Entries about birds

I was the first of our group to sit down for breakfast this morning and while I was waiting, I experienced an earthquake tremor! Just a minor one but I did feel the earth shake a bit and coffee cups rattle on the table. Then Kate arrived and just as she was agreeing that it must have been an earthquake, it happened again and she felt it.

After breakfast we got a lift in the hostel's minibus to one of the bus stations, where we hopped on a coach to a town north of Quito called Otavalo. It is famous across South America and beyond for its street markets, in particular the big handicrafts market that reaches its apogee on Saturdays. It took over 2 hours to get there and the scenery was spectacular.

On the way there some ice cream sellers appeared on the bus at different points - Kate bought a coconut ice lolly (the best ice lollies she had ever had, apparently) and I bought a lovely chocolate one.

We knew there was a morning animal market in addition to the handicrafts market and the daily market, so we made a beeline for it as soon as we arrived. Before we did that, however, we had to go on a toilet hunt. We looked inside the church on the main square - it looked really interesting so I will definitely look round it properly when I come back here with Dave in June - but they didn't have any toilet; luckily, after we had exited from there Mark then spotted some public toilets nearby.

Market sellers had spread across the town even outside the official market areas, so there was lots to see on our walk. Unfortunately the animal market had mostly finished by the time we got there, so almost all the big animals had been sold other than a few sheep, but we did see little pens and cages of guinea pigs, pigeons, chickens, ducklings and a rabbit.

Next to the market I noticed a stand making and selling the same type of delicious batter things that I saw in Ambato at Carnival, so I bought and ate two; then some of the others bought one.

Indigenous Otavalo people still wear traditional dress and take great pride in it, even the young people who you'd think would more likely to wear modern clothes. Everywhere we saw women wearing their traditional bead necklaces and bracelets, distinctive white blouses with elbow-length flared laced sleeves and flower or other embroidering over the chest area, dark skirts, coloured bands round the waist and hair tied back with a cloth band. We also saw some men wearing their traditional clothing - white trousers, dark ponchos and hats.

On returning from the animal market we explored the daily market a bit more. This was extremely untouristy, filled with butchers' stalls, lunch counters, fruit and vegetable stalls, general stalls with tins and packets of food as well as sacks of maize, flour and other grains, and stalls selling non-edible household goods.

While walking past one of the lunch counters Kate noticed that it sold 'cuy' - guinea pig! The others all decided to have some for lunch but I originally decided I wouldn't, because I knew it would be fried and I've had that before in Bolivia five years ago; I remember thinking at the time that although it was nice fried, I'd have it roasted or as part of a stew the next time.

Guinea pig is expensive in Ecuador so the others decided to have just one between them. They sat up at the side of the stall on an inbuilt bench and waited 25 minutes or so for the dish to be prepared. At one point one of the women at the stall asked if they wanted to take photos of the guinea pig being cooked, so Kate went over and took a photo. Apparently it was indeed being fried in a pan, was flattened a bit and didn't have any fur on it - the same as what I had in Bolivia. When it arrived they each got a quarter on a plate along with toasted corn, some sort of boiled corn, tomato and onion salsa, potato in some sort of sauce, some tomato and lettuce. They also brought me out a plate and we thought that it was included in the $25 we'd paid for our meal, so I accepted. It was tasty but somewhat hard to get the meat off the bones. Of course, once we'd all finished eating it turned out that it wasn't included after all, but it still worked out as $6 each which was pretty good value.

The famous handicrafts market (Plaza de Ponchos) was our next destination. I was tempted by a lot of things but didn't buy anything because I knew I would be coming back here in June with Dave. I can tell I will be loading myself up then! Kate and Andrew bought a lovely piece of artist's work that they plan to get framed and put up in their house, Kate also got a little carved stone turtle keyring and Andrew bought something that he thought was a carved wooden axe-shaped ornament that turned out to be a pipe. Emma and Mark also bought things but I've forgotten what they were.

Instead of going straight back to Quito, we then caught a bus to the town of Cayambe.

Update from January 2019: The boat is still there, though officially known as 'Barco Morgan'. I didn't mention it below, but it did and as far as I know still does more normal daytime river trips during the week and I assume at weekends as well (don't quote me on this though).

At the Malecón in Guayaquil there is a wooden boat docked called the Captain Morgan, which on Friday and Saturday nights becomes a floating bar. It leaves at 11.30 pm and sails up and down the River Guayas for a couple of hours; you pay $15 to get in and then it´s all you can drink for free.

A group of us decided to give it a go. Before we went got on the Captain Morgan we had a few drinks at Las Peñas. We met up in a bar called 'La Taberna', somewhere I had never been to before. It was a very interesting place because the walls were covered with laminated photographs and framed newspaper pages and articles that looked decades old.

There were also antique telephones and gramophones, old Latin American records in their sleeves, a collection of empty cigarette packets stuck onto part of one wall and two flatscreen TVs showing some very eccentric and low-budget-looking cumbia, reggaeton and merengue videos and some recordings of salsa nightclub performances. Part of a U2 concert was also shown. There was a giant inflatable Pilsener beer bottle outside the entrance.

There were no drinks menus; the owner simply brought over pitchers of beer and some chilled glass mugs. There were some bottles of spirits behind the bar but I decided to leave it and not bother having anything to drink considering the free bar I knew I'd have on the Captain Morgan.

After leaving La Taberna we walked down the Malecón to the Captain Morgan. I saw this bird on the way (apologies for the rubbish quality: I didn't want to scare it away by using flash).

We'd arrived half an hour early so some of us went looking for food... For some reason the only food I'd had that day so far was a couple of empanadas in the morning and a chocolate brownie in the afternoon, so I was starving.The only open place nearby was McDonald's, so we went there. It was only the second time I'd been to a McDonald's in Ecuador. I had a small fries and a 'Thick & Crispy' burger because it looked like a plain double cheeseburger with a bit of special mayonnaise and what I assumed was crispy bacon inside... Once I bit into it I discovered that it wasn't bacon at all but pieces of pork scratching!

The boat trip was a great experience. It was interesting to see Guayaquil from a different viewpoint and after dark.

We did a lot of dancing and took advantage of the free bar. Aside from beer they didn't have much else apart from vodka, whiskey, rum and mixers, so I had a rum & Coke and two whiskey & oranges.

The boat came back to port between 2 - 2.30 am. I got a taxi back with some of the others who live in the same end of town. Unfortunately when I arrived back I realised I didn't have my phone anymore - I think it must have fallen out of my pocket in the back of the taxi or when I used the facilities just before we disembarked.

I'd always wanted to be in a country that celebrates Carnival at that time of year, so now that Carnival had come upon us, I wanted to make the most of it! My friend/colleague 'E' and I went on a four-day trip to the mountains and rainforest with some friends of hers.

Our bus left Guayaquil's bus terminal at about 12.45 am. As snacks for the journey I bought a bag of small yellow sponge things that had jam in the middle and a little bit of sugar on the outside and a bag of small balls that looked like peanut brittle. Due to Carnival the terminal was crowded, despite the late hour. Guayaquil is very quiet at Carnival time because everyone goes off to the beaches at Playas, Salinas and Montañita or to places in the highlands like Baños, Ambato and Cuenca.

I didn't get much sleep on the bus. I dozed off at one point but woke up because I was so cold; while I had dozed off we had clearly arrived in the mountains and the altitude had increased enough for a temperature change. I'd been in a sleeveless top before but now had to put my Bolivian coat on. I only managed to doze off again once or twice more before we arrived at Ambato at about 6.30 am. We only stopped there for a few minutes before carrying on to Baños, where we arrived about an hour later. Our arrival was interesting not only due to the amazing setting - mountains tower over Baños on every side - but because of the clouds. It was mostly sunny but there were a couple of very flat, low-lying clouds that we could clearly see both above and below. One of them looked almost like a bridge between two parts of the valley.

I was intrigued by the stalls set up on both sides of the terminal. They had bunches of what looked like green bamboo, long poles leaning up against the wall next to them and small ones upright underneath the stalls. I found out later that these were actually sugar cane.

We had some breakfast at a café near to the bus terminal. Bread rolls with white 'queso fresco' inside, scrambled eggs, a glass of borojo juice (a fruit native to the Amazon) and a cup of hot milk (or hot water, if you fancied it) to which you could add coffee or hot chocolate powder.

Breakfast was relaxed but we only had time for a quick toilet stop after it because our bus to Tena was due to leave at 8.15. Tena is a 'jungle town' north of Puyo. As we sat on the bus waiting for it to depart (which it did half an hour after it was supposed to - other passengers started getting annoyed and called out to the driver "Vamos!"), I heard the crowing of a cockerel coming from very close by - apparently it was coming from inside the luggage hold below us! It did sound like it was directly underneath us.

It was still quite bright when we left Baños but about 30 minutes later it started to rain. It didn't last that long though. The journey took about four hours. Once we had arrived in Tena we didn't have long before we had to get another bus to the even smaller town of Puerto Misahuallí, which is on the banks of the River Napo. This took another hour.

We were dropped off in the town centre, which would probably have been sleepy at any other time of year but wasn't this weekend because of Carnival! There was a small fruit and vegetable market in the square, with wares spread out on blankets on the ground, and children and teenagers roamed with spraycans of foam... water-throwing and foam-spraying is a Carnival celebration very widespread in Ecuador! On almost every side there were little stalls set up selling cans of foam for $1. Luckily, for now at least the children and teenagers seemed to be concentrated in the park in the middle of the square, not at the corner where we were, so we crossed the River Napo bridge and up a hill to our accommodation without much damage.

Our accommodation was a set of cabins, one of which was split into two dorms, where we stayed. In mine there was one single, a double and a bunk bed - nobody else wanted the top bunk so I took it. There was mosquito netting fixed over the windows.

Soon we headed out to our first excursion - a trip on the River Napo to two Kichwa-speaking indigenous communities. We stopped in town for a late lunch, however, on the way to the small riverbeach where the wooden motorised canoes leave from. There was a restaurant where the food was cooked on grills outside the front - whole fish and parcels of stuff wrapped in palm or banana leaves.

As we watched for a while, the woman reached into a small water-filled tub and retrieved three very large and fat maggots, which she skewered and put on the grill... we weren't tempted, strangely enough!

What we did have was the fish; tilapia, commonly eaten in the Amazon. They had been gutted but were completely whole apart from that. The flesh was very white and juicy and there had clearly been butter involved in the cooking process as well - it was delicious. We had one each; they came with yuca, a slice of lime and a salad made from raw onion, tiny pieces of cheese, herbs and a white vegetable I didn't recognise.

The trip on the River Napo took about 10 minutes. The River Napo is a tributary of the Amazon, so I had always pictured there being mudbanks on every side, but in fact there were a lot of large, very smooth stones.

Once we arrived at the first indigenous settlement we were shown round by the guide - he showed us lots of plants that have special uses, for example a couple of poisonous ones used for blowpipes, ones with medicinal uses, and a cinnamon plant (he handed round one or two leaves form it; I bit into one and it did indeed taste very strongly of cinnamon). There was also a pond with a couple of caimen in it and two small enclosure with a peccary and capybara inside.

We saw some massive ants on one tree trunk - the biggest I've ever seen! Apparently if antagonised their bites are extremely painful. He showed us round a hut filled with examples of pottery, shells (he demonstrated blowing into one conch shell and we all had a go), jewellery, spears and other things. We finished up in another hut where there were samples of jewellery, balsa wood parrots, little bottles of natural remedies, spears and arrows and more. I was really tempted by the arrows but didn't think I'd be able to get them back to the UK in my luggage, so I didn't get any.

It was lovely to stand on the bank of the Napo before we climbed back down the bank to the canoe, because I could see nothing but forest on every side.

After this we visited another community on the other side of the river. They had a volleyball game going on in the middle of their square. We were welcomed with a dance by some of the women and we had a chance to be 'cleansed' by a shaman - I passed on this because although no doubt the roots of it are genuine to the community, it seemed quite put on for tourists. I had a wander round another hut filled with handmade souvenirs, but didn't buy anything. I wish I had now, though.

Lunch had been very late for us so it wasn't long after we got back that we had some dinner. This time we had another type of grilled fish; I've forgotten its name but it was massive, with enough meat on it for four people. Those of us who chose it, including me, had one in the middle of the table for us to share, with bowls of rice and yuca and the same type of salad I mentioned before. Once again it was delicious. The flesh not only looked a very creamy colour but tasted creamy as well.

It was after dark by the time we finished. Once we got back to our accommodation I had a much-needed shower and went to bed. Some of the others went back out for a drink or two, but by the time they decided to do so it had started pouring with rain and I felt so nice and dry and comfortable, as well as tired, that I decided just to get an early night instead.

I made this trip into the city centre because I had realised that although I had been all the way to the end of the Malecon in one direction before, I hadn't yet been to the other. I saw on Google Maps that not only is there a market there but also a 'crystal palace' - I couldn't believe I hadn't ever got round to checking them out before! I remember seeing part of the 'crystal palace' on the waterfront from the ferry on my trip to Isla Santay last September and thinking 'I wonder what that building's for'.

The first thing I did in town, however, after buying a bottle of Coca-Cola Light to get change from a tenner, was have lunch at the same restaurant I had lunch at for the first time last Sunday; 'La Barca Azul'. There are no menus on the tables, like most places open for lunch; only a whiteboard outside and in this case, a row of pictures and captions on the wall inside. Last time I had a lovely goat stew (seco de chivo) with rice where the meat was so tender it fell off the bone, so this time I thought I'd try something else to see if the general standard had been a one-off or not. So I tried seco de gallina instead, despite not knowing what 'gallina' meant (hen, as it turned out); also very good.

After lunch I did something else I'd also done on Sunday; I walked round the botanic gardens in the Malecon. This time I'd brought my camera with me because I regretted not bringing it last time. As I walked up to the bridge across the 'moat' surrounding the entrance to the garden I saw a man in a blue council outfit standing in the water up to his chest, throwing white powder out of a bucket. Bizarre. Maybe some kind of water treatment?

Anyway, once I got into the gardens it was really pleasant to walk round. Colourful flowers, exotic scents and birdsong, the unmistakeable subtropical air.

I exited at the far end and walked back down the Malecon. As I passed by where I'd entered I saw that the man was still in the water throwing whiteness around, only this time he'd mixed some water in with the powder.

Soon after that I heard some band music playing in the distance ahead. This turned out to be the Metropolitan Police band, though I've no idea why they were playing. The only public holiday in January here is New Year's Day. It was a brass and wind band. One chap was playing a massive white sousaphone that curled round his back and rested on his shoulder. When rested on the ground it was very nearly as tall as he was.

They were playing next to the La Rotonda Monument, which represents the meeting of the two famous South American liberators, Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín, in Guayaquil 1822.

After listening for a while I carried on to the end of the Malecon I hadn't been to before. On my way down I noticed that there was an awful lot of riverweed floating in the River Guayas.

It was extremely hot and sunny by now so I was glad to walk through the little air-conditioned shopping centre on the way.

The crystal palace turned out not to be quite as big and grand as the name suggests, and was also empty - I couldn't work out what it is actually used for - but still looked quite impressive. There was a plaza on each side and these connected through a massive archway through the middle of the building.

There were a few hole-in-the-wall market stalls around the the sides of the left plaza but most were shuttered down - clearly not a market day. I thought I might as well leave having a look round them properly until it is! The area was so pleasant in the sunshine next to the river that I was still glad I'd come.

Excursion weekend! We left on Saturday the 15th and came back the next evening. I and the other teachers from the language school where I work had been invited to a party held at Punta Blanca by the British Consulate in celebration of the Queen's birthday, and after that finished we carried on up the coast to the surfers' town of Montañita for the night and next day.

The dress code was pretty simple - we had to wear white or cream as much as possible, and a hat. I hadn't managed to get a hat before we left, but the situation got resolved when we were nearly out of Guayaquil. We stopped at a rare traffic light and were surprised by the amount of traders who descended upon us and the other cars; it's normal for a couple to wander round cars at traffic lights further into the city, but not for so many to do so at once. All of a sudden someone asked me "Don't you need a hat?" I looked to my right and saw a trader with a couple of piles of hats walk past, so he was stopped and a couple of hats were passed back to me to choose from hurriedly. Just then the lights changed so we pulled over to continue the transaction. I paid $5 for a wide-brimmed, tightly woven but semi-floppy white hat. I'm glad I bought it,because it will come in very handy in the future, especially with the sun as hot as it is.

The scenery wasn't spectacular like it is further up the coast and in the Andes, but it was still different to the UK. It was quite hilly (though not mountainous) a lot of the time and the sides of them were covered in bushes and shrubbery, some green and some brown with the occasional touch of pink. We did pass a banana plantation at one point though, and a field of what some of the others said was plantain at an early stage. Quite often billboards appeared at the side of the road - a series of Coca-Cola ones and a series of Banco Pichincha ones are two lots I remember. In Ecuador (and in Bolivia and Peru from what I remember when Dave and I were there), out in the middle of the countryside you quite often come across political slogans and murals painted onto shack and shop walls, even abandoned ones. The name of Rafael Correa appeared a lot - the current president of Ecuador.

On entry we had to sign the visitor's book that I noticed had been printed specially for this occasion, and were given a glass of wine each by a waiter. Then we found a table and sat down. Soon a waiter began bringing us each a plate of small empanadas and Ecuadorian ceviche. It was all delicious – some of my students have told me about ceviche and how it's different to the Peruvian sort, so I was glad I could finally try it. In Peru ceviche is raw fish with lime and chilli - Dave and I had some when we were there but I didn’t like it because of the chilli – but in Ecuador you can have other kinds of seafood as well, and the fish at least is cooked, albeit still cold; the sauce has tomato in it, and there isn’t any chilli. In our mini glasses of ceviche at the party, however, there were only prawns, no fish. It was delicious, as were the empanadas. As well as wine they had free beer and soft drinks as well, so we found no reason to resist...

After a while of eating, drinking and chatting, there were a couple of speeches. They were both in Spanish, and neither was repeated in English, so I didn’t understand a lot of what was said. I did surprise myself though by recognising more words than I could have expected, and more of the general meaning. At the end of the speeches the Ecuadorian and British national anthems were played; a recording of people’s voices sang the Ecuadorian one, but the recording of the British one was only music.

When the speeches had finished I went for a quick look at the beach. I noticed a little fishing boat nearby, and further along there were three men pulling on a long line that went into the sea. I assumed that if I waited around for a bit the net would come out, but it must have been a very long line because I waited for quite a while and the men pulled the line further and further back up the beach, but nothing appeared.

Not too long after that we all had some more food. This time we had to queue up for a served buffet of chicken, special sausages, beef, potatoes in foil, vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, green beans), a white very cheesy sauce and chimichurri sauce, which is an Argentinian green sauce made of garlic, parsley and other things. Of the two sauces I just chose the white one because I didn't realise what the green sauce was until after I'd eaten my plateful and was too full to have anything else. I really wish I'd had some of the chimichurri now because it sounds pretty nice!

A while after eating, I noticed that there were some rather prehistoric-looking black birds flying overhead and even more flying around over the beach. Something clicked in my head as I realised the fishermen must have pulled in their nets by now. I went back out to the beach but didn't get too close because I didn't want to intrude. I think they'd already brought in the catch and packed it up in the truck nearby, because I didn't see any fish, only men wading in the sea doing something with one of the nets, while lots of empty nets lay on the sand. There was a crowd of pelicans in the sea next to them, a couple of birds standing at the edge of the sand that Iooked from the distance like white storks, and the strange big black birds flying above. The pelicans and other birds weren't fighting over anything, which makes me think even more that the catch had already been brought in.

There was dancing after it got dark:

We teachers didn't leave until past 7pm when things were winding up. We arrived in Montañita between 8 and 9pm. Unfortunately it was drizzling a bit when we arrived and it didn't stop for nearly all the time we were there, but that didn't stop us having fun.

Our accommodation was great! All our drinks were free, and on the patio we were given a free barbecue of sausages, red peppers, ribs, medium-rare steaks, salad and pitta bread. The steaks were so lovely I had four, but I didn't have any ribs or sausages because I was full up by then! They kept bringing out more and more meat, and I couldn't resist. We sat around for a while after that, variously in armchairs, a swinging seat, a hammock, a sofa and ground cushions. Some of us had beers, but I had a rum and coke.

At 11.30pm nearly all of us walked down the road into town. I could hear cicadas by the roadside. We went to 'Cocktail Alley' and had a couple of cocktails - Mojitos first. You can see in the photos what Cocktail Alley is like - quite a narrow pedestrianised street filled from one end to the other with roadside cocktail stalls under gazebos. Each one had a row of tropical fruit in front of the row of bottles and the cocktail list. Nearly every cocktail cost either $2.50 or $3, and they were pretty large and strong cocktails!

We sat there for quite a long time. After the Mojitos some of us bumped into people they knew, whilst the rest (including me) went next door into a small club where we danced for a bit. Then I had another Mojito, looked around the beach for a bit with a couple of the others, and got myself a lovely White Russian from another stall. When I stood up after that, to go to a bigger nightclub with those of the others who hadn't already made their way home, I could tell I was a bit three sheets to the wind...

The club was a bit different to any I've been to in the UK. For a start, although they played some Western songs you hear in the UK all the time, they also played Latin American music (as you'd expect in South America, of course). Also, the rafters,columns and some of the walls were made of giant bamboo, and one end of the club was open to the air, one giant open window without any glass pane or iron bars or anything. I thought it was a good idea because it meant a breeze came through quite often and the air didn't get stuffy.I really liked the atmosphere there. We danced for a while before going home at 3.30am.

On Sunday morning we had brunch on the big wooden patio at 11.30. As well as a piece of leftover steak from the night before, I got an English breakfast with a twist – the fried egg was quite runny and on a split-open roll, the sausage was one of the short fat Ecuadorian ones from the night before, and it all came with a glass of papaya juice. (There was also bacon, mushrooms and a tomato, but no baked beans thankfully!)

After I'd had brunch a group of us went into town for a look-around in daylight. We walked along the beach for a bit and then some of the main streets.

Montanita is Hippy/Rasta/Backpacker Central in Ecuador, with loads of dreadlocked characters on the streets running roadside jewellery and craft stalls or just sitting around not doing much.

We went into a lovely café where some of us had drinks – I had a ‘Frappacino Bombon’, delicious iced coffee with ice cream and drizzles of condensed milk on top. We split up for a bit then. I popped into a cyber cafe for 20 minutes because I wanted to send a Father's Day email. As soon as I'd sent it the man himself happened to come online, so although I wasn’t able to install the plugin for Gmail Video chat on the computer I was using and he couldn't see me as a result, I could see him which was great!

We went for another wander after that and got some lunch at a roadside ceviche stall. The man had tupperware containers of fish chunks, octopus chunks, prawns and one or two other things on the counter, and in a cupboard inside the stall he had various kinds of shellfish in their shells - oysters, conches and some others I didn't recognise. I chose just to have the fish and prawns in mine. It came with chopped up raw onion and tomato, squeezed lime and chopped up fresh coriander in the same bowl, and there was a communal pot of large dried toasted maize kernels and bottles of tomato sauce and oriental chilli sauce to which we could help ourselves as well. We each got a packet of green banana crisps as a side too. Apparently you're supposed to break up the crisps and mix them and the toasted maize into the main dish, but I had the crisps separately. I did mix some maize in, though, and the taste and texture of it went well with the juiciness of the seafood.

The journey back to Guayaquil later on was pretty uneventful apart from a stop we made at an isolated petrol station where I discovered some packets of yuca crisps. I secretly found it quite funny that they had a couple of loaves of bread, one or two toilet rolls and cleaning products, a drinks fridge and a few sweets, and the rest of the goods were almost entirely made up of various kinds of crisps...