Keith's travelogue

Dear all,

The last week has been and interesting one. After the start of the trip down south, I spent the first day . . . in Quito. Not to worry, it was good to spend some time with nothing really having to be done like Spanish Homework etc. With the group I revisted some of the spots I went to the other week (Mitad del Mundo) and I finally got to go on the gondola here (teleferrico) up to 4100 metres, so that´s higher than Mt Cook and nearly twice as high as Mt Kusciouzko.

The weather since 19th Nov has been superb. after three weeks in Quitpo with rain and overcast days, it has been great to see the sun, even if it is very strong. The views from way up on the mountain were great, with two volcanoes (Cayambe - the highest active volcano on the equator, and the furtherest point from the centre of the earth) and Cotopaxi, the world´s highest active volcano, and great views over the valley that Quito lies in.

After that, we headed off to the Oriente, or the eastern lowlands, and I spent with time in the Amazon Jungle - with four days in a jungle lodge. There was quite a lot to see and do, with night time walks and a night time boat ride, looking for caiman (alligators). During the day we took jungle walks, but I think it was to feed the mosquitos and sandflies. We also visited the butterfly farm where they breed pupae fopr voerseas zoos. tThere were some amazingf butterflies, incluiding the Morpho, a beautiful electric blue colour. There were also lots of brightly coloured birds (3 types of parrots, two types of hummingbirds, lots of waterbirds such as herons and even an osprey. I even got to go piranha fishing (that´s where I fish for piranhas and not the other way around), and saw a 5 m long anaconda snake. So it was a very busy and full time. The food was great too, and I heartily recopmmend it.

After that, on Thursday it was back in the highlands and from Quito we went to Baños - a place with some great hot springs. There I did some practise for the Inca Trail in Peru by hiking up about 1200 verticval meters to 3800m, which will be very similar to the second day of the Inca trail to Dead Womans pass. So far, two days later, the muscles are not too sore I pout that down to soaking in the hot springts that night. It was pretty tough going up the mountain at over 3600m as there isn´t as much oxygen and I´m not all that fit, so it meant stopping frequently to catch the breath. But all in all, I was pleased with how I went and feel much more comfortable about walking the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.

And speaking of abandoned Inca ruins, I went on a solo trip today to Ingapirca near Cuenca, the only extant Inca ruin in Ecuador. It has some examples of the stonework that the Inca are famous for, whereby all the stones are made to fit together so perfectly the Spaniards couldn´t push a thin knife balde between the stones. The ruin at Ingapirca was known to Europeans for over 400 years and was surveyed by the team that did the Equator in 1736. In the 70s it was subject to an archeological dig so much more has come to light and there are some good exhibits in the museum there. The ruin itself has been partly restored so it is possible to see the engineering, scientific and technology that went into makomg the buildings. The ruin is unusual because it has a large building which is elliptical in shape, apparnetly the only such one found so far.

There was also a section of orginal Inca Road that linked the site to other Inca cities, and it is quite amazing to think that for a society that appearently didn´t use the wheel for transport, their road system was longer than that of Imperial Rome (over 8000km)!

Tomorrow we are off South to Peru, and I still haven´t bneen able to send some stuff back to Qld such as the photos of the Galapgos. It has been so busy. So I´m still lugging around a bit more than I want to. Anyway, with a well earned break of two days on the beach coming up I should be able to get around to it, sometime.

Regards,
Keith