Tourist Sites

From Quito, we took a flight to Caracas, Venezuela. It was our first non-surface travel but was necessary because time is ticking away and there was a big ol' Colombia in our way. We had planned to leave Caracas immediately for Isla Margarita since Caracas isn't supposed to be very nice and is quite dangerous, but our flight was delayed. As a result, we spent one night in Caracas and headed for the island the next day. We spent the first few days in the small town of Juan Griego. The beach in town is just your average, beautiful, aqua marine Carribean beach, but the beach about 30 mins walk down the road was SPECTACULAR! Soft, white sand and warm blue waters. I now understand why my mother, who grew up in Trinidad, always has a hard time jumping into frigid, Ontario lakes. We spent a few days there lazing on the beach and then moved to another beach to laze some more. We decided to splurge a little on a nice hotel in the town of El Agua. For the next three days, we enjoyed every amenity to the max -especially the buffet breakfast!

From Isla Margarita we headed by boat and then bus to Ciudad Bolivar. It is a quiet little city with brightly coloured buildings. They seem to especially like pink. It was there we arranged a tour to Angel Falls -the highest falls in the world at 980m tall! The falls are deep in the jungle so the only way to get near then is to fly to a small town near-by, Canaima. The flight was pretty exciting! It was a 5 seater plane and we got great jungle, mountain and river views and not too much turbulance. Josh got to be co-pilot. After we landed in Canaima, we hopped in a motorised canoe and headed up river for 4 hours. Our driver was amazing and successfully navigated us by all the rocks and rapids we encountered. The scenery was incredible too! We were surrounded by table top mountains and jungle. After 4 hours in the boat, we had an hour hike through the forest to get close to the falls. Wow! They were so tall and so amazing! It was hard to grasp the true scale, however. We even swam in one of its pools about 2/3 of the way down. A great experience! That night we slept in hammocks in the forest and headed back to town by boat in the morning. After lunch, we toured some of the other amazing waterfalls in the area. We walked behind the "Sapo" waterfall and we have never experienced being so drenched! There was so much water it felt like it might push your eyes out of their sockets! I'm not sure if that is an actual risk. It was a wonderful excursion! the next morning we got back into the tiny plane and putt putted back to Ciudad Bolivar.

After returning from the Galapagos, Josh and I headed to Cuenca, Peru. Cuenca is considered the prettiest city in Ecuador and it didn't dissapoint. The cobbled streets are lined with interesting and beautiful colonial buildings. We spent most of our time there roaming the streets and peeking into churches. One of our highlights, however, was visiting a Panama hat museum and manufacturer. The famous Panama hat, is more accurately called a "Monte Cristi" hat and it is not from Panama at all, but from Ecuador! It was called a "Panama hat" by gold prospectors heading to California during the gold rush. It was faster for prospectors from the east to travel by boat down the east coast, through the Panama canal and up the west coast to California than to travel over land. When they were heading by Panama, a popluar purchase was a Monte Cristi hat from Ecuador. That's how they got their current name. Anyway, Cuenca is famous for their Monte Cristi hats. They are made with a type of soft straw, woven by hand and then hammered on a wooden mold to make the classic shape. The prices varied depending on how fine and tight the weave was. Josh found a hat that looked great on him so we bought it for a steal.

After Cuenca, we headed for Baños. Baños is a fairly small town, about 2000m in elevation and pretty much right on a volcano. Because of this, they have geothermal hot springs ...and don't worry, the volcano hasn't erupted for about a year or two! Josh and I had a really enjoyable time there hiking in the hills, riding bikes to explore the many, many waterfalls in the area and soaking in the near-scalding waters. We stayed there an extra day or two to wait out a referendum that was taking place in Ecuador at the time, but finally we had to move on.

From Baños, we took the bus to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We picked a cheap hostel at random in the Mariscal district where most backpackers stay. The streets were lined with trendy restaurants and bars. The most interesting part of Quito has to be the old city. The colonial buildings and churches would rival those of Europe, I'm sure. We toured the sites, museums and churches and my favourite things were the Santa Catalina convent where the nuns live in isolation (even from eachother) but make soaps, creams, wine and elixers for sale and climbing up into the bell tower of the San Fransisco church. I had to go on my own because Josh is afraid of heights but I took the camera to capture the view from the top. The climb started up narrow stairways but eventually declined to ladders with unevenly spaced rungs. I climbed and climbed and was eventually ABOVE the bells in the tippy-top of the spire. There wasn't even a floor here but some chicken wire stretched over some beams. I balanced on the beams and carefully removed the camera from the case so I could snap a picture of the great view. Click, click -nothing. There was no battery in the camera! Oh well, I'll just have the picture in my mind. On my way back down, I had the (mis)fortune of being IN the bell tower when the clock struck 5! I was startled to say the least and a little deaf.

After our trek in Huaraz, Josh and I felt the need for a little culture -pre-incan culture that is! Boy, did we get what we asked for!

First, we took another long night bus to Trujillo. Trujillo is one of the richest cities in Peru so the hotel prices reflected that. We pounded the streets for a while until we found a place that was not TOO grungy and within our price range. Because the night buses arrive so early in the morning, by 10am we were showered and ready to explore. We hopped a local bus to some HUGE near-by ruins called Chan Chan. Chan Chan was a large adobe city that was inhabited by the Chimu people who occupied the northern shores of Peru from about 850-1470 AD. Most of the city now just looks like huge piles of sand but archeologists have worked hard to uncover the palace section of Chan Chan. Because the Chimus lived in a desert close to the ocean, they relied VERY heavily on the sea for life. This is obvious in their artwork. The walls of the palace are decorated with carved reliefs of fish, pelicans and other sea birds, octopi and fishing nets. The was very different from inca ruins that we have seen,
mostly because the incas did not seem to decorate their walls much.

The next day we hopped on another local bus (always an adventure) to the Huaca de la Luna. This is another huge archeological site, but this time from the Moche peoples who lived from about 200 BC-850 AD. The Huaca de la Luna was suspected to be a temple. The Moche worshipped first and foremost a creature called the be-header. To appease their god, they frequently performed ritual be-headings. These were illustrated clearly in their wall paintings and on pottery. Prisoners were tied up and led into the main square of the temple. The priest would cut their throats and a priestess would catch the blood. The priest would then show the blood to the crowd and drink it. All very brutal and grapically depicted in the artwork. I guess their be-headings didn't appease the god enough because they were all eventually wiped out, most likely by an el niño. The temple construction was quite interesting. It was built in an inverted pyramid form and every 80-100 years the people would built a whole new, bigger and better, temple on top of the old one. They would replicate almost the same artwork each time. In some places, the different layers were exposed so you could compare the older temples with the newer ones. On the same site, there was also a huge pyramid called the Huaca del sol as well as a Moche village but we could not look at them closely as they are still being uncoverd. The sand moves in quickly in a desert.

After Trujillo, we headed to Chiclayo. Chiclayo is home to the richest scientific discovery ever made. In another former Moche settlement, they discovered many tombs near a huge pyradmidal structure. Some had been plundered by grave robbers but some remained uncovered. Most contained pottery, gold and silver but the tomb of a King held the motherload. There was so much gold and other riches in his tomb that the weight actually pulverised his bones. He was also burried with three women, his army general, a boy, a dog, two be-headed llamas and two men to act as guardians to the tomb (their feet were amputated so they couldn't run away). The next day, we went to the museum where most of the artifacts found in the tombs are held. The intricate decorations were amazing! My favourite was a necklace made of big, gold and silver peanuts!

Because we still hadn't gotten our fill of old, crumbly ruins, we headed to Chachapoyas -further inland and into the jungle. Here we got to explore a village, high on a hill top that belonged to the Chacha peoples. They were eventually conquered by the Incas but in turn, helped the Spanish fight the Incas later on. The Chachas built their houses of stone and they all had a circular shape. Each house also had a low, hallow stone wall running through it where they raised guinea pigs for dinner.

The next day we hiked to the Gocta waterfall. It is thought to be the third highest waterfall in the world at over 700m. There wasn't much water volume, so that nearly all that reached the bottom was mist.

All three towns were an archaeologists dream! They were pretty cool for two science geeks too...

July 16th was Josh's and my 6th wedding anniversary! We hopped a bus from Uyuni to Potosi and celebrated at a posh Bolivian restaurant. Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4060m altitude. Because of the altitude, it is very cold, there is amost no vegetation and no hope of any kind of agriculture. Why do people live here, you may ask? FOR THE SILVER!

During the colonial times, Potosi used to be the richest city in South America. The mountains were filled with pure silver. The Spanish used millions of Bolivians and black and indian slaves to mine the silver. It is estimated that over 8 milions workers died in the horrific working conditions. These silver mines bank-rolled Spain for hundreds of years.

Today, most of the pure silver is gone but there is still a lot of composite - silver, lead and zinc alloys. The mines are co-operative mines which means the miners work for themselves rather than an outside company. They haul out tons of rock themselves and sell it to refineries that separate the minerals and pay the miners based on how much of each mineral the rocks contained.

Josh and I took a tour of one of the biggest mines. The working conditions were shocking! The men and boys work in this mine where the temperatures are sweltering and there is almost no air to breathe. What air there is, is so full of dust that most of the miners die a very early death from lung problems. We wore bandanas over our mouths but even still, after less than 2 hours in the mine, we were completely hoarse.

Because these mines are co-operatives, the miners must buy all their own supplies, such as dynamite and shovels, and decide where to blast and tunnel. These tunnels are not built or approved by engineers so the younger miners depend on the experience of the oldest men to prevent cave-ins and to find the mineral veins.

The working conditions were appaling, however, most men in this city are miners because there are few other jobs and mining tends to pay a little better than other jobs. One miner told us that most of them have 6 plus kids and even working in the mine does not earn them enough to support their families, so many boys have to work as well. The miners also feel abandoned by the government who refuses to build them a smelting plant. As a result, they must sell their silver powder at a very low price to Chile where it is smelted into a useable product which Bolivia must then buy back at a very high price.

Potosi is a very nice city but unfortunately its hay-day is over and as the mountains run out of silver, I'm sure it will eventually become a ghost town.

After La Paz, Josh and I headed straight for Uyuni with a brief stop in the small city of Oruro. Uyuni itself is a cold and dusty town but it is famous for the Salar near-by. The Salar is the largest salt flat in the world at almost 11000km2.

We checked out lots of agencies offering trips and most seemed pretty similar. We chose one almost at random and set out for our 3-day jeep trip the next morning with 2 men from Germany and a French couple.

The trip was beautiful and the scenery was stunning, however, we witnessed a horrific jeep accident on the Salar that prevents me from raving about the experience. Another jeep of tourists that we were following flipped. Three of the passengers died quite soon after the accident. The other 4 were bady injured and we (other tourists stopped to help) tried to take care of them until the ambulance came. After 3 hours the ambulance/police still hadn't shown up so the injured had to be transported back to town in jeeps. One woman died later. It was a terrible tragedy and one that could have been prevented if the jeeps had only had seat belts. The lack of an emergency respose was also shocking and makes us both sick with regret for the 4 lost lives.