Cotopaxi volcano 'zen park' and the Hacienda

     Today 2/22 we took a road trip to our next destination, part 3C. Our driver Oswaldo for the waterfall tour took us. We went around a couple of cities and had awesome helados de Salcedo, a special layered ice cream treat from the town of Salcedo. It is a wide layered popsicle with cream flavor around a bit of guanabana jam then mora, ron pasas, fruitilla, and taxo in stripes. The highways were nice and modern until we turned off for the last 20K to our hacienda. 20k on big gravel is a bit grueling but the place here is worth the ride. Hacienda Los Mortiños is a beautiful big house with attentive staff. All the guests for the weekend left and we are apparently the only people here so we got two rooms for the price of one. We are way up here, past 3600 meters, on the shoulder of Cotopaxi which tops out at 5900 meters. Upon our arrival, Cotopaxi peaked out of the clouds but then it turned to heavy rain then hail during during our first walk. The hacienda is alone in a rocky shrubby field with big hills and four mountains around. The haciendas up here are big old farm buildings from when the Spanish took over the farming and indebted the natives. A couple are still farms but most are now hotels.

     On 2/23 we woke up to a hearty breakfast then had a horse back tour of Parque Nacional Cotopaxi. I rode a horse once over 30 years ago. Steph rode some on her farm long ago. That is our level of experience. Our great baquero/cowboy Patricio rode the only skittish horse and led Lumia. The rest of us had a short lesson on stop, go, left, and right and we were off. My horse Castaña/Chestnut seemed content to follow the pack and would only hurry about every fourth time I urged him forward. Steph's horse was Moro, Cael's little horse was Petufo (Spanish for Smurf), and Lumia's was Dorado. Cael was a quick study and managed his morse well with some guidance from his Madre. 

     Up here we are in alpine meadow with flowers and shrubs but all the grass is pretty short as there are herds of wild horses and cows. Weather comes quickly with mostly clouds but Cotapaxi and its two lower neighbors Rumiñahui and Sinchalagua poked their heads out of the clouds a couple of times. It was pretty cold to start but got warm. The hacienda lunch was hearty. 

     We spent the afternoon hanging out at the hacienda blogging and journaling, doing homework, watching the weather go by, and playing games. The horseback ride was a frequent subject and Cael named our current location the Zen Park after playing that word in Quiddler. Lumia could not stop talking about the ride at bed time. I think we will need to do it again some time after my buttocks recover. 

     2/24 first thing this morning we woke up to a really clear day and got great pictures of Cotopaxi. Then the kids tried the climbing wall but the spots were made for adult hands and they did not get very high. I'll doctor the pics so they look like they are floating. Then we finally got the kids to hike. We hiked up the old lava flow into the national park by a little stream. There was the remains of a small pine forest but we had found out previously the the pine trees were imports from California and have been cut down so they don't contaminate the national park. We saw little water falls, wild flowers and cows. In the park we went up a hillock where all four mountains were out. We got a great Intrepid Explorers photo. The wild horses stared at us as we wandered around up and down hillocks over lava and pyroclastic flow. We got back for lunch and homework and family time. We have had very good meals here. Tomorrow we will go to Quito for one night then into the Amazon. I packed up my computer so you will have to wait four more days before photo updates. See you soon.