Day 3: Hot springs and Markets

Well, we woke up to a great wakeup call via Dogs barking and roosters crowing; it was fine for me. (I sleep like a rock until around 7:00am)My sister is a light sleeper so when those animals started going at 4am, she wasn’t too happy about it. Oh well it was a good or early start to the day.

For breakfast this morning I decided to be adventurous and I tried a new fruit I have never seen before. It was something similar to  a tomato on the outside but it had a hard shell you had to crack open, then the insides were grey gooey seeds. It was really crunchy and slimy to eat, but overall unique and sweet.

We headed out and our first stop was the Paguche Waterfall, it was a bit of a hike. Nothing crazy and the path itself was paved with cobblestones. But it was lined with Eucalyptis trees, smelled great and it was a beautiful clear day. When we got to the waterfall, it was nice and we got to get up close to it; the thing that stood out to me was the signs though. The word for ‘look out spot’ was Moridar. But in my juvenile mind I saw Moridor. I was back in the Lord of the Rings universe and that just made me giddy. Hehe. We hiked around the waterfall for a while and just enjoyed the scenery. Then we headed back to the bus passing an ancient sun dial which was the size of a small hut.

We then drove to Otavalo, which had the biggest outdoor market and which is known for this market. So naturally we went shopping. We bought rugs, blankets, shirts, bowls, chess sets, nativities, hair accessories, pillow covers…I’m going to stop their cause I don’t really want everyone to know how carried away we got. What, the bargains were awesome, mainly because we could bargain with them. I got most of the stuff down to close to half price on all the stuff I bought. (Actually, I only spent around $100 on souvenirs for most of the trip, prices were that good!)

After Otavalo, (my parents were the last to get on the bus J ) we headed over to Catacachi, which is a town known for their leather items. Thankfully we didn’t go as crazy as we did in the market but Dad did get a new wallet and I found a leather shawl. There were a ton of cow hide rugs and I wanted to get one but sadly there would be no way for me to fit one of those into my luggage.

To the next hotel, and it again was placed in little cabins. This place however was a hotsprings site. The hotel was called Termis Papallacta and it was nice. There were little pools of hot water outside our rooms which we could go to anytime we wanted. We however signed up to the packaged deel where we got our own personal hotsprings pool, they were hotter than the other small pools and then they brought us to a steam room. It was a small room with a hot waterfall  at the end of the room which had bows or eucalyptus leaves on shelves in the water. So it was hot steamie and smelled divine. They left us in there for about 20 minutes which was so nice but near the end it was really hot. Kinda hard to breath but all is well cause after that they brought us into a thirty minute massage. That was so good! I felt so spoiled and wondered if this was like how the rich people lived. It was so nice.

After the massage, we went to dinner. The place wanted to give us a free glass of wine but none of us drink so instead they brought us a unique juice mix, it was blackbearry juice mixed with this white milky stuff that was sour but sweet at the same time, all I know is that it was good. I also had trout again for dinner. Yay fish!

We headed to bed after that and somehow I was the only one who got a comfortable bed this time around. I was pretty lucky. 

Day 2-Equador, Quito

Alright, So this was the day where we actually started our tour, and since we were in Quito, we started there.

We went first to Old town Quito, this included the Basilica, the Gold church, the San Francisco and the original and new town square.

Our Guide explained to us that Quito had the most churches within the city coming in second compared to the Vatacan. In other words there were a lot… a LOT of churchs in this city. But we only hit the major ones and called it good.

The first one we went to was the Basilica. This was a Gothic looking cathedral; much like the ones seen in Europe there were a few differences from the those European churches: mainly in the age and what decorated it. The church was built only a hundred years ago but the decorations are what made it stand out to me. Originally the Cathedral had gargoyles adorning the outside which was to be expected but the locals said that the gargoyles were too frightening; so they took them down and in stead put up animals that were indigenous to the area. So there were caymen and anteaters and turtles on the sides of the church. Very unique!

We then went to the original city square which was the center of town before the Spaniards came and took over. Then we went to todays city’s square where there was the Presidental palace and it had a few ‘yeah for Ecuador’ stuff, honestly it is like going to the white house, you see it say ‘cool’ then you move onto the next memorial.

The next church we visited was awesome though, the whole of the inside was gilded in gold. Almost every in was covered. It was amazing, they asked us not to take photos inside…. So my sister took a few, (well she didn’t hold back at the Jade Buddha in China, why would she hold back here?) It was really cool to see though, and aparantly it housed its own miracle. They had a painting of the Madonna that at one point blinked… yep that is what is considered a miracle today, a blinking painting.

Anyways, our group moved onto the last church which was the San Franscisco and the only thing that stands out to me about this church was that the insides were being devoured by termites and the front doors had a picture of Christ whipping the money changers; which was fun compared to all the little sellers of candles and such right outside the doors of the church. Hmmm, yeah they didn’t get the lesson.

After all the ABC churches we all jumped into the bus and headed to the Equator!

Oh, I almost forgot! On the bus ride over to the Equator our guide stopped the bus for  a surprise for us. ICECREAM!!! Yep we stopped at an ice cream shop and there were a ton of new tasty flavors, I got Taxo and Guinabanananna…nana I can’t pronounce the last part but it was super tasty and they showed us how they created ice cream. For them they used to go to the mountains collect ice and bring it down to the valleys then they would stick a big copper bowl in the ice and pour juices and cream into the bowl. As they stirred the contents, it would freeze and become their ice cream. They had a demonstration and we got to try the fresh ice cream. So good, Dad even tried to give it a go.

Alright, back to the equator, that is right I have stood on both sides of the globe. It was pretty awesome! There was a memorial and a bunch of shops surrounding the location. Which according to Dad is a wonder; cause when he was here last the place only had a six-foot monument and a bunch of tents. Well now there is a building a shops. OK, yeah after taking the pictures that is about all you can do at the equator is walk and shop. I was still happy to be there though!

We then jumped back into the bus to head to our next hotel; on the way we stopped at a shop where our guide got us to try Ecuador’s chocolate; which was pretty tasty; I think it could compete with the Swiss kind but I’m still biased to to it.

We finally get to our Hotel which is the little out of the way place where you are staying in little cabins next to a lake and at the base of a Volcano. The scenery was so peaceful. There was a mini golf course in the center with a small creek going through it and they had a bunny pen. Also as you walked a crossed the little bridge over the creek you could see a hummingbird flying around the lilies in the water. It was like out of a picture book.

We decided that we had sat in the bus too long today and so we went for a walk before dinner. As soon as you got to the road; that scene of peaceful cabins broke and you were surround by…not poverty but I guess just a different way of life. Everyone had houses but their homes were only half done and the family still lives there. Most of them were cinderblock homes with very pretty front facades but when you looked at the sides it would only be the cinderblocks showing. Then there were some with second floors but those would be open, no glass but just walls of cinderblocks. There would often be a cow or pig tied up in the front or side yards as well. It was just different, but interesting. Oh and there were dogs everywhere but they were super chill, like you would walk right by one and he wouldn’t even bat an eye.

After the walk, we had dinner. I had this tasty traditional potato soup with a chunk of avocado in the center of it then for the entre I had trout. Tasty, traditional, but normally I only eat trout while camping so it was pretty unique eating the campy fish at a nice hotel. But apparently it was a traditional meal, so I’m all for it.

Another fun thing we did, there was a presentation on what the traditional garb was for the area. And tasha was selected to dress up.

We finished off the day by sitting in our room listening to my dad share mission stories. Perfect ending for the day! Oh, also they had built a fire for us and also left a hot water bottle in our beds. Divine!

Day 1- Ecuador!!!!!

I made it to Ecuador!!!! I’ve never been to the lower Hemisphere before! It was awesome and it wasn’t even as hot. We were like 9,000 feet above sea level or something so it wasn’t as hot as I originally thought it would be. Dad said that his ears didn’t even pop when we were descending in our plane.

So if you’re asking, great…why Ecuador. Simply this, my Dad served his mission to Ecuador about 40 years ago and my ‘ever the amazing traveler’ sister found a deal online through groupon for a cheap trip there. My Dad was all for it and I thought it would be an awesome trip!

Alright I guess I should get down to actually sharing what we did for our first day in beautiful Ecuador. Very first thing we did when we arrived in Ecuador: slept.

We arrived in Quito at 4am; yeah too early to function so we got to our hotel, Hilton Colon, and collapsed on the bed. They were pretty nice beds and the softest ones during the whole trip. All the others were so hard it would have been better if  we just slept on the floor. Thankfully, we were so exhausted from the day that at least I fell asleep right after I got on those hard beds.

Getting on with it. After we had breakfast, which was a buffet, and they had fresh pineapple! Also Bananas, which is Ecuador’s top export. Extremely  tasty; we then headed to church; the building was about a mile from our hotel so we decided to walk it; that was fine even though I got a little huffy which I am blaming the altitude sickness. But we made it. Unfortunately, it was Stake Conference. There was no one at the building and it was all locked up, we couldn’t get in and it was 10 minutes till the start of the meeting. As we were standing there a little confused a member showed up and was able to help us find the Stake center. She called a taxi for us and it ended up being only 2 dollars, cheapest taxi I’ve ever had, and that includes the taxi’s in Korea!

At the Stake conference, they had a fair amount of speakers, I was surprised at how much I actually understood from the meeting. Of those speakers the mission president spoke along with his wife. While speaking he said he had been a missionary in Ecuador about 40 years ago. This perked my Dad’s attention cause that was exactly the same time he had been on his mission. So after the meeting we went to see if he remembered my Dad from the mission days. He did! And they chatted about old times and new times. He and his wife were amazing people; they had a daughter there and she wasn’t their only child, no they had 11 kids; that is awesome! They seemed like amazing people and amazing leaders of the Ecuador mission.

We watched very closely as we took our taxi to the Stake center and figured that the church was just a mile from our hotel in the opposite direction so we decided to walk back and a good thing we did too. We ran into  a bakery on the way and got a few pastries and a sweet bread.  It was delicious; we ate the bread on the way back to the hotel then when we got to the hotel we discovered that there was a park across the way so we went there to eat our pastries.

It was Mother’s day and the park was absolutely filled with families and children running everywhere. It was amazing see that many people in one place! Along the edge of the park there was a market that stretched all along the border. They had everything from wood carving to blankets to paintings. It was fun just to walk about it and see all the fun crafts. Also to get an idea of what to look for in the next coming days :)

When we finished with our treats and exploring the market we still had a bit of time left in the day so we went to the concierge to get ideas of what we should do . He suggested the cable cars that went up the mountains next to the city. These were beautiful green lush mountains that surrounded the area so we were very keen. It was only a ten minute cab ride and we were there. Then 13,000 feet above sea level later we were at the top of the mountain!

We hiked about for a while and saw a Volcano and a few other trail we didn’t go down but it was a fun time.

After a while we were all getting pretty tired; so we took the cars down the mountain. Enjoyed the view and got to the bottom. There was an amusement park at the bottom of the mountain where we got the tallest cotton candy I’ve seen.

It was a perfect ending to our adventure up the mountain/ Volcano. We caught a van ride back. We were packed in there pretty tight; we got to the hotel ok and spent the rest of the evening skyping and face timing family. It was mother’s day; we had to make the most of it.

Sorry not Ecuador but look Tulips!!!

I know you want to know about my awesome Ecuador Trip and no worries you definitely will hear about it. I am planning on doing a day by day blog like I did for my China trip last year. The thing is, I sent my SD card with my sister so she could download the pictures and put all the pics from my camera and her camera and Dad's all on one device. So I will begin my blog as soon as I get my card and all the pics back from her. Should only take a week or so.

In the mean time, I realize I haven't updated you all on the comings and goings of my adventures here is Canada and generally the Great Northwest. As for a basic update; I've finished school! Graduated with Honors (it was a surprise to me) and the very next week started my job as a PreVis Artist at Nerd Corps. Life is a whirlwind sometimes and you just have to enjoy the ride.

So a couple weekends back, around mid April I headed to Skagit for the Tulip Festival; this is an annual festival in Skagit WA where just like in Holland there are fields of Tulips.

 The better place to see these colorful fields are in Tulip Town; where there are a few little shops and of course the fields.

 We came at the very last day of the festival though and because it was a warm spring most of the tulips had already gone through their bloom but there were some rows left for us to play in.

 I keep saying 'we' because I came down with a couple of friends; Cassandra and Erin. Part of the reason we came down along with the Festival was for Cassandra; she is getting married in August and wanted to check the states for some wedding dress options. Along with that we also hit the outlets at Burlington. So awesome! We succeeded in attaining some awesome shoes and boots along with some gloves that originally were $90 and we only paid $10; sweet deal and they were leather!

 Me at the top as Farmer Jon, Erin's my Farmer Mame, and Cassandra's the little Tulip

Ok, no blog is good without an fun story, so here it goes. Along with shopping at the Outlets we wanted to go to Trader Joes and get some fun treats but we spent a little longer at the outlets than we thought. We realized it was getting dark and knew that Trader Joes closes at 9pm. Cassandra had never been to Trader Joes and I'm sorry if your life has not tried the sweet nectare of Cookie Butter than that is just unacceptable and must be remidied. In anycase when we finally checked the clock we realized that it was 20 minutes to nine and it was a twenty minute drive to the store which was in one town over. So we booked it to the Green Machine (my car) and I only sped enough to get there... nothing too dangerous... in anycase we get there by tearing down the road, catching a u-turn into the parking lot and I zoom up to the front, screech to a halt and yell 'GO, GO, GO' all military style to the girls all the while the store owner is standing at the doors just about ready to close them. We made it, he was laughing at us enough to show us pity and let us in. As we checked out he described how he watch us zoom down the street and thought those girls know what their doin'. It was a success and Cassandra got to try her Cookie butter and we were some nice entertainment for those at Trader Joes.

I hope you enjoyed the story; like I said at the start, I'll be updateing with my trip to Ecuador in the coming weeks. Totally worth the wait it was an amazing trip!

Adventure is out there!