Back to Santo Domingo

Making friends with a llama. I'm lucky he didn't
spit in my eye.

We set off for Santo Domingo quite early with me driving because Tom’s ankle is still sore and he’s keeping it in a brace for as long as possible. Apart from the chapas echados and some suicidal overtaking moves (witnessed, not done), the driving is OK. Chapas do catch me out. They are used on Ecuadorian trunk roads as well as in town, so if you’re approaching a town, there will be a chapa to slow you down (nothing wrong with that) and also one when you leave to town, as a sort of farewell gesture. They have to put them right across the road, otherwise people would drive onto the wrong side of the road to avoid them. They are also placed ahead of hazards such as tight bends and (a big favourite) before and after bridges. Before to slow you down and after to prevent cars coming over to your side of the road to avoid the chapa.

I’m slowly getting tuned into them.

We made good time and had another nice view of Chimborazo, this time with cloud swirling over its summit. The plan was to be there by 11am and Jorge would follow on in the pick-up. We managed to disconnect the cooker and have various pieces of furniture ready and got him loaded quite quickly. Jorge can load the pickup to an impressive height and then rope everything tight under a tarpaulin sheet.

The room was much diminished – no cooker, cupboard, benches or table. We had the stove for heating and some chairs and that was it.

After Jorge was dispatched home to Ambato (he’d be back next day for the final load), we took a drive to Salinas for some lunch in a café and a little walk around the town. We popped into the cemetery (like you do) and found it very Latin American, with the graves stacked above ground in slots. It would be quite hard to dig down six feet to bury a coffin in this terrain. I like Salinas, it is very pretty and has a nice feel to it. There are a very small number of tourists about (perhaps four) but the place is doing what it can to attract more.

Most of the efforts are the work of an Italian Catholic priest, who has started a chocolate factory, hotel, restaurants and other bits of industry. The tourist boom just isn’t happening, which is a shame. I liked the place and took some images, but I was very conscious that I shouldn’t be too intrusive. These people are just getting on with their lives, they are not putting on a show for the tourists like you see in some African villages. People go on safari and choose the optional trip to a Maasai village. They do a dance with some scary spear-waving, drink some bloody milk and sell you home-made crafts, then put on their football shirts and get back on their mobiles.

Here, people are getting on with their lives and tourists are a rarity. It would be like me walking the dog in Thorney and a bus-load of tourists taking pictures of me. I might be quite grumpy about it and I felt the people here might feel the same. I did take a photo of one of the chivas buses used hereabouts. I thought it was interesting. They are open-sided and used by the locals a) because there isn’t anything else; and b) because they can take their animals on board. I did a quick snap, but then noticed that some people were hiding their faces and the driver was mocking me by taking a photo of me on his mobile. I should have made some gesture to check he was OK to be photographed – lesson learned.

Tourism could bring much needed cash into the area, but it would also change things substantially. I don’t think these people would want to be part of a Maasai-style tourist experience, but then I suppose the first Maasai felt much the same. If I were in charge of the Ecuadorian high Andes tourist development board (maybe that exists, I don’t know), I’d be offering trecks in the paramo. Routes would need to be surveyed and marked, but the scenery is magnificent. It shouldn’t be a difficult sell with a bit of infrastructure in place.

Catholic Church in Salinas

Cemetery - here you get buried six feet up, not six feet under.

Above and below - views of Salinas

Back at Santo Domingo, Tom was keen to take me for a walk. I didn’t think it was a great idea with his ankle, but he said it would be OK. We walked out of the village, past free-range piglets and took a route down a steep valley, before a steady climb around the side of a hill and then contouring through woods and fields. There was a steep drop to our right looking down into a steep valley, cultivated as far as you could see. The steepest slopes are farmed here, either by crops or grazing.

We then cut up a steep track onto the open paramo and climbed until we got Santo Domingo in view below us. I guess we were around 4000m. A bit higher than we were, Tom could see Don Alfredo, who tends the sheep belonging to the local co-operative, starting to drive them down for the night. Don Alfredo lives with his wife and two daughters on the edge of Santo Domingo in a breeze block hut maybe 12x10 with a fire in the middle of the floor. The sheep live in a far more substantial structure next door. Don Alfredo also has a pig with piglets and various other animals, including a couple of vicious dogs. On account of dogs, Tom and I were carrying a couple of hefty stones each. I wouldn’t normally countenance throwing rocks at dogs, but I went with the local knowledge – apparently, if the dogs know you have stones, they snarl from a safe distance. As it happened, Tom was more concerned about the large pig [see video] than the dogs and when we got there Don Alfredo was outside, so his dogs were all sweetness and love. Tom told Alfredo he could take surplus logs and some other bits and pieces that he’d leave in the storeroom, so he was well pleased and seemed genuinely sorry to see Tom go.

Molesting llamas on the paramo. 

Santo Domingo below us, taken from the paramo.

Darkness falls fast (and with it the temperature), so we cranked the stove up and got the temperature inside up to around 16 degrees. We ate chips for dinner and watched the film Patton with George C Scott. It was a good film and fortified by rum with hot water bottles on our laps, we defied the cold. The bedroom was freezing, so the bottles were refilled and we slept in our clothes with the wind howling outside.