This sign greets travelers arriving at Quito's airport. The city's altitude varies but the official measurement was taken from the main post office as this used to be the main hub of activity in the colonial era.
I nearly walked into the woman in front of me when I saw this ad on the back of the inflight magazine!
Here's a video of my travels in Ecuador minus the Galapagos as I'm planning to give the Galapagos its own movie...eventually! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHL0Ybv8pVU
And, finally, here's my video from Carnaval in February. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUUFfGs7SWw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I had a wonderful time in Ecuador and I barely scratched the surface! But it's time to move on.
I've been to markets before but I've never experienced anything like Otavalo's Saturday animal market! I went with my two British friends, so we were 2.5 vegetarians checking out a market where virtually every animal is destined for someone's dinner plate sooner or later.
We had general directions how to reach the market but we mostly found it by following the big crowds of people. It was held in what looked to me to be an otherwise large, empty, gravel lot. The place was packed! It was shoulder to shoulder with people bargaining and inspecting livestock, plus the odd foreigner snapping photos.
There was, unexpectedly, a poster covering an entire side of a van dedicated to prostate health. I'm not sure what this has to do with the animal market, but I guess it's important to talk about healthy prostates...?
Given the sheer number of animals in such a busy place, I had expected it to smell much worse than it did (although you weren't likely to forget where you were any time soon). The sense that was most overstimulated was my hearing. With all those animals mooing and clucking and chirping and meowing and cooing and oinking and barking and baaing and, well, I don't think the rabbits really made much noise, but still, it was a wonder people could bargain! I'd turn to say something to my friends and just as I would open my mouth, a cow would let loose a disgruntled MOOOOOOOO.
In no particular order, I saw:
Pigs of all sizes
Guinea pigs
Rabbits
Kittens
Puppies
Ducks
Pigeons
Chickens
Chicks
Roosters
Cows and calves
Llamas
Goats
Sheep
In case you didn't have the patience or energy to purchase, slaughter, and prepare your own animal, there were plenty of food vendors on hand offering many recognizable meats (and a few unrecognizable) for lunch.
Deciding to pass on the food vendors, we went to the regular market where merchants sell handicrafts, textiles, t-shirts, souvenirs! Fruit and vegetables, and most anything else you can think of to tourists and locals alike. I wasn't planning to buy anything but I ended up with a shirt nonetheless. My travel companions were doing some serious souvenir hunting as their trip was coming to a close and they bought some lovely blankets that will undoubtedly keep their friends and family warm and cozy thought the English winters.
A food vendor did eventually catch our eye and I had my first maduro: a grilled plantain sliced in half with cheese inside. It may not sound that appealing but it was delicious! I pretty much inhaled mine.
After a sit down, I gathered my things and said goodbye to the Brits. They were continuing on to a nearby weaving town and I had to return to Quito. I caught a bus just as it was about to leave the station and enjoyed the winding view all the way back to the capital.
Yesterday I mistimed sunrise and woke up a little too late so this morning I had an alarm set for about 6. The way the mountains are arranged means there actually isn't much of a sunrise I discovered, so I quickly admired the scenery before happily getting back into my warm bunk until breakfast.
Today's adventure was horse back riding! This is something I've done several times, though never more than once a year and always while traveling. Omar was again our guide and he led seven of us on a gorgeous four hour ride. I should also mention that in my previous horse back riding endeavors, it's never been for more than 30, 45 minutes tops. As my backside can attest, four hours is much more than 45 minutes!
My horse was a beautiful milk chocolate brown color named Castana, chestnut. She was happiest to do whatever the horse immediately in front of her was doing whether it was trotting, walking, or, her favorite, eating. Castana and I got along well and she was quite responsive to my commands.
Our route took us to the entrance of Cotopaxi National Park after about two hours where we stopped for tea and cake(!). The clouds were thick enough that we couldn't see Cotopaxi and I teased Omar that it wasn't really there. Before long, the winds had picked up and we were happy to get back on our horses to warm up. Except that it hurt to get back on our horses! Two hours is enough for your muscles to figure out that something funny is going on and to start to rebel. For me it was my thighs, for others it was their bums. But it was too far to walk back, so on we rode.
We passed countless fields where the locals worked. I don't know why, but it is traditional for women to wear fedora hats. I love fedoras and I think more people should wear them, especially when milking a cow or riding a donkey or chopping down trees.
One member of our group had requested to visit a nearby school. As a teacher, she wanted to meet local students and teachers so she could tell her students back on England about it. This turned out to be the absolute highlight of the day. One little girl sprinted out of a classroom and would have tackled Omar had she weighed more than 40 pounds. She turned out to be his four and a half year old daughter. A Swede picked up the nearest football and started a game with a bunch of eight year old boys. It was great fun watching a blond behemoth tower over the Ecuadorian boys!
I wandered a bit and chatted with a couple of students. When the impromptu football match ended, the boys started thinking of different animals and asking us how to say them in Spanish.
"Como se dice caballo?"
"Horse."
"Como se dice tigre?"
"Tiger."
"Como se dice mono?"
"Monkey."
"Como se dice pulpo?"
"Octapus."
"Como se dice iguana?" They were momentarily disappointed whenever the animal had the same name in English.
"Como se dice oso?"To which I replied, "Mira, tengo un oso," and pulled Mini Bear out of my pocket. The boys loved her and were ecstatic to have their picture taken with her. After they pawed over each other to see their photo on my camera's screen, I was impressed by how gingerly they handed Mini Bear back to me.
Every time we told them an English word, they'd say, "Ooooooh," for a second and then quickly move on to the next animal. My favorite, though, was when they learned the English word "skull" and started to run around the courtyard chanting "skull" in a way that only little kids can do.
It was time to go so as we remounted our horses, the kids climbed on the fence and I called them monkeys in English. One of the boys then asked me in Spanish, "Can you come back on Monday to teach us English?" I told him I couldn't so he, logically, asked if I could come back on Tuesday to teach them English. It was really sweet and hard to say no to, especially since I do really miss teaching. I have a feeling that one of these days on one of my trips a kid will ask me that same questions and I'll end up staying somewhere random. Sounds good to me!
But back to horse back riding. It wasn't far back to the hostel and, after following a horse that was walking too slowly for her taste, Castana decided she wanted to trot. Off we went at an easy trot until we were a good distance from the horses in front of and behind us. Once I realized we were alone, I, of course, started to sing--quietly at first and quickly much louder. Castana's ears perked up, she let out a mighty neigh, and suddenly took off at a full gallop! I held on tight and even encouraged her to continue. This was my first time galloping and it felt great to be going through the scenery at full speed! She continued pretty much nonstop until we reached the stable. When I dismounted, I saw how sweaty her neck and chest were after the physical excursion. If only I'd had some peppermint to give her as a treat!
Lunch was a hearty soup and I got to curl up with the hostel's dogs in front of the fire before several of us piled into the hostel's van to move on to our next destinations.
I was heading to the northern town of Otavalo to see its famous Saturday market. Lucky for me, the mother-daughter duo were also going as well as a Dutch couple. The five of us were dropped off on the side of the Panamerican highway and were told the next bus to Otavalo would arrive in just under an hour. There wasn't much to do there to kill a whole hour: look at the chicken feet on the grill, discover there were no nearby toilets, go exploring the area for some suitable bushes. Luckily the bus came early and, apart from a gorgeous sunset over the mountains, we had an uneventful arrival in Otavalo.
Last night the hostel volunteers went through our options for today's activities. I knew I wouldn't be attempting to summit or even hike too far up Cotopaxi on this trip because, aside from the fact that I don't have the appropriate gear, I learned after the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal last year that altitude needs to be respected and that it's not something I can expose myself to on a whim! So I was excited when caving/exploring was named as an option. There is a network of manmade caves about 45 minutes away from here. No one knows how old the caves are but local myth has it that the Incas built them. The caves were said to have low ceilings and bats.
After a fantastic sleep and a big breakfast, five of us guests, one hostel volunteer, and one local guide set off for the caves. We hiked through a large bull pasture but because of the terrain, we were able to see that the bulls were safely off in the distance. (While most of the bulls have been domesticated, about ten of them are very dangerous as they are used in bull fights and just the previous day, three people were chased by an aggressive bull.)
We had been told in advance that we would get wet during the hike but obviously we still hoped to stay as dry as possible. We descended into a canyon and faced our first stream to cross. I managed to leap across and land dryly on the other side. Not everyone made it and a few people ended up with one or two wet shoes. Our first stop was a waterfall where we all posed for photos. From there we continued on and soon encountered streams that were easily calf high. It suddenly seemed so silly to me that I had even attempted to keep dry! Before long the group was stomping through streams like kids in puddles.
It took about an hour of walking, crossing streams, and scrambling over rocks and boulders to reach the mouth of the cave. It was located near a waterfall where we left our backpacks. Taking only our headlamps and my waterproof camera, the seven of us climbed up a muddy wall and entered. After taking just a step or two inside, I was plunged into darkness, which not only told me this was an authentic cave but that my headlamp was no longer working. Uh-oh! I tried to stick close to the person in front of me so I could see where I was going. We were immediately crouching and waddling like ducks to avoid hitting our heads on the uneven ceiling. And after just a few minutes, the cave became so narrow we had to crawl on all fours! Since the caves are manmade, there are ventilation shafts periodically which let in light and fresh air. As the shafts are the only spot where you can stand up straight, we regathered at the first one and two of the group decided to turn back and wait for the rest of us at the waterfall. This photo was taken in one of the roomy ventilation chambers.
Five of us carried on and quickly met the bats we had been warned about. They swooped at our heads and flew past our faces! All I could do was keep my mouth shut tight (good thing, too, since the guy in front of me said he got a wing in the mouth!) and make myself as small as possible until they passed. This also meant we now had to be mindful of where we put our hands because where there are bats, there will be bat poop. It was impossible to avoid so we just accepted it.
Around this time we also hit water. It was deep and it was cold! At one point, the water was almost knee deep and the already low ceiling got even lower, forcing us to squat. I just barely managed to keep my butt dry, unlike some of the others.
The cave continued like this--ventilation shafts, water, bats, and low ceilings--for some time, all the while we were laughing and cracking jokes and trying to not inhale the bats!
I ended up right behind our guide, Omar, as we waded through the water. In one spot, the ceiling got low again, so Omar aimed his headlamp to see what was in front. He suddenly started yelling, "MUCHOS MURCIELAGOS! MUCHOS MURCIELAGOS!" in rapid fire Spanish as he turned around to retreat! Remember, I didn't have a headlamp so I was following him very closely and I was the only other person who spoke Spanish, so I had to shout, "Bats! Retreat!" to the others so Omar wouldn't trample me as the bats swarmed above! So far it had just been a few bats at a time but now we were swarmed! It was chaos and it was hilarious! There was a ventilation shaft nearby where we stopped to recover from laughing.
We took the nearest exit out of the cave and had to climb down some muddy, slippery ledges to get back to the waterfall where the rest of our party was waiting. They had gone for a swim under the waterfall while we were in the cave. We celebrated our adventure with a bit of cake(!) and started the hike back.
The sloping landscape which had let us see there were no bulls in the vicinity on the way there was suddenly working against us and we couldn't see uphill or around blind corners. The only way to be sure we wouldn't run into any killer bulls was to take a winding "path" through thick, overgrown, prickly shrubs. Ouch! I had several good scrapes and scratches by the time we emerged at the road and climbed into the tuck for the drive back to the hostel.
I had twigs in my hair, bloody scratches on my shins, bat poop on my raincoat, and a huge smile on my face.
So how do you follow up a fantastic trip to the Galapagos? By visiting Volcan Cotopaxi, another of Ecuador's natural treasures. Cotopaxi is about one degree off of the equator and its impressive height of 5,897 meters means it is the closest piece of land to the moon! In fact, "coto" means vertebrae and "paxi" means moon, so the surrounding mountains are the spine and Cotopaxi is the vertebrae to the moon.
I discovered this morning in Quito I was being followed by the wonderful British mother-daughter duo from my Galapagos cruise! We had the same great idea to head to Cotopaxi and stay at its coziest, most popular hostel located at 3,450 meters. The first hour of the drive was easy going and the second hour could have been straight out of Belgium's annual Liege-Baston-Liege cycling race: hills, mud, and cobble stones galore. But instead of thousands of drunk Belgians lining the road, here it was just the odd donkey, sheep, or llama.
Upon arrival, we were treated to a tasty lunch and shortly afterwards it was time to hike to nearby waterfalls. About a dozen of us set off on a 90 minute hike through cow paddies, streams, mud, slippery rocks, and bushes. In other words, Mini Bear and I loved it. The recent dry season was apparently not so dry, so the scenery was as green as can be.
We reached the two waterfalls and they were beautiful. The last time I hiked to a waterfall was on an island in Nicaragua a few years ago, so this felt overdue. I wore my swimsuit under my clothes because I had heard you could jump into one of the waterfalls so when the time came, I handed my camera to a fellow hiker and jumped in. It wasn't polar-bear-plunging-in-Antarctica cold but, believe me, the water was COLD.
I had thought far enough ahead to wear my swimsuit but not far enough ahead to bring a towel. Oops. It didn't make sense to get my clothes all wet so I stylishly hiked back to the hostel in my bikini, raincoat, and rubber boots (there are photos of this but they do not need to be posted publicly on the internet!) and headed straight to the jacuzzi (there's a reason this is the most popular hostel!). To see the clouds finally part over Cotopaxi as you soak in a hot tub after jumping in a waterfall with new friends is a pretty spectacular moment.
A snack of nachos with homemade guacamole, some conversations with friendly travelers, a filling dinner complete with dessert, and some more laughter around the fireplace filled the evening until bed time. It's just after 9 PM presently and I am thrilled to go climb under the fleece blankets on my warm bed. Good night!
