Wednesday started with a gift: waking up to completely clear skies and a direct view of Cotopaxi right from the hotel. After breakfast, we headed up into the volcano and visited a crater lake at the top of the mountain, getting a guided tour with views that made you feel like you were standing inside a postcard. Then came the hike, where we picked up an unexpected companion: a local dog who decided we were his people and followed us the whole way up. The views were wild in the best way. Turn left and you’re looking out over Otavalo; turn right and it’s a dramatic wall of mountain range as far as you can see. Two completely different worlds separated by about 90 degrees of neck rotation. Massive shoutout to our bus driver too, who navigated some genuinely treacherous roads like it was nothing.

After the hike, we visited Condor Park, where we got up close with Andean condors and other incredible birds. I even got to hold one, which was a bucket list moment I didn’t know was on my bucket list. Incredible experience, though there was something bittersweet about watching birds that magnificent in cages. Then came dinner, and with it, the guinea pig. A little scary to look at, but once I committed, it was actually really good. Crispy, rich, totally worth it. The rooftop farewell dinner in Otavalo would have been a lovely send-off, had every single one of us not received steak that was, generously speaking, still alive. We ate what we could, admitted defeat, and gave the rest to a street dog outside who genuinely seemed happier about it than we were.

Thursday was an early travel day to the Amazon, and I was running on fumes, so I napped through most of the bus ride. I came back to life for the Sun Museum at the equator, which was genuinely cool, learned a lot about how physics gets a little strange right in the middle of the Earth. The drive featured mountain views that don’t quit, including a stop at the highest point of the whole trip, over 13,000 feet. We then hit a beautiful natural hot springs resort for lunch and some much-needed soaking, followed by a cloud forest hike that absolutely soaked us in a different, less pleasant way. By evening we made it to our lodge in the Amazon, had a great dinner, and started getting to know the people running the place. Whatever’s next, I’m ready for it.