September
2003 to January 2004
Ecuador
We
are very sorry for having been so long to update our website.
For as much we don't have any good reason for that…
So… the last chapter ended in Panama in late august 2003.
We are going to tell you about what happen from September 2003
to January 2004, in Ecuador.
Of course, after so long a time, some of you are going to be disappointed
by the short sump up of this chapter… These travelers are
becoming more and more lazy don't they?
QUITO
Early September 2003, Betty went back to France for two months
when I, Guillaume, flew from Panama City to Quito, Ecuador, in
the heart of the Andes, at 9.350 feet (2.850 meters).
Quito lies in a valley at the feet of the volcano Pichincha,
here in the back among the clouds.
My
first cruise in a taxi across Quito gave me a feeling of disorder,
close to chaos, going thru engine smokes highness wanted to keep
at the ground level. For the fist days, I learn to move slowly,
the time for my body to get use to highness and its lack of oxygen.
Meanwhile, the disorder seemed to also disappear and Quito started
to look fresh and friendly, beginning all days with a spring like
sun and finishing almost all of them with a fall sky. All days,
going thru the four season state of mind.
In Quito's historic downtown.
Ecuador
has been a marvel of meetings, a succession of good luck, surely
one of the good times of our travel.
All really began at the French Alliance, a French association
which is to provide French culture in the foreign country. I was
looking for a job, as a teacher, to help my dying savings. Because
I arrived too soon, I was obliged to wait at the restaurant. There,
in the costume of the Chef, I recognized Marco, a guy I met in
France 6 years ago! How big is the world?… sometimes infinite
and sometimes so small.
Marco was looking for a bartender for a cocktail to come. He hired
me at once and then presented me to the Director of the Alliance,
Marcel Taillefer. Marcel offered me to classify and archive the
20 years of documents that were quietly sleeping in a cave of
the Alliance. I was up to two jobs!
Marco and Marcel have been the two people who made my travel in
Ecuador such a good time. It was to be the same for Betty when
she arrived.
My
first experience as a bartender was for a cocktail in a museum
of the old city with 600 people for only 2 guys on duty at the
bar… It reminded me something of the Night of the living
dead, all the arms waiting for a drink whispering "wine…
wine… wine…" Archiving was of course quieter.
As I was paid for the task, I was free to do it in a week or in
a year. Thus, I used to write in the morning, archive in the afternoon
and when I wasn't bartender at night, I used to party like an
animal.
I met some very good people there and I believe that my time in
Quito, after all those I spent in the bush or far from cities,
was a kind of compensation, taking all I could from this urban
life. Quito has some pretty clubs, good salsa music and many stuff
going on you know.
ALTO CHOCO
But, before sinking deeply in that way of life in Quito, I was
to honor a commitment I made from Central America thanks to Internet
: I left the capital, heading north of the country, for two weeks
of volunteering job in a private reserve named Alto Choco.
Alto Choco is apart, a time of deep silence and isolation in a
cloud forest, looking for the Andean bear, reintroduced in the
area a few years ago. I went there with a Swiss friend. But the
bear program was a bit boring. We were to track the ten bears,
equipped with a collar and who were supposed to roam in the area,
with an antenna and a radio, observing their position while making
triangulation.
Guillaume tracking one of the bears. The signal gives
only a direction, the bear might be 200 feet away or 5 miles away,
who knows?
We
could have spent month and month without seeing the nose of one
of them. Here is a big difference with the Arctic: the cloud forest
is so dense and the andean bear so shy that it's totally possible
to pass a few feet close to one of them without even knowing it.
So
we quickly changed of job, becoming rangers or gardeners : taking
care of the trails with a machete, cleaning the botanical garden.
View from far, they were only little flowers with sweet
colors. Getting closer, very closer, the small orchids showed
their terrified face.
Warm
mornings under the sun, overcastted and cold afternoons, a freezing
shower set in the middle of a field and deep dark nights with
seven wool blankets. During the day I used to chat with the park
ranger and his wife, Milton and Ines. At night, it was candle
time, a blanket over the shoulders, an incredible darkness, a
warming firewood, some bad wine that was surprisingly good, talking
with my friend Hugues and all around, silence, silence and silence
again.
Lunch at the Alto Choco "headquarters" with Hugues,
Milton and Ines.
Outside of the reserve, farmers making some sugar from the
cane.
OTAVALO
After
two weeks, leaving the Alto Choco, on my way back to Quito, I
stopped in the small town of Otavalo, famous for it's indigenous
market.
Like many town in the Sierra, Otavalo stand in the shadow of a
volcano. Here the volcano Imbabura.
The animal market : natives come from the villages all
around to sell bulls, pigs, goats, chickens.
Walking
in the streets of Otavolo, I saw a sign in a shop: a native woman
was looking for someone to traduce in French the 3 tales she wrote
for her university. Luck again. I spent 3 days in her shop of
traditional native clothing to complete the job. At that moment,
I was doing my fourth job in Ecuador: tracking bear, bartender,
archivist and then traducer. Crazy don't you think? I admit that
I've been doing all of them with more or less of a beginner level.
Mercedes, the author of the 3 tales in her traditional
dress.
QUITO
Back
in Quito to archive, Marcel Taillefer offered me to stay in his
house where I could earn money and use a computer! What I won
really is a taste of a sweet family life when meeting his child
Lucas and Marie and his girlfriend Annie.
Taillefer family. We would upset the reader if we were
to tell all that they gave us (even what they were not aware to
give). Might they be blessed!
TOWARD
BAÑOS
In Ecuador, some volcanoes are deeply sleeping, some are snoring
and some are coughing. Leaving Quito towards south, I passed close
to the Cotopaxi (19.350 feet - 5897 meters), the highest
active volcano in the world.
In Baños, people look carefully at the smokes of the
Tungurahua.
Comparing
to the size of the other country in South America, Ecuador looks
pretty small (half the size of France.) But the diversity it offers
with its 3 distinctive regions, the pacific coast, the Andes (rising
at 20.700 feet / 6.310 meters) and the Amazon basin, is quite
exceptional. Landscapes, fauna, flora, ethnic groups, a concentrate
of South America. In Baños, in the middle of the country,
a dirt road slowly goes down from the Andes to the Amazon basin,
leaving the freshness of the mountain for the humid warmth of
the jungle.
Coming from the Andes, a river finds its way to the Amazon
basin.
Marco, Patricia and Jean Martin crossing an overhanging
bridge..
QUITO
Betty
joined me late October, leaving the cold fall of Paris for the
never ending spring of Quito. Still full of all the friends and
family she met she was confusingly thinking in her plane crossing
the Atlantic ocean: was she coming back home or leaving home,
where was home finally.
She worked at ounce for Marco at the restaurant. A golden experience.
With Marco after work.
Pablo, Gabriel, David, Betty et David, after a cocktail.
At time, we were sometimes able to leave the city for a week-end
to see a bit of the country. Here the Laguna Mojanda, North of
the country.
PROMENADE
IN ECUADOR
THE
ANDES
Close to the Peruvian border, in the Vilcabamba area, the
Andes showed some pretty scenery.
The cathedral in Cuenca.
In the heart of the city of Cuenca, washing clothes in
the Rio Tomebamba.
On
the 24th of December, in Cuenca, take place the celebration named
El pase del niño for the nativity. A colorfull
and surprising procession.
Christmas eve in Annie's nice home in Cuenca with Magali and
Sylvaine.
Set
in the Andes at more than 9.840 feet (3.000 meters) the national
park El Cajas gets some unique landscapes melted with the clouds
and the sky with a supernatural light. Highness and humidity created
here a small and diversified flora.
A
trip too touristy to be enjoyable. On the roof of a train we got
into a canyon named Nariz del Diablo. Nothing too impressive except
when the train went out of the track !
THE PACIFIC COAST
At the mouth of the Guyas River, the city of Guayaquil, the most
populated town of the country. Millions of grillons come at night.
A chiva, made for collective transportation. We can see them on
the coast or in Quito itself during the feria when people jump
in the chivas to party all night when driving on the main boulevards.
In Canoa to get the perfect setting for new years eve…
A tradition in Ecuador to celebrate the new year. For days, young
guys dressed as widows are begging for money when their "husband",
a doll of paper is standing at their side. At midnight, the husband
is burnt as one would like to burn the bad things of the year
that just passed. Money is to be drunk, even if there is a lot
to do. Here, the young Jean Martin choused a hulk doll and was
too young for the rest of the tradition.
In the market of San Vicente, the prostitute and the deputy
get close.
San Vicente's market.
Informal economy is something important in latin America. It's
an important slice of the job market, the only way to get money
for many families. In Ecuador the average of salaries is 120 dollars
per month. Here, a kid selling ice cream in his best
selling place: the numerous popular buses that travel the country.
On
the 8th of January 2004, following the advices of a friend, we
left Quito for French Guyana, on the other side of the continent
to teach a few months in a little village on the border with Brazil
in the Amazon basin. But this is the story to come next…
Miami, on our way to French Guyana.
A view of Guadeloupe.
