Good Browsers

We hitched and bussed our way across the mountains to just south of Popayán by the time it got dark.  We met someone else hitch-hiking and the three of us asked a family who had watched us unsuccessfully hitch for over an hour if we could sleep on their porch, to which they said yes.  Furthermore, they were having a birthday party for a five year old, and we received food and cake in return for entertaining the kids by telling them the English pronounciation of Spanish names.  Then a surprising amount of photos with us were taken.  This came on top of someone asking us to pose with her for a photo earlier that day on our journey for reasons she couldn't explain.  But it was a fun evening and good antidote to us both feeling a bit tired out.

Early the next day, we caught a ride on the back of lorry trailer for six hours through mountains that ranged from near vertical farms, to jungle, to cacti-filled desert:

it was beautiful, though as you can see quite dusty on our rear perch.  It was a good day of hitching however and we got all the way to Ipiales on the Ecuadorean border.  Checking our emails we found an Couchsurf invitation from someone who has a english language school there in town to come stay with his family and help out with some classes for as long as we're in town.  It was a pleasant surprise and we spent a couple of days in town, running lessons, resting and C recovering from a slight tummy bug.  We went out to the nearby Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Slab:

The church is right in the middle if you peak closely, and we also went down to it:

which was very pretty (though surely there was plenty of easier places to place a church we thought), the altar was backed by the uncut rockface within the church, which we liked more than the frequent gold-covered gold theme.

While eating in a little fonda, we also got to see a Colombian soap-opera, which was as truely terrible and hammy as people say.  It's hard to tell if it was worse than those in Mexico, but it was close.  Every woman under 60 was unable to display emotions as she was Botxed and the male "actors" had clearly confused expressing emotions with having a big hat and/or moustache.  At no point did anyone have a normal conversation and there was pathetic music that went "bum bum buuum" at dramatic moments.  C found it hilarious.

While in Ipiales we also both did some English lesson type things with various age groups.  We were kind of thrown in there with little help/idea, which was OK since J teaches anyway and we both have some teaching english experience but it was a bit ad-hoc and they didn't know that we weren't intimidated or anything.  It was fine though and even filled some of the 'doing a project' craving we've both been feeling.

On Thursday we crossed over into Ecuador and went to check out the graveyard in the border town of Tulcan.  But not for Edgar Allen Poe type reasons (although C still has his "Goth boots"), but because it was filled with lots of topiary of many animals and indigenous imagery and characters;

We travelled the rest of the way to Quito, but had a bit of a problem when our Couchsurf wasn't answering his phone to give us some directions.  Ok, we thought, there was a second Couchsurf who did give us directions, we'll just go to an Internet cafe and get them.  But we had reckoned without the insanely early closing time of nearly everything in Quito.  In the end J used a travel agent's computer for two minutes to get the info and we found the place.  There were a number of other Couchsurfers staying there as well, including some who had spent the last few months coming up from Chile and Argentina.  Although they had motorbikes, we shared similiar interests and budgets and thus were able to do a good info swap.  We even got a good map of Argentina, which will be the best (read only) map we've had since Mexico!

There are lots of excellent new fruit here as well and we've been enjoying cheap glasses of Taxo juice.  While searching for a exhibition of local artists we accidentally found the national history museum with lots of varied and interesting pottery, metalwork and manipulated skulls from various Pre-Colombian cultures in Ecuador.

On Friday we found an English language second hand bookstore, which usually lurk near hostels for other travellers like us who are as addicted to books as ever but not quite there with the Spanish to attempt grown up novels yet.  This one was a bit of a treasure trove and (J clutching an Isabel Allende, who she is in love with, novel tightly to her) we explored for what we thought was a reasonable amount of time.  The owner popped out and after only an hour or so returned and was heard (by C who was hidden in Science Fiction) having this conversation with the assistant-

"Did the Scottish girl buy anything then?"

"Oh, they're actually still here."

"Really?" Note of surprise.  "Hmm.  Good browsers."

Well, we try.

It is Carnival here, and although there is nothing as flamboyent as across the continent in Rio, we did come across many people doing different regional dances:

and many more people spraying everything that moved in foam.

Today we attempted to go to a "Carnival mask-making workshop" making masks out of recycled objects.  But when we got there we discovered everyone else either was, or was in the company of a, five year old.  It never occured to us that it would be a solely childrens activity...  The masks looked like paper and glitter affairs as well, and we made a hasty exit.

Tomorrow we're moving south, so this shall be our last post in the Northern Hemisphere.  On that note, one of the tourist attractions here is the "middle of the world" monument and line which countless people photograph themselves straddling (the line, not the monument).  The thing is, that this place is not in fact on the equator.  And if it is not actually on the equator, you may as well photo yourself standing astride a line drawn in the dirt of your own garden and not have to pay for the priviledge.  Anyway, if anyone wondered why we aren't there, there's your explanation.