Cuenca

Cuenca really took me by surprise! I had heard many positive things about it but I definately was not prepared for a city of this beauty! And the trip from Guayaquil to Cuenca in itself is worth the trip - the mountain scenery is just amazing. After driving through pure and unspoilt nature for about 2-3 hours suddenly you arrive in a city that can compete with any Italian or Spanish historic city - if not in size then defiantely in beauty. At every corner you will find another church or colonial building, the plazas are full of flowers and trees... and as a contrast to the colonial and typical European architecture you´ll see the indigenas in her colourful skirts with long braids and cute little children with red cheeks on her backs. Many carry their babies and toddlers in a kind of scarf on their back and you´ll only see the little feet dangling out of it - it is very cute! :-)

I am staying with Couchsurfer Patricio in his house really close to the city center. He is from Cuenca originally and knows a lot about the city and the region which is really helpfull as my Footprints South America handbook is a bit disappointing. Unfortunately he had to work today and I am exploring the city alone. But then again Ecuadorians are really friendly and open and I have already some nice people and been invited for a coffee and a chat. People stop you on the street and ask you where you come from, if you enjoy Ecuador, which places you have seen and will visit in the future and they welcome you to their country. Ecuadorians smile a lot and until now I have had the pleasure to meet only pleasant, helpful people - even in the post office, a place usually reserved for unfriendly, bureaucratic staff ;-)

Tomorrow I will continue North to Riobamba to take the Devil´s Nose Train on Sunday morning.
http://www.destination360.com/south-america/ecuador/devils-nose-train.php

Guayaquil

I arrived from Panam to Guayaquil standby on COPA - this time unfortunately not on an Embraer aircraft but a B737 ,-) My original plan was to stay with Geovanny and his lovely sister but I arrived at 2pm and he had to work until 6pm, at least. Being really, really tired and exhausted from the Murphy trip I therefore decided to go to a hostel to get some rest. In the evening Geovanny picked me up and showed me some typical Ecuadorian food (corviche) and took me to the beautifully restored Las Penas and Malecon 2000.

Murphy`s trip

Murphy's law broadly states that anything that can possibly go wrong, does. Our short trip to Costa Rica turned out to be a prime example for this phenomenon and therefore will make history as the Murphy trip. (Fortunately, Murphy´s law doesn´t say that you can´t have fun while everything goes wrong ;-)!)

We hit the road very early on Friday morning because we had to reach David (the city!) before 2:30pm, as Jose had to get a permission to leave the country (which he had found out only by chance the night before!). Even though it rained heavily we made it to David on time and Jose got his paper. So far everything seemed to be alright and we reached the bordertown of Paso Cano quite relieved and anxious to go to Costa Rica - but here Murphy made his first and maybe best point: we needed a permission to take the car over the border to Costa Rica! This took us about 6 hours! It turned out that David had bought his car before the current data system had been introduced and the data for his car were still in the old system and had not been transferred. The papers had therefore to be filled out manually and the immigration police had to check with Interpol if there were any reports about the car. And everytime we thought it was alright they needed another document, another copy, another set of data... Finally we got the permission and drove over the border to the Costa Rican side and... Funny enough, the Costa Rican immigration officer didn´t want to accent the manual paper and David and Jose had to go back to the Panamanian side, with no success, back to the Costa Rican officer... finally, finally we were allowed to enter the promised land! But - enter Murphy, once again - by now it was already dark and the pass to San Jose was closed. We had to spend the night, not as David suggested in the "Cucaracha Dorada" but the "Hongkong Hotel" in Palmar de Norte.

The next morning we continued out trip over the Cerro de la Muerte which absolutely lived up to its name: still heavy rains, mud slides, fallen trees on the road...

We made it over the Cerro but got lost in San Jose and it took us quite some time to reach our destination, Alajuela. Our host, who had expected us the day before had left to the US and we had to find the house- and dog- and catsitter, David from Georgia, to let us in. Thank God a neighbour helped us to locate David II in an internet cafe. As a little treat to Murphy Nicky got lost on her way back from the internet cafe. The grand finale was definately when Daisy, our hosts little dog, made her business under the living room table when we where out on Sunday.

Anyway, despite Murphy's little treats we had a wonderful time in Costa Rica. It was a pleasure meeting David II and we had lots of laughs, especially on Sunday night when we went to the karakoke night at the local pub.

The way back to Panama was rainy and foggy but we made it over the border without further problems. Nicky left us in Penonome to take the bus to Panama and we went home to El Valle where I spend my last night in David´s beautiful house. Despite the rain and Murphy I had a fantastic time with David and his friends. Thanks for everything, David!

Oh wie schoen ist Panama :-)

After a great breakfast on the Sunday market in Manaus Eric and Silvio took me to the airport. Even though we had only met a couple of days before it was really sad to say goodbye - we've had so much fun mixing languages, singing a Portuguese version of Jingle bells and many Edith Piaf songs in the car. Thank you so much, merci beaucoup! :-)

I had a stand-by ticket on COPA and thank God the flight was only half full and I got a seat right away. Contacting my couchsurfing host, Daniel, was not that easy. I had no coins and the machine selling phone cards was broken. I finally decided to call him via a credit card phone but I only got his voice message. It was already past 9pm and I had neither a guide book on Panama nor the number or address of a hostel. Just when I was starting to worry a bit some ladies gave me some coins, I tried to call him again ' and this time I was lucky. He gave me the directions to his appartment and I made it there without further problems. Daniels girlfriend from Germany came over and we watched 'The Devil wears Prada' together.

On Monday morning Daniel had to work but he managed to take some time off and take me to the Canal museum at Miraflores Locks. On Monday afternoon I met with David, my couchsurfing for the next 4 days and we drove to the beautiful green little city of El Valle de Anton.

Museu do Seringueiro

Me, Igor, Silvio and Eric in a 'seringueiro' hut.

On Sunday Eric suggested to visit the Museu do Seringal Vila Paraíso, a 25 min. boat ride from Ponta Negra and Silvio and Igor joined us. The museum is a re-creation of a rubber plantation from the early 1900s. The reconstructed buildings - the luxurious mansion of the rubber baron, a little store, a church, a rubber tappers shack and a tent like smoke house where the latex where processed - were based on detailed descriptions and maps that were written and drawn by a Portugese author who lived on the plantation while it was operating.

We were the only visitors and our guide Judith who was very enthusiastic as well about the process of rubber production as about the social conditions of this industry gave us a very good insight on what life had been like for the seringueiros (the rubber tappers) and the seringalista (the rubber baron).

At first we visited the luxurious house of the rubber baron - decorated with finest European furniture and materials . Judith pointed out the crystal beer bottles imported from Germany and the crates of French champagne. She also explained to us that the clothes, of European origin, of course, were sent back to Europe for cleaning. A costly and timely procedure - but affordable for the rubber barons who lit their Cuban cigars with dollar bills, as she told us. Even though they lived deep in the Amazon forest, the rubber barons enjoyed a luxurious and decadent lifestyle, letting them forget the hot and humid climate.

The life of the seringueiros, the rubber tappers, on the contrary was very cruel. Even though they were free in theory, they lived as slaves. They had to exchange the rubber they produced for food and tools in the little shop owned by the seringalista. They scarcely would accumulate enough money to travel back to their families and if they did so they were likely to be assaulted and killed on the way.

The work day of the seringueiros began at 2:00am when, wearing a kind of hat with a oil lantern, they started cutting the trees and hanging a little tin under each cut. They would tap up to 150 trees each day. After cutting all the trees they would collect the liquid rubber milk from the little tins and fill it in one big bucket. They had to collect the rubber milk before sun came up as the heat would make the milk go solid. After collecting the rubber milk the seringueiro would light a smoking fire in the so called smoke house and pour the liquid rubber milk over the smoke on a wooden stick. The smoke would make the rubber solid and also cause the typical dark grey colour.

Judith showed us the whole process and pointed out the many difficulties and dangers involved. She was so passionate about it, especially about the living conditions of the seringueiros and answered all our questions.

We really enjoyed the visit, especially as the museum is not a typical dusty place full of boring artefacts but a place where you can touch, feel and smell the history of rubber, which actually was the base of the founding of the city of Manaus!

After visiting the rubber museum we stopped for a swim at Playa da Lua, the Moon beach, and later visited the Hotel Tropicana, where the guys had a swim in the pool and I watched the beautiful sundown over the Amazon river.

We rounded up the day with some Acai and Guarana and a German Apfelstrudel in the posh Fran's Cafe. A perfect day!

Manaus - Adventures in the Amazon

The last days in Brazil were really adventurous... On Wednesday morning Matthias and I tried to get a ride back to Manaus. But after about 1-2 hours at the gas station where most truckers stop for breakfast and about half an hour on the street we gave up and decided to take the bus on the same evening. At the bus station we met - by chance - Robert and Christian, two German guys that Matthias had met some weeks before in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. As we arrived in Manaus very early the next morning and I didn`t want to wake up my Couchsurfing host, Igor but neither wanted to wait much longer at the bus station, I decided to share a hostel room with the two of them. A tourist guide at the bus station tried to talk us into going to a certain hostel and to get rid of him, we said that if the hostel we wanted to stay at was full we would go to his place. He organized a taxi for us and we went to the first hostel. Whe we arrived there, there was a guy standing in front of the building saying that the hostel was full but that they usually worked together with the hostel the guy from the bus station had named and we should go there. He also told us that he was a tour guide and could sell us boat tickets, jungle tours whatever. We were all pretty tired and didn`t pay too much attention. But after breakfast it dawned on us that the guy from the bus station probably had called the other guy to tell him that we were going to the other hostel and that he should tell us that us was full and take us to his hostel. Many people later confirmed us that the tourism industry in Manaus really is some kind of mafia. We then took our stuff and moved to another hotel wich was not much better but we wanted to get rid of this mafiosi tour guide. But... the real trouble had not even started!

First we took off with a tourist guide to check out the boats going to Porto Velho. Robert and Christian where trying to go to Bolivia from there and I was thinking that maybe I could take the boat trip with them and then fly back to catch my flight to Panama. Unfortunately the boat leaving Manaus to Porto Velho on Friday was a wreck. The huge cockroaches were playing hide and seek on the deck while we were checking out the cabins. None of us felt like spending 3 days on a boat like this. As they were not sure what to do now we went to the city center and Christian and the guide took off to change some US$ into Brazilian Reals. They didn`t come back for a long time and when they did they told us that all the dollars that Christian and Robert had - about 500 - where forfeited. They had tried to change them into Bolivar in Venezuela and in the process some criminals had changed their real dollars into forfeited ones. Robert seemed pretty pissed off but Christian didn`t care much and agreed to give half of the money to some guy, an acquaintance of our guide, if he managed to change the forfeited bills. We sat down in a kind of restaurant and the guy wne off to try his luck. He was successful with one 100$ bill and Christian decided to stay as long as necessary to change all bills. Robert and I left and decided to check out the film festival in the Theatro Amazonia. We actually thought that we had no chance to get in but then we got in for free, found a free balcony in the amazing theater and enjoyed a wonderful documentary about the pink flamengos on Lake Natron, Namibia. And we met Eric, from Switzerland, and his Brazilian boyfriend, Silvio who invited us for dinner the other day. Eric who knows Manaus quite well also invited us to show us around the next day and we agreed to meet at 10am.
Unfortunately this plan didn`t work out... While we were enjoying the Film Festival at the amazing Theatro Amazonia Chris had gone with the guide and the guy who changed his forfeited 100$ bill to some dodgy part of the town and had gotten into a fight or discussion with the guide. So in the morning Robert got kind of scared because of the forfeited money and the guide knowing all about it and knowing where we stayed so we had to check-out of the hotel. The athmosphere got really tense and I decided to leave. I wanted to meet up with my Couchsurfing friend Igor anyway and - the perfect host he is - of course he took me in. In the afternoon I met up with Eric and Silvio and enjoyed a wonderful Swiss dinner with view from their appartment all over the city, the cathedral and the Rio Negro!

Me and my Couchsurfing host in Manaus, Igor:

Serra do Tepequem

On Monday Arlisson and Lice's friend Cleo (she is on Couchsurfing, too) took us to the beautifull Serra do Tepequem, an area of mountains, rivers and waterfalls, that has been famous for its diamonds. Many streams and waterfalls have been altered by dynamite explosions during the hightide of diamond digging. Nowadays it is prohibited to dig for diamonds but there are still some 'garimpeiros', diggers, in the area - digging in secret and with less machinery.

Cleo knows the area really well and she organized a local guide, a garimpeiro, of course, and a wonderfull lunch for us.

We visited two waterfalls (its not that easy to climb down there with thongs!), went swimming and tried to find some diamonds. Especially Arlisson was quite motivated to start digging. Unfortunately we didn't find anything. Our guide spottet a very rare yellow frog, but when he tried to take a picture the battery gave up ;-)

On the way back Arlisson let Matthias drive and we had a lot of fun teaching him and Cleo "Achtung Bruecke, Matthias, bremsen!" ('Attention, bridge ahead, slow down') in German. Be it a natural talent for the German language or pure fear but soon they where doing really well ;-)

In the evening we had pizza with Lice's friends and family and it was really sad to think about leaving the next day. I had stayed one night with this wonderfull family when going to Guyana and had enjoyed their company so much that I left Guyana earlier then planned to spend the weekend with them. And then I stayed on untill Wednesday ;-) So many people back home where shoecked when I told them about my plans to Couchsurf in South America (I would be robbed, raped, murdered etc.) - I wish they could stay one night with these great people and see what Brazilian hospitality is like! Our hosts trusted us with their house, their car, their belongings... they prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for us... they invited us to meet their friends... they did everything to make us feel at home and get to know their country. I can't thank them enough and look forward to 'paying it forward' the next time I host back home!