Rain in the Rainforest

I'm now in Otavalo, a nice town to the north of Quito. It's located in a lovely area of Ecuador, in a green valley between (you guessed it) several volcanos. We took a hike yesterday afternoon round the rim of one such volcano, that contains a beautiful large blue crater lake, with a couple of islands in the middle. The town itself basically functions as a giant tourist market, especially at the weekends. It's Saturday, the busiest day, and the streets are blocked by lines of market stalls selling ponchos, alpaca scarfs and clothing, jewellry of all colours and styles, Andean flutes, handbags, pirate music and DVDs and just about everything else you can think of. I'm trying to avoid spending more of my rapidly-diminishing cash on souvenirs that I'd have to lug around in my already bulging backpack for the next 5 months.

Rafting was really good fun. The company that took us rafting were a family originally from Ireland who moved over here about 14 years ago. They are a couple of about 50 and their 4 children, in their 20s. The boys work as rafting guides, the girls in the office and cooking the food. It's a great set-up, and they were very professional. The first day we rafted through the tropical forests near Tena, one of the biggest jungle towns in Ecuador. Because the water was a bit high, after the first serious rains in over a month (thanks to global warming, the rainy season doesn't see much rain any more), it was too dangerous to raft the normal river, so we had to take an alternative route. Half-way along there was a waterfall, way too rocky and rough to send the rafts down, so we had to get out and climb up the steep riverbank and around the side of the waterfall before continuing in the rafts. It was a bit scary, the guides had to set up ropes for us to steady ourselves with on the rocks. So we got a bit of rockclimbing and abseiling thrown in to the package. One girl fell and slit her elbow open, which was a little gruesome! But the rafting was great. Not quite as extreme as in Uganda: there were no flips. But I was quite glad of that. Instead we had fun pushing people off the rafts and ambushing other boats. One of the guys in our boat managed to pull one of the guides into the water, hehehe. He was pissed off though, because he lots his sunglasses. Oops!

The scenery was just breathtaking. It's hard to describe, but imagine a roaring river rushing between and over protruding rocks, flanked on either side by high rocky banks covered in dense, lush green vegetation. In the distance, you can see the jungle spreading out over hills and mountains, with clouds so low they look like giant cobwebs in the valleys that need sweeping away. The diversity of the flora and fauna is incredible. No two trees or plants seemed the same. We saw giant bright blue butterflies, and smaller orange and yellow ones, as well as tiny birds of all colours. Climbing across the rocks, we spotted centipedes and caterpillars and giant ants. Naturally, we got bit by the mozzies and sandflies. Well, some of us did. Haha.

The second day we rafted a river higher up in the Andes, where the world rafting championships is often held. The scenery was different but just as stunning. On Thursday we headed to Papallacta, a little town with hot springs in the cloud forest. I'm not good at relaxing, so I got a bit bored whilst the others were pampering themselves in the hot spa pools and paying stupid money for a massage. I took a hike up into the mountains nearby, which was really cool - I saw waterfalls and plunge pools and loads of flowers. However I also came across, along a deserted track, at least 5 skeletons of horses, in varying states of decomposition and consumption, some so fresh that the colours of the coats were still distinguishable. That was a bit gruesome. When I got back to the town I asked the guy in the Tourist Information centre about them, and he said the bears had eaten them. Which was puzzling, since the information on the display boards said that the bears here are vegetarian... I wasn't sure whether he was suggesting that the bears catch and kill the horses themselves, or whether dead horses were taken up there and dumped for the bears to eat, or maybe whether the horses had fallen from the cliffs above.

It's the last day of my tour today, we're heading back to Quito after lunch. It's been fantastic, I've seen and done so many things I'd never have been able to on my own, and I'm very glad I've done it. But I do miss being around people my age. It's not that I haven't got on really well with the rest of the group, I have, and it's been really interesting and fun to mix with people of such different ages and backgrounds. But it'll definitely be good to see some of the students from the Spanish school later tonight and tomorrow. It'll be great to catch up. And then on Monday I leave for Peru....!