Adventures in Banos

 

After leaving the jungle we headed to Banos, the adventure playground of Ecuador.  The scenery in this part of the Andes is breath taking.  There are loads of waterfalls and much evidence of recent volcanic lava flows.  Activities on offer ranged from paragliding to white water rafting.  Canyoning proved to be very popular with my fellow travellers although it sounded really scary ... I preferred to stick to trekking and horse riding.  I particularly enjoyed completing a strenuous 800 m climb up to a viewpoint of a smoking volcano and to "the swing".

Above the volcano, below the swing.

Bushcraft in the Amazon

 

Three days at a Quechuan Eco-lodge community in the Amazon jungle felt a bit like a school adventure for adults at times.  There was lots of organised fun ... face painting, bracelet making, a blowpipe competition, learning how to make chocolate and cook tilapia in palm leaves, marriage ceremonies and associated dancing, floating down the river in a giant rubber tyre, a jungle walk and a moment with a tarantula.  What was particularly striking was how gracious our hosts were ... despite constant work looking after us they never raised their voices nor appeared to be put out.    But then, it was a community led by the women.  They used a machete for everything ... cutting down fruit, planting, weeding, chopping.  It was warm, very humid, and there were lots of mosquitoes.   There were a lot of laughs too.

  

Alone in Quito

   

 

Quito is an interesting city to spend the best part of a week in.  It is locked between two ridges of the Andes, 40k x 5k, and surrounded by volcanoes.    The altitude takes some getting used to at 2800m.  I was based in the historical centre, a world heritage sight and not quite what you would expect of the best preserved colonial city in Latin America (allegedly). The best shops and restaurants in Quito can be found in a different part of the city, the Mariscos, along with dancing and karaoke and lots of hostels and hotels.  Tourists are told that they must get a taxi or bus between the two areas but in truth the two areas are very close and it only takes an hour to walk right across both areas.  Read into that what you may but it probably has something to do with the Government's overt efforts at trying to make Quito a safe city for visitors.  

Until very recently only the poor lived in the historical centre; the shops are for locals and there is a distinct lack of tourist shops and restaurants, apart from on two relatively small and well publicised streets.  The area is thriving with locals going about their business throughout the day and goes very quiet after about 8.30pm, but then October is not high season.  There are lots of churches.  Respectablea l beggars, if there can be such a thing, sit outside the churches.  I frequently saw locals drop a few coins into their cups or hats.  This suggests that there is not much of a social welfare system but our guide said they do get about $80 a month which should cover the basics.  

Someone is spending a lot of money.  The roads are good, there are some impressive new skyscrapers, well kept parks and sports centres.  There are lots of good quality shops too in the newer parts and a well developed public transport system.  Taxis are everywhere as you would expect.  And they are just as cheeky as you would expect too.  I made the mistake of getting into one without negotiating the price first. When I got to the destination the driver asked for $10.  I looked puzzled and said that I had been told otherwise.  He looked a bit sheepish, smiled back and said, "OK, $5".   I paid up, but as I got out I noticed the meter said $3!  

Crime is a major problem.  There are police everywhere in the central parts - traffic police, tourist police, crime police and security police.  Traffic police can be found at every junction in the historical centre directing traffic and blowing their whistles even though there were functioning traffic lights there.   Tourist police can also be found on every street and in every square.  Just being there.  They are friendly and most understand a modicum of English.  However, they were quite insistent when I wanted to walk outside the patrolled areas about it not being safe and that I should turn around.  As a lone traveller spending 5 days in Quito I found this restrictive.  But better safe than sorry.  Interesting that the police are the highest paid workers in Ecuador.  They get much more than teachers and doctors.  The Government seems to have everything in this city well under control.  Just as well because the people are not exactly impressed with their president.  Not only is he trying to change the constitution to allow him to carry on governing for a third term, but he has also sold the next 20 years of their oil production to the Chinese at market prices!  Ecuador is one of the few countries in the world that has a huge supply of water and so it should have a bright future.  But guess who is funding the building of their newest dam?  Yes, the Chinese and with a 6.9% interest rate on the loan too.

It is a clean city, at least in the tourist areas where I was allowed to wander.  Street cleaners are permanently at work, and at the end of the day they go round the city sifting through all the rubbish, presumably sorting it into recyclables, etc.  They were usually followed by 2 or 3 stray dogs on the scrounge for scraps.  There are a lot of them here but look healthy enough.  

It was good to have some time alone and a chance to acclimatise to the altitude, and it was fun doing the things that tourists do: a trip to the equator was a must as was a ride in the cable car up to a hiking area in the clouds.  However I was more than ready to move on to the next stage of my travels when the time came.

Evolution, Intervention and Darwin

Having spent  an amazing 8 days in the Galápagos Islands, it was inevitable that questions started to arise regarding evolution.  The highlight of the holiday for me though was all the amazing snorkelling we did, with sea lions, with turtles, with iguanas, penguins, sting rays and most thrilling of all through lava tunnels with white tipped sharks.  But it was really only when we went to see the giant tortoises both at a breeding centre and in a protected nature reserve that I really started to properly address the islands' importance in the theory of evolution.

Marine iguanas, fur sea lions, frigate birds and blue footed boobies are all over the place.  And they are mostly disarmingly unafraid of man.  On one visit to the beach we left all our stuff on a bench only to find that as soon as our back was turned, a sea lion had nestled herself comfortably into all our towels and clothes!  The blue footed boobies did not fly off even if you walked right up to them, and the iguanas just lay there basking in the sun - not necessarily the most beautiful of sights in their various stages of skin shedding, but very content and oblivious to passers by.  On the beach, patrol personnel traced circles around the iguanas indicating barriers that were not to be crossed, but I never saw one get angry even when you accidentally brushed close by.  The one exception to fearlessness was the "beach master", the dominant sea lion on each beach that fiercely protected all its females, often up to 60 or more, by swimming up and down its area constantly barking.  I came into a bit of a close encounter with one of those but luckily lived to see another day!

It was harder to find the 10 remaining species of Darwin finches that popularly started the whole evolution vs creationism debate and to my eyes they were not so impressive.  But then I'm not really into birds.  The one bird that did stand out was a flycatcher with incredibly vivid orange colouring. The finches we did see looked like, well, finches!  What was made evident by our excellent guide is that there are so many species in the Galapagos that have been isolated in the islands for so long that nothing similar exists elsewhere.  The flora and fauna included.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the tortoise population.  The three main types that we saw on the last island, Santa Cruz, were clearly distinct.  They had been kept separate from each other over the years as the result of volcanic activity. The saddleback is probably the strangest with its shell's extra room allowance enabling the neck to stretch up and reach the succulent parts of the cactus on which it feeds.  This one was about 80 years old.

Darwin's original 13 subspecies of finches are believed to have originally come from one common ancestral type from South America.  With the tortoises it is not so clear how many different species actually landed on the islands; it is commonly believed that pirates threw excess tortoises, a food supply, into the sea and they floated there.  With no natural predators nor other large mammals competing for their food supply they really thrived.  That is until man brought cows and goats and rats and donkeys and blackberries and elephant grass and a whole host of other invasive species.  But the tortoises are thriving again today with the help of Unesco and the Charles Darwin research centre.  

For a moment it did all beg the question whether man should be interfering at all with evolution.  It is so evident that the authorities in the Galapagos are working hard to get everything back to how it all was before man interfered.  For instance, all dogs have to be neutered in the hope that over the years they can be eradicated.  Checks were made every time you moved from one island to another to make sure no animal or vegetables are being transported.  Consistent with evolutionary thinking, there is no culling, and abandoned baby seals or blue footed boobies are left to die. But a damaged or ill tortoise does have to be saved - this is a legal requirement.  Here nature is not allowed to simply "be" whilst numbers are being built back up.  It is easy to argue for this type of interventionism when you see all the magnificent huge tortoises wondering around lush land on a visit to the nature reserve, and you begin to imagine how it must have looked to the 16th century explorers who first landed here.  It is hoped that in about 15 years time the breeding programme can be halted.

I'm not sure whether the Galapagos is really meant to be the show piece for the theory of evolution beyond the specialisation of a species, but it is an incredible place and the people are wonderful.  They know they are lucky to live in such a protected place - immigration is no longer allowed except through marriage.  I had a wonderful time - go there if you can!

Socialism kind of works but for how long?

Back at an airport again!  Havana (above) is a great city and yes, the streets are full of American cars from the 1950s!  I even got to ride in one with a crazy bunch of fellow tourists (see below).  But Internet access has been poor hence this delayed posting.  It was only introduced to the general public about 3 months ago.  There are "hot spots" in the centre of each town where folk, mainly young folk, gather around in excited groups sharing a phone or laptop.  It's pretty pricey though at £1.30 an hour; government set monthly salaries range from about £25 to £50 per month!

Two weeks cycling around the country with a group of interested westerners and a superb Cuban university lecturer of social history for a tour guide really got the brain working.  Socialism really does seem to have worked here; no-one starves because of the universal ration book system operated and almost all seem to have a relatively good standard of life if happiness, a job, good education, excellent health provision and feeling part of a community is what counts.  So different from the poverty evident in much of the rest of the developing world.  There's not much incentive to work hard though - shop assistants really don't care whether you buy or not and are usually reading a book or chatting to a friend (they work for the Government and sell Government owned goods at Government set prices).   The towns are full of people, well educated by all accounts, sweeping the roads and collecting litter.  The shops that the majority of the Cubans can afford have empty shelves and sell very basic requirements.  Imported goods are few and far between.  But there are a few shops selling Nike and Benetton stuff in the centre of the large towns - I did wonder who actually shops there as it surely cannot be just for the tourists.  

The good education is however being jeopardised, according to our guide, by the increasing number of opportunities to make more elsewhere, either in the private or informal sectors.  Good teachers are becoming taxi drivers and tour guides. The Government maintains fearsome control over private enterprise through cumbersome legal requirements by many tiers of bureaucracy and a tax rate of 50% on incomes or profits over about £30,000.  Foreign companies are not currently allowed to operate here unless a joint venture with the Government, hence our guide thinks there will not be much change for a while.  The McDonald's and Starbucks of this world, he thinks, will have to wait a long time - 4 years or more.  He also stressed time and time again that Cubans have a type of social cohesion, originally fuelled by Fidel Castro, that will help prevent the fervour for capitalism that we westerners might expect.  And the argument is convincing once you start to understand how Cuba has got to where it is today.

I've already gone on too much.  Time will tell whether our guide is right in his belief that change will be slow, or whether Cuba is on the verge of a Shanghai type growth splurge.  It is going to be really interesting to watch.