Ecuador

Went straight from Quito to a place called el tambo to drop off some of my stuff and then hit the ingañan to ingapirca (ecuador´s premiere inca ruin).
Hmm
The first person of note was the 35 year old single man with his own business who befriended me and within the space of 5 hours had changed the place I was going to stay (it was much more convenient but not even mentioned in the lonely planet. LOVED HIM but am almost sure he was hitting on me. 35 single still living with his parents (it’s the custom if you don´t get married and sometimes even if you are married), sung in a choir and was a big cute bear (not really my style but I was obviously his). Very helpful and I enjoyed one spectacular sunset with him from out the window of the bus. Love my pink skies.

The second person of note was the pick up driver from the town of alausi to the town of achupallas. Great driver on a very bad road. Was even nice enough to drop me further than pick ups usually would to take some time off my first days walk (I started a bit late).

The problem was he basically took any chance I had of securing a guide in the town away from me. While technically he was doing the right thing 4 hours later I was ruing the day I met him. So I started of in drizzling rain by myself. Had to scale up a hole through rocks (very difficult by myself). And then read the guide book wrong and went up a huge mountain for an hour and a half when I should have been going across. When I got to the top o the mountain and realized I was lost it started to sleet which pelted against my face with pain due to the strong winds.

Fell down a hill when I was getting back to the track for about 8 or 9 metres and was generally swearing at him and myself for being so stupid (ahhh dunno I´m gonna go with hated him).
Then the god send. Found the track again walked for about 30 minutes and looked down to the river bed. Saw what I thought was a blue tent. Looked again (this time not through my sleet covered sun glasses) it was a tent. Took off down the hill for the safety of other people. Dropped my compass on the way down (without realizing).
But eventually got the safety of strangers to realize it was not just one tent but 3 with 2 donkeys. It was freezing and my hands were numb as I abused my tent but eventually I was inside dry and warm inside my sleeping bad which is less than I can say for the French people I were with who had hired their gear.

After an average night´s sleep and a lot of peanut butter (someone has to lick the knife clean) I discovered that the French people had had such an awful night that they had told their guides they could not camp another night. They were heading off at pace and I was not going anywhere without a compass after looking at the morning fog and so I threw my pack on top of a donkey and off we went.
We caught up with another group as we walked through their campsite for the night 1.5 hours ahead and saw the ice on the group and around the edge of the lake and began to be seriously impressed with out guide´s choice of camping site.

Walked over a freezing mountain top and then back onto the ingañan with a beautiful view of a snaking river leading to a lake. It was much warmer over this side.

Walked past a small ruin and onto the second camp site in the mist.

By this stage out mules/donkeys were walking with the other groups mules and the other group with their non-local guide walked out ahead of the mules with the local guides (big mistake).
It was really misty and a tiny bit rainy (visibility was about 25 metres) and the non local guide with the other two woman walked off in a totally different direction to what they were supposed to and got lost about 5 kms west of where they were supposed to be.
I stuck with the donkeys and when the frenchys went off to the local town to get their pickup truck to the ruins I was left with the two local guides and 5 donkeys all when I had started with none.

The local guides were cool and spent 90 minutes looking for the lost people. They were too far gone and eventually we came to the decision that we would camp for the night and walk the last 2.5 hours the next morning very early.

With ice on my tent I packed up and strolled out at a cracking pace with the remaining guides and ended up being first to the ruins out of everyone of that day.

The ruins were big but nothing amazing, apparently unique with their ovular structure of the temple of the sun but with nothing to compare it to (first ruin) that really didn´t mean anything to me.

Guides hmm they smoked, littered a tiny bit and made me get up super early on the last day when we really didn´t need to…..but let´s face it they had donkeys which carried my pack (can I love the donkeys but not the guides?). LOVED THEM ALL trekking with donkeys is still hard cause you walk faster but nowhere near as painful.
FRENCHIES (loved them, even though they didn´t get my jokes….don´t they have sarcasm in France…I said we should have brought our ice skates for the near frozen lake and they said hmm “doesn´t look like it is quite frozen enough”.

When I returned from the massive ruin to the town of el tambo I was officially sick but it was the perfect town to sleep 13 hours in and recuperate then onto Cuenca.

In El tambo the son of the owner practiced a bit of English and Spanish with me. Nothing really of note but he tried his hardest (loved him).

Patty probably deserves about 7 pages of entry but unfortunately I haven´t been in the mood to write recently.

Patty was my spanish teacher in Quito for most of the time and also the woman that I lived with.

She had a huge apartment and spoke spanish to me all the time (which was good). She is the only person so far that I have been able to have an entertaining coversation with in spanish so far cause my vocabulary is still a little limited.

I have conversations with other people they are just generally not very interesting (ie when I ask people their opinion about the new constitution and the upcoming referendum they say stuff but i don´t understand).

There are a thousand stories I could tell about crazy patty and her crazy family and her huge 5 bedroom apartment (rent is dirt cheap in quito) but I will only tell you two.

The first is when I returned from the aforementioned trek with chin fringe. I at length had to explain to her exactly what had happened and exactly what I thought of him and his chin fringe. She was sympathetic and basically agreed with me about everything. I then proceeded to attempt to translate the joke of his sobre nombre (nickname) into spanish and after some time I had patty cackling with laughter repeater quijada con sequilla (chin finge).

From then on Patty used and abused quijada con sequilla to no end (all the time praying she didn´t get him as a student when I left and he returned).

Patty and I got quite close after a couple of weeks and basically joked around practicing my spanish her telling me that if I made any mistakes that she would "golpea" me (hit) and me pleding with her "no me golpeas" but the funniest moment was when I can home from having lunch with an Australian woman (HATED HER total dickhead with an MBA and a salary over 150K learnign spanish at a 5 dollar an hour spanish school).

I tried to inform patty that I had just had lunch with a woman that I loathed. But I´d forgetten her name and so said "that woman from the school" (in spanish obviously). She then proceeded to look at me with mum eyes and said mas o menos

"excuse me michael but you need to learn to call people by their names". I told her i couldn´t remember her name and she said

"well you had lunch with blender, now you know".

I stopped, turned back into the kitchen and inquired subtely again "um what was her name"

Patty repeats "blender" and points at the blender that she used every day to make the most divine fresh fruit juices.

Me: "ah patty blender isn´t a name" starts to giggle as I remember what her real name is.

Patty looks at me strangely and says "well i thought it was a weird name but I´m sure her name is blender".

Me: (as politely as I can through bubbles of laughter) "ah no patty i think you´ll find her name is belinda and I´m sure its more polite to call her "that woman" than blender.

Patty proceeds to decide that Belinda isn´t really a name that fits well to this woman (a bit squarish and to use an impolite phrase built like a brick shit house) and decides that from then on she will refer to this woman as

la liquidora.

I´m sure it doesn´t translate (as funilly) but she had much fun telling her whole family the story and anyone who would listen and I also had no end of amusement with her.

She was divorced and 34 years old and wouldn´t let me take photos of her but i got a couple.

I am trying to think about somethign bad to say about her....hmmm.

If you haven´t read the previous post about when I was offering myself up as a potential husband to her and her sisters then now you know I was. The next day she said if she was going to take me as a husband I couldn´t have any more of the free bread at the school cause I was getting fat (cold blooded in my books especially when I am the skinniest I´ve been in a decade).

Good food, good laughs decent teaching and a home not a hostal was exactly what I needed to get started on my trip.

Patty was a star and playing simon says with her extended family (them in spanish and me in english) was a regression to childhood that I really enjoyed.

LOVED HER.

I will eventually post picture of the chin fringe (whose name I shall not mention as it does his facial hair no credit)

Chin Fringe is a German man with principles as high as the sky and a touch with reality which reflects the distance from us to his principles.

I spent almost 4 days straight with chin fringe and so I think he is one person I can say I really got to know. I will attempt to keep my analysis brief.

Chin Fringe has facial has growing from his chin which is about 2 inches wide and at least four inches long. It is thick and bushy and he strokes it when he is pondering whether the person he is speaking to is trying to charge him too much.....this is always.

Chin fringe and I went on an amazing (and moderately difficult) hike to Quilotoa through stunning countrysides and valleys with some of the most amazing views I have ever beheld bushwalking.

Unlike Nez chin fringe had a great sense of direction and was super prepared. We bought the special maps from the institute of geography for our trek just in case and he studied them to the T.

On the morning of the trek I got into the cab and he asked me ¨Do you have everything¨. I said (slightly condescendingly) ¨ah yeah¨. He said ¨got your sleeping mat and sleeping bag¨. Me (now very short) ¨yes¨.

After he was slightly rude to the taxi driver (suggesting we were going in the wrong direction) we got on the bus. As soon as we left the bus station.

¨Fuck Schizer¨ bolted me out of my mid morning slumber.....he´d forgotten the maps. While he attempted to blame it on the Australian he´d lent them too we all know what the score is.

On the way there (sin el mapas) we saw snow capped volcanoes and despite walking in the afternoon for 2 hours in the rain and getting lost we picked a camping spot which in the morning was spectacular.

On top of a hill looking over two valleys and even in sight of our eventual destination 30 odd kilometers away.

The first thing that showed me that chin fringe´s sense of reality was slightly out of touch was his speed uphill.
We did a LOT of ascending up some pretty steep stuff. But chin fringe (with his walking sticks) walked like the 96 year old grandmother of my spanish teacher (who I live with at the moment).
This isn´t such a problem until it becomes so slow that he has blocked the path and you basically have to stop every 3 or 4 steps so that he gets some more distance from you. I couldn´t get any rhythm!
HOWEVER this would still be forgivable if he didn´t turn around and stop several times up and incline and ask ¨äm I going to fast for you¨?

I had an awesome time and except for some snoring he was pretty good to be with for the trek (and he carried the tent the whole time).

The trek itself was great. Quilotoa is a volcanic crater lake and it was sparkling and had views to cotopaxi a snow capped volcano and across and huge valley. The walk was really tough but I LOVED IT.

The second thing that indicated to me that he was out of touch with reality was in our hostel they included breakfast and dinner with the price. it was 4 o´clock the woman had finished cooking and for some reason (i think cause he really didn´t like breakfast) he insisted that they serve him lunch and dinner instead of dinner and breakfast. They offered him something paltry (bread and coffee) and he was genuinely offended at their inflexibility despite the fact that lunch was over 2 hours ago and the hostel offered breakfast and dinner with accommodation (ie so that they can cook for a whole heap of people at once). He was genuinely astounded/offended and was less than polite to this family with his insistence.

The third
We had gotten off the bus and I was by now used to him exclaiming outrage when someone was overcharging him however this was the pinnacle. There are some taxis in quito where you can get the driver to use the meter (it is usually time of day specific and taxi specific) however from my experience they are somewhat rare.

Chin Fringe was insistent that he would get a taxi that used a meter. We walked up a row of taxis (some of which offered quite reasonable 2 stop prices) and he asked about 10 whether they would let us use the meter. They all said no. The last half it is hardly surprising they said no considering the aggressiveness with which he asked them (literally he spoke to them like they were stealing from him before they had even said anything). These taxi drivers are generally pretty laid back, if intimidation was his tactic it wasn´t working (although I don´t think it was his tactic). We proceeded to walk (at his demand) away from the taxi rank and flagged another 4 taxis and I asked them (much more politely) if they would use the meter. They all refused.

At this point I said ¨lets just get a taxi¨.

he then said (as those I was the devil) ¨if you let them change the way the charge tourists then it will be different for all the future tourists¨ (paraphrase). He threw a dirty look at me as I indicated to him that if we got one with a meter we would only be paying a dollar less. He then began to attack me because I was trying to ¨convince him to bend his principles¨ and that I was contributing to the change.

We walked up a hill and after a few more refusals we got into a taxi under confusion that the taxi driver was going to use the meter. He didn´t, at which point chin fringe wanted to get out. 30 minutes or so looking for a taxi who would use their meter.

Chin Fringe you don´t want it to change for future tourists.....it already had you dickhead.
You think you have principles......you´re just cheap.

For someone who is studying developing economies you think he´d have a little more compassion for a group of people who are underpaid and trying to squeeze a little extra out of much much wealthier people.

Chin Fringe´s only saving graces were....the chin fringe
AND he takes the most amazing cherry wang photo´s ever (i´ll upload some soon).

Is this enough of a saving great....well they are really good Cherry Wangs but no.

HATED HIM.

Arrived back from the Galapagos and met a woman by the name of Nez. She was eastern european but had no facial hair.

She ¨took¨ me to the cultural centre /old city in quito for the first time one night. Nez was an interesting character who seemed to have a slightly inflated sense of direction (this is toned down cause she is now my friend on face book and might read this).

We attempted to reach one of the main squares for a concert that she saw them setting up in the afternoon. We caught (what I later realised) was really the wrong trolley line for getting to the old city. We end up somewhere she didn´t know but luckily her spanish was good enough to get us headed in the right direction.

Rather than catching a taxi we did something no guide book would recommend, walk through the old city at night (930 or so). After walking about a km up the hill (all the time she was sure we were going in the right direction...) passing 40 year olds sniffing glue from plastic bags and some other shifty looking locals we decided we wanted a taxi but to no avail there were none.

Eventually locals who told us we ¨shouldn´t be walking in this area at night¨ pointed us in the right direction and after about 30 minutes we reached an amazing colonial plaza with great lighting and a funky ska concert.

She could be forgiven if the next morning with another person on the way to a museum she hadn´t tried to point us again in totally the wrong direction luckily the other woman (michelle loved her) was firm and took up my amazing race challenge of a beer for getting us there without looking at the map.

All in am tempted to give her HATED due to the lack of facial hair but she was a really nice person and also the concert was great so she gets LOVED HER.

When weighing up all the factors of visiting locations at this stage I think it comes down to it was
a)worth it
b) not worth it

You can try and grade things by how much they cost or just how beautiful they were but for brevity (and sometimes entertainment) I like the approach of loved it hated it.

Keep things nice and simple, black and white...just like life?

Seeing as I´m so pessimistic I think I´d prefer to have a whole heap of HATED it in my memories. However seeing as some many of the places I think I´ll visit will be worth it/fall into the loved it category I think its easier to incorporate the people I´ve met into the places I´ve been.

So far we have a few mentionables.