Backpacking South America

Have you ever read the book “Love in the Time of Cholera?” It is this amazing story written by the creative, artistic writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, another brilliant Colombian. It is a story entwining, love, of course, and the deepness and sickness thereof. As a reader you’re made to believe of a hopeless romantic, but as an observer and an analysis of the story, you are drawn into the many facets of the story and their potential meaning. It is an extremely intriguing story to digest and supposedly many of the sights and inspiration came from Cartagena, Colombia.

I just knew, even before we arrived, that we were going to love Cartagena and I was not disappointed. With it’s cobblestoned streets, Colombian, African and Spanish infused heritage, rich and poor neighborhoods and a walled in city to bat, the history of this city runs deep. There are so many corners of this city that could be adapted to storytelling.

We spent the better part of one day exploring the inside of the old city. We climbed the walls and had a beautiful view of the ocean and Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.

Sometimes the best trips are the ones that you didn’t plan thoroughly. We were set on visiting Banos, Ecuador, but at the last minute, we changed our plans and headed to Latacunga, the start/end of the Quilotoa Circuit. Latacunga was a fine enough city whose views of the surrounding mountains are supposed to be incredible on a clear day – unfortunately it was damp and dreary the entire time.

We made our arrangements and set out Thursday morning to Sasquisili for the market. The market is based in the town’s squares. We were only able to squeeze two squares in, but our book said that there are seven squares in all. Our goal of the day was to try/buy any fruit that was sweet and that we hadn’t tried yet… We also found a pretty awesome felt hat with two pretty feathers.

From Sasquisili, we headed up into the mountains. Interestingly, an older man bought a sheep at the market and it was decided that the best way to transport it was to tie it to the top of the bus. Eventually the road changed from paved to gravel to mud with lots of ruts.

Our first stop in Ecuador was Cuenca, Ecuador – one of the hubs of the Panama hat industry. Interestingly, Panama hats are not actually made in Panama, but Ecuador. The name Panama Hats was a result of the hats departure point being from the Panama Canal, so once they reached their destination, they were called Panama hats because of the origin of the shipment.

After a lazy Sunday in Cuenca, we set out Monday to learn more about the Panama hat industry and made stops at Homer Ortega and Serrano Hats to view their process and collection of hats. Ortega was the only factory that was offering tours on the day we visited. So we were shuttled through the history and process of making the hats.

The hats are made from the plaited leaves of the paja toquilla straw plant. The finer you are able to peel the leaf, the finer the weave of the hat. There are two main processes to making these hats: weaving and blocking. The more weaves per block in one square inch, the finer the weave and the better quality the hat.

We have finally left the mountains and descended several thousand feet and made it to the beach. We have come upon my heaven on earth…the Beach. After Huaraz, we took an overnight bus and arrived around 7am in Huanchaco on the northern Pacific coastline of Peru. With nothing else to do at 7am, except sleep, we hit the beach! To our surprise, the beach was a great place to people watch – from dramatically posed photographs, old men getting their pictures with young ladies and a lot of experienced and beginning surfers.

Huanchaco is a beach town, of course, and has great seafood (the ceviche’s pretty tasty), but it also has great waves to surf or learn to surf. They are just big enough to get a good ride, yet small enough to not be overly intimidating for a new surfer. Despite our second chance to learn the trade of surfing, we decided to simply sit on the beach and sip our beer and be onlookers. But, we did take in some beautiful sunsets!

Aside from vacationers, Huanchaco is a big fishing village and is famous for its narrow pointed fishing boats, known as caballitos, made of totora reeds.

Cuzco, last Inca empire and now gringo capital of Peru, was our jumping pad to visit Machu Picchu. We spent a few days here before and after our trip to Machu Picchu. Aside from some great (gringo) restaurants, bars and cafes, Cuzco is rich with history.

As the capital of Incan culture, Cuzco had numerous temples. When the Spanish defeated the Incas, they destroyed the temples and important sites of Cuzco and built their churches over the top of them in their effort to convert the people to Catholicism. So we decided to take one day and pay the hefty gringo entrance fees and explore some of the Catholic Churches and Incan Temples of Cuzco.

The most important religious site for the Incas was Qorikancha, the Temple of the Sun. This temple was re-discovered after the 1950 earthquake, when the Church that was built over top of it was partially destroyed and revealed significant remains of the Incan Temple.

Qorikancha has some of the best examples of Incan architecture. The construction was built to glorify the gods and to accurately identify the equinox and solstices.