South American Adventure

We´ve moved!

2007-02-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your patience everyone. After all these problems, we´ve decided to move our blog to a different service. Click anywhere on this post to be redirected. Enjoy the new site!

http://saadventure.wordpress.com/

Technical Difficulties

2007-02-01T14:14:00.000-05:00

We are currently experiencing (really frustrating) technical difficulties. Please check back soon. Sorry!

Sipan

2007-01-26T10:16:00.000-05:00

(see previous post for more info on our trip down the coast...this is the second half of a post Blogger kept crashing while trying to upload)

Los Tumbes Reales de Señor de Sipan are famous ruins excavated in the late 1980's. While the actual site wasn't that interesting (Look! There's a hole in that pile of dirt!), the museum is amazing. Rumor has it that it is rated as one of the top 10 museums in the world...though I can't figure out who rates things like that and Googleing "top ten museums" brings up a lot of randomness.

The museum is a beautiful example of modernity meeting the ancient. The building itself is designed to mimic a temple. The interesting thing about this museum is that it focuses on the excavation of the site and is set up so that you feel as though you're there on the archeological dig. It presents the process step by step through photos and the restored treasures. They based the full size models in the museum on the physiques of local people who are the genetic descendants of the Señor. Local artisans made the clothes for the models, using traditional production methods.

Visiting the museum was a really cool experience and definitely made the stop in Chiclayo worth it!

The next town we came to was Huanchaco, another surf beach. However, this one is much smaller than Mancora and much more relaxed. It was there that we spent Christmas and New Year's.

Beaches, Museums, and Ruins Oh My!

2007-01-26T09:57:00.000-05:00

Here in Lima, everyone keeps asking us if we like Peru. The answer is of course yes, but with a disclaimer. So far we've only seen the northern coast of Peru, so we can't exactly offer up a fully informed opinion.

After leaving Ecuador, we took the Pan American Highway straight down the coast, stopping in only a few towns on our way to Lima. We decided to leave the mountains until later in the trip as right now it's the rainy season...didn't really feel like dealing with landslides and crappy weather. We also decided to book it to Lima in an effort to get the ball rolling on our volunteerism here in Peru.

Our first stop was Mancora, a party beach town with great surfing. We stayed about a week (mainly because of a stomach bug) which was just enough time to enjoy the food, waves, and genearl craziness without being driven crazy ourselves.

Next up was a stop in the not-so-impressive town of Chiclayo. It wasn't that it was a bad place, it's just that it's a normal South American town that isn't trying to impress the tourists. It was especially high on the hustle-and-bustle factor as we were there the week before Christmas and everyone was trying to get their last minute shopping done. Luckily for us, we weren't in Chiclayo to go shopping. We were there to visit the Lord of Sipan. Unfortunatly he has been dead for about 1,900 years so we decided to see his museum instead.

The museum is one of the Top 10 in the world...though according to who I can't say. It was a very cool experience. I have lots to say about it, but everytime I try to write more Blogger crashes on me.

We´re Back!!

2007-01-17T17:46:00.000-05:00

After a long absence due to technical difficulties Blogger has been having we are finally able to publish again!!!

We are in Lima, Peru now and have begun working with an organization called Manos Amigas. All is very well and we will catch everyone up on all of our adventures as soon as possible.

By the way... have a very belated happy holidays!

Digital Xmas Present

2006-12-23T16:05:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Huanchaco, Peru. We've settled down for the week here in Huanchaco to escape the hoards of xmas shoppers and travelers in the bigger cities. Huanchaco is a smaller fishing village, though many travelers have discovered it. There are very surfable waves here, decent size but great for beginners. Not too far north, Peru host the longest left-hand wave in the world, so I'm sure we'll check that out before we move on as well.

I had planned to post some older pictures with thier blog posts, but for some reason, I'm having some technical dificulties with Blogger and can't log on with my old profile. Not a big deal, except that I can no longer edit my past posts. Oh well, worse things have happened.

As our xmas present to all of you, here are some pictures that I've been wanting to post but haven't been able to yet. Enjoy and have a happy holiday where ever you might be!

Us with all our stuff leaving Canoa:

From Parque Nacional Cajas:

Collecting water off the tent in Cajas during an afternoon storm:

Working at Rumi-Wilco Ecolodge in Vilcabamba:

A 6 hr ride in Vilcabamba...if you look real hard you can see me coming up the mountain!

Desde Perú

2006-12-14T10:36:00.000-05:00

With less than two weeks before Christmas, it seems a little odd to be sitting on the beach...but I won´t complain!

We arrived this week in Peru without problems. It was a long 12 hr overnight bus ride, but we made it to Mácora safe and sound, though a bit tired. It is hot, hot, hot here in the infamous surf town but the water is warm and the beach beautiful. It´s an odd place, a tourist town strung out along the PanAmerican highway for a few kms. Everything is imported because it´s in the middle of a desert, so everyday things are not too cheap but the seafood is!

We´ll be here for a few days before moving on towards Lima.

Onwards! And southwards?

2006-12-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

Well, after 5 glorious months in Ecuador, we are finally headed to Peru this week. We´ll be working our way down the coast (maybe even by bike!) towards Lima over the next few weeks.

If you´d like to send us any correspondance, or a care package, please feel free to send it to the South American Explorers Clubhouse in Lima. They will hold letters and packages for us. Thier address is:

(Ben McCarthy or Liz Freudenberger)

South American Explorers

C/Piura 135

Miraflores

Lima 18

If it´s a package, leave off the ¨South American Explorers¨ line as apparently it makes customs think it is a commercial package.

Valley of Longevity

2006-11-30T19:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long silence followed by an onslaught of postings, but we’ve been both busy and away from the internet past few weeks. However, we have yet again found a place to hang our hats for a few weeks and have settled down for one last time before heading to Peru.

We arrived in Vilcabamba last week. The town is a tourist trap of sorts, but for more or less good reason. It is in the far south of Ecuador on the way to one of the boarder crossings with Peru, making it convenient stop on the Gringo Trail. It is also known for being the “Valley of Longevity” after a study reported that the residents here live the longest lives in the world. The study no longer has academic merit, but that doesn’t stop the tourism machine from using the phrase! It is a small agricultural village surrounded by beautiful green mountains and backed up on to a national park. It’s a pretty area and we probably would have enjoyed only a few days of relaxing before heading to Peru, except that we found another place to work!

Rumi-Wilco Ecologde (www.rumiwilco.com – currently being updated, so I’m not sure if all info is quite up to date) is located about 10 minutes out of town and sits on a private reserve of the same name. It is very tranquilo and has been a wonderful place to hang out for a bit and regroup. Yeah, I know I said we were regrouping in Canoa….but that turned more into working and hanging out with new friends! Anyway, we need to work on the translation of our resumes and a few other things, so a week or so of chill work has been great.

We are also working for the couple that owns the lodge/reserve, Alicia and Orlando Falco. They are Argentinean, but have lived in Ecuador for 30+ years. She’s a biologist and he is a naturalist. He guided in the Galapagos for many years.

We’ve worked on a few different projects, the most important of which was retraining the river. In 1999 El Niño was very devastating in this area. It caused a lot of damage when flash floods blew out the river banks. In an effort to mediate future damage, Orlando is reforesting the banks of the river along his property with native tree species and bamboo. We’ve been helping build the shoreline, which basically means creating a wall with stones and wood, filling it in with organic materials, and then planting the trees/bamboo on top.

We’ve also worked in their organic garden – spreading compost, weeding, etc. Visitors to the lodge are able to help themselves to a variety of tropical fruits, including passion fruit (maracuya), bananas, mangos, guava, and tangerines. It’s all for the taking all over the property! Alicia also maintains a herb/tea garden for her family and the guests. Drinking fresh herbal teas all day and cooking with fresh herbs has been a great treat!

Another task we’ve been working on is coffee production. This coffee was harvested last summer and has been drying and waiting to be processed. First, you smack the heck out of it to get the bean out of the shell. Then you drop it in front of a fan to separate the beans from the shell bits. Next, you sift it to get rid of the larger chunks of shell that made it through the fan. The final stage involves sorting the coffee by hand to make sure it is completely cleaned. It’s been fascinating learning a bit more about my favorite caffeinated shrub.

We’ll be visiting the Puyango Petrified Forest next, and then off to Peru!

Parque Nacional Cajas

2006-11-30T18:54:00.000-05:00

Our backpacking adventure in Parque Nacional Cajas was truly an amazing experience. My words or our pictures could never convey the natural beauty of the area, but I can at least describe our adventure.

Cajas is notorious for rainy, cold weather. It is also known as being a bit disorienting, as there are over 235 lakes that all look similar after a while. Little did we know as we came in to Cajas that it would deliver on both accounts during our trip.

We arrived late on Saturday and stayed in the refugio. It’s $4/night to stay in the park – in the hut with a full kitchen and indoor plumbing or in your own tent – so why not enjoy the roof while it’s 40 degrees and raining?

On Sunday, we set out for what we thought would be a three day loop through the park. Our first mistake was to walk to the trailhead. 4 km uphill, starting at over 4000m, is tough. Real tough. After finally getting to the trial head, the first half of the day went fine. For this portion we were following the main trail. However, after a bit our loop had us going off the main trail to the east of a lake instead of taking the main trail to the west. At this point it was raining heavily and we missed our “turnoff” and continued on down the trail. After about a half hour of heading the wrong way and misidentifying a lake, we finally realized we had gone wrong some where. Trying to regain our bearings, the map disintegrated in our hands due to the heavy rain. We had backup map, but wanted to keep one in decent condition so it was buried in the (relatively dry) pack. We saw the main road in the distance and decided to head out. We had been walking for 5 hrs, were a few hours from our campsite, and soaked, so the refugio seemed like a good choice for the night.

That night, as we sat around the map after dinner, we realized we could take another trail and meet up with our intended route the next day. We would still be able to make it a two day trip. The trip was not lost!

Bright and early Monday, we set out (downhill, 1km) for the trailhead. It was identified on our map by a (I kid you not!) “llama watching zone” symbol. As we walked up, we saw llamas grazing on the hillsides. How picturesque, no? We started climbing and after about 15 minutes we noticed a group of 5 llamas coming down the trial we were ascending. One was the obvious dominant male and he was staring us down. We went up the hill to allow them to pass on the trail below, but they weren’t interested in being so obliging. We retreated as the male started bounding towards us and then the llamas passed above us, near where we had been standing. The leader did a funny little hop dance as he passes, a kind of “thanks!” perhaps? Or maybe just a “don’t get in my way again.” Either way, the llama threat passed and we continued up to the top of the pass where we could see many lakes.

We descended and soon joined the Ingañan trail – an old Inca road…or so they say. To me, it looked like any other trail I’ve ever hiked on. Eh, can’t be picky I suppose.

We went east, following a stream that would soon become a river. For a while, we were hiking down right next to a series of waterfalls. The surrounding mountains were amazing. After an hour or so, we came to the valley where we would camp.

There were “Incan ruins” in the valley, though we didn’t even bother to take a picture. They were probably authentic, but just looked like someone had arranged stones in a square. Not to impressive when we’re off to Peru next.

The weather had been beautiful all day, but it started to pour as we set up our tent. While passing the afternoon playing cards, we collected a liter of water in our pots! It rained most of the night and the next morning.

In the morning, we packed up and headed east, along the same river as the day before. At the next lake, we had to go through a patch of cloud forest. The trail was crazy! At one point, while traversing a 2 inch rock ledge, Ben started cursing that we couldn’t possibly be on the trail because there’s no way they could take tourist groups through there! Once out and safe, we climbed up to another pass.

The descent down into the last valley was epic, to say the least. The trail description put the decent at 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on conditions. We definitely took more than 2 hours! It was a scramble down rock/mud trails of crazy steepness. In many places, a stream had taken over the trail and we were more in a stream bed then on a trail. It was intense, with many moments thinking, “Oh, if I fall I will probably either break my leg…or my back. This is awesome!”

After the trail leveled out in the valley, we passed through an amazing number of ecosystems, five or six in a half hour! At one point it seemed like we could be in the Amazon basin, at another I could have sworn I was in Sugarcreek Reserve back home in Bellbrook.

Right as we reached the ranger station, it started to pour. We tossed on the rain gear and started the hike back out to the road, about 2 km. A guy offered us a ride back to Cuenca in the back of his camionetta, but it was getting kind of chilly and a half hour in the back of a truck didn’t sound too appealing. We got to the main road right as it was getting dark, but busses to Cuenca pass on that road at least every 40 minutes so we weren’t worried. However, we started to worry when the first bus passed without stopping!

** Warning: Parents, please stop reading. All ends well, no need to worry. :) **

Hitchhiking is a common practice in Ecuador, but we’re still not super comfortable doing it. However, it was pretty much our only choice at that point, so we started trying to flag down a ride. After about 15 minutes, a truck came out of the road to the park and offered us a ride back to Cuenca. On the ride back, we found out he was a businessman and imported heavy machinery from the US. He lived in Cuenca but had a farm near the park. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, we were rescued from the cold and whisked back to civilization.

Sombrero Side Trip

2006-11-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

So at some point near the beginning of this trip I became a hat man. I think it was a combination of trying out a crushable hat for backpacking, most indigenous people here wearing them, and reading Tom Miller’s Panama Hat Trail. The final reference is most pertinent to this story.

Panama Hats are made in Ecuador. It’s sort of a long story and Mr. Miller tells is better than I ever could. The short version is that the hats got their name because they were exported to the world through ports in Panama. Here they are called Sombreros de Paja Toquilla, though they label many of them as Panama Hats for the tourists. Not surprisingly, the hats are made of toquilla straw. The straw is grown and on the coast then shipped inland for weaving.

The hats come in a wide variety of quality, measured by the number of stitches per inch. The lower quality hats don’t carry a special designation. The first one I bought cost around eight dollars and has eight stitches per inch. Cuenca is known for mass producing these hats for the export market. They look good for the first few weeks but then easily loose their shape and break when rolled. The higher quality hats are called finos and super finos. The best of which hold their shape after the tightest of rolls, feel like silk, and will actually hold water. They are truly an artistic creation and the art originated in a town called Monticristi. There the climate is more humid which makes the straw more flexible and easier to weave. Since I’m now apparently a hat man, and we are in Ecuador, I decided I should have a fino.

We had been in Monticristi once while working for ESPOIR, but we literally had five dollars in spending money that day. Understandably, they didn’t go for it. I had looked around that day and found a shop and owner that I really liked. Their family owned the store and weaved the hats themselves. When I got off the bus from Canoa, I headed straight there.

The owners were out front as they had been before, weaving hats. I said hello and was happy to find that the head weaver remembered me. We started looking at hats, and I had to keep asking if there were any better, and there always were. After being preoccupied with these hats since our first couple weeks here, I had a pretty good eye for the weave and quality. We narrowed my selection down to two hats. One was shaped in the style I wanted and the other was among the best quality in his shop. After traveling the four hours from Canoa and knowing that this was my only chance, I didn’t want to settle. I told the proprietor, Modesto, that it seemed that I would regrettably have to buy my hat at another shop. At this he offered a solution. He had a hat which he believed would suit me at his house and if I waited ten minutes he would return with it. I agreed to look at it but said that I was going to visit the other shops while he ran to fetch it.

I visited three other shops, each with nearly identical results. I was able to quickly find a hat that I was happy with and then the salesperson would quote me a price of $200. While bargaining is expected here, a starting price like that was insurmountable for me.

I went back to Modesto’s shop with a bit of anxiety. He hadn’t returned yet so I waited. When he did return he had with him several unfinished hat bodies. Unfinished means that straw fringe still encircled the brim and that the hats had no shape. At this point I panicked a little. Modesto did have a hat of the quality that I wanted, but I told him that I didn’t have time to wait for the hat to be finished and that I couldn’t come back another day. He smiled and assured me that he could have it ready in thirty minutes. I was shocked. I realized later that even though my hat took nearly three weeks to weave, the finishing was relatively simple. I asked him how much it would be, cringing as I did expecting the worst. He said $60 and I agreed without hesitation, no bargaining necessary, I was getting a very good deal.

He lit a stove and then went to get some chairs and a table. I bought us all a bottle of Coke and then sat down to watch my hat being made before my eyes. It was a treat that I hadn’t dreamt of. He snipped off the fringe, measured my head size, asked if I wanted a liner (I declined), and put the hat on a block. Most of the work of finishing the hat was literally ironing it. The stove was used to heat a heavy old fashioned iron which they ran over the entirety of the hat with a lot of muscle power behind. After the ironing was done he formed the hat by hand. This was especially amazing because I knew that most hats today are shaped on mechanical presses. He cinched a band around it and placed it on my head. The hat was finish. It was, and still is, beautiful.

The best hats are typically made by older people that have had the experience weaving necessary to create these masterpieces. While my hat is truly wonderful, it feels more like smooth cotton than silk and I wouldn’t trust it to hold water for more than a few minutes. However, Modesto is only in his mid-twenties so I imagine him as becoming one of those great weavers of Sombreros de Paja Toquilla.

(BTW: for those counting at home my fino is twenty stitches per inch)

Last Weekend in Canoa

2006-11-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

Friends and family, sorry that it has been so long since our last post but as you will see we’ve been busy.

Our last weekend in Canoa was amazing. The festivals for the Ecuadorian Memorial Day (November 2nd & 3rd) brought many Ecuadorian tourists to town. The parties weren’t as big as they were our first time there during National Independence Day, but there was still a definite buzz around.

We took a short walk to the cemetery on Day of the Dead. The holiday is celebrated differently in all of Latin America. In Canoa it seemed mainly to be a time of remembrance and respect for those who have passed away. Everyone in the town went up to their family’s grave sites to pay their respects. Many laid flowers and gave the tombstones a fresh coat of paint. There was music playing and some sort of service was held in the cemetery for everyone. The general mood was upbeat though some were crying unrestrained.

I found this tradition to be a wonderful way to honor deceased loved ones. I have always struggled with visiting grave sites. It is something that I’ve always wanted to do but never really known what anniversary is “best”. Having a day dedicated to all of your lost friends and family takes the uncertainty and quasi-pressure out of the rest of the year. More importantly though, the entire community is there to support each other. It was definatly an authentic cultural experience. We did feel like intruders a bit though, so we left rather quickly.

The best part of the weekend was finally doing something that I’d been thinking about since we first came to the coast. It so happens that in addition to being a great surf spot, Canoa has near perfect conditions for hang-gliding and paragliding. So on Sunday Liz and I prepared ourselves for a paragliding flight with Greg, the local expert from Kentucky (on a side note, thick southern accents and Spanish make a hilarious combination).

The winds were too strong for much of the weekend, but Sunday afternoon everything came together and we headed up to the launch site so that we could jump off of a cliff. Liz went up first. Greg gave her quick instructions on what to do for the take off, then he lifted the wing into the air and they simply ran towards down the launch strip. Within ten feet, well before the cliff edge, they were airborne. They flew off so fast that there was no time to be concerned. Greg took her on what seemed a pretty standard tandem flight. Each time they passed overhead Liz had a wonderfully content and slightly stunned look on her face. After twenty minutes or so they came down in a perfectly controlled landing about fifteen feet from where they took off. She had a huge smile on her face and was truly at a loss for words.

I was on deck next so after some celebration and resetting of the gear I was strapped into the harness. Greg told me my responsibilities for takeoff which amounted to pulling my feet up and putting the seat under myself. Just like Liz, we were up in the air nearly before I realized it.

I’ve parachuted once before and while I really enjoyed it after the chute had opened, the freefall was not really my cup of tea. Para-gliding didn’t have any of the nail biting, can’t breath, heart in your throat experience. It is really a tranquil feeling. From the moment we were off the ground everything went smooth and still even though we were flying at around twenty five mph. Greg took me on the same standard route, flying over the launch site to gain altitude and then flying out to open space and spiraling into a dive. Everything was startlingly comfortable, the only real feeling was pushing down into the seat while we were spinning.

Not too long into our flight we spotted a peregrine falcon that nested in the area. She was flying no more than twenty feet from us and we could see that she was carrying a mouse in her talons, a treat to see for sure. Then we noticed another falcon just before it went into a dive. We didn’t think much of it until we realized that it was diving at the falcon with the mouse. For at least five minutes the two showed off amazing acrobatics respectively trying to steal and protect the meal. Greg displayed quite a bit of flying skill also in making sure that we had the best seats for an awesome show of nature. Greg has been flying for eight years and this was the first time he had seem something like this. I think he got even more excited than me. It was easy to see why he is still flying after many years.

Conversation was easy with Greg while in the air since I was basically positioned between his legs and the sound of the wind was negated because we were going with it. Not long after witnessing the falcons duel I confessed that I’d been thinking of taking his certification class sometime in the future if I enjoyed the flight as much as I though I would. This really excited him and his attitude changed a little at that moment. He immediately wanted to give the controls to me. While I was more comfortable being a passenger than I’d expected the thought of controlling the wing that was keeping me from falling was more than I had prepared for. A little panic set in right then but I reached up at his insisting and grabbed hold of the control ropes (or brakes). I could feel the delicate pressure on the brakes as the wind shifted slightly and a lack of confidence swept through me and I forced Greg to take back the controls. Greg knew just what to do. He assured me that there was very little I could do that would endanger us and demonstrated by taking his hands off the brakes and resting them on my shoulders so that neither of us were controlling the wing. Without direction the wing went into a sort of auto-pilot and soared as smoothly as ever with the wind. That did the trick. I took hold of the brakes and began my first flying lesson.

Gentle pressure on the right steered us right and vice versa, when that wasn’t enough we leaned our bodies into the turn and banked into a steep curve. The movement around a balance point really reminded me of fast cornering on a bike. I took us back and forth in front of the cliff, gaining altitude on the north side and then speeding towards the south out into free space with the ground some 500 feet below us. Flying the wing was intuitive and after a little while I decided to challenge myself by flying over a point on the ground further out from the cliff than we’d been thus far. Part way there Greg called for a turn back towards the cliff, but when I told him my intention he didn’t object. Once we were over the point I had chosen Greg coaxed me into the sharpest turn we had pulled yet because we needed to get back to the updraft of the cliff before loosing much more altitude. I got us back to the cliff and the wind took over taking us up again. Greg directed me over minor changes in the cliff face where we caught even stronger updrafts. The feeling was liberating, moving freely in space limited only by imagination and skill. The right time might still be a few years away but I can hardly wait to learn to fly.

We spent our last few days packing and going for a great bike ride, marred only by the cows blocking our return path for a little while. We never did make it to the Hill of Suffering, though the vision is probably better than reality. We found on a newer map that the town at the top is called Suffering, which would make it the hill’s namesake and not the label of a killer climb. After another round of intense weight and space savings we managed to get everything into our backpacks, only to find out when we put them in our travel bags that they were nearly the same size just packed differently.

Planning on the Beach

2006-10-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

After leaving Portoviejo, we came back to Canoa. It's our third time here and a bit of a home away from home at this point. Everyone we talk to here seems to be of the same opinion. There have been quite a few foriegners move to Canoa in the past few years and many of the travelers we talk with have plans to come back and start up businesses.

We've decided to spend a few weeks in Canoa this time while we plan our route to Peru. We're also trying to contact organizations with which we hope to work. So far we have no definite plans...but then again as soon as we set plans we'll have to change them! A few of the things we have on the to do list before we head too far south are:

Cuenca -- beautiful colonial town

Parque Nacional Cajas -- national park near Cuenca for some backpacking

Vilcabamba -- the fountain of youth...people live here the longest in the world...they think some combination of the mild climate, ease of agriculture, low stress lifestyle, etc. We've heard it's a cool town for outdoor activities.

Other than that, we're just kind of winding our way down, coast-moutains-coast Peru should be great fun though. We've been getting all sorts of recommendations from fellow travelers on cool spots not to miss.

Canoa has been great so far. We've been doing a bit of maintenance type work for the hostel to help pay for our room. It's been mostly painting. Yesterday, Ben spent a trechorous morning on top of a two story bamboo ladder! All in good fun.

We've also been riding our bikes, which has been awesome! There are a lot of dirt roads/trails around the area, so it's been cool to go exploring. There are lots of hills, so the riding can be quite challenging. The dirt also tends to be very sandy and loose right now because it is dry season. Tipping over while trying to go up the hill is always a good time. So far no major spills, which anyone who has ever been mountain biking with me will know is a major accomplishment!

There's not too much going on in Canoa these days. It's not really high season, so things are very tranquilo during the week. Things pick up on the weekends, but it's still pretty chill.

This week we have Day of the Dead coming up, so I'm sure that will liven the place up for a few days! It's also an official bank holiday on Thursday and Friday. Someone told us it was kind of like Memorial Day in the US.

Cutting Off the Tags

2006-10-20T15:27:00.000-04:00

After three fantastic weeks with ESPOIR in Portoviejo, the time has come for us to say our goodbyes and move on. Working with the foundation has been amazingly helpful, for both exploration of my posible future career path and our Spanish skills!

We are once again packing up to move. This is the real test, as it's the first time we'll have to carry all of our things since we flew in to Quito three and a half months ago. On our way down to Portoviejo last month we took two trips so we could split the weight between trips. Even so, the first time I put my pack on I literally fell over! We decreased the weight in my bag...mostly by putting it in Ben's. Such a gentleman!

We've gone through our things so many times that I'm pretty sure I could rattle them off on comand. Each time we get rid of a thing or two, but this time we have sunk to a new low of weight-weenie-ness. It started as a joke back in the beginning of last year while we were planning this trip. Ben came across a "lightweight backpacking" website that suggested cutting the tags off clothes and the edges off maps. At the time, it seemed quite ridiculous and funny. However, after being knocked down by my pack and twisting my ankle on the way to the bus station, it didn't seem so outlandish. Still hilarious, but not so outlandish.
After a few hours of cutting and sorting, we actually managed to loose a few pounds. Of course, most of that weight was from getting rid of packaging on products, not cutting tags off clothes, but I find it funny all the same.

So, feeling ever so slightly lighter, we are off to Canoa again this weekend. We need a few days to relax and regroup before heading south and working our way towards Peru. Canoa fits the bill perfectly. We'll spend some time on the beach and hopefully get to ride our bikes for a few days! Up the road from Canoa there is a road labeled ¨Hill of Suffering¨. Should be fun!

Dry Elections

2006-10-17T13:20:00.000-04:00

We survived the election weekend. It seemed pretty quiet except for some protests in one town in the mountains (Cuenca). Heard a clip on the news about it on Friday afternoon but haven´t heard anything else. It turns out that there will indeed be a runoff election in November to decide who will be President for the next 4 years…maybe…Ecuador has blown through 7 Presidents in the last 10 years!

Interesting thing about the election weekend: the country was dry. They passed a law that for the weekend (Friday noon until Monday noon) no alcohol could be sold or even consumed. We saw clips on the news of people being hauled out of bars all over the country.

This was especially bad for business in Portoviejo as this week is their big festival week celebrating the independence of the city. There is a big party going on ever night on the grounds of the Universidad Tecnica de Manabí, complete with dozens of vendors, food, and rides. We have yet to visit, but hopefully shall be partaking soon. Tomorrow we have the day off work as it is the official holiday day.

Skype

2006-10-13T17:58:00.000-04:00

We have come across a wonderful new (to us) service, Skype. It´s an internet calling service that also allows users to call land lines for a fee. A cheap fee at that. Woo.

Skype to Skype calls are free, so we´d like every one we know to sign up so we can chat the days away! http://www.skype.com An account and the basic services are free. They also have cool features like being able to set up voicemail, call forwarding, and whatnot...which I´m sure we´ll take advantage of soon.

Our username is...

SAAdventure

Hope to talk with you soon!

Update from the Office of Liz

2006-10-12T15:46:00.000-04:00

Well, since we´ve arrived in Portoviejo, they´ve put us to work! It´s been wierd going from being bums to having 9-5 M-F jobs again. In the past week and a half, we´ve been pretty much fully trained to be loan officers as well over different office jobs. We´ve gone to group meetings all over the province of Manabí. This week, I´ve started to help with the paperwork and leading the meetings a bit. It´s also pretty amazing how fast our Spanish is improving with this hardcore emersion!

Outside of work, it´s been a crazy week. The presidential election is this Sunday and everyone´s going crazy over it. Even though Ecuador only has a population of 13 million people, they have over 30 parties, 15 or so of which are putting up presidential candidates. For those who don´t know Spanish, the word for advertising is propaganda....which just cracks me up while watching all the ads. There´s one candidate promising to build 300,000 new houses and to sell them for $10/month with no down payment! One of the forerunners, Rafael Correa, flew into Portoviejo in a helicopter yesterday for a rally. Of course, in reality only a few of them have any chance of winning. If someone takes a majority this weekend, it´s over. If not...well then we have to wait a month and a half for the run-off between the top two. Por favor, as Correa´s propaganda says...

una sola vuelta Ecuador...please...for my sanity´s sake!

(´only one round´...put to the tune of ¨We´re not gonna take it by Twisted Sister...and this is what´s stuck in my head 24/7)

Thank the Stars

2006-09-25T12:45:00.000-04:00

The stars have finally aligned for us a bit this week.

The volunteering is working out great. Last week we went around Manabi province with different loan officers, visiting communal banks. Next week, we're going to be trained as if we were "real" employees. It will be great to learn the ins-and-outs of the microfinance business. Hopefully by the end of next week we'll be starting on a project with them as well.

Another great thing happened today. We got our visas extended! After a tough night bus up from the coast back to Quito, we walked in to the Immigration office and walked out with another 90 days in Ecuador. We'd heard so many rumors of what we'd have to do to get an extention, including a trip up to Colombia, that it's just a relief to have that all straightened out! This week, our plan is to finish up our business in Quito and start being a bit more mobile. We're back to Portoviejo next weekend.

We also now have a cell phone. Our boss is a very generous man and is letting us use his wife's old phone while we're working for ESPOIR. Email me if you'd like our number!

Let Them Eat Yucca

2006-09-21T10:08:00.000-04:00

Pan de yucca (yucca bread) has become one of my favorite foods here in Ecuador. It is a dense, kind of sticky on the inside, almost sweet bread. It is normally served with yogurt. This week, we have discovered something even better than pan de yucca....DEEP FRIED pan de yucca!

There is a festival going on all this week in Portoviejo, something about a virgin...and mercy...and neon lights. There is a small carnival set up on the end of town that brings me back to my younger days in good old Bellbrook, back to the days of the Lion's Club Festival. There are quite a few kids' rides, games, and (of course) fried foods! We've been in town four days and we are 3 for 4 on nights ending with fried pan de yucca. I still haven't tried the fried cheesecake or Twinkies at home, but I can't imangine they could be better than these!

A fun little Ecuadorian flare added to the celebrations is the chiva. Chivas are kind of street trains, very colorfully decorated with neon lights and bright paint. Each section seats 4 people and they zoom around the town playing loud music, occasionally stopping in an intersection to spin around in a circle. While they´re usually considered kids rides, I find them quite fun.

A decidedly not fun flare is the lovley church making sure we all know how horrible we all are for not being devout Catholics. Every morning this week, we've been woken up with a set of HUGE sounding explosions at 4:30 and 4:45. We can't figure how it could possily be, but it sure does sound like a cannon shooting off rounds in the middle of town. This is followed by a procession of a loud (and off key) group of a few hundred people singing while processing down the streets. Of course, this is all topped off with a church service blasted over loud speakers around 6am. We just happen to be staying in the hotel across from the sponsoring church. What luck.

In Portoviejo

2006-09-19T09:55:00.000-04:00

Well, we didn´t make it to the beach last weekend, but we did make it to Portoviejo by Monday morning to start working with Fundacion ESPOIR. We´re here, it´s going great, woo!

Making Plans

2006-09-14T15:36:00.000-04:00

At this point, I find it kind of funny to try and annouce our plans. They keep falling though and changing so quickly that it seems slightly pointless to post. However, I'm hoping against hope that this opportunity will work out, so hopefully posting it won't make it cursed like the others.

After deciding to pass on working at Black Sheep Inn last week, I spamed all the microfinance NGO's in Ecuador. Thankfully my first choice got back to me right away and was more than happy to help set up an internship.

Fundacion ESPOIR (website currently under construction) is a MFI that works with almost 40,000 women in Ecuador, giving them small loans and setting up educational projects. They work mainly along the coast and in the south. Thier headquarters is in Quito and these are the folks I've been speaking with.

According to the plan, we will be going to Portoviejo in Manabí province on Monday to start working in their largest regional office. It should be an amazing experience, as this is exactly the kind of project I had hoped to get involved with when we came down to Ecuador.
It's hard for us to believe, but we have to renew our 90 day visa in less than two weeks. We have to be back in Quito to do that, but then we're hoping to work with ESPOIR for a while longer.

Portoviejo is about an hour from the actual coast, so we're leaving Quito tonight and will be spending the weekend back in Canoa, our favorite little surf town.

Tour Guides

2006-09-14T15:24:00.000-04:00

Last week, we played tour guides for my Dad and Grandma. It was a blast to have them come visit and it gave us an excuse to go be tourists a bit.

They flew in to Quito late on Thursday night. We spent most of Friday around Quito. We went to the botanical garden, a place Ben and I had already been but wanted to share. Ecuador has amazing plant diversity and this exhibit highlights only the sierra portion of it. They have two orchid houses with thousands of amazing orchids, from huge to tinsy-tiny. Later that afternoon we went up the Teleferiqo. It takes you up near the top of Pinchincha, the volcano that towers over Quito to the east. It was a cloudy day so we weren't able to see the other volcanoes, but the view of the city was incredible! Our visitors were real troupers on this. Getting whisked up over 4100m on your first day at altitude is nothing to take lightly!

That evening we took a bus to Ibarra, a nice city 2 1/2 hrs north of Quito. It is also a half hour north of Otavalo, our destination for the next day. We had visited Ibarra a number of times previously and had found a great hotel for cheap. The next morning, we headed into Otavalo for the market. The Saturday market in Otavalo boasts the title of being the largest indigenous market in the Americas and it is quite impressive. It is amazingly colorful. People come from all over South America to sell their handicrafts, textiles, and other artwork making it an ideal place to pick up a few souvenirs.

Saturday evening we returned to Quito and took the family to a "traditional" restaurant. Not traditional as in real, but more traditional as in Ecuadorian food in the tourist section of town. Though I mocked it at first, it was great food! Grandma was introduced to seco de pollo, a chicken dish with a tomato sauce of kinds. We also got to shock them a bit when another patron ordered cuy, the traditional delicacy of guinea pig. Dad's vegetarian, so he was safe from our jokes but we kept offering to get one for Grandma.

On Sunday, we went to Black Sheep Inn. It is an amazingly beautiful area of Ecuador with stunning gorges, rivers, and plains. We spent two days relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We went on a bit of a hike on the second day down to the edge of the gorge.

We came back to Quito on Tuesday afternoon. After taking a nap to recoup from all the hardcore relaxing we had been doing, we went out to dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place. All the different international style restaurants we got to go to while we had visitors were kind of humorous. While Ecuadorian food is decent, not much of it is well suited for those vegetarian types. Their visit was a great change from chicken and rice!

Wednesday was their last day in Ecuador and coincidentally my birthday. We spent most of the day going around Old Town Quito. We toured quite a few churches, which is the thing to do in Old Town. That evening, we celebrated with dinner at a great fondue restaurant...cheese, oil with herbs, and chocolate. Can't get much better than that! Late Wednesday evening, we dropped Dad and Grandma off at the airport and said good bye.

It was so great to see familiar faces down here in Ecuador. I'd like to once again extend the invitation to everyone we know to come down and visit us!

Iliniza Norte....BRILLIANT!

2006-09-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

***Once again, pictures will be added as I have the pacience to load them.***

After our position with MCCH fell through, we had a week to play with before Dad and Grandma arrived...so we did what any adventure seeking couple would do. We climbed a mountain.

We chose Iliniza Norte off a recommendation from a few different friends (thanks for all the info Glenn!). It is definitely not just a hike, but as there is no permanent snow or glacier on the mountain it is much safer for beginners to do without a guide. While we've done our fair share of backpacking, hiking, climbing, whatnot, we are definitely beginners in the world of mountaineering as glaciers were hard to come by during our years living in Ohio.

Iliniza Norte (right) stands at 5,126 meters while its counterpart, Iliniza Sur (left), stands at 5,248 meters. 100+ meters doesn't sound like much, but due to the prevailing winds, Sur catches the clouds before they hit Norte and has permanent snow. Ice climbing is a bit advanced for us right now, so Norte was definitely our option.

For how beautiful the countryside is, it isn't very far from Quito. We took a bus south on the PanAmerican for about an hour and then a rickety local bus for 20 mins in to the small town of Chaupi.

When climbing the Ilinizas, Bladamir Gallo is the man to know. He runs a very nice hostel in Chuapi, is in charge of the climber's hut, and will drive you up to the trail head cheaper than anyone. On a side note, his bonsai collection at the hostel was quite impressive.

XXX Bonsai XXX

We rode up to the trailhead with the hut guardian, so we tried to keep him in sight just as a reassurance that we were going the right way. From the trailhead, the path up to the climber's hut was pretty easy to follow. It split a few times, but we eventually figured out that all the branches eventually lead back to the same main trail.

The climber's hut is at 4750m and took about 2 1/2 hours to hike. Ben did great, keeping up with the guardian. I, however, didn't do so great on this section. Maybe I was having an off day, or maybe I'm just a bit out of shape. Either way, it was a tough, tough day! The first half of the trail was easy enough. However, the last hour was pretty much straight up in awful sandy soil, causing you to slide halfway back down on each step you took. My lungs and head seemed to be doing fine, but my legs felt like steel and were very hard to lug upwards. Made it up though eventually (through my thoughts of "this is the stupidest thing I've ever done...why would anyone want to do this?!?") and settled in to the hut.

The climber's hut is quite basic, but it had beds and a kitchen, meaning we didn't have to haul our tent or cooking gear up to 4750m. It also meant that when it got pretty cold outside that night, we were sheltered from the wind we could hear howling around us. All in all, it was a relatively comfortable place.

XXX hut XXX

And then there was the view it offered. For the first time, we could see the south face of the mountain, and it was beautiful!

That night, the sunset cast a rainbow over the mountains. In this picture, you can see the reflection of the sunset on the clouds that had risen from the coast in the west during the day that were butting up against Corazon.

After a substantial dinner of Gado Gado (NOLS cookbook...amazing backpacker's version of spicy peanut noodles) we settled in for bed around 7pm. While it felt too early to sleep, it was pitch black out and the few others we were sharing the hut with were in bed. That night was one of the most uncomfortable of my life. Laying there in bed with nothing to take my mind off how my body was reacting to the altitude, I noticed that my head was pounding and heart was racing. It felt quite awful and would not subside until I got up the next morning and moved around. I managed to drift in and out of sleep all night, awakened frequently by a series of ridiculous nightmares about spiders in my sleeping bag. Each time I woke up, I would freak out about the spiders, sit straight up, bang my head on the bunk above, and probably woke up everyone else in the hut. After a moment, I would of course realize it was just a dream and feel quite silly about freaking out...again. Oh well, can't fight the subconscious very well can we?

At 5am, our camera started beeping...time to get up! After a quick breakfast of oatmeal/granola mix and coffee, we packed up a few things and headed off up the mountain. From the hut, you climb up to the saddle connecting the two peaks, basically head up the ridge almost to the summit, skirt around to the north a bit and then scramble up. Iliniza Norte was surrounded by clear skies, but we could see lower level clouds starting to cover in Cotopaxi to our east.

XXX climb 1, climb 2XXX

The climb also gave us a great view of Iliniza Sur.

XXX climb 3 XXX

We did pretty well climbing up the ridge. It was a fun combination of hiking and scrambling up the rocks. We had our map, our reports from friends, and the cairns to follow. I was doing much better than the previous day and didn't seem to be having any problems at all.

At around 5000m, we somehow went wrong. After a section of scrambling, we somehow dropped too far down on the north face of the mountain and lost the trail. We kept going for a while, and we could soon see cairns 50m above us. The side of the mountain was pretty steep and sandy at that point, so we had to look for a while to find a suitable place to try to regain the trail. After about 10 minutes of searching, we found an area that looked not too hard to climb up. It turned into about a 5.5, for those who know a bit about rock climbing. While normally this wouldn't be a big deal, it felt like a huge deal on the steep, exposed side of a mountain. One bad handhold and we could have slid down at least 200m, if not more, before being able to stop ourselves. In this picture, you can see the north face. We were about in the middle, below the summit pyramid with the ice on it.

XXX climb 4 XXX

All this while, we had been keeping an eye on the weather. We had watched Cotopaxi become completely covered in clouds and figured we had about a half hour for those same clouds to reach us. We turned out to be right.

After this heart stopping scramble, we still weren't on the real path and couldn't see any more cairns. After a few minutes of discussion, we decided it was time to turn around. 5086m was the highest we would see that day, a mere 40 vertical meters from our goal! However, we could see the clouds moving in and knew it was time to go. We went a bit further east and dropped down an easier section than the one we had climbed (it was very sandy, so it made for a great descent, but would have been an awful ascent line).

Booking it on the way down, I'm pretty sure we figured out where we went wrong. Maybe someday we'll be able to go back and figure it out!

To descend, we dropped on the side of the ridge protected from the wind and slid down the sand. It would have been great fun if we hadn't just been defeated by the mountain and running from the clouds.

XXX climb 5 XXX

Half way down, it started snowing and Iliniza Norte finally was clouded in. It was 10:30am.

XXX climb 6 XXX

After our eventful morning, we rested a few hours at the hut. We had been quite bad on the mountain about eating and hadn't really taken in enough calories. At first, we weren't really feeling it and then later we were running for cover from the weather and didn't want to stop. Word from the wise: bonking at 5000m hurts. Ben can attest to that. We ate and drank plenty at the hut and Ben took a bit of a nap.

The hike back down to the trailhead was much more enjoyable than the hike up. Sliding down sandy scree is much more fun when you're trying to go down! We chatted our way down to the trailhead, where Bladamir was waiting once again with his car to take us to town. We caught a bus back to Quito and then colapsed in our apartment around 4pm, amazed at how much had happened in less than two days.

What a week!

2006-09-07T12:15:00.000-04:00

It seems like it´s been a while since we posted last, and so much has happened since then! We climbed a mountain, had family come visit, and did a whirlwind tour of Ecuador!

Thanks to my lovely father and grandmother for coming down to Ecuador to visit. Grandma was a real trooper and met all the challenges of traveling in South America with a smile. It was a great break from the norm to have them come and visit us. They even took us out for a great fondue dinner for my birthday last night!

We´ll post soon on our first real mountaineering adventure as well as details on our week with the Fam. Just wanted to post a little something to let you all know we´re on the job!

Power shortages

2006-08-28T13:22:00.000-04:00

Last night we had an odd experience in our apartment in Quito. The electricity went out. Kind of. We were watching TV, a lovely dubbed version of Critters, when all of a sudden the lights started to dim. The TV didn't quite go off, but it went into a gray snow buzz. Armed with our hand-crank flashlight (thanks Uncle Bill and Aunt Pat!), we went in to action. We gathered our candles and headlamps and waited to be plunged into darkness...but it didn't happen. Instead, the lights just kept getting dimmer and dimmer, but didn't actually go out. We turned them out and had a fun evening by candlelight. However, it was just kind of odd. I didn't know we could have power...shortages instead of full of outages!

We actually met someone in Puerto Lopez a few weeks ago who warned us this was going to happen. He ran one of the hydroelectric power plants. Apparently, rain falls have been far below normal this year (thanks Global Climate Change!) and they've known for a while that this would happen. It's been in the papers for the last few weeks. We'll see if this becomes a nightly occurrence, or if it's a sporadic kind of thing.

On the Coast

2006-08-28T12:57:00.000-04:00

Our latest adventure was to the coast and the town of Canoa. All of the guide books mention it as a side note and say something about it being a nice sleepy little fishing village. The town also happens to have the most consistent beach break for surfing in the country, which is how we decided on this place to wait out the time until our internship got off the ground.

Normally the guidebooks would be correct, however the weekend that we chose happened to be one of the three busiest of the year. Consequently, the sleepy little fishing village turned into punk-rock-hippy-infested-surfer-filled-party town.

We had arrived a day before Independence Day after what was most likely the worst bus trip in the history of Ecuador. Our hope was to stay at Hotel Bambu, which is the preferred gringo spot in town. As it turned out, we were lucky to get one of the last (and worst) rooms in the town. Hotel Shelmar normally goes for $2/person/night, but we were privileged enough to pay $6. The worst part about the room wasn't the price, dirty bathroom, or the 5 inch cockroach living under the bed, but rather the lack of a window pane between us and the bar-filled street on the other side of the wall.

While the hotel was far below our expectations, Canoa lived up to its reputation and it proved to be a wonderful five days.

I'd never been on a Pacific coast before and Canoa was a welcoming introduction. The ocean itself wasn't quite as kind however. As we were walking along the beach shortly after check-in, I couldn't restrain my excitement and had to run straight in. As I dove into my first Pacific wave I was surprised by how much stronger they were than those I'd experienced in the Atlantic. So much surprised that the wave knocked me off my feet, tumbled me through a wash cycle, and deposited me head first into the hard pack sandy bottom. I came out right away to share the irony with Liz and to make sure I didn't drown from a concussion. All seemed well enough so I was right back in with a newfound respect for the energy within the sea.

Our first day was like most of those after. We played in the surf on boogie boards while the sun was out and sipped on fruity rum cocktails once it had set. The beach break provided plenty of waves and during Hora Loca the bars served plenty of drinks. Hora Loca is Canoa's version of Happy Hour. Instead of drinks being half price, it's a two for one special; meaning that when you order one drink, two arrive at your table. As if this wasn’t generous enough, the bars are so kind as to stagger their Hora Loca's so that there was always one somewhere in town between 3 and 9pm. Pina coladas, banana coladas, daiquiris, and various other local concoctions were all made with fresh fruit that Ecuador is famous for.

The holiday weekend's festivities included live music and a surf contest. The live music was awful, the surfing was great. I've considered myself an inland surf bum for many years and the contest was a wonderful treat to watch. Surfers from all over Ecuador came to enjoy the out of season surf that Canoa's south facing shore allows. I had made arrangements to take a surf lesson the day after the contest with a Canoa native, Mauricio, who ended up taking third in the boogie board competition. When we were setting the time he asked me if I wanted a one or two hour lesson. Since this was a birthday present to myself the cost wasn't a factor and I asked what he recommended. To my surprise he suggested just one hour, assuring me that my body would thank me. In the three days that I'd been playing on the boogie board I'd gotten pretty good at a basic level. Judging by the relative ease of boogie boarding I had expected to pick up surfing quickly due to the pseudo-experience I had gleaned from books and magazine articles over the years. This was not the case though. The old adage of harder than it looks is an understatement with surfing. I knew not to expect much my first time out and not much was what I managed. The simple act of pushing yourself up from a prone position that I'd seen countless times from others was in fact a monumental task that required every bit of muscle and will power I could muster. After a dozen failed attempts with Mauricio pushing me into waves I returned to shore to re-evaluate and recuperate. After a few dry runs on land Mauricio offered some critique and we were back at it. The changes in technique I made worked and I was able to stand up on the board half a dozen times. Turns out that even standing up your first time out is doing ok so I was happy to push on. The next challenge arose after trying to paddle into the waves unassisted. The atrophy my upper body has undergone over the last five years of cycling became extremely pronounced when I was barely able to move in the water. The ones I did catch were pitifully small, but still I felt the rush and the energy of the wave pushing me along. While surfing proved immensely harder than I had imagined, I was still hooked. I spent the next couple days trying to catch some more waves and attempting to alter our itinerary to match surf season in Peru.

As I mentioned, we were lucky to get the room that we did. The entire weekend while we were at the various hostel restaurants, travelers streamed in looking for a place to stay and were invariable sent away. Even with the crowds, Canoa had charmed us. With no major responsibilities calling us, the decision to stay longer was easy. Finding a new hotel made the idea much more appealing as well. Sunday night we moved across town to Hostal Coco Loco. The crazy coconut opened in November of last year and had not yet made it into any of the guidebooks, though it is only a matter of time. Run by a wonderful Belgian and Dutch couple (with English that sounds Australian), Coco Loco was a drastic change from our previous residence. Thick mattresses, spotless restroom, and communal kitchen; all for the same $6 a night. I can only hope that we have a chance to return. Monday morning, we practically woke up in a different town. With the holiday over, Ecuadorian tourists returned to their jobs and we finally found the sleepy little fishing village. I was delighted to walk out the front of the hostel right onto the beach where I helped a couple of fishing boats dock and unload their morning catch. Caught up in the novelty, I decided to buy crab for dinner. Sadly my Spanish escaped me and I ended up buying the most expensive crab in Canoa. The fishermen had offered me a fair price of two crabs for a dollar, but I misunderstood and paid them two dollars for the largest crab they had. At least he cooked up tasty and worth every penny.

The trip down from to the mountains to the coast had been a frightening ordeal. Most bus drivers are aggressive, but ours had been downright dangerous. Even the Ecuadorians, who don’t know any other way of driving, were yelling at the driver to slow down. Needless to say we weren’t anxious to repeat the trip so we did what all good travelers do, we procrastinated by going some where else. After a quick four hour (and thankfully uneventful) ride down the coast we found ourselves in Puerto Lopez. This town in the departure point for visiting Isla de la Plata, fondly nicknamed “The poor man’s Galapagos”. Since a trip to the Galapagos is far beyond our budget, this was the island for us. We were entertained by blue footed boobies and nasca boobies (formerly masked boobies) that didn’t mind at all for you to photograph them from three feet away. The area did offer one thing that the Galapagos Islands don’t, a chance to see migrating humpback whales. Riding with fourteen other tourists and four crew, our twenty five foot boat bobbed rather precariously in the rough seas. Liz found herself sea sick for the first time while I held onto the camera with one hand and the boat with the other. Seeing the huge creatures leap above the water made it all worth it though. I was lucky enough to get a decent picture of the one time the larger female jumped. Up until that point a male and baby we were following had jumped numerous times and the awe had worn off some. The moment that the female jumped brought it all back again. She was at least twice the size of the other two, simply massive.

Our week long trip to the coast wet my appetite for the Pacific Ocean and I’m looking forward to our next meeting.

Plans in flux

2006-08-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

It's been a crazy week of ups and downs. We ended up not leaving for the jungle today. It looks like we may not be working with MCCH, at least not to the extent that we were hoping we would. More details on that after the dust settles, as we're still trying to figure out what's going on. Don't want to curse it by posting too many details yet....

For now, we'll be in Quito for the week. We stopped by the Red Cross office this morning to see if they were running any volunteer programs to help the volcano victims. They put us to work right away! The donations are flooding in right now. They need a lot of help sorting, so we spent the morning sorting clothes and shoes into mujeres, hombres, ninos and ninas. It felt great to finally be doing something, as we've just kind of been hanging out for too long!

Volcano

2006-08-18T12:13:00.001-04:00

In case this makes the news up north, we are not in the area that has been affected by the most recent explosion of Tungurahua. This one was much more serious than the ones while we were in Banos, so we were quite lucky.

Week at the beach was a blast. We'll post soon with pictures I'm sure!

August

2006-08-07T11:37:00.000-04:00

We´ll have more details soon (maybe!), but I wanted to post a little more news about our position with MCCH. We met with them last Friday and will be meeting again tomorrow. However, details are starting to come together...at least for the month of August.

We had hoped to work with MCCH this week, but since we won´t be...we´re heading to the beach! We´ll be off to Canoa, a small town on the coast for a few days in the sun. We might even learn to surf. Well, Ben might learn to surf. I might learn how to swim!

We have two dates on calendarnder in the middle of August. We will be accompanying MCCH staff to meetings in Tena and Puyo, both jungle towns. They are ¨jumping off¨points into the deeper jungle, so relatively good roads go to them. We´ll be heading to Tena first, sitting in on a meeting, and then heading to Puyo the next day. The idea is that we will be introduced to the organizations in those towns so that we can come back later on our own to work. We would like to stay in one of these towns for a week or two, but those details are still being worked out.

After our 2 day -- a week with MCCH, my lovely Father and Grandmother will be arriving in Quito for a week. We´re super excited about thier visit. It´s been fun to look through all the travel books and plan a vacation...within our vacation! As always, we would love to have more people come visit us. We´d be super ´local´ guides, I promise!

Status Update

2006-07-31T17:38:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to let the world in on our current status here in Ecuador. We finally had a meeting a week ago with our contact at MCCH, a fair trade group in Ecuador. We will be meeting with them again this Friday, and hope to set up a plan of what we will be doing. Hopefully we will be traveling to a few sites where the products are made. We will be working on behalf of MCCH, but also on behalf of Global Gallery. The basic idea of our project will be to record the artisans' stories and the production process of the items.

If we do get the position, it will be an amazing experience. I say "if" because it is dependant on whether or not the boss thinks our Spanish is up to par! Here's to hoping the interview goes well!!!

Backcountry Detour, a.k.a Thwarted by the Bull

2006-07-28T12:48:00.000-04:00

*** Pictures added! I've had a few requests for pictures of the bull. Sorry folks, we ran....we didn't want to stick around for the photo op! ***

What started as a simple, two day backpacking trip along dirt roads in the countryside ended up as an adventure packed running of the bulls Pamplona style at 4000m this weekend.

The weekend started on an ominous note. We woke up at 6am on Sunday and when we looked out the window, we were completely enveloped in a cloud. This was the first time we'd seen Quito under fog (can you call it fog at 3000m? or is that a cloud?) and it was quite a spectacular sight. By the time we got to the bus station around 7:30, the clouds had lifted a little, but the country side still looked ominous as we headed north for Otavalo.

Once in Otavalo, we hired a camionetta to take us part of the way up to Laguna Mojanda. The road from town to the lake is 16km, and we didn't want to walk the whole thing. We also didn't want to pay $12 for the ride, so we settled on halfway. The hike up to the lake offered some good views in between the spurts of rain.

I visited Laguna Mojanda the last time I was in Ecuador to climb Mount Fuya Fuya with my buddies Glenn and Rob. It was just as interesting of an area as I remembered it to be. The lake is a tourist area for foreigners and Ecuadorians alike. It is fairly easy to get to by vehicle, so people come up for the day to enjoy nature. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of litter. Apparently it's also the place to come drink, as we saw quite a few empty liquor bottles in the high traffic areas. The "leave no trace" methodology hasn't quite caught on down here and it's a shame.

After relaxing a bit on the north end of the lake where the road comes in, we put the packs back on and hiked around to the south end of the lake. Our hiking and climbing guidebook recommended camping at the south end, so we were off. At this point, the road switched from cobbles to dirt, so it became harder for the cars to travel.

As we came around the south side of the lake, we saw a few suitable camping spots near the water. However, they were also right next to the road and there were a couple cars in the area. In an effort to find a bit more solitude, we continued hiking on the road away from the lake to find a better spot to pitch the tent.

There was a small ridge that separated Laguna Mojanda from a flatter valley and eventually another smaller lake. We saw a few cows in the fields, but they left when we walked up. After exploring a bit, we chose a flat area away from the road that looked like a suitable campsite.

One of our main criteria was the lack of cow patties in the immediate vicinity, as it seems as though the area was covered with them. This should have been a sign, but its meaning didn't quite sink in until a few minutes later. We sat down in the pasture to relax for a few minutes before setting up camp.

As we sat there, we noticed a large bull about 500m away starting to take interest in us. At first he was just looking at us, but soon the looks turned into a full on stare. As he started to amble toward us Ben suggested that we leave our things and walk away to avoid a confrontation. Then the amble turned into a definite stride, and I suggested we take all our things and get out quick! We put on our packs and started to walk towards the road slowly. However, this bull was not interested in slow and started picking up the pace.

At this point, we were well over 12,000ft and the effect of the altitude was becoming apparent to us. We were also very much aware that our only protection was a carbon fiber walking stick that Ben was holding. We had affectionately been calling it our "pokey stick", but it was obvious how ridiculous of a weapon this would be against the current threat. Our enemy, the bull, could probably sense our panic and he started to charge at us. We took off running up the road towards the top of the ridge that separated the lake from the pasture. Thankfully he stopped and did not come up the hill. He made his point; we were off his land...and desperately out of breath!

We took a few minutes to try to calm down the respetory and cardiovascular systems from this shock while intermittently uttering the required "Oh my god!", "Holy shiznit batman!", "That was close!", etc. We then decided it would be wise to camp by the lake. Besides, the view there was better. We set up camp and stoked a still smoking fire from the campers before us. At this point, it was getting close to dark and we seemed to be the only people around. The cars had all left for the evening.

We cooked a lovely meal of couscous and tomato sauce. Dinner was supposed to include cheese but, as we had realized earlier in the day, we forgot the cheese along with our trail lunches in the fridge back in Quito. We also forgot half of our spice kit, so dinner kind of tasted like Spaghetti-Os...just with 1/10 of the sugar! This was our first real experience cooking at altitude, at it was an informative one. Water definitely takes longer to boil at 3700m!

A clear sunset cast a beautiful light on the lake, making it a magic place for about 5 minutes. Then, as quickly as the sight had appeared, the clouds came back and the light was gone.

After dinner, we headed back into the tent. We reread the description of the hike we were planning on doing the next day, rambled about how we should work on Spanish for a while, and then fell asleep. It was a decently cold night, but our 15/20 degree bags kept us toasty warm so I would guess it didn't get below 25 (F of course. I can do the meters thing, but C is confusing). We were woken up soon after we fell asleep by bursts of light. It looked like lightning in the distance, but we didn't get any rain where we were. The stars were beautiful, but it was too cold to stay out and look at them for long.

The next morning, the alarm went off at 5am. The guidebook said the hike would take 5 hours, so we wanted to get an early start. We finally managed to roll out of our sleeping bags around 6am, cooked breakfast, packed up camp, and were ready to hit the road by 8am. A little slower than we'd like, but what can you do? (other than get up when the alarm goes off, because who wants to do that?!?)

Trying to shake the fear that Mr. Bull would be waiting for us at the bottom of the next ridge, we set off on the same road we had been chased off the night before. Coming over the ridge, he and his herd were no where to be seen, so we headed off down the road. In this picture, you can see the second lake. The road in the background is the one we were about to climb.

As we headed up the road to a 4000m pass, we noticed a few cows on the road in front of us. In an effort to avoid another charging incident, especially since this time we would be downhill of the charger, we decided to go off the road and switchback up through the grass to the top of the ridge. This proved to be amazingly hard, as the itchu grass is very tough to walk through. Ben was pushing the pace until we were out of sight of the herd and my heart felt like it was about to explode.

After we were out of their sight, we assumed we would be fine. We headed up to the top of the ridge and worked our way back towards the road. The pass was about 3km and 500m vertical from where we had seen the cows so we were confident about jumping back on the road. We also were able to see a few cows heading down the road away from where we were going.

As we crested the peak and came into view of the road, we were met with an awful sight. The same bull that had charged us the day before was on the road, blocking the pass, and staring us down. This time he also had two large friends with him. These were darn smart bulls. They had seen us coming, knew what we were trying to do, and had headed us off at the pass, making it impossible for us to continue on our planned trek.

After a few seconds of staring in shock, we walked the other way to get out of their sightline. We discussed our options:

1) bushwhacking underneath the road while attempting to stay out of sight with the thought that we could eventually regain the road

2) pick a ridge and start heading to one of the towns we could see in the distance to the north

3) head back to Laguna Mojanda and hope we could hitch a ride back to Otavalo

Options one and three had definite horn-ramming-bum potential, so we decided to go with option two.

At this point, we were becoming brutally aware of the fact that we were very stupid for not having brought a map of the area with us. We had assumed that such an easy trek did not need a map! This would be one of the big lessons we learned from the trip. However, we did have the GPS and a compass, so we weren't totally out of luck. The GPS was registering two nearby towns and also showed the PanAmerican Highway to be about 8 miles away. If all else fails, head towards the highway and you can catch a bus some where.

And thus our Backcountry Detour began. It was an exhausting trek down the mountain. We descended from 4000m down to almost 3000m. There was no real trail down, but for the most part we could follow cow trails down the ridges. After our experience with Mr. Bull, this was a bit unnerving, but the best of our options. Please forgive the water this picture. It was raining (at about 40F) all the way down...!

The first half of the descent proved to be relatively easy compared to the second half. For the first half of the day, we were above tree line, so we only had to negotiate the waist high itchu grass. About halfway down the mountain, our line down started to become a bit more obscured.

The next obstacle we came to was private property. At 3600m we were met with a line of barbed wire. Normally I'm a fan of private property. However, at this point, this person's fence was between us and a visible road. There was an obvious path through the property and to the road, starting with a break in the barbed wire. We could also see a shack on the property. In an effort to be friendly, we tried calling out to see if there was anyone there who would give us verbal permission to pass. No response from a person, but we definitely got a response from some vicious sounding dogs. We turned and jogged away from the area.

We were soon faced with a problem -- two deep quebradas. One ran horizontally and the other vertically down the mountain. We would have to cross them to continue down the mountain. After much assessment, we decided not to try to jump across the 3x3m abyss, but rather to drop down into the quebrada and climb out the other side. We managed to climb out rather gracefully, but were met on the other side with an alarming poster on a fence post. Printed on it was the face of a bull. After looking down the hillside and not seeing a bull, we decided we had no choice but to continue.

We cut back to the barbed wire of the same farm thinking that when it ended we could cut over to the road. We had not yet noticed, but the quebrada we had just traversed was now running on the other side of the barbed wire. For the time being, its presence was hidden by tall plants. We continued to descend on a trail of sorts running next to the property. Unfortunately for us, We hit tree line before the property ended! While trying to decide whether or not to be bad backpackers and cut the barbed wire, we noticed the deep quebrada. At this point, it had grown to about 4m deep and seemed impossible to cross! Faced with an impenetrable line of trees below us and barbed wire/dark abyss next to us, we back tracked up the hill.

Up a few dozen meters, I noticed a section where the barbed wire was further up off the ground -- high enough to fit under. After closer inspection, it turned out to be an area we could easily climb down and back up the other side of the quebrada as well. We slipped under the fence and climbed up into the fields on the other side. We were ready to run from crazy dogs or explain our presence to an annoyed farmer, but we were greeted by an empty field. We carefully made our way down the side and soon came to....A ROAD!!!

The road made our descent much easier and the town below us started getting bigger much faster. The GPS said we still had 6mi to go to the PanAmerican, but we were finally making good time. As we descended towards town, we could see a road winding through a pine forest on the next ridge over. This was the trail we were originally supposed to be on! As it turned out, both roads ended up in the same town.

We met with some rowdy dogs on the way into town, but after our grand day of running from 2000lb beasts, they didn't really bother us. Plus, Pokey Stick would probably be more effective against a few small dogs if need be!

In La Esperanza, we bought some bread, bananas, and water and headed down to the PanAmerican to catch a bus up to Ibarra. The plan was from there to catch a bus to a different La Esperanza and climb Imbabura the next day. However, we were exhausted and ended up just spending the night in Ibarra. It had ended up being a 10 mile backcountry detour that was brutal on our knees and ankles. At least the super-collarbone held up and was only a little sore!

The trip ended on a very sad note as we were in Ibarra. Ben left his beloved crushable hat on the bus! However, despite the loss of his hat and the terror of being stalked by bulls, we would rate the trip a success. It's not something we'd want to do again, but it was quite an epic adventure!

Back up!

2006-07-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

Apparently the blog was down for a few days, but I believe it is working again now. Sorry for the confusion! Keep an eye out for a new post in the next few days about a backpacking trip gone crazy....

Macroeconomics in the Snack Food Aisle

2006-07-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend we plan on going backpacking for a few days. Food wise, this means we’ll want to pack a bit more variety than we can find at our local market, so we took our first trip to SuperMaxi,

Ecuador

’s biggest and fanciest supermarkets. SuperMaxi is pretty much what you would think of as a supermarket in the

. It has all the fancy imported foods, but it also has the local items as well, for a bit of a markup.

The last time I was in Ecuador, I had very little direct contact with the buying process that put food in front of me. For my home cooked meals, my Ecua-Madre bought and prepared all the food. When I was traveling with the school, most meals were included with the trip fee – pay your $X for the weekend and when we’re at the designated restaurant you get a choice of a few dishes. The few meals I did buy for myself were usually bought in the same area as the language school: La Mariscal, popularly referred to as gringolandia. At the time, I thought things were cheap. Now, I’ve come to find out that prices in the area are very inflated. Almuerzo is a set lunch menu, usually a large bowl of soup, some kind of meat with rice and a veggie, dessert, and fresh juice. One can find a great almuerzo in Quito for $1 – $1.50…around La Mariscal it is closer to $5.

My one experience with SuperMaxi back in 2004 was a day when my Ecua-Madre asked me to pick up some eggs. We lived right across the street from El Jardin, a huge shopping mall that rivals the nicest in the US. One of the SuperMaxi locations is inside this mall. It took me a long time to find the eggs, namely because they were on the shelf in the middle a random aisle instead of in the refrigerated section with the cheese and milk. Milk is also keep on the shelves.

With my undergrad econ training behind me, I thought I was prepared to reenter the world of SuperMaxi. These are the concepts that I thought would serve me well:

¨ International Economic Policy: imports will be more expensive than domestically produced items

¨ Economies of Scale: if a product is in mass production, it will be cheaper

¨ The Gringo Effect: if only the foreigners demand a product it will be hella expensive (mostly the flip side of the EoS really, but I like this name better)

All of these important economic theories can be demonstrated by the most wonderful food group of them all: snacks.

The first snack aisle we came to had chips on one side and chocolate on the other. The cheapest chocolate bar was $3 and my favorite, peanut M&Ms, were $4 for the medium size. All the products were imported, as evident by the fact that all the labels were only in English. Ecuador produces cocoa! They export it! This didn’t make any sense in my book. A few aisles down, we came across the hot chocolate. Next to the canisters of powdered tastiness were a few different kinds of chocolate. This time, the labels were in Spanish and the Hecho en Ecuador label was proudly displayed. Less than 50 centavos per bar. Now this made more sense!

Other funny examples:

¨ Ice Cream. Helado is pretty prevalent here. Most neighborhood stores carry it and about a quarter of the vendors that sell everything on the busses are selling ice cream. At SuperMaxi, a gallon of Pengüino ice cream, the most prevalent brand in Ecuador, was $2. The imported variety was almost $10 a gallon. What amazing brand of American ice cream was this? Hagen Daz? Ben and Jerry’s? Or even Graeters? No, the $10 imported gallon of ice cream was Blue Bunny. Somebody check for me on the US price of this apparently amazing product. I’m guessing no where near to $10!

¨ Cheese. Ecuador has pretty much two offerings when it comes to cheese: fresca and mozzarella…both white and both kind of bland. Both are $2 or $3 for 500g. SuperMaxi was the first place we found anything other than these two chesses, and we paid $4 for a smaller package of cheddar.

¨ Not a snack, but laundry detergent was similar. $3 for the locally produced kind, $12 for the same quantity of Tide!!! Needless to say, we bought the local brand.

My next observation speaks to the Economies of Scale/Gringo Effect. Pretzels…those wonderful salty snacks that got me through race seasons, many a car trip, and kept me from eating my weight in potato chips. Ecuadorians apparently do not believe in pretzels. Until going to SuperMaxi last night, I had not been able to find any pretzels. In that first snack aisle, at the end after all the potato chips, was one type of pretzel. They appeared to be a German import and were of the short, skinny, stick-like variety. 50¢ for a package of pretzels I could fit my hand around! No pretzels for me I suppose.

In the defense of the Ecuadorian culinary culture, they have an alternative snack product that we do not have in the US: banana chifles – banana chips. You might be thinking, of course we have banana chips in the US! Well, these are not the sweet variety. They are savory and can be given pretty much any flavor. They’re delicious, and while pretty high in fat, Ben assures me it’s of the “good fat” variety.

Finally, the beer. I suppose it technically wouldn’t qualify as a snack, but whatever. Pilsener is the local brew, a bland light beer similar to Bud Light, but Ecuadorians will argue that it is far superior. It is pretty much the only beer found at neighborhood stores and most restaurants. We were counting on SuperMaxi to provide us with a bit of variety, but sadly we were wrong. Apparently our only other choices are Corona, Budweiser, and Heineken. We shed a small tear. Someone drink a Cherry Stout back in the US for me please.

On the flip side, Ecuador offers us an alternative to bland beer. Can anyone buy a bottle of Cristal in the US for $1.60? Probably not, especially since this is not the fancy-shmancy champaign now adopted by Hip Hop stars as a sign of affluence, this is sugar cane liquor. It’s not strong liquor by any means. It’s sweet and makes for a nice hot drink: two parts cinnamon water and one part Cristal, You can also mix it with warm fruit juice. It’s magically delicious, if I do say so myself.

So while we’re adapting out preferences for what is available and cheap here in Ecuador, at least we can have $1.60 Cristal!

Weekend trip to Baños

2006-07-18T14:56:00.000-04:00

Baños is a sleepy little resort town four hours south-east of Quito. It is known for its thermal baths: mineral water heated underground by its proximity to an active volcano. When we left Quito on Friday afternoon for Baños, we knew all this. We just didn’t know how active the volcano would become.

Tunguragua is the volcano towering over the town. After decades of inactivity, it came back to life in the late 1990’s. The town of Baños is on the north-east side of the volcano and relatively protected by the topography and prevailing winds. When the volcano first started going off, Baños and all the other towns surrounding Tunguragua were evacuated. Since then, it’s been rumbling gently with a few minor explosions from time to time. When I was in Baños two years ago, the volcano was covered by clouds and I did not have a map of the area. So that we wouldn’t “be alarmed,” our leaders just didn’t mention there was an active volcano nearby. They attributed the few booms we heard to a cannon at the local monastery. I’ve since come to learn that there is no monastery, and there definitely aren’t any cannons in the area.

After traveling south on the Pan-American Highway for about three hours, the bus turned east and started heading down to the jungle. I’m not sure if Baños is technically located in the Sierra, but it’s not really in the jungle. It’s kind of in between. It is a “cloud forest” area, meaning it is very lush and green. It is located along the Pastaza river and is bordered by steep hills on all sides. It is at about 6,000 feet whereas our apartment in Quito is at almost 9,000 feet. It was a bit easier to breathe there….but I get ahead of myself.

After turning east, we noticed a very odd cloud formation. It reached much higher than the other clouds, and it was much poofier than the flatter clouds that surrounded it. At first we attributed it to mountain weather patterns that we’re just getting accustomed to. As we neared our destination it became obvious that the clouds were columns of ash spewing from the volcano. Our bus was one of the few moving vehicles on the road; everyone else was stopped along the side to gawk at the show. Curiosity or amazement eventually overcame the driver and we did stop briefly to watch as boulders were hurled into the air for an unimaginable distance. We were treated to a crystal clear and unobstructed view of the proceedings. Without knowing anything of what daily life was like in that valley, we knew right away that this was something out of the ordinary. Once we were settled in our hostel we headed straight back to the main road to watch the show. Night had fallen by this time and the top of the volcano glowed an ominous red.

The display that night was just the opener. While the views were restricted by cloud cover
for the rest of the weekend, the volcano did not rest. Several nearby towns on the west and south sides of the volcano were devastated by the ash fall and the volcano produced four separate lava flows that scarred the landscape. Hundreds of people were evacuated. While no people died, the crops have been devastated and the livestock that was not taken out has all died as well. The current President has offered aid to these people whose lives have been destroyed, but we will see if that promise is actually followed through. The next presidential election is in October, so this could easily become a hot issue.

After watching the lava explode from the cone for an hour or so, we headed off to bed. We were woken up several times by explosions that shook our windows and sometimes our bed.

The next morning, we woke up to a very dreary, gray landscape. Throughout the morning, it was kind of like walking around in a cloud as mist accumulated on everything. Later in the day, it actually started raining. We lounged around most of the day, eating tasty food and reading interesting books. Later in the afternoon, we went on a “hike” up a very long set of stairs, 654 steps in all, to a statue of the Virgin. Every town down here seems to have a large statue of some variety of the Virgin on the hill above them. It was a nice little hike that got the blood moving and got us excited about hiking more.

The weather was much better on Sunday. While still a bit overcast, it had stopped raining. Since the view of the volcano was obstructed, we decided to rent bikes for the day and go explore. Like any good tourist town should be, Baños is set up well for cyclists. As you walk through town, every other shop rents bikes. There is an easy (mostly downhill) ride along the main road which has amazing scenery and great waterfalls (random waterfall pic from the ride to the right). Since I had not ridden since my little accident at Nationals, I was a bit hesitant but the road was newly paved and shouldn’t offer many obstacles. Plus I really wanted to ride again!

After searching the town for bikes with decent brakes, we finally rented two GT mountain bikes of decent quality. They shifted and stopped – what more can one ask for from a $5 rental? We headed down the road and stopped every so often to see the amazing views.

About 25K in, we came to Rio Verde, home of the Pailon del Diablo waterfall. It is just huge and powerful. It was really flowing from the rains the day before. The falls are actually private property which provides a healthy income to the family that owns the land. The waterfall has two distinct sections. The lower falls are free and can be viewed from a swing bridge after hiking down into the valley. The upper falls aren’t visible until after paying a one dollar entry fee. Viewing the upper falls is something of a rush. They have built up an extensive walkway system that lets visitors get within a few feet of the raging waters. Thankfully they provide rain ponchos.

We continued down the road about 10K to the town on Rio Negro, at which point we decided it was starting to get late and we should try to get a bus back. We saw a sign for a piscina natural, natural pool, so we went to check it out. A bit off the main road, there was a tributary flowing in to the main river where 20+ locals were out for an afternoon swim. We decided to pass, as wet chamois on the bus ride home sounded a bit uncomfortable. The river at this point was wide and deep, surrounded by more jungle than mountains. The river was beginning to feel like the Amazon. We caught a bus back without any problems. $3 and a half hour later we were back in Baños.

It was about 5pm at this point. It didn’t get dark until 6:30-ish and the bikes weren’t due back until 8pm, so we decided to explore around Baños a bit more. The sky had cleared a bit, so we thought we might try to get a view of the volcano by bike. Across the river from Baños there is another large hill. The top of this hill is where all the local truck owners had been taking tourists to see the fireworks show for the past couple of nights. While we didn’t think we had time to ride all the way up, we decided to give it a try to at least make it up halfway for a better view.

As we crossed the bridge and started to make our way up, I made a joke about how far we would get before tipping over; it was a pretty steep gradient, cobbled for the first ½ mile and then packed dirt/gravel. As it turned out, not far. I bailed before I tipped out of fear of landing on the collarbone again. Ben made it quite a bit further, but he still only made it through the first few switchbacks. At this point, we had ridden around to the backside of the mountain and we didn’t know how much further we had to go to come around to the front, and the view of Tungurahua, again. After walking a bit and taking a hit off the asthma inhaler, the path flattened out a bit and we were able to start riding again. Taking it a few switchbacks at a time, we made our way up slowly.

Around 5:45, we had decided to turn around after two more switchbacks with or without the view. As we started to climb again, a friendly face popped out of a passing jeep. She was a retired American from Oregon who had worked for Shell and was now living in Baños. She owned a house on the top of this mountain we were trying to climb and was on her way there now. Would we like a ride to the top? Heck yes we would!

She informed us that we had climbed about 1/3 of the way up and there were 15 more switchbacks before the top. It took an Ecuadorian (translation – someone used to the altitude and probably in better shape than us) about 3 hours to climb the path on foot. Sure, our bikes were a bit faster, but not by enough as were trying to spin the granny gear and it was getting close to sunset.

She dropped us at the top before turning into her house and we were treated to an amazing view of Tungurahua. While the pictures didn’t turn out that well due to light conditions, we could see the smoke barreling out of the cone. The vibrations from the volcano were pretty much constant up there too. Baños, sitting in the valley, seemed to be protected from the vibrations from the majority of explosions and the general rumbling.

It was starting to get dark, so we had to leave pretty quickly. Thankfully we had brought along our headlamps, so we strapped those on, tossed on our jackets, and prepared to descend. It was at this point that I finally realized what I was about to do: we basically had to bomb back down to town. I’m not a great descender. I’ve ridden a mountain bike three times. My collarbone is still technically broken. Holy predicament batman!

It turned out to be fine. Actually, it turned out to be quite fun. No time like the present to figure out some new skills! I told Ben to go and he bombed the heck out of that mountain, leaving me in the dust to figure out what the heck I was doing. Of course he waited every so often to make sure I was doing all right. Rattled the heck out of myself, but it was a blast and we both made it down in one piece. A quick check of the watch at the bottom revealed that we had both just done the first 25 minute mountain bike descents of our lives. And the stainless steel collarbone held up just fine. Exhilarating!

That night, we had some amazing beans and rice at Casa Hood, a super cool gringo restaurant. We hung out for happy hour for a bit and made some friends. A group of musicians came in to the restaurant and we were treated to some live traditional Andean music. Great group, with some amazing talent.

Whether fortunate or not, we still don’t have jobs so we made it a long weekend and spent Monday morning in the famous baths of volcanically warmed mineral water. Just what our tired bodies needed. We met a guy from California who had been traveling through South America for the last six months. Got a few good recommendations from him about Peru and Argentina, but most interestingly we got a description a side of the volcano we couldn’t see from town. He had come in by bus on the same route as us, but on Saturday night. From the bus, he saw the lava flows streaming down the west side of the volcano.

The trip back to Quito was uneventful but did give us another chance to stare at the volcano and see where the lava flows had gone. After we left Tungurahua behind, we settled in for the standard bus ride, complete with the bad American movie dubbed in Spanish – 2 Fast, 2 Furious. We popped on the headphones and did our best to ignore this gem of American cinema as the bus whisked us back to our apartment in Quito.

Stretching our tourist legs

2006-07-11T15:35:00.000-04:00

Quito is notorious for allegedly having more churches than bathrooms. Yesterday Liz and I finally got around to visiting the place that you sit and pray...or is that both of them?

The San Francisco church is located on none other than San Francisco square and is at the heart of Historic Quito. I was shocked to hear that a building completed in the sixteenth century was named after the Franciscan order and not a posh west coast U.S. city. This was the first church built in Quito and prior to its construction the space was a market. The sanctuary is no less than massive. Anything of importance is covered in gold leaf. The opulence is daunting today, let alone to say how a peasant farmer would have felt three centuries ago. The grounds total 8,670 acres, making it the largest religious complex in the Americas. We toured the adjacent museum which wrapped around two of the six internal courtyards. Our guide was a local student who spoke the best non-native english I have heard yet. She seemed pleased to have the chance to practice with us. I have come to realize that getting to know Quito is getting to know it´s religion. While our visit here was by random chance, it made the perfect follow up to the National Museum that we visitied on Saturday.

Cameras are not allowed but I found these on the internet to give you an idea

We are still taking classes for the rest of this week, so we will likely have the chance for many more tourist diversions.

Book Recommendation

2006-07-11T14:49:00.000-04:00

The Panama Hat Trail by Tom Miller

I've seen this book before, but I had not read it until this week. The author traces the trail of the Panama Hat trade from production of the straw to the sale of the hats in the US. Contrary to popular belief, Panama Hats are actually from Ecuador. It's an easy read, and quite funny at times. Especially the chapter on "Bus Plunge".

It is an interesting look at Ecuadorian culture and history. It was written in the 1980s, so some things have changed since then, but I was struck by how much has remained the same. The biggest change over the past 20 years seems to be the impact of dollarization in Ecuador.

It also has a great reference index for further reading...if for some reason you're interested in reading up on Ecuador. ;)

Here are some pictures!!!

2006-07-07T17:07:00.000-04:00

Here is the view from our patio. Quito is below us and to the north(right in the picture). Pichincha is local mountain in the distance. Only rarely does the actual sumit come out from behind the clouds.

Quito at night. It may look a little dark in the picture but it´s like starlights at night.

Our cozy living room/dining room.

Our Arrival/Apt

2006-07-07T15:52:00.000-04:00

Here's a lovely little post that we wrote last week about our arrival in Quito and our new apartment. There are pictures that go with it, but I can't get this computer to work with me right now. Maybe next time we'll be able to get some pics up.

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We have arrived safely in Quito! Just as importantly, so did our baggage. We breezed through immigration and received out 90 day tourist visas with no problem. It was a bit of a wait at baggage claim, but eventually we did get all of our bags. After this, a walk through customs…hand over your piece of paper and you’re through. The only remaining challenge is navigating the gauntlet of people waiting to greet arriving relatives. The return visit of a family member who has been abroad is a special event here. Travel abroad can be difficult due to the red tape and expense, so entire families (and they are large families here) turn out at the airport to welcome loved ones home.

A friend of a friend, Pancho, was kind enough to offer his apartment in an area of Quito called Jardin de Valle. This is a safe and quiet area of town, almost qualifying as a suburb. It is about 15 minutes by bus from central Quito and pretty freakin sweet. Ramiro, Pancho’s brother, met us at the airport and took us to the airport. The next day, he was invaluable to us as he taught us the bus line, took us to the nearest market, showed us where to buy good coffee, etc. Ramiro was more than happy to show us around, he is very proud of his capital city with good reason.

I blame Chris and Sue for this....

2006-07-07T15:41:00.000-04:00

At our going away/Chris's bday celebration, Sue kept making/taking bets on which one of us would fall prey to the traveler's curse...food poisoning...first. Here you go Sue. Liz 2, Ben1. Liz first, but Ben worse. :)

It's been a fun first week here in Quito. I had something that didn't agree with me last weekend, Ben was quite sick on Wednesday, and I got it again last night. Woo.

I'm not sure what it is. We've been super careful about the water and we're cooking most of our food at home. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's my cooking. ;) Whether it's something we're doing, or something we're not, hopefully we can figure it out soon!

We decided to take it easy this weekend to try to recouperate. We'll be staying in Quito and going to museums, hanging out, whatnot. Maybe even start planning our next couple of weeks! We were supposed to meet with our contact at our first volunteer position yesterday, but we were both too sick to make the meeting. Oh well, next week.

Estamos en Quito

2006-07-03T16:21:00.000-04:00

We have arrived safe and sound in Quito. Woo! We even put together a nice long post on our apartment and whatnot....and I forgot the disk at home today.

Anywho, we are in Quito. Our apartment is great. We have had 2 days of Spanish classes now, and they are going well. We spent the weekend traveling to Otavalo and Ibarra...and will post on those soon!

Sorry for the quick post and lack of details, but we must be off to the bank and the market before 5!

Welcome to Blue Grass Airport

2006-06-28T12:04:00.000-04:00

We've made it on the first leg of our journey! This morning we flew all the way from the Cinci airport to...Lexington. Now we're on a bit of a layover, waiting to fly to Atlanta for another layover. Woo. One good thing about this though is that BGA has free wireless internet. Blogin' time!

Last night was a fun one. I haven't pulled an all-nighter in a long time. We were up packing until 4:30am, laid down for a catnap, and were back up at 6am. We made it to the airport on time (thanks Mom!) and wizzed through security. In case you happened to be interested, my metal plate did not set the metal detector off. Hopefully this means I won't get stuck in Bolivia on the way back!

So sitting here, killing time on the computer, is making us think about how to pass time...during layovers for now, but during life in the near future. The pace of life is a bit slower down in SA. A friend of ours told us that she read over 70 books while she was in the Peace Corps in Ecuador. We'll just have more time on our hands!

For now, I'm working on this post and trying to learn how to use the iPod. Soon though, the computer will not be an easy thing to use all day, as electricity may not be in constant supply. What?!? Life without 24/7 internet?!? Unheard of!

There will be mountains to climb, people to meet, languages to learn, food to eat, markets to explore...just to mention a few. This is going to be a change in pace, but hopefully for the better and for the more enjoyable!

If all goes well, we will arrive in Quito tonight around 9:30pm. A friend of a friend is picking us up and taking us to our new temporary home. More on that soon!

Let the countdown begin!

2006-06-21T23:02:00.000-04:00

It seems downright shocking to me that Ben and I will be leaving for Quito in a week...but it's true! We fly out of Cinci next Wednesday, June 28 and will be arriving in Quito later in the evening.

We do have a few details to report as to what we'll be doing for the first bit of our adventure. We will be staying in a friend of a friend's apartment when we first arrive in Quito. For the first two or three weeks, we will be studying at the Vida Verde school. This is not the same school I attended in 2004, but is only two blocks away. I should be able to find our way around!

Another exciting announcement: my Dad and Grandma will be visiting us in Quito this summer! They will be coming down for a week in September and we will get to show them all around our new hometown. I can't wait for them to come visit. They can let everyone know how great of hosts we are so that more people will come visit us over the next year or so... :)

To Do:

2006-06-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

Graduate College…check

On Sunday Liz allowed us to check off one of our last obstacles to leaving the country. She graduated college, and managed to do it in fine fashion. Two degrees, magna cum laude and both with honors; I must say I am impressed and proud.

The next couple weeks will be focused on putting together the Global Gallery presentation. Unfortunately, we weren’t awarded any of the grant that we applied for so the scale and focus of the presentation may be a little smaller. The good news is that arrangements with the NGOs in South America are moving along as expected.

As of this writing I have twenty four hours of employment left at the University. It’s been a good place for me to work while completing my undergrad, but I’m eager to move on and get back to my own career path.

A side note, would anyone like to take the GRE for us?

LAST CLASS

2006-06-01T14:28:00.000-04:00

I just thought I'd share my joy with the whole world today. As of 1:18 today, I am DONE with my undergrad classes. One more paper, and one more final and I will be set to GRADUATE!!! Can't wait....

Ready, set, PLAN!

2006-05-30T16:27:00.000-04:00

We're back on the path of departure after a long lull. All planning has been on hold for the last few weeks with my collarbone saga and then getting graduation requirements out of the way. But that's all changing now! We're working on a place to live in Quito, our first job, and arranging language classes. Oh, and packing.

Stay tuned for more details on our trip in the upcoming week. Hopefully exciting things to announce!

Z Lefty

2006-05-25T09:45:00.000-04:00

Nationals did not go as expected.

The drive out went fine. We left about 2 hrs late...which is on time in OSU Cycling World...and drove in to the night. We stopped halfway at a random motel and then pushed on the next morning to Lawrence, Kansas.

The time trial was...interesting. It went pretty well and we ended up 11th out of 16ish teams. Seeing as we never practice our TTT, that's pretty good! Laura, my teammate, and I had a little spat of aggresion in the middle, but the good kind. You know, the kind where I yell at her to motivate her and she yells back. Hilarious at the time and even more hilarious when she apologized afterwards for yelling back!

And then...the road race. I got dropped four times, but chased back on each time. It was a tough course and the ladies I was racing against were TOUGH. 6 miles to go and there was a HUGE pile up. Two girls locked bars on the far right of the road and when they unlocked, one of them slid all the way to the left side of the road taking out the back half of the field. Carnage was everywhere!

I ended up with a broken collarbone, a stubbed toe, and a bit o' road rash. Nothing too major considering a few of the girls were unconcious and being lifeflighted to Kansas City! I hope I can post my x-rays because they're spectacular. I broke my right collarbone (yes, I'm right handed) in three places. It kind of crumpled in to a Z shape. Pretty cool looking! It even silenced my doc for a good 10 seconds!

I had surgery to sraighten it out last Friday. I now have a plate in my chest and we think I might be magnetic! How sweet would that be...

I'm recovering pretty well. I'm weaning myself off the drugs and I can take the arm out of the sling for a few hours at a time. My family has all been so nice and been visiting this week. Mom and Gam came up yesterday and wore me out. Those youngins were just tearing around town. Lunch AND a grocery store trip! Oh my! It's amazing how easily you get worn down with a major injury. I should be back to normal in a few weeks, though it may be a few more before I can carry heavy loads.

Hopefully this won't effect our departure date. As of right now, we're still planning on leaving June 28. It may affect how soon we can climb mountains once we get there, but that's ok. I'm willing to be flexible considering how much worse this could have been.

Yours truely,
Z Lefty

There's no place like home...

2006-05-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

There's no place like home...assuming by "home" you mean...KANSAS!

We're off this weekend to Lawrence, KS for Collegiate Road Cycling Nationals. I will be doing a team time trial on Friday, a 56.4 mile road race on Saturday, and an hour long criterium on Sunday. It's going to be fast and hard...but fun!

The regular season ended on a bit of a sour note for me, but hopefully that won't continue on to Nationals. I was 4th overall (2nd in DI) going in to our Regionals races. Somehow I managed to screw that all up though. We had a team time trial, followed by a crit on Saturday. It was pretty warm and apparently I didn't drink enough water because I was extremely dehydrated by the time the crit started. I didn't last long, ended up being lapped twice, and getting third-to-last (or something close). I felt awful for the rest of the day, but focused on getting rehydrated. I ended up pulling myself together by Sunday. My teammate got in the 3 person break that ended up taking the race (Carmen got 2nd!), so I got to have fun blocking in the second group. At the end, I had no sprint, but I held on for 6th place. Not bad...considering!

So much for my personal overall ranking this season, but the team did great. OSU is 2nd in the conference this year, right behind Wisconsin Madison....and ahead of Indiana University! This is huge, as IU usually beats the crap out of everyone. Lucky for us, the Little 500 was the same weekend as Regionals and they didn't show up. :)

After this weekend, I will probably jump in a few USCF races, but this is pretty much it before we leave for SA. Hooray for bike racing!

Party time

2006-05-09T13:52:00.000-04:00

June 10th, 2-5 pm
Back home in Bellbrook

My lovely father will be hosting a graduation/going away party in Bellbrook the day before actual graduation. Everyone is welcome to stop by. Anyone who would like is also welcome to come to the graduation ceremony. We'll probably do dinner afterwards somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't stay out too late that night though as the freakin LSAT is the next morning. Seriously...who scheduled that?!?

We will also be having a get-together in Columbus closer to our actual departure date. Rumor has it this might coincide with the infamous Margarita Party...so stay tuned for details on this one!

RSVP to me (travelLiz at gmail.com) if you need directions.

Departure Date!!!

2006-05-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! Guess what? We have tickets to Quito!!!!!!

Ben and I will be leaving the good ol' U.S. of A. on June 28th and be flying in to Quito later that day. We're so excited to actually have tickets. It's making this whole thing seem almost...real. As if it's ACTUALLY going to happen. Scary thought!

Global Gallery update

2006-04-19T08:41:00.000-04:00

Three weeks in, and I cannot believe I am about to graduate. This is turning out to be an awesome last quarter: I am only taking two (very interesting) classes, I’m winding down at work and have hired my replacement, the OSU Cycling Team is doing great, and racing is going well for me.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Ben and I are now working with Global Gallery. I am an official intern this quarter. Our project is starting to take a concrete form, so I thought I’d post our plan. This is exciting, as it means we’re finally starting to nail down a timeline for the trip, as well as starting to contact the organizations we’ll be working with.

We are going to create multimedia presentation with GG and the SA NGOs. The working plan is to develop a CD-rom and print materials that outline GG’s mission, how they operate, who the people are, etc. to take down to South America and distribute amongst the NGOs GG currently works with. The idea is to communicate with the NGOs and their artisans so that they will be able to create better products for export and to strengthen their relationship with GG.

The main three NGOs will be working with are MCCH in Ecuador, Manos Amigas in Peru, and Artisan Loreto in Bolivia. After sharing the information we have collected on GG and Fair Trade with these NGOs, we hope to gather their side of the FT story to bring back to the States. We will be incorporating the information we find into the original CD-rom, so that the finished product will be not only an explanation of GG, but also a tool to share the culture of the artisans and the impact of FT.

MCCH is a large, highly developed NGO based in Quito, Ecuador. They work as a financing institution and clearing house of sorts, working with people all over the country in all sorts of export markets such as cocoa, coffee, and handicrafts. GG imports from their handicraft artisans and these will be the people we hope to work directly with. It will also be a great experience to learn how an established NGO functions, what management techniques work, etc.

Manos Amigas is a smaller NGO based in Lima, Peru. They work with artisans from towns around Lima. They sell to 10,000 Villages, a large US FT organization. GG is in the process of setting up the infrastructure to buy directly from them though and thereby cutting out The Middleman, that dastardly foe of fair trade. They are not as organized as MCCH, but are still a solid organization.

Artisan Loreto is based in La Paz, Bolivia and is the smallest and newest of the three organizations. It is run by a Bolivian family, of which the parents themselves grew up in an artisan community. One of their sons is in the US, and it is through him that GG first came into contact with the group. While they are a relatively new organization, they have already done some great work linking artisans in different villages together. They are working on building an orphanage complex in La Paz.

We are hoping to work with at least these three organizations while in South America.

Spring Break

2006-04-07T10:14:00.000-04:00

Although SB was a few weeks ago, it was awesome...so I thought I'd still take the time to post about it. Ben and I spent the first half of SB in Monogahela National Forest in West Virginia. We went backpacking in the Cranberry Backcountry along the Kennison Mountain trail.

We planned a loop of 30ish miles in 5 1/2 days, but after the first day we realized that although we are in good cycling shape, this does not necessarily translate in to good hiking shape. I ride a bike everywhere, so walking makes my legs and knees tired in general; having a million pounds on your back does not help! So we ended up shortening the trip to 23-ish miles and taking a rest day in the middle.

The weather was a bit...interesting for our trip. The first few days it was sunny and beautiful. An then...not so much. The morning of our designated rest day we woke up to an inch of ice covering everything. The ice storm continued throughout the day. We ended up just staying in the tent all day reading a book. Ben went a little cabin crazy at one point (apparently the bright orange tent is not a soothing thing to stare at) but other than that it was kind of fun.

At this point, we had hiked the length of the trail and were at the base of the ridge, down by the river (but not in a van). The next morning, we woke up ready to climb back up the ridge. We were greeted that morning by an inch of snow! It turned out to be a good thing, as the climb back up the ridge would have been near impossible without the traction the snow provided. By the end of the day, at least 2 inches had accumulated. Although cold, it was a gorgeous winter scene. Most of the trail went through an old pine forest, and it looked like something out of a classic Christmas card.

As well as being an awesome time, the trip also proved to be very productive as a test run. While I've been on several backpacking trips, I've never been the one to actually "lead" the trip. Someone else was always in charge of the plan, the route, the food, or whatever. It was cool to be in charge of the whole trip (in conjunction with Ben of course). With the help of the NOLS cookbook, we learned some great new trail recipes. Every meal was delicious and there was absolutely no ramen. We also started to establish a routine. Each morning it took a little less time to break down camp and get on the trail.

Overall it was a great experience. I can't wait to go backpacking again, be it in West Virginia or Ecuador!

Invitation

2006-02-01T10:19:00.000-05:00

Since I just sent out an announcement for the blog, I thought I'd put an invitation up as well.

We're planning on being down in SA for at least a year and would more than welcome visitors! We'll be your local guides. With this, and the fact that we don't yet have solid plans set yet, in mind...please feel free to make requests as to where you'd like us to be. Not that we'll plan the whole trip around you, but maybe part of it!

Mt. Washington Expedition

2006-01-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

Climbing Mt. Washington

The first trial run for our gear happened over the MLK weekend.  The OSU Mountaineers Club took their annual trip to Mt. Washington and we went with them.

The trip is always a frantic non-stop event; travel 13 hours in a van to New Hampshire, rent crampons and axes, climb up and down the mountain, then get in the vans for the 13 hour ride home.  This was the fourth year that the mountaineers club has done the trip, and they have summited every year in the past.  This year was a little different because there was a major weather front moving across the entire country that weekend.  As it happens, the front was moving east out of Ohio just as we were leaving Friday night.  So, the entire way there we were traveling in tandem with the storm.  When we finally got to North Conway in New Hampshire they were experiencing unseasonably warm weather (which is basically anything above freezing.)  This was pretty bad news for our group since hiking in thirty-three degree rain is about the most miserable conditions possible.  After waiting out the weather in the Pickman’s Notch lodge, our wise leaders changed the schedule and we camped at the bottom of the mountain rather than slog up to the traditional base camp and soak our clothes beyond recovery.

Fortune was finally on our side because that night the rain turned to snow and we woke with our tents covered in a comforting blanket.  Our original plan was to send one group up the normal winter route (Lions Head) and another more experienced group up a challenging route called Tuckerman’s Ravine.  Liz was going to go with the Tuckerman’s group since she’d done the climb three years before and get some valuable experience with roped-in climbing.  The weather raised the avalanche forecast to an unsafe level for anything except the Lions Head route though.  Winds on the summit when we left the lodge were 80+ mph so a summit attempt looked pretty dim, but then, no one climbs Mt. Washington in the winter for it’s tranquil conditions (check out the Mt. Washington Observatory for a taste.)  The hike up to tree line was pretty uneventful which was nice because I for one learned a couple things about winter hiking.  It was unnerving at first to realize that I only needed a thin base layer and shell to hike in temperatures that didn’t rise above twelve degrees, at least until you stop moving, then you throw on everything you own.  Figuring out crampons and an ice axe in a relatively safe situation was helpful also.  Above tree-line was a different story.  It was amazing how quickly the trees shrunk to your shoulders, they your waist and finally disappear.  The winds around us were gusting to about 60 mph, it was quite a rush for those that chose to push on.  Our group reached the limits of time and safety simultaneously as we made it to the rock outcropping known as Lions Head at 5218 ft.  The views were still pretty spectacular there, because from that height we were still above any other mountain in the area.  The land stretched out ahead of us like a lumpy carpet.  Moments like those are why people climb mountains, for the feeling of being a visitor to this planet (which is really the truth anyway.)

In all, the trip was a success.  We are definitely looking forward to the summits in South America even more now.

Following leads

2006-01-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

These past few weeks have produced a very intriguing lead for our SAA trip. For those of you who are worried about the fact that we cannot yet answer the question, "So what exactly will you be doing?" I may be able to quell some of those fears very soon.

Ben and I are currently volunteering with a Columbus-based organization named Global Gallery. You can read all about them here: http://www.globalgalleryonline.org. Basically, it's a fair trade gallery that specializes in crafty stuff, home stuff, art, and a few edibles (coffee, chocolate, soups, etc). They currently have four shop locations: Short North, Easton, Yellow Springs, and a kiosk at the Columbus Airport.

About half of their products are purchased through 10,000 Villages but the other half are purchased more directly. Their goal is to increase their contacts and buy more from the artisans or local groups directly. A noble goal as it cuts out the middle man and makes sure more of the profit goes directly to the artisans. It also allows them better control over the product design and materials.

Another goal they've set forth is to do a multimedia project with the artisans so that more information can be passed on to the US customers. The basic idea is to visually document what the artisans do, how they do it, and what they do with the money.

I will be doing an internship with GG next quarter. One of my projects will be to build a database of who they are currently working with in Latin America. They work with almost a dozen in the area Ben and I were already planning on visiting. This will be helpful to forge new contacts! Now here's the part that's directly applicable to our trip: Ben and I might be given the task of working on behalf of GG while in SA. At this point, the idea has been thrown around that we would work on the multimedia project with the groups that are in the Central Andean region. We could also work on building new contacts.

This kind of foot-in-the-door is just what the SAA needed. I can't wait to work more on these contacts and actually get in touch with these groups!

Administrative Tasks

2005-12-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

This week has been huge for planning. Well, planning the planning. Ben and I had our first "meeting" to determine a budget and a pre-departure timeline. It's an arduous and daunting task, but it must be done. Ben is a rock star about these things, so I'm ever so glad we're doing this trip together. I get way too side tracked to get through these things without some guidance!

"So, how much will this grand adventure cost," you ask? Well...we're figuring a year in South America could cost upwards of $10,000 per person if we live way too well and pay for everything (really nice hotels, expensive food, etc). So...we've got to cut corners somehow! We'll hopefully have room and board taken care of for at least half of the trip, so that will cut down on cost immensely. Hostels instead of fancy hotels for the majority of the trip, though I'm sure we'll splurge from time to time. Eat tasty local (aka cheap) foods instead of at the expensive touristy restaurants. If we're really running out of cash...spend a few more nights in the tent I suppose! (hehe...my parents might kill me even before we leave...)

As for a timeline, it's pretty broad but covers the basics such as setting a general itinerary, getting shots, insurance, etc. Travel stuff. The timeline dictates that we have at least our first country picked out by the end of February and purchase tickets soon thereafter, so we'll be able to announce that soon.

"Mission" Statement

2005-12-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

The South American Adventure was my girlfriend's idea. I can't be sure, but I believe it developed from her desire to not join the Peace Corps so she could still be with me. Her plans for graduate school demand that she "do something with her life" between academic ventures. After her summer in Ecuador, she came home with the strong desire to return. I've never been abroad before, but I have always know that I want to travel. After three months of trying to communicate across continents, I knew that I wasn't going to let her leave the country again without me. Thus the South American Adventure was born.

Our vision is to spend at least a year in the Central Andean countries of South America (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru). While there we will volunteer and take internships for worthy causes, mixing in a few side trips to climb mountains every now and then. We will have our plans for the first few months arranged before we leave in July. After that, we intend to establish contacts and network to find the best opportunities. Think of it as our alternative to the Peace Corps; we won't be tied to the same place, and we will be able to take "vacations" as we choose.

My hope is that this blog will serve to keep our friends and loved ones updated on our travels, act as a memoir that we can draw from in the future, and be interesting to read for everyone.

The adventure begins again

2005-12-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

I've been back from D.C. for a few weeks now. With my internship and graduation out of the way I can refocus on planning for the big trip. Though I've now decided to log my progress and experiences I've already taken many steps towards leaving the country. I've sold my house and most of my possessions, so they can no longer keep me anchored. Everyone I mention this trip too inevitably says "Good for you, do it while you're young and don't have responsibility." While I appreciate their encouragement (and am delighted by their jealousy), I don't think that they all realize the I am pulling up fairly deep roots to make this journey. Then again, maybe those roots were sown shallow with this sort of thing in mind.
The current push is to purchase all of the gear that I need. It's sort of difficult since I don't have too much backpacking and no mountaineering experience. Like always though, I'm trying to educate myself as much as possible and listening to all my sources of advice. The assent of Mt. Washington on MLK weekend will give me a much better idea of what I might need.