Kicking it in Quilalto

Our intriped troup of travelers has now reached the Spa town of Baños in Ecuador´s central sierra. Luke, Lura, Andrew and I have made camp in a fantastic hostel-hotely thing on the edge of town and are currently consuming about 20% of the towns daily supply of Pilsner every night.

It was not a direct journey however, and to leave out the details would...well leave this post too short really.

We left Josh and Anya´s place early one morning a few days ago, said our good buys to Gracho, the happiest dog this side of the equator and struck out towards the bus terminal. We hailed the smallest cab in Quito and then promptly got stuck in traffic. Some poor soul had had a close encounter with a bus windshield, but we made it to the bus station and practically walked on to a bus to Latacunga. Our plan was to try to see the Quilalto (pronounced Kill-a-toe-ah) crater, a slight 2-4 hour detour, on the way to Baños.

I had not realized how big Quito was until the bus had been driving for nearly an hour and we had not left the city yet. Sprawl, cliched but true. The bus was pretty relaxing until what I assume was a traveling preacher women boarded and spent about an hour informing us in non-stop Spanish why we should avoid sin, the devil and possibly public buses.

Our first bus ejected us at Latacunga´s bustling bus station. This consisted of a small out door car park with a lovely open air urinal at the far corner and a women manning a small food stand. This women turned out to be a great help, correctly deducing that the three white guys and the tiny red-head were most likely headed for the giant crater near by. She promptly pointed us in the direction of the bus to Zimmbabway (as close as i can remember) which was are next travel leg.

The Zimbabway bus was an adventure in it´s own right. We were strange enough being the only white people on the bus, but having one of the only two confirmed red heads in all of Ecuador, we stood out pretty well. Our giant backpacks did not really endure us to the locals either, on what is so far the most packed bus I have ever bean on. Andrew and I got stuffed into the front near the driver with about 10 other people, all of us sitting on a giant cushion which in turn was perched on the engine cover. A nice old lady, who had a real seat tried to amuse herself buy reading me a Spanish news paper-from what I understand, Ecuador has a serious soft drink problem.

After spent 2 hours trying not to fall into the door´s stair well, we arrived in the tiny cross road of Zimbabway, where we were informed by a local man that the bus we wanted to catch to Quilalto did not in fact exist. By shear coincidence, this man happened to be a taxi driver. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, this piece of advice turned out to be genuine. In fact he ended up saving us a nights accommodation in the end. Our Taxi (read: pick up truck with a tarp over the back) took us to the crater, waited for us for an hour or so, then drove us back to Zimbabaway.

The Quilalto Crater was amazing. It´s volcanic in origin, and contains the highest navigable lake in the world. A small village of the same name is perched on the lip, and the locals are very friendly. One lady in particular was a little excessive. She followed us down a trail on the craters edge, with her horse! I got a good picture of her and the animal, but it cost me a green back. Oh well, 90 cents Canadian aint bad :) We also could not resist mooning the camera for a group shot and almost got busted by some other tourists coming up the path.

Our taxi dropped us back at Zimababbbbwway and we were waiting for the bus until we were spotted by another enterprising truck owner. Lura bargained with him almost by accident until the price dropped to $10 bucks for a nearly two hour ride! It was too good to pass up, and we had our nicest truck bed ride so far all the way back to Latacunga. The Bus to Baños pulled up practically as we paid the taxi, and we had to sprint to get on. I ended up next to a girl from Texas that had been staying in the same hostel as us in Quito!

I was so hungry by this point that I even bought a meat skewer from one of the random vendors that board Ecuadorian buses as soon as they stop in any village or town. I'm still alive.

Next Time: Big Bad Baños

Back from the Galapagos

Pro log: Rory is now in Ecuador, where he attended Sam and Dani´s second wedding in Quito. This was followed by 12 crazy days in the Galapagos Islands with an insane Canadian Posse.

I have not been posting much for here for the simple fact that most people that were going to read this were all ready either traveling with me, or were getting updated via Facebook, the latest thing to sweep the western world since the telegraph. Also, I was having too much fun.

Anyway, since the Lambert clan and it´s temporary posse have now begun to fan out across South America, this little thing is relevant again. Weather that means I update regularly is another matter.

I´m currently hiding in an Internet Cafe in the tourist district of Quito. The light it wrong for photos at the moment, so I´m taking the opportunity to organize the eleven or so gigs I have shot all ready.

I´m getting a sweet deal on accommodation: Free. Josh (zee bro) and Anya are renting a place in the city while they sort out getting there Land cruiser shipped down from Costa Rica. Once they get that done the will continue with there crazy adventure, driving around as much of South America as possible. There blog is http://www.wanderinglost.com/ Sorry, it´s Firefox only.

I, on the other hand, will be heading to Banos tomorrow, a small spa town about 4 hours south by bus from Quito. I here it´s a pretty nice place. Braving the Ecuadorian bus system with me will be Andrew Soaper, a School friend of Sam´s from back in the UK.

Speaking of he who is called Spam by those in the know, He and Dani are staying in the Galapagos Islands till late December at least. As for the rest of the posse, Jess is in the Islands till early December, Robert and Cody are staying with her till the 18th, then they are back to Quito where Cody flys home, and Robert un-leashes him self on the continent until around mid December. Timb and Katie were last seen exiting and Airplane in Guayaquil and were planning to head down the coast. Their blog is here. Luke and Lura are in Mindo at the momment, but they should be meeting Andrew and I in Banos tommrow. Carla was asked to leave the country two day ago. Somthing about the CIA and bothering the Salmon. We may never know the true cause.

Well, now that we are all up to speed, I´ll try to find some crazy adventures. Lunch, oh how your siren call beckons me now...

Police pretending to be protesters are stopped from causing violence in Quebec!

Police pretending to be protesters are toped from causing violence in Quebec!




The protest is against the SPP:

"Without any public consultations or debate in Parliament, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper moved Canada in the wrong direction by encouraging the Security and Prosperity Partnership Security of North America (SPP). The SPP will be the central point of discussion when US President Bush and Mexican President Calderon meet with Stephen Harper in Quebec on August 20th.

Under the SPP, Canada will lose its independence on key issues of national policy from health care to energy. It furthers NAFTA and gives the American government unwarranted control over Canadian energy resources."

More on this once I have done my own research.

Delayed in the 'Dam

Bear with me here, the spell check is Dutch, so my real spelling skills are about to shine through:

Shannon has become a semi-permanent resident of Paris due to a lovely game of pass the buck involving her inter-rail pass and the fact that the company managed to give us a messed up tracking number.

So I'm booked on the 12:56 to Paris, and I'm sitting in a Ben and Jerry's 'cus they have internet. Your required to buy ice-cream before you can use the 'net, but I didn't complain too much.

Yesterday I spent taking pictures and I walked around and took the tram to random areas of Amsterdam. I came back to the Hostel to check my e-mail, and then got invited tag along to see Anne Frank's house by two girls from Ontario. That night we formed a posse with third girl from New York, and I put my board wandering of the previous day and night to good use by showing them all around the Red Light district and the Coffee shops. We also found the only bar that plays Hip-hop and trace at the same time, which apparently leads to violence, as there were some heated arguments over the play list.

I managed to get the manager to refund my unused nights because I'd helped them fix their internet connection. This is turning it a bit of a trend for me, but it's saving me boat loads of cash, so I don't mind putting my skills to use for good instead of evil. It's kind of like paying Sam to eat Ice-cream.

I'm off to see how bad my French really is, catch you all on the flip side.

Amsterdam: A city of water

Yup, I'm in the 'Dam. Just checked into a hostel, and it has free internet, w00t!

I was supposed to be meeting up with Shannon here, but she has been held up in Paris for an extra day waiting for her Inter-rail pass to come through. So I'm off to explore the streets, and see if I can find a spot where I don't here American accents every two minutes :)

I'd forgotten the trains were double decker over here, it's disconcerting. I'm glad the public transport is good though, as it's raining out. Fist time I've seen rain in two months, and thats saying something for someone who lives in London.

I feel a bit peckish, I think I'll go find myself a brownie. Oh, wait, I forgot that around here brownie is only going to make me feel more hungry...

The Doughnut Bandit Strikes at Midnight!

As I type this it's snowing out. Actually, it’s more of a cross between snow and hail, snailing if you will. Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone. I had a nice relaxing time of doing nothing all day. Shan and I both took the day off work, so it was almost like a long weekend for us, barring Friday. Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, so the entire flat ventured off to an Irish pub in Islington called Filthy McNasty's, where we met up with Hans and some French people that Chris knew from his work. Ireland was playing in the Six Nations rugby against Italy, so the entire pub would erupt every time Ireland scored a try.

The French people left, and so we decided to head to a bigger Irish pub in Piccadilly Circus, but it was too full. So we ducked into a different pub that happened to be handing out free pints of Guinness. It turned out the French people we had been drinking with earlier had also been lured by the offer of cost-free Irish beer. By this time the Irish were getting a little distraught having learned that France had stolen the Six Nations trophy away from them, defeating Scotland by a higher margin then Ireland managed against Italy.

We left for the Maple Leaf pub, but were turned away as it was too crowded. I almost managed to bribe the doorman with mini-doughnuts, but he has just eaten. Since we were in Covent Garden anyway, we chilled out in the square with the buskers for a bit. We almost went home, but Warren received an urgent text message revealing that friends of his were in Belushis pub, which was just the other side of Covent Garden. Belushi’s was also full, and I had run out of Doughnuts, but we still managed to sneak our selves in. We cunningly disguised our one group of four people by breaking up into four separate groups of one person. The pub was stupidly full, and I had a tray of Corona’s dropped on me with in five minutes.

Shannon and I left Chris and Warren at the pub as I wanted to head home so I could watch the first F1 race of the season (since it was in Australia, it was not going to start until 3:00am GMT) and Shannon was happy, as that meant we would get home by train, instead of having to fight our way back on the Night Buses.

I even had time to catch a few hours sleep before the race. I was preparing for a nice quite house when Warren, Chris and co. arrived just as the race was starting. Chris likes to serenade the flat when he has been drinking, so even Shannon ended up watching the race for a bit.

On Sunday we took the Docklands Light Railway down to Greenwich and proceed to summit the hill. It’s not quite the Himalayas, but it’s about as close as you can get to it in London. The altitude (and possibly the effects of the night before) had taken it’s toll on poor Warren, so he headed home. Then we were three.

Shannon had the fantastic idea to go and see Hot Fuzz, so that’s exactly what we did. It Is Fantastic! One of my favourite films this year, and it was made by the same people who did Shaun of the Dead. I even bought popcorn.

I thought that was pretty good for one weekend, but then Warren’s phone rang again. People had seen his ad on the Gumtree and wanted to see the flat. In ten minutes time. We were in no state to show people round, let alone discuss such complex issues as rent, bills and deposit. And, as they say, much hilarity ensued. In the end, they seemed pretty interested, so I don’t think I came across as demented as I feared. Little do they know.

Film making on a budget

Well the impromptu winter blog hiatus has ended. I apologize to all those who had developed what I will politely refer to as a "dependency".

I wish I had really good story to start back up with, but I have not been keeping notes lately, and my mind has never been up to the task of remembering things. A task that a simple pencil and a piece of paper seems to have no trouble with. I'm going to try to remember some of the stuff that goes on at work, as it tends to be hilarious. Just last week I was asked to be on a panel to judge student film proposals. As part of his budget requirements, one student listed £10 for Drugs (under the props category).

I'm also in the process of deploying some new computers. The media department isallowedd to replace one third of it's computer hardware every year. This means that the students never have to use anything that's over three years old. Lucky bastard's.

Weekend wise on Saturday Shannon and I and our fellow Canadians visited the Science Museum in South Kensington. The Flight Collection has the original harrier Jump-Jet proto-type! On Sunday Shan and I went to Hyde Park as it has been really sunny outside. We emerged from the Underground right into the middle of a Muslim religious march, which was heading straight up Park Lane. One of the little kids on the march got so excited he ran straight into a police officers’ legs and bounced off.

The world has lost a great leader....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6237013.stm

I'm going to make some in his honour right now.

A tour of our flat

Just a quick update to post a very special eddtion to thelastspot: Video!

A quick tour of the flat! The audio is out of sync a bit, sorry

Futon addiction: won't anyone think of the children?

Friday night was one of the longest of my life.

Snap shot: It's 10pm, I am on a bus in Edmonton, North London, with two guys from Edmonton, Alberta. Between us we are carrying a double Futon, 24 cans of Strongbow, and 2 washing-up brushes.

Shannon an I needed to move all her stuff, plus half of my stuff, from the house we were sitting in London's Tornado Zone (North West), to Forrest Gate (East). Normal Journey time: 1 hour, 20 mins.

I did not even get to Tornado Ally until 11pm as I had to find us a bed first. I have a rare, but still crippling futon addiction. I don't really talk about it much. As soon as I finished work I Shang-highed Chris and Warren into joining my bed location and supply mission to darkest Ikea. I think Chris only came along was so he could visit the "other" Edmonton. As it turns out, I think the only thing both places have in common, is an Ikea.

And what an Ikea it is: As the bus drew round the last bend in the motorway, it suddenly loomed into view. Like a vast, dark, retail iceberg, floating in an industrial park. It even had a sister Tesco-berg floating near by. I don't remember ever being inside one before, but years of looking through Ikea catalogs while growing up means that seeing it all for real, for first time, was a very surreal experience. I was half expecting Edward Norton to stroll past, and to have all the prices float next to the various bits of furniture.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on me: Futons are a gateway drug. Not content with a normal sleeping experience, I had sought out a certain kind of bed, some of Japan's finest if you will. I know that soon, Japanese bedding may lead to low cost Swedish shelving, and from there to the heroin of the consumer world: Designer Furniture.

To Be Continued...