From the time we left our Quito airport hotel, took the airport shuttle to the airport, went through security and got to the gate for our flight to Cuenca, fifteen minutes had passed. We laughed at the thought of making it through the Atlanta airport in only 15 minutes. When we landed in Cuenca, the Cuenca airport had a runway that barely accommodated our plane but with some crafty pilot work, we made it to one of the three gates safely. Cuenca is the second largest city in Ecuador with a population of approximately 600,000 people. Compared to Quito, Cuenca felt much more “lived in” and relaxed. Our hotel was located near the historic center so we spent the first day walking through the square and visiting the Old and New Cathedral. The New Cathedral was started in 1885 and was completed in 1975 so “new” is a relative term. The Old Cathedral was started in 1567 and was completed in 1791. Both were beautiful and the city was doing a good job of maintaining both. From the churches, we passed the flower market which was a bit of a disappointment to me. Ecuador is the number one exporter of flowers in the world and flowers are Ecuador’s fourth largest income source. Given this fact, I was expecting blocks and blocks of flowers to see and enjoy. Instead, the flower market consisted of a few flower stalls sitting in one corner of the main square. I guess they do not keep many flowers for themselves! Another Ecuador claim to fame is one that is largely unknown. The Panama Hat! While most people think the Panama hat originated in Panama, it actually originated in the Cuenca region of Ecuador. The hat was popularized during the building of the Panama Canal due to its’ lightweight material and durability. Today, the Homero Ortega family keeps the tradition of the Panama hat alive. We took a taxi to the Homero Ortega museum which did not look like much from the outside. Once we walked through the doors, it was like stepping back in time. The museum walked us through the process of making the hats and each hat was still made 100% by hand. Recently, Homero Ortega’s granddaughter added purse making to the company which was a great addition as well. The first step of the process was to prepare the straw by washing it and drying it. Then, they wove the hats, washed them and hung them to dry. The hats were then placed in a mold (depending on the type of hat) and steam pressed to hold the shape and size. In the final step, the hats went to the sewing room where the women clipped and trimmed the edges and added the finery. Then, on to the showroom. I had promised my dad that I would buy him a hat but I did not realize how overwhelming the process would be. So many hats! I finally decided on a hat for him and then came the task of trying to find one for my brother-in-law. He has a giant head. Seriously giant. When I asked the salesperson about a hat his size, she said, “Ay yiyi! Cabeza muy grande!” She said they did not have hats that large but then the manager came over and said they would make one for him. In less than 15 minutes, a sombrero for a cabeza muy grande made its way out of the factory and into my bag! The purses were also lovely and the saleslady took me in the storeroom to see all the purses. She said they sold their purses to Hermes in Paris so if you see a Hermes bag wandering about, just know that the mark up price was over 2000%!!! If you ever see a Hollywood star wearing a straw hat, chances are it will be a Homero Ortega. All I have to say is “Julia Robert’s hat in Pretty Woman” and every female on the planet immediately knows that hat! I fought with myself over one hat that I wanted but it was more than I could spend on a hat in good conscience. So, after wearing it around the showroom for 30 minutes, I sadly left it behind but one day I might break down and order it online! It was an amazing hat! Following our hat adventure, we went to the Cuenca archeological museum which was interesting but challenging since it was all in Spanish. Walking back to the hotel, we stopped in two more amazing churches and then prepared for our special dinner plans. As I have mentioned before, cuy (guinea pig) is Ecuador’s national dish. They named them cuy because of the noise a guinea pig makes. In order to get quality cuy, you must call in a cuy reservation because it takes about an hour to grill the cuy. I did not reserve a cuy but Bill was definitely onboard. We arrived a few minutes early to the restaurant so we walked into the back parking lot and saw the cuy spinning on the rotisserie. We picked out which one was probably Bill’s and then headed into the restaurant. When they brought out the cuy, it stood on the plate with its’ little head staring at me. The server let me take pictures and then she took it back to the kitchen and broke it down for Bill to make eating it easier. I did take a taste and we voted that cuy tastes a lot like dark chicken. I was glad I had my pork chops, though, because the cuy was a little salty for me. Bill did his best to pick the tiny bones but we decided the locals were probably appalled at his attempt to eat cuy. Definitely an acquired art form! When I asked him if he would eat cuy again, he said, “I would eat it again but I can’t say it would be something I had to have.” I guess it’s back to ceviche for him! Our final day in Cuenca, we went to the Amaru Biopark which was the only zoo in Ecuador. The zoo was a rescue reserve for many of the animals and they had some unique animals including a massive condor (bucket list now to see one in nature flying!), a leopard, monkeys, lions and tons of birds and reptiles. The zoo path wound its’ way uphill and downhill on the mountainside so it was the most challenging zoo we have visited. “Path” might be pushing it. Not an American-type path but one that has been bushwhacked through the brush with a machete using trees as posts and old tires as steps in spots where the path had eroded away. The funniest thing was when we were at the monkey enclosure. A human dad was showing off to his son that he could shimmy up a coconut tree. The alpha male monkey went crazy! He jumped up on the enclosure baring his teeth and screaming wildly. I have never been so glad to have a barrier! After our zoo death march, we headed straight to the airport, flew back to Quito for a quick night stay in our Quito airport hotel and then caught the 5am shuttle for the airport. We loved our trip to Ecuador and highly recommend it. I am sure some of you are wondering why we did not do the Galapagos Islands. I went to the Galapagos in 2017 after saving my pennies for years. Due to the expense and difficulty of a Galapagos trip, we decided to do mainland Ecuador and we were not disappointed. We leave on our trip to Peru this week so no blog for a few weeks! We have planned time in Lima, the Sacred Valley and the Amazon. Stay tuned for more South America adventures! ***More pics on Pictures tab
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After the long bus ride to Lake Quilotoa, we voted to splurge and take a taxi from Quito to our next Ecuadorian destination of Mindo. Mindo was a small town in the middle of a beautiful valley. It is known for having one of the greatest variety of bird populations in the world. Colombia and Ecuador are number one and two in the world for the largest percentage of bird species. Due to its’ size, Mindo’s hotel offerings were hostals. Never having stayed in a hostal before, I was careful to find one with a private room and our own bathroom. We were greeted in the “common room” by a young man in his twenties who was staying in Mindo “long term” while working on his graduate degree. Tough times these young ones have in college! We were pleasantly surprised that he was not as “hippy” as we first thought and he was very helpful with telling us all about Mindo. When we met his girlfriend, she had graduated from University of Georgia so we had a good laugh that three UGA graduates were all staying in the same hostal in the middle of boondock Ecuador at the same time. Small world! Mindo had that small town feel where everyone knew everyone and the people were very friendly. They were especially patient with our Spanglish so we got around quite well. In Mindo, lunches included a huge bowl of soup, chicken or pork, rice with beans and plantains for $3.50. Taxi rides averaged around $5.00 and a huge beer was $1.00. Our first day out we headed over to the Tarabita cable car to hike the waterfall trail. The cable car was definitely not for those with fear of heights…or fear of flimsy contraptions….or fear of death. At first, the worker tried to put us on the cable car (see picture below) with four other people. We politely declined and waited for the next trip. Contrary to its’ appearance, the cable car functioned well and we careened happily across the gorge to find the waterfall trails. While the trails were steep in places, the overall waterfall hike was not difficult and we were pleasantly surprised with the size of the falls. Bill was the master bird hunter and we spotted quite a few hummingbirds along our trek. As our reward for a long hike, we went to dinner at “Le Chef” which was known for its “steak on a stone”. Bill ordered the steak on a stone and a huge slab of beef came out on a sizzling rock….an 8 ounce steak for only $12.00! The next morning, we arose early to give bird watching a try. According to the locals, the birds “come out from 6am to 10am”. We did not make the 6am call but we headed out at 7am with croissants and camera in hand. The main bird trail in town was run by some genius woman who owned a lot of land. She figured out that if you make a map of the trails then you can charge people $6.00 each for the map and to pass through the gate. Genius! Our main goal was to spot a toucan. On our bird walk, we spotted a species of small yellow bird that loved to pose, a donkey, cows and a horse. Bill spotted other birds and I have several lovely pictures of empty tree branches as they flew away from me….fast little buggers! By the time we returned from our non-bird bird adventure, we were starving so we thoroughly enjoyed our $3.50 lunch! The best part of lunch was the mechanic next door who rocked out the entire time to AC/DC greatest hits. Finally! Some good rock music! When we returned to the hostal for a rest, a new hippy appeared to check out our hostal and this one was as expected. He questioned us about our retirement and asked did we not feel the need to “contribute to society” to which Bill responded, “We contributed 30 years. I think that’s enough.” The guy then asked me how much I was paying for our room so I told him $30.00 a night and I added, “But ours is a private room with a private bath. We’re too old to share.” The guy laughed and said, “The privilege of age and money, I guess,” to which I replied, “You betcha!” I suppose our hostal was too rich for his wallet so he headed on out and left us in peace. We ran into him later while he was attempting to drive a 4 wheeler around town…”Come on the 4 wheeler with me, man! It’ll be so fun!” Bill simply shook his head and we waved goodbye as the fellow swerved down the road never to be seen again. Our next sky venture was to ride the chairlift up one of the mountains. Once again, the toucans eluded us even in the treetops but the ride was quiet and the views were stunning. Since we did not have much luck with bird watching in the wild, we headed to the butterfly and hummingbird garden in town. I finally captured a few good pictures of both so we felt the day had gone well. We decided to take the bus back to Quito instead of a taxi. The bus ride was around $4.00 and the bus was a large one that said “climate controlled” on the window so we climbed aboard. It was definitely climate controlled….whatever the temperature was outside, the bus temperature was about 10 degrees warmer. The driver did not run the vents and the only relief was when we stopped to let someone out to go to the bathroom. Luckily, it was only a two hour ride so short suffering. We sat in front of a couple from Seattle and we asked them about their trip to Mindo. They responded they had been in Mindo for 10 days. Ten days!?! As beautiful as Mindo was, our three day trip was pushing the town’s entertainment limits. I asked, “How did you entertain yourself for ten days in Mindo?” They responded, “We’re birders,”….as if that was supposed to explain anything to me. I guess my quizzical look prompted them to provide more information…. Them: “We would go out at 5am every morning and stay out until after dusk. That way, we could see the birds.” Me: “You went birding for 13 hours a day? For 10 days?” Them: “Yes! It was amazing!” Me: “I am guessing y’all met doing some birding activity? No way you would just magically find a partner who loved to look at birds this much, right?” Them: “Yes! We met while birding at a sewage treatment plant. Birds love sewage treatment plants” And thus ended my conversation and my education about birding. Join us next week for our stay in Cuenca and the answer to the burning question, “Did they or did they not eat cuy?” ***More pics on Pictures tab Ecuador, Part 1
Thank you for joining us on our first of three blog series on our trip to Ecuador! Ecuador is a beautiful country and trying to sum it up in one blog would be too difficult. Our trip began with a 4am taxi to the Cartagena airport which made us not very happy travelers for the first leg. Despite the early rise, the flight to Bogota and then onto Quito went smoothly. Quito is the capital of Ecuador and home to around 3 million people. According to stories on the internet, at least 2 million of them are pickpockets. We proudly announce that we were not subjected to pickpocketing while in Quito. We had the advantage of the knowledge of the latest scheme which was to pour water on an unwary visitor from above and then a couple of “helpful” people would run to assist you while stealing your wallet. We simply wore a hat when out and we never carry the wallet in a pocket so no worries! Our hotel was located in the Old City which was the first city to become a UNESCO site in 1978. When you think of a UNESCO site, you think of a preserved area with strict (sometimes ridiculous) rules to which the site much adhere. Well, knock that thought out of your head. Quito is a busy, crowded place filled with hawkers and quite a few homeless folks. In spite of its’ grittiness, we enjoyed our visit in Quito. Quito has 27 historic churches in the Old City. What gold did not get plundered back to Spain definitely ended up in these churches! The alters were amazing! I do have a bone to pick with them, though….catacombs versus crypts. We paid an extra dollar to go into the catacombs of one of the cathedrals only to find modern age crypts. Gotta say I was disappointed! Most of the churches only open the underground crypts on November 1st and 2nd when they celebrate Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the dead). The local teenagers seemed to like to “haunt” the city on the weekends by dressing up in skeleton-like costumes with black and white makeup so overall, Quito had a darker side that I, of course, found charming! After checking in the hotel, we were starving so we walked down the street to a unique area called Calle La Ronda. We found this quant restaurant and the owner welcomed us with hugs. We were the only diners at the time so we had first class service. She acted as hostess, waitress, chef and busboy so she was a busy woman. It was like being at your grandmother’s house on Thanksgiving. She kept bringing us food and it was all amazing. We finished the meal with a chocolate con queso which was hot chocolate with cheese melted in it. While it was tasty, we could not grasp the purpose of the cheese because it did not really add anything to the hot chocolate experience but we can mark it off our bucket list. The following day was filled with cathedral visits and we learned about several Ecuadorian saints in the Catholic church. One was a priest who was poisoned with his own communion cup. His shrine was on one side of the church while his murderer was buried on the other side of the church. It appears you can buy yourself a spot in the church burial chamber even if you can’t buy your way into heaven! The next saint was a young woman who “sacrificed her life to save the city from the earthquakes”. Evidently, once she sacrificed herself, the earthquakes stopped. I guess the earthquakes stopped long enough for her to be sainted but I wondered how she got to stay a saint when the earthquakes continued. Bill figured the church used it to raise more money….”You didn’t give enough money so she made the earthquakes return…pay up!” Our hotel room had a cathedral across the street and it was funny to see the vendors set up wares on the cathedral steps every morning. I did not get as many inside church pictures as usual because I do not take pictures during church services or when people are praying. However, I had to make an exception in Quito because these folks are some church going folks! I also got to witness a group hanging out on the church’s front steps one night when the police came along and gave them a shakedown. On the church steps. In front of their children. It did not appear that any of the mothers were doing anything criminal because the police moved on but the locals did not appear flustered by the incident so I am guessing it must be a common thing. The next morning, we headed out on a tour to Quilotoa Crater. We stopped on the way at a local traditional house and we were greeted by a 76 year old man who had lived there his entire life. He introduced us to their cuy (guinea pigs) that ran about the house until it was time to send them to market. Cuy is Ecuador’s national food (more information on cuy later in the series). The farmer also knew more about potatoes than one could ever want to know and he showed us all of his potatoes and corn as well. When we were visiting, the wind was howling which bit through our thin skin. When we got back on the bus, Bill responded, “Not the place!” referring to our ongoing hunt for our “forever place”. I responded, “Not your forever place?” Bill responded, “It’s not even my next 30 minute place!” Our next stop was the crater which was beautiful. The crater lake formed over 800 years ago. We had planned ahead for our hike. We had walking sticks, snacks, water and had reserved two horses to carry us out of the crater from the bottom. The tour guide told us it would take “about 30 minutes to hike down and about an hour for those hiking back up”. Liar! It took us about an hour to hike down, navigating soft, powdery sand and a million switchbacks. Luckily, the view was incredible. I would say “breathtaking” but given the extreme high altitude of 12, 841 feet, we did not have any breath left to be taken. As we passed the twenty-somethings struggling back up the crater path, we felt very wise in our choice to reserve the horses. We finally arrived at the bottom and spent a few minutes enjoying the view. We made our way over to where our horses were to supposed to be only to find…no horses. Evidently, some of the group that were not wise enough to reserve horses had helped themselves to ours! Our tour guide said, “That’s okay. You can walk,” to which we responded, “We could, but then we’ll be dead and it will be dark.” She seemed to take that comment at face value and she headed to find us some replacement horses. In about thirty minutes, two horses arrived to save the day! My horse was a sweet, little horse while Bill’s was a big bully. Bill’s horse would block my horse from going up the path but we decided his poor horse was probably just trying to get a few minutes rest so we forgave him. The horse tender was an amazing man. He was about 5 feet tall, probably in his sixties and he ran our horses up the hill in only 20 minutes. If you recall, it was an hour walk for a healthy young person! The Ecuadorians are a hearty people! Our day ended with a beautiful view of Cotapaxi which is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Our final day in Quito was the ultimate tourist day. We stood in two hemispheres as we straddled the equator! First, we went to Mitad Del Mundo which was a large park dedicated to the French scientists who “pinpointed” the middle of the earth back before the existence of GPS technology. The monument was large and impressive….and in the wrong the place. After GPS came to be, the exact location of the equator was 240 meters to the north of the monument (okay, gotta give the French kudos for being pretty close!). The real equator was located in a small park named Museo de Sitio Intinan which had all of the fun equator experiments to do such as watching water go down the drain in different directions and balancing an egg on a nail. Cheesy but much more fun than the “official” monument! The trip to the equator wrapped up our time in Quito and the next day we headed to Mindo which will be featured in the next blog post. ***More pics on Pictures tab A quiet week on Galt until Saturday arrived. Our contractors have been busy working off the boat so it was just us on the boat this week until the cabinets were ready for install on Saturday. Bill had worked all week on the galley floor in preparation of the arrival of the first set of cabinets. I spent time ripping out the old ceiling material in the front cabin. A portion of it had been ruined by a leak in the forward hatch. Considering I hate the original ceiling material on the boat (rotted old foam covered with beige vinyl), ripping it out was a pleasure. A dirty, dusty pleasure but still quite satisfying. Next steps on my project will involve prepping the ceiling for paint and trying to make it look better without putting a lot of money and effort into the project. Considering we use the front cabin for storage and no one ever sleeps there, good enough will be good enough. The cabinet builder showed up Saturday and we guess he expected the install to take a couple of hours. Six hours later he was still not done. As with most things boat, no surface in the galley was even so he would try unsuccessfully to fit the cabinet, take it up on deck and shave a bit off, try to refit, back up on deck for more shaving and so on. Bill made him stop at 5:30pm so we could eat and have a break from the constant buzz of the saw. He wanted to return on Sunday to work again but Bill convinced him we all needed a break for a day. So tomorrow, the buzzing will commence!
Our tourist event this week was a visit to the Convento de la Popa here in Cartagena. It was built in the 1600s by Augustine monks. The small chapel was beautiful and the entire structure was reminiscent of our time in Spain. The Convento was located on the highest hill in Cartagena and had amazing views of the city. I did not realize how sprawling Cartagena is! We were lucky to get some good pictures before the clouds and rain made an appearance. We have had several thunderstorms this week with some excellent lightning shows. The storms do not seem to put a damper on the fireworks in Cartagena. The Colombians are obsessed with fireworks. Almost every night around 9pm, we get a fireworks display of some sort. Not small fireworks like you see from the roadside stands in South Carolina but large displays of fireworks. At first, we would wonder if we had missed a Colombian holiday….now we know fireworks just seem to be an everyday event. The Colombians also seem to be obsessed with food item containers being pouches instead of jars and bottles (Bill says the official name is “flexible packaging” because, of course, he knows this very useful information in life). If you have seen the applesauce packages made for toddlers that have the cap you remove to suck out the applesauce, that is the same package. Sour cream, mustard, ketchup and even jelly come in these packages. When I opened my jelly this week, all the jelly juice squeezed out onto the plate so it was like grape juice. I am not finding this style of packaging very functional! I managed to find an imported jelly that was in a jar so from now on, I can reuse the jar for my “nonflexible packaging!” We will be busy this week getting ready for our trip to Ecuador midweek. Our flight leaves at the lovely hour of 6am so there will be little sleep that morning. Bill is currently working on the chore of finding a taxi that will be around at that ungodly hour. We did not time our Ecuador trip well as their elections are taking place today. One candidate was assassinated last week so we are hoping that any protests or issues will be done by the time we land. Gotta love South American politics! They are a passionate bunch! ***No blog will be posted until we return from Ecuador |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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