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San Clemente is a communidad indigena in the North of Ecuador, near Ibarra. The DED (Deutscher Entwicklungdsdienst) has worked with them to prepare them for a "soft" ecotourism. I found this village through a guy, Volker, who works for the DED and who I met by chance during my first days in Quito in the Parque Metropolitano.

I stayed with the Guatemal family who are the leaders of the project in the village. They have one guest room with four beds. This was one of my best experiences so far in Ecuador. The family was incredibly friendly and cordial. Their house is beautifully decorated, extremely clean and tidy, the food was delicious and I felt very welcome.

Laura showed me how to make bread which we were frying in a large ceramic pan on the outside oven. We also went to feed the sheep and the llamas. Manuel is an artist who works with wood and rocks and other natural material. In the garden he has a large agricultural calendar depicting the different seasons and fiestas in the indigena year, some stone carvings of Ruminahui and Atahualpa (famous Inca leaders), the replica of an ancient tomb and various other works of art.

The first day it was raining a lot, so instead of climbing Imbabura with Manuel, which we had originally planned, I went to a nearby lake with Laura, we had fresh fish for dinner and just went for a leisure stroll along the lake and later on to the museum in Ibarra. Laura is a very tradicional indigena wearing always the traditional skirt and matching blouse. I felt somewhat grubby next to her all dressed up.

The next day the weather was good, so Manuel and I headed for Imbabura. It was a long hike up from 2900m to 4600m, but I enjoyed it a lot, as Manuel knows so much about the plants and the birds and explained me a lot. Also, as we were getting higher up, Cayambe (5796 m) appeared out of the clouds. It was an amazing sight to to see this glaciar covered volcano from so near.

On the summit Manuel produced out of his backpack a thermos bottle with a hot lunch and two ceramic bowls. How nice to have hot food on a summit! While we were eating a large bird of prey landed just a few meters from us (unfortunately I forgot its name). Just as I wanted to take a picuture he flew away, though.

We went back a different way, over three smaller summits, and with magnificent views over Ibarra and the lake. We were down in the village just before nightfall, and in total (including breaks) it had been a beautiful and rewarding 12 hour day.

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