Leaving Home for Home and Off Again, To Find Another Home (Part 1)

It has been an eventful few weeks since I last wrote from the hammock in Quito, and there is quite a bit to tell! Let me begin by locating myself, Lima, Peru, check! How did I get here? I didn't take lesson from Hermione Granger, so aparating was out of the question. No, I came this far by much more conventional transportation, Toyota. Still a bit lost? Let me fill in the grey areas a bit.

I flew into Quito on the 12th of December, announcing my triumphant return to Latin America and blogging in one fell swoop of complaints and excuses. Well, as promised, I have come up with a new format and new ideas. These new adventures aren't part of a solo show any longer; I'm now accompanied by an excellent photographer, companion, and, not to mention, she's not such a bad girlfriend either (most of the time), Daniela, Danita, Dani. The new format will include photos shot by Dani with her new Pentax K-5. Gone are the days of my horrible writing being accompanied by even worse photos (or none at all). Our Days Boca Arriba will still subject you to some pretty miserable reading, but you will have very pretty pictures to look at to help you through it. 

Dani stayed behind, in the States (until the 18th of December), to get the whole graduation ceremony and all of that jazz out of the way; I guess becoming a Doctor is a pretty big deal :-) To the right is our photographer becoming Dra. Báez, ISU Commencement Winter ´12 (I´m pretty damn proud of her). Dani joined up with me in Quito on the 18th of December (I basically did absolutely nothing, but lay around her family's house, watch $1 pirated movies, eat, sleep and eat until then). Being back in Quito really felt like being home again. I came almost too familiar with Quito in 2011/12, and it's my home away from no home now, I suppose. 

Once Dani got into Quito, we did a a lot of hanging out, and, after getting a little bored, decided to take a short trip to Papallacta, a small mountain pueblo to the west of Quito. Papallacta is amazing for one reason, incredible natural hot spring pools that melt you and your stress into wonderful obliteration. After my time in the North, I needed some good ol' southern comfort; this was the place for it. The bus trip to Papallacta was surprisingly bearable, for the most part. Even in the long distance buses in Ecuador, it's common for people to ride standing up, as the seats tend to fill up quickly. This time around, and unbeknownst to us until later, a little old lady, obliged to stand because no one offered her their seat (something Ecuador really needs to work on) began to pass out from altitude sickness while. Dani and I saw what was happening, saw no one doing anything and, the next thing you know, we were the ones standing for the next 45 minutes. We offered her our seats. The funny thing was, as neither of us were very acclimated to the altitude either, we were breathing slowly and calculated so as not to be the next ones down. I had passed by Papallacta dozens of times in my bus trips to Tena and the Amazon, but it never occurred to me to stop in this little middle of the mountain nowhere place two hours outside of Quito, what was I thinking? The price of the hotel is a bit carito (expensive) for a backpacker, but it was well worth it. 

I could have stayed at the springs of Papallacta for days (if I had the cash), but we wanted to spend some holiday time in Quito. The holiday festivities in Quito are very much centered around family and the birth of Christ; we spent Christmas Eve with Dani's familia and went to Christmas Eve Mass (sacrilege for me, I know). The mass was very nice and included the traditional splashing of handmade baby Jesus dolls, brought by the attendees, with holy water. Onward, to the end of the year celebrations. 

It all starts with, what else, men dressed as women! December was all about spending some time with family, enjoying the holidays and, once again, getting to see the machos of Quito get in touch with their more "feminine side." If you have no clue what I am talking about and are completely appalled and confounded by the following photos, you'll have to back and read my post from Christmas and New Years 2011/2012. The following, for your visual enjoyment, are a "lovely" photo and short vid of this years viudas, (widows):

The gentlemen, as you can see, were in rare form this year. We counted down to the New Year, eating uvas (grapes; you eat 12 for the chimes of the clock in order to have a plentiful new year) as Daniela's sister and aunt ran around the neighborhood with suitcases (so that you will travel much in the new year). I decided not to partake in the running of the luggage, as I was already certain that there would be plenty of traveling in my furture. The night skyl of Quito illuminated the mountains with fireworks, but visibility quickly became very low, thanks to the burning of thousands of años viejos (the paper maché dolls that represent the old year). It was a good send off for 2012, which needed to get on out, seeing how the world decided not to come to an end after all (blast it!).

Through a very incredible and happy coincidence, it wasn't long after the New Year, on the 2nd of January to be exact, that we were headed off south from Quito, en route to the border with Peru. During December, I talked often with Dani's uncle, Marcelo (Chelo, for short), because we are good friends and he's a long time mechanic/car enthusiast, so we have plenty to talk about. It turned out that Chelo and three friends of his were planning a trip to Paracas, Peru (a city a few hours to the south of Lima), to see a leg of the Dakar rally (a desert race that started in Peru this year) (http://www.dakar.com/index_DAKus.html). What a coincidence, we need to go that way too! Thanks to Chelo, we got to ride all the way down to Lima in a private car (this is a huge luxury compared to the bus ride that we were dreading having to take, trust me).

Leg 1 (Wednesday, January 2):
Bright and early, after a night of packing and three precious hours of sleep, we threw our brand new hiking packs into a huge 4X4 Toyota (huge for a Toyota, that is) and we soon found ourselves flying through the nausea provoking curves of Ecuador's Andes.
Plastic was a must, it's the rainy season (seems like it's always the rainy season in the Andes):

We made incredible time down to the border. I was amazed that we actually made it to Peru by nightfall; Ecuador's highways are nice, well-paved and all since Presidente Correa took the helm, but their mostly two-lane (one for northbound and the other for southbound cars) and you really can't do much about the curves and switchbacks through mountain terrain. In advanced and developed countries like the States, we just blow a whole through the damn mountain with dynamite, but, alas, the environmentally conscious didn't find this to be a viable option in Ecuador.

We burned through the mountain highways, as well as the Toyota's brakes, from Quito, to Ambato, passing Guayaquil, nearing the South Pacific in the city o Machala and stopping for a considerable length of time in Canton Huaquillas, for border processing. The border crossing station was actually really nice and quite well-designed. The guards told us that some European country (or the European Union?) contributed a considerable inversion to build border crossing stations for Ecuador and Peru, equal on both sides. Even with all of the lovely and new facilities, the computer system faltered. I could only laugh because the is an all too common occurrence for any government run agency in many countries in Latin America, the damn system always fails! They even have many common phrases for it, for the Spanish-speaking readers, "se trabó el sistema, se cayó, se fue, etc." So, after a few hours at the border, we received brand new and original stamps for our passports (I may fill that passport before 2017 yet!)

Here are some photos of us jazzing up Peru´s border:

Chelo is to the far left, followed by Abel, Javier and myself, all super good guys and I now consider them friends. It was an awesome and hilarious trip riding with these gentlemen. Fausto, the guy who drove the most, isn't here, but he'll be in other photos.

They were holding our poor Toyota hostage until its paperwork was processed as well (note the shotgun-packing Peruvian guard to the left of it):

After getting processed into Peru, we head on down to the little border town of Tumbes. I can't really give a good opinion of Tumbes because we came in late at night and flew out early in the morning. I would say it was what you expect a border town to be, not much to speak of, basic, a place to spend the night and get out the the next day. My first impression of Peru, thanks to Tumbes, was, "It kinda smells here," there was a strange odor coming in from the ocean. It kind of smelled like a combo of salt water, wet dog and something dead. The following are some other first impression: the people were friendly and good-looking in Tumbes, there are a ton of moto-taxis (somebody got the bright idea to take moped/motorcycles and turn them into mini taxes), Peruvians love to honk their horn for no apparent reason, I don't see as much trash in city streets (as compared to Ecuadorian cities), things are a little on the expensive side ($2.54 Peruvian Soles to 1 usd, which welcomed me back to the disaster that is converting money and thinking in conversion rates constantly when buying anything) and people seem to be more difficult to approach and greet in comparison with Ecuadorians. Aside from that, running on 3 hours of sleep, I was way too tired to think straight or observe anything.