It's always a blessing when family comes to visit. Rick wanted to show his parents what geocaching is so off we went to the biggest concentration of geocaches in Ecuador: Parque Metropolitano overlooking Quito. Rick picked one of the hardest caches in the forrest and put his mother out front to lead the way. She took us right to it and within minutes had the cache in her hand. Way to go Olivia! I've gone with folks who've spent a half hour looking and then given up. While Rick and crew headed out to find another cache I took a detour and found a hiding place for what is to date my favorite cache hide. I just submitted it and have called it the Entry to Mordor. No spoilers here for anyone thinking of coming to Ecuador. Anything I say here you can read on the cache page. I'd never been down this particular trail and soon found that it wound down into a "huicu" (Quichua for a ravine or large gully). At the bottom there is a small creek that flows out of a dense humid highland forrest. The entrance was so beckoning that I had to crouch down and go in. Almost immediately I lost all satellite reception. The place is dark, dank and eerie, reminding me of some of the scenes in the series Lord of the Rings. I continued up the stream as I looked for a good hiding place for a small plastic container. I even had to climb up a place where when it rains hard there would be a small waterfall. Finally I found the right place some 50 meters inside the densely covered ravine. This one is for folks willing to possibly do a little wading in ankle deep water and get a little dirty. Hiding caches is a close second to actually finding them. This was fun. BTW, I met a geocacher recently at a geocaching event who has hidden over 800 caches. That's serious work. Well, this was #35 for me, all in South America.
3 comments:
What a neat place. I wonder if a few Tolkien fans are chomping at the bit to travel to your neck of the woods now.
Sounds like a good hide Steve. By the way, Kelly doesn't look like she was having much fun in that picture...what did she think about it all?
No, Kelly was in to it alright. I had fun hiding the other cache and hope someone goes for it soon. I suppose you are finding your share of caches.
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