Hosteria PapaGayo

This became our home for seven nights (talk about taking a break from travelling). Our room had its own fireplace, which tested Alex's manhood, i.e. firelighting abilities. The hosteria used to be a hacienda owned by Simon Bolivar's grandson. It has been converted into a hosteria-farm with llamas, bunny rabbits, horses, lots of dogs, a friendly cat, and a garden out back you can weed in your free time.

With hopes of climbing 20,000ft peaks in mind, we began our acclimatization by hiking up a local extinct volcano, El Corazon. At 16,000ft it seemed like a good one. However, we walked from our hostel, making for a long walk, and we turned around at 13,000ft. Here is a good photo of the paramo a type of high grassland which is common in Ecuador.

A transportation strike of several days prevented any travel. We spent one of the days mountain biking around the village of Machachi. Biking on cobblestone sucks.

We ended up biking back to our hosteria on the panamerican, which was closed by the strike. Here you can see other people walking to and from Machachi. The strike ended partway through our bikeride back and for a few traumatizing seconds we were competing with buses and semi's barrelling down the Panamerican. The strike was to force the local government to expand the highway from two lanes to four lanes around Machachi.

The Machaci market. After the bike ride into town we did our grocery shopping. There was fresh fruit, vegetables, pre-peeled garlic cloves, and all sorts of fresh seafood.

Our hostel with its own restaurant, meant that we never had to leave! Especially after we meet some other Americans, Michelle and Carly. My Michelle taught them our favorite card game, which we don't know the name of.