On January 16 we had the best view yet of the Cotopaxi volcano when the sun rose. We could actually see it through the picture window from our bed in the “Birdhouse.” Today was our last day here before we moved on to the town of Baños and we were sad that our Secret Garden Cotopaxi time was drawing to an end because we had fallen in love with the hostel.

We hadn’t visited the llamas yet so that was our priority as soon as we were finished with breakfast. We grabbed a few handfuls of banana peels that everyone had saved for them and went out to their pasture. Just like the manager had said, the peels got their attention and the bossier ones made a beeline for us demanding to be fed. There were a few “crias” (baby llamas) that were absolutely adorable. They were much shyer though and although I wanted nothing more than to go snuggle, squeeze, cuddle, and pet them, I gave them space because I could tell we were making them nervous. Clearly they hadn’t learned about banana peels yet.

We hung out with the herd for a while and took advantage of the perfect clear morning to get pictures of both them, and the iconic volcano. I got a kick out of seeing the glacier on Cotopaxi, knowing that we had hiked up to its edge yesterday.

Our adventure for today was to go horseback riding near the Cotopaxi National Park as part of an excursion organized by SGC. I have never done this as part of a vacation for a variety of reasons typically boiling down to welfare and safety concerns, but everything I had researched and heard about this particular experience gave off “green flags” so I decided we should do it.

We got bused out to the farm with the other folks that were riding today and got to experience the same rough ride as we had yesterday to get to the hike. There were seven of us in total. Scott and I were the only Americans and on the bus ride we got to know the others- two Dutch college students, a recently retired Québécoise, a German college student, and a small animal vet from the UK who was travelling around Central and South America after doing a veterinary mission to Panama. I tipped my hand and told them that I was a horse person and mentally vowed not to be that person today. (Scott said later that I was successful and that they all seemed to appreciate my knowledge and input and that I wasn’t obnoxious. Hopefully that was the case!)

We had a guide that spoke very little English so I was able to fill in the gaps and help give a briefing that covered very basic safety (don’t get kicked) and how to stop and steer. We got assigned to our mounts. The scrappy herd was a mix of colors and all stood about 14 hands, appeared to be Criollos, and were in good weight and condition, aside from some long toes. We mounted from the ground¹ (yikes) and off we went.

We rode for about two and a half hours and covered a lot of varied terrain. We started in scrubby pasture land and made a gradual uphill climb before heading back downhill and into a rocky river bottom area. We crossed a river and then encountered a herd of cattle. Some of them were surprised to see us and took off.

About halfway through we were instructed to dismount for a snack break. Our guide Omar tied our horses to trees while we stretched our legs. He served us warm tea from a thermos and passed out SGC banana bread and most of us took advantage of the break to go duck behind a tree for a quick bathroom break. We remounted and carried on.

I had wanted to ride alongside Scott, both because I enjoy his company, and to help keep him safe, but he was on a slowpoke and couldn’t consistently convince his little bay to muster any sense of urgency, and my guy was a forward little thing who got irritated anytime I asked him to slow down to wait. I eventually just decided to play tourist and not micromanage, acknowledging that these horses did this day in and day out and didn’t need any input from me. I was proud of Scott because the handful of times that his horse would break into a trot, Scott was able to post right along to it! (Although he did tell me that posting in the Western saddle had consequences that the English saddles of mine he had ridden in before did not and he quickly had to figure out how to protect himself…!)

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was mild and sunny with just enough clouds to add some character to the sky. Unfortunately we never got a great view of Cotopaxi itself though because of cloud cover surrounding just its peak. I was thankful that we had this weather today because while climbing a mountain in bad weather wasn’t much fun, riding in it would be even less fun.

Towards the end of the ride the guide decided to take off cantering without any warning² and a few of the more forward horses automatically followed suit to keep up. My little paint had a smooth canter and it was fun to be zipping along through the picturesque Andean grassland. Scott’s horse gave him a handful of trot steps so that was the extent of his speedy grand finale.

Our guide untacked the herd and then drove us back to SGC. Because checkout was at 11 and we were scheduled for our ride this morning, we’d had to pack up and vacate the “BH” and store our things in storage lockers in the SGC equipment garage. Because we are inexperienced hostel-users we were a little surprised to find that we were not provided a way to lock the lockers, so we did the best we could- using zip ties, and Scott made a note to add little travel locks to the packing list. So when we got back we fetched the bags, changed, and then had lunch- you guessed it, another hearty and delicious soup.

We would be taking a SGC shuttle to Baños but it didn’t leave until about 3 PM so we had some time to relax. We made our way over to the yoga/hammock room, discovered that most of the hammocks were occupied, so we decided to hang out on the nets outside that resembled catamaran style trampolines. We enjoyed basking in the sun and looking out over the gardens and at Cotopaxi in the distance.

We bid farewell to our new found traveling friends and boarded the bus. Eventually we made it to smooth roads and the majority of the journey was on the highway. It seemed to take forever but eventually we made it into Baños, and after a little uncertainty about where exactly we would be dropped off at, mostly due to the language barrier, we were able to request that our driver drop us off at our hotel and he happily obliged. When I saw the neon lights illuminating the famous Baños waterfall I knew that we had to be quite close to our hotel since I had picked it because of its proximity to this landmark.

We made our way into the hotel and checked in. We would be staying just one night but would be returning to the same hotel the night after, as we were scheduled to do a two day- one night Amazon adventure that departed the very next morning. Deciding it was too late to bother with finding dinner we just ate some snacks instead and I took advantage of the giant hot tub that took up an entire corner of the small room for a much needed soak. We fell into bed with high hopes that we would finally get some decent sleep since we were now out of the Andes and were back at a much lower elevation.