Intrepid is Impressive

Hey readers,

We have been gone for a while. Away from home and the blog. But after a long vacation to see family in the United States, we are back and full of stories. Aside from seeing family, I (Greg) was most excited to visit New York City. As I have told many people, I had visited NYC once as a kid 20 years ago. I came from a small town in central Wisconsin were the tallest building was about 5 stories high. On that trip, we arrived to Grand Central Station on the Amtrak. The instant my family walked out of the station I was overwhelmed by the tall buildings, a mugging of a handicapped person right in front of me, police on horses, and what seemed like my parents disappeared in all of this big city chaos.

That city of chaos image was in the back of my head as we flew in to NYC, however, we have lived in enough big cities now for 10 years so that I had a good feeling the city would feel very normal to me. In fact, Ayelet and I had to do one of our new travel approaches of divide and conquer since we admit to having a variety of interests to satisfy. That allowed me to really take in the city that scared me as a child and experience it from a whole different perspective.

My main stop was to go to the Intrepid Museum and see the new display of the Enterprise Space Shuttle.

Like everything in NYC, this display was impressive and over the top. The Intrepid Museum is one of a kind. It is a museum dedicated to aircraft and is housed on and in a retired Navy aircraft carrier.

Not only does this museum showcase a wide range of flying things, but you can get great city views from this angular piece of floating crafted metal.

Yoga Retreat in Mindo

I've been lucky to get in with a group of yogis at the local international school called Academia Cotopaxi. They meet every Thursday after school and it's only a 30 minute walk from our apartment.

When one of the ladies suggested a yoga retreat in Mindo at the end of the year, I was all for it. You may remember Mindo was one of our first trips last year and it was great to be back.

The yoga instructor is a teacher from Alaska and she taught 2 2-hour classes during the weekend. The rest of the time we hiked, read, played games, and basically chilled out. Quito can be hectic, noisy and crowded so getting to this eco lodge (El Monte) was wonderful. I'm looking forward to next year's retreat already!

Cool wood table and stump chairs with native fabric padding.

 Yes, that is a tree growing out of the floor.

We took over this space for our yoga classes and we just barely fit!

Breakfast, lunch and dinner was included - and it was delicious!

This little guy fell in love with my shoes on the last day.
Sorry bud - Scoots would eat you if you came home with me!

Quito's Beautiful Botanical Gardens

Wow, has it been a long time since we posted or what?! Anyway, I'm here now and have a little time to write and schedule some posts to go out while when we're in the US on vacation.


There was a long weekend in May in which we didn't go out of town so we got to see parts of Quito that we hadn't visited yet. One was the Botanical Gardens with friends of ours.

It was one of those places that I hope we can get back to next year because it really is a beautiful, peaceful place. They have an amazing collection of orchids and exotic flowers so we had a very good time. Here are some pics that Greg and I took (lots of our favorite, macro photos!):

The Long Journey to Papallacta II

We have been to Papallacta before, but never like this.

Tamara, Meghan, and Ayelet keeping their backs to the wind

The road was long, rainy, and being swept with strong winds. The hiking conditions were so bad that two of those three hikers in the picture above would not arrive to Papallacta on foot, but by bus. And frankly, I do not blame them.

Greg before the trail gets rough

We started with a group of nine people on Saturday morning on what we hoped to be a 5-7 hour hike through a beautiful lake district in the Cayambe-Coca National Park. After walking two miles up a service road to a mountain pass, our group decided to split up. Half of the group went back because of the gusty wind and driving rain.

As four of us journeyed on, I soon began to regret my choice. I could barely see. Our small group walked at different paces so I was soon on my own, ankle deep in mud and water, and slipping down the trail. Soon a hard fall in the mud instantly followed by another made me frustrated and shaky. My feet were still dry, but not for long.

As I pushed on from one trail marker to the next, I was glad that the clouds were not so thick and that the rain was letting up. However, the trail turned from an endless mud pit into a shin-deep bog. The occasional hop over a puddle would forcefully drive my feet deep into the deceiving marsh. Words from my dad were now stuck in my head, "Don't let your feet get wet or you will be cold."

What I did not know at the time was that I was about halfway through the hike at that point. I stopped to gather my thoughts and take a rest as I entered the lakes region of the reserve.

From there on out, the hike was mostly flat, but the muddy patches kept reappearing. I was fed up, but knew I had to push on. I needed to get my brain off how bad the conditions were and onto something else.

So, I decided to do some math. Everything here is metric and the trail signs let me figure out that I was hiking at over 10,000 feet and that my journey would end up to be around 9 miles. I had finished the hard part and was excited to meet up with Ayelet and the group who were comfortably sitting in the thermal baths in Papallacta.

We had a refreshing overnight stay with friends and roasted s'mores over the campfire in our cabin. You can be assured that a Papallacta III will take place, just maybe on a different path.

A hummingbird to point us home

Chiva!

What is a chiva you may be asking yourself? Well, I can't say that it is a Spanish word, because I have never looked it up. However, if I did I think the definition would probably read:

Chiva - an open air bus that has had all of it seats removed to create a dance floor space; hand rails have been added for those unexpected starts and stops so no clients fall out; drinking a warm alcoholic beverage called canelazo is optional; bus must be driven very slowly through the city with loud music and dance club lights flashing.

(Source: Wikipedia - this one's in Queens, NYC!)

However, if you look up "chiva" online, you will see a whole range of pictures - many with a band on top.

Surprisingly, the slow ride was a great way to see the city at night. Quito really gets quiet in most neighborhoods after 10pm and this let us see all of those twinkling streets lights that we stare at each night from our apartment.

Ayelet and I had a great night dancing while celebrating a friend's birthday. I'm glad we hopped on the bus for the chiva party. 

Top 5 Noisiest Nights in Quito... So Far!

You already know from our previous posts about Quito that it's not exactly the quietest place in the world. It's not super noisy all the time, but when it is, it's annoying. Last night was one of those annoying nights (#3 on the list).

And I want to explain something before people reply letting me know that I should have called the police. It's pretty well-known that the police here are ineffectual. It's highly unlikely you'd reach anyone if you called or that they would bother enough to check anything as small as noise disturbances. Calling the police seems like one of those things that people in developed nations take for granted. At least that's how I see it after being here for 9 months.

1. House alarm

One pleasant evening, someone's house alarm kept going off, every 10-20 minutes or so. We thought maybe they were just out and would be back to take care of it by a decent hour. Yeah, that didn't happen and it continued that way through the night.

The next morning, Greg investigated the source and found it to be the marketing agency a block from our place. He knew it was them by the multiple notes that were left on its door. The alarm literally sounded like it was right next door.

2. Sound check 

I can't remember now which concert it was, but the day before a big one, some musical genius decided to run a sound check from 11 pm until 3 or 4 am in the morning. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to someone at the time. That made for another very sleepless night for us and most everyone in the neighborhood.

3. Fireworks and then a helicopter 

Last night (or should I say early this morning) we were awoken to fireworks being shot off somewhere nearby at 5:30 in the morning. Since the clock is on Greg's side of the bed, I guessed the time to be about 3 am, which made sense in a weird way because I thought it was probably someone who came home from a wild night and decided to continue it with fireworks. When Greg told me that it was 5:30 am, I was livid from the nonsensical nature of it all. I'm pretty sure he or she racked up quite a bit of bad karma from last night's fun.

To make a sleepless night worse, there was no sleeping in because of a helicopter circling our part of town for no apparent reason at 8 am. They don't have TV helicopters here (as far as I know) so we think it was a military helicopter. Since it was only one of them, I knew Colombia hadn't attacked Ecuador or anything like that. Don't worry - that's just the running joke in our home for some un-remembered reason. I think we're pretty safe from Colombia.

4. Weed whacker 

The genius behind the weed whacker at 6:30 in the morning was our neighbors' guard/maintenance guy. He was in such a rush to weed whack early in the morning and wake everyone up within a 1 block radius. Why? I have NO clue because the rest of the day he just stands at the gate, trying to look official and staring at everyone as they pass by. I know this because I take my breaks from work and designing to look down and see if he's doing anything useful. 

Besides weed whacking at obscene hours of the morning, he also likes wielding a blowtorch at anything metal (not using any sort of safety equipment besides a cardboard "mask" - I cannot make this sort of stuff up). Sometimes he stops the gas tank guy to get propane tanks for the tenants in his building. And that's about it.

5. Everyday noises

Lastly, there are the everyday noises in our neighborhood (and in all neighborhoods in Quito). The dogs barking whenever they feel like it; the planes landing or pulling up because of the fog; the car alarms going off; the cars honking randomly. It's really excellent, I can't even begin to explain.

Galapagos Adventure the Movie

It is the movie you have all been waiting for that features mostly...

...animals. And, if any of your can tell me what the 3D option on Youtube means I would love to know.

Luckily in the Galapagos the animals don't really mind if you put a camera really, really close to them. This is about 45 minutes worth of video widdled down to about 7. Making movies is kind of fun. It brings me back to my high school days where we had to go VCR to VCR or beg the tech department at school to let us use their equipment. This was much easier.