black sheep of the family

Yesterday, after five hours on the bus, complete with a Mexican chick flick called Casarse Quien Puede, I arrived in Chigchilan at the extraordinary Black Sheep Inn ecolodge. 

Eva and Edmundo met us (me, breathless from wheeling my overloaded suitcase up the steep driveway at 10,000 feet) and welcomed us with carrot cake and pineapple on the sundeck. 

At 4:30 we did a session of tantric yoga led by one of the other guests. Then we literally crawled into a gorgeous sauna with a door suited for hobbits. 

water bottle for scale

Dinner at 7 is family style vegetarian. This is truly a traveler's paradise, complete with inexpensive day trips to nearby Quilotoa Lake, the cloud forest, Quechua markets, and the Paramo cheese factory. Because it's an ecolodge there are composting toilets

and wood-burning stoves heating the fancier rooms. 

The gym made us all laugh. 

Although the meals are vegetarian, the farm is also home to adorable piglets. 

I'm taking a lazy day today to acclimate and read and appreciate the incredible surroundings. 

I may never leave.