The 'Poor Man's Galapagos'

Travelling for a year means big time budgeting and can sometimes also mean saying no to certain pocket draining activities and places. For us, the Galapagos Islands is one of those destinations. When you're living on $20 a day or less and have seven months of travel ahead of you, including an inevitably expensive stint in Europe, a 'splurge' of $3000 or more for a couple of weeks is completely unjustifiable.

For miserly backpackers like ourselves, however, there's an island off Ecuador's south coast that provides a little slice of the Galapagos at a fraction of the cost. Part of the 'Parque Nacional Machalilla' and located about 30km from the shores of beach-side-town Puerto Lopez, Isla de la Plata (the Silver Island) boasts a variety of species also found on the Galapagos Islands, including, among others, the red and blue-footed booby, albatrosses and South American sea lions. Known as 'The Poor Man's Galapagos', we felt a trip to the coast was a must, so we set off for Puerto Lopez from Cuenca by bus.

It would seem our six-week bus hiatus washed away my memories of the trials and tribulations of South American bus journeys, but you'll be glad to know that the past week has reinstated my love hate relationship with this form of travel. While the scenery has been unbelievable - lushious green jungle and twinkling coastlines, not something you'll see up close from a plane - there's just something about it that I'll never get used to. Being crammed for hours like chickens in a coup (at one stage I was literally sitting next to an angry rooster), this time in the tropical Ecuadorian heat, was not fun. I'm actually considering enduring the humiliation and getting one of those bum pillows people with boils have to carry around with them, just to make the trip that little bit more bearable. And then there are the bus vendors, who are both friends and foes. Sure, we've had many a tasty empanada and some delicious fruit for the ride. If, however, they sense any form of a glance their way you're in for it and will be bombarded with various sale items. Some are practical: lunch items or lollies, others are not so much: underpants, spoons, lottery tickets. I even had one guy fit me with sunglasses - unasked, I might add - while my own were sitting on my head! It's a mixed bag every time.

So after a trying bus ride from Cuenca, we arrived in Puerto Lopez in the late afternoon.  I can't say there's a whole heap to do in this town that's main tourist attraction is the Isla de la Plata, but that's what we were there for afterall. Being on the coast though, I was able to have some quality seafood which is right up my alley, so I was happy on the food front, particularly after devouring an impressive pasta marinara at the shore side Carmita restaurant.

And what of the subject of this entry - the 'Poor Man's Galapagos' - did it live up to its name? Well I guess I can't really give a balanced review, having not been to the big G, but if I had to guess, I'd be pretty sure the spectacular-factor of this place has been fairly over-exaggerated. What you do get is a stomach-losing ride in a fishing boat on the high seas, a 3km walk around the island where you'll see a few species of birds, and an enjoyable half-hour snorkeling session where you'll see one or two species of tropical fish. Don't expect to be inundated with spectacular varieties of flora and fauna at every step you take as, although you'll read of their descriptions in and around the island, you'll only be witness to a handful, if that - we only saw albatrosses and blue-footed boobies. But I wont say my $45 dollars (which included a $15 National Park entry fee) went to waste. It was a beautiful day to be on the water and we enjoyed the walk around the island's coastline, the fresh fruit and sandwiches we were provided for lunch and cooling off with a snorkel at the end. I say, if you keep your expectations low, it's an enjoyable day trip out to the island and worth the visit to the chilled-out Puerto Lopez, particularly if you're up for a rest before hitting the jungle, which is where we're headed next.

Return of the backpack

We've been settled for six weeks now - four in Sucre and two at Santa Marta - and we're back on the road again, kicking off our back-to-backpacking with a bang: three tourist hubs in one week.

After a much sought after weekend off in Quito spent relaxing and wandering around the pretty Old Town, we met up with James, a friend of mine from home who is travelling with his friend Angus. We were eased into our activity filled week by the boys who had already picked destination number one: Cotopaxi National Park, home to apparently the world’s largest active volcano, Cotopaxi. There they had scheduled a two-night stay in the Secret Garden Cotopaxi, an Australian-Ecuadorian run hostel nestled amongst some picturesque valleys and countryside. The boys drew the short straw and rode in the back of a 'taxi' (milk truck) along a very bumpy road all three hours from Quito, so they were feeling the cold when we arrived at the 3,700 m above-sea-level hostel and settled into our rooms. Bec and I had booked a two-person tent with 'the best view in the hostel', after the open-air compost toilet that is (it was the only accommodation that remained when we booked online). I have to say, after the chill evident on arrival, we were relieved to instead be allocated beds in a staff member's room after learning that the tents had been mistakenly double booked. Luckily Remmy, the unfortunate employee who, for our sake, was booted out of his room, was headed back to Quito for a few days off, so only had one night on the hostel couch, something he reassured us happens ‘all the time’.

One unique thing about this hostel is that all meals are provided, a good thing, if a little more expensive, seeing as it’s in the middle of nowhere. This means that at each meal you sit down with other guests and often share a few beers by the crackling fire after dinner, a nice way of meeting people and comparing travel stories. So after meeting some fellow travellers over a bowl of fried rice, our first activity was a hike to a nearby waterfall, apparently a standard for first time visitors. We were a little apprehensive about this as just that afternoon, a 16-year-old fisherman had tragically died in a flash flood nearby and the rain clouds were already gathering overhead. Remmy, however, assured us the path was safe so, armed with cameras and gumboots, we set off. After a couple of near slips and some negotiating of rock faces with Tarzan style use of tree branches, we arrived at the waterfall, just in time for the rain. In the end it was a worthwhile visit, if a fleeting one, and we managed to get a few happy snaps before getting drenched on the way home. What fun!

Activity number two involved getting my cowgirl back on for a six-hour horse ride through the surrounding valleys. Bec and I have got right into the horse riding while we’ve been away, so we were looking forward to it. One of the hostel owners even said the horses would ‘love a gallop’ once we hit the valleys, so we were pumped for a good day of riding. As the saying goes, however, things are not always what they seem. Bec, who’d put her hand up as having riding experience, was given the equivalent of a donkey. This horse just refused to go any faster than a walk and meandered left and right - not straight - like a lost puppy...the whole way! While it was quite amusing watching her kick, whip and yell at the old thing, I felt her frustration when my horse gave up the ghost about half way into the ride and joined Bec’s with the ‘I’m not going anywhere’ attitude. It seemed it was us who’d drawn the short straw this time, as our horses were clearly the only ‘special’ ones. The others had a whale of a time, arriving back at the hostel a good 20 minutes before us, having galloped all the way. To look on the bright side though, the scenery was absolutely gorgeous although, if I were to do it again, it probably would have been nicer to spend my time hiking instead of swearing at an uncooperative horse.

Activity number three was inevitable. How can one visit Cotopaxi National Park without visiting Cotopaxi? This expedition – not to the summit but to the volcano’s glacier - was made on the way to destination two: Banos. And it was no mean feat, all 5000 m of it! We were transported by 4WD from the hostel to the volcano ‘car park’ perched at about 4,200 m, from which point we were on our own. The altitude was reminiscent of the Inca Trail days, but higher - 700 m higher! We were really feeling it when we finally reached the glacier but the head spins, windburn and breathlessness was well worth it, and there were even a few minutes there when the clouds cleared and we could see the summit. The hike down was a molehill compared to the one up. It took a whole ten minutes to get back to the 4WD – what had taken an hour to get up - quite an effort in my I-haven’t-done-real-exercise-in-months books!

With sore bums and legs from the horse riding and mountain climbing, we felt we owed ourselves a day of rest in Banos, but one day only it was. Having pampered ourselves with massages, facials and pedicures on a weekend visit from Santa Marta, we vowed and declared that this time we would be more active. While the boys opted for an afternoon of white water rafting, we hired bikes and explored the ‘Avenida de las Cascadas’ - the road between Banos and Puyo, which is scattered with waterfalls. We spent around 6 hours riding from waterfall to waterfall, trekking fair distances on foot to some and riding speedy cable cars to others. We’d hoped to make it all the way to Puyo but discovered that this bike-riding thing is painful business. All I’ll say is that I now understand why many women ride with sheepskin on their bike seats, we’d had quite enough after six hours! I was very impressed by the truck driver who took all twenty-something of us back to Banos, what a balancing act that was!

While we did make the most of the Banos nightlife – which included hanging out with two British guys with an unhealthy obsession with karaoke – we maintained our active streak as well. On our last afternoon, we climbed to Banos’ impressive Virgin monument. After an hour of huffing and puffing up what felt like a million stairs, passing teenage lovers along the way, we reached the top and were rewarded with an impressive view of the colourful town, the perfect ending to our last day in Banos. The following day we would wake at 6.30am and part ways with the coast bound boys for destination three: Cuenca.

Cuenca is known as the city that rivals Quito in the colonial architecture stakes. Boasting not one, but two Cathedrals – Catedral Vieja (old) and Catedral Nueva (new) – along with a number of old churches and plazas, it is a strong competitor to the country’s capital. You only need one day in Cuenca to enjoy the sites and we packed it into half a day. We visited both Cathedrals, the new one definitely more striking than its unused counterpart (kudos to the architects!) We walked through the ‘Mercado de las Flores’ (flower market) and saw just why Ecuador is one of the world’s largest flower exporters; and we strolled down the pleasant ‘Rio Tomebamba’ before heading to the bus station for our next venture: a three hour bus ride to Ingapirca.

Now, labelling Ingapirca the ‘Machu Picchu of Ecuador’ is a pretty big deal and, having been to Machu Picchu a few months ago, we were expecting big things, the crème de la crème of ruins type things. I was also interested in the history behind these particular ruins, which are influenced by two cultures, the Canaris and the Incas. The latter apparently sent all the former men to Cusco while they moved in on the Canaris women – nice! I’ve become accustomed to some guidebooks over-exaggerating the wow factor of places, maybe if a writer hits a boring city or perhaps just wants to spice things up. I think, however, this took the cake in terms of over-exaggeration - anthropologists shut your eyes. Maybe it was the fact that we were told we had 40 minutes to explore the place before the last bus to Cuenca left (a tad annoying, given the amount of time it took to get there); perhaps it was that the ruins were a mere 100km squared, but this place was totally underwhelming and was certainly no Machu Picchu (as you can see from th pic). The most enjoyment we had was laughing at a Llama orgy happening on the grassy centre while watching our tour guide try to keep a straight face!

Apart from the ruins, we had a few ups and downs in Cuenca: a bed bug scare (we came out on top after switching beds), and some very bad Mexican at a restaurant labeled, again by a trusty guidebook, as one that ‘could very well be the best Mexican restaurant in Ecuador’. If the best Mexican food in Ecuador consists of a soggy tortilla stuffed with a can of refried beans with a drizzle of suspicious looking ‘guacamole’ then, sure, we hit the jackpot! The definite up to the downs was the meal we enjoyed at a restaurant called Eucalyptus on our last night in Cuenca. The charming British chef made a delicious pasta marinara for me and Chicken vindaloo curry for Bec, which all went down very nicely with a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. A satisfying end to a busy week!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Ok, so there weren't any tigers but there were four lions (actually six, after the birth of two cubs), and a paddington bear look-alike who scaled the walls of his enclosure like a mini MacGyver. Only in Ecuador (or South America generally) could you volunteer to work so closely with these types of animals. I refer to the last two weeks spent at the Santa Marta Animal Rescue Centre. In previous posts I've erroneously referred to this place as an animal sanctuary, which it's not. Tucked away on a dairy farm and reached via a very bumpy ride in the back of a truck to high above the small town of Tambillo, this place works closely with the Ecuadorian police to rescue animals, many of which have suffered some form of abuse or have been kept illegally in domestic homes. If possible, once the animals have been rescued and often brought back to good health, the centre prepares them for release into the wild or at least to rehabilitation centres or zoos.

A quick tour of the place on our first day confirmed the type of work the centre does. There's Barbosa, a majestic ex-circus lion with one cloudy blue eye, blinded after it was whipped. There's Brenda, a beautiful jaguar that despises humans after her 'owner' continually poked and prodded her so she would growl for snap-happy tourists. You can see the animosity in her eyes as she stares you down while pacing in her enclosure, there's no way you'd come out of that cage alive! Then there's the amazing Galapagos turtles, one of which had his shell used as a shooting target, and by shooting I mean with a gun. And everybody loves the always-energetic Coatis that crawl up and kiss you on the neck, but you can't help but notice the one missing an eye. He lost his eye when his 'owner' got impatient and used it as a cigarette stub.

These stories were just a few of the terrible accounts we heard. There are other types of sad though, not the out-right abuse kind, but the stories of animals so far domesticated that they are beyond help and will never be released back into the wild. These animals include two woolly monkeys. Both arrived separately having been fed with bottles and kept in nappies. One even puts his hands over his face like a crying baby to get attention. There's also Leo and Pumana, two beautiful pumas that were kept as pets and can be pat through their enclosure just like domestic cats but cannot be contacted directly, as their idea of 'playing' could kill or seriously injure you - they are pumas after all. Then there are the countless talking birds, nick-named the 'hola birds'. They will never be released into the wild purely because they could threaten whole ecosystems by introducing Spanish/English words to natural habitats.

So it was an eye-opener from the first day and my first 24 hours was a mixed bag. Before cleaning out the mammals’ enclosures, I was an accidental witness to a donkey being slaughtered for the sake of a lion, something that happens a couple of times a week here. Luckily I didn’t have to be part of the machete-armed team that carved it up, as nobody has to kill an animal if they don’t want to at Santa Marta. I was then on ‘cub watch’, making sure the two cubs that were born hours after we arrived made it through the night. The centre owner was concerned they wouldn’t because they were the offspring of a circus lion which may have been inbred but, two weeks later, they are still going strong and the plan is for them to be airlifted to a nearby animal rehabilitation centre. I can’t say I’ve ever approached a new mother lioness in the middle of the night with a torch before, but I’ll tell what, you she will roar if you get too close to her cubs (which I had to in order to see they were still breathing). Now that was a tad scary!

During the week we’d work from 8am-1pm and then 4pm-6pm and had weekends off after feeding the animals on Saturday mornings. The days were long and the breaks cherished, particularly after sometimes hours of physical work deconstructing cages or lugging buckets of puma poo from their enclosure to a waste-pit 400m away (that’s some heavy shit…). We were lucky to have two lovely roommates - Iza from Poland and Andrea from Portugal - to share laughs, recipes and beers with. Iza was particularly taken by the popular Australian dish of ‘fairy bread’ – I’ll call it a dish (bread, butter and sprinkles). Bec and I produced it on ‘cake night’, a Thursday night centre ritual.

The highlights? I definitely had a few favourite animals - both woolly monkeys and the amazing Galapagos turtles, which were surprisingly full of personality and loved a rub on the chin. The contact had with the pumas was a once in a lifetime experience too. We also had a weekend in Banos, a gorgeous little town hidden in a valley three hours from Tambillo with a reputation for massage therapy, so you can guess what went down there. On one of our last days we had to say goodbye to around 45 animals, most of them birds but some of them a fair bit bigger. One lovely memory I have is of the delighted smile on local cab driver Danilo’s face when he was recruited to help an eight-man team heave a sleeping (tranquillised) lion up to his cab which was that day loaded not with people, but a zoo-worthy cargo. Imagine passing that taxi on the highway, another only-in-South-America moment!

Of course there were the downsides too, caring for animals you knew had not long to live, such as rabbits and guinea pigs, often menu items for the animals. Bec and I had a morning of chopping up the bottom end of a guinea pig we’d fed the day before. But I guess the snapper turtle we were preparing it for had to eat something, just like the lions, jaguar and pumas. We also volunteered to take shifts feeding a very sick rabbit that had contracted an infection during pregnancy and were there at 2am when she decided to fly the coup and go to bunny heaven, us still holding her. Then there was the misogynistic macaw, ‘Evil bird’, as named by previous volunteers. He hated woman and would attack any female that came near him. Evil bird, however, had no issues with men or police, and police sometimes have to drive their car a little way up the driveway before getting in, in order to get away from the bird, which always wants to come too. Maybe the police saved Evil bird from a wicked female owner, who knows?!

So you can see, Santa Marta is an experience in itself, so many charismatic animals with different personalities. I would recommend it to any animal lover who is willing to work hard and doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty…very dirty!