Ecuador Volcanoes Expedition Dispatch

November 29, 2015 – Cayambe Hut – Oldest Hacienda – Amazon Hot Spring

After the tough push on summit day, the team left Refugio Cayambe. After a short drive yesterday, they arrived at Hacienda Guachala, the oldest hacienda in Ecuador, dated from 1580.

Guachala was the most important hacienda in Ecuador until the middle of the 20th century. In its heyday it comprised of more than 21,000 acres. It hosted members of the French Geodesic Mission and Gabriel Cristóbal Bonifaz, founding member of the Charles Darwin Foundation just to name two.

Our team was really excited, they explored around the hacienda taking photos and visiting as much as they could on such a short visit. Doreen found interesting and unique rooms including one that was once used as a torture room. With the history here, we are all convinced that ghosts must be present and lingering around the propriety. Who knows for sure, but makes one wonder. We are glad to get into the dining room together where we enjoyed an excellent dinner; the onion soup was agreed by all to be excellent

When we met for breakfast, Howard was selected as the member with the cleanest and most sanitized hair. Easily explained; he had mistaken our hand sanitizer for shampoo and his hair is no doubt, germ free!

We left Guachala after saying goodbye to our extremely friendly staff there. We all miss them already.

The drive to Termas Papallacta is not long, around 2 hours depending on the traffic. On the way we decided to make a quick stop at El Quinche, where they were having the annual festival for the Virgin of El Quinche.

The entire village was in full party mode and people came from all around, even as far away as Riobamba (Riobamba is by Chimborazo – our next summit goal).

We walked around and finally solved a mystery. After several supermarket stops, wondering how the locals could afford the prices, we figured out that they don’t shop in the supermarkets. They shop at the street markets where you can buy everything including bulk! The prices are much lower and of course there is always room for negotiation. Margaret bought bunches of bananas for only .50 US cents (Ecuador’s currency is the US dollar). Martial and Marie-Jo bought some flip flops for only $3.00 dollars. Perfect for our next few days at the hot springs resort.

With the weather extremely hot, Tim asked our driver, why the locals were dressed so warm. Ivan replied “Many visitors for today’s festival came from far way places with much colder temperatures.”

We loved the opportunity to experience the local festival. We were not quite ready to leave but we needed to depart for Termas Papallacta. Here we will spend two days resting and recovering from the climb and getting ready for the next one. Our main concern now, is what type of massages we should have when we get to “Thermas”?