Snow, Camelids, Cheese

Riobamba was really just a waystation for us, a place to spend the night before we headed higher up into the big mountains of Ecuador.

Our time there was pleasant enough.  We had some very tasty deep fried cheese pastries (really, how could you go wrong?)  And the town was a bit worn down looking, but there were a few pretty bits, including the old (mostly unused these days) railway station, the pretty main plaza that gave a soft echo of the beauty of Cajamarca in Peru, and the weirdly decorated, but fun old colonial building (complete with Greek columns and atrium) that we stayed in for the night.

It certainly didn't live up to its nickname “the Sultan of the Andes”.  When we headed up to the hilltop park that was reputed to have the best views of the mountains that surround the city we basically got a view of their feet (okay, maybe ankles and calves too) beneath the clouds but not much of the towering, snow capped grandeur that visitors in better weather talk of.  So cloudy and blah was the weather (and the forecast for the coming days) that I started thinking about whether maybe we should just scrap our plans to head higher up into the mountains.

But we decided to give it a crack anyway.  By the time our bus had travelled 45 minutes to the west the cloud had started thinning a bit, and when we arrived in the tiny village of San Luis (3900m asl) we were getting occasional glimpses of the top of Chimborazo.

Arranging to stay at the Casa Condor felt a little odd.  As already mentioned, the village was tiny, but even so it could have housed more than the two people (mom and son) who lived there.  It seemed like a place that had been started maybe a decade previously, with grand hopes that tourism would be the sustaining lifeblood of the village, but had been slowly allowed to fall into disrepair since.

It still has a lot of potential though.  The facilities and signage are all still there, and really just need a bit of sprucing up to return to a pretty high standard.  And while the young man and his mom do an okay job providing for guests, a few more staff and a bit more training for them, and Casa Condor has the potential to become a seriously cool tourist destination.

As it stands, the rooms were a little dishevelled, but comfy with nice beds and lots of thick soft blankets.  And the meals (included in the price of the room) were filling (if pretty standard) Ecuadorian fare.

But of course the highlight of staying at Casa Condor was it's proximity to Chimborazo.  At 6236m, the glaciated volcano is Ecuador's highest peak and (because of the Earth's equatorial bulge) is also the point on Earth farthest from the centre of the planet (over 2km further than Everest).

That afternoon I decided to brave the changeable weather and hike up to Templo Machay, a small cave on the Volcano's flank a further thousand metres vertical above the village.

By following the trails on the ground and a route from Open Street Maps, I managed to find my way up, up and up to within sight of the cave.  Along the way I'd had a tiny bit of drizzle, but generally the weather got better and better, and after 90 minutes or so of walking, I topped a ridge to see the huge mountain uncovered by clouds, its snows shining bright white against a deep blue sky.

I also saw dozens of vicuñas, south American camelids that are the wild ancestors of domesticated alpacas.  They didn't want me to get too near, but clearly weren't particularly afraid either (no wonder, given that the altitude had me huffing and puffing a bit, with a tiny hint of a headache as well.  Combined with this, their ability to run at 60-70km/h over rough ground would have kept them plenty safe, even if I had meant them ill).

The vicuñas live up in the real alpine zone, where the biggest plants are tussock and there's plenty of bare rock and even sand blown up into small dunes.

All through my walk the views of the mountain got more and more glorious.  The walk down, by a different route, was fabulous too. Though it was very sandy.  I had to stop to empty my shoes more than once. It was simple descending, but I'm very happy I hadn't had to climb up the soft, loose, steep pathway.

Back in the village we discovered that we had company.  A group of five graduate students (and a professor) from (of all places) Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who were enjoying a bit of a holiday in the mountains before heading to the Ecuadorian Amazon to start research projects.  We had fun talking with them, especially learning about the plans one of them had to climb Chimborazo in a couple of days (set out from the the base camp at 22:00 or 23:00 to complete the technically simple but gruelling climb to the summit right around sunrise!)

While I'd been out walking Sarah had been out to meet the village alpacas before having been scared away by some mean feral dogs.  So she was very keen to see some more camelids. We decided that the weather looked just good enough that we could consider taking the bus 7km up the road to the park entrance and trying to walk up to the base camp refugio.  We got a ride with two young Ecuatorianos in a car that chugged up the mountain, burning oil as it went. We got to the entrance just before the park opened for the day (and just before they had to start work at the visitor's centre cafe).

Sarah had her doubts about how far she wanted to/could walk, but it took us only about an hour and forty minutes to make it up to the first refugio.  On the way up the clouds did the same trick as the previous afternoon and cleared to give us spectacular views of the mountain looming ahead and (very much) above.  At the refugio guides, climbers and mountain bikers were all in attendance in the cozy and steamy lounge. The staff offered to let us leave our bags (we'd walked up from the entrance with our full travel packs [hooray for packing light!]) as we headed to the next refugio, 1.5km on and 200m up.

Before we'd even made it all the way, cloud had returned to cover Chimborazo, but we did get some fun pics of us at Laguna Condor Cocha.  We were completely surrounded by snow at 5100m asl, the second highest either of us had ever been.

It remained mostly cloudy and breezy for the walk back down, making it less than comfortable to wait first for a bus, then wait for a bus with empty seats, the then give up on that and climb aboard any one that would have us. But at least there were plenty of vicuñas to look pretty and keep us company while we did.

The rest of the day's journey took us further around the base of Chimborazo (dozens more vicuñas… the park is officially called the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve, as it's primary purpose is to serve as a home for vicuñas, which were extinct in Ecuador until some were gifted to the country by Chile and Bolivia in the 1980s.  They found their new home so hospitable that they now number over 20,000!

A downhill bus ride and an uphill pickup truck later and we'd moved back into greener pastures.  Quite literally. Our destination, Salinas, is Ecuador's cheese capital (whose idea was a visit to this village, do you think?)

The village was charming, and as a bonus was having a celebration in the main square for the signing of a new contract to improve the nearby roads (any excuse for a party!). They started with a brass band and plenty of speeches, but continued on into the evening with music and lots more dancing.

The rest of our stay in Salinas was, well, okay.  The next day we spent the morning doing a tour of the region's (many) co-operative businesses.  The big one is the cheese factory (oregano and Tilsit were our favourite varieties they made). But there were chocolate, essential oils, liqueurs, textiles and even soccer balls being made as well.  It was kind of neat hearing how the town's economy had grown from exploitation of salt sprigs (and salt pan workers) to become a very diverse series of community owned and operated businesses where even those not directly employed are contributing/benefitting (e.g. the engineers that work on dairy machinery).

But, nice as the young man squiring us around was, it did feel like a bit of a sales and shopping trip that we'd have the privilege of paying for.  Which made me even less happy when I discovered that I was supposed to pay to walk up the hill behind the town.

By the next morning we were pretty content to head back down the road to the small city of Guaranda.  On arriving we had just enough time to buy tickets for a 10:00 bus to Quito, order two grilled cheese sandwiches (we ate a lot of cheese in Salinas, but apparently not enough!), and just barely manage to squeak aboard out bus two minutes before it departed.

The bus trip was a glorious one, first back up alongside Chimborazo, completing our ¾ circuit of the giant volcano (lots more vicuñas too!)  Then, once we'd returned to the Pan-American Highway, two hours cruising up the Avenue of the Volcanoes, where we passed another four peaks of over 5000m.

The trip through the suburbs slowed us down a bit.  But by the time we arrived at Quito's southern bus terminal we still hadn't heard from our Airbnb host.  No matter. We took the city's quick and efficient bus rapid transit to a likely neighbourhood and (after checking one more time at an internet café) cancelled our Airbnb and checked into a room at the whimsically named, comfortably appointed and charmingly staffed Secret Place Hostal.