Hola Amigos and Buenas Dias from South America!!

 

Well it came to pass that on the 5th of February we touched down in Quito, Equador after a short stint in the US of A with Bryan and family. Our pathetic attempt to fill out the customs forms confirmed our suspicions that spanish classes were going to be important and so we spent our first 10 days in Latin America studying like a first year med student. Our teacher was Santiago "Santi", a really nice guy with the patience of a saint. Quito is a big city with some really beautiful Colonial plazas and churches but unfortunately like many big cities in the 3rd world it has a bit of a dark side as well so we had to watch our backs and in the end we were ready to start exploring the countryside. All that hard work must have done some good however, because after we were done in Quito we were able to make our way north to the town of Otavalo where they have a huge Andean indigenous craft market. As credit to my fortitude and vigilance, Cheryl only managed to purchace two things, a "tapiz" and a "bolsa", a hanging and a handbag, both of which are very nice. After relaxing in the tranquil surroundings of Otavalo we headed to a place called Chugchilan. We hiked around Volcano Cotopaxi in blinding cloud (at least the guide said we were on Cotopaxi) where we saw ferocious wild Llamas (with ropes around their necks that you could feed by hand) and a poor kid who had to stay up on the mountain in a little refuge on the off chance that someone wanted to stay up there. The poor kid had no food so our guide gave him all that we had left over. He hadn´t been down to the town (had been all alone) for 3 weeks: lonley.... Also around Chugchilan is an amazing loop road way out in the Andes. We got stuck on the way in with the guy we hitched a ride with at about 10pm in the middle of a river crossing in what had to be the quicksand from the movies. Luckily there were 3 little kids there that ran up to their houses and brought down tools for us to dig out. We also got  stuck on the bus on the way out by the way, and we all had to get out while the driver tied a rope to the front and we pulled the bus up the mountainside!!! That never happens in the prairies. We stayed out there with "Mama Hilda" for 3 days and did an great hike from an exctinct volcano crater lake along a centuries old trail back to the hostal. On the way back there had been a landslide and the trail was gone. We had to pick our way accross the cliff face to get accross, really hairy I can tell you!! When Cheryl calmed down I told her how well she did. After all that remote mountain stuff it was time to get back to partying and as luck would have it was time for Carnival!! We went to Guaranda and paid 15$ a nite for rooms with words written in a brown substance on the walls, enough said. It could have been worse though because many people coming into town had nowhere to go and were sleeping in the parks and streets. Guaranda apparently has the biggest Carnival outside of Brazil and we believe it!! Carnival was crazy!!! Water, flour, egg and silly string fights in the day combined with the loudest music you can imagine and nights filled with drinking dancing and generally more shenanigans. It was so crazy that after 3 days we could take no more and we retreated to Baños, a old colonial centre with natural hot pools nestled in an Andean valley. The hostal we ended up in had its resident crazies and the guys spent their days building rockets and home made explosives and at night on the roof were competitions to see which was best. It was safe though, the owner was in on it too and it was actually one of his rockets that landed in the courtyard and burned a huge mark into the courtyard wall while he ran down and we all laughed!! We did some nice hiking in Baños and a little mountain biking as well out to some Trout farms where you can catch your fish and they cook it up with all the fixin´s for 2.50$: sweet. We actually cycled down into the first reaches of the Amazon but we took a bus back up, that would have to wait for another day!! Now that we had been in the Andes for a couple of weeks we needed a little beach so we went down to the surf village of Montañita on the coast and I spent a couple of days proving that I still suck while Cheryl soaked up the sun. Further up the coast we stopped at a place called Puerto Lopez where we met "Winston Churchill" who took us fishing and showed us a colony of Blue Footed Boobies (I sang the song in my head the whole time Phil), Frigates and an Iguana.  I don´t think that Winston was his real name though, just a hunch. Burned and full of fresh fish we headed back to the mountains to Cuenca which is a 400 year old Spanish colonial center surrounding a river that had also been the site of the Incan Capital City Tomebamba which of course was destroyed. Not by the spanish though, other Incas had smashed it just before the arrival of the spanish in a civil war. In Cuenca we hiked and studied some more spanish while staying with the nicest family in thier old converted colonial villa. Luis and Marie Elena and family were so nice that we were going to stay 2 days but ended up staying a week to take 3 more days of spanish with their friend and practicing with the family. It was sad to say goodbye but political turmoil had closed down the highway both north and south with protests so we took the opportunity to escape west to the coast and continued on into Peru, but that is another story...... Just as an after thought, the road was cut west the day we left as well and people we had met just couldn´t get out of the city at all!!

 

Buen Viajes to all and we´ll be in touch!!

 

Us