Llámame Nacho: Adventures in and around Quito

Having returned from an extensive weeklong field trip on Saturday, our professors gave us Monday off from class, allowing us to have a normal two-day weekend. With only a finite time left on the mainland before we travel to San Cristóbal, a group of us decided to make the best of it. Taking three different buses and a taxi, we eventually ended up at Parque de Cóndor. For you gringos that means Park of Condor. I had thought it was more of a nature preserve where you hike around the habitat where they live and if you're lucky maybe you'd see one flying from afar, or a few eating a dead deer or something like that. Instead it was more of a rescue type place that exhibited many different types of birds that were either raised in captivity or injured somehow, so wouldn't be able to survive in the wild. I took some really low-quality photos of these caged birds of prey so here's some "highlights":

The Barred (Bard) Hawk

The Harpy Eagle. Had a great crown and general demeanor and is HUGE. Not sure how a bird that heavy would fly, even if it didn't have a broken right wing

Try to tell me this Stygian Owl doesn't look EXACTLY like a Furby

Here's the main attraction- an Andean Condor. They are seriously ugly birds but are impressive in size, especially their wingspan (up to 3 meters). They can also live up to 80 years.

I took an iphone video of it bathing and walking around and such but after looking at that crab video from the last post, I don't think it's worth posting. Instead, here's an internet pic of a California Condor (same basic concept) being the ultimate badass:

Oh, the park also had two bald eagles named Gringo and Gringa, which I found incredibly demeaning to Americans. Here's Gringo:

This was out of a cage which was a bit scary from five feet away. I think it was tethered at least

Also the area itself was gorgeous. Here's photographic proof:

They did a flight exhibit here with some of the birds as they would cruise around at eat pieces of meat out of a guy's hand. I took some GoPro footage of it but I haven't edited it down yet. Also my friend took some pictures of me holding a kestrel with one of those falconry gloves so I'll post that whenever I get my hands on it. Afterwards we hopped in a taxi down the hill to the town of Otavalo, famous for its artisan market for a little shopping. I'm going to have to ship stuff home, so Dad if a box arrives back home from Quito, don't open it because it'll be packed with Christmas presents!

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Originally we were planning to spend Monday in Papallacta, which a town featuring thermal hot springs about 2 hours from Quito but the troops were exhausted and travelled out from the past week. Instead, with a bit of a later start, four of us headed downtown to hit the TeleferiQo. This is a gondola that, for the price of $8.50 for non-Ecuadorians, will take you to 4100m in the shadows of the peak of Pichincha (the most local volcano) for spectacular views of Quito.

Do not "trow" anything out the window. You gotta love it

Let me tell you, the altitude was brutal. Even just walking around caused a little huffing and puffing and an elevated heart rate. Thankfully, we found these horses instead, for only $10.

Meet Cariñosa, the most majestic steed in all of Ecuador

Peep Roberto's horse Mariposa, possibly the smallest non-miniature horse in the entire world

They had us wear these ponchos to look more authentic. Between the horse and the poncho I was somewhere between being this guy:

And this guy:

In all honesty, this was so cool. I'd never ridden a horse before (at least to my memory) and to do it for the first time on a volcano in the Andes was surreal. I felt very regal atop my steed so we took a lot of pictures.