Hacienda Primavera Wilderness Ecolodge Imbabura

... vendors while having a bit of a browse. I´ve never drunk coconut juice straight from the fruit before... it was a real novelty! One of the girls I was travelling with bought herself a bolero hat which I thought looked wicked - I thought they looked a bit daggy on the locals and not really at all practical because the brim is too narrow, but out of the traditional context and on the right person I think it looks pretty cool... I'm thinking I´m probably ...

... restaurant, the credit union and Banco Pichincha (which ensures lots of traffic in the plaza), plus several small tiendas selling water, soda, snacks, jewelry, brooms, etc.. The benches are shaded by lots of trees (hence the name El Arbolito!), and the scene is ever-changing, with older gentlemen catching up with one another's news, teenagers in love holding hands, toddlers chasing birds while their mothers gossip with one another, and cars driving slowly past on ...

... of sugar plantations and I wonder whether this is a legacy of previous times when African slaves were brought in by the Spanish ruling classes to work on the land. The towns, though, did seem rather down at heel, half finished, dirty and with unmade, dirt roads running through them. The women I spoke to when trying to find the panaderia seemed cheery enough, asking me where I was from and how I was travelling, flashing their gold teeth whenever they ...

How is it that this is my first entry and there´s already so much to catch up on? When I arrived in Quito, I had arranged by email to meet up with my host family from 2 years ago when I studied abroad in Ecuador. They met me at the airport and I have been staying with them in their house in Los Chillos, one of the valleys outside the city. It was disconcerting and comforting how little has changed about them, their house, and the city in general. I was very ...

... The hotels there all have thermal baths/pools that have water heated by the<br>nearby volcanoes. We went for a little walk up the mountain (saw a GIANT wild boar!) and then<br>back to the hotel to relax in the hot baths - hard life! <br><br>The<br>next day we went to a homestay near Otavalo and near Cotocachi volcano<br>(more abysmal spelling) - the people are indigenous Quechan people<br>(think they were around before the Incas, or ...

... fantastic roads in various climates, from dry desert to tropical rainforest. <br><br>We crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere, which surprisingly was not marked with any sign but our GPS system displayed the change. <br><br>We arrived into Quito, which is a very modern, clean city where people are very well dressed, polite and sophisticated. Things are very inexpensive at the same ...

... garbage we found on the ground indicated that other people had been there before, but it seemed more like we were making our own trail at this point. <br><br>The forest ended and a marshy swamp started. And this took forever to walk through. In the drier season this flat ground would be a cinch to walk through. But early July is not dry enough and we sunk into just about every step. We weren&#8217;t prepared for that and didn&#8217;t have rubber boots. Eric lost his shoe ...

... we didn´t have many clothes coming from the jungle so we froze most of the time. After dinner the guide took us into the forrest and told us a myth about a knomb that could turn its head 360 degrees and had its feet on backwards was pretty unnerving. On one of the hikes up into the mountain I got altitude sickness and felt awful. None of us slept well that night and all woke up with headaches.

... who are the majority, wear traditional dress every day. The women wear long black skirts, beautifully embroidered white blouses & shawls. The men wear ponchos, calf length white trousers & have their long black hair platted down their back. I saw one man wrap his waist length pigtail around his neck, like a scarf, before he put his coat on. Even the teenagers wear traditional dress, some bow to modern ...

It felt like home to be at the Mercur, flaws and all. OK, it is a little different than home; brush your teeth with bottled water, don't flush toilet paper and don't be surprised when things like phones and door locks don't work - oh, and no climate control; air or heat. But it is clean, spacious, has great beds and an excellent breakfast buffet. We were out the door at 7:30 this morning for a day trip to Imbabura ...