Extreme adventure in extreme weather

Hello hello, it seems a lifetime ago that I last wrote in here but methinks that may be my mind playing tricks after a week away from civilisation. Anyhow, it was one fabulous week which I will treasure forever and I succeeded in doing many crazy outdoor things that I had never dreamed I would ever do or want to do.

On Monday morning we set off on a typical Ecuadorian bus armed with our backpacks and any collective change we could scrape together for the bus fare (nobody here ever has any change, it is insane). Hannah and Ada were running late so once we arrived in the humdrum town of Machachi about one hour south of Quito we waited for them to arrive and then piled into the back of a ´cabina´(in Macachi this was just a sort of truck with space for four inside and then plenty of outdoor floor space for the rest of us)! We were thrown around every which way while the vehicle wheezed and skidded up a mud track to the hostel, but the discomfort was made up for by the opportunity to stare goggle-eyed at all the goings on in village of Pedregal, where two kids were collecting water in a bucket and everyone else stood outside their houses alongside their various pigs, cows and chickens as we swung by.

The hostel itself was like a dream; Tarquin and Katherine (an Ozzie-Ecuadorian couple) are realising their venture of building a hostel up in the mountains near Cotopaxi and have done a great job with a cottage and three more buildings constructed in the Adobe method (which keeps those inside nice and warm) and running on energy-saving power methods. It is beautiful and in the evenings there we all crowded around the fire and apart from in the kitchen there was only candle-light for us to see by and one electrical socket to be used for our MP3 players. For around 70 pounds worth I got a warm bunk bed for four nights, hot showers, three meals a day, endless supplies of hot chocolate and beer, good company, plus all the activities we did throughout the week - really not a bad deal all in all!

The first day we set off on horseback and didn´t return until six hours later, which resulted in very sore muscles but a very happy Kate after being outside all day in indescribably stunning surroundings - I am so not a city person, I have finally realised! As with all sport I was pretty slow (and I also ended up with the slow horse!) and after losing a stirrup - which had no grip and looked more like a clog to me! - I managed to get completely lost on the way back and only realised when our very smiley Chechuan guide Janet started waving and yelling across the fields to me. The following day I had some strange reaction to the altitude (we were mucho mucho above sea level, even more than in Quito) and had to stay inside and recover for most of the day, but I only missed out on mountain biking and it left me much stronger and raring to go for the next day´s adventures. On Thursday it was the big climb up Cotopaxi (not to the top, but up to the refuge and on to the glacier, which stands at an awe-inspiring 5,000 metres above sea level) and once again we piled into a rickety truck, this time with a leaking exhaust which gave off a big bang and lots of fumes each time we went through a puddle; hilarious but not at all healthy for the lungs, and Hannah pointed out that we were practising a popular suicide method en masse (either that or a thrilling stimulated concentration camp experience - "is it the gas or the water?"!) Once at the national park, we began our ascent up the volcano and wow, what a weird, amazing experience that was. At that altitude, it was necessary to take things very slowly and to stop frequently to catch our breath, but I think the first bit was the hardest as after the refuge it was slippery but not as hard-going. As we climbed it began to snow (at which point I discovered my´waterproof coat was not in the least bit waterproof) and the mist rose all around us, which gave the whole thing quite an eerie, surreal feel. I think after all the frustrations and lonelinesses of the past few weeks, standing on the side of a volcano in South America having a snowball fight really made me realise that it is all absolutely worth it, and I feel incredibly lucky to be here on this diverse and ever-surprising continent.

The last day I was told we were going for a ´nice walk to see some waterfalls´and this is when I really surpassed myself as everyone who knows me well knows that I do not do adventure, but it seems that now in fact I do. Basically all the land around there is private land and the guys who own it are generally well disposed towards tourists because, well, there aren´t many that go up there. But this particular man next to the hostel is a cranky character because he reckons one of the hostel staff left a gate open, allowing a local bull through to impregnate all his cows, who usually only receive artificial insemination. The experience may have been a treat for them but the man has now told Tarquin that he doesn´t want to do any tourism, the result being that the nice walk to the waterfalls is a life-threatening scramble through a stream, across rocks and over the waterfalls themselves. I therefore spent my day clad in a pair of wellies and scrambling, falling, climbing and stumbling across all manner of natural formations, which I have to admit was a lot of fun (after getting over the fear of hanging precariously from a rope and clambering up an almost-vertical landslide). Predictably, as we neared the summit of the hill we were attempting to conquer, the heavens opened and our man Carlos decided it was unsafe to go back the way we had come, much to my relief. However, the alternative route home was equally traumatic and nightmarish, with it being impossible to see where our feet were heading and constantly falling down ditches. At one point we were standing in a ring surrounded by various waterproof clothing and shielding our faces from the hail stones, which reminded me strongly of my Manchester. We also then had to trespass across the said farmer´s land, which culminated in a farcical episode of us hiding very badly behind trees and bushes at any sight of a neighbour. Eventually we arrived back at the hostel, sporting scratches, bruises and other war wounds, just in time to catch our cabinas back to Machachi and from there our bus to Quito.

Now I am back in the big city and surprisingly after my break from it I am warming to its oddities and annoyances. I can no longer be bothered with any anger towards cabbies, who still constantly rip me off (but when it is a difference between 1 pound 50 and 2 pounds for a ride across the entire city, is it worth getting stressed?) and I am amused by the policemen who stand there in the road blowing whistles in some futile attempt to control the manic traffic in the torrential rain. Now I know that I am moving out in a week, I can deal quite serenely with the impatience and criticisms of my host family and am accustomed to the lack of a concept of privacy (I think it is acceptable for Latin American mothers to re-organise your stuff while you are out of your room). I can see an upside to being woken up at ludicrous o´clock at the weekend for breakfast, as the best weather is in the morning and it is pleasant to sit outside in the sunshine and drink a coffee while reading a book. I am interested in this culture where people can only be friends with people who are of the same wealth and class as themselves, and I am intrigued by a table service which necessitates its staff to avoid all eye contact with customers as far as possible to evade actually serving them.

However, I have grasped already that unlike in Europe, where any country could become my home within two or three years, I would always be a fish out of water in South America and there are so many cultural and social issues here that I could never quite understand, however strong my language ability became. I don´t know what hunger or curiousity drew me to this strange, beautiful, angry, jealous place, but I do know that I am glad that I came and that by the end of these three months I will see the world in a slightly different way because of it.