Different faces of Ecuador

Hello friends,

I love how traveling somehow makes time completely slow down. It was surprising to me today when I realized that today was only our fourth day in South America...it feels like so much longer. In those two days, we´ve seen two completely different faces of Ecuador...

Quito is the capital city of Ecuador. It´s a city built into and around the mountains of the north central part of the country. Every street is narrow and no block is actually square. It reminds me a little bit of a bigger version of Guanajuato--where I studied abroad in Mexico. The basilica is a huge gothic church that sticks out among everything in the middle of the old town... it´s strange church for Latin America, but the best part was climbing the clock towers of the church to see the city. I have definitely seen my fair share of churches in Latin America, and don´t often jump at the chance to go in one more, but it was sweet.

It was a tough decision to visit the Mitad del Mundo (middle of the earth)... some say it´s cheesy, other´s say it´s worth the 1.5 hour trip out of the city. Part of the joy in such excursions is the bus ride to get there...the challenge of figuring out the buses and what you observe along the way is awesome...
It turned out to be so worth it only for the quirky museum outside of the actual monument marking where the equator passes. Did you know you can balance an egg on a nail ONLY in the middle of the earth?? We laughed a lot at the wierdness of it all...

After Quito was enough, we ventured into the Andes to see what else Ecuador had to show us. For those of you who followed last year or were with me last year :), it was strikingly similar to southern Peru... cold, beautiful, different from anything in the states, and full of alpaca and llama gloves, scarves, and ridiculous hats. :)

Again, the bus ride practically made the whole thing worth it. The Andes are SO beautiful. There´s this loop that you can hike and/or truck around through small towns that takes 2 or so days. We only did a part of the loop for lack of time and equipment, but here´s what we did do...

1. Took a bus to the first village of Zumbahua where we missed the end of a supposedly amazing highland market. We made it just in time to visit some stalls, but mostly see the leftovers of the day´s festivities. There were so many animal bones on the plaza floor, I cannot even begin to tell you... people here love to eat things off of the bone. It´s one cultural difference that´s eternally difficult for me to embrace. :)

2. We hopped into the bed of a truck with our new Polish friend Sebastian, and rode to the next town...Quilotoa. Quilotoa is one street along the crater of Volcano Quilotoa. Inside the crater is a gorgeous green lake. It´s obviously an inactive volcano. The town was essentially created for backpackers, so we found a hostel, settled in, and took some pictures. After buying a hat (it´s cold!) and scarf and taking more pictures, we went inside to warm up with tea and a warm dinner prepared by the hostel owner. Without much else to do on a cold night in Quilotoa Ecuador, we broke out the cards.

3. We woke up early to eat another warm breakfast and have time to hike down the crater to the languna. So beautiful...great leisurely walk down, and killer walk back up. The altitude plus, you know, not being in shape, makes for a hard climb. :)

4. Made it back up in time to catch a bus back to the bigger city of Latacunga where we will stay tonight and catch a jeep tomorrow morning that will take us up Volcano Cotopaxi...the highest volcano in Ecuador. Ooh, and we even saw the president of Ecuador briefly getting into his helicopter along the bus ride! Rumor has it that there´s also a festival in Latacunga this evening... and who can pass up a good festival?

That was plenty long...thanks for sticking with me.

Hasta la proxima,
Michelle