Quito, Ecuador

The 6 hour bus ride into the sierra of Ecuador was quite unbelievable. The first few hours we passed huge plantations where they were growing gigantic banana trees and other huge tropical plants i think to use their fibre and leaves for thatching roofs and things of that sort. Then we began to climb.

The road was very narrow and the valley we were going up was very steep on both sides with thick green jungle on every side. It was amazing that the cliffs were covered with ferna at such a steep angle. At some point we passed a few really spectacular waterfalls and then we went right under this really spooky huge indigenous face carved in a cliff overlooking the valley, and I got this really sombre feeling as if it was something grave that we were entering the Inca empire. Near the top the clouds were really thick and visibility was like 20 feet. Then we popped out on top of this huge plain with rolling hills of grass and a few skattered forests. We traveled another hour or so into Quito. Quito was amazing.. It is like 30 km long and 2 km wide and it sits in a valley with Volcán Pichincha to one side. and the town is further divided into an Old Town to the south and a New Town to the north. We ended up staying at Casa Bambú which was up on the east side of the valley over looking the New Town. The rooftop terrace had hammocks and great views of the city. There were a lot of cool people at this hostel and we wasted a lot of time just sitting around talking with them and playing cards.