Saturday, June 13, 2015

Off to Ecuador

While I was still in Mexico last winter, I decided to spend the summer months in Ecuador.  At first I was planning to just rent a little place in the Andean town of Cotacachi, about 2 hours north of Quito.  It's a small friendly town in a valley between 2 volcanoes and is know for its leather crafts - I bought a nice hooded leather jacket when I was here a year and a half ago. As I planned my trip, however, I got intrigued by the idea of volunteering at Los Cedros Biological Reserve, in the cloud forest about 5 hours away in the Intag region.  So I'm compromising and doing both!

Colonial building in Cotacachi, with dome of the cathedral in the background.
 I left home on June 5th and got to enjoy a lovely overnight visit with my friends Doug and Leon in Chicago - complete with wine and Doug’s delicious home-made Camembert cheese.

Enjoying friends, wine and Camembert (selfie by Doug)

I arrived in Quito the evening of June 6th and got driven to the beautiful Hosteria Oro Azul in Cotacachi,  It's a beautifully restored 100-year old farmhouse.


I was greeted by friendly manager Marcelo, and after a bit of chatting I hit the hay - it had been a long day of travel.
The next day I got settled in  and after a delicious breakfast prepared by Marcelo,  I took in my wonderful new surroundings.

View through the palm tree in front of the hosteria
View of the town of Cotacachi from behind the hosteria
 I walked into town for lunch - and happily Marcelo showed me a trail I could take to avoid the dusty dirt road.  Ate at Serendipity, an expat-owned restaurant I had enjoyed on my trip here a year and a half ago.  Sat at a table by myself - but a group of expats invited me to join them at their table   It's a friendly place!

Back at the hostel, Marcelo cooked a delicious meal featuring steamed trout flavored with garlic, rosemary and bay leaf.  What a treat!  Here's Marcelo hamming it up in the kitchen:



Though I'll be heading off to the Los Cedros reserve soon, I decided to follow up on a rental I had heard about through the Cotacachi Expat Facebook page.  According to expat Martica, the studio was cute and only $180 a month, so I went with her to check it out - and rented it!  Even if I don't use it all the time, it will be cheaper than staying at the hosteria when I'm in town, and I can have a place to call my own for these 3 months, with my own kitchen and a place to leave the things I don't take to the reserve.

The outside is a bit stark - but it has nice big windows for enjoying the views.
It's a one-room casita in the back yard of an indigenous family on the outskirts of Cotacachi.

The casita is down this lane

Rosita, the landlady, is a very nice person - we sealed the deal with a hug.  And since she doesn't speak English, I'll get to practice my Spanish with her.

Rosita feeding the chickens - by rubbing kernels off the cob.
Here are the inside views of the casita:

The kitchen/dining area.  That's the mini-fridge covered in a local weaving.

The living/sleeping area, with closet.  With the removal of the big back bolster, the sofa becomes a very comfortable queen-size bed.

And here's what those big windows look out on:

The front windows look out on the Cotacachi volcano.

And the back window looks out on the Imbabura volcano.
Rosita picked me up at the hosteria on Tuesday morning, and after getting settled in, I walked into town and bought fruits and veggies at the local covered market - and even got "ground peanuts" - a close approximation of the natural peanut butter I love; not very creamy, but tasty!   And I got other groceries at the "supermercado"(a bit of an exaggeration) so I could start cooking my own meals.

The next morning I savored coffee in the country: sitting in the yard listening to pigs grunting, guinea pigs squeaking, hens clucking, roosters crowing (in the distance, thank goodness), while watching Mount Cotacachi come & go in the clouds. I was soon joined by 3 friendly little dogs and a hen with her chicks.

Here are some of my animal neighbors:

Guinea pigs - just another farm animal here, raised for eating.

Pigs are in the back of the brick shed

And succulent hens & chicks are in the garden.
On Thursday, the 11th, I took a bus to Otavalo, a nearby town known for its craft market.  I,  however, was heading out of town to visit the waterfall in the village of Peguche.   When I got off the bus and started walking toward Peguche, I was greeted with this view of Cotacachi peaking up through the clouds:


It was only about a 45-minute walk to the falls - a small price to pay for this beauty:

Cascada Peguche
The waterfall is reached by trails through a nice shady park filled with mostly eucalyptus trees, and only a few native trees - like this tall specimen, branchless almost to the top.


Along the trails I spotted this Godman's Mapwing (identified by my friend Doug)
 

And I was home in time for lunch.  On a walk into town ( I found a way to get downtown on mainly country lanes) , I spotted this interesting structure which I take to be the remnant of an aqueduct that brought water into town from the mountains:


And country lanes let me see beauties like this along the way:


This morning, the 13th,  I took a beautiful kike around Cuicocha, a crater lake on the flank of Mount Cotacachi, with 3 guys from the Hosteria Oro Azul (unfortunately Marcelo couldn't make it).

Our international team:  Mattia from Italy, David from Australia and Antonio from Mexico (and me from the U.S.A., of course).

It was a great hike around the beautiful lake, with lots of wildflowers adorning the trail.  And the views of the lake and mountains were stunning.

 Cuicocha from the trail.

Flowers, lake and mountains.
This evening I'll be having dinner with these guys and Marcelo at Hosteria Azul - a fitting send-off for tomorrow's journey to the Los Cedros Biological Reserve (reservaloscedros.org).  I'll take a 4-hour bus ride to Chontal, in the Intag region, spend the night at a hostal there, and then in the morning take  a mule for the 2-hour journey up into the cloud forest to the reserve.

View in the reserve (from their website)
What I end up doing as a volunteer depends on what needs to be done at the time.  I'll most certainly be doing some trail inspection and maintenance, plus some gardening, cleaning, harvesting bananas and hopefully helping with some research projects.  Looking forward to living in the cloud forest with lots of amazing birds, flowers and animals.  I'm hoping the very noisy howler monkeys don't start calling too early in the morning!

Banana Flower
My plan is to volunteer for the minimum 2 weeks to see how I like it, and if the fit is good I'll stay for a month.  And if I still like it,  I'll probably take a 10-day break at my casita in Cotacachi before returning to the reserve for another month.  And that will leave  me with another short stay in Cotacachi before returning to Vermont.

Unfortunately the internet service at the reserve  is very basic, so I probably won't be able to post to my blog until I return to Cotacachi in 2 weeks or a month.  So stay tuned - but don't expect anything more soon!

Mountain View from Cotacachi