Cayambe

 From Otavalo, we traveled to Cayambe,and stayed in an old hacienda, dating from the 1500's.  Our room was in the wing on the right.

Cayambe is the third highest peak in Ecuador

 We went by 4wd to the snow line, some walked to the glacier, but we were a but confused at the altitiude, and passed on the walk.  We weere up at abour 4600m.

 We also visited the Equator at Cayambe, our group is posing by the sundial.

 On the drive back to Quito, we also passed Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador.   The scenery is stunning

Otavalo

From Cuenca we flew back to Quito, a luxury we all enjoyed rather than many hours in a bus.  We then transferred to Otavalo, a couple of hours north of Quito.

This is a market town, and the main market is on Saturday, and we arrived Friday afternoon.  Otavalo is a tourist town, with western food, chocolate shops and lots of hotels.

It is really hard to get photos of the people, they do not like having their photos taken.  Peter got up early Saturday morning and went to the live animal market.

The locals here are all very short, and mainly dress in traditional clothing.

By 8 am vendors were setting up stalls in the main square, and up and down the streets for several blocks.  On the day we were there, there was so much to buy, and not nearly enough shoppers.

For dinner we had "cuy", the local specialty 

 Yes, it was a guinea pig, but they were in short supply, so we only got a taste.

Otavalo was a really interesting town, didn't do much shopping, because we still had a long way to go.

 

Heading home

The holiday is over for us.  On the second day on the Galapagos islands Pam managed to slip over on some rubble in a lava tube on Floreana island.  A more remote spot would be difficult to find.  She thought she had just sprained her ankle, and managed to limp out, but 2 days later when we arrived at San Cristobal island, an Xray confirmed a break in the small leg bone.  This was set in a back strap cast to support the ankle.  We continued on the cruise, Peter enjoyed the activities while Pam lazed around with her feet up.
After a week, which was fantastic, especially for Peter, we flew back to Quito.

Travel insurance is sending us home.  We will go business class from Santiago to Adelaide.  It is only economy internal flights in South America, as LAN do not offer business class.  We also get a night at the airport hotel in Santiago.  The insurance is all working very smoothly, we had a couple of days delay in getting seats on the Santiago Sydney flight.  We declined to fly via the US, the connections were atrocious.  Better to stay in Quito a couple of extra days.

I will get around to finishing the blog, Ecuador has been amazing.
We should be home late on Oct 14th, if all the connections work.

Going to Galapagos

Having huge problems with internet access at present.  We leave at 4.30 am tomorrow for the Galapagos.  Will update the blog when I get a chance, but don't expect internet for at least a week.  We have a week on a boat, the 4 nights on an island

Banos and Cuenca

We headed from the Amazon back into the Andes.  Banos is a small town, surrounded by mountains, and a very active volcano.  Unfortunately clouds obscured the view of the volcano most of the time.  Banos is also action central, with horse riding, canyoning, zip-lines, canyon swings, mountain biking, as well as hiking.  We did the short walk to a spectacular view, and mooched around town.  Peter went mountain biking, but they cheated, went up with a truck, and rode down.  He got to see the smoking volcano just before his descent.  

From Banos we drove to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador.  We had a private bus for this trip, so we each had a seat to ourselves. 

The trip was about 7 hours of driving through the Andes, with stunning views, but unfortunately too much cloud to see the "Avenue of Volcanoes".  We did get glimpses of one.

During the afternoon, we stopped at the Incan ruins at Ingapirca.

In Cuenca, we visited the old town, here the lavish new cathedral was built in the 1940's.  We also visited the market and a Panama hat factory.

Papallacta Hot Springs and the Amazon

After a magnificent buffet breakfast at the Quito hotel, we headed to the bus station in the south of Quito.  This was very modern, a cross between a bus station and an airport.  We must have got the slowest bus in the fleet.  Two and a half hours later, we were just down the hill from the hotel we had left from.  The bus plodded on, complete with loud horror movie with screaming, slowly climbing through mountainous country.  When the clouds lifted there were excellent views of snow capped peaks.  Eventually we arrived at Papallacta, and headed to our hotel.  They had public pools, and we also had guest only pools in front of our cabins.
We all lazed around in the pools, and admired the scenery.
We are very lucky with our group, a mix of old and young, couples and singles, and everyone is getting on well.

The next morning, after breakfast we headed out for a walk in the national park, before another dip, and back to the bus stop.

The bus trip to Tena was downhill all the way,  as the road got straighter, the speed of the bus increased.  Another movie, much better without screams.  Tena is on the Rio Napo, a tributary to the Amazon.  We finally had some warm weather, hot and humid.

We stayed in a home stay for 2 nights, with Delfin and his family.  They have built huts for tourists.  Several grown up children and partners help Delfin and his wife. We were all issued with rubber boots, the footwear for the next 2 days.

 Our first walk was to see the Rio Napo from a lookout high on a cliff.  We then went down to the creek, where there was a swimming hole we could take a dip in.

The next morning we headed up the creek to the waterfalls. Pam stopped at the first waterfall,  while most continued to the 3rd waterfall.  Going up the second waterfall required a safety harness and ropes.  Beautiful rainforest and water.  This was a 4 hour excursion.  In the afternoon, there was another walk, looking at local plants and their uses by the locals.  Most of the photos are on the waterproof camera, and we can't transfer these at present.

Between all these walks, there was eating and drinking.  We had great soups twice a day, and main courses with rice, veges and protein (fish, chicken, beef,  cheese at different times).  We get huge portions of rice each meal, if there is no sauce on the protein, it is all rather dry.  Beer comes in BIG bottles.  We pay $2 a bottle at the home stay.  Coffee is strong and black, tea is available, we are amused at the brand (Hornimans).

The last morning at the home stay required as decision, Peter and 4 others went rafting, the rest of us took a walk in a local garden, then made and ate chocolate.

What a process!  First the beans were roasted, then the skins were rubbed off, the beans roasted again, then ground, then mixed with milk and sugar and boiled.  Finally we dunked slices of banana and pineapple in the warm chocolate, and enjoyed eating the product.  The kids from the family finished off the leftovers.

After lunch, we changed accommodation, moving to a Jungle Lodge thee other side of Tena. The lodge is right on the river, and we all appreciated the hot showers,  and the wonderful view.

The next morning, we went by taxi and motorised canoe to an animal refuge a bit further along the Rio Napo.   They look after distressed animals, and rehabilitate as many as possible back into the wild.  They do good work, but it is never nice to see animals in cages.

The tour begins

We have just met our fellow travellers.  We are the only Aussies.  More Brits than anything else.  A good mixed crowd.

Sounds like there is no WiFi for several days.  We head out to the hot springs, and then the Amazon  jungle.

Quito Old Town

The buildings are amazing, with churches, convents and monasteries on almost every corner.  Some of the more magnificent churches are

The Basílica del Voto Nacional

The sixteenth-century Iglesia de San Francisco is very ornate with lots of gold

But the most amazing is Quito’s most extravagant church, La Compañía de Jesús  built by Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It took 163 years to construct, with seven tonnes of gold to cover the interior from top to bottom.

The next photo shows the guards at the palace

Finally a couple of interest shots from the park,

Young kids on their "walk bikes" - no pedals

And the police patrol in the park - the dog on the left looks a bit out of place

Spanish classes and food

We have graduated, we received our diplomas, and had a night out at La Ronde

Our teacher was Tomas

La Ronde street

Giant empanada, eaten with sugar, hot alcoholic juice drunk as shots, very large bottles of beer

Food has been fairly ordinary, lots of rice and lentils, but we found a steak house.  300 gm steak and a drink for $8.

We have not had the KFC with rice and lentils.

We had a cooking class at school and made cheese empanadas