February 17th Dispatch
Climbers: Michael Watson, Glenn and David Booth, Eric Safieh, Eric and Loic Vincent, Susan Mullins, Dean Doyle, James Murray, Tom Fry
Lead Guide: Jeremy Devine
Hello, this is Jeremy!
We had an excellent travel day and are now resting/recreating at a nice hacienda. There are billiard and foosball tables here, and our team members are busy playing games!
This morning we left the Cayambe region and drove south towards the Antisana Reserve.
The first highlight of our trip was stopping at a local coffee and chocolate factory! Jaime, one of our Ecuadorian guides, is friends with the owner of Velez Coffee, located very close to the Equator. We were lucky enough to tour the whole factory! We saw the giant coffee roasting floor, watched the chocolate being made, and fortunately also had the opportunity to purchase the delicious Ecuadorian coffee and chocolate to bring home.
After Velez Coffee, we visited the Equator and continued on to the Antisana region. We stopped at a great place for lunch where a lot of us ordered meat sandwiches "a la piedra" (on the rock), literally sandwiches that had been cooked on hot rocks. They were very reminiscent of fajitas and tasted delicious!
We made a couple stops en route, one at an ATM and another at a pharmacy so folks could pick up a few small items like ibuprofen and sunscreen.
Now we are relaxing at the hacienda before dinner, and we're all really looking forward to the fresh, locally grown food, here! The cooks just walked by on their way to the lake to catch the trout for our meal, and the steak is from cows raised on the farm outside the hacienda. Pretty spectacular!
Everyone on the trip is doing really well. We're all still thrilled about summitingCayambe yesterday! Three people were not feeling 100% before the climb, but they all still felt good enough to make the ascent and are now doing much better.
It's fun to have such a big group on this trip, and I'm excited that each of them is staying for the five-day extension to climb Chimborazo too! Everyone works really well together. Great team!
They're still busy playing foosball and pool, so we'll ask someone to say "hello" in the next report.
We had nice weather today. We've been enjoying a nice mix of sun with light clouds that pass by or dissipate after only a couple minutes.
We leave tomorrow for the Antisana base camp and will call again, soon.
Ciao!
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