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The hostel that we stayed at in Quito has an eco freindly sister hostel called the secret garden which we stayed at for three nights. It is probably the most isolated place we have ever been to, the was no electricity and we had to rely on candles at night and there is a wood burner in each of the rooms. The hostel had an amazing view of the Cotopaxi volcano, which is the highest active volcano in the world and is 20 years overdue for an eruption! On the first day we went to the waterfall which we were told was situated "behind the hostel", it took us over an hour to get to it, we thought there would be a path leading directly to it... it was a full on uphill hike to get to it, which at 3000m up isnt that easy! The next day we went horseriding in the Andean valley for 6 hours, first step was for James to overcome his fear of horseriding! We learned that nearby farms had trained fighting bulls that we should avoid as they were likely to attack us and the horses. However, Jamess horse was pretty lame and refused to listen and was more interested in eating everything and stopping and staring at horses in nearby fields. As we reached the top of the valley we encounter two bulls that were not backing down from the horses, luckily the escapee bulls didnt attack us but it felt pretty risky as we went past them. Apparently one of the horses had scared a cow, and had caused it to fall into a ditch..sounds pretty funny but we think it´ll still be down there! Will started a race with a guy called Selim (also known as Beryl), this caused Selim horse to go crazy, it galloped through a barbed wire fence and threw him of the horse three times! Everyone blames Will though for starting the race and nearly killing Selim! By the end of the day James was burnt to a crisp once again. On the last day we climbed to the refuge point on Cotopaxi which is where ppl usaully stay before making their final ascent to the summit. We reached a height of 5100m which we are told is higher than any summit in europe. We were so high up that we had to stop every 20 seconds because we were so out of breathe! We eventually made it to the snow point, we wanted to climb to the summit which is the same height as Kilimanjaro but it was too expensive, so we might try and climb a similar mountain in bolivia or Argentina if its cheaper! On the journey back to Quito our taxi was a pickup truck once again, and we both had to ride in the back, being carefull at the same time that we dont get jumped by passers by when the truck stopped as parts of Quito are notorious for car hijackings!
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