Highway 1 All the Way

Pictures from Quito and the Galapagos Islands! Lots of tortoises, iguanas and sea lions, my favorite:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week19Ecuador#

Here is a video clip of the local fish market in Isla Santa Cruz – fisherman, pelicans and sea lions. Too cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ngtYFvbi8g

Patrick is here! Travelling with Patrick is like a breath of fresh air – he wants to see everything, meet people, and try new food. His enthusiasm is contagious. We spend his first day and Connor’s 14^th birthday in Quito site seeing. We take a gondola above Quito to over 12, 000 feet, where the air is thin but the view is beautiful. Later, we stroll around old town and buy an authentic “Panama” hat for Connor (note that Panama hats actually originated in Ecuador). We celebrate Connor’s birthday with a nice Italian dinner at our hotel and after dinner, the waiter arrives with a slice of cake and a candle, singing “Feliz cumpleanos a ti…”.

From Quito, we go to the Galapagos Islands, one of the most anticipated places of the trip. We take just about every form of transportation to get here: taxi van to airport, plane to Isla Baltra, bus to canal, ferry across the canal to Isla Santa Cruz, truck taxi to Santa Cruz pier, “fast” rough 2 hour boat ride to Isla Isabela, and finally, safari-looking truck to hotel – long day.

The Galapagos are incredible – a place that everyone should visit. Animals are everywhere: iguanas walking down the beach, sea lions relaxing under a bench, giant tortoises walking down the street, crabs scurrying all over the rocks. The animals seem to care nothing about humans and we can get very close to them. Here are our animal viewings: pelicans, blue-footed and red-footed boobies, the famous Darwin finches, frigate birds, flamingos, vermillion fly catchers, penguins, marine and land iguanas, lizards, wild horses, wild mountain goats, red and black crabs, sea lions, sea turtles, hundreds of fish including rainbow fish, and white tip reef sharks. Swimming with the sharks is exhilarating. Our guide, Jhover, explains that we need to go through a narrow volcanic canal in a single file line, not splashing or making noise. We break all of the rules by fluttering our fins and screaming (just I did that through my snorkel). Subsequently, the sharks became restless and swim right near us, instead of resting on the canal’s floor, as they usually do. One shark even comes directly to Patrick’s face, then darts in the other direction. We swim with about 50-60 sharks within a 15 minute span. About 10 swim just 6 inches under me, thus my screaming through the snorkel. After surviving unharmed, we agree that swimming with the sharks is one of the most mind-blowing experiences that we have had.

World Cup fever – we watch the final match between Spain and Holland at a local restaurant with a mix of locals, international residents and tourists. Somehow, I become in charge of the futbol pool, which amounts to $135. More people cheer for the Dutch, but the place erupts when Spain finally scores a goal. Goooooooooool!!!! Our guide, Jhover, our Russian waiter and a tourist from Germany split the pool. The next day, Jhover tells me that he will never forget when I gave him his cut of the pool.

On our last day, Connor, Quinn and I take a boat ride to Floreana Island (Paul and Patrick refrain because of Paul’s tendency for seasickness). We end our island tour by snorkeling with sea lions. They are inquisitive and swim right up to us, peering at our faces. Just before getting back in the boat, a family of six sea lions swims up to Connor and Quinn and “play” with them, circling and diving underneath them.  Per Connor, “It was the most amazing thing that I have ever done!” Per Quinn, “Pretty cool!”

Being in the Galapagos with the entire family is very special. I am glad that we will always share these memories.

Here are pictures from Medellin and the route to Ecuador:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week18Columbia#

Beautiful country!

The highlight of our last week in Columbia is visiting Carlos, my former coworker from Macromedia. After spending 4 years in the United States, Carlos now lives in Medellin with his lovely family: his wife, Sylvia, and daughters, Juanita (7) and Valentina (4). After returning to Columbia, Carlos started his own strategic IT consulting business and is very successful. Carlos is a wonderful host and takes us site seeing and to a fantastic dinner on our first night. Unfortunately, his daughters are sick, so his family is not able to join us.

On Saturday, he picks us up bright and early at 8am for an entire day of site seeing. We drive in his luxury BMW to a town where he grew up, then to Penon de Guatape, a huge rock protruding above a manmade reservoir. We climb at what feels like 30 flights of stairs to the top of the rock, so that we can enjoy a 360 degree view of the beautiful reservoir and surrounding hills. Hungry, we go to a nice restaurant for an almuerzo tipoco: grilled meat, rice, beans, plantains, yum! After lunch, we take a leisurely boat ride to “Fantasy Island”, which is not quite the same as the TV show, but nevertheless, a nice remote island. Even with sick kids, Carlos invites us to his house for dinner because Paul is eager to cook for everyone. We spend a wonderful evening with his family. Quinn and Juanita play together. Connor enjoys the Wii. Paul cooks and I have “adult” time with Carlos and Sylvia. We leave with thoughtful gifts in hand: Columbian grown coffee and cookies. A memorable day for all of us!

During one day on our own, we go to a museum with a Botero exhibit. The plaza in front of the museum has Botero’s sculptures, all simply named like “cat” or “head”, and all are fat. His paintings are beautiful – again, all of fat people and animals painted on large canvases. We are interested to know why Botero is so fascinated with fat things…

We are now on our way to Ecuador to meet Patrick, who arrives on the 7^th. We take long drives through the countryside which is stunning: steep mountains, lush valleys, green foliage and coffee plants everywhere. One of the things that I love about Columbia is tinto, a small cup of coffee which is available everywhere: street vendors, restaurants, hotels, offices, etc. Columbians seem to drink tinto 4-6 times per day. At offices, a woman is dedicated to serving tinto to the employees all day. Sometimes, tinto is served already mixed with sugar, sometimes not, but never with milk and always delicious. Columbia is wonderful – filled with people and sites that we will always remember fondly.

Here are some fun pictures of mud volcano dipping and our adventures in San Gil. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week17Columbia_1#

After a beautiful drive along the coast, we arrive to Santa Marta, a colonial town with a nice bay. We find a charming hotel with a pool, internet and lounge. We explore the town by foot, wandering through large plazas, tranquil parks, the promenade along the water and narrow streets. The town has a nice mix of tourists and locals, but without the chaos of Cartagena. The only downside is the heat – about 90 degrees and humid. Thus, we venture inland in seek of mountains and cool air.

After two days of driving, we arrive to San Gil, a charming, mountain village with Rio Fonce running through. The town streets are steep and cobblestone, and filled with old buildings. As we stroll through the streets, we notice piles of small, round black things for sale. They are fried giant ants – a specialty here. No one dares to try them except for Quinn, who ends up spitting it out and rinsing his mouth with water. I find coffee wine, which is much more palatable. We are happy to be in cooler weather – 80s during the day and 60s at night – no more AC!

San Gil is known by Columbians as an adventure destination. Fortunately for us, adventure sports are inexpensive here and we can afford to indulge. Paul, Connor and Quinn go whitewater rafting ($12 per person) on our first day. Paul is strategically placed in the front of the raft and gets hit with each wave. Later in the day while searching for tour operators, we are fortunate to meet Henderson, a friendly young man who speaks fluent English. He offers to translate and accompany us to the adventure sites.

On our second day, Connor, Quinn and I go caving ($15 each), while Paul stays in town and watches a World Cup match. We climb through caves with murcielagos (bats), wade through underground streams, army crawl through narrow tunnels and even jump into a deep underground river and swim out of the cave. The worst part is going through a section of the cave in total darkness – some kind of team building exercise. I keep asking, “Estamos terminados?”, because I do not like being blind in a cave with bats…

On our third day, all of us go horseback riding ($15 each)  – an one hour ride through the quaint town of Curiti and surrounding hills, then a couple hours relaxing at a river, and finally an hour back to the ranch. The river has shallow rapids and we go flying down on rented inner tubes. Quinn and Henderson are the bravest and start at the very top of the rapids, bumping into rocks along the way. Henderson and the kids also enjoy jumping off of a high rock ledge into the cool water.

At the end of our adventures, Henderson graciously surprises Quinn with presents – a Columbian t-shirt and giant ant key ring – so that we will always remember San Gil. And we definitely will!

On our way to Santa Marta, a coastal town on the Caribbean, we stop a Volcan de Lodo El Totumo for a mud bath. We take a detour off of the coastal highway and arrive at what looks like a really big ant hill. The volcano is only about 50’ high, a detail that I missed when reading the tour book. We pay the $2.50 entrance fee and climb up the steep stairs. I gasp at the top – about 15 mud-covered people sitting in a big hole filled with grayish, brownish mud – kind of like a big hot tub party with mud.

Connor decides to skip the mud bath and be the official photographer. Quinn plunges in first and tries to swim through the mud. I carefully go down the ladder and lower myself into the mud. Weirdest experience! Once immersed, I can barely move and a guide pushes/pulls me away from the ladder. The volcano is essentially bottomless, thus I can stand upright, sit or lie – the buoyancy keeps my shoulders and head above the mud. Paul enters and a guide immediately starts giving him a massage while he lies on his back. All I hear from him is, “Ohh, ahh, this guy is good!” (he tips the masseuse $2.50 – quite a deal for a half hour mud massage). We paint each other’s faces and Paul’s head, so that we are completely covered except for our eyes, mouth and my hair (I figure that trying to get mud out of my rat’s nest would take forever). After taking some pictures, Connor decides that he wants to join the fun and plunges in. We marvel at the creaminess of the mud and strange floating sensation. We all agree that this is the weirdest, coolest thing that we have done on this trip. Calistoga mud baths don’t even compare!

After our rejuvenating mud bath, we gingerly climb down the steep stairs, still covered in mud, and walk down a path to a lagoon. Ladies offer to assist us with bathing, but after our lesson learned that nothing is free, we decline. I ask if the lagoon has crocodiles, to which they reply, “No, no! They are far away on the other side of the lagoon.” Hmmm. The water is murky, but we have no other option, so we bathe there and help each other rinse off the mud. For the rest of the day, we laugh when we spot a speck of mud on each other.

Comments from the boys:

Quinn – “Awesome! It was so cool that you could almost swim in mud.”

Conno – “Very unexpected. A lot different than I thought.”

Paul – “Suspended in cool mud – too cool.”

Definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

Here are pictures from our last week in Panama City and Cartagena, Columbia:

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week16PanamaAndColumbia#

Cheers!

We got the minivan! This whole process has been a pain in the ass, but we now feel oddly triumphant, as well as relieved. I will not go on another tirade, but in case you ever decide to ship a car to Columbia, this is what we endured:

Monday, June14 – Thursday, June 17: Numerous emails to the shipping agency requesting status.

Friday, June 18: Good news! The ship arrived to Cartagena (only 5 days late…) and we can get our minivan! We go to the shipping agency to get the bill of lading. Go to customs to get vehicle docs, told to make copies of Columbian entry stamp on passport and return at 3pm. Upon return, told that the ship is still being unloaded and can’t get docs until Monday.

Monday, June 21: Go to customs and get docs in morning. Told to go to port at 2pm for inspection. Go to port, go back to shipping agency for another stamp, go to doc control for docs and invoice, pay invoice at bank. Have a confusing conversation with customs inspector and finally figure out that inspection is done and we need to go back to customs. Go to customs and wait, wait, wait – already 4:30pm and we are nervous that it will be too late to get the minivan. Finally get customs docs, go back to port, get exit papers (requiring 9 fingerprints from Paul). With all signed and stamped papers in hand, go to port security. Now 6pm – closing time – but some workers seem to stay and a new shift arrives. Paul and Rick, who shared the container with us, now clad in hard hats, are escorted to the container while I wait at the security office. They wait, wait, wait and a bunch of people finally show up. The dock workers can’t figure out how to open the seal on the containers that the Columbian inspector put on. They finally cut the seal and open the container. Wait for 2 guys to set up the ramp and unstrap the vehicles. Now about 7pm – mosquitoes out in full force and we think the kids, who are at the hotel, are probably worrying. Security completes documentation, then get in the car and drive away! The saving grace of this whole ordeal is our cab driver, Jesus, who stays with us throughout the entire two days and drives us from place to place. We even follow Jesus in our minivan back to our hotel, fearing that we may get lost. We pay him $60 for his services for 2 days, and he seems pleased.

Upon arrival to the hotel, we receive high fives and hugs from the kids. We spend our last night in Cartagena celebrating. Yummy dinner at the restaurant in front of our hotel, carriage ride through the old town, and gourmet ice cream. Everyone goes to bed very happy.

We are now in Cartagena, Columbia, waiting for our car to arrive. We spent our last week in Panama doing typical American things: going to the shopping malls, movies, gym, swimming pool, Blockbusters, Hard Rock Café and even the horse races. The highlights of our last week are:

1.       Being VIPs at to the movies: for twice the price of a regular ticket, you can go to the luxury theater with full reclining chairs and supposedly, menu service (although Quinn pressed the service button repeatedly and no one came). We watched the “A-Team” in pure comfort and felt like royalty!

2.       Horse races: lots of fun! We were the only gringos and a bit of a novelty for the locals. People told us which horses to bet on, brought horses to “meet” us and explained the betting process. Connor won 3 of 5 races; the rest of us did not win any.

3.       Seeing our friend, Luis, from Guatemala: Luis came for dinner at the apartment, then we went to the Hard Rock to meet his brother’s family. It was great to see a familiar face! Paul, Luis and his brother went to the casino after the Hard Rock, but Paul will need to tell you about that….

We also spent a lot of time watching the world Cup games, which are televised live at 6:30am, 9:00am and 1:30pm. The World Cup fever is crazy here! Cars with multiple flags from the World Cup teams, people wearing jerseys and vendors selling gear everywhere. Of course, we do not find anything with US insignia…

Columbia has a completely different feel than Central America. I suppose that Columbia is not as Americanized, however, we did find a McDonalds and Blockbuster. Our rental apartment is interesting – in a building one block from the beach, decent amenities, 16^th floor with a great view, but sketchy elevator and hallway, and no hot water!

On our first day here, Paul is sick with a bad head cold, so I take the kids to the old town, a walled city with colonial buildings dating back to the 1500s. We see thousands of well preserved gold pieces from 2000 years ago at the Gold Museum and learn all about the native culture. In a nutshell, the rich wore gold, the middle class – bronze and the poor – shells. We meander around town, then Connor says that he does not feel so well and needs a bathroom. Lo and behold – a Hard Rock right in front of us! We then stumble upon a Naval Museum; the model ships, weapons and dioramas fascinate Quinn. We walk along the thick outer walls of the old town, which took over two centuries to construct. Yet, what Quinn will remember most is our pizza dinner near our apartment – the restaurant has a play structure with trampolines, balls, climbing wall, slides, etc. He has a blast!

On our second day, we go to the beach. We rent a tent and then the swarm starts: “masaje?”, “boat trip?”, “ceviche?”, “cerveza?”, “jet ski?”, “t-shirt?”, “pretty necklace for you?”. A bit overwhelming, but nevertheless, lots of fun. Connor gets a relaxing foot massage ($2.50) and knock-off Aviator sunglasses ($5). I make arrangements for a boat tour to Isla del Rosario on Saturday, hoping Paul will be better by then. Quinn mistakenly rents a boogey board, but I refuse to pay when the guy comes to collect money, explaining that Quinn thinks the board is a gift. Lesson learned – never accept anything – nothing is gratis! All of us nibble on chorizo skewers with hot sauce and lime ($1.50). All in all, a great introduction to South America!

The minivan is supposed to arrive today – more to come about the cumbersome shipping process in the next blog…