Feb. 2 - So where exactly is Cayambe???

Today was my first expedition outside of Quito. I joined four other students from the school, Kat, Anna, Lee and Wendy, and headed out to Cayambe. Now I have to admit, my guide book said very little about the town, so I decided I would follow the other people in my group as they probably knew more than I did....as it turns out they didn't.

The first hurdle was trying to find a bus to Cayambe. If you thought the bus system in the city was complicated, the intercity bus system makes it look like a cake walk. I'll describe the experience of travelling on the bus later. For now, let's just assume we found the correct bus and were squeezed into our seats. Now I mean squeezed into the seats. The average height of an Ecuadorian is about 5 feet and I'm 6'2", so needless to say, it was a tight fit.

The drive up to Cayambe was beautiful with rolling green mountains which you have to go up and down in order to get to where you want to go. Cayambe is only 67km away from Quito, but due to the mountains it took 2.5 hours to get there. Once we arrived, our adventure began when we were dropped on the side of the road at an intersection.

From what we understood, Cayambe is the flower capital of Ecuador and has a wonderful national park where you can walk around the volcano. This intersection was definitely not the flower capital of Ecuador and there was no volcano in site. After reading our books a bit, we finally approached someone who told us to get on the bus beside us and it would take us to Cayambe, which we understood was the volcano, also by the name of Cayambe. Well it turns out the bus took us to the town of Cayambe instead.

We got off the bus at another street corner and not knowing where we were, we asked again where the park was located. We got directions to the park and when we arrived at the park, we discovered we were actually at the town's main square - a lovely little park .... definitely not the national park we were looking for. So yet again we ask for directions to the park and are told it's 36km away and would cost about $40 to get there. We were also informed that, yes we could walk around the volcano, but it is a multi day hike and is one of the hardest mountains to climb in Ecuador. Needless to say, we opted out of this option (and vowed to read more about where we were going before we went tomorrow).

After reading again about what was in the town to do (we still haven't seen any evidence about the flowers aside from greenhouses around the town) we decided to go visit the Cochasqui Archaeological site, home of pyramids that were constructed by the Cara civilization, before the arrival of the Incas. We approached a taxi to take us there, but they told us they were only for in town use, so we had to hire a Cambiobia (I will have to check the spelling later), which is little more than a pickup truck with an tarp over it to keep us protected from the sun.

We climbed into the back of the pick-up truck (being the nice guy I am, I took the floor giving the rest of them the seats). This was a unique experience. Not only did we go on the highway, but the tailgate was made out of wood and did not close. The portion that was permanently closed, was not held together with very much. When we reached the turn off for Cochasqui we had to drive along a dusty dirt road that was filled with potholes for about 8km. I think most of you can imagine how I felt sitting on the wood floor driving along that bumpy road going higher into the mountains.

When we arrived, we climbed out of the truck only to find we were standing by a random house that was empty. The driver informed us this was the principal site and he would drive us to the secondary site for an extra $5. As we looked at this house, we knew there was no way there were any pyramids there so we opted to pay the extra $5 to get to the secondary site, knowing full well he was just trying to get more money out of us and the next stop was the actual site (we didn't pay the extra $5 in the end).

The next stop was the principle site for the pyramids and consisted of an area covering maybe 2 square kilometers holding about 10 pyramides and another 10 mounds at a height of about 3,100 meters. Once we paid our admission price ($2 more than Ecuadorians have to pay) we were given a tour by an archaeologist who worked there. He took us for an hour walk around the different mounds explaining the significance of the sites and how they were constructed. All of the pyramids were constructed in the same fashion. The largest of the pyramids had a ramp about 200 feet long that lead directly to the top of a flat pyramid (today no more than a large mound that's about 2,000 square feet in size) where religious ceremonies and astrological readings were taken. The shape of the pyramids was not very impressive, but the size of them and the number of them was most impressive. More impressive was that from these sites the Cara tribe was able to create accurate solar and lunar calendars.

Once we finished our tour, the truck driver took us back to the Pan-America highway where we were dropped off. We stood on the side of the road and flagged a bus to Quito (no need for bus stops anywhere in the country....you just get on where you stand).

That night I went out again with Lee and Meredith, the volunteer at the language school that helped me on my first day. Now I feel I should take a mintue to explain Meredith. Meredith, who is from just north of Sarnia in Ontario and also happens to be very good friends with one of my two best friends from Carletion, Marcie (shout out to Marcie and Jen here....I love both of you girls). So needless to say Meredith and I had a few things in common and quite enjoyed telling stories about Marcie. I can't believe how small a world it is.