tired

Here is a little ditty I typed up but never posted...

June 25, 2007

Yesterday Jeremy and I went with some of two of his co-workers and their assorted German friends to check out the waterfalls at Machay, which is in between Puyo and Baños. En route, we got a flat tire. I have never seen anything quite like it. There was a spark plug totally embedded in the tire. How we were able to drive over it at the right angle for it to puncture the (new!) tire is beyond me. I think we were lucky Jer was along, because he helped tremendously with the Formula One tire changing operation. . Two minutes flat. Ok, not really. But considering how disastrous it could have been, we were back on the road in a decent amount of time. Because were in a Chevy mini suv which had a full sized tire on back, rather than a donut spare tire, we were able to drive at full Ecuadorian speed toward the waterfalls.

Throughout the day we ended up doing a lot of waiting around, because half the group went via bus, and the rest of us were crammed in the car. Plus, it is the nature of larger groups… and Ecuador. We finally were all assembled and started hiking. The trail to the waterfall was pretty steep and slippery in parts. Since I already have a huge, ugly bruise on my butt from falling on the stairs the day before, and already being overprotective of my knee, I was extra careful and sort of slow hiking down. I saw some lady on the trail in heels and a skirt. What!? Yeah, I don’t know what she was thinking! Crazy!!! It was hard enough to walk in decent hiking boots.

So, the waterfall was nice. Not as cool as the one at Hola Vida we visited before, but it was impressive nonetheless. The hike back up was tiring because it was so steep. We were all pretty winded by the time we got back up to the top. The trail continued on to see 7 other waterfalls, but by this time it had started to rain. Plus, one of the locals told us the trail to the others was in bad shape after all the recent rains…so we decided to call it quits early and go grab some lunch. There will be plenty of time to tackle the other waterfalls another day.