Welcome to Ecuador…

Hmm, apparently we are a little behind with regards to our blog so we will try and provide a Reader’s Digest version to get caught up.

Although we certainly enjoyed the two days that we spent in the small southern highland town of Vilcabamba, we didn’t find it as wonderful as “The Book” advertised. We have come to the realization that although each country has its highlights, at some point, you have seen the best and most beautiful and other places, despite their unique charm, just don’t quite measure up. That’s kind of how we have felt about Ecuador in general. Vilcabamba was a pretty, little, high country, colonial town but the scenery definitely didn’t compare to what we had experienced in Peru and you certainly notice the increase in prices immediately.
We stayed in both parts of Quito (the capital of Ecuador) – Quito Antigua or old town, which has the more historic buildings and new town, where there are many more restaurants and hotels. Two very different cities within a city. The one common theme is that both areas have a bad reputation regarding safety.
Essentially, most of the literature tells you that you just plain shouldn’t be out after 10 pm, the locals tell us to worry at any time of the day. We stayed in the Hotel San Francisco de Quito – which is one of the many old haciendas, converted into a hotel. It is a beautiful old building located extremely close to the main plaza in the old town, so it was a great base to tour from.
Although Quito isn’t as dramatic as La Paz, old town definitely has our vote for the most beautiful collection of colonial buildings that we have seen so far. We spent a wonderful day walking up to the top of the hill to view the statue of the Virgin de Quito (a 200 foot statue overlooking the city) and then wandering through the back streets and plazas up to the huge basilica. Really a spectacular day!
We then moved to new town for the next couple of days as the hostels are cheaper and there are more options for restaurants. As well, we wanted to book a few days of trekking and most of the tour agencies are in that area. Unfortunately, we (that reads “Andrea”) made the mistake of striking up a conversation with a guy that we met in our hostel while watching the final game of the Canadiens vs. Bruins series. He just happened to run a trekking and climbing company so we stopped by his place the next day to see what we could arrange for two days of trekking.
To make a long story short, he obviously didn’t listen well when we said we wanting to go trekking and to see a volcano. We ended up paying way too much for a “trek” through the gardens of a thermal bath in Papallacta – 5 hours driving, 2.5 hours in the thermal pools and a total of 1 hour of walking the first day. Day two wasn’t much better but at least the short amount of walking we did was on Cotopaxi – the second tallest mountain (volcano) in Ecuador. Another reminder that even after all of the travelling that we have done in the last few months we are still not the astute travelers that we should be by now and make sure we get what we ask for…
In retrospect, it seems kind of obvious that we should have obtained more details regarding his suggestions, but jeeze, he was a hockey fan and pulled a bottle of rum out of his desk drawer at his office – which he generously shared with us – we assumed that we were in good hands!
On the up-side, the weather on Cotopaxi cooperated at least marginally and allowed us a couple of brief views of the top of the mountain and we did make it to the glacier at 5200 meters – love being on top of the world!!!