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Published: March 14th 2005
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Friday afternon, Julia, Alli and I each packed a backpack and caught a bus to the Hostal Valhalla (www.hostelvalhalla.com), which is owned by the couple who run the climbing agency we chose for Cotopaxi, Moggely Tours....he´s Morgan (or Mog) and she´s Ely. Morgan's Swedish, and the hostel has a viking theme - all the rooms are named after norse gods. Ours was Oden.
We brought a brochure with us to show the bus driver, since we needed him to pull over and drop us off at mile marker 19 on the Panamerican Highway, south of Machachi. He couldn´t understand me or figure out the map (which made its rounds among other passengers trying to help), but pulled over when I told him to and there we were, standing at the side of the Panamerican highway across from a dirt road leading to our hostel at dusk. The gate was closed, but we were able to squeeze through and trek the twenty minutes to the hostel, past a few small farms, before it got completely dark.
When we arrived, we found out that Paul, a Brit who´s friends with the owners and running the place for the next couple months,
wasn´t expecting us. Luckily, we soon charmed him with our winning personalities and he improvised a great soup and omelets for dinner, as well as taking us to see the new puppies.
We went to bed that night dreaming of the volcano we´d climb the next day, but it wasn´t to be. I woke up earlier than the rest and had already visited the puppies and the llamas before Morgan called to tell me that climbing wouldn´t be possible. With a meter of snow at the top of the mountain and the weather warming, chances of an avalanche were too high and no guide would even try it for at least four days, maybe more. So, we needed a Plan B.
Morgan and Ely arranged for us to go horseback riding on Sunday and Paul offered to take us on a hike through a ravine around the hostel that morning, and we decided to spend Saturday night visiting friends in Latacunga. Paul had made a morning trip into Machachi, so we killed a couple hours having breakfast and playing cards while he ran errands. We also met a group that had spent the night before at the climber´s
refuge on Cotopaxi (where we had planned to sleep Saturday), and they explained a little more about why the conditions were so bad (namely that the there alternating layers of hard and soft snow). For Julia and I, this just meant that we´d have to postpone for a cuple weeks, but for Alli and this group, it meant they'd missed their chance. Their spirits were uniformly low, and we could´t even interest them in a game of cards.
When Paul came back, he took us on the promised walk, where he provided an amusing and completely uninformative guide commentary (this is a big tree, this is a fallen tree, etc.) But the highlight of the walk was Julia´s fall in the mud when she tried to pliee over a small creek. Afterwards, Paul took us to pet the hostel´s llamas (which Alli and I had been afraid to attempt when we´d visited them on our own).
After a cup or two of tea, we were ready to head to Latacunga and surprise our friends. As we walked back to the highway it started to drizzle, but as soon as we got there, a camioneta pulled over and offered
to take us to Latacunga for a fee, so we hopped in the back. In no time, we reached the bus terminal and headed for the nearest phone, (cold, damp and starving) to call Sebasitan, who told us to meet him in a nearby square, then he took us for food and foud us a good deal on a hostel for the night. His basketball league championship tournament started that night, so he took us to watch him play. as we sat in the gymnasium waiting for the game to start, friends that we didn´t even know were in Latacunga started arriving, including our friend Jorge, who was on the same team (the Pumas). They won and we had a great time cheering them on. That night, we all went over to Sebastian´s parent´s house and the guys played guitar and sang for hours. We also met a new friend, who goes by the nickname Amigo, who offered us a ride back to Hostel Valhalla at seven the next morning.
When Amigo didn´t show up at seven, we weren´t surprised. He´d made the offer pretty late the night before. So we caught a city bus to the long distance
bus terminal and headed for a the next bus toward Valhalla. While we were asking about the fee, Amigo surprised us. He´d arrived at the hostel in Latacunga after we´d gone and headed over to the bus terminal to cach up with us. It turns out he was on his way to Quito anyway that morning, and gave us a ride all the way to the hostel (dirt road and all). We arrived in his car, with darkly tinted windows, blasting our favorite reggaton song (much to Paul´s amusement) about an hour ahead of schedule.
Around nine, Gabriel met us there and drove us to his Hacienda for horseback riding. On the way, we made a brief stop at the Machachi market, but I could´ve spent hours. It had everything - clothes, food, livestock, you name it.
When we saw the first sign for the hacienda, Alli realized she recognized the name, Hacienda La Alegria (www.haciendalaalegria.com) It belonged to the aunt of one of her best childhood friends, and she´d lost the number earlier in the trip! She´d been hearing stories about summers spent riding horses there her whole life.
The owners, Gabriel and Patricia, couldn't have been better company. I enjoyed meeting them and having lunch in their beautiful home almost as much as spending the day riding, but the riding was really great (even if my horse was a bit on the slow and timid side). We also toured their dairy farm and saw a cow that had been born only a few hours before. After reading Fast Food Nation, I was surprised to see how well fed and cared for the cows are here. I think Ecuadorian standards may be higher than the US (or at least Gabriel´s standards). He´s even stopped buying american cows becuase the hormones make them so big, and buys from New Zealand instead. The american cows are so much bigger we could pick them out of the line as they all ate (a heathy mixture of broccoli and molasses). Then we got back on the horses for more riding. On the drive home, he told us that dairy farmers in Ecuador are worried that trade agreements with the US will put them out of business, which is a real shame considering how much healthier Ecuadorian milk is.
Anyway, it was an amazing weekend.
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ESTAMOS CHAGRAS
Jess thanks for sending me this link! I definitely love the setup of your journal much more than mine. What a crazy weekend we had!! I´ll never forget riding in the back of that truck with those bags of raw meet, talking with Paul about why it´s so hard for Spanish people to learn English ;), and those lamas!! I´ll never look at a lama the same way. muahha. Anyways you better keep me on this email list because I´m going to miss you guys and our crazy times together come Wednesday!! We rocked Quito so hard. Much love. Alli - Alli