25 Nov

We did our typical 6:30 rise. We ate little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with some of the bread that we had bought the day before. When you want to find anything in a place like Apuela, the pickin´s are slim.

We set off for García Moreno about 7:00. We were trying to get to this place because we had heard that to get to Junín, you had to go through García Moreno. Our ultimate goal was actually Junín. We just started walking down the road toward García Moreno as we would get a ride from a bus as it drove by. We walked for several minutes and there were no buses going in our direction. They wereall headed to Apuela. Soon after a few trucks passed, we finally found someone going toward García Moreno. We hitched a ride with them for about five miles, until the had to turn off the road. There was a sign at the turnoff that read, "García Moreno 20km." We started walking again. We figured that it couldn´t be that bad to walk for 20 km, but we were hoping for a bus. After a couple miles we heard something coming. It turned out to be a dump truck. They slowed to a stop, and asked where we were going, "García Moreno", we replied.

We hopped in the back of this dump truck full of gravel. Let me tell you, there is nothing like hitching a ride in the back of a dump truck. The view was amazing. It´s a good thing they drove us all the way to our destination too. There was a huge construction operation going on for miles. Much of it would have been walkin through mud, sometimes nearly knee deep.

I have noticed some interesting demograhics about the few places I have been in Ecuador. In Quito there is a large Mestizo and Spanish heritage. When we got to Otavalo, just north of Quito, there was a large indigenous population. Somewhere between Apeula and García Moreno, it turned to Afro-Ecuadorean. It seemed like the farther we traveled from "civilization", the more Afro-Ecuadorean the population became.

We reached the turn off for García Moreno and we started going up, way up. We had already been going up for quite sometime, but now the incline became steeper, the road narrowed, and it became more winding. Before long, we were driving through the clouds. and a chill hit our faces. After possibly 5 miles of winding up this mountain, we found ourselves in the middle of García Moreno.

We got out of the dump truck, we music flooded our ears which was coming from one chaep speaker blasting from the church. There were a lot of people who were sitting in what seemed to be a line for perhaps a healthcare clinic or something. We walked up to a building that said, " Elvis´s Hotel and Restaurant." We throught we would check it out since we weren´t sure what was going to happen with the whole Junín trip anymore.

This place looked super sketch master style so we thought about what to do. We were planning on hiking to Junín from there. Because the clouds were so thick, we were just going to hang out in García Moreno. After walking around for a bit and realizing that there was probably not a quarter of what Apuela had to offer we headed to the bus terminal to see when a bus was coming. Looking around the village a littel more, I realized that there were quite a few interesting looking people. As in, it looked like García Moreno was the State Hospital for Ecuador. Whether true or not, we were surrounded be creeps and weridos.

We talked to what seemed to be one of the only sane people in the place, the lady at the bus terminal. We walked in this one tiny, little room attached to another building and asked when the next bus would leave. She said that there was one at 10:00. I looked at my watch and it was 09:45.

"Two tickets to Otavalo please!!!" I replied frankly.

We stopped in one of the two "stores" to get some junk food for the four hour bus ride back to Otavalo. The first one filled our noses with a damp, musty, quite indestingushable smell. The second, was right across the street from the public baños (restrooms) which appeared to be unisex and had a more foul smell than any public restroom I have stepped foot in anywhere in the US or Canada.

The bus arrived and we said good bye to García Moreno.

Back in Otavalo, it felt great to be back in civilization. Although gringos, I felt we were a little more anynomous amoung the crowd as the places we were, weren´t setup for tourism in the slightest ways.

Natura and I ate lunch and relaxed a bit. Then we dicided to check out this waterfall in the village next to Otavalo called Peguche. We took the bus up to the village and started walking to "La Casada de Peguche". Knowing that Peguche was a village where many textiles were made, the longer we walked, the more looms we heard. One after another, after another, chug, chug, chug. It seemed as though every garage looking building had a loom or two chunking away.

We decided to stop in one place and check it out. There was a man and a woman sewing edges of ponchos to be sold at the Saturday market. We heard the loom chugging away was asked if we could see. Now, to see, first hand how textiles across the world are made was quite intriguing. They had two looms making big scarf looking things. The man told us a bit about the looms and said both had been in his family ever since they bought them for $2000. The second loom, he said, was about 120 years old. It was a little bigger, and a little louder, but still very impressive.

After our encounter of first hand textile fabrication, we continued on our walk to "La Casada de Peguche." We found ourselves on a stone walkway in the middle of a eucalyptus forest. With a fresh, scent lingering about, we heard the falling water getting closer. It wasn´t a huge fall, but none the less beautiful. We walked up and around it, back down and along another trail out of the park. We walked back to Otavalo as it is only about 1-2 miles.

One thing I will never foget about Ecuador is the sound of the ice cream trucks. Well, not really. We have been raised to know that the ice cream truck drives through neighborhoods and plays dorky music. Not in Ecuador. In Ecuador, when you hear the dorky ice cream truck music playing, you don´t run out and expect a truck full of treats. It´s the garbage man!!! Yes, the garbage truck plays the dorky ice cream truck music and when you hear it in your neighborhood, you run outside with you garbage!!! Hummm, how pieculiar.

It wasn´t long after we got back to the hostel. We just relaxed and ate dinner. Today we are on our way back to Quito to meet up with Michael.