Well I've Been Through the Desert on a Horse with No Shame

Well it was mountains actually ...but more on that horse later.

I'm not even going to talk about my day in Piura. It was horrible. The town was horrible. I had a very uncomfortable situation with a taxi driver who was obviously ripping me off, but as he'd driven me somewhere I knew was wrong, but didn't know how to get back from, and where I could see no other taxis, I paid up and rather pointlessly told him I knew he was a thieving g#t...probably I didn't say anything even vaguely approaching that, and he certainly didn't care an iota.

I made it through the border and into Ecuador after a freezing cold night on a very bumpy bus ride, through twisty turny mountain roads, with all number of strange people carrying bizarre things. Chickens - compulsory. One woman was transporting 6 home-made wicker bird cages that frankly wouldn't comfortably house a humming bird ( I think they are REALLY small, maybe the smallest). One man seemed to have 10 bin liners of garden debris. Who knows? Ecuadorian border crossing - fairly simple and event free - no scary colombian type drug searches. I arrived to find that Ecuador was having Presidential elections at the weekend. See previous posts about electioneering, street parties and no alcohol. They have elected a young leftist President, Correa, closely aligned with Chavez in Venezuela. So that's Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile, and a woman to boot: maybe the tide is turning. Whether or not it makes any real difference is a discussion I am very happy to have into the early hours of the morning over a shared bottle of red wine. As you well know...

I couldn't face the fortnight of planned bus trips (Plan X by this stage in the game) to see half of Ecuador in two weeks, so I just headed south to Vilcabamba. The wonderful Vilcabamba on the edge of the Podacarpus Forest, and I've ensconced myself in a really cute hotel run by an ex musician for five days. There's a garden, hammocks and a pool, and best of all, a hotel dog. Joy! I got chatting to two lovely young american women, Vicky (Mass) and Mary (North Carolina) on the bus over and we all decided to stay there. Actually when I introduce you to someone else I've met on this trip, can we take the word young for granted. So there you are, Andre, housemate, two more lovelies who will be sleeping on the sofa bed at some point.

So, Vilcabamba. It is stunning. It is surounded by dormant volcanic peaks covered in lush, verdant forests, touched by white fluffy cotton wool clouds, with fast flowing ice cold waterfalls and vibrant flowers and cacti. I can't tell you just how beautiful it is. Ecuador has more ecosystems per square km than any other country, It is a really important ecosystem. So yesterday, one slight mistranslation later, and I was on an eight hour horse trek, thereby doubling the time I have spent on a horse in my entire life, in one day. However, there are now parts of my body hurting that I didn't know existed.

Back to that horse...Fortuna (Lucky) had three rather embarressing habits. The first, well let's just say it took me a while to realise that when we were stationary there was a reason that people weren't looking in my direction as we were talking. The second, as soon as we began moving, he started fa#ting...and the missing letter isn't an S. He also liked to stick his head right up the backside of the horse in front. We rode in this order: guide, Petra, Mark, Milly. I thought it was amusing that when we tied up the horses to trek down to the river and waterfalls we walked in the same order. I didn't have the same embarressing habits as my horse though...just for the record.