Cuenca

To get to Cuenca we had to catch many buses.

First to Ambato; from Ambato to Riobamba (where, on comic-stuffed shelves, sat a superb selection of Jesus-themed colouring-in books); from Riobamba, six hours all the way down tho Cuenca: a terrifying journey of impossibly tight turns, slaloming down landslide-ridden roads. Out the right window, nothing but a solid grey fug; out the left, dusty diggers scooping ashy earth from one crumbly rockface down towards another. At one point, I awoke to the shout of a vendedor, certain in my stupor that the noise was a landslide coming down on us. For half a second, I automatically tensed into an action pose; a ready-for-the-cliff-to-fall-on-me pose. Luckily, I don't think anyone saw.

Eventually the bilious switchbacks finished and we passed through a village where entire sliced and slashed pigs dangled from outside tiny wooden tiendas. A little further down the track, two unslashed and unsliced chaps snuggled together by the roadside, wearing porky grins; I hoped they wouldn't wander a little further uphill and behold their nasty dangling future.

At El Cafecito, our hostel in Cuenca, we met Lindsay, la gringa loca, whose "favourite new friends" we were soon to become. That first night she went out salsa dancing and we went to bed, pleading fatigue and reluctance to inflict the white-man's-shuffle upon such a nice girl and such a nice country. We did not see her again until the following evening; in the morning, we went out to explore Cuenca.

And what a lovely city it was; more charming, attractive and compact than Quito. Ramshackle churches on every corner and beautiful dilapidated buildings hulking over the streets. Everything seemed to be slowly falling apart - but very, very prettily.

A long walk, ambling along the river, past the University, down and down and down an endless street, took us to our favoured lunch spot: an all-you-can-eat buffet for just over two quid, reccomended by the magic book, which knows all (Footprint South American Handbook 2008). There was rice and beans and chicken and beef and fruit and vegetables and ice-cream and salad and potatoes and eggs and many other delicious things. As ninety percent of males will in an all-you-can-eat, we ate much more than was necessary; much more than we wanted; much more, in fact, than was really safe. In the end, I choked to a bloated finish with a plate of green jelly and grapes. I couldn't even manage any ice-cream. And there's always room for ice-cream.

That night we went out to a bar with Lindsay and her friends. We got on well because Lindsay would talk lots and lots and we therefore didn't have to stretch - as we so often, alas, are forced to do when meeting new people - beyond our natural laconic borders. ("Do you guys get off on silence, or something," she asked us at one point.) Also, incredibly, Lindsay could use the words "cats" and "honeys" without sounding like an idiot. As in, "I could teach you cats some Spanish words to bag some honeys if you like". Superb. Just superb.

TOP 2 PHRASES LEARNED FROM FOREIGNERS ON TRAVELS TO BE INCORPORATED INTO LEXICON AT FIRST OPPORTUNITY

2. "Let's blow this popstand!" American. Meaning: Let us leave this below average establishment. (For example: "You wanna go? OK, let's blow this popstand!")
1. "Man up!" Australian. Meaning: I think you should act in a way in which more testosterone, more machismo, more, as it were, balls, are manifest. (For example: "Why don't you just man up and take me on, chuffy?")

The next day: a museum. Incas. Pots. Paintings. Poems. Fascinating things. In the gardens outside, I stalked birds with my camera, temporarily certain that I was an excellent wildlife photographer after at long last capturing a hummingbird on film. In the evening, we ate dinner at a pizzeria in which lived perhaps the most awful artwork I have ever seen. In garish colours, hung about the room, were portraits of Barry Gibb, Rod Stewart, Bono - and many other unidentifiable nightmarish visages, staring out with rictal grins. The worst, though, was a picture of a rubicund, completely naked blonde on a beach, striding along, pinkly leering at the diners. "Why?" we all murmured to each other in disbelief. "Why?"

Luckily, Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath was on the stereo. This caused me to forgive everything.

At a bar after dinner in which every spirit could be mixed with chocolate in some fancy concoction, I decided to try the chocolate beer. I don't know what I expected. It tasted like chocolate and beer. It tasted terrible. I glared at it - thick brown sludge - until we left.

The next day, we set out for the border, heading over to the Terminal Terrieste with the greatest taxi driver ever to grace planet earth. This man was incredible. This man was unbelievable. This man, truly, deserved all of his dreams and desires to come true. He deserved a huge ceremony in which little children would scream and shout and horns would blare and trumpets would squeal and beautiful women would fashion idols of him in gold and silver and platinum and dance round them with red robes flashing through the air singing, "Hero, hero, heroooooo". This man, I tell you, he deserved the world.

His taxi was a rusting old banger; scarred inside and out. He wore a tight green baseball cap and his face was thickly stubbled around his permanently clenched jaw. He was, we quickly learned, almost deaf. He bawled at us as he got out of the car.

Hero Taxi Driver: (Right beside us, shouting) "De donde eres?"
Me: (Mishearing, frightened, thinking he was asking where we were heading, not where we were from) "Mancora, Peru"
Hero Taxi Driver: "Ah, Polca!" (Polish)
Me: "Er..."
Hero Taxi Driver: (To Andy) "De donde eres?"
Andy: (Regaining composure) "Inglaterra"
Hero taxi driver: "Ah, Ingles!"

The cab had no left indicator. When we had to turn left the driver would fling his arm out of the window and yell at the street. He would also do this when he wanted to overtake someone - which seemed to be all of the time - indicating with his fingers where the car should place itself (behind him). At junctions, on the rare occasions when he could not overtake without going on the pavement - yes, he overtook at junctions; he did this frequently - he would beep his horn repeatedly and shout at the windscreen and the cars in front. He got the finger from a guy in a van. He seemed surprised. I was not. The hero cab driver would also yell, seemingly randomly, at pedestrians, static cars by the roadside, and animals. Everyone seemed very shocked, but there was also a glint of recognition in their eyes. I suspect everyone in the city must have known him.

As a finale, just as we were pulling into the bus station, he screeched at a young child by the roadside to shut his car door. The car was by the side of the road, about ten yards from where we passed, in no way an impediment. To anyone. The kid looked terrified; Andy and I were in hysterics. As we slung on our mochilas, I gave him a long, long two-handed handshake.

He yelled that he hoped we would have a pleasant journey. And then he scurried back into his cab.