Aventura en Ecuador

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Ecuador offers a lot of things to do in its marvellouse nature. Once we took the bus to Mindo and spent there a weekend. Mindo is a small and cute village in a cloudforest. It's unbelievable by how many trees the surrounding hills are covered and how green everything is. Therefore it has a lot of colibris, butterflies and orchidees to observe. Once we hiked to some nearby waterfalls. There we were walking from one to an other and decided to take a bath in one of them. It was actually quiet cold weather and the water was freezing. But the place looked so nice that we overcame our sanity. The water was so cold that we could hardly speak. But it was such a good feeling to take a swim exposed in nature. One girl and I climbed up next to the waterfall and decided to jump into the water from around 3- 4 meters. I was first and was excited and afraid at the same time, because I didn't really know how safe it actually was. But to let yourself go into that cold water was such a nice thrilling feeling, that we just did it again. Meanwhile were so many people coming and staring at us from a bridge which lead to that place. I guess they thought how crazy the "gringas" would be. Tiia (the other girl) and I wanted to continoue bathing and started to walk down the cold river for a bit. We arrived at the next small waterfall where we decided to slide down. It was so funny to see the reaction of the people standing infront of the waterfall watching it. They didn't excpect someone sliding it down at all... But it was so nice to enjoy this natural slide and let the strength of the water takeing your body with it. But after that we were looking forward to put our dry clothes and get warm again.

We also did tubing in Mindo. You sit in groups of five people on tubes which are bound together and float down the river on it. It's like a very soft form of river rafting. Once more the water was really cold and sometimes if you're floating over a big stone the water makes you really wet. It was fun but a bit touristic...

As if we wouldn't have enough of all this water experiances, we stole ourselves to a pool of a hostel in one night. We were a big group of girls and had quiet fun swimming in the dark in this heated pool. It was relaxing but tensing at the same time, cause we knew it wasn't allowed. But anything more than just throwing us out couldn't they do to us, so it wasn't that bad.

We went back from Mindo to Otavalo on Sunday and unfortunately it only had a bus very early in the morning, which we missed, and then one late in the afternoon. We didn't want to be back too late on Sundaynight so we decided to try to hitchhike back. We took a camionetta to kind of a highway direction Quito and waited there till someone would take us with them. Around five minutes later a car with a family stoped and took Tiia and me with them. The other five girls could all together go with a camionetta some minutes later. The family who took us with them was really friendly trying to speak to us and drove us to the bus terminal in Quito from where we could take the bus to Otavalo.

The last weekend we were climbing the Fuya Fuya, a mountain which is around 4070meters above sealevel. It was wonderful to clim it and watch all the nature around it. It went up quiet steep so you are able to see further and further from step to step. The way up to the top leaded through high grass and different flowers on the sides. Were we started was the laguna Mojanda which looked different and amazing from the higher you get. Nature is amazing! At the top we made a picnic with bread, vegetable and fruits and enjoyed the view. We also did some minutes in peace, where we were only listening to the sound of nature. It was so quiet up there and sometimes you could hear a car ore anything else from very far. After a bit we went back down again. The way was quiet steep and someone just had the idea to sit down in the high grass and slide everything down on the butt. It functioned better than I first thought and we were sliding down really quick over the grass and some stones... We had to laugh so much cause it looked really funny. It actually felt like sitting on a sledge in the winter. Just that the landscape was so different and there's only the pants between you and the ground. Like that we did the whole way down, where I finally realised that I already have a big big hole in my pants from the friction, what made us even laugh harder. As we were down again we started to play hide and seek in the very high grass. It was so much fun, cause you really didn't see anything of a person who sat down in the grass. Once more I realised how precious little you need in plane nature for having so much fun!! Finally we were feeling hot, so we decided to take a bath in the freezing laguna. We jumped in there in underwear, but went out again shortly after cause you could hardly breathe in this cold water.. We went back to Otavalo afterwards, where we realxed a bit in the late afternoon, thinking back of a wonderful hike-experience!

An other funny story was when we went out to some clubs in Quito one night. There was a girl visiting us, who was a volunteer some years ago. She has now a boyfriend living in Quito and showed us some places to go this night. We had a lot of fun finally dancing and partying again. Then we could all rest a bit at her boyfriends place till the bus would take us back in the morning. As we got out of her boyfriends apartement we were passing the hilton hotel on the way to the bus terminal. One of us had to go to the toilet urgently so we were joining her to the hilton hotel. As we were waiting for her we had a look around the hotel and found ourselves next to the enormous breakfast buffet. The servants were greeting us very friendly and asking what we wish for breakfast. We couldn't stop ourselves from testing the wonderful buffet pretending being a guest in the hotel. After we already ate a lot they asked us friendly for our roomnumber and as they were checking on it we sneaked away inconspicuously... That was the best breakfast for free ever and I couldn't have been so frigid if they hadn't almost pushed us in this situation...

Now I'm llooking forward to the next few weekends which are already full of plans with hiking to some other vulcans ore mountains, being visited by friends I met while travelling and finding myself in spontaneous funny activities...

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