Iris is a British lady of considerable character and pluck, on a 23
week overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela.
After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador,
and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama
City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary
placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will
take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.
30th November: The Journey to Cuenca
I sent my last emails from Baños, was there 3 days and it was
a lovely little town but, as I say, that volcano was brooding over it,
which made things a little scary! One of our number said he had read there
are evacuation arrows in the streets showing the population the way to
run should there be an eruption but he couldn't find them which rather
concerned him! But we evacuated from Baños without any trouble,
but my, what a journey we had to Cuenca – right through the Andes at a
minimum of 2,000 metres, sometimes going up to well over 3,000 metres.
Everywhere – mountains that seemed to be almost piled one on top of the
other, with the occasional narrow valley plummeting down to the depths
with hamlets nestled in them. Scary at times as the road was just cut
out of the mountainsides and there were some really incredible hair pin
bends – looking over the side I was thankful we were going so slowly with
no danger of going over the edge because we would have all been killed
if we had crashed over the side – probably drops of at least 300 – 1,000m
in places with nothing but rock to fall on!
We saw lots of local people – mostly shepherds in the traditional Andean
garb of trilby hat, colourful (often red) shawls and brightly coloured
skirts, minding their sheep, goats, donkeys, pigs, cattle or llamas. Unfortunately,
the cloud was low and obscured what must have been some very fine views
but every so often the scene (rather than the sky) would clear and we
would see some awesome sights – steaming volcanoes, two or three of them
in a line; sheer precipices and steep mountains with their tops obscured
in cloud.
We left Baños at 0745 (yours truly being the last on the bus,
not because I got up late, I was up at 0500 exercising and showering but
the restaurant which was supposed to open at 0600 was later opening and
then the girl who waited on table had to run off to the baker's to
get bread. But by the time we were all breakfasted (and some rolled in
in the early hours of the morning so had no breakfast as they were suffering
from hangovers) and I had collected my belongings and finished my ablutions
(the obligatory cleaning of teeth), I turned out to be the last on the
bus!
We then made our way slowly out of Baños to Cuenca some 366 kms
to the south but the terrain, coupled with the weight in our bus – full
water tanks as well as petrol tanks, and with two drivers and 22 people
aboard with all their luggage – we made slow progress up hills and all
sorts of vehicles were continuously overtaking us. We were ok on the straights
and downhills but on the downhill had to go slowly again because of the
weight being hurled down steep inclines and having to negotiate some hair-raising
bends.
We stopped for lunch on the roadside – our leaders/drivers (Heather
and Martin) had bought local produce at the market in Baños and
so we helped prepare a lunch of salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes,
avocado pear, onions) and rolls, butter, ham and cheese for us all. We
go through an elaborate process of disinfecting our hands, using a spray
disinfectant after using the toilet and then washing our hands again in
disinfectant water and rinsing them again in disinfectant water and shaking
them rather than wiping them dry. All table surfaces and pots and pans
are sterilised and then work begins at cutting up and buttering and putting
things on plates and in bowls on long trestle tables and canvas stools
are put out for us all to sit on. Meanwhile, the local dogs congregate,
sniffing out the food and looking longingly at us, as are the local shepherd
population.
In the site where we were there were a couple of shepherds (women) with
their children, and their donkeys and pigs. The children were wide-eyed
but rather suspicious urchins (suspicious of us) and refused all requests
to have their photos taken, but hanging around watching these strange
tourists in their shorts and long trousers preparing food they could only
dream about. We didn't encourage the dogs with any scraps and we certainly
did not stroke any of them (dirty little mutts), but they all seemed innocent
enough and quiet if not friendly, but after we had all finished eating,
the food over was handed out to the shepherds and their children in the
form of ham and cheese and salad rolls, and bags of lettuce and tomatoes,
and for the pigs, all the swill resulting from the lettuce and other vegetables
used in the salad. So everyone benefited, even the local hospice (just
a dirty brick building with a small shop and rather disgusting loos but
at least we were able to use them and rinse our hands under the tap, hence
the strict regime of disinfecting our hands every time we used the loos
when we stopped.
At one stage, we experienced the necessity of relieving ourselves without
the aid of modern conveniences. The men went one way in a small wooded
area and the women went the other. It is at times like these one wishes
one was a man and could just open our flies without having to strip ourselves
half naked and crouch in the undergrowth. Of course, yours truly had to
choose a place with some rather long stems of grass, which tickled my
posterior regions as I crouched so I made a rather ungainly spectacle
of myself jumping around every time something touched me in a rather intimate
place! Then the ceremony of the trowel – burying the tissue we used in
the ground so that we didn't pollute the local area of scenic beauty!
I am sure this is going to be the first of many occasions when we will
need to wander off, trowel in hand, to seek out similar places for similar
purposes.
If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her
trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am
sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk
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