Banos

August 17th-19th

Well I can't exactly, or nearly, say that I was in love with banos.

Things I didn't like about banos:
-super touristy
-obnoxious "party buses" that would cruise around town blasting annoying music with strobe lights on at all hours of the day

-very touristy
-A cafe who charged Hannah $4.50 for "nachos" which were really just doritos
-touristy
-the bus ride back from the waterfalls (we had to take one of the infamous party buses)
-The "thermal baths" which banos was known for ... a beautiful natural bath? Or a community sess-pool (see picture below)

-the starving limping dog sitting outside of a bar
-Did I mention that banos was touristy?

Things I liked about banos:
-The bike ride to the waterfalls (which made all of the bad things about banos better!)

-The main church in the city at night

-buying the starving dog a hamburger and watching her eat it
-leaving Banos for Cuenca!

Oh don't worry ... Banos was fine - it was just not my favorite place of the trip. The bike to the waterfalls that we went on today (18th) was really beautiful and fun. I can't say besides that that I will miss Banos!

Chugchilan - Black Sheep Inn

August 14th-17th

We arrived in Chugchilan around 4pm on the 14th. We are staying at a world renowned hostal called the Black Sheep In. It is very lovely. It is very "American" as Hannah described it. The owners are from the US. So its very easy in that way, they help you figure out hikes, horseback riding or whatever activity you are interested in. It is $35 dollars a night for the bunk house where we are staying. We are staying on the 3rd floor which is really nice because it is the top floor and just two beds so Hannah and I basically have a room to ourselves. The $35 includes 3 vegetarian meals a day. There is a yoga studio and a deck outside the studio which overlooks the town and mountains. Its a stunning view. It is absolutely amazing at night. The clouds come in over the mountains and you can see the stars and the moon. I've tried very hard to take pictures of it but my camera is just not that great for night time photos.

August 15th
We woke up, had breakfast, and headed off on a truck for an hour long ride up the mountains to the Quilotoa Lake. The truck ride was amazing, the view was stunning I took many pictures. Then we hiked around the ridge of the lake, down through an indigenous town and back to our hostel. We left at 9 and got back around 4. We had a guide. The total cost of the hike with the truck was $10. We hiked with 3 other people from the hostel, one was from Quito but had lived in the US for 20 years and had just returned to his "roots". The other two were americans, both professors. One of the professors moved to Quito 6 months ago to teach here because there was not many opportunities for a job in the US. The woman that came with was a friend of the other American guy and had come to visit them. So it was nice to hike with them. Our guide was born in Chugchilan, he was 19, one of 8 children, had never been to Quito, he didn't speak English but that was fine. He said that most people in the town were married at age 17 and then he didnt want to get married yet. He wanted to go to college in Latacunga.

The hike has been one of the highlights of the trip so far. The lake and scenery were beautiful.

Lake Quilotoa

Hannah and I at the top of Lake Quilotoa

Another picture of the Lake

Me looking stylish with my sunglasses and scarf to keep the dust out of my eyes and nose!

One of the houses in the indigenous village.

Mama horse and baby horse, in the village we passed through on our hike.

Me and some of the fellow hikers taking a break.

After our hike we got back to our hostel and showered. We were covered in dust/dirt. Up high in the mountains there is a fair amount of wind which blows dust around everywhere. Much of the time I wore my sunglasses and wrapped a scarf around my face so I didnt get dust in my eyes and nose. I imagine people who live here all their lives probably have respiratory problems, I remember an older woman on the bus who I could tell had problems breathing, she would weeze everytime she took a breath. We get our dinners, family style, every night at 7pm. We always end up socializing with the people at dinner for an hour or two after. This day we met a family, an middle aged couple with two teenage boys. They were very interesting, the couple had done a lot of traveling. We also met a young couple from South Africa, both doctors, who were leaving South Africa for awhile, traveling for a bit in Ecuador and then the UK and then they hoped to get employed in Sweden. The husband, Simon, spoke fluent Sweedish and he had family in Sweden, and the wife - Anika I think was her name - was hoping to learn to speak Swedish. They were both very nice.

August 16th
Hannah went horse back riding with the family we met at dinner the previous night, and I decided to save $15 and take the day off. I had lots on my agenda for my day off but only accomplished a few things! I started the day off after eating breakfast, doing laundry. It was .90 cents a pound but they also had a place where you could hand wash laundry. The place to handwash laundry had a beautiful view over Chugchilan and the mountains. So I got to work on Hannah and my laundry (I thought I would be nice and do hers as well) looking back I think it would have been a better idea to pay .90 cents a pound for a machine wash! It took me about 2 hours to do laundry! I suppose it was fine "back to the basics", but from now on I think Ill just pay to have our laundry done! So for the rest of the day I did some trip planning and worked on my Spanish a bit with a book I bought in Quito. Later in the afternoon after Hannah and others had returned from their day time activities, a group of girls, I think ages 6-12 did a traditional dance for us (and then made us dance with them). I got a few pictures before my camera died. You could tell this was probably one of the highlights of the girls week. They took donations at the end and I was happy to give them a few dollars.

I think one of things I really enjoy about traveling in Latin American is to see the interactions and lifestyles of the children. The children are so much more independent than they are in the US and help take care of themselves their families. Watching the girls dance and looking at the different faces made me wonder what their life stories were. What these girls would grow up to do. Would they stay in Chugchilan their whole lives, get married at 17 and have children shortly there after? What were their families like, how many brothers and sisters did they have?

Girls from Chugchilan putting on a traditional dance for the hostel.

Girls dancing again.

Latacunga - August 13th

We left Quito on the 13th and headed to Latacunga. There is not much in Latacunga but we needed to stay there so we could take the bus to Chugchilan the next morning. We stayed at a really cute little hostel, called hostal cafe Tiana, in Latacunga for $8 including breakfast and internet. Here are some pictures from that stay.

Hannah and I in the court yard of our Hostel

This was a special ecuadorian dish called chugchucaras. Hannah and I were not quite sure how to eat it.

One of the churches in Latacunga. Its hard to see in the photo but there was an indigenous first communion (or batism) going on.

Hannah standing on the roof top of our hostel looking over  Latacunga

Me, also on the roof top of our hostel looking over Latacunga

Part of our hostel, looking down from the upstairs.

Another view of the city of Latacunga

Mindo

August 12th,

Hannah, Ivan and I spent last night in Mindo. It is known as the "cloud forest" I believe they call it a rainforest. It was beautiful there! We decided to go waterfall repelling with some guides. The waterfalls were not that high but it was a lot of fun! Then we went for a quick swim in the river but it was a bit cold. The waterfall repelling only cost $15, it was just the 3 of us with 2 guides and we got to walk through the rainforest - it was really beautiful! 

Quito - In summary

Sorry that I haven't been able to update this sooner - we have been busy and haven't had good access to internet.

August 10th,

So our 3rd full day in Ecuador, still in Quito, Ivan took us to the "center of the earth". This is where the latitude is 00 00 00. It was interesting we got to learn about some of the indigenous tribes of Ecuador, some of which still exist. We did little experiments like walking in a straight line (which is supposed to be harder walking on the 00 line), flushed things down the drain on each side of the line showing the they flushed in different directions and a few other things.

After going to the center of the earth we picked up a girl that was also visiting who was a nurse from England. She was very nice and fun. She is the one with the long brown hair. We went to "old town" of Quito, which has lots of colonial archictecture. We walked around, went on a tour of a church called Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus. The tour was in spanish so Ivan translated for us. The church itself was layered in gold. This was just one example of how much of Latin American is focused around christianity. It was really pretty but we couldn't take any pictures so we took one outside of the church.

Melanie, Hannah and I outside the church.

When we were in Old Town we saw a monk outside that had a bible in one hand and a cell phone in the other texting someone! So I snapped a picture of it!

Later that evening we went to this group of girls from the US's apartment. Many of them were teaching in a school in Quito and they all went to the same church that Ivan did (Ivan is very religious). So they made us food. After that, even though I was quite tired, we went out for salsa dancing. It was very fun! Hannah and I are determined to become good salsa dancers by the end of this trip.

Eating dinner at the girl's apartment.

Me, Hannah and Ivan at salsa.

August 11th,
We were able to catch up on sleep this day, it was quite nice! Hannah and I took the Teleferico (a cable car) up to the "top" of a volcano/mountain. Apparently all the mountains in Quito are from volcanoes, or at least that is what I think they told me. We walked around and took some pretty pictures. It was interesting, when we got up to the top we found it much easier to breathe. The polution is pretty bad in the city it was amazing to feel the difference up on the mountain. Later that evening Ivan took us and the girls from the church to a restaurant called Ananke. It had a beautiful view of the city. We headed to bed and prepared to go on our one night stay in Mindo.

Hannah up on top of the mountain.

Hannah and I with Quito in the background.

Cable car (teleferico)

Close up of some of the buildings in Quito.

Hannah, me, and Ivan at Ananke (looks over the city of Quito)

De Dia Dos

August 9th/Day 2

After sleeping till noon, Hannah and I were left to fend for ourselves in the house. Ivan told us he would b back in the late afternoon.

I called the airport company that had my bag and started to explain what I needed and the lady said she didn't speak English so I put Hannah on the phone. They sorted everything out (its quite handy in these circumstances to have someone who can speak spanish so well!!). We had to be to the airport by 4:30 to get the bag. We were near the airport so we google mapped a way to get there. We started walking and decided we would stop somewhere to eat on the the way. We realized the altitude issue once we started walking. We felt out of breath just walking! We thought walking around would help us get acclimated faster, which may or may not be true. We ate at a pizza place which was very good, the meal for us combined was 6 dollars! That is the great thing about latin american travel. We tried to get to the airport but we couldn't find the entrance. So we hailed a cab and got to the airport. Picked up my bag and walked back (again thinking this would help us with acclimating).

We got back to Ivan's, well it was a bit of a mess because we didn't remember the address, we knew generally where his house was but we had mistaken a place a block away for his house. We found a phone to call him on and he said he had been waiting for us, we told him we would be there in a minute. So we waited outside of the gated entry and no one was opening the door for us, we were thoroughly confused. Eventually I told Hannah I would walk a block up to check and see if it looked familiar. As I walked up a woman approached me and asked in spanish if I was lost and if I was from the United States, I was a bit confused at what she was saying but she said "Ivan" and pointed up the street. It was Ivan's mother. Ivan had been waiting for us for an hour (we had called him from the airport) so I imagine he thought we would take a cab back. Anyways it was funny. Ivan had to go to meet someone so his mother brought us to the house and made us coffee and gave us cake. She talked to us for a good 20 minutes, well she talked to Hannah, I understood about half of what she was saying and tried to speak when I could. Ivan called and said that he would be back at 8 and he would take us to a nice restaurant. So we showered, dressed nice and he came home and took us out to a place to eat dinner. It was a local place where tourist don't know about. It is a very contemporary, artisy place with a bar a restaurant and a small clothing short as well as an art gallery. It was very cool to see, we didn't take pictures but we will likely go back before we leave Quito. Some of Ivan's friends were there that we got to meet them.

Hannah and I were feeling very tired but Ivan wanted to take us to a place to get a coffee that had an amazing view of the city. Here are some pictures of the view from the cafe.

I was very tired and thought I would konk out when I got home to lay in bed and sleep, but when I laid down I was wide awake. I finally asleep for a couple of hours then woke up at about 2:30 and was awake until about 4:30, then slept till 10:30. Oh well, my sleep got better in the days to follow.

De Dia Una

Where to begin?

Ecuador so far has been fun, busy and tiring! Hannah and I are still getting used to the altitude but we are no longer out of breath when we walk!

August 8th/Day 1

I had 14 hours of travel time that day, with flights and layovers. I took dramamine for motion sickness and had only slept an hour the night before, so I slept right through all of my flights and a bit in the airport, so it actually went quite quickly.

On my flight to Houston I met a couple (they were actually divorced but got along quite well), probably in their late 50's. They were visiting their daughter who was teaching English in Quito. We started talking when the guy saw my NOLS sticker on my water bottle and turns out he lives really close to Lander, Wyoming - which is where NOLS is based. They were a funny "couple". The woman was very apprehensive about flying but didn't want to take any medicine so her solution was to drink during the flights. So I landed in the Panama airport with them and they both had been drinking (but were harmless and quite funny) they bought me a beer and entertained me while we waited for our plane to Quito. On my flight to Quito I met an Ecuadorian who lives in little canada! He has lived there for 2 years. He works as a taxi driver for Minneapolis. He was coming to visit. Small world!

Waiting to go through immigration took a good 30 minutes, there were multiple flights coming. Me and my friends from Wyoming were looking through the baggage claim for at least 20 minutes and couldn't find our bags. Finally I went up to the baggage claim office and they told my bag had missed a connection and that it would arrive in the afternoon the next day. I was fine with that, I had all the important things with me and a day isn't very long. So we got to Ivan's house around 1am.

Poor Ivan had been called on short notice to receive an award (from the president??) or something to do with his education or something - I don't remember - but it was in Guayaquil the very next day. So was rushing trying to get a ticket the night before and had to be at the airport at 5am the next morning. So he was a bit frenzied when he picked us up from the airport. We all went home, Hannah and I crashed in bed, and slept till noon the next day!