Quilotoa

Javier and I took our first trip this past weekend to Quilotoa! (**warning** picture heavy post ahead) It was so fun to travel with some of our new school friends and to visit one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been on Earth.  We hopped on a bus right after school on Friday and spent about 4 hours on the road to Black Sheep Inn.  Let me take a minute to say that I cannot say enough about how awesome the Black Sheep Inn was (amazing food - all vegetarian, beautiful views and wonderful staff).

Let me start by showing you around our digs for the weekend.  The group we went with was SUPER nice and gave Javier and me the private cabin!! (Everyone else stayed in the 'Bunk House' - which was nice, but mostly consisted of floor after floor of bunk beds.

We had a little wood burning stove (that we tried and failed to use on Saturday night) 

Our cabin (and the whole place) was decorated with lots of black sheep, including this mask (these masks are EVERYWHERE in Ecuador and are often used in festivals, etc) of a somewhat terrifying black sheep.

Did I also mention that we had no plumbing for the potty?  Just some good ole wood shavings to scoop and throw on top....  

Our cabin had a double bed (complete with black sheep pillow) and loft that contained another double mattress.

Alpaca blanket they had hanging on the wall (the indigenous people wear these hats and ponchos often)

We had a little swing (that I absolutely took advantage of...maybe with a glass of wine in hand...)

This was the view we had when we walked out our door.  

We went to bed early Friday night (partially because we're all teachers and therefore exhausted by 9pm on a Friday) because we were headed to Quilotoa in the morning to check out the crater lake.

We rode in the back of two trucks (about 30/45 minutes) to get to the lake, but there were GORGEOUS views along the way.

Here is the crew that had to stand up in the back of their truck. (What troopers!)

When you arrive and walk down the hill, this view just appears and absolutely takes your breath away.

Here we are :) It was a little cold at the top so I'm using what I can to cover my ears...

You can see the path leading down to the lake.  Going down was SOooOOOooOO much easier than walking up.

At the bottom we rented kayaks to ride around the lake.  We went all the way across and enjoyed the sites (sheep grazing on the steep sides of the hills) as we paddled around.

This was my view for much of our ride.

There are no pictures of my walk up because it was hell horrible kind of tiring and certainly less fun than the way down.  If you're not in it for the hike, you can pay $10 to have a mule or horse carry you up.  It's probably not much faster (it's steep for them too) but might save your calves!

Back at Black Sheep, I did some exploring and made a friend. (He was HUGE and also maybe a she...)

It was a  little cold so we built a bonfire to hang out by.

Here is our group! (and the corner of the box we're using to prop up the camera!) Including Uve, Javier (other Javier) and Poppy's little dog that hiked everywhere that we did!  I was so impressed with her all weekend!

Here is a mama llama we saw (just above our cabin)  Some folks (including Javier) played frisbee golf (Black Sheep not only had a course, but claimed it as the highest frisbee golf course in the world) and got an up close and personal view of the llamas.  (Black Sheep's instructions for playing actually ask that you avoid hitting the llamas on the course).

On Sunday we got up and went on another hike (closer to Black Sheep) called Skywalk.  (I should have guessed from the name, but for whatever reason did not realize, that the hike would include some very steep, very high and very narrow parts).  The hike started, however, along a ravine that took us by some interesting looking mountains, cows (lots of cows) and even a few other hikers.

Cool looking mountain.

Walking through the ravine.

Here is the only picture I took of the terrifying panic inducing scary part.  You can barely see it, but we're basically on the side of a mountain, with a river at the bottom (mostly you're looking at the small rock between me and the drop since this was the only spot I felt comfortable enough to stop and take a picture).

After several minutes, my legs stopped shaking enough to stand for this picture to prove that I made it to the top. (Also Javier did not go on this hike, but selected to stay back at Black Sheep for another round of frisbee golf).

We also walked through several fields, some that contained sheep and others with mules or horses.  The scenery was basically gorgeous the entire time.

After the hike and some lunch, we headed back to the big city.  It was such a gorgeous and adventurous weekend.  The altitude of both Black Sheep and Quilotoa are certainly something to consider (both are very high), but this would otherwise be on our 'highly recommended' list for any visitors that might be interested. The view of the crater lake cannot be compared to anything else I've seen.

Teleferiqo

Yesterday Javier and I had a little fun being Quito tourists.  The city has a sky ride (is there another name for this? cable car ?) that takes visitors and locals alike to the top (almost) of the Pichincha volcano.  Ok, it doesn't go all the way to the top, but it gets you pretty far.  Some travelers select to hike the rest of the way to truly summit the volcano.   Yours truly decided to pack some sandwiches and a bottle of wine to picnic instead.  We may do the hike someday, but we both agreed our first time up would be a relaxing one.  (As high as we are in Quito (9,350 ft), we knew the altitude of Pichinicha (13,280 ft when you step off the cable car) may make the climb all the more difficult.)

A little welcome written in stone to start off the trip. 

A quick 8 minute ride and we were at the top! As I've said before, the pictures just don't do the view justice!

We (for whatever reason) really wanted to try to find our apartment building.  This is Javier using the last couple seconds of the binoculars that someone else had paid for and abandoned to try to find our building.  He found it! It was actually easy enough to see without the aid of the binoculars.  And once we found it, we kept using it to figure out where other city attractions where (things look a little different from so far up!).

Ok, do you see the red brick building that has a kind of short white building in front of it? (in the not quite center, but a little up and to the left of this picture)  That's our building!

Mostly we just marveled at the view.  Breathtaking doesn't seem to cover it.  Even with some clouds in the sky (that kept us from seeing some surrounding volcanos) the city was just gorgeous

There is also a little chapel at the top so we took a walk and checked it out.  This seems to be a Quito thing: having a church everywhere.  And being this close to the sky certainly makes you feel heavenly

You can kind of see the 'top' of Pichincha under cloud cover in the left of this picture.  And the adorable little chapel.

It was small inside

but had gorgeous stained glass windows!

 And everywhere we walked there seemed to be another view to document.

We also randomly ran into some VT students that are in Quito for a study abroad semester.   My Virginia sweatshirt helped us make friends. 

We found a great place to put our blanket down (our picnic blanket made the short list of items that made it to Quito!) and have our lunch.

After our lunch we walked just a little ways down the path.  Just off the trail (the barbed wire was already propped up so you could slide underneath) we found another awesome view where the mountains kind of meet.  Its hard to describe and (per usual) the photo below doesn't do it justice, but it was REALLY cool to see.

As we were walking back I made Javier take one more picture of the farm land we could see off in the distance.  It's harder to see in the picture but the land was laid out like a grid and looked super cool. (You guys just need to come here and see if for yourself...it awesome)

The ride down is scary cool too because you have the view as you descend.  

It was a great way to spend a couple hours and definitely made our 'do with folks when they come visit' list!  

Centro Historico

I told you that we didn't take pictures the first time we traveled to Quito Viejo or Centro Historico because it was Independence day and we didn't want to look like tourists (anymore than we had too...).  But have no fear, we I busted out the camera on our next trip to old town to share with you the unbelievable sights that Quito has to offer.  Even with two visits we haven't seen nearly all that we want to, but I'll share what we have so far (to get you pumped for your own visit).

Here we are in Plaza de Independencia.  This is the 'main' plaza where we found many flowered wreaths and tourists on Independence day.  It also has a decent amount of greenery and many many benches for folks to sit and people watch.  Every time we've been here (twice) the benches have been lined with folks, mostly eating ice cream (helado) or espumilla (which I wrote about after our first visit to old town).  

This is Catedral Metropolitano de Quito.  We were visiting on a Sunday so they were finishing mass, but we got to peak inside for a bit. 

This is the Carondelet Palace or President's house.  Apparently it is open to the public, you just need to wait your turn to go inside.  There has been a line around the block both times we walked past. 

You can see some of the greenery (i.e. shade) and benches!

You can see the monument to the independence heroes in the middle there (and what a gorgeous freaking day it was...everyday).

These are some quick pictures I snapped in Catedral Metropolitano de Quito.  All of the churches we've been in have very graphic and lifelike (they almost remind me of figures you'd see in a wax museum) crucifixes.  

Let me always say that my pictures in no way, shape or form do these sights justice.  The ceiling was made out of wood and so intricate and beautiful I had to attempt a photo.

After walking around the plaza, we ended up on a tour of an active convent just a few blocks from the square.  Mariana de Jesus was a nun at the convent.  She is the patron saint of Ecuador and the first person from Ecuador to be canonized.  The tour was in Spanish and we couldn't take pictures inside, but I took a few when we were out in courtyard.  In addition to finding the cloister quite beautiful, the tour and exhibits/displays were very engaging.  I tried to take some pictures of the interactive stuff for my museum studies inclined friends.

They added the glass to the arched windows to protect the art that has been painted along the walls.

At this exhibit, folks on the tour got to 'vote' (with the colored ping pong balls) which saint or religious leader they most identified with.  Also you can see the nun we had on our tour.  She kept ending up next to me and obviously wanted to share her wisdom (cause she kept talking to me) but with my Spanish being all but non existent and her English the same...we never made the connection.

Its a little hard to see but this map (of Quito) had little doors you could pull away that revealed information on other convents in the city. (Again super interactive and cool.)

Mariana de Jesus was apparently a big deal around here.  The wooden walkway you see on the right marked her quarters (or area) of the convent.

This is another one of those thislookedsomuchbetterinperson photos, but you can see The Virgin from inside the courtyard.

Then we took a walk through Plaza de San Francisco (which if you remember correctly, was where we saw the awesome show with all of the fire that I wrote about here).  You may recognize Iglesia de San Francisco in the background there.  This is another beautiful plaza, but has less greenery and benches.  Most people seem to be walking through or headed into Iglesia de San Francisco.  We stepped inside the church for a bit to see the terrifying (and massive) painting of judgement day that they have displayed.  I've never seen hell depicted quite so vividly.  

Can you find Javier in this photo? 

A view of the plaza from the steps of Iglesia de San Francisco.

This is Hotel Boutique Portal de Cantuna, the most expensive hotel in Quito.  I think I mentioned it in my other post, but all the Ecuadorians point it out, so I figured its worth mentioning...again.

This picture doesn't show it well at all, but the top half of these stairs were cut into the stone and the bottom half built out from the stone.  It makes it look like they folded the bottom half down from the top half.  You'll just have to trust me that it looks really cool or come visit and see for yourself.

Just a quick introduction to the many spots Centro Historico has to offer.  In addition to the amazing churches, that area of town if fun to walk around in.  There are tons of vendors selling food (everywhere) and tourists and music and people watching.  I'm sure we'll spend some more tourist time down there as the year progresses!