Day 3: May 9th.
Today we packed up our stuff, and said goodbye to Quito and our hotel. We got on the bus at 8:00 am (which somehow was considered sleeping in). We had the most breathtaking mountainous views and saw an abundance of mountain cows and goats throughout the bus ride.
Our first stop was Papallacta. We immediately got off the bus and began our hike. It was a bit hard to breath with the altitude, after a few minutes we were all out of breath. The view of the Andes Mountains as we hiked was beautiful and we stopped to take some photos, then began walking down. It was quite chilly and I had accidentally packed my raincoat in my suitcase. The cold and the mixture of the altitude
Our next stop was at Termas Papallacta: hot springs in the mountain. As someone who hates and is grossed out by swimming pools, I can confirm that it was an amazing once in a life time experience. Where and when else would we be in the middle of mountains at a hot springs spa. It was so relaxing and we were in the springs for about an hour. After a while though, I began to feel kind of sick and nauseous from the heat but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless. It had a pretty garden surrounding the springs. There were several pools some warm, some hot, and some freezing cold for everyone. It was also raining the entire time. Normally, I would not have like the rain while we were swimming but because of the hot temperature in the pool it was very refreshing and kept us cool. After that, we had to quickly change from our bathing suits back into our clothes for the next stop.
Our next stop: the humming bird sanctuary. I had never seen so many colorful birds at once in my life. They were absolutely stunning with each one holding unique vivid colors on their wings. I got some gorgeous close up shots on my phone. The birds flew so fast the camera could not even capture the speed. I was lucky enough to get up close with a bunch of them and observe their vibrant colors, which they did not seem to mind. The birds flew so close to us I heard their wings fluttering by my ears. Skip pointed out a Andean Guan to us ( I had no idea what this was before) and its a huge bird in the same family of a turkey. We also took a walk up to a river which had a very strong current. I saw some beautiful flowers that I had never seen before, although looked poisonous. We found some fruit looking thing in the trees and cracked it open and it had nuts inside.
After spending some quality time with the birdies, we headed over for lunch which we all were excited for. On our way there we saw numerous waterfalls, but unlike any other I had seen before. They were starting from the top of the mountain and went steeply straight down. It was just free-falling. For lunch I ate garlic shrimp, fries, and a salad. The shrimp was delicious.
Our last stop before the lodge was the cloud forest which was my favorite stop. It was the most lush and rich forest I had ever been into. Despite it being cold, rainy, slippery it was the most amazing and enjoyable experience. We hiked for a bit trying not to slip and fall. Skip pointed out many unique thing about the ecosystems and nature living there. All of the leaves had these tips at the top which helped them from removing water from the trees since there was an excess amount of water. We saw this one leaf which had the coolest texture ever kind of like a carpet. After some time we began to head back as it got very slippery to walk on the rocks.
After a long day of being on the bus, we all were tired, hungry, icky, and ready to go to the lodge. It was a couple hours to the lodge but we got stuck in a mudslide so we had to wait for about 20 minutes on the road. The police was directing the traffic. Once we got to the lodge we ate a delicious dinner and were given our rooms. Although my bed has a mosquito net over it, I was still terrified. There were so many bugs and moths in our room it was crazy. I took a very cold shower and tried to go to sleep, but there was the biggest wasp I had ever seen flying all over the room and buzzing over my bed. Eventually I fell of to sleep, and thankfully never saw the wasp again.
