To Baños for a 29th Birthday June 6, 2009

I’m off of work for 8 days due to the swine flu. Two students at Colegio Menor were diagnosed with it after returning from a trip. So Andres and I took off Friday a little after lunch and came to Baños to stay at Luna Runtun and relax for a few nights. On our way we were given a spectacular show of a full rainbow. It was hard to do it justice in photos, but I tried. 

The 4 hour car trip was good practice for what is to come in our lives for the next 6 months and really, just good times…

We checked into our room at Luna Runtun and chilled before dinner.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal orchestrated by Rodrigo. I didn’t get good pictures of the food yet, but I do have the chef. 

Roberto and Mercedes are on their way to join us here for a night, to celebrate June 6, 2009. What a cool gift. 

If only the rest of my family and friends could join me.

Selling off material possessions. May 19, 2009

This is the second time in a year that we are selling off our worldly items and moving on. I think that is too much for one year. Luckily it’s the last time….then 6 months without a house. Which is worse? 

I’m posting the items we are selling here. It will all be available as of June 30th. 

Refrigerator
1 yr. old
Electrolux
$425

Durex stove 4-top
$35

Indorama Toaster Oven
$50

Glass Blender
$30
Osterizer

Chaide & Chaide Mattress-1 yr
Full 2×2
$130

Crazy Hail in Quito May 4, 2009

Andres was out running errands today and managed to pass under one very heavy storm cloud. Being 8,500 ft. in the air causes the clouds to do strange things. One cloud passing managed to dump a lot of hail in a very small area. Look behind at the nice blue sky. My father-in-law Roberto works barely a mile away and didn’t get touched. 

Crazy Andes.

Wedding in Atuntaqui March 13, 2009

We attended the wedding of Andres’ first cousin, Paca.

The wedding was on a Saturday evening in the town of Atuntaqui. It was an interesting small town wedding. We attended the Catholic church service first.

After surviving that we made our way to the reception, which was conveniently held in the hostel where we were staying. It was more like a hacienda with a dinner room. It was a nice venue called Hosteria Natabuela. Highly recommended place to stay if you find yourself in Atuntaqui. After a quick dinner and dessert each table was given a bottle of whiskey and the drinking and dancing promptly commenced.

Zumbahua to Quilotoa March 10, 2009

I traveled with my Dad for a long weekend south of our place to a town called Quilotoa. After 4 hours in the car we stopped to visit the market in Zumbahua. On Saturdays Zumbahua has an amazing Andean open air market. The stands are full of ready made food, knit wraps and plastic shoes and the floors are littered with sheep skulls. It is an experience. We arrived hungry and, as neither of us were that bold, ate granola we had brought and some bananas we bought. It was no sheep head stew, but we were satisfied.  

After a stop there and 30 minutes driving in the wrong direction we were finally back on track towards Quilotoa. We arrived in the late afternoon to the beautiful and small town. We checked into Pacha Mama hostel and I visited the reason most people come to visit this small town; the caldera Quilotoa. 

The town of Quilotoa lies 1500 ft. above Quilotoa lake. After a strange night of sleep we spent the day hiking down to see the turquoise water from eye level. We spent our late morning and afternoon kayaking, eating crackers and tuna and chilling in the good weather. 

After relaxing by the water we rode some tired mules up the hill. I think I may have preferred the walk, even at 13,000 feet. It was such a wonderfully, typical, Andean town and I’m lucky to have visited it with my Father.

Jungle Palm Worms February 6, 2009

I went on a trip with 34 students from my 7th grade classes. We spent one night in a jungle lodge near a town called Tena, about 4 hours from Quito and another night camping in the rain off of the Arajuno River. Torrential downpours is a better description as rain just doesn’t do it justice.

Here is a picture of one of the few clear moments.

This picture was taken from my tent. 

For dinner we had a covered area near where we camped and put together our own dinners of chicken, fish, heart of palm and a palm worm, wrapped in a leaf and cooked over coals.   This was served with yucca and madera, or ripe cooked banana. The worm was an experience. I’m not talking about a small grub. This thing was huge and moving as you may imagine a giant worm moving. 

This live worm was ripped in half to release its flavor and then tossed with the other meat and wrapped up in the leaf. 

I didn’t eat a whole worm, but I did take a good sized bite. I can’t say I was able to stomach it easily, but I can say I tried it and it tasted good. Then I was slightly grossed out that it was stuck in my teeth for the next 15 minutes. I do have to say that evening, I was just as grossed out by the chicken. Thinking about a live one of those in front of me and killing it is much worse than the palm worm.

 I’m not sure how ethical it is to eat something you can’t kill.

Football-South American Style October 15, 2008

We attended an Ecuador/Chile soccer game last Sunday thanks to Roberto getting us tickets. The game started at 5, but we showed up at 1 to make we got good seats. We got good seats. It began to rain around 3:30 and rained off and on for the entire afternoon and evening. It was a lot of fun though. The rain seemed to let up just as the game started. It was light until half-time and then rained heavily the 15 minutes of half-time. It stopped just at the start of the second half and was light until the end. It was freezing, but worth it. Ecuador won 1-0.

6 years, 3 houses later… September 29, 2008

We are going to move into a house here in Ecuador within the next few days. We are still missing a mattress and chairs, but we pretty much have the other necessities. I am hoping to take a trip to the supermarket tonight to get the small basics. The place is really cool and rustic looking. Reminds me of a cabin up in the mountains back in California. The land around it is so green with lots of birds and a small eucalyptus forest next to it. There isn’t much close by. You can get almost anything you need at the small tiendita down the street, but no coffee shops or gas stations. The closest town has a small village feel to it.  We were looking for tranquil. Hopefully we have found it.

Views from Ecuador September 26, 2008

These are a few of the amazing views I have seen here in Ecuador. Andres and his brother went on a hike this morning and took the bottom two pictures.

It’s ridiculously beautiful here. We are moving to the countryside. I will post pictures of our new house next week.

Side of the Road September 24, 2008

I like the vehicles you find here. 

This was taken on our way to the beach a few weeks ago.

A Fall Wedding on the Equator September 16, 2008

We attended a very nice wedding not too far from Quito in a place called Hacienda Chillo Jijon. It was an absolutely gorgeous place with vast gardens. Full of various rooms all decorated baroquely. It was an awesome venue. It was constructed in 1730. It was once the site of one of the largest textile mills in Ecuador. 

They served excellent food with incredible service. I wish I had gotten pictures of the food, but unfortunately none to share. It was exquisite though. 

The halls were decorated in roses. 

It was a good time. 

My Taxo August 31, 2008

I got a new cat today and named him Taxo. Taxo is a kind of fruit here in Ecuador that is orange. He is 5 weeks old and very playful. He is so cool. I think he is going to keep me up tonight as it is his first night without his 7 brothers and sisters and his mother. I’m just glad I have him. 

Coop Update August 19, 2008

Progress has been made on the coop. It’s not quite done and we are a couple weeks behind, but soon, I think… hopefully.  Andres is going back to the United States for some business and I am not sure if it will be done by then, but soon. 

It is still missing the wire around it, a solid ramp, the inside bedding and food/water dispenser but what is there is solid. It has 2 good sized beds inside and a good sign warning the chickens’ predator:

A Job?! Already… August 12, 2008

It did not take me long to fill my days. I was offered a job at the local international school very close to my house. I will be teaching 6th and 7th grade social studies and English. I have never taught this level before, but am looking forward to the experience and the challenge. I am thinking about beginning a blog outlining my experiences there. So I guess I will not have too many traveling blog entries for a little while. Hopefully we will still get out of town on the weekends and of course we will enjoy all the days off that I have.

Tenting at the Beach August 12, 2008

We spent a long weekend at the beach in the province of Esmeraldes. We took the scenic route there and stopped by grandma and grandpa Erazo’s house. On our drive to the beach we found my store, if only my life had been a little different:

 We arrived late in the afternoon at the beach and found a great place called Playa Escondito. The site was awesome with electricity, a great fireplace and beach front view. Best of all there were no other people camping. Although it is high season for travelers in Ecuador, camping is not very popular. 

We cooked our own food including excellent langostinos, or big shrimp. We cooked them two ways, one with curry and another grilled with pineapple. They were just excellent. 

The best part of the long weekend was the relaxing. I finished a good book, took some nice walks and swam in the warm ocean water. We cooked great food, went to bed early and slept in late. It was vacation at is finest. I am getting ready to start a job tomorrow that I did not previously expect to be doing. I will begin teaching 6th and 7th grade social studies and English. I am excited about this and grateful that I got a couple really good vacations in before starting back to official work. 

I loved this place.

Papallacta to Mindo July 31, 2008

We set out on Saturday morning for Papallacta, where we thought we would be able to camp. After about an hour we stopped at this really cool reserve called Reserve Ecologica Antisana. We hiking in about 45 minutes in mud and extremely wet and cold conditions. Luckily we were dressed appropriate and pretty comfortable. We ended at a small lake that was just beautiful. 

We hiked for about an hour before heading back to the car and traveling further. 

After leaving Antisana we were not successful in finding a dry enough place to camp so we headed to Papallacta where we sat in hot springs and had a good dinner at the hotel there. 

 

The following morning we headed to Mindo, where I traveled to with Erin a couple weeks ago. We found a nice place to camp a 30 minute hike away from the road. The place had a roof, which was helpful considering the rain. We relaxed and cooked a really good dinner of veggies with pork. We went to sleep early as there isn’t much you can do with little light. 

To Protect a Chicken July 25, 2008

I was working on the design of our coop. I wasn’t sure how rat-proof I needed to make it. The Pacheco family has had chickens in the past, but never with a coop like we are building. It was a bit more casual 12 years ago and they didn’t have problems with predators for some reason. But now I think we might have a problem. I have been thinking about how to make sure it’s safe the last couple of days as I cleaned out the area for the yard. This morning I got up and my concerns about predators was confirmed with this: 

Really nice rats. They eat a portion of the best fruit we have in the yard and then poop on it, as to make sure it’s clear they really don’t care. I’ll take it as a good reminder to make the coop really rat proof. Or maybe I’ll try to figure out how to deal with the rat problem. We also have another kind of predator. I am researching how to train dogs not to eat chickens. Let’s hope I can figure it out. 

 

The pictures below show the area I have cleaned out for the coop and yard.  The raised area is going to be the yard for the chickens and their house will go in the corner. The posts sitting there are not the posts that we are going to use. We are confirming the design by Monday and hoping to finish it quickly. 

 

Below is a close up of the yard where the chickens will hang out.

We obviously have a long way to go.

The Chicken or the Day? July 23, 2008

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Today is the first day of the rest of my time in Quito, and the first day I am figuring out what to do with myself here. After a productive morning of exercising, cooking and cleaning up a little, I have met my afternoon. It’s a gorgeous one, blue sky, puffy white clouds, enough wind to keep it cool. And now I sit down to figure out how to build a chicken coop. With the internet the possibilities are endless. How tall should I make it? Should I put wire on the bottom? How many windows? Did you know there is a website called backyardchickens.com? I’ve sketched out a plan. One that I’m sure will change when I think about it a little more. The afternoon lays in front of me. How many chickens should I fill it with?

A Cloud Forest Called Mindo July 21, 2008

Erin and I had a great time in Mindo where we tried almost every adventure it had to offer. We began our first day visiting a butterfly arboretum and hiked. That evening we went to a “frog concert” where we listened to really cool frogs, saw many of them and got to see five inch cockroaches. The next day we left early and went ziplining. We sailed across caverns that were over 500 feet deep with rushing water below them. The course offered 13 different ziplines, all of which we tried. That afternoon we went tubing down a really turbulent river. The water was cold, but with the heat it felt great. We stayed at a beautiful hostel that had the best food we ate on our trip. The place was called Cascaffesu and had the best hosts ever.