Hola yet again! aaaand welcome to the third fortnightly installment of ze blog del Ecuador..
So, the first four weeks of our time here in south america saw us -
*it was at this point, 2:39pm, that the internet cafe/dry cleaners/playground for children we were at computer´s decided to shutdown, along with the lights. It wasn´t before long when we looked up at a mirror reflecting an upstairs playroom for the owners children. We witnessed a child flicking on and off the switch which controls the power. So, not getting too annoyed, we let it go and let the computers start up again, and not so suprisingly the power switched off again, which was followed by the happy cackling of an annoying Ecuadorian version of Bart Simpson. It was at this moment the child´s supposed father came up to Asta and I and explained in Spanish the computers weren´t coming back on, to which i replied "it is your son who is doing this, not the third world electricity". Not speaking one word of English he continued to explain they were not going to reboot. And so we rose from our plastic stools and began to walk out, at which point the owner stopped me. Whilst Asta was waiting out in the corridor, i argued with the owner why i was not going to pay him the fee to which he requested. With three people shouting in Spanish at me "cinquenta centavos!", i replied in the same vigorous manner to them why i was not going to hand over the fifty cents which i was not inclined to pay them. Finally, i muttered a spanish saying which we learnt from our tour guide which i do not have an understanding of, smirked at their stunned faces, and strolled out. We then walked to another internet cafe, and thus here i am now, typing away yet again. Anyways.... *
- travel to Otavalo, Canoa, and Montñita, with the fourth weekend spent in Quito.
The past two weeks of our time in Ecuador have been spent teaching in our schools from monday through till thursday, which has been getting better every week, and in two amazing places in the two weekends.
For our fifth weekend we decided to hire a tour guide to take us to volcano Cotopaxi, and the Quilotoa crater lake. Our tour guide, Wilson (who immediatley reminded me and kate of the movie Castaway, in which the character Wilson starred), or "Wilso", picked us up in his 4WD and drove straight to Cotopaxi. Just a little info on the volcano of Cotopaxi - it is the world´s highest active volcano, standing at a whopping 5,897 m, which doubles Australia´s Mount Koscuiszko, and has erupted more than 50times in the past 300years. We drove to a little carpark located on Cotopaxi, and began to walk up. I was extra enthusiastic, as it was my first time witnessing snow that wasn´t a little clump of ice in the high country during spring. Ecstatic, i threw snowball after snowball, whilst Sam was on struggle mountain due to her forgetting her whole toiletries bag containing her much needed asthma puffer. Because of this she held Wilson´s hand the whole way up. When i say whole way up, i do not mean to the summit, we reached a little refuge station sorta thingo, which is located at 4810m, thus we had walked around 600m in elevation.
After resting and getting some air (not that there was much of it), we ran back down to the car, hopped back in, and drove two hours to the town of Quilotoa. Upon arrival, we chucked our stuff in our rooms, left the cottage, and began exploring the town. It took 15mins. Quilotoa tisn´t very big. We got the end of the road, unhappy we hadn´t yet found what we were searching for, a giant crater lake in the middle of a volcano. Sam and I spotted a pretty dodgy looking grassy track which led uphill a bit, we ran up and there it was. To be honest it is one of the most amazing things i have ever seen in my life.
Filling up half of the three kilometre wide caldera was a glassy green/blue lake. Lying perfectly still within the volcano, not even a ripple. Now, at the time there most likely was a ripple, or two, stating that there was no ripple is quite a bold statement and ultimatley probably completely false as at the time we were standing at least two kilometres from the actual lake, thus probably were not able to identify if there were in fact ripples or not... But anyways, we stood looking at it´s marvel for a good 40minutes, photos were taken. Oh yes photos were taken, however one photo in particular stirred up quite the uproar and amusement between the group - with the stunning lake in the background, Mich and Sam sat down on a little dirt mound set to take the photo which will last forever, after taking it we all looked at the camera. It is an understatement to say that hilarities had just occured. There sat Sam, arms around her dear friend Mich, with her hands awkwardley positioned on Mich´s body implying somewhat risque connotations. And mich´s facial expression makes it all the more hilarious. Anyways, you can view this photo on facebook if you would like. Moving on...
The following day we rose early and went back to the crater lake. With the sun glaring down upon us and making the lake´s water shine and glitter, we began our descent down to the bottom of the crater. Needless to say, in the words of Robert Frost, we "took the road less travelled", and it sure did "make all the difference". We reached the bottom of the lake, hot and sweaty we were pumped to get into the water. We rented canoes, we donned our lifejackets, and with our wooden paddles paddled out into the freezing cold lake. A
t one point we stopped on the edge of the lake to view some hot springs which were not hot at all, just some bubbles. A select few (everyone except for Asta) willingly went swimming in the icy waters of Quilotoa, Kate only went in solely based on revenge as Wilson had previously splashed her. She failed massivley in getting her revenge as Kate swims like a desert mole, and Wilso can paddle like James Tomkins, not to mention sing like him.
After our rendezvous in the water, we dressed ourselves (however some of us were already dressed, i.e. those who were stupid enough to wear all their clothes into the water i.e. SAM). And hopped on the back of horses who were to take us back up the steep clifface. The horses were huffing and puffing and were clearly in pain, so halfway up i decided to get off my horse, as it was too cruel to make them walk all the way back up the hill with a person on top of them. After demounting my noble steed named alfred, i looked down to see my now purple piggy toe throbbing, at which point i remembered i couldn´t wear shoes, and the
We arrived back to the top, had lunch, and returned home to Quito. Thus ending our weekend.
The following weekend we again hired Wilso as our designated tour guide, and he again picked us up and we ventured off right down the middle of Ecuador, again. This time however we travelled right to the bottom, to a beautiful city called Cuenca, which was described to me as the "Florence" of Ecuador. On our way we stopped at the "Machu Pichu" of Ecuador, called Ingapirca - the ancient Inca Ruins dating back 7000 years. They were pretty amazing, and Wilso told us all about it, of which i cannot remember.
Unfortunatley we were not able to explore the suppossed wonders of Cuenca that much, we only had the time to see a church or two, due to arriving at 6pm at night and having to leave at 8pm the following morning to make it back to Quito.
We left Cuenca on sunday at 8pm, and on our way home went to a lovely orchid, and an indigenous weaver´s house. Over this weekend it is fair to say we clocked up the frequent driver points, accumulating over 30 hours in the van, including a 14hour final day. Nevertheless the weekend was still great, and look forward to Wilso taking us to the amazon in two weeks.
And here ends the third blog, i hope you enjoyed it, and tune in next fortnight for the third last installment of our wonderings around the country of the sun.
oh, and CARN THE TIGES!
adios, mi amigos.
xoxo blog boy
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