Getting to Quilotoa, Ecuador. Attempt #1.

So from Quito we headed a little further down south in Ecuador to an area called the Quilotoa Loop to embark on an adventure which we had no idea all that it would entail. We met a girl at our hostel in Quito named Bea (pronounced Bayuh...but she goes by 'B') who we actually ended up traveling with for several weeks and definitely added a lot to these days (especially a lot of laughter). So to get an idea of who Bea is, just picture... 38 year old woman from Texas whose mother is from Mexico, whose father is a Native American man, she spent many years in the Marines, and now works in a job where she can't tell us exactly what she does but for it she travels to a lot of other countries that I can't imagine ever going to. She is HI-larious with the random one-liners I have no idea how she comes up with, she LOVES to laugh and partake in any sort of adventure, she's SUPER intense, blunt, would often have us doing crazy Marine workouts or yoga in the morning, and (to our benefit) is pretty stinking demanding with people- hostels, bus companies, restaurants...all of it. So on our bus ride down from Quito to the Quilotoa area (just to try and give you a visual of Bea in action) Audrey and I were sitting in the row in front of her and she was sitting by herself in the row behind us (with her usual quite a bit of luggage next to her). At one point I turned around to talk to her and noticed the guy in the seat behind her was creepily peering over her seat and checking out all of her stuff. I just non-chalantly warned her that he was there, was looking kind of creepy, and just to keep an eye out. Well...in full out Bea style, she waits two seconds, turns around, and in perfect Spanish (oh yea...since her mom is from Mexico and they live in Texas, she is completely fluent in Spanish- not bad to have around:) she informs the creeper, 'don't even think about it or I will poke your eyes out' and sits back down. Doo-do-doo. Haha. He sat back and kept to himself after that. That is Bea. 

this is Bea. :)

SO...the Quilotoa Loop is a several day hiking path in the middle of beautiful nowhere where you walk from one town and hope to get to the next town on the loop by dark. The 'towns' are tiny- like usually literally just a couple of streets- but there is usually hostel or two in each town where the hikers can stay. Well, the  biggest town (it's all relative) is Latacunga, and a lot of people use that as their launching ground, but if you stay there before you begin the trek, then the morning you start you have to take a bus out to the Quilotoa laguna where you start. Bea had heard about this cool little hostel that was in a tiny town, Tigua, a little closer to the start so we could begin our first day and just hike to the Quilotoa laguna ourselves. So...we decided to go with that plan. We arrived in Latacunga and quickly found a bus that went directly to Tigua. As we were on the bus, with ALL locals...who were looking at us pretty perplexed as if to say, 'what are you doing here and where in the world could you be going?'...the wingman asked us where we were going. Bea told him Tigua and said the name of the hostel and the wingman seemed to recognize it and said he would tell us where to get off. Ok. Well, after about an hour and a half the bus stops and the wing man starts yelling from the front that this is us! Time to get off. So, it had gotten dark outside...I mean like, middle of nowhere with no towns around kind of pitch black dark..so we have NO idea where we are or what's around or what we're getting into. Except that EVERYone on the bus was telling us this can't be it! This cant be where you are wanting to go!  Dooooooon't get off the bus! The wingman had unloaded all of our stuff from the bus and Audrey and I stood right by the door of the bus so it wouldn't leave yet while Bea went to the nearest lit up structure we saw (really the ONLY light!) and peered in to find what she described to be a tiny one room house with the kitchen and living room in the same room, just dirt and straw as the floor, and people lying sporadically throughout the room. We knew we were in the middle of Ecuador in a pretty basic area but we weren't quite prepared for this! So in the meantime, as Bea was off scoping out this 'town,' the passengers on the bus were legitimately worried for us and now had their heads poking out the windows of the bus telling us not to get off here! It's not safe here! Bea came running back ready to jump back on the bus with what she had found, and Audrey and I were ready to jump back on with what everyone on the bus was telling us. The wingman was annoyed, but back on the bus we went. Twenty minutes later the wingman told us THIS is where we wanted to go..the 'center' of Tigua and everyone on the bus agreed, so we gladly hopped off the bus with no doubts, everyone seemed in agreement here. Until the bus pulled away. The three of us were standing there, holding all of our stuff, on the side of this road we could no longer see, in the middle of who knows where, in the pitch. black. dark. andwe did not see a town. We could make out about three or four buildings...and no lights on in any of them. Oh. My. Goodness. We went through our usual coping ritual...we freaked out for a second, then all started laughing really hard, then started talking seriously about what to do. We relocated ourselves and our stuff up the hill a little bit closer to the 'town' so Audrey and I could stay with the stuff while Bea scoped things out nearby trying to find a person. A man came out, obviously, to scope out these new arrivals to his town and when we asked him about the hostel he said he knew the man who owned it, he lives about 20 meters up the hill, and sent his son to go get him. Well, the owner of the hostel pretty quickly came down to talk to us, and informed us that the hostel no longer exists. It got shut down. He explained all about why it was shut down...and we were left pretty perplexed. Mmmm...hmm...that's interesting. We started asking him some questions (letting Bea do most of the talking since her Spanish sounded much better than ours and when we felt like were in a slightly vulnerable situation it seemed to give us a little advantage to make it seem like we were real, fluent Spanish speakers...we couldn't be tricked or taken advantage of QUITE so easily). So..Are there any other hostels or anything in this town? He kind of laughed. No. Do any more buses run by here at this time going to another bigger town with hostels? No. Oooh, ok...well because we were planning on staying at YOUR hostel, but....yea. He was understanding our predicament and was super nice about it. He called a few people to try and see what he could do, and finally came to the conclusion that if we wanted to....the three of us could stay at his house for the night with him and his family. By now his grown daughter had joined us and they were assuring us they had a bed that was HUGE- 'definitely big enough for all three of us'- her and her mom could get it all ready for us, and it wouldn't be a problem for us to stay there. We all looked at each other for a second and quickly concluded- we really don't have any other options! So we did.

slightly unsure of what just happened...

Oh my goodness! They were SO nice and hospitable...it was incredible. It was just an absolutely bizarre experience. So we got to see the next morning that this 'town,' Tigua, really was just a few houses...but their house was like a Tigua mansion! (at least the part we were staying in...the part they lived in was more like what Bea had seen in the previous 'town.') It was a serious structure with two stories even! (Turns out the hostel owner man is also a world traveled painter..he even had an art gallery right next to the used to be hostel).

They showed us up to the two room second floor of the house where we would be staying and it was like...a typical grandparents house. Old and musty, funny smells, random posters and pictures everywhere, amazing little family heirlooms and memorabilia...amazing! We all stood around in this room for awhile and talked some more, the daughter and wife prepared our bed for us, and we eventually said goodnight. As soon as they walked out (after giving them a few seconds to walk away) we just burst out laughing! Being there in that moment...was surreal! We were transported into another world...their world! It was so bizarre but pretty cool. 

oooh, the randomness...

we ended up embracing the entire situation. :)

After wandering around the room and taking in all the 'decor' and laughing about the last hour, we donned our new warm gear we purchased in Quito for the cold climate we heard was the Quiltoa area, and crammed into the 'HUGE bed that would easily fit all three of us' which ended up being a full-sized bed that we were all very thankful for and kept us all very warm:)  

 

the HUGE bed the three of us slept in.

The next morning we were up and getting dressed and they knocked on our door letting us know they had made hot water for us and it was in a pot outside the door for us to wash up with! Amazing. We washed up with the pot of hot water (they didn't have plumbing or running water or anything), gathered our stuff, and headed down to say goodbye...and they let us know they had breakfast for us! We had some amazing homemade lemon tea and a delicious breakfast with them. After breakfast we visited his art gallery and then waited on the side of the road for the bus to come and take us back to regroup in Latacunga, the larger town where we should have just started in the first place:)

 After our bizarre adventure to Tigua, we ended up just staying in Latacunga for a couple of days, it ended up being quite the little town! We enjoyed this ridiculous town parade and party where they were celebrating the recent election of their new mayor.


There was lots of random fire, bizarre musicians and dancers performing up on a stage, speeches, cheering, and even different free samples of drinks and food typical for that area!

For some reason the crowd was super dead (besides the random cheers for different parts of speeches), and they weren't getting into the music or the dancing...so the three of us were awkwardly the only ones going crazy and dancing it out..(to the serious embarrassment of the really nice, shy, local guy that worked at the hostel that insisted, along with the other hostel workers, that he needed to accompany us to this town party for our safety) THEN, this great group of really normal, friendly, local 20 somethings came along and joined us! We all bonded immediately and just enjoyed being totally random and dancing for the next couple of hours. Definitely one of our most memorable nights. I can still see Bea in the middle of our random dance circle dancing it up Bea style:) Girl could dance. 

Another little scooter adventure to the middle of the world...

So, in case you're like Audrey and I and thought it was just kind of a funny coincidence that Ecuador sounds a little like, 'equator,' it's not true...it's not just a funny coincidence. Ecuador means...'Equator.' AND the equator, of course, happens to run right through Ecuador, right outside of Quito, AND happens to be pretty easily accessible by scooter if you can find a place to rent some:)  So, one day Audrey and I went and rented two scooters from two men who had ridden motorcycles down from New York, had planned to make it to Buenos Aires and live there for awhile but got to Quito and didn't want to leave!



They give you a GPS for the scooters and it's a whole GPS guided tour thing, including a stop at the equator and several other places. You drive all through the mountains and a cloud forest, and stop in a town for a chocolate and coffee tour on a coffee and chocolate plantation and then to a really cool, pretty famous market in Otovalo, then stop at a few more outlooks and the 'middle of the world' on the way back.

Apparently most people make it a two day thing, staying overnight in the town with the coffee and chocolate tour, but we hadn't planned on that, didn't bring anything with us for that, and they assured us, oh yea...you can probably just do it in a day...no problem. Go for it.  Well....it was an amazing day! At least the first part of it. We enjoyed riding our scooters all through the gorgeous mountains on crazy dirt and gravel roads...it was gorgeous. Because of the slightly less ideal roads, though, it was taking quite awhile to get to our big destination, the little town of Mindo, where we needed to get there by 4pm for the chocolate and coffee tour...but we made it! We got there about 20 minutes late...but they still let us join the tour which was awesome. The guy gave us a really cool history of chocolate, cocoa beans, the current cocoa growing situation including the politics of it, and then showed us the whole process of it! It was all very interesting to see and learn about...and, of course, at the end got to have a little tasting session.

We started with 100% chocolate and then you added sugar a little at a time to see how sweet your preference was. It was a pretty incredible place...the guy was SO interesting...he is from Ecuador, but lived in the US for awhile, speaks perfect English, and he says the people in his town call him 'the gringo' -(the white man). He showed us his garden where he was growing all KINDS of stuff...aloe, natural sweeteners, and even some things he was just experimenting with. He was quite a creative guy...he even made most of the machinery himself that he uses to process the cocoa beans. Incredible. 

Well, when the tour ended, we looked outside and one- it was getting dark, and two- it was POURING rain. Hmm. Well a few things were going through our mind at this point...one- we had heard way too many stories about how dangerous Quito is..especially at night/when it's dark, and two...we should really know by now that if we rent a means of transportation where we are exposed to the elements...most likely one of those elements is going to be rain. Also...Audrey and I are both very...determined (stubborn). Period. So..we were determined to bypass all the rest of the stuff we were supposed to see on the way back to the city and just drive on through the rain...in the dark..back to Quito...to make it to our hostel where we hadn't checked out so we knew we would be charged for that night Not smart not smart not smart..keep reading, Mom!
So we were both completely out of gas (that one gallon tank gets you further than you think! But after a whole day of driving them...they had finally run out of gas. We asked someone if there was a gas station nearby, and after asking about four different people, going to where they pointed and described (in this tiny town that consisted of about 5 blocks, literally) we finally found what they were talking about! This man's house where he has a huge barrel of...blue colored...gasoline? As we were filling up with this blue colored...stuff, he was asking us what we were doing..where we were going...and WHY?!? He kept telling us we shouldn't go. Ok, thank you sir...but we just have to. (We're determined! And just silly sometimes). So, soaking wet we got back on our scooters, paid him the $1.50 for the gas, (gas is SUPER cheap in Ecuador!! It's crazy. No more than $2/gallon), and drove on out of the town. We got to the top of the hill that takes you from the little town to the big main road, and just stopped for a second to readjust and have a break from the rain in our faces. A local lady was standing there waiting on a bus, so we talked to her for a minute as she asked us what we were doing and why and also told us we just shouldn't. We were starting to get a little less determined, and considered other options..finally coming to the conclusion that either we make it back on a bus or some other large vehicle that could fit our scooters as well with this super nice and knowledgable local lady, or we drive back to the town and stay the night there. After lots of attempts to flag down buses and trucks that looked like they could take our scooters, and quickly realizing scooters are much bigger and heavier than they look...we went back to the little town, Mindo. We were annoyed and felt shot down..but we knew it was the best thing to do then! We found an Internet cafe, managed to call our hostel who was a little like a family and SUPER worried about us. Haha, the south African guy in his accent, 'are you girls OK?!?! We were worried about you!' (side note: several years ago he was driving his motorcycle and got in a head on collision with an 18 wheeler and was in a coma and completely unrecognizable for quite awhile and his dad thought he was dead and he was immobile and in a body cast for 6 months....). We assured them we were fine, but were staying the night in Mindo and would see them in the morning! We made friends with the internet guy who had a friend who owned a hostel and let us stay there for $5...since we didn't have much money with us...ate some Doritos for dinner..and called it a night. Phew! The next morning we got up early, drove back on the main road, stopped at the Mitad del Mundo- middle of the world! (the equatorial line), enjoyed a few other sights, and booked it back to turn our scooters back in by their due time!

Quite an adventure...totally worth it...but we haven't rented any motorized vehicles recently...we're not going to push our luck with them for now:)  Next up...one of my absolute favorite stories and few days of this entire trip. I'm not sure if telling the story will capture the amazingness of the situation and quite what it was like...but I'm gonna give it a try and I hope it works:)  Miss you all and just have to say...Audrey and I will be getting home in about a month and 2 days!!! CRAZY! I've told a couple of people recently that I  think right now we are right in the perfect balance of looking forward to being home but also enjoying each moment of these days where we are. Right after those amazing people left, I was pretty home sick and told Audrey, 'it's a good thing we had already booked our really expensive plane tickets home..because I might have been on a plane home otherwise.' I was pretty homesick! But we're back on the move and once again soaking up these days:) But we STILL miss you....and are looking forward to being at home..with the people we love and have grown to appreciate more than ever...in familiar places. 

Quito, Ecuador. (yes we're still very much alive and going!)

So....the blogging has not been happening..at all! I got behind and THEN those ridiculous friends of mine who are NO fun at all ;) came and we met up in Peru and...everything else ceased. So I'm going to try to catch up on mostly just the highlights...the places we've loved, things we've done that we've seriously enjoyed, and some good stories.

I can't skip Quito, the city I've deemed 'most livable' and that we just enjoyed a lot.

So, here's about our time there! So we arrived to Quito, Ecuador...the immigration process was SUPER smooth, and they even gave a pretty heart felt, 'Bienvenidos!' :) We were pretty excited to be in another country, mostly just because we knew it would be MUCH more affordable than the last one we had just left.  We walked out of the airport and jumped on the bus we thought our little book had told us would take us straight to the are of the city where we wanted to go...'Marin.' (Relatively, taxis are pretty cheap here...relative to back home. But if we can avoid it...it's WAY cheaper to take public buses. Like, generally around 0.20 cents for a bus ride, and $1 for a taxi. Which SOUNDS crazy...but when you're in a country where .80 cents can just about get you a really decent meal...you think twice about it!) After a few minutes on the bus, Audrey turned to the boy next to her and asked if he could point out on our map where this Marin is we're going to and where we were then...he informed us the Marin the bus was going to was different- it is a random suburb of Quito, we definitely didn't want to go to it, and was not even anywhere on our map. (Apparently Marin is very different than the La Marin that we wanted). Hmmm....ok, well do you know where Mariscal is? (the only other area we had read about,we're kind of familiar with, there were several hostels, and were hoping maybe this bus went NEAR? His immediate response: 'oh yea...but you DON'T want to go there! No es seguro.' (It's not safe). Oh. Ok. We jumped right off the bus, bit the bullet, and caught the next taxi we saw. Another one of those moments where we said aloud...our moms would be proud of us right now.
It had gotten dark and we were starting to pick up on the fact that there were many areas of  Quito we may not want to find ourselves lost in.  SO, we told the cab driver the area we needed to go, and he seemed like he recognized it and started heading there. After quite awhile, I have no idea how long, we were stuck in traffic and he was clearly starting to get REALLY frustrated with it. Agreeing on the taxi fare before you even get in versus the meter system they use back home can be a win or a lose...in that situation its a huge win:) We had agreed before getting in and before any of us knew there would be traffic that we would pay $5 total for the cab ride. But finally he started saying things like, 'oh hey look..there's a hotel right there! Want to go to that one? I think it's good.' mmm, no thanks. We already told you where we want to go.'This is taking forever...you guys need to pay double the amount we agreed on.' mmm...no sir. We're paying the amount we agreed on. 'We're pretty much almost there...do you guys want to just get out and walk from here?' mmm, no thanks. It got dark a few minutes ago, it's starting to rain, we are not familiar with this city at all (obviously), and have no idea where we are or where we're going! Goofball. Well, eventually things got pretty tense. After asking us MANY times to just go ahead and get out in the pouring rain in the middle of a really busy street....we decided to just get out before who knows what... So we jumped out (into about 4-5 inches of water), grabbed all our stuff, and ran to safety out of the middle of the street under a street vendor's umbrella along with about 6 other people (like 3 teenage girls and I think their parents?) They were giggling at us and proceeded to ask us a lot of questions about what in the world we were doing and what we were doing THERE. They continued to giggle at us at about everything we said, as we were shivering and trying to stay dry-ish under the umbrella and holding all of our stuff. They recognized the hostel we were looking for, pointed us in the right direction, and made us aware...it's really not that safe here...be careful with your stuff. Hmmm...mmk. We don't have TOO much choice right now or control over much of anything..but we'll be careful. Anyways...we made our way across the crazy busy street in the pouring rain, and found cover under another street vendor's umbrella. She giggled at us quite a bit as well...but helpfully told us the quickest way to the hostel we were looking for that was only like 2 blocks away...again letting us know we should be careful with our stuff. Ok. Anyways...we RAN (kind of...as best you can with goofy big bags on your back and and your front and your hands full of other stuff) to another cover, then started running up the street the hostel was going to be on! And...BAM! We met Yaku. The friendliest, most welcoming, upbeat older man from South Africa who works at a hostel up the street, and assured us...we'll get you a warm shower, something warm to drink, and as many blankets as you want to get warm!!! All in english, of course! Done. About an hour later we were nice and warm and dry and sipping hot drinks in a great and cozy hostel. Thanks Yaku! 
Quito was....great! It was just a good mix of a lot of things. It is a big-ish city, and modern enough where it has stores and things where you could find anything you would need (including headlamps..if yours got stolen), incredibly beautiful (the buildings and architecture and streets and colors AND is surrounded by mountains), but it also seemed to be quite a family friendly city.

 

 

There were families and kids everywhere and lots of different activities and family things to do all the time. Just really cool! 

So every Sunday they do this thing where they shut down the main roads and only bikes and pedestrians are allowed on them! I mean...how cool is that?! DC, c'mon...we need to get in on this. (They did that in Bogotá also, but we didn't get to take part in it there). So once we heard about that, it was pretty high up on our list of things to make sure we did. So on Sunday we found our way to a park to this random lady who was renting out super ghetto really old used bikes (for super cheap) and we were on our way! Audrey's bike had no brakes and didn't really steer correctly...but we alternated with that craziness and made do:) THAT was so fun! Just riding along the big streets with TONS of other people, families and all..and eventually found our way to some great parks with incredible happenings going on!

 

I mean there were just people EVERYWHERE in these parks...playing soccer, practicing cheerleading, having picnics, all kinds of music, doing huge aerobics classes of like 100+ people, paddle boats! All kinds of stuff. It was so fun. We bought a cup of fresh fruit and just sat down and enjoyed the whole scene.

At one point we tried joining into the aerobics class (which was SUPER impressive...hard stuff, complicated choreography... but boy did they know exactly what they were doing), we got down the basic step and then a lady came over and asked us to pay for it...so we said we just kind of wanted to try it, she shrugged, and we all walked away. Awkward.

ALSO, ever since we saw 'Nica style' bike riding...we've been dying to try it. They make it look easy. Well...many close calls later and one very entertaining fall that ended with both Audrey and I lying on the ground, tangled up with the bike on top of us...we decided we're definitely not fit to be Nicaraguan. But we laughed,gave everyone around in the park a good laugh, and know not to try that again.  Mmm...we also went to this amazing basilica that just kept going and going like a crazy maze. Not much to say about it...but it was beautiful, it's views of the city were beautiful, and we had fun taking LOTS of pictures of it. :)

 

There was also this incredible changing of the guard ceremony that happens every Monday.

 

Audrey had told me a story about when her and one of her friends got up early and sat in the cold for a long time and went through all these lengths to go see the oh-so-famous changing of the guard in London...and it was SUPER disappointing. So we were laughing about that as we were booking it there to catch it...and it was AMAZING! The president of Ecuador was casually standing on the balcony with his family, a huge army, basically, marched all around the big plaza central, there was a military band playing, they had it all!

It was neat to see...and man were those people proud to be standing around, watching it all, waving to their president, singing their national anthem. Even the adorable intriguing old couple clearly full of quite a history that I watched just about as much as the rest of the going ons. :) 

 

As we walked around it seemed there were ENDLESS things to entertain ourselves with. One of them was...dressing up like a bombero (fireman) and do an obstacle course! We were the only gringos that volunteered, and got quite some looks and comments....but it was pretty great!

You basically went into this pitch black tunnel filled with smoke and laid completely flat because that was the only way you could fit and crawled on your stomach through it with the oxygen tank on your back and everything!

 

Cheers to you firemen...that equipment is AWFUL. Heavy and hot and...awful. 

Two last RANDOM stories from Quito. One: just an everyday kind of story. So one morning we went to this place for breakfast that we had walked by a couple of times and they always had fun, crazy, loud music playing and we said we have to go there at least once...so we did. Well...fun music maybe doesn't always indicate quality and cleanliness. So...we sat down and ordered the $1.25 desayuno (breakfast). The girl came up and asked us if we wanted pollo (chicken) or 'pecado' (fish...the word in Spanish for fish is pescado...but they all omit the s! It's hilarious) on our rice. Us: Mmm...neither. Her: very confused look. And walked away. She came back about a minut later with a plate of rice and said...'do you want your rice just like this? (plain) or con jugo de pollo?' (chicken juice). Oh....my. Just like that is great:) thanks. We also got bread with squeaky cheese, some bizarre blackberry juice that tasted fermented, and hard boiled eggs (which we found out later we got charged extra for.) And...as we were eating this amazing breakfast we were distracted out of the corner of our eyes by something moving on the wall...a rather large cockroach:) Mmm...Oh well...we had to try it and we did. And we lived and had full stomachs! 

Lastly...our hostel had wifi and Audrey and I had our room to ourselves...which meant...I got to Skype with Courtney and her whole family! It was unreal. So fun:) So when we first got on it was just Courtney, Rebekah, Joshua, and Bailey. I thought...well, SO fun to see each of them, but I guess all the young ones went to bed already and I don't get to see them too, sad. BUT...no. Courtney quickly explained that we were going to do this in shifts. Hahahaha. Madness. Her family is so big and AMAZING that we have to Skype in shifts. Their life. It was incredible to see all of them. I talked with the three oldest for a little bit...adorable. We made lots of faces at each other...cause what else do you do over Skype? And I think the only complete sentence Bailey managed in between making faces was, 'Hey Hannah, if you find any money on the ground there...can you bring it to me?' :) After inquiring about this interesting request...I found out Bailey is saving up for an iPad. :) Next they sent Lincoln up...who came running up to the computer and I THINK I just heard him go, 'noooooo,' like in disbelief and just laugh. I think it was pretty weird for him to see someone in a computer screen...so we MOSTLY just looked at each other and laughed and one point I pretended like I was tickling him cause he LOVED that before I left, and Courtney whose lap he was sitting on actually tickled him. He thought that was pretty funny. And THEN I did hear him speak some English! Which was totally bizarre. Apparently he's speaking some pretty perfect English these days. Nuts. Then, of course, Sawyer and Levi came next separately and we mostly just smiled and stared at each other:) Oh, and Levi KEPT saying...'bu-bye!' over and over, haha. THEN Courtney and I just got to talk for like an HOUR or something. Just the two of us. That was too cool. Skype, oh how I love you. So fun!  That was mostly it for Quito. We went on an adventure from Quito to the surrounding area for a couple of days, but I'll make that a separate little post.