After leaving Tarquino’s place in Puerto Napo, on the edge of the Amazonian Basin, we headed back to Banos where, subject to being able to get our visas renewed, we were going to stay for another month to help Doug & Rebecca with some work around La Casa Verde.  Paul spent a week laying tiles in a new part of the Guesthouse before we headed up to Quito on Monday to start the rounds of visiting immigration and customs.

This was my first time in Quito but Paul is getting to be a bit of an old hand there now.  We stayed at the Hostal Lexus.  It was cheap and they spoke English (both always a good bonus wherever we are).  However our visits to the immigration officer were a little less successful to say the least.

For anyone wanting to extend their tourist visas and stay in Ecuador more than the standard 90 days, here’s what you face.  It’s possible but it will cost you $230 for the first person, then another $80 per dependent.  Paul could apply with me as his spouse, for a total cost of $310.  But it was going to take four days to process and we would not have got our visas back until Monday 6th February (allowing for the weekend), two days after our visas expired.  The immigration official advised us that if we didn’t want to pay this money we could just stay in the country illegally for as long as we liked but when we did leave Ecuador we would be subject to a nine month ban on returning.  Renewing your visa is therefore a fairly pointless exercise as the time limit for staying in the country is actually 3 months per year anyway.  If you can stya illegally yourselves what about the car, you might ask.  Aha.  That’s a bigger problem.  For evry day your vehicle is in the country after your temporary permit expires, there is a $264 a day fine.  No negotiating.

As our temproary import on our vehicle also expires the same day (4th February), we needed to renew that as well.  We can’t renew it without a valid current visa and we can’t renew it at all if the date has already expired.  So, on the basis of it taking until two days after the expiry date to get our visas back we can’t renew our temporary import on Landy.  We could take a chance, pay the visa money, and then take our receipt for our passports to Customs and ask if they will renew it anyway.  The immigration officer did not know if that was possible, but we know how cantancerous customs all around the world could be and were reluctant to take that chance.

Combined with the fact that the immigration wanted a copy of our bank statemetns showing incoming and outgoing payments for the last couple of months to prove we have sufficient funds to stay in the country (but they don’t tell you how much sufficient is), and that the copies from the internet need to be authorised by a local lawyer, the costs and time it would take were rising and the chances of us staying getting slimmer.  Paul’s bank accounts have had virtually no traffic through them since we left the UK (we use my account) and we concluded that when they see the balance on my account they’d decide we couldn’t stay anyway!

So that’s that.  Back to La Casa Verde on our way south towards the border and to say goodbye to Doug and Rebecca and everyone else at the Guesthouse.  It’s a shame as we were looking forward to spending more time with Doug and Rebecca, chatting about travel while we worked and getting some of our long list of ‘jobs’ done producing the videos and books of the earlier part of our expedition for all those lovely people who are interested.

Still, it was nice to see a little of Quito.  We didn’t visit any of the tourist attractions but I was charmed by the free public parks that are amazing open spaces, well designed with lots of adventurous outdoor play equipment for children, some really well designed public art sculptures, shelters, monuments and even a children’s library in at least one park.

Back at Peurto Napo we arrived at our friends’ house where we will be based while we explore the local area for a few days.  In the meantime we briefly explored the town and met some local children who were delighted to have their photo taken and perform on their scooter as they raced it down the hill towards the river.

protective mother

Back at the house we were a little dismayed to find another resident in the bedroom – a mother Tarantula and her hundreds of babies perched three feet above our proposed pillows.  We moved the mattress.  No sign of the male, aparently he’s probably been eaten by her in a post coital arachnid frenzy.

Gulp!

Consequently we ended up staying in this little ribbon town along the main road to Tena for four nights!!  Ah well, such is life.  The hostal/hotel was the only one in town and was in the process of being built.  It’s common enough here for people to build as much of their house as they can afford at any one time, adding rooms, and floors and roofs as they rais the funds.  The second floor of the hotel (that’s third floor in the US) was still only a concrete floor with a few posts sticking up starting off the plans to continue building.    There were other bits of unfinished concrete, but the room itself was comfortable and clean enough.  Turned out the hotel was next to an evangelical church and we were entertained to some rather out of tune singing most nights!!  Along with the cicacadas which we haven’t heard for ages and ages.

Arosemena Tola

Didn’t feel like there were many tourists in town, guess most of them continue on to the more popular town of Tena just a few miles further along.  One shop sold fresh vegetables, there were about half a dozen internet cafes, a couple of pharmacies, a couple of mechanic repair shops, a solicitor and several general grocery shops that sold everything from fresh bread, a few oddments of veg, packets of biscuits, crisps, toilet rolls, etc, etc.  Oh, and the usual chickens and dogs wandering back and forth across the road.

Eventually we decided Paul’s bacterial attack wasn’t going away quick enough and we attacked it with some antibiotics and he is now feeling much better.  And going stir crazy stuck in the room most of the time.

Before we arrived at Arosemena Tola we enquired the price at an off road hostel.  As we drove along the track to get there it began to look more and more expensive.  At $50 a night we turned around to move on and spotted a field with what we think were some kind of ants nests attached to the trees.

To get here we drove through the spectacular mountain scenery of the Andes, crossing the lava field of the volcano Tunguhuara, which means ‘Throat of Fire’, to get here.  Very much an active volcano since 1999 (when the town of Banos was evacuated), it regularly erupts most years and we passed works that appeared to be a part of a programme to keep the lava away from the town.

Three nights at La Casa Verde gave us a brief time to begin acclimatising before we head further down to the edge of the Amazon itself, when we go to seen an old friend at Puerto Napo.

JCB drags car out

On Saturday we went off to Sigchos for a final meal in a restaurant there and to say our own personal goodbyes to the town.   On the way back we pulled up behind a series of cars by the side of the road.   One was stuck in the ditch, having skidded there when the driver braked on the muddy road.   Everyone was helping out by digging away the edge of the road to reduce the level of tilt, until the local JCB driver turned up to finish off the job of pulling him out.   As we all left, the main task of rescue completed, the driver was working out how to change the rear tyre, the only significant or obvious damage.

First thing Sunday morning I finally went to one of the homes where guinuea pigs are bred for the cafe, although many of the locals have breeding areas in the back of their homes.   After a final lunch in the cafe and a tearful farewell we finally completed the drive round the Quilotoa Loop (the reason we were driving through Yalo in the first place, seven weeks ago).   The scenery was amazing, all steep sided mountain valleys shrouded in misty clouds.   The hillsides are all hand cultivated – no machinery could operate on fields set on a 60 degree slope.   At one point we were driving at an elevation of over 4,000 metres, and we’re pleased to report Landy coped well at that height.

In a few places the road is being repaired.   At one such place we came up behind what we found out was a saloon car stuck in the mud.   In front of that was a Collectivo full of passengers definitely stuck in the mud.  Paul put Landy in low range and we attempted to get past, but with little room to move we too got stuck in the mud just past the Collectivo.  Our plan (obviously one of mice and men in this case) was to winch the other two clear once we had got past but now we had visions of ground anchors and winch ropes just to get ourselves out of the mud.   Actually, mud is not a truly accurate word to describe what we were stuck in – more like a mud infused oil slick.

pulling himself along

Just as Paul was climbing out of the driver’s door he saw a large, loud, apparition creeping up the passenger side.   A large Caterpillar earth mover was waving his bucket in front of him as he used it to pull himself along on his tracks.   Getting ahead of us, our winch rope was soon attached to his bucket instead of a ground anchor as he pulled us free.  It was a little alarming to see even his huge tracks slipping in the slippery oily mud.  Once our rope had been deployed on the other vehicles that had been stuck we were off again, guessing the earth mover will be there most of the day moving various vehicles back and forth across this stretch of ‘road’ as we couldn’t imagine many being able to make it unaided.

Finally, we ended up back in Latacunga where we will be staying for two nights of hot showers before we move on to meet up with our contacts in Banos.

family bull fight - dogs included

Later on Friday night, there was a show in the community hall, that included some of the local teenage boys putting on a ‘Miss World’ contest, a local band played and the well known Ecuadorean singer Noe Morales performed.  By about midnight the disco had taken over and this continued until the early hours of the morning, for those who wanted to stay up that long. Everyone was there, from babies to the oldest residents of Yalo, with much dancing.

Saturday morning was the inaugral cockfight in the cockfighting ring we have watched being built since we arrived.  Paul was still working on Landy, investigating a new rattle that we first heard just before the Transfer Box went bang but hasn’t been cured by the rebuild.  We think it’s the brake servo pump, but we’ll know more when he’s finished.  While he worked I went to the cock fight.  Sadly one bird was so badly injured it had to be put down and a couple more will take a while to get better judging from their injuries.  Perhaps I was just unluckier than Paul, whose first visit to a cock fight a few weeks ago was not so injurious to the birds.

As the cock fighting was ending, so the bull fighting began.  That actually sounds more dramatic than it was.  This was a family event where no bulls were killed or injured.  Young bulls, ranging in age from six months to about two years were let out in the ring with at least two or three men at a time.  There was a children’s “bull fight” for the older children and younger teens to get in some practice with the youngest bull – with plenty of men ready to deploy distraction techniques if things got a bit too dangerous looking.  A couple of food stalls provided chips and other goodies.  Finally, the day ended with live music on the stage in the church car park and lots of dancing.  Fireworks were being randomly lit by the teenagers and the loud bangs from the rockets that have been going off for the last week also continued (these home made rockets have a 1-2 second fuse on them – madness).

Finally, to finish off Saturday night, everyone moved from the live music in the square to a disco in the community hall. In the run up to midnight a ‘comedy’ sketch took place in which about 100 local residents were made ‘saints’ in honour of something they have contributed to the community – Paul is now ‘Saint Paul the Gringo of pancake makers’.  It was a huge honour for us that they would include us in their celebrations in this way.

After much hugging and kissing at midnight small bonfires were lit around town, burning efigies that people had been parading on the front of their cars for the last week or so.  The disco continued until well into daylight, while the older ones crept off to bed, us included.

Sunday morning we were up early again for the coche race (a coche is a home built, pram wheeled, wooden cart).  Johny  had been very depressed all day yesterday as he’d woken to find his coche had been stolen during the previous night. However this morning it had reappeared, from we know not where, and Johny and others continued to make final adjustments to their karts.  Paul was finally persuaded to be Johny’s co-pilot as they ‘raced’ his go-kart down the main road leading out of town, round seven hairpin bends.  Paul had by now concluded that Johny was naturally a slow driver and unlikely to take any mad risks to win the $200 prize money.  At least Johny’s go-kart made it all the way to the end of the race, while several broke into pieces even before they’d made it to the first bend, and one was so slow on the steep downhill road that the co-pilot had to regularly leap off to push for extra speed!!

The afternoon saw a continuation of the family bull fight.  This time there was a women’s competition, and a special one for the visitors from Quito (many local families have extended family living in Quito who return for the New Year celebrations).  With the final match ready to start – a sort of footbull match, involving mostly older competitors - a cry went up around the ring, “Payooool, Payooool, Payooool”, and Paul realised he was not going to succeed in staying out of the ring.  He thought, mistakenly, that with the competitors for this final match being mostly older, they would bring out the younger bull, but no, to Paul’s dismay this one had horns and was not happy.  The purpose of the match was to get the bull to chase you as you ran through the goal posts.  The team that managed to get the most ‘goals’ with the bull won. Crazy, but actually good clean fun.  There were always plenty of men on hand to distract a bull that was successful in finding a victim, and no one seemed to suffer more than a few bruises, some of which were displayed with pride!!

It was certainly a very different New Year to the one we had 12 months ago in North America, when, having left our new friends in Seattle a few days before, we found ourselves alone with nowhere to eat (other than the supermarket car park) or camp for the night.

Here’s to 2012!!

Lany as seen through cafe window - instead of next door in the church car park

After all the trials of the last nearly six weeks, we were delighted to be able to move Landy under his own steam.  The Transfer Box is rebuilt and back in the car, along with some other repairs and maintenance completed today.  We drove Landy into Sigchos to get a bit of shopping.  People we’ve never met know who we are, call us by our names and ask how we are getting on.  It was great to be able to tell some of them we had driven ourselves to Sigchos!!

A very placid llama and donkey at the school Nativity celebrations

I was asked if I’d like to come and take some video and photos of the children and “Papa Noel” on Thursday.  This turned out to be an all day event of a procession to church that included Mary, the baby, a real donkey and, for some reason, a real llama dressed in Christmas wrapping paper.  After what I suspect was a complete congregational recital of the rosary, everyone, including the donkey and llama, paraded back to the school where each class took it in turn to put on a performance depicting some aspect of Ecuadorean culture and history.

First thing this Christmas morning it was lovely bright sunshine and for once the internet signal was good enough to use Skype to phone home and speak to our families.

Christmas Day seemed pretty much a normal day as far as I could tell.  The café was open all day and customers turning up as usual.  The menu was the same as every other Sunday since we have been here (pork chops and rice, roast guinea pig and potatoes, or chicken soup).  Also on the menu today was English pancakes as Paul and I once again had fun out the front making and serving pancakes.  By the time everyone had finished I was disappointed that there was no guinea pig left (it’s a speciality of the café and very popular) and so my Christmas dinner consisted of boiled potatoes with a white sauce flavoured with guinea pig livers, a little beetroot, a heap of boiled rice, and a tomato and onion dressing.  And I had so wanted to be able to say I’d had roast guinea pig for Christmas Dinner.  Never mind, I got some of the innards.  Paul was less enamoured with our dinner of course!!

Huge thanks too to our mums for sending us some cash for Christmas.  Having been in Ecuador longer than expected or planned due to the Transfer Box breakdown, everything has been much appreciated.  Paul has bought himself a new drill (to replace his old one which no longer worked as the battery wouldn’t charge and it was essential to the Transfer Box repair).    He also brought me back from Quito a box of one of my favourite chocolates, Ferro Rocher.  As for me, I made Paul a hat for Christmas using some of the wool and needles I bought in Latacunga and Sigchos.  I’ve also been able to make hats for some of the local girls and created a few more that I hope to sell when I get the chance.

Well, Season’s Greetings to one and all, or Feliz Navidad as they say here.

Feliz Navidad from Yalo in Ecuador

As we are to spend Christmas sleeping in the café we decided to put up a few decorations, and opted to decorate a small panel of wall next to the kitchen.  We found a shop selling sheets of thin foam which came in a tree colour green, from which we cut the silhouette of a tree.  From some red metallic paper I cut five candles and a few circles to imitate baubles.  Eight real silver baubles hang from the ends of the branches.  Three empty match boxes wrapped to look like miniature presents are clustered at the foot of the tree and a red metallic star is at the top.  Either side are two matching Bethlehem stars.  Above the tree is a banner with ‘Feliz Navidad’, Merry Christmas in Spanish, and a Bethlehem star cut out of more red metallic paper and mounted on some green card.  Against the red brick wall it’s quite effective.  A mobile made of green stars and baubles hangs from the centre of the room.   Pretty simple compared to many houses in the UK.  But the reactions have been fascinating.  Most people are puzzled or bemused but the result did get one wolf whistle from Mario.

I did most of the work after Paul had left for Quito today (to collect what we hope will be the final part for our Transfer Box) at the same time as some of the people from the village were working on the roof of the cockfighting ring they are building at the back of the café.  Some of the women and children came in and watched me for a while.  They were curious as to how I was doing the ‘craft’ aspects, getting a close look at my sewing kit for the first time, but otherwise seemed to have no ‘sense’ of what I was creating.

It’s not surprising in context though.

Here in Yalo and in Sigchos Christmas decorations are virtually unknown.  I’ve seen a couple of houses in Yalo with tree lights in the window (but no tree).  In Sigchos I’ve only seen one shop with any Christmas decorations decorating the shop, and that was just one desultorily decorated tree in a tool shop of all places.  About three or four shops are selling a few decorations, mostly baubles and tinsel, and a few glittery pictures of Father Christmas to hang on the wall.  There are no Christmas trees on sale, either real or artificial, and I’ve not seen any wrapping paper displayed, although one shop does have some metallic effect papers in a box high up on a shelf at the back of the shop.  In fact, there are no other shops selling wrapping paper of any kind, no birthday cards and no Christmas cards anywhere.  Even when I went into the larger town of Latacunga a couple of weeks ago there were few shops selling decorations and a distinct lack of shop windows being decorated for Christmas.

No wonder people are bemused or puzzled when they see our little decorated wall!!