Latacunga to Banos

A few thoughts about Ecuador.
We love it here-- people are great. Food consists of breakfast-usually rice with a piece of chicken and if it is a fancy place a separate plate with 2 scrambled eggs and a cup of hot milk with Nescafe. Lunch and dinner is more rice and chicken but you get a bowl of watery soup with a potato floating in it. Most bigger towns have international options but the small towns don't offer much else. If I never see rice again it will be too soon!!
I found a great hairdresser in Quito. Previously in both Mexico and El Salvador I had a haircut but as all women down here have long hair their expertise was limited to doing the bowl style of cut--they cut the bottom and the bangs but no layering so my hair was looking worse and worse as we travelled. The Mexican cut cost $5 and the El Salvador, as everything in El Salvador costs, was $1. We walked by one in Quito and there were some older women with short hair getting their hair cut which looked great. After I had a $3 haircut I felt brave enough to get her to do my highlights for $20 which turned out great--I think regular trips to Quito are in my future.
After our hiking trip in Quilitoa we spent a few days in Latacunga catching our breaths.
Took a couple of day trips, one to a small market in Pujili. This was smaller than the one at Sasquisili but still colourful and interesting. Another was to a small village which makes the most amazing leatherware. We were unable to resist and bought a jacket each--from $50 to $60. Handbags, jackets and shoes were everywhere--it is hard when you travel on a boat and wear the simplest of clothes--makes you almost want to go back to the real world just so you can justify going on a shopping spree!!! Almost but not quite.
We then took a bus ride to Guaranda, this is the highest sealed road in Ecuador and is spectacular. The road climbs to well over 4000 metres and the huge Chimbarazo-- the 6310 metre high volcano towers from the surrounding hills. Once again these are farmed to impossible heights and impossible angles. They finally stop when the ground becomes so high to be tussock and desertlike. This reminded me of the Desert Road in New Zealand on a larger scale.
Took a day trip from there to Salinas. Another spectacular bus ride and we arrived at the small village where we had rice,chicken and this time a watery bush coffee for breakfast. The village is one of the best examples of the way one should administer foreign aid. Italy had adopted this village and has set it up with factories. They make chocolate, dry mushrooms, make soccer balls and cheese. The Canadians have given them a huge woolen mill and between all of the above the whole village is employed. The Italians are there helping them export their products to Europe. They give tours to the tourists who make the trip out there and of course we had to buy some of the deilicious chocolates what a treat. They took us for a lovely hike up the valley as well.
Our next stop was to go to Riobamba where we had intended going on the train ride which is goes down the mountain in amazing switchbacks. You had been able to travel on the roof of the train but a Japanese tourist had been killed falling off recently so they had prohibited the roof riding so we decided to forgo the train ride.
We are now in Banos, a small village tucked in the middle of the mountains,under an active volcano. The volcano Tungurahua (sounds more like NZ than Ecudoria) has caused the village to be evacuated many times but is now only on an alert as it is only smoking. It is full of tourists who use it as a base to go to the mountains or the Amazon jungle. It is a great small touristy town which has great food (had steak,pizza and sea bass) and lots of things to do. It had recently been closed because massive landslides had closed the roads but reopened a few days ago.
We rented bikes and did a trip down to Puyo which is at the beginning of the Amazon. It was great to be back on a bike. One sobering moment came when we caught the bus back complete with bikes--the trip is 65km down the hill and you bus back-- only to find another huge landslide of monstrous rocks was being cleared from the road we had biked on earlier. We hiked to a multitude of waterfalls which were dropping thousands of feet. It was lovely although as we got further down it was raining which is to expected in the rain forest. We would have loved to have done a trip deep into the Amazon but we have blown our budget booking the Inca Trail so will hope to come back in December or January and do it then. Apparantly the weather is better in the Amazon then anyway so would make sense.
I took some Spanish classes although it is still so hard to understand unless people speak a word at a time--they speak so quickly!!
We are doing some hikes in the area for a day or two and then will continue south to Cuenca which is a bigger town on the way south to Peru. Apparantly it is lovely.
We will work our way to Peru as we can only spend 6 months in Ecuador in any 12 month period even though our boat can stay. We will spend 6 weeks in Peru and then with our Canada and NZ trip we should be able to stay till the end of March when we will be in the Galapagos and head across to the Marqueses.
Keep those emails coming we love to hear from you.
Have a great summer,
Love Wendy and Ken