Blogsherpa | Hole In The Donut Cultural Travel

Safe Passage at the Border between Ecuador and Peru

Published February 7, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Peru

As my time in Ecuador grew to a close I vacillated over the best way to make the border crossing into Peru. Although it was possible to take a bus directly south from Cuenca to Peru, the trip would have required an eight to ten-hours bus ride to Zumba, changing to a Chiva (open sided bus) for the ride to the border town of La Balsa, a stop at the immigration offices to get stamped out of Ecuador, and finally a 2.5 hour ride in a colectivo (local pick-up truck with bench seats) to the town of San Ignacio. At that point I would still be on the eastern side of Peru, far from my intended destination on the coast; that route simply did not make sense for me.

Instead I opted to do something I almost never do: I retraced my steps to Guayaquil, where my Ecuadorian journey had begun nearly two months earlier, in order to make the border crossing between Huaquillas, Ecuador and Tumbes, Peru. However, this much faster and more convenient route would also have its challenges; I had read repeated warnings about thugs and scam artists who prey on tourists who try to do the crossing on their own, such as this couple who got help up for $114 dollars by their “guides,” who threatened to leave them stranded midway into the journey. As a solo female traveler, I wasn’t willing to take that risk.

Fortunately, I had met Karina Gonzales, a lovely young schoolteacher from Lima, during my earlier visit to Guayaquil. We became instant friends and upon returning to Peru she sent me a suggested itinerary of the best places to visit in her country, as well as contact information for Maikol, the guide she uses to cross the border whenever she comes to Ecuador.

My guide Maikol, who handled the border crossing for $12

Maikol was wonderful! He met me in the Ecuadorian border town of Huaquillas and arranged for a taxi to take us to the Immigration office, where I got stamped out of Ecuador. Strangely, the Immigration office is three kilometers (1.8 miles) away from the border, so once I had been stamped out, he hailed a second taxi to carry us to the International Peace Bridge, which marks the border between Ecuador and Peru. We walked across the long bridge, weaving in and out of the heavy pedestrian traffic and fending off vendors hawking from booths that lined both sides of the long bridge. There was no doubt in my mind that pickpocket attempts and opportunistic crimes are common in this environment and I was doubly glad to have Maikol at my side.

At the end of the bridge I gratefully climbed into his car and we drove three kilometers to the Immigration office in Zarumilla, where I was stamped into Peru and got my 90-day visa on arrival. Again, I said a silent thanks for Maikol. Had I made the crossing alone, I would have been at the mercy of whomever I could find to drive me to Peruvian Immigration. With all the formalities completed. I hopped back into his car for the 27 kilometer (16 mile) trip to Tumbes.

Church on the central plaza in Tumbes, Peru

As we drove south, Maikol explained how a government irrigation project had transformed the coastal plain from a giant sandbox into an agricultural Garden of Eden where fields of white and green asparagus stretched as far as the eye could see. Upon arriving in Tumbes, he helped me find an ATM where I could get Peruvian Soles, gave me a brief walking tour around the pretty central plaza, and then dropped me at the street corner where vans leave every 20 minutes for Máncora, my ultimate destination. For all this, he charged Continue reading →

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Posted in South America travel |

Tagged blogsherpa, border crossing, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, Guayaquil, Huaquillas, immigration, north coast, peru tumbes, Travel |

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Sometimes the Old Ways are the Best Ways

Published February 4, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 19 of 19 in the series Ecuador

Gravel spit from beneath the van’s wheels as we climbed into mountains erupting with picture-postcard spring colors. Though I enjoyed my time in Cuenca, it had been difficult to connect with the local culture in a city of half a million people, so I had opted for a day tour to explore tiny towns in the surrounding countryside. We crested a hill and rolled down into a verdant valley, where terra-cotta roofed houses clustered around the stately white church. With its dilapidated homes and stray dogs, San Bartolomé would have been unremarkable except for the sculptures in the main plaza; rather than requisite religious statuary, giant guitars paraded across the plaza toward the church, hinting that something about this town was very different.

Heritage of guitar making in San Bartolomé is memorialized by sculptures on main square of town

Many rural towns scattered across Ecuador still adhere to the “guild system” inherited from Spain, where each community specializes in a particular craft. My travels had taken me to towns where giant round loaves of bread were stacked in every storefront window; to villages that produced incense, soaps, and oils from the fragrant wood of Palo Santo trees; and to still others that specialized in pottery and leather goods, but the hills around Cuenca may be home to the most interesting artisan traditions in the country and San Bartolomé is the gem in the collection.

Custom inlaid guitars, handmade by Jose Uyaguari in San Bartolome, Ecuador

In the foothills just above the town’s main plaza, we climbed out of the van at the home of master craftsman Jose Uyaguari. The tools of his trade were spread across a rough wooden table set up in his front patio: two long silver wood planes, chisels, awls, and a giant tub of glue. Using exotic woods such as Capuli and African Ebony, Uyaguari fashions some of the world’s finest guitars without using a single nail, then adorns them with intricate inlays painstakingly pieced together from tiny bits of multi-colored wood shavings. His customers are said to include famous artists such as Freddy Fender and Judy Collins, and though he wouldn’t confirm this, Uyaguari did acknowledge that musicians come from all over the world to buy his instruments, which are priced from $75 to $1,000. Perhaps most astonishing, Uyaguari cannot play a note!

Making silver filigree jewelry in Chordeleg, Ecuador

Next up was the town of Chordeleg, famous for its jewelry, where silversmith Jorge walked us through the art of crafting exquisite filigree earrings, rings, and necklaces. He fed a silver ingot into a rolling mill, allowing it to flatten and extrude with each repeated pass, until it took the shape of a rough wire. This was further rolled out by hand on an anvil until it became a delicate flexible strand. With awl and tweezers, Jorge deftly twisted the silver into a series intricate figure eights, which were dusted with silver powder and melded together with a soldering torch. Each piece is unique and is priced according to the difficulty of design and weight of the silver; I purchased a pair of silver dangle earrings for $15. Jorge’s affordable prices are undoubtedly due to low overhead (his shop is in his home and the silver is sourced from mines in the nearby hills that are still worked by independent miners), but later when we stopped for lunch in central Chordeleg I realized what a bargain I had gotten. Scores of jewelry stores lined the central plaza and not one offered a similar pair for less than $50. Continue reading →

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Posted in South America travel |

Tagged artisans, arts, blogsherpa, ceramic figurines, chordeleg, crafts, cuenca, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, filigree, folkloric, Gualaceo, guitars, jewelry, San Bartolome, silver, the southern highlands, Travel |

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At Home on the Road in Cuenca, Ecuador

Published January 28, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 18 of 19 in the series Ecuador

By the time I arrived in Cuenca I was stressed out and beaten down. Though rewarding, traveling through Ecuador had not been easy. I’d been seasick during my spectacular cruise with Ecoventura in the Galapagos Islands; sweaty and smelly in the Amazon jungle at Cuyabeno Lodge; and sardined into a bus full of Ecuadorians, where a mother and her young son crammed into a single seat next to me for the entire three-hour ride to Chugchilan. I had a severe bout of altitude sickness while attempting to hike parts of the Quilotoa Loop and been targeted by thugs in Quito who’d unsuccessfully tried to steal my backpack. I needed a rest.

Fortunately, I had a plan for making Cuenca seem more like home. Shortly after arriving in Mexico in 2010 I received a comment on my blog from Nancy and Paul Dardarian, American expats who had moved to Mazatlan some years earlier and subsequently launched the popular expat travel blog Countdown to Mexico. We met for a leisurely lunch at an oceanfront palapa and I got the benefit of all their knowledge about Mazatlan. When Nancy and Paul wrote about our meeting, several of their followers became followers of my blog as well. Among them was Ken Smith, an American expat living in Lake Chapala, Mexico. Ken had been “lurking” around my bog for a while but when he learned I was Cuenca bound he contacted me and suggested I get in touch with a friend of his, Regina Potenza, yet another American expat who lived for more than 20 years in Lake Chapala but had moved to Cuenca a couple years earlier. It is indeed a small world.

Meeting up with expats for Sunday Football at the Inca Cafe

Regina and I exchanged emails and she suggested I stay at the Hotel Milan, which turned out to be a wonderful family-owned hotel in the middle of downtown, affordably priced at only $17 per night for a private room with private bath. But this was just the beginning. I’d barely arrived when Regina phoned with an invitation to meet up with other expats at the regular Tuesday evening get-together at DiBacco Italian Restaurant, which is half-owned by another American expat, John Buskey (excellent food, by the way).

Over the next week, Regina and others among the expat community welcomed me into their fold to such a degree that it felt like instant family. I joined them for Sunday football at the Inca Lounge, tagged along on a furniture shopping expedition, and attended their writer’s group reading one evening. They made sure I knew which attractions were worth the price of admission and which should be skipped; which areas of the city were safe to walk alone at night and which should be avoided; and what nearby artisan towns were worth a visit. Perhaps the best tip of all came from Regina herself, when she told me not to miss the free museum inside the Banco Central, which has an astonishing and thorough display about the various cultures of Ecuador, and the adjacent Pumapungo ruins. Continue reading →

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Tagged blogsherpa, cuenca, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, expat, retire overseas, the southern highlands, Travel |

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Riding Down The the Devil’s Nose

Published January 23, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 17 of 19 in the series Ecuador

High in the Andes Mountains, at the point where the Guasuntos and Chanchán Rivers meet, a gigantic rock known as El Nido del Condor (Nest of the Condor) soars more than 6,200 feet. I sat atop this massif, safely ensconced in a leather seat on board what has been dubbed “the most difficult railroad in the world,” acutely aware that I owed my comfort to those who had perished in its construction. As the vintage diesel locomotive chugged slowly down the steep slope, belching black smoke and causing my wooden carraige to rock to and fro in time with the clickety-clack wheels, my thoughts turned to the reasons this famous ride is named “La Nariz del Diablo,” the Nose of the Devil.

The train makes a brief stop after descending the Nariz del Diablo for photo ops of the zig-zag tracks that slice the nearly vertical rock outcropping

Construction of the line between the southern coast and Quito began in 1871 in the lowlands near Guayaquil but three years later, only 7.6 miles had been completed. Plagued with theft of construction materials, lack of funding, political bickering, debilitating tropical diseases, floods and landslides, efforts were finally abandoned in 1888 with only 65 miles completed. Ten years later, Ecuador turned to the United States for help. Brothers John and Archer Harman were hired and work resumed. Mile after backbreaking mile was slowly completed until the line reached El Nido del Condor. In two miles, the train would need to ascend more than 5,700 feet but unlike the majestic birds for which the monolithic rock is named, trains could not sprout wings and fly down its face.

Can’t view the above slide show about the Nariz del Diablo (Nose of the Devil) Train ride in Alausi, Ecuador? Click here.

The solution was a unique zig-zag track design that allows trains to climb the steep grade as far as possible to a terminus, reverse direction and back up a subsequent section of track to a second terminus, then move forward again on a final section of ascending tracks. Hundreds of Jamaican slaves who were brought in to dynamite the hard rock lost their lives in the process; they, along with scores who succumbed to malaria, yellow fever, and poisonous snakes remain entombed in the rubble along the route, earning it the nickname La Nariz del Diablo by the time it finally opened between the coast and Alausi in 1901. Continue reading →

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Posted in South America travel |

Tagged alausi, Andes, blogsherpa, central highlands, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, indigenous, kichua, nariz del diablo, nose of the devil, quichua, railroads, trains, Travel |

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An Exceptional Welcome in Alausi, Ecuador

Published January 19, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 16 of 19 in the series Ecuador

The pickup truck squealed to a stop in front of me and six suit-clad men scrambled out of the open bed. A tall, thin, mustachioed man held out his hand. “Bienvenidos a Ecuador,” he said. Welcome to Ecuador. Surprised, I looked around and realized I was the only white face on the street; it was obvious that I was a tourist. He pumped my hand and smiled broadly, his brilliant white teeth gleaming in the light streaming from the school gymnasium in front of which we stood. I had previously peeked into the gym, where thousands of indigenous Quichua were seated in the bleachers, but had hesitated to enter because I had no idea if I would be welcome. “Where are you from?” He asked. “The United States,” I answered. “Please, I invite you to be our honored guest tonight. We are celebrating the Independence of our town.”

Booming tunes of the Cristiana Cristo Rey Band lured me to the entrance of the gymnasium where Quichua celebrated Independence Day

The city fathers escorted me to a seat in the second row of plastic folding chairs set up on on the main floor. Music boomed from giant speakers and the room erupted in song. I stood and clapped along, marveling at the passionate faith and the brilliantly colored Quichua costumes on display. Green skirts were topped by pink capes, orange over maroon, red and turquoise; hats and long stockings in contrasting colors completed the traditional ensembles. Groups of Quichua women, each from a different sector within the canton of Alausi, shyly walked to the front of the room, stood shoulder-to-shoulder and recited a biblical verse in their sing-song Kichua language. Their testimony was followed by a song of worship, performed as they rocked to and fro in unison.

Can’t view the above YouTube video of indigenous Quichua performing at the Independence Day celebrations in Alausi, Ecuador? Click here.

Four hours later, having been introduced as an honored guest, serenaded by a male solo vocalist, and gifted with christian music CD’s, I finally begged off. At midnight, the celebrations were still going strong but I had to return to my guest house before it was locked down for the night. I thanked my hosts profusely for providing me with a unique opportunity to witness Quichua culture up close, cognizant that I had seen in one night what might otherwise have taken months of travel throughout Ecuador.

Latacunga Vacations

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Posted in South America travel |

Tagged alausi, blogsherpa, central highlands, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, festival, independence day, indigenous, quichua, the southern highlands, Travel |

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Quenching the “Throat of Fire” in Banos, Ecuador

Published January 12, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 15 of 19 in the series Ecuador

In 1999, the volcano that towers over the small mountain town of Baños de Agua Santa in central Ecuador again began living up to its name. Seventy-four years after its last eruption, Tungurahua, which means “Throat of Fire” in the indigenous Quichua language, roared to life with a vengeance that required a complete evacuation of Baños for more than a year. Since then it has erupted more or less regularly (see some stunning images of activity in recent years here), but when I arrived last November it had been quiet since April 2011. I gazed up at the 16,000+ foot summit, trying to imagine molten rocks and large clouds of gas and ash spewing from its maw, but its verdant green flanks seemed more gentle giant than sleeping giant.

Luna Runtun Resort, located near the summit of Tunguruhua, lies in the path of the current lava flows

Ironically, this “Throat of Fire” spawns magnificent waterfalls that are yin to its yang. In the absence of displays of molten fireworks, I boarded a double-decker bus for a tour of the spectacular Route of Waterfalls, many of which cascaded off cliffs in torrents that made me believe they had extinguished the fire breathing dragon:

Can’t view the above YouTube video of the Route of Waterfalls in Baños, Ecuador? Click here.

On November 26, 2011, the day after I left Ecuador, Tungurahua awoke from its brief slumber and began belching molten lava down its flanks and spewing ash into the air. Today the volcano remains in an almost permanent state of activity, with daily incandescent flows and violent explosions. Ash fall has covered the the streets, parks, terraces and roofs of buildings in the greater Baños area, forcing the closure of schools and businesses; ten explosions and 48 emission tremors were reported on December 7th alone. As if they could forget, Tungurahua continues to remind Baños residents that not even their prolific waterfalls can quench the Throat of Fire.