Sharla and Marsha's Travels

Final Post for Ecuador 2010

2010-11-02T18:51:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Our last day in Quito, and in Ecuador, was a quiet, lazy day. It was Sunday, and we were staying downtown. Even though November 2nd is a big holiday here and this weekend is a celebration, too, downtown was very quiet. Most of the stores were closed, so we decided to go to Independence Park, and people-watch for a while. It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, right here in this very park, the police revolted against President Correa, and two of them died right here. You would never know it from the celebrations going on today.

We sat watching people from all walks of life stroll by, many more "gringos" than we've seen all month. The sun was bearing down on us, but as soon as a cloud swam under the sun, it cooled off drastically for a while. In the early afternoon, as is usually the case here, the clouds became thicker and darkened, and rain threatened. We were told by a local, Marcos, that we should go to the cemetery nearby, where there was more activity...bands playing and booths of food set up, where the indigenous folks buy the food for and sing to their dead relatives. We walked for several blocks, and asked directions from a police officer, but after a while, we gave up on trying to find it.

We decided to eat one last meal at Cafe del Fraille, and then head back to the hotel to pack and retire early. Our flight left at 6:30am the next morning, which meant we had to be at the airport at 4:30am, and be up by 3:00am. We did and, we made it home last night around 9:00pm.

There have been a lot of changes since our first trip to Ecuador in early 2009. It seems that the culture is much more Americanized....ball caps, where we had seen none before, Aeropostle and American Eagle clothing everywhere, not as much indigenous clothing worn by the locals...salt shakers on the tables, where before we were looked at as though we were crazy when we asked for salt for our food.

But, some things have not changed, NO ONE has change for a $10 bill, let alone a $20, even though the ATM only spits out twenties. And, I'm talking stores, and restaurants. Oh, except for the ATM in the airport next to the immigration tax booth where you have to pay $40.80 to leave Ecuador....that one spit out all fives! Why not have those all over Ecuador? And not just at the airport when you are leaving???

The people of Ecuador still seem somewhat suspicious of strangers, but we met some awesome Ecuadorians, who genuinely seemed glad we were there. The weather is great, and the scenery breathtaking.....those things haven't changed. I hope that the influx of retirees fleeing to Ecuador for a beautiful life doesn't change the true Ecuadorian spirit that is
Ecuador, because it is amazing and awesome just as it is.

Until next trip.....CIAO!!!

Last Days in Banos

2010-10-30T20:15:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: After a wonderful night's rest in our new room at Posada del Arte, we got up and had their WONDERFUL juevos rancheros! Yummmmm....just as delicious as I remembered, and their staff was just back this morning from having two weeks off.

We were going to have a spa day, but we had one of those days I think everyone has that none of us could make a decision. So, instead we just sat under one of the umbrellas on the new patio between the original Posada del Arte and the new addition. They have really made the place look terrific and it looked great before!

After relaxing most of the day, we walked into town, and on the way, we noticed a FOR SALE sign on the side of large, old hotel. We were looking in the gate, and a gatekeeper came and let us in. He gave us a tour of the place. The rooms were huge, and the bathrooms were enormous. But, the place sort of gave me the creeps, and needs MUCH updating.

We made our way to Buon Giorno, no surprise there, and ate dinner. It wasn't as good as the other three times we ate there, and I was sort of glad, since now maybe I won't be craving it! We walked around town for a bit more, and ran into both of the rafting guides separately, and both invited us out to dance again. We declined this time. Travel day tomorrow (today).

This morning, we were awakened by the "wonderful" kids that were staying next door around 6:30am. Thank you very much! We kept trying to go back to sleep, and finally realized around 8:30am, they weren't going to be quiet, so we just got up and went back down for, you guessed it, juevos rancheros! We had a nice conversation with Jim, the owner, about purchasing property in Banos, and how it is to run a business there. We had talked to Marshia some last night about the same thing. Jim put us in touch with the contractor who built their addition, and he came to the hostel to talk to us. He took us to a hotel that is for sale that looked like crap on the outside, but was soooooo nice on the inside. And, then he took us to his property on the other side of the bridge. We didn't even know their WAS a bridge in Banos. It's still very close to town, but it feels like you are out of the city. Hey, it never hurts to look, right???

Camille has listened to us for two years about how much we love Banos, and our dreams of living here someday. She finally gets it! When we got on the bus to head for Quito, we all had tears in our eyes. It is such an amazing place....unlike any place I've ever been in my life.

Cotapaxi volcano gave us a nice treat on the way to Quito. We had a nice view of the snow-capped volcano for almost an hour! It was gorgeous!

Once we got to the bus terminal, we caught a taxi to Hotel San Francisco, got checked in, and headed to Cafe de Fraile. Seems like a lot of our time revolves around eating! When you find a good place, it's really hard to go somewhere else.

Back at the hotel, we are trying to get organized for our trip back to the U.S. on Monday...no small task!

Not sure what we have planned for tomorrow, but until then....HASTA LA VISTA, BABY!!!!

Our Ride to Puyo

2010-10-28T22:09:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Actually, the title should be our attempted ride to Puyo. We tried to get an earlier start this morning. Up at 7:30, dressed, packed all of our stuff and had La Petit Auberge store our bags for the day. Because, tonight....drum roll please....we get to check in to Posada del Arte, our FAVORITE hostel in Ecuador! If you want to check it out, go to . It was amazing last time we were here, and they have just added the Blue House, where we are staying our last two nights in Banos, and it is AWESOME!!! Okay, but more about that later....I got off track here.

We rented bikes from a different company today, because I didn't want to give one more penny to Wonderful Ecuador because of how they treated Marsha yesterday. The new place was the same price, $5/day per bike, and had better bikes. We made it about 15 minutes out of town, and Camille said she didn't want to go. She was sore and tired from yesterday, and didn't realize it until we started going up some hills. I tried to convince her to go with us, but she turned around anyway. But, as I caught up to Marsha, I realized she was behind us again. But, only for about five more minutes. We were riding up a pretty long hill and stopped in a shady spot to wait for Camille to catch up. We waited, and waited, and waited. For almost 20 minutes. I walked back down the hill a ways, and still didn't see her coming. It dawned on me that she must have turned back after all. The mother in me wanted to get back on my bike, and go find her and stay with her in Banos. But, the other part of me was mad because she hadn't said anything, and I was worried. Plus, she knew that this was the part of the trip that Marsha and I have been so excited about.

The rebellious side of me won out over the mom part, and I decided to go on with the ride. Besides, she is almost 21, and she tells me every day to quit worrying about her....so, that's just what I did. The wind was even worse today than yesterday. It was extremely hard to ride uphill against it, and there was no coasting downhill. We met a girl named Karen from Ireland about halfway between Banos and Rio Verde. She was probably in her early twenties, and she said her friend was sick, and she was biking alone today. We invited her to ride along with us to Rio Verde, and told her about the walk to the Pailon del Diablo waterfall. She wanted to stop there and go look at it even though she was going to try to go to Puyo, too.

About the time we met Karen, Marsha's front brake started locking up. What is it with her luck and bikes this trip? She said that it was like riding with her brake on the whole time. Oh boy...how much fun is that? At Rio Verde, we relaxed a bit, and had some more water to drink. We also a yummy, juicy, sweet orange. We left Karen to walk to the waterfall, and continued our way to Puyo.

We had asked several people what the road is like from Rio Verde to Puyo, and they all said about the same as from Banos to Rio Verde. Some uphills, but mostly downhills. Well, it turns out that it is quite obvious that NONE of these people have EVER ridden a bicycle on this road. Because, I would say 75% of the road is UPHILL. And, there aren't short uphills and short downhills. There are KILOMETERS of uphills, and there were a few long downhills, but definitely more challenging uphills. Even Marsha, who never admits that she's tired or it's hard, said it was the most difficult bike ride she's ever done.

We stopped a lot to look at the gorgeous scenery, or maybe that was just an excuse to rest. The further we got from Banos, the more "jungle-like" the terrain became. More palm trees, and even more lush if you can imagine. We stopped for a drink at the restaurant in Rio Negro where we ate after rafting the other day. The lady there said it was only about 20 kilometers to Puyo from there. We were so excited because we had made it there from Rio Verde in only an hour and fifteen minutes. Turns out she was wrong! And, there are no signs along the way that tell you how far it is either.

We had ridden quite a ways outside of Rio Negro, and had stopped on a bridge to look at a beautiful waterfall, when Karen caught up to us. She decided to continue to ride with us, even though by this time we were stopping and/or walking quite a bit. She had forgotten her sunscreen, and the sun was beating down on us now. She was really burned. We gave her some of our sunscreen, which may have saved her from frying, even though shortly after that, it started to get cloudy.

From this point, the scenery got prettier, but the uphills got longer and steeper. At some points, we were stopping every 20 to 30 yards. It was brutal! We felt like we had ridden forever, when we asked a lady working on the side of the road how far Mera was, which is 16 kilometers from Puyo. She said 7 more kilometers! Which really makes the lady in Rio Negro wrong since we still had 23 kilometers to go, and we had been riding forever since we left her restaurant!

The road is very curvy and windy, and Marsha kept saying just around the next bend, there's going to be a downhill. NOPE! Okay, around the next curve. NOPE! We just kept trudging along, because there was absolutely nothing else we could do. No bus or chiva would have been able to stop and pick us up because the road was only wide enough for two lanes, and it would have been too dangerous for anyone to stop. Too many curves. At one point, somewhere on one of these long uphills when we were actually trying to RIDE our bicycles, Marsha's chain came off. Oy vay! Poor thing. As she was putting it back on beside the road in some tall grass, she noticed that she had about 50 fly bites on one leg. Boy, are those suckers quick!

Back on the road again, Karen said she was probably going to head back for Banos from Mera....if we ever got there! That was the longest 7 kilometers EVER! In the back of my mind, I wanted to say for sure I was done in Mera to, but I wanted to go as far as Marsha wanted to go. After all, this has been our dream since the last time we were in Ecuador. FINALLY, we made it to Mera. There was a big sign over the road, and Karen hugged the pole, and Marsha kissed the road. I wanted to kiss the road, but I was afraid if I bent down that far, I would never get up again!

We rode into town, and bought some water. Right outside the store, the police were stopping drivers in both directions checking licenses which is a very common practice here. We decided this might be a good place to catch a bus or chiva back to Banos. (YAY! Marsha was ready to go back!) Finally, we spotted an empty chiva, and tried to flag it down, but they just passed us by. But, then I looked down the road, and I saw break lights come on! HALLELUJAH! I started literally running down the road to catch them. A lady jumped out of the passenger side, and she said yes, they were going to Banos. She consulted with her husband, and they decided on $1.50 per person. CHEAP! I was ready to pay $20....haha.

On the way to Banos, standing in the back of their truck, it began to rain. But, we didn't care, we weren't on those dang bikes anymore! What took us one hour to return to Banos in the truck, had taken us SIX hours on bicycle/foot. What a relief when we returned the bikes!

We returned to La Petit Auberge to retrieve our backpacks and other luggage, and Camille just happened to be there. She had spent her day people watching mostly, going from one park to the other and listening to her iPod. In the end, I think she made an extremely wise decision by not going with us....she would have been miserable. It was a really tough ride. Sorry, Puyo, we really gave it the 'ol college try!

We got checked into Posada del Arte, and boy, is this room nice! I actually have a really grown-up mattress! Our room as two nice double beds and a twin bed. Everything is sparkly and new, and smells good! We would have stayed here all week, but the owners are from the U.S., and took vacation for the month of October to let their staff have some time off, too. Marscia, who owns the hostel with her husband Jim, just returned to Banos two hours before we arrived to check in. Perfect timing!

We walked up to the thermal baths, and soaked our weary bones for about an hour and a half, and are now enjoying our wonderful room. We plan on sleeping in tomorrow morning, and then getting up to one of the great breakfast plates they offer here, especially their Juevos Rancheros! Yummy! Spa day tomorrow for our last day. YAY! Hasta manana!

Biking to Rio Verde and Hiking to the Pailon del Diablo

2010-10-27T20:03:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Well, we decided to stay in Banos tonight instead of trying to find a hostel in Rio Verde. We got sort of a late start, ate breakfast, and rented our bikes. It was 11:00am by the time we left Banos. We were recommended Wonderful Ecuador to rent our bikes. The bikes were old, and the lady working the desk wasn't too friendly. But, we thought since they were recommended and we were close to the highway where we would be riding, we would go ahead.

The wind was blowing extremely hard, right in our faces....so even on the downhills, the riding was tougher than normal. We made it past the first bridge, when Marsha's chain came off. She said that it had been slipping the whole time. She worked on it for a while, but we could tell there was not way she was going to make it the 20 kilometers to Rio Verde. We were right across from a bus stop, so she decided to catch a ride back to Banos, and told us to go on. We wanted to stay with her until she got a ride, but she told us to go on and she would meet us in Rio Verde. We hated to leave her, but we thought it might be faster for her to go alone.

We fought the wind, but the ride was beautiful. We saw some amazing waterfalls, and the mountains were ridiculously green. There were a lot of bikers out today. The area has grown so much and is catering a lot more to tourists since we were here two years ago. In a way, it's sad, but as Camille said, everybody should get to enjoy the beauty here.

We made it to Rio Verde and stopped for some water and to wait on Marsha. The little restaurant we stopped at has a trout pond right on the side, so I guess the trout here is extra fresh! Marsha finally found us, and we locked up our bikes and began our walk down toward the waterfall Pailon del Diable. This area has become much more touristy as well. Many more little stores, and a whole new building for local artisans to sell their handmade crafts and jewelry.

The walk to the waterfall is mostly downhill, but at the very end you start walking up and then you reach this amazingly beautiful, huge, roaring waterfall. You can climb up through a cavelike walk. You have to walk completely bent over, sometimes crawling, and climb up through a hole in the rock, before finally climbing the last steps where you can stand right behind the waterfall! Needless to say, we got drenched! It was awesome. The power of this waterfall is awe inspiring.

We walked across the bridge to El Otro Lado, a really cool hostel which recently closed. We tried for months to make reservations there, and none of the locals seem to know why it was closed. The bridge swayed quite a bit, and only five people were allowed on at one time.

Slowly, we climbed our way back out of the forest/jungle back to Rio Verde. We caught a ride with a local who threw the bikes in the back of the truck and took us back to bike shop. We stopped at Buon Giorno, and had some more amazing food, then back to the hostel to shower and relax. We are planning on renting bikes again tomorrow and riding all the way to Puyo. Gotta get an earlier start!

MARSHA: just adding my bike experience to sharias well written account of today. i was the lucky one who got a crappy bike. the gears kept slipping and finally the chain came off. i put it back on but it was beyond my ability to fix it on the side of the road so i sent sharia and camille on. i was gonna just catch a chiva back into town and trade bikes and meet the girls at the waterfalls in rio verde. well i waited and waited and every truck already had bikes or motorcycles or people in the back. finally a guy on a dirt bike came by and picked me up. i left the bike at the bus stop and tried to stick it as far out of sight from the road as possible. he took me to the bike shop where they told him i needed to catch a bus back out to where the bike was and catch another bus back into town (with the bike this time) finally the guy who picked me up convinced the guys at the bike shop that they needed to get a vehicle and take me out there to get it. i waited about 30 minutes and the owner of the bike shop showed up and was in a panic that i left the bike out there unattended. fortunately when we finally got there, it was still there. we traded the bikes and i headed out and met up with the girls at the waterfall entrance.

Canyoning in Banos

2010-10-26T18:45:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Slept in a little this morning...okay, well slept in is quite an overstatement for me. The mattress I have here is only about 3 inches thick. Marsha and Camille have normal mattresses, so I guess I have the kiddie bed. I have had achy bones every day at this hostel. Right now, I'm listening to a car alarm go off....for about the last 15 minutes. So much for peace and quiet!

Anyway, we had a really garlicy lunch here at the French restaurant attached to our hostel. Whew! It was good, but really....back off the garlic a little!

We got to the tour company at around 1:30, and were fitted for our wetsuits, shoes, and a jacket. We had two other people in our group from California who were in their late 20's. I was a little bit nervous, but I figured it would go away once we got started with the canyoning. We drove for about 20 minutes and turned off the highway onto a dirt road for about 10 minutes. We picked up a couple of school boys walking home and dropped them off at their homes. Can you imagine letting your children catch rides from total strangers? Apparently, it's an every day practice, and no one seems scared. That's pretty school. Hope that the innocence stays for a while here.

Once we got out of the van, we put on all of our gear, and began to climb up for around 20 minutes. And when I say up....I mean UP! These people climb up everything like mountain goats! It's hard for me I guess since where we live has NO climbing and is perfectly flat. We made it to the first descent just before the first waterfall, and got our safety lesson. My anxiety had disappeared, but guickly reappeared when I saw what we had to do to go down. My huge fear of heights didn't help much. Our first waterfall was about 4 meters (around 12 feet), and although I was shaky, I managed to get down pretty good. We had to walk a little between waterfalls, and it was a slippery slope in places! The second waterfall was about 15 meters (45 feet), and I was still pretty nervous. The guide asked me if I was ready, and I replied, "Do I have a choice?" He didn't understand the word choice, so I said, "Can I say no?" And he just laughed. Guess that's a no....gotta go down....no going back now! By the third one, I had gained some confidence, and went down much faster. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! Everything was so green and lush, and looking back up at the top of the waterfall from the bottom was really satisfying knowing we had just descended from there.

The last waterfall was 30 meters, around 100 feet. It was definitely a little more challenging, but by this time, I knew what I was doing, and it was a blast! The guides were very patient, and very good about helping with the nerves. One of the guides went down face first off the tall waterfall, so it looked like he was running straight down! I don't think I'm ready for that yet...haha. At the end we got to slide down a pretty tall waterfall, with our ropes still attached of course. In the middle, on the way down, was a huge pool of water, and I wasn't expecting it. Woohoo! How fun! Then at the end, we slid down a smaller waterfall with no ropes and went flying at the end. It was a great day!

We had a sandwich when we got back, and ran into a couple of the guides from the rafting tour, who invited us to go dancing with them tonight. Sounds like fun....so I guess it's in the shower and then off to The Leprachaun! Biking tomorrow to Rio Verde or Rio Negro....whichever we feel like, and then on to Puyo the next day. May not have internet service, so I'll write when we get back to Banos!

Banos, Ecuador

2010-10-25T22:35:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: We slept in this morning....it was awesome! We walked to the thermal baths a few blocks away. It is called Piscina de la Virgen, and is located directly beside a beautiful waterfall and surrounded on all sides by mountains. Absolutely beautiful location! I was trying to etch the memory of the experience into my brain, but it never works. The first bath we got into was SUPER hot....somewhere around 118 degrees! Needless to say, we didn't stay in that one very long! The other one was probably around 100 degrees, and was much more tolerable. We stayed in that one and enjoyed watching the locals trying to swim for about an hour, and then we headed to our appointments at the spa.

We were scheduled for 2-1/2 hours! We started out in the sauna for about 20 minutes, and then on to a mud bath, which consisted of them rubbing mud on us and then wrapping us in plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. They came and rubbed most of it off with a wet cloth and then letting us shower. Then, we sat in the jacuzzi situated on the second floor where we had a gorgeous view of the waterfall and mountainside while we sipped on fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then we were led to the massage rooms where we were treated to deep-tissue massage for about 1-1/2 hours. All of this for only $48!!!

Back at the hostel, we relaxed and played Scrabble before cleaning up and heading out for dinner. I had read about a good Italian food restaurant in The Lonely Planet called Buon Guorno. We had seen it while walking around the other day, so we decided to try it out. There was no one in there when we arrived, which we usually take as a bad sign, but we decided to try it out anyway. The music was nice and the place was clean. The waiter was super nice and very accommodating. As soon as we ordered, people started pouring in. By the time we got our food, there was not one empty seat in the place. After we tasted the food, we knew why! The pizza and the pasta were amazing! We will definitely be eating there again before we leave.

We walked around for a little bit after we left the restaurant, and decided we are going canyoning tomorrow. Canyoning is basically repelling down waterfalls. We signed up for a tour tomorrow afternoon. I'm a little bit nervous but even more excited! I'll write as soon as I can and let you know how it goes! Hasta luego!

Banos and White Water Rafting

2010-10-24T16:08:00.003-05:00

SHARLA: We left Hotel Tren Dorado a day early yesterday. Since, the train isn't running now, and we had our bike ride yesterday, we were ready to go to Banos anyway.....OUR FAVORITE PLACE in Ecuador!!! We did try to walk to the Saturday market in Riobamba before we left, but turns out it is just a smaller version, way smaller, than the one in Guamote. We caught a taxi to the bus terminal only to find out that there is ANOTHER bus terminal that has direct rides to Banos. So we caught another taxi, and this man was really nice....he didn't speak English, but we were able to understand him pretty well. About the time we drove the ten minutes to the other bus terminal, he asked us if we would be interested in him taking us for $30. We all conceded that it was a GREAT idea. It would be quicker than the bus, and we could see more, and he could take us straight to the hostel in Banos. He took us to a garage, and we traded the old taxi for a brand new Hyundai Tucson! So new, in fact, that it still had plastic on the seats....haha, funny how they do that here in Ecuador.

The ride was beautiful to Banos...the roads have improved tremendously since we were here two years ago. That is one of the things that President Correa has done since he's been in office. We made it to Banos, and after the taxi driver asked a couple of people directions, we made it to our hostel, La Petit Auberge. Very old, but very cute hostel, and for $11 a night per person, you really can't beat it. We dropped our bags off, and decided to walk around town. We were hungry, so we stopped for lunch first, and then walked to the square and the shopping. After walking around looking in many stores and stands with all sorts of cool, crafty things, and buying a few things of course, we went back to the hostel. Later, we went to the restaurant that we loved the last time we were in Banos, El Chozon de Molienda. It is apart from the main activity and it is a huge bamboo "hut," that has a big fireplace in the middle and swings around the bar. It is an awesome place. We weren't really hungry, and were just going to have a beer, but we found out that you have to order food, or you aren't allowed to stay for too long. So we decided to order a pizza, and I have to say, it may have been the best pizza I've ever eaten. Imagine what it would have tasted like had I been hungry!

On our way through town yesterday, we made reservations to go on a white water rafting tour for today. We got up around 7:30, and went to The Cafe Good to have some breakfast. And, indeed, it was good! Camille and I had omelettes, and Marsha had a pancake. We made our way to the tour company, and were picked up by the van and taken to another tour company. Apparently, they all work together so that they have full tours every day. We were fitted for wet suits...and I do use the term "fitted" loosely. Of course, Marsha and I were the oldest two in the group of 13, but somehow, we always manage to have fun! We drove about 45 minutes past Rio Verde to the Rio San Francisco, where we put on our wetsuits, helmets and "water" shoes (which turned out to just be Keds). Then, our guide, William, gave us our long safety lesson, which somehow he made interesting and funny. By the time he was through telling us all of the bad things that can happen, Camille was getting pretty nervous.

We launched the raft, got in and off we went on our new adventure! We went through several class 3 rapids and one class 4 rapid. It was awesome! William was an excellent guide. He had us pumped up with energy, and he took us through every rough spot so that we could experience every bit of excitement of the trip. I really thought the water was going to be freezing, and it was cold, but not so much to take our breath away. And, we did get drenched! We went through a couple of whirlpools, and "surfed" next to a giant rock. At halfway point, we stopped at a local "pool" near the river and everyone went under a short waterfall into a opening behind it. Then we floated on our backs through the pool, some of us hooked feet onto the next person's shoulders and formed a train. After the break, we loaded back on to the raft and continued on for the last half. The mountains and the waterfalls here are just breathtaking. There aren't as many waterfalls as the last time we were here, but we are in the dry season. All in all, everything is still very green!

It was an hour and a half on the river with only brief periods of slow water. Most of the time, it was rapids of some sort. After Camille got over her initial nervousness, she was ready to keep going. She said she would do it every day of her life if possible. And, these guys do it every day, AND get paid for it! After the ride was over, we peeled off our wetsuits, loaded up in the vans, and headed to Rio Negro for lunch. Marsha and I had chicken, and Camille had trout...both of which were excellent. Back on to the van, and back to Banos. What a great day! We are just resting now, and cooking up what our next great adventure will be!

NOTE: This should have posted yesterday, but the Internet service went down, so it's a day off.

Guamote Thursday Market and Chimborazo Mountain Biking

2010-10-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Hello, everyone! Yesterday, we slept in until around 7:30am. Got up, packed our backpacks and got ready to go see the biggest indigenous market in Ecuador! The sun was shining down hard, with not a cloud in the sky! First time that's happened in a long time! We took a quick tour of the Inti Sisa educational facility, where some kindergartners were having school and the handicraft class where for $5 every three months, women can learn to make local handicrafts which will bring extra money to their families.

Chris was kind enough to offer to take us along with some tourists from Holland through the market. I am so glad he did because we would have never been able to find our way around! This town of 3,000 went from deserted streets to probably somewhere around 10,000 people selling cows, calves, sheep, pigs, guinea pigs, geese, chickens, kittens, fruits, vegetables, cooked food of every sort, hats, clothes and every manner of household item that anyone could possible need. I was amazed at how this just popped up overnight, and how they do this EVERY Thursday. These people come in from all over the area, literally carrying their goods on their backs. I have never seen such hard working people in my life! Camille was getting upset by how the animals were being treated. It is hard to understand when you are from a country that values the lives of every living creature. The Ecuadorians view animals as food and as income....only. We have met some people who love dogs and take very good care of their dogs and cats.

After about an hour or so of walking around and trying a couple of local drinks, we headed back for Inti Sisa to grab our backpacks. Chris gave us a map of how to get to the Pan American highway, so off we went to mingle our way through the mob of people who don't mind shoving you aside to get by! We didn't have to go all the way to the highway before we found a bus headed to Riobamba in about 10 minutes. It was full and it was hot and stuffy. After about an hour's drive, we arrived near our hotel, but we didn't know how close we were until we paid a taxi $1 to take us there. It was literally two blocks away!

We headed for our favorite pizza place that we found the last time we were here called D'Baggio. It didn't open for another 30 minutes, so we walked around for a little while until we could eat. We were starving, and we each ordered a pizza. Big mistake! We could only each eat half of ours and had to take the rest in a box. But, it was delicious!

During the evening, we just walked around the streets and peeped in some stores. We walked past a food stand and it smelled so good, so we asked what it was. All we understood was "dulce" which is sweet in Spanish, so we got one. It was a big boiling pot of fruit and the lady put some on a bun with a hunk of cheese. Marsha and I each took one bite and threw it away. I think it was prunes, but it was disgusting. Some of the food here is really good, but some of it is really bad. At least we tried it!

We found out that the Nariz del Diablo train is not running anymore. We were so looking forward to taking Camille. We rode two years ago, and it was so much fun riding on top of the train. They do have a "bus on tracks" that goes halfway as they are repairing the last half of tracks, but you can't sit on top anymore, and it's a guided tour now, and you have to listen to someone talk in Spanish on a microphone with bad speakers. We opted to change our bike tour to Friday, and Edison of Andes Spirit Tours was so nice to let us trade.

Got up this morning to more sunshine! Had a good breakfast of cereal and banana. Edison picked us up at 8:30am, and we began our one and a half hour trip up to Chimborazo volcano. The clouds were hanging around the top of the volcano, so we didn't get good views. Last time Marsha and I were here, you could see it very plainly. There is an Ecuadorian saying that Chimborazo hides its face from tourists. If you can see it, you are considered to be Ecuadorians! Guess we were the first time, but not this time. Sad! We stopped along the way to take some pictures of alpacas. They were right across the fence from us. Really beautiful creatures.

We reached the first hut that is there for climbers brave enough to scale the volcano. Many people have died trying to climb up. We were almost to the snow that covered the top of the volcano. We sat inside for a little while in front of a blazing fire drinking tea. Edison told us of a Peruvian climber who set a record last year at Chimborazo. He climbed to the top and back in TWO HOURS!!! Normally, it is eight hours up and four hours down. WOW....that's incredible! He made it to the second climbers' hut in eight minutes. We climbed up there last time and it took us one hour....Edison said that people in really good shape take 30 minutes. This man's name is Cesar Rosales, so I want to look him up when I get home. Apparently, he has set many climbing records.

Edison says it was 7 degrees Celcius when we started out. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but I do know it was cold! We were bundled up with beanies, and scarves and gloves, and got our helmets on and off we went. The first part of the ride is really great. All downhill, and the clouds lifted just enough for us to be able to see the surrounding countryside. We even saw some vicunas...llama-like animals that you can only see at Chimborazo Park in Ecuador. There weren't as many as last time, but the land is very dry now, so maybe they were in another part of the park today. We stopped at a place and hiked down a little ways. We remembered this from last time....a huge gorge, with waterfalls at each end. The waterfall was pretty small this time, but we are in the middle of the dry season after all.

We rode down the highway for a bit, and then turned off onto a dirt road. At some points it was grassy because it is used very little except by the local farmers and they usually just walk. It was a pretty tough ride, but much easier for me than last time because it wasn't muddy this time. We made it through, and stopped a little church in a village (maybe San Juan?) and had a lunch of tortillas, chicken, guacamole, and tuna fish. It sounds like a weird combination, but it was delicious!

Edison drove us back the 30 minutes to the hotel, we said our goodbyes, and we went in for a much needed nap! It's 5:30pm now, so I guess we will try to figure out something for dinner! Talk to you later!

P.S. I don't know how much Marsha will be posting anymore. She thinks that I write plenty for the both of us!

Guamote

2010-10-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: We got up around 7:00am this morning to more clouds. Blah....but, we are excited to experience a ride on a milk truck. That's right....milk truck. We ate breakfast with the other travelers and then we paid our bill at the Hostal Cloud Forest. The hostal was awesome. We paid $15 per person per night which included breakfast and dinner. Not bad, huh? The owners and staff were very friendly as well. We carried our backpacks out to the street and waited for the milk truck bound for Sigcho to arrive. It came around 9:15, and we crawled into the back of the truck along with the "milkman" and three 50 gallon drums. We had to stand in the back and hold onto a wooden pole to keep from falling out. We stopped to pick up more passengers on the way. We were actually going in the opposite of Sigcho for a little while stopping every few minutes to pick up milk from the local farmers. The milk truck goes by every day at the same time and it was so interesting that the locals knew exactly when to be there. If they couldn't be there, they left their milk in buckets on the side of the road, sometimes in a carved-out part of the hill, or hanging on a post. I'm not sure how the milkman keeps track of how much milk everyone gave, but I'm sure there is a method. The farmers get paid every 15 days. So interesting!

It started raining shortly after we got on the truck and it was cold! So, I had on four coats for the ride...a thin jacket, a medium jacket, a heavy coat and my raincoat. I looked like the Michelin man! We thought the truck was full with 6 people on it, but by the end of the ride, I think there were 10 people crammed on like sardines, and still we were stopping to pick up milk! The ride lasted for about an hour and a half. The milkman told us that the bus to Latacunga didn't arrive until 2:30pm, and it was only 11:00am, so we hopped in the back of a truck with two other backpackers for an hour ride to Actually, the other two rode inside, but we wanted to experience the freezing cold of the outdoors! I forgot to mention that the milk truck ride only cost $1 per person and the truck was $6 per person, so the milk truck was quite a deal! The scenery was beautiful. This side of the Quilotoa Loop is much prettier than the other side, but interestingly enough, this side is less traveled.

Once we got to Saquisili, we barely got our backpacks off the truck before we flagged down a bus and ran to get on. It was headed to Riobamba and cost $2.50 each. We had to transfer buses in Ambato, and the bus helper (I have no idea what he's called), grabbed our bags and we ran through the bus terminal to our next bus which would take us to Riobamba. We got there around 3:45pm and the next bus to Guamote was leaving at 4:15. We asked if there was an ATM there, but it was a block away and we were afraid we would miss the bus if we went to get money. Surely, Guamote will have one! While we were waiting on the bus to leave, we bought some banana chips...which Camille hated, but we liked, and some blueberry (mora) ice cream, which was amazing. Marsha talked to the ice cream man, and found out that the blueberries were picked at Chimbarazo, where we are going in a few days!

Off we went, on our third and final bus of the day headed for Guamote at a huge fare of $.75 each. This bus took around one hour. All in all, it took us from 9:15am until around 5:15pm to get from Chugchilan to Guamote. Quite a trek, but the scenery along the way was worth it all! Once in Guamote, we asked a local if he knew where Inti Sisa guest house was and he said for a dollar he would take us there. It was only about four blocks, but we would have never found it on our own. Chris, the man from Holland who runs the guest house, greeted us and showed us to our room. Inti Sisa is also an educational center and they also have an artisan shop. It is a very nice place. We had dinner here, which was Quinoa vegetable soup, fried chicken (not like our fried chicken...no batter), rice, french fries, and of course, the never ending supply of aji (their version of picante sauce). Also, there was what looked like pico de gallo that was delicious. For dessert, we had a big bowl of freshly cut papaya.

We were pretty tired from our long day of traveling, so we went to bed around 8:30pm. We played Scrabble for a little while on our iPads, but the room was so cold, we didn't want to hold our arms out from under the covers, so we didn't play long.

This morning, we woke up to the sun peeking through the clouds! We had decided to go on the mountain biking tour that Inti Sisa provides. Chris drove the truck and our guides name was Luis. Luis can't speak English, but Chris said he is teaching him now. We drove for about an hour and a half. Chris is a CRAZY driver....once, Marsha hit her head on the top of the truck when he hit a hole in the road, but other than that, we got there safely. We were high in the tundra when we began our descent on the bikes. We were about 4300 meters in altitude, and the air was VERY thin. Luckily, about 80% of the ride was downhill. The scenery, once again, was breathtaking. From up there, we could see for MILES!!! We passed a man herding his cows, and once we scared a baby burro away from its momma. It ran and ran and ran. Luis made us stop riding while he herded the poor thing back to its mother. Chris drove the truck behind us so that we could stop and have drinks or snacks any time we wanted. Once, we got down lower, we were in pine trees. At one point, we stopped for pictures and it looked exactly like some places I've been to in New Mexico and Colorado. It was gorgeous. At the bottom of the trail, we crossed a wide "Colorado-like" river on a wooden bridge. We stopped to take several pictures, then loaded up the bike and headed to a small restaurant a few minutes away for our fresh trout lunch which was included in the price of the tour. Camille thought she was going to have trouble eating it because the head and tail were attached, but she was a trooper and did anyway. It was truly some of the best trout I've ever had. Yummy!

We got back in the truck for a wild hour-long trip back to Guamote. We stopped along the way to pick up some local hitchhikers. Chris said one man in the back of the truck would hit the back window when he was ready to get out. He was back there so long, that we forgot about him. He reached around and banged on MY window. I screamed, and then Marsha and Camille screamed. I think it even startled Chris. It was pretty funny. We made it back to Inti Sisa, and took some much-needed hot showers. We will probably go to bed early tonight, again, because the Thursday market here starts at 9:00am. Chris said there is a small electric heater we can put in our room tonight....we hope he doesn't forget! We are about to go try some of the local cuisine...wish us luck! Until later, ciao!

Latacunga and Chugchilan

2010-10-18T18:32:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Hey, everyone! The keyboard I´m typing on is not too bueno, so there may many misspelled words, so bear with me.

Camille arrived on time and with no problems! YAY! She was tired. It was 11:00pm by the time she arrived and almost midnight by the time we got to the hotel, so we made short work of getting to bed that night. We had to be at the Chimbacalle train station by 7:00am to see if we actually had tickets or not. We got there and found out the station doesn´t actually open until 7:20, so we waited outside. We explained that we had a deposit slip that showed we paid, but no tickets. A security guard that spoke some English came out and told us that we did not have reservations that day, and that it would be impossible to go to Latacunga on that day because the train was full. I explained to him that I had emailed the person our deposit and that we had reservations in Chugchilan that night. He told me to wait. A few minutes later, he came back out and told us to come with him. He led us to a girl who told me in broken English that they had received my email that morning. I guess they realized I wasn´t very happy about our seats being given away, because she began handwriting us some tickets and we were in the first three seats!!! YAY!! We were so happy to finally have tickets. What an ordeal that was!

We didn´t know when we booked the trip, that the train trip was actually a guided tour. Of course, we couldn´t understand anything that the girl was staying, but every once in a while, she would lean down toward me and summarize a few things. There were several stops along the way. It was very cold outside, and so cloudy that we couldn´t see Cotopaxi volcano, or really much of anything else! Finally, we arrived at Latacunga. We were the only ones to get off here....everyone else was staying on and returning to Quito.

We found a Chinese restaurant to eat at which was really good. It was a hole in the wall, and the chef wasn´t friendly at all, but it was good food. We asked several chivas (trucks) and taxis for rides. We were quoted from $45 to $60 to go to Chugchilan. We opted for the bus, which would take us halfway to Quilotoa for $2 each. Once we got there, some indigenous women offered to take us by car the rest of the way for $30. They came down to $22, but we walked away. A chiva pulled up just as we did, and we talked him down to $20 for the three of us. We piled into the back....Camille wasn´t too happy with us at first. It was cold and cloudy and we couldn´t see a thing. But, we all stood up and held on tight, and laughed and giggled and prayed that we wouldn´t fall out of the back of the truck. On the side, which was quite a drop down! We finally made it to the hostal which is very nice. The rooms are extremely cold, but comfortable. We had dinner...typical Ecuadorian food, and then made our way back to our room. We got into bed and played Scrabble on our iPads until we went to sleep. I woke up at 3am, and could never go back to sleep!

Although, we had all prayed for sunshine this morning, when I looked out the window and saw only white clouds only feet away. We almost decided not to go, but then Marsha and I went to breakfast (Camille decided to sleep in). On our way out, we ran into Jose, the owner and he said the sun would burn off most of the clouds and everything would be fine. We decided we would regret it if we didn´t go. We went to the room to get ready, and tried to get Camille out of bed. She decided she would be better off staying at the hostal. So, Marsha and I jumped into the back of Jose´s truck and off we went to the Lagoon at Quilotoa. The sun was trying to peek through the clouds and the drive was nice. We even saw a couple of deer near the side of the road.

Jose had set up a guide for us. His name was Edgar, and he looked about sixteen. We bought water and some snacks and began our hike at 10:00am. We quickly reached the rim of the crater and the lake below was breathtaking. Marsha read that it is the most photographed lake in Ecuador, and I can see why! Absolutely magnificent!! We walked around about half the rim, which was quite a hike in itself and we had 4 more hours to go! Around the rim, there was sand....white sand just like at the beach. It was beautiful, but a little bit hard to walk in! We took our last look at the lake and began our very long descent into the canyon. I believe we went from 3800 meters to 2900 meters. It was really difficult hiking, but the views were just amazing. I can´t wait to get our pictures posted so that we can share this experience with you! We made it to the small river at the bottom of the canyon, and crossed on a board that was laid across it. Immediately, we began our ascent. And, when I say ascent, I mean almost vertical. It was sandy, too, so it was pretty precarious. The air up here is very thin, so I had to stop quite a bit to rest. Edgar was very patient, though, and never seemed to get frustrated. I was really happy to see Chugchilan, though, I must say! We took a nice, hot shower...the hottest that we have had in Ecuador until now. Well, about time for dinner, and early to bed for our trip to Guamote tomorrow, so I´ll write again soon!

Amazon Jungle

2010-10-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Okay, this could quite possibly be a very long blog because it will cover four days in the Amazon Jungle. I'll try not to be too wordy, but I want to be able to remember everything when I reread it. I love writing for my friends and family, and I know that I will be able to relive the experiences when I read this back. So, here goes.

On Tuesday, the van was supposed to pick us up at 9:30am. We started walking the streets of Lago Agrio looking for some tank tops to take with us. We decided at the last minute that we needed something cooler to wear. We went to several clothing stores and the only tank tops we found were about a size 0 or 2, so we passed...thank you very much! The people here are short, but not small! And, they wear these shirts...hmmmmm. We bought some pastries for the ride and went back to the hotel where we were to be picked up. Once we got there, we were told that we had to wait on one of the passengers to fly in from Quito and he wouldn't arrive until 10:30am. We sat with a young couple, Gabriela and Andres, from Quito who were on their second trip to the Amazon. This time, though, they were studying to become a guide. If they are able, they will have to move to Lago Agrio. It will be the first job for both of them. Gabriela speaks very good English and was able to help us understand what was happening and when. She told us we didn't need tank tops because of the insects and scratches from the branches on the trees. We mentioned the tiny sizes, and she said yes, people here like to "show off" what they've got. I guess so!

We finally drove to the airport and picked up Hugo, who is from Barcelona, Spain. Lydia, the sixth person in our group, is also from Barcelona, and we found out later that she is a doctor who just finished her specialty, hematology, and is taking a year off to travel all of South America before she settles down. She has been here four months already and has eight to go! Since, she and Hugo are both from Barcelona, you can imagine that they had a lot to talk about...and TALK they did. For the WHOLE trip. Lydia decided that she had to make a phone call, so we stopped in a little village that had a cabina (pay phone) and she called her mom and talked to her for 15 minutes! While we all waited in a very hot van. We never did understand why she didn't use the hour and a half that we were waiting on Hugo to make her phone call. Anyway, we got to the tiny village where we were to get on the canoe. We had lunch there in a small restaurant and while we were eating, they drove the van down to the river and unloaded our luggage. I had my small backpack in the seat of the fan and not the back, so I asked Pablo, our guide, if they were getting EVERYTHING off the van. He assured me that they were very good and would get everything off. My instinct was to get it off myself as soon as I got off the van. And, as it turns out, I was right. Marsha and I walked down to the water to get our bags and put on sunscreen. Guess what? My backpack was not with the others. EVERYTHING of importance was in my backpack...my passport, my camera, my credit card! We walked back up the hill and told Pablo. He said....don't worry, it is there covered up and we walked back down. Nope, no backpack! He raced back up the hill...luckily, there was a cabina and he called the office. They were going to try to get in touch with the driver when they thought he would have service, and we kept waiting for them to call back. At this time it is 2:30. Around 3:00, Pablo says I have two choices. He can get in a car and go to catch them when the office gets in touch with them, or I can wait until Thursday to get it when another tour group comes to the jungle. He even offered to buy me some clothes and sunscreen, etc. at the little store there. I explained to him that my camera, and everything else important was in there. He just nodded and started running up the road. Running!! I guess he ran until he was able to flag down a ride.

After about 30 minutes, another man approached our group and said they had put my backpack on a bus headed back this way and that it should be here at 4:00. So, Pablo was headed back toward Lago Agrio, and my backpack was headed back toward us. We were just hoping he would stop and call the office and get informed! 4:00 is about the time that we should have been arriving at our lodging in the Amazon, and we still had a 3-hour canoe ride. It gets dark here around 6:15. We walked around the village a little bit, and right next to the restaurant we heard some macaws in the trees. There was a beautiful blue and yellow male, and sitting right next to him was a gorgeous green female. He kept squawking at us and she just batted her eyes. They must have been pets, because they were not afraid of us. Then, we heard another loud squawk behind us, and walked around the building. There, right in front of us, was a huge red, blue and yellow macaw and as soon as we saw him, he said, "Hola" (hello in Spanish). He said it several times and we couldn't believe our ears! What a wonderful experience! Of course, my camera was....where? Yep, in my backpack on the bus. But, Marsha got some great shots of them all. Finally, my bag, and Pablo arrived around 4:15 and we were ready to begin our journey down the Aguarico River and then to the Cuyabeno River. I felt bad that Pablo had to go get my backpack and he felt bad that they hadn't unloaded it. But, once we were on the river, all of that was a distant memory, because the beauty began.

The canoe had cushioned seats, which was very nice, and we had a very good driver. As we got deeper into the jungle, the trees grew bigger and more dense and we began to see less people and more birds flying. Pablo told us that where we were going, we are the only tourists in the area, because their company is the only one that has permission to go into the Cuyabeno National Park. How cool is that? We saw a beautiful sunset over the river, and then it was dark. Very dark. Our driver grew up here, and he did a FANTASTIC job of maneuvering through the river. The river is low now, because the rainy season isn't due to start for a few more months, and he knew where every stick and tree limb and sand bar and low spot was. I was very impressed. We saw hundreds of fireflies all along the riverbed, and it took me back to my childhood.

Once we arrived at the lodge, I felt as if I had entered the Garden of Eden. There was a wooden walkway from the canoe to the cabanas, which looked exactly as I had imagined they would. Made mostly of bamboo and other trees from the jungle, they all had thatched roofs and were on stilts. Each cabana had two separate rooms, and each had a single candle lit inside, and one at the top of the stairs leading to the rooms. It was all very romantic. We were shown to our rooms and then told to come to the main room for dinner. All of the cabanas and the main room are just open to the elements. No windows, just screens all around. Gorgeous. Our dinner consisted of soup, lasagna and a chocolate crepe. Can you beat that?

After dinner, we went for a night walk for about 45 minutes. We saw many species of grasshoppers, crickets and spiders. We even saw a white cockroach. He said there are many species of cockroaches here. Thank goodness, we didn't see many. We also found a huge tarantula on a tree. They call it a tarantula tree. It is really a type of palm tree, but it has bark that is all broken up and has many places for tarantulas to hide. Pablo said he know of three tarantulas that live on that particular tree. The one we saw was nearly six inches long and three or four inches wide. We also saw walking sticks, which I hadn't seen since I was a small child. And several varieties of frogs and toads. There is a lagoon behind the main room, and Marsha and I sat on the steps and shined our lights down there. We saw the eyes of the Caiman that live there. We saw around 5 or 6 that night and they seemed curious because they came toward our flashlights. Most were really small, but one looked like it might be about 5 feet long.

We were tired from a long day, so we tucked our mosquito nets under our mattresses and called it a night!

Second day in the jungle, I woke up at 5:00am to the loud singing of numerous birds, and many frogs. What a fabulous alarm clock! We were supposed to take a canoe ride to the salt lick to see the parrots and parakeets, but it started raining too hard, and Pablo decided we should just walk in the jungle. The trees act as an umbrella and even if it is raining hard, you are really protected in the jungle. We were fitted for our rubber boots and we began our trek. It was a nice cool morning and we saw some beautiful trees and plants and spiders, etc. We came back to the cabanas and ate a breakfast of a fried egg and what looked and tasted like a potato patty, but was made out of a root they call yuca. After breakfast, we went for another trek in the jungle. This one turned out to be 4 hours long! We saw so many varieties of trees, and plants and spiders, and other bugs my head was spinning! Many different species of ants as well, including the dreaded fire ant, and lemon ants, which only live on a certain part of a branch of a certain tree. Pablo broke that part open and, sure enough, there were ants inside. He told us to lick our fingers and pick up some ants and eat them. We did! And, they tasted like lemons!! I couldn't believe it!

Pablo asked us if we knew which direction the lodge was in. We all guessed wrong. He said that it is very, very easy to lose your bearings in the jungle because it is hard to tell where the sun is in the sky. He told us a couple of his friends were experienced guides, and got lost while they were guiding, one for two days and one for three. That would be scary. And then, not ten minutes later, Marsha and I decided we were lost because Pablo got off the trail. We were climbing some pretty difficult ravines and he kept telling us to wait and he would go off to a small clearing as if he were trying to get his bearings. He never let on that he was lost, but I'm pretty sure he was. By the time we got back, it was extremely hot and there was not a stitch of dry clothing on any of us. We took about a 30 minute swim in the river to cool off. Pablo told us the caiman only stay in the lagoon, so we felt safe. Only later did we find out that they are actually in the river, along with piranha. We thought we felt something nipping at our toes!

Time for lunch! Soup made from quinoa and then chicken, asparagus and tomatoes, and cauliflower and carrots. They feed us very well here! There are eight hammocks hanging in the main room, so Marsha staked ours out and had about an hour's nap. It began to rain very hard, and it was so nice. We got a late start to go to the birdwatching tower. Pablo said we didn't need our flashlights, but we took ours anyway. Normally, you can take the canoe right up to the tower, but the river is so low, that we had to walk for about an hour to get to it after a 15 minute canoe ride. It was almost sunset by the time we reached the tower. It is built around a huge tree and is 70 meters high. The steps were very far apart and very skinny and it was a little bit difficult for me to climb, but I made it! The view from the top was breathtaking. We got there a bit late to see many birds, and the sounds of the jungle would have been fantastic. If there hadn't been so much talking! I don't understand why you would take a trip to the jungle where you would be able to hear so many unique and wonderful sounds and then just talk, loudly, the whole time. But, I guess that's just me! We watched the sunset, and luckily since we had brought our flashlights, we could find our way back through the jungle to the canoe. It was really dark by the time we reached it. Pablo got hit in the mouth with a really thorny stick and was bleeding. Ouch! He told us to shine our flashlights at the river's edge to look for caiman, but I really think he needed the light to navigate the river. In fact, a few times, we ran into some limbs even with the lights on! At one point the motor died, and I thought, oh great, here we are in the middle of the jungle at night, on a canoe, with no lifejackets. But, it was so awesome, I really didn't care! Got the motor started and made it back in time for a great dinner.

We went to watch for caiman again, but only saw a couple this time. However, a bat flew into Marsha's eye, which was pretty exciting! We went into our bathroom and there was a HUGE frog in our toilet. Every time we tried to get it out, it just went down deeper. We could still see it, but we couldn't grab it. Pablo's lip was hurting, so another guide, Jacob took us for our night walk. He coaxed a tarantula out it's hole with a stick, which was really awesome. It wasn't as big as the one we saw last night, but it was more colorful. We also walked through an area infested with bats. There were so many and they were flying all around our heads. It was pretty great! By the time we returned, the toilet frog was gone. What a great day in the Amazon!

Woke up to the great sounds of the jungle again. There is a bird here that is big and black but has a bright yellow tail, and the noise it makes sounds like huge drops of water falling into a pond. There are some blue birds here that live together in the hundreds and are very territorial. If you get to close to them, they all start making this weird noise that sounds like water boiling. I can't even begin to imagine all of the different species of animals, birds and insects that there are here. We left early in the canoe for the salt lick, but there were no parrots or parakeets there. We saw some up in the trees, but Pablo says sometimes they won't come down if there is a predator nearby. On our way back to the lodge, however, our canoe driver spotted some monkeys and we were able to watch them for several minutes. They were so high up, we could really only see the outlines of them, but we could definitely tell they were monkeys and they were jumping so far from tree to tree. It was really exciting to see them out in the wild like that!

Breakfast was a bread like substance with raisins which was wrapped and cooked in a leaf and a boiled egg and naranjilla juice which was delicious. We dozed in our hammocks for about a half hour and then got ready for our trek. Pablo told us that he was going to have to leave us because his lip was really hurting and he needed to get it checked out. We were sad to see him go. Jacob was going to take over for him. We were going to take the canoe to a different part of the jungle for our walk, but when we got down to the river, the driver was walking up with the pull handle from the motor in his hands. It had broken, so there was going to be no canoe ride for us today! Instead, an older gentleman and Jacob took us through the jungle near the lodge and it was very interesting. Jacob doesn't speak as much English as Pablo, and the older man didn't speak any English, so Marsha and I missed out on a lot. Everyone else in our group spoke Spanish and Lydia and Gabriela helped translate things for us, too.

The older man carried a huge machete with him and sort of blazed the trail as we went. He scraped some wood off of a tree and gave each of us a piece. He told us to wait and eat it all at the same time. It was disgusting! Very bitter.....sort of like chewing up an aspirin. He got quite a kick out of watching our faces. There was a plant in the jungle that smelled just like garlic. We tried it, too, and it tasted a little bit like garlic as well. He also cut open a tagua nut and there were some holes filled with liquid that we drank, much like you would out of a coconut. It really wasn't bad! They also use a lot of Tagua nuts to make jewelry and carvings because it is really hard. We passed many Tagua groves on the drive out here. The elderly many showed us how to build a simple trap to catch small animals and birds. It was one of the most interesting things we saw today. He just walked through this small area and chopped down some leaves and branches and before you know it, he had built a trap. He demonstrated how it worked and then re-set it and let Marsha try it. Pretty awesome how they use what's on hand to live their lives every day.

Came back from our walk and took showers and rinsed out our stinky clothes. We only brought one pair of pants and they were rank! Hung them on the clothes line and ate lunch in our pajamas. Haha....bunch of backpackers don't care what we look like. Love it! Took another nap in our hammocks....beginning to love these hammocks....think I need one just like this at home, but it probably wouldn't be the same because the ambience is quite different!

We went out on the canoe to go piranha fishing. Yep, that's right, I said piranha fishing! And guess who out of the whole group caught the first and only piranha? Yours truly! It was a white piranha...guess there are several species of piranha, too. It wasn't very big, maybe 6 or 7 inches long, but it still had very big teeth! Marsha and I had quite a few more bites, but no luck catching any more. Oh, and our fishing poles were sticks with string tied to the end and a hook with red meat as bait. How awesome is that? It began to pour down rain, and we continued to fish in the rain. No one seemed to be having any luck. Jacob caught what looked like to us a small catfish, and the canoe driver caught something else. We moved to a different spot and everyone started getting little nibbles, but they were only tiny little fish teasing us! When we ran out of bait, we started back toward the lodge. We stopped along the way, and walked up to a small lagoon. Jacob said that during the wet season, we wouldn't be able to walk here because it would be under water. We saw the tracks of a tapir, and the largest rodent in the world (whose name escapes me at this moment).

Jacob led us to a tree and pointed out two wasp nests. He said he was going to count to three and then we were to all yell "HEY" at the same time. We had no idea what he was talking about, but we did it and then we listened very quietly. All of a sudden, we heard what sounded like an army marching up in that tree. Seriously! An army! Jacob explained that the wasps build their nests and then the marching ants move in and co-habitate with them. The wasps provide the home, and the ants provide the protection. The marching we heard was the ants getting ready to go to battle. If we had continued to make noise, they would have come out and attacked us! It was truly one of the most unique things I have ever heard!

We made it back safe and sound, had dinner and went to bed early around 10:00 because we have to leave this beautiful place tomorrow! We are sad :(

I woke up at 5am this morning to very hard rain, but by the time breakfast was ready at 7:30, it had cleared off nicely. We were supposed to leave at 8:00, but we have learned that in Ecuador, that really means more like 8:30 or 8:45. In this case, it was 9:00. We still weren't able to see the parrots and parakeets at the salt lick this morning, and we never got to see the pink and the grey dolphins. Two of the other groups both said they saw them. I think maybe because their groups were more quiet???? Just saying. We stopped at a Kichwa Indian community and walked around for about 15 minutes. Saw the kids in school and not much else.

The canoe ride back was very uncomfortable. I think that I got so used to walking so much the last few days that it was just impossible to get comfortable for such a long ride. We made it back to land and had lunch, which Marsha and I fed mostly to the dogs that were gathered around us. We got on the van....I made sure my backpack got on with us, and started back toward Lago Agrio. We had three extra people from another group, plus the driver and his wife, so there were 11 of us crammed into a small van for the two-hour ride. I tried to sleep some, but I was sitting in the middle and the roads are so curvy that I kept falling into either Marsha or Hugo, so it wasn't exactly restful. Made it to the airport around 2pm and our flight was supposed to leave at 5:30. Turned out to be more like 6:00 because of weather. Arrived in Quito, and the ride downtown cost $10 instead of $6 because there was another protest going on. But, this time, it was a peaceful protest, unlike the one a couple of weeks ago. There were hundreds of people walking the streets with flags. They all seemed happy and were smiling, so we weren't scared or concerned. After we got checked back into the hotel, we walked to our favorite restaurant and had our favorite pasta and a Coke Light....yay!!! Marsha's pasta wasn't as good as usual, but mine was better. Yum! The restaurant is on the second floor. Two men sitting on the first floor kept motioning to us to come down there and sit with them. We kept trying to ignore them. We even took a picture of ourselves with the camera pointed in their direction just to see if they were still sitting there. We took forever eating and then went to the bathroom and wasted time in there. No luck...they were still there. We had to walk past them on our way out. I wouldn't look at them, but Marsha said they waved us over and she just waved back and shook her head no. We walked back to the hotel a totally different way, and just when we thought we were home free, we turned the last corner, and lo and behold, who do you think we ran into? Yep, you got it! So, finally, we had to actually talk to them. They were nice, but we made some excuse about having to get back to our hotel and scrambled away. Just our luck!

Our room tonight was really awesome. All of the rooms here are different and have their own personalities. The hotel is very old and is sort of like a maze. It has such an old colonial feel and is just beautiful. There is a courtyard outside our room and downstairs and you feel as if you are just in another world out there. Gorgeous!

Okay, finally....today, Saturday. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Camille, who will fly in tonight at 10:40. Marsha broke out into a rash all over her body last night. We both had bites on us yesterday from the walk through the Kichwa community, but these were different. It looks like she has chicken pox. After breakfast, we walked to a nearby pharmacy. They said that she should definitely see a doctor, so they directed us to a free clinic close by. There is a security guard that stands guard at the entrance, so we just had to stand outside and wait. We finally got in, even though the security guard didn't want to let me go in with her. Through our broken Spanish, we finally were able to tell them what was wrong. The doctor, who looked twelve, spoke pretty good English, and he examined her. When he found out we had swam in the river, he looked at us like we were crazy, asked us if we had had our vaccinations before we came and if we were on malaria meds. Yes to all of the above. He said she is just probably having an allergic reaction from the water, and wrote a prescription for pills and cream. At the pharmacy, she bought both prescriptions, a thermometer, some m&m's and some gum and it was less than $5. Try THAT in the United States! And a free doctor's visit!

Made a couple of phone calls, and went back to the hotel to switch rooms and to try and sort out all of our belongings. Quite an ordeal! Another great room, which I think Camille will like. Our train trip tomorrow may not happen, because after all the trouble I went through booking by email and paying for by deposit at a bank in Guayaquil, and scanning and emailing it to her, I came back to an email from the person I had been dealing with saying she had not received confirmation and if I didn't respond by Thursday at 3pm, we were losing our seats. Since we were in the jungle on Thursday and didn't get back until Friday night, that was not a pleasant surprise. We took a taxi to the train station, but the offices are only open from Monday through Friday, so that was no help. The taxi driver and the security guards there tried to help us as much as possible, but I guess we will find out tomorrow morning at 7am if we have seats or not. They are paid for, but I'm not sure that matters. This has been one of the hardest things to plan on this whole trip. $10 seats on a train shouldn't be that hard to reserve!!!

We went back to "our" restaurant, but actually tried something new this time. We ordered a fresh avocado which was covered with shrimp and what they called "golf" sauce. The sauce tasted like Thousand Island dressing, but all the flavors combined were great. We also had empanadas which are pastries filled with cheese, chicken, beef or vegetables. They were good, but weren't the best we've had since arriving in Ecuador. Came back to the hotel, and doctored up Marsha's spots again, and since then, probably for the last three hours I've been writing in this blog! I think I'll go rest a while now before we have to go to the airport to pick up Camille! See ya later! Oh yeah, and Marsha isn't writing this time. I think she believes that I have written enough for the both of us. HAHA.....she's right.

Lago Agrio

2010-10-11T18:53:00.000-05:00

SHARLA: Got up early this morning around 6am after a sleepless night. The area where our hotel is remains quite noisy even during the night. Car alarms go off periodically and loud trucks pass by. It also got quite cold last night, and even with socks on, I couldn´t seem to warm up. Anyway, finished packing up our stuff so that we could meet Sally and Tim for breakfast and share a taxi ride to the airport. They are the funniest couple I have met in a long time. We laughed through our whole breakfast and I´m pretty sure we were annoying everyone else in the restaurant. haha

The taxi arrived and we had a fun-filled drive to the airport....laughing all the way, of course. Beautiful weather in Quito today...very sunny and warm. We got to the airport and said our goodbyes. We told Sally and Tim to enjoy their trip to the Galapagos Islands and swore to keep in touch. We found out that the airlines are once again flying directly into Lago Agrio and were able to change our tickets for only $7/each. Probably would have cost $100 each if we had tried to change last minute in the US. Got through security, and found some empty seats away from the crowd. Sat there for a few minutes and looked up to see, who else? Sally and Tim! We sat with each other for at least another hour sharing stories and laughing. We learned some interesting Aussie phrases. Some I´d never heard before. And did you know that they never say "shrimp on the barbie"? That´s just a Paul Hogan thing. Go figure. They tried to talk us into coming to the Galapagos with them....said we would have tons of fun...which I´m sure we definitely would! I have a feeling that they have fun wherever they go! We said our goodbyes again, and then found out our gate had changed. To where? Right next to Sally and Tim´s. haha. Must be meant to be. They made us promise to come visit them in Australia. They live in the country and have horses, etc. Maybe if they twist our arms, we´ll think about it..."wink"

Finally, we boarded our plane, which was quite larger than I expected. The short 30 minute flight was smooth and uneventful. Too cloudy to really see anything until we got close to Lago Agrio. It is super, super green, but I was surprised to see how flat it is. Thousands upon thousands of trees, but no mountains. I guess I had it pictured differently in my mind. We still have two hours by truck and three hours by canoe into the jungle tomorrow, so chances are the scenery will change drastically.

The hotel had us booked on the wrong day, but luckily they had a room for us. It is pretty nice as far as Ecuadorian hotels go and luckily there is an air conditioner in the room because it´s pretty hot and humid here. We spent several hours exploring Lago Agrio. It is by far the dirtiest city we´ve been to in Ecuador. Marsha said it is a lot cleaner than Naples, Italy. I´ll have to take her word on that right now. We found out that we need flashlights for our night excursions in the jungle and heavy socks for rubber boots, so that gave us something to look for while we were walking around. We found the socks quickly, and then located a hardware store a few blocks away. The prices here are high....comparable with the prices at home. Not sure why, except that maybe because Lago Agrio is an oil town. Texaco was here for many, many years. In fact, Lago Agrio means Sour Lake, and supposedly there is a Sour Lake, Texas. We stopped for lunch (actually at our hotel) and had pizza which actually was decent. Different from any pizza I´ve ever had, but good. We also picked up a small cushion for the canoe. One of our guides in Cuenca recommended we pick one up...otherwise, after sitting for three hours, we would have to find a pencil to draw our butt crack back on!! Sorry, but it was just too funny not to repeat :)

The hotel has a pool table, so we played a couple of REALLY bad games. Luckily, we suck at pretty much the same level, so we are equally matched. Marsha won two games in a row, but only by one ball each time. We dipped our legs in the really cold pool for a while. Which leads to now....on the internet....writing this. Guess we´ll have dinner in a while, and then to bed. The tour company is picking us up at 9:30 in the morning and we get to start a NEW adventure! Hasta luego!

MARSHA: rode to airport with our new australian friends. hung out with them and had the whole airport watching us because tim is a mamoth by ecuadorian standards (6ft 5") and quite loud, plus he had me, sharla, and sally laughing the whole time. what great people. the flight was short. lago agrio is a small town 20 km from the columbian border. just kinda hung out, had lunch, walked around checkin out the little stores then came back to the hotel and played pool and stuck our feet in the cold seimming pool. gonna hit the hay pretty early tonight. have a funfilled next few days in the jungle. dont worry about us but will have no communication for next few days as there will be no internet where we are going. love to all. will write when we get back to civilization. ciao

Otavalo and Quito

2010-10-10T23:12:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Okay, last night, we had full intentions of calling home, but our stomachs won out. We found a really good American food restaurant in Cotacachi. Apparently, it's where all the local "gringos" hang out because it got really busy in the evening. Before the rush, we met a great couple from Arizona, Kim and Joe, who are spending a month in Ecuador (their first time), actively looking for a retirement home here. It is so beautiful, I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't want to retire here. We talked to them for quite some time, and got our bellies full of great guacamole and bean burritos. It was dark when we left the restaurant, so we made the wise decision to take a taxi for $1 to our cabana. Really good decision, as the last part of the road is dirt and pitch black.

When we got back to the cabana, we realized we needed toilet paper, so we left the cabana and went to the caretaker's house, but not before I realized that the door automatically locks if you close the door....and the key was hanging on the inside of the door :) The caretaker wasn't too happy....he thought that there was only one key for the lock. He called the owners and found out that there was indeed a second key. I know he was thinking "stupid gringas," but deep down I'm pretty sure he liked us and I know he will never forget us!

After a good night's sleep, we got up and packed, ate a breakfast of bread, cheese, coffee and tomato de arbol (tomato of the tree) juice. Yep, there are tomatoes that grow on trees. The juice is pretty good, too, although it's probably not something that I will crave when I get home. We said our goodbyes and took a taxi to Otavalo...about a 20 minute ride. Sunday market in Otavalo is amazing. There is so much stuff that you really sort of get overwhelmed by it all. We said before we left the states, and since we've been here that we were not going to buy ANYTHING here. Well, okay, maybe these great Panama hats (which are ALL made in Ecuador) that were about two booths in. But, that's ALL!!! Okay, well maybe we might want to buy Christmas presents while we're here...that's a great idea! Oh, and well, now we need a new Ecuadorian textile bag to put all of our new stuff in. Best laid plans as they say. We LITERALLY both ran completely out of money before we got out of the market. Just pennies to our name.

Decided we better find the bus station and head for Quito, but on our way, we met a man from Florida, Gary, who was really nice. He has travelled to over 160 countries, and was full of very interesting stories. We had a leisurely lunch with him and then caught the bus with him to Quito. We shared a taxi to our hotels...his first, which was the Radisson (probably $200/night), and then to ours...which we LOVE by the way and it's only $25/pp a night. And it's full of the charm of old colonial Quito.

When we were checking back in, we met ANOTHER great couple, Sally and Tim, from Australia, who have been here one day and are on their way to the Galapagos Islands. Marsha recommended our favorite restaurant here to them and gave them directions. We threw our stuff into our room and rushed out to try to find an ATM and a phone. Forgetting it's Sunday, and everything is closed, we did find an ATM, and a pay phone. We tried to call and confirm our reservations for Lago Agrio tomorrow, but the airlines were closed as well. Nothing else to do but go eat! Lo and behold, guess who was there? Sally and Tim. We sat at a table next to theirs and at the amazing pasta we had been craving. We got up to leave, and Sally and Tim invited us to join them. I was a little embarrassed because we haven't bathed in three days (the water at our cabana was ice cold), but they were so warm and welcoming that I overcame it. They were so funny, and we just hit it off. We laughed so hard that our cheeks hurt! We walked back with them to the hotel, and finally got to take a nice long shower. YAY!

We unpacked and then repacked everything in preparation for our 4-day jungle trek in the Amazon. We will leave early in the morning to catch our flight, and I'm pretty sure there's no internet in the jungle, so it will be several days before we get to post again. We will be thinking of you all while we are in the wilds!!!

MARSHA: wow, never wanna type much after reading sharias coz it pretty much tells it all but know theres a few of my friends that just want my quickie condensed version. last time we were in ecuador, we didn't care for the food. this time,(the first week or so) we found some stuff we really loved and craved more. however, since we arrived in quito, we now remember why we didn't like it. its really bad. sooooooo, found a gringo cafe and had a great dinner and met our first official new friends who we will keep in touch with via email. joe and kim. had great time with them. left cabanas this morning bout 9:30 and got to otavalo around 10. had heard about the sunday market (last time we were there was not on a sunday) and wow its amazing. we had so much fun. got lots of great christmas presents. we kept trying to leave the market and head to the bus station but COULD NOT LEAVE. we spent down to i think we had maybe 40 or 50 cents between us. so headed to atm when we met this awesome man who we ended up going to have a beer and then to the bus station. we shared a cab and dropped him off first at his new fancy hotel and we went to the old town to our nice little cozy hostel where they are so nice to allow us to lock our large backpacks in their luggage storage room. its kind of our home base coz we come back here every few days and spend the night and wash clothes and regroup and repack for our next excursion. anyway when we got back to our room, we met the most amazing couple jim and sally from australia. they asked about food and i suggested a place we ate at a few nights ago and were going back tonight. well they were there when we got there. after everyone was finished, we joined them at their table and had the best time. we laughed, cried, told travel stories, kid stories and will be keeping in touch with them as well. they want us to plan a trip to australia now. woo hoo..... anyway, they leave for the galapagos in the morning about the time we leave for the airport so were gonna split a cab. we are off to the jungle in the morning so wont be hearing from us in a few days so don't freak out. will write when we get back here to quito. thanks to all y'all for checking on us. this was kinda a long one for me coz i usually keep em kinda short. sharia does such a great job with the details i just kinda add a few lines. ok. gotta get up and fly an hour, take a bus for 2 hours, then take a canoe for 3 hours then get settled in in our ?hut??? cant wait to tell about this adventure. till next time.......

Cotacachi

2010-10-09T14:49:00.015-05:00

Abstract of Hotel San Francisco de Quito interior

Sharla: Hello, all! Well, we had an interesting experience on our way to Cotacachi yesterday. We took a taxi from Hotel San Francisco in Quito through Quito during lunchtime traffic. I honestly don´t know how there are no more accidents there than there are. It is really unbelievable how narrow the streets are and how close they drive to each other. And then to top it off, scooters are zipping in and out between the cars.

All of these cars and buses are trying to merge
into one lane!

We finally made it to the bus station after about an hour...it was supposed to be 30 minutes by taxi. We found the ticket booths, and two booths were fighting for our business. We wanted an express bus to Cotacachi. The people that Marsha was talking to said there was one leaving in five minutes for $2. We must have had SUCKER written across our foreheads, but we were totally unaware at this point we did.

First of all, the bus was not express, it made several stops along the way. Marsha put her backpack above her head....I kept mine between my feet. After a few minutes, Marsha noticed that her backpack was gone. She jumped up and saw it at the very back of the bus. We both thought it had slid back there, but since there were partitions every few feet, we knew that wasn´t possible. She retrieved it and looked in it. She could tell things had been gone through because zippers were unzipped, etc. Luckily, nothing was gone. Most of her valuables she had on her person. Very lucky. Won´t be doing that again.

Most of the buses show a movie....we saw ALL
of the Transporter movies (seems to be the only
ones any of the buses in Ecuador were showing)
and, of course, they are all in Spanish :)

We got to the end of our trip....everyone got off the bus, and so did we. We flagged down a taxi, and asked if he knew where the Quinta la Posada was. He looked at our directions and said in Spanish...."this Posada is in Cotacachi...you are in Ybarra." What? How did we end up in Ybarra when we were on a bus that was express to Cotacachi? This would be where the SUCKER part comes back in to play. Anyway, we decided to let this nice taxi driver take us to Cotacachi which was another 30 minute drive. So, our $2 trip to Cotacachi ended up costing us $8 each. Lesson learned.

We made it the Quinta la Posada and it was well worth all of the trouble. It is about a ten minute walk from town and it is actually a farm. We are staying in a beautiful little cabana. The grounds are beautiful and well maintained. Every kind of flower and fruit here that you can imagine. There are limes, lemons, huge avocados, oranges.....etc, etc. They also have chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs....hundreds of guinea pigs.

Some nice avocados!

We walked to town to find some dinner. Nearly everything was closed but we spotted a restaurant with saloon doors that was open. We asked if we could eat there...the girl said yes and disappeared. We were expecting her to reappear with menus, but instead she brought us a bowl of veggie soup. We decided that you get whatever is on the stove today. After the soup, we were brought a plate of rice, potatoes, cabbage, a green banana, and some meat still on the bone. We took a bite of meat and it was really dry. The taste was pretty good, but it was really hard to eat. Everything else on the plate was pretty bland. After talking about it, we decided that we were eating cuy, or guinea pig!!! I swore I would NEVER try guinea pig, and here I was trying it. We ended up putting it in a napkin and sneaking it out of the restaurant so as not to be disrespectful and fed it to a neighborhood dog. Ugh, all I could think about was Camille´s pet guinea pig, Max, that she had for a long time.

One of the views near Quinta la Posada

The view from Quinta la Posada of
downtown Cotacachi

On the walk from Quinta la Posada to central
Cotacachi

A beautiful mural painted on one of the walls of
a local government building

"Cuy", or guinea pig....considered a delicacy
by many Ecuadorians

We walked around Cotacachi for a while and discovered the town is full of leather stores.....store after store full of leather products. Really nice stuff. Got back to the cabana just before dark, and walked around the place. They have a soccer field and volleyball court behind our cabana and from what we could tell they rent it out. As a matter of fact, after we got settled in for the night, we saw lots of cars coming in and heard a game going on until probably close to midnight.

We saw this man and his family herding cows,
horses and goats when we were walking back to
our cabana

This is Mary, who hand made many of
the leather goods behind us.

Yes....that is a pig on a leash.

This was our darling cabana at Quinta la Posada.

This morning, we ate breakfast at the restaurant on sight. Again, we ended up wrapping up most of our food and giving it to the family dog. Shame on us! The coffee was good, though! Can´t wait for some pizza or pasta! haha

After breakfast, the caretaker took us up to Lake Cuicocha, and dropped us off. We thought he was being so nice to take us to the lake instead of us having to take a taxi. I was furiously looking through my new english-spanish dictionary trying to figure out how to say how nice he was to take us all the way to the lake. When we arrived, he told us, and we managed to figure out that he was charging us $6 each way. Oh....throw the bloody dictionary away. haha

Marsha and the caretaker of
Quinta la Posada

Getting ready to board the tour boat....it was cold that morning!

The lake is inside the crater of a volcano and has just filled up over time. It is beautiful. We took a boat ride with four others around the lake with a guide. We couldn´t understand what he was saying, but I´m sure it was interesting. We had some coffee in a little shop overlooking the lake, and then walked through the tiny market that they had set up there. We bought a couple of things there, and then the caretaker came back to pick us up and take us back to our hostal. We have walked back into town to use the internet and make some calls and HOPEFULLY find some good food to eat. Will write again when I get a chance. CIAO!!!

Quinta la Posada has many beautiful flowers!

The bus driver didn't quite make the turn!

The small market in Cotacachi

Central Cotacachi

Marsha: omg. i just read sharlas blog and am laughing so hard i am crying. what can i possibly add to that? perfect.

Cuenca, Guayaquil and Quito

2010-10-07T23:22:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Not much to report for the last two days. Yesterday, we had to leave beautiful Cuenca. We took a last walk around the downtown area and ate breakfast at Cafe Austria. We were supposed to meet Allen and Judy back at the condo at 11:30am, but we were five minutes late and they had to go run errands, so we missed them :(

The ride back to Guayaquil was quite a bit better than the one going to Cuenca. Except for the first few minutes when he was taking the curves on two wheels. We had to ask him to PLEASE slow down. We were lucky because the clouds were mostly gone this time, and we were able to see a lot more of the Cajas National Park. It is really beautiful. At one point along the way, the clouds hang onto the mountain below the highway and it almost feels like you are flying above the clouds in an airplane.

Back in Guayaquil, Jessica had to go to work, so we hung out at her son's house. We were supposed to go to the circus with Jessica's daughter-in-law and granddaughters, but turns out it wasn't until the next night. Instead, we went to the mall and I bought a tiny English-Spanish dictionary and then Marsha and I went to see the movie, Wall Street. It was an okay movie. Cell phones went off the whole time, and people actually just talked the whole time. When I asked Jessica about this, she said it's normal....the only place people turn off their cell phones is in church. I thought people in the U.S. were on the their cell phones a lot until I came here. Pretty funny!

Marsha playing with Jessica's grandkids....
"right foot on red, left hand on yellow"

We got up this morning and ate homemade granola and fruit cereal, got dressed and packed our backpacks. Jessica took us to a new mall in Guayaquil that looks like a very nice hotel. It only opened one month ago, and pretty much only has restaurants open there. We stopped for coffee, and even though we had just eaten breakfast, Jessica ordered several typical Ecuadorian dishes for us to try. We didn't want to be rude, so we ate them. We were so stuffed, we had to roll back to the car. We went to another mall, and walked around....really just to waste time until it was time to go to the airport. Said our goodbyes to Jessica, and the flight to Quito was a quick 45 minutes.

Jessica and Marsha at the new mall

We hit Quito a rush hour and our hotel, the Hotel San Francisco de Quito, is downtown, so it took a while. In fact, the first taxi driver got lost, and we had to transfer to another taxi in order to get to our hotel. After we checked in, believe it or not, we were hungry again. We walked a few blocks to the plaza where the police revolt took place just one week ago, and found a great Italian restaurant (Cafe del Fraille) to eat which was located in a beautiful building adjacent to the presidential palace. The pasta there was incredible, and we ate until we were miserable....AGAIN.

Tomorrow, we are going to find our way to the bus terminal and catch a bus to Cotacachi north of here about three hours. We get to leave our big backpacks here at the hotel in Quito so that we get to only take our little backpacks. We are coming back here in three days, so it will be nice not to have to drag all of our stuff with us. We love this hotel in Quito....we stayed here last time we came to Ecuador in 2009. So, on that note, I think I'll brush my teeth and get some sleep. Goodnight!

MARSHA: well, we left cuenca yesterday and went to guayaquil to jessicas. she went to work for a while so we went to a movie. saw wall street. not my favorite, but was ok. just kinda killed time today till our flight which was only 25 minutes long (or a 12 hour bus ride) got to quito and checked in at our hotel that we stayed at last time we were here. walked about 2 blocks to the plaza where all the riots and protests took place a week ago today. the president was there and i thought there would be a lot more military than there was. no action. we just ate the most amazing pasta EVER. have found a lot of ecuadorian food that we really like but was ready for some noodles and sauce. repacked coz we are leaving our big backpacks here in the luggage storage room since we are coming back here in a couple days. off to the bus terminal to try to find our way up to cotacachi which is about 3 hours north of here. reservations for a little cabana at a little farm. who knows??? will find our tomorrow. exciting. hasta manana

Cuenca, Ecuador

2010-10-05T21:22:00.001-05:00

Me with Isabel,
my massage therapist

SHARLA: We slept in this morning and then went to our favorite massage therapists again for a two hour massage. It did not disappoint....again. Returned to the condo, where we threw ideas around for the afternoon.

The taxi driver tried to get us a sample of their milk,
but they refused us :(

We decided to return to Soldados thermal baths....this time with appropriate clothing. The first place we called wanted to charge us $140 round trip! What??? But, Jessica had a friend who had a friend who owned a taxi and said he would take us for $40 roundtrip. Much better. We were the only ones there and the hot bath was open today. It felt amazing. Our driver told us that there was another one nearby, so after about an hour, we loaded up and drove the short distance to the other one. It was much hotter, and we hopped between the hot and warm baths for another hour.

It was nearly dark by the time that we left, and I was so relaxed that I fell asleep for most of the 50 minute ride home. The taxi driver took us by a little cafe that made empanadas that Jessica had heard about, so that was dinner. One of them was stuffed with chicken, peas and carrots (similar to a pot pie), the other was filled with platanos verdes (green bananas) and cheese. Both were yummy, but the first was my favorite.

Jessica, me and Marsha along with the couple
who own the hot baths.

Very quiet, relaxing day. Going to bed early to get ready for the trip to Guayaquil tomorrow.

The couple that own the thermal baths...OWN this mountain! Nice!

MARSHA: had a very relaxing day. went and got our 2 hour $26 massage, came home and made a quick lunch and took a taxi to the thermal baths. it is so far out in the middle of nowhere that we were the only people there again. jessica didn't bring a swim suit so we all wore undies and my sports bras which looked like regular swim suits. our driver and the owners of the property were the only other people there and they never knew the difference. we went to 2 different places just across the river from each other. all hot and the most amazing mountains and a bridge crossing the river (which sounded so amazing) anyway, was a great way to end our stay in cuenca. drove back to town and had some amazing empanadas from a small family cafe. we were gonna take jessica out for dinner, but this was alot more fun. didn't have to go get ready, fix hair, make up. back at the house getting our laundry done and ready to pack up in the morning and head to guayaquil. the drive is incredible, so have that to looke forward to tomorrow.

Cuenca, Ecuador

2010-10-04T22:30:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Got up early and were picked up by our guide, Martin, from TerraDiversa tours. We drove about an hour and a half out of Cuenca into the Cajas National Park where we were to begin our mountain biking tour. We were at about 13,000 feet, and the air was very thin. It took me a little while to catch my breath. We were in what we in the U.S. call the "tundra," definitely above tree level. It was very beautiful. As we descended, the flowers and the terrain changed drastically.

The name of the tour was 30 Bridges and Cajas National Park, which was very appropro considering there were at least 30 bridges on our route. The road we were on followed a beautiful river down through the mountains. It reminded me a lot of Colorado in this area. It was absolutely gorgeous, and you could smell the scent of flowers in the air almost the whole time. There were lots of nice ranches, mostly milk cows. We passed many milk cans (like the ones that the ranchers in the U.S. used years ago. A milk truck comes through and picks them up, and the ranchers are paid every two weeks. We saw cows WAY up on the mountainside. Not sure how they get up that high! This is an absolutely beautiful area of Ecuador....may be right up near the top of my favorites. The area is called Bababon after the mountain that surrounds it.

We stopped for lunch at a hot springs thermal bath. It was in a beautiful location. The hottest spring was being drained and cleaned. This is done every Monday. There was another pool open that wasn't as hot, but we decided to get in anyway. We asked the men to stand on the other side of the building and stripped down and went skinny dipping...it was pretty awesome! After lunch, we continued on our way stopping frequently to take pictures. The road was very bumpy, so by the time we rode for over three hours, I was ready to get off the bike, but it was an amazing day.

This was our favorite of the 30 bridges.

Back at the condo, we cleaned up and then laid down for a little bit. I read, and Marsha napped. We met Jessica downtown so that she could pick up a necklace that she ordered yesterday. Made some phone calls home, and then stopped for a pizza to go. It was a very good pizza. I hope you all had as wonderful a day as we did!

This "castle" was just built on the side of this
hill. Pretty random!

Women washing clothes in the rivers is a
very common sight.

I thought Martin was a Ben Stiller look-alike.

MARSHA: we did our first bike ride today. we rode 34 kilometers thru the caja national park. the tour is called 30 bridges. we started at 3500 meters which our guide said was about 13000 ft. there were farms all the way down with milk cows. the people would milk them and leave the milk in containers at the end of their driveway for the milk truck to pick up. we stopped at a thermal bath which was out in the middle of nowhere. we made the guides go on the other side of the little bathroom building and we stripped down and got in. was awesome and i could have stayed there for hours but we only stayed in for a few minutes and had a picnic lunch in the grass beside a beautiful bridge then continued on. after the ride we just cleaned up and chilled out and went to the city center to pick up some earrings that we had made to match necklaces that we bought last night. handmade. beautiful and cheap!!! massages in the morning. yay!!!

Cuenca, Ecuador

2010-10-03T21:03:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Hello, again! We got up this morning around 8:30am and were trying to think of things to do. We thought about horseback riding, but it was in Cajas National Park, and we are going there tomorrow to ride bikes. We thought about going to a little suburb of Cuenca called Banos (not to be confused with the bigger Banos further north where we are going at the end of our trip) to sit in the thermal baths, but Jessica didn't bring her swimsuit. We mulled it over while we ate Jessica's wonderful fried plantains and papaya. We decided to just walk around Cuenca, and just see what we could find to do.

Just outside our condo

When we left the condo, we noticed crowds of people with red shirts on walking in one direction, so we decided to check it out! A few blocks away, we discover it is a futbol (soccer) game. We decided to go, so we bought some team shirts at a stand outside the stadium, and bought our tickets. Inside the stadium, we found some seats in the shade and started watching the Cuenca soccer team compete against the Manta soccer team. We had only been sitting there a couple of minutes when I noticed Marsha waving to someone. It was Juan, our hiking guide from Friday! What a small world. We tried some peanuts that the vendor put into a dixie cup and then squeezed some lime and some picante into them. He shook them up and gave them to us and they were wonderful! At half time, we walked down to speak with Juan, and then moved to the opposite end of the stadium. The score was 1:1 at the half. We really got into the cheering and rooting for the Cuenca team. They scored two more goals and won 3:1! It was fun.

After the game, we walked through the deserted streets of Cuenca....not much goes on here on Sundays. We did come across a little market where the locals were selling their wares. We only looked, didn't buy. It started raining pretty hard by now, so we sat on the steps of the cathedral and waited for Jessica. We met her at our favorite little restaurant and had llapingachos and Coke light.

The local artists had laid their wares out along the sidewalk, and we managed to find some jewelry to buy....very beautiful handmade by the vendors.

This is Luis from Ecuador...

and, this is Luis from Columbia.

There were some more dancers at gazebo in the park. One of them tried to get me to go up there and dance with him, but I was too shy :) We actually found a store open where we bought some bottled water for the condo. We got a "little" lost on the walk back, but did manage to find our way back. Whew.... Another great day in Ecuador!

MARSHA: what a fun day. we followed a bunch of people wearing read shirts to find out there was a futball (soccer) game. we bought t-shirts outside of the arena for the loal team. the game was fun. we had beer and peanuts. the peanuts were served from a bucketful of peanuts scooped into a dixie cup. they squeezed lemon and poured hot sauce on them. awesome. gonna make that at home. yum. the loal team won 3 to 1. next we walked to the city center and had this amazing dish that we have both fallen in love with called llapingacho and watched some local kids in the park playing instruments and dancing. met lots of locals and a few people from columbia. very nice and fun was had by all. bike tomorrow. to bed early.

Cuenca, Ecuador

2010-10-02T20:03:00.001-05:00

SHARLA: Hi, all! This morning we slept in until about 8am. Had a leisurely breakfast and coffee on the balcony. It was a little overcast today, but warmed up nicely. We decided to try out a massage that was recommended by a fellow blogger. Marsha and I were dropped off by Jessica and her new friend, Jaime. We proceeded to have the BEST two-hour massage I have ever had. The spa is named Armonia Vital and my therapist's name was Isabel. TERRIFIC!!!

We bought some things from
these artisans

We caught a taxi back to the condo, and showered, dressed and headed for the plaza. I stopped and bought a $5 pair of sunglasses and a lipstick for $1.50. We looked for a little hole in the wall place that Judy recommended we buy coffee. Couldn't find it. So, we decided to go back to the restaurant, Raymipampa, where we had the good potato soup. We ordered llapingacho (an Ecuadorian potato cake), and split a spaghetti with camarones (shrimp). Excellent! The last time we came to Ecuador in 2009, we didn't care for the traditional Ecuadorian cuisine, but everything we have had this time has been fantastic.

After this late lunch, we went across the street to the plaza where a military band was playing in a gazebo. It is starting to get cold, and we are wishing for a heavier jacket! After the band finished, some local boys (and one girl) got into the gazebo and were practicing beat box and break dancing. Some of them were REALLY good. I don't know how they don't break their arms and necks!

On the walk back to the condo, we stopped at a cabina to make a couple of calls home, and stopped in a couple of places for Marsha to look at shoes. We saw a cute restaurant, Cafe Austria, and stopped in for a coffee and Baileys. By this time, it is cold and raining, and the coffee tasted perfect. Made it back to the condo, and into our jammies. I think the rest of our stay is supposed to be cold and rainy...perfect biking weather for Monday!

Cabina Call

Coffee at Cafe Austria

MARSHA: had the best massage EVER today. 2 hours of ahem heaven. this girl knew all my sore spots and just how much pressure i needed. and for only $26. we got cleaned up after and went to the centre of the city and had a nice ecuadorian dinner. afterward we went across the street and listened to a military band in the park and people watched till we got too cold and had to get up and walk. about the time we were going to leave the plaza we heard music again and went to check it out. this time it was about 10 or 12 teenagers break dancing. they were spinning around on their heads and wrists and elbows. they were amazing. next we stopped by a little austrian restaurant and had coffee and baileys. it started to rain and we walked back to the condo and are settled in for the night. the police were arrested and the military took over the last couple days. they are supposed to be released soon because they are needed to keep things orderly. will be interesting.

SigSig, Ecuador

2010-10-01T19:18:00.031-05:00

Marsha and Juan

SHARLA: Today, we woke up early and ate a breakfast of oatmeal and peanut butter in preparation for our guided hike today. Our guide, Juan, from TerraDiversa Tours, was extremely knowledgeable about the area flora and fauna.

Lady Slippers

We stopped in this little town and had a
roadside pancake made by this young girl.

We drove for a couple of hours through the beautiful countryside, and through the historic town of SigSig. Up a dirt road for about 4 kilometers, we began our descent by foot from about 10,000 feet.

The walk was beautiful and fairly easy. We walked for about 2 hours and stopped for our sack lunch near an old church. One of the elderly indigenous ladies came down and just plopped down next to me. Her name was Maria, and she thinks she is 70 years old, but she's not sure. She noticed us walking down above her house, especially Marsha's blonde hair, and wanted to come meet us. Apparently, we are some of the very first foreigners she has ever met. She was so friendly, and so sweet. She has never worn shoes....EVER. She said that when she has tried to wear them, she trips in them, so she just walks barefooted everywhere. She laughed and giggled with her toothless grin. What a breath of fresh air!

We finished our lunch, and then drove down a ways where we began a walking tour of some ancient ruins. We drove back to Cuenca and arrived about 4:00pm. Jessica prepared us a wonderful vegetable soup, and we ate two bowls each!

What...a...wonderful...day!!!

Oh, as a side note, the country is back to normal, more or less. The president is back in office, businesses are open, and the airports have reopened.

marsha: well, we did our hike outside of cuenca today. we drove thru the windy mountain roads thru amazing little villages where the local women were weaving panama hats. there were scattered fruit markets and business owners hustled to sell their goods. a little girl was making tortillas (what i would call a pancake) on her front porch. we bought some for 35 cents each. they have fruit trees with fruit they call tomatoes. they are shaped similar to a rom a but look more like a nectarine. amazing!!! the men were out working in their fields with their cow-pulled plows. there were pigs, chickens and horses. my daddy would love the little farms here!!! we had an excellent guide who was very knowledgeable. we met a little lady along the way who joined us on the grass for lunch. she had no teeth but managed to dig pieces of apple out with her thumbs and gum it down. she took her sandwich home with her for later. she said she didn't know how old she was but thought about 70. her little feet looked like a pair of shoes with toes drawn on them. she had never worn shoes and it looked like it. it was a fun day and things seem to have settled down as far as the police action goes so don't worry about us. more to follow......

Ecuador September 28-September 30, 2010

2010-09-30T20:56:00.077-05:00

Well, first of all, I'm disappointed because last night I was going to post to this blog and realized that there is no way to post pictures here from my iPad. Maybe they will come up with an app for that...anyway, for now you will only be getting words and I will update with pictures when I get back in the U.S.

Our first day of travel was pretty uneventful. We arrived in Houston on time and ate at Pappadeaux's thinking we would indulge in some seafood. But, we decided on a wedge salad instead because you're not supposed to eat fresh greens in Ecuador. Good choice, the wedge was wonderful.

We had an hour and a half layover in Panama City, Panama. The airport is small, but fairly modern, and nice. We spent our time just walking around looking in the shops. We arrived in Guayaquil a little bit late, but we had no trouble getting through customs (although the security guard didn't think I looked like my passport picture....does anybody look like their passport picture?), and Jessica was there ready to take us to her home.

After a good night's sleep, albeit a little short, we had a good breakfast of some sort of plantain concoction which was delicious, and a short visit with Jessica's son and daughter-in-law. Off to the airport again to pay for a future domestic flight, and then to the transportation service where we missed the noon van to Cuenca. For a little bit extra per person, we opted to take a private van that could leave immediately instead of an hour later. Not sure that was a great idea, only because we got a driver who was CRAZY and couldn't keep his eyes on this curvy, mountain road. Marsha and I, who have never been car sick EVER, both almost puked on the way. The drive is supposed to be one of the most scenic in Ecuador, but the clouds were so low that we couldn't see much. I tried to sleep, but every time I almost dozed, the driver jerked the wheel and jerked me awake. Finally, arriving in Cuenca a little late, our driver, who insisted that he "knows Cuenca well," couldn't find our condo and had to flag a taxi driver over and follow him to our destination.

At a small restaurant about 30 minutes
outside of Cuenca.

The clouds broke enough for us to see part of the
Cajas National Park

Judy and Allen, friends of my aunt and uncle, rented us their condo for the week, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It overlooks one of the three rivers that runs through Cuenca. It supposedly has trout in it, but they say they are difficult to catch. For one thing, the river is running pretty fast! Judy and Allen gave us a tour of the condo, and they were so warm and welcoming! We are just a couple of buildings over from about 100 stairs that we can climb and be just blocks from the main downtown plaza, so we dropped off our luggage and walked all over the downtown area. They had told us of a great little cafe that had great, typical Ecuadorian potato soup. So we went and all had the soup. It was delicious with a huge slice of avocado floating in it. Yummy!!! We walked back to the condo and got ready for bed. It gets really cold in Cuenca at night!!! There is no heater in the condo, so we piled every blanket we could find on the beds and finally fell asleep.

This morning, Thursday, when we got up, we learned that the police forces in Ecuador were staging an uprising and had forced the President out of office. What??? Surprise!!! Boy, do we know how to time our vacations! We got dressed and walked back to the plaza where we got up close and personal with the demonstration of the police in Cuenca. They were basically having a parade around the plaza. Honking, and yelling, and crowds. Marsha told me, "If you hear gunfire, hit the dirt." I think she was only half kidding.

We boarded a double-decker bus and took a two-hour tour of the city. It took us all around and then up to a famous look-out spot on the mountain which has a GREAT view of the whole city. Back down at the bottom, we caught a taxi to the Homberto Ortega Panama Hat factory. It was closed for the next hour, so we waited in the bus terminal and watched TV in Spanish, and was full of information about the demonstrations. President Correa was hospitalized because he suffered near asphyxiation from the tear gas that was thrown at him. We made our way back to the hat factory, and once there, went through the museum and then got to see the process by which the Panama hats are made. Panama hats are NOT made in Panama. They were exported first from Panama, but all Panama hats are made in Ecuador. It is a long process to make these hats, and the very nice ones can take up to six months to make! After the tour, we tried on hats in the store, and bought a couple to ship home to Marsha's relatives.

The lady at the hat shop told Jessica about a great restaurant that serves typical Ecuadorian food. They sell meat by the pound!! We had some wonderful corn on the cob and a couple of other side dishes that I can't remember their names. It was served with a great picante sauce that we put all over everything. Then came our pound of pork that had been grilled on a pit outside the restaurant. It was thin, and delicious! We also got to taste a tomato that grows on a tree! It was quite sour, but was really good. We caught a taxi back to the condo, and had a cup of hot tea.

Throughout the day, we've learned that most of the major airports in Ecuador are closed, and we are hoping that the police demonstrations will die down by the time we need to travel to Quito on the 7th. Until then, we are going to stick to our plans and have a great time here where the food is great, the weather is perfect, and the people are friendly.