The equator in Quito

9 months, 275 days, 30,000 km (18,640 mi) and 1 equator: that doesn't happen every day. So, to change a bit, here is a video message.

Then, the traditional album of the surroundings of Quito, some views from the Volcán Pichincha above the Ecuadorian capital and the city center (incl. the presidential palace and the magnificent San Francisco church) listed as Unesco World Heritage site... another one that I can check!

From Quito, I'm heading South to Guayaquil where I am supposed to be on Friday to... to... to... to take a flight to the Galapagos Islands, that I will explore for a week! I'll be back with lots of photos :)

Market day in Otavalo

Images tell more than a long article, so here is now: Otavalo market. I've enjoyed lots of markets so far, but I really appreciated this one, very authentic. Besides that, this little Andean village between the Colombian border and Quito was my first step in Ecuador but more importantly my last step in the northern hemisphere.

Race Info

Day 269. Kilometre 29,150 (Mile 18,113). Latitude 03° 27′ N.

Two days ago was the last day of my stay in Colombia. During one and a half month, I could see very various places, meet a lot of people, experience Colombia in its diversity.

Distance betwwen Cartagena and Quito : 3,855 km (2,395 mi)

Here are the different places I visited:

• Cartagena de Indias, on the Caribbean coast, beautiful but very hot;
• Medellín, the city of the sculptor Botero and Formula One pilot Juan-Pablo Montoya, surrounded by mountains, the perfect climate;
• Bogotá, the capital city, the megapolis, still humanized thanks to the people I met there;
• Castilla la Nueva, few days in the vast flats of Eastern Colombia;
• back to Bogotá;
• San Agustín, Edimer and his family's coffee farm where I worked for two weeks, a region I discovered with Kati with whom I visited Panama early September and the first earthquake I ever experienced;
• Manizales, another farm experience with Cecilia, based on planting and harvesting (corn, bananas, beans, etc.);
• Salento, colorful little village in the heart of the central Cordillera;
• Cali, where I met Diego who I knew from Cartagena;
• Popayán, the “white city”, with its well-preserved historical center, where I met Dušan from Slovakia with whom I traveled to Quito;
• Ipiales, border town, where I saw an impressive church hang on the cliff of a gorge;

I am now in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, for my first step in the Southern hemisphere. I really liked my stay in Colombia: no security problem, really friendly people, yummy and diverse food, great natural features, including the Andes. With all that, I am already thinking of coming back after the end of my trip...

Life in San Agustín

… usually begins quite early. Wake up at 6am, with the sun. While breakfast simmering on the stove, everyone goes about his/her first occupations of the day. Some will cut long grass to feed the cow and milk it at the same time. Others will fill water tanks to clean the coffee harvested the previous days. Others will feed the pigs, chickens, turkey, rabbits or guinea pigs. The last ones will quickly shower before going to school.

I landed in a finca (farm). In the main house are living the father, the mother, the son, one of the seven daughters and three grandchildren (whose parents live in Cali). Three other girls are living with husband and children in other houses nearby. And all these people are working more or less together on family plantations.

At breakfast, usually a caldo (soup with pieces of plantain, potato, yuca and of arracacha – both tubers) accompanies a plate of rice and beans and patacones (unripe plantains fried and then crushed). A good way to start a long laborious day, isn't it? And it would be unthinkable not to have coffee to go with that. At work now!

The main activity of the farm is the cultivation of coffee. Most days are occupied with the harvest. And this is no small matter. We are here in the mountains and the Andes. Steep slopes make it difficult. We are here with our coco (plastic baskets) hanging at the waist, carefully detaching the ripe grain (red or orange) of the coffee tree branches, leaving the green beans. On the same branch, all the grains are not ripening at the same pace. In the season, several passages on the same plot are needed. Nature is not always so well done...

A good cafetero can collect more than 100 kilos (220 pounds) of coffee every 7-hour working day. An apprentice like me... a little less! But I think at least the equivalent of my modest weight in coffee beans. It requires both experience and attention to identify red grains (colour-blind, abstain) in particular leafy shrub of this tropical tree, to snatch quickly while leaving small brothers, and move to next branch without losing balance on these steep slopes. And even if the coco is not filling as fast as we want, we have the pleasure of seeing the red gradually disappear from the 2-meter high tree. And of course, given the topography and uneven ripening coffee beans, it is impossible to entrust the job to a machine.

And I thought naively that what I mentioned above was the only difficulties ... Nay! I must add mosquitoes and other creatures that bite hard and hurt. Every day they seem to taste human flesh with the same appetite and even sadistic love. So we work in trousers and long-sleeve t-shirt. And we have to pass our head out of the neck of another t-shirt to protect neck and lower face. It's hot under this. Especially as the sun hits hard and early morning, consequence of being near the equator. I've never liked that much to see the approaching rain. At 20°C (70°F) regardless of the weather or season, it is not difficult to imagine that I prefer the rain to sun to work. Locals are less fan of humidity: they are cold.

At 4pm on the dot, it's time to definitely drop the coco until the next day. Then comes the moment when we pour bags of 50 kg in a giant funnel. A tonne of grain will soon pass mill. Purpose of the operation: separate two small white sticky beans from their red bug. The small mill is brave, it will be difficult to swallow everything before nightfall at 6pm whatever the season: we are almost at the equator. The next morning, we plunge the beans in a water tank. After several successive baths and a permanent mixing, they will lose their viscous appearance. During the operation, anything that floats will happily join the red bugs on the compost heap.

In a final attempt to eliminate small junk floating, it will all sieve. Then comes the time to move the coffee beans (which then have no taste, I tested for you!) to the secadero, a greenhouse that will help dry the beans into five or six days. Then the beans will join the cooperative in 50 kg bags. We will set aside for the personal use of the farm. These little beans are snow bound to spend fifteen to thirty minutes in a large pot on the fire. Last operation before tasting: the mill. Out of it results the powder deliciously fragrant inseparable from our sleepy mornings. In Colombia, once in the cup, the coffee is called tinto.

But as we do not need to be there for all these operations regarding café, the other will share the care of the different farm animals: the cow which gave birth to a little bull and that we teats manually, hens and their chicks, turkey, pigs – one just had a litter of piglets thirteen (nine survived), rabbits with birth again, guinea pigs, dogs, cats and little parrots.

Then it will be up to us to sit at the table! In the kitchen, the clock rings 6pm. It is almost time for supper. As well as lunch, dinner often consists of rice, beans, a small piece of boiled meat. A small soup can arise at any time without really being anticipated and a good piece of fried yuca can also bring a broad smile on the face of the humble writer of this blog. Apart from avocados which fall from the trees faster than we can eat, we eat very little greenery. It's still a luxury product. On the opposite, tropical fruits who blow the carbon footprint of the West are very commonplace here. It's raining guavas and bananas (plantain or normal). There are also tomatoes in tree, limas, lulos, cholupas, granadillas, many tropical fruits very difficult to describe, but believe me, this is a treat! It makes delicious juice or they are eaten throughout the day whenever found. In fact, the coffee plantations are full of other cultures to allow the soil to maintain proper acidity. To make a good break during the day, we will find a sugar cane. With a machete we cut it to keep the stick. After peeling, it is cut into small pieces to chew: a delicious sweet juice then spreads in the mouth.

Finally, on top of these two weeks, an earthquake. Sunday afternoon, at the hour of the Mass in the commercial centre of Bogotá (see previous article), I was quietly installed in the sofa where I finished watching a documentary on the panda in China with the two youngest boys of the family. I was reading El Principito (The Little Prince in Spanish) when the couch started to shake. To be more precise, it was the floor and the wall at the origin of this move. Without realising what was going on, and as no one at home seems to panic, the idea of an earthquake came to my mind bur stupidly I prefer the explanation that someone was walking upstairs, thus making the walls move. An hour passes (lunch included) before one of the girls who lives in Cali successful call to care for our state. It is then that we all realised what we all felt individually without admitting it. We switched on the television: an earthquake of 7.1 on the Richter scale and an epicentre in the valley on the other side of the mountain (the first two hours the media even announced the epicentre in San Agustín!). Despite the strength of seismic motion, miraculously little damage are seen in the region. And we returned to work as if nothing had happened.

To conclude, the day (and this long article!) ends at 9pm, after watching the news and a few episodes of Dragon Ball which the family is particularly fan of. Thus ends a fortnight in a coffee plantation. I have had the opportunity to still get a day off to visit a bit around with Kati (met in Costa Rica, we traveled together in Panama). I left San Agustín and went North, towards the region of Manizales where I had another WWOOF experience for a week.

Race Info

Day 259. Kilometre 28,205 (Mile 17,525). Latitude 1°51' Nord.

From the beginning of September, I crossed Colombia from North to South : a week spent in Cartagena, a couple of days in Medellín, again a week between Bogotá and Castilla la Nueva, before my stay in San Agustín, Huila, in the south of the country.

Distance Cartagena - San Agustín : 1,990 km (1,235 mi)

Bogotá

In the series “I continue to be delighted by Colombia”, here is the episode Bogotá. The scenario was not written in advance. The only actors I was sure to meet were Diana, a friend of my friend Maïwenn, who had offered to host me during my stay and Julien a French volunteer of the Catholic Delegation for Cooperation (DCC) with whom I was in contact.

I would say that the episode even started from leaving Medellín. Already at 1600 – 1700 m. above sea level (5,300 – 5,500 ft.), the road rises rapidly and winds on the hillside on the heights of the Central Cordillera. The Andes are covered by a dense green tropical vegetation. The breathtaking mountain scenery offers its first chills to the traveler. Then it goes down to the Magdalena River, the largest river that runs through Colombia from South to North. Once on the other hand, it slowly up the slope to reach the plateau of Bogota to 2,650 m (8,700 ft). We can then applaud this first scene that still lasted ten hours but without dramatic incident, which is a miracle given the narrowness of the road and the intense traffic of impressive semi-trailers and other trucks.

At the bus station, Diana came to greet me warmly but that did not stop my second thrill of the day: it is 12°C (53°F)! The contrast in a few days between Cartagena, Medellín and Bogotá is striking. I was hosted in the family apartment where I met Diana's parents. The next day, I take the opportunity of her father's birthday to cook a chocolate cake. In North America I already had occasion to note that the cooking took longer at altitude, where oxygen is scarce. But at this point!... Instead of the conventional quarter of an hour, the suspense lasted over an hour, knowing that at half-time I had to resign myself to also increase the temperature from 200°C (390°F) to 300°C (570°F). The family recipe has to be updated with these new elements!

In Bogotá, I met Julien. He's been working for almost a year and has renewed his contract for another year. He works in a popular area in the south of the capital for the association Projecting Without Borders, a development NGO which participatory projects aimed at combating poverty, social exclusion and threats against the environment and culture of local populations . Very interesting exchange of experiences over a cappuccino and then a walk through the historic district of La Candelaria. One of the hundred enriching encounters that make the beauty of traveling.

The next scene takes place over two days. Radical change of scenery. Here is the script. Diana's father has a finca (farm) in Castilla la Nueva, 180 km (110 mi) from Bogotá, where he's used to spend five days a week, his wife accompanying him usually once a month. When I heard that they would go there the next day, I asked to accompany them. The three of us hit the road the next morning, passing from 3,000 m (9,850 ft) on the heights of Bogotá to almost sea level in the vast plains of eastern Colombia. Transition between the fresh Andes to warm Amazonian plain is sudden.

So I spend two days to see this farm with his herd of dairy cows and bulls, with its fish ponds (very good fresh fish!), with fields of corn, with its chickens, horses, and even monkeys. This region, known as los Llanos (plain grassland), extends over half the country, to the borders of Venezuela and Brazil. The smaller western half of Colombia consists of three parallel mountain ranges: the Western Cordillera, the Central Cordillera and the Eastern Cordillera. This is the northern end of the Andes.

The last days in Bogotá, I could ascend Monserrate to admire the view of the city, and visit the Simon Bolivar's house (the Libertador was the great architect of independence of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela) and the renowned Gold Museum. Bogotá is the former capital of the kingdom of New Granada (current Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela), has a historic downtown, popular neighborhoods, business districts, traffic jams, a public transportation system way below the needs of a capital. The city is sprawling, more than 9 million people (one fifth of the country's population). But you get mark rather easily with its grid plan.

Before ending, I have to underline culinary qualities of the different cookers I met in Bogotá and Castilla la Nueva, the bogotanas evenings in the company of Diana, Claudio and Paula, and the Palme d'Or for what I saw on the last day, Sunday at noon. I was buying new shoes at the mall when I saw chairs in the middle of a shopping aisles, in front of the escalators, all facing a table that will quickly turn to an altar for the mass about to start. Mass in a temple of consumption, it is a concept!

Near San Agustín, Huila (in southern Colombia), in the coffee plantation where I will stay for two weeks, I am now far from Bogotá. But this story is for another day…