From Pasachoa to Cuenca

It has been a few days since I have been able to get to a computer capable of posting on here, so I will be starting off from where I left off (i.e. this is gonna be long). On Thursday we visited the Pasachoa Reserve. It was definitely unlike anywhere my mom or I had ever seen. The great thing about it was that it was a mountain and a cloud forest all in one. So along with amazing scenic mountain views, you were also walking through a very green and lush rain forest. Our new guide, Diego, told us more about all of the flora and fauna along the way. We saw many beautiful flowers, along with an array of birds and some other small animals. The mountain had a bunch of different trail options, but we decided to just start hiking up and see how far we would go. We ended up going much higher than our guide expected and it got me excited about going back and climbing a few more hours all the way to the summit. More updates to come on that... Following the climb we headed south towards our next destination. We stayed the night at a little ranch style hacienda, ¨Cuello de Luna,¨ located next to the Cotopaxi National Park. The best part about it was its views. From the porch you could see Ecuador´s first and second highest mountains, Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, respectively. Friday morning we woke up and drove about an hour and a half over some mountains to get to Laguna de Quilotoa. The drive was long and curvy, but beautiful. Giving us some more impressive views of the country and its mountains. Laguna de Quilotoa is another volcanic crater, except this one has a natural lake at the bottom. It is a very steep hike down a mostly sand trail to the bottom, with the option of riding donkeys back up. My mom was not feeling so well and decided to opt out of the hike and instead just admire the amazing view from the top. I decided that I did not want to take the donkeys up and instead bust out the hike up with my own two feet. Upon hearing my plan, Diego decided to also hang out at the top. He says he only takes the donkeys back up.... Diego did walk down with me for a couple minutes to point out a couple plants, then off I went towards the bottom on my own. It was a really great experience, different from any hike I´ve ever been on. This was mainly because a lot of it included pretty much sliding down steep sand embankments. I finally made it down and the view was even more amazing than that from the top. There was a little man at the bottom who let me use his ¨bathroom¨ for only a quarter. What a bargain! After spending a few moments dumping the sand out of my shoes and relaxing my feet in the cool water, I started my grewling hike back to the top. I can honestly say that it was one of the hardest things I've done in a very long time. Not just because it was extremely steep, but those sand embankments I slid down, were almost impossible to get back up. I spent a decent amount of time climbing up and just sliding back down. Finally, a few hours later, I managed to make it back to the rim. My mom and Diego were waiting for me, and had been watching my progress from the top. While I am very glad I did the climb out myself, I can definitely see why Diego uses the donkeys! After another night in Cuello del Luna, we headed into the Cotopaxi National Park. The main highlight of the park is obviously Ecuador's second highest mountain, Cotopaxi, but the park has much more to offer than just that. We started off with a hike around a lake, located a little ways from the base of the mountain. Here we saw many more of Ecuador's plant and animal life. As we were walking around my mom and I were discussing what we felt is the most amazing thing about Ecuador, that being its diverse landscape. It has mountains, beaches, rain forests and just about every type of landscape you could imagine. After the walk around the lake we headed up Cotopaxi on an old worn out gravel road. We drove up to 4500 meters (over 15,000 feet)! As we stepped out of the car we noticed that it was snowing. We were standing about 10 feet away from where the snow starts on the mountain. This allowed for excellent views of the surrounding valleys. We were able to spot the lake we had been walking around earlier, which looked like a puddle from where we were standing. This parking area is where all of the climbers beginning thier ascent on Cotopaxi start. We walked a little ways up, played in the snow a bit then we were on our way to our hosteria Abraspungo in the town of Riobamba. Yesterday morning we had breakfast at 5:30am in order to catch our 7:00am ride on the ¨Narriz del Diablo¨(Devil´s Nose) train. This train goes from the town of Riobamba down and past Alausi towards the ¨Devil´s Nose.¨ This is a vertical wall of mountain which caused much complication in the development of this railway hundreds of years ago. To get down this wall, they built a series of zigzags down the mountain, which require the train to stop, change tracks and move in the opposite direction. It was a slightly nerve-racking experience, especially for my mom who is afraid of heights. The craziest part of the whole experience was that we were all riding on the tin roof top of the train! After the ride to the bottom of the wall, the train returns up it, and back to the town of Alausi. The total ride took about 6 hours and went through the mountains and countrysides of Ecuador. Along the way people were selling all kinds of things on the top of the train including fried bananas, beer and candy ¨for the poor children,¨as they put it. In every town we passed children would run out and wave to the train. At first we thought they were just smiling and waving because they liked the train. Eventually we realized they just wanted us to throw candy to them! As the gringos atop the train realized this, war broke out among the children for the candy. They were fighting each other and running along side the train as if it were a life or death issue! On the train we met a nice couple sitting next to us who we offered a ride in our van. They needed to get to Incapirca, which is where we were headed next. After a couple hours in the car we arrived in Incapirca, an ancient Incan ruin. The guard at the entrance explained that it was closed due to hostility over money between the police and the local indigenous people. I guess both groups felt that the ruins belonged to them and could not decide who should get the money. Their solution: close it down so no one gets money and no one gets to walk around the ruin. The guard told Diego that we could go up the gate for a couple minutes just to get a picture, but that it was not safe to stay longer because of the angry locals. Diego stayed with the van, and my mom and I, and Melle and Jeff, (the couple riding with us) nervously walked toward the ruin. It was a very impressive place, and I only wish we could have seen it closer. Because of the obvious reasons, Melle and Jeff decided not to stay in Incapirca and instead continued with us to the Ecuador's third largest city, Cuenca. Upon arriving in Cuenca last night, my mom and I, pleasantly surprised, found ourselves staying in Cuenca's most grand hotel, the Mansion Alcazar. It is a remolded mansion, and by far the nicest place we've stayed in so far. Our room overlooks a beautiful courtyard garden. This morning Diego showed us around Cuena, which is definitely my favorite city thus far. It is much cleaner and nicer than Quito and is still large enough to have anything that you could expect to find in a third world country. We saw all of their markets, including those for flowers, animals, clothes and vegetables. While I have yet to try it, a popular food here in Ecuador is that of Guinea Pig. It was weird seeing those furry animals my little brother had as a pet being sold in the same cage as chickens, ducks, rabbits and pigeons, all of which was being sold as meat. After our tour of the city, we left Diego and my mom and I did some serious shopping. We bought ponchos, sweaters, ceramics and of course some Panama hats. Panama hats are straw hats actually made in Ecuador, but were named because of their popularity in Panama. All of the walking and shopping we did in the city today made me almost as tired as that hike out of the lake crater! That brings me to now, which is me sitting in a little interet cafe in Cueca, Ecuador finishing up this hour long monolouge. I hope you all have enjoyed it. I am now going back to my luxurious and elegant hotel room to grab my mom and go get some dinner!