Chugchilan Day 3

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Day 8: Chugchilan Day 3:

With another good breakfast under our belts, we headed out to hike up to the cheese factory (Queseria in Spanish) by the longer but supposedly less strenuous route. After hiking for over 2 hours, all uphill, with a strong cold wind most of the time, we finally reached the cheese factory. It was a bit of a disappointment because it was a very small operation and the one dollar tour took about 5 minutes. It was interesting though, and the scenery along the way was pretty cool. We also missed the fork to the right we were supposed to take and walked for half an hour in the wrong direction, downhill of course, so we had to walk but uphill all the way to reach the fork. After the brief tour of the factory, and a purchase of a small wheel of Andino cheese, we walked back into the little village nearby and found a small store that sold us an orange soda and two packages of assorted chips. The chips were pretty neat, as they were a mixture of potato chips, multi-grain puffed chips with a mild picante flavour, and banana chips. We almost emptied their cash register when we gave them a five dollar bill.

We decided to take the other way back to the hostal, figuring it was shorter with less wind and only a little up hill at the end. Our assumption turned out to be true, as we made it back to the hostal in less than two hours. Since by this time it was only 3pm or so, we both took a coldish shower to rinse off the road dust, then ate some of our cheese and the rolls, chips, and candies Manoli bought at a store next door to the hostel. Gotta save room for our third delicous dinner. When we returned, we also found out the power was out again, so I'm hoping by dinner or soon after it will be back up so I can post this blog. We are currently planning on taking the 4am bus to Saquisili tomorrow morning unless we run into a better option before that. We sat in the beautiful upstairs lounge area and chilled out (with heat from the stove downstairs) til dinner.

Dinner was very good again, with a pasta soup, a very good salad, and a chicken with rice dish. They served an Ecuadorian version of donuts for dessert. After dinner, we paid our bill and chilled for a while before turning in. Tomorrow we leave for Saquisili on the bus that leaves Chugchilan at 3am... yes, 3 o'clock in the morning. At the moment, I have no internet access.. again, so this probably won't get posted until Thursday night from Hostal Tiana in Latacunga.

Arrived at Hostal Tiana with internet access so here you are.

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