours, and the bus shamed me by climbing back up to Baños in only one hour. It was a very worthwhile journey. Today I plan on some serious hammock time, before catching a bus to Quito tomorrow.

Parque Nacional Cajas

I´ve just got back from four days of hiking in Parque Nacional Cajas which I´ll talk about in a bit. First of all, I thought you may enjoy seeing a picture of the Peru-Ecuador border which I travelled over last Tuesday



and a couple of pictures of Cuenca, the town I´ve been based in for the last week. It´s a beautiful city!





On Saturday morning I got on a bus bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador´s largest city and got off after about an hour at Laguna Toreadora, the ranger station for Cajas. Here I bought a tourist permit for $10 and hiked up the road to the start of the trek at Tres Cruces. I was following the trek plan described in the Lonely Planet book that I used for my treks in Peru, but I decided I´d like to spend 4 days instead of 3 in the park so my plan was to explore the area around one of the central lakes for a day or so, in between the described second and third days of hiking.

I mentioned before that Cajas looks like the Scottish highlands. It does (in fact it looks quite like parts of Snowdonia and the Lakes as well) until the point where you find the following three things: llamas, puya and cloudforest!



The puya is a plant related to the pineapple that is characteristic of the Andes. The picture below shows a typical puya, although I found much bigger versions of this plant. Generally they live for about 30 years and flower just once, when they send a massive shoot up 10m into the air.



Cloudforest is home to a huge diversity of wildlife, including bespectacled bears (the species that Paddington was based on). Unfortunately I didn´t see any such bears, I was more interested in trying to work out how to clamber over and under the branches with my large rucksac! The mist that flows through these forests adds a mystical element to the atmosphere.



This was the view from my first camp spot, on the morning of the second day:



On the second day I climbed over two mountain passes to reach another lakeside camp spot, here:





On the third day I decided to explore a side valley, climb up a small peak and then head down to the final campsite near some Incan ruins and surrounded by waterfalls.





This morning was the last part of my trek, I walked passed this impressive looking lake:



and on to the road that would take me back to Cuenca. I was waiting for a bus by the road, when a policeman offered me a free lift! I´m not one to turn down a free lift, but I was rather disappointed that he didn´t involve me in an exciting police chase. Still, I saved $2 so I can´t complain.

I´m quite tired now and I´m going to chill out here for a couple of nights, before moving on to Quito, perhaps via Baños. I´ve heard that there´s an excellent bike ride to be done from Baños down to Puyo - it´s about 60km along and 1000m down, and takes you pretty much from the Andes to the Amazon basin. I´m keen to get to Quito quite soon though, so I can try to sort out some volunteering. In the mean time, I´m waiting for my tent to dry (perched up on its end in my cheap hotel room) and my clothes to wash themselves (I´m going to leave it till I get back to my room in ten minutes to see if this has happened; if not I´ll resign myself to the fact that a laundrette trip may be in order).

Into Ecuador

I´m very pleased to say that my first land border crossing went flawlessly. Yesterday morning I peeled myself away from the hammocks and sandy beaches of Máncora onto a combi headed for Tumbes, the last major town in Peru before the border. Tumbes, with its incessant heat and mosquitos isn´t the sort of place to hang around in, so I jumped on a bus straight through to Machala, Ecuador. The immigration offices for both countries aren´t at the border itself, but several kilometres behind the border in both cases. I was cleared out of Peru (and successfully avoided a local man who wanted to charge me for filling in my Ecuadorian immigration form), and got back on the bus. The border itself was simply a bridge over a dried canal in the middle of a town. There was no security at the bridge and the local Peruvians and Ecuadorians seemed to have an agreement whereby they could just walk between the countries without a care in the world.

A few kilometres into Ecuador, on the far side of the town, was the Ecuadorian immigration office. I had taken my buff (funky coloured hat thing) off especially, in an effort to look more respectable. Officially, Ecuador requires that you have in your possession a ticket out of the country, and $20 per day in funds, but they virtually never ask for this unless you turn up looking particularly stoned or bedraggled. I had no problems, and the chap even gave me 90 days which I was very pleased about (the guidebook mentions most people only get 30).

I arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador´s third largest city and base for the southern highlands, yesterday evening. Myself and a couple of Canadians found a hotel and somewhere to eat; I have just found a far nicer hotel for 50 cents less, which I will promptly move in to. Ecuador is completely dollarized which makes things easier in some sense, but I´ve become so used to the Peruvian sol that I keep on converting back to soles in my head to determine whether things are good value or not. They plumped for the dollar in 2000 or so, after their currency had devalued to just a third of what it was in only a year.

I am in Cuenca because it´s a good base for a trek I want to do in Parque Nacional Cajas, which looks to me uncannily like the Scottish highlands. Mike and Rachael from Máncora may join me for this trek in a few days, having elected to soak up some more sun in Peru before dashing to Ecuador. For the next couple of days, however, I plan to stay here and acclimatize whilst exploring the beautiful colonial centre of Cuenca.

I don´t have a very structured Ecuador plan, only that I would like to do this trek, and I would like to see Quito (the capital) which sits about 20km south of the equator. I just can´t justify (let alone afford) the $900+ that a Galápagos trip would set me back, and besides I don´t have much time. How long I stay in Ecuador all depends on whether I find volunteering in Quito...I should think any length of time between two weeks and two months for the whole country is appropriate. Afterwards, I plan to spend some more time in Peru (to see Machu Picchu and other parts), before heading down to Bolivia and then Chile. My only time constraint in this continent is my flight out in three months time, and I am finding that there is more and more to do in Latin America. I promise more photos next post.

The north coast

I left Lima on Monday night to explore some of Peru´s north coast before crossing the border to Ecuador, which I expect to do at the beginning of next week. I´m currently in Máncora near the border, and earlier in the week I spent a few days in Trujillo, Peru´s third largest city. The north coast of Peru has been largely undiscovered by tourists, which makes it a nice break from the well carved Lima to Cusco gringo trail. Life is more laid back here.

Trujillo is about halfway from Lima to Ecuador, situated in the coastal desert. It´s not until you step off the nightbus into Trujillo´s surroundings that you really believe it´s situated in desert. The city is flanked on one side by the Pacific ocean, and on the other by huge sand dunes rearing up to the Andean foothills. It´s quite a sight. The area receives just 6mm of rain per year, unless it´s an El Niño year, where it receives rather more. The impact of El Niño on the area is incredible - every few years when it hits, bridges in the area are washed away and many towns on the North Coast are partially destroyed.

Trujillo is situated near the ancient Chimu city of Chan Chan, the biggest pre Columbian city in the Americas. I stayed at a guesthouse run by a lovely Peruvian lady and her English husband, who provide excellent tours of Chan Chan and the nearby Pyramid of the Moon, a Moche monument. Here are some photos.













On Thursday night I took a bus to Máncora and arrived here yesterday morning. It is permanently sunny here at this time of the year, indeed most of the year, being so close to the Equator, and is a popular holiday resort for Peruvians. Yesterday evening those of us staying at my hostel went out for some food and drinks, which was good fun. All the food here is fresh, probably pulled out of the ocean only a few hours before.





I am going to stay here for another couple of days, making the most of being near the beach, before heading to Ecuador for more trekking (and volunteering if I can find it) in a few days. Thanks to all of you for your emails and blog comments; it´s really great to hear from you.

Mountain biking in Huaraz, and Lima

On Saturday I went mountain biking with Julio Olaza, the local trails guru. He´s quite famous in the area and knows the singletrack in the surrounding mountains better than anyone, according to Lonely Planet. It was a splurge at $48, but you have to do these things sometime don´t you? Besides, I have been spending well under a tenner a day so far so I thought I´d treat myself.

It was my last day in Huaraz but I wanted to fit some biking in as I´d heard it was a world class location for it. Julio´s driver took us 1000m up into the Cordillera Negra, an arid set of hills which protect the snow on the Cordillera Blanca from melting in the warm pacific winds. The town down in the valley that you can see in the picture below is Huaraz. It´s about 30km away and 1000m down. That got me grinning.





The first few kilometres were double track, a good warm up for what was coming next. Then Julio took me down 18km of singletrack, virtually all down hill and nice and dangerous! There were some really rocky sections, lots of startled looking locals and the occasional pig sitting in the middle of the trail. There were views like this most of the way down.





I´m looking forward to what mountain biking I may find in Ecuador, and Cusco in Peru later in the trip.

Later that day I got on a night bus to Lima, and managed to stay here a whole 36 hours before deciding to get out again. It´s not so bad, it´s just more expensive than the rest of Peru and not nearly as exciting. I´ve got a bus to Trujillo in an hour. It´s nearly half way to the Ecuadorian border and has lots of ruins and beaches and things. I´m heading to Ecuador but taking my time about it - on the way I plan to shock other travellers and locals by trying to tan my pasty skin. Perhaps I´ll learn to surf too. Somewhere up the coast is the 'longest left handed wave in the world' apparently.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of pics of some nice parts of Lima.

Photos of Huaraz and the Huayhuash

Below is a photo of myself, Ofri, Nelly and Eyal in Nelly´s living room last Friday, just before I departed for my trek. Notice, I am the tallest for a change!



Peru has gone election mad lately, with the keenly anticipated ballot on the 19th of November. Everywhere you go, even in the smallest rural villages, you see candidate posters and slogans painted on walls. Two of my favourite candidates are below. I particularly like this jovial looking fellow



and this trustworthy looking chap.



I hopped onto the bus to Chiquian and took these pics the following morning, just before I found my way to the start of the trek at Pocpa.





My first night of camping in the Huayhuash was here, just north of Quartelhuain, with Rondoy (5870m) behind.



On the second day of trekking I got closer up to the mountains. This is Jirishanca (6094m), in the evening from my campsite (southern end of Laguna Mitacocha) and then the next morning, in the stunning sunshine.





Lastly, here are four photos from my third and final camp, at the Eastern end of Laguna Carhuacocha. The first shows Siula Grande (6344m, made famous by a certain mounaineering book and film) and Yerupaja (6617m, Peru´s second highest). The second overlaps, showing Yerupaja and Yerupaja Chico (6089m). The third overlaps again, showing Yerupaja Chico, Jirishanca and Jirishanca Chico (5446m). I quickly snapped the fourth as the sun set behind Yerupaja Chico.