From Ecuador

Greetings from Arcadia,

When you think of Ecuador, you think of dude ranches, right? I’m going to assume that, like me, your answer is a resounding “No.” Even though it’s a far cry from the steamy jungle lodges in the Amazon or the blue-footed booby watching in the Galapagos that most people experience when they visit here, the country I saw in my two weeks dude-ing it up in the highlands felt like a real slice of Ecuador.

My journey to Ecuador was so much smoother than my journey to Peru that it doesn’t even feel fair to compare them. The first stop was Hacienda La Alegria (alegria meaning joy, en Espanol), close to the famous Cotopaxi volcano. The hacienda is a working dairy farm about an hour outside of Quito that caters to both locals and tourists from all over the world who are looking to ride and get a little fresh, country air. They have around 70 horses and over 150 head of dairy cattle (every single cow has a name – it’s on their ear tags), plus four and a half adorable dogs that had such personalities I couldn’t help but start writing the pitch for their reality show:

The Border Collies of La Alegria

 

Oreo

Likes: Being El Hefe, power naps outside the kitchen, following hacienda owner Gabriel around

Dislikes: When the whippersnappers (his sons – except for Cuy) step out of line

 

 

Sultan

Likes: Kitchen scraps, belly rubs, slow walks

Dislikes: Hills

 

 

 

Blackie

Likes: Having salon-perfect hair, barking at llamas, chasing llamas, biting slow llamas

Dislikes: Being told to stop harassing the llamas

 

 

Snowy

Likes: Stalking The Cat, long walks at high speed, messing with big brother Blackie

Dislikes: Going anywhere slowly

 

 

Cuy

Likes: Being a Border Collie-Lite, herding horses with Jose Luis, mud/manure puddles

Dislikes: Being told what they do to guinea pigs in South America

 

These dogs were such fun, and when I went on walks around the country lanes, inevitably Snowy and Blackie were about a mile ahead of me, but stopped every few minutes to let me catch up.

About an hour after I arrived at the hacienda, I was brought down to the barn to see the milking operation at work, and was allowed to milk one of the cows by hand. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined milking a cow would be one of the first things I did in Ecuador. I’m not sure this is something to boast about, but I got the hang of it almost right away, while the other two visitors struggled to produce a drop. I guess I can now put cow milking on my resume – although I hear milkmaid is not a job description in high demand these days.

One of the best things about the hacienda was the wide variety of people that were coming and going, and I got to talk to and ride with people from all over the world. The second day I rode with Chris and Kate, both from England originally, but they’ve been travelling full-time for the past three years and are working on writing a book. My first ride was on Desafio (I was only slightly alarmed upon hearing that desafio means “challenge” in Spanish), a beautiful creamy-colored buckskin Criollo horse. Desafio actually presented very few challenges, and once I got used to how much the horses’ hooves slipped on the cobblestoned lanes, I was able to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery around the hacienda. This area of Ecuador actually reminded me a bit of rural Ireland, super green, misty, incredibly lush pastures filled with livestock. Except for the exotic looking trees and flowers, I could have been riding a country lane in County Kildare. Along the way I chatted with Chris and Kate, and our guide Mauricio, a semi-retired engineer from Quito who worked for years for UNICEF and has been in over 60 countries.

I learned quickly that La Alegria is different from many tourist ranches because guests eat dinner in the all-original early-1900s main house, at the table with owner Gabriel and his charming wife, Patty. Every night with different people, we ate together, sharing delicious South American wine and Ecuadorian cheese (cheese being somewhat of a passion project of Gabriel’s), and I got to hear everyone’s interesting stories, jokes, and share some of my own. The third night, a group returned from a 4-day ride to a nearby volcano, which included the fun and boisterous Charlotte, from England, and her friend Ginny, as well as Victoria from France, and Janet from Pennsylvania.

The next day I rode (Desafio again) with a really nice group of people – Diane and Miles from Lexington, Kentucky, and Diane’s brother Chad and his Ecuadorian wife Paola, who live in Cuenca. Chad and Paola were giving Diane and Miles a grand tour of Ecuador, and stayed overnight after a 4-hour ride, an hour of which was in the pouring rain. I enjoyed riding and chatting with them, and once they realized I was experienced rider, they peppered me with questions, asking for advice about how to make the trot more comfortable (which is hard to do because the South American saddles make it hard to post the trot). They were lively dinner companions and we were joined that night by a couple who came for an overnight from Quito – an Aussie and his Ecuadorian girlfriend. I rode with them the next day, and they got to witness some first-class cursing, as I was mounted on Apache, who was a really lovely pinto (undoubtedly with some Arabian heritage) that enjoyed stopping my heart every 20-30 minutes as he spooked violently sideways at one inane thing (cow) or another (blue piece of trash).  

On Sunday, after the other guests left, I had dinner alone with the owner Gabriel, who is an interesting, but very serious man. I saw him occasionally crack a wry smile, but never heard him laugh. We talked about the hacienda he inherited, which has been in his family from the time it was built in the early 1900s. It’s a big operation, that he runs with only 14 staff, some of whom handle the milking, some the horses, some the cooking and cleaning, and others like Mauricio handle the tourists. Gabriel also rides with many of the tour groups, showing people around the countryside that he knows like the back of his hand. His current project is a cheese cave, which is built into a natural depression in a hillside formed by an underground spring. He dug further in and created a cave that is about 70 feet long, filled with racks for his cheese and lit by flickering candles. If I could bottle that musty, earthy, cheesy smell for you, I would, but then again I might keep it for myself because it was intoxicating.

I had pre-booked a 2-day ride into the cloud forest, and though I was hoping I might be able to go with a group, one of the hazards of solo travel is that sometimes if you want to go, you have to go alone. So, that’s what I did (although Mauricio and Jose Luis accompanied me). I rode Zuleta, who was a perfectly nice horse, until he started wheezing like a geriatric smoker and making alarming hippo-like noises toward the end of the ride. Jose Luis’ diagnosis was that he was “just tired” although I later learned from Gabriel that he has a respiratory condition, which is somewhat like asthma in humans. To make a long story short, the first day of the ride was two hours of good weather and easy riding, and then another four hours of rainy, poncho-covered, tedious and muddy riding to reach our destination of Bomboli.

Bomboli is a property named for the mountain it sits upon, which is covered in primary cloud forest. It’s incredibly beautiful, incredibly damp, and incredibly (since I wasn’t told this until we reached the place) without electricity. But its inhabitants are the most charming older couple, Señor Oswaldo and Señora Marionetta (the best cook in Ecuador, in my opinion), and their brand new fluff-ball of a puppy, appropriately named Bomboli.

We sat drying ourselves by the fire and talking Ecuadorian politics, with Mauricio translating for me, and then ate a delicious dinner by candlelight. Marionetta pulled together the best three course meal I had in two weeks of pretty good eating in Ecuador, and she did it in the dark wearing one of those headlamp things. I retired early to my basement room which was sadly far away from the fire and so damp that every surface was covered in condensation, though they had thoughtfully put a hot water bottle under the sheets to warm them for me.

Rising at dawn, I went upstairs to say good morning and let Bomboli chew on my shoelaces for a bit before Oswaldo and Mauricio (with Bomboli running along underfoot) took me out for a stroll in the garden. The garden is clearly Oswaldo’s domain and first love in life. He grows a stunning variety of orchids amongst the mossy trees and will even go out in the forest to find struggling plants, bring them back and plant them in a “hotel” specially made for orchids to thrive. He’s had orchid experts from Belgium and the U.S., among many others, to see his garden because it grows in varieties not seen elsewhere in the world. With Mauricio translating, Oswaldo told me about his philosophy of nature, how he believes deeply in using plants to heal a multitude of illnesses, and though the land belongs to him he believes that the water coming down from the mountaintop belongs to everyone who lives on the mountain. I learned later that he has been offered what is a fortune in Ecuador to sell the land, but he refused to do so because he is so dedicated to its preservation. He is a gentle soul and a lover of nature, and I felt honored to get the chance to hear about and see his passion for the flora and fauna of Bomboli.

After a delicious breakfast with more of Marionetta’s homemade dulce de leche, we mounted up and went back through the muddy cloud forest to head back to the hacienda. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and doctoring the hideous redneck sunburn I managed to get in the two hours of sunny weather we saw the previous day.

My final day at the hacienda was sad, but also a relief because the grandkids had arrived, in force, with their friends and cousins from Quito. Gabriel and Patty’s grandchildren were on spring break and spent the day motoring around and around the house on a quad bike, chasing and throwing large quantities of water and soap bubbles at each other, and generally having a great time running around the property and shrieking. I said a more tearful goodbye to Gabriel and Patty than I had planned on, and climbed in the pickup truck taxi that would take me the two hours from the hacienda to another B&B in the highlands, this time in the northern part of Ecuador.

The B&B is on a road not recognized by the Great Google, and therefore my driver Pablo and I had some fun finding it. Getting from the hacienda to the B&B, Pablo seemed to take the “Reduzca La Velocidad” signs as a personal challenge, and we therefore reached Cayambe in what I believe was a land speed record. But once we turned off the main road, things got a little hazy. I had a intermittently functioning GPS in my hand and he was looking at me like I held the answer to the secrets of the universe. Thankfully we had plenty of daylight to find the place, and we eventually pulled up to the B&B, which seemed empty. We walked around knocking on various doors before we found the owner, Jeannie. She is a self-described old hippie, and has grand plans to make the place into a spiritual healing center for dance therapy, yoga therapy, art therapy, music therapy, nature therapy, something called “forest bathing,” and equine therapy, among others. I was more interested in culinary therapy at that moment, and tucked into an enormous late lunch that made the hammocks on the porch seem to call my name.

The next few days were mostly uneventful – riding horses in the morning and relaxing in the afternoons, or taking walks in the eucalyptus-filled forests surrounding the area (eucalyptus is a constant all over the Peruvian and Ecuadorian highlands, since it thrives at high altitudes). One of the days I went with Tonya and Kevin, two staff of the B&B, on a longer ride to a nearby waterfall. The air was hot and humid on the short walk back from where we left the horses, but once we reached the “cascade,” as they called it, the air turned deliciously cool and the water tumbling into the pool of beautiful volcanic rocks was mesmerizing. I wished I had remembered Jeannie’s offer the previous day of bringing along a hammock to string up in the trees nearby. But I satisfied myself with sitting on a mossy log and just watching the water come down, then snacking on the wild passionfruit Tonya had picked up along the way.

The next day, I went to check out the leather capital of Ecuador, Cotocachi, which has gorgeous leather products of all types. The ride there and back was shared with taxi driver Miguel, who spoke about as much English as I speak Spanish. So, naturally instead of driving in silence, we carried on the most laborious Spanglish conversation in history (heavily aided by the Google translate app on my phone). It turns out he is a native of Cayambe, one of five children, with a wife and infant son. He enjoys eating some sort of chicken tripe dish and playing volleyball in his free time. Despite the difficulties of two hours of miming and looking up the words for “dinner” or “swimming,” I was glad for his patience and willingness to talk with me, since part of the fun of travel is getting to know people who live and work where you are visiting. This week coincided with a national holiday in Ecuador (and many South American, or primarily Catholic countries) called Carnival. We drove through the famous market town of Otavalo on our way to Cotocachi, and the streets were flooded with people, which Miguel said was the result of the Carnival holiday.

I spent most of my time in Cotocachi inside the horse-oriented stores, breathing in deeply and drooling over the saddles. On the way back, I stopped at a cheese fair, where the locals were sampling cheeses, and quite a lot of cervesa as well. After a couple more days of relaxing in Cayambe, I was anxious to move on, and more specifically to go home, at long last.

I am currently sitting in my new home near Salt Lake City, Utah, with two dogs at my feet, and a kitchen with tap water I can drink (so, so underappreciated), happily reunited with my husband (both overappreciated and underappreciated simultaneously), and my bed (not underappreciated, but sorely missed). Thanks to everyone who has followed me thus far, and rooted me on through my South American challenges and triumphs. When I am missing home and my friends and family, I count on being able to share my travels with you to see me through the hardest parts. I am planning the next step of my adventure and am not sure yet where my travels will take me, so stay tuned!

Yours happily at home for now,

Sarah