 Casa Cóndor |
Casa Cóndor is a community-based tourism project in the village of Pulingui San Pablo at the foot of Chimborazo. About 240 indogenous inhabitants live here. They have a great system of hiking trails, with sign posts along most of them, as well as an excellent map (to be purchased for 1 USD at Casa Cóndor), based on an IGM map, with the GPS tracks of the senderos displayed in different colors on the map, very similar to how I make my maps.
It is a nice place to stay at, I just encountered a couple of minor problems: I had not been able at all to reach Casa Cóndor before I went there, the phone numbers I had did not work, there was no reply to my emails and their umbrella organization was not any more at the address mentioned on their website and in the guidebooks. So I went there without reservation. They did let me stay in a nice cabaña, with a fireplace and kirchen. However they were not able to provide any food. So for two days I lived on a few biscuits and chocolate... until a group of indigenas from many different South-American countries (who had been attending a congress on community-based tourism in Riobamba) arrived and I was given some of their cuy (guinea pig) meal... The other slight problem was that in three days they were not able to switch on the hot water for the shower. I just could not convince myself, though, to have a shower in the freezing water at 3800m of altitude. Oh well, there was nobody staying there with me so nobody had to suffer from my bad smell...
The hikes were beautiful. I did the one to the Bosque de Polylepsis and Chaupugio, the one to Templo Machay and the one to Piedra Negra. The one to Templo Machay was easy to follow, as there were posts every few hundred meters. There were many herds of Vicuñas (a skinny type of camelid, and a relative of the llama and the alpaca) around, and they were not even very shy. In fact, they seemed to be quite curious about me! Towards the end of the hike, there were suddenly no more posts around and I could not see any cave (which Templo Machay is) anywhere. Luckily, with my GPS and the good map, I could approach more and more to the coordinates of the templo. However, I was seraching quite a bit and still could not see it anywhere. And then, suddenly, in this very remote and solitary place, I heard a voice shouting. It turned out to be an an American, Bruce, who was hiking there with his wife Laurie. And Bruce was there right by the cave! So after having a quick look at the cave (which is a worshipping place for the locals where they offer to the gods all kinds of personal items) I hiked down together with Bruce and Laurie. I was lucky to have found them, as they knew a very pleasant path, directly down to Estrella del Chimborazo, Marco Cruz's (Ecuador's most famous mountaineer) exclusive hazienda, where Laurie and Bruce stayed. I had a drink with them by the hazienda's fireplace and I must admit it is indeed a nice place. It's only 10 min from Casa Condor. The hike down had been great and quite fast, as there is a lot of sand and one could just jump down in the sand. And we were very lucky as Chimborazo was clearing up while we were going down, and we took a number of good shots.
The next day I went with both of them to Piedra Negra which is a pleasant walk to a hill nearby.
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