Ecuador -- Rolling Blackouts, Hiking in the Lagunas & Gothic Spires

After four days in Huancabamba, a pueblito in the remote eastern part of Peru’s Piura province where we spend a day and a half shopping for shamans before settling on one who seemed to be more of a drunk than a brujo, we killed the better part of a day in Piura city after arriving there at 1 p.m. to find out our bus to Ecuador didn’t leave until 9 p.m. We walked 10 or so blocks along the main road in the midday heat to the main plaza, where we sat in the shade of the central monument and drew a crowd due to Niki’s guitar playing. Several shoe-shine men and boys crowded around and Niki put two of the youngest to work by saying she needed percussion, leading them to play their shoe-shine boxes like the cajon, an Afro-Peruvian wooden, hollow box-type instrument that dates back from slave times when the slaves would turn a crate on its side and use it to bang out rhythms. Now she just needs to learn more songs in Spanish.

Which is what we were doing in Cuenca, Ecuador, last week when we went into Azucar, a Cuban bar by the river that cuts the colonial town of 400,000+ in half. The power was out thanks to the perpetual rolling blackouts that take place in southern Ecuador due to the country’s worst drought in decades which has led to a lack of hydroelectric resources. We didn’t mind, though, the Cuban staff brought us candles and enjoyed hearing Niki practice “El Cuarto de Tula,” a traditional son song from the Buena Vista Social Club that she sang in Cuzco. I shined my flashlight on the disco ball for extra atmosphere and scoped out the little pictures of Cuban landmarks, like the mountains around Viñales in the western part of the country and the young waiter came and sang with us. After awhile the power came back on and we moved outside so the music would draw in more customers, with the waiter rigging up a stand for the mike on a chair with electrical tape. “I’m Cuban, we’re used to doing things like this,” he told me in Spanish, with me saying I knew since I visited his country last year. Not many people stopped by considering it was a Monday night, but our friends we met in Cuzco months ago, Juan Manuel from Colombia and Eva from France, came by and helped us drink the two jarras of cuba libres that the staff gave to us gratis. None of us really remember much after that, but we definitely had resacas when it was time to get up early the next day.

The four of us plus another two friends from Argentina (that we also met in Cuzco), Lisandro and Valerio, left early the next to go to Cajas National Park, a wide swath of páramo, or moor land, with more than 200 lagunitas at an altitude of about 12,000 feet. We hiked five hours the first day, with Juan and Eva serving as our guides, consulting our grande mapa at every cross roads and some points in between. I was lucky to not be carrying a big backpack like some of our group, as we were carrying food for 4 meals since we were camping that night. At about 3 p.m. the majority of us were tired enough to camp just where we ended up, but Juan and Lisandro weren’t satisfied with our stopping place and branched off in two directions to scout out other locations. Juan came back with news of a good spot just a bit further on with a panoramic view, so we rallied for the final leg of our journey to a beautiful spot where we pitched our tents. After sharing the bottle of wine and rón we brought with some cheese and crackers, there wasn’t much to do once it got dark except for watch moths on kamikaze missions fly into our candles and cringe as Lisandro tortured them with drips of hot wax. Went to bed at 8 p.m. once it started raining and woke up to wet feet and damp backpacks. My book is still drying five days later! We woke up early and hiked pretty much straight uphill for 2 hours until reaching the road and a bus back to Cuenca.

The power outages at first were a novelty, but soon became trying -- for example when the lights went out on us one night when we were trying to get ready after showering and then the next morning when we wandered the streets of Cuenca for nearly an hour trying to find somewhere serving café during a city-wide blackout. After that we were ready to get out of the city, as beautiful as it was, so we picked up my fixed camera (a casualty of the Máncora Halloween fiesta) and caught an afternoon bus to Quito. We thought we had boarded the party bus, as the driver and the attendant blasted reggae for the first hour or so, then switched to Spanish-language ballads, then we got a period of quiet before rumbling into Quito with the final set of the cheesiest ‘70s and ‘80s American music (“Abracadabra,” “Eye of the Tiger,” and “Queen of Hearts” just to name a few). Lucky us, we were right by the speaker…

After hearing from countless travelers how they got robbed in Quito we were a little nervous to arrive at 12:30 a.m., but we got our backpacks, found a cab and got to a hostel without any problems. The city definitely has some charm, with plenty of plazas with colonial buildings and churches to explore (but interestingly enough, in Old Town ALL stores have the same ugly metal lettering -- poor choice of zoning regulations!!!), but can be quite a bit dodgy after as early as 7 or 8 p.m. we had been told. We’ve been more cautious than usual, taking taxis more often, but had no problems going out to two different neighborhoods on a Saturday night nor walking home after dark tonight.

The highlight of our few days in the Ecuadorian capital was the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a Gothic church where visitors can climb high up into the towers on treacherous ladders and walk on gaping wire mesh -- conditions that would never fly in the U.S. of A Niki and I both couldn’t help but wonder how many people had committed suicide by flinging themselves off the dramatic spires; seems like a deliciously dramatic way to die. The views over Quito were amazing and worth the scary climb (made worse by my choice of footwear -- flip flops) -- it was a far better use of our time than the touristy El Panecillo hill, where you can only climb a third of the way up inside the angel statue.

Tomorrow we’re flying to Cartagena, Colombia where the highs are in the 90s and the lows in the 80s -- time to sizzle after months in the mountains…