Bad Dog Pip

San Juan Chamula and Zinacantán

2007-12-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

Like every other morning in San Cristobal, our day started at the Comedor Caminero. They were just a block or so from our hotel, and were always packed with people looking for the same thing as us: a tasty, cheap breakfast. They were so good we weren't even tempted to go anywhere else!

We were off to spend the day on a tour. Yep, that's right, a tour. We're not tour people, but on the recommendation of a woman that we met, who had lived in San Cristobal for over 15 years, we did. Cesario was our tour guide, a man that had grown up in San Juan Chamula. Because of this, he was allowed to guide people in these towns, and was able to teach us what we were seeing, what the people believed, how they looked at outsiders, what they expected from US, and most importantly how we should behave, showing the proper respect to the people that lived there.

After meeting in town, we boarded a van and rode to San Juan Chamula. After getting out, we all gathered and listened to a little bit of Cesario's background information. He then led us up a hill that overlooked Chamula, spoke some more, and then led us down into the valley and past the cemetery, and then into the town's main square, where there was a market that day.

This was a local market, where the people in the surrounding communities came to sell their products and to buy food. Bags of grain were laid out, piles of wool shorn from the sheep, and all sorts of produce, both cultivated and collected from native plants and trees. In the picture on the left, a boy is showing me this bean sort of pod that he was selling. I'd seen them for sale several times and finally asked what it was. He held it out, pinched off one end and then peeled it open, revealing little green pea/beans inside. I asked him how people ate it, and he told me that it was eaten raw. He offered me some, so I tried it. It tasted awful.

He laughed at me. I told him I didn't like it and he laughed even harder. When I spit some out, I asked again how it was cooked, and he insisted that it was eaten raw. And then he laughed even harder. I told him that I didn't think so, and then his friend was laughing, too. I tried to get him to eat one, to 'show me' and he refused, laughing the entire time. It was a pretty good joke on the gringo, and I STILL don't know what they do with it. I _do_ know that it's not eaten raw, though!

One of the fascinating things that we learned about the local culture was about how they handle criminals. The local communities operate separate from the federal government, and handle things the way they have for centuries. When someone breaks a law, stealing for instance, they are locked up in the local jail, just a block from the market. In the picture, you can see the iron gate, which secures the single cell. The doorway on the left is the cell for women, which is slightly set back, to afford more privacy.

The 'criminal' is locked up for a few days and people are allowed to throw things at them and yell at them in any way. After the few days of public castigation, they are released and they then have to make amends, by paying for or replacing whatever was stolen. After that, they then have to serve the community for a period of time, the length of time depending on the severity of their 'crime.' If you look in the picture of the market above, you'll actually see three 'criminals' standing around. They have to wear certain clothes, the white ones you see in the picture, to indicate their status. They serve as the policemen! They're hanging around the market, walking around with their batons, patrolling the area. After their time is up, they go back to being just regular citizens again, and that's the end of it.

One of their jobs is to make sure no one takes pictures of the local leaders. We were there on the day that they all sat in the town square in a semi-circle, available to the whole community. Anyone that had a complaint or a 'civil suit' could come and present their case before the leaders. If you click on the picture to the right, you can see them all sitting in the background. I wasn't about to take a picture, and discovered only later that they were in the background.

In the market, Cesario introduced us to two old ladies that both were there every market day. They used wool from their sheep to make yarn, which they then wove into shawls and other items. They were both deaf and mute, and the lady in the picture to the left helped translate. They were both quite proud of their handiwork, and were happy to demonstrate how they spun their yarn by hand, with what looked like a small wooden knitting needle that they spun on the ground, turning a combed wad of wool into the yarn.

We took a picture of them both, holding up a few of the things that they made, which we bought. The shawl on the right kept Susan warm for our entire trip! The weather was much colder than we were prepared for, so adding some local shawls and sweaters to our backpacks was necessary.

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the local church. This was a Mayan church, nominally Catholic. Inside there were no pews, no priest and no collection plate. Pine needles were strewn all over the floor, and people that were there to worship would just clear a space on the tiled floor and sit down. They lit candles, had bottles of liquor, bottles of soda and although we didn't see any when we were inside, chickens and eggs often appear.

Inside, we carefully walked through, smelling the pine needles and incense, keeping a respectful distance from others, soaking it all in. Cesario impressed upon us the independence of the people, how they had continued their Mayan traditions and manner of worship even after being 'converted' by the Spanish priests. It was certainly different than any other church we'd seen, with people of all ages sprawled along the edges, talking quietly with each other, sitting silently, praying or chanting. Candles were scattered in groups, some attended and some left to burn by themselves. Some people were quite fervent, but most were quietly enjoying the sun shining through the high windows, the sounds of thankful people, and the smell of pine.

Arriving in Zinacantán, we made our way to a family´s home, where they worked and (of course) also offered their products for sale.

Cesario took the opportunity to now explain some of the things we´d seen in the church in Chamula. He passed around a sample of the "posh" that we´d seen, which is sort of like a rum concoction, with herbs. It tasted pretty good!

He also explained the purpose of the different colors of the candles, and also the reason why Coca-Cola, Fanta Strawberry, Fanta Orange and Sprite are used in the rituals. The color of the candles matches the colors of the soda, and each means the same thing. The white stands for tortillas, or bread. In times past, pre-soda days, chicha would have been used, which was also bubbly! I´ll post more details on this later.

The mother of the family demonstrated her backstrap loom for us, and we got to see one of her daughters preparing the long strands of thread for the next weaving. After a bit of that, she went into their kitchen, where the other girls had started a fire, and they all prepared some homemade tortillas.

They soak the corn with lime, which softens the kernel, and then it´s ground by hand with a mortar and pestle type grinder, and then the masa, the paste, is formed by hand into the flat tortilla. Then they toast it over the fire, which you can see below.

They had a bowl of ground, toasted pumpkin seeds, which we could put on the tortilla, and then roll it all up and eat it. I did.

Of course, when we were leaving, many if not all of us did buy some of their wares, and gladly so. This family was nowhere near the poorest in the community, and with so many mouths to feed in their family, it was wonderful to see them doing so well.

The sunflower type designs that you see in the picture is their handiwork, and while this is the town where they make this design, you can see it in markets for miles and miles all around the area.

After leaving the house, we continued to walk for a few minutes toward the center of town. When we arrived in the town square, the market had already closed for the day. It was very windy the day that we visited, and although it was sunny and mostly clear, being up at a higher altitude made it pleasantly brisk.

The last of the people were cleaning up, packing their things and getting ready to head back into the small hamlets that surround the main town. The people in the two different communities have a different style of dress, so before continuing on, Cesario took the opportunity to point out how people from each community will have stalls in the other on market days.

Before continuing into the church, Cesario explained more about the differences between the two communites. He constantly impressed upon us that each of the two communities had very different ways of dress, and also ways of worship. Whereas in the last church in Chamula, there were chickens, eggs, liquor and Coca-cola, inside this church you wouldn´t find anything like that.

Indeed, upon entering, there was a service being performed, which you might have seen inside any give church on any given day, anywhere in Mexico. The people were orderly sitting in the pews, quietly listening to the priest. We didn´t linger inside, but just looked around a bit and then left.

It was pretty, but not nearly as interesting. : )

Off to Mexico!

2007-12-18T15:09:00.000-05:00

Traveling in Central America can be an adventure...just on the buses. Depending on which type of bus you take, a trip could take two hours, three, or maybe even five. The fastest and most secure way to travel is by a shuttle, which is a 12 or 15 passenger van that goes from one location directly to another. After that, you could take a first class bus, which may stop a couple of times to let passengers on and off, but it´s also pretty quick and direct. The slowest means of travel is the second class buses, or the chicken buses as some people call them. They stop anywhere along the way to let anyone on or off, with whatever it is that they´re carrying.

Our transport from Antigua directly to San Cristóbal de las Casas was on a shuttle. The picture above shows what was on the window. We thought it was pretty funny. We left at 5:00 in the morning and arrived in San Cristóbal at around 4:00 or so in the afternoon.

Along the way, of course, we had to cross the border between Guatemala and Mexico. It was a little strange to arrive at what seemed to be the border...to check out of Guatemala...and then there wasn´t a ´check-in´to Mexico. The picture on the right is of this ´no man´s land´that we navigated, following the driver of the bus through alleyways, corridors and vendor´s stalls until we came out after a while on the edge of this ´village´and reboarded the van. The vendors there had wads of both quetzales and pesos, there were houses, cars, and markets, restaurants and stalls, all in-between the two countries.

After driving for a couple of minutes through this all, we finally saw this sight:

Then, we got back off of the van and went into the customs agent´s office in Mexico. After getting everything stamped, we got back on the van and continued for a few more hours until we arrived at San Cristóbal de las Casas.

The first thing we had to do, of course, was to search for a place to stay and also get a bite to eat. After looking at several different places, we were both getting a little grumpy (the jaguars were coming out) from not having ANYTHING to eat all day, so we broke down and ate at a little place.

Susan had some quesadillas with avocado on the side. I ate my sychronizadas (sort of a ham quesadilla with tomato and lettuce inside) so fast that there isn´t a picture to share.

Just a block down the street, we finally found a place to stay.

After searching a bit, we found a nice place to stay, just across from this church:

We figured that we´d always be able to find it, as bright as it was! As it turns out, the people that have the little stalls there in front are always there, selling fresh fruit and other food. There was also a laundry a couple of blocks away, an internet place a couple of doors down, and a nice bakery, too. Susan is addicted to the chocolate donuts. : )

After leaving our bags, we went for a walk around the town. We wandered through the markets and enjoyed seeing all of the variety of the produce that was for sale.

Here in this town, the population is partly mestizos, a mixture of Spanish and Indigenous people, and then also ¨pure¨ indigenous people, which are Mayan. As I understand, Chiapas, the state that we´re in, has the highest percentage of indigenous people in all of Mexico.

Taking pictures of people isn´t as accepted here as in other places, and so you´ll notice that are pictures are more of items and not people. We´re just doing our best to be respectful and polite, as these people are much more autonomous than any other state in Mexico, with very strong local customs and different attitudes.

As foreigners we´re welcome, but we are expected to be very respectful of local customs as a condition to being treated respectfully as well. Seeing the local market was wonderful, and looking at the lillies in the picture on the right, you can imagine how beautiful it was to see men carrying large bundles of them on their backs, walking to their stalls in the market. Were it not for the ´taking photos´issue, I´d have easily shown you a photo that looked just like a Diego Rivera painting. Beautiful!

Pictures from a distance are fine, but even still we were careful to be polite. A lot of work went into each individual stall, with the proprietors taking pride in their produce. The colors were so rich, and the smells were strong, both of the herbs, the pineapple stands, and also the butcher stalls.

All along the southern part of the market were Mayan women that were standing around with three or four chickens in each hand, all tied at the feet and hanging head down. People would come by and inspect them, hefting them in their hands to determine their weight, turning them around and poking them. It´s a tough life for a

rooster, you know!

The woman in the photo on the right already bought one, and was sitting on the side of the road nursing her baby. We know what she was cooking for dinner that night. I´m not sure if it was just what the lady was offering to everyone or just to me, but at $10 I think the price was a little high. The chickens were of course "free range" "organic" and "heirloom breeds" but all of that meant that they were a little on the skinny side, not the overstuffed fat American ones we find in the supermarket back at home. If that was the going rate, good for her!
This little girl was playing with the metal tongs that her grandmother was using to pluck out roasted corn that she was selling on the roadside. We watched her for a little while, and she kept poking the corn until finally her abuela took the tongs away and rearranged them again. This is a pretty common sight, as everywhere you go people are selling their corn that they´ve cooked on grills, boiled, or in the case of this woman, grilled and then kept warm in hot water.

After all of this, we were quite hungry again, as you can imagine. The smell and the sight of tacos al pastor drew us inside. Here is a short video of the man slicing off the pork for the tacos:

The pork is sliced thinly and then marinated in vinegar and spices overnight. Then, it´s arranged on a vertical spit, in between a pineapple that´s been split vertically as well. Each taco they made here had little chips of the roasted pineapple included as well.

It´s good to be in Mexico.

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Last night in Antigua

2007-12-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

Here´s just a few more photos from Guatemala, for now. This is our little hotel that we stayed in for a few nights. It was called Hotel La Casa de Don Ismael. We mention it because it was so very comfortable, clean and quaint. The family that runs it were exceptionally polite and pleasant, and it was a joy to stay there and to be able to recommend it to others. It wasn´t the cheapest place that we could find, by far, but at $18 or so per night, it was a great value. So, please go!
Here are some photos of our big night out, too:

And a post like this wouldn´t be complete without a photo of the Estufo Cordero, the Lamb Stew:

MMMmmm.

Wandering around Antigua

2007-12-17T21:01:00.000-05:00

Ahh...Antigua.
Cobblestone streets, clear and cool weather in the middle of December, good food, colonial architecture...¿what´s not to like about Antigua? Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala, until the city was abandoned after a year of earthquakes. Even still, not all of the people left, and they eventually came back and the city has been continuously settled ever since.

Many of the ruins are still intact...as ruins. In other places, they´ve been rebuilt and the city is full of one story buildings, with courtyards hidden behind the large wooden doorways.

With our new friends, we enjoyed just wandering around a bit, not on a set plan or agenda, just wandering around absorbing the warm sunshine and the smells and sights.

This is right next to the Spanish Embassy, and is part of an arts complex, with theater productions and art shows.

Of course there is a market, just like in every town, big or small. This one had lots of things around the exterior, but inside was the food. We didn´t stop to eat here, but just look at the variety!

This was the section where there was prepared food, and in other parts there were the bags of different kinds of beans and other dried goods. Some stalls were full of greens and herbs, just amazing the selection that they had...and of course it smelled wonderful.

In the center of town is a large fountain, with mermaids of all things! In the shade and around the fountain were lots of locals, milling around, eating ice creams from the vendors...and just relaxing. This is a picture of a little boy of probably about three years old or so, who was all dressed up. He even had a little moustache painted onto his face. He wasn´t so keen on having his picture taken, but his mother was encouraging it, so we obliged.

The clothes are not the normal, everyday clothes, but are the classic ´campesino´outfit that was worn years and years ago. About half of the people we saw were wearing western style clothing (mostly men) and the other half wore indigenous clothing (mostly women).

It seemed that everywhere you turned there was a beautiful picture just waiting for you to come along and take it. Not just Susan, but the volcano, too. : ) She was taking almost all of the pictures in this batch, so she´s not in many of them.

On that street we stopped for a coffee, a wonderful coffee, and the women were preparing for their lunch and dinner traffic. I saw that they were preparing dozens of these small clay bowls, full of pickled, hot carrots and jalapeños. They gladly gave me one when they saw how excited I was about them, so I took them out to share with everyone. No one else was as excited, so I think I ate the whole bowl. Wow, were they hot! But tasty, too.

It´s funny, but in a country that is famous for it´s coffee, it´s actually hard to find a decent cup. In most places, coffee is a watery cup of instant coffee. We all had a little coffee while waiting for Steve to get up. While I was busy procuring the carrots, Marianne went to find Steve. Apparently he was passed out on his bed and didn´t even close the door to his room. Susan and I missed that party! As it turns out, they closed the bar and then took a of bottle of wine to go...and drank it on the roof deck of our hotel.

Not everyone was having coffee. Or hot carrots and jalapeños. I have to admit that I got a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, too. Poor Dana didn´t hike up the volcano with us because she was feeling poorly, and wasn´t quite herself, even after the Pepto...the whole bottle, of course.

Why was I feeling a little less then perfect myself? Well, the night before I had a michelada too many. I´m used to the Baja California michelada, which is a sort of bloody mary type drink: Clamato juice, beer, lime juice, hot sauce, worchester sauce and pepper. Wow!

So Susan and I were exhausted from the volcano hike, but we were still hungry. We stopped in the only place we could find that wasn´t a bar and had a wonderful meal. Susan had Chilean wine (a couple of glasses) and I had a GUATEMALAN michelada. It was the same, except it didn´t have the Clamato juice. Well, it was extremely good. And very lime-y. Oh! I forgot to mention, that the rim of the glass is usually salted. MMMmmm. Like a margarita.

So anyway, I should have had only one...but it was SO good I had another. Between the high dose of lime juice, LIME SALT on the rim, the hot sauce...well, my stomach was a little less than settled.

Not that that stopped us the next day from dragging Brad and Dana over to the same place so THEY could have one. Susan even had one. Dana didn´t. Susan said her lips were chapped from the experience. Right now, our mouths are both watering just at the thought of another. When we get done....well, I think I saw a place that served them here...

After wandering around for a couple of days, we decided to move along. After consulting the Rough Guide, we decided to take the next bus (shuttle) out of town. When you´re this close to Mexico, how could you NOT go?

We´re in Chiapas right now, and are catching up on the blog. Check again tomorrow and we´ll catch up some more. Wow!

Volcan Pacayo

2007-12-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

While in Antigua we heard from some people that you could take a trip to the top of one of the volcanos that were near the city. It sounded like it would be quite an experience, and why there at our little hotel there was a little sign, with photos of the hike and the lava from the volcano. Wow! Sounds good. We made arrangements and were sure to be back at the hotel at 2:00 to meet the bus that would take us there. We were there on time, and were the first people to be picked up. Unfortunately, the bus driver had other people to pick up...and couldn´t find one hotel...and so we drove around the city for an hour before we even made our way to the volcano.

Instead of it being one of the three right near Antigua, however, it was one near Guatemala City, about an hour away. On the left is a photo of Guatemala City, as we were driving higher and higher up into the mountains.

So, after quite a while of driving we finally arrived at a National Park, high up on the side of the volcano. We all got out and met the guide from the park that would escort us to the top. Horses were there, available to rent, which they continually reminded us of while we were struggling up the trail. Because we got such a late start, we had to hurry, with just a few stops to rest. Needless to say, we were quite exhausted on the extremely steep trail.

The photo on the left is another view back over the mountains and to Guatemala City in the far distance below. Even at this height, there were fields of the ever-present corn, which had already been harvested.

At each stop for a rest, the small boys that were right behind us, on their horses, kept singing out, ¨Horses es possible, horses es possible, 3 kilometers more, horses es possible¨ Of course that was terribly encouraging while you´re sweating, chuffing, and trying to miss the horse droppings all along the trail.

After hiking a bit more, we got a clear view of the lake that you can see in the picture on the right. The vistas were absolutely amazing. As you can see, as it got later the clouds started getting thicker and more ominous.

Our guide kept encouraging us to press on quickly, apologizing again for having to hurry, that normally we could take more time, but not now, since we were late and had to get to the summit for sunset.

After some time we did finally reach the summit, and looking towards the west, this is what we saw, in the photo on the left. A picture just can´t do it justice, with the dark mountains and the dark clouds rolling in. The clouds obscured the volcano, which was to our left as we reached the summit of the mountain we´d been climbing.

By this time, the boys with the horses had disappeared, and we were in an area with pine trees and it was also much colder than it had been. Of course, with a little rest we were cold from the wind, and we were all of course quite sweaty from the climb.

Through the pine trees, we´d occasionally get a glimpse of the lava when the clouds were thin. We weren´t quite sure of what was going to happen next, since there wasn´t much communication, either in English or Spanish. There were streams of people who´d arrived earlier (on time) who were now climbing back up to where we were waiting. They were all visibly excited and shouted ¨just a little bit more¨to us as they passed.

After everyone had gathered and rested a bit, we then started to descend towards the volcano´s lava floes. The closer we got to the trough between the mountain and volcano, the better we could see the volcano itself.

If you click on the picture to the right, you´ll see the people down below, picking their way through the dried lava. It was quite slippery on this slope (as many are!) since now the dirt below our feet was virtually all volcanic. It was very light and crumbly, almost like kicking your way through fine snow. We all slid a little bit, and would periodically just stop walking and just slide for a few feet down the hill.

Once we´d reached the bottom, we started to ascend the volcano itself. The good news was that the drived lava floes were very sharp and rough, so our shoes had a lot of traction. The bad news was that the lava was very sharp and rough, so our hands, elbows, knees and head wouldn´t stand a chance of being safe.

As you can see from the picture above (Susan on the left, Marianne in the center) it was getting increasingly darker as we went on. The flowing lava above cast a red glow across the clouds, which the camera didn´t pick up very well. The closer we got, the louder the volcano became, as well. It was a dull roar at times, and at others we could hear the sound of rolling boulders, not dense, deep thuds, but rather almost like chalk on a chalkboard, a grinding sound along with the thuds.

The lava we were hiking over was at times disconcertingly warm. Hot you could call it...and at times alarmingly so. At one point we walked past this:

The two pictures are taken at the exact same point, looking down (no feet included for perspective) at this dinner-plate sized hole, where you could see the lava still red-hot below. The one on the left is with the flash, and the one on the right without.

We were certainly getting closer and closer to the source!

This was as far as we climbed. Everyone stopped and we took pictures...and all the while we could hear the volcano much louder than ever. Every now and then, we´d see the floes moving rapidly, and occasionally large red-hot boulders would come tumbing down.

It was at this time that everyone decided we´d had quite enough and we returned to the park entrance. Not everyone had flashlights, so we proceeded very carefully, taking as long to walk back down as it did to walk up. Needless to say, we were quite excited by the hike, and were quite sore for a couple of days!

The Ruins at Copan

2007-12-15T19:49:00.000-05:00

Our trip to the ruins started early in the morning. Because it gets so hot in the afternoon, we made sure that we were there right when they opened. We had a little breakfast of some fruit licuados, and Susan had what they called a bagel. Then, we walked about a mile or so, out of town, and over the bridge that went over the Rio Copan, which also ran right next to the ruins. A picture in an earlier post was taken on our walk, the one of the cow in the field. After a little while we came to the ruins and walked inside the park.

Walking into the area of the ruins, you enter the main plaza. It is literally so big that it wouldn´t fit into a single picture, from any vantage point. While the ruins are of course amazing, the rather shocking thing was the size of some of the trees that were there! Take a look at this:

That´s a man there on the ground, not an insect. A picture just can´t do it justice. The temple is about thirty feet high.

Since we were there so early, there wasn´t hardly anyone else around. Actually, there was a film crew that was let into the ruins early, and they were still filming while we were inside. Apparently it was a Discovery Channel documentary, but we aren´t sure...that´s just what we heard. The entire main plaza sits lower than the land around it and has just a single drain. It seems that on occasion, the Mayans would plug the drain and let the entire basin fill with water. For what purpose, they´re not sure, but it was interesting to also imagine it as a reflecting pool or pond as we were walking around...

Here is a detail of one of the stelae in the plaza:

And this is a detail on the stelae at the base of the Hieroglyphic Stairway:

You can still see some of the red paint that was over all of the buildings and stelae. Red was the ¨royal¨color.

From the main plaza, we hiked up this stairway to the upper level, the acropolis they called it. While waiting for the filming crew to finish, we walked around the back of the ruins, down to the river. Along the way, right near the river, were the former residences for the rulers. You could still make out individual rooms, see the steps to the central courtyard...and with the sound of the river not too far behind us. Walking all the way around, we came to the area where they´ve excavated around the temples and even got to briefly talk with some of the workers there.

Up above, we came to the Plaza de los Jaguares. Wow! Watch out for the jaguars! If you click on the picture on the left (below), you´ll see where they´ve dug a tunnel, the Tunel de los Jaguares! Entering it was like going down into a cellar, with a big metal door and concrete stairs that led below. After making sure the man wasn´t going to close the door on us, we went inside.

Look at the jaguar Susan spotted in the middle picture! Wow! They dug underneath one of the temples until they hit the wall of the structure that was underneath. When they hit a wall, they then excavated all the way around and discovered an entire temple. It was covered in stucco and also painted. Rulers would generally knock down structures from their predecessors and build new ones on top, using the same stones, it seems. This temple was so revered that they didn´t knock it down, they just built over it. We got to see it, although it´s only visible behind glass, to keep people from touching it and so it won´t deteriorate any further.

Here is a reconstruction that they made inside of the museum that´s also on site:

They also had quite an extensive collection of pieces that they´d recovered in other digs and they were all very impressively displayed. What a treat it was! The museum was just fantastic, and we were also impressed to see that the Japanese goverment had donated the $2 million to build it. The archaeologist we saw was also Japanese.

The whole day was just amazing. We´re so glad we got to see this, but it made us realize how much we needed to learn about the Mayans. We´ve been traveling through their former domain this past week, from literally one end to the other, and it´s incredibly beautiful. The interesting thing is to see the people that still live here, and how much they look like the carvings!

Catching up...a little.

2007-12-15T17:58:00.000-05:00

Right. We have to get right to business here. Copan Ruinas was just lovely. We enjoyed sort of just relaxing for a bit, getting used to the warmer weather, walking around...and then we visited the ruins and had a wonderful time. Later we'll post some more photos from the ruins, when we have a better internet connection, and possibly from a computer with a photo editor. This one doesn't...and trying to upload the pictures is painfully slow.

Anyway, after smelling this one grill and walking past a couple of times, Susan just INSISTED that I get a steak there. Wow. I know you can barely see it there, what, covered with grilled peppers and onions that it is. Oh, and the buttered roasted potato. Oh my. It was SO tasty. Just the thing to finish off literally minutes before taking a six hour or so bus ride. Everyone else was hungry by the end of it, but not me, no... MMMmm. It's like seeing an old friend, pulling that picture back up and uploading it.

OK. So we'd seen a sign at a travel agent in Copan Ruinas that advertised a shuttle to Antigua, Guatemala for a very reasonable price. We didn't have a strong agenda, so we decided that morning to just take it. And the most lovely thing of all about that decision was the people that happened to share the ride with us. One couple got off very early on, and the rest continued on to Antigua.

We got off the bus and split off in different directions and then reconnected in spurts over the next couple of days. Brad and Dana stayed at the same little hotel we did, and then later Marianne showed up...and Steve was on the next alleyway over from us...and we saw Luis each evening while walking around...and Julia joined us on the hike up the volcano.

To Steve and Marianne, hello! Here we are on the left enjoying a wonderful breakfast together. It was in the courtyard of a wonderful restaurant-bookstore. The weather was just amazing, with bright blue skies and little cottony clouds drifting around. The city itself is cobblestone streets, colonial architecture and bustling. Bustling with a lot more tourists than we'd have preferred, but well, we were tourists there, too.

Brad and Dana, hello! That's them on the right. They joined us for breakfast, too. Susan had a massive pile of fruit and yogurt that she loved. I had, would you believe, TOMATO quiche. They were roasted tomatoes, just lying there on the botom of the quichey goodness, oozing out all over. Wow. It was hard to really do anything, what with all the sleeping in, going out for breakfast, wandering around in the market and all. While it was nice there, we were also ready to move on to a place a little less touristy.

Finally, all of us except for Luis, had dinner together on our last collective night in Antigua. Our dinner was pricy, but oh so tasty. Incredible. Susan had a veggie dish, which was potato something (I don't know) and in a toasted pumpkin seed and walnut sauce and I had the lamb stew. It was served in a bowl with a banana leaf lining. Wine was had, toasts were made and a good time was had by all. Too much fun!

While we were walking through the market, we found a lady selling loquats. Loquats! When I was little we had a tree in the yard that I remember climbing and eating the fruit off the tree. They bruise so easily and spoil so quickly that you'll never find them in a store, so what a treat to find them on the street corner.

This posting is painfully slow. I've got to find another internet cafe.

Uh-oh. We've wandered...

2007-12-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting for a few days...we've wandered a bit. We're in Guatemala and tomorrow we'll be in Mexico. It's a long story, but that's what happens when you land somewhere with no plans! You just wander where you will. And that happened by a series of spur-of-the-moment decisions and we'll be in Chiapas tomorrow night. There's too much to recount at the moment, but we promise we'll post some pictures that you won't believe and have some stories to match in a couple of days!

Here's a tease:

Yes, that's lava.

Where we are...

2007-12-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

We´re just right next to the border with Guatemala, which is only about 12 miles away. On the map below, you can zoom out to see the whole area.

View Larger Map

Copán Ruinas

2007-12-09T20:53:00.000-05:00

We´ve made our way to Copán Ruinas, which is on the far western side of Honduras. It´s a beautiful small town with cobblestone streets, and we´ve had a wonderful time just sort of slowing down. We got a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep and have been eating well. This is a cow that we saw on our walk. Susan wanted to know how they milked it, since it didn´t look like the other cows. I told her that would be her job on the farm.

Here´s a picture of the little garden outside our room. It´s a very cozy small place, with common bathrooms just down the walk, and warm showers. At $8 per night, it´s hard to find much better, and certainly not any that are any cleaner, so here we´ll stay for a few days. It´s nice and quiet, with friendly people and friendly guests, too. It´s called Hotel Los Gemelos, and it´s just a couple of blocks from the town square, and a block from the bus. You can´t beat that!

There was a little market in town that we walked through. Look at the size of the carrots in the bag! They were HUGE. This lady was ladling out black beans into the scale hanging above her. It was very nice and calm...people hanging out in the streets, sitting in the shade. A nice lazy Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow we may walk to the ruins, or maybe the day after. We´ll see. : )

Aqui en San Pedro Sula

2007-12-08T13:29:00.000-05:00

Hello!
	We´ve arrived in San Pedro Sula. It´s warm, warm, warm here. Our hotel didn´t have hot water, but it was just fine anyway. We went for a little walk after we got a hotel room, had an ICE cold beer that was a real lifesaver (Salva Vida was the brand). Susan had what could be best described as a giant bean and cheese taco, and I had what would be a chicken stew tostada. Great stuff.
	We had for breakfast what Susan had for dinner the night before! They´re called baleadas, or something like that. This time with eggs. This looks promising: breakfast for two with two big glasses of juice (and a nice tip) for less than $3. Hoo-hoo! Good cheap food!
	We´re taking a bus to Copan in just a bit. We were hoping to post some pictures, but we can´t find a place to connect the camera. We´ll write again soon! ---
	While at the bus terminal we had a little bite to eat. Susan had a bit more than a bite, she ate the whole fish! Wow!
	After arriving, Tom just laid down and passed out. He´d been up for about 48 hours, not sleeping the night before we left, trying to get everything done, and didnt nap much on the bus. I think we went to sleep at 7:30 or so, and didn´t wake up until 9:00 the next morning.

Hiking to the Cheese Factory and on the Paramo

2007-01-02T15:36:00.000-05:00

This was our morning view from the Black Sheep Inn...

If you don't click on the pictures, you won't come anywhere near to understanding how much depth there is in the pictures. It's almost too much to take in, since the air is so clean and clear. It's an unreal view in person. We're on the inside flank of the western range of the Andes, looking to the east to the other side of the valley. In the center, out of view, is a river that flows through, hundreds of feet below the original valley floor. It's amazing.

After a hearty breakfast, we headed off on our hike. We had a map and we had a plan.

This pig was hanging out at the intersection where we had to make a left. We (I) were busy with the pig and we didn't make the turn...so after a while we passed by some men who were friendly. They asked where we were going, just being polite and making conversation...and when they learned we were heading to the cheese factory, they sent us back down the road. We made a right at the pig and went uphill. Way uphill. It was some of the most breathtaking hiking we'd done yet. Breathtakingly beautiful and breathtaking. We were chuffing up the hill. Whew!

Just walking along the road, we'd stop every now and then to marvel at the views. The pictures can't do it justice. We kept pinching ourselves to make sure it was real.

Where we were staying was still at a very high altitude, so walking was plenty of activity. You have to pace yourself and not get too carried away. It's the strangest feeling to feel fine otherwise, but to be very short of breath. It feels like there's something wrong, since you ARE breathing in and out...but it doesn't FEEL like everything is working. It's very different from exercising so strenuously that you ARE out of breath. You feel like your body has betrayed you somehow!

Here is a good picture, not just of Susan, Chris, and Sharon, but also of the valley behind them. I had to get up on the hill a bit to be able to see down below the road.

At this stage in the hike we were all pretty warm, as you can see by the clothes. You have to dress in layers, since the temperature changes not only according to the time of day, but also how high up you are as you hike. On this one hike we went from sweating profusely to wishing we had warmer clothes when we were at the top.

These are such great pictures that I had to include them. Chris and Sharon have been so much fun to visit and to be our travel companions, too. We were both thrilled to be able to come with them on this trip, since they are just beginning to explore Ecuador. They both work in Quito, but have full work schedules and haven't had the luxury of being able to just pick up and go wandering.

They both enjoy being outside and hiking so much that it made us more excited about this trip, too. It's also such a treat to be with a couple that are so happy with each other, where they are in life, and where they are living. Ecuador has been such an amazing place to visit and explore, and they both chose to come here and are so excited to call this country their home.

Chris and Sharon planned our trip to the Black Sheep Inn and our hikes that we took...and although we were a bit hesitant (OK, I was: it's a vegetarian inn) it turned out to be a highlight of our trip. The people we met while we were staying there were icing on the cake, too! (You know who you are!)

OK, enough of that. Back to the story!

Our first destination was the Cheese Factory. These flowers on the right were growing in a tree alongside the road. They don't have anything to do with the story, but they were pretty.

As we understand, Peace Corps volunteers set up a number of European style cheese factories back in the 1970's, as a way of turning locally produced milk into a saleable product outside of their area. They make four types of cheese here, and we bought a wheel of an Emmenthal-type cheese to take back to Quito.

We took one of the round wheels, wrapped it up and stuffed it into the backpack. Off we went, higher up onto the mountain ridge trail...

The thick fog made it difficult to sense what direction you were traveling in at times, but we just kept following the road. Our directions and map were a little unclear...but we weren't really worried about being LOST, as we couldn't go any higher up, and we knew which way was down. There were a few places where, if you were to do a little roll down the hill, well, you'd just go for about a mile before you stopped. That was a little eerie.

Even though we were covered in clouds, the sun was still shining very brightly, so sometimes there was a very odd glow on everything. It was bright, but diffused light, which made everything feel like it was part of a dream.

There aren't any giant trees or fierce animals lurking around up there, just a lot of small details. Click on all three of the pictures above and take a look at the small things.

At the top of the ridge, we were walking along the path while the clouds were sweeping over into the valley, or at least trying to sweep into the valley. Sometimes we'd be walking along in clear skies, and then we'd be back in the clouds, back and forth.

The sounds were muted in the fog, so we could hear the animals before we saw them, sometimes. It was a little strange to be walking around and then suddenly have a big cow appear out of nowhere. The sheep largely ignored us unless we got too close.

While I was paying attention to the sheep, the shepherd showed up:

If it weren't for the wind, you could hear the sheep munching on the grass. That's actually why I took the video, because they were SO LOUD!

Our hike back took us down to the main road to the north of where we were staying, so we got to see a little more of the countryside.

Here is a picture of a very handsome chicken. He's got a little extra feathers there on his head and legs.

This little girl is standing in front of her family's home, which looks like most others in this area. The family can be seen behind her in the background, working in their fields. The families we saw had crops of potatos, beans of different types, and sometimes corn.

The wages are very low and most homes grow food for themselves along with some chickens, goats or maybe sheep. We saw cows grazing, but I can't remember seeing a single home with a cow.

We did see llamas, though. Not too many, though.

After we got back to Black Sheep, we were just sitting around relaxing a bit...and then we hear a little commotion. A troupe of girls came up to the Inn to perform some traditional dances.

As you can see from the pictures, they were in the traditional clothing and they performed at least four dances for everyone, accompanied by music from a portable CD player.

The girls did a fantastic job and were just beautiful, all decked out in their finery. They looked like little ladies. They worked the crowd very well, too. They kept bringing more and more people in to the circle with them, getting them started and then going back for more.

Once everyone was in who was going in, they finished the next song and then went around to collect donations. Very smart.

Hiking to the Quilatoa Crater Lake

2007-01-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

One of the attractions of staying at the Black Sheep Inn was it's proximity to the Quilotoa Crater Lake. It's not right next to it, but it's close. On the right is a link to the satellite view, so click on it and take a look! The lake itself is easily seen, and you can also see some of the inhabited areas to the right...and you don't see many signs of life around the crater from this view. It's mostly cultivated fields and just a couple of settlements, all linked by a single road that takes about a five to eight hour drive to complete the loop.

In the morning, the four of us and about eight others packed ourselves into a cattle/produce/farm truck bed and got bounced and jostled for about an hour and a half up to the mountain. It's hard to tell Quilotoa from the other mountains and ridges from a distance, and walking up to the rim and looking down is quite dramatic.

The picture above is three different pictures, stitched together. Click on it to see the bigger view!

The hike down is pretty easy, of course, although it's a bit slippery at times when you hit patches of sand. It took longer than we thought to get down to the lake, but on the way down we got to talk with other people that were doing the same thing. It was quite enjoyable to see so many Ecuadoreans hiking down, enjoying a holiday just like us. Some people were from a town just a few miles away.

The amazing green color of the water turned out to be a layer of algae on the bottom of the lake. The water itself was very clear! I took a little bottle of water as a sample, to take back to Chris' classroom.

Herbie and Gail, a couple that were also staying at the Black Sheep Inn, shared lunch with us just up from the shore. The wind was quite strong at the top, on the descent and at the bottom, so we sort of huddled against a ledge to eat. Since the hike back to the Black Sheep Inn is about five hours long, you have to pretty much choose to hike straight back after the truck dropped you off, or hike to the bottom of the crater and then hike back up and then catch the one bus per day that goes past the Black Sheep Inn. Chris and Sharon hiked back, and we went to the bottom.

After having a brief lunch, Gail headed back up the trail first. She was the only one with a watch, and she was keen on catching that bus! After eyeing the mules, I procured one for Susan and Gail (as a surprise). Herbie volunteered to ride Gail's mule up to her, so off we went.

In the rightmost picture, you can see Susan and Herbie on the mules, just coming up out of the riverbed and onto the trail that leads up, out of the crater. I tried my best to stay ahead of the mules, trying to reach Gail first, to be able to see her surprise when Susan and Herbie arrived by mules.

I huffed my way up and when I reached Gail, she was already on a mule of her own. "$5? Are you kidding?!" she said. I slowly fell behind, the mules being a little more used to climbing 1200 feet without stopping.

When we were about three quarters of the way to the top I came to a beautiful overlook and had a nice little rest on a rock, surveying the lake below. The mules, along with the little girls that tended them, continued on. I was panting just like the mules, but the little girls were laughing and goading the mules on. Other kids were running up and down the path, playing hide and seek.

Climbing back up at mule speed, we reached the top in just fifteen minutes more than the time it took for the descent. I was spent! We had a little coffee at a small restaurant, and I had a tasty bowl of soup. MMMmmm.

We walked down to the place where we were to catch the bus and waited. The wind was stiff and we took refuge behind a house where two boys were playing. We started talking to them, and Gail gave them little tablets and pencils she had brought with her.

They all took turns writing their names and demonstrating their math skills. Another friend came along and he shared some stories, too. They were rightfully quite proud of themselves!

When the bus finally came, it was absolutely packed. We pushed ourselves to the rear of the bus, which at least didn't have people standing in the aisles...it was packed with sacks of potatoes and rice. Herbie just plopped himself down on some sacks and Susan snagged a seat when it was vacated.

We bounced along on the way back, watching the bus slowly empty and we eventually all had seats at the end. The ride was quite bumpy and the roads were quite curvy...and eventually a little girl lost her lunch. Wow, that didn't help much...although eventually we could open some windows.

We got back to Black Sheep and had a chance to sit down and have a little rest...and a little drink. Sharon and Chris actually made it back before us, since the bus was a little late in arriving.

We swapped our stories and each was glad we did what we did: they had a long walk along the crater edge for a while and then down into the valley and then back up...and we went down into the crater to the lake and back up...to the bus!

As the sun went down the light was like a glow, so we settled down on a picnic table with a view of the valley. We had some drinks and played some cards until dinner.

Black Sheep Inn was a delightful place to stay, and breakfast and dinner were included. This night was a favorite dinner: swiss chard soup (I had three bowls!) and shepherd's pie. MMMmmm.

After dinner we retired to one of our rooms and played some more cards. Susan and I had been on 'vacation' for a while now, but this was the 'vacation' for Sharon and Chris! We laughed and laughed, playing and carrying on for quite a while. We didn't realize how late it was when we finally finished...and then had to apologize to Herbie and Gail the next morning...since they were in the cabin next to us!

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Susan decided to get up and have a little water. In the dark, which bottle did she decide to sample?! You got it, the 'sample' from the lake. Luckily she tasted the difference, but then spewed it all over the floor. Was it the algae chunk that gave it away? She wouldn't tell... She got the other bottle after that, and all was well.

We'll post about our other day's hike later....see you!

Bus ride to the Black Sheep Inn

2007-01-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

Our trip to the Black Sheep Inn started far earlier in the morning than we'd all have liked, primarily since we'd been up far too late the night before... Sharon was teaching us all how to play bridge. I think we were up until around 2 am or so... This picture on the left is from the day before, before we started playing cards. We've all been enjoying having some time off and getting to just goof around for a while. And drink mimosas, too.

We left at about 7:15am, without making any breakfast, so I took my papaya with me. It was ripe and ready to eat right then, and would never have made it on the counter until we got back. With such a large and tasty papaya, what else could I do but bring it along for the ride?!

They all laughed at me for bringing it. Susan was roughhousing with it and put a finger into it. I had to remind her that papayas are not toys; they are tasty breakfasts.

This is the funky bus we rode to Latacunga. We were all so tired we slept most of the way, so there's not any interesting pictures to show you. When we got to Latacunga we had to change buses, and I went and rustled up a plastic spoon. It took a while to skin the papaya with a spoon, but I was successful.

The next bus we took was a lot less comfortable than the first. The roads were cobblestone for a good portion, dirt for a good bit and the rest were bumpy for other reasons. Even still, we still caught up on a little sleep along the way:

The bus from Latacunga was less fancy than the first one, since it travels along a loop around the Quilatoa mountain/volcano/crater, which is in a very rural area. Buses aren't nearly as frequent as in other places, and the people that use them carry all sorts of things with them. In one small town we visited, there was a small crowd out, waiting for the bus. Everyone was milling around, checking on their packages that were stored on top of the bus...and one delivery was a new whiteboard, probably for the school.

This is the sort of countryside that we traveled through on the way...it was just beautiful. The corridor between the Andes is just incredibly beautiful, with steep roads and plunging valleys. The bus rides are pretty exciting sometimes, too, what with the sliding in the mud and giant potholes and all.

We knew that we were in shared rooms for the first night (it's a pretty popular place) but what we didn't expect is that the four of us would be sharing the 10x12' room with two other people, too! After dinner we were so tired we really couldn't be worried and packed into our little beds.

We needed to get a good nights' sleep, since we had some big hiking plans for the next day...

...which we'll post later!

Prospero Ano Nuevo!

2007-01-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful New Year's Eve at Chris and Sharon's house, back in Quito. The four of us had been away for several days, out hiking around the Quilotoa Crater Lake, staying at the Black Sheep Inn, and just got back before New Year's. That's the reason for the lack of posting for several days. We all took lots of pictures and have yet to go through them all and get them ready for posting. As we've posted before, we're in Quito right now, and by clicking on the map on the right, you can see the park that's right behind their house.

Chris and Sharon like to take walks before they go to work in the morning, but that hasn't been happening since we've been visiting... something about the late nights we've been keeping, I'm sure. The park is full of eucalyptus trees, which were introduced in the late 1800's to Ecuador. The park smells just wonderful. It has loads of trails, which are popular with mountain bikers, too.

Their house is in a great location, relative to the city and public transportation, and also right next to the park. Right at the end of their street is a major road which leads right into the city. The traffic is pretty busy sometimes, and when it is, Sharon does what she calls the "Quito Shuffle" across the street. It's sort of like the old Frogger video game...where you dodge the cars in each lane and rest in the median for a bit before continuing...

We went for a walk a while back, up into the park, and collected some pond water from a small pool, to take back to Chris' classroom. He teaches Biology at the Academia Cotopaxi American International School. Sharon is also there, working in the fourth grade classrooms.

And here we are visiting their classrooms:

The classroom that Chris teaches in is better than any science classroom I ever had, and I was quite excited to get to use one of the microscopes while he was busy doing some work. It has been more than twenty years since I'd looked through a microscope and I made up for lost time. I got the chance to look at samples from about four different aquariums and batches of brewing water in the classroom.

And THEN I discovered that I could also put the camera up to the eyepiece and take pictures through the microscope.

Here is a paramecium that I found....

And I also discovered that I could take video:

Susan was very patient with me goofing around with the microscope for quite a while...and then she left me there with Chris for a few more hours. It was great fun!

We'll be reviewing our pictures and posting more about our Quilotoa trip in a while.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Cuenca

2006-12-26T07:30:00.000-05:00

So we made it to Cuenca. And we didn't feel so good.

So we spent some time 'resting.'

Our room looked out onto a little green area, with benches and fig trees and roses... it was quite relaxing and peaceful. Everything was so neatly trimmed! The fig trees were absolutely loaded with fruit, although there weren't any ripe ones just yet.

A handsome gardener took care of things while wearing a denim jumpsuit. He had long curly hair and kept a tape measure clipped to his sleeve. Susan wants me to get a jumpsuit like that, now.

This is the church right at the end of the street. We never did quite figure out the bell-ringing schedule, since some mornings it was earlier than others, and sometimes no bells, and sometimes bells every fifteen minutes (or so it seemed). In a country that is 95% Catholic, there are lots of churches and lots of bells.

The streets were narrow, mostly one way, and were all cobblestone.

Everyone was quite festive, getting ready for the holidays, and each afternoon there was quite a commotion when the kids would all get out from school. The ice cream sellers were out, and the kids were all crowded around with their coins in their hands.

We went walking around, slowly getting further and further from where we were staying. Everywhere we turned there was another beautiful street or another beautiful view. Just a couple of blocks from our little hotel were these stairs:

At the bottom of the steps there is a bridge over the river that runs all through town, which is flanked by grass and beautiful trees.

The river is just fantastic. It's flowing fast enough to make that nice gurgly-water sound and it sounds refreshing. Maybe one reason why it felt so good was that the weather was amazing...just mild and warm, but with a breeze it was just cool enough. It felt like spring. From the walk along the river you could see all the bouganvilla up on the terraces up above on the hillside...the terracotta roof tiles on the white plaster buildings... just beautiful.

Here is a medical school that we walked past, at the bottom of the hill. We found Cuenca to be an interesting mix of modern and ancient...and these buildings are the perfect example.

I thought the detail on the wall was quite interesting...

One of the industries in Cuenca is straw hats, made from the toquilla straw that grows along the coast in the northwestern part of the country. The 'Panama Hat' is really from Ecuador, Panama being where men bought them and then took them back home with them after working on the Canal. Cuenca is where the hats are/were finished and then prepared for export.

So! While wandering around we came upon a hatseller that had a small museum-type exhibit on how the hats are made. In the picture on the left, you see how the fibers were treated with sulpher and 'spun' a bit to soften them so that they could be woven. The center picture shows how the finished hat was steamed into shape, with the dimples on the front and a crease on top. On the right is the finished product.

The lovely couple in the photos are Joe and Lois Parise. We went through the exhibit with them and then ran into them again at the airport a few days later! On our advice they went to Banos for a couple of days...only to stay in a hotel that was robbed overnight! They woke up to find that their passports and other valuables were stolen from the hotel's safe and had to get emergency replacements in order to be able to make their return flight a couple of days later.

That place had a wonderful exhibit, but actually didn't have any of the higher quality hats that made Cuenca famous. So...we continued walking along. A few blocks away, at a small, somewhat seedy looking shop, we ran into Alberto Pullo. His shop had hundreds of the cheaper quality hats that we saw most of the indigenous people wearing, the ones that they would have 'whitewashed' every year or so to keep them looking fresh.

When I enquired about buying one, Alberto (who is now mute) shook his finger vigorously at me. No, no, no he whispered. He took us upstairs, around the back and up the rickety stairway, into his 'real' showroom. We were surrounded by hats of all different styles and shapes and colors...along with newspaper clippings, many very yellowed from age.

As it turns out, I'd read about Alberto Pullo twenty years previous, while reading about Ecuador and the 'Panama Hat' trade. He learned the business from his father and started working with him at the age of seven...and has been working ever since. He proudly showed us the magazine articles about him, the letters of thanks that he's received, postcards from around the world, his guestbooks...and then shows us the stacks of more and more underneath the table. He's quite proud of his son, who lives in New York City and works as a veterinarian.

The more time we're there, the more hats we try on...the more I break down and decide to get a really nice one: a Monticristi Fino. Mr. Pullo, of course, couldn't have been more delighted. The finest kinds can be rolled up, put in a box, packed up and then unpacked later, with the original shape springing back when it's unrolled. I'd known this for years, but it was still a little shocking to see my new hat rolled up and boxed. It's unpacked right now and looks perfect!

We asked if we could take a picture, which he gladly agreed to. It wasn't a picture with me that he was after, though. He took quite a liking to Susan.

With my beautiful hat tucked away in a balsa box, I realized that I needed a hat for everyday wear, too. I selected another hat with a wider brim to wear out from the shop. The lower quality hat takes a couple of days to make, whereas the nicer one took about two months to make. The difference in quality is obvious when you look at or hold both in your hands. I'm still tickled to death about my hats!

Everywhere you turned you felt like you were just in an old city. Not perfect and pristine, but very old, with a very long history. With the actual city of Cuenca being almost 500 years old, it's easy to understand why. There are parks and squares around that you just stumble upon when you're wandering, and there are lots of art galleries tucked away in small spaces.

We took this picture on our last day in Cuenca. Susan insisted on the picture because the clouds were just so beautiful. Of course it's different in person, but you probably get the idea. It's December, it's in the mid 70's, the sky is blue, there's a nice breeze blowing crisp dry air past you and you can smell something good that someone is cooking...yep, it's good.

There were a couple of museums in town that we visited, and while we were a bit hesitant at first, we really enjoyed our visits. The first was an enormous display of pre-Columbian art, mostly ceramics. The second was a bank sponsered museum that included very well done exhibits that demonstrated the clothing, food and houses of the indigenous people in all of the areas of Ecuador. They had quite a lengthy explanation of the Shari people, including their practice of shrinking heads, one of which you see here. Wow.

After several days of rest and exploration, we headed back to Quito. We flew back (a forty-five minute flight) instead of taking a ten-plus hour bus ride. As it turns out, the roads were closed and we couldn't have taken a bus if we wanted to!

Guayaquil market

2006-12-24T12:50:00.000-05:00

We were so glad that we got a chance to just walk around in Guayaquil for a while. It certainly has it's own style, weather, people and food. It's a big city, and the morning we walked around by ourselves was busy. The neighborhoods/streets we passed were of all different kinds. We'd pass the office supply part of town, the furniture part of town...as if you were moving though different stores!

We were off wandering and went into one of the markets, which is like going to a grocery store, since there are vendors that sell everything you'd find...there were produce sections, sausage sections, household utensils, guinea pigs...everything that you'd find in a grocery back home.

In the 'Greens' section, the smells were so intense. I wish there were a way to share that smell. Everything smelled so clean, strong, healthy, and just so...green.

One part of the market had the live animals. We had fun asking which were pets and which were for eating. Sometimes it was hard to guess. There were doves, chickens and guinea pigs for eating...and parakeets and parrots for pets. Of course I kept guessing wrong and the lady selling them all would laugh.

There were also all kinds of interesting kitchen utensils, handmade graters, carved wooden spoons and cutting boards. Handmade soap was popular in a couple of booths, and there was even a black sticky version that had newspaper on the bottom, from when it cooled and cut. We got some of that. It turns out that it's for washing your hair. We haven't tried it yet.

After all of that we went and checked out of our hotel and took a last walk down to the riverfront. We sat for a while, talking, watching the people, listening to the Parks & Recreation trucks that had bedfuls of speakers, blaring music out on the streets.

We had to decide whether to head back up into the mountains to Cuenca, or continue up the coast...heads or tails, just about. There isn't a wrong decision there. We read our books that we brought along with us and tried to decide.

At the bus terminal, before we got our tickets, we decided to get something to eat. The food smelled so good and we knew that we'd have a several hour trip ahead of us, so we stopped. The food looked good...tasted very good....and we should have just stopped right there. But we didn't. We _HAD_ to add some hot sauce to that, didn't we?

It looked a little suspect and the nozzle was kind of clogged...but we put it on our food anyway. And we have regretted it. Oh well, you never know.

The Bus ride to Guayaquil

2006-12-23T16:51:00.000-05:00

We never posted anything about our bus ride down from the Andes down to Guayaquil, not because it wasn't interesting, but rather because we couldn't get at the pictures!

The bus wasn't so different, although in the picture on the left you can see that our 'in-flight' movie was Casino Royale, which was barely in the theaters when we left. We got to see it in Spanish on the bus for free. Oh! And someone brought their dog, which kept wandering around the bus, walking under the seats, sniffing around for a tasty treat. Maybe we could have brought Pip after all...

For a good portion of the trip, we were literally driving through clouds. Even still, you could see the change in the types of trees, and of course the change in temperature. The progress was pretty slow for most of the trip, since the visibility was pretty low.

Once we'd dropped down to the coastal plain, we were suddenly in the middle of banana country. The picture on the left shows what the banana fields look like, and in the middle picture, if you look closely you can see a cacao tree, with a fruit on it.

We were merrily flying along, trying to catch up on the schedule, when all of a sudden there was an explosion on the bus. It wasn't inside, it was outside -- a tire! It was pretty loud, let me tell you. We pulled over, and within about twenty minutes the tire was replaced. It was a good time for everyone to take a leak, too. The center picture is the driver...and the one on the right is the dog.

We finally got in to Guayaquil in the late evening...quite a bit later than we expected. After finding a place to stay and cleaning up a little, we went out for a walk down to the waterfront.

As you can see by the shorts and short pants...it was quite a bit warmer than anywhere else we'd been! The nighttime temperature was pleasantly warm and pleasantly humid...just perfect!

¿Donde esta mi Ceviche?

2006-12-20T16:46:00.000-05:00

OK, so I know you´re all wondering what happened to the food! Don´t worry...we´ve got the whole scoop, the whole giant spoon, too. After traipsing around all morning we all were feeling a bit peckish, so we went downtown to a Cevicheriá called Marcelo´s. Wow! This is what was out in front:

It´s a cart piled high with conchas (shells) and the guy on the left uses a little guillotine type device to split them, then puts them into the bowl (center) and then another guys sluices the tasty bits into the bowl...where they are then destined to become lunch.

There´s Robert, tearing into his bowl while mine sits (for the moment) untouched. At first when we were inside, I thought that they had squid ceviche, since a lot of people had bowls with ceviche...but the lime juice was black.

Then, I find out it´s from the color of the conchas we´d seen outside. I´m not as much on the bivalve ceviche, and was debating whether I should change my order...but when my order came, they´d made a mistake. Instead of shrimp and oyster ceviche, I got oysters and conchas. I didn´t have to send it back. Susan got the fish and shrimp ceviche, and I figured that we could share back and forth, but she wasn´t so keen on the conchas. Hmm. They were a little tougher than the shrimp, but quite tasty. Wow!

As a small note, ceviche is a seafood dish that´s comprised of different types of seafood that aren´t cooked, but rather marinated in lime juice. In addition to various spices, onions are almost always added, along with tomato and cilantro.

Susan wasn´t paying attention to her camera duties for a couple of minutes (she´s in charge of all the culinary action shots, you know) and by the time she came to, from swooning over her own succulent bowl of maritime delights, the bowl was nearly gone.

Thank god for the fast-action, high speed camera, or this mesmerizing scene might have been lost.

After lunch, we were set loose on the streets with the intention of resting a bit, before dinner. We, of course, had nothing to wear. After trying to find somewhere to buy some presentable clothes for a while...and time drawing near for dinner...we took the drastic action of asking a random woman on the street if she knew where two backpackers could find decent clothes for a dinner invitation. She said to go to Policentro. It sounded a little scary, but we thought about it. After another person also told us to go there, we did.

We took a taxi.

We were in the midst of a full-on, Western style shopping frenzy! The mall was as modern as any we´d seen, and we found a fantastic little boutique where Susan found some lovely clothes. The prices were outrageous in Ecuadorean standards, but just the same as back home, in DC. A trip to one of the anchor stores in the mall paid off with a nice white shirt for me, too.

The nice taxi driver for the ride home agreed to wait for us while we ran upstairs and changed and ran back down and then dashed off to the restaurant. Susan discovered the ploy of having him wait as soon as we got upstairs and I said, ¨OK, hurry! He´s waiting!¨

Here´s a picture of us on the way. Susan looked fantastic.

This is the fantastic place we went for dinner with the Mifex staff:

They had a giant grill inside where they grilled too many things to count. I took lots of pictures, but only posted one picture of the actual food...the one on the far right.

That´s Luis, slicing off a healthy portion of an entire filet mignon. It didn´t fit on the skillet.

It was cooked perfectly.

I´m sorry. I have to stop now. I just can´t go on...

Guayaquil and the Microenterprises

2006-12-19T17:44:00.000-05:00

This is the entry that has taken the longest to write. Not just because of the number of photos, which are many, nor for the amount of text, which will be long...but rather for the amount of information, memories, and the gravity of what we saw and experienced. I want to strike a good balance here, with the proper tone, while still giving the contextual picture of our experience. Hopefully, as we´ve gone along on our travels, relating some stories and photos here, you´ve noticed the banner on the right for Kiva. It´s not there by accident, nor is it some intrusive advertising, but it´s there by choice. We put it there. For years I´ve been intrigued by microfinance and hoped to someday be able to participate, as a financier, as a lender, as a facilitator...in some fashion. Before I ramble on any further, you can click here for a more thorough explanation of microfinance.

In early 2006 I heard a piece on NPR that highlighted Kiva, a non-profit organization that allows anyone with internet access and as little as $25 a chance to participate in micro-lending. I immediately signed up and was delighted to be able to put some funds that would otherwise be diverted to a savings account directly into the hands of entrepreneurs, in developing countries around the world. More recently, an episode of Frontline on PBS highlighted Uganda and the success of a microenterprise that I was lucky enough to have lent to, directly through Kiva. Click here to go to that page and see the show.

So! With all that explained, Susan and I traveled to Guayaquil specifically to be able to visit some of the people and their businesses that we´ve lent money to already.

Mifex is a microlending business that operates in Guayaquil, and they use Kiva as their funding source. Although it´s certainly not part of their job or responsibilites, we were very pleased when Robert Edgar, the Director of Operations, corresponded with us before we arrived and offered to take us on a tour of their operations. So! After a couple of phone calls on Saturday morning, he picked us up, along with Luis Crespo (whose business card says General Manager...but I´d say CEO!) and Esther Vasquez, a loan officer.

They took us to their two offices, which are pictured below. Now, the microlending we knew about...but what surprised us as well was that they also provided vocational training. Volunteers come into the offices and hold classes in various subjects, all of which cost the students just $1 per class. While we were there, two women were learning how to apply acrylic nails with appliques...both of which will be positioned to receive their own loans, once their training is complete. The middle picture shows their bulletin board, which lists some of the trades that people can learn. For more information and Mifex´s website, click here.

When we first made plans to visit Guayaquil and contacted Robert (the man talking with Susan in the picture on the right), we were hoping just for the addresses of some of the businesses, so we could visit on our own. His very polite reply was that it might be a little dangerous, as they weren´t in the best parts of town...perhaps he could meet us and take us there. If I recall correctly, he also mentioned that it would be hard to find them, since there weren´t addresses, as such, that we could use. We didn´t decline, of course, but still thought that we´d be ok on our own.

As the three of them took us for a ride, we crossed a river and came upon this view:

It looks beautiful, doesn´t it? They went on to explain that with so many people coming to Guayaquil, looking for work, not just from other, more rural parts of Ecuador, but also from Peru and Colombia, that there simply isn´t room for them all. As many as two million people live in what Luis called ´the poverty belt´that wraps all around the city. I hate to call them slums...perhaps shanty-towns might be more appropriate. These homes along the water are built by squatters and have no services: no water, no sewer, no electric and no trash services.

We next moved to another neighborhood, which on the map looks just like the picture above. No street names, just the name of the neighborhood. They explained that they were entire towns that were only semi-official. The city doesn´t want to recognize them...only informally. Typically, these neighborhoods have only one paved road that runs through them, for the buses to use, and the rest are dirt.

These are the neighborhoods in which Mifex operates. Not with the extreme poor, that are homeless, but with people that are on their way up, economically speaking. Without going too far off subject, they have a rating system that they use to rate the poverty level...which also factors into their underwriting system. Mifex is very stringent in their requirements, and only funds around 30% of the applicants...but they have a 100% repayment rate thus far.

Here is a short clip of us driving through the neighborhood, below. The roads are rough, so it´s a little bumpy on the video, too.

While driving around we got to see some gang members hanging out on the corners. This was a good reason for us not going here alone, that´s for sure. The Mifex loan officers have to deal with them on a regular basis, hiding their digital cameras and other valuables, paying a ´tax´to pass through of $.10-.15 each time. One loan officer recently discovered that they literally had no money on them...and got pistol-whipped as a lesson.

The first business we visited was that of Ervin Lino, who is pictured on the right, along with his mother. They operate a business called ´Picanteria Tres Hermanos.´ In the middle picture below you can see (from the left) his father, followed by Ervin, a cousin, the second brother, his mother and finally the third brother.

The whole family is involved in the operation. Ervin´s father runs a natural juice stand out in front, which we found to be quite delicious, too. I got a chance to try the specialty of the house, literally the last bowl left, even though we were there in the morning. While we visited (and I ate), Ervin discussed his plans for his next loan: a truck which will allow him to buy larger quantities of fresh fish and other supplies. In addition to the two businesses here at this location, the family also has started a little store just down the street, on the corner, where they sell dry goods. The truck will come in pretty handy, I´ll bet!

In the picture on the left, you can see Luis Crespo on the left and Robert Edgar on the right side of the Jeep. On the right, Ester Vasquez is busy talking while I´m sampling the best encebollado I´ve had yet! It´s no wonder that his business is thriving! ¡Que Sabroso!

To see Ervin´s original loan request, click here.

The next business we visited was that of Teodoro Burgos. He´s the man in red in the picture below:Teodoro runs his mechanic´s shop in a small neighborhood where he has clients, and he also has a contract to do repair work for Dole, which has a large presence in Ecuador. Bananas are big business around Guayaquil! He proudly showed us his operations and his staff, taking a break from his day. They had been working when we arrived, and we could not only see their current projects, but also smell the paint that was yet to dry.

The pictures are of Teodoro and his staff in the left and center picture, and the street entrance on the right.

For Teodoro´s original loan request page on Kiva, click here.

As if all of that wasn´t enough, Luis was kind enough to invite us to dinner with the entire Mifex staff. As it turns out, it was to celebrate their first year in business! Although I could understand only about half of what was said, each person shared how pleased they were with their first year, that while it wasn´t easy at all, they were proud of the progress they´d made and how grateful they were to be a part of this organization. We were quite impressed as well, and look forward to being partners with Mifex for years to come.

I won´t share any more news that we learned that night, but suffice it to say that they have many more plans in the works; bigger and better things to come! As Luis put it, we were the first to visit their enterprise and we get to see them in diapers...but they have big pants! They have a lot of plans and it certainly looks like they´re well on the road to completing them. Each person involved has far more experience than is required for their current position, far overqualified. They are working on a project that is larger than all of them combined, one that has a substantial impact on the neighborhoods and on the individual businesses.

To Luis, Esther, Robert, and the rest of the Mifex staff, we thank you sincerely for a wonderful experience -- certainly a highlight of our trip!

Thank you for reading through such a long post, too! Maybe you can now understand why it took so long to be able to sit down and put all of this together. Coincidentally, I did have a chance to just check my email the morning after our visits, and there in my inbox were two emails from Kiva: Ervin and Teodoro´s latest payments had just been posted. It´s working!

-Tom and Susan

PS. If you´d like to fund one of Mifex´s loans to businesses in Guayaquil yourself (by clicking here)...you might have to be patient. They have many loans waiting to be posted, but they have to wait their turn...and their loans are for smaller amounts than some, so they tend to be filled very quickly! I just looked, and while there were some when I started typing, there is only one left!

Catching up...

2006-12-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

Hello!

We´ve been a little behind in keeping up with photos and news of our trip. There´s been so much that´s happened, with so much to think about and consider... and a bit of travel delays... and a need to just slow down a bit. Right now we´re in Cuenca, which is Ecudaor´s third larges city, behind Guayquil (the largest) and Quito (the capital). It´s absolutely beautiful, with wonderful colonial buildings and a river that runs through it.

This is the place where we´re staying, El Cafecito (The Little Coffee), which is about ten rooms that are all around a central courtyard, which is a cafe. We´ve been a little lazy and had dinner there last night (comfort food, a little pasta and toasted bread) and also breakfast there this morning. MMMmmm. [Susan is trying to make me describe breakfast, but I´m not.] Our room is the nicest we´ve staying in so far, with beautiful wood floors that are waxed (very subtle, very rich finish), wonderfully clean bathroom, nice colorful towels, maps on the wall, and a bamboo mat ceiling. Our room has a door that faces onto the rear green space, where we hear the birds chirping in the morning, along with the occasional church bell in the (not to) distance. Oh! And this morning I heard frogs.

Yesterday we had to do laundry, as we were on our literally last set of clothes...and just stayed inside while it was all rainy...and read our books. We´re only here at the little internet place two doors down for a second, to let everyone know we´re ok, and that we´ll post a lot of pictures and video later this afternoon, when the rains start again. It´s the rainy season, you know?!

El Nariz Del Diablo

2006-12-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

Our last morning in Riobamba started with a little bit of panic. We understood that the train left at 7:00 am. We had asked that someone knock on our door in the morning at 5:30, so that we´d have enough time to get packed up, grab a cup of coffee, a bite to eat...get to the train station plenty early to get our tickets. We were up at 5:30 (having gone to bed early) and weren´t really surprised when our knock on the door didn´t come.

After about fifteen minutes, I look out the window to see the man opening the gates and letting the train into the station. We hustled out the door, ran downstairs and woke up the ´night guard´and had him let us out the door. We raced down to the train station only to find hordes of gringos ahead of us in line...and the roof was packed.

Luckily for us, there was a second public train (and one private one) that day, so we were able to get seats/tickets and also a coveted spot on the roof.

The train stopped in Guamote, where we´d been the day before. This time the town was quite different, to be sure! There were just a few people in the street, a couple of them selling food and coffee for the crazy gringos.

The air was quite cold that early in the morning, not to mention the fact that we´d been bobbling along on TOP of a train for the past couple of hours, rolling along and seeing the gorgeous green and fertile fields. To warm up, we had a few pieces of fried bread with cheese in the middle. Just the thing for a cold morning. Think glazed donut, without the glazing, just chewy dough with melted cheese...

In regards to questions about the train ride, there were only a couple of Ecuadorians that I noticed that were on the train. This isn´t a transportation train, this is a tourist train. Ecuador used to have a complete railway system, but over the years it has been damaged and fallen into disrepair. There are only sections left, and this one continues on because of the dramatic descent down the Nariz del Diablo. Whereas a bus ticket for the entire route would be around $4, this train was $11. It went from Riobamba to Guamote, Alausi and then Sibambe. From the bottom, it went back up the same way and returned to Alausi.

As you may also notice, Susan ALSO had a poncho on, although she took hers off for the lower, much warmer part of the trip. So! Here are a few pictures from the first potion, along with a closeup of her beautiful poncho. Hers is the style that the women wear in Ambato, which is further north from Riobamba.

I do have quite a bit more pictures and video, but am having a hard time finding an internet cafe with a DVD reader...so I only have a fraction of them available to post. I´ll look later today and see what I can find. I´ve got to get back to the hotel...Susan is sleeping in EXTRA long today. I´ve already been out for a walk and a little breakfast tease: fresh watermelon. MMMmmm...

We´re in Guayaquil! And on TV!

2006-12-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

Not much time to write just now, but we just wanted to share the news:

We´re in Guayaquil. We rode the train from Riobamba down the ¨Nariz Del Diablo,¨which is a very steep route down a mountain, the Nose of the Devil. We have tons of pictures and tons of video, but we can´t find a place to get them off of the camera chips and onto CDs or DVDs...so here are just a few photos:

We´re going to be on TV. The poncho and hat got us the spot. I´ll be introducing ¨Chimborazo Por Dentro¨on Channel 3. We were just minding our own business, having a little lunch (vegetable soup, rice and a tasty little corn salad for Susan, and I had the lunch special, the chicken and rice, and soup, too) and two guys walk by and ask if they can shoot some video of us. We say that´s fine and then they come back to do an interview. When I explained (as if it wasn´t patently clear by then) that I didn´t speak fluent Spanish, they asked if I´d just say ¨¡Hi! ¡Chimborazo Por Dentro!¨ I did it in my best Sabado Gigante voice. I don´t know if they´ll use that one or a more normal one. We´ll see. The guy said he´d email me the show.

We´ll catch up on all this tomorrow... Bye!

Market Day in Guamote

2006-12-14T17:50:00.000-05:00

This morning we headed down to Guamote, which is about half an hour south of Riobamba. We wanted to visit an authentic, non-touristy, indigenous market - and Guamote was it! From our little hotel we walked down the street, on the way out of town that the buses would take and after about three blocks we found this bus...

They were loading while we watched, and then after we got on they kept on loading. Bags and bags of produce, greens, clothing...everything. They even loaded two of these coolers full of ice cream!

Of course, once you get there, you have to unload it all, too.

Here are some pictures we took while walking around in the market:

	While we were there, I really wanted to get an authentic poncho for the train ride. It´s cold in the morning, and I purposely didn´t pack a sweater, so I could get one at the market. Most of the ponchos are really colorful, but they´re made from polyester or acrylic. Obviously they´re much cheaper than handmade ones.
	So I finally found a poncho that I liked. It´s a wool one, very plain. But then, I had to find the hat. Easier said than done, I found out. The largest size we could find was a 57, and I was a 58. After several rounds we finally found one. Now, the outfit was complete! How would people respond to the gringo in the poncho and hat?
	We hadn´t even made it down to the bottom of that street before several people commented on it, admiring the poncho. As it turns out, we weren´t the only ones that knew there was a difference. People kept saying how nice it was, saying it was made from wool, wool from Ecuador. ¨Yes,¨I´d say, ¨ that´s why I bought it.¨ At the bottom of the hill, this man stopped me to tell me how much he liked it. ¨We´re the same!¨ he said. ¨Si! Like brothers¨I said, and we both laughed. He said we should take a picture of us both, to hang on the wall. So Susan took a picture.

When we went down to where the grain was sold, once again we got a good reception with the poncho and hat. We talked for a while about the poncho, which she said was dirty and needed a wash...and about the grain they sold, what kind it was...where we came from, where we lived, what kind of work we did, how much money we made...you know, small talk.

Unlike other markets that we´d visited, this one had an animal market, too. All day we saw people walking around with their pigs, sheep, donkeys and cows. We walked over to take a look.

So this guy has a cow for sale. Everyone is hanging around, pushing it a bit, looking it over...

This group of people start negotiating the price. After they agree on the price, the man there in the center tells his wife there on the right to get out the money. She pulls it out from under her shawl and they count it out.

After the seller has all the money in his hand (while still holding the rope) he counts it all. Any bills he doesn´t like, he hands back, and replacements are found. They´re very picky about the condition of the bills here. I´ve had several refused because they had a small tear or were excessively worn.

Here is the proud new owner! I asked how much he paid, and he told me he paid $150. When I talked to (I think) his father, I asked him how much it would be worth next year at the same time. He said $300. I said, ¨Wow! That´s a lot of money to make in a year.¨ He replied, ¨That´s a lot of risk...¨

Off they all go, walking home.

We got back on the bus, which was just as packed as the trip to the market. These people sat next to us, and once again they commented on the poncho and the hat. It was really a great experience visiting the market, and particularly the response that the poncho and hat got.

On the way home we ate the sugarcane that we bought the previous day in Baños. It was starting to go off a little bit - not in a bad way...it sort of tasted like rum. MMMmmm. We had fun...and then we got a little sleepy on the way home.

¡Baños a Riobamba!

2006-12-14T17:23:00.000-05:00

Well, after spending two hours in Baños trying to transfer our photos to a cd, writing the updates and loading the pictures and video...we went back to our hotel, packed up and headed out of town. After dinner, of course. Per Susan´s request, I´m skipping the description of our dinner. From the look of it, I don´t think she liked it, anyway.

We did pick up some chopped sugar cane to munch on while we were waiting for the bus to Riobamba. I packed what I didn´t eat in the backpack and got to that later. While waiting we took a little walk across the bridge there in town and were surprised to learn that we weren´t on the valley floor at all, but rather up several hundred feet! Baños was on a bank of the river, just like the other towns we saw further downstream.

The bus was...well, shockingly orange. There was the cutest little kid across the aisle from us, who slept the entire way. When he woke up after two hours, he didn´t quite know what to make of the two gringos who were talking to him.

The guy in front of us had two parakeets in a little cage. They chirped almost the whole way and gave Susan pecking nightmares. I liked the sound.

We got into Riobamba in the late evening and then found a hotel. We´re staying at the very plush Metro Hotel. It´s right next to the train station, where we will be boarding the train VERY early tomorrow morning. Our room is the one in the corner, with the light on.

Our room is the one in the corner. The odd thing is that the room has a bathroom, literally in the corner. And in the corner of the very small bathroom is the very small shower. Which is really just a curtain and the water just goes down a drain in the middle of the bathroom...which is just a corner. If one person is brushing their teeth, they can see the other person taking a shower, in the other corner. It´s so funny!

Down to the Amazon Basin...

2006-12-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

So on a whim we decided to rent two bikes and take a little bike ride. We´d heard that you could ride down hill on the road to Puyo, which is the largest town in the Oriente (Amazon region of Ecuador), and then catch a bus back. Checking one of our little guide books, it mentioned that it was 61km away, but you dropped about 3000 feet in altitude. Sounds great. We packed a backpack with a couple of books, our bullfighting ponchos and a couple of sweaters.

What could be better than a little bike ride downhill on a cool day?

The road we followed had several tunnels, one of which we went through. It was a little scary, riding in complete darkness, wondering if you´d make it through before the next bus or dump truck came hurtling down behind you...but we made it.

I spied a little pork place along the side of the road, but Susan wouldn´t let me stop. It just looked a little too dicey. I agreed (reluctantly). We did stop later on for some yogurt and bananas. Oh! And they had Apple Gatorade. It was fantastic! We drank plenty of water, of course, and got to talk to lots of people along the way.

So at some point we realized that there was an awful lot of uphill portions...and it was hotter the lower we got...and the sun was out more than in the mountains, too...but we were still having fun. We were glad we brought some bags of sugarcane with us, which we happily munched on the side of the road.

There must have been at least four different rivers that all came into the main river, each adding their clear water into the muddier water...You can see we´re getting a little more tired.

As the day went on we stopped more and more often... After lunch there were a lot more uphill portions than in the morning. Now, yes, we´re dropping about 2500 feet, but it wasn´t as if the roads just kept going downhill. We´d go down a while and then back up...down and then back up...and the momentum wasn´t enough to get to the top of the next hill, that´s for sure. These were MOUNTAIN bikes... I kept telling Susan, "I think this is the last hill - and then it´s down hill from there." She thanked me the next day for saying that. There were WAAAAY too many "last hills."

Of course there were a lot of interesting things along the way, more waterfalls than we could count, more beautiful slopes that were covered with plants, ferns, flowers, and trees...and here are a few pictures:

Towards the end of the day we reached a little restaurant, perched on the side of the road with an amazing view of the unfolding valley/basin below. They had something tied up with a little leash and a doghouse. I´m not sure what it was...but I didn´t pet it. I think it belonged somewhere down below, the poor thing. It had a Pip nose.

Finally! I was so happy we got there, I just had to take a picture of the sign. Welcome to Puyo... Unfortunately, it looked a lot like the last couple of towns we passed. We´re not down at sea level here, we´re still at about 1000´above sea level, and of course it continues down lower and lower...but still! We made it.

The picture on the left is a view back to where we came from in the morning. Look closely, those aren´t just clouds that Susan is looking at; those mountains are the Andes, and that´s where we started in the morning. Look at Susan! She´s eating a whole fish! (OK, so I helped her finish it) And we shared a well deserved giant beer...

Upon returning back to Baños, we noticed that the OTHER guide book we had mentioned that it was an 8 hour ride, with the last half being the hardest part. NOW we know to check them both. : )

South to Baños!

2006-12-13T11:47:00.000-05:00

Well, we´re off! On Monday we headed out of Quito, taking the trolley south to the bus terminal. we were intent on taking a bus south to Baños, and this was the place to catch it. But first, we had to have a good, hearty breakfast. Wow! This is always one of my favorite parts of the day. I had encebollados for the first time...it´s a soup with potato, hominy, tuna, onions...and you squeeze lime on top. MMMmmm. Susan had eggs, rice, papaya juice and coffee.

So! Off we go. We sat in the very back of the bus, behind this couple that were just hugging each other the entire way. They were talking, laughing, hugging...it was great. Well, I suppose we were about the same, too.
The bus we were on was experiencing some brake problems as far as I was concerned...so we took this bus only as far as Ambato.

That sound you hear (over the wind) is the brakes grinding, metal on metal. Yeah. Time to change buses...we did.

So anyway, we had a great time in Ambato, wandering around a bit and walking through the market. In the distance we could see the volcano gurgling...and right on the side was Baños, our destination.

On the way back to the bus terminal, we just had to stop and investigate what it was that ladies were selling on the street...We´d smelled it (so sweet!) and seen it, but hadn´t gotten that close to it yet. There was usually a crowd. We take a peek, and there is a pot full of black things, boiling away. What were they? Figs!

Of course I had to get one: a fresh roll, sliced open with some fresh cheese, about five or six figs, and then some of the fig broth poured over it. Oh! ¡Que sabroso!

On the way to Baños we stopped in Salasacas, which is one of the ´weaving towns´ that produce a unique product. We chatted for a while with one of the women there, and before we left she took us upstairs to where she had her loom. Here she is demonstrating how she makes the rugs that she sells:

We finally got to Baños in the evening...enough time to walk around, find a hotel ($8 per night) and then go for a walk down to the baths. Yep, Baños=Baths. With piping hot water from a thermal spring...right next to the volcano. From the hillside where the waterfall is, here´s a view of the baths. And the other picture is of course the waterfall.

Inside the baths, you can sit in the mixture of the hot and cold (which is about 90 degrees), the hot only, or dip in the waterfall water which is nice and cold. There are other pools in the same place with different temperatures, but we stayed right there with the rest of the people. The water smelled a bit, but was SO comfortable. Our skin was nice and soft the next day...

Guaba man...

2006-12-11T07:31:00.000-05:00

On our walk in the morning, we ran across a woman selling fruit. There was a fruit that I'd seen some women eating it before, and was curious to try it. It was called a 'Guaba.' It looks like little white hamsters. Very furry ones. I checked the name on the internet, and found an article about them here. I ate almost all of them, and then started sharing them as we went along.

Sharon liked our rugs so much, we set off to find the couple that makes them again. When we arrived, we discovered that they made a large one, too...which is now in their living room. : )

Later on, we found an enormous Hello Kitty! Sharon and Chris have a blog, just like this one, called Hola Quito! Hello Kitty/Hola Quito...get it?! Click here to see it. They've got some fantastic pictures posted from their travels...and at some point I'm sure there will be the same pictures on both blogs, since in a couple of weeks we're going off on a little trek together. Hoo-hoo!

Susan and I are heading out today on a bus and probably won't post for a little while. We're heading down to Banos and then Riobamba, where we hope to take the train down the "Nariz Del Diablo," which is one of the only remaining portions of Ecuador's railway system.

See you!

Santa Clara Market...

2006-12-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

Three of us (Sharon, Susan and Tom) went off today...wandering again. This time to the Santa Clara market, which has a lot of produce and stalls inside. We went walking and then took the bus. The three of us had a great day goofing around and just being silly in general.

We walked past Chris' favorite Panaderia (bakery) - favorite because of the name: Pan Pan Padaderia.

English translation: Bread Bread Bakery.

Another funny shop, one that _I_ liked. The sign says (underneath the name), "El Mas Pollo" or, "The MORE Chicken!" Ha!

We found a store for Sharon, too.

At the bus stop we pretended not to know Susan, who was busy taking pictures.

I like these pictures. The kids run out with wet squeegies and clean the windows for tips. Look at the people yelling at him from inside. Then the lady turned the windshield washers on him.

There was an enormous cabbage at this stand, and only this little guy was running it. We talked about the cabbage for a bit and then I told him that I wanted a picture of such an enormous cabbage. He didn't want HIS picture taken, just the cabbage.

Then he told me he knew some English. "Window is Ventana," he says. "And puerta?" I ask. "Door!" he yells.

We found a stand with the whole roasted pig. Wow.

I got a little excited. After eating a plate of the roasted pork and mashed yucca...and this incredible vineagar sauce over it...well, I was thirsty. I had a glass of alfalfa juice. With a little orange juice mixed in with it. Amazing. I was peppy all afternoon.

This is a clown that was walking down the street.

We went to the hardware store on the way back home. We had to finish our ice cream before we could go inside.

Wandering around...

2006-12-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

Quito is so beautiful. This morning we walked down to catch the bus, and we pass a small flower market along the way. I took a few guerilla photos (camera on, held at waist level, pointing where you're not looking) there and they turned out pretty well. I'd like to use one as wallpaper on the desktop myself, so here are a couple at full size that you could use if you'd like:

We were heading downtown on a couple of errands and just sort of got lost. Not literally, just sort of lost in thought. It's great to be in a place where everything is completely different sometimes. We were noticing that since there is so much to take in, that you're completely occupied with all the new experiences...and are never bored, never lacking something interesting to look at, taste, or smell.

We walked past a fruit/juice shop on Amazonas Street and stopped for some carrot juice. $1.50 for about 24 ounces. MMMmmm. The lady juiced it right there. Are those the biggest carrots you've ever seen, or what?!

Susan got some new glasses. $1.50 for the eye exam. Yep. The glasses are ready on Monday. (I included the bit about the glasses, because Susan was pointing out that the blog was all about food lately.)

We saw a car with a 'boot.' It was pretty funny. I'm not sure what the infraction was, but the lady was chatting with the police officers. They weren't quite as modern as the ones in DC, but just as effective: They had three giant screws welded to the pinchers...so if you moved the car AT ALL, you'd have a real problem on your hands.

We went back to the same place for lunch. Susan had what I had yesterday, the rice with calamari and tuna. I had the 'tortilla camarones,' the shrimp tortilla. Sort of like the Spanish type, not Mexican. It was basically a plate of shrimp and green onions, sauteed and then with egg over the top. Wow. We ate the entire bowl of salsa that they had out. I went up to the lady after we were done and apologized for eating the whole thing. She laughed. Then I asked her what was in it and the secret ingredient was the 'tree tomato,' which we've seen in the markets but haven't tried yet. Apparently you cook it. We'll see. : )

As we were walking back to the bus, we walked past these two little guys playing outside of the Artisan's Market, where we were yesterday. They thought the camera was pretty cool, seeing the pictures of themselves right away.

We're hanging around Quito for a couple more days and then heading off, out of town. We'll keep posting every day until then, since when we get home we unload all our pictures and gawk at them for a while...and it's not much more effort to post them to share.

See you!

Quito's Artisan Market

2006-12-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

We went shopping today. For stuff. We purposely didn't pack much to take down here, intending to get sweaters and jackets here. So we've been a little cold (after getting soaked) and decided that today was the day to get some sweaters.
So! Off we went to go to the Artisan's Market. First we had to take all our clothes to the laundry, since you can't dry clothes outside on the line when it pours rain in the afternoon. You could if you stayed home and took them in, but we've been off exploring...

Oh. And we ate. A lot. We had to wait for twenty minutes for the laundry to open, so we had a coffee. I had an empanada and Susan had a Pan Chocolate. MMMmmm. Then we went down to the older part of town (Gringolandia) where all the restaurants and hostels are and had breakfast (again) in a square. We then rolled down the cobblestone-type streets to the Artisan Market. Isn't that just the most gnarly sycamore you've ever seen?!

The Artisan Market is a bunch of small stalls with all sorts of stuff, but mostly the same stuff over and over again. Beautiful, don't get me wrong, but you know you'll find the same stuff a few stalls down. The interesting thing was that there was quite a bit of variety in the types of people that were there. Take a look at the picture on the right.

The vendors are pretty funny, too.

I love this picture of a woman folding scarves. The colors are just beautiful and I have to say that the people are extremely friendly. Of course they want us to buy something, but even if we don't they're nice. As you might imagine, we had quite the time joking around with the vendors, the kids, and also the other browsers/shoppers.

Oh! And we had some chocolate ice cream, with cinnamon. Muy delicioso.

We got slippers.

We had an amazing lunch at a Cevicheria. We didn't actually get ceviche, but other stuff that looked pretty good. You may notice Susan pinching into my rice with calamari and tuna there on the right. You may also notice that there aren't any more pictures, since once I had to get down to business, there wasn't anything left for more pictures.

Susan just walked in and mentioned that all the posts are about food. Well, yeah. I had an amazing lunch, she had a fish platter, two lemonades and the bill was $4. THAT is exciting.

So. Then after some wandering around bookstores, we had to stop for dinner. : ) Takeout. That's me there, waiting for the food to come (in my nifty new green sweater), figuring out the shortest route back home to eat. Wow, that's some good food.

Death in the Afternoon

2006-12-07T07:21:00.000-05:00

Wow! OK, first things first: They have wonderful food at the bullfights. Susan got TWO bowls of Ceviche de Camaron...I got one of these sliced roasted pork sandwiches...and a 'bull plate' which was Serrano Ham, other meats, cheeses (MMMmmm) and some fresh mozzarella and dried tomato....OH! Wow.

I just couldn't wait until we got inside to start.

We got down to our seats a little early and got to people-watch for a while...we drank some beer, drank some wine...ate some food. It's like going to a baseball game, you know?! The baseball game is fine and all, but if you really wanted to watch the game, you'd just watch it on TV. This is an EVENT, and people get all fancied up for it. Like these two characters that sat behind us. There are also some funny pictures of the two loud ladies that sat behind us, yelling in the rain...but that's another part of the story.

We were all there (in part) to see 'El Fandi!' He was the headliner, and also the best matador of the day. Here's a picture of him with his first bull. Now, on Monday I saw the best bullfight I'd ever seen. It was Susan's first, and she really enjoyed it. El Fandi topped that. Susan said she was so glad that we'd gone on Monday, because SHE could see a huge difference. I took video, I took pictures...I filled two of the chips in the camera and used up one battery. I got carried away. Fantastic stuff. About halfway through, it started to rain. And I mean rain.

No rain delay here... things kept right on going. Everyone in the stands scrambled for their ponchos, while the ladies selling plastic bags and sheets raced through the stands yelling "Plastico! Plastico!"

The water all drained down the concrete seats, down one row to the next, so you'd better be sure that you weren't just WEARING your poncho, you'd better be SITTING on it, too. EVERYTHING got wet. Our shoes were gushing water when we stepped, although our heads were dry (check out Susan's cool hat!) and we had dry sweaters in our backpack, which is semi-waterproof.

So where does all that water go? Downhill, of course. Down one persons leg, onto their shoe, onto the bleacher seat, down the next guy's pants (he's too drunk to get up), down his seat...until finally it gets...down to the ring. Where it stays. You can see the water all around the edges of the ring, but it kept filling up until the entire thing was underwater. The bulls were slipping, the matadors were slipping...it was pretty dicy there for a while.

You know where this is going, don't you?

"Tom, show us some pictures of how bad it got." That's what you're saying, right?

The screen kept getting wet and I'd have to wipe it off on my wet shirt. Then when the rain was too much, I'd hold it down lower (taking this picture accidentally) but then the water would run down my sleeve and flood the camera.

The camera started opening and closing, the flash was randomly going off...it would be on when the power switch said 'off' and off when it said 'on.' Here is the last picture. Ominous looking, isn't it?!

The camera was dead. And IT wasn't going to end up as tacos the next day like the bulls.

Well, it was worth it. We said that. It hurt, but we meant it. We squished our way back home, got some milk and chocolate with cinnamon to drink our sorrows away and see what we could do to dry out the camera and rescue the pictures.

When we came in the apartment, Sharon and Chris were there already, with the patio doors open, music on and drinks in hand. We warmed up ourselves, warmed up a little pan dulce in the toaster oven...and then put the camera in, too. When I took it out it was like a hot potato, but it cooled off, I blew in it, shook it...and it worked. Briefly.

I unloaded all the pictures onto their computer and went and had a drink. And another. And, well, after a while I wasn't so worried about it. I tried taking a couple of pictures and they were foggy, at best. We drank some more. And then we ate. Tasty food, tasty drinks, lots of conversation, and it was another night in Quito.

We're off now to go do some laundry and get some goodies for dinner, because we're doin' it all again tonight. Later on I'll see about going through some of the pictures, but NOW we're going to get some breakfast and wander about.

See you!

Rainy Day...lazing about

2006-12-05T14:36:00.000-05:00

Today was just a lazy day...just sleeping in, making some breakfast, laying around reading on the couch. Sharon & Chris are away for a couple of days and left us alone in the apartment. When we heard some thunder we got up and looked at the storm brewing and snapped a couple of pictures.

For those that are curious, the satellite picture of where we are right now can be seen on Google Maps. I'm not set up from here to actually put a dot on the map, so here on the right is a small picture that shows the balcony that the pictures were taken. Clicking on the map will take you to Google Maps and you can zoom out and see what it all looks like from space.

	The view to the west, across the city. Click on the picture to see a larger size, and you can see a woman out doing laundry on the roof, right between the lilies!
	The view to the north.
	The view to the park, up the hill on the west side.
	The lot across the street, which is visible on the satellite map.

Feria de Quito

2006-12-04T20:49:00.000-05:00

As part of the 'Feria de Quito,' or the Festival of the Founding of Quito, bullfights run from November 28 through December 6. I was really excited to attend some of them, since some of the best bullfighters in the world are here. This festival is one reason why we picked this time to come...so we were pretty excited to go today. We have tickets for the final, main event on Wednesday, but we decided this morning to go for a walk and see if we could get tickets for today.

These are some pictures that I took and put together to show the action. You can click on them and see them larger if you'd like.

This was Susan's first bullfight and she really liked it. I got to wear my black cap and we got a wineskin and filled it with Sangria outside the plaza. It was great weather, nice and cool with the warm sun...and every now and then the planes would fly almost directly overhead, sometimes distracting the bulls. Susan wants me to point out that her hair isn't greasy, she DID take a shower this morning, and that it's just that it's been drizzling a bit, which is why the other, more prepared people are wearing ponchos.

Outside the plaza all the vendors were out, so Susan had some Ceviche de Camarones and I had a Serrano Ham sandwich. MMMmm...

Sebastian Castella was one of the matadors who did very well, and after his second bull he walked around the ring while everyone gave him a standing ovation. He's the one on the far left in the picture:

For exceptional performances, matadors can be awarded an ear, two ears, or two ears and the tail. By the end of the six bullfights, two of the matadors had done very well, being awarded two ears each. Here is a picture of Miguel Angel Perera on the left and Sebastian Castella on the right, taking their final bow:

After we left the Plaza, we walked around for a bit and snapped this picture of a plane flying in for a landing at the airport, just about a quarter of a mile from the Plaza.

We walked around for a while and then made our way to a big grocery store and took the bus back to the house. Wow! What a day!

We made it!

2006-12-03T15:27:00.000-05:00

Phew! We finally made it to Quito!

After racing around Saturday morning, we got to the airport right on time, got on the plane, relaxed, read some magazines, read the paper...and got to Houston...changed planes...and almost made it to Quito. Because of heavy rains and poor visibility, our plane was diverted to Guayaquil, which is the largest city in Ecuador, down in the lowlands on the coast. Instead of arriving in Quito at 10:30 pm or so, we landed in Guayaquil and then sat on the runway for quite a while. Finally they told us to get off of the plane and told us, "don't worry, your bags will be fine. They'll stay on the plane. Please be sure to take all of your belongings off of the plane..." and no other instructions.

Once we were in the 'in transit terminal' we discovered that there wasn't any information there, either. After milling around a little bit and eating some dinner in the 24 hour cafe (see Susan eating her 'sandwiche de jamon y queso, sin jamon' which is a ham and cheese sandwich, without the ham), we find out that there is no onward flight to Quito and the plane will continue on in the morning. This is learned via an announcement over a loudspeaker...and there's no one to ask about what we should do or where we should go. We can't leave the terminal to even go outside, so most people start hunkering down on the benches. By the way, it wasn't just our plane of a couple of hundred people, it was at least one other plane, too. After a couple of hours (at around 2:30 am) we hear that buses will take us to a hotel.

In order to get out, though, we have to go through immigration...so several hundred people all marched out of the terminal at one time and we waited in line to get out. We were at first a bit puzzled at the picture that was up on the wall, welcoming people to Ecuador. It was a picture of a fruit we didn't recognize, bananas, and roses. Ok, so we were tired and didn't initially recognize that the bananas and roses at least are two of Ecuador's major exports. If you buy those little roses on the street in the States, chances are they're from Ecuador.

After about another hour or two we finally get to a hotel in downtown Guayaquil and get to sleep for about three hours before we have to go back to the airport. But at least we got hot showers! While lots of people were irritated and grumpy, we made some acquaintences with other people from the plane and had a pretty good time overall. On the way out this morning, we got to go past the waterfront area in Guayaquil and are excited about coming back. The weather there was warm and humid, and it was wonderful to sleep with the window open and have the warm breeze blowing in all night.

Because we arrived so late at night, the 'phone store' was closed and there wasn't any way to contact Chris and Sharon...so all we could do was get back on the plane the next morning and continue on to Quito. This was actually just fine, from a sightseeing sort of way, since we got to look out the window during the morning (instead of at night) and see the gorgeous mountains and volcanos.

Sharon and Chris were waiting for us at the airport, having heard about the delays when they were at the airport the night before. We all took a taxi back to their beautiful apartment, which is on the top floor of a building, with views across the valley to the mountains.

So! We're here, all safe and sound. Everything is fine...it's gorgeous here, the weather is fantastic, in the high 60's maybe with dramatic clouds and green, green hills. We've had a little bit to eat and we're taking it easy, giving ourselves a chance to acclimate to the high altitude, although we feel just fine. Well, just fine and a little sleepy. Tomorrow we'll go exploring.

2006-11-13T10:39:00.000-05:00

Hello!

This is the first post for Bad Dog Pip, the blog that Susan and I set up to share news and stories with friends and family while we're away traveling. We're not really 'blogging' sort of people, but may occasionally post some pictures of our other non-travel projects and adventures.

On the right side of the screen is a banner for Kiva, which is a way for regular people to be involved in microlending. I first heard of Kiva from a story on NPR and I immediately checked it out and signed up. They were recently featured on Frontline, which you can view here. I can't encourage you enough to just watch the segment and see what you think.

I'm so proud to have been one of the lenders to Grace Ayaa, who is featured in the video. When I read about Grace's situation and reason for requesting a loan, I realized that this was the reason I wanted to be involved in microlending: Here is someone with the initiative and drive to support themselves...not someone looking for a handout. Her original loan request is on the Kiva page here. At the bottom of the page is her payment history, showing that her loan was paid off in six months, right on time.

While we're in Ecuador, we hope to visit two more people that we helped fund and have already repaid their loans, Big Pollo 306 and Mrs. Pollo. We're going to have to have lunch at Comedor Bellita, Picantería Tres Hemanos and Picantería Don Juan while we're in Guayaquil, to see how their businesses are faring. It's a good thing they serve seafood and not just pollo. We can't wait to try the ceviche and the encebollado!