Hacienda Chaupi

Hi everyone! We arrived in Quito, Ecuador about 3 days ago at midnight via Panama. We were exhausted! However, Brian and I watched the flight status to see exactly when we were crossing over the equator with bated breath since neither of us have ever travelled to the Southern Hemisphere. So exciting!

Here’s the thing, while writing this, a light bulb just went off - I just realized that when I was a little kid, I went to Bali, Indonesia, and I literally JUST NOW looked at a world map and guess what - Southern Hemisphere! 🤣 Neither of us had been to South America before so who cares, I’m still excited!!

I’m not going to lie - Quito was a bit much for us. 😳

Traveling together as a family is a unique experience. We are learning that we just can’t push too much and this is especially the case in a big city with an altitude around 9,000 ft. Walking up 3 steps made us winded like we had just sprinted a mile. I, in particular, dealt with a throbbing headache on day 1. While walking around, when we were two blocks (SO close!) to the historical center of Quito with is a UNESCO heritage site, I could tell some of us were on the verge of tears.

I later heard “Mom, I want to go back to Costa Rica - I don’t want to see anymore drunk men. I don’t like it here”. We will see so much during these 6 months - we just needed to go back to the hotel and relax.

While there have been challenges (a couple of letdowns occurring here including with me), we did two really amazing things in Quito. We did go to the Equator or “el Mitad del Mundo,” where we jumped back and forth between Northern and Southern Hemisphere. That was fun as you can see from pictures and Katie’s video that we included. 😂 We also went on a cable car up to 13,000 feet which gave us a panoramic view of all of Quito! Stunning!

Yesterday we hopped in a transport and are now in Baños del Aqua Santo or Baños, which is a town nestled in a valley with mountains and the largest (dormant) volcano in Ecuador just outside our window. It’s quieter here (I hear chickens rather than buses and horns outside my window). I feel my shoulders relaxing and that I can breathe a bit better (less stress and lower altitude)! There are apparently hot springs 5 minutes away which we’ll learn about TODAY and we’ll be headed to a very high swing on top of one of previously noted mountains nearby. We are also going to be starting our studies of the Galápagos - because we’ll be there in just under two weeks. Jenny, Brian’s sis, is meeting us there and we can’t wait!

Goodbye all - hope you are having a great week. You’ll hear from us soon!! ❤️Read more