I arrived in Cuenca early doors after another nightbus with a painless border crossing at 2am into Ecuador with the three people from Santiago I’d met. We lucked out at a hostel as the owner gave us a room that slept eight just for the four of us and let us check in straightway; we got some extra kip before heading out to explore. I’d not really read up to much on the place and was happily surprised by the town. It’s probably the most beautiful city I’ve visited to date in South America. And it being Saturday the place was fairly quiet, we strolled around taking in the colonial architecture, enjoying some of the local restuarants and cafes. And to be honest that’s all we did for the two days that’s we had there. We had intended to take in a few museums on the Sunday but forgot that all museums are closed then! The Saturday night we celebrated one of the girl’s birthdays, which we had intended on being a late night but were caught out by everything in the city closing bang on the dot at 2am with the police sweeping all the bars and clubs. We were wondering why everyone was heading into the clubs as early as 11pm….on the plus side that meant we weren’t hungover the next day all though we all slept in pretty late nonetheless. Sunday was another day of mooching followed by a Indian curry restaurant with some others, my first Jalfrezi in over five months! Monday morning I said goodbye to the guys, I’d had a great two days hanging out with them and practising Spanish.

I took a taxi, two buses and another taxi leaving Cuenca at 12.30pm and arriving to Vilcabamba at 7pm. Vilcabamba is famous for the great age a lot of indigenous people reach. Vilcabamba benefits from a tropical appearance of its plants and trees but with a far less stifling climate, you can see why a large number of US retires locate to the area. I checked into a “Hostel Izhcayluma” if you can call it that…..it was more like a retreat and spa! They’d run out of dorm rooms but turned one of the family rooms into a sort of dorm. I lucked out as the current two occupants had taken the bunk bed leaving me a double. (Two very charming ladies from Colorado.) It was a 30min walk outside the town, but they have a reasonably priced restaurant onsite, and in the morning they served a more than decent breakfast with spectacular views of the surrounding valley and hills. I headed off with three other girls for a morning horse riding. This was the best horse riding trek I’ve done, the scenery was spectacular as we climbed really high up into the surrounding hills. The horses were really keen and fast, and speed was necessary at times to get up the steep narrow passes. I’m not an experienced rider, and think I’ve been on a horse twice in the last ten years, but soon found myself galloping along with the rest of the group. Initially frightened, but after a while with a few tips from another girl got the knack and was managing to stay on the saddle versus getting flown up and down repeatedly whacking my arse… wicked fun. We climbed to the top of the hills where the guide’s parents had a small farm, we left the horses there and continued on foot to the apex of a hill with 360 views. The vegetation was completely different to anything else I’d seen so, far more lush, with narrow ridged hills rolling away from all sides. On our return once we’d descended the hills and trekked back through a river bed we then had a two kilometre stretch of twisty lanes that we galloped at full pace and arrived back in the centre of the town. It was pretty exhilarating the five us streaming in at full pace, felt like a posse rocking back in just like in a Western! Especially with the one handed riding style here, leaving the other hand to flail around in a yee-hah cowboy stylee!

A little saddle sore and knowing I would be aching following the riding I treated myself to massage at the hostel in the late afternoon. The next morning I went with my two roommates for a hike in the Podocarpus national park. It was pretty steep, wet and rocky and my hiking shoes came of the worse for wear! Unfortunately as it was rainy season it was really cloudy and at the top the view was limited. But we did see wild orchids and bromeliads. We parted in the town of Loja were I had a six hour wait for a nightbus. As it was raining I just camped out at a wifi cafe to kill some time before boarding the bus.

That nightbus from Loja to Cotapaxi was my first experience of a freezing bus, which after five months of travelling wasn’t too bad! I tried to sleep with my alpaca wool scarf over my face. I was dropped off at 6am on the panamerican highway an hour south of Quito near the Cotopaxi national park. An arranged taxi collected me to take me to the secret garden hostel a further hour drive up a very slow and rocky road. This hostel simply blew all others that I’ve stayed in away. First the location…its in the middle of nowhere with the imposing active volcano of Cotopaxi in the distance. As the place is in the middle of nowhere the price of all meals is included in the roommate, and the food was excellent. They grow a decent amount of the own fruit and veg, as well as having their own chickens for eggs. The dorm rooms have no electricity but in the evening candles are lit in all the window sills, and a wood burning stove in the centre is lit to warm the room. As well as normal toilets they had an Eco-compost toilet, which all though stank a bit was a delight to use as it had a sloping glass roof with views straight out over the volcano. I only had one night here, but I could have very easily stayed a week!

Everyday one of the girls from the hostel guided a short hike to a waterfall, which I went on with three others on my first afternoon. We all jumped into possibly the coldest water I’ve ever been in! After a very hearty dinner and a few hours in the jacuzzi we retired to our cozy dorm, I slept so well! Following morning myself and a English girl were climbing to the start of the glacier level of the volcano. The full height of the volcano is 5897…just higher than Kilimanjaro. I wasn’t attempting this, all though two other guys in the hostel completed whilst I was there. It involves staying the night at a refugio and getting up at midnight to attempt to scale it by the following morning, it’s a really technical and difficult ice climb with ropes axes and leaps of faith across crevices and a number of people have died just this year trying to complete it. It’s about 250$ to do the full climb and only a 30% success rate as the altitude is an absolute killer coupled with the difficulty.

So our climb was only from 4300 upto the first glacier level at 5100 metres…not very far but the altitude still played havoc with my breathing having to stop very often the higher we got. (And a new highest hike for me). It was also climbing in scree which was akin to hiking up sand dunes. As we reached the glacier level the clouds had started to close in a little bit, but the view were still worth it. We climbed into a little bit of the glacier , more for photos than anything else and posed with axe and ropes. The way down was so much easier thankfully! I had a final great lunch at the hostel before transferring to Quito.

I was so so tempted to stay and extra night or two but needed to get to Quito to book a Galapagos deal with a deadline of a flight to Mexico the following week. I arrived too late that night to do anything, but Saturday morning found an eight day trip leaving the next day! ……..tbc…..