Cold morning, but clear views

Carihuairazo from Tom's front door

It's been really cold in Ambato and there has been quite a bit of snow higher up in the surrounding mountains. We were shivering at 11 degrees C in the house yesterday. The Ecuadorians don’t build their homes with heating systems; it’s not considered necessary, so we sat with a blanket over our knees and hot water bottles, just like Santo Domingo.

This morning, it was a little warmer and much clearer. I could see the volcano Cotopaxi to the north and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the sight. It’s absolutely massive – awesome, in the proper sense of the word.

The Illinizas seen over the ridge around Ambato

To the west, from the front door of Tom and Lucy’s house, there was Carihuairazo covered in snow. Tom said it was unusual to see it like that as normally it's dominated by the 20,000ft Chimborazo behind and just merges into the bigger mountain from our viewpoint. This morning Chimborazo was covered by cloud, so you could see Carihuairazo framed against a curtain of cloud.
Carihuairazo is a caldera (the stump of an exploded volcano). This happened a long time ago, and the heavily eroded caldera opens to the east. Despite having its top blown off, Carihuairazo is still 5000m high and contains a fast-disappearing glacier. In its day, it must have been at least as big as Chimborazo is now.

To the north-west, just showing above the ridge which surrounds Ambato, were the twin peaks of the Illinizas, again covered in fresh snow and shining bright in the sun. They looked Alpine in the morning sun; it’s unusual for them to have such a whole white flank and to stand out so clearly above the ridge. They’re 5,200m and volcanic in origin.

Around 9am, we went to buy meat for lunch and some beers and, on the way back, we had an amazing view of Tungarahua (just over 5000m), the most active volcano in Ecuador. This sits just to the south and it's the first time I've seen it. All week it's been shrouded by cloud. Today, it was snow covered well down its slopes and its summit crater was facing us in Ambato. I couldn't get a photo because I was driving, but it's a truly awesome sight.

There's so much violent geology in this country - it's amazing and a little bit scary for a fen dweller like me.

Our evening film was Death of Stalin – something of a black comedy, cleverly done.

©️ Photos by Tom Rayner

We get our horror films mixed up

Carlos’ brother Alberto (known as Guaco), has some kind of growth in his bowel or colon. He has had an emergency operation and we wait to see how he is.

It was a quiet day, we stayed in the hospital apart from a trip out to buy meat for lunch (it was our turn).

We watched more films tonight. I wanted to see Midsommer, a new horror film which got a five-star review in the Guardian, but Tom accidentally downloaded Midsommar (a Swedish ghost film). It was very good, so maybe it was a happy accident. We also watched Sink The Bismark, a British film from 1960. I saw it at the Plaza in Northwich with Peter Roberts when I must have been eight or nine. We both cried when the Hood blew up.

Market day in Simiatug - who are the Gringos?

The day, like the preceding night was cold and windy. We were up quite early, got the fire going and sorted out a few bits and pieces. Jorge would not arrive until after 1pm, so we had plenty of time. I wanted to see Simiatug and Tom said it would be a good day to go because it was market day. Apparently on non-market days the place is like a ghost town.

The road to Simiatug from Santo Domingo is a steep dirt road that zig-zags down into a steep valley. Simiatug sits at the head of the valley and it’s quite a large place, perhaps the size of Crowland, but compressed right down.

We parked up in town and headed for the first market. There are three – fruit and veg, livestock and general goods. They are a serious part of the local economy, especially the livestock market.

We headed first for the fruit and veg. Because Simiatug is in a steep valley, you always seem to be walking up or downhill. There seemed to be three main product lines on offer – bags of potatoes (I guess around 25kg for $10) which were topped with potato foliage to keep them fresh and keep the light out; piles of bananas (and I mean a pile – there was a huge heap) and onions. These aren’t the onions that we have (they call those Spanish onions), these are more like thin leeks and they have a milder onion flavour. Perhaps they were leeks, but they were very long and thin. There were also a few chickens in cages looking for a new home (they were too thin for the dinner plate).

The livestock market was far busier. There were lots of sheep (rather dirty), pigs, cattle, horses and couple of sad donkeys that no-one was paying any attention to. We eavesdropped on a haggle for a llama. The woman owner wanted $280 and was having trouble justifying the price. Unlike a livestock auction in the UK, the animals were not herded in an out of pens, they were scattered across the field and all were tethered (even the sheep). If you liked the look of one, you’d approach the owner and haggle – no fancy auctioneer.

All the people in Simiatug were indigenous, the women wear skirts to the knee with thick socks and either wellies or slip-on shoes without heels. They’ll have jumpers, plus ponchos and hats. Lots of babies were being carried on the back and not one of them was crying. The men don’t wear such a distinctive dress – trousers, jumpers, some ponchos and hats. The people here are dark and no-one is taller than 5ft. You can imagine that Tom and I (the only white people in town) stood out like sore thumbs.

I was aware of people looking at us, but I didn’t detect any hostility. Tom said lots of people were saying “look at the gringos”, but I didn’t hear. It’s interesting to be the racial minority and observe how other people treat you. As white people, we get more respect because the locals assume were either Americans or officials of some kind. Perhaps if we were Indians in a white town, we would not have been shown as much respect.

A policeman wished us good morning and said welcome to Simiatug (in Spanish). I thought that was a nice gesture, but Tom thought he shouldn’t have said that – he said it was racist. I know what he meant, but I don't think it was said with any malice or mockery.

Tom knew a few people – the head of the commune, also some people from Santo Domingo, who had their own little section in the market, and the finance officer for the commune. I bought a belt, but all the hats were too small for me. It was a shame because they were $15 cheaper than in Ambato. I think I'm just going to have to accept that my head is too big for Ecuadorian hats. We did pop into a craft shop which sells things made by the community and is a co-operative, so profits go back to the people who make the things. There was a nice bag, so I bought that for Margaret.

Back in Santo Domingo, we got all the stuff ready for Jorge, who arrived about 1.30pm. We was obviously keen to get going because he didn’t switch the engine off in the pick-up. He’d come over the high pass (the one we went back on the previous week) and said it was snowing up there. We all went the slightly longer way back. Tom was moaning about my driving because I lost the back end a little (just once) and then I hit a rock in the road. I thought there was enough ground clearance to get over it, but it made an almighty bang. Thank heavens for sump guards!

Chimborazo looked amazing covered in fresh snow and partly veiled in cloud, but lower down it was quite rainy and cold.

Carlos’ brother Alberto (who they call Guaco) had been taken ill, so he wasn’t about. We unloaded the pick-up and then walked to a grill restaurant for dinner. It was blooming cold! The hospital is in a barrio called Huachi La Joya (the jewel).

No-one, unless you’re poor, walks anywhere in Ecuador, so we would have been considered quite eccentric not to have driven half a mile down the road. The pavements tend to be in a worse state than the roads and there’s absolutely no sense of health and safety over here. On the way, we passed two open manholes (covers removed) with a three-feet drop. They would have made effective bear traps!

Back home, we watched Nil by Mouth – a film that won the Palm d’Or. It was very grim and gritty, portraying a pretty miserable view of 1980s south London. However, it was brilliantly acted by Kathy Bates and a young Ray Winstone.

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.

Driving in Ecuador

We were planning to go to Santo Domingo today, but Tom had some work to finish and his ankle is still sore. We’ll go tomorrow instead.

I drove into town with Tom (my first experience of Ecuadorian roads from the driver’s seat). It’s not too bad. No-one signals (just like Peterborough) and when you’re stopping or slowing down, you flash your hazards. Some cars have flashing LED lights connected to their brakes and some have red, blue and white lights at the back.

The biggest challenge for me is knowing when to be in the left or right-hand lane. If you stick too long in the left, you’ll get stuck on a left filter at the lights and if you stick to the right lane, you’ll get blocked by parked cars. There’s a lot of lane-changing.

Roads in Ambato are pretty good. Just down from the hospital, where we have to turn left to get into town, there’s a big junction of two roads, a railway crossing and then another road and a roundabout. The crossing is controlled by lights, but every time the train goes through (once or twice a day) the lights pack up. Sometimes they are fixed quickly, sometimes, it takes days. I think they’ve been working three or four times since I’ve been here.

The biggest challenge is the threat of a chapa echado (chapa is a slang word for policeman, possibly Quechua, and echado is lying down, echar also means to throw). These are monsters. Hit one at speed and you’ve lost an axle. They are placed on all roads, not just in town, and around 20kph is the optimum speed. Sometimes, there’s lot of warning, sometimes not (or I miss it) and sometimes they paint a thick yellow line across the road and I brake like mad for no reason. The locals all know where the chapas are and which lane to be in to avoid getting stuck behind left-turning traffic.

The trip to town was to get two pairs of trousers made by this old chap who Tom highly recommends. He made Tom a couple of pairs, but Tom asked for them to be so tight on the leg, he can’t get his foot through, so they’re sitting in the UK. We managed to park up on the street fairly close to the shop and I’d taken the precaution of bringing a pair of comfortable trousers with me (that also met Margaret’s specification of looking OK). He took measurements from those and I chose a couple of types of cloth – one a dark burgundy and another a darker brown. They’ll cost me $70 and should be ready on Friday.

I also had a mission to buy an Ecuadorian felt hat, possibly in the Simiatug style. Tom had been to a hat shop for his and paid around $25, so we went there. All the hats were too small, except one which was made from rabbit fur. That fitted nicely, but turned out to be a $100 hat – ¡mucho más caro!

In the evening, we watched The Trench, a film about soldiers in the trenches leading up to the first day of The Somme in 1916. It borrowed a lot from Journey’s End, but didn’t develop the characters as well. Tom and I had a lively discussion about whether WW1 generals were idiots who should have been sacked/court martialled or the best we had and a product of the system.

Watching Man U in Ecuador

Lucy went off to Quito with Julia and Aureliano around 10am. She took a taxi, which costs $12.50 per person. It’s quite a good way to travel, but you don’t know who you share with and how long you have to wait to be dropped off.

Lucy will be with Nidia and Emilia this week, while we sort out the rest of the furniture and possessions in Santa Domingo. She has some work to do in Quito, some meetings connected with her fieldwork/research and also Tom’s citizenship application. It’s a lot easier and cheaper for him to get Ecuadorian citizenship than it is for Lucy to get right to remain in the UK, let alone a passport. We are an unwelcoming, inhospitable society.

It was the first weekend of the Premiership and Tom was keen to see Manchester United v Chelsea. Carlos has some satellite subscriptions and put his TV in the lounge, so we could watch. The Premiership is screened on ESPN with Argentinian commentators, which is only slightly odd.

After the match, I went for lunch with Carlos and Tom to a marisquería (seafood restaurant) called Jocay De Manta. I had a massive plate of battered prawns with rice. There was a little road of seafood restaurants and they were really popular, but ours was the busiest. There are so many staff, even people outside helping you to park on the street.

In the afternoon, Tom and I went to the mall to use the cash machine. I was blocked by one bank, but Pichincha finally let me have a couple of hundred dollars. Afterwards, we went to the supermarket to stock up for Santo Domingo and, in the evening, watched Journey’s End on Tom’s laptop. It’s a pretty depressing film.

Exotic orchids in Puyo

With Tom’s ankle sore (he is wearing an orthopaedic boot and using a crutch), Carlos and Jenny said they’d take the children out for the day. I was invited as well; also Camila, so six of us went in the Montero.

I think Carlos said we were going to Baños, but (at some stage) he decided to go to Puyo in the Amazon instead. We stayed in Baños and went through Puyo when we were here five years ago.

From Ambato to Baños is a long fertile valley where they grow lots of fruit and vegetables. The road sticks to one side of the valley and as it narrows towards Baños you can see crops and fruit bushes on the steep slopes. Today was a national holiday, known as 'Día del Primer Grito de Independencia de Quito' and marks Quito's declaration of independence from Spain in 1809. It is Ecuador's National Day, so there were plenty of people on the road, mainly heading for Baños.

At the side of the road, there were lots of people selling food and drink and cuy were being barbecued by the thousand on great skewers mounted on wheels being turned above the hot coals. Jenny and Carlos think cuy is absolutely delicious. There were also whole and half pigs hanging up. If you stop, they slice some off and cook it for you. In Baños, there are lots of people smashing sugar cane to make jugo de caña. It contains lemon, but the main ingredient is sugar juice. I imagine that would wreck the remains of my keto diet.

As you near Baños, the valley really narrows along the flanks of Tungurahua, the third great snowcapped volcano in this area. It erupted in 2014, covered the whole area in ash and Carlos pointed out the point where the lava flow hit the main road and valley. It wasn’t possible to get a view of Tungarahua in the cloud. I hope to see it properly one day. We carried on down, down through Baños and along the valley road that we used five years ago. The land flattens out at about 1200 metres and the cloud forest, turns to jungle. We went through Mera and Shell to Puya, where Carlos knew something about an orchid sanctuary.

After a week above 2500m and some time at 3700m, I am getting a little used to the reduced levels of oxygen, but it was still good to get down to the relatively low heights of Ben Nevis and take a few deep breaths.

There was a bit of debate as to whether to go to an Italian restaurant, but Carlos opted for La Hosteria Turingia, which is run by a German family. It’s a nice walled hotel in the centre of Puya, almost deserted (we were the only people in the dining room.

Upon Camila’s advice, I had Guanabana (soursop or custard apple) to drink. Like many fruit drinks in Ecuador, it’s sweet, but sour at the same time. Perfectly pleasant to have with lunch. Camila also advised me to try tilapia, a fish widely eaten here and extensively farmed. I think more tilapia are eaten than cod, but I’d never heard of it. I’m sure we’ll be eating it soon in the UK. It’s a nice fish, not too bony and with quite a meaty taste.

We then headed off to Las Orquideas, which is the sort of place you’d expect to be established by an eccentric Englishmen. It seems Ecuador has its eccentrics too (thank goodness). The place is around 10 hectares of restored jungle, with the plants that sustained indigenous people before chemical factories. It also caters for flower lovers by having established a large variety of orchids growing in the wild.

We saw tiny orchids, strange-shaped orchids like shoes and highly scented, large-flowered ones growing high off the side of trees. We have a ladies slipper orchid in the UK, so I guess the shoe-shaped one is related. Some of the small ones were absolutely tiny. We were taken through the jungle by a guide (Christinas, who Julia fell in love with) and she had a magnifying glass for us to see the very small flowers. I took some pictures and also tried some shots using my phone against the spyglass.

Apart from orchids, the jungle contained slow- and fast-growing trees, a tree which produces the fibre for panama hats, cacao for chocolate, a trees whose roots produced a deadly fish poison, a flower whose bract looked like a pair of red lips, leaves used for wrapping food and cooking, leaves that felt as soft as a baby’s skin, a fruit that was supposed to cure anything (even hangovers) and a plant that produced a hallucinogenic substance used by a shaman to get high out of his mind in ritual ceremonies.

I really enjoyed the tour – thank goodness for eccentrics (English or Ecuadorian).

I thought we might head back, but Carlos wanted to go to the exotic bird centre. This wasn’t as interesting as the jungle. To an Ecuadorian, an English pigeon and hen is exotic …

Again, I thought we’d head home, but Carlos has somehow learned there was a folk festival in full swing that night. We headed to a park in Puyo where the show was happening. Lots of the barrio had been blocked by fences across the road, but Carlos just drives up and gets them opened. We parked right alongside the action, having passed a group of Amazonian tribesmen on the way.

Julia and Aureliano spotted a bouncy castle and so there was not a lot of time to watch the dancing (click here for video).

There was a massive traffic jam going back through Baños and it was quite late (9.30pm) when we got back. Aureliano feel asleep before Mera, Julia by Baños.