My last few weeks

¨Live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway.¨

Well, it has been a while since I last wrote so this post is just going to be a quick summary of what I have been up to in the last few weeks. The day after my last climb I did a 60km bike ride to a small town in the jungle, which would have been great except for the fact that a dog bit me about half way there. Luckily, I was able to clean and wrap the five puncture wounds there and then with my handy first aide kit, but seeing as I am in a developing county, I then had to take a trip to the hospital for rabies shots. At the hospital they gave me a shot in my stomach (doctors did this decades ago, needless to say they are not quick up to date with their medical practices) so I then found a clinic where they gave me the first of what mightbe the proper series. For the following days I couldn´t do much as my leg was very sore, but I still managed to bridge jump (like bungee jumping) and go canyoning (repelling down waterfalls) so all in all, it was a pretty good week.

My next adventure was the Quilotoa loop, a four day backpacking and hitchhiking trek in the mountains that I did with a Swiss guy I met a few weeks earlier in Quito (who I have continued to travel with ever since). We started out by bussing and hoping on the back of a milk truck in order to get to the Quilotoa crater, a lake high in the mountains (at over 4,000m) surrounded by nothing but a few indigenous houses. Over the next few days, we hiked through the mountains and little mountain communities (sleeping in them along the way) and saw the true indigenous way of life for the people here. This was one of my favorite parts of Ecuador.

After that was the monkey house! Imagine walking into a large inclosed yard and having a little monkey come up to you, grab your hand, and pull himself up to sit on your shoulders. That is what happened here. It is a monkey rescue facility that you can visit and play with the friendly monkeys, and if I hadn´t been pulled away, I would probably still be there. From there, we took a bus to the next town, Cuenca, where we found an amazing hostel to call home for the next week. It was only an hour bus ride to the national park, so we went hiking two days. The first day it was dry until we hitchhiked home on the back of a pick up truck in the rain, and obviously got soaked, and for the next hike it poured the whole time, so we ended up hiking through streams and mud (I even fell straight on my face, literally). On our way out of Cuenca, the bus broke down, and after waiting two hours for them to fix it, we ended up hitchhiking in the back of a truck (with eight people inside and nine in the back) for three hours, also in the rain. Looks like I found a place that rains as much as Eugene!

After spending two days in the south of Ecuador ata nice resort (only ten bucks a night, including a huge breakfast with fresh fruit and crepes) reading in hammocks, playing pool, and hanging out at the bar, we headed off to Peru. The boarder crossing involved a six hour bus ride, then an hour long ride in the back of a truck, then an uncomfortable ride with eight people in a small taxi, and then finall we arrived. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of our bus rides as we wanted to head straight away to Huraz, a town about a thrid of the way down Peru. After two overnight 14h bus rides, we finally arrived here and boy was it worth it! There are 33 peaks over 6,000m, and countless others over 5,000, it is a climber and trekers paradise (literally, it is known to be one of the best places in the world for treking and climbing). Looking out the window here you seee a chain of enormous snowy mountains, I couldn´t ask for a better town. Tomorrow, Philippe (my Swiss buddy) and I are headed off on a 12 day trek around and through some of these amazing mountains. Since we didn´t want to go with a group, we are going to do it by ourselves, and rent a mule to carry our tent and food. This is going to be the backpacking trip of a lifetime!