We flagged down a cheap bus on the side of the road at Cajas after 45 minutes of Categories (Things That Smell Bad - lasted the whole 45 minutes), heading for Cuenca. As a general aside, our driver on that bus was the least hell-bent and suicidal of any driver we´ve had in this country. Such a relief.
We spent a few hours in Cuenca taking care of some business (ahem, ahem - Sappy Birday), then took off for Loja, the first town we´d visited that was not necessarily on the Gringo Trail. The general idea was to check out the Parque Nacional Podocarpus, which, by Mr. Planet´s description, should have absolutely beat the pants off of Cajas (as you can probably guess, and as we probably should have guessed, Mr. Planet was wrong again).
Our bus driver from Cuenca to Loja, a ride that took about 5 hours, was perhaps the most hell-bent, suicidal driver we´ve had yet. It was the first time I could´t sleep on a bus, since it was necessary at all time to have two firmly planted feet, so that you didn´t go careening off into the aisle. At one point, Scott tried to play jello with me, and if he hadn´t changed his mind and grabbed me at the last second, I would´ve gone face-first into a large, shoe-less woman´s stomach.
Loja
Upon arrival in Loja, we took our strained nerves to the internet cafe in the bus station, in order to look up cheap hostels. This may have been the low point of the trip so far. I was peeved, because I thought we should just listen to Mr. Planet´s hostel advice, and because there was nowhere for me to stand with my pack in the internet cafe. Plus, I hate bus stations, because I constantly feel like I am being robbed by people brushing against me (last summer, when Scott and I slept in a bus station in Alicante, Spain, we saw a man rob a drunkard by cleverly cutting his entire rear pocket off while he was sleeping, then pretending to sleep right next to the man. Our attempts to expose the situation were futile). Scott was annoyed because the internet was slow, and because I was annoyed, and we both already hated this town, and because it was dark already, and because there shouldn´t be tattoo parlors next to internet cafes in bus stations.
We eventually got over ourselves when the google search ¨cheap hostels Loja¨ returned no relevant results, and just took a taxi to one of Mr. Planet´s hostels in the heart of the city. Right on schedule, we were ravenous, so we threw our bags down and dashed out into the street, looking for food. It was fairly late, and we almost settled for eating Kono Pizza, when a kind sangria-drinking fellow told us where we could get a cheap merienda.
It was the best merienda I have ever eaten. The soup was full of choclo (corn) and queso. The rice was sticky and warm. The chicken was marinated, juicy on the inside. There was a salad (!). The beans had enough sauce, so that you could mix all the rice into it. The juice was parcha-flavored. The beer was cheap. We asked when they opened in the morning, and went back for an early almuerzo.
The strange thing was, this incredible restaurant, called Vallto´s, was located at the back end of a strip mall - in fact, the entire street (and city, for that matter!) seemed to be made up of minimalls, stretching back into dark recesses. It was a strange place, and in my mind, not a place I would return to, but for the delicious food.
Zamora
The following day, feeling as th
ough we needed a day without much transit or hiking, but with much rest and reading, we took off for the small jungle town of Zamora, which is of note because it is both ¨Land of the Birds and Waterfalls,¨ and also home to the world`s largest watch. We dropped about 3,000 m of altitude, arriving in the early afternoon. In trying to find a map of the city, we were given a ride in the pickup bed of a police truck to the tourist agency (which actually didn´t have any maps of the city, just a guy who really liked shaking hands).
We spent the afternoon with Pilseners (I´m really going to miss that beer!) in the central square, watching some young hooligans scoot around on BMX bikes, and accidentally befriending a number of bold 5-year-olds (one of them very astutely told Scott that he must like the color red - he was sunburned and wearing a red hat. She also complimented his flip-flops, saying they were ¨hermosos¨).
We found some good, cheap food, and then - against the normal trend - I bought a cake. However, Scott´s cakes are almost always disappointingly dry and stale, while I had recognized this cake as the famous dulce de tres leches, which some of my high school friends will remember from a cooking video for our sophomore year Spanish class. This type of cake, which I believe originate in Mexico, is made spongy, then doused in a mixture of whole, condensed, and powdered milk, for a result that is moist, springy, and incredibly rich.
I went to bed early while Scott took over the hostel´s TV, and the next morning, after some perfunctory grocery shopping, we headed to El Parque Nacional Podocarpus with high expectations.
Parque Nacional Podocarpus
The park is apparently named for the only conifer that exists in this part of the country (still no idea which tree it was). To access the park, it is necessary to hike a short, jungle-y trail past the parking lot, which winds pleasantly along the Rio Bombuscaro. Butterflies alight everywhere, in stunning colors, but it was definitely hot and humid. We arrived at the park headquarters, a small bungalow with a tiny office, two unoccupied rooms, and a kitchen, and paid our $2 entry and $2 camping fees. The incredibly (and, later, oppressively) cheerful park ranger told us we could camp anywhere, that we could use the kitchen, and indicated extensively the few trails. We took a picture of the map mural, for later reference.
The first trail we took was about 5 minutes long, and dropped us on the banks of the Bombuscaro. We ate a simple lunch of avocado sandwiches, bananas, and cookies, then jumped in (literally, off a 10-foot rock). It was freeeeezing, and the current was strong, but we found a lovely rock for sunning, Scott found some other places to jump in, and I explored up the far bank towards some rapids. After that, we tried a second trail, which ended up taking about 20 minutes. So we went for a third, which was 10 minutes and took us to a fairly impressive waterfall. From there, we decided to tackle the Mirador (Lookout) Trail, which we´d been warned against, given the late hour.
On the map, La Mirador was a perfectly straight line, 85 minutes out, 85 minutes back. In reality, that translated into an incredibly straight hike up a narrow ridge. And when I say up, I mean up. Like the trail at Cajas, we used our hands half the time, and paused frequently, as the trail offered no respite from the ascent. We started the trail at 5pm, thinking we´d reach the top by 6pm, then make it back to camp by sunset, around 6:30pm. At 5:45pm, we were still climbing. What´s worse, because of the dense tree cover on the ridge, we had no real way of knowing what sort of progress we were making. As the light grew lower, we started thinking of the snakes, pumas, and other creatures who might become more active at the close of the day. I had to force Scott to turn around at 6:10pm, and we literally ran down the mountain. Well, Scott ran...I mostly fell down the mountain.
We were starving, thirsty, and had destroyed all the cartilege in our knees by the time we got back to camp. There was no light in the kitchen, so our entire dinner preparation was done at the mercy of our headlamps. This wouldn´t have been a problem, except that we weren´t alone. Three Argentinians and a half-Ecuadorian girl from Toronto worked around us, sharing the one propane stovetop and cooking a several-course meal that made our meager rice-and-avocadoes look positively paltry in comparison.
Eventually, they warmed up to us and our (my) blinding headlamps, and even shared their mate with us (Argentinian tea-like beverage, which is shared by passing it after each person has consumed one cup´s worth of mate). I think they thought it was funny, also, that we made about 10 cups of plain white rice, and had to eat the rest for breakfast (with banana and sugar, but still).
We also bonded over the several mice who lived in the bungalow, whom the Argentinians had named, respectively, ¨Coco¨ and ¨Coco´s Mother,¨ (assuming there were only two of them, which I highly doubt), as well as the ubiquitous funny, huge cucarachas with little camoflauge eyes on their wingtips. Did I mention that Scott and I decided to forgo our tent, and instead actually slept in this pest-infested bungalow? Lots of sounds that night...
In the morning, we went on one more hike, the longest of them all, which loosely followed the Bombuscero into the heart of the jungle. At first, it was a normal trail. Then we had to jump a few small cascades. Then a few huge fallen trees. Finally, we were trekking along an essentially unmarked patch of jungle, Scott leading the way with a stick to ward off spiders (there were lots), looking down to avoid stepping on snakes, and halting every 10 minutes or so to assess whether or not we´d passed the point of stupidity yet. A few times, we heard large, crashing animals nearby (pumas?), to which I responded with singing and rather obnoxious clapping. We finally turned around on what was perhaps the most disappointing hike ever.
Podocarpus to Zamora, Zamora to Loja again, the bus station to our favorite restaurant - which had somehow plummetted in quality since our last visit, two days before. Bummer. We gave the restaurant one more try in the morning, and I received almost-raw, fatty pig-skin with the hairs sticking out prominently as my main course (see left). We decided Loja had lost its one redeeming quality, although we did spend a fun night drinking canelazo (a hot, cinnamon-y, alcoholic drink we´d searched for since Quito, and finally tried in our last hours in Cuenca) at the Tiku Bar, and watching 90s music videos (mostly Metallica and hip hop).
And that was our last night in Ecuador!
We spent a few hours in Cuenca taking care of some business (ahem, ahem - Sappy Birday), then took off for Loja, the first town we´d visited that was not necessarily on the Gringo Trail. The general idea was to check out the Parque Nacional Podocarpus, which, by Mr. Planet´s description, should have absolutely beat the pants off of Cajas (as you can probably guess, and as we probably should have guessed, Mr. Planet was wrong again).
Our bus driver from Cuenca to Loja, a ride that took about 5 hours, was perhaps the most hell-bent, suicidal driver we´ve had yet. It was the first time I could´t sleep on a bus, since it was necessary at all time to have two firmly planted feet, so that you didn´t go careening off into the aisle. At one point, Scott tried to play jello with me, and if he hadn´t changed his mind and grabbed me at the last second, I would´ve gone face-first into a large, shoe-less woman´s stomach.
Loja
Upon arrival in Loja, we took our strained nerves to the internet cafe in the bus station, in order to look up cheap hostels. This may have been the low point of the trip so far. I was peeved, because I thought we should just listen to Mr. Planet´s hostel advice, and because there was nowhere for me to stand with my pack in the internet cafe. Plus, I hate bus stations, because I constantly feel like I am being robbed by people brushing against me (last summer, when Scott and I slept in a bus station in Alicante, Spain, we saw a man rob a drunkard by cleverly cutting his entire rear pocket off while he was sleeping, then pretending to sleep right next to the man. Our attempts to expose the situation were futile). Scott was annoyed because the internet was slow, and because I was annoyed, and we both already hated this town, and because it was dark already, and because there shouldn´t be tattoo parlors next to internet cafes in bus stations.
We eventually got over ourselves when the google search ¨cheap hostels Loja¨ returned no relevant results, and just took a taxi to one of Mr. Planet´s hostels in the heart of the city. Right on schedule, we were ravenous, so we threw our bags down and dashed out into the street, looking for food. It was fairly late, and we almost settled for eating Kono Pizza, when a kind sangria-drinking fellow told us where we could get a cheap merienda.
It was the best merienda I have ever eaten. The soup was full of choclo (corn) and queso. The rice was sticky and warm. The chicken was marinated, juicy on the inside. There was a salad (!). The beans had enough sauce, so that you could mix all the rice into it. The juice was parcha-flavored. The beer was cheap. We asked when they opened in the morning, and went back for an early almuerzo.
The strange thing was, this incredible restaurant, called Vallto´s, was located at the back end of a strip mall - in fact, the entire street (and city, for that matter!) seemed to be made up of minimalls, stretching back into dark recesses. It was a strange place, and in my mind, not a place I would return to, but for the delicious food.
Zamora
The following day, feeling as th
ough we needed a day without much transit or hiking, but with much rest and reading, we took off for the small jungle town of Zamora, which is of note because it is both ¨Land of the Birds and Waterfalls,¨ and also home to the world`s largest watch. We dropped about 3,000 m of altitude, arriving in the early afternoon. In trying to find a map of the city, we were given a ride in the pickup bed of a police truck to the tourist agency (which actually didn´t have any maps of the city, just a guy who really liked shaking hands).We spent the afternoon with Pilseners (I´m really going to miss that beer!) in the central square, watching some young hooligans scoot around on BMX bikes, and accidentally befriending a number of bold 5-year-olds (one of them very astutely told Scott that he must like the color red - he was sunburned and wearing a red hat. She also complimented his flip-flops, saying they were ¨hermosos¨).
We found some good, cheap food, and then - against the normal trend - I bought a cake. However, Scott´s cakes are almost always disappointingly dry and stale, while I had recognized this cake as the famous dulce de tres leches, which some of my high school friends will remember from a cooking video for our sophomore year Spanish class. This type of cake, which I believe originate in Mexico, is made spongy, then doused in a mixture of whole, condensed, and powdered milk, for a result that is moist, springy, and incredibly rich.
I went to bed early while Scott took over the hostel´s TV, and the next morning, after some perfunctory grocery shopping, we headed to El Parque Nacional Podocarpus with high expectations.
Parque Nacional Podocarpus
The park is apparently named for the only conifer that exists in this part of the country (still no idea which tree it was). To access the park, it is necessary to hike a short, jungle-y trail past the parking lot, which winds pleasantly along the Rio Bombuscaro. Butterflies alight everywhere, in stunning colors, but it was definitely hot and humid. We arrived at the park headquarters, a small bungalow with a tiny office, two unoccupied rooms, and a kitchen, and paid our $2 entry and $2 camping fees. The incredibly (and, later, oppressively) cheerful park ranger told us we could camp anywhere, that we could use the kitchen, and indicated extensively the few trails. We took a picture of the map mural, for later reference.
The first trail we took was about 5 minutes long, and dropped us on the banks of the Bombuscaro. We ate a simple lunch of avocado sandwiches, bananas, and cookies, then jumped in (literally, off a 10-foot rock). It was freeeeezing, and the current was strong, but we found a lovely rock for sunning, Scott found some other places to jump in, and I explored up the far bank towards some rapids. After that, we tried a second trail, which ended up taking about 20 minutes. So we went for a third, which was 10 minutes and took us to a fairly impressive waterfall. From there, we decided to tackle the Mirador (Lookout) Trail, which we´d been warned against, given the late hour.
On the map, La Mirador was a perfectly straight line, 85 minutes out, 85 minutes back. In reality, that translated into an incredibly straight hike up a narrow ridge. And when I say up, I mean up. Like the trail at Cajas, we used our hands half the time, and paused frequently, as the trail offered no respite from the ascent. We started the trail at 5pm, thinking we´d reach the top by 6pm, then make it back to camp by sunset, around 6:30pm. At 5:45pm, we were still climbing. What´s worse, because of the dense tree cover on the ridge, we had no real way of knowing what sort of progress we were making. As the light grew lower, we started thinking of the snakes, pumas, and other creatures who might become more active at the close of the day. I had to force Scott to turn around at 6:10pm, and we literally ran down the mountain. Well, Scott ran...I mostly fell down the mountain.
We were starving, thirsty, and had destroyed all the cartilege in our knees by the time we got back to camp. There was no light in the kitchen, so our entire dinner preparation was done at the mercy of our headlamps. This wouldn´t have been a problem, except that we weren´t alone. Three Argentinians and a half-Ecuadorian girl from Toronto worked around us, sharing the one propane stovetop and cooking a several-course meal that made our meager rice-and-avocadoes look positively paltry in comparison.
Eventually, they warmed up to us and our (my) blinding headlamps, and even shared their mate with us (Argentinian tea-like beverage, which is shared by passing it after each person has consumed one cup´s worth of mate). I think they thought it was funny, also, that we made about 10 cups of plain white rice, and had to eat the rest for breakfast (with banana and sugar, but still).
We also bonded over the several mice who lived in the bungalow, whom the Argentinians had named, respectively, ¨Coco¨ and ¨Coco´s Mother,¨ (assuming there were only two of them, which I highly doubt), as well as the ubiquitous funny, huge cucarachas with little camoflauge eyes on their wingtips. Did I mention that Scott and I decided to forgo our tent, and instead actually slept in this pest-infested bungalow? Lots of sounds that night...
In the morning, we went on one more hike, the longest of them all, which loosely followed the Bombuscero into the heart of the jungle. At first, it was a normal trail. Then we had to jump a few small cascades. Then a few huge fallen trees. Finally, we were trekking along an essentially unmarked patch of jungle, Scott leading the way with a stick to ward off spiders (there were lots), looking down to avoid stepping on snakes, and halting every 10 minutes or so to assess whether or not we´d passed the point of stupidity yet. A few times, we heard large, crashing animals nearby (pumas?), to which I responded with singing and rather obnoxious clapping. We finally turned around on what was perhaps the most disappointing hike ever.
Podocarpus to Zamora, Zamora to Loja again, the bus station to our favorite restaurant - which had somehow plummetted in quality since our last visit, two days before. Bummer. We gave the restaurant one more try in the morning, and I received almost-raw, fatty pig-skin with the hairs sticking out prominently as my main course (see left). We decided Loja had lost its one redeeming quality, although we did spend a fun night drinking canelazo (a hot, cinnamon-y, alcoholic drink we´d searched for since Quito, and finally tried in our last hours in Cuenca) at the Tiku Bar, and watching 90s music videos (mostly Metallica and hip hop).
And that was our last night in Ecuador!
Ew! That meat is so so so terrifying. Good call, only drink alcohol and forgo all real food.
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