Ecuador

All the countries in South America could be labelled "Land of Crooks" but we reserve that title for little Ecuador, where we were done over twice. First, as we entered, we were told we had to pay the police for "protection". Yeah, right. Second, on the bus to the border with Colombia our bags were picked over with a fine-toothed comb and our big camera, a mobile phone and Lucy's sunglasses (along with a tin of sweets and our pencil case) were swiped. We were left in a nowhere town dealing with three varieties of Ecuadorian officialdom, ranging from the callowest clerk to the blowsiest of attorney. It took all afternoon and produced a piece of paper that our insurer will be pleased to receive. The result of all this: a sour taste in the mouth.

Enough gringing about thievery and let's grouch about weather. The spine of Ecuador, over which we travel North during a couple of weeks is green, fertile and incessantly cloud-capped. For a country that makes so much of its equatorial location, it's positively chilly in the towns we visit for most of the time.

Once over the border we endure a Stallone-fest of a bus ride to end up in Cuenca, a nice town with some pleasant architecture and a couple of nice bars and restaurants. There are some thermal baths outside town where we have a sauna, and a festival in the centre where we buy some disgusting sweets. We have fun in the market buying exotic fruits and eating roast pig. Seems to be the sort of place Europeans and Americans stick around for a while as it's relatively civilised, but there isn't much to it. And it rains.


- Fruity goings-on


- ¡Jugos there! Exotic fruit ... not me you understand


- And tasty meat too


- Don't show the kids all these sweets


- Mustache envy. They're envious of mine, clearly


Next stop, after an excruciating journey in which Steven Segal is the one and only voice we hear for 6 hours (that's the best part of 5 of his finest oeuvres back-to-bloody-back, with not a costume or hair change between any of them - extraordinary), is Baños. It's a town famed for its thermal baths as it is nestled at the foot of a volcano. We try the baths and find them hot, but very crowded, and therefore a bit grubby. Cooling off under an tumbling, icy mountain stream is pretty fantastic though. There are plenty of little waterfalls in the area too, and a bigger one that the locals like a lot. But they haven't been to Iguazu.


- Baños looks like it might eventually fall down this cliff


- Near the bowl of the Pailon del Diablo. It is not, as advertised, the World's Eighth Wonder


- Lucy on the ropes at the Pailon del Diablo


- More Amazon-bound water


All around the tourist-dependent little town are signs declaring that Volcan Tungurahua will erupt "tonight at 9pm". We laugh, only to discover that it really does kick off around then. If only it wasn't so damned cloudy we might see the show of sparks and lava that spew forth every day. Instead we just see a dark wall of cloud. So we decide to walk up it, to get close to the action.

Our "guide" for the day turns out to be a little punk who knows little more than the way, a muddy horse path, and how to eat our food and drink. The path takes us to a mountaineering retreat destroyed by flying rocks in an eruption a few years before. Higher we cannot go.

Of course, there are clouds, so our view is restricted. But the sound is incredible: a rolling visceral rumble, like thunder turned up to volume 11. It's a shy volcano, according to local lore, and only on the way down do we get a proper view of what's occuring: a great column of ash is being pumped heavenwards. It's spectacular and chilling.


- Up the garden path. The somewhat spooky route up Volcan Tungurahua


- The best picture we have of Tungurahua spewing smoke. The others were stolen along with our camera


From Baños, we zoom up to Quito. The setting is a little like La Paz as the city ribbons out through a valley. It's a massive city, but we find the most cultured spot on offer centred around a square full of bars and restaurants. It would not disgrace any big European or North American town. The city is, however, just another city as far as we're concerned, and the lure of the surrounding big volcanos is dulled by those cussed clouds that ovscure their summits. We do one touristy thing and straddle the hemispheric boundary at Mitad del Mundo, a dumb Equatorial theme park. I'm almost glad those partivular snaps got stolen...


- The cathedral in Quito from the outside. It has turtles and iguanas sprouting from the walls!


- How did the driver do that? Just another day on the roads in South America, but not our bus thankfully


Colombia next...