On my last visit to Las Palmas Air Base I watched a rather small version of the 28th July parade that took place the next day, and briefly bumped into Ex-President Toledo who is now in trouble over allegations that he falsified signatures for his party’s formation.
Category: "Travel and Places"
Fighter Jets over Lima
Fighter Jets, notably US F-16s and Peruvian MiG-29s, have be roaring over the city all day for the past 3 days.
It’s all part of the joint USAF-FAP exercises that have been taking place over the past week. Falcon-Condor is designed to build relations and share strategies between the two countries.
San Isidro
I said in the previous post that people find Lima to be dirty. Where a small poor town in the mountains would be described by a tourist as authentic or rustic, the run down parts of Lima don’t get the same kind treatment. Also, for some reason, these tourists apply this to the whole city. Lima is poor, ugly and dirty they say.
La Costa Verde
Annett always complains that my photos concentrate on the ugly parts of Peru or Lima. That may be true because those gritty parts interest me the most and to me are less ugly than to a Peruvian. But it has to be said, some parts of this city for example are very beautiful.
Tumbes
We had crossed the border from Ecuador and had arrived in the Cifa bus station on the panamericana in Tumbes.
As we stepped off the bus someone grabbed my forearm, tugged on it forcefully and screamed something incomprehensible in my face.
Another voice, with a beaconing hand, screamed “no no, come with me, I’m official, come come, quickly”
Ecuador: Race to the border
We left Cuenca mid-afternoon, eager to return to Perú. We needed to arrive at the border and cross it before dark, worrying about what might happen if we were wandering through the Huaquillas border-market at night. There are buses direct to Huaquillas from Cuenca, but if we waited for that bus we’d be crossing the border at sunset at the earliest so we opted for the bus to Machala, a small city less than 2 hours from the frontier. From there we could take a local bus and waste no time at all. It turned out that we were lucky we couldn’t take the later direct bus.
Ecuador: Cuenca
From Ingapirca we returned to El Tambo to take a bus to Cuenca, no more than 2 hours away. As we approached I noticed the city seemed less run-down and dirty than the other cities we had seen so far. We arrived in the late evening, got something to eat and went to sleep.
Ecuador: Ingapirca
The Cañaris, a strong and proud people, didn’t want to submit to the Incas, as many other civilisations had done when the empire was being expanded into what is now Chile/Argentina and Ecuador/Colombia.
When the Inca armies finally did bring the Cañaris and other peoples from what is now Ecuador under their control they incorporated their cities and religious centres into their own. This is what happened to the formally Cañari ruins at Ingapirca, the heart of Cañari territory.
Ecuador: Alien visits the Incas
A local woman was walking up the same mountain and confirmed that the Pan-American (a road from Chile to Alaska) was indeed at the top. The walk was arduous but we did make it – and faster than anyone else as they kept to the main path whilst we were led through a short cut. We were finally on the most important road in the Americas where we could flag down a bus to anywhere we wanted. We wandered along this heavily transited highway a while, finding it strangely empty. But before long a bus finally came by. We flagged it down and got on.
Ecuador: La Nariz del Diablo – The Devil’s Nose
The Devil’s Nose is part of the rail journey to Sibambe from Riobamba and has been extended to be the name of the entire journey which is now solely for tourists.
There used to be a railway that ran from the northern coast to Ibarra through Otavalo, where we walked along the abandoned rails, on to Quito, then Riobamba to Alausí-Sibambe and finally to Durán near Guayaquil, where we started our journey through Ecuador. It was hundreds of kilometres long.
Ecuador: Riobamba
We left Tena the next morning, heading south towards home. Via Puyo we arrived at Riobamba to catch the train to Alausí.
We spent a full day here to allow us to use a local laundry – we only had a small bag and a limited change of clothes each. Riobamba was a nice city – Andean and cold – but with a selection of colonial buildings and two nice plazas.
Ecuador: Ethnotourism – Meeting the locals
Later that same day, after lunch and a rest in a hammock, we headed out on a 3 hour walk to a nearby indigenous community.
First we had to cross the River Napo so we could get to the trail through the forest that would lead us there.
After a long walk and a great picture of a butterfly the size of my hand, we arrived in a small village. It’s was not as interesting as you might have thought – the buildings were functional not traditional – but we were here to talk to the people and drink their chicha not discuss architecture.
