Wednesday, December 29, 2010

From Quito to Santiago

From Quito I had less than two weeks to get down to Santiago in Chile to meet Mum at the airport, a distance of over 5000km. Figuiring that I'd cover the stretch between Lima in Peru and Santiago in one big go of three days I now had a bit of free time to check out a few places along the way.

First stop was Banos a few hours bus ride away to meet back up with Sarah and Natalie from the hostel in Quito and to do some biking in the lush green valleys around town. We stayed in another great hostel called plantas y blanco (plants and white, it was white and there were a lot of plants) with a nice rooftop terrace and bar setup and great breakfasts of gourmetish breads and jams.

Day one the weather was pretty awful so we spent our time just wandering around the pretty town buying supposedly local handicrafts (I saw exactly the same alpaca jumper I bought in a patagonian souvenir shop, 7000km away) and stopping off in the market to sample some BBQ cuy, or as they're known in Australia, guinea pig. These ones were actually pretty big (about the size of a medium cat) but despite their size had very little meat on them, and what there was was mostly chewy, stubbly skin and tendons. We bought a whole one which was chopped with a dirty meat cleaver into six portions and served head, claws and all on a platter with rice and potatoes.

yum yum, Natalie wasn't too keen though


On day two we hired some mountain bikes for the 60km downhill trip to Puyo through the picturesque valley, past some beautiful waterfalls and several cable cars and ziplines rigged up somewhat dodgily by the locals. We didn't make it all the way down but we did stop off at an amazing waterfall with a series of viewing platforms concreted onto and chisled into the cliffs below the falls.

Stopping off for some pics

looking down from the waterfall

One platform was cut in right under the falls, about 40m up

Next stop was Mancora, a cool but touristy little surfing town in the desert just inside the Peruvian border. We spent two days here relaxing on the beach and in the hostel bar and also had a go at a surfing lesson, which was great fun and surprisingly easy to stand up, although my arms and ribcage (from digging into the board while paddling) were killing me the next day.

The hostel was awesome, like a backpacker resort

As time was now running low I bid farewell to the girls and hopped a bus down along the pacific coast the to Lima, which was 20 hours of complete moonscape, just sand and rocks for hundreds of kilometres, not a living thing in sight.


the sunset was pretty amazing too
This was backed up a day later with another two buses down to the Chilean border and finally Santiago, a trip of over 55 hours and 3500km, but on big comfortable buses it wasn't that bad really.

Somehow I'd forgotten a day along the way so I now had two free days to kill in Santiago and what better way to kill some time than go to a Smashing Pumpkins concert! Dave and Alicia, an Irish couple I'd met in Nicaragua were in town too so after a few beers beside the hostel pool we got a cab out to the stadium and to one of the best gigs I've seen in ages.



Go pumpkins!!

Dave was pretty excited



Twelve hours later I was anxiously waiting at the international arrivals gate at Santiago airport, not sure if I'd remembered the right time for mum's flight and with a horrible feeling that it was actually an hour earlier.......