Horseback Riding Adventure Through The Ecuador Andes

Our day started at 9:45 am. We took the Garcia Moreno, Los Molinos road. While going down towards Yascon we passed the  La Encanada y La Jornada dam . Then we were riding on a cliff that was part of the old hacienda road. This road took us to Tumbatu with an altitude decrease from 2,900 to 1,700 meters above sea level.  Reaching that lower altitude we saw a snake of about 2 meters in length, and dark gray almost black. When we arrived to Tumbatu (1500-1700 msnm) we found a very small village of black people. The loud music of the town made us slow down our pace. We kept going and saw a group of men dancing, one of them approached us with a threatening attitude but the others stopped him.
We couldn’t find a direct connection between this village and the Chota River crossing, for this reason we had to find the old crossing and find the connection with Aloburo.
While crossing the town the music got more and more joyful and people were dancing all over.  We could tell that some of the couples were showing us their abilities as dancers and they noticed we were filming so they start dancing more and more sensual and the ladies were sending us kisses.  It was an amazing welcoming!
We had lunch next to the river and even though we were somewhat far from the houses we had dozens of kids asking for a horse ride.  I gave one of the kids a 5 dollar bill and told him to get us 4 cold beers and keep the change. It was the best beer I have ever had.
The snack we had helped calmed the hunger.
3KM later we found the hill towards Aloburo, long but beautiful. We met there with the photographer for  COSAS and CLUBS magazine.
Passed the  Hacienda Piman. Kept riding and enjoyed the goats, the moon, the night. We rode for 3 km on the road were the car racings take place. Then we arrived to Hacienda La Serena in Salinas. Water and alfalfa bales for the horses and dinner for us.  It was an amazing but exhausting 49 km in 10 hours.
 

 Today we had a long day, 49 km in 7 hours, but with breaks we had a 10 hour day.

 Paramo full of frailejones.

Spartaco’s ears point toward Aloburo & Ibarra. We passed Yascon & Rumbatu

Early in the morning we got our horses ready and strated our adventure under a pemanent drizzle. We started accompanied by our 2 helpers and 4 Chagras (cowboys)from the Hacienda La Concepcion (10 riders in total). We started our ride through an spectacular paramo full of Frailejones (Espeletia hartwegiana). We found an “castrated” achupalla (see picture)  Achupallas are plants that bears eat. Bears cut them, eat them and leave the leaves exposed and in a couple of months the leaves have become sweeter and the paramo animals feed from there. These leaves are also commonly used by locals to feed the pigs. We rode for aproxm 44km. Tomorrow Sunday we have similar distance but teh heat of Chota will be more of a challenge…. time to rest now..

This picture is the view of 4 valleys: Juncal, Abuqui, Chota and Salinas

Hello everyone!  After a meeting with the media in Quito, we started our drive North towards the border with Colombia. We arrived to Hacienda La Concepcion. La Concepcion is located in the border with Colombia before Tufino.We went to bed past midnight after organizing and getting ourselves ready for tomorrow. We are spending the night at La Concepcion, we will try to have  good night sleep in these nice beds with electic blankets. Early in the morning we will get our horses ready and pack all the supplies. It seems tomorrow will be a 6 hour ride. Not sure if we will have good signal, but we will try to have contact soon. We are nervous and very excited of the adventure that awaits for us. We hope you follow our adventure for this 32 days riding  through the Majestic Ecuadorian Andes!

Please go to Welcome page for a description of this adventure. We will post daily descriptions or at least try to do it daily. Enjoy