Friday Photo - Loading the dug-out canoe - in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in with the Friday Photo at Delicious Baby to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it.

As you may know I spent three weeks travelling with friends in Ecuador last October (I can't believe it's over a year ago). Part of the trip was a 10 day river journey we took down the Rio Bobonaza in southern Ecuador from Puyo to Kapawi near the Peruvian border where we flew back by light aircraft.

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Friday Photo - Internet in the Rainforest at Sarayaku - in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in with the Friday photo over at Delicious Baby to bring you a story from my travels with a story behind it.

Last October I spent three weeks travelling in Ecuador and we spent a few days in the rainforest community of Sarayaku on the Rio Bobonaza which flows down to join with the Amazon. This is a village which so far has fought off the oil companies and loggers who want to move into their territory and can only be reached by half a day in a canoe from the nearest town, or by light aircraft.

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Kapawi Ecolodge at the World Travel Market

When I visited the World Travel Market last week, I looked around the Ecuador stand and got chatting to the folks from the Kapawi ecolodge in Ecuador.

When I was in Ecuador last October, we ended our river journey at Kapawi, in Achuar territory on the River Pastaza, where we took a small aircraft to fly us back to the airport at Shell. As the weather was too bad for the plane to land, we stayed the night at Kapawi village, where the president of the community invited us for supper in his home and gave us permission to sleep in one of the school houses. The ecolodge is set by a lagoon, a little away from the main village, and we didn't get the chance to visit, but I'd heard all about it.


Heather with Kistupa Peas from the Kapawi ecolodge

The Achuar own the Natural Reserve in which Kapawi is situated and have made a strategic decision to say no to the logging and oil drilling that would destroy the natural rainforest environment. We had seen for ourselves the changes that logging can bring earlier in the day, when we visited the town of Andaos, down the river and just over the border into Peru. Here the palm roofed traditional houses had been replaced by shops, hotels and houses with corregated iron roofs, and the rainforest had all but disappeared.


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Friday photo - a politician in the rainforest in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in with the Friday photo at Delicious Baby to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it.

With election fever gripping the US (election, what election?) I thought I'd share with you a little grass roots politics from my trip last year to Ecuador.



You see, we were lucky enough to be accompanied on our river journey by Luis Hernandez, who was not only our guide, but an aspiring politician who a week previously had been elected to the National Assembly of Ecuador. When we arrived by canoe in the rainforest village of Sarayaku on the Rio Bobonaza, the community invited Luis to address their college students about the new constitution for Ecuador that the Assembly was to write. While we were worrying about anacondas and canoes capsizing, Luis spent his spare time on the river bank reading the constitutions of other South American states, in preparation for his new role as an Asambleísta.


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Friday Photo - Catfish and Anaconda on the Rio Bobonaza in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in the Friday Photo at Delicious Baby to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it.

This is the picture I took of Ingaro Gualinga, who was one of our guides from the rainforest community of Sarayaku, on the river trip I took in Ecuador last October. We had stopped on a sandbank to camp for the night, when a local fisherman approached to show us the two enormous catfish he had caught on that stretch of the river.



The man told us the story of how he had been fishing from that very sandbank, when he had been attacked by an Anaconda, the large boas that live on the water's edge and coil themselves round their prey and crush them to death. Luckily, his wife heard the barking of his dogs and came to rescue him by shooting the snake in the head.


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Friday photo - sleeping in a canoe in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in the Friday photo with Debbie at Delicious Baby, to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it. I spent three weeks last October travelling with friends in Ecuador and one of the highlights was our stay in the rainforest village of Sarayaku.



We were invited to a Minga one evening, a kind of reciprocal arrangement where a family asks the community to help them with some building or farming work, in return for hosting a big party in the evening.


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Friday photo - a toffee seller in Banos, Ecuador

Today I'm bringing you a photo with a story behind it for the Friday photo hosted by Debbie of Delicious Baby.



Last October I spent three weeks travelling in Ecuador and one of the nicest places we stayed was the town of Banos. It's in the lowlands between the Andean highlands and the steamy jungle where the river tributaries start their journey to meet the Amazon.


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Friday photo - A Wika tattoo in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in the Friday photo, hosted by Debbie at Delicious Baby, to bring you a photo with a story behind it.



Here you see me having a snake tattoo painted on my arm by the children in the village of Sarayacu in Ecuador, on my Amazon river trip last October. The black dye is made by roasting a local fruit in the embers of the fire and grinding up the pulp to make a black ink called Wika, which is painted on with a palm stalk.


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Travel on a Shoestring carnival - in Ecuador

Many thanks to the Travel on a Shoestring Carnival for including my post on Warm baths and Waterfalls about my time in the town of Banos in Ecuador last October. I've still got a few tales to tell about the trip but in the meantime you can see all my other Ecuador posts here.

As well as South America, the carnival was covering Africa and in particular Marrakesh. Maryam's blog has put her city on the wish list for many a blog reader and I suspect that I will have to camp in her olive groves if I visit the Peacock Pavilions, as it will be fully booked for months after it opens.

The National Geographic destination guide featured also covered Marrakesh with plenty of useful resources such as blogs, podcasts, books and movies to draw on. I like this approach to using different types of media when planning a trip, as I love to immerse myself in the culture of a place, by reading and hearing about it before I visit. There are other destination guides on offer and I'll definitely be checking them out in future when planning my trips.

Another site that was mentioned in the carnival was the Amateur Traveler which I've recently discovered and been listening to on my way to work - I mentioned the site and some other podcast resources in my last post - Sounds of the city.


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Blue hearts and ghost-bikes - ways to remember the dead

As we travelled south from Quito along the Pan-American highway, it dawned on me that the front of the bus might not have been the best choice of seat. As if to demonstrate their machismo, the Ecuadorian bus drivers specialise in overtaking all other vehicles, preferably up hill and into the oncoming traffic. Every so often we could see blue hearts or Corazon Azul, painted on the road to mark where someone had died in a car crash. Sometime we would see a group of four or five together - large ones for adults, smaller ones for children. They are part of a campaign by the government in Ecuador to make people aware of the dangers of reckless driving.



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Warm baths and waterfalls in Ecuador

Where in the world would you be asked, when checking into your hotel, whether you'd like a view of the garden or of the waterfall?

I spent three weeks last October travelling in Ecuador with two girlfriends and the prize for holiday atmosphere had to go to the town of Baños where we spent a few days. The town sits in a deep valley, with vertical cliffs on either side and is overshadowed by the still active volcano Mt Tungurahua, locally known as the throat of fire - see my last post on sleeping under a smoking volcano.




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The world hears about my adventures in Ecuador

Congratulations to Suzie from Beijing Notebook on publication of her great article on her designer friend Ira Walendy.

So far my only claim to publication has been in my local church magazine. For those of you who don't attend my local church of St Bonaventure's in Bristol, let me share it with you below. Yes, I know it's not National Geographic or Sunday Times travel section, but a girl's got to start somewhere!

click to see more detail


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Sleeping under a smoking volcano

My fellow bloggers Silken on Places to Go and Milton Ramirez on Global Voices alerted me that Mt Tungurahua in Ecuador has been erupting again. It brought back memories of my visit to Ecuador in October 2007 when I slept on the slopes of this smoking volcano.

I stayed with two friends in the fabulous hotel spa of Luna Runtun perched high on the slopes of Mt Tungurahua. Our night at the spa was our one concession to luxury, on a trip where the typical accomodation was a tent on a sandbank beside the Rio Bobonaza (but that's another story).




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Books that inspire you to travel

As I enjoy reading & travelling I thought I might double the enjoyment by finding some books to insire my travels. I don't mean the trusty Lonely Planet or Footprint guide, but rather a novel or travel account that will let you can soak up the atmosphere before you even reach the airport, or even add a little spice to the experience while you are there.

On my wish list for places to visit in 2008 are Rome (taking my 11 year old son there for a long weekend), Lebanon (friend moving there soon), Ethiopia (friends who do aid work may be sent there) and Malaysia (possible family holiday this summer).

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Christmas Shopping in Quito

Many of my friends have visited the Christmas markets of Germany and Scandanavia at this time of year and come back with some wonderful and original presents. I've always preferred to seek the sun as the days get colder and during a trip to Ecuador in October this year I was also determined to make the most of the shopping opportunities.


Anyone visiting South America will have experienced the amazing textiles, jewellery and handicrafts that are found in street stalls and open air markets, so it seemed a great opportunity to combine my holiday with a spot of retail therapy. With the dollar so strong, the prices seemed a snip compared to the more predictable shopping spree in New York.

I started off in the Marichal Sucre, the 'new town' of Quito where many tourists stay and found some amazing souvenir shops. Avenue Juan Mera, although not quite Bond Street, was a well trodden route for the souvenir hunter. Leaving nothing to chance I made a long list of sisters, parents, in-laws, teenage nieces and nephews to buy for, not to mention a few treats I hoped to find for myself.


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