After a wonderful trip to Belize I was hell bent to go farther South to experience Latin America. What better occasion to fly outside the country tadaaaannn "Birthday" :) Determined not to stay in the country for my birthday the planning phase started. To simply explain how our travel plan evolved see the changes in steps below which took place over two months before travel
1. Ecuador & Peru.
2. Ecuador & Bolivia.
3. Colombia & Peru (at this stage I arrange all my documents,drove 5 hours and got my Peruvian visa approved. But guess what, my friends had other plans!)
4. Bolivia & Colombia.
5. Ecuador & Columbia.
And finally, 6. Ecuador, Panamá & Colombia. - Yes, Panama came as a free half a day layover between Ecuador & Colombia! Why not?
Even with uncertainties looming large due to hurricane Matthews, itinerary was set with each of us flying out of different states in the US. And we finally made it to Quito, Ecuador’s capital city. Sitting high in the Andean foothills, covered with a dreamy blanket of clouds, Quito is a beautiful city. Three of us caught up on the same night with one more friend joining us the next afternoon, The 45 minutes ride from airport to the hostel through curvy roads with views of the valley down below reminded me of Bengaluru ( it takes close to 2 hours from the airport these days). A nice cobblestone street sliding down the hill welcomed us to our hostel. The hostel was meh but the cozy little rooftop overlooking the old town with the Cathedral of Quito on the right and the winged angelic statue standing tall on the left more than made up for it.
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| Left -View of Cathedral from the Hostel, Right - His sins are nothing , Lord shall forgive us both. |
Next day we got to see the inside of the cathedral. A cable car took us further up from the cathedral to Cruz Loma mountain for a bird’s eye view of the entire city. "Tengo hambre" - was the only Spanish I learnt that day from a taxi driver and boy! was it rewarding - in the form of delicious Empanada's!
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| Views as we went higher. |
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| I was scared for my life |
After the entire team got together late afternoon with the last member joining in, I got kidnapped to Ciudad Mitad del mundo - the equator monument. A small museum of sorts explaining local tribal culture. People were awarded certificates to balance an egg on nail on the equator which obviously I failed and ended up dancing with one of the tribal dancers. We got our passports stamped at the Zero latitude and got some hot chocolate on a roadside tea shop. Later that night I was busy socializing in the rooftop bar of the hostel while my friends ditched me to find a very good Italian restaurant for desserts.
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| Left to right - Egg balancing Masters, Passport stamp & the tribal dance |
After a few beers and catching up with backpackers from Iran, Colombia, France, Russia etc. we were invited to a bar hopping bus tour organized by the hostel. With a hike to a base camp of volcano planned early next morning any "sane" person would have refused but then I had one not so sane bugger with me - yep we partied till 3.30AM.
Somehow managed to get ready and leave for the hike by 6 AM. About an hour and half drive (55kms) from Quito is the Cotopaxi National Park, home to the active volcano, Cotopaxi. The route and terrain was so majestic and beautiful that I will have to write a separate blog post just to explain that. After a few stops we reached the entrance of the park from where we started the steep hike up to the base camp of volcano. What was supposed to be a 50 minutes hike took us 100 minutes, given our fitness levels! The base camp looked like an evil castle straight out of James bond movies! With the snow covered Cotopaxi peak and other smaller mountains jutting out through a thick canopy of clouds, the location was surreal, not to mention the remains of lava flowing down the slopes (Cotopaxi had its last activity in 2015-2016!). With another passport stamp and some hot soupy noodles we ran back downhill through the volcanic sand finishing it in 30 mins. The best part started here from the carpark. We rode mountain bikes to a nearby lake down the hill. See pics below rather than reading this part:
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| Cotopaxi in all its glory :) |
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| Smiles at last - 4800 meters above sea level. |
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| Total Adrenaline |
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| Views like those we had to stop. |
And so the adventure began! After this point there wasn't a single day in the trip without an adrenaline rush at some point of the day. That night one of us headed back to the US while the rest of us boarded a bus to Baños, Ecuador, in search of new adventures. To top the adventure we had during the day, we ended up missing our stop where we had to get down by 10mins (which we were lucky) apparently the bus was going south all the way. So we were stranded in middle of the night on the side of a highway. Somehow managed to reach the hostel and got welcomed by a bunch of dogs. Banos was whole another adventureland and I will stick to separate blog for this charming place.
P.S - This blog was Co-Authored by one of my kidnappers, Ms.Bandita
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ReplyDeleteGood stuff!
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