Travel Origins (Part 2) - Cuenca and the Cajas, Ecuador

The whistles of war blew. The Japanese vanguard charged over the dusty hill, trudging through rotten corpses. Their rifles cracked and sent bullets whizzing, splintering American skulls. A barrage of artillery splattered bodies into a bloody pulp. Dying men, American and Japanese alike, screamed out in Spanish as explosions bellowed. I turned to my left and shivered at the sheer drop beyond the road; I have a fear of heights, but somehow knew that this fear would soon be faced. To my right, a child of 8 years watched the slaughter, grinning. The bus company had decided to play Hacksaw Ridge as we precariously wound up the narrow road through the Andes, ascending 4000 metres in just 50 minutes.

The bus ride from Guayaquil to Cuenca had been dramatic. From my full-cama seat, I watched the landscape evolve from the Congo to Canada. The Cajas National Park, through which we travelled, was more akin to the Scottish Highlands than an equatorial country. We were now on the gringo route, it was obvious, complete with travellers of every kind; from hikers to a man dressed as a wizard – I vowed there and then that no matter what I discovered about myself on this journey, I would never dress as a wizard.

Sitting in a valley at 2650m above sea level, Cuenca is simply delightful. Cool, clean and calm. I’ll remember it fondly, with its red-tiled roofs and crumbling colonial churches. It’s high enough to escape the heat but not so high as to make visitors suffer from the dreaded Soroche (Altitude sickness). The clear Rio Tomebamba babbles through the Old Town and the city is surrounded on all fronts by beautiful hills. Laidback Cuenca is a hub for American retirees, which suited me just fine. At a time when I was craving stability, Cuenca was my answer.

In our quaint rented apartment, I immediately made myself at home. By night, I cuddled up on the couch and watched my favourite shows (Juego de Tronos, Vikingos and Mujeres Desesperadas) and by day we strolled down cobbled streets. I became a regular at Cuenca’s most popular gringo eateries, frequenting Fabiano’s Pizza five times. Here I tipped my hat to geriatrics whilst I tucked into familiar cuisine – “The pepperoni again, Arthur?”. I got to know the locals and had my hair cut by Cuenca’s oldest barber. His name was Juan and he proudly displayed dusty ‘Haircutting’ awards from the 80s. He said he could speak English, but could not, and hacked at my hair with shaking hands. Even Cuenca’s weather had an agreeable British temperament.

We visited ‘Pumapungo’, the world’s best museum that is also a bank. A strange place with exhibits ranging from the demise of Ecuador’s pre-dollar currency, weaving, shrunken heads, and a giant room with artwork paying homage to Jesus (with over 15 interpretations of Jesus being crucified). In the museum gardens, I witnessed my first Incan ruins. There was also a small farm complete with Alpacas and horny birds who, just like the South American men, whooped and cat-called at my girlfriend as she walked past.

Unlike in Guayaquil, I felt unthreatened exploring the sites. We started with a free walking tour, a traveller’s first point of call, with two friends from our English teaching course. I paid daily visits to Cuenca’s orderly central market, Mercado 10 de Augusto. It had stall upon stall of sweet-smelling fruits from Ecuador’s three distinct regions. On its second floor, whole roasted pigs glared at me through glazed eyes whilst women fingered and picked chunks from their limp bodies. They then offered the greasy flesh to passers-by and shoved portions into their own mouths as if to prove the quality. The appeal of street food was lost on me.

We visited the Panama Hat Museum, a giant ‘f*** you’ to Panama. As the legend goes, Teddy Roosevelt purchased one such hat in Panama (which, little to his knowledge, had been imported from Ecuador). The stylish sombrero caught the eye of an interviewing journalist who asked where the hat had come from. Teddy said “Panama” and it was hence branded as the Panama hat. I mused at buying one myself, but then remembered that I was 27, not 65. At the bitter museum’s café, I drank not so bitter coffee and watched the weather roll in over purple mountains. Life was fine, just fine.

After just one week on the road, we were evidently done with our travels and even applied for jobs at one of Cuenca’s English schools. We approached the Head of Studies in a grand colonial building in the heart of the Old Town. She eagerly recorded our names and we were promptly invited to an interview. We extended our stay in Cuenca, with intentions of possibly calling the city home.

During our second week, however, the Cuencan illusion began to shatter. After a brief interview, we were offered the job. The pay was abysmal; equivalent to that of a 12-year-old paperboy working a 2-day week. Indeed, at the interview, the teachers had looked overworked, cold, and broke. The visa process for Ecuador seemed equally migraine evoking. The erratic changing weather, the cool of which I had once enjoyed, made me feel like I was going through menopause. Cuenca’s rain and bathroom tiled pavements were a poor marriage; as high heeled women skid and slipped their way around town. Walking with my girlfriend proved a tiresome chore. She has no grip on her shoes and so, as a gentleman, I held her hand when walking to provide support. With each of her sudden slips she would jerk on my hand, the shock of which made me scream in terror.

While the rain kept falling and my girlfriend kept slipping, the financial hit from renting a plush flat and my Fabiano fetish were becoming unsustainable. Even my favourite market began to turn eerily strange, where on one visit old ladies thrashed and battered children with bushes. As Game of Thrones ended, terribly, leaving me a hollow shell of a man, I pondered what had happened to the city that I had once loved. It was clear, I had stayed too long. I learned a valuable lesson, always leave a place wanting more.

Now ‘over’ Cuenca and feeling too good for the job offer at hand, my girlfriend and I decided to continue our journey around Ecuador. We politely declined the job and I addressed the elephant in the room, my giant suitcase. It had to go. On a cold Cuenca night, I purged my things. My suitcase, wheeled bag, shirts, work shoes, and cufflinks were weeded out and donated to the local church – I moved my surviving things into my backpack which, until now, had been lying dormant in my suitcase. I purchased Lonely Planet’s ‘South America on a Shoestring’ with an ambition to explore the continent. According to the guide, the next stop would be Riobamba, the ‘the Sultan of the Andes’, and Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest peak. I was now, quite literally, a backpacker.

On our final day, we took a one-hour bus up to the Cajas National Park. In the bus station, I ordered a coffee. For a region that produces some of the world’s finest coffee, there is an incomprehensible love of Nescafé – damn you, Nestlé. The bus trip started as most do in Ecuador, a man handed out chocolates to everyone on board, gave a sales pitch, and then walked down the aisle asking for payment. He was disappointed when I didn’t pay him; but then again, so was I, as I handed back what I assumed to be a free treat. “You shouldn’t take candy from strangers!”, blurted out an American who busted a gut laughing at his own joke. The bus stopped at the park ranger station. I was 3850m above sea level, short of breath, and slow. The freezing café sold coca tea, which they said helped with the altitude. ‘Not yet’, I thought, ‘but soon’. We chose to walk the pink trail because pink seemed less threatening than red.

I was blown away by the beauty of the Cajas. A truly inspiring location that made me want to write a novel, a lengthy and descriptive one. We walked amongst epic mountains of tawny brown and violet; their cascading streams glistened in the sunshine. The path weaved around great Andean lakes, clogged with swaying reeds. The landscape made me feel like I was travelling across Middle Earth; my phone was my ring, my girlfriend was my Samwise. I passed a chap who obviously felt the same, blasting The Lord of the Rings soundtrack whilst filming on his GoPro. At one point we clambered through a forest of blood-red trunks. In amongst the trees, all was quiet, except for the faint whisper of French tourists, chatting on the wind. Whilst the wildlife was somewhat lacking, two small birds and some llamas, it didn’t take long for my mind to conjure up images of great beasts emerging from the black lagoons.

Outside the ranger station, we waited in the cold for a bus. Two backpackers rolled tobacco and drank coca tea. They wore ponchos, the traditional dress of gringos. After an hour of waiting, we hopped onto a bus that smelled of dogs. The backpackers declined to join. Two dollars, the price for everything in Ecuador, would seemingly break the bank and they continued attempting to hitchhike. For all I know those two cheapskates are still up there now, shivering in their ponchos. Returning to Cuenca, I watched the mountains weep whilst listening to the poetic accent of Colombians. That night, I ate my final pizza from Fabiano’s and basked in the memory of one of the most beautiful places I had ever visited.

The next day, we headed to the bus terminal with no prior knowledge of which buses were leaving and when. I begrudgingly followed a man to the ticket office of a generic bus company. There we enquired what time the bus was leaving, the gentleman said 9.40 am. I explained that I was not asking what the time was now, which was 9.42 am. He repeated, unamused, 9.40 am. Bewildered, but not really, we bought our tickets at 9.45 am, boarded at 9.50 am and left at 10.15 am; after a few more bewildered gringos had piled on. As the bus pulled out, a Venezuelan refugee gave a sales pitch attempting to sell his nation’s now useless currency, the rain continued to fall, and I read the next chapter of my travel guide. ‘Riobamba’… ‘The Sultan of the Andes’… that sounds pleasant, I thought.