24 Nov

With our tickets in hand, we got on the bus headed for Apuela at 8:00am. I would have never guessed what we were about to see. We turned off the main road just outside Otavalo. We went up and up and up, then down, down, down, then up, up, up. You know how you watch the Discovery channel and you seethe Andes and they are huge and cloud covered, and there is one whindy road going the side of a mountain? The Discovery channel can show you that, but you just can´t grasp the actual felling of riding in a bus halfway up the side of a mountain with a steep cliff on one side of you and no guard rail. There would be small washed out areas, there would be other area where small land slides were. Mile after mile of wet, muddy, dirt road, the landscape would change around every bend. We would go around corners where the bus driver would have to stop and just creep to make it. We drove through coulds and we would come out atop. We drove into thick jungle like area, and drove by farm land that would be considered unfarmable by American standards. We drove through grass 25 ft. on both sides. We passed hundreds or banana and papaya trees. This is an area so rich with fruit, avocado and orange trees grow along the road.

Finally, we came to the start of a stone road which led into Apuela. After talking to a a guy who seemed to own or at least run a restuarant he offered to drive us to a hostel about four miles down the road for $4.00. After checking with a few, we settled on Cabañas Valle Hermoso which ran us $5.00 each. We told him to wait as we went back into town. We had almorso (lunch) and went to this coffee processing place. A nice lady by the name of Joan gave us a little tour of the plant. Now, I can elaborate later, but you would never beleive where your coffee comes from, it´s amazing!!!

We started walking down that road, back to the hotel and we hitched a ride with a couple guys headed in that direction. They didn´t take us all the way, as they were headed down a different road. We got close enough to only have to walk about 10 minutes.

That night, we ate bread and cheese for dinner and played some card games. We started with a game called cuarenta (40) which I can´t wait to teach some people when I get home.