Advertisement
Published: July 31st 2008
Edit Blog Post
Once more this weary traveler delays sleep to broadcast her intrepid adventures.......geez I´m exhausted....
I left off just before we went to the ¨New Town¨for some shopping (me? shopping?). And once again I have made some fragile purchases......I knew I should have packed that bubble wrap! After a fairly non descript dinner, we headed back to "Old town" and on the way I saw the greatest sign.....I wish I could have gotten a picture; "Clinica Veterinaria Rottweiler".....seriously, who would take their beloved pet to Rottweiler Veterinary Clinic??
After an hour of mentally cursing myself for misplacing the all important ear plugs, I finally got to sleep and slept well until my internal clock went off at 5:45 (6:45 GA time). This was exceedingly fortunate since our pick up time for Bellevista was 6:30 and somehow Sharon set her travel alarm for 10am.....hmmmm.........
So, thankfully we were able to meet our driver, Jorge (is every man here named Jorge??), who was obviously used to the tourist trade since he drove slowly and relatively safely (Jose in Peru could have used lessons from Jorge). The trip was not very harrowing despite winding through the mountains except for one spot where "peligroso" (sp) tape
was strung up right next to the road......there was a landside and while the view from the road was pretty scary, the view a few minutes later from the other side of the valley was scarier, I think. The landslide went to the very edge of the road for maybe 30 ft....and may have even undermined the asphalt alittle.....yikes. Most of the trip was on good paved road but the last 12k was unpaved and a bit rough and we arrived at Bellevista in one shaken-not-stirred piece. We were met by Erik (not Jorge!), one of the guides, and walked to el baño, just past the gillion hummingbird feeders along the path. Hummingbirds were everywhere and would let you get pretty close. There must have been upwards of 20 in the air at once.....and many more in the surrounding trees. Anyway, Erik gave us a choice, either the dificile or facile (difficult or easy) trail. I chose the dificile and sucessfully managed to convince Sharon that the facile trail was probably not best for her.....little did I know it wasn´t best for me either!
Thank goodness a hearty breakfast of some type of granola mix with some thick cream (or
maybe a thin yogurt?? definitely not milk), fruit, and bread w/butter and marmalade got us off to a good start. Thirty minutes to watch the hummers and TRY to get photos....occasionaly sucessfully.....and then off on our hike.....did I mention that Erik took me around to get rubber boots and asked if I brought a bathing suit or change of clothes? Um, what have I gotten myself into?? But I wasn´t willing to back down from the chance for some time to myself.....well not myself alone exactly, I joined another group who had been traveling together for about 5 weeks - 3 younger women (mid 20s?) and one older (50ish?). The hike was disappointing in some ways and unexpected in others.....disappointing in that for the most part it appeared that the goal of the hike was the hike, not observation or education about the environment (I think I could have seen more wildlife if I had sat on my @#~$ at the lodge). Oh we did get some of that.....we stopped occasionally to see: the Drago tree the sap of which is red and is appropriately called Drago blood. It´s a topical analgesic and antiseptic used by the locals on cuts
and scrapes. You can also make some kind of drink that is helpful for upset stomach.....but don´t drink too much, it´s toxic. Also saw a hummingbird with a long curved bill, 2 hummingbirds nests - very cool, a plant called Devil´s Penis which the local men would collect at night to eat as a primative Viagra. Also a flower that is totally dependant on bats for pollenation, therefore has no color but a strong odor.....luckily the flower was too high for us to sample its perfume since Erik says it smells like cat piss. But for the most part it was all about the hike....make that trek. The beginning wasn´t too bac...down hill mostly and certainly there were some hairy spots, but Erik was very good at helping us across (which I appreciated even more when another group led by a woman caught up to us and traveled with us a bit.....she wasn´t ANY use!!). And this was a very good thing since the adventure a was really about to begin when we started wading up stream to the waterfall where we had to climb a slippery wet ladder to get to the knotted ROPE we used to scale the
slippery wet rock to get up the fall and continue on the "trail." (Yes, yes I did that! Of course there was really no alternative since I NEVER could have made it back on my own....which reminds me.....theoretically, you can hike any of these trails on a self-guided tour.....uh, yeah, right........). After one more rope trick, and a few log crossings, we made it to the goal, a largish waterfall where those in the know donned (sp?) their bathing suits and stood unter the fall (um, no thanks...it´s about 50 degrees out here and the water was freezing.....). Once the bathing was over, it was time to head back, and although there were certainly some scary spots, it wasn´t unmanageable. However, the goal having been met, the pace was picked up and it was pretty much all up hill (um mountain) from there. And that´s when the altitude hit me like a hammer. I was huffing and puffing and I thought I was going to look down and see my heart had pounded its way out of my chest and rolled back down the trail. Thankfully, Erik and the older woman, Joanne, hung back with me and I managed to make it back to the lodge with heart intact.
At lunch, Sharon said she chose the moderately facile trail over the facile facile trail and was complaining about the difficulty of climbing all those stairs (STAIRS!) and her arm was sore from pulling herself up with the railing (railing.....really.....).
After lunch (nothing terribly interesting), our next stop was Alambi (AL am bee) Reserve (back down the 12k of muy malo road). When we arrived, our driver said we had maybe 30 mintues to look around and insisted that would be plenty of time......and as it turns out, he was correct. After about 20 minutes, we were dizzy trying to catch photos of the multitude of hummers buzzing about. I got a few good shots there too.
For dinner back in Quito, we ate at a nice little restaurant, Hasta La Vuelta, Señor. There´s a story behind that name, but I´m too tired to read it now......The food and atmosphere were excellent. I had locre de papa (a potato and cheese soup) and a muy rico (yummy) chocolate pastry of some sort.
Tomorrow is our trip to some of the villages of Imbabura Province for, you guessed it, more shopping.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 54; dbt: 0.044s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb