New pics of Port Douglas and GBR

It's a rainy Sunday in Brisbane so we've come down to the Queensland State Library to use the internet to publish some new pictures. Now we're off to the art museum for the afternoon. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. We saw Santa yesterday at the City market. It was about 30 degrees centigrade. Poor Santa!

Port Douglas Australia

Sorry, it’s been a while since my last entry. I know it sounds absurd but we’ve had so much to do and so little time that my journaling always gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. My limited internet time gets consumed researching travel and accommodation needs for the weeks ahead. So far we haven’t used a travel agent or a tour company. We’ve tried a couple of times but find that the cost is always significantly higher. We ended up using an agent while we were in Cusco, Peru and I regretted it.

Anyway, enough excuses. I did post some photos of Lake Tekapo and Christ Church a few days ago while we were in Sydney and I hope to have some Australia photos up by Monday. Right now we’re in Port Douglas, about an hour north of Cairns on the northeast coast of Queensland and the gateway to the outer barrier reef. Turns out the Great Barrier Reef is really a series of reefs, not a single reef. The youngest part of the reef to the south is about 6,000 years old and the oldest part to the north is about 18 million years old. We hadn’t planned to come this far north. We were going to drive north from Brisbane to the southern end of the reef and spend some time in the Whitsunday Islands but it became clear after talking to people in Australia that the best part of the reef could only be reached from Cairns and Port Douglas so we changed our plans and booked a flight to Cairns. The alternative was a 22 hour drive. It really doesn’t look that far on the map. We’ve given up on sailing the Whitsunday Islands, a segment of the trip I was really looking forward to. Oh, if we only had more time and money! Clearly the first priority was to get to the outer barrier reef. It has always been a dream of mine and unfortunately, the future health of the reef is in jeopardy from siltation, pollution and tourism that migrate from the mainland. With continued public awareness campaigns and real changes in the way Australian farmers do use their land, there is hope that the reef can be preserved.

Right now, much of Australia is mired in the worst drought in more than ten years. There are brush fires in South Eastern Australia (Gippland) and some of them are now closing in on Allison and Dave’s house near Bairnsdale. Reservoir levels in Melbourne are at 41% of capacity and remarkably the water controls are still mostly voluntary. I remember when levels in Charlottesville fell to 71% a few years ago and mass panic set in. Here, people are used to droughts. Australia is a very dry continent and the vast majority of the land here has no agricultural value. If you want a good overview of the history and environment in Australia, pick up a copy of Jared Diamond’s best selling book, Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He spends much of the book covering ancient societies that failed but he has a great chapter on modern Australia, as well as the state of Montana.

Before we get too far away from New Zealand, I want to share a few quick thoughts about Christchurch because of all the places we’ve visited so far, it is the one place that we all agree we could live happily ever after. It is about the size of Richmond, but has many of the qualities we enjoy in Charlottesville. With care, Charlottesville could grow up to be like Christchurch, a very liveable city with excellent mass transit, rich cultural, educational and entertainment resources. And it’s surrounded by a recreational paradise of unmatched beauty and diversity. OK, so we can’t match the last part of that but we’re not far behind.

We’re off to Southeast Asia in about a week and we still don’t have an itinerary in Vietnam yet so I better get back to work. Then it’s off to the Daintree rain forest later today for Liza’s birthday. Or, perhaps we’ll try to go snorkeling again if we can find a cheap way out there. Then, again, we might end up at the pool or the beach. I finished a book on Africa yesterday and don’t have anything new to read so perhaps I’ll get some work done on the family travel guide we’re writing or my real estate photo blog. So much to do, so little time.

Photos from South Island

We arrived in Christchurch yesterday and turned in our camper. Miraculously, it was still one piece. We've got wifi for the next several days so we're trying to get updated. We'lll make a longer post tomorrow or Thursday but for now we've uploaded some photos from South Island. It's hard not love this place. It's stunningly beautiful and unspoiled. Rainforests, lakes, secluded beaches, glaciers, snow capped mountains, fiords are all within a few hours drive of each other. Surprisingly, camping guides indicate that you can drink directly out of most any stream or lake in Southland. The Kiwi's are adventure junkies so every region of the country offers bungee jumping, jet boating, treking, kayaking, fishing, heli tours, luge runs, horse riding, and the list goes on. We even saw a sign advertising a vineyard tour as a "wine adventure".

Hi from Queenstown

Sorry we haven't updated in a while. We're back in the first world in New Zealand but wifi is not widely available and when it is, it costs about $10 for an hour. It's hard to believe that starbucks could charge you $4 for a coffee and then keep a straight face as they tell you that the wifi connection will be another $10. Anyway, we're wrapping a whirlwind tour of the South Island and are heading toward Christchurch later today. We've joined the brotherhood of mobile homeboys for the last `13 days and it's been a riot. I'll fill you in with more details when we get to Christ Church. For now, we've added some pictures of the North Island.

Saturday in Pucon

It's a beautiful evening in Pucon, Chile. I'm sitting on the deck of our little cabana, overlooking Lake Villarica, the largest lake in Chile. The days are long and warm here now. The sun will set at about 8pm. Trees are new green and things are blooming everywhere. Mountains ring the north east side of the lake and behind us is the snow covered volcano Villarica. We all went swimming in the lake today. I'm guessing the temperature was in the mid ot high 50's. It was knumbing but not painful and when we got out we all felt like we were living in another dimension. It was a great way to the day. Yesterday we hiked about 8 miles in one of the national parks that is nearby. The first 4 miles were mostly straight up to a series of lakes above the snow line. Liza struggled but she made it and we ate a picnic lunch next to one of the lakes before heading back. Today, everyone but Liz went on a canopy adventure. It's a series of ziplines through a forest and over a couple of rivers. It was a riot, scary at first but once we felt comfortable that our equipment was reliable, it was shear enjoyment. This was our second canopy adventure. We went on one two days ago and had such a good time, we decided to try another. There are several different courses in the area. This is certainly my favorite place in Chile so far but we are fortunate to be here off season. Pucon is one of Chile's most popular summer vacation spots and I gather things get pretty crowded in December.

Well, I've got to head in to help make some dinner so I don't have time to catch up on Peru and Argentina. After dinner, I'm teaching Chilean history. It will be a short course. Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to catch up a bit further. I will try to post new pictures tomorrow as well.

Getting to Machu Picchu

From Quito, we headed south by plane to Lima and then on to Cusco. We only spent two nights in Lima, one on the way to Cusco and one on the way back. We spent our first night in a stark little hotel on the edge of Miraflores, one of the nicer areas of Lima. However, the street in front of our hotel had been torn up and the immediate vicinity looked like a war zone. We arrived at night and I had serious concerns about getting out of the car. It wasn't until the next morning that we realized that the area 3 blocks away was really quite nice. Nonetheless, we didn't stay another night. That decision was reinforced by the banker I met at the airport who lives in Lima and suggested that there really wasn't much worth seeing in Lima.

Cusco is another story. It's a wonderful Andean city at about 11,000 feet with well preserved spainish colonial and incan roots. It's also the staging point for any trip to Machu Picchu. We could have gotten there by car or bus but if would have taken 12 hours from Lima so we took a plane. We stayed a wonderful 3 star hotel called Arqueologo, locate about 4 blocks from the historic center of town. The whole city seemed to be filled with tourists and I could only presume that they were all headed to Machu Picchu. We had seen so few tourists in Ecuador that it was actually a welcome sight. There were lots of good restaurants with more variety than we had in most of Ecuador. Prices in the touristy areas were comparable to those in Quito but we found this place on the edge of the historic district that specialized in roasted chicken and had a wonderful and safe salad bar. All of us ate for about $15 and the chicken was some of the best I have ever had. Needless to say, this became a regular lunch hangout. I think we went 3 times in the 4 days we were there.

From Cusco, we travelled by car to the Sacred Valley and stayed in a small town called Urubamba. The whole valley is littered with Incan ruins and beautiful scenery. There's not much in Urubamba but we found a place called Kuytchi Rumi that had a two bedroom adobe cottage several miles outside of town. We all loved the place. It was like a little wonderland and had two dogs that quickly made themselves at home in our cottage. The kids and I played hide and go seek every evening and there was a sort of tree house structure in the rear that enchanted the kids . Our host Claudia told us about this restaurant in Urubamba that was located in a sort of dark alley. We would never have found the place on our own and the meal was one of the best I have ever had in North or South America. For $15 per person we got a meal that would have cost us $45 per person in Charlottesville. Our second day in Urubamba, we went whitewater rafting. It was the first time the kids had ever gone and there was lots of knashing of teeth by the girls who were concerned about how dangerous it would be. All that stopped after the first rapid. They were hooked and I'm sure we'll have to do it again before the trip is over. For a detailed account, you can go to Anne Nelson's blog.

From Urubamba, we took a train to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu that is only served by train. It's a real racket. The train is very expensive (as I recall, it was about $72 per person). Then when we got to Aguas Calientes, we had to get on a $14 bus for 20 minutes to take us up to Machu Picchu and then pay about $40 to get into the actual site. The buses arrived every 10 minutes all day starting at 5:30am and every bus was full of tourists so you can imagine by about 12pm, the place is completely overrun with tourists. Nonetheless, it is a stunning sight to behold. In retrospect, I'd like to hike into the site from the Incan trail which comes in at a higher elevation. Some people claimed that the sight had brought them to tears when they crested the peak and caught the first glimpse of the ancient city below. I can't imagine what it must have been like to live there. We spent several hours with a guide and then walked around on our own. We really wanted to climb another 1000 feet to the top of Wayna Picchu but it closed before we could get there. I got up at 5am the next morning with the intention of going up again but my stomach wasn't feeling up to par and got worse as the day went on so I was happy I had opted out.

Aguas Calientes is a developer's dream. Lots of unrealized potential. More on that later. We've got to check out and head north to Pucon today on our way to Santiago.

Fast Forward

We uploaded Bariloche photos today and I was reminded of how far behind we are on our blog. It's raining an cold today in Puero Varas, Chile. We arrived in Puerto Montt on October 12th after abandoning plans to fly back to Buenos Aires and then on to Santiago. We opted to spend an extra day in Bariloche and then drive across the Andes into Chile and work our way north by land to Santiago. From there, we are scheduled to fly to New Zealand on October 27th. Our decision to stay in Bariloche triggered a series of events that day that culminated with a scary accident. We all escaped with minor injuries but I had to spend a long night in the hospital under observation because of a head injury. All is well but it reminded us all of how precious and fragile life is and how important it is for all of us to live each day to the fullest because you never know when your time will come. More on that later. In an effort to keep the blog chronological, we are going to try to get through Ecuador, Peru and Argentina in the next few entries. Sorry to rehash old news but we use the blog entries to help us keep the sequence clear in our own minds.

Quito was cosmopolitan by Ecuadorian standards and we enjoyed our first creative international cuisine. By that, I mean food other than pollo and rice prepared and presented in a creative way. We walked to 12 blocks to and from the restaurant district every night. One night, we strayed a bit off course and ended up with a bunch of hookers. Then it was on to the gay restaurant. Always seeking new educational opportunities for the kids! We took a day trip to the equator and conducted lots of cool experiments. We spend 4 hours shopping for new shoes to fit Anne Nelson. Our driver Patricio suggested we go to the open market downtown for the best selection. I've never seen so many shoes in my life and I think Anne Nelson tried most of them on. We stayed at a delightful small hotel called Los Alpes. It was located right next to the American Consulate between the historic heart of downtown and Mirador, the newer section of the city where most of the nightlife can be found. While in Quito, we adopted a new system in which the responsibility for choosing a restaurant rotated each day to another member of the family. The kids were given a strict daily budget for food and they could spend it however they wanted but if they went over one day, they had to make it up the next. It worked really well for everyone except Jacob who had a hard time staying within budget. Anne Nelson would take it to the other extreme, avoiding food altogether so she could save up money. Anyway, we've kept the system going, modifying the budget as we change countries and adjust to new economic realities. We all enjoyed Quito but were ready to leave Ecuador when the time came.

Catching up

Sorry we haven't updated in a while. You would think that we'd have the time given our lack of gainful employment but the competition for the laptop is fierce and the days have been full so we're way behind. Anne Nelson's site is much more up to date so I would encourage you to check there if you want to know what's going on now. I am happy to report that we got new photos uploaded today from Aguas Calientes and Buenos Aires.

Banyos and Puyo were highlights of our Ecuadorian experience. Our first morning there, we got back in the van with Pablos for a one hour drive to Puyo. I was a bit like riding with a car full of kittens, you jsut know some bad shit is going to happen. The terror de jour was driving through long unlit tunnels without our headlights. That was met with a chorus of screams, some in excitement, others in horror. Then we rode a terravita (translated: small cage of death on very high cable going very fast) across the Rio Verde. The kids loved it so much they did it twice. At $1 per ride, it was best adventure value I've ever seen. From there, we followed the river out of the mountains and into the jungle at Puyo. We visited two zoo's and a botanical jungle preserve. There we learned about the many uses for tropical plants and the lifestyles of two indigenous tribes, the Huarani and the Shwaar. You would recognize the Shwaars, they are the head shrinkers. Our guide was a hippy biologist from California who married a Shwaar woman and opened the preserve with donations from the US back in the 80's. Subsequently, it was confiscated by the government who neglected it for years during legal battle. The park was returned to it's rightful owners in the late 90's and has since been restored. The town of Puyo wasn't particularly noteworthy and I'm glad we decided not to spend the night there. Instead, we headed back to Banos for a second night and from there on to Quito.

9/8/2006 Cuenca to Banos

We left Cuenca in a van driven by one of Maria’s cousins, Pablos and his wife and two children. (I found out that Maria’s mother and father have 200 cousins between them. Maria can’t even count the number she has.) For $250 they agreed to take us from Cuenca to Quito with a stop in Riobamba for the night.

That plan lasted until about 9am the morning of our departure when Maria and her parents decided to join us. A new plan was devised that would take all of us to Banos and the jungle community of Puyo on our way to Quito. At 9:10 the plan changed again when Maria and her parents decided they really couldn’t go after all. After some pleading and logistical negotiation, the plan was back on at 9:20. I agreed to drive the Arce’s car if needed because Maria was too tired.(She stayed up the entire night before and then serenaded in front of our house at 6am with several friends. Liz and Anne Nelson got up to listen but the rest of us covered our heads with our pillows and waited for it to end.) Anyway, we also offered to take the bus from Banos to Quito so that the family could caravan back to Cuenca together on Sunday.

I didn’t understand why that was so important until we started driving through the mountains north of Cuenca. The roads are narrow and you’re either driving up a mountain or down so it’s one switchback after another. That would be OK except for the fact that the roads go from paved to gravel, mud and potholes and then back again without warning. Add to that the fact that Pablo likes to accelerate as he comes into the turn, not out, and things start to get interesting. Then throw in the young children operating makeshift toll stations using rope strung across the road I’m beginning to feel pain in my chest. Of course Pablo doesn’t slow down to pay the renegade toll collectors, he speeds up and for a few moments we play a game of chicken with 10 year olds as they hold the rope tight about 2 or 3 feet off the ground as the van accelerates toward it. Then, at the last second, they drop the rope in frustration and the van races on. Oh, I almost forgot the stray animals and people that seem to wander on to the “highway” without warning. About an hour into the trip, I’m sweating, I’m nauseous and I’m thinking about what trauma care in Riobamba looks like. That's when the praying started.

About three and a half hours into the trip my prayers were answered as the valley seemed to open up and the the words "straight" and "flat" began to have some relevance again. When we arrived in Riobamba, I was grateful that the Arce’s had suggested that we go to Banos. We didn’t go all the way downtown in Riobamba but it looked just like many of the other Ecuadorian towns we had seen, dusty, congested, and run down looking. As we stopped for lunch at an Asadero (chicken grill) I noted a grey haze that seemed to envelope the whole town and piles of dust and dirt everywhere. Pablo informed me that it was from the recent volcanic eruption at Tumburayho, right next to our destination, Banos. He assured me that it would be better in Banos because the prevailing winds had carried that ash away from Banos and he was right, Banos was almost completely free of volcanic ash. The main road into Banos, however, had been completely destroyed so we had to drive north to Ambato and then back south to Banos. Even the road we took had been destroyed in one section by the volcano and was now passable by means of a temporary road that was cut through the volcanic pumice that covered everthing.

The volcano itself was a breathtaking sight. Smoke and steam still billowed from the crater which is perched about 10,000 feet above the town and 18,000 feet above sea level. Our host at the Isla de Banos Hosteria informed us that the volcano had erupted twice in the last 60 days, first on July 14th and more recently on August 16th. Scientists were predicting that it would erupt again but were uncertain about when. Using my own mathematical prowess, I immediately identified the beginnings of a pattern and deduced that it would not erupt again until sometime around September 16th or 18th and it was only the 8th . That seemed to pacify the kids' fear that it would erupt again while we were there but Liz was less than impressed. To be safe, I inquired about what early warning signals we would get if the volcano blew. Turns out, there really aren’t any. Christian (the owner of the Hostaria) told me that during the last eruption, the windows began to vibrate during the eruption, about the same time that rocks began raining down on Banos. In areas west of the town, however, entire buildings shook and many were reduced to rubble. This was not comforting news but I held fast to my math and fortunately, we were safe for the two nights we stayed there.

9/2-9/3 The Farm

We visited the Arces’ “farm” this past weekend. It is actually a country home. It is up in the mountains about 30 minutes from the city. It sits on about two hectares of land. A hectare is 10,000 square meters or about 2.47 acres. A small village is a 10 minute walk. The farm is planted with a large variety of fruit trees and seasonal corn crops. The original house is constructed of mud and straw but is now used for storage and the guinea pig pen. There is one bed in the corner that is used sometimes by the housekeeper (Maria). The rest of the house is a series of additions that dwarf the original house. Altogeher, I think there is bed space for about 16. It was a beautiful setting. The only turn off was the garbage that littered the landscape. Maria informed us that there is no garbage pickup in the country so everyone burns their trash. The problem is that much of the garbage never makes it to the fire pit. We picked up garbage around the property and put it next to the driveway. When we woke up on Sunday we found the garbage had been burned right where it sat, plastic bottles and all.

Here we finally got to eat guinea pig! We not only ate it but got to play with them before the slaughter. They look just like the pets we have at home. Just like “Mr. C” whom I kept in the bathtub – remember Mom? Mr. Arce cooked the guinea pig whole (head and ears to tail) over the burning coals outside as we played volleyball. Those of you who know me well are probably wondering if I ate the guinea pig. I did try it and it’s pretty good. It is a bit chewy with an alfalfa taste. Frank and Anne Nelson especially liked it but I’m not sure anyone would go out of their way to find it. We also ate Ecuadorian crab from the Manta region. We carried about 40 of them live in the back of the car. They are larger than blue crabs but smaller than king crabs. They looked just like a cartoon version of crab, very colorful with eyes that extended way outside their heads. Maria’s family boiled them in some sort of concoction and then proceeded to eat everything that wasn’t a shell. It looked like something you’d see on fear factor.

We played lots of volleyball and croquet, drank the Ecuadorian liquor (called Zhumir) and stayed up too late. Cousins cam over on Sunday and Frank grilled Chicken, Sausage and beef for the crowd. Maria had bought fillet of beef and of course Frank cooked it medium rare. Unfortunately, no one in Maria’s family wanted rare beef so they all put their fillets back on the grill. We reluctantly drove back to the city late Sunday. The kids really loved the farm and would have stayed a few more days if we had let them.

We met a memorable young boy named Jose at the “farm”. He is 11 years old and is the son of the housekeeper, Maria. He was so curious about the “gringos”… interested in our books, language, culture. He seemed so bright and enthusiastic. He took some of us on a walk and we were lucky enough to stop at his home. His house is made out of mud and straw and has one room where the guinea pigs take up most of the space. But they had a fire in the house and it was actually quite cozy. I wanted to hang out there for a while. His grandmother whispered something in my ear while I was there. I’m sure it was the meaning of life. Wouldn’t that be just my luck…. I finally find out what I’m here for and God sends it in a different language. He has a sense of humor like that.

So, I’m ready to adopt Jose. I have 8 months to pray on that. I’ll post again soon. We love you! Liz

8/28 - 9/8 Cuenca & the Arces

We’ve heard so much about Cuenca for so long and we’ve heard so much about her loving family. Maria was right…. This is a special place and her family is very loving and welcoming. We are staying in her sisters home which is directly behind her parents home. Cuenca is very charming except for the traffic! The traffic isn’t terribly congested, just disorganized and chaotic. Riding in the car while Maria is driving is similar to riding on Alpengeist at Busch Gardens. Much like Europe, there are lots of roundabouts in Cuenca and getting into and out of each one is a hairraising experience. The setting, however, is spectacular. The city is surrounded by mountains in every direction and you can get up into them in about 15 minutes in any direction. The city is compact but home to about 350,000 people. The old part of the city is a mix of Spainish colonial and more contemporary architecture and the streets generally narrow and paved with cobblestone.

The Arce family lives about 1 mile from the heart of downtown. Their property is about the size of a city lot in Charlottesville (50’x100’) but there are two houses and 3 businesses located on site. The property is walled on all 4 sides and can only be accessed through a series of 2 iron gates with electronically controlled locks and an intercom system. The house we are staying in belongs to Maria’s sister Juany and is accessed through a third iron gate. The who system reminds me of the beginning of the “Get Smart” sitcom that we used to watch when we were kids. I gather security is a concern but we haven’t witnessed or been victim of any type of crime. Every home is secured with a wall and gate so the residential streetscape isn’t exactly inviting. Maria’s father runs a printing business behind the main house. Her oldest Sister Ruth runs a blood lab and her other sister Marcia has a Psychiatric consulting business. Both are located in front of the main house. Between the house and the printing shop there is a courtyard that Maria’s father recently covered with a roof. The floor has been tiled and the area now functions as a large gathering room. The houses are simple and comfortable. On the third floor of the main house, there is an outdoor terrace area and Guinea Pig pen (they’re not pets). Maria notes as we walk through the house that Jesus and Mary are on the walls everywhere, apparently to deter immoral behavior, particularly in the bedrooms.

Being here with Maria is such a blessing. I wish she could travel with us through the rest of South America but her husband isn’t too thrilled with that plan….newlyweds. Maria has shown us all of the historic sites, the “in” places to be, the not-so-safe places to be, she has bargained for us at the markets and fed us new fruits and meats. Thank God for Maria! She is doing a great job of taking care of us (even though we have almost died every time we’ve been in the car with her).

See our photos

Finally, we have found a way to upload photos. Click on the link in the right hand margin.

8/28/2006 Cuenca. Getting educated.

We started home schooling on Monday. The kids were eager to begin and had definite ideas about how work should be organized and information communicated. The first couple of days were a great success until I called the group together for their first history lesson on Ecuador. We were planning a trip to the museum that day and I figured we should all have a broad overview before the trip. Midlife lesson number 341: never lecture to an 8 year old ask or ask them to take notes during a lesson. It took us 20 minutes to get through the first two sentences of the history summary that I had printed off the internet. The first few minutes went something like this:
“There is evidence that people..”.
“Stop Daddy, I can’t write that fast. T H E R E I S, how do you spell evidence?
What does evidence mean?”
I tried to begin again, “You don’t need to write down everything, just the reall y important things and I’ll tell you what those are. So there were that people lived in Ecuador 10,000 years BC. Does anyone know what BC means?”
Liza was already on the verge of tears. “Daddy, I have to write down everthing because that’s the only way I can remember it!”
Things only got worse from there as I tried to explain that the purpose of this exercise was just to give everyone a general overview of Ecuadorian history so that the museum would make more sense. Everyone except Jacob tuned out at that point and I realized that my teaching skills needed some serious improvement.
My history fiasco notwithstanding, home schooling has been a success. The kids really enjoy doing it every day and Liz and I have enjoyed helping them. I’ve learned pre-algebra again (but of course act like I remember it all from my school days). Fortunately, I’ve got a fairly good grasp of 3rd and 6th grade math although the terms they use these days are confusing. We’ve tried to get in a couple of hours of home schooling a day unless we are going on a field trip (any trip out of the house is considered a field trip). At night, the girls want homework to do which can be taxing if you’ve had a couple of Vodka and tonics. But that’s another story.
We ventured to a couple of Museums on Ecuadorian and Incan history this week. The first was filled with relics of early tribes from different areas of the country. The second included life size representations of Ecuadorian homes from coastal, highlands and jungle areas as well as extensive Incan ruins, an aviary and gardens with indigenous species that are important to Ecuadorian history. All of us were struck by the incredible diversity both environmental and anthropological. The result is a cultural stew of indigenous, Incan, and Spanish, overlaid with a topping of US influence, mostly from the media. I could spend more time educating you on Ecuadorian history but I’ll spare you the lecture until I improve my teaching skills.
The kids all seemed to really enjoy the museums and a lunch of regional specialties that included Mota (boiled corn that looks like popcorn but tastes more like potatoes), Roast Pork, Pollo, Yucca, Hominy, and some sort of sweet cornbread wrapped in banana leaf. More about the food in a future entry.

8/27/2006 – 9/1/2006 Cuenca

After a week of rice,aji and unrecognizable seafood and fruit, we were all in the mood for some pizza when we arrived in Cuenca. Of course the trip there is worthy of some coverage before I tell you about our pizza experience. We all thought the trip from Punta Blanca to Cuenca would take about four and a half hours. After all, that’s what Maria had told us: 2 hours to Guayaquil and 2.5 hours from Guayaquil to Cuenca. Well, we hired a van and a driver to take us. Maria and her family had tried to convince us that 16 of us could fit into 3 small cars (and I do mean small) with luggage. I think they were offended when we elected to hire the van. It wasn’t just the space problem. Maria had to take Brad to airport at 5:30 AM and since she was leaving, all of Maria’s family decided to leave at the same time. That mean’t they had to get up at about 4:30am to get packed and straighten up the house. We couldn’t understand why everyone had to leave at the same time but Maria said it was typical of her family. They all wanted to send Brad off and show him they cared. It was very sweet and completely foreign to our American minds. Anyway, getting back to the story, it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Guayaquil and another 4.5 hours to get to Cuenca.
Much of the trip to Cuenca I spent going up, way up. The Cajas mountains are part of the chain of Andes that divide Equador into three regions. The chain is home to 30 Volcanos, 7 of which are active. The highest of those is Chimborazo at almost 21,000 feet. But the Cajas peak out at about 13,000 feet, still enough to make me lightheaded as we traversed up winding roads through intense fog. That would be challenging enough in America but here, you throw in the occasional rock slide or washed out road, a steady stream of busses that occupied most of the available pavement, indigenous folks with livestock and you begin to realize why it takes 4.5 hours to get about 120 miles.
We were traveling with 2 men in the front of the van, one of whom we knew indirectly because he Maria’s cousin and the brother of an Ecuadorian girl in Charlottesville, Mariella, who often babysat the kids when they were younger. John’s job was to get us to Maria’s home. Of course, as soon as we hit the outskirts of town, John made the driver stop the van and declared that he didn’t know where Maria’s house was. At that point, we tried to contact Maria but to no avail. Finally, John called his sister Mariella in Virginia and hands the phone to me. I had a nice chat with Mariella but she had no idea how to get us to Maria’s house so we sat on the side of the road in Cuenca for close to an hour.
Finally, John decides to stop a cab and ask if he knows where Maria lives. We then follow the cab through a seemingly endless maze of streets that don’t go to Maria’s house. Finally the cab leaves us and John stops some guy that he seems to know in a small red car and we begin following him. Low and behold, we finally arrive in front of a home that John declares to be the ARCE house. Unfortunately, there is no one home. We tried to imagine how Maria and her family could leave 5 hours before us and still not be home and surprisingly we were successful. They had managed to turn a 1.5 hour trip from Guayaquil to the beach into a more than 3 hour trip so anything seemed possible for the return. Anyway, John and the driver waited patiently with us for about 30 minutes until Maria and her family showed up. So began our Cuenca adventure.
We all had a taste for pizza that first night in Cuenca and the Pizza Hut sounded like a safe, if predictable solution. Maria assured us that it would meet our expectations and when we asked about the salad, she confidently gave us the green light. One week of bizarre food that was purchased and prepared without regard for sanitation or refrigeration and it was the Pizza Hut that did us in. I was the first to show symptoms but in the days that followed, everyone but Liz got sick. She was so excited that I had gotten sick and she hadn’t because it has been years since I was last sick.
We didn’t do much in the first few days because someone was always sick but we we did manage to get to the open air food market and the craft market. Ecuadorian wool goods, leather and art are a wonderful bargain. So is the food. There were simple pleasures of shopping like buying a bag of 6 tomatoes for a dollar or a fine bottle of Ecuadorian vodka for $3.68. Bottled water cost about 25 cents. Maria reminded often that we should not allow ourselves to be ripped off by the locals and would negotiate ridiculous prices even lower. She assured me that to pay more than $1.50 for a lovely wool and leather pocketbook was something only a dumb gringo tourist would do and I certainly didn’t’ want to be one of those. Never mind that every outward impression I conveyed each day was precisely that of a dumb gringo.

Punta Blanca and Isla de Plata

Sorry for not updating sooner. We've been without email access for the past week. We drove from Guayaquil to a costal town called Punta Blanca. It's a beachfront resort area, ecuadorian style. We spent the first day looking for a place to stay. This is off season in the beach front areas so most places were empty and we had the beach to ourselves. We ended finding a wonderful condo with all the conveniences of home except for a washer and dryer and it was only a block from the house that Maria's parents rented. On Friday we drove north to Porta Lopez and took a boat to Isla de Plata, a small island that Maria characterizes as the poor man's galapagos. On the way, we saw about 5 humpback whales, some from as close as about 30 feet. At one point, a whale changed direction and swam straight at our boat which he/she could easily have capsized. Fortunately it swam under us. It was quite a thrill.

The contrasts in Ecuador are striking. While I gather they have made great strides in the last 5 years, there is no doubt that you are firmly in the third world. This was especially evident in and around the costal areas where life outside our little walled paradise was especially gritty. We all are enjoying that contrast so far and look forward to authentic third world adventures every day. The rural roads are awful and driving is perhaps the greatest adventure. We've went to the open market several days to buy food. Fish, chickens, pork and beef, vegatables and an endless array of fruit we've never heard of before, all served up in several blocks of dilapidated shanties. No refrigeration in sight. Incredibly, we bought some of everthing except pork during the week and Maria's mother cooked it, we ate it, and no one got sick. We have been well fed, perhaps too well fed. Every meal includes rice and ahi, an ecuadorian salsa made with tree tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. Jacob & I put ahi on everything because it's so good.

Anne Nelson has declared that this is her favorite place on earth and she could live here for the rest of her life. In spite of it's shortcomings, we have all enjoyed the country and the culture so far and Maria and her family have taken good care of us. We've certainly been able to experience ecuador in way that would never have been possible on our own. Yesterday we traveled from Punta Blanca over the Andes Mountains to Cuenca where we will spend the next week at Maria's house. More to follow.

Emotional goodbyes and a bathroom run I won't soon forget

We arrived safely in guayaquil last night, phsically and emotionally weary from a long day of traveling and painful goodbyes from family and close friends. And, of course, there was that moment in the waiting area of gate 27 when Anne Nelson realized that she didn't have her passport that had been hanging around her neck all morning. We frantically back tracked through security and then to a bathroom on the main concourse to discover that the cleaning lady had picked it up and was on her way out when Anne Nelson ran in.

As planning continues, some things have fallen into place at home that bring some certainty to the duration of our trip and the first part of the itinerary. We finally leased the house to a family from New Jersey. They will stay for 6 months and have the option to extend for 2 more months if they want. That means we will definitely be traveling until the end of February and more likely until the end of April. The second major development is that Maria, our ex-aupair from Ecuador is almost assured that she will get her visa to travel back to Ecuador for the first time in 7 years. She has agreed to travel with us while we are in ecuador and serve as a guide and interpreter. I think this will make the transition to life on the road a lot easier for the kids and us.

It's Official... we're leaving in mid August

After months of uncertainty, it's now official... we won't be heading to Boston but we're still planning on pulling the kids out of school for the fall semester so we can travel around the world. Our plan is go for 10 months if we can afford it. Current itinerary will take us to Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina, then to Bora Bora, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Kenya/Tanzania, Dubai, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, Paris, Amsterdam and then home. We'll try to finalize the itinerary over the next 30 days. If this plan doesn't work, we're thinking perhaps a long weekend at Disneyworld, a leisurely stroll around the world at Epcot and back in time for school.