New Year is a big deal in Ecuador, and they take the celebrations seriously. That was one of the reasons we had planned to be here to see in 2012. But I don't think we expected to be in Cotapaxi national park, playing Mexican train dominoes, burning a smurf called Colin while 4 Ecuadorians played the guitar and sang along, and celebrating with a bus full of Japanese climbers. But it did make for a memorable experience… Here they personify the New Year and create an effigy of it, made out of stuffed old clothes with a mask on the face. In past years popular effigies have been Osama Bin Laden, or Ecuadorian politicians. The most popular this year was smurfs. Yes, while Peru is a nation obsessed with photocopying, Ecuador has an unhealthy liking of smurfs. We even saw a Smurf circus, but unfortunately did not have time to visit. It was only fitting that we therefore bought a stuffed baby smurf as our effigy. Then the men dress up as the widows of the new year - full black drag outfit, usually with balloons front and back(this is the continent of Shakira bum after all), and ask for money. In the city they do this by begging at the road side, but in the villages they block the roads so cars can't get past until the alms have been paid - they are then used to buy beer for the big party that night. They also compose poems for the old year, but none of them made much sense to me as they were all in Spanish (probably with all kinds of numbers hidden in them). We had the option of staying in Quito for New Year, but we are getting old now, and generally try and avoid city centres on New Year. Also, when I was a small child I remember Sheila bringing me a story book about the Cotapaxi volcano and cowboys who lived nearby, so it was on my to-do list for this trip. Cotapaxi is an active volcano, although hasn't erupted for over 100 years (and is thought to be due soon!), and Ecuador's second highest peak, at a whopping 5897m. So, because of old age, diary constraints, and the fact that Sheila was heading that way anyway, Cotapaxi was our NYE choice. So, along with Sheila's friend Ximena, we headed off to Cotapaxi, Colin the smurf tied to the front of the car with a bag full of sweets and small change for the drag queen widows of 2011. En route we sort of stumbled across a rodeo - sort of in that Sheila had actually stumbled across it a couple of years before so we knew it was somewhere. But the rodeo is a big deal in these parts - people dress up in traditional clothes and pair up for a turn at catching a bull. The bulls aren't fully grown, but they aren't babies either. Judging by how wound up they got I would say they are teenage bulls. Each pair gets 4 minutes and 2 attempts to get both lassoes on the bull's horns. Some of the competitors were fairly good, but I think they skills get worse as the day goes on and more and more beer is drunk. But it meant I got to see the cowboys going about the most cowboy-ish of business so the little detour made me very happy. We stayed at the Refuge Jose Rivas in Cotapaxi. Surprisingly there were a few others there for NY - a party of Japanese who spoke no English (apart from 'No Lady!' every time I opened the bathroom door on them - apparently they don't use locks in Japan?? We shall see in April), and a party of Australians, the alpha male of which we named Superman. He had climbed Everest - 'the hard way' and been in the Special Forces. In the room with them more like. At about 10pm all the climbing types wanted to go to bed - hard core! Pham! Not like us after multiple glasses of red wine - we were mid-way through an epic game of Mexican train dominoes…), and most of the staff like to leave before midnight so they can be with their families. So it was agreed we would burn the effigies then. Which is how we found ourselves half way up an active volcano, pretending it was midnight, burning Colin the smurf and jumping over the flames to the tunes of acoustic Ecuadorian folk songs (I think) whilst 8 Japanese tourists looked on slightly bemused by the whole process. The surrealness of the situation (and/or the amount of red wine) gave me the giggles. So with the hard core climbers (and Sheila) long in bed, we found ourselves preparing to see in the New Year with 3 non-English speaking Ecuadorians (Ximena, and two bar staff who were our new best friends). I think we were all speaking the language of red wine. At midnight Sheila popped back downstairs to say happy new year and we ate 12 grapes each (well the others did, I had mine with a cheese plate earlier) as is another Ecuadorian custom. Finally, I had found out that to bring a year of prosperous travel Ecuadorians run a lap around outside the house with a suitcase. Well it's quite cold at 12am half way up a mountain so I ran round a table with my day rucksack on before deciding that was probably a good time to call it a night. Goodbye 2011! And hello 2012! The original plan had been to climb to the 'base camp' refuge, where the real climbers start their climb to the summit from. When the original plan was made however we did not realise: a) How much red wine would be consumed the night before; b) The effect of said red wine at altitude; c) The fact it was a climb (at least at a 40 degree angle) from the car park to the summit; d) The fact that said climb was on gravel; and e) With gale force winds coming from the side of the mountain. Still, there's nothing quite like a bracing hike up the side of an active volcano to get your new year off to the right start so off we went. I celebrated with the world's most expensive fun size snickers, and then we ran back down to the car park, only stacking it about every 50 metres. I also have a new found respect for people that actually climb the whole mountain. (But not Australian superman. He was just a pillock, and deserves our scorn). Between all the excitement of Christmas and New Year we spend a few days out of Quito in the rainforest. Mindo is a small town in the rainforest a couple of hours drive away from the capital. We got a lift up there with two of Shelia's friends, kindly missionaries from England (who were kind enough not to baulk when Jon started talking about gangbangers instead of gang members when recounting his holiday in Florida on the journey up there). Mindo is also a centre for birds, in a country that has over 1600 species to spot - to put in context, there are only 1200 types of birds in the whole of North America. This meant taking my new found hobby to new heights - booking a tour where the sole purpose is to go and look for birds. I believe it is called bird watching by those who engage in such activties. We had to meet Julia, our bird watching guide, at 6am (there's so much wrong with me writing that sentence…) she took us on a 3 hour walk through the rainforest to see what we could see. We saw some pretty cool things that I associate with seeing in a zoo. In particular, watching toucans have their breakfast was not something I ever expected to see. They look just like they do on the telly! We also saw vultures (ugly birds), hummingbirds and a heap of things I mistranslated due to Julia's strong accent - mass tittyah anyone?? However there were no condors. And I should point out that most of this was through binoculars or a spotting scope. A safe distance was kept at all times. And the highlight? Another ride in the back of a truck taxi. I'd developed this 'devil-may-care' attitude- bird watching, ah f*ck it, go on then - after going zip wiring in Mindo over the rainforest canopy. Bear in mind that I was scared when we went off road segwaying in Reading recently (it has a top speed of 7km per hour). I wasn't sure how I would feel strapping myself onto a zipwire for over 2.5km above the rainforest. It's a long way down and top speed is definitely more than 7km per hour. I LOVED it. They start you off on slow wires, where the staff operate the breaks for you, and then move you on to fast lines where you use your hand as a break (they gave you a giant leather glove to prevent friction burns, loss of fingers etc). SO although I had some confidence from doing the slow lines I was a bit worried about the breaking. So I decided to fly 'superwoman' style. Lying down face first hurtling over the trees with my legs wrapped round a guide simply so he could operate the breaks. LOVED it. Jon was a bit surprised when I arrived at the next platform in that position as it was a last minute plan. He didn't do any superman flying, and claims it is because he didn't want to take the edge off my coolness. But I know otherwise… There's pretty much nothing going on in Mindo at night (well really after 6pm) so we found ourselves at a 'frog concert' one night. Partly because I thought it would be like the frog chorus that Paul McCartney wrote, and partly because they gave you a glass of free wine for turning up. It wasn't like the Paul McCartney song; it was a nature walk in the dark. To look for poisonous frogs. Did I mention the dark?? Also it was all in Spanish, but we saw some luminous microbes, got free wine, and rode in the back of a truck / taxi for the first time in South America which was a definite highlight for me. And the frogs make one hell of a racket. I don't think the ex-Beatle had heard it before because it was no way as melodic as he seems to think… This week we... STAYED · At Kascafesue in Mindo. Really nice people, lovely dogs and great food but our room was a little bit noisy. · At Refuge Jose Rivas in Cotapaxi National Park. Fairly basic, and our first experience of a dorm room (does it count if you know the other two people in it?) but warm and great food. · At Casa de Sleech. But again Max won't let the likes of you in. He will lean on you until you give up and leave, and if that doesn't work there is a real risk he will breathe on you instead. Only the strongest can withstand such extreme measures. ATE · Turkey for dinner on NYE. Maybe they still had leftovers from Christmas at the refuge, but it went well with the red wine. · At Restaurant El Chef in Mindo - they bring you steaks cooking on a hot plate which was quite exciting. · At Kascafesue in Mindo and discovered Mora juice. Yummy. LEARNT · I'm not entirely sure I know the correct definition of an effigy so may have used it incorrectly throughout this entire blog. · It's probably not such a good idea getting drunk for the first time on this trip at over 4000m. Ok, really drunk. · Acoustic Ecuadorian folk music is marginally better than pan pipes. But that might just be because I thought it was hilarious at the time. · Jon is not the best person to go bird watching with. For starters he is colourblind, so most birds look brown to him. He also talks a lot. Loudly. · It's quite hard to remember learning's 2 weeks after the trip… CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH OUR FEATHERED FOE It turns out I am quite good at spotting birds - years of being able to sense a pigeon from 50 yards is paying off. There were a fair amount of chickens in Mindo, but I didn't see any in Cotapaxi. I can only conclude chickens don't like altitude therefore I will be moving to a mountain when I return to Europe. But - the list in full goes a little something like this…
Roseface parrots

Red billed parrots

Crimson toucan

Pale mandebilled toucan

Choco toucan

Black vulture

Motmots

Bat Falcon

Multiple tanagers (swallow, summer, lemon rumped, bay headed)

Ornate flycatcher

White necked jacobie

Swallow tailed kite

Three colour finch

Tropicalkimba flycatcher

Orange bellied euphonia

Cattle egret

Lyre tailed nightjar

Rufus tail hummingbird

Squirrel cuckoo. That was enough for me. Oh and we went to a restaurant with its own peacock. Why??