My birthday at an indegenous Andes family

Breakfast with Luxious hot chocolate for everyone because I like the Ecuadorian chocolate and it is my birthday.

 

The Loma WasI family fires birthdays always with guinypig ,marmot, for dinner. I never had one before but they taste  good.

After dinner around 20.30 I served my birthday cake,torte helado con frutta.
And after that it was bed time again. ... at 21.00. But most of the family gets up at 05.00. And it you don't you wake up by the music from the catholic church in Tonibamba Cotacachi exercising for the processions during the week leading to Eastern. This music is from 06.00 until 07.00. I can tell you earplugs don't help.

The day after I stayed at the farm the whole day. Mercedes went walking with me. While I was mostly looking she and Ali collected cooking wood. See the load Mercedes carries on her back.

After the walk I showed Mercedes an easy way of making cheese with only milk and lemon.

What a day!

I had to catch a plane early in the morning, so i got up at 05.00 but guess what my bathroom door was closed hermatically and whatever i tried it would not open. So i put a nightdress on and went downstairs for help. The kitchenlady tried to help and then called a man out of his bed. Yes ... exactly 5 minutes before my breakfast the door opened. He he.

The 40 minute drive to loja airport was asthonishing. Wow. The driver told me that it is often 30C near the airport.

An almost empty plane flew up out of the valley and brought me to Quito. At some point I really was not sure if we would go over the mountain tops surrounding the valley.

Then a kind of uber taxi drive me for 15 dollar to terminal terreste Norte
... because the bus did not go there or you had to take 2 busses to come there.  From there I took a 2 hour bus to Otavalo. Here you get to see really cultural costumes.
From Otavalo bus station I had to walk back to a bid for the bus to Cotacatchi. Here I stay with an indigenous family of the Loma Wasi tribe. My room is incredible big and nice. With a big beautiful bathroom.


Some friends of the family  visited this afternoon. A baby on the mother of 19 years old back. Guess what they bought and catched 2 pigs.

Above making of rice milk. First  she kverned it, then washed the broken rice  folowed by many times seaving the rice. The rice melk is used to make a big pot of soup for lunch.

The house is 3 km from town,or a 3 to 6 dollar taxi ride. Three is the normal price.
Wow what a day..... and right now I have 2 fleece on and feel my hands turning blue while it was 28C during the day. And it is only 18.00 right now. Will the temp go down tonight to 8C? Possibly, I am high up in the Andes mountains.... at 2.500m. But because of regularly rain and the climate here there are trees everywhere and higher.

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Next day. I  learned it only becomes really cold after it has rained otherwise the coldest can be 13C.... at night.

I have Been on a walk in the area. How fantastic the landscape is and the people who live here I tell and show you in the next post.

Sunday in Loja - that closed too?

Ecuador is a very catholic country, celebrating every possible happening eith a fiesta and closed for almost everything on sundays.

I had the pity to be in Cuenca on Sunday  and to arrive in Loja this Sunday afternoon. So a bid prepared I was. I knew a parc was nearby.  And yes it seemed almost the whole city was visiting the parc close to terminal terreste reine.

Teenage boys were stunting on their bicycle. They  liked

me taking pictures of them,so they even tried to talk to me in English.

Have to say the woman beside  me in the bus was also very talkative. So after 5 days speaking mostly English I could exercise some Spanish again. From tomorrow it will be only Spanish at the finca where I am staying with a local Indian family.

Loja has 2 universities, lies at 2.225 m in the Andes.
Those boys are really lucki with such a huge cycling arena of at least 25 times the size of European ones. But why were there no girls on the bikes?

Lunch is cheap in Cuenca and whole Ecuador - Loved those masks!

Today I was lucky to pass at 12.00 by a restaurant serving Almuerzo, Ecuadorian lunch from 12.00 to 15.00 for only 2.25 dollar. The cheapest I have seen so far here. Here some pictures of how it looked like.

The address of the restaurant on the serviette.

The restaurant had an awesome courtyard. The soup was very good,with miss potatoe etc on it. I had to add the two things topp left into it. The second plate was good for that price too,although I would have liked some more red kale. There was even a desert today, something really sweet and special for Cuenca.

The meal was served  with a glass of fresh pressed fruit juice called Jugos. Jugos is seen here everywhere.

Some pics of Cuenca.

 the archaeological imca site Pumagumo.

 The basilique Nueve at Parc Calderon.

 The flower  market is every day  near parc Calderon.

Typical Spanish houses every where.

Today the Museo Banco should have been open according to their website and closed  yesterday, but to my and other tourists surprise it was open yesterday and closed  today, so maybe you should call to check in advance so you don't walk 2 hours for nothing. Luckily the archaeological site next door was open.

And now I had time to enter a modern  gallery  nearby,which I really liked. The artist name is Miquelle.

really a pity that I could not take a mask with me home.