Horseback riding on a brim of a ravine

We are still in Quito… it took longer than expected to collect the spare parts for our van. At one point, we thought we would have to order them in the USA, and this would have meant waiting for at least another four weeks… Fortunately, all parts were available in Ecuador. I prefer not to make any forecast as when the camper will be ready, we will see.

So to kill the time, we have decided to visit central Ecuador without the camper. Quito is quite conveniently located and Ecuador is not a huge country, so we can make one or two-days tour easily.

Yesterday, we visited the laguna Quilotoa. It is a beautiful deep blue crater lake at an elevation of 3’850 meters (12’500 feet) at the rim. We went dow on a very steep path to the shore of the lake. We did not feel like climbing for two hours being at such an high elevation so we rented two horses with a guide to go back up. It was quite pleasant, but I was a bit scared because my horse had the irritating habit of waking near the edge of the path towards the ravine. The ravine was 400 meters high…My horse also always wanted to be the first, so every time the other horse was trying to pass, it would block the way and start trotting to gain some ground. The results of this annoying and not very smart behaviour was that its heart was pounding like a drum. I could feel it under my legs and was wondering whether it would make it to the top alive. Horses also suffer from the thin altitude air. Anyway all ended up well and we were extremely lucky to beat a storm by ten minutes…weather is changing very quickly in the mountains and it is the beginning of the raining season here. Last night we could watch a beautiful storm from the roof-top terrace with a lightning strikes all over the city.

We will spend the weekend in Mindo to do some bird watching in the cloud forest. We go by bus tomorrow morning and be back to Quito to follow up on the camper on Sunday night. Let’s hope we will be back on the road soon!