Last night in San Andreas, our hotel owner’s son, Marcos – who prefers to be called Mark – invited us to come with him to visit his friend Leonardo, and Leonardo’s mother, who runs a bakery frequented only by locals – mostly because it’s so far out of town, and difficult to find.     Once out of town we hiked on an uncertain path, one we might not have found if not for Mark.     After almost an hour we arrived at Leonardo’s place – a small, white adobe house with a patchwork roof of tin and tile.     Leonardo greeted us warmly – he had a beautiful smile and lovely deep dark eyes.    Mark made the introductions and told him we’d like to meet his mother and see the bakery.   Leonardo led us around to the back of the house, to an outdoor ‘kitchen’ that shared a wall with the house, where his mother, Anamaria, was busy doing her daily baking.  She’d finished making the dough, and was shaping it into little loaves – about a dozen of them...

Fantastic day of hitching today.  I got a ride in a big open cattle truck, perched on bundles of sacks, enjoying the feeling and freshness of the wind in my face, the immediacy of the elements (but glad it didn’t rain...).  We snaked our way along the mountain roads, through steep green valleys, dark unplanted fields, or fields of corn, past tin, tar-paper and bamboo shanties, all selling Castalia and Coca-cola.  Flowers encircling every house.   The first ride took around 3 hours, dropping me off at a truck-stop café where the owners were watching a Columbian-style ‘dance party’ on TV.  A gang of kids (all theirs?) were dancing and twirling all over the front porch cum living room cum rec room cum café where I sat, an audience of one, and had a much appreciated café con leche.  I spied a stream not far below the house, and headed down there with the lovely brown bread that Anamaria had given us last night.  Tore off chunk...

I spent two days in Pasto drinking café con leches and waiting to cross the border into Ecuador (it’s closed on the week-ends).     Then enjoyed another fabulous ride – this time in an old bus – through the green and gold rolling hills and fields.     I was headed for Esperanza, the magic mushroom capital of Ecuador.     Not surprisingly, I arrived to find lots of gringos.     Almost as many gringos as locals: this is a very small town.     Very ‘tranquillo’, ‘pacifico’, and, according to the gringos, psychedelically beautiful.      Today was a gorgeous day – unusually sunny (it’s often grey, cloudy, misty or raining here), with patchy clouds that hung, rolled, drifted, and wisped their way across the sky.  I met another gringa at my hotel and together we walked up and out of town, climbing the mountain behind it into an area where Indios were growing corn.  The fields are separated one from another by ...

Made a brief stop in Banos on my way to the Ecuadorian jungle.     It’s a small, shabby mountain town with dirt roads and a couple of well-flowered plazas.     Has a distinct wild-west kind of feel, including the police, who saunter down the main (and almost only) street, with guns in leather holsters hanging from their ample hips, Stetson-like hats, and a kind of nonchalant attitude reminiscent of old western movies.     The town’s known for its thermal baths (aguas thermales), which are a nice walk, on an old cobble-stone road, up into the mountains.     The baths are a cloudy ‘piss-yellow’ and unappealing looking, but felt wonderful, and there was a cool fresh stream running beside them.   I met a gringo couple at the baths and as we all wanted to go to the jungle we decided to take a bus from Banos to Misahualli, the ‘gateway to the Ecuadorian Amazon’.  It was a wild ride with a crazy driver who kept all of us gringos at in a st...

Note:     This post is partly rant – about the Latino macho ‘culture’ of women-baiting, and partly information – about a number of interesting issues here, shared with me by a British researcher.    There are no accompanying photos.   This morning I got an early bus from Misahualli to Tena where I caught a direct bus to Quito.  I was so tired from previous day’s hike that I slept through almost the entire ride, despite being sandwiched in the back row between two Indians.  Back in Quito I decided to stay at the Hotel Colon instead of the Grand Gringo.  Much better place, and even has hot showers!  That’s such a rarity in the cheaper places I’m staying.   Today I met Dan, a young American guy – maybe 21 or 22 – just back from traveling in Peru.  He doesn’t have a good word to say about South America, partly because he’s just had a bad experience: “a bunch of thieves broke into my room, stole my passport and $...

I’ve hooked up with a couple of British women – Sally and Rachel – who are here for a few weeks’ holiday.  Interesting, adventuresome and good fun.  Yesterday we hopped a bus to the nearby town of Latacunga, riding along on the 'top of the world'.                                                            Latacunga coming into view Latacunga is a surprisingly modern and clean town with small scale buildings – mostly one or two story, white, with red tile rooves.   We found a little pension run by a family and spent the late afternoon and evening wandering around town and catching up on reading, writing, laundry and general travelers’ housekeeping.     We came here for the market in Saqisili, a small town – really more like a village – nearby.     So it we got up early th...