Whistlestop visits to Otavalo & Quito

On Boxing Day, we headed north to Otavalo, which is famous for its market.  On the way, we crossed the equator, a fact brought to our attention by a big monument.

Our GPS actually read 0'0'0', which was quite cool, as there's another popular tourist attraction called The Middle Of The World which claims to be on the equator but is actually a few hundred metres off it.

We stopped again a few kilometres further along in the town of Cayanbe to sample the local speciality, as recommended by our hacienda hosts, bizcotti and cheese.

(Buttery, crumbly savoury biscuits with mozzarella-like cheese - delicious!)

We eventually arrived in Otavalo late afternoon - a bit late for any market action, so we decided to camp near a lake just outside the town.

It was deserted when we camped that night, but when we woke up, a couple of market stalls had been set up nearby; it was as if Otavalo market had come to us!  We got a taste of what would be on offer and headed over.

Saturday is the big day, when the market spills out in to the streets.  We went on a Friday so just saw the central stalls.  I'm guessing on Saturdays there are more stalls selling the same stuff to more people, so it's probably best for us that we went on a quieter day.

After a couple of hours browsing and a bit of haggling, we headed back to Quito.  Big cities, especially ones in valleys (and therefore with steep roads) aren't very van-friendly, plus it was a challenge finding somewhere to park that had enough headroom.  The car park we eventually ended up in didn't have enough headroom, but the attendants let us park outside the main bit.

The view from the top of the car park was pretty cool.

(Statue of Virgin Mary about to fly off a hill overlooking Quito)

I had a quick walk around Quito's old town while Paul recovered from shopping.

(The Plaza Grande or main square in Quito.)

(One of Quito's oldest streets, La Ronda, recently renovated with lots of cafés and bakeries)

After a taxing day driving around Quito, we decided to head out of the city that night, destination: the coast!

(Long overdue) food blog

Some of the more interesting things we've eaten over the past couple of months:

(Lomo saltado.  Stir fried beef with onions & tomatoes, with rice & chips.  A popular Peruvian dish of Chinese origin, I think.  Served everywhere.  Some places stir fry the chips in with the beef:)

(Paul's first alpaca steak, drowned in a mushroom sauce, served with quinoa risotto)

(Chicharrón - crispy fatty pork served with big Peruvian corn)

(Dire coffee from a place in Aguas Caliente - shameful for a coffee-producing country!)

(Oreo cookies with a dulce de leche filling!)

(Guinea pig - a whole one spatchcocked like a chicken, head and all)

(Mixed seafood ceviche with a chunk of sweet potato)

(Anticucho - skewers of beef heart - very, very tender meat!)

Christmas (and birthday!) in Ecuador

Our first ever Christmas together was spent in a beautiful country house hotel just outside Quito.  It was actually someone's huge family home which they'd turned in to a guesthouse.  It seems to be a common thing to do here as they actually have a name for it - a hacienda.

The place was gorgeous - they have so much land that they've set up trails, and there are archaeological tunnels beneath the property which you can explore (we never found out what they were for though).  They also have the cutest dog - an 8-month old Fench bulldog called Francis.

We had a relaxing two days there, enjoying sleeping in a king size bed and not having to drive anywhere. 

(Our room was the one with the balcony upstairs)

(Not quite the suite that was advertised - just one room and no sofa - but nice all the same)

The weather was sunny, but because we were at around 2,800m it was cool as well.  And at night it got cold enough to warrant a log fire, which made it feel very Christmassy!

We spent Christmas Day eating panettone and Skyping friends and family, including our new niece, Audrey.

We didn't really get a proper Christmas dinner though (Paul had asked before we booked if they were doing a Christmas meal and they said yes, but perhaps he should've asked about a 'special' Christmas meal because we just got their standard menu which we also had on Christmas Eve). Still the food was delicious and the breakfasts were some of the best we've had in South America.

As a bonus, after dinner I got a cake with candles, as well as the cake and candles that Paul had bought!

Papallacta - the best thermal baths in Ecuador

We couldn't visit Ecuador without stopping at the best hot springs in the country.  In fact, we had originally planned to spend Christmas at the Termas de Papallacta after Mel and Franco in Salta told us about the private in-room jacuzzis and log fires.  But they were fully booked by the time we were confident we would get there in time, so we went as day guests a couple of days before Christmas.  

It was quite a long drive because it involved climbing more than 2,000m to the top of a mountain pass at 4,100m, then going back down to Papallacta at 3,300m.  Sometimes we were reduced to 30km/h by the incline.  After around 4 hours, we were finally on the downhill stretch to Papallacta and envisaging ourselves soaking in the luxuriously warm baths, when we hit the road leading to the complex.  It was an uphill stretch of loose gravel road. And as our luck would have it, we started the ascent at the same time as a horse rider, so had to slow right down.  The loss of momentum was a disaster!  

The gravel was so loose that we couldn't get any traction and the wheels were spinning.  We ended up stuck on this slope with the horse and rider slowly trotting past us.

There was no way we were not going to the best hot springs in Ecuador just because of a crappy gravel road though.  The only course of action was to try again and, with the horse out of the picture, to give it some welly!

Thank god it worked - look at what was at the top!

There were loads of crystal clear pools of varying temperatures, including a freezing river next to one of the hottest.  

(Paul getting out of the river and then sitting in the really hot pool)

And because we were up in the mountains, the scenery was spectacular.

We had a quick dip as soon as we got there and then had some dinner in the van.  Then we went back in at 8.30pm for a late night dip when it was all lit up and the cooler air temperature made the warm waters even more divine!

We had planned on camping in the car park overnight and having another dip on Christmas Eve morning, but they wanted to charge us $6 each. This seemed a bit steep considering there were no facilities for us to use, so we left the car park and camped on the road, just outside for free!  The next morning we couldn't resist heading back for another session in the sun.

A Tale of Two Bañoses

We've continued the theme and embarked on the thermal springs tour of Ecuador.  They like to be clear about what's on offer when naming towns, so the springs we've been to so far have been in two towns both called Baños (aka Bath. If only Bath, Avon had thermal springs).

The first Baños is just outside Cuenca.  We ended up following signs to a fancy new spa called Piedra de Agua.  Rather than being an actual thermal spring, it had pools filled with volcanic water which they pumped from beneath the ground.  It was a lot more expensive than any of the thermal baths we went to in Peru at $10pp, but it was a much fancier complex with nice toilets and showers, a steam room and lots of optional extras like massages.

Mid-soak, we got talking to another bather, Wilson, originally from Ecuador but who lives in the States and was back for Christmas with his family.  He said he owned a plot of land nearby that had its own (free) source of volcanic water and he planned to include a pool of some sort in whatever he ended up building.  How nice would that be?!

The next day we went to the more famous Baños that's a couple of hours south of Quito.  We headed straight for the recommended thermal baths of El Salado that are 2.5km from the town itself.  

There were lots of different pools of varying temperatures, but also lots of kids of varying levels of annoying.  Plus babies who probably weren't wearing swimming nappies.  And we all had to wear shower caps! 

We ended up staying the night in Baños town - we'd been driving all day every day for the last 6 days, so it was a nice break.  The town itself is quite touristy but pleasant enough.  There are loads of stalls near the bus station selling sugar cane, sugar cane juice and sugar cane taffy (Baños has lots of sugar cane growing nearby).

Every time a busload of people emerged from the bus station, the women manning the stalls would all call out trying to attract customers!  Before we left, we picked up some sugar cane that was already cut in to pieces, which you chew on and suck the sugary juice out of.

Into Ecuador

From Lima we bombed it up the coast.  It's mostly desert so there's not much reason to stop so much.  The road is pretty flat so we managed to do 500km in one day (compared to the 200km a day we would manage on Bolivia's winding mountain passes).  One of our overnight stops was in Huanchaco, where we were able to camp near the beach and wake up to the sound of the waves.  We spent the next day sunbathing on the beach while we waited for our laundry.  That was a tough day.

We'd been um-ing and ah-ing about where to spend Christmas - Ecuador or Peru.  After all the trouble we had getting in to Peru, I was a bit worried about leaving in case we had trouble getting back in again.  But it seemed a waste spending a week or more in one place when we could be exploring another country.  So we headed inland to the Macará border crossing - the frontier is just a bridge over a river, Peruvian immigration is on one side and Ecuadorian on the other side.  

We had no problems at all on either side: Peru stamped us out and kept the van's entry permit, Ecuador stamped us in and accepted our notarised documents for the van.  We're now working our way up through the middle of the country.  We've booked a couple of nights in a suite at a hotel near Quito for Christmas.  We're back to around 200km a day though because we're in the highlands again!

Van twins!

Look what we found!!

We returned to our hostel in Lima to find our van twin!  A German couple, Helga and Thorsten, brought theirs over from Germany.  They started their trip around the same time as us, but from Colombia.  We had a beer in each other's vans; theirs is configured the opposite way to ours and is also a fraction longer than ours, so is a bit more spacious.  Their sink has a draining board!

Greasy Vicky

We had our last meal in Lima in Vicky.

Paul had bistek a la pobre - or beef steak with rice, chips, egg and plantain (option 4)

I had lomo saltado or stir fried beef strips with chips and rice (item 3)

Vicky was greasy.

New boots

Our faith in Peruvians was well and truly restored on Monday (16th) when we met two of the nicest people we've met so far on this trip.  Our joy at finally finding the official Fiat parts shop was short-lived when it turned out they had neither our windscreen nor CV boots (the rubber cover around the wheel joint) in stock.  We suspended our search for the windscreen and were sent around the corner to The Street Of Shops That Sell Car Spares to hunt for CV boots.  After asking in a few shops with no success we got to Roberto.

He was the first guy to actually come and have a look at the van to see for himself what size we needed.  He then spent ages looking up the part number and specifications, and when he didn't have it in stock, instead of sending us to the next shop like the others had done, he called a load of shops for us.  

(Roberto on the phone!)

Alas, the exact part we needed remained elusive, but Roberto did have one of a similar size (it's the end diameters that are important, he explained) and said we could at least try it.  When we asked if he could recommend a mechanic, he got back on the phone until he found somewhere with enough headroom that could fit us in straight away.  He even sent his son, Alejandro, with us to give directions, and said if the part didn't fit, he'd send an alternative to the garage!  

The Friendly People Gods must have felt they owed us a debt after the weekend because the garage owner, Manuel, was just as genuinely friendly and helpful as Roberto.  

When we arrived, Manuel and his staff were in the process of rearranging cars so we could get the van in.  Then both of his mechanics spent the rest of the afternoon working on it.  

With the wheels off, we got to see the steering joints properly and how the scammers had painted them black to make them look new.

Below is one of the bits we were having replaced.  The ring of rubber in the middle had split from the piece in Manuel's right hand.  

After seeing the amount of grit in the grease in the joint we realised the covers must have been damaged a while ago and so probably weren't cut by the scammers.  In fact they may well have done us a favour by helping us notice the problem before it became bigger and more expensive!

The new covers we were having fitted turned out to be a bit shorter than the originals, so Manuel drove us back to Roberto's shop to see if he had a closer match!  We couldn't believe how far out of their way they both went to help us.

After deciding that we already had the closest match we were going to get, we headed back to the garage to put everything back together.  

Three hours later and we were back on the road!

All for the unbelievably low cost of £19 for parts and £44 in labour.