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Ok, so I am actually a week behind in this blog so this is going to be a quick some up of the rest of the week in Quito and Ill do a seperate one with our Jungle trip. We have also come across a snag in terms of continuing this blog in such detail. I ususally write up each one on the ipad in the evening or when we are in transit however this is no longer possible. Having managed to retain all our items in Quito and avoided being mugged or pickpocketed, the day we left Quito, along with our new tour buddies we were waiting in the bus station for our ride to the Amazon Jungle. I left my daypack sitting with the other bags and the rest of the group and went to the toilet, on my return the bag was gone and no one had seen a thing, including Doug and the security guard who was standing a couple metres away. Needless to say I was utterly gutted given it had the ipad, Dougs christmas pressie of a Kindle, unused, speakers, phone, all my paperwork, fortunatly not my passport, waterproof jacket and a whole host of non valuable but never the less very handy items that I am still reeling at having been stolen, my inflatable foot stool being one of them. bracket. i writing this on a spanish keyboard which none of the buttons work on so I cant to do inverted commas, brackets or generally punctuate and there is no speel check so apologies. close bracket
Anyway, we left Quito under bad circumstances but on arrival in the magnificant Jungle they seemed further away.
The rest of the week in Quito was fun. The photos probably say more than I could. But in brief... Biking was wonderful, careering down a dirt track through the heart of the cloudforests north of Quito. The quietness when we stopped was wonderful in comparison to the noise and bussel of the city. The only sounds from unseen birds, frogs and insects. Most of it was down hill with a 10km section uphill. After doing the cairngorms in spring you would of thought I would of been fine but this was super hard, crap mountain bikes on a rocky track with an unrelenting asent. Doug, not being a biker in anyway, defected to the car that was following us after only a short distance and I. at 1.8kms It was only the two of us and I am on holiday and just prefered to enjoy the day and not push too much, especially at the beginning of this trip. It was warm and sunny but after our climb up we were into the clouds and biking along very bumpy terrain, jolting around like we were on numatic drill, into curtain of white. Exilerating, for me anyway, Doug proceeded at more moderate speed for the duration but had an equally as enjoyable experiance, so he says.
Horse riding again was brilliant. Doug hadnt ever been on one and I had only been pony treking and a 3 days on a farm in Australia. We were south of Quito in the Avenue of the Volcanoes. It was a glorious day and after a rather long jounery to get down to the hacienda where were were starting which involved two taxis and an hour and a half on a local bus, we were on our horses and away.
Treking up through countryside a welshman from the valleys could of called home, we ambled, then on occassion trotted, our way up the hills. I felt reasonalby comfortable on my horse, Nike, very spanish, and it usually turned, stopped and galloped when I indicated for it to do so. Dougs horse appeared less obedient or maybe due to his inexperence it ignored him, but he and an overhanging branch met each other at a gallop. He survived with no visible scars. I was initually blamed as his horse was following mine, but on reflection he seemed satified it was lack of control.
Coming down was harder than going up and our horse slipped a little on the cobbled roads. We had stopped at the top to give them a wee break, where our guide, Javier, whipped out some rolls and biscuits for us to eat looking over the volcanoes opposite and valley below. During our ride several dogs had Joined us, we started with two and by the end of our ride we had 5, one very amerous one that kept mounting another. Dogs are everywhere here, roaming around the streets even if they are owned. They seem to have the run of the cities.
We finally met up with our tour group on the Thursday, two Aussie girls and a guy from London plus our peruvian guide Julio who was amazing when my bag was stolen, translating for me and then gave me a big hug when I was upset. Everyone is great fun and looking forward to the rest of our travels together.
Jungle blog to follow.
- comments
Laura Hi Doug & Islay - Three things your travels have taught me thus far: Doug wears wet knickers. Islay's hardcore. Doug... not so much. Peruvian guides called Julio might just be priceless. Looking forward to the jungle update... L.