Hiking

Today we were invited to go on a hike that was about 45 minutes from our house.  It was up in the Andes Mountains just where the climate is cooler and the terrain is more like mountains than jungle.   We headed out of our house at 9:00 a.m. (forgoing church for probably the first time in I'm not sure how long), and we reached our destination about an hour later.  Once we all assembled, which took a while since in our group we had two infants, one toddler, two preschoolers, our youngest three kids, and eight adults including two that were sixty--sixteen of us in all, we took a bus about 3 or so miles away from our parked cars so that we could catch a 'tarabita' (cablecar) ride across a huge gorge.  We wanted to hike on the opposite side of the gorge and make our way back to the car.  Our friend told us that he'd taken this route about 20 times previously so he knew it well and we'd enjoy this hour and a half hike. 

We somewhat reluctantly took the cablecar ride (the drop from there is very, very far below) across and then we began our hike.  Two from our party decided to take the zipline across instead so we waited for them on the other side. (This is what the 'safer' cablecar ride looks like.)

Jacobey had wanted to take the zipline as well but we discouraged our fearless child from making the trip that way.  This is the view that we were headed toward on our way across:

And this is the view as we looked to the side on the way across:

It was a beautiful view--as long as you weren't distracted by the dangerous drop.  Below is the Pastaza River which comes from quite a distance away and heads very far into the interior of Ecuador. 

 

Once our friends finally crossed the gorge, we all began the journey heading east back toward our car.  If you look at the above picture again, you'll see that the area on the right is where we hiked heading away from the camera, following the river.  What we thought would be an hour and a half hike turned out to be more like four and a half hours.  It was on a pathway that at times really was only as wide as our own bodies, or was along the side of a fairly steep drop down the mountain, or took us through the muddiest terrain in which we at times had to tug our shoes to pull them free from the suction of such thick stuff.  Thankfully we took plenty of snacks, a quite agreeable group of kids, and lots of sunscreen.  The weather cooperated, and we saw no animals with the exception of a few cows, a donkey, a family of turkeys (perfect timing for November), and lots of moths. 

We actually ended up on some man's property--we thought the trail took us through there so we stopped in to say hi.  He ended up charging us a dollar/family for our funny detour but we didn't mind too much because he shared some great homegrown fruit with us.  We call it snotfruit because the seeds inside have the consistency of such, but that's not it's real name.  Regardless, it was a nice way to take a rest and to chat with one of the locals. 

 

The kids really were little troopers. We walked about five kilometers or more which is roughly three miles (I'm guessing it's a bit more though) along the side of the mountain and they were content till just about near the end.  When we finally reached our destination--at 3:30!--we decided to have lunch at the only place available which sold fresh fried trout--head and all.  We ordered twelve plates so they got their nets out and caught the fish right then out of their trout holding tank.  The food was great and we scarfed down every last bite--I draw the line at the eyes--I won't eat those.  This is Sethy showing off my fish with only the tail, head, and connecting spine left.

We finally took another cablecar ride to get back across the gorge and so I captured a photo of the late afternoon sunshine on the western mountains as we rode across:

Though it was a very long day and we were all zapped at the end, we had had a terrific time and felt like we'd gotten to see a part of Ecuador that we'd not experienced before.  It was great.  Thanks for reading.

Blessings, kim