One World -One Trip: Horse Trekking Day One

In Uruguay, we wanted to go horse trekking for three hours or so. The only horse trekking company available did more farm activities than horse trekking which we were not excited about. When Mom said that there's horse trekking in Ecuador, we decided on a two day, with overnight, trek in the Andes Mountains.

Our horse trekking adventure began in the Pululahua Crater which is the largest and only inhabited crater in South America. It is also the only crater in the world that has farming and farm animals in it.

The day we arrived, we did four hours of trekking. Good practice for the next day! We started on open, but deserted roads, and then turned onto smaller trails. The trails featured beautiful scenery and landscapes. It was awesome! The Pululahua Crater was a very pretty place to go horseback riding. Most of the trails were thin and so wooded, that our legs kept running up against the "wall". We were ever so thankful for the lended rubber boots that provided us with "safe feet". Stopping at the two hour point for a snack did us good and Avocet and I practiced mounting our horses by ourselves! When we started heading back, the clouds started coming in, this is a cloud forest! After horse trekking, we retired to the Hostal, where we sat in the Jaccuzzi talking to Noah, someone we met along the trail. We had lots of fun the first day!

Pululahua Hostal has 5 dogs; Mystica, Ping Pong, Scotie, Rocky and Polilla. Mystica and Polilla are Mom and Dad, with the three boys. They are all quite naughty, and while we were riding, they bothered more than 1 or 2 donkeys, cows, chickens, pigs, and horses. Ping Pong and Rocky look alike with black and white hair, while Mystica is a pit bull/boxer with tiger stripes. Polilla (pronounced Po-leash- a) is a golden retriever and Scotie looks most like him, a yellow labrador. They followed us both days up and down the mountains, chasing animals and having a blast!

~Siena & Avocet