Living in the Clouds

For the past few weeks, I've been living in the hills above Pesillo. It's a tiny farming community in the Northern Highlands of Ecuador, up at 3,000m and an hour and a half from the nearest town. Charged with looking after the herd of 14 horses and the resident border collie, there's been little time to explore any further than I can ride on horseback. Fortunately, I haven't felt much need to. The valleys are vast. You can ride for hours and still cover new ground. And their expansive beauty is breathtaking, no matter how many times you see it and no matter what the weather does.
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Some days it's like living in a cloud - the air wet with tiny droplets of rain that shroud the valley in a misty haze. Waves of this feathery-light wisp will swirl through the hills all day, interspersed with fleeting glimpses of blue sky and bright sunshine - the translucent colours of rainbows arching over the valley are a regular sight. In the wetness of the clouds, it's easy to forget the hills are overlooked by the monstrous Volcán Cayambe. When it does appear, a brilliant ice white crag looming in the distance, it looks starkly out of place against the lush, rolling farmlands.

Though riding is undoubtedly the best way to enjoy the scenery, with most of the herd resting after a six-day tour, I've had no choice but to don my trainers and explore it on foot. Turning right out of la finca you can do a 5.5 mile loop of the valley. It's an undulating circuit that climbs over 700ft on a mixture of ankle-twisting cobbles and slippery, muddy tracks - and includes a constant assault by ferocious-sounding dogs that chase you past their property. It was an ambitious start for my first run at altitude and, needless to say, it took several attempts before I completed it without stopping. The locals undoubtedly think I'm completely bonkers - a red-faced "gringita" needlessly puffing her way up the cobbles in a laboured jog that's slower than walking pace. But, by and large, they seem to accept me. I get the odd smile and wave, or friendly honk from a passing truck.

On my most recent venture, la finca's elderly collie, Guapa, decided to join me. Ignoring my repeated instructions of "Quédate aquí " (Stay here), she snuck out of the gates after me, keeping a discrete distance behind. I didn't realise she was in tow until the battle cries of the first batch of guard dogs crescendoed to unprecedented levels. Terrified she'd be mauled by the neighbours or get lost, I spent most of the run glancing nervously over my shoulder and calling her on. But I needn't have worried. Despite remaining largely out of sight - about 70m behind me on a bendy track - she faithfully followed me the whole way. I stopped to wait for her on the home straight as she bowled towards me, ears flapping and tongue lolling as if smiling broadly. It's fair to say she finished much more strongly than I did.

Clearly, four legs are better than two. I should stick to the horses!

Early days at La Finca

The ranch looks a bit like a gingerbread house; a quaint, yellow stone cottage with timber rafters and a small porch - and 14 horses grazing in the garden. It's nestled deep in valleys of the northern highlands and overlooked by the awesome snow-capped peak of Cayambe volcano.

It's picturesque, but spartan. There's no heating, tap water must be boiled before drinking, milk (which comes from the cow next door) simmered before use, and clothes scrubbed clean(ish) in a bucket outside. The closest bus stop is a 30 minute walk along a muddy road lined with tethered pigs, hobbled cows, flocks of sheep and an assortment of dogs that chase you as you pass.

The sun is unforgiving in its strength, but rain is frequent and often torrential. Swirls of moody clouds spill through the valley each day - timing is key if you don't want to get wet. Up at over 3,000 metres, the nights are bitterly cold, and even a short walk in wellies leaves me out of breath.

Staying warm, fed and watered - and keeping the horses fit, healthy and happy - is quite a task. I've only been here a week and I'm already in a perpetual state of grubbiness. Local Ecuadorians however seem to manage life in the heart of the hills with much more grace.

Lots of the ladies wear traditional dress, and stroll along the muddied grassways looking effortlessly immaculate. They pair a vibrant, high-waisted skirt with a bright white blouse that has elaborately embroidered sleeves and coloured panels to match the skirt. Their neckline is hidden by a ruff of golden beads looped multiple times from collarbone to earlobe, and they top the outfit off with a smart, rimmed hat adorned with a ribbon and feather. Some of them have sleek, long hair and smooth, rosy cheeks; others, crinkled brown skin, a stooped back and few teeth. But all are equally elegant.

Of course, not everyone wears their Sunday best every day, but there is something quite special about seeing ladies go about day-to-day chores on the farm in traditional dress. I can only marvel at their ability to be so pristine! Clearly, there's a lot to learn from the locals about living in remote Ecuadorian countryside.

Eggy showers, rotten fish and baths in the mountains...

It’s February in Iceland and the mornings are drowsy. The soft light of dawn only begins creeping across the sky at 9am and the sun remains permanently low in the sky, sinking back below the horizon by 6pm: a natural timetable that favours boozy evenings and lazy mornings. The bar-based routine is encouraged by the fact that venturing outside can be something of a trial: feathery dustings of snow conceal lethal sheets of ice and the climate flits unpredictably between bitingly fresh air with clear skies and blizzard-like conditions with zero-visibility. To leave the city without first checking weather forecasts and road reports is just asking for trouble. Even so, Icelanders have mastered how to live out the winter in style: the island is kept toastie-warm by geothermal energy. Though a slightly eggy smell lingers in the water supply, the bottomless furnace that keeps the indoors warm and welcoming more than compensates. An infinite fuel supply also allows guilt-free decadence using power: heating on and windows open, luxuriously long showers and natural under-floor heating.

Outside of the city however, Iceland is anything but welcoming. Little seems to survive other than the Icelandic ponies who, hard-as-nails, are unperturbed by the most extreme conditions. The countryside, battered by raging winds and arctic temperatures, is inhospitable and unforgiving. The landscape stretches on endlessly in bleak monotones: plains of volcanic black gravel dusted with snow and precipitous snow-covered mountains only just divisible from the white clouds. However, though stark and severe, it is also strangely beautiful. In certain areas, lakes are only part-frozen and patterned with sharp jigsaws of broken ice, while in others, rubble-like rock creates an alien landscape that wouldn’t look out of place in Space Odyssey.

However, stranger than the topography is that, just below the surface, this arctic land is a volatile cauldron of heat. Across the country, flumes of steam spiral from the earth to blend with the snow cover, and you don’t have to venture far into the mountains to find yourself hiking through the stinky sulphurous clouds belched out by hot springs. Craters of gloopy black mud burble suggestively as you pass them, gurgling pools of water bubble furiously at boiling point, and the mountain rivers are so scalding hot that it is preferable to stand barefoot in the snow than paddle.

On my last day, I visited the Kolgrafafjörður fjord on the on Snaefellsnes peninsula. However, what I had thought to be a scenic drive became an impromptu field study when we passed a bay where there had been a mass mortality of fish. I was accompanied by four biologists who, without an inkling of queasiness, made a beeline for the water’s edge. Soon ankle deep in dead herring, they began picking up the least decayed specimens to examine them, one filling up a plastic bag with ten in an opportunist sample collection. I stayed somewhat apprehensively further back. Even so, the mortality was on such a scale that, despite hovering 10m away from the shore, I still found myself squelching through the feathery spines and congealed putty-like fats of rotting fish.

It seems that, as fierce as it is on the surface, Iceland has a vulnerable side. An exemplar in its use of renewable energy, Iceland should be an eco-friendly paradise. However, for 30,000 tonnes worth of dead fish to wash up on the shore, something must be wrong. Then again, my brother, an ardent marine biologist, seemed wholly un-phased, dismissively likening the herring to lemmings. Perhaps it was just a freak of nature rather than a mad-made marine catastrophe…

Either way, from steaming hot rivers that snake through snow-covered mountains, to unexplained natural phenomena, Iceland is full of suprises...