The parents of my daughter in law invited me to spend my last two days on a hacienda called PapaGayo. They had rented a small house. It had enough rooms for the extended family, including the family of my son, two grandmothers and one grandfather. We spoke three languages – German, Spanish and English. The common language was English. It was great to spend time with them!
View from PapaGayo to the Corazón Volcano. Last year, when I visited my son, we hiked on this mountain.
PapaGaya offers many activities, especially for kids. One activity was feeding the animals like goats, sheep and alpaca. Rio’s favorite thing was walking with the pigs and feeding them.
Each pig had a name. One was called A and another O. They are washed and brushed three times a day and did not smell at all like pigs.
The pigs listened to the command “sit” like a dog before they got food. We all fed them.
The scariest and most fun activity was visiting the cloud forest. The high jungle is about a 20 minute car ride up the mountain. We were sitting on straw bales on an open carriage pulled by a car. The car was sometimes going up to 60km/hour. We had no rails to hold onto – unimaginable, something like that would not have been allowed in Austria. It was so much fun!
The photo was taken at the start of our drive. Rio sits in between the Ecuadorian abuela (grandmother) and my son at the far end. They were holding him tightly – he did not show any fear.
On the way up the mountain, dark clouds were approaching and it started to rain.
Luckily, they brought umbrellas.
The cloud forest is a piece of land left in its primary condition and is owned by indigenous people. The owner of PapaGaya pays the owners a fee for letting tourist walk through this fairy tale landscape.
Eight hundred to one thousand years old trees patched with mosses and ferns grow in this place. Often, we did not need umbrellas to walk through this dense vegetation.
Rio Amadeo was well equipped with rain gear and boots. He hiked nearly all the time.
Only when the terrain was too difficult to walk with his little legs and feet, Lorenz carried him.
The first afternoon after we arrived in PapaGaya, we all were at the playground with Rio. Suddenly the Ecuadorian grandfather (abuelo) said “look, the climbing net is shaking and trembling. I think it is caused by an earthquake!” It was true. Hours after the quake, they received a phone call. Part of their garden wall around the house in Quito had collapsed. In Ecuador, earthquakes as well as volcano eruptions belong to the way of life.
Before I left Ecuador, I gave Rio a gift – a jaguar mask for his room
This mask reminded me of my jaguar experience in Peru. I stayed for four weeks in a simple wooden cabin in the jungle. Meeting a jaguar was my biggest fear. It never happened. The Shaman called me later the Jaguar woman. I gave the mask of a Jaguar to Rio Amadeo as a symbol for protection. We all need protection in our lives.
