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Ecuador was my first stop in south america. it was the mid way point of my trip. i actually think i flew out of europe into ecuador exactly 6 months after i left the states. ecuador proved to be a very interesting 7 weeks of my trip. first of all, it was the smallest country i visited; yet, it was the country i spent the longest amount of time in. ecuador was the country where i did some of the most interesting stuff on my trip. however, on a day to day basis, ecuador was the slowest. perhaps this resulted from ecuador being the country where i moved off the tourist trail the most, therefore, making ecuador the country where i spent the least amount of time meeting other travelers and more time getting to know the locals. there was a fair number of nights spent cold and alone waiting for my indian jones plans to materialize.

Ecuador

Andy Wunder
2007-04-19 22:45:21

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was running around trying to help him out. by the time they got a car out to drive him to a clinic, he had
stopped breathing. they lifted his limp body into the car and his hysterical girlfriend was finally allowed next to him. everybody was really upset and hysterical. one thing that i felt was really weird was that after 2 hours of crying, the locals were back on the beach smoking weed and playing soccer. i left that night scared of death for the first time in my life.

the next day i woke up in cuenca, a city where i settled down to study spanish. it was a beautiful colonial town with a very pleasant climate. i decided that the best way to make the most of my 30 hours of one-on-one spanish lessons was to live with a local family. not only was it incredibly beneficial to my spanish but i meet an amazing family and got a true look into how a middle class ecuadorian family lived. i moved in with a grandma and her daughter and the three of us had the best time talking (they were very patient with my spanish as they could speak no english) and playing cuarenta, an ecuadorian card game. it was a great relaxing week and now i am part of an ecuadorian family.

from there i went to a small party town called banos. however, unluckily for me, it was national election time and alcohol is illegal around election time. so, no partying for me. instead i decided to use banos as a base to climb one of the world largest active volcanos, cotopaxi (translated from the quechua, cotopaxi means "smooth neck of the moon"). check out this website for some good pics of cotopaxi http://www.ecuador-images.net/mountain.cotopaxi.htm. cotopaxi rises to nearly 5900 meters (17700ft) with base camp at 4800 m (14400ft) being higher than the tallest peak in the european alps. we made it up to base camp around 6 in the afternoon where we tried hard to find the oxygen needed to learn how to use the ice pick and crampons. at this altitude, altitude sickness becomes a very serious concern causing many people to turn around due to unbearable pain and in some instances it can kill the climber. we were set to leave base camp at 1am the next morning. when we woke up at 1am it was snowing pretty strongly but the guides said we would give it a go anyways. we climbed and climbed and
by the time we reached the second glacier the snow was making the 45 degree climb up the ice dangerous. our guides decided it would be prudent to turn around and i cant say i argued with them, im just glad they decided to turn around before i did so i didnt look like the wimp of the group that wanted out. i got back to base camp and had one of the worst headaches of my life and was very happy to make it back down to civilization for a nice warm shower. mountaineering cotopaxi was an awesome experience and it was just as awesome to have been done with it.

after cotopaxi i headed to the amazon rainforest to live with an indian tribe. however, that comes in its own blog. it was the craziest 2 weeks of my life and i want to give it plenty of space. look out for the next blog.

after the amazon i was basically done with ecuador. i finished up by riding a train (on the roof, see the last picture) down to the southern part of ecuador and revisiting my family in cuenca for a few days. after that, i headed down into peru and ended my long stay in the small country that straddles the equator. and let me tell you, ecudaor was an amazing stay.

Andy Wunder
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