We have arrived in Banos, a vacation town for adventure sports and spa visits, for foreigners and Ecuadorians alike. We had decided it would be our next destination a few days ago, but with this weekend being a long holiday weekend for Carnival, we were having trouble getting a room. I think I’ll spare you the details because it involved me needlessly stressing out and Jose making about a bijillion phone calls, and then us getting something perfect and cheaper just by walking in the door and asking. Hooray!

This morning I thanked Jose for all his hospitality and help by giving him a Thai massage, which he’d never had before. He was a little nervous about it, but he meditates regularly so knows how to relax and breathe. I think, however, that he was pretty happy about it. His exact words were, “I didn’t really expect to like that, but …” then a while later, “I think I’m going to try to find more of that kind of massage.” 🙂 That’s what I like to hear!

Then we went to get cash and breakfast, but had more banking troubles, in which Matt’s card was eaten by the machine but they got it back out for us within 30 minutes.

And then… Transit!

A long taxi ride to the bus terminal Quitumbe, just in time to be the 2nd and 3rd to the last passengers on the bus, then a 4-hour bus ride south. It was only 3.50 per person!

Matt sat next to an American named Henry, which is one of my favorite names ever, and they chatted the whole way. Henry had an amazingly bizarre story to tell about his border crossing between Peru and Ecuador, but I had my earplugs in the whole way, so Matt will need to comment and add that story if he likes. My seat partner slept the whole way, which was fine with me! I enjoyed relaxing.

We arrived in Banos. I’d read in the Lonely Planet that it was pretty dingy, like a backpacker’s hostel town, which it is, but it’s also colorful and active, and everyone is enjoying their holiday. We checked into Hostal Plantas y Blanco, and got a corner matrimonial room, which simply means it has a double bed. It’s clean, kind of loud, and pretty cheerful. I’ve got earplugs, so I’m fine, and I like the plants all over our room. The view is great too. Our room has a balcony right over the Hostal sign on the corner, where we are sitting now.

Tomorrow we are hoping to spend most of the day at the public baths, then we’ll decide our plans for Saturday and Sunday. Sunday is Carnival, officially. Monday we may head, via Guiyaquil to the Galapagos Islands, or we may take a 2-3 day trek into the jungle from here. Depends on what news we get from Jose’s friend Ximena, who is a travel agent and arranges Galapagos tours, among other things.

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Location:Banos,Ecuador

We had decided, last night before sleeping, that even if the weather hadn’t cleared up today, we should try to take the Teleferiqo and see the view of Quito from a height of over 4100m. We left Jose’s, and first made our way across the valley near his house to see another, lower viewpoint. Matt has some trouble with heights now and then, and he was a little white as we crossed a high bridge over the valley, but once on the other side, dodging traffic and climbing endless stairs between strips of roads and housing, he was fine.

We later learned that the place we arrived at and it’s view, a little disappointing at the time, were not, in fact, the viewpoint La Cappele des Hombres, that we’d been directed to. But it was a nice hike, and after enjoying it for a few minutes, we hailed a cab to take us to the Teleferiqo, the 2.5km gondola that would carry us up the mountain. On the way, we asked to be taken to a cash machine.

Brief interlude over Technical Difficulties…
We arrived in Quito much as we would arrive in any other modern city, and Quito is very much a modern city. We had a small amount of cash, euros and dollars, and all our various bank and credit cards. We had informed our banks that we would be traveling, and cleared our cards for use. We had checked that we knew our pin codes.
First, our US bank cards didn’t work. Matt’s gave a general error message, an mine informed me that it was reported lost or stolen. We needed to call our bank.
Then, Matt’s phone wouldn’t accept a charge, so we needed to get it repaired or the part replaced. I think I already wrote about that, so skip to the banking problems.
Calling the bank resulted in my cutting up my card, and Matt’s was a problem of incorrect pin. He discussed with them that he would try some more, which they approved.
Skip to our taxi ride. Matt went to the cash machine and tried the Trustone card. No luck. He tried the Rabobank (NL) card. No luck, and a message to contact his bank. I used my Rabobank card, and it worked. Hurray. We will still need to deal with his card again.
My skills in speaking Spanish are being tested. I’m not doing well with these problems. Explaining things to bank personnel and mobile phone technicians is really beyond what could reasonably be expected of me! Matt thinks I’m doing great, but I’m getting really stressed out and can’t wait to move on to the relaxing part of this vacation.

Enough Technical Difficulties!

On the taxi ride up to the Teleferiqo, my ears popped! Just in the taxi! We were speeding up steep hilly neighborhoods, and it was already amazing. I was enjoying reading the signs, one of which said, basically:

Attention criminals!
This neighborhood is organized and we watch our community.
Be aware! We are watching you!

We have been told stories of crime in Quito, armed and unarmed robberies, rape. We have been extremely careful with, for example, where we are if I want to take a photo, that we are not displaying expensive equipment too freely, that we stay in well-populated areas, especially after dark, that we don’t carry all cash or cards on us, etc. The security guards and police everywhere serve as another constant reminder to be vigilant. We consider ourselves pretty cautious travelers anyway, but I’ve seldom felt so obviously a foreigner AND potential target.

In Thailand or Morocco, for example, we are obviously tourists, but I never felt in danger, except maybe from pickpockets. In Russia I felt occasionally in danger, for example when being directed off the road by soldiers pointing sub machine guns at me, but I mostly didn’t feel so physically obviously a tourist. Here we are in Ecuador wearing rain jackets, quick-dry trekking pants, my dread locks, our fish-belly white skin, and I know we are obviously tourists. But I have had a couple of moments, noticeably on the Plaza Grande, where I felt a little like I was being scoped for potential gain.

On that note, at the moment I am sitting on a bus south to Banos, with a wide variety of companions, blogging on my iPad. I debated for about 10 minutes internally before pulling it out, but this is a 4-hour trip, and we’re going directly to our hotel once we get in, possibly by taxi, and I don’t carry my iPad around, so I’m thinking that hopefully my risk is minimal. Besides, my seat mates are playing video games, listening to loud music, and sleeping. None of us can exactly go anywhere. Poor guy next to me is trying to sleep, but very time he leans my direction, I gently nudge him back over, or accidentally elbow him while finger-typing.

Right. Teleferiqo.
When the taxi driver let us out, we were a little confused where we were. (I’m having trouble typing now… The guy re-adjusted and I can’t lean any further to be able to type.)

We met an Austrian mother-daughter pair with whom we rode to the top. They’ve been having similar Technical Difficulties as ours, but like us, having similar experiences with extremely helpful and friendly Ecuadorians.

Our ears popped more on the way up, but we took turns sticking our cameras out the window to try to get good pictures.

At the top, at first it seemed that we’d be unlucky with the view and the clouds, but we hiked around a bit. Here, I really do mean “a bit.” Although our legs aren’t giving us much trouble after the past couple of days of hiking back and forth from Jose’s apartment, our heads were going crazy. I felt dizzy and lightheaded, and even a few steps seemed difficult. We thought we might rent horses and ride them the last few hundred meters to the summit, but while we debated if we’d walk or ride, chatting also with some American tourists, a family showed up and the horses were no longer available. So we took some pictures to pretend we had gone to the summit, with the help of our friendly Austrians, who claimed (liars!) that they were also struggling with the altitude.

When we were finished goofing off, we had a couple of empanadas in the cafe, and rode the Teleferiqo back down. Our companions on the way down were a friendly pair of soldiers. I felt a little like we were being escorted down the mountain like criminals. 🙂 I was too shy to ask if we coud take a picture with them, but I wanted to.

We hopped into a shared cab at the bottom with a group of Americans, and went back to Jose’s. He helped us try to sort out our Galapagos adventure, which may or may not happen, then we headed out to get Matt’s phone, which caused us to also need to go to a small phone repair shop. Amazing service. The guy carefully selected a universal charger for Matt’s phone, opening 4 boxes and testing each until he was satisfied, then selecting and ever so carefully applying a screen protector. When he was finished, we stopped by our friendly Movistar employee, Ruben, who again spent more time giving us advice and tips on what to do in Quito and Ecuador than he needed to get Matt a sim card. When we come back through, we’d like to try out the bar he suggested for us, based on our description of industrial and punk music, and his own of “where the weird-looking people go.” 7 Heaven, in La Mariscal.
I also bought some street food: grilled plantains stuffed with queso fresco. Delicious!

Then we found a restaurant and had dinner. Just as we finished, Jose called to say that he and his friends would be heading out for drinks soon, and of we wanted to join, we could get back in a half-hour or so and come along. We did.

It was a really fun evening. We went to a trendy bar with nice snacks and had a couple of cocktails each and chatted. Jose’s girlfriend (I think) is a concert pianist who studied in Moscow for a long time and lived in New York for 8/9 years. The other friend is one of his oldest friends from childhood, who lives most of the time in the jungle, leading tours for groups of new-agey folks who want to connect with indigenous people and share an appreciation of the land and the animals we share it with. Cristina herself was really down-to-earth and funny, and we really liked her a lot. We’ve just friended each other on fb, so if you’re reading this, Cristina, I hope I have adequately represented you and your work. Feel free to correct me! 🙂

After a couple of drinks, we all paid up and headed back to Jose’s. Matt and I had a couple of glasses of water and crashed, leaving the other three to continue the party. I don’t think they got much sleep, as Cristina had to go to the airport at 06:00 and Jose drove her there and also took (oops I’ve forgotten her name!) home.

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This neighborhood where Jose lives is very posh. His apartment and views are a good indicator, but there are other giveaways: broad, tree-lined streets with very nice Audis and Mercedes parked along them, beautiful apartment buildings with expensive shops and services located at their feet, and more than anywhere else, the extremely high number of security guards everywhere.

This building, La Nevada, has one for the residence, 24 hours a day, and one for the pizzeria downstairs. Another meanders along the street outside. Next door is the same, on both sides.

The rest of the city is well-populated with security as well, but here it’s quiet and the security guards open doors and gates, give directions, and check on unexpected arrivals. They are the few darker faces in sight. Most of the Ecuadorians in this neighborhood seem to be of strong European descent, and there are few of the native features to be seen.

We had breakfast in the posh Sweets and Coffee next door, although I’m not sure it’s fair to call it breakfast. Matt had a muffin and a cappuccino. I had an americano and a cheesecake.

Afterward, we hiked down the hill to catch the bus to the historic center. The center was very different. Almost everyone looked native American, and the shops were full of cheap and colorful things. I was surprised to see many people of clear African descent, although in retrospect it doesn’t make sense.

We went to the Plaza Grande, where we sat like everyone else to people watch, until it began to rain.

When it began to rain, we walked up the hill until it started really coming down. Eventually, we ducked into a covered courtyard with various restaurants and a couple of shops, and made our way upstairs where we had a light lunch.

Before we ordered, they brought us two bowls of roasted corn, one with salt and one with sugar. We preferred the salty one, but they were both delicious.

For lunch, I ordered a trio of steamed things and the cheapest cocktail on the menu, the name of which I’ve forgotten, but it was served hot, tasted like apple juice and sugar, and was delicious. Matt ordered a soup, a plate of fried corn mush with guacamole, and a beer. My things were served with more of this Ecuadorian salsa, like what we had yesterday. I used all of it!

It was still pouring when we finished, so we went first to the cathedral steps, where I took some pictures of passers by in the rainy Plaza Grande, then into the cathedral itself. No pictures allowed inside, I’m afraid.

It was still raining, so we went to the Casa del Alabado, which exhibits ancient indigenous arts and tries to explain their significance in terms of the spiritual beliefs of the people. It was a beautiful building and we really enjoyed the exhibit as well. I’m going to show you some of what we saw, although my better judgement tells me I’m being silly. The ones I liked the very best did not work too well with no flash, but they involved figures buried to their waist, representing emergence from the underworld.

These little guys are shamans using lime to activate the coca leaves they are ingesting.

I have no idea about this one, but he’s kind of creepy.

I loved this display of young female figurines. There was no kind of explanation on them, but they were charming.

Another with no inscription, but which I liked.

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine on this one.

After the museum, we wandered along the plaza there, behind the monastery. People were playing with the pigeons.

Then we returned to the bus, to Jose’s apartment, rested, spoke with Jose for a while, went for dinner down the street at a film rental pace converted to a trendy posh cafe/jazz bar, and now we’re resting in bed. Jose has friends over, and we were invited to join, but we’re feeling tired and needing quiet and space.

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Location:Avenue Federico Gonzalez Suarez,Quito Canton,Ecuador

We woke up at the reasonable vacation time of 10:30 this morning, and Jose made us breakfast, or rather, heated the delicious breakfast-appropriate food that his mother had made in advance. His family lives in Cuencas, to the south, where he describes the pace of life to be more traditional and slow, although a rise in expat population, especially retirees, is changing that.

The breakfast was fried corn mush with cheese, which had been originally wrapped in corn husks and probably steamed. They were stickily sweet around the edges, and had bits of corn in them. Delicious! Jose tells us that in Cuencas they are typically served with coffee in the afternoon.

It was pouring rain outside, so I don’t have a particularly good picture of the view from here, but it’s spectacular. With any luck, I’ll be able to get one tomorrow. Here is his gorgeous living room, though. I love the roominess and the plants! The cement is a nice accent.

After Jose left for work (today was a pretty relaxed day for him), we got ready to solve some problems. We headed downhill to a commercial area, where we eventually located a big Movistar building. Goals: get Matt’s phone repaired, get him a prepaid sim card with data, get me a simple sim card for dialing.

If you read my post about yesterday, you know that my ability to speak Spanish was amazingly high last night. This proved not to be the case this morning. It could have been the subject matter, but it was really a struggle to get it sorted and almost no one we were bounced around to spoke English. However, they were mostly all very friendly, patient and helpful. In the end, we left Matt’s phone for repairs (2days) and got me a sim card. We can get him a sim card when we pick up his phone.

My confidence was a bit shaken as we walked away, especially as I replayed bits of the morning’s exchanges in my head and realized even more of my vocabulary and grammar mistakes. I was also tired. Matt was experiencing separation anxiety, not having that familiar piece of equipment in his hand/pocket.

We needed some food and liquids, so we decided to head towards La Mariscal, which turned out to be a very touristic area, filled with student-ambience bars (mostly closed), and hole-in-the-wall snack bars. The food in the snack bar like places actually looked pretty good, but we needed something more restful. I was about to give up and take whatever we walked past next, when indeed the next place looked perfect: a restaurant with mosly but not solely older people, all locals, eating what looked to be hearty food and drinking red juice. The red juice looked pretty good.

We went in and sat down, expecting a menu to look at. Instead, what happened next could not have been more perfect. The server came and put two bowls of soup in front of us. It had bits of meat, corn, some kind of root (we think), and other vegetables in a meaty stock. It was delicious. Another group came in and sat down, and they got the same. Other tables had plates of meat and rice, and there were bowls of some kind of sauce on our table, so we now understood there was a set menu. I was so relieved. No decisions necessary!

That red juice was the most wonderful thing, so delicious! And free refills! I couldn’t tell what kind of juice it was, but I wouldn’t mind drinking it every day this week!

Indeed, after the soup came a choice of grilled meat with beans and rice, or chicken in sauce with rice. I took the meat and Matt took the chicken, and they were wonderful. The sauce in the bowl on the table went perfectly with the grilled meat, fresh and oniony, with a sharp limey spice to it. I drenched my plate in it. Dessert came too: a small slice of a pretty dry cake. Ok, not the best part of the meal, but otherwise the place was great. We chatted with the proprietess as well as with other diners, and it only cost $3 each!

Have I mentioned that Ecuador uses US dollars? Now you know.

After lunch we wanted to sort out some other problems, to do with banking, but in the end we mostly wandered around in the rain. We walked a lot, but just now nothing particularly stands out. Here is a cool construction site we walked past:

We got back to Jose’s around 19:00, lounged around for a while, ate dinner downstairs at the pizzeria, then came back, showered, had a chat with our host, and went to bed. A long nice first day of vacation!

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Location:Avenue Federico Gonzalez Suarez,Quito Canton,Ecuador

I calculated it very approximately, but 3 February 2013 was, for us, well over 24 hours of travel.

We woke up in our own bed in Amsterdam at 04:00, and were out the door about 45 minutes later to catch the first bus 197 of the day to Schiphol. A very nice fellow traveler took our pictures, looking sleepy & excited, ready to go.

Our first flight departed Schiphol at 06:50, arriving in Brussels an hour later. We had breakfast and even slept a while, waiting for our 11:40 flight to Atlanta, which was itself a 10-hour flight.

In Atlanta, there was slightly less time, although we had wanted to deal with a few essentials while in an American airport. I’ve been in the Atlanta airport before, and it is one of the friendliest airports I’ve ever been to. Wow!

Then we had a 5-hour flight to Quito, which is, however, in the same time zone as Atlanta. The downside on this flight was the service. It wasn’t as new of a plane as the one we’d taken from Brussels, but they used the same food & had the same training, I must assume. Both were Delta, which I mostly like, for their funny info videos especially, but little things were off. The exact same dinner rolls, which had been so deliciously warm on the flight from Brussels, were served like cold rocks on the flight to Quito. Snacks were provided, but trash was never collected… That sort of thing. I didn’t mind, but it was enough to notice.

After the flight, which was on time, we stood in line over an hour for passport control in Quito, then got randomly selected for customs check. Then we got into a taxi, in which I surprised myself by chatting in Spanish pretty easily with the driver the entire way to Jose’s apartment, where we are staying for 4 nights.

It was after 01:00 when we arrived, and Jose was sweet enough to only give us a brief orientation to his absolutely gorgeous apartment before we showered and hit the sack. Viva la cama!!!

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Location:Avenue Federico Gonzalez Suarez,Quito Canton,Ecuador

It has been a whirlwind of a past 2 weeks.

Because we’ll have various renters in our house, I’ve been organizing and cleaning everything, making sure they’ll have everything they need, and making sure that all our stuff is safely away that needs to be. This in addition to running my business, which was crazy while everyone said, “Oh hey! Before you leave…” (which was FANTASTIC, of course). In all the madness, I didn’t think to pack.

Honestly, thank goodness my massage lesson was canceled on Friday morning. That’s when I went over to Nicola’s and borrowed from her a proper backpack and a nice windbreaker. I’d already been over to Derek’s to borrow some interesting lenses for my camera. And then I started laying things out on the bed.

Here is a picture of the appropriate items I have, for a trip to Ecuador, where we are likely to hike in the mountains, trek through the jungle, visit towns & cities, take a boat ride, spend time on the beach, and who knows, maybe even a motorcycle ride. Oh, I’m not packing the motorcycle gear, which is the only thing I would have been properly outfitted for… it’s just too heavy and bulky, and who knows if we’ll really use it. Hopefully, if we do, we can rent things.

In case you can’t make it out, that’s:
-a hat, which I usually wear on my roof but also in the rare events when I go to a beach or a lake
-a windbreaker, courtesy of Nicola
-a pair of sporty capris, bought on sale last year because I thought they’d come in handy and never worn
-a cute 50’s style swimsuit in leopard print, bought recently with the christmas money from my mom
-an orange sarong, bought in croatia at the beach a few years back & used on trips as towel, beach blanket, anything really.

Later, I realized that my motorcycling gear might include some useful items, and found a thermal shirt, a cooling shirt, thermal leggings, and some ski socks.

Then I loaded up Nicola’s backpack with a whole bunch of other stuff (clothes, toiletries, first aid, camera gear, malaria tablets, mosquito repellent with 30% Deet, my “allergy emergency kit,” which includes laundry detergent and other things that wouldn’t make sense without explanation, etc.) and went to the Grauzone Festival at Melkweg.

Grauzone was really good, but I’ll admit to having been both exhausted and distracted. I can’t believe how many people were there whom I seldom see! Wonderful! I really wanted to see IceAge, but they were playing at 12:15, and by 11:30 I’d lost the will to live. So had Matt. We went home.

Today the plan was to go to the MassageDagen beurs (trade fair) in Utrecht while Matt delivered Cat to the cat hotel in Almere. Poor Cat. He’s been fitful for days, and I am sure he knew what was coming. While Matt picked up the car from Abbie and Derek, I loaded him up. He looks absolutely miserable:

By the time Matt got back to collect him, I had realized that I just wasn’t up for the schmoozing I needed to do at the trade fair, so I went with him to the cat hotel. The proprietress seemed a little dismayed at his age (around 19), but I’m sure he’ll be fine.

On the way back we stopped at a Burger King for lunch (nasty road food, a guilty pleasure) and discovered that we were next to a sporting goods store having a massive sale. We bought a few items. Now I have a really ugly pair of lightweight, quick-drying jungle pants with convertible legs. Ugh. I’m going to have to use them now. I’m sure they’ll be very practical; all the guides said they were the best thing for both the jungle and the mountains, but I hate having to buy things for one trip.

We came home, handled a whole bunch of other last minute affairs, and now, at 21:30, I’m sitting in bed. Matt is doing who-knows-what downstairs. Probably checking on Ingress portals in Ecuador. 🙂

Tomorrow morning, our first flight is at 06:50, to Brussels. That’s a short flight then a layover. Then there’ll be a 10 hour flight to Atlanta followed by a 5 hour flight to Quito. We arrive in Quito just before midnight tomorrow night. Woo hoo!

I’ll try to blog tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes!

Now let’s see…

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I just want to see if this cross-posts elsewhere. I’ll be starting journaling maybe even today. 🙂