Ecuador - long-haul horrors

I don't enjoy flying. It's nothing to do with fear or phobias, it's just that the whole experience is deeply unpleasant. You're expected to turn up hours ahead of your flight time, you have to go through endless checks and you're packed in like sardines, with little opportunity to stretch your legs.

What a shame I missed the golden age of the steam liner!

Of course, if you want to travel long distances cheaply, then you've no choice but to fly and fly economy class.

I booked flights to Quito, via Miami, on British Airways and American Airlines for £840 each (return). There are no direct flights from London and going via Miami, rather than Amsterdam or Madrid, seemed like a good idea. It was a shorter stop-over between flights and we got into Quito slightly earlier (or not quite as late). It meant a 2pm flight from Heathrow (very civilised) and we'd arrive in Quito at 11pm (with the help of adjusted time zones). Actual flight time is around nine hours to Miami and then four-and-a-half hours to Quito.

I first realised that Miami might not be such a good idea when I went to complete online check-in on the BA site. It wouldn't let me complete the process unless I could say that I had a visa to enter the US. I wasn't entering the US, I was just switching planes ...

However, a bit of quick internet research told me that US airports don't operate like European airports. If you're transferring, you have to go out and come back in - there's no such thing as a neutral transfer lounge. To get into the US, you need a visa and you can apply online for an ESTA (electronic visa). This may be granted immediately or it can take up to 72 hours. Considering that we were due to fly next day, the stress had clearly started early.

In the event, the US immigration site granted us all a visa immediately. The cynic in me feels that this is less to do with security or migration and more to do with making some extra cash (an entry tax). The ESTA lasts a year so, for holidaymakers, it's more or less payable each visit.

To try to reduce some of the hassle, I'd booked car parking through a company called Purple Parking, which will collect your car at the terminal and bring it back for you when you return. It worked out around £10 per day and was much easier than the usual airport car parks and buses.

Everything ran smoothly until we got to the departure gate. We were taken to the plane by bus and it seemed as if we were driving to Slough - we were on the bus for ages. When we got to the plane, there was a delay and then a further delay. I guess we missed our flight slot and had to wait, but we set off late and had a limited time for the transfer at Miami - more stress!

You'd think an hour to change planes would be plenty, especially as our bags would be transferred and we already had boarding cards for the second leg. Well it's surprising where the time goes - 10-minute walk to immigration, queue to be processed, fingerprinted and photographed, queue for customs, have your three bottles of Pimms and one bottle of gin unwrapped, checked and re-sealed, go through security, a walk and a train ride to your check-in gate and we got there literally as they were shutting shop. They were calling my name as we were scurrying along the corridor and the chap at the desk said they were just booking us onto a morning flight.

Quito was much more civilised. Fill in a quick form and they sent us through the seniors channel at immigration so we didn’t have to queue (I think my sister was in front).

The flights back were just as bad. At Quito, we needed to be up at 4am, but then our flight was delayed by an hour-and-a-half. Fortunately, we had a four-hour stop-over in Miami, but they couldn't put our bags straight through (for some reason) so we had to collect them and recheck them in.

At Quito, I was called for an extra security check. Margaret had taken dozens of sachets of the laxitive she takes each day and these had been stuffed into the lid of the case. I'd taken her bag through as it was heavier and I guess these sachets had shown up when the bag went through checks. They must have looked like packets of cocaine.

So there's me, with no Spanish, telling an Ecuadorian security man that these are prescription drugs to keep my wife regular. "Es polvo de mi esposa para el estómago". He didn't seem convinced, ripped one open, sniffed it, had a little taste, grimaced and sent me on my way. I missed the full body search by a whisker! Hope he didn’t get the runs ...

We cleared all the US customs hurdles, rechecked our bags and got to the gate in good time. There was then a massive thunderstorm, which brought Miami airport to a standstill and caused us a two-hour delay. So out of four flights, three were delayed!

The final leg of our journey saw us split up as there were not three seats together. I was in the middle four seats between a taciturn young chap and an elderly Pakistani couple who were going to stay with their son in London for six months. I helped them fill in their immigration cards and it turns out they were going to Hoe Street, which is in Walthamstow, not far from where Sam and Lucy lived in Priory Road.

I watched five firms on the plane:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - contrived and ridiculous.

Philomena - a bit worthy, seemed like it might be good, but just petered out.

The Monument Men - drama documentary (how the Americans saved Europe's art treasures from the Nazis). Where would we be without them?

Pompeii - starring John Snow from Game of Thrones. Absolute tosh, but kept me interested. Pretty much the same story as Conan the Barbarian but they all get burned to a cinder in the end.

Cabaret - still a hell of a good film.

Worst part of the trip - breakfast on American Airlines from Quito to Miami. I chose a turkey roll, unwrapped it and wrapped it straight back up again. Disgusting and served by the rudest cabin staff you've ever seen.

Best part of the trip - Purple Parking managed to get my car to Terminal 3 (after the flight was switched from 5) and the car was there waiting for us. Icing on the cake after a long, tiring journey.

Travels on the Equator

Margaret and I, plus my sister Maggie, have been in Ecuador for the wedding of Tom and Lucia.

Here’s a few immediate impressions of the country:

Roads:

Ecuadorian road builders love their speed bumps, I have never seen as many as were stretched across the roads over there. Urban areas of Quito have them placed every hundred metres or so, which, considering the general state of roads in town, seems quite unnecessary.

But perhaps that explains why the urban speed bump is such an evil destroyer of cars. The roads in town are so bad that if you put an English speed-bump across the road drivers would think “hmm that was a nice smooth section.”

The bumps have to be big and nasty to make people slow down – and slow down you do.

There’s no standard size or profile, but I identified three main types:

• Triangular: designed to scrape your exhaust even if you crawl over it; try a bit more speed and you’re going to lose a silencer box.
• The quick rise: exactly the right profile to send passengers’ heads crashing against the roof- especially if they’re sitting in the back. This type can also auto unload the contents of pick-ups (unless they’re lashed down).
• The ski jump: constructed by Mr Nice on one side, Mr Nasty on the other. A “gentle” rise and a quick come-down on the other side.

Speed-bumps are everywhere, even on what would be classed as a trunk road. As soon as you get near a town or crossing, the planners feel a need for traffic calming. The bumps are all painted bright yellow, so you can’t miss them and someone clearly has a sense of humour because the other trick is to paint a thick yellow line across the road. This can have you braking desperately, only to discover there’s no bump, just a bit of yellow paint.

Out of town a new type of speed restrictor is used – a series of fierce corrugations. Take them fast and they’ll shake out your fillings, take them slowly and it’s like sliding downstairs on your bum.

Roads in town tend to be poorly maintained, some clearly are never maintained. In the countryside, roads can be brilliant – smooth and with great, constant-radius bends. Others are unsealed rubble. One section, between Papallacta and Quito, where road widening work was being done, varied between smooth, wide tarmac sections with no road markings and hardcore (with no road markings).

There are some road tolls, but they are really cheap. Toll booths are manned which is, perhaps, another form of traffic calming.

In older parts of Quito, some roads are paved (just like Belgium) and these are like a combination of all speed-bump types rolled into one.

Driving:

You’d expect driving to be a little scary, but it’s surprising how kind people are to each other. There’s a lot of horn-blowing in town, but it tends to be a toot-toot, rather than a blast. People will often let you in or out and if someone does something really stupid (like overtake on a blind bend) cars move aside to let the errant driver in or through. A British driver would defend his rightful piece of tarmac and would rather see a head-on crash than let someone in.

Speeding doesn’t seem to be an issue (see speed bumps, above), but even where there are no speed bumps, people don’t drive that fast. The exception, of course, is the 4x4 ‘yute’ – these crew-cab pick-ups are the Audi A4s of Ecuador. If there’s someone up your arse, you can bet your life it’s a pick-up.

Out in the country, lots of people beg lifts and are quite happy to sit in the back of a pick-up or truck.

Cars:

There are very few British cars. I saw a couple of Range Rovers and a Discovery in a richer part of Quito, but that was it. Chevrolet seems to be the most popular make and lots of things are badged as Chevvies. The most common are the old Daewoo models (now also sold in the UK  under the Chevrolet banner), but also Suzuki and Vauxhall/Opel models, such as the Corsa. There are also plenty of Kias, but the car to have is a Toyota 4x4 pick-up (or look-alike model).

Four-wheel-drive cars and cars with high ground clearance are very popular. There’s no market for big executive cars like an Audi A6 or BMW. If you can afford one of those, you’ll buy a 4x4 Toyota.

There’s no frost, therefore no road salt and therefore no corrosion issues. Cars tend to get shaken to pieces before they rust away, but you do see some old gems and some old heaps. The older heaps tend to be customised within an inch of their lives. Having lived through the 1970s when adding spotlights, a vinyl roof and go-faster stripes was de rigueur, I don’t mind a bit of accessorising.

Petrol is very cheap, you can fill up a small car for less than $20 and diesel is just over $1 per gallon (20p per litre).

Motorcycles tend to be low capacity and Chinese or Indian brands, many of them new to me. I did see one Harley-Davidson – a genuine one as people tend to stick Harley badges on lots of other bikes – and a couple of Suzukis, but it’s very much the exception.

Buses form the main type of public transport and they seem to vary in quality. Along the main spine of Quito, there’s a protected bus lane and buses run up and down this, packed like rush-hour tubes, belching out clouds of filthy diesel smoke.

Urban planning:

There isn’t any - build what you like, where you like as long as it’s make from breeze blocks. Favourite trick is to build one storey and leave the top unfinished until you have enough money or enough children to add another floor.

In the countryside, you still see some small huts made from adobe brick and thatch, but most are breeze block and corrugated steel.

Quito is the biggest city and it’s expanding north and south along a narrow valley. As the city becomes richer, more expensive development is pushing poorer people out and they’re moving south or being shoved up the hill. It’s not uncommon, in poor areas, to have no mains services.

Richer people are very concerned about security and tend to live in gated communities with security guards, or in houses protected by high walls and steel gates. I’m not sure if crime is a problem; I guess it is judging by the security measures employed, but I never felt threatened.

In a country where the scenery is magnificent, man generally makes an ugly stamp on the landscape. The exception is Quito old town, where there are some magnificent buildings, plazas and churches. That’s about the one good legacy of Spanish colonialism; almost everything built since the turn of the 20th century is ugly.

Food:

Salad can be cold vegetables, restaurants serve rice and chips with almost every meal and the country is in love with blackberries.

I did see Guinea Pig on the menu in one restaurant, but it was my first day in Ecuador so I gave it a miss. I might have tried one, but didn’t get a chance again.

Actually I ate really well. I had a couple of nice steaks, some chicken and pork. Breakfast was often juice, bread rolls with cheese and eggs – fried or scrambled.

Wine is quite expensive, but beer (bottled pilsner) is cheap. I tried some new fruits (including tree tomatoes) and liked everything.

Street dogs snuggled together in Banos

Dogs:

There are lots of dogs in Ecuador and none of them are on a lead. Street dogs are common everywhere, they start barking at around 5.30am, but apart from that, they don’t seem to cause too much trouble.

Little groups hang around together – an unlikely mix of small and tall hounds. Some are distinguishable breeds, but most are mongrels and most seem to fall into either a brown, short-haired terrier or a small, shaggy dog, like a shrunken labradoodle.

Dogs don’t seem vicious, most were very happy to have a stroke, but a small proportion will chase your car and try to bite the tyres. This seems more of a problem for the dogs than it does for the motorist.

Cotopaxi is only a few miles from the centre of Quito. Imagine this just
outside London - in Slough for example.

Geology:

This is amazing. There are very high mountains along the centre of the country, the Amazon basin to the east and rainforest and beaches to the west. There's also the Galapagos way west in the Pacific, of course.

We tended to stay high in the Andes, in a landscape dominated by volcanic activity. There are volcanoes everywhere, including one – Pichincha – which is just four kilometres from the centre of Quito. It last erupted in 2002 when the city was covered in ash. Just a few miles to the south is Cotopaxi (almost 5,900 metres high). This has erupted 50 times since 1738 and has twice destroyed the town of Latacunga (and I mean levelled). It’s clearly visible from Quito and 2 million people in the southern part of the city would be at risk in the event of a major eruption.

Just to the north of Quito is Cayambe (the highest point on the Equator and the only glacier to be found on the Equator) and to the south east is Antisana, so Quito is essentially surrounded by massive volcanoes.

No-one seems unduly worried by this and, in fairness, if you didn't build near a volcano, nothing would be built. People just rub along with hot lava, ash and pyroclastic flows. The volcanoes are, of course, magnificent to look at on a clear day and are a major tourist attraction. For me, I'd never seen anything like it!

Modern technology means there would be some warning of an eruption. Volcanic activity is colour-coded - orange means pack your bags and red means run!

Ecuador - in the jungle

Lucy having breakfast with a large macaw
watching her every mouthful

Ecuador is about the size of England, but it has a much more diverse climate. The coast is tropical, then you head east and upwards into the Andes, where the altitude (even on the Equator) means there's snow on the high volcanoes.

In Quito, the capital, the weather is like a perfect summer day in England (although the sun can be much stronger). Once you cross the Andes, you descend towards the Amazon basin at the eastern edge of the country and things start to get hot and sticky again.

We were heading from Baños to Tena and Misahualli in the Amazon basin to experience some jungle heat, but the weather was remarkably cold in the jungle this particular week, so we found things warm, but rather quite pleasant - back to that perfect English summer's day.

The jungle area of Ecuador is where the oil is and jungle + oil extraction = a mess. We saw little of the worst excess. The Americans were the first to win contracts to extract oil and they made an unholy mess of parts of the country. The Chinese have now bought the next tranche of extraction rights and it will be interesting to see if they are more careful with this delicate environment (my cynical nature thinks that's unlikely). The oil towns we passed through, including one called Shell, were just sad-looking, cheaply built and fairly small. Think Whittlesey made from breeze block. None of the refining takes place at the point of extraction, this is simply an exercise in getting the crude out of the ground and pumping it away.

As you descend, the vegetation changes. There are fields of sugar cane, which is grown commercially, but also for personal use (mainly to make cane spirit) as someone in the west of England might keep a cider orchard. You also start to see banana trees, rather ugly things which, helpfully, bend towards the ground under the weight of bananas. The fruit grows in a massive bunch, perhaps 50-60kg, at the end of the branch.

We shipped up in Tena to have lunch and also watch the last of England's World Cup matches. The TV reception was decidedly ropey, but then so was the England performance. When you saw the skill and commitment of eventual winners Germany, we didn't really deserve to be there - they were a different league.

From Tena, we went to Misahualli (monkey town) a small port town on the Rio Napo, which is a tributary of the mighty Amazon and has its source in the melting glaciers at the top of Cotopaxi. The rivers form communication channels older than roads and they are still used to move goods and people about.

In Misahualli (pronounced miss-a-who-aji) you can hire a boat and take a day trip downstream to see indian villages. It's one for the tourists and, like other tourist experiences across the developing world, I suspect there's an uneasy relationship between people needing the tourist dollar and wishing all these people with cameras would piss off. After a short stay in Misahualli to see the monkeys and look at the river and port, we set off for our overnight accommodation. This was to be an Amazon hotel offering the unique jungle experience - wooden huts on stilts, no electric light, just the sounds of the jungle.

It took a little finding (another case of a tourist attraction, without basic marketing) and when we got there we found that our booking hadn't been passed on from the office in Quito and the place was full of American youths who looked as if they were on a field course, but were, perhaps, apprentice missionaries.

There were two lodges left, so we'd have to share with my sister. It didn't look too enticing, so Lucy gave them a stern lecture while we watched a long, long line of leaf-cutter ants carrying back chunks of leaves to their nest. Lucy managed to book us into an alternative hotel in Misahualli - the Amazon Lodge - and in the gathering gloom of evening, we set off back to monkey town.

We'd no idea where the hotel was and so Lucy stopped to ask some people in the main square. They said it was on the other side of the river and they would send a boat for you. It sounded unlikely, but when Lucy called the hotel, they said we should wait in the main square and they'd send a boat for us.

It was better organised than that: they sent a boat, but they carried your bags and also had a garage in town to park your car. The monkeys had disappeared from the main square and as we walked down to the boat, got ourselves seated, all the lights went out. It seemed a fuse had blown in Misahualli.

Sitting on the boat in the darkness

 The town is a port, but not one in a sense that we'd recognise in England. There are no docks or quays, just a beach. The boats are long, flat-bottomed craft with a high prow and driven by large, powerful outboard motors. Docking at the port involves running the boat up onto a sandy beach; everyone jumps out and goods are carried up the steps into town. In a shallow, fast-flowing river, it's the best way.

The Amazon Lodge Hotel has a similar beach, slightly more stony than sandy, and we were soon delivered to reception. This hotel was very nice - a massive reception area open at the sides, but well roofed and a collection of detached chalets set in lovely gardens alongside the Rio Napo. We were the only guests.

Next morning I had a wander around the grounds after sunrise (about 7am) and came across a bird table (left) with two huge, colourful macaws and a monkey sitting there eating fruit. It makes a change from tits and blackbirds. I got a little bit too close and the monkey was very interested in me (and what I might have to offer). When I turned my back, he took a leap and landed on my head, had a mouthful of hair and then bounded off. Later, at breakfast, he sat at the next table hoping for some scraps, while a large macaw sat on the rail of the verandah. The waiter shooed it away and it flew off across the river, a magnificent, colourful sight.

View of the Rio Napo from the Amazon Lodge Hotel (above) and
(below) one of the individual chalets

Ecuador - Beware: Pickpockets Operate in This Area

It is every tourist's nightmare - you feel a hand reach inside your pocket and before you know it your wallet has been snatched.

I'm sitting in the central square in Misahualli in the Amazon basin and someone (or something) is doing its best to get into my trouser pocket.

Fortunately, I have him under surveillance - I'm filming the whole thing on my iPhone (and I'm holding very tightly to that). You can see the evidence by clicking here.

The monkeys of Misahualli, a port town on the Rio Napo, are natural thieves. A troop has taken up residence in the town and they're tolerated because they're good for tourists, but shopkeepers are constantly on the watch in case any of their stock disappears up the nearest tree.

We'd literally just sat down when two or three monos came bounding up to see what we might have to offer. One tried to snatch Lucy's water bottle, one went to sit on Tom's knee and another came to investigate what I might have that he might want. He very much liked the look of my iPhone; it's only a 4S and he'd have preferred a 5, but he'd take it anyway.

I wasn't letting go, so he thought he'd check out my trouser pockets. The monkeys (monos in Spanish) can undo zips, buttons are no problem and they're always on the lookout for something to steal. While we were in the square, a couple of them stole a Platypus water bottle and drinking tube from a shop opposite and escaped onto the roof where they sat trying to work out what they'd got and whether it was of any use to them.

You have been warned!

The shop owners stood below throwing stones to try to make them drop it. One monkey went on with his investigation, while the other tried to catch the stones. In five minutes, they'd left in search of more mischief, leaving the shop owner to climb up onto the roof to retrieve the stolen goods.

They are very fond of eggs - hard-boiled or raw - but their favorite food is an Amazonian grub, the sort of thing they feed to so-called celebrities on reality television.

They soon grew bored of us - we had nothing to steal and we weren't feeding them - so they disappeared back into the trees or went to sleep in the afternoon sun.

Caught in the act - mono pickpocket in Misahualli. Below: Lucy
keeps a tight grip on her water. Photos by Maggie Primavesi.

 

Ecuador – the Devil’s Cauldron

Tourists posing on the viewing platform

The Church of England has recently delisted the Devil – he (or she?) no longer exists. Worshippers who were once invited to “renounce the Devil and all his works” are now to be invited to “fight against the power of evil.”

It’s a shame; I’ve always been rather fond of the Devil and if this new, modernist policy is adopted more widely many of our great religious works of art, to say nothing of numerous geological features, will need to be adapted or renamed.

Take the Pailon Del Diablo for example. This violent waterfall, just outside Baños in Ecuador, translates into English as “The Devil’s Cauldron” and “Waterfall in the Deep Gorge” just wouldn’t sound as good.

It’s an impressive natural feature, but not easy to find, even though it’s just off the main road from Baños to Puyo. In a country where rules governing signs are non-existent, you’d expect there would be a massive hoarding with a picture of a blonde girl in a bikini pointing the way (blonde girls in bikinis are the standard image in Ecuador for advertising anything), but the operators are remarkably modest about this attraction.

The Pailon Del Diablo is off the old road, which is a tiny track (best suited for mule trains not HGVs) that winds in and out of the rock face on the steep valley. Where the new road tunnels through solid rock, sections of the old route are now cut off and stranded like an ox-bow lake. The entrance to Pailon Del Diablo stands on such a section.

Bottom of the falls

Getting to it requires a long walk through cloud forest down a steep track. When you get to the bottom, you discover that you have to pay to see it. The operators should really have made it clear that there was an entrance fee at the top of the track. Clearly, they think that having walked all that way, you’re not going back up without seeing it (and they’re right). However, the fee isn’t high, just a couple of dollars, and they have built numerous viewing platforms and bridges so you can get a good view. 

The waterfall plummets into a steep, narrow gorge and this isn’t a waterfall that you can stand and admire, you have to get involved in it. To enjoy a proper view, you have to  get wet, covered in spray, climb narrow paths to get higher up and appreciate the drop, then finally wriggle through a narrow, low passage to emerge at a platform near the top of the falls where the river plunges into the gorge. Standing at the top section means you will get very wet, but it’s worth it.

The walk back up the track to the road is quite a puff and the trudge was relieved by meeting a couple of local dogs, who were very friendly and trotted along with us for a while. I’d found one of Holly’s dog biscuits in the pocket of my cagoule and offered it to my new friends as a treat. These Ecuadorian dogs clearly had never seen a dog biscuit and had no idea what to do with it – they certainly didn’t recognise it as food and left it by the track.

Folded rock strata in the gorge.

Ecuador – a hot bath that might be about to get a lot hotter

Bath is one of my favourite cities in England; it’s a lovely place, full of history and great architecture and it has the added mystery of a hot spring – something of great wonder to ancient people (and to us).

Ecuador also has a city called Bath, or rather the Spanish equivalent – Baños.

The two cities couldn’t be much different. The Romans didn’t get as far as Baños, of course and while John Wood was laying out the Royal Crescent in Bath, Tungarahua (the local volcano) was laying out Baños.

In Ecuador, you’re never far from a volcano and in Baños, you’re literally at the foot of the volcano. Tungurahua is a particularly troublesome character; it likes to go off every 100 years or so and it’s going off right now. In 1999, everyone in Baños (19,000 of them) got out double quick when there was a red warning and in 2013 (into 2014) it has been rumbling and grumbling.

The most recent eruptions have killed "only a handful" of people (five to be precise), deposited millions of tons of ash on the surrounding countryside, buried roads and destroyed a bridge. I can’t help thinking that it’s just flexing its muscles for the big one.

Sadly, I didn’t get to see Tungarahua - a 5000m job, complete with snow cap (its summit glaciers melted in 1999 when it started its latest active phase. The weather was cloudy and grey, but there are some pictures here, including one (taken by Tom) of Ambato, with an erupting Tungarahua in the background.

Images from the current eruptions. No wonder the glaciers melted!

Panorama by Tom of Ambato, with an erupting Tungarahua at the far right. See the original here.

The day was quite cloudy and grey, especially on the paramo, adding to its similarities with Scotland, but it picked up as we lost a little altitude. On our way to Baños, we called in at Ambato to visit the hospital built by the agency run by Lucy's father, Carlos. This is an impressive facility, used for training and healthcare, but most of the agency's work is done out in the remote communities in mountain and jungle.

Tom and Lucy, with help from some friends, put this website together: http://www.allicausai.org/en/

There are also a couple of videos on YouTube by Tom and Lucy: http://youtu.be/WhTeG57uAWg and with an English commentary: http://youtu.be/_UYC3WEPlE4

There was also time to call in at an Indian market on the way to Baños. I bought myself an alpaca wool jumper for $19, which is a really good price, also a colourful tablecloth which Margaret wanted for the kitchen table.

The drive to Baños is quite spectacular, you're losing height (although Baños sits higher than most Alpine ski resorts) and travelling through deeper and deeper valleys. As you lose height, you can see the foliage becoming more lush, more jungle-like. Baños sits in a bowl and it's quite a pretty town, catering for tourists and backpackers. Conveniently, the Virgin Mary appeared in a vision nearby, so there has been a steady stream of pilgrims for many years, now replaced by backpackers. It was quite strange to see so many bars and nightclubs; also signs everywhere for bungee jumping, rafting, quad hire, etc. Tom had suggested we might hire a couple of motorcycles and do a quick tour along the old road, but there simply wasn't time.

The hotel Luna Runtun above Baños

After lunch in Baños and a visit to a bank with a cash machine which recognised my card, we headed for our hotel. Lucy had pre-booked all of our hotels. She'd done a good job, but in Baños, she excelled herself. We stayed at the Luna Runtun, which is sited above Baños on the flanks of Tungurahua and this was a fantastic place in an amazing location.

The drive up was quite steep and the hotel comprised a central building with restaurant, plus lots of separate chalets dotted around the grounds. Our room was fantastic and we had a balcony overlooking Baños about 200 metres below. The trees outside were full of hummingbirds. At first they were quite hard to spot, but once you'd got your eye in, they were flitting around here, there and everywhere.

There was a jacuzzi and swimming pools, so we were able to take a dip before dinner. It seemed as if we were the only people there, so we had great service. When night fell Baños looked even more pretty all lit up below us.

iPhone panorama of Baños, taken from our balcony at Luna Runtun

Ecuador – another hacienda and another massive dog

There’s clearly an unwritten rule relating to Ecuadorian haciendas – they must all have a dog as big as a donkey.

At Guachala, Mintaka the Akita struts around like a nightclub bouncer and at our accommodation today, there was an even bigger dog – Benjamin the St Bernard.

Now, St Bernards are known for being gentle giants, rescue dogs used to find pilgrims lost in the snow on high Alpine passes. Benjamin is a bit of an exception – he gets into trouble and, being a big dog, he gets into big trouble!

When Tom and Lucy first met him, he thought it would be fun to chase the llama that Lucy was riding, chewed a huge chunk of llama wool from its derriere and gave Lucy a llama ride she wasn’t expecting. When we arrived today, Benjamin was chained up in disgrace because he’d attacked and killed a calf (poor dear was probably a bit peckish).

We were staying at the hacienda Posada de Tigua, a very different place from Guachala. It’s very much a working farm covering a vast area of high mountain grassland and raising cattle, sheep and goats.

The hacienda Posada de Tigua

This was a brilliant day’s sightseeing. As tourists, we’d seen Cotopaxi in all its glory the day before and today we’d visited Quilotoa (or what is left of it after that massive, level 6, volcanic explosion in the 13th Century). Quilotoa was mind-boggling – hardcore geology at its most spectacular, but the drive up there was also pretty spectacular. From Latacunga, we’d headed west to Pujili and then climbed steeply to over 4,000 metres towards a small town called Zumbahua. This country is páramo, a terrain which lies above the tree-line but below the snow-line and is particular to northern South America.

Tom thought it was a little like Scotland and I knew what he meant. Instead of peat bogs and heather, there was coarse grass covering volcanic ash with the occasional succulent to break the Scottish spell. Some huge domes of igneous rock (volcanic plugs) rise high above to reinforce the Scottish feel.

The road is good and both Tom and I were wishing we were on motorcycles rather than sitting in a car. The surface was smooth a grippy and the many bends were sweeping and constant radius, not the bends we get at home in England where the road invariably tightens, rather than opening out because some navvy with a bulldozer guessed it wrong.

This is land where volcanic ash has fallen on volcanic ash and, where the road cuts through, it exposes the multi-coloured layers like a vast sandwich cake. In places, there are spectacular deep canyons where streams, rivers or lahars have carved through the comparatively soft ash deposits.

These are deep and crumbly and I declined the photo opportunity of standing on a pinnacle of loose rock above a 100ft drop at the deepest canyon we passed.

The roads are really quiet and towns are small, also few and far between. However, there are always people walking along the road, often small children on their way to and from school and old people. Although there are no big towns, there are little homesteads all over the mountains; huts made from breeze-block and corrugated iron, plus older ones (now abandoned) made from adobe brick and thatch. These have a few fields of crops and are often way up the mountainside.

Lucy says school is free to everyone in Ecuador, but the government is closing down small community schools in favour of bigger schools in the towns. Education might be better, but people in remote rural communities cannot get their children to the new schools.

There are a lot of community projects in Ecuador and some money is pumped into schemes where the community can organise itself and demonstrate an ability to spend and manage resources. At Quilotoa, the people there have organised a fee to park and use the viewing platforms. There are a lot of small refreshment places, but the biggest one (next to the viewing platform at the crater rim) is run by the community and profits are ploughed back in.

There's also a small market in a communal hall where Indian women were selling souvenirs and knitwear. A lot of this was tat, but there were also some nice woollen goods on a couple of stalls. If you show any interest, they will pull the whole stall apart to try to find something you want.

My sister brought several things (with Lucy's help) including an alpaca wool scarf for my birthday. As she was packing things up, we heard a noise and it turned out she had a baby strapped onto her back, very high up, but covered by a shawl. No state childcare in Ecuadore.

Posada de Tigua is very different from Guachala, much smaller and still very much a working farm. It's run by a very handsome widow and her sons, who seem to have a shift arrangement to help keep things running. We met one out on the farm that afternoon and another was helping serve the evening meal and breakfast the next day. The place is basic, but homely and the food was excellent.

During the afternoon, Tom, Margaret and I went for a walk down the valley which the hacienda stands at the head of. It was a gentle, downhill gradient and, after a mile or so down this track, we were able to cut across and walk down into a canyon, not as steep as the one we'd seen earlier, but still impressive.

Benjamin had been forgiven for killing the calf and was off his lead when we got back. Despite his fearsome reputation, he very much enjoys having his ear scratched and immediately lay down for a belly rub.