Oh, the Places We'll Go

Through Ted and I mostly have an open itinerary, we do have a few planned trips thanks to our good friends at Adventures Within Reach (AWR). AWR is a Boulder-based tour operator that we are working with while on our journey. It’s a pretty amazing “job” actually – AWR needs detailed information about different treks, hotels, and operators in some of the areas we are visiting, and we are happy to test, research, and report on them as it allows us access to some amazing adventures that would normally be out of our price range.  If you’re thinking about a trip to S. America, Africa, or Nepal, you should check out their website.  We’ve really been impressed, as you’ll see below.

Our first such trip arranged with AWR’s assistance was the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu with Mountain Lodges of Peru (MLP). The most popular trek to Machu Picchu is the famous “Inca Trail”, but due to its immense popularity, limits have been imposed on daily access (500 people per day – needless to say, the trail is crowded).  In reality, there are many Inca trails in the region, and some of these alternative treks provide equally stunning scenery, and a much more private atmosphere. The Salkantay is one of these treks.

We knew ahead of time that the MLP trip would be fancy, but we really had no idea what we were in for. The 8-day trip was the most fantastic that either Ted or I have ever been on. We emailed our parents that we felt like we were on our second honeymoon! Anyone who is considering a trek to Machu Picchu that wants a “comfortable” experience should seriously consider the MLP trip. Hands-down amazing!

As I mentioned above, there are many different hikes that get you to Machu Picchu and most of these involve rather long days of hiking and then camping each night. The other companies usually make the trip in 3-4 days. The MLP trip is different, not only because they spread out the 24 miles of hiking over 6 days, but you get to spend each night in incredible lodges (with hot tubs!), eating beautifully-presented, wonderfully-delicious meals. In addition, the staff and guides provide over-the-top service and think of every last detail to spoil you rotten (why yes, I would love a cool towel and a glass of fresh fruit juice after my long day of hiking).

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but a few of the many highlights included:

-Our first view of the Humantay Glacier. There we were walking along on our first day of the trek and then we rounded the corner to see the most beautiful glacier-covered mountain peak.

-The view from the hot tub at the first lodge (with the Salkantay Glacier and Humantay Glacier in the distance).

-The highest we’ve ever been! The pass on our third day of hiking took us over 15,000 feet! Ted and I have done a few 14ers (14,000 foot peaks) in Colorado, but this was certainly our first 15er.

-Wayra Lodge – the second lodge we stayed in our trek. It has to be situated in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  And, it’s only accessible by foot – no roads!

-The food. Peruvian food has been impressive nation-wide, but food we had on this trip was truly gourmet. We’ve never taken so many pictures of food in our lives. They were absolutely works of art.

-Our great group. We got to meet fun, unique people that are also in the travel industry. We were also lucky to have amazing guides and be accompanied by two cool MLP office staff members. You spend a LOT of time with your group, and we are certain that they were part of the reason we had so much fun.

-Oh, and by the way, did I mention it culminates at Machu Picchu, the most amazing historic site on the planet!  More on this soon!

So if you can’t tell, we absolutely loved the trip and would do it again tomorrow. It was literally the first thing we did upon arriving in Peru and it certainly set the stage for the amazing time we were going to have in this country.

More pictures?  Check out the full MLP album here.

As I write this, Ted and I are sitting in an internet cafe on our last day in Ecuador (it’s taken us a while to post it though!). We leave in several hours to head to the airport and onto Peru. Ecuador has been very good to us and has been a very enjoyable first stop on our world travels. We´ve loved a lot of things, didn´t like a few, and learned quite a bit along the way. Below are some of our Top Moment Lists in attempt to summarize Ecuador in a nutshell!

In no particular order…

Top 10 Things We Loved
1. Ecuadorian Spanish – The Spanish here is spoken relatively slowly and people seem to enunciate very well. It was great for those of us who were very beginners (Sarah) and for those that were trying to brush up as well (Ted).
2. Overall value – From great accommodations for $20/night to delicious lunches for $5 and cheap, cheap bus rides anywhere you need to go – Ecuador is a steal of a deal.
3. Our time in Pucará - We loved getting off the beaten track, having the opportunity to live with a family and take Spanish lessons. A big thank you to our friend Peter for making it possible.
4. The evening of our homestay in Pijal – The community warmly welcomed us – teaching us how to make their rolls for dinner, sharing sips of sugarcane alcohol with us, and dancing and playing music until it was time to go to bed.
5. Our guide Jose – Jose was very good to us over the 3 days we spent with him – from hiking around lakes that only foreigners like to walk around (his joke), to arranging a mid-hike snack (popcorn and juice) at his mother-in-law´s house in a nearby village, to helping us with our Spanish. Jose was a treat.
6. The Black Sheep Inn – The whole experience. I loved our warm hosts, our amazing accommodations, the friends we met there, the delicious vegetarian meals, the beautiful hike, and the list goes on.
7. Pailón Del Diablo Waterfall (the Devil’s Cauldron) – This amazingly powerful and gigantic waterfall was a 10-12 mile cruisy downhill bike ride from the tourist town of Baños. We didn´t know what to expect but it entirely exceeded our expectations and blew us away.
8. Montañita - Courtney and Jed were warm and welcoming hosts and we got to play on the beach, go surfing and eat a lot of seafood. Si, perfecto!
9. Whale watching – I´m a water girl and I could barely contain myself from jumping in and swimming with the beasts. I couldn´t believe how many we saw and how close we got to them. It was incredible.
10. All the spectacular volcanoes – We knew Quito was at altitude (around 10,000 ft.), but we didn´t know that it was surrounded by so many gigantic volcanoes. We lucked out and finally got to see them on a clear day – some over 20,000 feet!

Top 5 Things That We Didn´t
1. Getting our stuff stolen – Hands down, this was the biggest bummer of our time in Ecuador.
2. Upset stomachs – We each had a bout with it and it isn´t fun. Obviously.
3. A bus ride that Lonely Planet quoted as 8 hours (ugh), taking closer to 10 (double ugh).
4. Wine costs the same as it does at home and beer comes only in the pilsner variety.
5. Adorable puppies. Normally puppies are not a bad thing but when they are roaming the streets and most likely homeless and potentially rabid, you shouldn’t be petting them, and that is just torture.

Top 5 Favorite Foods and Drinks
1. Jugos and batidos! Name an exciting tropical fruit flavor – they´ve got it!
2. Intag coffee – Straight from the source, a community-driven economic success story and delicious.
3. Set-menu almuerzos – Hole-in-the-wall shops serving a multi-course meal for a total of $1.50 to $2.50 per person. It usually came with a delicious soup and the main consisted of some meat (either beef or chicken) with rice and salad. Muy bien!
4. Popcorn – I know this isn´t that exciting but I love popcorn and they serve it everywhere, and it is delicious.
5. Fresh seafood – We ate the majority of our seafood when we were on the coast in Montañita and loved it loved it.

Top 5 Things We Learned/Found Interesting/Found Entertaining
1. There were significantly less tourists around and particularly American tourists than we had thought there would be. No matter what “touristy” things we did (hot springs!, waterfall hikes!, gondola rides to the tops of mountains!), we were always pleased to see significant numbers of Ecuadorians there with their families doing these things along with a couple Germans and maybe some Brits thrown in.
2. Outside of the big cities (and quite a lot IN the big cities as well), nearly every structure – home, shop, school, etc.- is made from cinder blocks. Sometimes they´d get plastered over and/or painted to make them look nicer, but for the most part not-so-much.
3. How prolific and useful knee-high rubber boots can be – from hiking in the rainforest, to working at a minga, to getting the mail.
4. Ecuadors biggest exports are: oil, bananas, flowers and shrimp. In fact, 1/3 of the roses purchased in the U.S. for Valentine´s Day are from Ecuador.
5. It´s perfectly normal for a woman speaking Kichwa (the most widely spoken Indigenous language in the region), clothed in her traditional dress with a baby strapped to her back to be walking down the street on her cell phone.

After 4 weeks of exploring our first South American country, we are officially hooked.  While we’re pleased with the amount of ground we were able to cover, as always when you’re traveling, we discovered more that needs to be done.  We’ll be back for sure – the Galapagos and the Amazon are calling our names.

For a few more highlights of our time here, check out our ‘Best of Ecuador’ photos.

I think it was lucky that we were headed to the beach when our stuff got stolen, because though I was bummed to have been the victim of theft, we were thankfully in a relaxing, beautiful environment to get our minds off the frustration.

Courtney, a friend of mine from my triathlon training group in Boulder, is currently living with her husband Jed in Montañita, Ecuador for several months. Courtney and Jed are also on a bit of one-year sabbatical themselves posting up for three months at a time in four different locations around the globe. They were conveniently in Ecuador where we were and they were nice enough to invite us to visit.

They´ve got a great pad within blocks of the down-town area and the beach. Montañita is a tiny little town that caters to tourists – both local and not-so local. There are lots of different languages being spoken, lots of fruity cocktails to drink and lots of dreadlocks. Though very different than the rest of our Ecuador experience, I have to say that it was quite a treat – almost like a vacation from a vacation.

We ate delicious and inexpensive seafood every night. Courtney and Jed got us out on surf boards and shared some tips. We enjoyed several of the fancy drinks they make there with our favorite being the hard to pronounce capiroska (vodka, sugar, lime juice and limes). They make a similar drink with sugarcane alcohol but Courtney recommended the vodka version!

Ted and I were also lucky enough to take a whale watching tour. We were told that we were nearing the end of the season so it might be hard to find the whales. Also, if we did find them they might not be breeching or as exciting as they are in July and August when they are trying to attract mates. However, we not only saw LOTS of whale, we saw them close up, we saw them far away, we saw them jumping, the whole works!

A huge thank you to Courtney and Jed for their hospitality! I should also thank Courtney for her help with the police report because her Spanish is fantastic and came in SUPER handy.  It was such a treat to visit your little paradise and I hope we can rendez-vous again with you on your next stop in Argentina!

On one of our most recent bus trips to Montanita (along the coast) to visit some Boulder pals, Ted and I got robbed. Well, robbed is the wrong word as nothing was taken by force – I guess you would say we were burglarized. No matter what you call it, it sucks!

When it was all said and done, the creeps got away with an iPod, Ted´s sunglasses, $40 cash oh, and our COMPUTER. Yep, they scored big.

They were able to easily access our precious cargo because we conveniently had it stored above our seats on the bus. We had been very cautious of our things and carried our day packs on our laps for all of our previous bus rides. Seriously, this day was the first day we had ever stored our bags up above. Obviously, we should not have done this and that is why it is so incredibly frustrating to have learned the lesson we already knew!

However, to our credit, the bus we were riding on was an “executivo” style bus that requires passengers to have pre-purchased tickets and only makes select stops. It had air-conditioning, showed a movie (Pistol Whipped starring Steven Seagal, seriously) and was less than half full. We were a short distance from our final destination and I guess you could say we just got falsely comfortable/confident. The other buses we have ridden on have been packed with people, standing and sitting, and there is so much coming and going it would be silly to abandon our bags up above. But not on the fancy executivo bus, right? WRONG!

The bright side of this story is that we had the experience of riding in an Ecuadorian police car, visiting several Ecuadorian police stations, and submitting a police report (for travel insurance purposes) that was typed in front of our eyes by a stoic Ecuadorian police detective on a TYPEWRITER. Yes, it was quite the experience.

So, the moral of the story (that we already knew) is that you should not store your stuff above you on the bus and there is no such thing as being too vigilant.

Oh, and also that you can´t let the little things get you down. The stuff that was taken from us was just stuff. We were super-bummed that it happened but at the same time, there was absolutely nothing we could do at that point to change the outcome.

So take that you f-ing thieves! I hope you can´t figure out how to access our password-protected computer, that you hate bluegrass and jamband music, and that Ted´s big head makes the sunglasses worthless to you!

We’ve managed to get in quite a few amazing hikes so far on our trip. They can conveniently be divided into two different types – hikes that require a machete and rubber boots (aka hiking in a cloud forest), and hikes that do not require a machete and rubber boots (aka hiking along the rims of volcanic crater lakes).

Our cloud forest hikes occured while we were living with a family and going to Spanish school in Pucara. The family lived in a beautiful area surrounded by a dramatic landscape of steep cliffs and flat mesas. They were also blessed with spectacular cloud forests (where they hadn’t already been chopped down or burned for farming).

Our friend Peter took us on our first hike down the side of one of the cliffs to the river on the valley floor. He also arranged for us to go on our second hike with a guide named Milton (seen to the right here) who is intimately involved in protecting and reforesting a nearby cloud forest reserve. Milton was a great guide and you could tell that he was passionate about his work with the preserve. After our first two hikes, I was under the impression that all hikes were led by guides wearing knee-high rubber boots and carrying machetes, as both Peter and Milton sported that uniform. It is quite entertaining to hike behind machete-wielding trailblazers, but much needed as the cloud forests are quite dense and the plants grow quickly covering the trails.

Our third hike was lead by Peter’s friend and best guide, Jose (seen left here).  Jose was with us for 3 days as we visited different communities so we had a chance to get to know him well and also to learn that his English is better than he’d led us to believe!

Jose took us on a spectacular hike around Lake Cuicocha. It was a lake that formed after the Cotacachi Volcano exploded 3100 years ago. Though it’s not a particularly big lake (only 2 miles across), it’s extremely deep – nearly 650 ft. Because of it’s high sulfur content and the continued volcanic activity below, there is little to no life in the lake. We hiked around the nearly the whole thing (~7 miles) and had the place almost to ourselves – only passing one other group along the way. Jose teased us that only foreigners like to walk around the whole thing so that probably explains it!

Our second crater lake walk was around Lake Quilotoa at the top of the Quilotoa Volcano. The locals claim that this lake is bottomless (though geologists say that it is actually about 900 feet deep). We hired a truck with 3 other Americans that we met while staying at the Black Sheep Inn. The five of us and a guide rode in the back of the truck for an hour up to the top of the volcano. We were quite high in elevation at that point (12,800+ ft.) and it was extremely cold and windy up there – but the incredible view was well worth it. We then walked around a ¼ of the lake before descending down the edge and walking back to the Inn through beautiful Andean scenery and small towns.

There is nothing better than the sound of a blender in the morning. A blender sound means that you get to drink fresh fruit juice (jugo) for breakfast. The fun part is you don’t know what kind of juice you’re going to get. It could be pineapple juice, or blackberry juice, or strawberry juice, or guava juice, or raspberry juice,  or passionfruit juice, or even a tree tomato juice (it’s in the tomato family but doesn’t taste like tomato – it’s much sweeter). I haven’t had an orange juice yet!

A fun compliment to the jugo is to add milk. It then become more rich and smoothie-like and is then known as a batido.

Either way, we love them and look forward to see what we get to drink every morning.

I love this place! Owned by an American couple that has been living here and running the Inn since, 1996, this special place is way-off the beaten track but they certainly reward you once you get here. After 8 hours on two different buses, we were happily walking up the driveway and were warmly welcomed by Andres and his partner Michelle.

Ted was aware of this place because of his work with Sustainable Travel International. The Black Sheep Inn is one of their members and they have also been honored repeatedly in the travel industry for their commitment to the environment and the local community. I’ll let Ted write more about their initiatives and accomplishments in another post, but know that they’ve gone over the top (in a good way) with everything from composting toilets to solar-powered water pumps.

On the property there are:

• Accommodations for up to 35 people – including a dormitory-style bunkhouse, private doubles with shared baths as well private rooms with private baths.
• A beautiful guest house where we eat delicious vegetarian, family-style meals and where you can check your email, read a book and/or get a (free!) cup of tea or organic coffee at any time (from the Intag coffee cooperative, no less!)
• An incredible yoga room with everything you may need (Suz and Jay, you HAVE to come here!)
• A “weight room” with cleverly hand-made weights and equipment
• A sauna and hot pool. The heat emitted from the sauna heats the water in the pool. It’s not a proper jacuzzi, but it made our day and kept us warm enough!
• As well as many fun extras like a volleyball court, darts, a zip line, a water slide and a frisbee golf course!

We’ve also had the pleasure to meet other travelers from around the world. Last night we had dinner with an Ecuadorian woman and her young daughter; a couple from the Czech republic; an American ex-pat and his girlfriend who is originally from Taiwan but has been living in Ecuador for 20+ years; a American guy from San Diego traveling alone and two women from San Francisco. What a treat! Today we went hiking with the guy from San Diego and the women from San Francisco – amazing pictures and details from that hike to come!

Andres and Michelle have thought of everything and know how to cater to a Western tourists needs and desires – as they are gringos themselves! Though we loved our community homestay experiences these past couple weeks, it’s a welcomed treat to have a few over-the-top extras in our life these next few days. In fact, we just changed our two-night reservation to 3 nights. Needless to say, I’m thrilled.

I had been promised that bus rides in South America were quite an experience and not for those that value personal space so I was surprised on our first bus ride from Quito to Otovalo. We arrived just in time to purchase tickets and when we got on the bus, only one other person was on board! However, between when the bus left it’s parking place and when we actually started driving, we picked up 5-6 additional stragglers as well as a host of vendors selling everything from ice cream cones to newspapers. They’d come on the bus, try and pitch their wares and then get off a hundred yards later – it was quite entertaining.

Our second bus ride was absolutely nothing like our first. We were headed to Pucara with our friend Peter and as he lives in Pucara part of the time, he was bringing back some supplies for the house he is in the process of building. He was also traveling with his newly adopted dog, Princessa. So there we were, 3 gringos, two big packpacks, a dog and 4 large sheets of glass trying to get on this nearly-full bus. Luckily, Peter had purchased us seats ahead of time or we would have been standing the whole 2.5 hour bus ride to where we were going. As Peter and I finagled our way to our seats through passengers, vendors, kids, old women in their traditional dresses, etc., Ted was outside trying to store our backpacks and hold onto the dog. In hopes of helping him out, I was sandwiched between a large-breasted woman selling limonadas and the glass Peter purchased while taking Princessa’s leash from Ted and holding onto her while leaning out the window. It was absolutely overwhelming and hilarious at the same time. Eventually, Ted gets on the bus, as does Princessa, the vendors make their final sales and we’re off!

Once we were in Pucara, the bus system works a bit differently. There are no tickets and few actual bus stops. If you want to get on a bus, you simply wave it down. When you want to get off the bus, you just say so and they stop. Some buses are crowded and some are not. There are a few going each direction each day so you plan your trip around these times and you’re good to go. The bus driver has a helper who gets out to help people with bags store them under the bus. The helper also collects the bus fare from the passengers and is the point of contact if you need anything. The driver just drives.

On our way home from some hot springs that we visited on Sunday afternoon, we were waiting at one of the few bus stops for our 6-7 mile trip home with 20-30 other people. When the bus arrived is was already PACKED! I was sure there was no way we’d all fit but sure enough, we were packed in like sardines. In fact, the bus driver didn’t even close the door and two people stood on that bottom step about a foot above the road. At the next stop, I’m not kidding you, they managed to smoosh on even more people – apparently “the bus is full”, is not an option.

Lucky for us, we had a short trip home however, many people on that bus were headed over 2.5 hours back to Otavalo and were destined to be standing on the bumpy, windy road the whole time!

It’s been nearly a week since our last post but we have a pretty good reason for the delay as we were officially off the grid. Last Tuesday, Ted and I met up with a tourism industry colleague/friend of Ted’s named Peter that Ted had met with a couple of times in Boulder. Peter is American however, he now lives in Ecuador and has for the past ten years. More about Peter and his work in a future post, but he was our connection for where we spent the last week living with a family and learning Spanish.

We met up with Peter in Otavalo, Ecuador which is a fairly large town (~40,000 people) known for its weekly Saturday market and a predominantly indigenous population. We then took a very crowded, yet beautiful and entertaining 2.5 hour bus ride along a dirt road (more about the bus rides in a future post as well!) west into the mountains to a community named Pucara.

Pucara is a gorgeous little community nestled in the lush Andes mountains, accessed only by dirt road and 5 daily buses.  It is one of those places that you drive by and wonder to yourself, “What do people do here?” Well, we were about to find out.

After a delicious lunch prepared for us by the shop-owner of one of the two shops in town, Peter introduced to our “sisters and brothers” for the week. Anita is in early 20s and the mother to a beautiful little 10-month old boy named Chris. Andres is her 10-year old brother and Maria is their 6-year old sister. The family lived about a 20 minute walk from ‘town’. Though there were certainly many awkward silences on that initial walk home, we, or Ted rather, was able to break the ice and make conversation. Once at home we met another brother named Victor, who is 23, and the mother/grandmother of the home named Celia. There is also another sister that is 18 but she is away at university several hours away. The family did not speak any English and I am a better listener to Spanish than I am a speaker, so the majority of the responsibility fell on Ted’s shoulders to communicate.

The family’s home was modest to say the least. When you walked in the door, there was a central room that was used as the kitchen, living and dining room. There were then four small bedrooms off the main area. Ted and I shared one of the rooms and the other six people shared the remaining three bedrooms. The bathroom was connected to the house but you had to go outside to access it and it was not enclosed. The dishes and laundry were also done outside the old-fashioned way. They did not have a refrigerator or a telephone and in fact, the only electricity they used for their cooking was a blender to make smoothie juice drinks. The cooking was done using a gas stove and a propane tank.

There was not room for everyone to eat together so Ted and I sat out in the central room with one or two other people and the remainder crowded into the small bedroom with the tiny T.V. to eat. Though the women (Celia and Anita) were in charge of all the cooking, it was a treat to see that everyone helped out with baby Chris. I was impressed to see how helpful and useful the little guys (Andres and Maria) were to their older sister and little nephew. Everyone took turns holding him, entertaining him and making sure he stayed out of trouble.

Though the language was a barrier for me, I made friends with Maria by painting her fingernails with some polish I’d brought from home and pushing her on the swing. Ted brought a frisbee which was also a popular activity with Maria and Andres and a couple other nights we built a fire and burned everything from grass and sticks to plastic bags and track pants (not our suggestion!).

Ted spotted a guitar in Victor’s room the first night we were there and after removing a broken string and tuning it up he learned that Victor didn’t know how to play but that wanted to learn. For the remainder of the week, Ted and Victor sat down in the evening and Ted gave Victor some guitar lessons.

Though it was certainly a treat to live in this family’s home it was not without its challenges for us (no privacy, bugs, tummy trouble) and for them (two giant gringos with very limited Spanish!), I’m sure. I’m thankful for the experience and the insight it provided however, I would by lying if I didn’t tell you that I’m excited to be back in a hostel in Otavalo in a comfortable bed, eating whatever we want whenever we want and going to bed confident that we will not be woken up by multiples roosters outside our window!