5/2/23
Today I had my final glorious breakfast at the Guillerminas hostel, but decided against the eggs since I think it was the eggs the day before that had made me ill. I had avocado toast before packing and resting and ensuring I was psyched up for my bus. On the bus, I gazed out the window, partially watched some films and blogged a little. When I arrived at the bus station, I got a taxi to my hostel and ditched my stuff in the room. It was half six ish since the bus had been six hours, so I got out the remains of my cooked pasta with sardines and ate with a British guy, a German guy and a girl from the US. We chatted awhile and I made plans to hike the volcano Chimborazo with the girl Sophie in the morning. I went to bed fairly early, since I needed to be up early for the hike.
6/2/23
I woke up to my alarm and my tummy felt slightly worse than the day before. I decided that I didn’t want to be hiking at 5000 metres when I wasn’t feeling my jest, so I told Sophie I wasn’t coming, and headed back to bed for a bit before getting up for the free hostel breakfast. I managed to face the eggs this morning, and a hot choc! Afterwards, I chilled on a sofa and read my book, ‘The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox’, which I would definitely recommend. After finishing it, I headed out to a coffee shop to speak to catch up with Georgia on the phone. Sadly, the coffee shop I fancied was closed, so instead I ended up with a mammoth portion of banana pancakes and a very weak coffee. After a nice catch up with Gi, I headed out.
I wandered the streets and found a pretty church, a park with great views of mountains on all sides and a few squares wwoth pretty colonial buildings. I also found a market, with hot food as well as fresh fruit and veg. I bought a mild chilli, a tomato, an avocado and an onion ready for my next pasta dish. Then I headed back to the hostel. I cooked my food and chatted with the British guy, Martin, who also wasn’t feeling so well! I went to bed early ish again to have a hope of hiking in the morning.
7/2/23
Today was the day! I was going hiking! I had my breakfast at 7am sharp and the got a taxi straight to the bus station. Then I got the local bus to the side of the road, near Chimborazo, where there was a small visitors centre where you had to register – maybe slightly alarmingly, I was the only one on the list, the first of the day – was there something I didn’t know?! After registering, I got a 4×4 taxi up another 1000 metres or so to the first refuge. This was one, to not push myself too much and two, because I needed to get back to take a bus to a different town after my hike. Even the views from the car were beautiful, with some sort of wild llama/alpacas roaming free.
I hiked from the first refuge to the second one in less time than it said, despite needing or stop every fifty metres or so to try and breathe. My heart was beating so fast, and all because I’d walked a couple of paces! Altitude is wilddd! I filled my LifeStraw water bottle in a nearby stream before carrying on to the refuge and past it, to a silly, small ‘lake’. The small pond was frozen over as were some of the paths. The cloud came over Chimborazo and it looked a little ominous. I walked down as some donkeys were on their way up with local tourists in tow. On my way down, after going past the original refuge, I past a guy that was walking the whole way up. He reckoned it wasn’t as long as they predicted. This was great news to me because it meant I could walk the whole way down without worrying about missing the final bus to the next town I was staying in.
I took the cycle path down which was beautiful. It had stunning views in all directions, and I saw a few more wild and roaming llamas/alpacas. I was glad, however, not to be biking down since the path was steep in places with lots of loose stone on top of the dried and bumpy, so it would’ve taken me soooo long to go down wb with a bike, and probably would’ve ended up with my dragging the bike down as supposed to riding it! At one point, the wind really picked up and the sun dropped and suddenly I was in a sandstorm. I could barely see, even with sunglasses shielding my eyes in some way, feeling a r all the sand flying into my eyeballs from the sides – yowwww! Once, I had reached the bottom, there was meant to be a local bus in fifteen minutes. What that actually meant I wasn’t so sure since time is a little stretched here! I waited more or less the fifteen minutes in a fluctuating sand storm before a guy in a car passed and beeped the horn as if to ask was I okay. I stuck out my thumb, with a shrug and he pulled over.
Luiz (another one!), was a 27 year old student who was heading to University in Riobamba. He had an older sister who was a nurse and a brother who was also still studying. We spoke about carnival, my travels, my job, his studies, siblings and of course the amazing countryside in Ecuador and Ecuador itself and what’s more, it was all in my bad Spanish, which he kindly called ‘fluid’. He dropped me off at the bus terminal before heading the short distance back to his uni. I asked could I take a photo with him for my blog and he agreed cheerfully. What a guy!
Back at the bus station, I bumped into Erodian, the Russian from Cuenca who was off to Chimborazo briefly, just to see it. We had a quick chat before I booked my bus and he got his. Then I went to get my bits from the hostel and chill a little. I chilled in a hammock until it was time for my bus. Then I headed to Banos, which was only a couple of hours ride.
When I arrived in Banos and got to my hostel, who was there but Nadja, who I met about three weeks ago on the coast! Wild! We caught up and then she recommended me a place for areas, a corn based bread which I had filled with pulled beef, black beans, cheese and caramelised onions. Damn, it was glorious! Afterwards, I went for a coffee (a strong flat white no less!) in a very nice coffee shop. Then it was bed time!
wanderingwelshie2 travels 