Ecuador Wrap-Up

Facts and Figures
Length of Stay: 21 days
Miles Traveled: 750
Cities and Towns Visited: Quito, Quilotoa, Baños, Riobamba, Cuenca and Loja
Intercity Buses Taken: 5
Typical American Housepets Eaten: 2

Rankings and pictures in the full post.

Happy Thanksgiving From Peru, Where the Chicken Tastes Like French Toast

We spent our Thanksgiving Day taking a nine hour bus from Loja, Ecuador across the Peruvian border into Piura.  Despite the length, it was actually a nice bus ride due to music being played at less than earbleeding levels, the lack of an over-amorous couple next to me (which has happened twice now) and the scenery.  Setting south from Loja, the bus wound its way through lush, green mountains before making its way into a red and brown landscape that looked like it was imported from Arizona's Sonoran Desert.  As we traveled southwest into Peru, the mountains became more and more distant and eventually disappeared.

Piura has been the least impressive city or town we have visited so far.  The sides of the road coming into the city are covered in trash; the litter is so pervasive and evenly spread that it seems as though it's someone's job to drag around a huge garbage bag with a hole in the bottom.  The traffic here is much more chaotic than anything we saw in Ecuador, and looks like what I've read the traffic is like in Bangkok.  There are cars everywhere and traffic signals nowhere, and most of the cars are taxis (I would guess that taxis outnumber private vehicles at least ten-to-one).  Taxis here, like in most cities around the world, hold little regard for human life.  At least getting across the streets in this city is good practice for Southeast Asia.

We ate our Thanksgiving Diner at a little restaurant in downtown Piura.  I ordered chicken supreme, which I assumed was a rotisserie chicken, since that seems to be popular around here.  It was instead a breaded, pan-fried chicken filet, but it still looked good.  After my first bite, I could taste cinnamon, which was a little odd but the spice seems to be used more often here than in the US, so it wasn't completely surprising.  However, even aside from the cinnamon, the taste was weird but familiar, but I couldn't immediately put my finger on it.  A few more bites confirmed that it tasted exactly like french toast.  Magge and I came to the conclusion that it was fried in the same pan that fried their eggs and sweet plantains.  Bread + eggs + sweetness + cinnamon = french toast.  I love french toast, but not when I'm expecting to taste chicken.  Worst Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had.  As I tell Magge (when I'm trying to deflect how terrible something is): it's all part of the experience.

Laundry Day at the Bell Household

Hotel Santa Lucia

As many of you saw in my rankings, one of the top activities to which I was looking forward was our stay at the Santa Lucia Hotel in Cuenca (a beautiful old city that is one of Ecuador's four UNESCO World Heritage Sites). Nan and Mark kindly gave us this as a gift for our wedding. Well, it was amazing! As is the case with many buildings here in Cuenca, the lobby is a converted courtyard that absolutely takes your breath away as you enter. When we arrived, we were greeted with some yummy fruity drinks that tasted as though they had a hint of rose petals. Poor Jeff didn´t get very much because I quickly finished mine and then went ahead and had his as well. They insisted on carrying our bags everywhere, which is really nice after lugging those heavy things around much of Ecuador! The beds were amazingly comfortable – I will admit to watching a couple movies yesterday evening. I haven´t had many chances to watch TV! To really put things over the edge, we were brought a wonderful plate of fruit in the evening, filled with strawberries, pineapple and papaya (Ok, I admit we didn´t eat the papaya). Jeff had to carry me out kicking and screaming today at 11:58 (checkout was at noon).

It was difficult to get our thank you sign and the hotel sign in the same picture, so we had to do a separate close up.  I spent more time on the sign than I'd like to admit.  One more picture in the full post.

¿Donde está el tren?

I have always loved trains. I used to look forward to my (almost) weekly train rides from Philly to New York to see Jeff when I was living with Nanno and Daddo. As a child, I desperately wanted a train set – yet another example of my deprived childhood. So, when I read about the Nariz del Diablo train ride in Ecuador, I decided that was one thing Jeff and I definitely had to do. Due to traveling logistics, working the train ride into our itinerary was going to be difficult as it only left every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Jeff was on the fence about whether we should do the train ride (of course, for logistical reasons), but I insisted that we do it. Why was I insistent that we take the train ride? Well, for starters we were going to get to sit on top of the train and take in some of the most amazing vistas imaginable. On top of that, many reports talked of throwing candy to children as they passed through the different small towns (sounds fun, huh?). The end of the ride was going to be the best part: La Nariz del Diablo (the Devil´s Nose) is a mountain that the train descends that is so steep it has caused the ride to be dubbed the most dangerous train ride in the world. Did I mention we were going to get to sit ON TOP of the train while doing this? I was so excited.

One of many amazing La Nariz del Diablo train pictures found on the internet

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Ecuadorian Buses

• The Good:  Buses in Ecuador are cheap.  It costs about as much to take the eight hour trip from Quito to Cuenca as it did to take the five minute taxi ride in NYC from my apartment to work.
  
• The Bad:  Terrible music is blasted at 105 decibels on all the bus speakers.  There is some good music down here, but they sure don´t play it on the bus, and playing it at full blast doesn't make it sound any better.  Latin pop music is even worse than US pop music.  I've tried listening to my iPod, but my earphones get overpowered.  When the bus isn't busy playing the same ten terrible songs on loop, they play even worse B-movies on a small TV screen at the front of the bus at an equally eardrum-shattering volume.  Check out this gem that played on the trip from Quito to Baños (in Spanish without English subtitles).  Magge and I were actually watching it when they turned it off with fifteen minutes left, just so they could go back to their awful latin pop mix tape.
  
• The Ugly:  The nasty gringo couple to my left that made out continuously for two hours on my bus ride today from Alausi to Cuenca.  I couldn't look across the aisle without wanting to retch.  They were probably French.

Three Aborted Hikes Are Enough for One Day

I forgot to mention in my previous entry that Magge developed some very nasty blisters on her heels about halfway through the Quilotoa lake hike.  Being the trooper that she is, she finished the hike without complaining, limping until the very end.  I thought about taking pictures of them, but they may have grossed you out more than the cuy pictures.  The blisters still bother Magge, especially when climbing, which is almost impossible to avoid around here.  Despite this, we were going to try to go on a hike today around Baños.

• Hike 1:  Way too steep way too quickly for Magge's blisters.  Quit after 2.5 minutes.
• Hike 2:  We walked over a bridge - so far so good.  We started to climb - no good.  Quit after 7 minutes.
• Hike 3:  Magge spotted a path down to the Rio Pastaza, and even though it would be a steep ascent back, the climb looked pretty short so Magge decided to tough it out.  The only problem is that we ran into the bridge from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  I crossed it.  Magge didn't.  Quit after 20 minutes.

After three aborted hikes and less than thirty minutes of walking, we decided that was enough for the day.  We are headed to the thermal springs now instead.  Men in speedos, here I come.  Pictures in the full post.

Estamos subiendo

After a week in beautiful, but noisy and hectic, Quito, it was time to get out of the city to see some of Ecuador's countryside.  A tour operator called ECTravel came to our Spanish school last Wednesday to pitch a weekend trip to Quilotoa Lake, which is in a volcanic crater, and Cotopaxi National Park, and Magge and I eagerly signed up.

We were part of a group that included one American, three Germans (they're everywhere down here), two Finns, a Swiss and a Swede.  Before we left for this trip, Magge and I were a little wary of being around young, obnoxious travelers, since most backpackers tend to be in or just out of school, but it was a great group of people.  We left early Saturday morning, and it felt great to escape the urban sprawl.  There were clear skies throughout the drive and incredible vistas to the left and right of the bus.

The first thing I saw from my terrace when I woke up this morning...

We got into Baños late last night, and the town did not look like anything special in the dark.  It's a different story during the day though.  While the town itself consists mostly of tour operators, hostels, restaurants and gringos with backpacks, its setting is spectacular.  It is surrounded by mountain walls that seem to rise 90 degrees, and its lower elevation (only 5,800 ft, which is more than 500ft higher than Denver) means the mountains are more verdant here than in Quito (which sits at 9,100 ft, making it the second highest capital in the world, after La Paz, Bolivia).  Two more pictures of Baños in the full post.

McDonald's in Ecuador

Despite their insistence in using the terrible "I'm lovin' it" campaign (bring back What you want is what you get or even We love to see you smile), I am a fan of McDonald's. Yes, I know that their food is bad for me and that they represent an 'evil corporate culture', but their food is comfortable and consistently delicious.  

Thanks to my friend Serge, I found out that there is a McDonald's in every country I am planning to visit except for Vietnam.  Magge and I have thus decided that we are going to try a McDonald's in each country; not because we need American food and don't want to try the local cuisine (for proof, read yesterday's cuy entry), but because we want to approach it as an anthropological and cultural study (worst justification ever? maybe).  To kick off this recurring feature, here is our look at a McDonald's in Ecuador.

It's Cuy Time, Baby

The guinea pig is every American and Canadian kid´s favorite rodent.  Most everyone either has had one as a pet or knows someone who did.  However, in Andean cultues, the animal has been dometicated for approximately 7,000 years for the purpose of food.  To this day, cuy (roast guinea pig) is eaten by residents of Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, and by tourists wishing to impress the locals.  I had planned on waiting until we got to Peru to try out cuy, but our spanish school organized a trip today to a town about thirty minutes from Quito to eat it in a traditional diner, so Magge and I decided to check this off our list early in the trip.

I actually liked it, although it was a lot of work for the food and it was pretty expensive.  For the price of half a cuy, I could buy 4 set lunches (soup, rice, meat and fruit salad), so I probably won't eat it again on this trip.  Magge did not like the taste and did not finish her plate.

Pictures in the full post, but you may not want to see them if you've ever owned a guinea pig as a pet.

Quito Pictures

Magge is alive and well today and I was able to get the USB to upload some pictures.  At some point we'll upload all the pictures of the flowers she took at the botanical gardens, so you can check them out, if you're into that sort of thing.  Below is a picture of Quito at sunset, looking north from the rooftop of a restauran where we ate on Saturday.  More pictures in the full post.

5 Days in Quito

I'm finally getting around to posting an entry. We've stopped in internet cafés a few times, but only stayed long enough for me to check email and Vols news. Magge is currently suffering from a bout of what I assume is Montezuma's revenge, so I have all afternoon to do whatever I want. Naturally, I'm at the computer right now. We do have pictures to upload, but I don't know where the USB cord is and didn't want to wake Magge up to ask.

Follow Hostel Honeymoon on Twitter

As someone who's been making fun of Twitter and its users over the past year, it pained me to write the above title.  However, it does seem like it could be useful for quick communication, so I am giving it a shot.  What's the difference between hostelhoneymoon.com and the Twitter feed?  The website will contain longer, detailed entries with pictures, while the Twitter feed will consist of shorter, more frequent updates (e.g., Went hiking outside Cusco, Ate street vendor food and I'm still alive, Magge overpacked but she's not getting any sympathy from me, etc.) to keep people (i.e., our mothers) in the loop.

The five most recent Twitter updates will be in the box at the top right of this webpage.  To view all updates, go to http://twitter.com/HostelHoneymoon.  You do not need to sign up for Twitter to see this page, but you will need to sign up if you want to respond and send us direct messages.

Magge's Rankings

So my post will not be as comprehensive as Jeff's due to the fact that I am now spending a majority of my time attempting to consolidate all the various items we would like to take with us as much as possible. Jeff believes I will never be able to pack all the items I would like to bring. Silly guy! :-)

Pre-Trip Rankings

The most common question I've received about the upcoming year (aside from "why are you doing this?") is what I'm most excited about.  Given the scope of the trip, it's a very difficult question to answer succinctly, so I've made a top five list in four categories.  At the end of the trip, I'll redo the lists based on actual experience, so we'll see how well expectations match up with reality.  Magge will post her own rankings in the next day or two - to see mine, click "Read More".

Our Current Travel Schedule

Our itinerary is still somewhat flexible.  For the most part, we have decided which countries we will visit, and we have booked most of our international flights.  However, we're still open to making detours and we can still make changes to the dates of our flights.  If you want to meet up with us at any of these locations or anywhere close to these locations, just let us know.  However, be warned that we will stick our budget (somewhere slightly above shoestring), so there will be no Four Seasons or all-inclusive resorts for us.

• November 5 - November 27:  Ecuador.  A week in Quito before making our way down the spine of the Andes through Cuenco to the Peruvian border.
• November 28 - January 31:  Peru.  December will be spent volunteering at Bruce Peru in Trujillo.  We will take January to travel throughout the country, likely focusing on the southern Andes around Cusco and possibly making our way into the Amazon.
• Febuary 1 - March 7:  Chile.  We will travel by bus as far south as we can, hopefully making it into northern Patagonia, before backtracking to Santiago to meet up with Magge's mother and stepfather, where we will leave for Easter Island.
• March 7 - March 13:  Tahiti.  The only reason we're visiting French Polynesia is because it's the most direct route from Easter Island to New Zealand.  It's a truly unfortunate situation.
• March 13 - April 10:  New Zealand.  As of now, I suspect we'll spend a week on the North Island and three weeks on the South Island.
• April 10 - May 5:  Australia.  We'll begin in Sydney and then head to Queensland, where we plan on doing some scuba diving.
• May 5 - June 18:  Southeast Asia.  The plan here has not been nailed down yet.  We are flying into Singapore and are fairly certain we'll visit Thailand and Vietnam, but the dates are still up in the air.  Malaysia and Cambodia are still up for consideration.
• June 18 - June 25:  Jordan.  The primary goal for Jordan is to visit Petra.
• June 25 - mid July:  Greece.  I've already received some requests from folks to meet us here, but my parents and siblings have first dibs.
• Mid July - mid August:  Italy and Croatia.  We're meeting Magge's mother and stepfather in Croatia.
• Mid August - mid September:  France.  Here's where I get to test how much the French enjoy my jokes about the French.
• Mid September - early October:  Spain.  There's an outside chance we'll dip into Portugal.
• October - November:  South Africa.  Most of our time will probably be spent in Cape Town and the surrounding area.  We will do 1.5-2 months of volunteer work here.
• We will have some transit stops in London around our time in South Africa.  We may decide to spend more time in the city if the budget and schedule allow for it.

Prepare for Cross-Check

What began a year ago as merely a desire to do something different has taken shape as a yearlong trip spanning roughly 34,000 miles. The humor website Stuff White People Like has an article deriding taking a year off. As a fan of that website who often laughed at the other objects of scorn (such as being an expert on YOUR culture, expensive sandwiches and threatening to move to Canada), seeing that article soon after I had made the decision to take a year off was a punch to the gut. It wasn't enough of a gut punch to make me reconsider the trip, but it did make me scrap plans for an email distribution to keep people updated on our travels and instead make this website. Now, only those who really want to be updated (i.e., my mother, Magge's mother and maybe a handful of others) will be and there will be no unnecessarily clogged inboxes.

I will try to update this website as often as I can, as well as making sure Magge writes every once in a while, as I'm sure her entries will be less cynical and more emotionally fulfilling to read. We leave for Ecuador in two weeks, and I will post a few times before then, including our general itinerary so you can start thinking about where and when to meet us.