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A Whirlwind week

I had great intentions of updating my blog once I got home, but I haven’t had a chance! So I’ve decided to do a weekly blog instead. Hopefully I will update my South American & African blog when I can.

So here goes….

Sculpture by the Sea Sunday 14 November 2010

This year we have decided to try out volunteering for different organisations and Sculpture by the Sea was our first choice. Sunday was our last day of volunteering.

We first saw the sculptures in October when we went to Bondi with Laura and Paul ending up drinking Champagne at the wonderful Icebergs Club!!!

Part of the volunteering experience was = working with the Artists, Sally & Sam. I loved it. They devised great workshops for students and providing a helping hand was great fun.

Sally’s sculpture - a table and chairs, covered in a grass “cloth” It looked stunning on the headland. Her workshop involved teachers in “growing” a picnic table back at school using a cloth embedded with seeds.

Students at the workshop used their creative skills to make “food” for their picnic tables. Sushi, pizza, sandwiches, kebabs of all colours and sizes quickly appeared. These too were embedded in seeds and would “sprout” and create an interesting “sculpture” back at school.

Unfortunately, the weather was terrible and by the end of two sessions of 30 kids (Yr 2 & Yr6), I was glad to escape the muddy feet and umbrellas and battle my way along the coast to catch the bus home. Having said that the sculptures really did look magnificent against the stormy skies.

Sam’s Workshop

This was a much more relaxed workshop in that students were given a free reign to develop sculptures - Yr 9 & Yr 12 this time. One Burmese student (only been in Oz for aa few weeks, created an incredible sculpture. First shot from my iphone so not the best!

So to our final day… much more mundane checking bags and monitoring the small exhibits tent. Ho Hum!

We had planned to go to the party at the Icebergs but found the thought of an evening at home very appealing!

Enjoy the sculptures!

Shopping Sao Paulo

The shopping trip is amazing, all the finest stores, plus zany party shops with every kind of dress up clothes you could ever want (or not want!). Four employees from the hotel take us under their wings and show us the sights.

The market was just incredible, pigs ears, pig snouts, trotters, fish, spices, cheeses herbs, vegetables and huge bolognia sandwiches!

20 minutes to the shops and 3 hrs back… the traffic was horrendous. Now we know why there are so many helicopters on the top of buildings.

Hey we are in Sao Paulo

Flew back to Quito, Galapagos Life Hostel for the night. Amazingly our bags are still there after our three week trip around. We made a quick stop to the hospital, to get rid of those damned parasites!

Farewell to Ecuador as we are off again. This time a flight to Lima and then onto Sao Paulo. Our arrival at the hotel was horrible… room not ready, surly staff and filthy dining room. So of course we complained… we were used to clean $10 a night hostels and a crappy $130 per night hotel was just not on.

The manager, was not available till the next day… more complaints from us. Suddenly not only is the manager available but so is our room. Apologies all around would we accept free tours during our stay… “sure” we say.

Having looked at the security on our way in from the airport we think an escorted tour might be a good idea!

cuenca

Cuenca

We ventured out a few times and found a city full of music, markets and religious festivals. Not sure what this festival was but the young people in the church wore almost military uniforms. Enormous wealth in the churches which contrasted with the poverty of the streets!

Sleepy buzzy Cuenca

Loved the sleepy side of Cuenca, shopkeepers taking a nap, empty barber's chairs cos its siesta time! The city was still full of music, markets and cooking!

Cuenca

Cuenca was full of city life... musicians, markets, panamas and barbers shops... unfortunately for us also parasites... started to feel ill! Leaving the room was a bit of a gamble!!! Ho! Hum!

On the road to Cuenca

Our 4hr journey to Cuenca is the usual fascinating snapshot of life. Our journey is much enhanced by the "door to door" salesmen and women who jump on the bus and give their speil .... will try to update movie.

Devils nose

We had been tempted to break our six hour journey by the temptation to ride the Nariz del Diablo train (The devil's Nose). An opportunity to do the ridiculous - ride on top of a train - guess too many have toppled off as the service has been cancelled.

Instead we stayed at a great little $10 night hostel, had a great BBQ dinner toute seule in a lovely restaurant. Guess we are just destined to enjoy S America as a twosome!!! Not complaining.

Went along to battle the usual mayhem to buy our tickets to Cuenca ... another 4hr bus journey. Met this lovely lady.. so proud of her cooking!

Purgatorio

Yeah! Purgatory, just what we needed! Juan in the jungle had told us about a spa that he said was fantastic. Mmmm, well actually it WAS great but it had its moments. When we arrived the first thing was to take our shoes away. "Walk down the path" they said. "Yikes!" Even my Catholic upbringing hadn't prepared me for this! The stones were small and spiky and they HURT!

Up the hill to a small hut. "SCREAM and YELL" they said and we did till our lungs ached! Great fun!

"Walk down the hill to the valley" they said "In your hands pick up all your regrets, hates and grievances and throw them over the hill" And so we did!

With relief we arrive back at the spa ready to be pampered.

OK first thing they put us into a box, turned up the heat and let us sweat.. and sweat and sweat. "Oh no!" Ice cold water is poured over us .. gasp! The macho guys next to us just laughed at our squeals!

Back to the heat and steam and until it was time to beckon us out to deep baths full of ice cold water and yes they did pour it over our heads....two more lots of heat and cold dousings an icy shower and then it was time for the massage.

Trepidation is the word BUT it was sheer bliss! Warm oil, gentle massage and warm stones placed down the spine mmmmm. This travel thing aint bad!

Bizarre Banos Bus Business!

Bizarre Banos Bus Business!

Our enthusiastic hosts had persuaded us that we needed to go on an open air bus trip. We were reluctant as we had planned to climb up to the top of the ridge and do a mountain walk that skirted the town BUT we succumbed. We rushed into town and couldn’t find the bus stop. Convinced the bus had gone we asked in the tourist shop…. After politely declining, the volcano tour, the horse riding, the trip across the gorge, the visit to the zoo, the bungy jump etc etc we found that the bus had not gone.

To our amazement, we were the ony two people on the bus. So we settled in … our guide next to us, his wife and two kids, plus the driver in a 40 seater bus! We visited all the sites - the volcano tour, the horse riding, the trip across the gorge, the visit to the zoo, the bungy jump - declining to go into each one for just a few more dollars!

The scenary was spectacular, but our guide really didn't know what to do with us.....4hrs later back at the hostel we just shook our heads... what a bizarre experience.

Banos in the Andes

A 4hr, bumpy trip in a local bus brings us to Banos high in the Andes Mountains. Along the way we have seen tired workers with their machetes thrown nonchalantly on the floor; football teams in raggetty clothes, travelling for miles to a remote village for a local game; women & children with baskets of food. All crammed next to us. The scenery gradually evolves into beautiful mountains with streams cascading down.

Arriving in Banos we immediately felt the change in climate. Cool clear air.The small town is crammed with colonial buildings and greenparks. We have chosen a $6 a night hostel Princessa Maria. When we asked the cab driver what it was like , he just rolled his eyes! But we loved it.

Generous hosts only too willing to chat and give advice. Huge room with own balcony, shower and toilet. It also had a kitchen where we could cook and a dining area where we could meet up with other guests. Like Quito there were lots of Israelis on leave from the army. Always a bit confronting for us! Roger had a bit of a political discussion but luckily it was ok......

The other guests in hostels are often a worry but apart from a frenetic woman from Belgium and a really weird family from Alice Springs......they were all really good .

Tena

And so it was time to leave… A boxed lunch is handed to us as we board the canoe for the last time. We really have been well looked after here and my what an experience. We are heading off to Tena where we will stay overnight before heading off to Banos in the Andes mountains.

Tena was really a pretty rough place, the river had flooded two weeks previously displacing the cobblestones on the street. Our main purpose was to have a quick laundry stop as well as exploring a “jungle” town.

It really was quite small and poor. A young boy of about 10 competently organized our laundry and I was really pleased to find it all beautifully clean and ready the next morning……..problem was to avoid pickpockets I had put $40 in a safety pocket …. Of course the pocket was empty when we got back.

One thing we enjoyed was a restaurant overlooking the river which swirled and raged. Various vessels tumbled down through the roaring eddies. It must have been an incredible sight when the storm had raged leaving behind twisted balustrades, bridges and a thriving ferry service across the river. A tribute to human enterprise.

There was a rather sad looking “zoo” full of animals from the jungle…. But we felt that we had enough close encounters of the jungle kind!

So it is the bus to Banos... who knows what is in store there!

Last night at the lodge

Apart from our last night at the lodge or the evenings when Katie joined us we were usually the only two people on the glorious deck overlooking the river. Occasionally one of the teachers from the secondary school would make the twenty minute walk along the dark muddy path to make use of the limited electricity. The school had been donated a number of generators, but lack of training meant that they regularly broke down. Electricity was definitely not the norm.

Our only other companion was the caiman whose red eyes gleamed at us from under the bushes at the edge of the lake.. Strangely the caiman was the only creature that Freddie was afraid of!

River leaping!

In the afternoon Freddie had plans for us to don life jackets and leap intothe river but we were exhausted. and so decided to have a rest, our hammock had been sorely neglected and we had to pack of our journey to Tena and Banos.

Katie couldn’t believe we passed up on the experience, but I had no regrets, We had seen the murkiness of the river and the thought of what was lurking their was enough for me!

Night walk jjjjjungle style eek!

Now if walking in the jungle during the day is scary, you should try it at night. Katie and her friend joined us, amazingly they hadn’t been on a night walk so they were more than happy to follow Freddie through bushes, across streams, up muddy banks … well the intrepid Katie was, we were a bit more reluctant to have Freddie put spiders on our head and face. (Make that we refused point blank!)

I think the photos say it all… a truly fantastic experience!

Butterflies in the jungle

We saw some amazingly beautiful butterflies in the jumgle but it was often just too difficult to get a shot. Lucky with these ones. Took a couple of shots in the butterfly "tent" at Yachana!

Jewelry making and cooking jungle style.

The next experience Freddie has set up for us is a jewelry making lesson with the micro enterprise students. I set out to make a necklace and Roger a bracelet. We are each assigned a student, who initially patiently show us what to do (again and again) an who undo and redo the string work until finally we get it… we are just totally relaxed when Freddie arrives… time for your cooking lesson!

The food has been great and so we are looking forward to lunch. We meet up at the outside BBQ and carefully marinate fish and wrap them in banana leaves. We then make a palm heart salad with salt and limes… yum. The chef then hands me more banana leaves, unwrap these Freddie says. I do and they are full of fat white crawling bug YUK! Yummy says Freddie and he pops one head first into his mouth! YUKO!! The chef and Freddie tuck in tothe delicacies. They then spear them on skewers and place them on the BBQ with the fish.

I am sure they will taste great but after seeing them wriggling and squirming, I can’t face eating them……thank goodness the fish tastes great!

Visit to the Shaman’s house

The next day Freddie decides it would be a great idea to go and visit the shaman … it will make you feel really good he says. He does a smoking/healing session. I am a sceptic with these things but decide I’ll give it a go.

Off in the canoe as usual and up a steep muddy bank where we are met by two of the shaman’s children. The path takes us over rickety bridges and through muddy streams, as usual Freddie is able to spot birds and animals. He leaps into the rainforest assisted by his trusty young helper Leandro and after much rushing too and fro he emerges with a yellow bellied black snake. He can’t work out why we are not too impressed.

I have been pretty relaxed until this point… but after thisI might even need this healing session! We emerge into a clearing with a traditional wooden hut, chickens scurry around underneath thehut, a mangy dog scratches itself and we head up the steep stairs to the hut. I have aproblem getting the wretched wellington boots off, especially as I am trying not to coat myself and everyone else in mud.

We sit on a long bench, in the room next door a mother lounges in a hammock reading a book, a young child plays on the floor at her feet, a grandmother sits sleepily by the door.

A wheezing and jangling announces the arrival of the shaman. We are sat in the centre of the room on two chairs, I try not to giggle…. These sorts of things always bring out the worst in me. We close our eyes and the shaman proceeds to chant, blowing smoke over us and hitting us with fragrant leaves. We are encouraged to walk over to the window and to throw all of our pains and worries out of the window. Now I am feeling pretty relaxed and not in any pain at all but I throw my cares away anyway.

The session over we all laugh and joke and it is time to put the wretched gumboots back on. I struggle for a while and then decide to sit on the step.. but what I don’t realize is that is only a thin board and so I go toppling backwards into the room to the huge surprise and amusement of everyone. Even the shaman is crying with laughter. I am so shocked that I cannot get up for laughing. NOW I need a healing ceremony.

Finally I have the boots on and we are downstairs, time to learn how to blow darts, Roger turns out to be the absolute champion, Freddie and I are pretty hopeless…. And so ends our visit to the shaman!

Bird watching in the jungle

A 5.00am start … This was to set the pattern for our South American experience… the two of us on an travel experience designed for 40!!!

Off by canoe, of course, up through a muddy path and there is an opentopped double decker bus. It was fantastic because Freddie could spot a bird instantly a with aquick whistle, he stops the bus we are at eye level with these fantastic birds - vultures, parrots, toucans. In the rainforest, the animals disappear when it is dull or raining and so we didn’t see as much as Freddie would have liked but we just loved it.

The bus drops us off and we have a2 hour hike through the rainforest.. Lots of warnings look before you put your foot, hand or any part of your body anywhere … when we saw Vine snakes (OMG!) I knew what he was talking about!

Loved it when we asked what the red cables were… hey they were the roots of trees! That gave Freddie a laugh!

Also loved it when he wound a vine together and shimmied up the tree. Wow he is good! There is something exhilarating about walking though the jungle, All around you can hear the wild life calling, you can almost feel the jungle grow. There is the slow drip, drip of the rain on thehuge leaves. We climb up past huge trees, we slither down wet muddy slopes to a deep river. Here we go says Freddie and he carefully shows us where to put our wellington clad feet… one foot either side of the underwater path and we would disappear into the muddy water ready to be eaten we fear by all sorts of flesh hungry beasts. When we finally reach the shore we feel reassured until I ask the stupid question, what lives in these burrows. we forget the name as Freddie tells us they are huge rat like creatures that can give you a nasty bite!

Now I have never thought of myself as a fearful creature but you know you can change !

Climbing up out of the valley we suddenly find a fantastic frog… mmm don’t know what that one is says Freddie… we should take photos for the scientific station. I couldn’t get over the fact that he stroked its tummy and it became ecstatically comatose… mmm what bliss… a few photos later we head off back up the hill.

Along the way Freddie feeds us different fruits and berries, as well as giving us a face painting session designed to keep the bugs away he says but I think he just enjoyed making us look foolish!

Our last stop is at the scientific station, again part of the Yachana project. Juan and Douglas are constantly trying to raise money to buy more rainforest. Once they have purchased a newsection they then conduct a scientific survey. We meet Ricahrd who is from Leeds but has spent the last 6 years working in the jungle here and in Columbia. He was ecstatic that more funding had come through and he could return back to Yachana. He was less enthusiastic about the fact that he had been woken by a HUGE pink anaconda the night before. I didn’t envy the guys their basic accommodation, really nothing more than open wooden huts strung with hammocks. Pretty tired by the time we got back to the canoe which was waiting for us.

Back at the resort there is just time for a quick (cold) shower before dinner where the two of us enjoy the glorious sunset before making use of the hour of electricity to make phone calls and blog before the dreamless sleep of the exhausted!

Chi Cha

After lunch, Freddie had hired the boat to go over to the local village. In my mind I had imagined a poor town with people selling food and handicrafts. MMM so wrong. We arrive by canoe, all we can see is a muddy path disappearing into the rainforest. Freddie with great enthusiasm leaps out and is met by a non committal Rose who has on an old muddy political T shirt, a machete in her hand and two grandchildren jumping about by her side.

She leads us through virgin rainforest to a clearing, which has manioc ready to be harvested. Freddie assures us a bit too heatedly I though that as they have cleared the undergrowth there shouldn’t be any snakes!

We are then shown how to dig the manioc up, skin them to get rid of the arsenic and various other stuff like how useful banana leaves are as toilet paper. Now it is time to carry the peeled manioc up the hill to the village. We start of well sort of enthusiastically but gratefully hand over our baskets to the grandmother (who is younger than we are) and amused by the fact that a laden basket is a bit much for us.

After perilous river crossings – (well to us and nobody else). We arrive at Rose’s house… lots of mud…. Of course it is a rainforest, chickens, dogs and children everywhere. We climb the steps into a large wooden room with a slatted floor which allows the breeze to come through In the corner is a a small dug out canoe into which Rose dumps all of the manioc plus a bigbucket of water that she collects from a barrel underneath the house.

Freddie said to us, ”Go and wash the manioc,” So dutifully as good tourists, we carefully wash each manioc… along comes Rose and with a strong muscular movement swirls the water and in two seconds the dirt is gone.

Manioc uncooked is really poisonous and so 20minutes cooking is the next stage. We head off to explore the village which is virtually muddy tracks through the jungle. Double storey wooden buildings bursting at the seems with people, chickens and livestock roaming freely,

When we return the manioc is cooled and returned to the canoe where we now mash the manioc into mush ready for the next stage which is to soak it in water for 3 days when it becomes a soft drink for children or for 3 weeks when it comes a powerful alcoholic drink.

Ho Hum... Roger suddenly becomes enthusiastically passionate about trying chi cha…now Freddie and I look at him dubiously… I had been dreading the moment when asked to try this stuff. In the past they used to chew the manioc and spit it into the mix to start the fermentation process.. even though they now have a commercial product, I am nervous.

But Roger is keen and not to deny the tourist, Freddie nervously pours Roger a glass. Mmmm really boring says Roger… not for the next three weeks as Roger suffers from a parasitic onslaught only relieved by antibiotics supplied by a sympathetic doctor two weeks later in Quito…. Ho Hum indeed.ß