23) Last Minute Plans and Montañita!

The next morning slightly worse for wear, we were awoken by Paul coming back from another last minute meeting. Him and Alejandra would be leaving that day and we could either accompany him to Quito or have the weekend off.
The Gods were working in our favour that day. I'd had a message that very morning inviting us to a place on the coast called Montañita with a whole flock of Americans, and we'd been told enough about the place (probably Ecuador's equivalent of Magaluf) on our travels to chalk our names up there and then, so we let Paul know that as much as Quito beckoned; we'd be taking that weekend break.
Before disappearing, Paul gave us each a Zapote which is a fruit that I won't be able to describe accurately at all so won't bother trying other than it looks like an elephants nutsack. We managed to offload some equipment onto him to take on ahead before he went, and then it was just a case of waiting to meet up with the yanks and get the bus they'd booked for the weekend (complete with driver). Our appointment wasn't until 3pm, so I decided to go sit by the river and collect my thoughts in the sunshine. It was a warm sunny day, and I didn't fancy carrying around all my baggage so left it in the hostel after we'd checked out. Checking out was a little more difficult than it should have been. First off they wanted to charge $10 for the cost of fixing the front door, which Jamie was refusing to pay, and then they wanted to charge us $8 a night instead of the $7 we'd paid before. It took a lot of poorly executed Spanish and some waving of arms, but they eventually settled on the $7 telling us not to let on to Paul and Ale (who's paid the $8) and a slightly reduced bill for the door...
It was tranquil down by the river, pretty blissful just laying there listening to the water and the passing of the occasional group of school kids. I thought about Cuenca, and decided it's one of my favourite cities and that I would certainly miss it.
3pm came round before long so we grabbed our gear and headed to the meeting spot. There was a bus already there, not particularily big and completely empty when we arrived, but we slung our rucksacks in anyway concluding everyone would think we were weird for bringing so much. Plonking myself down, our new entourage began filling the bus greeting us and confirming that we were indeed "the Brits". The journey got underway and I tried to take note of peoples names (with limited success). There were just 5 guys including me and Jamie, a towering black guy called Abdulie, a small quiet guy who's name I don't remember, and then, sat behind me, a very stereotypical American from New Jersey called Sean who was pretty funny just to watch. The rest of our 15 or so strong group were girls, and everyone was from somewhere different in the US. I'd never been on a bus filled with Americans, and it was quite the experience. I assume the driver had some experience of this, because to his credit at no point did he intentionally roll the bus off the mountain. The 6 hour journey involved lots of singing, with some songs I'd never heard of (these guys love hip-hop), general banter about culture differences and the passing scenery was also fantastic including driving through Cajas once again. Whilst we were hurtling through the mountains a really thick mist descended and this too didn't phase the driver with our speed barely dropping below 50 despite vision being limited to about 10 feet, but after a hair-raising while we were out and down to sea level. It was HOT by now and the bus wasn't exactly generous with legroom. This was compounded with us crawling through Guayaquil because of the traffic. I also noticed that Cuenca is very much the exception in terms of urban beauty for Ecuador. Gone were the well kept colonial buildings, and in their place sat the same depressing poverty that we'd seen throughout Peru. A thousand hours later we rolled up to the hostel. Us tag alongs and two others didn't have a booking there so were lead off to find another one across the street towards the beach whilst everyone settled in. It was called something like "the Chill hostel" and was pretty cool, with hammocks strung left right and centre, and in the middle a low table where the French owners and a couple of other guys were playing drinking games when we arrived. Me, Jamie, Liana and Julie were given the tour and set about getting ready to go out and meet the rest. I made the mistake of trying to have a shower, which was in a room just off the courtyard. Switching it on caused a taped on feature to burst off and make the pitiful amount of water coming out dribble down the wall instead. Fiddling with the taps provided a surprise in the form of an electric shock, as did touching anything else. I stood there in the cold drizzle for 5 minutes before giving up and heading out. Ah well, I hadn't expected the Ritz. Liana passed around the "Zhumia" whilst we got ready, and it was perfectly nice actually and went down easily, the kind of thing you could chug and then regret. We met up with Renee and Hayley and wandered to the town to try find the rest of team America. I say town, it's essentially one wide road leading to the beach with a couple of main roads leading off of it, covered in clubs and resturants aimed at tourists. The night was filled with thumping bass and the chatter of a thousand people, Ecuadoreans and tourists from further afield, all well on their way to merriment where we should be. The wide street turned into "Cocktail Alley" about half way to the beach. Either side was literally packed with market stands covered in booze, with each vendor calling out the names of exotic cocktails you could buy by the pint. We stopped for a couple and then resumed our mission, eventually bumping into them on the beach. A man came over with a snake wrapped round his neck and started offering it around like a joint, of which was another favourite of our entourage! Montañita is kind of like Amsterdam in that respect. It's all still illegal, but I get the impression the police just give the entire place a wide berth, particularily on weekends. Hippies wandered around with baskets full of "homemade brownies", and people were nonchalantly taking hits from bongs on the beach. It was a cool place to be fair, the drugs didn't bother me but I was a little put off by the number of people that were perfectly fine with getting their cock out and just pissing either into the sea, or a few, where they stood. We messed about on the beach all night pretty much, at one point debating whether to go to a kicking club on the beach front but deciding against when we realised it would be $15 to get in. It was fantastic, and they're a great bunch, but a little lacking in the stamina department! Too soon we were heading back, but I thought fair enough because we'd been travelling all day and I was quite pooped myself. Round two to follow!

22) The imminent arrival of Mr Ramsay

Wednesday passed without a great deal of excitement. All three of us went to the market for breakfast this time, and having tried some the previous morning, I got "tortilla de choclos". Choclo is in fact the kind of corn they love here (not chocolate like you might think), and the tortillas were thick toasted and slightly sweet cakey type things which I fell in love with. Ale also persuaded us to try "Morocho" which is a rice pudding drink with cinnamon and a hint of aniseed, served hot and again fantastic tasting. We mostly ambled slowly around town, and checked out the planetarium we'd stumbled across the day before but unfortunately there weren't enough people for a showing despite it being free. Me and Jamie fancied a beer and decided to check out a place we'd passed a few times called "The Beer House" (what better place to find beer?). They produced their own, and the medium I got must have been nearly a litre glass and was mighty fine.
I left the bar before Jamie and went to an Austrian cafe to indulge in cake and coffee, and later when I got back to the hostel he still wasn't there. I killed time before hunger set in by watching awful, awful Ecuadorean soaps and government propaganda with Alejandra in her room next to ours but still no Jamie. Part of me wondered whether he'd been bungled into the back of a van and driven off into the countryside, part of me was just hungry. I figured I'd never find him in the city and Ale wasn't keen for food so I set off into the darkness in a bid to find one of the many cheap places to eat around the place. Wandering the nearby streets for a while revealed the cheap ones to be closed, leaving me with just a handful of expensive touristy places. Undeterred, I changed course down a side street and struck gold. "Asi es Cuenca!". By Jove they even had 3 self awarded stars plastered on the sign. Inside I took my seat and a girl with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp and a garish tracksuit on came over to take my order. It felt like home. I asked for the $2.50 menu of the day and she came back with a small bowl of popcorn and some mysterious green soup. The soup was pretty tasty and was clearly the majority of the cost as the next plate was rice, 8 chips, an egg and 5 small chunks of mystery meat in a sauce. I'll never know what the meat was as the girl seemed in no mood for questions. I polished it off and got out of there. Still no sign of Jamie so I took matters into my own hands, slid the window open and hopped in and got into bed, fairly certain he'd turn up by the morning.
Sure enough he was there when I rolled over the next day. It wasn't long before a small commotion downstairs signaled the arrival of our supervisor from Plymouth; Dr Paul Ramsay. We both went to greet him and he commented that I no longer looked like the ruined Italian Jesus fresco that that maid had tried to wipe clean. Thankfully his impressive "profesor" status meant they were going to give him his own room so that he didn't have to share with us! It wouldn't be ready for another few hours however, and a busy day lay ahead so he bunged his things in our room and we all headed off to the market again for some much needed breakfast. We caught up and listened to stories of past South American excursions over some more Tortillas de choclo, and there were quite a few colourful ones to say the least. Following that we browsed the market a little, and Paul found the stand he was after. It was a small old woman (as most are here it seems) with all things cocoa and chocolate spread around her stand. She handed us some to try and it was foul. Chocolate in it's purest form, and great big slabs of it too. Nothing like the refined, ultra sweet stuff we have back home. I know which one I preferred and my face gave the game away as the woman started chuckling. Paul handed over some cash and left with a patio slab sized wedge of the stuff! Apparently it would last the year and is good for cooking with; I don't doubt it because it certainly ain't for eating.
He and Alejandra had to go meet with Pablo and José to discuss our work in Cajas and various other projects. Because they were off for a while I figured I'd check out the other side of the old town that I hadn't been to before, having mostly gone up and down.
This turned out to be quite the mistake. I did find another market, about the same size as the one we'd been gorging ourselves in and filled with a similar variety of foods (though this one also sold pre-skinned guinea pigs by the dozen). I then stumbled upon a vast, seemingly underground market filled with stalls selling just about everything else. It was in here that I got hopelessly lost,. It wasn't until an old woman who'd watched me bumbling around (unintentionally) in what appeared to be the lingerie stalls section came over and guided me to an exit, that I found myself back outside on an unknown street with no visible landmarks to guide me. I wasn't fussed really, I had a couple more hours to kill and walking for miles on end had become somewhat normal lately. This was very much a locals area, and I mingled with the crowds of traditionally dressed Ecuadoreans like a lone marshmallow in hot chocolate. The quality of the shops began to deteriorate and I realised I must have been heading in the opposite direction to the centre of town so I made an about turn and headed back.
Paul and Alejandra arrived at the hostel not long after me, about 6 hours after their meeting had planned to start (the man can talk). We'd been invited to drinks with the suits from ETAPA that evening, at a German bar that brewed their own beer. We did have a meeting of our own planned that evening with our new and exotic friends, so there'd be no time for tea then! We got to the bar and there were already a few people there including Pablo and Jose. It was a dinky little place and they'd let you create a playlist from a great big book of the songs on the jukebox. Me and Jamie set about doing so after ordering a selection of beers, to try and drown out the grating voice of the Guiness World Records "Most American Woman" sat at the bar. The group were all very friendly, and handed out some books of Cajas fresh from the press. Paul told us all another reassuring story about a past experience in Quito, in which another professor from the university ended up in just his pants after mistaking their muggers for students fooling around, leading them to believe he was hiding something of value. His only gripe was that they'd thrown his chips on the floor! We were there for a couple of hours before everyone started making a move, which was lucky as we were cutting it fine for our rondezvous. Me and Jamie slunk off before Paul and Alejandra and set off at a fast pace back towards the hostel. 10 minutes later we established that we'd been going the complete wrong direction, and at the end of the correct road we could see Paul and Ale gathered around a street vendor selling Churiscos (meat on a stick). We joined them to their mild surprise, bought a couple ourselves and walked back to the hostel with them. Earlier in the day the folks that ran the hostel had invited us all to join them in some sort of Catholic ritual involving a shrine and rosary beads, but we decided to hit the bar instead. When we got back there was a gaggle of old women in the main area, and before we could stop him Paul had sauntered into the crowd to introduce himself. They absolutely loved it, and it was pretty cringey to see as I made my escape...
That evening, Jamie had the idea to bring our company back to the hostel. Needless to say the woman hit the roof, made perhaps worse by him breaking the door as we tried to back out, but apart from that it was an excellent night, including karaoke, gin and tonics galore and even a free umbrella!

21) More of Cuenca!

Tuesday morning me and Alejandra went to the chaotic market for breakfast. I followed her lead to one of the many vendors on the second floor, and ordered a "Bolon" and some Humitas like we'd had on our way back from Quesh Que. A dumpy little woman came over with our orders a couple of seconds after we'd sat down. A bolon turned out to be a large ball of cooked potato and green banana (one of the many types of banana here), and probably some of the shit cheese they have here too because they put cheese with everything. It was quite nice, if a little dry, and didn't taste overwhelmingly of banana. It went down well with the coffee and followed up with Humitas, which I may have explained before is a sweet cooked maize meal steamed in a leaf. After the exceptionally cheap breakfast Ale took me around the market pointing out various fruits and vegetables I'd never seen before with names I couldn't hope to remember. I've got to hand it to the South Americans, they do fruits very well. We figured we'd find and check out "Pearla Cuenca" to see if they had rooms spare. A quick google showed us where we'd missed it before and it looked awesome so we headed over. It was down an alley and up some wooden stairs and frankly "Pearla Cuenca" is quite the pseudonym. Inside the predominantly wooden place was a faint musty odor and as far as I could tell, no one else aside the uninterested receptionist. The pictures we'd seen on the internet had presumably been taken some 30 years ago. The communal area was a battered old sofa and not much else, and the rooms had great big antique beds in and more wooden cladding everywhere. On the way out I had a brief look in the bathroom which was grim. We exchanged a glance which said everything it needed to and got out of there.

Later that morning we both went across the river to the Medical Museum. It was in a huge colonial complex that was previously an asylum, with a garden in the middle of it and lots of rooms off the garden with various equipment throughout 1800s to the early 1900s. The first one we went in was dentistry, and if people think they have phobias now I'm sure they would have died back then. It was well laid out and I tried a couple of the chairs that looked like they belonged on the set of a "Saw" movie. We ambled from room to room, and it was quite cool seeing the retro versions of a lot of the equipment I had been using whilst on placement in the lab back in Plymouth. To be honest everything looked a lot more fun than modern instruments, if a little haphazard. There were hand powered centrifuges, great big DJ deck style controls for x-ray machines, giant iron autoclaves (some that had wood burners underneath), and chemicals galore. In fact, I'm sure the chief of my placement, Dr. Rich Boden, would have had a field day in some of the rooms smuggling the reagents out for his ever expanding collection (some of them looked younger than a few in the cupboards in Davy)! There was a decommissioned "Iron Lung" from who knows when that was essentially a giant coffin with all sorts of valves and things, and a glass dome that would be brought down over the head of the unlucky patient inside; Ale practically had an asthma attack when she saw it. Upstairs was also being used as a work station for something, with people sat at desks doing paperwork outside some of the rooms containing all the weird old gear. It didn't seem to be relevant to the museum, and Alejandra told me that people rent these buildings for working in too. Considering we were the only people wandering around the place I suppose it's a good idea, a quiet and  pretty epic work place. Another of the rooms contained old gynecology instruments and that freaked me out a little bit. Women must have had some balls to go see a gynecologist back in the day. All in all it was a pretty impressive museum and if it wasn't hidden within the courtyard of another building I'm sure it would be more popular. On the way out we pinched some free papers to stuff in my boots in a bid to dry them out.
It was still quite early, so we headed back across the river to the museum I'd unsuccessfully attempted to visit the other day. It was fancy inside and specialised in textiles and their subsequent creations throughout Ecuador. Alejandra was a pretty useful guide there, explaining what various things were and where you would find them. It wasn't very big and after all the wicked contraptions in the Medical Museum fell a little flat but killed some time and was free to visit. By now it was lunch time and I let Alejandra lead me to a small Colombian place at the other end of the old town. It was very popular and we were waiting for a while for a seat, but when we did get one it was easy to see why. It was another "Menu of the day" place, and very satisfying indeed.
After a brief stop back at the hostel we headed to a big supermarket in the new part of town. We passed through a quaint park called "Parque de Madres" (Mothers Park). This area looked almost brand new and had a running track, Planetarium, basketball court and all sorts of features including a McDonalds (the first I'd seen in SA). We found the "SuperMaxi" a little further down the road, and inside I had to leave my backpack with a man who's job it was specifically to look after bags. It was a pretty standard supermarket affair to be honest, though the foods were a little different. Lots of processed meat, little good dairy (no proper cheese), and absolutely no shower gel for some reason. Alejandra hadn't been very impressed with our version of porridge in Cajas, and showed me why. Apparently it's normally eaten in Ecuador as a drink with juice! Imagine! The savages. There was a good half an aisle dedicated to little juice cartons of porridge. Except it wasn't porridge it was juice with oatmeal in. She picked one up for me to try and then we hit the alcohol aisle. The alcohol aisle was quite a polarised place, with any imported brands such as Jack Daniels costing anything from $50-$100 a bottle, but any rip off brands or local spirit (such as Zhumia, made from sugar cane) costing as little as $5 for 750ml. There was also a sign noting that the purchase of alcohol on Sundays is illegal, which is true for all of Ecuador.
After the excitement of the supermarket we strolled back to the hostel in the blazing sunshine with our assortment of goodies. Porridge-juice wasn't too bad actually, and not chunky like I'd been anticipating.
Later, we went for food at the only Indian restaurant I'd seen in Cuenca at Jamie's request. Well I say Indian restaurant; it was called "The Taj Mahal" but the menus proclaimed to offer the best "Pakistani food in Cuenca" so who knows. I wanted to see if their Tikka Masala was up to British standards because I got the impression they were actually English in the first place. The chap came over before long with an unexpected appetiser of plain popcorn and some sauces. After 6 or so weeks I was no longer surprised at odd things turning up at the dinner table, so began dipping and munching whilst we watched utterly bizarre music videos to Bollywood style music. The food was good though not quite the same as back home, but hey with the only Indian in a thousand miles you can't complain. Another early night ensued. 

20) The Eternal rain of Cajas

Sorry for the lack of blogging folks, I've been busy and without access to a keyboard! Anyway, back to Cajas.
The next day we began our journey back to Laguna Mamamac. It took us longer than on the first day. Looking at the map we worked out that Wilson had taken us on a huge a shortcut the day before. Some hours later we got down to the edge of the lake and set up camp, encountering some difficulty with Paul's novel shaped tent. Despite not seeing anyone both days the spot was apparently popular for randy campers, with the remnants of a fire and some condoms littering the area. By this point we were already soaked and we decided to batten down the hatches and set about work the following morning. That evening an eagle of some description crash landed outside our tent and made a massive commotion which was pretty startling!

You don't say.

Jamie set about finding more Puya to sneakily gather seeds from, and myself and Alejandra went to find a suitable wetland for her PhD work. Just over a hill from the lake was perfect and before long we had the job done, using a GPS to mark the borders and any large pools and streams within the wetland. Jamie needed some help collecting the seeds, and in the absence of a ladder we used our combined heights (me on his shoulders) to grab as many as possible without me plummeting to an inevitable death in the rushing river below.
Jobs done earlier than anticipated we decided to stay that night and head off early the next day as we wouldn't make the refuge before nightfall. It rained hard that night, and I was already down to my last pair of dry socks, having totally given up hope on ever having dry shoes again. Dawn crept over the mountains and we shook off the night's damp sleep, eventually got the tent packed up in the tiny sack it came in, and headed off into the mist back to the trail. About half way back Alejandra found another wetland that needed mapping and we stopped whilst she disappeared into the never ending fog. After 20 minutes we were bloody cold and starting to worry a little, but just as we were discussing our chances of finding a body in the bogs, her baseball cap appeared over a hill and I breathed a sigh of relief. Back on the trail again and having stood on the wrong patch of mud a couple of times resulting in every footstep squelching, I gave up trying to avoid puddles. The final slope before the downhill part to the road was visible and seemingly close, but there felt like a limitless number of ridges to climb up and over before we finally reached the last one. Two hours after the last wetland, we sat atop this final ridge catching our breath, eating peanut butter for sustenance, and looking back across the park. Where the mist thinned you could see the track that we'd followed to Mamamac and it looked deceptively close.

Base of operations

Finally down the slope and back to the road, we headed back to the refuge. I noticed the sign for a restaurant and we all cheered when we found it open and serving food. Back at the refuge we dumped our stuff, and I put on the only dry things I had, which we had left in the care of the park guard. These consisted of a jumper, some baggy trousers and flip flops so needless to say I looked like a right twat. In the small park restaurant we ordered hot chocolate and a badly translated meal. I could have kissed the woman when she came over with two steaming mugs. Unfortunately Ecuadoreans don't do hot chocolate like we do, and it was a bit of an anti climax, but it was hot and with some sugar in tasted pretty good and for a moment I was in heaven. It's surprising what 3 days spent cold and wet, certain of getting trench-foot will make you appreciate. From the warmth of the restaurant you could see out over the park. It looked deceitfully tranquil and dry from up there. Bellies full and feet aired, we packed up our stuff in the refuge, I slung my sopping boots in a carrier bag, and we went to the bus stop to wait for one heading in the direction of Cuenca. There was a small shelter covered in messages from people all over the globe, mostly joking about freezing to death waiting for a bus. It wasn't raining and luckily it wasn't long before we were hopping onto a coach, having left our own message in Spanglish on the stop asking anyone who found any lost toes/fingers/dignity to return them to Bristol, England.

Apart from the rain it was epic

Back in Cuenca, we asked the taxi man to take us to Hostel "Pearla Cuenca". It sounded alright (Pearl of Cuenca) and was cheaper than the previous one. He agreed but after 10 minutes it became clear he didn't have a clue where he was going. He also didn't realise that Alejandra could speak pretty good Spanish (being Ecuadorean), and tried to tell us that a totally random building said "Hostel" on it. Realising that he couldn't mug us off any longer he admitted he didn't know where he was going, and neither did we, so we just told him to take us back to the previous hostel. They were glad to see us again, and this time me and Jamie got a much better room (it had a door handle and was also right above the wifi). That evening we found a tiny Mexican diner that was suspiciously dead. Inside was just about as stereotypically Mexican as you can get, all sombreros, piñatas and mariachi. I was a little disappointed when the man didn't come out from the kitchen on a donkey with a huge moustache but ordered a chimichanga none the less. What I actually got was a burrito, but as it had taken nearly 40 minutes to arrive I didn't complain, and it tasted great anyway. Afterwards Jamie went off to a bar, but being laden with Mexican goodness I couldn't stomach the thought of gassy beverages so waddled back towards the hostel with Alejandra. In the beautiful central plaza in front of the cathedral, a choir of women were singing and dancing. They were dressed in traditional Cuencan clothing consisting of a long dark blue skirt, white blouse and broad hats. They were being filmed and were excellent so we watched for a while as they drew a crowd. The conductor stopped them and made them lose the hats before starting them again, although one in the middle was totally out of time with the dancing and it was the same song so we decided to leave at that point. 
Cajas had been stunning, but hard work, and that night I slept like a narcoleptic log in my warm and dry bed.

19) Cajas here we come!

The taxi arrived at 6.30am. Annoyingly we'd had to pack up all of our stuff to take with us, including all the bits that we wouldn't need in the field. With our rucksacks slung in the back of the pickup we were ferried to the bus station where we paid the $1.50 for our tickets to the park. The bus wasn't bad and for an hours drive was damn cheap. The change in temperature was instantly noticeable when we were deposited outside the "Toreadora" section of the park. Nearby was the small refuge, recognisable from the pencil drawing on Paul's ´85 paper, though thankfully with a proper roof as oppose to the thatched one from back in the day.
Inside was a compact but functional kitchen and table, 3 rooms with bunk beds, and upstairs was a loo (minus the seat) and the gaurds quaters. It was by no means warm inside the refuge and you certainly felt it on your cheeks on the toilet, but was at least out of the wind.
Me and Jamie claimed the bunks by the kitchen, unloaded some of our stuff and waited outside with Alejandra for our guide called Wilson Puya, funnily enough.

This guy knew what we were in for

A short and stocky chap came over and introduced himself as Wilson. He would be taking us to the mapped areas to help find some suitable wetlands for Alejandra's work. He started limbering up and I wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Out of the refuge area we were met by a herd of llamas blocking the road. After shooing them off back into the park we followed Wilson slowly along the busy road bisecting the park until we reached a sign denoting a path for us to follow, and as soon as we got onto uneven terrain Wilson upped the pace so that it was a swinging arms kind of walk to follow. It wasn't a very well trodden path, and before long I was swerving left and right of deep muddy pools and leaping over boggy land. Before I go on I should mention that the park is absolutely stunning. It's very different from the "puna" terrain we were working on in Peru, with much greater diversity of plants and geography, and contains over 200 glacial lakes. From the moment we'd entered the background noise of cars faded, and was replaced with a constant ribbeting of unseen frogs, the trickle of countless streams and the wind whistling through the grasses. It's pretty special.
We trekked for a good couple of hours until we hit a sign pointing N,E,S,W. Here we had some options apparently. South read "Moderate, 3 Hours" North (the way we came) "Moderate 2 Hours" West "Difficult 6 Hours" and East "Difficult 8 Hours". Well you can imagine which one we took. At Cajas, when they say "Dificil" they aren't fucking around. They don't mean "Not suitable for wheelchair users", they mean "Not suitable for anyone other than hardy mountain goats with something to prove".

"Wilson I'm sorry!"

We followed Wilson up and over tall ridges, down near verticle grassy slopes, through deep and drenching bogs and streams, over white water rivers, through Polylepis woodland and along cliff edges for hours. At the start we joked that we each had three "lives" for slipping over, and I'd burned through mine in the first 4 hours, as had everyone else.
At one point Wilson slipped off of a rock and nearly rolled off a cliff edge, and I have to say I was a little disappointed that I couldn't scream "WILSOOOOON" like Tom Hanks on Castaway, but that's just because my brain was fried from concentrating on the ground for so long. Also, since I'd recovered from my bout of explosively discharging food my stomach had gotten quite used to the idea of lunch and was protesting loudly at missing it. We stopped briefly at one of the enormous lakes; "Mamamac" and Wilson pointed out a rocky outcrop we could camp on, telling us we wouldn't even need a tent (fat chance).

Level: Jurassic park

It was another 3 hours of navigating all sorts of obstacles before we hit the end of the trail and the guard post at this entrance to the park. The hike had been quite fun, but damn exhausting. If someone had asked me if I wanted to walk for nearly 8 hours I'd have told them to do one, but we had all managed it and had seen a lot more of the park than the average tourist does. At the gaurd post we plonked down in rocking chairs and assessed the damage. All caked in mud, feet sopping and knees creaking, we chowed down on our food stash. Turns out 50c noodles don't include flavouring but they disappeared soon enough. The next issue was getting back to Toreadora. Luckily shortly after setting off down the road a pickup came trundling by and stopped for us to hitch a ride. We climbed up into the back of it and we were off. The cobbled road wasn't exactly forgiving on the derriere, but I was glad of the lift because the route back to the main road was a good 15 minute drive and it was also quite nice looking back and watching the scenery retreat as we bumped along. As we approached the main road it started spitting with rain. The truck was going right and we needed left so we hopped out but Wilson stayed in; his days work was done. We crossed over as the rain really started and hoped to hitch back up to Toreadora. It was a long and fruitless wait, gradually reaching that "wet as possible" threshold as even buses raced by. Thankfully after half an hour one did stop, and we dragged our sopping wet and aching bodies inside. It was a further 20 minutes drive back to the refuge. Getting inside I threw my stuff down and changed immediately into some dry clothes though it was still cold, and by now getting dark. There were a new couple around the table, a Dutch woman and an Italian-Ecuadorean. We ate our soup and chatted with them to will away the time in the freezing refuge. The man was very animated and also spoke good English, and he was particularily impressed by the English culture of drinking from 7am - 6am. We spent the evening watching our breath come out in clouds, talking mostly in Spanglish (switching between the two at random), and drinking several cups of tea to keep our hands warm.
Come 10.30 we all retired citing early starts to do the same thing again tomorrow.
I slept badly due to my feet being frozen solid and the Dutch woman getting up to chunder a few times.

18) Sorting out the paperwork

I'd awoken with what I thought was plenty of time (15 mins) and was stood outside the room taking advantage of the wifi. Someone said something in Spanish and I automatically replied "Buenas" as is custom before returning my attention to facebook. I felt like a mug when what was in fact Alejandra then said "Are you Tom", and apologised for being so rude.
We hastily got ready and settled on heading to Chipotle for some breakfast. On the way Alejandra told us about herself; 35 and trying to get into the UK to begin her PhD on the paramo wetlands of Ecuador under Paul Ramsay at Plymouth, but currently having some difficulty with the English exam. I don't think she was particularily impressed with Chipotle and I could appreciate that as it was food aimed at gringos, so we agreed to go to the market for lunch. We sat and drank coffee and discussed plans. Essentially she was as clueless as we were with regards to us being able to work in "El Cajas" National Park in the nearby mountains, but shortly after that very conversation she had an excited phonecall. We were to meet a couple of guys from the park authorities to discuss what we could do and where. The park is owned by ETAPA; a company that seems to pretty much run Cuenca (I don't know if they are nationwide). They control the communications, electricity and water supply to the city and surrounding areas, their main source of water is the park, and we were to meet them at their Cuenca HQ at 11am.
We found our way there with quite some ease and went up some ten flights of stairs to a posh looking office to wait for Jose and Pablo. Alejandra explained that Ecuador has a notorious reputation for pointless bureaucracy, sometimes as a cover for corruption, but that ETAPA are a good egg. Jose showed up and we went to a meeting room to thrash out the details in Spanish that was entirely beyond my comprehension, though what I did get was that they would rather have Alejandra map three different areas of the park than three different wetlands in Ecuador. I could see where they were coming from as the park is huge and has all sorts of variations in geography and influences of weather, altitude and the pacific ocean but it was dragging the meeting out. They eventually caved and we agreed to meet Pablo again at 2pm to decide on some possible paramo sites to check out.

Alejandra took us to the bustling market for lunch, and persuaded me to try "Tomales". I don't know whether these are strictly Mexican, but they are meat and ground corn wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. They weren't particularly overwhelming but certainly different. It wasn't long before we were on our way back to ETAPA and sat at the top of the stairs waiting for their arrival. Alejandra went on to explain that time keeping isn't big on the average Ecuadorean's agenda, and it isn't uncommon to meet up to an hour past the time agreed. 30 minutes later and we were in Pablo's rather nice office looking at a satellite view of the park. He was layering all sorts of things onto it including weather and altitude, and after quite some time and a fair bit of yawning on my part, we'd ended up with a paper map with several circles indicating potential wetlands (or "humidals") to hike to when we hit Cajas. There was also some talk of continuing Puya work, and Pablo told us he was undertaking a PhD and he'd take us to his university to meet the experienced botanist that was his supervisor to gain more insight.
We followed him to his suprisingly expensive 4x4 and drove the short distance to the Universidad de Azuay just outside of the new town. I kept my eyes peeled but no sign of an SU to get plastered in, and the place had more of a secondary school feel than a uni. We headed upstairs to the Herbarium, which was pretty cool actually - Plymouth doesn't have a Herbarium that I'm aware of! We wandered through the aisles randomly opening lockers and checking out the handi work of students such as the few girls in the main part that were preparing new reference samples. Pablo introduced us to his professor who looked remarkably similar to a friend back home, if a few shades darker. He sat and talked for thousands of years about every last plant that you would find in Cajas, and then Pablo got out his laptop and showed us a paper of Paul Ramsays from 1985. It was funny to see, with pencil drawings of the crew and refuge, and I was surprised that Paul had lead the expedition in question aged 21, just a few months older than me!
After flicking through the paper we were dropped back near the hostel and went to a small cafe to eat our final meal before our mission to the park the following morning.

17) Further exploration

Wednesday came round all of a sudden and I made a determined effort to see more of the city because Alejandra was due to arrive the next day. I found a cafe with pictures of pancakes on the door and that sold it for me. Inside the place was totally bizarre, consisting of royal looking sofas, a large American jukebox, an assortment of things on the walls ranging from guns to license plates, and in the middle a cage containing two pampered budgies. I plonked myself down (though not on one of the sofas), the only person in there aside from a young girl behind the counter. I ordered myself an American breakfast, not really sure what would come out and wandered around the place finding more oddities including a boxing challenger thing and a billiards room. When it did arrive I was impressed. Coffee, fresh pineapple juice, a stack of pancakes with a bottle of syrup and a separate plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. If every American breakfast is like this it's easy to see why they're notoriously large.

Quirky place for brekkie

Waddling out at midday I made my way back to the river trail and followed it down to Parque Pumapungo. Through the fence I could see llamas and hear all sorts of birds and it looked pretty cool. What I couldn't see was the entrance. A woman walking the opposite way approached as though I was going to explode, and I asked where the entrance was. She quickly replied that it was up around the corner before hurrying off and I double checked that I wasn't wearing a hockey mask or wielding a machete. By "round the corner" she actually meant a kilometer or so up a hill around two corners, behind the Ministry of Culture building. I decided to check out inside first, because entry was free. They took my bag and passport number and I set about exploring the building. It's really fantastic in there, 4 levels of Ecuadorian history and culture charmingly exhibited. The first floor contained interactive pre-colonial exhibits in English and Spanish, and even braille, and across the hall were lots of very weird art models of people with some drastically enhanced features. Some had massive hands, some had huge saggy boobs with babies hanging off of them. It was all very strange. Upstairs was back to normality, lots of stuff about the people through the ages and the indigenous in the Amazonian basin. I was suprised at how empty the place was of people because it was all very cool. Maybe I'm just a massive nerd, but they had shrunken heads on display, who doesn't find that cool?

Part of Pumapungo

On the top floor there was a cafeteria, public library, and lots of glass walled offices where you could watch people work on items for exhibits and such like.
The basement level was all about Ecuadorian currency since the start of coinage, but was all in Spanish. I read the bits I could and it was pretty interesting. Before the US Dollar, the Ecuadorean currency was the Sucre, and you could see throughout the 20th century the increasing rate of inflation through the bills displayed. The final bill displayed was the 500,000 Sucre note, common come the end of the century. In 2000 they finally broke and switched to the buck.

These latinos can GARDEN

I spent a lot longer than anticipated inside and moseyed out into the afternoon sunshine into the park. Considering it is only just outside of the city centre it is enormous. Perched on top of a hill are more stone ruins of temples to Sun Gods and whatnot that the ancient cultures worshiped. Though these are just really the foundations it's still neat to stand amongst them and soak in all the ancientness (definitely a word). At the foot of the hill down a winding track there is an area dedicated to growing the various native crops of the Andes, and a wide variety of ornamental shrubs and trees. The park attracts lots of wildlife, and I sat on a bench for a while watching the many birds and insects darting about the foliage, convinced I'd seen a couple of hummingbirds (Green violetear are the ones here). They didn't reappear so I followed the track through a wooded area and that's when I spotted one again. I tried for ages to get a decent photo and at one point it was in the tree directly above me. Staring upwards and trying hopelessly with my cheap digital camera to hold it steady for it to move into a better position, I watched as a cascade of poop splattered onto the plant next to me and across my left shoulder. He knew what he had done, and with that sped off again leaving me cursing the sky, photo-less. The rest of the park was equally as beautiful and well kept, and included several big aviaries housing parrots, toucans and other exotic birds all of various species. It was a short walk from the birds section to a hill covered in llamas, each tied to a post and quite happy just chewing the cud. I didn't fancy petting one though because they stank, so made my way back up to the culture ministry and out of the park.
The way back to the old town took me past the university of Cuenca, where I was met with interested stares from students - a lone gringo wandering through their patch. Their uni only has one bar bless them, though to be fair to them it was packed out. I made my way back into the old town and stopped of in the Cultural Museum of the Indigenous. It's a privately owned affair, and the lady buzzed me in and handed me a booklet to read as I guided myself around their collection. Personally I don't think it was worth the $2. There were a few interesting articles including one ancient groups obsession with making statues of deformed children, but it was mostly pots and all the typical stuff like bits of flint and things, and it wasn't long before I was on my way back to the hostel.
That evening I ate "Seco de pollo" at a resturant beneath the grand central cathedral and it was as beautiful as the city it was constructed in. Another early night followed as Alejandra was expected at 9am so no 10am lie in for me!

16) Cuenca

Sorry for the late posting, I've been out of range and very wet and cold for a few days!
As I mentioned, Cuenca is pretty impressive aesthetically. However the narrow cobbled streets of the old town and constant stream of traffic cause quite a build up of exhaust fumes which is not pleasant, particularily when one of the great big public buses trundles by belching a cloud of black smoke into your face (they don't have thousands of minivans as in Peru). It is a small price to pay though. In the middle of the two main streets; Simon Bolivar and Marsical Sucre, there is a huge plaza covered in towering trees and benches and fountains, and in front is the remarkable three-domed Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
We wandered around for a place to get breakfast and a few blocks across from the central hub, we found "Chipotle", a small bar with a fantastic American sounding menu, they even had hash browns! Hash browns!!

Central Plaza

After breakfast Jamie went back to the hostel and I headed across the road to "Mercado de 10 Augosto". It was huge! Across two levels were countless stands selling just about everything. The second floor consisted mostly of an assortment of food vendors and fruit and vegetable traders. So many colours, and so many things I'd never seen before. There are four types of banana here! I drifted through in a bit of a daze amongst an amalgam of people calling out their wares and bartering and the constant hum of conversation.
Towards the back I found a stall with a barbers chair and a woman painting her nails. I bit the bullet, pointed at my hair and she nodded. For $2 she tidied me up, though I couldn't get across that I wanted the beard gone and when she was waving the straight razor around my face like a sword I didn't really want to interject.

River walk

That afternoon I got a map from the helpful hostel lady and she explained where a lot of stuff was. Our hostel was between the two main streets of the old town and not too far away from the centre. Later on we wandered down Calle Larga; the main street for bars and discotecas, and went to eat at a place called "Wunderbar". $6 and three courses later we couldn't help but stay for a little longer to enjoy the cheap beers of happy hour before retiring.

RING THE BELL OMINOUSLY

The next day I planned to get up early to explore Cuenca more but found myself wandering out of the hostel at 11 to find some breakfast. I went up and down the main streets and settled on a chicken empanada (pasty) and a cup of that irresistable South American coffee and an alfahore in a small bakery down a side street. There are lots of shops in Cuenca selling all sorts of things as it's quite touristy. I stopped in a few and bought a postcard for Nan back home, asked for directions to the post office and set about trying to find it. An hour or so later, the card sent, I took a stroll towards the bottom of town. There was a sign pointing to some ruins and after a 10 minute walk I found them at the bottom of  a steep hill near a busy roundabout. They were pretty piss poor even for ruins, consisting of a few arrangements of stones behind a wall and a locked gate. It took me another 10 minutes to get back across the road and up towards the town again. I followed another sign towards a museum called CIDAP. Goodness knows what it stands for but the building was grand and situated on the river. It was quiet and I couldn't work out where to go so just headed up some stairs into the building. I'm fairly sure it wasn't the museum. There were a lot of people hurrying around and I think they were preparing for some sort of exhibition. I looked pretty out of place but no one said anything so I continued to plod about trying to keep out of the way. There were several peices of art floating about and a few things for sale made from hemp and things, not that there appeared to be anywhere to buy them. Through the back was an office and that's when I realised I was clearly in the wrong place and made a silent exit. On the way out I found a locked door downstairs with Museo written above it. It was only 4pm but closed already. Peering through the windows it looked to be all clothes and jewlery from the various indigenous peoples of Ecuador so I wasn't too disappointed. Heading back up to the town I stopped at the building next to Chipotle as I'd noticed a few people taking pictures of it the previous morning. Heading down the dimly lit hallway was a little eerie, and at the end was a sign on the wall. It read " IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE STORE RING THE BELL THREE TIMES" in English. It was like something out of a goosebumps video but I figured I'd go for it anyway, and pressed the button near the door the required three times. A dog started barking and a few moments later there was creaking of stairs. A tiny old woman opened the door and explained that the shop was closed for the day and to come back tomorrow. Despite the dingey hallway it looked light and airy inside, dominated by a large central staircase. I apologised to the woman and she replied "No problem" before chuckling to herself something about gringos. I left, glad I hadn't ended up part of a horror plot, and headed across the road to a store containing all sorts of expensive homely things. The contents of this shop looked like they could total the cost of the whole of Huaraz, and I didn't linger for fear of breaking something worth more than my soul.
That evening we headed back to Chipotle to take advantage of their happy hour. A few gin and tonics in and we met a couple of delightful American girls; Renee and her friend Hayley. They were here as part of a year for their degree programmes. Degrees are a lot different in the states it would seem! We chatted for ages, and they explained that Thursday through to Saturday nights were the best to go out in Cuenca. I didn't realise the time until the barman came over and handed us the bill before stacking up chairs around us. We left feeling a lot merrier than we perhaps should have been and agreed to join them for their friends 21st the following week...

15) Getting Fleeced at the Border

The bus arrived into Tumbes at 9 in the morning and it was already sweltering. We planned to get breakfast before finding a bus station to catch a ride to the other side, but a taxi driver told us he knew of a bus straight to Cuenca. We followed him out to his Tuk tuk, threw our stuff in the back and hopped in. He was fat and jovial, and quite talkative. Before long he stopped and told us we'd do the next bit by car, and that's when alarm bells should have started ringing.

The car we got into wasn't marked as a taxi, and there was already one guy in there but being the foolish gringos we were, we put our stuff in the back and got in. I felt a little uneasy and tried asking as many questions as I could, which he kept answering. He told us they would take us across the border because it was confusing to walk across and not very safe, and then for $50 dollars we would also get our tickets for the bus direct to Cuenca.
We got near to the border and pulled into a carpark, getting out he began demanding the fee. I  told him I'd like to have my ticket first but he said we'd need to walk to the ticket office, saying to follow a new man who'd appeared. It was all very unnerving so we grabbed our stuff close, handed over the cash and began following the new guy into the crowd, already sure we'd never see the ticket. 

The border between the two countries is utterly manic with busy cramped markets of mingling people squished between tall ugly buildings, so we kept close to the guy but all of a sudden we were told to follow someone else. He lead us to a new taxi and told us to take it to get our passports stamped but I'd had enough. He wanted us to pay the taxi man and I was having none of it since we'd forked out a lot of cash already. We started arguing and some nearby people got involved, but I couldn't really understand what any of them were saying. This drew the attention of a nearby policeman who came over to intervene. As I was explaining the situation, I realised that the man who we'd been following had melted into the crowd. We'd been bloody robbed.

The policeman showed us which taxi to get to go to immigration control and sent us on our way. Goodness knows where the other taxi would have taken us but I've a feeling we wouldn't have been left with our bags.

The border control area was 10 minutes drive away and in the middle of nowhere. It's a big complex, but was empty when we arrived pissed off and very sweaty. Jamie had outstayed his visa and had to pay an extra $12, luckily I didn't because I had no dollars whatsoever, and now no money to exchange.

We asked the taxi driver where we could get a bus to Cuenca, and he took us back to Huanquillas where we'd driven through to get to border control. The bus to Cuenca cost $7, considerably less than what we'd been expecting, foolishly thinking $50 would have been the going rate, but it was a damn sight better than El Sol and even air conditioned thank God.

It took us 5 hours to get to Cuenca and the journey was different to those in Peru. For one thing the driver was much less ambitious when it came to overtaking. The scenery was absolutely stunning; mountains all around covered in lush vegetation, and the occassional grand looking house nestled in the trees. Another instantly obvious difference to Peru is the lack of constant horns blaring, and the trip was oddly calm.

We found ourselves at the bus station with a line of pretty immaculate yellow cabs waiting patiently, and hopped in one to the hostel Alejandra (our PhD Student contact) had recommended. By then it was late Sunday afternoon, and Cuenca was mostly quiet. It felt considerably more developed than anywhere we'd experienced in Peru.
We checked into the hostel, it was basic but only $7 a night and so say had hot water so I wasn't about to complain. Admittedly the shower the girl had pointed to when she said "Always hot water" was different to the one across the hall, but I naively assumed it would be throughout. It was cold, very very cold. Someone somewhere was putting effort into cooling this water down infact, and it came out like a riot hose. Needless to say I left 5 minutes later gasping for breath but feeling somewhat refreshed. Trying to find a place to eat was quite difficult, and all the ATMs I tried failed to recognise my card which was really frustrating, but eventually we stumbled across a place called "Chicago Pizza" which conviniently accepted mastercard. I had a fantastic calzone (hardly Ecuadorean I know) and then we wandered the streets some more trying to find our way back to the hostel. Cuenca is stunning, even in the dark. The old town where we were staying is in a grid format like US cities, which should make it easy to find your way back but in fact, everywhere looks more or less the same. We passed several grand looking churches and many perfectly maintained colonial buildings along the cobbled streets, and after about half an hours aimless turning corners, found ourselves back at the hostel. It was only 9pm, but dark inside apart from a weird shrine in the corner with a candle lit. I wearily hit the hay and the bed was perfect, leaving me out like a light.

 

14) Leaving Huanchaco

It better not be down that road...
FUCK it's down that road

Cont.
I got my ticket and spent a couple of hours touring the ruins. They are certainly a spectacle to behold. It was knocked up by the Chimor, a pre-Incan civilisation and they did a pretty good job of it too, though I honestly do not know what they were looking at when they carved the birds into the stonework because they are a pretty shit representation. The fish are good though, and it's all well preserved after it got abandoned when the Incas did turn up. For S5 (about 1.50) you get a ticket to 4 different archeological sites, and once I'd finished Chan Chan, I haggled with a taxi driver to take me to the other 3 then back to Huanchaco. The first stop was the Dragon Temple. It's not very big at all and situated slap bang in the middle of a busy urban area, but is pretty none the less and does offer some good views from the top. I suppose it is called the dragon temple for all the dragons carved into it and not because they sacraficed dragons there.
Next was another temple, again in an urban area and contained in what felt like a cheap car park! It is bigger than the dragon temple and slightly better preserved. There was only me and one other man there, who said he'd seen me on the trek to Chan Chan. He was an architect and had some impressive drawings of the masonry and carvings. We had a short conversation in a mix of broken Spanish and English; he'd never heard of the Puya before! I left him to his work and the final stop was the museum of Chan Chan. It is well kept and apart from Chan Chan, probably the only one worth visiting. It gave a history of the area and displayed many things found during the excavation. I bought a souvenir of the ridiculous looking bird and headed back to Huanchaco.

So sacred

There I toured the town some more, visiting a beautiful church on the hill above the town. It was quaint and surrounded by lush gardens, each pillar covered in declarations of love between young couples. I sat for a while admiring the view whilst a man clanged the bell every minute or so with two rocks. There was a parade going on somewhere in the town (they do love their parades), and it was getting closer. About 5 minutes later I realised I was in the middle of a funeral, when the casket started making a beeline for the church. I scarpered sharpish, though I didn't look particularily out of place. I don't know if it's standard for funerals but I hope it is. What seemed to be about half the townsfolk had been parading through town with the coffin followed by a brass band which were belting out some cracking tunes. There were tonnes of people following in tow, none dressed formally and the whole affair seemed light hearted. I certainly wouldn't mind going out that way.
I descended to the beach and strolled along the peir, watching some Pelicans feed for a while and people fishing en masse off the peir. Before long I found Jamie in a bar on the beach and we sat for a while relaxing and watching a wounded Pelican amble slowly down the beach past all the crowds of people. It stopped a few feet from us because the bar owners hairless mutt was barking frantically at it. When it got near though, the bird stretched its humungous wings and the dog shat a brick and shut up then. I went back up to the church to watch the sunset over the horizon, and the bloke was back clanging the bell again.
It was to be my last sunset in Peru, but with each clang it felt like it was the last sunset ever.

You're coming back tomorrow...right?

We ate a decent meal at the hostel with Erik, said our goodbyes and took a taxi to the bus station. We were cutting it fine, and first of all stopped at the wrong station illiciting some panic. We needn't have worried though, we got to the "El Sol" station with 15 minutes to spare, but didn't end up setting off for another 45. This was more megabus right here. The attractive stewardesses of Movil Tours had been swapped for a balding, moustachioed man with a beer belly, and the bright orange seats were squashed in tight. The 12 hours passed slowly, and the interior of the bus was roughly a thousand degrees. I sat there with my legs being squished by the woman in front, sweating slowly, trying to find an arrangement of my appendages that didn't cause too much pain. Oh well, onward to Tumbes.

13) A day or two in Huanchaco

After the exceptional anticucho and intestines, we bode farewell to Oscar and Yanet and got on our bus to Trujillo. The company was Movil Tours, and although it was still cheap, it was clear we were paying a tad extra for the bus stewardesses and their impressively short skirts. Again, the quality surpassed anything you could get in the UK, providing more comfort than travelling trans atlantic.
We arrived in Trujillo at 5.30am and took a taxi to the nearby town of Huanchaco where we'd reserved a room at Hostel My Friend. It was quite dead when we got there, but a short walk from the beach so we wandered down to the sea and sat and ate peanut butter and jam sandwhiches as dawn approached. It was a really nice beach, and there were quite a few joggers about, including one old man who appeared to be sleep walking as oppose to jogging before hitting the deck and doing 30 minutes of impressive yoga and push ups before wandering into the sea. I did check and I wasn't hallucinating.

The beach front is lovely...

About 8.30 a young man and woman approached and started chatting to me in decent English, and it was too late by the time I realised... Jehovas...
I was reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", and when he asked why I didn't have faith in God, I explained that I read books such as this and studied science. He scoffed when I told him I believed in Evolution, but it was quite nice having a conversation with someone other than Jamie anyway so I entertained him with his persistent questions for a while.
Shortly after we went to the hostel just in time for them to start opening and clearing up after what looked to have been quite the party. The first thing the guy did was offer us a plethora of drugs, and then told us the room would not be ready for some time. We dumped our stuff, had a decent representation of an English breakfast, then headed back to the beach to bask in the sun. It was bloody hot, and at 1pm the room was ready so I took a shower before heading out again to wander around the town. The hostel offered surf lessons but I was not keen being the poorly coordinated mess that I am, instead choosing to get my bearings.
Along the beach front a local man stopped and chatted to me for a while, first about MotoGP, then about how silly I was for staying in Huanchaco when all the hot chicas were in Trujillo, and then about how I should make time to visit Colombia because the cocaine there is much cheaper than in the UK. I lied about having to meet some friends, thanked him for his advice, and made a note to take another route back to the hostel.
Huanchaco is really nice, a small fishing town which is up and coming on the tourist scene due to the decent surf, hot weather and long stretch of beach. It hugs the coast and if you go further than the 7 or so streets of it's width there is nothing but barren sand dunes and the baking sun. I got back to the hostel and headed to the terrace to find Jamie. There we met two Americans and a Canadian and introduced ourselves. The San Diegites (or whatever), Cody and Steve, were on their way to Lima, and Erik the Canadian was here to stay for a while. They were good guys and Cody told us that San Diego is the place to be for bio-tech, and we chatted for ages before heading down to the resturant for a beer before they left.

...the area around Huanchaco is pretty desolate

That night the band that had played at the hostel were playing again at a bar down the road, so later the remaining three of us found ourselves wandering the back streets of Huanchaco. A man from the deep north of England spotted us drifting aimlessly and showed us the way, speaking in tongues the whole time though apparently it was English. We got to the bar at 9 and started on Pisco sours, which contains egg whites, Pisco, and goodness knows what else. 3 hours later and the band still hadn't started, and I was not in a good way so headed back before passing out instantly on the bed.
The next day we booked a coach to Tumbes; a city on the border of Peru and Ecuador for S38 realising that this was considerably cheaper than what we'd paid to get anywhere before, and this was hammered home by the man repeating "Economico" several times as we paid.
I then took a bus to Chan Chan aka the largest temple ruins in the world, as they were only down the road. The bus dropped me off at the end of a long and winding dusty road leading off into the dunes and for a moment staring into the barren wasteland, I thought this couldn't be it... After a 30 minute stomp in the blistering heat with vultures actually circling above I actually found more people and the entrance.

12) Leaving Huaraz

Well with all the Puya bagged and tagged, and some 11,000 data points collected in Excel, our work around the Cordillera Blanca was finished. The next few days were spent enjoying our surroundings and trying out new food places, which included an incredible Swiss owned resturant with equally incredibly dim waitresses and fantastic food.
I trawled the local handicraft market, where the old women drive hard sales and ended up getting roped into to buying an Alpaca wool poncho (complete with hood) "Señor it looks so good on you!" and I was putty in their hands.
After some fragmented communication with Paul and Alejandra his PhD student in Ecuador, we formulated our plan to get to Cuenca with the help of Wilson the ex tour guide. Despite Google maps' insistence that it's a mere 12 hour drive, there seems to be no easy way of getting there without renting a car and going it alone.
We walked to a bus station and booked tickets to Trujillo, a town on the west coast and roughly the direction we need to head. The woman there was a massive bitch, and aside from being unhelpful was quite clearly making fun of our (admittedly pitiful) attempts at Spanish. Unfortunately our options for getting there were somewhat limited so we handed over the S50 and picked up some snacks for the journey.

The plan is as follows Huaraz - Trujillo, where I intend to spend a couple of days on the beach in my budgie smugglers soaking up some well earned rays and frollicking in the sea level oxygen again.
Trujillo - Chiclayo probably via bus
Chiclayo - Tumbes hopefully via bus as it's a 9 hour or so journey
At Tumbes we walk across the border and hopefully don't get questioned by the Ecuadorean border force as to why we have 15 unlabelled packets of Puya raymondii seeds and a tub of white powder (TTC). I am NOT using my brown suitcase.
On the other side we'll find a way to Cuenca...

It's the final day; we went to a fish place for lunch with Yanet which was actually pretty fun considering we couldn't understand eachother. Later I wandered into town and managed to get lost in a huge market that I hadn't found before. It's one of those proper gristly ones, with skinned chickens dangling in your face every where you look, amongst great slabs of raw meat, opposite dumpy old women sewing away at machines. The gap between the aisles was about 2 feet and being a head taller than the average Peruvian meant I was constantly knocking into things and apologising to them. After half an hour or so of browsing in awe I burst out onto another main road which itself was lined with vendors of all sorts and tried to establish my whereabouts. I got sidetracked watching a man stuff a sack with live chickens, and then another with squeaking guinea pigs and felt a pang of sympathy before nearly getting mowed down by a tuk tuk. Back in the office, and we've just got time for one more cup of that addictive Peruvian coffee, before we treat Oscar and Yanet to more of that delicious anticucho and intestines and then begin our mission to cross the border!

Adios Huaraz, you've been good to me.

11) The final 200!

After taking Wednesday as a rest day and indulging in some more "Anticucho de corazon", we hit the bus station again on Thursday to get to Queshque (the name is Quechuan). The van we were bundled into this time looked like it was older than me and had seen much, much more action. The inside was plastered in stickers declaring love for Jesus and how Christ is the saviour, which didn't instill much confidence. I spent much of the journey to Catac balanced on one ass cheek trying my hardest not to lean against the door whilst a framed Jesus watched me intently. Nevertheless we got to Carpa intact and started looking for a taxi to our destination. It wasn't long before a taxi man approached us and asked where we were going. He looked EXACTLY like a decompressed Blobfish for you marine biologists out there, and when we said we wanted to go to Queshque he made that stereotypical drawing air through teeth "It's going to be expensive" sound. He told us the road was long and difficult, and in the end we negotiated him down to S70 (about 17 pounds), lobbed our stuff in the back and got on our way.

Base, near the creepy settlement

Turns out he wasn't lying when he said the road was difficult, and was being rather generous in calling it a road to begin with. After about 40 minutes out of the town into the mountains, past farms and into panoramic nothingness, we began spotting Puya and got out, watched him spend 10 minutes trying to turn around before deciding to reverse back the way he came, and set up camp. It would have probably cost him more than that in repairs but I don't think that's a thing here.
That day we got 35 Puya tagged, and come 8pm it was dark so ate our soup and went to sleep.
The following morning we tried out banana flavoured porridge, which was rank, and got back to work determined to hit 100 Puya by the end of the day. Come number 85 the rain hit and it hit hard. It was grim, and my hands were bleeding from tagging Puya and frozen solid! We also had to move the tent. There were some abandoned structures which were the only other thing in the landscape and one of them had a garden marked out by a dilapidated stone wall, so we hitched up the tent and moved it into there for more shelter.
Next day we planned to gather data on the last 100, then get up early on Sunday and hike back down to civilisation, but this time the rain struck at 12.30 and it did not stop. A man and his flock of sheep took shelter in one of the abandoned shacks and for a moment we panicked and thought we'd pitched up in his garden, but he didn't say anything and moved on after an hour or so. I hope he didn't have far to walk. 6 hours of non stop rain later, bored out of our minds and perhaps a little ambitious due to the copious amounts of coca tea, we chugged a few sleeping pills with the aim of getting up at 5 and finishing bright and early.
I came round at 6.30, woke Jamie up, and we pressed on with the final 30 after another bowl of awful, awful porridge and a cheeky nature dump (back to normal). We packed up our gear and started the arduous trek back. It had been a good trip for wildlife spotting. My count was 1 Andean condor and various other birds, a lime green frog that looked like it belonged in the amazon (so I didn't touch it), a massive spider, and then on the hike back we found 2 Vicuña (related to Llamas). I'd never seen one before, and they make a noise like a pathetic donkey so that was cool. It took us 2 and a half hours of trudging along to get back towards town, with a brief stop to attempt conversation with a family heading to market. Turns out the English aren't the only ones with the "if they don't speak your language say it louder and slower" mentality, but they were friendly enough and it was nice seeing people again!

Vicuna on the trek back

Back in town we sat our stinking, sweaty selves down at the cafeteria place we'd been served Coca tea on the way to Carpa, and I thought I'd treat myself to some Picante de Cuy (guinea pig). It was not great to look at to be honest, with the little claws and its head still very much intact, and is the sort of thing you just have to pick up and gnaw at. The skin was very crispy and full of flavour, and the meat tasted distinct, though not far from rabbit, and it was served with boiled potatoes and a chilli sauce as is custom. I followed it up with a nondescript dessert which was kind of like a block of rice pudding baked in some leaves, and then we found another mini van to take us home (which would have instantly failed it's MOT due to a foot long crack across the windscreen). We were done.

Crispy little 'pig to celebrate

The feeling of relief is immense, having gathered data on 600 Puya and tagged 400 of them my hands are obliterated, and now we are finished with our work in Peru! With a bit of luck, no more awful porridge and even worse noodles! Onward to Ecuador.

10) Working in Carpa

Wilson is a friendly guy who speaks good English and helps around the office. To sort us out with getting to the next site where Jamie had started work whilst I was running out of bodily fluids, he explained he'd take us to a tourist bus which passes by the park. With about 15 minutes to spare Sunday morning, the bell rang and I nipped downstairs to answer the door. To my surprise Wilson was there, a little early, and also with a tourist bus filled with people waiting behind him. I dashed back upstairs, me and Jamie grabbed the last of our gear and we hauled ass out of there.
We grabbed a seat at the back of the mini bus and plonked our bags on our laps because there wasn't any room and off we went. First off we picked up some more people. Everyone was Peruvian, and I think it was a kind of city tourist thing because they all looked fairly well off, and obviously a tour of the mountains would appeal to very few locals who see them every day.
After an hour or so we arrived in Catac, a small village/town about half way, where we had to stop and sample Coca tea at a local cafe. It was stronger than normal but good, and we also bought some coca leaves as Carpa is higher than Pachapaqui (about 4400m), and they were only 50 centimos a bag so it would be rude not to. Down the road and about 40 minutes or so down a gravel track and we were at the guard post where tourists pay to enter El Parque Nacional Huarascan, where we would be working (for free, lucky us). We hiked up the mountain and set up camp before setting to work. The original plan was to do half in one day, and finish by 3.30 on the following Monday to catch a tourist bus back. This went massively to pot.
On the first day we had a helper, a young lad called Jack who lived in a shack on the border of the park. He'd met Jamie before and helped us measure the Puya, chatting away despite the language barrier like we were best friends. Either way we didn't get nearly enough done. The night was bloody freezing (literally) and we woke up with the tent covered in ice, ate our shit porridge and got straight to work. At lunch we headed back to the tent and Jack was there waiting with a friend this time, his little brother Jesus. Jamie went to get some more water from the guard post, as it was obvious by that point we wouldn't finish by 3.30 and would be staying the night, and I had to entertain Jack and Jesus who were fascinated by us and every bit of equipment we had (especially my binoculars).

Making our way to Carpa

After a while their grandmother came down from the mountain where she'd been herding their sheep and told me about how their parents had died and she looked after them. She was mortified that we had to stay in a tent, and kept asking me to come for tea. I had to explain I was waiting for my friend, and when I told her I my age she started crooning like I was 12 and asking about my family and stuff. She told me to get in out of the rain that was coming and ushered off the kids, wishing me luck with the work and telling me to make sure I ate plenty and kept warm and some more things I didn't understand. It wasn't long before Jamie returned, with two small followers. I made the mistake of showing them Angry Birds and they flipped their shit and took ages to get rid of. By the end of the day we had 40 Puya left to do, and at the gaurd post Jamie had found out that buses do not run on Tuesdays...

Our helpers and Grandma

Morning came again after another sleepless night, and we got straight to work, finishing by 9.30. We packed up the tent and headed to the guard post. The woman there who sells snacks empathised with our mission, sold us a couple of chocolate bars and we set off down the long and winding road. The 10 miles were mostly hell. The weather flipped from light rain, to intense, blazing sunshine, to eventually continual hail and thunder.
 After 3 hours of trudging along with the featureless mountains on either side, we hit the road damp all the way through, with still no signal to call for a ride. The road to Catac was winding and frankly, a death trap to anyone crazy enough to walk it, so we got our hitch hike on. After a few cars, a pickup stopped with a man and woman in, he told us to sling our stuff in the back and hop in (I assume), which we did feeling immensely grateful and relieved and hoping we weren't about to be hacked up. We hopped out 15 minutes later after a totally silent ride, expressed our gratitude some more, and set about finding a ride to Huaraz. Instead of a bus service between towns, anyone who owns a vehicle that can fit more than 5 people in can pretty much label themselves a bus, and we found one such minivan and bundled in. I mistakenly thought that the number of passengers would be dictated by the number of seats, but at one point on the hour or so journey we had 4 people standing, which is not comfortable in a van the size of a Vauxhall Zafira when you also have a soaking wet rucksack on your lap. We made it in one piece anyway for just S3.50, and stomped back to the office, feet squelching and legs protesting at 4pm, having set off some 6 hours ago.

T

There's a Puya! Imagine it the right way up and pretty big...

After washing away the grime of 3 days roughing it, we celebrated our return with pizza and on the way back to the office there was more Fiesta-ing so I stopped off to take a look. I asked in the bakery what was going on and she explained about their celebrating Shrove Tuesday. I'd totally forgot it was pancake day, but it's a lot more epic here (minus the pancakes). They basically stuff trees with piñata type things and decorations and just dance around getting smashed and letting off even more fireworks. There was a stage set up with a live band and everyone either selling or drinking Cusqueña; the Peruvian beer of choice. I didn't stay long because my legs killed, stopped off at the bakery for a cheeky couple of Alfahores (phenomenal) and went back to the office where I could hear my floor-bed calling me.