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The purpose of my travel to Ecuador was to visit my family and spend time with Rio Amadeo, with whom I connected before mainly on a screen via What’s app. I was a stranger when I arrived and slowly, we became friends. Two days ago, we had a family celebration, a ritual of welcoming Rio Amadeo into the family and the world. Ecuador is a very Catholic country and the baptism is done in a traditional way. However, we changed it a bit and brought water from a “sacred” well in Austria.
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Church in Puembo
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Water from Mariazell, the most important pilgrimage site in Austria. My daughter and daughter in law were pregnant at the same time. Together, we did a welcoming ritual for the then unborn babies and collected water from the sacred well in Austria. This water was now used for the ceremony in Ecuador.
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The desserts for the family party were brought by both grandmothers of Rio Amadeo. This beautiful and also delicious cake with the two hummingbirds was provided by the Ecuadorian “abuela”. I made a typical Austrian Apfelstrudel.
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Grossmutti and Abuela in black and white outfits. I could not help but smile about this coincidence. It was a small family gathering. When we were all standing around with a glass of champagne, each of us said different wishes and blessings for Rio Amadeo. Most of it I did not understand (by not speaking Spanish), but I know that they were wishes for love, compassion, wisdom and joy in life.
Lorenz took one day off to hike with me on the 4,788-meter Corazón mountain, about 30 km southwest of Quito. It is an inactive volcano and a nature preserve. The access road to the entrance of the preserve is in terrible shape, but we managed it. We would have needed a permit in advance to enter, but Lorenz convinced the guard to register us directly at the gate. We paid the entrance fee there ($5, Ecuador has the same currency as the US). When we were waiting to get in, several “llamas” came and looked at us.
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Beside the guardian house there is a field with sheep. In the background, covered by fog, you see the twin mountains Los Ilinizas.
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Three little cute puppies constantly ran to their mother and wanted to drink.
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The small path up the mountain was leading us through high grass with sometimes small areas of moss and other ground covering plants.
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Very typical ground coverings
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At about 4,500 meters, there was just plain, open space with no high grass anymore. We were lucky that we could see the mountain top of Corazón for a short time. Unfortunately, the gate closed at 3pm and we could not walk up to the top. Maybe it was better anyway because I had to breath heavily on this altitude.
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Lorenz and I had picnic at the saddle. Suddenly, a gorgeous eagle landed beside us and wanted to have food too. This bird was not shy at all and surrounded us all the time. We were feeding it some bread.
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The sun peeked through the clouds for a short time.
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Like always, the colors of flowers blooming in high altitude are brilliant.
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On this altitude, we had to wear warm clothing.
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A clay wall farther down
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Heavy clouds and thunder announced the arrival of rain.
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When we were pretty much down in the valley, many herds of cows were driven either up or down the street to the next milking station which was being pulled by a tractor. Each cow carried a heavy udder. At one place we saw that the cows were standing in line, waiting to be freed of the heavy weight.
I know there are many mountains to climb and beautiful places and things to see, but this has to wait for a visit the next time. Thank you so much, my dear friends, for visiting with me this beautiful country.
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