Day 221: Last Day in Guayaquil

I visited another archeology museum this morning. They explained something I had already seen, but not understood, in yesterday's museum: whistling bottles. This is one of them:



These bottles have two holes. A big one to fill or empty the bottle, and a small one hidden somewhere. In the picture above, it is just below the chin of the figurine. Now, when the bottle is filled or emptied, air goes out (or in) through the small hole, and this creates a whistling sound. Fascinating!

Next to whistling bottles, the museum also had a collection of other musical instruments, like these flutes made from bone:



The last room of the museum was dedicated to gold work, or orfebrería in Spanish (I love learning strange new words). What made this part particularly interesting was that they not only showed various pieces of jewelry, but also explained how these had been worn by putting old clay statues next to the gold exhibits.

Finally, there a few golden death masks on display, like this one:



Beautiful work, isn't it?

In the afternoon, I got together with two of my CELTA course mates. Seems I got lucky there again: at least with these two, I'll get along very well :-)

Day 220: Independence Day

Today was a national holiday in Ecuador: the anniversary of the battle of Pichincha in 1822, leading to independence from Spain.

As you would expect on a big national holiday, the city was pretty much closed down. Most shops were closed, and there was considerably less traffic on the streets, giving me a bit of much-needed relief from the usually crazy noise levels.

The two parts of the city that luckily were not closed down were coffee shops and museums. Sitting in Sweet & Coffee - an Ecuadorian coffee chain - for my morning coffee, I noticed the big wall painting they had:



Do you see what's weird about this mural? Don't worry, I'll tell you: Ecuador has more than 70% indigenous and mestizo population. The only spot where they are represented in the mural are the two vendors in front, and maybe the employees in the back. All the guests are white. I wonder what this says about the company's self-image?

After the coffee, I visited the museum for anthropology and contemporary art - a bit of a weird combination, don't you think? The museum, like a few others I've seen in Ecuador, is funded by the central bank. They are all very well-done, modern museums and are free to visit. This made me wonder: since the central bank of Ecuador doesn't have a currency to worry about, has it started to create excellent museums as a coping strategy?

The museum actually turned out to be quite interesting. The anthropology section gave a detailed overview of pre-Spanish Ecuadorian history. For example, the Valdivia culture created lots and lots of these small Venus figures, thought to be fertility symbols and used in religious offerings:



Another nice exhibit were these massive beer jugs:



Of course, they didn't say these were actual beer jugs (I'm not sure if they even had beer here back then?), but that's the impression I got ;-)

Just across the street was another museum, honoring the history of firefighting in Guayaquil. The museum exhibited an impressive collection of fire trucks from different periods. Some of them were open for visitors to pose in, so that's what I did, of course:



Another much older exhibit was this beautiful steam fire engine, introduced to Guayaquil around the beginning of the twentieth century:

Day 219: More Guayaquil

Today I visited two more big malls in a quest to find a certain type of insect repellent. Though one of the malls is said to be one of South America's biggest, there was a sad lack of outdoor shops. The pharmacies didn't help either: they just had more of the same products they have in all of their chain stores.

Nevertheless, the bus ride to the malls was quite interesting because I got a closer look at the madness of traffic in Guayaquil. The honking wasn't as bad as it was in Lima, but with the extra-loud bus engine, open windows, and hundreds of cars surrounding the bus on six to eight lanes, the noise level was way too high for me. Add to that the manner of driving - squeezing into full lanes, cutting corners, and people jumping on and off in the middle of the road - I was happy that most of the time I choose to not take the inner-city buses.

With a bus ride like that, I was especially grateful to find a more quiet place again, even if it was a church ;-)

The cathedral of Guayaquil is a huge and imposing building - and a relatively new one: it was completed around 1950, after the previous one had burned down in a big fire.



The statue in front is Simon Bolívar, one of the heroes of South America that is honored in many countries.

Inside the cathedral, it seemed like technology had caught up with the church: there were lights embedded at the bottoms of all the columns, and on many of them there were flat screens - do they really think it's that important that everyone gets a good closeup of the priest in front?

Day 218: Guayaquil

Today I moved to a different hostel in the city center and started exploring downtown Guayaquil. Walking along the Malecón, the waterfront promenade, I stumbled upon a small military parade. I stopped to watch and listen for a bit, and found out that the event was held in honor of the Chilean national hero Arturo Prat. I found this is highly interesting: the countries that have borders with Chile - most notably Peru and Bolivia - are usually not big friends with Chile due to territorial losses they suffered in wars with Chile. Ecuador, on the other hand, without border disputes with Chile, seems to be very friendly with them. One speaker emphasized the friendship between the two countries' armed forces and claimed Arturo Prat to be an important role model even for Ecuadorians.



At the end of the Malecón, I took the stairs up to a small hill, Cerro Santa Ana. The staircase seems to bee a big tourist attraction. Each of the 444 steps is numbered, there are separate lanes for ascending and descending people, and the entire thing is lined with bars and restaurants. Luckily, it seems that it is not high season right now, so the place wasn't overrun, and I had enough peace and quiet to enjoy the colorful houses on either side of the stairs.



At the top, there is an old lighthouse that serves as a tourist viewpoint today. Climbing it reveals a beautiful view over another hill in the Las Peñas neighborhood, also covered in houses of various colors. The contrast between old houses and modern collections of antennae on top is also fascinating:



My next stop was the Parque Seminario, also dubbed iguana park. The reason for this became obvious very quickly: there were iguanas all over the park. Living in an inner-city park, they were not shy at all and regularly seemed to stop what they were doing and pose for photos for a while.



They seemed to consider the park their home, and rather graciously allowed humans to use it too - for example to sit on the park benches that had surely been installed to give them shade ;-)



The pigeons, however, were another story: whenever one of them was picking on food, it was quickly chased away by an iguana wanting to inspect the food. A very funny sight!

Days 215-217: Studying in Guayaquil

I mostly stayed in to read these three days. I figured I could maybe lighten my load during the CELTA course that starts next Monday - it's been advertised as super intensive - if I knew the course materials beforehand. That way, my head also has some more time to wrap itself around the new terminology and abbreviations used in English language teaching (apparently referred to as ELT - and that's one of the more straightforward abbreviations...)

Pretty much the only thing I did outside of the hostel was visit one of the nearby malls to drink coffee and shop for groceries. Yes, you read right: there was more than one mall within easy walking distance! They were spacious, air-conditioned, and western-looking - it seems that currency is not the only aspect where Ecuador resembles, or tries to resemble, the United States. But in fact, I rather liked them - a little bit of cool relief from the humid heat in Guayaquil :-)

Day 214: To Guayaquil

Today it was time to say goodbye to Cuenca, and to the German bakery I had found not far from my hostel. The bakery is run by Germans and has a wonderful selection of German-style bread. I tried the curd-and-flaxseed variant - heavenly! So I wanted to take the opportunity and stock up on yummy German bread to take with me to Guayaquil - you never know when you might find the next good bakery on this continent ;-)

Alas, when I got to the bakery in the morning, I found out that it was Saturday, and the bakery closed. Damn!

Like many travelers, I often lose track of dates and days of the week. Surprisingly, I rarely have problems with closed shops or unavailable services - which probably explains why I don't make more of an effort to remember what day it is ;-)

Day 213: Parque Nacional El Cajas

Close to Cuenca, there is one of Ecuador's many national parks, the Parque Nacional El Cajas. The park is said to be lovely for multi-day hikes, but since I'm not really into camping, I chose to explore it on a one-day tour.

The highest point we visited in the park, at 4300 meters of altitude, is a very interesting point: the water divide. All water to the west of this point ends up in the Pacific, the water east of it in the Atlantic.

This is the view from up there, looking to the Pacific side, I believe:



Although the landscape looks rather brownish from afar, there is an incredible richness in plants and flowers. Many of them are medicinal plants, others are venomous, and others are simply cute, like this tiny ball-shaped flower:



The park has over 200 lakes, and more than 700 minor pools of water. We did a small hike to explore two of the bigger lakes. This is lake Pataquinoa:



And this one is called Totora - named for the totora plants growing in the lake. The sound of the reeds quietly rustling in the wind made the lake feel utterly peaceful and tranquil.



A little further, we saw mushrooms growing on some of the moss-covered stones. I loved their shape and colors:



At lunch, we were served Canelazo, the typical drink of the highlands. Made from sugarcane liquor and cinnamon, it instantly became my new favorite drink - can't resist beverages containing cinnamon ;-)

Day 212: "Panama" hats and city views

In the morning, I went to visit the museum for the manufacture of the hats commonly known as Panama hats. As I found out, these hats are actually traditional hats from Ecuador. Their name comes from the fact that back in the day, all exported hats went through the big sea port of Panama - and that name somehow stuck to the hats. The frustration about the misleading name seems to run deep. At some point, the manufacturers even started adding seals to the hats specifying Ecuador as the country of origin.

The hats are all hand-weaved from plant fiber. The difference between cheap and expensive hats is determined by the quality of the fiber: very thin fiber looks better and takes a lot longer to weave, and so is more expensive.



Only after the weaving is finished, the hats receive their final shape using a machine that applies pressure and hot steam. The guide in the museum - that is actually just an add-on to a manufactory - even did a live demonstration of the machine. Very interesting!



In the afternoon, I did a city tour in an open-top bus (once again). The most interesting part was the stop at the Tori mirador where we could enjoy nice views of Cuenca:



Back in town, the central plaza is dominated by two cathedrals. The new one was completed in 1885. Apparently some mistake on the architect's side resulted in two rather short bell towers - the building wouldn't have been strong enough to support the intended size of the towers.



The old cathedral, from the 16th century, is on the other side of the plaza and serves as a religious museum nowadays.



I wonder what made them build a new cathedral? The old one seems rather fine to me...

Day 211: Still in Cuenca

On my second day in Ecuador, I felt it was time to visit some museums and start exploring Ecuadorian history. My first stop in the morning was the museum of aboriginal cultures, which boasts to have more than 5000 exhibits. I thought they would be better off if they removed some of the exhibits and added some more explanations. In terms of learning about history, this apparently wasn't the place to start. Nevertheless, they had some interesting pieces, such as these big jars with heads and hands:



In the afternoon, I visited the central bank's museum. The museum is huge, but the only part with any connection to the central bank is the numismatic museum. It has a comprehensive collection of Ecuadorian coins and bills. The only point where the museum's explanations suddenly fall short is where the switch from Ecuador's old currency, the Sucre, to the US dollar is concerned. Maybe this isn't something the central bank is particularly proud of?

The other parts of the museum include an archeological part explaining the history of settlements in Ecuador, and an ethnographic part with exhibits from many of Ecuador's indigenous peoples.

The museum also has an outdoor part - the ruins of Pumapungo, the inca settlement preceding the founding of Cuenca. When the Spanish arrived, the buildings of Pumapungo already lay in ruins due to the civil war caused by two brothers fighting for the right to rule. This means that in terms of ruins, there wasn't all that much to see. However, the gardens and agriculture on the site have been recreated according to old descriptions. I found it fascinating to see the variety of plants and animals that seem to have been cultivated by the inca.



In a misguided attempt to recreate the location as closely as possible, however, they felt compelled to build an aviary with all the exotic birds - macaws, toucans, and others - that supposedly populated the site in inca times. I hate seeing imprisoned animals! This one, for example, was forced to live in a cage with a diameter of about three times its wingspan...

Day 210: Cuenca

My first full day in Ecuador! Walking around Cuenca's historical center, I am pleased to report that the first impression couldn't have been more favorable. The beautiful and well-kept facades are a sight for sore eyes.



The cost of living in Ecuador seems to be moderate: there are three course lunch deals for 2.50 dollars, haircuts for four dollars, and free entries to several museums.

Dollars? Yes, the US Dollar is the official currency in Ecuador. The funny thing is that next to US coins, there are also Ecuadorian coins in circulation.

One of the free museums is the museum of modern art. It is housed in a former insane asylum, which makes for a peculiar atmosphere. Several of the sculptures exhibited have their own room - tiny chambers that once served to confine people deemed insane. I really liked some of the sculptures. Look at the parts the artists used on this one, for example - the head is part of a bicycle gear shift mechanism :-)



Like so many South American cities, Cuenca is blessed with a multitude of churches. What struck me when I glanced inside the cathedral was the apparent difference to the last one I had seen in Lima. In Lima, the figures on the altars were all dressed up in the typical South American fashion, whereas in Cuenca European-style stone statues dominated.

Day 209: On to Ecuador

So after four days of relaxing, I decided to get moving again and say goodbye to Peru.

Ten hours and three different buses later, I arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador.

The journey was rather uneventful, except maybe for the huge strip of no-mans-land between the Peruvian and Ecuadorian border posts. It was so big, in fact, that an entire city sat in between the lines. Must be some kind of smuggler's heaven, I guess ;-)

Days 205 to 208: Vacation in Máncora

Máncora is a small beach town in the north of Peru. Since it's been far too long since my last couple of do-nothing-days, I took this opportunity to take a break. I treated myself to four well-deserved days of reading, lying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, eating good food, enjoying beautiful sunsets - and not writing blog posts ;-)

Day 204: Trujillo

There were no direct buses from Huaraz to my next destination, the beach town Máncora. So the best way to go was with a connection in Trujillo. My bus arrived there at about five in the morning, and the bus to Máncora left at eight in the evening - with another bus company from another terminal at the other end of town, of course ;-)

This left me with an entire day in Trujillo - luckily I could store my backpack at the bus company's office, otherwise the day wouldn't have been much fun. I was early enough to easily make it to the main square, the Plaza de Armas, in time for sunrise. Whoever said that the best photos are usually taken within an hour of sunrise or sunset definitely had a point:

My next stop, after killing some time waiting for the opening hours, was the toy museum. They had a collection of delightful old toys, many of them bringing to mind sweet childhood memories. Like this model train - I'm pretty sure we had one that, at the very least, looked incredibly similar.

The historical center of Trujillo has apparently been spared from any natural disasters, and so there are many nice colonial buildings to look at. Especially the white gratings in front of the windows seem to be a Trujillo specialty. They can be seen with different patterns all over town.

Some of the colonial houses are open to the public, housing anything from banks to small museums. This one had some great old furniture and chandeliers, recreating the grand interior all of these houses must have had.

Trujillo also has an archeological museum displaying mostly ceramics from the earliest settlements until after the Spanish conquest. I was very impressed by the craftsmanship with which the ceramics were made and the amount of detail in every item.

But, what impressed me most was the one display case with pieces from after the Spanish conquest: these were suddenly not finely crafted and painted anymore, but rather crude, at about the level of skill a ten year old kid exhibits after two hours of instruction (I know, because we did some pottery at school when I was ten... and the results were not very elegant). This sudden decline in ceramics quality, after thousands of years of very fine work, really surprised me.

I also spent quite a bit of time just reading in the shade on the Plaza de Armas, and in between admiring the view on all sides of the plaza - like this one with Trujillo's cathedral:

Day 203: Llanganuco

Today I did a tour to the Llanganuco sector of Huascarán national park. This sector, besides having a few beautiful lakes, also includes Huascarán mountain, offering perfect views like this one:

The right peak is Huascarán South, Peru's highest peak, and the left one is Huascarán North, only slightly lower than its sibling.

I took the picture above from the location where there used to be the town of Yungay. In 1970, a strong earthquake made a piece of Huascarán North break off. The resulting avalanche buried Yungay within seconds, killing thousands of people. The ground today is eight meters higher than it was before the event.

This can be seen very well at Yungay's cemetery, a multi-level structure built on a hill. The first two levels were buried completely, while the upper levels were affected only by the earthquake, but not by the avalanche. The few people who survived were the ones who had been in the cemetery and were able to make it to the upper levels in time.

Proceeding into the national park, there were gorgeous views of several peaks in the Cordillera Blanca:

And then, finally, the perfectly turquoise Lago Chinancocha:

In the evening, I left Huaraz with a night bus. As I am still in the process of getting rid of a cold, I didn't do a single hike in the Cordillera Blanca - what a shame!

Day 202: Pastoruri

During my second tour in the surroundings of Huaraz today, I found out that sometimes it is hard to distinguish whether a guide is telling you a fairy tale or the truth. A good example for this is the reason why the Cordillera Blanca and neighboring Cordillera Negra carry their names (which mean white and black mountain range respectively). One of the guides said this was due to the color of the stones found in each of the mountain ranges: one has white stones and the other black ones. The other guide told another story: he said the naming was because one has snow-capped peaks and the other doesn't. Both stories seem credible, but which is The Truth?

Anyway, the first stop on our tour was a spot where ice-cold water bubbled up from beautifully colored ground, made perfect by the mountains in the background.

One thing that bothered me, however, was that the guide claimed that the face of Christ could be seen on the mountainside. Sorry to all believers, but what a bullshit! Why should it be Christ, and not Manco Capac, or Evo Morales, or Julius Cesar, for that matter? This continent is exceedingly and irrationally catholic, if you ask me.

At the second stop, we could see a curiously shaped plant called Puya Raimondi:

And then, finally, we arrived at the base of Pastoruri glacier - or rather at the parking lot from where we had to hike uphill for 40 minutes to see the glacier. In itself, this sounds rather harmless, but consider this: the parking lot is at about 4800 meters of altitude, and the glacier between 5000 and 5200 meters. A new altitude record for me!

The glacier is extremely beautiful, but, sadly, melting at an alarming rate. In the past 35 years, it has lost more than one fifth of its size, says the Peruvian Times! So I'm really glad I got to see it while there is still something to see. Here are some more pictures:

Day 201: Huaraz Market

As I passed by the central market today, I decided to go in and have a look. After Bolivia, the entire experience really shouldn't have come as a surprise, but somehow I was as impressed by this market as by the first I'd seen in Bolivia.

The market consisted of many small stalls all located in a big market building, complete with roof and all.

The stalls were grouped in aisles by the type of wares on sale. There was an aisle with cow parts, many of them well identifiable as snouts cut in half, or as feet. Another aisle had chickens. Entire chickens, minus the feathers, but with head, beak and feet, hanging from a rope with a hook through the head. Then there were sacks of live guinea pigs waiting to be sold, slaughtered and served. And the next aisle... sold clothing. And children's toys. And in the back, the fish stalls were arranged so that the rest of the market could profit from the smell as much as possible.

After the market, I went to lunch - but I might have wandered through the city for a bit before deciding on a restaurant, just to clear my nose ;-)

Day 200: Chavín

Today I went on a tour to explore the archeological site of Chavín. The rather long bus ride was broken up by a visit to the gorgeous Laguna Querococha. Its greenish color and the snow-capped mountains in the back made for a wonderful break.



Our next stop after about three hours in the bus was then the Chavín de Huántar temple, capital of the Chavín culture and world heritage site.



The temple is rather old - much older than any Inca buildings: its construction took place about one millennium before Christ. In a region with frequent earthquakes, it appears almost miraculous that it is still standing. But the Chavín, like the Inca much later, knew how to construct buildings in an anti-seismic manner: walls are inclined between five and seven degrees to the inside, and trapezoidal stones were used. In this manner, the outside wall looked smooth, and the smaller stones used as a filling on the inside gave flexibility and thus stability in case of an earthquake.

Another reason making it special is its lack of any obvious doors or windows. The entrances were located on the roof and ventilation in the temple was ensured by an ingenious system of ventilation ducts and air exchange with the river that was tunneled under the temple.

The rather steep stairs in all parts of the temple were not done like this because the people were particularly tall, but rather to make them do small bows with every step, as a gesture of reverence.

The Chavín people believed, like many Andean cultures succeeding them, in three aspects of the world, and therefore had three deities top represent them. The bird, often depicted as condor or eagle, represented the world above: the sky and stars. The cat, often a jaguar, represented the world on earth. Finally, the serpent stood for the underworld. The three deities were often included in a single anthropomorphic statue, with a bird's eyes, serpent's hair, and a cat's mouth, like this:



Since there were no windows in the temple, it must have been pretty dark inside. Today, everything that can be visited has electric light, of course. But in ancient times, the shamans and temple visitors had to use different means. According to our guide, they ingested the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus (containing mescaline, among other substances) to not only generate hallucinations, but also to dilate their pupils and thus be able to navigate the temple.

The temple has different galleries, all with their own entrance and slightly different architecture. This is one of them:



In another one, this statue, called the Lanzón, was found. With its feline head and human body, it is thought to represent a deity, or perhaps a shaman turned feline through the consumption of hallucinogenic substances.



As a method to control the population and keep them in awe of the deities, the shamans could use the ventilation ducts as a musical instrument. They knew exactly those seven notes we use today, and could use the system to generate, for example, the roar of a jaguar. The simple folk believed their god was talking to them and then relied on the shamans to interpret the god's wishes.



One of the most distinguishing features of Chavín were the tenon heads, protruding from the temple walls. These, again, have feline faces.



To me, the heads appeared somewhat similar to the ones I saw in the sunken temple of Tiwanaku. When I asked the guide about it, she explained that the Chavín were predecessors of the Tiwanaku, and that their influence stretched as far as lake Titicaca. Wikipedia doesn't have anything on that connection, however, and also states that the Chavín influence was much smaller. So the guide's explanation might simply have been a tale to satisfy the curious tourist, or maybe wikipedia is incomplete, who knows ;-)