Dead, Canadian, or Ecuadorean?

What up y’all, it’s been a bit since the last blog, my deepest heartfelt apologies (yes, I have one, and I'm occasionally sorry for some things), but I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the flu in Ecuador this week, as has Mike - a day behind, so he’s just on the road to recovery, but the good news is the worst is over, knock on wood... 

Lake Zorrocucho

So without further adieu...  So last Saturday, we decided to explore el Cajas National Park, which happens to be the second most-visited place in Ecuador other than the Galapagos islands, which we will be heading to in August as soon as our friends (who are hopefully following the blog - get in touch with us to make more concrete plans - you know who you are) arrive. Our excellent and knowledgeable guide Adrián took us, along with a handful of others, into the beautiful park, with altitudes up to 13,000 ft. on the páramo, or high-altitude grass/scrub lands.

It is dotted with nearly 800 chilly lakes, lagoons, and marshes, and is a major area for bird-watching and good hiking, but you need a good pair of rubber boots as it’s muddy.  The name cajas most likely comes from the word caxas, which means cold, in the indigenous language Quechua spoken here.  We did see lots of large hummingbirds and lots of pretty and exotic flora, but skimpy on the wildlife.

The exception is the alpacas, llamas, and guanaco(the cross of the two) that are being reintroduced into the southern highland park after being driven to near extinction.  The exotic member of the camel family, the vicuña, is only to be found in the higher elevations in the north like in Cotopaxi National Park.  There are puma that do live in the park, but they are elusive and need special equipment to monitor their movement. 

Lama says you will receive a warm sweater on your deathbed

We had a good hike around one of the lakes, lake Zorrocucho(fox-den), with the original German brewery that served Cuenca, until the invention of the car, which then meant they could brew in Cuenca.





We then headed up to the highlands, where the park is traversable on a two-day hike that forms part of the east-west Inca trail, which we walked part of, around several lakes and streams.

Tres Cruces

Starting there, one can see the tres cruces(three crosses) that represent the 3 levels of the Incan belief system, the cosmos, earth, and underworld.    

Charismatic Pensive Guy

Thank goodness it was mostly downhill, it was some serious work with some seriously thin air, and it rained – a lot.   It was worth it to see the change in flora and fauna as we dropped in altitude.  





















After that, we relaxed and had a good trout meal from locally raised trout, which was brought in from Canada back in the early-mid 1900s.  It did wipe out a local native fish, but the local people prefer it as it was a fish no one liked to eat.

 After all of the hiking we did, Sunday, we kept it simple and stayed around town, the town was a zoo as Guayaquil Barcelona(yes they stole everything from the Barca team), the best soccer team in the Ecuadorean league, came to town, along with almost 15,000 fans, to clinch a spot in the finals against Cuenca Deportivo, and the town was turned upside-down for a couple of days with Guayaquil soccer hooligans or monos(monkeys), as the Cuencanos would say.  And yes, Lexy, I got you a soccer shirt…  Cuenca won, but Guayaquil still qualified as they kept the game close.  (Goals scored -  for and against - matter in the scoring system)  The festivities lasted until Monday, let’s put it that way…  We’ll go to a game or two, but not that one.








 So we took a simple bus tour around the city to get an overall idea of the what there is to offer and go back later and see things we found interesting.  

Not-colonial, but

Pre-Incan Ruins

The highlights were the main cathedral, the beautiful colonial buildings and many well-preserved facades, the pre-Incan ruins, and we had a nice panorama of the city from the Turi church and scenic overview. 

View from Turi

            So then I got sick, then Mike got sick.  Good times…  Last night the University threw a dinner for the visiting students and professors, it was amazing, and all prepared by the head of the Gastronomy dept.(probably better than the one prepared by the gastroenterology dept.) with all locally grown and organic food.  (free-range, cage-free fruits and vegetables, Mom ;-)  It was in a friend’s words, life-changing…  Anyway, this weekend, we’re gonna try to check out some local towns like Chordeleg, Gualaceo, and Sígsig, which supposedly have great markets, ‘cuz my house needs more art and ceramics, uh, yeah…  I’m also ready for some hot springs, they are just outside of town, and I need to relax from vacation ;o)  Once again, sorry for the delay, and finally, it doesn’t look like it’s about to rain constantly here, so the sun is out, and I’m going running, or slow jogging, anyway along the river, maybe avoiding passed out people, we’ll see.  Take care, mi gente, and paz afuera (peace out) and palabra a tu madre(word to yo’ muthah’) – bad Spanish, don’t use that, it’s poor Spanish teacher humor.