El Gringo valiente (The brave Gringo)


Over the three-day weekend my friends and I went to Quilotoa. I had already been there once, but it was half a year ago with my dear friend Charlie, but this time it was during the rainy season, which made the whole experience very different.

We set off Thursday night, and arrived near Latacunga at six in the morning, from which point we took a taxi to Quilotoa and was there in an hour. After checking into our hostel we decided to go down to the lake. Let me just say that it looked closer than it was. “Nature lies, people!”

Walking down was challenging enough already, but Erato told me that going up would be even harder. The cold wind mixed with the dense humidity cut through our clothes like butter.

Once we got down, Brian, Beth, Erato and myself went kayaking on the volcanic lake. After paddling around for a while, it started raining, which dampened our lively moods on the water (pun intended). Once we successfully guided our kayaks back to shore, we set off back to the top of the crater.

On our way up, several mules passed us, which flustered Brian quite a bit. “The f*cking things are huge!” he said after one of them passed him a little too close for his taste.

Brian is an Irishman, who loves horses. Well, he loves small horses. “It wasn’t a pony. It was just a small horse” he remarked after going horseback riding in Jipiro park back in Loja. He loves Teddy Roosevelt, and his dream is to be like him.

As Erato and I were walking up the tiring and gruesome incline, we heard Beth’s voice from behind: “Did you just shove me in front of that horse?”
“It was coming right at me…” Brian responded defensively.
“So, you thought you’d put me between yourself and the horse?”

You see dear readers; Brian saw the whole situation in a different light. Brian saw himself as the hero, the protector, the chivalrous guardian of the fairer gender, so after being publicly called out on his actions, he decided to strike a heroic pose every time a mule passed for the rest of the hike up the challenging path.

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