Cuenca

The pearl of the South...

Bonnie and I stayed with the lovely Ismelda and her family for several days. (One son named Vladimir, and one granddaughter named Alanis, after the singer)

We trekked 7 hours through the Irish-esque moors of Parque Nacional de Cajas, worrying we were on the wrong trail 50% of the time, but basking in the isolated wilderness without signs of other gringos or noises from traffic.

Serenity.

We may or may not have spent half the 7 hours pretending to be from Indiana Jones or the Sound Music.

Today we went with Ismelda's archaeologist husband to Ingapirka, a site of Inka ruins in Ecuador (smaller than Machu Picchu, but supposedly the Inka king lived there once). He was totally Indiana Jones. He even brought us to a museum to see tzanzas, REAL shrunken heads.

Amazing.

Miscommunication

This occurs roughly 15 times a day in countries different from your own.

For example, finding a bus. No one really knows in Latin America, but everyone wants to be helpful. So someone says at 2.30, another says 4 and another says it won't come today. Who to believe?

Getting off a bus can prove difficult when unaware of specifics. We wanted to get to the information center at a (giant) national park, and told the bus driver helper we didn't know when to get of, so he said not to worry. Of course, he promptly fell asleep. Others on the bus told us not to worry. One man (bless his sweet heart) said in English, "Take it easy."

But.

We wound up on the wrong side of the park.

All in a good days work.

Best story yet: We were to stay with a local, I'll call him Jaime, to hang out at his farm.

But.

He didn't tell us he had final exams. So he studied all night our first night there, then left early the next morning, leaving his dad to barge into our little cabin and demand why we were still there. We just wanted to do some laundry and read and relax at the tranquilo farm. Instead, Bonnie ended up milking cows and I feigned sick so I could sleep and not yell at him for being unreasonable.

(Photo of Bonnie about to milk cows, and the cabin where I napped)

Baños

Banos is a touristy spot south of Quito several hours, where I have had the felicity of bungee jumping from a bridge (scary to take the plunge, but oh so fun to swing away!!) and Bonnie did some canopy flying over a different river.

We enjoyed thermal baths again, but this time the pools were FULL of tourists and the water was all realllly hot.

Biking has also been a highlight, as we biked 23 kilometers today (on the side of the road...traffic could be a bit scary sometimes when a bus or truck passed) to a giant waterfall, Pailon del Diablo. It was mostly downhill and fun and more risky than either canopy or bungee jumping, and we got a taxi ride back with our bikes.

Going through mountain tunnels, I pretended our speeding "taxi" was a part of Indiana Jones, and we were escaping the bad guys.

Imagination keeps us going in stressful times!

Mullets and me

Gramma use to cut my hair into a mullet when I was in grade school. "Curly hair can't have bangs," in her own words...

Alas, I saw the light and now live mullet free, but the word has not been shared throughout the entire world yet...

After the amazing mullet in Cotopaxi, I thought it couldn't get much better.

But.

The world has more in store for me.

Euro-mullet: very common among European travelers, specifically females. I think it's supposed to be messy and stylish, but it's just an awkward mullet.

Mega-mullet: any mullet where the "party in the back" is long enough to donate to Locks of Love (like the library custodian at UMD).

All business-mullet: such as the man in Cotopaxi, where hair is shaved on top, but the party is still hanging loose in the back.

Dreaded-mullet: as seen today in Banos, Ecuador, a gentleman with close cropped hair up front and dreads in the back...some weird sort of hideous beauty in it all.

And I won't even start on rat tails.

Amanda deleted her pictures...

Lo siento.

I don't know how, I just know I did the awful deed: I deleted at least a hundred pictures from the last week.

So here's what happened:

We spent our last day in Quito pretending to be Quasi Moto in the spriraling towers of the Basilica, where we climbed ladders and insecure staircases all in the hope of an even better view of town.

Bonnie and I bused south to Papallacta (once again, thank you Steve Hanson for the recommendation) where we paid $7 to enter a hotel and soak in their natural hot spring fed pools for hours on end, delighting in the vacancy of the middle of the week and the lovely green mountains surrounding the town. It was beautiful.

We proceeded to the sweltering hot jungle town of Tena where we stayed at an angry German's hostel (he was just a little stand-offish, actually, but we locked ourselves out of the room one night and there were no other keys that worked, so he bust open the door while clad only in a red t-shirt and whitey tighties. Buen aproveche).

We spent our days checking out Rio Napo (a tributary to the Amazon) in tiny jungle town Misahualli and getting pick-pocketed by monkeys in the town plaza (yes, he stole 50 cents and my baseball cap, although all was returned and he tried on my hat only once) and also swimming in the river with the local kids to cool off from the heat. We bought cheap tubes at the grocery store.

The most amazing part: local fisherman caught an 80+ pound catfish, and I take off my hat to Park Rapids High School student Travis who talked my ear off one day while substituting all about giant catfish. You were right.

I'll find some of Bonnie's pics eventually to show you, but I just seem to be technology illiterate more than ever these days...

Llama time

Bonnie and I met up with one of her university friends and did a sight-seeing adventure through Teleferico, a little ski-lift type thing that brought us to the top of mountain by Quito so we could walk around and see the sights.

Don't worry, it was slow enough to walk out of the little cart, and they warned us to not open the doors during the long ride up hill, despite the temptation.

Along the way, we managed to dress as Ecuadorian cowboys and tame a llama.

Que chevere!

A few pics, just to prove I´m here.

My Ecuadorian friend Daniel, his son JuanSe and myself picnic-ing at a Laguna. Best day ever at Cotopaxi

Daniel, Bonnie, myself, and Nacho standing on the north and south sides of the equator. En serio.

Quito

Lo siento, I don´t have a device to put pictures on the computer (right now), so let me write some highlights:

1. Cotopaxi. A volcano near Quito, and we drove up to 4000m, then hiked to the 4800m refuge for some hot chocolate. Let´s just say I took 10 steps and then would rest for a minute...

2. Mullet. Best mullet ever, at Cotopaxi: a tourist with a shaved head until the back, in which he had long enough golden locks to donate to Locks of Love.

3. Mitad del Mundo. I hung out at the equator and stood on both the north and south sides (thanks for the suggestion, Steve Hanson), and witnessed the Coriolis effect at work. It´s not a myth!

4. Nacho and Daniel. Two locals Bonnie and I have befriended and who are amazing 'guias' and great to joke around with.

5. Plaza Grande. While sitting on the steps of a church at the Plaza people watching, we suddenly saw a rush of locals coming to the steps to sit also, as in 60+ people. Awkward! We stayed for a minute or two then finally asked what was going on also, I guess they were about to have a politic meeting or something...

Return to South America

Minnesota has suffered so much snow this winter, that I decided to once more become a snowbird and fly south for three months. This time I am bringing my friend Bonnie from North Carolina, because they're getting a giant amount of winter weather from the Miser Brother Mr. Freeze, also (as I type this in the Houston airport she is stuck in Atlanta...we will meet in Quito tomorrow night).

We studied abroad in Cost Rica, so we're use to the whole Latin America traveler thing. You know, buses that never come, questionable lodging, rented bicycles that break down after 6 miles... Stuff like that.

We start in Quito, Ecuador and three months from today we need to be at Buenas Aires, Argentina to fly home. I'll post pictures and minor happenings as we go. =)