Last day as a Brit in Ecuador, last blog

I came to Ecuador 20 months ago, to the day. Now it is time to leave. I have a flight to Tokyo tonight. Well actually flying to Tokyo from Quito is quite a complicated trip, and even though I leave tonight, a Monday evening, I won't arrive until Thursday morning.

I came to Ecuador for the adventure, to free us some time for writing and to get some teaching experience. I arrived without a job or even a place to live. But it all came together somehow. I'm leaving with a store of memories, university level teaching experience and I've managed to get six manuscripts accepted for publication (1,2,3,4,5,6). I've even got a research project started.

If you want to continue to read about a Brit in Ecuador, luckily somebody else has started doing it. He lives in Quito too, and bizarrely he is even using the same blog title: (the other) A Brit in Ecuador.

Or to follow my exploits in Japan, I'll be writing for a new blog, Gringo to Gaijin

Hasta Luego, Pet
Graham

To Lima, via the Inca sites

From Nasca we took a bus to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. Just at the right altitude, it has a near perfect climate of sunny weather every day. It is surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes. Snow-white volcanic rock was used to construct many of the colonial era buildings.

Next we flew to Cusco and immediately took a taxi to Ollantaytambo, an Inca town still in use. Indeed most of the town was built by the Incas. You can hike up the surrounding hills for excellent views and to see the ruins of several Inca store houses. These ruins on the hills are free to enter and don't attract many tourists. Most tourists come (briefly) to look at the easier access Temple and agricultural terrace structures on Cerro Bandolista which also overlooks the town.

Of course, the big daddy of Inca sites is Maccu Pichu, and the is where we headed next. We went by train  to the nearby town of Aguas Calientes. From there you can take buses to the ruins. We took the first of the day at 5:30. Going early means you beat the hoards, but in our case it was rainy and foggy when we arrived, negating that advantage.

I went up Huayna Picchu, the mountain that overlooks Maccu Pichu. It only takes about 90 minutes, but it is a tough hike. The reward is magnificent views over the Inca city.

Back in our hotel in Aguas Calientes, we found several Dawson Flies. This one on a lamp was about  4 or 5 inches long.

There are lots of other Inca sites in the region. These are the circular terraces at Moray. Such terraces were commonly used by the Incas to cultivate crops on otherwise hilly and mountainous terrain. It is hypothesized that the site at Moray was an agricultural laboratory, were the Incas tested which crops grow best in various conditions. 

The Incas also harvested salt. Spring water with a high salt content was used to fill  hundreds of pools which are then left for the water to evaporate. These in Salinas are still in use today.

Finally, we have returned to the capital city. Lima is hot and humid and crowded and polluted.  There is a  permanent smog that hides the sun during the day and produces a curiously pink sunset. But I like it. Tomorrow I return to Quito for what will be my last day as a Brit in Ecuador. 

La Paz (Bolivia) to Nasca (Peru)

We took a bus  from La Paz to Copacabana. This is the main town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. Apart from being on the lake, it also has a rather nice basilica.

Lake Titicaca is huge, and the was at the heart of the Inca Empire, many of the Inca creation legends involve the lake. It is at a similar elevation to  La Paz and so can be quite cool, despite having blazing sun that can quickly burn you. Well it did me anyway. We left Copacabana for Puno, which is also on the banks of the Lake, but on the Peruvian side. 

From Puno we took the train to Cuzco. The trains here run through town centers. In the  town of Juliaca it runs right through the middle of a market. Vendors move their stalls when the train comes, and some leave their stock between the tracks. I took this photo from the back of the train as we passed through.

Cuzco was the capital city of the Inca Empire. Today it still contains many Inca features, and  a huge amount of well preserved colonial architecture. Unfortunately it is also heavily touristed. The main plaza has a McDonalds, a Starbucks and a KFC, an unusual level of North American cultural encroachment for a Latin American city. 

We left Cuzco for a 12 hour bus journey to Nasca, but Pacha Mama had other plans. This is the flooded road that our bus was supposed to take. The bus journey ended up taking 26 hours. 

Floods were not the only threat. There were literally hundreds of rock falls and land slides on the road. Often the rocks were the size of  cars. Somehow the bus driver managed to negotiate all of them. 

Nasca is a really nice little Peruvian town, but people don't come just for that. They come to see the line patterns in the desert, made by a pre-columbian culture. The patterns can only be seen from aircraft. We took an over flight to see several of them, but they don't photograph well. Tomorrow we leave for Arequipa, which is the second largest city in Peru.

La Paz, Bolivia

My time in Ecuador is almost complete, so before I leave South America for Asia, I've come to Bolivia for a bit of tourism. My plan had always been to have some backpacking time after I finished work in Ecuador. As this panned out, I only have three weeks before I need to get to Japan to start my next job. So three weeks isn't much time for backpacking, but hopefully I can take in a bit of Bolivia and southern Peru, before returning to Quito for one night to collect bags and set off for Tokyo.

The main thing about La Paz is its altitude. It is around 3,650 meters (11,975 ft) above sea level, which means oxygen is scarce. In fact, it is not recommended that anybody fly here direct from low altitude. I came direct from 19 months living in Quito, another high altitude city, but still the thin air got to me. It is difficult to walk up stairs or hills at high altitude, and La Paz is all hills. You adapt with time, but until then any exercise results in a racing pulse, headache and a general feeling of knackerdness. Though it is a nice place, with plenty or quirks. One of which is llama products. Llama meat is sold in the restaurants and dried llama fetuses are sold on market stalls for good-luck symbols. It also has a very large indigenous population. Below are a few of my photos (and a graph).

Height above sea level in meters

Plaza Murilllo, La Paz

La Paz: A city in the clouds

In the roads around government buildings there are permanent military road blocks.

Indigenous women protesting crime and corruption

Dried llama fetuses, and dried baby llamas for sale in la Paz, along with other nik naks