Entries about hummingbirds

Sunday 20th July

Bus journey from Quito to Mindo. Mindo is a tiny village surrounded by mountains covered in cloud forest, which makes up one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth. This setting is certainly dramatic.

My hostel was very quiet. I'd booked a bed in a 2-bed dorm, which along with the other dorms was within the owner's house, but nobody else arrived to take the other bed. In fact I seemed to be the only person booked into a dorm the whole time I was there! This meant it was very quiet, peaceful and relaxing.

For dinner I had a whole steamed tilapia fish, learning through the process of ordering that the Spanish word for steamed is 'al vapor'... makes sense considering what the process of steaming is. I'd never come across steamed food on a menu in Ecuador before.

Monday 21st July

At breakfast I saw hummingbirds for the first time since Dave and I did the Inca Trail in Peru five years ago!

After some scrambled eggs, pineapple juice, melon slices, toast, jam and coffee I looked round the little orchid garden attached to the hostel, but it evidently wasn't the right time of year to see them because not very many were in flower. It was still nice to wander round though.

After that I booked a ziplining trip for the afternoon and walked to a butterfly farm. It was very hot and sunny and I soon left paved roads behind; as I walked along the whitish dirt road in the middle of lush greenery, with the sun beating down on my head, I got a sudden image in my head of the cover of my copy of 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning', which shows the back of Laurie Lee as he walks by himself along a road in the middle of nowhere in Spain.

At the butterfly farm I saw some bright shiny silver jewel-like chrysalises that are designed to look like water drops, a butterfly in the process of breaking out of a normal-coloured chrysalis, and lots of brightly coloured butterflies! I especially liked the ones that were grey, brown and black on one side of their wings but then electric blue on the other side when they opened them. There were bowls of overripe bananas around, food for the butterflies, and when I dipped my finger in the juice, butterflies would then land on it.

My afternoon ziplining trip was an exhiliarating experience, zipping between beautiful valleys and mountains within the cloud forest. There were ten lines. I was put with two small groups of Germans and one of Ecuadorians. We saw two toucans in the branches of a tree at one point - I was so happy! I love toucans and I hadn't seen any since Dave and I saw some in Brazil on the same trip five years ago that I just mentioned above.

On the way back I started walking but was then given a lift the rest of the way by a group of girls who'd been in my group. It had clouded over by the time the ziplining had begun, and just as they dropped me off at the end of my road it started pouring with rain.

A couple of hours later, when I went out for dinner, the rain had stopped. I went to a café known for its brownies, though I didn't have room for one after I'd had my main. They didn't actually have any hot main dishes left by that time, only salads and sandwiches, so I had a really thick tuna sandwich with a side of yuca chips and a chocolate milkshake. I made a mental note to come back the next day for lunch.

Tuesday 22nd July

First thing this morning I went on a cable car over a forested gorge to a protected forest, where there was a long walking trail leading to and past six different waterfalls. I was one of the first people there so I had a lovely peaceful walk with nobody else around for the majority of the time. It was very sunny again this morning.

It took a couple of hours to do the main walk, which went past five of the waterfalls. Then there was a shorter, separate path to the sixth waterfall, which was also the biggest. I swam in the pool and river beneath it - the water was so refreshing and cool - very very welcome considering how hot and sweaty I was after my long hike! The current was very strong so when I tried to swim to the waterfall itself to get underneath it, I couldn't because the current pushed me back so hard. I was trying to swim forwards but ended up just swimming on the spot.

I wanted to stay in there for hours but eventually dragged myself out, got changed and hiked back to the cable car station. Then I walked the 4 km back to the hostel (I'd got a taxi on the way there in the morning). It was all downhill but because I was already tired from the long hike, I arrived pretty exhausted.

It was about 3pm when I arrived back, so as soon as I'd dumped my stuff I went straight back out again for some lunch at the same café I'd been to for dinner the night before. This time I went for the soup of the day (cream of broccoli and asparagus), a chocolate milkshake, Fanta and one of their famous chocolate brownies. I was stuffed by the time I finished.

I then went back to the hostel for a bit before going to an internet café for a couple of hours. I wasn't particularly hungry for dinner because of how late I'd had lunch, so I left dinner as late as I could and then only had a plate of chips.

Update from October 2019: Another name for Abya Yala Museum is Museo Amazonico. Still open according to Google Maps. The wonderful jewellery workshop is also still there - also known as 'ARIU Art Jewelry Studio'

The first place we visited this morning was Abya Yala Museum, a small but very interesting museum with lots of artifacts from the Amazon as well as a few archaeological ones from other areas of Ecuador. Highlights included two examples of shrunken heads, various stuffed wildlife (a sloth, an armadillo, a condor and smaller birds), a massive dugout canoe, musical instruments, blowpipes, spears and some photos of Ingapirca, the only major Inca site in Ecuador. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures.

When we came out of there a guy was practising parkour in front of the museum. We caught a taxi from there to our next destination, La Capilla del Hombre, or 'The Chapel of Man'. This monument and art museum was a creation of Ecuador's most famous artist, Guayasamín, as a tribute to humankind, the suffering of Latin America's indigenous poor and the eternal hope for a more positive future.

It lies in the very suitably named residential district of Bellavista ('beautiful view').

On the way there we passed through Guápulo district, very hilly and historic. It was beautiful - I'll make sure to come back here for a look-around when I return to Quito next month.

First of all we walked round the outside of the monument, taking photos of it as well as the view and of a statue from the Honduran Mayan site of Copan which was donated to the Chapel of Man by the government of Honduras.

Then we went inside it to look at Guayasamín's art. We were given a free tour by a guide, just for the two of us; in the process of doing so our guide gave us such a fine example of Spanglish I wished I could have taken a recording of it to play to my students and see if they could spot where the mistakes were. The tour began with a drawing representing workers at the silver mines of Potosí (in Bolivia) in Spanish colonial times. Before the guide told us this I had guessed it might be about the Potosí mines in historical times, so I was pleased when it turned out I was correct. Then Dave noticed a large mural and said it reminded him of Picasso - a few minutes later we got to that painting and our guide told us that it was indeed about the Spanish Civil War and was influenced by Picasso´s Guernica. The art was interesting and very symbolic. Once our tour had finished, we each bought a fridge magnet of our favourite artwork.

After leaving the monument we walked up some stairs to an on-site café, where we had a humita each and shared a quimbolito.

Then we caught a taxi back to our hostel for a rest before heading out on a very important mission... choosing my engagement ring!

To do so we went straight to an extremely well-recommended jewellery shop called Ari's Gallery in the Old Town, right on the edge of Plaza San Francisco.

Every piece of jewellery in it is hand made; the owner makes them with the help of five assistants. Most of the jewellery is silver but some are gold and some made from Spondylus shell. The ring I chose is made of silver and patterned with two pelicans and two hummingbirds - no precious stone. I asked if the silver came from Ecuador and it turns out that it comes from close to Chordeleg, a village near to Cuenca that is famous for its jewellery. I'd heard of Chordeleg before. Ari Gallery's owner gets his silver (and I assume his gold as well) from the same source local to Chordeleg as the Chordeleg jewellers do.

When we first arrived the owner's wife showed us round, but then the owner himself arrived. I originally thought that they didn't have any the right size for me, because there was only one of each type displayed (and apparently they don't have any in storage - they only ever have one of each type in existence in the shop) and every ring I was interested in was either too small or too big. They were also a bit too wide for my liking. However, then it turned out that they could tailor-make one for me, so I went for that option! He tried different dummy rings on me to find my size and then I picked the pattern and asked for it to be a bit narrower than the ones on display. They had a book of patterns and it said that the pelican means 'new life and long life' and the hummingbird is a general symbol of 'nature'. I love both hummingbirds and pelicans so I think I would have chosen them even without their given meanings, but I do think these meanings were very appropriate nonetheless.

The owner told us that he could deliver the ring to our hostel tomorrow afternoon for free, so we went for that option.

For dinner we went back to the Argentinian grillhouse we'd visited a couple of days before. This time Dave chose the mixed grill, which arrived piled up and still sizzling on a portable grill. He really liked most of it but unsurprisingly left the intestines! We shared some 'Italian potatoes' (fried potatoes with melted cheese, sour cream and mushrooms) as a starter and for the main I had a steak.

To be honest I had a pretty bad night, not because the hammock was uncomfortable, because it wasn’t, but because I was so cold! The hammock terrace was unheated and Cuenca gets very chilly at night. I woke up several times in the night and it always took me a long time to go back to sleep. However, once I woke up for good at about 8.30, I saw the blue sky and the sunshine through the window opposite and felt really happy and excited about the day to come. Before I got out of my hammock I had my remaining two guaguas de pan for breakfast, and ate them while reading my guidebook.

One place I was desperate to go to last time but didn’t manage to was the Museo de Arte Moderno. It’s very highly regarded and the building used to be an institution for the insane.I didn’t really trust Lonely Planet’s information about opening times, so the first thing I did once I was up and about was go to the museum to check in person.

When I arrived I saw that the entrance was closed, but noticed it was 9.50 so thought maybe it would open at 10.00. I hung around in the square until then – the museum is on one side of the square, the church of San Sebastian is on the opposite side, and there’s a small park in the middle. There was a big group of teenagers next to the church who looked like they were rehearsing something – they broke off at one point to play a chasing game around the square, and I noticed they were all wearing Scout neckties.

At 10.00 the doors to the museum opened. Just to make 100% sure, before I went in I asked the security guard if it was open, and he ushered me through to reception to sign the visitors’ book before I walked out into a sunny green courtyard. I noticed a lot of doors around each side of the courtyard; I supposed that the rooms inside used to be the little rooms or cells where the inmates had to live.

As I stood there looking at the courtyard, a girl came up to me and asked if I’d like a free tour, so I thought ‘why not’ and said yes please. The two of us walked round together. It turned out that she was called Paola and was an art student at the University of Cuenca. She seemed a little bit shy but was very knowledgeable about all the artists and works displayed (which were all Ecuadorian or from other Latin American countries). Her eyes lit up whenever she said she thought a certain work of art was interesting and explained why – I could see she was absolutely genuine in her love for modern art, and I liked that. Yet she wasn’t being evangelical about it; she was just stating what she thought. One or two of the installations left me cold, but others were interesting, and were enhanced even further by what Paola said about them. There were some lovely paintings, too, and in the courtyards there were sculptures as well as trees and other greenery. In one courtyard there was a eucalyptus garden.

As we walked round, I noticed that the walls of the rooms were very thick – no doubt a remainder from when the place was a mental institution. I asked Paola about the history of the building but unfortunately she didn’t know anything about it apart from that it had been a mental institution; nor was there any written information about the building’s history.

I had to fulfill a specific mission next, so that is what I did. After that was completed, I had to pop back to the hostel briefly, and then I wandered into town in search of some lunch. I had two humitas, one tamale (similar to a humita,made from steamed ground maize but with some pieces of egg, onion and red pepper on top) and a chocolate milkshake at a café where I was the only customer until just before I finished. The humitas were more filling than I'd remembered from the last time I was in Cuenca, so I got the waiter to put one of them into a doggy bag for me.

After lunch I wandered around the main square next to the new and old cathedrals and through the flower market.

On one side there was a handicrafts market, which included a glass blower with a blowtorch.

I didn't buy anything from there, but I did at another market nearby. This one has several sellers from Otavalo, a town north of Quito that is famous for its weaving and massive market. I bought myself a grey and white patterned jumper, but before that, just as I entered the market I saw a man with a tiny coca stand - he had some coca leaves burning, and was selling ointments made from coca.

Close by there was another little stand, this time selling what looked like quail eggs.

I went on the internet for about an hour, before having a quick look through yet another market - this time it was an indoors market, mostly food stalls. I got the impression that tourists hardly ever came into this one. I walked past rows of butchers' stalls with various carcasses hanging up, and fruit and vegetable stalls with bags of different kinds of loose beans. I passed another woman with a sack of guaguas de pan, so I bought two to have for breakfast the next day.Then I walked back to the main square and sat down for twenty minutes.

I decided to go back to the hostel for a bit, but thought 'I'll just have a quick look round the streets on that side first'... I was glad I did, because what should I come across but the Museo Esqueletología... the Skeleton Museum!

It was very small, only three rooms, but very interesting. The owner spoke English well and told me that none of the animals were killed for the museum, which was comforting to hear. The only exotic specimen, as he put it, was a baby African elephant. I assume he meant exotic as in non-native South American animals, because to Europeans a lot of them would be exotic. There was a skeleton of a llama, various monkeys, a sloth, various birds (including two hummingbirds - it was fascinating to see how incredibly tiny their bones and beaks actually are), the tooth of a sperm whale, the skull of a tapir, a caiman, shark jaws, a sawfish saw and several other things.

There was also a display of five or six human skulls, arranged in age order from a seven-month old foetus to an adult.

After this unexpected and diverting experience I went back to the hostel and rested in my hammock for an hour or so before going out again for dinner. I went to an Italian restaurant for the first time in Ecuador (there are several Italian restaurants in Guayaquil, but for some reason I haven't got round to visiting any of them yet.) I had some bread to start; this was where the Ecuadorian touch came in, for instead of butter, it came with a bowl of chimichurri sauce and a bowl of reddish sauce. I thought with the latter that I saw little pieces of chopped garlic in it, so tried a little bit, but it nearly took the roof of my mouth off - it turned out they weren't chopped garlic pieces at all, but chilli pepper seeds! I put the chimichurri sauce on the bread instead, and very nice it was too. I had a small but delicious tomato and mushroom pizza for my main course but was too full for pudding.

I didn't want just to go to bed after this, so I went for another wander round town now it was after dark. As I entered the main square I came across a crowd in a big circle surrounding what looked like a television presenter with cameras trained on him. I'm not sure exactly what was going on but it involved him showing off Panama hats and putting some on the heads of one or two of the onlookers. Then a younger man went into the middle and sang a song to recorded music (or he could actually have been miming; I couldn't be 100% sure.) Then the original chap came back in and said some more stuff, before the crowd dispersed. I walked around for a while longer before going back to the hostel to bed.