Ecuador Adventures

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