Exploring Beautiful Ecuador

This past month has been a magnificent month for Linda and I as we explore this beautiful country, both near and far.  Locally we have been riding out into the country  surrounding Cuenca on Sunday mornings with a local biking club.  Our Spanish is still not the best, so we follow the faithful leaders of the club, often not knowing if we are going 5 miles or 50.  But these rides always lead to stunning countryside and new friendships.  

Luis, Fabian, Jr., and Mark on their 50km ride to Paute

Our Canadian friends and Linda take a break on ride to San Joaquin valley

The Couple that bikes together, stays together! 

      We continue to take Wednesdays off from our volunteer activities and Spanish classes, and we take a "day trip" to local towns by bus.  The highlight trip this past month was a day trip to Alausi, a little town set dizzyingly on a river gorge.  Ecuador built a railroad in the Andes Mountains over 100 years ago, and Alausi is the last place the trains stops before it makes a plunge down the gorge to Nariz del Diablo (Devil's nose).  It was quite an engineering feat to build these one of a kind railroad "switchbacks", and we so enjoyed sticking our heads out the train car.

Ron, Linda and MArk on Cajas National PArk 

When South of the Equator, which side does the moss grow on?

Train ride to the Devil's Nose

Check out the switchback below

The Devil's Nose - notice the Blue Bustrain on it way back up

Mark, Bill, Lawrence, Cody and Linda at the end fo the line

      We just returned from 8 day trip to Northern Ecuador and points east, including the Amazon Jungle.  We were so fortunate to be guests of our Friends, Lynn and Sean Tracey,  at their home inside  Hacienda Cusin, near Otavalo.  We had a wonderful 3 days at this tranquil, restored 17th century hacienda. One of our best hikes ever took us around a volcanic crater lake named Cuicocha, famous for the the two islands. 

Sean and Lynne's home at Hacienda Cusin

View from front yard - Volcan Imbabura guard the llamas 

Lynne shows us the garden at Haceinda Cusin

Lago Cuicocha- no fish in this lake - bubbles stil rising form the Volcan

LTD!

      From Otavalo, we headed east to the Amazon jungle.  Getting to the jungle is not an easy task.  We first took a 5 hour van ride to the jungle town of Tena. From there we took a 90 minute bus ride down a dusty road, we were greeted by our Liana Lodge hosts for a 2 mile canoe ride deep in the forest. But the long travel time was worth every minute of it. There was no electricity at our cabin and so relaxing to be off the grid.  Our wonderful guide , Angel, showed so many things in the rainforest, gigantic primary forest trees, huge insect nests, pretty flora, unique birds, and off course, monkeys!  We loved the nice deck of the lodge, where we ate all our meals, and relaxed over drinks every evening. 

our jungle cabin - reading by candlelight at night

Our Guide Angel and new German friend, Biggie

Biggie and Linda enjoy the vegetation

out tucan friend

50 of these furry friends came to visit one morning

Our favorite evening spot

       Our last night of our trip was spent in Banos, arguably the prettiest town in Ecuador.

Although a bit touristy, this scenic Andes town is nestled up against a still active volcano. We enjoyed a 2 hour bike ride down the valley, followed by a hike to some beautiful falls.  I look forward to returning back to Banos at the end of February when my brothers come to Ecuador - some zipllining and bungee jumping will be the order of the day

Banos park and church

Banos at Sunrise

Diablo Falls

We thank all our family and friends for helping make this dream come true!

Our visit to The Galapagos

We enjoyed an amazing 5 day island-hopping trip to the Galapagos Islands with our kids and my Mom.  Here are some of the highlights.  (More photos are here.  If you click on one photo to open it, the photos will all appear at the top of the page, you can then click on "slideshow" at the left of the page and the photos will begin to scroll through the file.)

The Galapagos is a must see for many students of science, myself and my mom included.  To walk where the theory of evolution was first considered was amazing.  Can I say that I noticed how each of the finches’ beaks were different?  Not at all, however I trust Darwin that it’s true.  We did notice that the land tortoises had different shaped shells and different sizes of necks to help them survive in varied environments.  We also learned about how habitat destruction and hunting the tortoises has already lead to the extinction of 3 of the 14 species of land tortoises on the Galapagos. 

Jeffrey as a land tortoise 

Jean and Linda with volcano crater behind us

We did a lot of hiking; most notable was our hike to a volcano, Sierra Negra.  It was a 10 mile “out –and-back and we had spectacular views of the caldera.  We walked on lava rock from an eruption in 2005, felt the heat from the volcano vents, and saw many lava tunnels.  We even walked through one!

Walking on lava, crater is where lava came from

Inside a lava tunnel

Small lava tunnel 

Shark

 Snorkeling was another highlight; we don’t have any photos as we didn’t use an underwater camera.  Here are a couple of photos of sharks and sea turtles from above.

Sea turtle, we saw a lot of these while snorkeling.

More animals...

adult marine iguana

baby marine iguanas

blue-footed booby

After returning from The Galapagos, we spent some time in Quito and visited the Mitad del Mundo, or Equator.  It was very cheesy and we participated in all the cheesy activities including balancing an egg on a nail, taking photos, and other activities that are not supported by any science.  Also, the equator isn’t really there!  It’s located a few miles away in an indigenous archeological site.   It was fun, regardless and Mark finally got to eat cuy; which is know to us as guinea pig.

Mark and his cuy

The supposed equator

Our Christmas tree in Ecuador

Goosey and Jenna on one of our many boat trips

Our last dinner in the Galapagos

Mark and I say goodbye to our family

When Mark and I returned to Cuenca we celebrated El Ano Viejo with friends in the Ecuadorian fashion.  We had dinner and then went out to burn our manegote.  It is an effigy that is created by each family.  Below is an example of a very high end effigy (not ours).  You can also see the fires burning on the street as all the families burned their manegotes.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!  We missed seeing many of you this holiday season and have realized it's fun to live in a different country for a few months, but we couldn't do it long term!