After not very much preparation and an interesting last few days (getting intimate with tractors for Roo and over indulgence in alcohol after a mountain of 3 A-level exams for Kirst) we set off. In Lima airport, the lack of preparation slapped me in the face like a wet fish as I realised I actually knew not a single word in Spanish.. good start. But after a 7 hr delay that actually saved us a nights accommodation, an hour an a half massage in the executive lounge and simply awe-inspiring views of Cotopaxi at sunrise we made it to Quito. Hopefully if all goes well we will be standing, crouching, laying, dead or alive on the summit of Cotopaxi in 3 weeks time.
We spent a couple of days in Quito where with the expert help of the tiny Madame Salsa Dancer I somehow managed to not dislocate both hip sockets and Kirst through many years of Andy Warriner rhythm training made somewhere in the realm of a mediocre to passable stab at salsa.
We travelled through the erie streets of Quito at 6 in the morning towards Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, our home for the next two weeks. By the end of the first night, stomachs full of Pilsner, privately thanking Madame Salsa Dancer and a little bit in love with my dance partner Andreibels, we crashed back up the cobbles for 12km to the bamboo huts of Bellavista. Everyone was so welcoming we made friends (or more than friends in the case of Nelson for Kirst) so quickly. We machete'd trails until there was very little primary forest left, balanced on 2 inch planks 20ft up as we attached the new roof to the Estacion de Investigasion (science station) and 'scrubby scrubby'ied enough guests plates that our hands took on the consistency of mushy peas... still nothing on the Bay Horse though, Botts had better move up the hierarchy before his hands completely disintegrate!
From now on whenever information forms ask me for any allergies I dont have to be boring and write N/A, but can whole-heartedly shout my disinterlect by putting SPANISH in block capitals! It took me the entire 2 weeks to learn the word for teaspoon. Although by now I have to be a world champion at charades.. thank f**k Kirst was paying attention in her GSCE Spanish lessons. At 5 o'clock daily I either got obliterated at volleyball in the driving rain, or with Kirst (being a dictator to the strength of Hitler and Stalin combined) on the stop watch leading a rigorous gym programme for everyone. Our novelty weights consisted of huge concrete blocks on the ends of little, bendy sticks: as I pulled bits of light bulb from my hair I realised they weren't quite as heavy as they looked!
By complete chance we have coincided our trip with Copa America (equivalent to the Euro football competition) and if there was a facebook group 'The awkward silence when Ecuador loose and everyone around you is dressed in red, blue and yellow' we would by default have liked this more than once. Nonetheless all the Ecuadorians that we have been living, eating, sleeping, working, gyming and washing up with have been so happy and made our time at Bellavista so much fun. However, after 5 days two 18 yr old American volunteers arrived to provide a constant source of amusement. They describe themselves as 'Full Metal Ornathologists' (whatever that means) and made me want to take on the swinging arm of the irrigation system on a tractor again every time I heard the word tananger finch! They only wore t-shirts with pictures of birds on, never allowed their precious American Birding Society binoculars more than arms length away (even when washing up inside), used two hands when hammering nails and over a quarter of the 4000 songs on their ipods were specific bird noises eeeeeeekkkkkkk! If it hadn't been so fun to laugh at them I'd rather be locked in the chicken coup back home in England with the mangy, de-feathered, covered in its own poo Black Rock flapping in my face for an entire week.
On our second to last day, after bargaining and showing that Favio's heart wasn't made out of rusty metal, we managed to get a fantastic discount to the Tucanopy Ziplines in Mindo with David. We definitely saw Ecuador from a different angle as we flew upside down, faces red pumped full of blood, discovering new and unexplored high altitude sex positions with the instructors (shame they were both men) speeding 100m above the canopy. It was very sad to say goodbye after 13 days with everyone at Bellavista, they definitely started off our trip the best way possible. Starting our acclimatasation for climbing next... Cotopaxi in 1 week.
No comments:
Post a Comment