Halloweeeeeeeen!!!

In spite of the fact that Halloween in Cuenca is largely reserved for tweens and university students attending costume bashes (do people still use that word? Bash?) we somehow managed to make the best of it.  We didn't pack costumes and although we could have borrowed a couple the boys wanted to pick their own.  Luckily Cuenca is filled with costume stores where for a mere $7.00 you can rent whatever you want in any size.  So we fought the crowds of scantily dressed 20 somethings looking for sexy devil, police maiden or what have you (yes, halloween translates pretty accurately over here) to pick out......GHOULS.   There were two basic requirements the boys had 1) they had to be scary and 2) they had to have masks.   Masks that literally only stayed on for that picture to  the left.



Jack-o-Melon

We were invited over to Diego and Inga's (yet again!) to enjoy the holiday along with a few other familes.  It ended up being a great night!  The evening started with John carving a watermelon.  Pumpkins/squash are rare here and even if you are able to get your hands on one they are expensive!  So thanks to a brilliant idea from Inga, we were easily able to carve this melon.  The bonus is the insides are way more delicious then a bunch of salty seeds.

After dinner the kids put on their costumes and we prepared to trick or treat. Inga and Diego have a couple of other buildings on their property, so one to two adults camped out at each 'house' to pass out candy.  The kids walked around twice to maximize their 'treats' and fill their bags.  It ended up being just the right amount of candy for everyone. 

Lastly, to share one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken, give you this gem...

Two little girls didn't make it

 





















I can't decide, but I think it is even creepier in black and white...



Diego, My Friend

I feel I would be remiss without a brief post on my newfound friendship with Diego. I have mentioned several times throughout this blog the luck we had in meeting Diego and Inga, for a variety of reasons. From the mountain biking to the events with our kids to our fun conversations, it has been a wonderful thing.

It is pretty amazing to have encountered someone with so many shared tastes. Over the past two months, Diego and I spent a great deal of time together biking, playing with kids, traveling around the country, having breakfast double-dates with our wives, dreaming up business ideas, or making music together (with no fear of poor singing). And of course, the morning of October 31 when we met for biking, he was kind enough to greet me like this:

Diego & Joaquin, the day after the Cardinals lost the World Series to the Red Sox

In any case, I shall miss our regular friendship, but look forward to future adventures with my new friend.

From Words to Wings

A few weeks back, I joined Diego and Inga on a visit to a rural school on a mountainside near Sigsig, about 90 minutes from Cuenca. Inga and Diego have created a not-for-profit called “From Words to Wings” whose purpose is to provide books to primary schools in Ecuador and thereby enhance the love of reading.

 

As I witnessed in our own kids’ relatively upper class school, books are not widely available. As Inga explained to me, reading books simply isn’t ingrained in the Ecuadorian culture the way it is in developed countries. We are quite accustomed to books for children – certainly, one of the most common gifts given at baby showers or the first several birthdays of a child are those classic childhood books. What American isn’t familiar with the wonders of Dr. Seuss or Beatrix Potter or Shel Silverstein? Perhaps we don’t know all of them, but nearly all of us has memories of reading these books as children. We take many things for granted, but children’s books are something I never once considered in that respect.

So why doesn't Ecuador have the culture of reading? There are surely plenty of reasons, but a lack of access to books is a big part of it. Books can be costly here. Back home in the U.S., there are discount book sellers, yard sales, second-hand bookstores and libraries galore, but that system never developed here. Consequently, to build a library with the limited funds of many schools over the years, children never had the same opportunities to explore the beauty of reading.

A first grader enjoying a book

The charity is in its earliest stages – they are still setting it up properly under the US not-for-profit corporation code, but it seemingly has great prospects. It is definitely a cause I can support, and will work to help them from the US, especially after they have their proper designations completed (making it easier to secure donations).

In any case, it is small, and the books available are quite limited, gifted from their friends. Their American friends back home were to quick to provide several, but of course, most of them in were in English. As most of the support goes to rural schools where English is not in the core curriculum, they need Spanish books…so monetary donations in the future will help get those Spanish books.

This is the school we visited

As it stands now, they have a small library, and they provide a set of books to schools to use for a month, and each month the books change schools. With each initial visit, Inga reads a book or two to the class. On the day I visited, the kids were enthralled with her reading, and the teachers were grateful for the help. The school had around 100 students between kindergarten and 9^th grade, which of course meant for shared grades. We first read books to the younger kids’ classroom – kindergarten & 1^st grade. After reading the books, Inga talks about the importance of reading, and provides the basics on how to take care of the books so that others can use them in the future.

After that reading, it was time for recess. All of the kids came out at once while we chatted with the staff of 6 teachers. At the end of recess, the kids lined up according to their classes, and the head teacher introduced the three of us to the school in a touching and grateful manner.

Finally, we went to the 2^nd/3^rd grade class, where the 4^th grade joined us. After Inga read her books, we passed the books out amongst the students. I got to walk around and watch the excitement as they turned the pages. They couldn’t get enough. As soon as they finished one book, they were eager for more. It was really neat to see.

In Roald Dahl's classic, "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory", the Oompa-Loompas sing about the danger of television and the joy of books:

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start--oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Just imagine, Roald Dahl implored his readers to get their kids back on reading, for abandoning what we should treasure. In rural Ecuador, Diego and Inga want to merely give these kids the opportunity. I'm grateful I got to witness the rapidly growing joy on the faces of these kids and they read these books.

If anyone reading this blog is visiting Cuenca and would like to bring some books to donate, or perhaps help in any other way, please let us know and we can provide their contact information. A website, www.fromwordstowings.org, is currently under development.

Los Frailes (or, How to Have Fun on the Coast Without Any Sun - Part II)

After our long day at Isla de la Plata, we returned home and before long, we were all fast asleep. It rained much of the night, and we awoke to find another gray, misty day. Walking outside, we were greeted by many enormous snails who came out in the rain.

After having a wonderful breakfast of pancakes at the lodge, we piled in the car and headed for Los Frailes, a beach inside Machalilla National Park. When talking to people about things to on the coast, Los Frailes was always among people's top 3 items. We arrived to find the beach relatively empty, which wasn't surprising given the overcast and relatively cool day. The beach itself was pretty, but it wasn't stunning by any stretch of the imagination. The beach was situated on a little bay, with rocky hills jutting out in the water on either side of the half-mile-long stretch.

The boys had a blast, though, as children tend to do on beaches. The water kept them warm, and the waves crashed very close to the beach (they refer to such waves as "playera" here), allowing them to play - none were too big to be scary. They danced in and out of the water all day long, jumping over waves, running from them, and riding on them on the hotel-provided boogie boards.

Afterwards, we took a little hike up to a lookout tower on one of the ridges. It was a nice hike through the dry, dead forest, with lots of flora to explore along the way - more Palo Santo (Incense) Trees, and lots of cool looking cactus groves. At the top of the lookout, we noticed on the other side of the ridge there was another cove, this one quite rocky. We saw a few others over there, and hiked down ourselves. 

Once we got over there, it was stunning. The shore was mostly a great big rock, and we stood there watching the waves batter the shore, and then run back down across the rocks to the sea. Where there wasn't any rock, the sand - which was pretty white on the other side of the ridge - was black volcanic sand...which was pretty neat because 5000 miles to the Northwest, Uncle Matt and Aunt René were on the black-sand beaches of Hawaii.

After our hike, we returned back to the hotel and had a nice dinner of freshly caught seafood. We relaxed in the lodge, watching a few innings of the World Series, before retiring to bed. After waking in the morning, we hopped back in the car and returned to Cuenca, happy in our final trip through the Southern part of Ecuador.

In all, we were able to conquer (or at least visit) the three primary ecosystems Ecuador has to offer - the Avenue of the Volcanoes and the mountain region; the Amazon rainforest to the East; and the coastal region to the West. What an adventure this has been!

Things we have missed

As it is with any move into a new place, whether it's from St. Louis to Washington or Chicago to Hong Kong, there's always those things that you can't get in your new city. Of course, there's those things that you get in the new city you can't get at home. And so I thought it might be fine to create a record of those things that relate to Cuenca.

Things we have missed:

• Good old fashioned American, must-be-refrigerated, milk. There's nothing like it anywhere in the world, at least where I've been.     

• Bikes. The kids pine over their absence daily. 

• Trains. Another big absence in Elliott's life is the lack of toy trains. 

• Beer with color (a/k/a good beer). There are three local beer brands down here, and all of them sell lager style beer. I do like the brand Pilsener, but it gets old. The only imports I've found are also lagers - Heineken, Budweiser and Corona, and being imports, they are double the price of back home. I don't think $7.99 for a 6 pack of Corona is worth it at home, much less the $15 it costs here. I miss my pale ales, Guinness, IPAs...anything with flavor. 

• Reasonably priced wine. Okay, now we sound like alcoholics. But there are few choices in most categories here, and we enjoy some variance with our adult beverages. The combination of Ecuador's status as a non-wine producing country with high import tariffs mean that wine is expensive, so consequently, we haven't had much, and what we've had has not been good. 

• Mexican food. The only place I've visited in the world that I haven't missed Mexican food is...Mexico. You just can't find quality Mexican food outside of North America. 

• Shoes. Okay, only Shannon misses her shoes. But it's understandable. She only traveled with three pairs. 

• Heat.  None of the buildings in Cuenca have heating systems built in, due to the mild climate. But a long stretch of cold, rainy weather makes for a chilly house, and sometimes a little heat would be nice.

Of course, there are those things that we have grown to love down here that we are most certainly going to miss at home:

• Cheap produce. Can't beat the ridiculous low prices of produce and the multitude of farmer's markets around town.  

• Native fruits. There are some great fruits down here that we just can't get at home. 

• Granadilla. This is a hard-shelled fruit; you crack it open and, and with a spoon, you eat the seeds and the pulp (which looks and feels like slime, but is absolutely scrumptious). This is a cousin of the passion fruit. 

• The several varieties of bananas. Sure, we can get the normal Chiquita bananas down here, but there are smaller, sweet bananas, plantains, and others. The variety is fantastic. 

• Mora. It's really just a blackberry, but their version is slightly different - bigger, juicier, and a little more tart. It is as common as any fruit down here, and is probably the most popular. It makes fantastic juice, sauce, yogurt, ice cream, you-name-it. 

• Tomate de arbol. The juice is just delicious.

• Peanut butter. Shannon raves about the peanut butter you get in Ecuador. It's natural, has a great grainy texture, and just tastes better.
• Aji sauce (hot sauce). It's Ecuador's style of hot sauce. It's not too hot, but it does have a great flavor.
• The mountains. Oh, how do I love thee, mountains! Let me count the ways:
• Real mountain biking. Not off-road trail biking - which is great, don't get me wrong, but it isn't mountain biking. Riding for miles and only going up sounds a bit agonizing, and it can be, but the views are so spectacular, and the downward runs are so much fun.   
• Driving. The challenge of driving in the mountains, particularly in Ecuador, is fun in and of itself, and that doesn't even include the amazing views at every turn, of seeing the cloud cover above you and then driving up through it, only to look back down on the clouds. Of course, driving within those super-dense clouds in the mountains isn't quite so much fun.
• The air. I can't really describe it, but when I returned from my trips to the humid rainforest and coast, arriving back home in the dry, cool mountain air just felt right.                  
• Just seeing them every day. Walking around Cuenca on a clear day and gazing out at the mountains, I cannot imagine a more serene setting. I feel this way in Denver and every other mountain town I've spent time in. I will miss seeing them.

•  The new friends we made.  Comes with the territory of any new trip.

And finally, there are definitely things we won't miss when we leave:

• Fear of getting clobbered by a bus. Because this is an old colonial city built before cars, the sidewalks can be narrow (or non-existent), and buses fly down the street. I am constantly in fear of getting hit by a bus' mirror hanging over the sidewalk, or worse...

• The gringo discount. Unscrupulous vendors will apply a gringo discount - doubling the standard price - when we approach. It's annoying to have to be on guard against this.

Of Boobies & Booty (or, How to Have Fun on the Coast without Sun - Part I)

Last Friday morning, we arose just before dawn and took to our rented car and headed west for the coast. Our final significant journey in the country was upon us - having visited the Avenue of the Volcanoes and the Amazon rainforest, the last significant trip within our reach was the Pacific coast. Our goal was to get to the coast by early afternoon, enjoy a few hours on the beach on Friday, then a day trip to Isla de la Plata (Silver Island), one more day at the beach, then back home on Monday.

The day began with a magnificent drive through Cajas National Park, and then a long descent down the mountains to the coast. We passed through downtown Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador, a port city of 3 million people). It was sprawling, and we hit traffic at 9:15 in the morning, but otherwise uneventful. We reached the coast by 11:00, and ultimately reached our destination, Ayampe, by 1:30 in the afternoon.

The view from our balcony

Our lodging was set in the hills above the coast in tropical rainforest. We had a nice little cabin on the hillside with a hammocked balcony overlooking the seashore below. It was a beautiful, albeit humid and damp, setting. The seashore below was rocky, but we had a good time exploring for a couple of hours, watching the crabs crawl around and the waves explode against the rocks.

The rocks didn't make for your typical, fun beach experience, but provided fun exploration - and the sound of the waves crashing into the rocks at night was wonderful while falling asleep.

Saturday morning, we awoke to a steady drizzle and very low hanging clouds - it was so foggy, we couldn't see the craggy little island about a 1/2 mile off shore. We were nervous about going on a big tour to the island, but were reassured by the hotel staff that the weather was different on the island. So we headed for the town of Puerto Lopez - the main town in the region - big enough to have a stoplight (which was the point of reference for all directions handed out). The town, like nearly all of the coast we had seen thus far, was dirty and seemingly much poorer than the mountain regions we had visited.

Puerto Lopez - the Malecon (main beach drag)

After following the directions (turn at the appliance store, before you get to the stoplight), we quickly found our tour company's office and paid for our tour to the Island. We killed thirty minutes, and then met with our tour guide and other tour mates, and headed down to the pier to catch our boat.

It was 9:30 in the morning, and the pier/beach area was busy with fisherman returning from their morning outing, and selling their catch. We would later partake in the fresh fish - calamari, shrimp, octopus and dorado - and without exception, it was wonderful.

After gazing at the fish market, we headed down the pier and walked out onto our little boat. It sat about 14 people, not including the captain on top. We were given lifejackets and instructions for safety, and we set out on the 25 mile trip to the island.

We had two tour guides with us, Galo and Klever. They were official park guides to the Machalilla National Park - a park which covers a significant region of the coast and includes Isla de la Plata. Klever explained the significance of the park, and discussed what we would be doing that day. He told us that we had about a 5% chance of seeing whales on the trip, explaining that the whales are around between May and September, and near the end of September they begin their migration to Antarctica.

Well, we were lucky. As we approached the island, the captain killed the engine and informed us that he had spotted two whales off starboard (right). Before too long, we spotted the pair of humpback whales, and they proceeded to put on a show, rolling along and "waving" their fins at us, blowing water and a couple of times, giving some spectacular jumps. Everyone on the ship watched intently, and we spent around 30 minutes just gazing at the spectacular beasts.

It was breathtaking to see this up-close-and-personal. The Isla de la Plata looms in the distance.

Our tour guides on the way to the island.

 We soon landed at the Isla de la Plata. The island is so named because of its legacy as the hiding place of pirates...and not just any pirates. The most famous of them all, Sir Francis Drake, made this island his hiding place, and allegedly buried treasure here. You can imagine the excitement of two boys upon hearing this factoid.

Pirate's booty is not why we had come, however. We had come to seek the "Poor-man's Galapagos," as it is known. It is a much simpler trip to make, being a little over an hour by boat, much cheaper, and the island contains many of the animal treasures found in the Galapagos - varieties of the booby - blue-footed, red-footed and Nazca, the frigatebird, albatross and sea lions. No giant turtles, marine iguanas or penguins, but still pretty exciting.

The boys loved the "Do-Not" images

When we reached the beach - the only harbor on the island, we found a small building. At one point, the island was privately held, and the building was used for a fishing club. The rich fisherman brought with them animals from the mainland - horses, goats, cats, dogs and the most famous of stowaways, rats. The park service was able to remove all of the immigrant animals except for the rats. They're just too smart and they reproduce too quickly, Galo explained.

Galo gave us the lay of the land, and explained the trails. He told us that the trail to the albatross nesting area was closed, because the albatross is a timid bird. It is nesting season - and if the albatross are spooked, they will fly away and abandon their young, so given their endangered state, they need to feel protected.

And so we set off on our two hour, 3-4 km hike through the island. It was wintertime on the island, so there was very little greenery. It was dry and dusty - they refer to this ecosystem here as "dry tropical forest", and the weather was warm - around 75-80 degrees. As we headed up the hill to the top of the island - around 150 meters - we passed several lizards, and the interesting tree called the "palo santo" or incense tree. Galo broke apart some twigs of the tree for us to smell - they contained a very distinct odor, as you might expect from the tree called "incense tree". It has multiple uses, from incense in catholic churches to various medical uses.

Finally, we reached the top of the island, and the main purpose of our visit - to find the booby. We did not see any of the red-footed variety, the blue-footed booby was everywhere. It was their breeding season, and we got to see several nests with eggs and hatchlings. The boobies pair up during the breeding season, and stay together for about 8 months to help raise the young. We observed more male birds sitting on eggs and feeding the young than the other way around!

A baby-booby squawks to his daddy that he's hungry. Boy can I sympathize!

The boys learned how to tell the difference between males and females - males have smaller pupils and whistle, while the females make more of a honking sound. The birds were incredibly docile and trusting of the tours, and if we had wanted to, we could have reached out and petted them. The trail was also littered with feathers from the birds. Upon collecting his first one, Finn gave it to me slyly and said, "Can you put this in your backpack? I don't want them to think I petted a bird." 

A pair. The male is on the left - note the small pupils.

Elliott captured this photo of Finn and I near a nesting booby.

We continued on our hike and saw the frigatebird nesting area. Frigatebird males are notable for their puffy red chest, but this is only on display during the mating season, which unfortunately is not in October. It's the 'stuff' the males will strut to win their mate, just as the blue feet are a source of pride for male blue-footed boobies. In any case, we saw hundreds of the pelican relative, and eventually headed back down to the harbor.

Once there, we climbed back into the boat and had lunch - sandwiches along with some fantastic watermelon and pineapple. From there, we cruised to another part of the island to do some snorkeling. Now, at this point, the temperature had dipped a bit - it was still cloudy - and was probably in the low 70s. However, the ocean in this part of the world is quite warm - nothing like the frigid Pacific I have known from California. I grabbed my snorkel gear (provided by the tour), and Finn wanted to suit up as well.

After the water

Finn got in, but decided he couldn't see through his mask, so gave up. After I swam around for a while - the snorkeling wasn't too great - both boys decided they wanted back in. However, the initial shock of the water against the cold air was too much for them - they resisted my entreaties that they'd feel fine in a minute, and got out as fast as they could.

When the snorkeling was over, it was a quiet ride back to the coast. The water was a little choppy, but after a long day of swimming and hiking, that didn't stop the boys (and several others on the tour) from taking a nice nap on the ride home.

Travel gene? Okay. Museum gene? Naw. Really?

The weekend after our jungle trip, we took it pretty easy. The weather that Saturday was fantastic, so we bummed around town in the morning, enjoyed a little street music at a gringo coffee shop and had lunch out.

After lunch, I wanted to walk down to the local Inca ruins - which were a good walk away. Elliott was tired and not in the mood for walking, but Finn wanted to see what the ruins were all about, so Shannon took Elliott home and Finn and I went to the ruins.

The ruins were pretty nondescript. The tour books say that the Spanish dismantled most of the Incan settlement to and used the stones to build Cuenca. Sounds a little like a travesty, but then, the Incas dismantled the previous Cañari settlement (the native inhabitants to the area) to build their town. In any case, all that remained were the stone foundations of some of the buildings and evidence of the way the mountain had been terraced for farming & walking.

Finn the photographer

Finn, however, loved the entire experience. He wanted to soak up every part of this place. We had to walk up and down every path to make certain we didn't miss a single part of the place.

In order to add a little excitement to the tour, they have added a "farm" at the base of the mountain to show what the Incas may have farmed in their day. We roamed around the various crops, from corn to various fruits to quinoa.

Finn with the quinoa crop

We finished up the outside part of the tour looking at a variety of tropical birds - primarily parrots and toucans. I'm not certain what they had to do with this place, but it made it a little more interesting!

Above the Incan ruins there was a cultural museum. I was pretty tired from all the walking myself, but Finn insisted we go in. Now, it should be said that I do love a good museum. In the right museum, I can spend hours. Of course, there are a lot of boring and uninteresting museums (at least in my opinion), but give me the Louvre, the National Gallery or the Great War Museum in Moscow, and I can roam for hours and days.

I am not alone in this - my mom also loves to explore museums. She and I have enjoyed several museums together - from the Art Museum in St. Louis to Hampton Court in England. My siblings, however, do not share my zest for museums. My mom loves to tell the story of the time she took the three of us to the Met in New York - after an hour, my sister and brother found her and claimed, "We've seen it. We're done," while I was still had yet to make it out of the Impressionist room. Anyway, at least the love of museums is something I have always shared with my mom, and I treasure that.

After spending the day with Finn at the ruins and the museum - and recalling my day with him at the Peace Museum in Giron, we certainly have another member of the family with the "gene". The museum was not very exciting. It covered the various regions of Ecuador and the cultures of each region - cultures such as the indigenous Quechua and Shuar, or the Afro-ecuadorian culture, or simply the mountain or coastal culture. There were displays of those cultures (frequently, the displays represent life as it is today) along with artifacts - some of which were truly artifact, and some which could be found on the street today. Finn explored each area of the museum with interest, and we spent nearly two hours there.

Though I myself would not have spent that amount of time there, I cannot wait to enjoy many more museums with Finn - and my mom - in the future.

My first Jack-O-Melon

Pumpkins are hard to find here, so we make due!

The Day I Let A Stranger Lead My Family Into A Dense Forest...(The Jungle Part II)

We cross over another creek and climb a dilapidated bridge as Edi easily navigated us out of the jungle. Covered in mud up to our ears and famished, we headed back to the cars.  This, of course, was not before we paid Edi for his handy skills and his time, handed him a bag of cookies (from the USA!!), and thanked him profusely.   

Resting back at Edi's house with more of his family.

After we left Edi, we treated ourselves to a delicious lunch at a nearby hostel where we reminisced the days events. It was a beautiful setting overlooking the local river basin, complete with domesticated local wildlife.

Finally, we returned to our hosteria, where the kids played in the wonderful (but chilly) pool/water park. 

The next morning at breakfast we spoke with the manager of the hostel about the best possible direction home, clearly we wanted to avoid the 4 hour drive on the dirt road from Limon to Gualaceo.  The manager made a phone call with the strangest wireless phone EVER.  It looked like your traditional wired phone - a handset connected to a cradle by a wire - but the cradle itself was wireless. The phone call was to inquire about the condition of the original road with the mudslide only to find out the road is...still sliding in mud.  CLOSED.  The manager proposed another route, but it was a private road which you have to be granted special access from a special someone to cross a bridge.  The manager just so happened to be elected to a provincial government post the day before but he didn't start until Monday and unfortunately didn't think he could pull strings for us to get us easy bridge access. The alternative route would be out of the way but would ensure a beautiful drive through Sangay National Park.  The drive home did not disappoint, with a vast array of converging rivers, picturesque waterfalls, and thick lush trees it was a feast for the eyes.

Looking for the wreckage

We stopped a few times to take in the beauty and make countless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  At one point we saw a few highway workers peering over the edge of a steep cliff (guard rails are a rare sight here).  The workers informed us that two nights earlier a car with three passengers inexplicably drove off the cliff 250 meters down.  Amazingly, three of the four people and survived, and two were actually able to climb out to safety.   About a third of way through our drive, as we crossed over the pass of a large mountain, seemingly out of nowhere the scenery totally changed.  Gone were the thick lush trees and shrubs and instead we found the paramo, a golden and more bleak and rough countryside, equally beautiful but vastly different.  The instantaneous change was unbelievable. This area is also known for its two large alpine lakes.   We stopped here to have lunch at a place that served one delicious meal to all its patrons....freshly caught trout.

The remainder of our trip home was fairly uneventful except for some horrific fog just outside of Azuay that left it nearly impossible to see two feet in front of you. The fog itself would not have been horrific had we not been winding through mountain roads with several-thousand-foot drop-offs with the fresh memory of a car shooting 250 meters off the side of a cliff! 

In the end, I am so thankful we were invited along with our friends to the jungle.  The views along the way were some of the more breath-taking scenery upon which I have ever laid eyes.