Saturday June 30/12
I was up at 7:30 and have been working on the 9 movies, and 249 photos, and this blog until 3:45. It would have taken longer but I chose to batch edit the photos first in Photoscape. Then I only adjusted the photos here as required in Photoshop.
The blog is trying to rearrange everything on me and it has been an extremely frustrating process. I apologize for the huge spaces but this is not user friendly and I have no way to correct this without starting from scratch (and I sure as H--- ain't doing that!).
Bella had her youngsters come with their homework for English instruction and they were joined today by Rosa and Carolina.
That was today's excitement. Hugs to all.
Friday June 29/12 update
Even though I had set the alarm so I would not worry about
awakening on time I woke at 2:30am and then just dozed until 4am. I made use of the time to get all caught up
on emails and photo uploads etc. Bella
was up at 6:30 and we finished our preparations for our tour today.
At 8am we hopped on the Terra Diversa tour bus to go on the
Yunguilla/Giron waterfalls trip. We were
14 people, 4 Canadians (ourselves and David and Kathy) and 10 Americans, plus
Marco the driver and Juan the guide.
Juan had a fantastic knowledge of the area (because he lives there) and
I could have sworn he had geology training but he said no, he had just learned
everything to become an effective guide.
Marco was a skillful driver so we had a comfortable trip
throughout. This was a great group of
congenial people.
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| Marco and Juan |
Our tour was called the “Two Worlds of Yunguilla” featuring
Ecuadorian history and two fascinating and starkly different ecosystems, the
cloud forest of the El Chorro waterfalls near Giron and the amazing Jubones
desert.
A day full of contrasts, we first stopped at the 9,000 feet
high Tarqui Battle Memorial historical site of Portete commemorating the Feb
27, 1829 victory by Mariscal Sucre, under the command of Simon Bolivar, by the
short-lived confederation of Gran Columbia over Peru. The strategy was to control the high ground
in the mountain pass so that, when they ran out of bullets, they could just
throw stones. Sucre later became the Ecuadorian President
at the tender age of 33. From here we also admired the wonderful view
of the subtropical valley of Yunguilla in the middle of a canyon surrounded by the
Andes ranges.
It is very cool and windy way up here and we caught a rainbow over the valley.
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| Yunguilla Valley |
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| Rainbow over Yunguilla |
Down the road we had a good view of the highest peak in the region which has some terraces at the top made by the Canari people before the Inca conquest.
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| Canari terraces at the peak |
Then we headed for the 104m high waterfalls of Chorro de
Giron (pronounced hee-rrronn), which is twice as high as Niagara Falls. The falls are in 3 sections, with the lower
falls being the most spectacular. We didn’t
have the time nor inclination to hike another 3-4 hours to get to the upper
falls which were covered in cloud until just before we left and we managed to
catch a view of them. Please enjoy the
following video of the falls which ends with the visit to a dry gulch
(explained below).
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| View of upper+lower falls from the road with heavy cloud |
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| Rain Forest |
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| Gorgeous lower falls |
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| Different angle |
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| Through the rain forest |
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| Breathtaking isn't it? |
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| Base of the falls |
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| Magnificent |
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| Picturesque |
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| Cat on a hot tile roof at the bottom |
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| Sky clears for a view again of the upper falls |
We then visited the town of Giron and the unimpressive church, on the
outside, but the interior was incredible with the huge stained glass windows
that took your breath away. The locals are mostly Chola tribespeople. When the Spanish arrived they found this tribe where the ratio was 65 to 1 women, because most of the men had been killed off in the wars. As a result the women would line up outside the Spanish settlers homes for breeding purposes and the Cholas are the offspring of this pairing. Their hats, dual braids, and skirts are very distinctive to this tribe.
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| Giron Town church and square |
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| Giron church and monument |
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| Giron Church interior |
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| One of Giron Church stained glass side windows |
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| Giron Church stained glass above the door |
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| Local Giron Chola women |
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| Local workers enjoying the attention |
Next was the Museum
of Military History which
had a few interesting features. The
gardens had a long series of soldiers’ boots being used as flower
planters. Inside they had many displays
of guns, rifles, uniforms, flags, oil paintings of generals (Ecuadorian and
Peruvian), and many other interesting paintings which I could not resist. The soldiers manning the Museum were very
happy to pose for us.
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| Interior |
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| Giron Military Museum |
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| Friendly soldier |
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| The infamous boot planters |
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| Mariscal Sucre |
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| Simon Bolivar |
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| The reality of war |
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| Planning tactics? |
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| Heroic depictions |
|
|
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Next was a severe drop in altitude to 3,500 feet elevation
to reach the Jubones desert in the Yunguilla valley which features an actual
oasis in the center. They are talking
about putting in a hydroelectric dam that will flood the entire valley. Naturally there will be major opposition to
this plan. The desert is much like in Arizona according to the
Americans with very stark dry landscape and cacti. In this subtropical farming area they grow
sugar cane, bananas, coffee, flowers, fruits and other crops. It is very warm and windy here. One strange phenomenon is that the coastal
clouds stop above the western ridge of mountains and is completely clear over
the valley, then the clouds resume again on the eastern ridge.
We then returned to the small town of La
Union for huge plates of fabulous seafood lunch of sea bass or
shrimp at a lovely restaurant called Puerto Bolivar (Port of Bolivar
, where cruise ships dock on the coast).
We were behind schedule and the lunch wasn’t over until about 3pm.
The next stop was at Juan’s family farm just above the town
and this was an unexpected treat. Their
family farm is directly below the family compound of the richest family in Ecuador, of
Juan ElJuri, Lebanese Christians who came over here in the 1920’s who amassed a
large fortune through skillful importation and business ventures. The ElJuri compound is visually stunning,
with a church built to resemble the Taj Mahal, and the family home to resemble
Moscow’s Red Square. Apparently they
have a zoo with giraffes, lions, tigers, etc but I did not see or hear them.
The return trip went surprisingly quickly and we came into Cuenca along the Avenida
Loja which is part of the original Inca Trail.
This road has a direct view to the Immaculate Conception cathedral and
the December 21 solstice sun (our summer) shines straight down this road, so it
must be directly north-south??
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| Inca Trail to Immaculate Conception |
For a second time this day I almost lost my Tilley hat when
I left it on the bus upon arrival, I
thought of it about 2 blocks away and quickly ran back and retrieved it before
the bus left.
We then walked down to the Victoria Hotel
and the El Jardin Restaurant to meet with Chris and Bettye for a lovely
supper. It was so nice to see the two
of them again after so long. Bettye has
been fighting an infection for a month and still has severe ear problems but
she looked extremely good and on the mend.
They are busy trying to buy furniture to move into their new apartment
along the Tomebamba shortly.
Since it was only 3 hours after our large lunch at La Union,
Bella and I were not particularly hungry so we only had salads and desert. We thoroughly enjoyed both!
Arriving home was a relief and, believe it or not, I was in
bed by 9pm, collapsed from exhaustion and over-consumption.
I do hope you enjoy the pics and video as I have spent 8
hours putting this all together. That
was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.
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