Tour Diary, First Act
The first day: The flight
I had flu. My usual luck in the tours, I thought. I strolled around in the Munich airport, considering if I should buy hot chocolate or tee. "Jari!", I heard someone saying. I watched around, saw only one finnish-looking man, whom I didn't know. I started to mumble something in Finnish. He answered in German, he was Peter, one of my tourpartners to be. He had recognised me from the Hauser-badge, and managed to call me so right, I thought he had to be a Finn! The last "Weißbier" for the next 19 days for Peter, and to the plane (I would surely have joined Peter, but the flu).
In Amsterdam airport we were about to meet the other people. That wasn't organised actually, so some of us met there, some not. A couple of hours waiting, to be able to sit in the jet for the coming 16 hours. Luckily we could get out in Curacao, and walk around a little. As well as astounded watch how the local people ran to the toilets - to take care of the make-up.
The second day: Quito
At last in Quito. With a glimpse of a couple of mountains on top of the clouds. The airport in Quito is really in the city, not many kilometers from the center. We met our local guide, Camilo from Campus Trekking, with Marjolein (who knew all of us by name straight away!) and the trustworthy driver Carlos.
The hotel Rio Amazonas was not bad at all. There we met with Bernd Loppow (strikingly in a suit, while we all others were very casual), the man from Die Zeit. A couple of hours relaxing followed. My roommate Sigi showed me a glimpse of Cotopaxi, before it was behind the clouds. I became hungry, so I looked for (and found!) a decent restaurant where I ate the local standard: "Pollo Asado con Papas", that is, fried chicken with french fries. Tasty was it. There I experienced some of the results of the currency reform, where Ecuador buried the former Sucre, and began to use the U.S. Dollar. A local man from a nearby table came to me and asked, if the coin he had really was one Dollar. Yes, it was. It is difficult for the local people to recognize the different coins.
In the afternoon we made a tour in the old city center, with the lead of Mary and Nelson. All our guides spoke astoundedly good German! It began to rain and wind, which took some of our enthusiasm away. Quito is a nice city with the old monasteries and churches, but so are many other places, too, I have to say.
My evening plan was to meet with a finnish couple who lived in Quito, and were relatives to my finnish friends in Munich. They had a sauna! Well, it was a turkish sauna, but very relaxing anyway. After that a great homemade dinner, and I was ready to fall asleep. Luckily Jeremias drove me back to the hotel before I really dropped.3rd Day: Cloud Forest & the Ecuator
We drove North-West from Quito to visit a cloud forest park Pahuma. On the way we saw a new oil pipeline, and Peter Korneffel, a Die Zeit correspondent in South America, told us how controversial and problematic the project is.
The park was at about 1800m elevation, that is, almost 1000m lower than Quito, and it was also warmer. In two groups, lead by Mary and Nelson, we walked through a path, and admired the vegatation with orchids as well as ferns, and of course all the colibris.
On the way back to Quito we visited two memorials for the ecuator: the official (bigger and duller) and the one made by the indios, and surrounded by a nice outdoor museum. The tests with e.g. coreolis and egg were partly boring, partly fascinating (Paul and I succeeded in putting an egg standing on top of a nail!).
Not often have I stood one foot on the northern hemisphere, the other one on the southern!
At this evening we began with the talks, which we had then every night before dinner. Mostly it was Reinhold, who explained us about the themes that interested him and us.
In the evening we had a dinner in El Monasterio, as the name says, an old monastery. A nice big place, and the food was also not so bad. The thing with wine was interesting: I ordered a half carafe white wine and got a jug with more than a liter! The waiters then came and served from that jug also other guests, which was totally ok with me, I had enough!
After the dinner the others went sleeping, but I thought I had the only chance to check the salsa dancing scene in Quito. I found my way to Seseribo (the crossing of 12 de Octubre and Veintimilla, no website found), a nice place with good salsa music. Only salsa, the whole night! I learned that here people dance mostly separated, just simple steps. Some pairs had although really nice moves, it was a great show, also.
The 4th Day: Panamericana
We left Quito for the next two weeks. First stop in Conocoto, the home town of Campus Trekking near Quito, to arrange mountain equipment for some of us. Then a long drive south on Panamericana, over the highest point of the road at 3500m. The road was surprisingly wide, mostly without lines. The traffic ran smoothly, the cars could easily take over, everyone gave room to others.
Visit in the market of Latacunga. Plenty of fruits, clothes etc. And an open air slaughtery (I have a picture, but chose not to put it here...)
After still a long drive we reached the home place of Marco Cruz, a friend of Reinholds, who had invited us all to visit him and his family. The house of the Cruzs' was a big contrast to what we had seen outside of Quito. It was simply a beautiful combination of wood, stone and brick. We learned that Marco Cruz had himself been the architect. My compliments. The Pisco sour was a good appetizer, unfortunately we had to still wait before the dinner.
Then we arrived to Hostería Andaluza, where we would sleep total three nights, but not subsequent!
The 5th Day: Alao Village Festival
On this day we drove to Alao, the village on the edge of the Sangay national park, whose development project would be presented to us. But first a stop in Licto, again a market, this time smaller and much nicer than the previous one in Latacunga. By this time we had company, a film crew from an southamerican TV channel. They would accompany us some days to document the visit of Reinhold Messner. And a little bit us others, too.
Then a drive through Alao, still about five kilometers on a really small road - or path - before we reached our camping place. There we met our "backup-crew" the first time, the cooks and so on. Rosa, Fausto, Santiago, Marco and Manolo would be taking care of our bodily needs for the next two weeks, and that unbelievably well!
A hike back to Alao would have been nicer, had there been a path along the small river. Instead we had to walk on the muddy road. It started also to rain, of course.
The way we were welcomed in Alao was unexpected, the whole village had gathered together and gave us applause. We were offered camping chairs, the local people had to stand. The welcome festival started. Of course, many friendly speeches, the language varying from spanish through english to german, followed by numerous dance, music and other presentations. Charming was it.
We learned that the local people in the village hadn't themselves built up the development project, there were a couple of enthusiastic people who had built up the iniative: Marco Cevallos, an architect from Quito, and Paolo Catelan, a cosmologist from Italy, who had landed there. We could only hope, there would we active and talented people enough from Alao itself, to carry the development further. From us they got the feeling, someone in the world notices and cares. Of course, we gave also some money in a collection that Bernd K. so well organised.
For dinner a special treat was prepared for us: "gui", or in english, guinea-pig. Unfortunately it was cold, and didn't taste that good. Many of us agreed, though, that hot, straight from the grill it would surely had been tasty. We had also a big selection of salads, fruits and chicken.
The 6th Day: Hike in Sangay park
At last a real hike! We walked up in the Sangay national park, almost 500 elevation meters. The scenery was nice, specially in the upper part with all the grass mounds and creeks. Unfortunately the path was mostly wery muddy. After the lunchbreak I descended speedily, I wanted to test my condition after the flu. Back down I washed in the river, thinking I would later be indoors. But in the camping place was nothing but our bus left. I heard that the others, who hadn't ascended with us, would be in Alao. So, in Alao walked I, too. There I found no one. The locals didn't know either, where my tourpartners would be. I was tired, hungry and thirsty, even somewhat dizzy. At last came the bus with the rest of the group, farther on the road did we find also the lost ones. We drove back to Hostería Andaluza. I didn't really recover the whole evening.
The 7th Day: The Ice Men
Our hiking tour was about to begin. Early up, breakfast and a short drive to the Urbina hut, a base station for Chimborazo and Carihuairazo mountains. Rodrigo Donoso keeps the old railway station as a guest house, as well as two other facilities around Chimborazo. After leaving our luggage there, that is, the "check-in", we drove further up, near Chimborazo. At 3800 elevation we parked the bus and met with the "Ice Men", brothers Juan and Gregorio, the last ones who climbed up to Chimborazo, mined ice from the glacier, and sold it down in the village. Earlier there had been up to 80 men who did that.
We climbed up to the "ice mine", at about 4800m elevation. Juan and Gregorio did their job, rolling the ice chunks in hay and sail made from hay. Impressive.
I got the change to try it out myself also.
Back down, enjoying the sun and the view of Chimborazo coming from behind the clouds. Not enjoying the headache that I got on the way down, and that got really nasty in the evening. Many others had headache, too. The experts said it was more probably because of sun and drinking too little, than the height. Based on my earlier experiences with warmth, sun and thirst, I'm convinced it was mostly the height. During the dinner my nose bleeded also. In the next morning the headache was gone. This was the only problem, or symptom, that I had with acclimatisation on the whole tour, of which I'm of course grateful.