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Ecuador Adventures

A 352-day adventure by Ecuador Adventures Read more
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  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler
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    Memory Making Overdrive

    May 30, 2023 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 81 °F

    As we enter our final weeks in Olon, we’ve been dedicated to taking advantage of the best parts of our time here: beach walks, sunsets, ice cream delivery, and, of course, time with great friends.

    Talia had her first Ecuadorian sleepover at her friend, Luciana’s house. She took the school bus there on a Monday, stayed over, took the bus to school and then came home to us on Tuesday. She navigated that whole time only in Spanish and seemed fine. It turns out kids can learn Spanish.

    Talia also planned a dinner with her friend, Asher, which involved packing a bag of toys, choosing a restaurant, etc. Asher has been such a steady, goofy and wonderful friend this year (plus he will do anything talia asks when she splits her lunch with him, and she’s really enjoyed that).

    Now that the weather is cooling, we’ve done some beach BBQs and some evening body boarding. As the cloudy season rolls in, we are also doing some more indoor stuff, such as a visit to the tiny (and somewhat depressing) aquarium/animal rehab center about a half hour down the coast in Valdivia.

    Cloudy season apparently means it’s also venomous snake season near Talia’s school. Ugh! I was not happy to learn that detail!

    Other photos include telas class, reading with Talia’s buddy, Leo, hanging out with Talia’s teacher/surf instructor’s cat, African dance class in school and chickens for sale at a local tienda.

    One thing that Talia has learned to navigate here is the art of explaining our family. Many kids at school (no matter how sweet) simply refuse to believe that Talia has two moms. Even many of the kids who have met us still tell her “nope. not true. you just can’t have two moms. It’s impossible.”

    When we travel, it’s equally challenging—managers of hotels and haciendas are often confused by us, and, because Talia is the only Spanish speaker in our group, it sometimes falls to her to explain our family. In an attempt to avoid putting Talia on the spot, I once referred to Kyla as “mi amiga” and Talia piped up to correct me, thinking I had forgotten the word “esposa.” I’ll never do that again.

    All of this may feel like a small inconvenience given the context of the attacks on gay/trans rights in the US, but, it’s a challenge that I want to remember and recognize. Talia—if you read this blog when you’re older, I’m sorry for the “amiga” thing and I’m impressed with how your 6 year old self takes up space in hard conversations. You’ve got fortitude that I admire. At 6, you are bold and brave in so many ways.    Read more

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    Final Weeks….

    June 3, 2023 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 81 °F

    In our final weeks (which corresponded to the end of the sunny season), we ramped up beach time, fun with friends, surfing and swimming. Talia also enjoyed sharing her frustration with me via notes taped to her door. We’ll work on spelling next year….

    The first video is just scenes of Olon and the second is a little bit of conversation with friends.    Read more

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    Wrapping up Ayni Green School

    June 9, 2023 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    In the past weeks, Talia maximized bodyboarding time, visited her favorite babysitter’shome in Curia (and held all of her baby birds), had a “field day” at school, had a daytime camping trip at school, graduated from 1st grade and had her final telas performance.

    The Ayni Green School graduation was particularly meaningful. Talia had so, so much fun in school this year. From the insane school bus ride through the mountains to the endless recess time to the close friendships—she loved all of it, and we were so grateful to see her happy.

    A few special connections stand out: her wonderful teachers, Geraldine (who doubled as her surf teacher) and Denise (who joined for the last month); Asher (who shared Talia’s lunch every day and fulfilled her need for silliness); and Adriana (who is a 12 year old with the most interesting taste in music and the biggest heart—Talia’s first soulmate). We are so glad that Talia’s connections to friends in Olon were as meaningful and deep as ours.    Read more

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    You Captured Our Hearts, Olon

    June 15, 2023 in Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 81 °F

    Beach, sunsets, surf, adventure, but the hardest thing to leave, by far, is the community we encountered in Olon. I can’t express how much I’ll miss the warm, hilarious, thoughtful people who made this random Ecuadorian village so filled with love. Gracias a todos!Read more

  • Ecuador AdventuresEcuador AdventuresTraveler
    1

    Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    June 18, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 54 °F

    We said a sad goodbye to Olon (with each of us crying as we drove inland from the ocean) and took on an overnight flight from Guayaquil, through Quito and to Buenos Aires.

    After months in Olon, which lacks commerce and decent wine, it was overwhelming to spend time in a huge city! Kyla loved the coffee, I loved the wine, and Talia loved that places don’t open for dinner until 8pm and she stayed up past midnight most nights.

    Highlights included a tour of Jewish sites led by a woman whose family fled Syria in the 1890s and has been in Buenos Aires ever since. She relayed her stories about being only blocks from the bombing of the Jewish federation building in the 1990s. Interestingly, she really did not want to talk about Eichmann or other nazis who found shelter in Argentina.

    In addition to exploring the Jewish neighborhood, our guide also took us to the colorful La Boca neighborhood, government buildings, a cool bookstore, Eva Perón’s grave and some other sites. Importantly, she also recommended the only tango show in Buenos Aires that starts before 9pm, which we thought would be good for talia. Of course, when we arrived, we found out the sound system wasn’t working and we were sent to a show that began at 9:30 and ended at midnight. Talia loved it.

    Other highlights included a planetarium, a strange zoo (in which many animals roamed free) and lots of good food. We stuffed ourselves with so much red meat in our first few days, that we ended our time in Buenos Aires with two meals at a vegetarian restaurant near our Airbnb.

    Overall, we had a lot of fun in Buenos Aires, but we are excited to get out of the city and head back to natures at our next destination— Iguazú Falls.    Read more

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    Iguazú Falls

    June 24, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 82 °F

    From Buenos Aires, we travelled to Iguazú Falls. We spent our first full day on the Brazilian side of the falls. It was cold and overcast, but breathtaking (despite the throngs of tourists). The highlight was a truly insane boat ride up the rapids and under the falls. We got absolutely soaked, but the adrenaline rush kept us warm.

    On our second day, the sun came out and we visited the Argentinian side of the falls. It was super crowded again, but gorgeous. Among the tourists, we ran into a kid that Talia met on our crazy boat ride the day before—they bonded over the wild boat experience. We ended up joining their family for the day, with Talia serving as the interpreter for all since they spoke no English and our Spanish is no bueno. We had a great day walking around the falls, but we were ready to escape the crowds and head to the quieter wine country (every 6 year old’s dream vacation destination, right?).

    Pro tip for anyone who is visiting: on the Brazilian side of the falls, anyone can hop on the fun boat ride, but on the apparently less permissive Argentinian side, you have to be over 12.    Read more

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    Cafayate, Salta, Argentina

    June 25, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    After Iguazú Falls, we flew to Salta and rented a car to drive to Cafayate—our first time driving in almost a year. The drive was truly, truly breathtaking, and we loved the mix of hiking and wine tasting in Cafayate. Plus, I got to live my dream of riding a bicycle built for two!Read more

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    Salta, Argentina

    June 30, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F

    We spent one quick night at an adorable hotel in Salta and we explored the little el centro area before heading to a hacienda outside of Salta for two nights. We had planned to go north to Purmamarca, but the road was closed due to protests so we spent an extra night at the peaceful hacienda. There, we took an empanada cooking class, road bikes for the first time since we got to South America and went on a short horseback ride. Overall, it was a nice, quiet end to our time in Argentina. Off to Medellin, Colombia before heading back to the US.Read more

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    Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia

    July 7, 2023 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 75 °F

    After a year in mostly small towns and villages in Ecuador, we realized that we are not city-vacation people, but we still enjoyed our time in Medellin. We celebrated both Canada Day and Pride in the city (Pride was a much bigger deal, but we did see a few Canadian flags too!).

    After an overnight flight, we spent our first day just relaxing and eating all sorts of things we couldn’t get in Olon. On our second day, we took a cable car through some hillside neighborhoods and a guided tour of Comuña 13, which was an area greatly impacted by the drug trade and is now a tourist destination. It was interesting and we enjoyed the cool graffiti, endless stairs/escalators and frozen mango treats…but it also felt weird to experience a tourist party mixed in with memorials. Worth seeing, but I’m guessing there are better ways to understand the history of the area.

    Oh, and true to form given our terrifying cable car experience in Quito at the beginning of our adventure, this cable car also got stuck in midair due to some sort of mechanical difficulty…but unlike in Quito, there was no hail or lightening. Phew.

    The next day, Kyla had to work so Talia and I went to the Explora science museum, which was fun, but super crowded due to a school holiday. On July 4th, Kyla had the day off and we were able to escape the hustle of the city for a great horseback ride in Retiro, outside of Medellin. Talia enjoyed a lot of galloping on her final helmet-less horseback ride of this South American adventure.    Read more

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    More Medellin

    July 9, 2023 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 84 °F

    Kyla had to work again the day after our horseback ride, so Talia and I visited Museo Castillo, a nearby castle that I’m sure has a very interesting history that I didn’t quite grasp with my Spanish skills. Still, we had a nice day exploring the gardens and reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with beautiful views of the city. We ended the day with a trip to a playground and a dinner out.

    The next day, Talia wasn’t feeling well in the morning, but she recovered enough to accompany me on a tour of a small chocolate farm right outside of the city. We had an excellent day, picking cocoa pods, grinding our own beans, making custom chocolates and hanging with the family who owns the little farm. They had a bunch of rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs and a lovely 7 year old, Susana. Talia was in heaven and didn’t want to leave. I ended up sipping homemade hot chocolate at a table overlooking the mountains while Talia and Susana played. It’s fun to listen to Talia chat in Spanish.

    On our final solo day while Kyla worked, we took another cable car up to the beautiful Avri park. About 15 minutes from Avri is another park, Comfama, which has playgrounds, ziplines and a ropes course. Our guide from the chocolate factory tour recommended his friend, Leo, to drive us from Avri to Comfama. Leo’s girlfriend has two daughters right around Talia’s age, so they ended up spending the whole day with us. The ropes course/ziplines were closed , but the girls had a great time on the playgrounds and the volcano climbing structure. Leo gave us a ride through insanely curvy streets back to the city and we met up with Kyla for a great cooking class in the instructor’s apartment. We made my favorite Colombian dish: ajiaco soup and Kyla’s favorite Colombian dessert: tres leches cake. Talia loved that the soup came with capers, which she ate by the spoonful.

    We spent our final day in Colombia mostly eating and relaxing close to our Airbnb and we our now taking off for about 30 hours of travel: Medellin->Bogota->Guayaquil->Miami->DC. In DC, we will spend a week staying with Addie, Cristhian and family and then we will visit Bethany Beach, Newton and Cape Cod before moving back into our Ingleside Terrace home.

    We are so sad that this fun chapter is coming to a close, but we are grateful that all that we learned. We saw tons of beauty, had countless adventures, made some great friends, and we each grew in so many ways. Talia learned to surf, horseback ride, sleep on planes, speak Spanish with a lot of fluency, identify spiders and enjoy adventure. Kyla learned to surf, work from anywhere and identify a ton of birds. I learned to pick the best of a bunch of different types of mangos and I mostly overcame my fears of heights and snakes. There have been challenges, for sure, but also it’s been so, so wonderful.    Read more

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    Back to the US of A!

    July 10, 2023 in the United States ⋅ 🌩️ 86 °F

    With flew from Medellin to Bogota to Guayaquil to Fort Lauderdale to DC, leaving on Sunday at 9:30 am and arriving in DC on Monday at 4:30 pm. Oy!

    It was a rough trip capping of an epically wonderful year of adventure and growth! We have a few weeks left of travel to Bethany Beach and Cape Cod and then we’ll be back on Ingleside Avenue.Read more

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    DC, Bethany, Cape Cod

    July 17, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 82 °F

    Just to make the blog complete, I’m recording our amazing weeks before returning to DC for good (or at least for now).

    We had a wonderful week staying with Addie and Cristhian in DC. Our DC chosen family and friends treated us so well and reminded us of the joys of life here.

    We then headed for a fun-filled week with Steph, Jenn, Ruby and Jonah at Bethany Beach. Our time was filled with water parks, beach walks, crab cakes, arcades, ice cream, bonding and endless laughter, all while surrounded by the beautiful beach and strangely uncomfortable furniture.

    From Delaware, we headed to the cape to celebrate the best Grammy’s 80th birthday and to hang with the most faithful readers of this blog, besides Steph, Lauren and Mingo: my mom’s friends. More pics of the birthday on the next post.    Read more

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    Cape and Back to DC: Full Circle

    August 5, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 79 °F

    Capping off our east coast tour, we visited Grammy on the Cape and spent time with family (who we hadn’t seen since the Galapagos trip). We had an amazing lobster dinner (thanks Judy and Charles) and celebrated the best snorkeling/traveling/adventuring Grammy in the world.Read more

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    DC!

    August 5, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 84 °F

    Just 14 days short of a full year (and 12 days from Talia’s 7th birthday), we are back in DC. I’m so grateful for the past year of travel and awe.

    Talia—I hope this blog (that I’m printing into a book) helps you remember the beautiful sites, friendly faces and exciting adventures from Year 6 of your life. You’ve been a fun, flexible, willing-to-try-most-things travel companion! Can’t wait for our next adventures!Read more

    Trip end
    August 5, 2023
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