First week in Quito

Saturday morning we went on what was supposed to be a tour of four or five towns to the North of Quito.  But, before we could even leave someone left the gate of our little B&B open and Pepper decided to take a walk.  Ginger came running to me, almost like she was telling me something was wrong.   Everyone that could took off to find him.  Steve finally found him frolicking with some of the neighborhood dogs. 

We finally got off on our tour, an hour late, but unfortunately, a lot of folks decided to go the same way at the same time, and that highway is under construction to feed traffic to and from the new airport.  We got so bogged down we decided to call off most of the trip and just go see a town in a different direction, San Jose de Minas, that happens to be the home town of our hostess, Nora.  And, of course, I forgot the camera.  You will have to trust me that it was absolutely gorgeous.  The mountains surrounding the town were so green and covered with gardens that grew almost anything you can imagine.  The corn grew at least 10’ high.  No nice flat garden for these folks. 

We stopped for almuerzo (lunch) at the family home of our guide who happens to be Nora’s brother.   We loved the town, and after lunch our hosts tried very hard to talk us into renting a house on the back of their property from them.  But, though it was a nice home, it was 2 stories with very steep steps.  They tried to sweeten the deal by throwing in all three meals for free.   If I was younger and able bodied, it would be a deal way too hard to resist.  We headed home and got back tired in spite of only seeing 1/5 of the intended towns. 

This morning, Patrick asked if we would like to go with him to a dormant volcano near-by.  I expected a lot of stone and a pit, what I saw was a beautiful green valley with farms all over the bottom of what would be the caldron.  We were up on the rim looking down with the wind whipping up the sides.  There was, of course, tourist shops – actually the reason Patrick wanted to go as he must go to the states next week, and wanted to pick up some fun stuff to bring with him.  No, we did not get away unscathed.  But, we did learn a bit on how to barter.  I now have a really nice alpaca hoodie sweater.

We are talking of renting a car in the near future and driving a loop down the Amazon side of the mountains and back up through the middle of the range (where Quito and Cuenca are) to check out all the places we have been looking at on the computer.  One of the stars of this trip is a town called Macas on the Amazon side overlooking a huge valley and river.  Patrick has told us a lot about it as he plans to retire there.  His nephew is the town mayor, so that helps.  It seems to be what we are looking for.  It has the flatter terrain, warmer weather, but not hot, huge mercados every day, something always going on, safe and friendly and a good infrastructure.  Patrick tells us we can find a nice big house there for $300-400, as it hasn’t yet been found by the tourists. 

I have my Magic Jack set up, but it is spotty.  I can’t pick up a very strong signal, but enough for email and I did get through to talk with Troy for a few minutes last night.  If you call that number, and it doesn’t ring through, it will still allow you to leave a voice mail which I can then download here.