Banos; Spanish, Garlic, Fortune tellers and Hot springs

We have been in Banos for more then a week now. Actually last night (24.07) we celebrated our one week anniversary in Banos, as u do when u r travelling. I had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with u while trying to reflect as hard as I could. But I´ve got only a few left as happens when trying hard (forcing) something, it usually wont work. I always use the soap metaphor to describe this situation: while holding a wet soap in u´r hand, if u try to hold it tight the soap will slip, but if u just let it rest on it, it will not move anywhere. I believe it´s the same for most things in life; if you try to meditate to relax very hard, it will never work, probably the opposite, u will feel more frustrated. U can try it with any experience that u have in life (warning: not for kids under the age of 3).

So yes I had a few thoughts and experiences that I wanted to share with you. One of them is that you can´t reflect when u want to. The others were about our activities and the book that I¨m currently reading.

We went twice since being here to the hot springs that were very crowded. My usual drill was to switch from very hot to very cold water, which was a lot of fun. But I think that gave me a small cold which I have managed to cure with the help of the owner of the restaurant called ¨La Bella Italia¨. As soon as we sat down in the restaurant, she felt that I have a cold and offered to prepare me a tea with ginger and garlic. Very soon after drinking it I felt much better (I went there another three times only for the tea).

On Saturday (21.07) we did a five hour trek around Banos. The trek was pretty hard because the way up was very steep but we managed to break it really well in a beautiful resort that was on our way. In their restaurant they served a really nice chocolate crepe that we could not resist. Hopefully in the near future we will go there for a relaxation day.

On Monday (23.07) we hired a quad for four hours. The experience was not as good as I expected. After riding for a few minutes on the asphalt I felt like it´s not the experience that I was looking for. The main mistake that we made was to hire one quad for both of us. That made manoeuvring the quad very hard, especially moving the wheel. Riding on the asphalt felt like you are riding on a blender. Leah with great instincts managed to get us off the main road onto a beautiful dirt road that led us to a valley with stunning views and excellent look outs.

On the morning of the same day we started learning Spanish in a school called Banos Spanish Centre. I have a private teacher called Rina and the cost for one hour is $5 which I think is a good deal. The first thing that came into my mind while studying was ¨why?¨ or ¨porque?¨ Why am I doing this to myself? The first thing I do after studying intensively for the last 2.5 years, which included one year of English study, on my holiday is to go and learn a new language. I guess the explanation for that is that in this stage of my trip I am learning. I am having the experience in the way that is most familiar to me. Looking at other travellers I can´t see many that sit all day and read books and study Spanish. Most of them are in the deep jungle chasing anacondas and other crazy things. I guess my time to do those activities will come.

Talking about books I have to tell u about the book that I´m reading now. It´s called “A fortune teller told me” and it was written by Tiziano Terzani. The author was told by a fortune teller that he would die during 1993 if he flew on a plane. He decided not to fly and describes his travels around the world as a journalist for one year overland and sea. While travelling he meets the local fortune teller of every place he visits and asks them to read his fortune.

So far, from this book I´ve got two main messages. First, never go to a fortune teller. Second, eat a lot of garlic. According to Terzani in many cases that the fortune tellers were wrong, their advice was devastating to the recipient, causing them a lot of grief, and personal damage. I personally believe that going to a fortune teller is a mistake. While knowing the future (if it´s true) you miss the point of living. Life is all about the present. If you live according to the fortune teller´s advice you are constantly chasing your tail. I think that the challenges that come in life ARE life. And about the garlic, as my dad says, eat a lot of garlic and you will prosper. This is the same idea all the fortune tellers told Terzani. So because my dad is smart and his advice correlates with the fortune tellers´, I will try and eat as much garlic as I can.

Why Banos?

We made it to our trip, yes!
Finally we arrived in a touristy town and yes I am not afraid to say it but I love these kind of towns. U have it all in one place: good restaurants, treks, hot springs, mountain bikes, motorcycles, traktorinim and more.
Leave me out of the idea of going to places that are off the beaten track - that might come later. Now I need convenience, I want to meet other travellers, sleep in, and want things to be easy. Later, maybe, hopefully, we will challenge ourselves with remote villages (as long as we can come back at night for a good sleep, I’m only joking) meet locals and all the rest.
It might sound a bit selfish, but I think that first we need to relax and adjust then explore.
Anyhow, we arrived yesterday (17.07.07 Tuesday) to a place called Banos (pronounced Banyos), south of Quito. It’s a beautiful town surrounded by green volcanic mountains (some are still active)… very nice. We are staying at Planta y Blanco, a very nice hostel, that seems to have all the necessary services for travellers in one place: free internet, tv, steam baths, nice cafeteria on a roof terrace and heaps of travellers, ¨be-kistoor¨ (= to make the story short in hebrew) the place to be.
Today we went for a short walk around the town and while exploring the neighbourhood we went to a Spanish school (we might start study Spanish on Monday) and to the nearby river (from which we had beautiful view of the town and the whole area). I had my fist massage today ! in the afternoon which was good, hopefully tomorrow we will go to the hot springs. Adios amigos, Eran Sofer

It is Otavalo

Quito was too old.
We stayed in the old part of Quito (hotel san Francisco de Quito) wednesday,11.07, till Friday, 13.07.07. Basically the city has two main attractions, the first is the churches the second is armed guards. The city is the capital of Ecuador and it is full with armed guards who are everywhere, seriously, every shop and I mean every shop has a guard and depending on what’s in the shop that’s how heavy the guard is equipped. On top of the guards there is something like 6 different government forces, army, police etc. in one way u feel safe on the other way u think why do they need to have so many guards, is it so bad, is it worse than Jerusalem, cant b. the explanation that we got from our host in Otavalo is that the government wants to keep the criminals off the streets by giving them jobs as security people.
The other link to Jerusalem and to my neighborhood in Tel Aviv (synagogues on every corner) is the high concentration of churches, I mean very high! Every second building is a church, at some point u start thinking that it all really happened, I mean after seeing so many pictures of Jesus being crucified and then being taken off the cross…u think wow… that must b true (that’s reminds of this hilarious shuttle bus driver that came to pick us from the hotel in Auckland, every second sentence he said "True?" he just killed me) u just surrounded by that reality and u start believing in it.
On Friday morning I was pretty much exhausted and the jet leg plus the high altitude, 1850 m, made me sick.
After almost three days in Quito we took a taxi on Friday noon to Otavalo, where we are now. We did the trip together with Leah’s parents and got ourselves excellent accommodation at Ali Shunga. We got a very nice flat for all of us which we shared until today in the after noon.
Otavalo is about two hours from Quito and its know for its extensive Saturday market. As good shoppers we woke up early, 06.15 am, and started our tour at the animal market, then moved to the craft part, fruit and vegetable and finished in the craft. I telling u its hard to shop for ten hours in a row, u get tired from bargaining the whole day. I enjoy bargaining but this one was not easy. I think the most interesting part was the animal market where farmers bring their animals to trade for other animals and money. The market itself is in a mud field with different sections, pigs, cows, sheep etc. The most problematic animals were the pigs, they did not want to move, I mean they were not happy being sold. So some of them did all they could to stay put, including trying to escape, screaming and leaning forward while bending their feet.
Any way now one can understand why Jews don’t eat ham, the trade is too hard.
On Sunday, 16.07.07, we went on a lovely trek, called Cuicocha laguna. We were only suppose to do some of it because of my and Felicity’s altitude issues but eventually we did all of it in a record time of five hours. The recommended time was five including another hour walk along the road which we managed to skip by our great taxi driver Wilson and Sidney’s talent in catching a lift all the way to the meeting point with the taxi. The trek itself goes around the laguna which is centered by two small islands in the middle. It was definately worth the effort, beautiful scenery.
Any way, have to go to bed, update soon Eran Sofer

The old city Quito

Jul 12, 2007

so yes we made it to quito, after a very long week we finally arrived
i must say that i feel exhausted but i am sure that after a few hours of sleep my body will go back to normal.

we had three weeks to pack our flat move out and pack our luggage to the trip. unfortunately we only started packing a day before the "movers" (alon hatotach and gary) were suppose to come. we were very busy socialising and saying goodbye to our friends in melbourne and we did not specially want to pack ourselves and move out. so we left most of the packing till the last minute.

this terrible behaviour did not leave us much room for mistakes, which led us to a situation where we were packing and unpacking for few days after midnight and in the last few days we were awake until 3.30 every night and the night before the flight we did not have any sleep.

i alreay told u about the airport experince, boarding the plane at 2.30 pm instead of 11.00 am, waiting for a route approval on the plane for two hours only to fly through sydney and arrive in auckland at 11 pm.
and yes we did manage to get on the connecting flight between Auckland and Santiago, which we almost missed.

we are now in quito and i am writing to u from the tourist office which provides a free internet service.. only for that it was worth coming.

eran sofer

Eran Sofer is in the house

Hallo all,

I am very excited and happy to have this opportunity to share with you my experiences, thoughts, and more on this little web page. I hope you will enjoy.

LovEran