Part II-Ecuador to Peru: Luggage and Baggage

I met an old man in the bus station when I first arrived in Ecuador; he had been travelling for over a year with nothing but a stuffed, scruffy briefcase and a walking stick. He was one of those wise bearded types, and seemed really comfortable amongst the hoards of backpackers who were waddling round the station with sweaty backs and packs nearly as big as their bodies. We got to talking about how he managed to travel around with so little stuff, and he said he had just never been the kind of person who needed much. I started thinking about what you could tell about a person by the things they carry, and how interesting it would be to see what people choose to pack; what special things they always take with them and what they leave behind.

I always try to carry a little but end up with a lot..having made the decision at the beginning of my trip to buy an accordion which I now haul round in a big black case. I also have a lot of seemingly impractical trinkits and momentos from home, and always too many books as I dont like to leave them behind in the book exchanges!

As we sit in the gray squares of the Quito bus station surrounded by stale smoke, I look over at Janes bag and spot a tupperware tub of wheat-germ and a copy of Richard Branson´s autobiography sticking out the top..read into this what you will :)

Half way through our wait two enormous suitcases are wheeled through the door by a perspiring taxi driver. A string of three small children follow being chased by the commanding tone of their mother who soon appears, cursing the Ecuadorians and her kids simultaneously with a Marlboro red hanging out of her mouth. It becomes clear immediately that this lady has a lot of baggage in every sense of the word, and before we know what has hit us she commences to tell us all about the particulars of her suitcase, and the burden of her children. A she does so one of the kids is coughing bronchially with his hands stuffed down his trousers, one is already wrapped around Jane´s legs, and the other is on the chair next to me pulling weird faces. It turns out that the two massive suitcases contain all their belongings, and they have left Canada to travel around South America in search of a new home. In the ensuing monologue I gather that she is carrying 2 large hunting knives in there (which she believes every sensible traveller should do), the remaining possessions of her dead father, and a computer (amongst other things). As we pile onto the bus, I wonder what she will pass onto her kids; what they will take with them and what they will leave behind as they grow older.

The bus is already crowded with long haul passengers from Veneuzala. A procrarious mountain of suitcases and duffle bags is stacked on the backseat behind us: exectutive black suitcases, checkered laundry bags, a roll or carpet and a stack of taped up cardboard boxes amongst them. I imagine the lives and secrets that are tucked away inside, the stories behind the trasit of the stranger items. If you emptied out all the bags, would you be able to match the people with their luggage just by comparing them?

After several hours we cross the border into Peru. The landscape changes into a sparse wilderness of sand banks and rocky mountains; the oily sun setting over a still, pale coast. Civilization is marked only by small corrugated-iron shacks which appear between the arrid peaks that line the road. We pass one such cell of existance with childrens washing hung out on a wire line. A rusted bike cart is parked at the front, its lone tyre track winding down the valley like a palm line. I imagine a whole family is living here, and that under that make-shift roof they have everything they need to survive.

ECUADOR TO CHILE - a curious soup of a journey. PART I - Quito time plays its tricks

Seven days, 3 countries and 110 hours on the coach is facing us if we want to make it from Ecuador to Chile in time for christmas. The journey starts in the crowded night streets of Quito on the 6th of December; a date that we had forgotten was a public holiday in the city. As we arrive from out first 9 hour coach journey from the coast we are husteled and bustled around the streets, tired eyed and vaguely confused. The first stint of our journey will be a daunting 36 hours from Quito to Peru´s capital, Lima. We go to the Transamerica office to buy our tickets and a man with a deep waxen scar like a sign across his forehead advises us that the bus will be leaving at 10pm that evening.
We head back into town with a few hours to kill, and find ourselves in the thick cheer of bottle swinging crowds, their laughing faces melting and twisting like wax in the bulb-lit night. A uniformed police band march past us, their spotless brass instruments held like curious weapons at their sides. Time seems to have slowed down and conjealed like the people and the traffic; nobody is hurrying anywhere. The night is on a continuous loop of red latin music that licks the buzzing pavements into a firework sheen and echos its deep laugh into the mouths and pint glasses of the people. We indulge in food and beer and saying goodbyes to this rich Colada Morada of a country, and the time melts into it all like slow syrup as the bus journey gets further and further away from our thoughts.
Suddenly we are pulled from the festivities like bubbles spitting out of the pot. We have 20 minutes to catch our bus and the streets are of course mainly closed due to the huge parades
that will act as the climax to the city holiday. We run through the rain varnished streets in search of a taxi, dodging stilt walkers with white painted faces and dancing school girls in pom-pommed plastic boots. We dodge small children chewing on greasy Pintox and whisky breathed men in thick coats and pork-pie hats. Everywhere are hot crowds in syrup slow motion and we are awkwardly trying to swim through, getting Áye aye ayes!!´from disaproving old ladies as we tumble past.
As we reach Amazonas we are greeted by a vast perade of dance, light and extravagant mayhem; a milkfloat decked with candy LED´s acting as a chintzy chariot for the Quito beauty queens who gaze into the crowd and wave submissivly like immaculate puppets.We push our way to the front of the mesmorised crowd with only 10 minutes to go until the bus leaves. This whole scene is like some kind of surreal carnival dream, and I feel like the omniprescent dreamer; whitnessing it all without actually being there.
We realise we have no choice but to cross the perade and also realise that this will be a sacriligious action causing anti-gringo feeling the crowd over. ´Just try to blend in´I say to Jane, forgetting that my pale skinned, stripey panted Englishness is unblendable at the best of times. Suddently there is a break in the crowd as a large man in a leather jacket attempts the mean feat of crossing. ´Follow him!´ screams Jane, and we charge across the perfect pattern of traditional dancers in cultural dress, exuding all responsibility for the ensuing cufuffle by hiding behind the rather tall man.
Finally in a taxi, two minutes to go, haggling with the taxi driver about the price, almost there....and the bus is nowhere to be seen. ´Have we missed it???´we question the security guard in exasperated Spanish. The man regards our panic with confused amusement and casually states that the bus will probably arrive at about midnight. I suppose we should have got used to the Quito time by now; it is always slowing down, speeding up, and then slowing back down again as it pleases. Oh well, at least we will be leaving the place in traditional style!

The Three Crosses- Parque de Caja

High in the mountains above Cuenca winds the path of the old trade route between the city and coastal Guayaquil. We stand deep in the heart of the National Park, where birds of pray circle sparse mountain trees; their bark peeling like fine paper. The air hangs in a fine mist over the dark-watered lakes, around which yellow grasses lay petrified by the wind against the glacial valleys. In a grassy clearing at the highest point of the path stand three marbled crosses, half bueried in the rocks offered by passers by. The story of the crosses is a mysterious one, and it seems that noone is certain of the real reason for the name of the place.

A common belief is that the name reflects an old Spanish- Catholic saying whereby a person ´makes three crosses´ in a place that they have no desire to return to. By making the three crosses they resolve never again to have to suffer the bad things that have happened to them there, and symbolically cross their palm before leaving.

Years ago trader families crossed the harsh, exposed path in order to make their living by selling goods in the adjoining city. At best the journey took 5 or 6 days, and back then the pass weaved its way through dense tropical jungle filled with dangerous animals and disease. Often people were lost along the way, but many thought that they had made it when they found their way through the forest and reached the highest point of the path (now the three crosses) in the mountains. Those who rested over-night to complete the jouney the following day never lived to see the tomorrow as the below freezing temperatures set in over the wet-land. Those who survived, exhausted and bereft, made three crosses at the point and vowed never to return; making new homes in their cities of destination rather than having to make the jouney back to their origin.

The Road to La Hisperia

In the seat behind me a man with a coarse black moustache is eating hot chicken from a grey plastic pot. The bus makes a tight corner and I am pressed against the warm, elevated arm of an old woman with lined copper skin; at her feet is a basket of live chickens who squark and scuffle with each other. The road is cut into a steep mountain, and the right side of the bus grapples with the loose stones that border the road and the steep cliffs that descend into the valley.
We look out on dense tropical forests that sprawl lazily in the valley basins, the humid air sticking to the window in fat droplets.
As the driver overtakes an oil tanker on a blind corner an old man in a thread-bear suit crosses himself and dabs his forehead with a stained hankerchief; even though I am not religious I feel like doing the same. People have more reason for religious faith here; without risk assesments or cancer screenings or the highway code.... or any of the other things that have become the medern day gods and bibles of Western society.
We pass a derelict waterpark named ´Hostel Florida´where faded yellow fun slides plunge into think green water; broad forest leaves floating like giant lillypads on the surface.
As we pass the small town two merchants board this bus selling ripe fruits in cascading orange nets held tightly in their fists. The wooden houses in the village are slumped angularly on wooden stilts; mothers linger at the windows with their babies wrapped in brightly coloured cloths.
The conducter beckons me to the front of the bus as we grind to a halt in an even smaller village further down the road. I hesitantly disembark as my backpack is thrown from the luggage hold onto the grassy bank. I cannot see the landmark mentioned in my directions, and start to panic as I notice the magnitude of nothingness on either side of the village. A couple of houses down two men in overalls are fixing rusted black jeep beneath a bamboo canopy. As I approach them one of them looks up and points in the direction of a small path set back from the road without speaking. I look up into the mountains and notice the whispy forest of cloud that merges with the distant treetops; ghost like against the pale blue of the sky.

Street Shoes

On every bus journey I take here in Ecuador I see at least one shoe in the road: usually tatty leather childrens shoes, and not the pair just the one. The person who started the lost shoe project: http://www.thelostshoeproject.com/ thought that there was something really intereting about this phenomenon. does the person not realise that they are missing just one shoe? How did it come to get abandoned by the side of the road?

Some of the shoes are old and worn out, like they´ve been to a lot of places and have been a part of someones identity for quite some time. Others are creaseless and shiny, as though they´ve found their way out of a shop and are on their way somewhere!

I always wonder who they might have belonged to; as Forrest gump says, you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes; Where they´ve been, where they´re going :)

Here is an intersting pair that I saw abandoned in the street where I´m living. I think that the lady they belonged to was one of the Ecuadorian ladies in pastel suits I see working to work on the morning; with bright lipstick and shimmer tights. Not old but not young; the kind who likes Salsa dancing at the bars in the Mariscal on a saturday night; only ever dancing with her husband even though she is bored.

On this particular night the lady was walking home and had a sudden moment of realisation; about what I couldn´t say. She took of her shoes and threw them into the roots of a nearby tree. Smiling, she walked all the way home with no shoes, laddering her tights on the gravel and singing a song that she thought she had forgotten.

Avenida 12 de Octubre- Quito, Ecuador

One of the main things that has struck me about Ecuador is how passionate people are about the politics. At the weekend the population will vote Si or No for the New Constitution, and I haven´t met anyone here who hasn´t read the Constitution in full or in part. Even I have read it after being here for a month; it´s so widely referenced and talked about that I was genuinely interested. I must admit that I am a bit apathetic back in England, as a lot of people are. Being here has made me wonder why that is, and I think that one reason is that day to day life here isn´t as comfortable for most people and so

the need for change is more obviously on the surface; young children still work in the streets shining the shoes of businessmen for 25 cents; disabled people beg in the roads with few rights or means of support.

The president Rafael Correa has had a bit of a marmite affect;in the family I´m staying with alone there is a strong divide between loving him and hating him. 95% of the people here

claim to be Catholic; and religion is another thing that people here take really seriously. I have a big

Jesus on the cross above my bed, and my bedside lamp is a porcelain statuette of two children praying!

With liberal articles like legalising gay marriage and pro choice abortion laws a large portion of the country is outraged, some chaining themselves to crosses in front of churches and such in Guayaquil.

I can´t help but think though that those who claim to be protesting for the rights of children by contesting the pro-choice law might better spend their energy helping the kids who are already here and not having a great chance at life.

Grafitti calling for Si is all over the city, and stern- faced men in smart clothes wave giant ´No´flags at the main intersections. Bars and night-clubs are closed this weekend, and you can´t buy alcohol in the shops because the country is taking the vote so seriously.

I´m really interested to see what the outcome is next week. From what I´ve read I´m personally hoping for Si!

Sea front: The coastal ghost town (Sua)

When we asked if our friends had arrived she started flicking through a pad of crisped yellow paper, licking her index finger to seperate the pages.

´German?´she asked, ´There have been some Germans here´

´No, French; They arrived yesterday.´

She shook her head and inverted her mouth to resemble a dried prune. Her daughter sat on the tiled floor of the dining room cutting out pictures from an old cereal box with a butter knife; her pink frilled carnival dress spread out around her like a blister; the hem dark with sand and salt.

The sun was licking the corners of the sea out of the frosted window and so we asked for a room anyhow. She looked at us doubtfully. ´There is one´ she replied ´Right at the top, if you want it.´The wooden key rack behind the desk was missing only two keys, but we agreed and followed her up the dusty concrete steps to the final shallet which slumped against the brow of the hill behind the hotel. She handed us two small pieces of dirt streeked soap, a couple of used towels, and a small silver key with a bird cranium as a fob. ´There´s a television´ she remarked in a tone of consolation, walking away as she said it.

The room was dark and damp; the bamboo celing had decayed in the centre and sagged precariously over one of the beds. As I sat down I noticed a trail of talcum powder dotted across the moss green blanket; along with a shallow vale of dust. Above the curtain rail a clot of termites swelled from the wall. It did not strike me so much that the room was unclean, but that noone had been here for a long time yet we found it exactly as it had been left.

We could hear the murmer of cocktailed music, and not wanting to stay in the room for much longer we decided to head down to the water front.

A low night mist had settled over the town heavying our hair with salt. As we walked towards the white concrete arch at the bottom of the steps two snarling dogs with enormous paws emerged from the shadows and blocked our path, sinking back on their haunches with an instinct to attack. As we startled back an old man in a wax fishing hat stepped out from the shadows and kicked one of the dogs in the back leg with his tough rubber boots. ´Where are you going?´he spat in gap toothed hostility; his accent was thick and dry like flour. We nervously pointed at the arch, and at the same time noticed the varnished rifle slung over his shoulder. He shook his head in the same knowing way as the woman, but produced a set of brass keys from his pocket anyhow and advanced towards the gate, which we now realised was secured with a heavy chain in the centre.

Along the line of the beach small bamboo shacks stacattoed the road. As we drew nearer it became apparent that the low wooden bences and swings for seating were empty, yet behind each bar was a staff of two or more who looked at us vacantly as one might look at fog in the line of vision. The sea wind caught the swings and they mimed the movement of the absent people who had one sat there, creaking as though under the pressure of a body. The bars were adorned with various types of ripe tropical fruit; other curiosities such as animal skulls and gnarled driftwood were strung from the rafters as decorations.

On the other side of the street tiled restaurants filled with plastic garden chairs cast angles of light across the empty pavement; faded chalk boards all boasting the same seasonal menu. The whole town seemed to be waiting to begin, but for what I couldn´t say...........