Back from the Andes

Spent the last few days up in the Andes Mountains. It was spectacular! My guidebook said the scenery is jaw dropping. It was correct. The elevation was over 10,000 feet and I was a little lightheaded from the altitude, but it wasn´t too bad. I guess some people get really sick from it.

Although brutal, the bus ride up was half the adventure. Dirt, one lane roads, that wind up and up for hours, on the edge of a nasty precipice. A few times I had to close my eyes. Certainly no guard rails exist and a couple of times the guy riding with the driver had to get out and inspect the road to see if we could continue. They all honk their horns going around corners, thank God for small things. Meeting another vehicle on the opposite side of the road most definitely presents a challenge. Getting back down to town today took extra long today as one of the roads was closed due to a landslide. Apparently they are quite frequent. I´ve never been so car sick as in Ecuador. Fortunately, most busses come fully prepared with bags. A good deal of the locals get sick too, so I don´t feel like such a loser.

I really wanted to snap pictures on the way, but I felt it would have been really disrectful to the locals, the Quetchwa Indians. My camera would most likely feed a family of them for a few months. The hills are a patchwork of green, they farm all over the mountains. Most live in shacks on the mountain side. I would say half of them are thatch huts while some have sheet metal roofs. Sheep, llamas, mules, and of course cows and horses dot the land. My first stop was Laguana Quilotoa, a crater lake in a dormant volcano. The water was a beautiful shade of green. It is a 4-5 hour hike around the rim and an hour down to the lake. Lucky for me I have a nice zoom and could see it all from where I sat.

Off in the distance I could see two more volcanoes, one was snow capped. It was quite cold and windy there, the local indiginous people all have very ruddy faces and cover up with scarves. The woman all dresses alike, it´s really neat. Thick knee high stockings, knee lenght skirts, bright red or teal capes and black thick, low heel dress shoes. Yes, dress shoes. These gals heard sheep and climb the mountains in these shoes. Both men and woman wear cool hats. I don´t know what they are called, but they look like something a British gentleman might wear. Some have feathers in them. It´s pretty neat.

The hotel I stayed at was pretty basic, and well, okay, it was a dump. Freezing cold with big giant dead bugs in the bathroom. I don´t know when the last time the sheets were washed. Lucky for me it was so cold I slept in my clothes. I spent most of the early evening at a new swanky hotel down the road that I couldn´t afford. But, they let me in and I bought a beer and got to read a current newspaper from Miami while sitting in front of the fireplace. Ah, bliss. Back at my place for dinner, they killed a chicken outside my room for dinner. I did NOT need to see that. Oof. I´d have been happy with rice and eggs. I shivered all night and split the next day.

The next day, while waiting for the bus, I was offered a ride in a collective. Collectivos are pick up trucks that act as local taxis. You just jump in the back. Now I don´t mind paying a few more dollars than they charge locals....it´s all good. But this ass to wanted $25.00. I might have paid him $10, but he wouldn´t go down that far. The bus fare was $1.50. Here in Ecuador, the currency is U.S. dollars. It´s a nice change from having to do quick math to figure out what you´re spending. Apparantly when the conversion took place a few years ago, many, many people lost their life savings. The initial exchange rate was sinful and there was civil war over it.

So, I traveled by bus to another village in the mountains and stayed at a way better place. $10.00 for a (warm) private room, private bath AND dinner and breakfast. I don´t know how these guys even made a profit. The food was great and the owners very, very accomodating. I stayed there two nights and probably would have stayed longer but there was no internet and I was worried you guys (okay, Queenie) would be freaking out and calling the national guard if I was MIA too long. There I met a really nice couple from Sweeden. They invited me horseback riding yesterday. Four hours for $12.00, with a guide. Wow! That was my third time ever on a horse. The other two times at Westfield were pretty treacherous, but maybe the third time is a charm. We were all horse newbies so we took it easy the first hour or so. We stopped and visited a cheese factory and bought a giant block of cheese. The horses were great, although they had a bad habbit of walking on the edge of the road..WTF?! I learned real fast how to make mine stay in the middle of the road.

We sat in a meadow surrounded by wildlflowers and enjoyed our cheese with our guide as the clouds blew in. Our guide showed us where the Incas had buried their gold. Plus there was a giant circular, swirly trench, probably 30 -40 long at the widest. He was trying to explain to us in Spanish that it was used as some form of a communication tool. So we weren´t sure if they at one time had been buildings on top of it. According to the guide they Incas could communicate with other tribes 50 -75 miles away. Definitely the explanation was lost in translation, but nevertheless it was cool to sit where the Incas sat. I´m sore and bruised today. My calfs kept getting pinched from the stirrups, but it was a really cool way to see the mountainside.

I´m heading back to the town of Banos tomorrow, gotta say hello again to a new friend. I LOVE Latin America!

Oh one last thing, in case you haven´t noticed, gentle readers my spelling is awful. The spell checks here are in Spanish and it only makes things worse. So, you´ll need to bare with me.