Well, I must not have done it correctly, because I’m cancelling my third trip this year, two of them in the last month. Maybe I’m over thinking things. Maybe it’s just rotten timing, or an instinct to stay still. Either way, I’m worried that this may be a preview of things to come: a future of armchair travel where I book (and cancel) endless trips, never making it past the airport.

Just so you know, I’m not superstitious in the slightest, but I’m SO dragging that bad boy around later this year. I might not even bother unpacking.

Volcano Hunters waiting for a glimpse of El Volcan

Tungurahua, or the Volcan, as it is known, is beloved by both locals and tourists alike in Ecuador, but none are more fanatical than the Volcano Hunters, a group of fans constantly on the lookout for Baños’ most famous denizen. The Hunters know for example, the best time to catch a glimpse of the Volcan (7.00 am on a morning when it has not rained the previous evening).

Tungurahua also liked to show itself on days when the wind was not so constant, on days that were cool but not too hot, on days that began with the letter T. Despite the cracking advice, I had no luck with visibility, always arriving too early, too late, or after it had made its cameo.

On one of my trips, I met a group of Hunters who had been hiking since dawn. They told me I’d just missed Mama Tungurahua in her full glory, snowy tip and all. We sat and watched silently, as the clouds floated around the Volcan, obscuring it completely from view.

You should have been here half an hour ago, one of the men said, as they passed around a thermos of hot coffee. Estas loco? someone else said, If she wants to see it she’s going to have to get up early every morning.

As usual it was all about timing. Clearly my moment had passed.

Tungurahua in the morning.

Earlier in December, they told me, there were red flames shooting out and Tungurahua rumbled every 15 minutes.

So she was an angry as well as elusive mistress. They passed the thermos around again.

It gets cold up in the mountains, especially when you are sitting waiting for something to happen. I told the Hunters I almost didn’t come to Baños after the UK had issued a travel warning.

They were upset at the bad press and what it does for their town’s tourism. Every night when she was active, they camped out here: cab drivers, bus drivers, school kids, everyone came out to see.

Now there is nothing, but we still visit, even when she is silent, they said.

I ask about the Big One, but they don´t like to talk about the eruption 11 years ago. Most of the town had to evacuate for almost a year while they repaired the bridges and the roads.

But despite the destructive antics of their mistress, they couldn’t wait to return. I guess you get used to living with a larger than life presence looking over them.

My cabby told me that the really obsessive fans will sit and watch the Volcan all morning, noting the times Tungurahua reveals herself. They come before work, after work, on weekends. Sort of like train spotters.

But it is not just the Hunters who are obsessed. Dozens of restaurants, cafes, hotels and other establishments in town feature photos or paintings of the Volcan in either its quiet state or its red-hot atomic fieryness.

A few days later, I took another cab up to see if I could get a glimpse at the elusive Tungurahua. I was in luck, as the cabby himself was a part-time Hunter. I know a place with a great view. Mind a little hike? My kind of guy. He shot up the windy and narrow mountain roads going 80 mph. I was certain I would never live long enough to get a look at the Volcan. Part of me wanted to ask him if he had lost his mind. Another part of me wanted to tell him to stop being such an old man and speed it up. Much more than me, he understood the Volcan’s impetous nature. Even though we could see it peeking behind the mountains, it would soon be hidden behind the clouds. My driver went faster, flying past dogs, horses and buses coming down the opposite side of the mountain. I shut my eyes afraid to look. Finally, he pulled up to a beautiful country road on a steep inclination and parked his taxi in the middle of the street.

We walk from here.

The man must have been well into his 70s, but he practically ran up the incline. What. is. the. altitude. here?, I gasped. Oh, we´re pretty high. Almost 3000 feet above sea level.

My lungs felt like an anaconda had a hold on them. Just a little bit higher, he chirped.

An hour later, we ended up in a place that looked like the Ecuadorian Alps. I would have been better able to appreciate its beauty, had I not been struggling to catch my breath.

When I was back to normal, I almost kissed the man. My darling driver had taken me to a place of cloudy dreams. An observatory where Tungurahua’s activities were monitored and tracked by satellite. I walked to the edge of the field and wished I hadn’t looked down. Thousands of feet of nothingness below, and no rail to stop me from falling. Right across from the shack, so close I could almost touch it, sat the Volcan: icy, regal, resplendant, blowing out gray smoke, but peaceful in every other respect.

There was a coating of ice on her left side. Her right, which the last eruption had caved in, made her appear lopsided. From this side spilled ocassional sediment and smoke falling toward the village of Puyo in the Oriente.

The Volcano Watcher in action

I was introduced to Carlos, who was even better than a Volcano Hunter. He is a Volcano Watcher. For 30 years he’s been living in the little shack across Tungurahua, noting its movements and sending back information to seismologists and volcanologists. He was kind enough to give me a tour of the place, showing me old photographs, maps, even ashes collected from previous volcanic activity.

The ash contained different metallic content depending on the severity of eruption. He brushed it with a magnet to show me how the fine powder clung to the metal tenaciously. Imagine if you breathed that in? He showed me a finer beige powder, which a few years ago made it all they way to Guayaquil. He showed me photographs of how the Volcan had changed with each new eruption. While Baños was currently protected by the left hand lip, if there was a big eruption, molten lava would shoot straight up, 8 or so kilometres in the air. Goodbye Baños.

He showed me softball-sized rocks that had shot out as recently as a month ago. But being hit with rocks was not the worst part. Long before the molten lava or the rocks, noxious gases would get you. Hard to believe that beautiful and sleep Volcan, was so treacherous.

I ask him what would happen if Tungurahua erupted now. He’d have just enough time to hit the alarm to warn the town below. But even with all the seismic equipment and advanced warnings, it was anyone’s guess. The only thing that is certain is that you and I would never make it in time, Carlos said. We are up to high. Still, I would not choose to live anywhere else. His father before him had been guarded the town and so had his grandfather. Generations of Volcano Watchers.

Do you want to see the treehouse? Carles asked.

Tree House

Despite my emerging problems with vertigo, I climbed those rickety wooden steps pretty quickly. From the top of the tree house I could see the craters of the volcano clearly. They reminded me a little of the moon. Two puffs of smoke were now visible, although now they didn’t seem as harmless as they had earlier.

Tungurahua is like a woman, the Watcher said. One minute she is silent, the next you don’t want to go anywhere near her.

My cab driver chuckled and pointed to a young man who was swinging himself under the tree house into empty space. He was the son of the Volcano Watcher, no doubt made of the same grit as his old man.

A memorable day, not only as I finally got to see Tungurahua as more than a pretty purplish hue in the distance, but I better understand the people of Baños who literally live under its shadow. Their lives revolve around the Volcan, in a similar way our lives revolve around the clock. The difference being that our clock is man-made, while Tungurahua is a constant and striking reminder that there are still mysterious forces we cannot control in this world. Thank goodness for that.

“Welcome,” said my host, proudly showing me around. “We aren’t like other establishments in Ecuador. We have a superior-type septic tank. You don’t have to deposit your used toilet paper in bins. Our tanks are paper-proof. So go ahead, flush without worry.”

Paper, maybe. He never mentioned anything about brownies.

You see, the hotel sells homemade baked goods for its guests. At only a dollar per sizable treat with nuts, it sounded like a good deal. I took one, marked a little tick under my name in the honour system way of guest tabs and ate it outside on the hammock. I had been looking forward to that brownie, especially after a long day of hiking in the mountains – but it was so disappointingly dense, I could barely finish a bite. What to do? I couldn’t throw it away in the organic waste bin – it had been emptied earlier that day and like most eco-friendly places, people actually keep track of those things. I didn’t want my hosts to be offended when they found an almost intact brownie sitting among the carrot peels and old tea bags.

So I did the only thing that made sense. I flushed it down the toilet. After all, this was a ‘superior-type’ septic tank – it could handle a simple square of chocolate. Right? Wrong. The darned thing refused to flush. I tried everything but only managed to block the toilet more with each flush. I spent an agonizing two days feeling guilty and using any other bathroom in the hotel but mine, while the chocolate culprit remained undissolved and defiant at the bottom of the cistern. I was in constant fear of flooding my bathroom and having to explain to my hosts why my brownie had killed their septic tank.

On day three, I broke and confessed to the cleaning lady. I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t have to. I pointed at the toilet, she peered at the bowl, walked away and then marched back in, armed with industrial gloves, rubber boots and an electric suction tool.

As my room was next to the area where the guests had breakfast, I was able to witness how everyone tried to pretend not to notice that the cleaning lady was making sucking and pounding noises as if she were extracting ectoplasmic matter on team Ghostbusters.

She finally emerged triumphant, holding a plastic bag.

I wanted to die of shame.

Oh God, please don’t let her shout out that she’d found a chocolate brownie in my toilet.

Imagine the look on all those faces? Despite what had been done to retrieve it, I had no doubt my baked goodie had retained its original shape, despite three days of floating in water, being constantly flushed and assaulted with wire hangers and let’s not forget the suction pump. That brownie was near indestructible.

If a nuclear holocaust befell us,  I am certain that it and the cockroaches would be the only survivors. Superior-type septic tank indeed.

Walking didn’t sound too stressful. No matter that I had hiked over an hour to get to the Refugio, arriving sweaty and disheveled, as if I had wandered in the wilderness for days. I was looking forward to a leisurely stroll through its pretty gardens. That is, until the assistant told me about the trail.

“You´ll start by walking barefoot on volcanic rock,” she said, pointing the way down a steep hill full of tiny jagged stones.

Barefoot? Are you sure? I asked dubiously.

“In order for you to achieve optimum emotional health you have to walk the Walk,” she repeated.

The pain and discomfort could not have been worse had the rocks been hot coals. Actually, in the noonday sun, they were pretty fiery. My tender arches cried for mercy.

Twenty agonising minutes later, I arrived at a winding path full of bushes and thorns. The assistant told me I had to to circle the enclosure three times around the aptly named Purgatory, which if you can believe it, had even deadlier stones than the first path.

Fighting the urge to turn back, I kept on. Fortunately the path turned from rocks to branches and finally foliage underfoot. Relief.

A handwritten sign pointing to the sky, led the way to the Mural of Silences, which was a climb of 200 steps made of the same material as the flimsy bridge in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the fierce mountain wind with my feet sore from the volcanic rock, I held on to the rope for dear life, climbing slowly until I reached the top.

At the Hall of Screams, I was supposed to stop and think about anyone who had hurt or angered me. This was going to take a while. Number one on my list was the woman who suggested the Walk, followed closely by the person who had designed the Refugio and its various forms of therapeutic torture. I found it hard to scream with only the wind to hear my pain, but I managed a good howl,  if only because standing at the very top of the clearing, almost mocking me, was the elusive Volcan Tungurahua. I had been chasing the Volcan since I arrived in Baños, always arriving just as it hid behind the clouds.

From the Hall of Screams, I had a breathtaking view, seeing the peak of the mountain wrapped in ice. Of course, my camera was somewhere below in my backpack, left behind with my other worldly possessions in an attempt to reach some sort of material-goodless nirvana. I briefly considered walking back through Purgatory to get it, but there was no way I was walking through those rocks again, even if I was being chased by yetis.

A few screams later, I felt much better and I started the descent to the Wall of Forgiveness. Here I was supposed to leave all my regret and guilt behind. The mural had a stunning view of the surrounding are, a perfect composition of  jungle, a waterfall, and (agh!) Tungurahua.

I tried not to kick myself about the camera as this would have defeated the purpose of the forgiveness exercise.

Fortunately, the mural was situated on a mossy hill with grass that felt like angels tickling my tender feet.  I stayed there until I managed to get rid of all the negative energy I had accumulated during the Walk. The view was beautiful. Baños was beautiful. I felt beautiful, renewed in mind and body.

That is until the cursed volcanic gravel on the return.

Listen, if you are going to construct a healing walk, you have to reward your customers with consistency. Pain on the way there, pleasure on the return. Not so difficult, right?

It was hard not to shout obscenities, as I leapt and danced my way past the stupid hot stones, all serenity and peace dissipated.  Let me tell you, if you try to evade the rocks the agony is only worse. There is no way to escape their constant sharpness, your mind is filled only with the immediacy of your body and the increasing pain. I had to focus every fibre in my being not to cry out.

“You must return humble, the way you came into this earth.” said the assistant. “If you can, crawl back from the Walk on your hands and knees.”

There was no way I was going to kneel on that gravel. At this point I would have traded my soul for some solid concrete.

Everyone smiled when they saw me limping back to the Refugio. They had probably placed bets among themselves to see how long I’d hold out before cracking. I  have to say though that aside from some soreness, I felt fantastic and a tiny bit smug. After all, I had completed the Walk and lived to write the tale. I had experienced scream therapy for the first time, realising my anger into the wild. I’m sure I had even managed to accomplish a little forgiveness. As an added benefit, my feet were now very soft .

The place was deserted and when the clerk told us the thermal pool wasn’t working, I was too tired to kick up a fuss. I’d booked the place especially for the volcanic pool, which is reportedly revitalising and chockfull of healthy goodness. Instead, we were pointed in the direction of an alternative pool that was tepid, bordering on chilly, and filled with school kids.

We returned to our room and went to bed, miserable and missing the potato soup community steambath that was Baños.

At 6:00 in the morning, I awoke to the loud voices and laughter of hyper youngsters. I’d had enough. I ventured out of my room and was confronted not with teens but from a scene straight out of Cocoon. Roughly thirty senior citizens were splashing and exercising in the now-working outdoor thermal pool near our room.

Some of the elderly were doing laps. Some had on water weights and were walking purposely from one side of pool to the other. The rest were chatting and squealing as they ran and launched themselves into the pool.

The hotel manager told us that the Cuenca waters have powers of rejuvenation. Every morning, the residents of this little suburb gathered to swim. Some of them up to 5 times a week.

Eager to join them, we put on our suits, jumped in the pool and OH MY! The water was almost 50 degrees! I could barely stand in it, much less swim. After 10 minutes we had to get out  to give our poor hearts a rest. Yet here were these Cuencanos in their 70s and 80s, paddling happily in that boiling lava, looking like wrinkly but rejuvenated puppies.

No wonder Ecuador has some of the oldest and fittest people alive.

Later in the evening, after a day of walking around the centre and looking at the fantastic architecture, we ventured into the pool again.

In the Sierra it gets cold in the evenings on account of the mountains. Imagine swimming under the stars, the volcanic waters giving off steam, the pure exhilaration of conflicting temperatures on your skin. When it became too much, we bundled up in terry robes to sit in the garden, cooling our bodies in the night air, as we watched the  Cocoon posse, splashing with gusto, seemingly unaffected by heat or exhaustion.

Long after we went to bed, the old ones remained, laughing and playing in the water and most likely slapping each other’s behinds with towels.

In case you are looking for it, the fountain of youth is alive and well in Cuenca.

D & Senor Hat

Early this morning we set off for Otavalo, a town north of Quito. Otavalo is famous for its Saturday artisan market, which I am told is the largest in all the Americas. A great many crafts and indigenous weavings are sold, including the infamous Panama Hat, or Sombrero de Toquilla, as it is known here.

I must take the time to clear up the common misconception that Panama Hats are from Panama. They are (and have always been) made by hand in Ecuador. The Montecristi area in famous for them. The name derives from the Panama Canal workers who wore them in the midday heat to keep out the sun.

The hats come in fino, super fino, super super fino quality and so on, and range in price from $20 to several thousands of dollars. The great thing about them (aside from their dashing appeal) is that you can fold, roll or stuff them into your bag without damaging the weave. The really fine ones can fit through a man’s ring and hold water. We didn’t buy one of those, so I can’t really verify the ring thing, but I can say they do roll to a pretty small size.

D. (pictured left) believes that hat wearing, the noir, 1940s kind, should be compulsory, or at the very least come back into style.

As a side note, Ecuadorian women do not wear sombreros, with the exception of indigenous women who wear black bowler type headwear. A shame really, as I look just as dashing as D in the hat.

To get to Otavalo, we took a national bus from Quito. I’d read that the ride could be harrowing, as we were several thousand feet in altitude and climbing, mostly on curvy roads. It wasn’t too bad considering we had on board ‘entertainment’–– watching the crazy bus driver chatting to his mate and driving most of the way in the wrong lane, as if he were playing a game of chicken.

Twenty minutes in, a kurshuffle broke out over the ticketed passengers versus the standing ones. It lasted almost the entire journey, until an elderly gentleman (naturally wearing a Panama) slapped a brash rogue on the head and told him to mind his manners and shut up. Strangely the kid did as he was told. Everyone cheered and we went back to worrying about the bus driver. Such is the power of the hat.

Hat or no hat, I’m sure the outcome would have been different if we’d been in another city. Possibly even another era.

The note on this viejo says, 'My name is Fernando Cordero. My children hate me, that's why they want to burn me."

We celebrated New Year’s Eve by taking a stroll in the Centro Historico and gawking at the cathedrals Quito is famous for. I wanted to take a photo of La Compania de Jesus, but was stopped in mid-flash by an officious toad who refused to budge on the rules, even on a holiday.

The church is covered completely in gold-leaf and so shiny, I had to fight the urge to shield my eyes. Despite its awesomeness, I would not describe the ostentatious decor as beautiful – it is too reminiscent of something sweet & tawdry – a giant foil-wrapped bom-bom, instead of the usual incense and mystery that I like so much in cathedrals.

After touring the churches, we walked to the Plaza Grande, where there was a parade with much merriment and dancing. In Ecuador, the parades are interactive and we joined in, following the partying crowds around the city. The parade featured a whole host of religious and cultural personages, and like the country itself, these seemingly opposing groups merge together to form something unique.

There were folks in conquistador and indigenous costumes, as well as witches, angels, saints, princesses, goats, and of course, a king and queen. A shaman led the procession, also functioning as DJ.

The crowd headed to the presidential palace, where there were several protests going on. One of them consisting of angry union workers waving tiny año viejos aloft on their shoulders and chanting for equal pay. Año viejos, if you haven’t guessed by now, are clever effigies that celebrate the end of the year, often sporting funny or political messages. We saw some great ones after the procession, when it is traditional to walk around the Avenida Amazonas picking out your favourites. Among the popular ones this year:

1. BP petroleum employees

2. Deforestation workers along with appropriately endangered flora and fauna

3. Politicians (primarily Ecuadorian but also Obama and Hilary)

4. Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story

This Viejo-maker had it in for everyone!

We spent the evening drinking mojitos in a terrace bar with wonderful views of the Avenue of the Volcanos.

Some folks we befriended told us about the Ecuadorian new year superstitions:

1. If you run around the block very quickly with your suitcase, you will travel in the new year.

2. If you wear yellow underwear (actually on sale on more than a few street corners), it will bring you great prosperity.

3. If you put money in your shoe you will be wealthy.

4. If you strike an Ano Viejo twelve times on the head at midnight (one to represent each month) good things will happen in the next year.

While tempted, we didn’t do any of those things, except number 3, and that was more to deter thieves than to bring us wealth. But who knows? Maybe we’ll be lucky.

At midnight, the Viejos were thrown into funeral pyres and lit simultaneously. We sang Auld Lang Syne but didn’t partake in the leaping over the fire tradition, although we noticed a few seared trousers. After there was nothing left of the effigies but ashes, the crowds began to disperse. Tired and happy, we went to bed smelling of smoke.

Happy New Year to all don’t forget to sport yellow underwear and run around the block with your suitcase if you want excitement in 2012.

GPS or no GPS, no one knows the precise location of where the line should be drawn. The ancient people who once made this area their home, didn’t really consider the place an equatorial line but an entire area where the two sides of the world met.

We visited the Museo Solar Inti Nan, which was great fun. Our guide Ivan, was very knowledgable (as well as very cute). Here are some interesting things I learned:

1. Shrunken heads are very cool once you get past the creepy weirdness. Tribesmen used to wear the miniaturised heads of their dead ancestors as necklaces. That way any left-behind knowledge was passed on directly to them.
2. Ecuador has only one long season divided into two equinoxes. The sun rises at 6.00 and sets at 6.00. All year. None of this setting the clock forward business. It kind of makes sense when you think about it – at least more sense than the way we divide time up at home. There is one season for planting, another for harvesting. It is all about where the shadows fall.
3. Gravity behaves strangely near the equatorial line  – not only do you weigh less (yay) but if you close your eyes you feel as if you are being pulled in opposite directions at the same time.
4. When important tribal men died, they were  buried in enclaves, Egyptian style, along with their possessions, up to ten servants, and (get this) their still very much alive wife (??!!). The wife would be given some sort of heavy sedative so she would not panic when the enclave was sealed and she awoke to find herself buried alive. On the other hand, if an important wife died, her husband remarried and did not see the need to join her in eternal slumber. She went off to the afterworld all by herself, which let’s face it, is probably how she lived most her life.
5. The name Quito literally means Middle Earth. How cool is that?

After some typical touristy fotos of us straddling the Divide, we headed off to the Teleferico which is like a combination of the London Eye and an Alpine lift, except with volcanos. There were too many clouds to take decent photos but we did get to see Pichincha smoking away in the distance. At roughly 12,000 feet above sea level, I sounded like a leaky helium balloon, trying to climb without passing out.

While we are lucky not to feel rundown with altitude sickness, which I’m told is like getting the flu, it was tough to catch a breath as everything tires you out. We had to stop to rest every few minutes, and now I know how other country’s football teams feel when they have to play in Quito.

The breathlessness was worth it though. Pichincha was majestic, if a little threatening.

Will write more after tomorrow, when we visit the Centro Historico to look at colonial cathedrals and museums. Happy New Year to all.