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From Banos we travelled to Cotopaxi (3 hours north). Here we were staying at the Secret Garden hostel, a recommendation from fellow travellers. The hostel is in the middle of nowhere. A beautiful setting that looks similar to the Lake District, except for the huge active volcano, Cotopaxi facing the hostel. It is possible to summit the volcano at 5897 meters, but we chose to appreciate it's beauty from a distance. A view you could see everywhere on the premises, even the composte toilet they had. Delightful.
Arriving in to the common room, they were travellers doodling, singing and playing guitar by the fire. It had a hippy vibe where everything was 'rad' and we were not really sure we'd fit in. Rory and I aren't the types to get out the lyrics book and start the sing along. However, we soon met other people similar to us and it balanced out.
We were taken to our room, 'the playhouse' which looked pretty similar to my Wendy house when I was 4. Rory couldn't stand up and as we climbed the ladder he didn't fit in the bed (the prerequisite for the room was to be 5,8). We were in for a few snug and cosy nights.
As the hostel is located on its own, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks were included in the room cost. Luckily the food was great so this made our life easy. Even better was on the first night a tour group of 14 didn't turn up so we had a lot of extra pizzas. We've eaten a lot on this trip but that night was perhaps the most.
Also included in the price was a free guided walk to nearby waterfalls. A waterfall if you jumped in, you'd get a free beer. I don't like beer so I was out but Rory was 100% in. Only a 5 meter jump it looked easy, what Rory didn't know was that it was ice cold. He's never been so awake after. We jumped in to the jacuzzi straight away when back.
The second day we decided to climb a now inactive volcano, Pasochoa. A group of 6, we were also accompanied by a pet dalmatian Milo and sausage dog Mash. The journey up was fairly easy (now seasoned pros) reaching 4200m at the top. The way down, steep and slippery I fell in the mud about 5 times. Then the rain and hail came, we were soaked, most soaked of all was Mash. Rory picked him up, zipped him in his jacket and like a prince he was carried for the last half an hour back. Rory felt quite used when he acted like he didn't know him back at the hostel.
To finish off our stay, the evening ended with a pub quiz. My team won, purely because of one guy who literally was a quiz demon, the rest of us (myself included) were chocolate teapots but I got a glass of free wine. The next day we were making our way to the sister hostel in Quito.
To finish off here are a few questions that caught us out in the quiz (answers at the bottom)
1. What land mammal has the biggest eyes?
2. Which country features a pine tree on their national flag?
3. What animal can't jump?
4. What animal has the highest blood pressure?
5. What is the hottest place on earth on daily average? Place and country.
Any one who honestly gets them all right without cheating, I'll buy you a drink back home.
1. Horse 2. Lebanon (the guy on our team actually corrected the quiz masters and informed them it was actually a cedar tree) 3. Elephant, Rhino, Sloth, Hippo (Rory's group went for 'a f**king wombat', said in an Aussie accent, Nick insisted he'd never seen one jump!) 4. Giraffe 5. Dallol, Ethiopia
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