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Hotel Sierra Madre Arrival in Quito. Enjoy our one night stay at Sierra Madre, an elegant colonial affair.Everyone speaks fluent English,so we continue to be ignorant North American. |
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Papallacta Making our way through the Andes, spending the night in a wonderful hot spring resort, Papallacta, located at 11000 ft elevation. High altitude sickness finally catches up with me, it is an insistent headache that refuses to go away. Tomorrow, we will be in the Jungles. |
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In the Jungle Staying with Delfin and Estella's family in the valley of Pimpilala(Quichua word, means Butterfly). Climbing waterfalls and learning about useful and harmful plants in the dense rain forest. The word "green" has to be redefined in the jungle. The children are especially sweet to us. |
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Rafting The river's name is Jaduyacu, means "big water" in Quichua. It feeds into Rio Napo, which is one of the major branches that feed into Rio Amazon. It is a 3rd class rafting, so the water is calm. We have our private beach for a swim and another private beach for lunch. Gorgeous scenary makes me wish they had never discovered oil in the Amazon. It would be a shame for such beauty to vanish... |
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la Casa de Suizo Our jaws just dropped as our canoe delivered us at this luxurous hotel on the bank of Rio Napo. la Casa de Suizo was built by a Swiss who married an Ecuadorian woman and settled in Ecuador. The only means of transportation is motorized canoe. During high season, it is packed with "French who wear strange shoes." Our guide Carlos told us. But it is low season right now, plus the 911 affect, the five of us plus one other guest are the only clients during our 2-day stay. We will be visiting Amazonica, an animal shelter, and a local plantation. In the last night, we watched a 360 degree "lighting show" as a thunder storm passes through the jungle. |
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Baños Baños is a resort town, known for its hot springs. We still prefer Papallacta's clear and sulpher free hot spring pools over Baños'. For the first time in Ecuador, we see other tourists!! In fact, Banos is packed with "gringos". It is also a party town. |
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Getting To Cuenca We will be spending seven hours on bus rides, going from Banos to Cuenca. We see the end of the famous "Avenue of Volcanos" as we are leaving the connection town, Riobamba. All the high mountains are cultivated. The Indigena people wearing their bright colored clothing are often spotted on the quilted mountain fields. It is a pleasant ride. A family of four (2 young boys at the age of 7-8) from the States are among our fellow bus passenders from Riobamba to Cuenca. |
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Bored in Cuenca Cuenca is supposed to be the prettiest colonial city in Ecuador. We had high hopes for it. But it is a lot more modern and polluted than we have expected. After 15 minutes in the central square, we are ready to leave! :) The colorful Indigena people do make excellent street photography subjects though. |
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Hiking in Cajas So we get out of Cuenca the next day, hiking in a nearby national park "Cajas". At 3300 meter elevation, we see Mazanita trees! It is a desolate place, with a hunting beauty. Our taxi breaks down on its way uphill, we have to walk the last 2 km to get to the entrance. (To our surprise, our taxi driver kept his words and came back for us on time to take us back-after fixing his car!). |
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Mountain biking on volcano Cotopaxi Going from elevation 4500 meters to 3300, a 32 km route, mainly steep downhill. It takes us 3 hours, from cold and rainy base camp, to the volcano ash filled plains where wild horses are grazing, to a glaciar lake laying quietly at the foot of the brooding shadow of more volcanos, to dried river bed atop a ridge that overlooks the Quito valley, to a peaceful Monterey pine forest with reddish pine needle carpeted forest floor. We even come across a cowboy in his dark brown poncho, wondering away, disappearing into the lunar landscape... |
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Cayambe This 16th centure hacienda is located at the northern mountainous town Cayambe, 2 hours bus ride away from Quito. We also pays a visit to the Equator museum on the way. |
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Cotacachi Cotacachi is a town known for its leather goods. We also visited the crater lake Cuicocha nearby. |
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Otavalo The famous Otavalo market, where Indigena people come to buy and sell everything. The most famous are the textile by the Otavalo weavers. Caroline teaches us all the finer arts of bargaining, in Spanish! What fun! :) |
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The Galapagos To have a peak at the pre-historical past, at what the world used to be like before human intrude... |