The Best City in South America?

After a few days in Guayaquil sorting out our Galápagos trip and replacing things after our bag was stolen, we moved back up into the mountains. The city we chose for Jo's birthday was Cuenca - an old colonial city dating back to 1557.

The New Cathedral in Cuenca

We found the UNESCO-listed centre to be very beautiful, with plenty of old buildings, churches, cathedrals and plazas. The full name of the city is Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, as it is built around four rivers. This really added to the charm of the place - they were fast flowing and lined with trees and clean banks of grass.

One of Cuenca's four rivers

The route between Guayaquil and Cuenca passes the Cajas National Park. On the way there, we couldn't see any of it as fog limited our visibility to a few metres at most. It also limited our driver's visibility, but that didn't stop him. We decided to return to the park a few days later and had been recommended a day hike to do. It was our first experience of the páramo - high altitude grassland. There were a surprising amount of flower and plant species in a seemingly invariable landscape. Our trail took us to the top of a very steep mountain, eschewing the usual switchbacks and leaving us to almost climb up some parts. The views at the top of the many surrounding lakes made it worth it though.

Lake Toreadora in El Cajas National Park

On Jo's birthday we went for a day out at the zoo. We'd heard good things about it and it wasn't like a normal zoo. Instead of having free reign to go wherever you wanted, it was more like a hike on a predetermined route up a hill around the large animal pens. It was great seeing spectacled bears climbing trees that didn't appear big enough to support them, pumas, ocelots and lion cubs, even if they weren't in the wild. We also went out to one of Ecuador's most famous restaurants - Tiesto's - for an excellent tasting menu with Chilean wine. We weren't brave enough yet to try the Ecuadorian variant. Another treat was staying for a few days in a hotel in one of the historic buildings in the city centre.

A spectacled bear high up in a tree

Another site of note near (-ish) to Cuenca are the Inca ruins at Ingapirca. The Inca empire had extended all the way through Ecuador, but many sites had been destroyed during their civil war, and more after that to prevent them falling into Spanish hands. Ingapirca is the largest site in Ecuador and, although not as extensive as those in Perú, still showed off the amazing Inca architecture. We also enjoyed seeing an 'Inca Face' appearing in the rocks in a nearby cliff.

The Inca Face

To answer the question as to whether Cuenca is the best city in South America - well, it's hard to say. It's certainly one of our favourites, alongside Arequipa in Perú and Sucre in Bolivia. Obviously, though, everywhere is different and we have so much more to explore - starting with the Galápagos Islands, our next destination.

9 days, 4 countries, 1 robbery

The last few days have involved a lot of travelling: four different countries over the past nine days! There have been ups and downs, with one particular down occurring when my bag was stolen as we went from Peru into Ecuador - more on that to follow. Returning to Chile and Argentina gave us a chance to reflect on all the countries we've visited so far. So in this blog entry, at the end of each section I thought it would be nice to sum up some of our feelings on each country.

One of the hikes around El Chaltén with my family, in Patagonia

We ended our last blog entry still in Argentine Patagonia, from where my dad and sister flew back home to the UK. Kev and I then made our way back to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile. We had some time to kill in Punta Arenas, so we made use of this by checking out the outdoor shops there. Turns out 3 years and 20 plus countries is too much for even the toughest hiking shoes, so we both reluctantly purchased new ones.

The harbour at Punta Arenas - taken when we first visited earlier this year

Argentina: worst food in of all the countries we've visited (apart from the good steak!); excellent Malbec; friendly people; weird Spanish accent; crazy dual exchange rate due to crazy inflation; super expensive buses; amazing Patagonian scenery.

Chile: favourite country so far - fantastic wine at very cheap prices; Spanish accent almost impossible to understand; volcanoes by the dozen; gorgeous, rarely visited national parks; some of the best day hikes ever; food nearly as bad as Argentina but improved by seafood; crazy long thin country (very long bus rides!)

At Conguillo National Park earlier in the year - one of our favourite places in Chile

As we boarded our flight to Lima at midnight, we wondered what had possessed us to pick this ridiculous flight time. After a turbulent flight from Punta Arenas up to Santiago, we groggily had to change flight at 4am and finally arrived back in Lima, Peru at about 7am. We spent the next couple of days staying in a pleasant Air BnB recovering from our flight and not doing much. As you may have gathered from previous posts, we've not been overly inspired by Lima. We did however return to our favourite craft beer bar, and to the cat park of course, and also finally went into the cathedral.

The tomb in Lima cathedral of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Inca empire

From Lima we took the longest bus journey of the trip so far (19 hours) up to Máncora, a small beach town on the north coast. For this bus journey we'd chosen the luxury option - all meals provided, private TV screens, and seats that reclined 180 degrees - so the time went surprisingly fast! Getting off the bus in Máncora, we were hit by the heat. This is the first time we've been anywhere genuinely hot since the start of our trip, and I was finally grateful for all the summer clothes I've been carrying around for months. On with the shorts and flip flops!

The beach at Mancora, with fishing boats in the distance

Máncora has a different feel to the rest of Peru. The streets are mostly unpaved and dusty, there are tuk tuks everywhere, the beach is lined with bars and the roads with souvenir shops. There are people everywhere trying to sell you stuff, and more than your average number of scams. We felt like we'd returned to south east Asia! After a couple of nights here relaxing on our balcony, with the occasional 'swim' (read 'splash around in the shallows' - the waves were pretty big!) and plenty of time spent in bamboo beach bars, we were ready to head on up to a new country - Ecuador.

Peru: best food of anywhere in South America so far (ceviche especially); delicious pisco sour cocktails; most places especially in the South are very touristy; incredible history and archaeological sites by the dozen; our least favourite capital city; great hiking; excellent craft beer selection.

At Choquequirao in Peru - amazing history, amazing hiking!

As I mentioned, Máncora is full of scams. One of these involves bus companies. We'd been warned to make sure we bought our tickets to Ecuador from the actual company itself, NOT an agency. Easy, we thought. We're travel savvy! Wrong. The company we bought the tickets from was an agency masquerading (very well) as the official bus office. We discovered this when we found out we had to get a minibus to start with and then change to a bus at the border, which is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do. But it was too late to change plan by then.

Colourful hill in Guayaquil, Ecuador, near where we were staying

The minibus dropped us at the bus office at the (very gritty) border town. We went to the window to get our tickets sorted, and had our bags on the bench next to us, literally a step away. I took my passport out of my rucksack to hand to the woman behind the desk, and when I turned around 30 seconds later to check on the bags, I immediately noticed my small rucksack was missing. We both ran out into the street but the man had disappeared. Some people in the cafe next door had seen him running and we ran that way but couldn't find any sign. There were some local police on the next corner and they immediately searched the area themselves on a motorbike, but no luck. We left our details with them but I think it's pretty unlikely we'll ever get that bag back.

Cathedral in Guayaquil, Ecuador

The one good thing is that I did not have my passport in the bag, having taken it out a few seconds before. Most of the items that were in the rucksack are replaceable, but it's very frustrating as there were quite a few things of financial value (phone, backup hard drive, Kindle, raincoat, etc) and many more of sentimental value. Sadly these things happen, and we are still berating ourselves for letting our guard down for that one moment. We read later about how some tourists have been held up at gunpoint outside that very same office, and others kidnapped nearby. Maybe we got off lightly.

View of Guayaquil, from a lighthouse up a hill near where we were staying

We arrived late that day in the city of Guayaquil, our first stop in Ecuador. It's Ecuador's largest city (though not the capital), very hot and humid and located on the coast. Guayaquil is an interesting place - it used to have an extremely bad reputation, which didn't inspire us with confidence arriving here after the robbery. However, the waterfront area where we're staying has had a recent makeover and is now very nice and very safe - there are armed police every hundred metres or so!

Ecuadorians just getting on with normal life, in the iguana park!

We have spent the last couple of days shopping to replace the stolen stuff and filling in insurance claim forms, as well finding time to see one of Guayaquil's main attractions - a small park in the centre that is full of iguanas! Most importantly, we've been researching Galapagos cruises, and are excited to say that we have now booked an 8 day trip starting on the 28th November. The cruises are very pricey, but this is something we knew all along was unmissable, and we've managed to get a very good discount by booking last minute from within Ecuador.

Iguana and pigeon!

First impressions of Ecuador: bad food, friendly people, very hot at sea level, very green (lots of banana plantations!); football mad (like all of South America).

We leave here soon to spend a few days in the highland city of Cuenca, before returning to Guayaquil to fly from there to the Galapagos.

Oh, and though we haven't been there recently, it's not fair not to include Bolivia in this post - so, Bolivia: least Westernised country; lots of indigenous influence; crazy country with half at 4000m altitude and the rest at 0; highest capital in the world; cheap; too many incidents of food poisoning; insane cliff edge bus rides.

Up at 4900m at the El Tatio geysers, in Bolivia in June

That's all till next time!

Collapsing Glaciers and Frozen Lakes

We arrived in El Calafate, ready to meet up with Jo's dad and sister after their long flight from the UK. We'd picked this area for their holiday as there's plenty to do in a small-ish area, and I'd missed a lot of the hikes with my bad leg when we were here before.

El Chaltén

After they'd arrived, we set off the next day to El Chaltén - Argentina's 'capital of trekking'. Jo had done two of the major walks here before - to the Torre and FitzRoy mountains - but they were new to the rest of us. Both are full-day walks to glacier-fed lakes at the base of amazing granite spires. Unfortunately, the Torre mountain was covered in cloud when we arrived, but we were treated to wonderfully shaped icebergs in the lake.

Finally made it to Laguna Torre!

FitzRoy was more spectacular - not only was the sky clear, but its lake was frozen and covered in snow. After reaching the lake, we continued a bit further around and nothing could have prepared us for the sight of a second lake, lower than the first, that had recently thawed leaving a mosaic of ice on top of the perfect blue water. From the viewpoint you could see the thawed lake alongside the frozen, snowy lake both crowned by the FitzRoy peak. It was spectacular.

Mosaic-ice lake on the left and snowy lake on the right

A third trek, called Loma del Pliegue Tumbado, was different to the others in that the peak at the end wasn't so notable and didn't have a lake at the bottom. It did afford a view across the whole mountain range, though, and we finally got a clear view of the Torre mountain alongside FitzRoy. We didn't make it quite to the end of the trail as the steep climb at the end was completely covered in snow and seemed a bit too treacherous.

The Franklins and the FitzRoy range at the end of the Loma del Pliegue Tombado hike

After exhausting the trekking possibilities in El Chaltén, we returned to El Calafate. This is close to the Perito Moreno glacier that we had visited before. We couldn't wait to return and show it off to Jo's relatives. It didn't let us down - it had grown since we had last visited and now crossed to the shore with the viewpoint, cutting the lake in two. We had much better weather this time, so we could stay out on the walkways admiring the sheer size of the wall of ice. We were once again lucky enough to see huge, 60m high, columns of ice breaking off the glacier and smashing into the lake below.

Watching for more ice to fall

Jo's family has now departed to return home, and we are preparing to end our own Patagonian holiday by flying back to Lima, Perú. We'll spend a couple of nights there, recovering from an overnight flight, before heading north towards Máncora and then Ecuador.