It’s a matter of perspective, I guess.

This morning, I left “home” (I’m going to call it “home” from now on, since “home” is a shorter word than “the guesthouse.”) around 07:30. This was the perfect time to see the kids arriving at school, which is on my way to Loi Kroh Massage School. They were so cute. Some of them reminded me very much, physically, of my students back at Frost Lake Elementary. Those ones were probably Hmong as well.

After the school, I passed the blind massage place, so I took a picture of it.

The massage by blind people is next door to the tourist information, and the man there called out to me as I walked by.

-Good morning! How are you?
-Morning! Good, you? (Sharon)
-Not as good as you!
-Why?
-I’m working! You’re on holiday!
-I’m working, too!

Amazingly, I am. Wow. I love my job. I love my job normally, but this? This is great. I get to come to Thailand to study, and it’s technically work!

Later on, I was walking around and saw (another) sign advertising Muay Thai schools. I remember how Mike, my teacher when I was training, would talk about his time in Thailand at a training camp. I remember how exotic that sounded, how unreal. Now it feels so obvious. If you aspire to proficiency in something, and that something has a home base, yes, absolutely, you should go there. Studying a thing where it comes from adds depth and understanding, as well as proficiency, to your practice.

Today, and for the next 2 days, as well as next weekend, my work is to practice Ruesri Datton, or hermit stretching. This is yoga in the Thai massage tradition. I thought that doing this first would help locate me here, and prepare me for my massage trainings.

My teacher is Napa, at Loi Kroh Massage School, just a short way southeast of the eastern gate of the city. I like her. She agreed to do this class during MY available dates, which means they are finding strange mixes of people to share the class with me, and it will be only me taking it for certification. I pay the group price, and receive almost private instruction. How generous of her, and the school!

Napa is very quiet and slow-moving/speaking, but funny. She makes jokes you have to be listening closely to in order to get. After the 2 Japanese tourists (they are here only for the weekend) left, she explained everything again in detail. Then we practiced a few more poses. She talks a lot about your intent as well as the purpose of each pose. I didn’t write that part down, but now I think I should have. I will try to correct that tomorrow.

After class ended, I asked about the abdominal detox massage. This massage is one of the specialties of this school, and I’m curious. I have deliberately left one week here unplanned, in order to decide between that and one or two others. Napa asked her colleague if there was time to massage me today, and told me to come back in a couple of hours.

I wandered around that neighborhood, which is also near the Night Market, and stopped in at a temple (Wat Loi Kroh) before heading back.

Unfortunately, when I returned, my period started, which meant no massage for me. Certainly no abdominal detox, anyway. I haven’t decided what massage I’ll have instead, but maybe I will try out as foot massage in the market. We’ll see.

So after, I thought I’d see if I could find the various guesthouses where Matt and I stayed last time. Then I could think about the price and whether I wanted to argue out of my place.

It took me a while. I wasn’t really sure where to look, and was orienting myself upside down on the map, thinking they must have been down when they were really up.

I found them, and inquired. The rates were nearly 3 times what I’m paying, and one of therm is booked all month. The other is booked for another week. So I decided to relax about it for now.

Leaving, I got turned around again, and stopped in another temple. I think it must have been Wat Duang Di, as I study the map now. I found the anus and scrotum amusing on this lion/dog/whatever.

After the wat, I followed a narrow road but was turned back by a man in the road. I had wondered why he was standing there, staring at me as he was. I got close enough and he shouted out, pointing at the ground. About 20 paces from me, was a medium-sized pale snake, moving around on the ground in the direct center of the road. A bicycle was between me and it, so I hadn’t seen it before. I wonder if it was his bicycle. He wandered off, looking agitated, then back again. I turned back the way I had come, and warned two other tourists, who also turned back. A scooter passed us going that direction, but a moment later she returned as well.

Funny thing about being here so long. I don’t NEED to do anything right away. I realized that, and decided to head back for a rest. Then I really got lost.

During all of this wandering, I was dressed in my training clothes: Thai fisherman pants, sports bra, and T-shirt. Most of the tourists were wearing hippy clothes or shorts and tucked-in polo shirts (vacation clothes of the Baby Boomers). Locals wear anything from really traditional stuff, to hippy stuff, to the same sorts of modern clothes you’d see anywhere. Not many westerners were wearing Thai pants. Strangely, I felt out of place, like a poser. Which is funny, since this is an outfit I wear quite often, most every day in the summer, for work as well as on the beach, and sometimes in the winter. In fact, on this trip I’m planning on buying better-quality ones that I’ll wear in the winter as well.

—-
So. I stopped writing in order to go eat at the Saturday market. Unfortunately, it’s only Friday. I’m so confused. Fortunately, I went alongside the small market at the Chiang Mai Gate, which I mostly walked right past, until I saw the yummy snack I remember so fondly from last time: sticky rice in bamboo! There were 3 varieties, which meant that I had no ideas which to choose, so I took the most expensive one. It was amazing, with a core of egg custard! Wow! How’d they even DO that?

After wandering around for another hour, realizing that I didn’t want a sit-down meal, I actually went back to the same stand, where I bought sticky rice and meat wrapped in banana leaf. This I took back home, to eat on the roof terrace.

I have concluded from the roof terrace experience that there are indeed better rooms, and that perhaps I should ask about changing. I will do so tomorrow afternoon. Now it’s time for a little more reading, then sleep. 6:30 comes early!

Traveling leaves me with a surreal sense of time. I woke up in my own bed on Wednesday morning, missed my bus and took a taxi to Schiphol. 3 flights and 3 countries later, I’m lying in my guesthouse bed in Chiang Mai. It’s 4:45 in the morning, 2 dates later. Friday.

After checking my bag in Schiphol, I heard my name. It was one of my clients. I knew that her daughter and daughter’s family were on the same flight, and there they were. They’re not bound for Chiang Mai, though. I’m idly curious where they decided to live for their 5 months in Thailand, but forgot to ask. 

Weather in Amsterdam: moderately cold but no wind for once and seemed dryer, so I wasn’t very cold in my light layers for travel. Here’s the view:

The flight was uneventful, my favorite way to be able to describe a flight. I had an exit row seat.

We landed in Helsinki. There was snow and I remembered how lovely Helsinki is. I should go back to Finland. But not in winter. You can’t tell how pretty Finland is from the airport, but here it is:

The layover was only about an hour. I stretched my legs by walking around. I’ve been having trouble with my left leg for a while. It starts aching in pain when I sit in a chair for longer than about 10 minutes. This wasn’t improved by injuring one of my left toes badly the other day. I can’t wiggle my toes or stretch them right now, which makes my leg cramp up even more.

The next leg of the flight was the long one, to Bangkok. I thought I’d gotten very lucky when I saw my seatmate, a tiny pierced and tattooed girl, about 20 years old. She was nice enough, but replaced excess size with cramming all kinds of stuff into the seat with her. And I’ve never been elbowed so often on a flight before. I don’t think she was doing it on purpose, just very unaware.

It was a bad flight. Finnair was fine, no problems with weather or plane. There was, however, a toddler just across the aisle who screamed during almost the entire 9 hours. Open-throat, full screaming. During one of the infrequent sleeping periods, I watched it start screaming before it woke up. I am not exaggerating. I wear earplugs, always, on flights, but this was too nearby for them to do any good. And when the baby briefly stopped screaming, the 2 Finnish business men behind me would actually talk louder. How can 2 people talk for 9 hours without pausing?  The point of this is to say that, even after taking a sleeping aid, I didn’t sleep. My eyes were bloodshot when we landed, and I was feeling kind of hazy.

Bangkok was foggy at 7am, so I didn’t take this picture until the flight out.

Bangkok airport is like a garden. It was less festive than last time I flew through, though. I suspect that has to do with the current unrest there. As Thailand approaches elections, there have been demonstrations that turned violent, culminating in a state of emergency being declared a couple of weeks ago, and military order. Don’t worry, family people. This is not going to affect me in the north at all, and we’re staying with a friend when we go through Bangkok later on the way south. Besides, that friend said that its actually much safer now that the military has stepped in. So from that perspective, everything’s fine. For all the other perspectives, read the news.

I had a bit of stress sorting out this transfer. I had 2.5 hours to get through customs, puck up my bag, check in for the next flight, and get to the gate. And it was more than enough, especially since I asked if I could go through the priority lanes. I shouldn’t have stressed.

I had an exit row again for the last flight, next to a young american couple who were so stereotypically american that I was slightly in shock. If the girl said “thank you SO much!!!!!” one more time to the flight attendant, I was going to explain to her that she gave the impression that she would have died if another second had gone by without the help said attendant proffered. How many times can you over thank someone during one pass-by with the garbage collection? It was a one-hour flight. Thank goodness.

Welcome to Chiang Mai!!

Not much of an impression. But I like it. There are mountains here, hurray! And lots of trees.

I got my bag and took a cab to my guest house. I’m not so sure about my guest house. I’m giving it a day or two to see, so more later. The people are really nice, anyway. I have to speak Dutch with them, which is funny.

After unpacking and showering, I went for a walk. I remember so much from 3 years ago, but it’s confusing. Matt and I weren’t in town much, last time. We went on a couple of area trips and also stayed at our cooking school a few days. Town is even smaller than I remembered, and I’m curious to see what I think, spending this much time here.

I wandered the route to get to my first days of classes, and stopped in to ask about motorcycle rentals, which was reassuring. Nice chat with the guys there. I think I will probably go ahead and try it, but we’ll see. If I do, it won’t be for a couple of weeks, anyway.

Then I went to the blind massage place for a 2-hour massage.

I had to use the toilet when I got there, and as I waited for it to be available, I was nearly run into by 3 careening masseurs. One of them turned out to be mine. The one that had fallen through 2 doors, headbutted his colleague, and in general been the moist clumsy.

But luckily, he wasn’t clumsy during the massage. He was awesome! It started very very slowly, with lots of palm pressing up and down my leg. The left leg, so I was super happy.

He used mostly Wat Po protocol and technique, but not strictly. I was impressed by the slowness of the double thumb presses, which gave them a very different feel. I’m going to skip most of the detail here because I’m tired again and want to nap a little before my alarm goes off in an hour.

After the massage, I had a crappy pad Thai in a tourist place on my way home, bought a big bottle of water at 7-11, and went to bed. It was about 6pm when I fell asleep.

I woke up at 8pm thinking it was 8am, even though my clock said 20:00. I freaked out that I was late for class, then looked at the clock again. Back to sleep!

And that was my first day. I will try to write every day, and I promise more pictures, too.

Hooray for Amsterdam

Yep, nothing else could happen, right?
I got singled out for extra security checks. They took my suitcase (actually Nicola’s big backpack) completely apart, including slitting open a couple of the straps. I got a little pissed at that moment because its not my suitcase. I’ll have to fix those before returning it to her. Then I got an additional carry-on screening as well, and a gratuitous wanding. I guess it’s a way to pass the time. Boarding in about a half hour now.

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Location:Quito airport

Steamrollers!
Last night, as we walked to the thermen along dirt and stone roads in the rain, I wondered how there weren’t any ruts in the road. This morning, we had the answer. They flatten it. It was a strange sound to wake up to, not too obnoxious or early, though.

Here’s our map… It’s been well-used while we sorted out where to go and what to do. I wanted to share it, but of course my photo program won’t let me rotate it properly.

Our room is lovely, but I don’t like the proprietess. We had breakfast then returned to our room.

It is raining very hard outside. We enjoyed the cavern pool for a while then organized our things for our trip home and an afternoon up at the thermen up the hill.

On our way to the thermen, we stopped to have our last Ecuadorian meal. I ordered the same as I ate for lunch and dinner for most of our first 2 weeks, and Matt had grilled trout.

The rest of the day was spent in the baths. It was still raining, but who cares when you’re lying in naturally heated mineral waters? We added it all up on our way to the airport and we spent more than 8 hours in a 24-hour period lying in hot water. Awesome. And look at the surroundings! Beautiful.

Around 17:00 we went back to the hotel and got ready to go. Matt had arranged a taxi to avoid any problems getting back, and it picked us up at 18:00. We were at the airport at 19:00, but check-in didn’t start until 20:30. Our flight is scheduled for 00:30.

Security was amusing. This is the brand-new airport, and I think they’re training new staff. They were even more rigorous and slow about everyone’s carry-on luggage than right after 9/11. It was almost silly. But even funnier, they took one look at our millions of Amsterdam stamps and singled us out (doubled us out) for drug screening. It added an element of fun.

I’m going to call this a day now. It’s only 22:20, but nothing much more can happen from now (I think). We land in Atlanta around 06:00, have almost a 6-hour layover, then to Washington Dulles, short layover there, then finally arriving in Amsterdam Friday morning. It’s Wednesday night now, by the way.

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Location:Papallacta, Ecuador

Matt got his pocket picked today, as we took the worst way to get a bus to Papallacta possible. Some stupid part of us thought it would be simple enough with our big bags on the metrobus instead of taking the taxi from La Mariscal to Quitumbe bus terminal. Certainly, pickpockets notwithstanding, it’s cheaper, $0.50 vs $10. The downside is that no matter the time of day, the metrobuses are packed, and that means standing with full packs for a very long way, trying not to fall on the people around you. We also thought it was direct, which it was not.

My valuables were inaccessible to thieves short of demanding them with weaponry, but Matt thought his zippered trouser pocket was good enough. Fortunately, his valuables are separated, and it wasn’t his only stash. The thief got 2 of his credit cards, his Dutch ID card, and about $100 of the $300 that we’d just withdrawn. I had the rest. And still do. Anyway, it’s pretty painful, but not the worst that could happen. Passports would have been worse. You can see the offending pocket in this picture we took of him with Derek’s pack, just before we left the hostel.

Anyway, it took forever to get to Quitumbe, and the bus to Papallacta wasn’t very quick either. We though we’d get in by 16:30 at the latest, but instead it wasn’t until 18:30, and we weren’t sure where we were going either. We started walking up hill.

I’m going to spare myself reliving all the details of why this day was horrible, but when we also had trouble with our reservation at the hotel, I lost it. The people at the desk got an earful of crappy Spanish explaining that I had had enough today with this kind of bullshit. We got a room. One of the bigger rooms, I think, but for the price we’d reserved for, $55, vs. what she tried to get off me, $98. Anyway, it’s lovely: king size bed on the upper level with the bathroom, huge shower, and below, a huge natural thermal water hot tub (2 person size) and fireplace.

We didn’t stick around to appreciate it. We headed right up the hill to the main thermen (hot springs/ baths).

We had another minor problem when we got there, but then we got into the water and after that ran into our travel companions from the slow intercity bus, a couple on their first month of a several month adventure. They were fun to hang out with, and we were all loud obnoxious American tourists for a while, which was strangely satisfying.

We were there enjoying the various temperatures in the pools until almost 22:00, then came back down the hill to our place, where we asked for curtains (our windows were missing them), beer, and bottled water, and hit the in-house thermen, also lovely. There’s a big one right outside our door, and a hotter one in a little faux-cave just next to it. Meanwhile, the front desk guy lit our fire and ran our hot tub.

This one must come direct from the hotter spring, unmixed, because even after hanging out in the hotel pools for an hour, it’s still just a bit too hot to take for more than a few minutes, so I’m sitting in front of the fireplace writing this. We’re going to give it another hour or so and try it again.

Yeah, it was awesome, and the bed was super comfy too. Thank goodness for thermen. 🙂

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Location:Papallacta, Ecuador

We skipped hotel breakfast again this morning in favor of coffee and chuleros down the street. At the coffee place we greeted another patron while we waited. His little daughter was holding a small plush Seattle Seahawks toy, which I commented on. It turns out the guy is visiting home from Seattle, where he lives and works. We chatted briefly, and he rejoined his family across the street.

Picking up some rolls on the way, we got on the bus to Quito, one of our most convenient bus-boarding experiences yet. The bus was pulling away, they stopped and hopped out to see if we were going to Quito, opened the under-bus luggage, stated ours inside, and ushered us on. The bus began to drive away even as we sat down on plush seats in a nearly empty bus, already showing a James Bond film from the 80s. This happened a couple more times as we left town, for other passengers, but all in all, very smooth.

So smooth, in fact, that we were in Quito before we’d quite realized it. We were 3 hours earlier than expected to our hostal, the Magic Bean guesthouse in the Mariscal. Big thanks to our walk/dinner friends from 2 nights ago, Bob & Gayle, who suggested it. There are only 4 rooms on site, and they’re big and clean. The bathroom is reminiscent of the 80’s, but we’re very pleased.

After checking in, we took a series of buses out of town to visit El Mitad del Mundo, the park and monument incorrectly marking the equator. Honestly, it was pretty stupid, but we probably wold have kicked ourselves had we not done it. We acted silly and got photos of us straddling the line, and kissing over it as well, but most of them were on Matt’s camera, so not here.

Even though the park was dumb, we were glad to relax a little with nothing to do. We enjoyed some ice cream, north of the line. For the record, the only times we’ve actually crossed the equator have been flying here in the first place, going to Otavalo, and returning from Otavalo. But whatever. We also went to the monument.

On our way there, my phone rang. I answered it, and it was Jose, our host from our first few days in Quito! It was great to hear from him, and he wondered when we old b back in town. I felt a little bad, since we are already here and I hadn’t thought to get in touch, but up until yesterday we thought we might go to Mindo instead. Unfortunately, he had other plans, so wasn’t able to join us for a drink tonight. It was still really nice to hear from him.

Anyway, after our visit to the fake equator, we took the bus back and rested a littl while here in the room, before going out for dinner. Then we came back, hung out n the restaurant downstairs for a while with cocktails, and are back in bed.

The restaurant outside is playing music really loudly, but otherwise it’s quiet. I’ll need earplugs unless it turns off soon.

It doesn’t matter too much, though. Our agenda for our remaining 2 days is pure relaxation. We’re going to Papallacta and just lounging around for the entire time!

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Location:Juan Leon Mera,Quito Canton,Ecuador

We slept so well last night, and didn’t rush to get out this morning. We stopped at the coffee stand again and also at the chulero vendor’s, then we walked to the bus station, where we got a very crowded bus for Cotocachi, famous for its leather wares. We planned to go to their market, which is on Sunday, today.

Upon entering Cotocachi, many people got off at a stop clearly near the center, so we got off too. It turned out NOT to be the market, but we walked up to a church square and around the block, to find a cash machine. I find it interesting how many of the churches here have humongous Jesus statues on their steeples. There are lots of giant Jesuses on hilltops as well, reminiscent of Rio de Janeiro, although obviously nowhere so large.

We found a cafe, Serendipity, that also turned out to be an expat hangout and organic shop as well. We had a delicious second breakfast (if you count chuleros and coffee as first) there, and chatted very briefly with a friendly real estate agent, who gave us his card in parting. This guy may have one of the best names I’ve ever seen, so I’ll put it here: Orburn Bloodworth. Amazing!

Although we were very taken with the ambience of Cotocachi in general, their market turned out to be a food market, with different sections for fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, grains, etc. It was covered and very tidy, but the leather goods were nowhere to be seen.

The leather, as it turned out, was entirely in the shops along Calle 10 de Agosto. I was hoping to find a light leather jacket that I liked, similar to the fake leather one I’ve got, but which would breathe better. We went in every store. There were many options, but I liked very few of them. I finally found one I liked, but it was one of he most poorly-made I’d seen, and I decided I didn’t need something that would fall apart so soon.

We had a little more of a walk around the center, where I saw this gorgeous door. This circle was about half a meter wide. And then we returned to Otavalo.

This time, we took the taxi straight to El Lechero first. I tried to get a picture of Otavalo from the taxi, but we were climbing up steep inclines with lots of sharp turns, so it’s a little angled. Still, imagine living in this beautiful place!

The taxi didn’t take us all the way to the tree. He took us to the bottom of the turnoff, and we walked from there. I’m not sure why, because other people drove up while we were there, and I was visibly limping from having twisted my ankle quite badly this morning. Still, it was pretty, and maybe it’s just part of the experience.

I wanted to ask someone why El Lechero is magical, or why it is the healing tree. My guidebook only says that about it. I feel there must be a story. However, it is beautiful, and stands alone on a hilltop. As we arrived, a bridal couple were leaving, having taken photos there.

We took turns standing under it, alone and together, and mostly just appreciated the view. Someone burns things in the base of the tree. It was charred and smelled of recent fire. Yet the tree lives and looks vigorous. Maybe that’s what makes it magical.

We weren’t the only people up there enjoying the view. There was a family picnicking just below the tree looking out at Lago San Pablo and the mountains, and more arrived soon after.

After visiting the tree, we hiked up the hill another kilometer and some to El Parque de Condor. This was really hard on my ankle, and we were almost late for the show. On the way we passed an old woman who was carrying a huge pile of flowered plants on her back. We watched a young man help her stand up after tying them on, and we expressed amazement at her achievement as we briefly walked along together. She was laughing and friendly, but I didn’t ask if I could take her picture, although it was quite a sight.

The condor center is pretty impressive, built on the top of a high hill and beautifully designed with stone paths and walls, lovely flowers, and huge enclosures for the birds. We went immediately to the amphitheater, which overlooks the valley with a good drop off, for the show. The birds came out in size order until the end, and all of them flew over the valley many times. Matt was very impressed with the colors on this little guy, who was the first one to be shown.

The center is Dutch-run, and I believe this guy was Dutch, although speaking Spanish for the presentation, because we clearly heard him chastise one of the birds with “kom op, kom op!” at one point.

Unless I’m remembering wrong, this one was the gringa, who was acquired from North America, although I didn’t catch the whole story. The Spanish was fast, and a lot, and it was windy so I didn’t catch everything.

I have a whole pile of pictures like this, because the birds were beautiful and I was playing with my zoom lens.

At the very end, they brought out an owl and two small kestrels (I think they were kestrels), and let anyone who wanted, especially the children, come forward and hold them.

After the show, we went around and took some glamour shots of the birds in their enclosures.

Here’s the Andean Condor, of which there were two, in its cage. They didn’t fly the condor for the show. Probably it’s potentially dangerous for various reasons.

We took a taxi back to the hostal after walking around a bit, and Matt got some ice for my ankle. We rested a while, had dinner in the hotel restaurant again, because it’s so good, and planned our last couple of days.

Tomorrow we leave for an overnight in Quito where we will check out a chocolate factory and take a day trip to see El Mitad del Mundo monument before heading off for a day and a half at the hot springs in Papallacta, to read before the journey home.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Otavalo, Ecuador

I’m in the same place as yesterday, but my location has changed. All I did was go downstairs where the Internet connection is stronger.

My sleep was disturbed by 2-4 Germans most of the night then early morning too. However, I notice that their rooms are now vacant so I have high hopes for tonight. It would be nice not to have to use my earplugs.

The bed was comfy, the room seemed warmer, and we started the day with coffee from the excellent corner coffee bar, then yellow oliebollen (like doughnuts) called chulenos from one of the street vendors. It was 09:00 and the market was in full swing.

The center of the market is Plaza de Ponchos, but on Saturday it grows to encompass most of the center. I wanted to see the animal market first, though, so we headed slightly out of town, across a bridge and a busy road where I was nearly hit by a bus. Matt was angry at me, because I had been poorly estimating space in walking beside the road to get to the crosswalk.

At the market we saw all kinds of animals being sold: guinea pigs (cuy, a popular dish), rabbits, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, pigs, sheep, cattle, llamas, cats and dogs. I’m pretty sure the cats and dogs were not for eating, but I haven’t seen such young ones for a long time. Against our travel doctor’s recommendations, I couldn’t resist petting some tiny kittens. (Apparently rabies is very common here, and we were warned that we were taking a risk even touching pets.)

In other areas of the Ecuadorian Andes, we have seen lots of people wearing partial or full traditional dress. Most of them were older and rural. Here in Otavalo, however, we see lots of young people, especially women, wearing traditional dress of this area. You can see it a bit in the woman to the right of this picture, a dark ankle-length wrap-around skirt, white embroidered blouse, colorful cinched wrap-belt, and various shawls that change purpose at different points of the day, becoming hats and sun-visors, as well as scarves and shawls and capes. The weather here in a single day goes from mild to hot to mild to chilly very quickly. The young lady in the left of the picture is doing something I also saw pretty often, mixing traditional and modern clothes. In her case, I think she may have been wearing a blanket as a skirt. I never saw anyone else draped in check.

After the animal market, we walked through the produce area to buy some fruit to continue our breakfast. The limes here are the size of softballs!!

Back in the full market, Matt was very successful with his shopping, buying another hat, and all kinds of other things. This market is gorgeously colorful, and vendors do try to engage you, but in a very relaxed manner usually. It’s not very pushy, and haggling is relaxed. However, with so much choice and variety, I was struggling to decide. I was too overwhelmed even to ask prices to start getting an idea what I wanted and how much was reasonable to pay.

We came up with a solution: beer! It was just noon, and I enjoyed a beer and guacamole while Matt had some more coffee and one soup. A light buzz makes it easier to focus on one thing at a time, and to ask about things even without buying. I had my shopping successes after that, then we took a break back at the hostal.

At 15:45 we decided that if we hurried, we could make it up to the Parque de Condor in time for the 16:30 raptor show, and see El Lechero, the healing tree, on the way back down. We went out, picked up some rolls, and hopped in a taxi. Here is a view of Lago San Pablo as we went up. Gorgeous here!

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the Lonely Planet guide, the time of the raptor show had been changed to 15:30, and we had missed it. On their way out, however, were a couple we’d run into while shopping in the market. We walked the 5km back to town with them, which was a really beautiful downhill walk, challenging anyway due to the rocky terrain. We meant to stop at El Lechero on the way, but we missed the turnoff. We’ll be back tomorrow anyway for the show, so we can catch it then.

At a line between two fields, an open truck was dropping off hordes of helmeted teenagers who raced down the hill between the fields at breakneck speed on their mountain bikes. It looked like a lot of fun.

When we finally reached town, we were all pretty hungry, so at my suggestion, we tried out an organic cafe near Plaza de Ponchos. It had a nice ambience, but the food was only acceptable, not some of the better that we’ve had. The company was good, though, and we had beer, so who’s complaining?

After dinner we were beat. We walked over to the Ingress portal Matt’s been hacking, hacked it again, then went back to the hotel. We passed a very cool-looking bar called Faun, but we were too tired and didn’t really want any more to drink.

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Location:Pan American Hwy,Otavalo,Ecuador

How interesting. My location has inserted itself as Calle No. 10, rather than Juan Montalvo 4-44. Google maps don’t have any but the main street here in Otavalo, and Matt’s Ingress portals are inaccurately located as well. We are in room number 10, however, here at Hostal Dona Esther, which is possibly one of the nicest rooms we’ve been in, although a bit noisy. It’s only 21:30, though, so no big deal for now. And I have earplugs when I need them.

Ecuadorian transportation failed us slightly today, but it was an adventure! It all started smoothly, with us waking up before our alarms at 06:00. At breakfast we learned we could share a taxi truck to the canal crossing to the airport, rather than taxi to the bus to the canal. Easier!

They were a lovely Canadian couple, and had lots of great travel stories to tell. They’ve both been in the Galapagos before, he 3 times and she twice. They were also visiting Costa Rica when Hurricane Rita hit, which was a great story! Better in retrospect. Anyway, I’m glad we got to share the ride with them (and some time in the airport as well).

So, the taxi dropped us at the canal, where we took a ferry across to Isla Baltra, where the airport is, then a shuttle from there to the airport itself. And that’s where things go a little downhill. Due to the new Quito airport which has JUST opened, all flights leaving Quito are delayed. Therefore our flight going to Quito is delayed. When we get in, we learn that we’ll have 3 buses to take just to get us to Quito’s north terminal, where we can then get a bus to Otavalo. This new airport is about halfway between the 2 cities, so it seems ridiculous to spend 6 hours going somewhere 1.5 hours away. We look into options.

Car rental for our last week will cost $240, but would allow us freedom to do the little trips we are planning without bus schedules. A taxi to Otavalo is $60. I’m double checking that price at the service desk when Matt came on to tell me he’d found someone who’d agreed to take us for $25. I heard him repeat the price twice, but then when we got into the taxi and were leaving, the driver seemed confused that we were going to Otavalo. Long story short, we paid even more than we should have, but got into Otavalo before dark, where we checked into this lovely hotel and had a delicious dinner in the on-site restaurant. Here’s the view from the roof terrace:

So far, I like this town. It feels like a real place, not necessarily a tourist place. We walked around looking for Ingress portals in the dark, and it was active but not dangerous-feeling. Sadly, though, the hoodies and warmer socks and boots have had to come back out. The beauty of the mountains makes that worthwhile anyway.

Tomorrow is market day, which I’m looking forward to, and which is one of th main reasons we’re here. I’m going to bed now so that I can immerse myself in it properly.

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Location:Calle No. 10,Puerto Ayora,Ecuador