I liked the Laguna los Dios near Ibarra where we camped and hiked for the day. People come and dive in this volcanic lake and its water is crystal clear; and at the foot of a volcano.
It just happened so that we arrived to
We wanted to leave that nite but there were no boats coming out as everybody was celebrating. So we stayed one more day.
On Sunday everybody was getting ready for the big dance party at nite. In the afternoon we started drinking a perfectly cooled beer (they have their priorities right) in a little social palapa (hut) and the way they drink it is that somebody buys a bottle ($1.25 for 750ml Pilsener), gets a couple of plastic cups and walks from one person to the other (or only the ones he/she wants) and pours them in a bit, until the bottle is empty. It seemed to be happening all the time and nobody seemed to care much about who to whom and how much- somehow it flew smoothly and everybody was happy. Every so often, somebody would serve Aguardiente- vodka made of sugar cane; acquired taste, so to say. Mick and I got ourselves a bottle of that concoction to somehow fill in the time during the day. It lasted us 2 days and that with me one nite throwing up from it. A well-trained local drinks a bottle and a half in one nite.
While we were drinking and dancing in the little palapa on the hill, it started to rain, then to pour. Soon, the party had to be relocated to bigger and drier area so it died out for a bit. Mick and I went to our room to sleep a little before we would catch a boat at 1am that nite. It never stopped raining so when we walked out at 12:30am all packed and ready to wave our boat, the river rose by 2 meters and flooded. There were no boats running that nite- too dangerous. What were we to do- we dropped our bags and joined the party.
The next morning the river dropped us quickly as it rose, so we kept our fingers crossed for the whole day that it wouldn’t rain anymore. We didn’t have any more money for accommodation and food but they let us stay in the house for the day and the lady who had cooked for us brought us some food. The music played the whole day in the canteen that day and I danced some more as some local saw a potential for salsa in me and fancied to teach me a bit. As the evening approached, it started to rain again. And then it poured. Hanging there in our hammocks we parted with thought of leaving that nite. It was quite a surprise when at 2am somebody all of a sudden emerged from complete darkness telling us to get ready as the boat was leaving soon... For Mick and me it was as if the sky opened and all the heavenly angels sang out together ‘Alleluia!’ That was our first week in
From Borbon, where we left our car while in San Miguel, we drove to Esmeraldas and
Banos is touristy big time, but has this unreal location at the foot of an active volcano, and really nice
From Banos we drove south through the mountain again, to
From there, it was a drive in mist and rain through Loja to Vilcabamba, a laid-back gringo town close to the boarder with
Ecuador
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