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Ecuador Adventures
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Ecuador Adventures

A 352-day adventure by Ecuador Adventures Read more
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  • Trip start
    August 19, 2022
    Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    We’re off!

    August 19, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 88 °F

    See the bit of fear in Talia’s eyes? That’s the look of a kid whose parents decided to move to small-town Ecuador with almost no Spanish skills (both of us) and a debilitating fear of snakes (just me).  Oh well!  Here we go!  Read more

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    Made it to Guayaquil!

    August 20, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 84 °F

    Kyla had to decide between two of her most highly developed (but incompatible) skills for this trip: (a) thinking of (and packing) everything we could possibly need for a year and (b) packing light enough for an Amazing Race-type competition. As evidenced by the photo below, we went with option (a) and, even though our bags are heavy, I’m hoping our time in Ecuador is light.

    We landed at 1 am, schlepped our enormous bags to a hotel, and, after a few hours of sleep, spent our first day exploring Guayaquil, Ecuador’s most populous city (per the internet). We walked along the waterfront, communed with urban iguanas and hit the hotel pool.

    At night, we explored the Las Peñas neighborhood and walked up 444 steps to the top of the Santa Ana hill, where we found 947374938 more steps to get to the top of a lighthouse with great views of the city. In the morning, breakfast felt like the set of Ted Lasso (see final pic).

    Now we are off to Olon, where we plan to spend most of the year (though who knows?!?).

    One final fact about Ecuador: per Wikipedia, there are only 250 Jews in all of Ecuador. Well, we added a few more today. Brace yourself, Ecuador.    Read more

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    At home (for now) in Olon

    August 21, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 73 °F

    Our first few days in Olon have been peaceful. We explored the little town of Olon, which has a million beachfront ceviche places, some markets, a small playground and various little shops, restaurants and cafes. As you can see from the photos, there’s no Wegmans here, but we’re managing.

    In addition to Olon, we’ve explored nearby Montanita, a slightly larger and more touristy town (for Ecuadorian tourists, not US tourists) that has a bigger market, more restaurants and a ton of backpackers/surfers. Talia had an unfortunate run in with cow poop on the beach and I snapped a photo of her running into the ocean to clean her tie-dye crocs, which is just about the most “gringo-in-Ecuador” thing ever. We were a bit overwhelmed by the scene in Montanita in our initial explorations, but it’s useful to have a nearby town that is slightly bigger than Olon.

    Kyla is back at work full time, so I’ve been going on the sorts of adventures with Talia that I don’t think Kyla will mind missing. Adventure # 1 was a horseback ride and hike to a nice little waterfall in an area called Dos Mangas. Before I move on, can anyone photoshop a helmet onto Talia’s head before my mom (and her posse of friends) sees the pics of Talia on a horse and scaling a waterfall?

    Adventure #2 was a sailboat whale watching expedition. During this trip, I learned two important things: (1) I’m terrible at photographing whales (see evidence below) and (2) those little anti-seasickness wristbands are a load of beachfront cow poop. That aside, it was cool to see a bunch of whales and we spotted our first blue footed boobies (apparently the ones we saw are young, since their feet turn a brighter blue as they mature). I’ll make a separate post with all the birds at some point.

    In addition to adventures outside of Olon, the three of us have done a lot of walking around on the beach and hunting for various products that we didn’t bring with us (I’d kill for some unscented laundry detergent, for example). We’ve also been working on identifying various unfamiliar birds and fruits, as you can see from the photos. It’s been fun to explore with Talia, but the unstructured time is also exhausting, so we’re all excited for school to start in mid-September.

    There have been a few things that have been harder than expected in the first week. Talia was the first to fall to “traveler’s stomach,” which is a bummer. It’s also been s challenge to find feed ourselves. There are bunch of restaurants in town, and a few markets…a lot is made more challenging by not being able to drink or cook with the water. Next week’s project will be figuring out a good system for grocery shopping.

    It’s cloudy season here and that means it’s cool on the coast. We will use weekends to chase the sun in other parts of Ecuador. It’s a good thing that Kyla packed the vitamin D in those 9274629273 bags! We’re off to Puerto Lopez tomorrow!    Read more

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    Puerto Lopez and Back Again

    August 28, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 73 °F

    My guess is that I’m posting way too frequently for everyone besides my mom and others who were at my bar mitzvah 938373 years ago. I’m going to try to create a new post for each town we visit so as to record it all for Talia since she may not remember this adventure. My hope is to turn this into a little book for her. If the Dean happens to read this, please consider whether said book will count as a publication during my sabbatical.

    Anyway, back to recording our adventure. On Saturday, we ventured to Puerto Lopez, stopping at a roadside bakery and viewing towns even smaller than Olon along the way. We jumped out of the taxi for a photo at Los Piqueros overlook and then had a seafood lunch in Puerto Lopez. After lunch, we went to a beach in a nearby national park (Los Frailes beach).

    On Sunday it was finally sunny and we hit the beach in Olon (have I mentioned that it’s cloudy season here?!). Talia body boarded with a new friend for hours and Kyla and I had our best meal yet as well as drinks on the beach…only to be taken out of commission by Ecuadorian stomach insanity. We have sort of recovered.

    During the times that I wasn’t on the floor groaning and clenching my stomach today, Talia and I continued our explorations. We came across some fishermen who pulled fish out of the ocean and loaded up their bike-cart to ride up and down the beach yelling “pescado!” There’s also a guy on a motorcycle who does the same thing every morning—like an ice cream truck but with fish.    Read more

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    Fishing in Olon

    September 2, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    We had a chance to watch some local fisherman right outside our apartment on Friday.

    They started by dragging their huge net from the beach into the ocean on a small paddle-powered boat. They spread the net out over what looked like about a quarter of a mile. Then, two lines of people standing a quarter mile apart dragged the net in over the course of an hour, slowly meeting in the middle, right in front of our apartment.

    As the fishermen finished their work, lots of other people showed up: a ceviche-on-a bike-cart guy and the pescado-motorcycle guy were first to line up, followed by vendors from the local fish market. Others brought nets and some tied ropes around their waists and stuffed their shirts with flopping fish. The whole thing happened without any exchange of money, so I’m not sure whether this was a business venture or just a fun Friday morning fishing trip among friends (have I mentioned that our Spanish is terrible?!). As they wrapped up their work, the men taught Talia how to play fetch with some hungry birds, using the fish that were to small to keep. A lot of excitement on a Friday morning!

    Oh, and the other exiting moment this week occurred when a lizard dropped from our ceiling onto Kyla’s desk while she was working. Talia and I were eating lunch in town, but we ran home via the 5 minute commute on the beach so that Talia could help set the lizard free. Later that day, the lizard’s BFF showed up and we had to do another lizard relocation project. I felt a little badly evicting the lizards, given my line of work, but I’m hoping we did right by them.

    Pics/videos of lizard and fishing below!    Read more

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    Up the Coast to Canoa

    September 3, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 75 °F

    We took a road trip 5 hours north to Conoa this weekend, hunting for sun.

    We only found a little sun, but we had a bunch of interesting learning experiences. Perhaps most importantly, we learned that Charles (my mom’s travel agent/cardiologist gentleman caller) or Addie (renown Airbnb expert) should book the rest of our travel arrangements. We are not wimpy travelers, but this weekend we realized that we are not 20 years old and that accommodations advertised on hostelworld.com may not be for us.

    That said, we really enjoyed lots about the weekend. The changes in topography in our road trip—cacti, rice paddies, palm trees, crazy huge trees, sea, hills and mountains - were really cool. We saw so many weird and amazing micro climates in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, Talia missed most of the drive because, heeding warnings from travel books, we gave her a Dramamine to help with car sickness (the roads are very curvy, and in some places, sort of in the ocean). It’s possible that we went overboard with the Dramamine because she was OUT for the ride.

    After the long ride, we spent one night in Canoa, but between the late night dance party next door to our accommodation (“hotel” is not quite the right word) and a group of nocturnal roosters on the street outside, none of us slept well. We had planned a day trip to an organic farm not far from Canoa, but decided to check out of the dance-party-and-rooster hotel in order to stay at the peaceful farm. The farm was certainly beautiful, and the food - all grown on site - was amazing…but the abuelo at the neighboring farm down the road happened to turn 72 this weekend, so the family played dance music until 6am and of course a group of roosters cockle-doodle-doo’ed from 3am until the sun rose. Additionally, while I’m excited about all of the biodiversity in Ecuador, I’m beginning to think it’s mostly diversity in insects—despite the the mosquito nets, the enormous bugs didn’t help our sleep.

    Notwithstanding the lack of sleep and excessive encounters with strange bugs, we had a good time. Talia loved all of the farm animals— she enjoyed riding another horse, feeding pigs and chickens and hanging with a dog named Mango. She especially liked the cat, Mousey, which made me love her a tiny bit less (where’s her dog loyalty?!?).  We all learned a lot about sustainable farming (and compostable toilets), plus Talia learned how to harvest cocoa beans and make chocolate. To top it off, she made a necklace and a ring from local plants, which involved her using a saw and various other dangerous tools with minimal supervision. Of course, she’s most excited to tell her grandparents about this. In good news, no one lost any fingers.

    Before we left, the abuelo from the farm down the road brought us some birthday cake to make up for the noise from the wild geriatric party the night before. The adventure continues…

    ****

    Oh wait! This just in! A guest post narrated by Talia:

    Hello everybody! I am happy that you guys read our blog. Right now I’m at a farm and I fed pigs and chickens, and I also did more horseback riding. I’m eating my breakfast at the farm while mommy types. Oh, I also fed chickens and roosters. We have a cat at the farm named Mousey. She’s very sweet. Also, there are dogs named Mango and Rosa. They are super cute and always come into our little house.

    We slept in little nets so we would be safe from mosquitos. Actually, beetles swarmed all around us. There were 3 million of them. My mommies put me in my net first and then they got into their net. And my mommies heard a noise at night and Mango barked and barked. He was guarding us, which was sweet. Yeah, that’s it from Ecuador. I hope school is fun! Bye! Love, Talia.    Read more

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    Cuenca was cool!

    September 10, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F

    We just returned from 5 great days in Cuenca. We hadn’t been planning to visit Cuenca so soon, but after our misadventures with accommodations in Canoa, we decided we needed to redeem ourselves as competent bookers of airbnbs. Plus we have a few more days until Talia starts school and we figured we might as well explore.

    Cuenca was lovely—beautiful views, good food, endless bakeries and tons to see. We wandered through narrow streets, pretty parks, packed markets and endless churches. The churches inspired Talia to ask a lot of questions about Judaism, Christianity and the origins of humanity, so we stopped in a planetarium to learn about the Big Bang, galaxies, etc. Or, at least I think it was a planetarium and I think the movie was about the Big Bang--can't be sure since it was in Spanish.

    In addition to exploring the city, we took a trip to Cajas National Park, right outside the city. A driver took us to the top of a mountain, where we hopped out for a freezing photo before heading back down for a hike around Llaviucu Lake in more temperate weather. The hike was gorgeous and it gave us an opportunity to spy our first group of wild llamas. Some adventurers had pitched a tent in the field of llamas, and we all wondered if the llamas were as aggressive about stealing food as the "wild" horses of Assateague.

    Oh, and importantly, we stayed in a wonderful Airbnb in the center of the city, with an amazing view from the roof deck. Addie and Charles can relax a bit--no immediate needs for their travel agent skills.

    Highlights for Talia included:

    -cashing in on bribes at the many bakeries
    -enjoying an incredibly rickety and old amusement park created to freak out anxious parents high in the hills above Cuenca
    -buying fruit from mango and pineapple vendors on the street (this exists on Mt. Pleasant street too, but for some reason is way more exciting in Ecuador)
    -swimming in pools fed from hot springs (“even warmer than Judy Lappin’s pool,”per Talia)
    -playing catch with some kids in Parque San Sebastián
    -schlepping to the top of catherdrals
    -and a direct quote "Cuenca was really beautiful and sunny, and we saw llamas."

    My highlights included:

    -finding haircare products (terrifyingly, these appear to be non-existent in Olon, which means that my hair may soon expand to the size of a small planet)
    -more vitamin D. We had some great sunny days in Cuenca, though, as I’m sure I’ll discuss in future posts, the weather in Ecuador is strange.
    -watching the impact of two glasses of wine at 8800 ft on Kyla (it involved her joining a late night outdoor Zumba class on the steps of St. Sebastian church). I have not been authorized to release the video, but will forever remember Talia trying to tackle Kyla while yelling "MOMMY, STOP DANCING!!! PLEASE!!!"
    -llamas!

    Kyla's highlights included:
    -sunrise with coffee and sunset with wine on the roof deck
    -home office at 8000 Ft
    -mountains!
    -llamas!

    Overall, Cuenca was our favorite spot so far. We took so many photos that I may have to divide this into multiple posts.    Read more

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    More photos from Cuenca

    September 11, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    These are pics from:

    —the lookout and tiny amusement-park-of-stress in the Turi neighborhood in Cuenca
    —various streets and markets around Cuenca
    —the cold lookout high up in Cajas National Park
    —the video is from our hike in Cajas    Read more

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    Final Cuenca Photos

    September 11, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    These photos are:
    —more Cajas hiking (with llamas!)
    —museum of modern art in cuenca (talia loved the “fuzzy hotdogs”). The museum was particularly cool because there were galleries with paintings and then tiny rooms with 3D representations of the paintings (i.e. the “fuzzy hotdogs” were a 3D interpretation of a painting)
    —hot spring pool
    —more scenes of Cuenca    Read more

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    Birds so far

    September 12, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    Most of these birds were right outside our door in Olon, but some are from Puerto Lucia and Sucre (Rio Muchacho farm). Kyla and Talia have done their best to label them using our 94738364 page Ecuador bird book, but please feel free to leave a comments with suggestions and corrections.Read more

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    More birds!

    September 12, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    These are more birds of Olon, Sucre, Cuenca and Cajas. 40-ish new birds in less than a month!

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    School Starts! Sun! Montanita nights!

    September 14, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    It's been a busy week! On the 13th, we had a "back to school night" for Talia at a nearby playground, where she met a new friend who invited her to her home to play for the evening. The other family spoke no English and our Spanish is no bueno, but, with some help from google translate, we managed to make a plan that involved us picking Talia up in the hills above Olon after dinner. The mom of Talia's friend instructed us to call her via What's Ap when we were on our way so that she could direct a cab driver to her home on a not-yet-fully-constructed street. I took a deep breath and sent Talia off into the hills in a pickup truck. Of course, we hadn't accounted for the fact that cell service is terrible in the jungle-y hills around Olon, so when it was time to pick her up, we ended up lost with our taxi driver in the dark for a half hour. We did eventually find Talia, happily eating pancakes with her new friends in their beautiful mountain home. Phew. Mom--are you still breathing? Are you on a plane, planning on kidnapping Talia?

    The day after her mountain adventure, Talia started school at Anyi Green, a small outdoor school with about 35 kids between 5 and 14-ish years old. Talia loves that the classrooms have no walls, that the untamed gardens include hidden eggplants and that the main learning materials include mud and more mud. She's in a class of 8 that's evenly split between native Spanish and native English speakers. They alternate each week between an English-speaking and a Spanish-speaking teacher. We were hoping for a fully immersive program, but she's happy that it's bilingual. Currently, her favorite part of the day is riding the school bus--she's one of the first kids picked up and one of the last kids dropped off, so she gets to see a ton of the surrounding areas every day while chatting with "real teenagers."

    We capped off Talia's first week of school with a sunny beach day in Olon followed by a dinner out in Montanita on Saturday, and a trip to Isla de la Plata on Sunday (more on that in the next post).    Read more

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    Isla de la Plata—waves, whales, boobies

    September 18, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 70 °F

    We travelled back up the coast this weekend to take a boat ride to Isla de la Plata, an island near Puerto Lopez that is known for its variety of birds. I managed not to puke on the boat ride, so that was a win.

    On the island, we went on an 8 kilometer hike with a guide who was knowledgeable about birds, but not very sympathetic to a 6 year old’s short legs. Talia made it most of the way, but Kyla wins the “most likely to schlep up a mountain carrying a backpack and a 6 year old” award. When I was pregnant, we made a deal that I’d carry Talia for the first 9 months and she’d do the schlepping thereafter—Kyla has stuck to the deal, that’s for sure.

    We saw blue footed boobies galore and learned a ton of facts about them—for example, you can tell their sex by the color of their pupils and their age by the tone of the blue on their feet (notice the mismatched ages of the couples—the females with darker feet are all cougars coupled up with younger light footed males). Side note: Ecuadorian wildlife guides are, not surprisingly, very focused on Darwin, natural selection, and preservation of species via procreation—our IVF-science-made little family always throws their speeches a little off kilter.

    After our island trek, we got back on the boat and some of our companions snorkeled despite the somewhat chilly (by my standards) weather. From the boat, we could see turtles, fish and some enormous manta rays, and the nut jobs who went in the water reported that the snorkeling was amazing—maybe we will go back when it’s warmer and when I restock Dramamine. Post-snorkeling, we chased whales around, which was all fun and games until the seasickness made me question all my life choices. It was cool to see whales up close, but I think I’ve had enough whale watching for a while.

    Back on dry land, we met our first local friends, Carmen and and her partner, Sarah at a restaurant in Puerto Lopez. The restaurant owner’s 9 year old daughter, Thelma, hung out with us for the night and was a Rummikube master (shout out to Steph, Jenn, Ruby and Jonah for teaching us). Thelma had a cool treehouse/death-trap behind the restaurant, and between the opportunity to play with Thelma’s cats and the chance to swing from the (totally OSHA non-complaint) treehouse ropes, Talia was in heaven. Thelma didn’t speak any English, and it was great to see Talia switch to Spanish a bit (though she’s still shy about speaking).

    Overall, Isla de la Plata was great! We loved the hiking, wildlife and views. Kyla and Talia will label the birds in the pics below and I will work on finding haircare products that keep the Jew ‘fro under control on boats.    Read more

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    Surf, sun (briefly) and fun

    October 2, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    We've spent the past few weeks in and around Olon, getting to know more about our environment and adjusting to the day-to-day life in small town Ecuador. We are now in a much better rhythm with shopping at local markets, visiting our favorite encebollado (fish soup) vendor, acquiring fresh fish (and ignoring the lack of ice/refrigeration/ food safety standards), hitting up our favorite bakery, etc. Stores with walls, flavored seltzer and mac and cheese are distant memories.

    Some recent highlights include:

    -Talia had her first surf lessons and did great. Her first grade teacher is also her surf instructor.

    -In addition to surf lessons, Talia does "telas," which is fabric acrobatics. Neither of her chosen sports are transferable to life in DC or gonna get her a college scholarship, but she's really enjoying them. Surf is entirely in Spanish, but for telas, she's convinced the bilingual instructor to speak English.

    -For Rosh Hashanah, we had dinner with the 4 Jews we could find in this part of Ecuador. Kyla and Talia made raisin challah, of course, and others managed to make matzah ball soup and brisket. It was lovely.

    -We enjoyed a bunch of hours of sun on the beach and at the pool. I really cannot wait for the consistently sunnier weather. Have I mentioned that?!

    -We participated in a local beach clean up, where we ran into one of the teenagers who regularly makes Talia’s school bus ride the highlight of her day. Talia is the second kid picked up and the second to last kid dropped off, so she spends an hour each day chatting with the older kids on the bus and seeing places we’ve never visited. She loves it, and when we run into kids she knows from the bus, she exclaims “there’s one of my REAL-TEENAGER-chatting friends!”

    -We went to our first birthday party, had dinner out with some new friends and started to feel like we kinda live here a bit.

    -We explored Ayangue, a hopping beach town about 35 minutes south of Olon.

    We are heading to Quito and surrounding areas next week. More from there!    Read more

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    Quito

    October 6, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F

    We spent Yom Kippur in Quito. We didn't make it to synagogue, but we figured that, at over 10,000 feet, we were closer to the heavens and could thus cross being pious off our to-do list.

    We liked Quito, despite a few misadventures. On our first day, we stepped out of our hotel (across from the presidential residence!) and took a walking tour of the old city with a very knowledgeable guide. Shockingly, understanding 100% of the features of baroque architecture of churches was not on Talia's bucket list, so she didn't totally appreciate our guide's encyclopedic knowledge.

    After the somewhat tedious yom kipur “tour o'churches,” we headed to Teleférico, where we took a gondola ride up one of Quito's many steep hills. It was beautiful on the way up, but the extra few thousand feet threw Talia over the edge into altitude sickness. Plus, while we were exploring the peak, a thunder storm rolled in, the temperature dropped and sudenly we were being pelted with hail. We quickly boarded a gondola to head down the mountain but a few minutes into the ride, the lightening started and the gondola stopped running. We spent a stressful half hour dangling approximately a billion feet in the air in a small metal container during an intense hail/lightening storm before the storm passed and we started moving again.

    After the gondola ride, we headed to "the center of the world" to straddle the equator. We took a somewhat cheesey tour there, which appeared to be full of all sorts of fake science. That said, I did manage to get an egg to stand on its end, so that was cool.

    During our second day, Kyla had to work all day, so Talia and wandered the city on our own. We climbed to the clock tower in a basilica, explored botanical gardens, found a cool playground, bought a stuffed llama at a touristy artesenal market, and got our photo of the Quito sign (featuring me instead of Talia this time).

    In the evening, Kyla joined us and we had a very strange experience involving ice cream (see the video).

    From Quito, we headed to Cotopaxi, the subject of the next post.    Read more

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    Cotopaxi

    October 7, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    From Quito, we headed to an amazing hacienda at the base of Cotopaxi. The hacienda is a working farm on the site of Inca ruins, and the setting was gorgeous (https://www.incahacienda.com/). We could see Cotopaxi clearly from the beautiful gardens.

    Our first day was drizzly, so we stayed around the hacienda, toured the grounds and got to know the animals. Talia really wanted to milk the cows, so we headed to the barn where we received a cow-milking lesson. Talia suddenly got cow-shy and somehow I ended up being the only cow-milker in our family (though Talia did feed the baby cows from a bottle). After the cows, we hung out by the communal fireplace, had an excellent farm-to-enormous-table dinner and then fell asleep quickly with Ecuadorian-poncho-wrapped hot water bottles in our bed.

    On day 2, we hired a driver to take us to Cotopaxi…which was completely covered in clouds. We did take a walk around a beautiful lake, and we spotted some new birds as well as an Andean wolf. Despite the weather, it was a nice outing. Back at the hacienda, Talia fed lamas and hung out with Lady Gaga, the farm dog.

    On our third day, we woke up to SUN and took an early horseback tour around the hacienda property and neighboring farms before breakfast. Talia loved galloping and I loved the scenery (and the fact that, for the first time since we arrived in Ecuador, we were offered helmets). After the horseback riding, we had a delicious breakfast that did not include enough praise for the yogurt, which I’m sure was made more delicious by my expert cow-milking. Then Talia bid farewell to all of the farm animals, including a baby bunny, and we headed off to Quilotoa. Photos of horseback riding and Quilotoa in the next post.    Read more

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    Quilatoa

    October 9, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F

    From our Cotopaxi hacienda, we headed two hours south to Quilotoa. The drive was gorgeous, but terrifying—it involved an hour detour in a cloud on the curviest road I’ve ever seen, with a speedy driver, some chunks of road missing, etc. I’ll spare my mom the remaining details. Rest assured that we will do a bit more research re: road conditions and drivers in the future.

    The drive was worth it though! We saw a lot of the Andean countryside—little villages, shepherds, lamas, horses, etc. Quilotoa was beautiful—a bright blue lake in a volcanic crater. We hiked past houses tucked into the hills and countless sheep. We didn’t have time to go all the way around the lake or to hike down to the bottom, but we still had a great time (and Kyla made it a bit further than Talia and I did).

    One night back in Quito and then we are off to Guayaquil and then Olon. Happy Canadian thanksgiving/indigenous peoples day to all.

    (Pics are from the horseback adventure at the Cotopaxi hacienda and from Quilotoa.)    Read more

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    Oh Olon

    October 31, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 70 °F

    We’ve spent the last few weeks in Olon and surrounding areas, and we’re getting comfortable in this quirky little town. I wish Kyla and I spoke more Spanish, so that we could access the local community more effectively, but, even in our weird little expat world, we’re learning a lot. Recent weeks have featured:

    -Parties! Despite excellent training by Addie and Cristhian and my general tendency to be late for everything, I’m not late *enough* for anything in Ecuador. We showed up a half hour late for a birthday party and we beat the rest of the expats by about an hour and Ecuadorians by 2 hours. The birthday party included Mirabel and Isabel hype ladies, a DJ, strobe lights, a fog machine, organized games and gifts for all of the kids. I’m SO GLAD that Talia won’t celebrate her birthday in Ecuador. I would fail miserably.

    -Halloween! Halloween isn’t really a thing in Ecuador, but Talia’s school went all out for the kids. There are not enough Pinterest sites in the world that would make me good at crafting, but I did my best (and Kyla baked Halloween treats, which were a hit).

    -Telas! Talia loves fabric acrobatics and she had a Halloween-themed recital this week. She had a great time! Not sure how transferable this interest is to life in DC, but she’s enjoying it.

    -Stray Cows! I’m constantly adjusting my route along the beach into town to avoid stay cows (and their poop). The strays are for real around here: cows, dogs, roosters and even horses run loose,

    -Bread festival! We went down the coast a bit to visit a local bread festival, featuring local bakeries and various bread sculptures. We went towards the end of the day, and the bread sculptures were looking….ragged. Had fun and carb loaded.

    -School! Talia loves, loves, loves school, and the kids are super sweet. School was cancelled due to excessive mud one day last week and her teacher came by for a house call with two other kids.

    Surfing! Both Talia and Kyla are taking surf classes now. I’ll join when it’s warmer (it’s still winter here—not cold, but not the type of weather that gets me in the water). Talia’s school teacher is also her surf instructor.

    Food! We go to the fish market every few days, but we haven’t branched out to the meat-on-hook or lobsters-in-a wheel-barrel guys. After years of instacart, it’s been interesting to get fresh fish, vegetables, fruit and homemade bread every day.

    Logistics! Our day-to-day requires way more logistical planning here than in DC. I’m in charge of gathering (i.e. grocery shopping at the various stalls around town) and external relations (i.e. using google translate to navigate various exchanges via whatsap) and Kyla is the “advance team” and handles all travel logistics. We have to move out of our apartment in December, which is proving to be a logistical pain….but I think we’re just going to move into another unit in our current spot. It’s not very adventurous, but it’s easy and frees Kyla up to plan our various travel adventures.

    Next spot is Cotacachi! Amazon and Cuenca are on deck after that.    Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    Hacienda San Isidro de Itaqui and Cotaca

    November 2, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 64 °F

    Another long weekend and another adventure! This time, we headed north of Quito to check out another hacienda and more sites in the Andes. As usual, our travels included some minor inconveniences—this time the issues involved plumbing problems at the hacienda where we were staying. More on that later.

    Our first day, we hung out at the hacienda and had a lovely tour of the grounds by the adorable 83-year-old owner. He was incredibly enthusiastic and welcoming. Talia did a good job translating for us since he spoke no English and our Spanish remains no bueno. He treated us as if we were the first visitors in ages (again, more on that later). We tasted fruits from his many trees, toured the gardens, met the baby cows and had a lovely morning. In the afternoon, we took a long horseback ride through the huge property (Kyla, who was a bit wary of horses came too!). Talia and Kyla shared a horse because, when we met our guide he said, “tenemos tres caballos. Dos están tranquilos y uno está loco. ¿Quién está bien con el loco?” I now know enough Spanish to stop Talia from volunteering for the loco horse.

    Ok, remember the plumbing problem I mentioned? Well, when Kyla took her usual 3-minute shower post horseback riding, she noticed that there was a bit of water on the floor. No big deal. Then I took my usual-length shower and caused a biblical flood in the bathroom—water gushed from a drain in the floor. We told the lovely hosts and they did their best to fix the problem…but when Talia showered a few hours later, the problem occurred again and this time black water streamed from the drain. Oy.

    The next morning, we attempted to check out, but our hosts were very persuasive and convinced us to stay in a part of the property that was connected to a different plumbing system. They assured us that the room was great, even though it seemed as if no guests had been there for 200 years (and, in fact, as noted above, it seemed that we were the first guests in quite a while and we the only guests during our stay). Our tour guide for the day, Andres, offered to call a new plumber for the hacienda owner, and we took off for a day of exploring with hopes of normal showers when we returned. See the next post for the rest of day 2 of this trip.    Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler
    11

    Laguna Cuicocha, Cascada Peguche

    November 3, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    We spent our second day of this trip with our guide, Andres, and saw a gorgeous lake in a volcanic crater, Languna Cuicocha, which included a quick boat ride around the lake. Then we headed to the cute town of Cotacachi for lunch, followed by a trip to the Peguche waterfall, which was pretty but very crowded. After a quick dinner back in Cotacachi, we caught a taxi back to our hacienda. The road was so rocky(and we had so much to eat at dinner) that we had to get out for a bit so that the taxi could make it up the steep hill without us weighing him down.

    We were looking forward to a good night of sleep in our new room. Unfortunately, our new room was right next to where the owners tied up their dogs at night and the dogs barked non-stop all night. Oh, and not shockingly, in the morning, our shower didn’t work. Despite how lovely everyone at the hacienda was, we decided to check out that day.    Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    San Antonio de Ibarra, Ibarra, Otavalo

    November 5, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F

    We had a warm goodbye with our hacienda friends and took off for another day with our guide, Andres. We headed to San Antonio de Ibarra, a sweet little town that specializes in woodworking with a particular type of wood that is native to the area. We happened upon dancers in the main square doing the Ecuadorian equivalent of the hora. Then we headed to Andres’ grandparents’ hometown of Ibarra, where we hit his favorite ice cream shop. Somehow Talia convinced him to order us all lemon popsicles followed by huge cups of ice cream. So that was lunch!

    From Ibarra, we headed to Otavalo, the home of the area’s largest indigenous market. Talia picked out a few gifts for friends and we did a horrible job of bargaining. After the market, we stopped by an indigenous cemetery to see the flowers left during Day of the Dead remembrances (and in anticipation of this, we watched Disney’s Coco last week).

    Finally, we headed to a hotel that Kyla found online when we checked out of the hacienda-of-no-plumbing. The new hotel was AMAZING: gorgeous views of volcanos and a beautiful (and functional!) bathroom. We had less than 24 hours at the new hotel, but we crammed in some archery and another beautiful horseback ride. We are now back in Olon until we fly back to the US for Thanksgiving at the end of November.    Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    Más Olon

    November 15, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 73 °F

    Posting this a few weeks late, but wanted to put a for on our map back in Olon and post some photos of the transition from mud and constant clouds to HOLY CRAP IT’S FINALLY SUNNY!!!

    This period of time included Kyla finally having a day off while Talia was in school, so we walked a bunch of miles up the beach through Curia and San José. We also trapped and inadvertently dismembered a lizard (their tails grow back!!!). And we spent some great time with friends from Talia’s school. And, of course, there are more photos of the stray cows.Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    Friends, family, flavored selzter

    November 19, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 45 °F

    We made a quick trip to the U.S. to visit friends and family, and to greedily buy everything Amazon.com has to offer.

    Highlights included reunions with besties, time with family, tons of World Cup and lots of seltzer. Thank you to Addie and Cristhian for hosting and to friends for gathering. Also, RIP Lola, the sweetest laberdoodle that we got to see one more time.Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    Turkey Day in the US of A

    November 24, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 46 °F

    We had a wonderful time with family in MA. Not everyone wants to be in the blog, but Talia was thrilled to see Grammy, Papa Charles, Sidney, Evan, Uncle Jeff, Auntie Sarah, and all of the Carlsons, especially the smallest ones.Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler

    Olon Before the Amazon

    December 4, 2022 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    We had a great week back in Olon between our Thanksgiving trip and our b day trip to Mindo, Amazon and Cuenca. It’s finally relatively sunny!!

    This week featured sun, more World Cup games (even Talia’s outdoor school managed to stream the game!), a sting ray attack during a surf session (poor kyla!), an expat outing to see a local band and did I mention the sun?Read more

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