Travel day today. We rose to the sunshine and cool temperatures that characterize the southern hemisphere at altitude and at this time of year. The day was largely spent in the bus, taking in the magnificence of Chimborozo, this time in the stark lunar landscape of its national park. The land was dry and barren, reminiscent of Iceland, except for the lovely wild vicunas grazing on the sparse vegetation. Then, we descended into the lush green patchwork fields. We stopped at an indigenous village where we were adopted by the friendliest dog in Ecuador, who escorted us on our tour. We named him "Shep 2" in honour of our Iceland dog who saved us from the sea lion. The village was in a state of some kind of stasis: it had been the beneficiary of a well-meaning man originally from Quebec, who helped the locals build a hotel and who taught them the rudiments of establishing a local tourism industry. After a period of some years, the Quebecois left, reasoning that he had taught the locals all he could, and it was now up to them to make their enterprise work. The jury is still out on their ability to lure visitors, although Pablo, who knew the local "presidente", brought us to visit. The local ladies had the usual woolen crafts to sell, and we visited the local alpaca pen, where the animals regarded us with a strange and humourous look of mild curiousity and shy detachment. It almost looked like they wanted one of them to venture down to us to say hello, but they were all too timid. Shep 2 and we found it hilarious when the "presidente" and a local lad forced one of the alpaca from the nervous herd down to look at us more closely, but the poor beast couldn't find his voice to say hello to us. Too bad, a wonderful interspecies moment had been lost forever ! 
Then, to complete the day, we had rain, fog, beers, and laundry in Quito. Quite a day !!
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