Roland wanted his last day in Colombia to be memorable.  While speeding down a hill, an insect decided that he wanted a closer inspection of Roland’s eye.  After repeated washouts with water Roland still had a lot of discomfort and so on arriving into Ipiales he paid a visit to an eye doctor.  Turns out he still had a little bit of the insect’s leg in his eye and for the rest of the evening was sporting a sexy eye bandage.

Here we stayed with Paola and her family through Couchsurfing.  They own and live above a bakery/restaurant.  It was heavenly waking up in the morning with the delicious smells of baking wafting up the stairs.  Paola also wouldn’t have it any other way and we sampled both dinner and breakfast in their restaurant which was hearty and tasty.  Paola’s brother had just spent a year living in New Zealand and Paola is in the throws of planning her holiday to Canada so we had a lot to talk about.

Before cycling to the border we wanted to take in the Church built on the side of a canyon called Las Lajas.  Apparently many pilgrams come here expecting miracles after a local (hundreds of years ago) claimed to have seen the Virgin appear.  The church is very striking with elaborate finishings against the rock face alter at the front. 

Ecuador is our 12th country and yet every time we cross a border it continues to be a surprise how dramatically different the next country is when nothing physical is actually dividing the two countries.    

Our third day in Ecuador we arrived into Cotacachi also known as the ‘City of Peace’.  We were captivated by the explosion of colour and excitement in the streets.  There was a special celebration for Santa Lucia on and everyone came to town to be apart of the day. This was a day for woman to dance with their communities in the streets and the main plaza.  There were several groups and they took turns at moving to the corners of the plaza where they shuffled along to music in a circular fashion.  Everyone was decked out in their traditional clothing and there was no end of delicious and interesting typical food to taste….. ice cream; plates of food for $1 brimming with  rice, noodles, eggs, potatoe tortillas, chicken; empanadas with a banana and cheese filling; fruity spicy drink concoctions hot and cold; guinea pig; snails; and other deep fried bread goodies to name just a few.

Marcelo (from couchsurfing) lives right in the centre of Cotacachi and made for a great base to wander around the town and soak up the event.  He is friendly with two German guys (Franz and Johannes) volunteering here too so all together we enjoyed the festivities.   We also took advantage of some home comforts here and watched a couple of movies (our favourite being ‘Were the Wild Things are’) and sampling some of Marcelo’s excellent home cooking.  We ended up staying two nights here because we were told the Otavalo market (one of South America’s biggest open-air markets) is a must- see on a Saturday morning and there was also a lake (Laguna Cuicocha) close by that is worth a peek too.

Now onto Quito which is the Capital of Ecuador sitting up at almost 3000 metres………. but first… a happy snap at the official centre of the world is necessary.  As you can tell by looking at the photo, Roland can barely contain his excitement!

 

Crib Score

North America
Roland 163
Belinda 95

South America
Roland 12
Belinda 4

(Belinda is beginning to think she needs to go back to that church in the canyon and continue to pray for a miracle…..)



 


Comments

fred / muriel

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:37:01

bee : you dont need a miracle to beat roland at crib - just a SECOND EYE PATCH !!

 

Sina Lologa

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:34:23

Hey there, sorry have not visited your site for a while. Hope your eye doesn't slow your cycling down Roland. It may mean Bee now gets the front seat!

 



Leave a Reply