AN OLDER POST FROM MY FACEBOOK NOTES
Out-of-tune Guitars = Fiesta!
Out-of-tune Guitars = Fiesta!
Weekend at La Chimba's:
La Chimba is a cow-milking community near the town of Cayambe, near the volcano Cayambe.
La Chimba is a cow-milking community near the town of Cayambe, near the volcano Cayambe.
That isn't the volcano in the background.
After multiple buses and 2 hours later, we arrived to La Chimba around 11am on Saturday. After a lunch, we headed out on a horse ride to some well-anticipated hot springs (considering La Chimba is fairly cold at this point)...
This is the posse on caballos...
Here is my horse, we'll call him Horace for the sake of this note.
Horace... of course.
Horace was a good horse. He never kicked me off anything. However, Horace doesn't have the back of a La-Z-Boy, so after about 30 seconds of trotting it started to hurt. It got quite painful when he wanted to trot with the other horses ("Hey guys, wait for me!", says Horace). My experience with Horace reminded me of City Slickers with Billy Crystal:
After about a 45 minute Horace ride, we arrived at the much anticipated "Hot Springs of La Chimba"!
Yep... that´s them. The hot "springs¨were more like a spout.
The tour guide told us that the springs were normally here, but some cows must have drank all the water. This made me a little disappointed and confused... How many cows would it take to drink 4 hot tubs worth of water!? I wondered if it was something else, like a leak in the man-made, river-side hot tub.
After the hot springs of La Chimba, we returned to La Chimba. On the ride back, there was good news and bad news...
Bad news: One of the girls from our group fell off her horse. It was kinda scary, especially when we realized she had broken her neck. Yeah, she's paralyzed now. Sad isn't? Actually she was just fine, hallelujah. She got right back up. But imagine what we would've done if she had broken her neck. Yikes.
Good news: While riding back we discovered an "arco iris".
Here is me and Horace and the rainbow.
How cute we are. Riding Horace and seeing a rainbow reminded me of My Little Pony. Horace was my little pony. :-)
On the way back, we passed by this band of musicians.
They played some song that consisted of only 2 chords and multiple out-of-tune guitars. We would hear this same song about 50 times between now and the time we left on Sunday. Mind you, the next day was the Fiesta de San Juan.
Here is a photo of the volcano Cayambe... i think.
I'm not sure if it was a cloud or the snow-capped mountain top. Can you see it over that green hill?
THE NEXT DAY: La Fiesta de San Juan.
The town got together today to celebrate St John, from the Bible, i think. I asked someone what the purpose of the occasion was, but I could only make out certain words, like San... and Juan... and Santa Biblia.
But from what I saw, it looked like the purpose was to have a parade...
... drink a ton...
... dance...
... and play the same 2 chords over and over again with out-of-tune guitars...
...oh! and to watch people fights bulls (torros)...
This was probably the best part.
About 5 minutes after we left the bull fight, a guy was stabbed in the leg by a bull. supposedly he was bleeding really bad. :-/
most of the people who were taunting the bull were drunk... so he had it coming.
After the torros, we left La Chimba. Overall, it was a great cultural experience.
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