Vilcabamba - the last of Ecuador

it was very chilled. First day did absolutely nothing. In the evening, i played table tennis and whooped everyone :-) Then we moved onto pool. I swear I must have learnt every different rule there is in pool that night- so many different people (age and background) and so many different rules. The winning pair stayed on the table and they chose the rules. I cant believe most of them hadnt heard of 2 shot carry... anyway, by the end of the night, there was this really weird vibe and it became a bit serious and the fun vanished.

YEsterday, i went on a horse for the first time and im telling you it is muy divertido! They are truly awesome animals. For the first 4 hours, we climbed to one of the peaks in Podocarpus National Park..steep inclines, tight bends, slippery surfaces, very narrow tracks on the mountain face..to be honest, i wasnt comfortable with it all until half an hour into it. Once I realised that the horses had brains and did not want to fall as much as I did, I relaxed a bit. Then we hiked a loop, stopping off at a waterfall for lunch. The way down was a lot more fun...crossing the river many times, flooring it on straights (i had to hold on so freaking tight and my arse was pounding the saddle). My horse was the youngest in the group and also the most playful - in a bad way. He never liked to be at the back and would block anyone trying to overtake, random acts of violence (im sure it was ´playfull´ behaviour but did not make me anymore comfortable) towards other horses. There was this man in his 50s and he had a right go at me because my horse cut him up on a straight and did a kick back, catching his leg! The thing is, I couldnt do anything...if the horse wanted to go that way, it went that way. I did have (some) control over it when climbing and descending, in terms of direction, because I could see the easier route. But, when it came to speed it had a mind of its own and when it came to those straights, game over.

Got back to the hostel and was shattered - horse-riding is not that easy. Showered, packed, ate and left to catch the night bus into northern Peru. Ecuador has been good to me and im going to miss it