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In Popayán, I bought a new camera (Pentax Optio S10), again with a doubtful quality. So I can proudly present you for some new pics from one of the 5 countries their makes up the border to Colombia.When you are from Denmark and traveling in Colombia, you get a 60 days visa when you enter the country, which you can extend in two ways; Either you go to a DAS-office, which are present in all the main cities, and get an extension for one month and pay around 40 dollars. Or you can cross the border to another country and re-enter Colombia and get a 2 month extension for free. The last option is clearly the best, because is safes you for a lot of practical bullshit as submit photocopies, and go to the bank and pay money into a DAS account.
So that’s one of the main reasons why I’m the 17 of April crossed the border to Ecuador along the Pan-American highway stretching from Cali to Quito. It’s really straightforward to cross here, and the passport formalities are quickly done.
Ecuador is small, seen in South-American size-perspective, and is the only country along with Chile, that do not have a border with Brazil.
Ecuador takes its name from Equator which are cutting through the country, just north of Quito. This means that it both belong to the northern and the southern hemisphere, which again means that it’s deeply tropical with a lot of bio-diversity, much like Colombia.
It also meana a lot of fruits and it’s quite frustrating that the name of the many different kind of tropical fruits are different from the Colombian names.
I first spent a couple of days in Ibarra, which are located 2 and a half hour bus-ride from the border. But nearby Otovalo, 25 km SV of Ibarra is far more cozy and attractive. Otovalo and its surroundings are characterized with it’s huge indigenous community, which characterize the landscape around Otavalo with all its indigenous villages and green mountainous landscapes. The local/indigenous seems to live en balance with the nature and fit so perfectly in to the surrounding landscape. To walk around in this hilly green landscape around Parque condor above Otavalo, with stunning views over Otavalo laying on the one side and the lake of San Pablo on the other side, is a highlight and climax in it self.
When I was walking in this landscape, through a small village,close to the shore of lake San Pablo, a local indigenous woman, contacted me and invited me into her house. She first said, she wanted a post card from my home country, but her real intention was to sell me some of her home made handicrafts. Among her wide range of products, were some belts to the trousers. During long time I have walked around with shorts sitting half way down my ass, quite irritating too pull them up every 5 minutes, to avoid too much white shining exposure. So her colorful handmade belts of wool, was like an gift from heaven. I bought a belt and a couple of scarfs, and hopefully saved her day. That’s the way to buy local stuff, from the right person in the right environment, away from the formal market.
Beside that, the indigenous Otavaleños are actually quite famous for weaving textiles and hand-making which they sell on the Saturday market in Otavalo or in small local shops during the week.
From Otavalo to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, just south of Equator, 4 hours bus-ride southwest of Otavalo. The Andes loom high here in whole this region, and Quito is the second highest located capital (2800 meter) after La Paz in Bolivia.
The old city part of Quito should be the best preserved center in Latin America and have a beautiful location up on a steep slope, with nice views over the whole city-landscape and mountain ranges in the far distance.
In Quito I couchsurfed the house of Maria, A psycho-drama-therapist, with a lot of interesting projects going on in the more creative-arty-environment. She lived in the modern city-district, Mariscal, where all the bars, restaurants and tourists are located. This neighborhood is quite special, it’s somehow a odd mix of up-scale cafes and bars and people with money, blended real good with poor street people, drugs dealers and other people making illegal after dark activity. A Zona Rosa (A exclusive neighborhood made for shopping) district polluted by slum or the other way around. The safety conditions should have gone to the worse here the last couple of years, with new waves of gangster immigrants coming in mainly from Cuba, Colombia and Nigeria.
So nearly all my after-dark activity, was dependent on the willingness of Maria to drive me around in her 4WD, also because it was raining almost all the time. 4WD are quite common here, because of bad road conditions and many steep slopes. But hard to excuse the ownership of one of these polluters and space-consumers in the streets of Copenhagen.
But anyway, it was fun to hang out with Maria, good company and crazy enough to have a good conversation with me. She was taking me to a class of Psycho-drama, in which she teach. A funny mix of Psychology and theater. Interesting how all the students contributed and participated in the class, which also is an precondition for this kind of study. One of the students in the class, told a real life experience she has had in the past. She had an bad experience during a travel in Europe, where she were stopped in the airport of Amsterdam, and the security control had rummaged through all her luggage in a tough, strict and authoritative manner, something she felt humiliating. After she had told her story for the whole class, she picked some students from the group, who should act out the story. It was up to the actors themselves to decide how to act and what to say, in that way they had to identify themselves with the told story from the perspective of the narrator. A kind of group-psycho-therapy. Interesting to get an little insight in this “for me” new world.
The third destination, I want to mention, is Baños (De Agua Santa), almost 150 km south of Quito, in the central part of the country. It´s a small thermal spring town, surrounded by high mountains, belonging to the central Andean chain, which runs through central Ecuador. It, a quite nice city, witch good service facilities and good hiking opportunities in the surrounding area. It’s a geological interesting spot, most visible with the impressive Strato volcano of Tungurahua, a big black diamond stretching high into the air, and throwing its shadow and periodically it ashes over Baños.
It should have been in an active phase since 1999, and their have been a couple of aggressive eruptions, in 1999 and 2006, their created troubles for the surrounding communities. But when I was here, end of April 2010, it was really calm. A local man told me, that normally you can hear it making noises, but the last month or two it had been surprisingly Calm. I hope for the citizens in Baños it’s not what we call “SILENCE BEFORE THE STORM”.
Finally a quick comment to the transport in Ecuador. Public transport can be quite slow and crowded with people. It took me almost 3 hours to lay back 50 km, in a bus travel from Quito to Otavalo. In Colombia, where there is many private companies competing, the transport is much more smooth and effective, but surprisingly expensive, measured in relation to other things and compared to neighboring countries.
I could easily have stayed in Ecuador the rest of my travel-period. It’s really comfortable here, there’s a more authentically South-American feel and excellent food.
But I have to fulfill my mission: Exploring “almost” all damn Colombia, the land where the only risk is, that your want to stay.
