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Published: December 14th 2008
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Fiestas, Volcanoes, Spanish and Surfing...
We´ve been in Ecuador for less than two weeks and so far have had an amazing start to our South American travels.
Ecuador is a great country to start in as it is much smaller than all the other countries we´ll be visiting (about the size of France) so quite managable to get around and it has such varying landscapes. As the internet is so slow we can´t upload any pictures but will try to soon.
Quito
We arrived in Quito after two days of travelling to find ourselves in the middle of their biggest annual festival so to say things were quite busy would be an understatement. Everyone in the city crams on to fun buses with food, drink and music and drives round and round the city all day and night! We stayed in lovely family run hostel called The Travellers Inn in La Mariscal, the main tourist area, and despite the fact we´d heard lots of stories about how dangerous Quito was for tourists we fortunately didn´t witness any problems. At 2800 meters, Quito is one of the highest capital cities in the world and walking around you really do
notice the lack of oxygen. I´ve come to realise that I´m not exactly going to blend in on my travels as not only am I blonde but about a foot taller than everyone (inluding the men!).
Cotopaxi
A couple of days in the city was more than enough for us so we headed off to Cotopaxi National Park, home of the world´s highest active volcano (6090m). We stayed at The Secret Garden, an amazing eco-hostel run by an Australian-Ecuadorean couple with no mains water or electrcity. Our room had it´s own fireplace and a perfect view of the volcano and we spent most of our days going for walks, reading in the hammocks and playing with their four dogs.
As neither Steve or I have ever been horseriding we decided it was the perfect place to give it a go. Lets just say that Steve is now rather upset that he´s unlikely to be able to pursue a career as a cowboy, highwayman, a jockey or polo player in fact anything that involves a horse! As with most things in Ecuador attitudes are quite ´relaxed´ so when we arrived in the morning to meet Darwin, our guide
and informed him that we had no experience he helped us up onto the horses, quickly garbled something in Spanish and trotted off assuming we´d be close behind. Unfortunately that wasn´t the case as my horse promptly turned around and started walking in the other direction and Steve´s followed. A little later, after a change of horse and despite the torrential rain and hail, I began to feel comfortable and really enjoy the experience but Steve, who was stuck with his stroppy horse, didn´t feel the same. After two hours (and the horse trying to buck him off twice) he got off the horse in the middle of the road, deciding he´d had enough and that he was going to abandon the horse and walk all the way home. When Darwin came back to see what was going on all Steve could say was ´no me gusta´ (I don´t like) and would´nt get back on the horse. Eventually with some persuading Steve got back on the horse and got through the day but I don´t think we´ll be horseriding again in hurry!
Canoa
We are now in Canoa, a quiet little surfing town, on the coast where we´re
taking Spanish lessons and surfing. We´re staying at the Sundown Inn, a spanish school run by a lovely Ecuadorean family. Everyday we have four hours of Spanish lessons and spend the rest of the day learning to surf and chilling out. Steve has really taken to surfing and has picked it up really well so I think future travel plans will definitely involve lots of surfing. All our meals are included so we´ve been eating lots of typical Ecuadorean food, which consits of lots of eggs, rice and beans! We´ve met a nice Canadian couple, Ryan and Vanessa, who have moved here to open a hostel and surf school. They moved out here four months ago not knowing any Spanish and never having surfed before and after doing both everyday for four months they are now great at both. As you can imagine I´m now inspired and am trying to persuade Steve that we should do the same! We´ve been here for just under a week and we´re enjoying it so much that we´ve decided to extend our stay for another week until we go to Colombia for xmas! Needless to say I´m sure by then we´ll be fluent in
Spanish and pro surfers!
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