Hiking in Cajas

Up around 8:00, had breakfast, then to the tourist info centre to inquire about the highway to Loja. Still blocked.Lisa and me waited for Jason and Kieran to meet us at our hostal at 10:00am. They got there abou 10:10, we raced to the bus terminal (via taxi) to catch a 10:20 bus to Parque Nacional Cajas. Ended up the 10:20 bus that the tourist info centre told us about does't exist anymore, so we had to wait until a 10:45 bus.It took about 1 hour to reach the park entrance, the bus dropped us off. We paid our $10 park fee to the rangers. They were very excited to see us, and super friendly. They gave us all maps and brochures of the park, asked us how long we wanted to hike for, and recommended a couple of hikes. We did hike number 3 on the map, Valle de Quinas. Very beautiful, it's so high, the vegetation is very tundra like, like you'd see in the high Arctic. We started at an altitude of 4068 metres and our highest point was 4142 metres. It was cold near the top, and cloudy most of the hike, and on and off rain (usually a mist) all day. The altitude kicked me hard. It was hard to go uphill for any sort of time before I was huffing and puffing. I was also slightly dizzy a few times, I was certainly feeling the high altitude. We finished the hike in about 4 hours, the map and the sign said it was a 7 hour hike.We flagged down a bus on the highway to get back to Cuenca, went back to the tourist information centre and asked about Loja again. Still blocked, but she mentioned that there was an indirect route we could take, through Machala, to get to Loja. We went for ice cream, then arranged to meet up with Jason and Kieran at 8:00 for cuy (guinea pig).We went back to our hostal, Lisa showered, then I had no hot water. We walked to Jason and Kieran hostal at 8:00, then to El Maiz for the Ecuadorian specialty, guinea pig (cuy). The waiter said it would take about an hour to prepare, which was fine with us. He said one guinea pig would be enough for all four of us to sample it. We also ordered a regular meal, Lisa got goat. She's being especially experimental with her food tonight!The waiter brought out the cuy when it was done cooking. He brought it out before cutting it up, so we could take pictures. He obviously knew we were tourists trying it for the first time. There was one tooth still in the mouth, it was weird to see.After taking pictures, the waiter took it back to the kitchen and brought it back out cut up. We all grabbed a piece. Lisa loved it. She gorged on it, couldn't get enough. Me, Jason and Kieran, well, we had trouble with it. The skin was like leather, and it was hard to get any substantial meat off of it. Furthermore, for me, I just couldn't get it out of my head that was a guinea pig. Kieran just kept remarking that we were eating vermin, and he wasn't fond of it.After we paid our bill, Lisa asked how it's prepared. The waiter told us that when we ordered it, the guinea pig was still living. They are raised at a farm that the restaurant owner has. When someone orders cuy, they break the neck of the guinea pig, then have to boil it and roast it, and that's why it takes so long to prepare.Afterwards, we went to a microbrewery to hopefully sample some good beer, but they were all out of their home grown beer, except their stout, which is dark, like Guiness.