the tourist (only without Johnny Depp!)

wohoo for internet! For the last week all the internet cafes have banned me from my blog-so annoying! As you will have, hopefully, guessed my mum and Julia arrived safely. Tired but ok. As for me, the last few hours of waiting were awful!Mummy and Julia arrived 1am Thursday morning, the poor things were a bit zombie like and even I was a bit tired by that time.

   Thursday we pottered around and booked some tours etc. I got Julia and mum to experiment with local food! It´s funny but seeing how surprised they are by all sorts of things which are normal for me makes me realise how used I am to Ecuadorian life. I feel almost native in comparision!

    Friday we did a city tour and wow did we pack it in. Turned out our tour was personal so it was just us 3 in a lovely comfy car with a guide. We went to a volcanoe national park-was a thick mist so didn´t see much so instead we went to an Indian Sun Temple. Was a unique experience! The temple was officially closed so we had the place to ourselves. The guide there did all sorts of fun experiments to show us the Equator line inc balancing an egg on it´s side and making us walk along the line(your natural balance goes out and you fall over!) We explored the native aromatherapy cave, saw paintings and sculptures and finished off with a native dance with the guide all dressed up in costume!! The dance was a very powerful and quite eerie. This solitary man whirling around whilst surrounded by mountains.

Next we went to the centre of the world! This is where the line of the Equator runs. We were VERY touristy and took loads of photos of us straddling the line-one foot in each hemisphere. Very silly but fun. We then moved on to a zoo where we saw giant tortoises and South American Condors :) After that we went up the teleferiquo which is a cable car which takes you up to a mountain above Quito. The view was fascinating. Quito is narrow but long (45k long) so the higher we went the more we saw!! After that (very long day!) we went to see the angel statue that overlooks the city and then got a tour around the beautiful old town. Had a fabulous day!

 
   Saturday we went to a native market Otovalo. Full of people and all the stall holders in their native dress. A whole town full of carved wooden statues, stone carvings, hand made musical instruments, jewellery and sooo many blankets, woven bags, shawls etc it dazzled you. Everything is rainbow coloured and it quite takes your breath away! Everyone calling you friend and the terrifying experience of haggling! The native women with their babies tied on their backs with a shawl and little children sitting under the tables and peering out at us. I only wish I could describe it properly.

Sunday we climbed up Cotopaxi. This is the biggest active volcanoe in the country and the 2nd biggest in the whole world! We walked (scrambled up) up to 5,000metres (18,000 ft) which was exhausting. The lack of oxygen was so tiring plus we got caught in a snow storm whilst climbing. Was scary at the time but soo exciting!!! There are pictures of us just seconds apart where one moment everything is fine and the next we are in a fog and it´s snowing.

  Yesterday we flew to Cuenca;an old colonial town in the south. The flight was the most relaxed travelling experience I´ve ever had. The check in desk opened an hour late so we all just had to wait until the staff decided to turn up. Security didn´t bother to look at all our passports-2 out of 3 is enough.The security x ray man didn´t bother to look at his screen when the bags passed. Quite calming really!

  Cuenca is a lovely old town, one of the oldest in Ecuador. Full of Spanish colonial buildings with metalwork balconies and a park full of palm trees. Today we went to Ingapirca which is the biggest Inca ruins in the country. On the way we visited the sanctuary of the Virgin of the Morning Dew. A beautiful high up church built into a cliff in a tiny village. The altar is cut directly our of the cliff face and is the only one in all of North&South America!

Was a weird moment when Juan, our guide, told us that this tiny village in the middle of nowhere grieved because they had lost 6 men in the 9/11 bombing. They had been working as window cleaners in the Twin towers. Who would have thought that this isolated spot could have been connected with the bombings? Was a weird moment of conecting 2 cultures.

The shape of the Ingapirca settlement is a puma. The Incas have 3 sacred animals; puma, Condor and snake. Most of the ruins were built by the Cañari (local Indians) and they lived their with the Incas for 5 years.

 After that there was a north v south civil war spanning over all 6 latino countries. Sadly the Cañari backed the losing side and were all massacred. It was so sad to see these beautiful ruins and yet hear dreadful stories of the Spanish conquerors (I do hope the Spanish tourist was´t sensitive!