Laffy Taffy

You wouldn't think that bitching about the weather would have any impact whatsoever on Mother Nature(or at least not a positive one), but since I wrote my last post (about the cold and the rain and the hail) we've had a couple of gorgeous days. It has been nice and sunny....

We've been hanging out in a touristy little town called Baños for the past several days. It's at the foot of a giant volcano called Tungurahua which means "little hell" in the native language. It's supposedly a pretty active volcano that spews ash quite frequently and often has active lava flows, but we haven't seen much. The mountains surrounding the town are so steep that we can't see the volcano from where we are. We saw it on our bike ride down to Baños but didn't catch any amazing eruptions. That's okay with me though because in the not too distant past they had to evacuate the entire town for a few months. The town is only on yellow alert now, so we're relatively safe. On a less scary note, the town is known for its taffy (hence the name of this post). We haven't tried it yet, but we're going to pick some up on our way back from the internet cafe.

Anyways, we had an awful lot of fun getting to Baños too -- I wouldn't want to cheat you by failing to mention our adventures on the way here.

We left Latacunga in the morning to head south once more. On our way out of town we spotted the local dairy: a man had two goats tied to a street light and was milking them on the spot. Nearly every woman who passed by with a small child bought a dixie cup of fresh milk for the kid. The kids all walked away with goat milk mustaches.



Tempted though we were, Mike and I did not have any fresh goat milk.



Mike went on a photo mission in Latacunga. Many of the fruits were nicely displayed in baskets.



The chickens weren't displayed quite as prettily.

On the route between Latacunga and our next overnight spot, Ambato, we passed through some fun little towns. We're pretty sure that Salcedo must be the ice cream capital of Ecuador. As we approached the town we kept seeing more and more ice cream shops. We'd see one, then three stores down there'd be another. Soon they were lined up as many as 5 in a row. We're used to this ridiculous phenomenon that is common abroad (in Hanoi, Vietnam there are entire streets devoted to selling pot holders, for instance), but Salcedo really took ice cream selling to an extreme. At one point we stopped to consult our map and discovered that we could see seventeen ice cream stores from that one stationary position on the road. They must eat ice cream for breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch, diner, and bedtime snacks in Salcedo!



"I scream; you scream; we all scream for ice cream!" You can only see three ice cream shops in this picture, but Mike estimates that there were 200 in town. And it was not a very big town.

Shortly after Salcedo we rolled through a town that is not pig friendly. On the one street of that town we saw at least a dozen hogs hanging in front of restaurants. None of them looked too happy about it. We also saw some cuy (roast guinnea pig), which is a specialty in both Ecuador and Peru. We haven't tried any yet, but I supposed it's inevitable.



An unhappy pig.



This photo was actually taken in Baños, but I thought I'd put it here since I explained about the cuy in the above paragraph. Don't they look tasty?

We stayed in Ambato for one night and enjoyed walking around the town, despite the fact that our guidebook said there was nothing to do there. We passed several interesting churches, some nice parks, and an interesting mausoleum for Juan Montalvo (an Ecuadorian writer from the town). We also tried this really odd dessert that seems popular in Ecuador. Basically, an old woman sits by the road with a giant bowl overflowing with what looks like frosting. When someone wants to purchase some of this concoction, the old lady will scoop a big glob into an ice cream cone and send the person on his/her merry way. We had to try it. Turns out that the frosting look-a-like is actually a bit more like some kind of gelatin. I thought it was kind of weird -- especially the texture -- but Mike and I managed to finish one between the two of us.



Here's a pic of that weird frosting/gelatin dessert.



This is Ambato, on our way into town. Population: 150,000 -- Most of the cities we've been to in Ecuador so far have been quite a bit bigger than most of the cities in Central America.



The inside of this church was HUGE! It was pretty in a more modern way.



Juan Montalvo's mausoleum and museum. Sorry, but I'm not familiar with his writings.

After Ambato we headed toward Baños, where we are currently. That ride was certainly memorable because we dropped a good 3000 feet in elevation. Mike loves the downhill rides, but I'm not such a big fan. My brakes were pretty hot and my wrists were pretty sore (from all the pressure on them) by the time we pulled into Baños. Mike had to keep stopping to wait for me, but at least that gave him time to take pictures of the ridiculous views! At one point we had to pass through a section of road that had been taken out by a landslide, which was fun. When we got to Baños, I was ready to stay for a few days, so it was lucky that we were already planning to do so.



A view of the mountains.



And another. I'm not really sure that the photos capture how very large these mountains are or how steep and long the hills that go down them are.



You're just going to have to trust that I'm in this picture, because even with the arrow pointing directly at me, you still can't spot me. You need a powerful zoom!



Some pretty flowers and a scary spider.



The landslide clean-up is in progress.

So, this is our third day staying in Baños. We've been staying in a $10 hotel room that affords us pretty nice views of the city. October is apparently the month in which Baños residents celebrate their patron saint, so we've seen some fun parades and parties. They even have a little train with Flinstones characters on it circling the town. The church is pretty cool too -- it's lit up like a Disney castle and the inside features paintings of all the miracles that Baños' saint is responsible for.



The night-time view from our hotel room is lovely.



Voila! the Disney church of Baños.



A roasted (hornado) piggy on display in the Baños covered market.



I love how colorful this market photo is!

Today we went on a guided canyoning trip near town. It only took us a couple of hours, but we got to rappel down 5 or 6 waterfalls. Although we would have preferred to do the trip on our own, we enjoyed ourselves. The waterfalls were pretty and they weren't too cold.

From here we will bike down another 3000 feet to the Amazon jungle town of Puyo. I think we pass at least a dozen waterfalls on the way down. I'm not looking forward to the steep hills, but I think it will be a neat ride nonetheless. We'll keep you posted.

And now for the poll update. The answer to the last poll was the donkey. We saw all kinds of animals jutting out from the basilica, but we didn't see any donkeys. Maybe they're too boring or common. Anywho, congrats to those of you who guessed right. Now there's a new poll/trivia question, so be sure to put your guesses in before the answer is revealed!

Here are a few more catch-up photos, too:



I'm trying another version of the Quito panorama photo. Mike saved it differently, so if you click on the picture, you might be able to see a larger version of it.



This is a lovely decoration on top of one of the churches in Quito.



I'm standing on top of the church where the nuns sold their home-made lotions and potions.



This photo is from last week when we were leaving Lasso -- it features the Volcan Cotopaxi. We were at 11000 feet when Mike snapped the photo, which makes this a pretty tall mountain. Note how it is covered in snow despite its proximity to the equator.



I have no idea what this sign means, so this is not a trivia question with an answer, but if you have any guesses let Mike and I know!

P.S. Since one is passing by right now, Mike wants me to let you know that the garbage trucks in Baños are musical. Sometimes they sound like an ice cream truck and sometimes they sound like a slot machine, but you always know they're coming!

Andes Mints!

Okay, so we haven't had any mints here yet, but the Andes mountains are just as good if not better. The views of snow-capped peaks are amazing. Mostly we've been biking around between 9000 and 11500 feet so far. We plan to head south through the mountains for a week or so before taking a wild ride down to sea level on the Pacific coast.

Equator or no, it's chilly at 11000 feet. I was a bit upset that I spent three months hauling my fleece around Central America without once taking it out, but I've definitely made use of it here in Ecuador; in fact, I've worn it everyday. The temperature hovers around 50-60 degrees in the daytime usually. At night it's downright cold. When the sun pops out it warms up fast though. When you're practically on the equator and 11000 feet up, you're almost as close to the sun as you can get on this planet. We learned that one of the nearby peaks is actually the closest point on Earth to the sun, due to the equatorial bulge. We've had a fair amount of rain and even some hail so far too. I don't really know what to make of all this weather -- I kind of miss the predictability of Phoenix heat. Sometimes I change my clothes a few times in the course of 5 kilometers -- everything I can possibly layer on when I'm going downhill and just a tank top, bike shorts, and sandals when I'm going up.

I'd better fill you in on our last day exploring Quito before I get into our bike journey thus far, however. The highlight of that day was our visit to a local convent, which housed an interesting art collection. We saw paintings of sheep and cherubs drinking Jesus' blood, saints' bones (known as "relics" in the Catholic church), and the most bizarre religious dioramas. We also saw a replica of the cells that the nuns live in. They are only allowed to speak aloud for 30 minutes a day. The rest of the time they spend in silent prayer and reflection. Well, that or they silently make shampoo and wine and honey. There's this little rotating door at the entrance to the convent where the nuns operate their own pharmacy of sorts. Since the nuns are not allowed contact with the outside world, they take orders and money through the rotating door and send out their homemade ointments and remedies and beauty products. Weird.

So...we left Quito a few days ago and have been biking south ever since. It took most of one day just to make it out of the enormous city. Quito is situated in a narrow valley that runs north-south, so it felt like it went on forever. We spent our first night out of the capitol in Machachi.

Our second day biking brought us to Lasso, which is a small town near the Volcan Cotopaxi. We considered camping in the national park surrounding the volcano, but discovered that the 18 km long, uphill, unpaved road to the campground would take us too long to navigate -- we ran out of daylight. Instead, we stayed at a nearby hotel, where we talked the price down from $33 to $20 (They actually use U.S. dollars in Ecuador, which makes things very easy). That's still a bit pricey, but it was nice enough and the staff was very accommodating. We could still see the volcano from the hotel, too. It looks really cool, and we thought about sticking around to hike in the park the next day, but it turns out that the Andes are full of really neat mountains to hike. We decided to save that for another day when we're ready to take a break from our bikes.

Today was our first good-weather biking day, and it was pleasantly downhill as well. We didn't go far because the town of Latacunga made for a nice stopping point. We got in early (despite a late start) and wandered the local market. As I mentioned earlier, we'll just keep heading south through the mountains for a bit (then to the coast, then the Galapagos, then Peru).

For now, I'll just leave you with some pictures that Mike took while we were in Quito.



We really liked these cute old people carrying furniture. I'm not sure what they were doing with it though. And the chairs look much too small for the tables, or for anyone older than 2 to sit on, for that matter.



Here's a Priest talking to some kids just after mass let out.



This is a neat door on one of the churches or convents (there are a lot of both in Old Town).



R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If you respect God, you best not be throwin' your trash here!



This is one of those bottle rockets that I mentioned in my last post. Two men were running ahead of a parade and setting these off about two feet from us. Mike informs me that the jug is not, in fact, filled with fuel which would cause it to explode. It's just really nasty water. He proceeded to remedy my ignorance of how bottle rockets work.



The masks that people were wearing in the parade were pretty freaky. Some of them looked like this, some were stripped, and some were made out of cloth. All of them gave me the creeps -- especially since I had no idea what they were celebrating.



This guy really liked the parade. He was the best dancer there, and I'm sure he was only aided by a little alcohol.



The parade had more than just bottle rockets, freaky clowns, and drunken revelers -- it had a band too! If you were able to really zoom in on this photo, you would see a reflection in the trombone of Mike taking the picture.



These are the bell/clock towers of the Basilica del Voto Nacional. We climbed up into one of them -- they're about 12 floors up.



This is the tower we didn't get to climb. It started to rain, and since the stairs/ladders are pretty dangerous already, they were closed off when it started to rain.



This is the massive inside of the basilica from about 3 floors up.



This stained glass window needs a few repairs, but it's beautiful nonetheless.



A fine example of the flying buttress at its best!



This is me, chilling in the belfry of the basilica. There are several things worth noting here: 1) I am wearing a fabulous skirt that my Ma gave me for my birthday (it has proven to be a wonderful traveling garment), 2) Mike is taking the picture from the floor below me (approximately the 11th floor), 3) the ladder on the left is one of three I had to climb to get there (after several flights of dizzying spiral stairs and several more flights of regular stairs), 4) I am balancing on the larger beams because the rest of the floor is comprised of very thin, scary wire, 5) the view from the tower is GREAT, which you will be able to tell from the next photo.



This is a really sweet panorama that Mike put together with several of his photos taken from the top of the basilica. It is an east-west view of part of Quito (keep in mind that Quito is MUCH larger on its north-south axis).

Okay, that's it for now. Stay tuned for pictures of the Andes and of the fabulous Panama hats (which actually originated in Ecuador) that the locals around here wear.

At Altitude

Well, Mike and I have set foot in South America -- a first time on this continent and south of the equator for both of us. We had a long, kind of tiring journey from Phoenix to L.A. to Panama City to Quito, but we're here! Of course, once we got here it took us a couple of hours to reassemble our bikes, make some repairs (I finally got new tubes for my perpetually flat tires), and bike 8 kilometers across town. Quito is a busy, busy city with 1.4 million residents. When we were flying in it looked like it went on forever, spreading out between the mountains.

The mountains certainly deserve an aside, too. Quito is located at about 9200 feet (way higher than Denver, the "mile high city"). We've been warned and warned about altitude sickness, but neither of us has had any trouble other than a slight headache so far. Sure, biking up some of the small hills in town left us more breathless than they normally would, but it's not as bad as I expected it to be. Soon our bodies will be used to a lack of oxygen and we will seem like super humans when we return to a normal altitude. Anyway, the mountains are gorgeous and I can't wait to see more of them once we leave the big city.

We had a wonderful welcome to Quito from our Global Freeloaders hostess, Paola. She's letting us crash in a room of her very nice apartment for a few days. We biked to it from the airport, and we met Paola shortly after. She has excellent taste in decor, and her apartment is very cute. She is also very hospitable. We all went out to dinner at a great bohemian bar/restaurant that Mike and I never would have found on our own. We got to meet several of her friends there as well, and they all spoke better English than we do Spanish. The food was awesome too. Much to my pleasure, I learned that the staple foods in the Ecuadorian highlands are corn and potatoes. I had a cheesy potato soup with avocado (called "Locro de papas") for dinner and Mike had another potato dish with fried eggs (called "Llapingachas"). We also sampled various kinds of empanadas for an appetizer (filled with bananas or meat or covered with sugar). The restaurant even brought us a snacky side before anything else came (kind of like the peanuts at steakhouses). It consisted of small, soft, white beans and kernels of some kind of corn. They make a really great combo because the beans were kind of mushy and tangy and the corn was crunchy and salty. I really like it, but I can't remember what it's called. I'll try to look it up somewhere.

Yesterday Mike and I slept in, read our guidebook, and tried to decide what to do over the next few days. We decided to go to the Historic Centre of Quito today, which is precisely what we did.

The Centro Historico, otherwise known as Old Town, features loads of churches and museums. We walked around, took pictures, and visited a few churches. We also caught a few street performances and a bizarre sort of parade. The people in the parade were wearing masks and dancing around. One guy was taking swigs from a canteen and hoisting a frightened guinea pig in the air, alternately. Another two guys would run a few feet in front of the procession, plop a large jug of fuel on the ground and set off little rocket-thingys inches from the crowd.

We visited one really neat church, called the Basilica del Voto Nacional, which is featured in my new poll to the left. We spent a good deal of time exploring its dangerous clock/bell towers. The place is HUGE! We had to go up several flights of stairs to reach the balcony that overlooks the church and that showcases an enormous stained glass window. Then we had to go up several more flights to get to a balcony that went outside of the church and looked out over the city. Then we climbed a few more flights of regular stairs, three flights of spiral stairs, and three ladders to reach the tippy-top of the bell tower. It was quite a bit higher than it looked from the ground. Luckily, all that stair-climbing offered us an amazing view of the city. I'll be posting pictures soon.

Since we don't have any pictures of Ecuador yet, though, I'll post a few pictures from the Tour de Fat that we went to in Tempe, AZ. It was a fun and funky bike festival. There were some crazy bikes and crazy people.



This is a crazy bike that you have to ride while leaning sideways on a small support. It is very difficult to pedal.



This bike wasn't too hard to ride, but it sure looked cool.



Here's Mike unicycling. He misses his unicycle, which is in storage for now. Notice that he looks less like a lion, since he cut his hair and beard for Kristen's wedding.



We thought this was a pretty sweet ride. The monkey driving is great, but I think the guy's hat really tops everything off.



People were in costume (much like RAGBRAI), and I kind of wished I had hot pink hair. I'm going to miss Halloween this year!!



Sea foam green is nice too. I like this guy's earring!

Okay, that's it for now, but we'll have pics of Ecuador soon. We haven't really planned what we're doing next, but I think we'll be heading out of Quito soon. Time to get back on those bikes! Don't forget to participate in the new poll/trivia question, and continue to keep us posted on what you're up to as well!

Ho-Hum . . . Not!

I know that I've been a bad girl. I haven't updated the blog in about 2 weeks. Some of you may think that this is because Mike and I are Stateside and we have fewer blog-worthy stories. Not so. Mostly, I haven't posted because I've been so damn busy! We're used to biking all day, eating a quick dinner, and having the rest of the evening after nightfall (which happens at around 5:30) to read or putz around on the Internet. Since I've been back in the States, I have had plenty of things to do after 5:30 at night besides work on my blog. I spent the first week and a half helping my sister get ready for her wedding, and I've spent the last several days getting caught up on the grading I neglected in order to help my sister get ready for her wedding. Please allow me to recap our adventures since we've been back in the U. S. of A.

Mike went to New York for a week as soon as we got back. I really wanted to join him there, but I felt like I needed some extra girl time with Kristen before she got hitched. Anyways, he visited his parents and other relatives back in NY for a stretch. He ate some fantastic Duff's wings, attended a kite festival, and found a castle that was practically hiding in his backyard from the sounds of it. His parents are about to head off on their own trip to India to visit Deb and Dan (see their amazing blog, linked on the left), so it was a good time for Mike to visit. India's pretty high on my list of places to go, so I'm a bit jealous, but I can't be too envious since we're starting back up in South America soon enough ourselves. Sharon and Bernie, I hope you have an amazing time and I hope that the travel bug bites you so that you'll come visit us in Peru later this year. I promise we won't put you up in hotels with rats or 19 bars of soap caked to the shower walls.



A crazy, enormous octopus kite.



Some patriotic stunt kites.



You guys know that I'm not a huge fan of dogs, but this one looks so happy!



I have no idea who this little girl is, but I really like this picture.



This photo kind of freaks me out. Mike says that the midget was actually some kind of robot that was flying the kites. Weird.

I spent my first week in Iowa catching up with the fam, getting my bridesmaid dress taken in (yay!), trying to get rid of my ridiculous tan lines, and helping with wedding planning. It was kind of nice to sleep in the same bed every night and to eat all my favorite foods.

On Wednesday before the wedding, Mike rejoined me in Iowa and we set about getting beautified for the big day. We were both sporting new haircuts already (Mike told me that when he went to the barber, the barber exclaimed "Oh my God! Cancel all of my appointments for the rest of the afternoon -- I have work to do!"), but we had a very strict beauty regimen to follow. Mike accompanied me and my sister, mom, aunt, grandma, as well as the groom's aunt and sister when we went to the mall for manicures and pedicures. He took photos of everyone being pampered and then got in on the action himself. He's been showing off his pretty glittery nail polish to anyone who'll look.

That evening, Mike took photos of the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, which was done tailgate-style. Since Kristen and Josh have more male friends than female friends, Josh had 6 groomsmen and Kristen had 4 bridesmaids and 2 "bride's attendants." These included my brother, Nick, and a longtime friend, Zack. Kristen let the guys wear tuxes instead of dresses in the wedding, but Zack really played up his unique position and wore a bedazzled "bridesmaid" t-shirt to the rehearsal.

Saturday, October 6th was the big day, and it started off bright and early. Once again, Mike joined us girls as we filed into the beauty salon to get our hair and make-up done. This time he didn't participate, but he took some amazing photos. After that we went back to the hotel to get all dressed up before pictures.



Mike took some neat photos at the beauty salon. Some of them, like this one, are particularly good for stock photography. He will be attempting to sell many of these online.



Here's Kristen getting her make-up done.



I like this extreme close-up of her eye. Look at those lashes!



After the salon we went back to the hotel to get ready. This is a pic of the bridesmaids' bouquets. Pretty!



Here's a sweet shot of Kristen getting all laced up!

The wedding was held at the outdoor Shakespeare theatre in Iowa City's "City Park." The weather was a little hot (esp. for the guys in tuxes), but other than that it was perfect. Kristen and Josh hired a wedding photographer and videographer (Boris and Rocky) who were both quite the characters. They took all the formal photos, and I think they did a very nice job. I've added a new link to the list on the left, which will bring you to a sampling of their wedding photos online. The password is "KJ." Of course I'm partial to the pics Mike took. He did a great job getting a lot of wonderful detail shots and shooting long before and after Boris showed up. I think Kristen and Josh had the best-photographed wedding I've ever been to.



Aww!



Awwww!



The ring bearers, my almost-4-year-old adopted twin cousins. Aww!

Anyway, the venue was perfect (are you surprised the Lit PhD student is pleased with a Shakespeare theatre setting?), the weather was great, and the stage was set (literally). And . . . Action!

A high school string quartet played everyone in and then the beautiful bride, my baby sister, came down the aisle. Naturally, my dad was crying, so (naturally) I couldn't look at him for the entire ceremony. Kristen looked so gorgeous in her perfectly chosen dress. I was lucky to have the perfect view of Josh when she came down the aisle too.

The ceremony was very nice, accented by Josh's sister, Katie, singing "I Hope You Dance"; my cousin David and cousin Dan's girlfriend, Tessa, singing; and Josh's fabulously executed dip and kiss when he was told he could "kiss the bride." Everything was beautiful and sweet. Awww.



The dip -- woo-hoo!



Mike really liked taking pictures of everyone blowing bubbles. This is a cool picture of my cousin, Linnea.

The party wasn't bad either. We ate yummy food (I had the garlic-lemon chicken), wolfed down Cold Stone ice cream cake, watched a slideshow of pictures put together by my mom, and danced our little hearts out. All in all, I'd say it was a success.



Cool special-effects photo of the dancing portion of the reception. I think this is when Josh and his buddies were doing their "Air band" rendition of Journey or something.



Don't worry, I didn't drink that entire bottle of Ten High Whiskey, I just look like I did. That's my pops in the picture with me, in case you didn't know.



This is Soumya, Kristen's best friend and one of the coolest bridesmaids ever. She was surprised because Josh and Kristen raked in something like $604 during the dollar dance. Damn!



The pretty, pretty princess, still looking gorgeous at the end of the night.

Now my sister and Josh are in Jamaica and Mike and I have moved on to Arizona. We've been catching up with our friends here, but we're leaving for Ecuador on Thursday. Mike sold his car finally and we went to a new climbing gym and the Tour de Fat (a bike show of sorts, sponsored by Fat Tire beer), but other than that we've both been getting caught up on work. I'll add some pictures of the Tour de Fat later. They're pretty cool, but it has taken long enough to add all the photos above, plus the bike pics don't really go with all the pretty wedding photos.

Sorry about the length of time between posts. I'll be working up a posting frenzy once we get on our way again, I'm sure. Stay tuned for new travel stories -- I have a feeling that South America will be a wild ride!