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Published: October 24th 2012
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After a cheap night at a hotel on the Colombian side of the border, it was a very early morning start to get over to Ecuador. We had planned that our month in Ecuador would all be about getting prepared for the Inca Trail so first stop was Quito where we got sorted with new walking kecks etc.
Quito old town has the best plaza to date in SA, it's nigh on perfect - plenty of benches and greenery surrounded by majestic buildings and the mountains form a stunning backdrop. Well done Quito! We stayed in the Hotel San Francisco which was a bit poosh and pricey and so we soon moved to a cheapo hostel before we were all out of dosh!
We really loved Quito on Sundays - the parks were full of families playing football/volleyball, there were literally hundreds of them all enjoying the weekend chill time. We spent some time in the park before heading off to the cinema to watch "Ted"...very very funny!! We love Flash Gordon!!
One day we took the Teleferico up to the base of Rucu Pichincha, quite a steep uphill to 4100m, all was going well until the bloody
thing stopped and left us swaying all over the place for about 20 seconds. Kathers was a little scared but I was fine!! (oh aye, fine, if you call going transparent and shaking like a leaf fine!! KP) The trek up Pichincha at 4,683m was fairly straightforward until the last 100m but was still tough work at this altitude. I got around 30m from the summit with quite a bit of scrambling, I bottled it though when the cloud came in rather quickly and made a descent. This was our first walk in Ecuador as part of our "must get fit for the Inca Trail month" and all in all it was a good effort.
Part 15 of the SA Futbol Tour SD Quito 2 Olmedo 0 Managed to catch another game whilst we were in Quito, SD Quito v Olmedo from Riobamba. The match was at the Atahualpa stadium, home of the National team and it was a decent stadium. Best of all they served up cheep beer and Me and Mrs P treated ourselves to a couple of bottles!! The game was so so and the atmosphere was a little low key and again another
stadium which was only around 1/3 full..disappointing!
We left Quito and headed off to Otavalo for some more walking. We stayed in the Hostel Otavalo Prince..spotless and really comfortable! Our first day's walking was to the waterfalls at Peguche and then onto the San Pablo Laguna. The waterfalls were really pretty - they had a lot to live up to considering we'd aready visited 3 of the top 5 waterfalls in the world. The walk round the laguna was a bit tedious and so we gave up and caught the bus back into town which gave us time to visit the small but beautiful Parque Condor - a rescue centre mainly for birds of prey that have been found injured or have been donated by the Eco-Police. The birds had lots of room but it was still sad to see them caged, especially the Condors, huge magnificent birds - no cage in the world would be big enough for these amazing creatures. We were lucky to see a flight and feeding display - most of the healthy birds get to have their moments of freedom and fly over the valley below the park...they always come back so obviously are
well cared for! Amongst others was a beautiful Golden Eagle, it was a truly amazing and emotional experience and great for us to see.
Our 2nd walk in Otavalo was up to the top of Fuya Fuya (4,265m) We booked this walk through an agency and went with our guide Marco. We took the easy route up which was still reasonably tough - 2.5 hours straight uphill followed by 1.5 hours down. We were lucky enought to get fantastic views from the top - one side was completely clear and the other side of the mountain was totally covered in cloud below us. This walk was another good little workout!
Next up was a walk round the Laguna Cuichocha, near Cotacachi, this time we went solo. Our bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and together with our new friend French Audrey, were picked up by some dude with a car who claimed he was our taxi to the laguna and off we went! No idea??? The walk was stunning and we would highly recommend it. We saw at least 20 lizards and a huge number of various species of orchids and other flora. Mrs P
and French Audrey stopped to take many many photos!! The walk itself rises and falls along hills around the lake and at 8.4m was another great workout. Given more time, this was a walk we'd have loved to do again and again!
Saturday is market day in Otavalo and people come from miles around to sell and buy...it was huge and took over the whole town. Mrs P treated herself to an Alpaca wool jumper and Mr P bought a very cool Indiana Jones style hat....proper tourists.
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Ian
non-member comment
looks great
Was at cadence cafe with Justin today having a coffee and cake,cant wait to hear all about your exploits when you get back