A Quick Dip into Baños

This past weekend a few folks from Rebecca's office planned a trip to Baños, a resort town South of Quito. Since Rebecca was going, and Baños is supposed to be real nice, our whole crew tagged along. But, since the working folks weren't leaving until around 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and the bus ride is anywhere from three to five hours, we (me, Maya, Jonah, Opa and PoPo) decided to get started little bit earlier.

Getting on the bus to Baños could be an entire blog entry in itself. But I'll try to limit myself to only six paragraphs.

We (me, Maya, Jonah, Opa and PoPo) left the apartment around 11 a.m. on Friday to walk to the bus to take us to the Trole which would take us to the Cumanda bus station, where we were going to get on the bus to Baños. Because the map that I have doesn't list any Trole stops after Cumanda, I assumed it was the last stop. I was wrong. Cumanda is just a regular stop. You have to get out of the Trole, walk across the street, down a flight of stairs, and then into the bus station.

After we missed our stop, we got into a taxi that circled the bus station like a bomber zeroing in on its target. This was necessary, I was told. After racking up a two dollar fare, we finally got dropped off inside the bus station - which cost us another 50 cents so the taxi driver could pay the toll to get out of the station.

Every bus leaving for anywhere from Quito leaves from the Cumanda bus station. There are people, buses, dirt and garbage, and convenience stands everywhere, and everyone seems to be shouting out some city or another.

Trying to find a bus to Baños, took some time. But, finally, I got us three tickets (the kids ride free, which, I found out, means they don't get a seat. They have to ride on a lap) and we were told the bus would be leaving from behind door number three at 12.50 p.m. Why we had to enter through door 3 is a mystery, because all the doors lead to the same single platform where all the buses that are going anywhere are staging their departure.

Typically, the destination of the bus is indicated by fancy letters written on the front window of the bus. Easy enough. But the tickets that I purchased were for a particular company, and as our departure time approached, that bus was nowhere in sight. After talking to a few people, we decided that we could get on any bus going to Baños. So that's what we did. It turned out we picked a good bus because we got to Baños in about three hours (it took Rebecca nearly five) and we got to watch a movie (Cast Away. The only word I could understand was "Wilson" - the name of the volleyball.)

One cool thing about the bus rides in Ecuador is that vendors will come on the bus, or outside the bus windows as you sit in traffic, and hawk their wares. As we slowly inched our way out of Cumanda (along with a zillion other buses, must be only one exit) we had vendors come into the bus selling water, soda, ice cream, empanadas, bananas, piratedDVDs, phone cards, and jewelry. This happens along the way as well. As the bus slows down (rarely actually stopping) in a particular town to left off passengers in exchange for others, vendors will hop on the bus and ride it to the edge of town, or maybe even the next town if their sales are going well (i.e., the ice cream man). I suppose they hop on a bus going the opposite direction to get back to where they started. Here are some pictures of us enjoying our ice cream on the bus ride back to Quito on Sunday afternoon.





Anyway, we finally arrived in Baños around 4.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, Baños is a pretty small town, so we were able to find our hotel easily. It was a pretty cool hotel, complete with Jamaican colors on the playground, tremendous leaves to hide under in case you forgot your umbrella, and this dog that both Maya and Jonah loved.





After getting our rooms and leaving our luggage, we set out to explore (and get some eats). Despite its size, however, the town was jumping. Really, there is a lot more to do here than we could accomplish in a day and a half.

Maya and Jonah hopped right into the nearest dune buggy and were all set for a ride. But, even Ecuador has some rules that can't be bargained away. Maya and Jonah had to step aside so people who are more crazy at the wheel, Mommy and Opa, could drive.




Looming over Baños is the active volcano Tungurahua. Unfortunately, a low and constant cloud cover (we confirmed with the hotel staff, it was not smoke from the volcano) hung over the town all weekend so we didn't get a good look at the volcano. But, we did enjoy the one benefit of living in constant fear of being vaporized in a sudden blast of molten lava - the thermal bath waters. The heated pool that you can see behind PoPo has a rival - a freezing pool that is cooled by the waterfall you see in the picture.

Not pictured - Jonah and Maya taking great pleasure in pushing Opa and Poppy into the freezing pool before we could enjoy the warmer waters.


Here is the pair of happy, relaxed Mommies before Rebecca realized her hair always looks this goofy.



Next to the thermal baths, was a small restaurant-type place selling the Ecuadorian specialty - llapingachos. Llapingachos are potato-pancake like things that are fried with cheese. Don't let my grimace fool you, they are quite tasty. Even Jonah liked them. There are also some fried bananas in the foreground of the second picture, and meats of unidentified origin stewing in the pot.



And, in Baños, we had the opportunity to justify the whole reason we came to Ecuador, to eat the cuy. These fellas hadn't yet met the grill.


And, you have to admit, they don't look all that appetizing even after they've been grilled (something about the head and teeth, we agreed). Sorry for the orientation of the picture, I can't get it to upload correctly. But, this is the closest shot we have of these sorry looking grilled things, so I wanted to post it. You'll have to turn your head sideways to see it with the correct orientation.



Despite this blog being named after the cuy and our quest to eat them, when given the chance, we all chickened out. Maybe we will chow down on these things if we can find a place that doesn't display them before putting them on your plate. Until that time, we settle for the tried and true, churrascoes, grilled trout and sea bass, and mexican burritos.

A not-so-happy party of cooked and uncooked cuy.



One thing we did all like was the sugar cane juice. It gets squeezed out of the cane stalks you see in the one picture by running it through a cane stalk squeezing contraption. Trying to upload a video of the process but having problems. Anyway, you can buy the juice at every stand in town for 40 cents a glass. You can also buy pieces of sugar cane to chew, guava paste, taffy and blackberry jam at every stand. I can't quite figure out how anyone makes a living selling the same exact thing - but I guess my standards of living and expectations for a livelihood are different. All the wares are good, but as a buyer, it's a bit hard to make a choice where to buy. We tried to spread the wealth by buying juice from one vendor, cane chews from another, jam from a third, etc. etc.




Notice the indigenous woman with the plastic bag wrapped around her hat.


Jonah, giving a cane chew the business.

Similarity of items is common among the crafts vendors as well. They all have the same style pants, bags, shirts, ceramics, carved wood things, jewelry, etc. etc. I guess the one thing that separates the vendors is how much they quote you when you ask how much for an item and how low they are willing to go in the haggling over price.

Regardless of the similarity, there were some cool things to buy. We spent forty bucks at one store buying pants, shirts, and this cute sweater and hip-hop hat for Maya.


Maya and Jonah also got the woven bracelets that the backpacking crowd will wear until they fall to pieces. Maya and Jonah took theirs off before we got back to the hotel.


Besides the threat of sudden extinction, the other thing Baños is known for is this taffy. All the vendors sell it. I'm not sure if this guy washed his hands before handling this batch, but the way he pulls it, bangs it off the wall, wraps it around the hook, bangs it off the wall, and does it all over again, I'm not sure that it matters.

Different flavors of whatever gives the taffy its chew are added to give different tastes and colors. Mandarin was our favorite. We hope that those of you on our gift list enjoy it as much as we did. And by the time you get it, you'll know if we got sick from eating it.

This Dog, That Dog

We are traveling by bus today to Banos. We will return on Sunday night. Banos is a small resort town a few hours south of Quito that is famous for it's thermal baths which are heated by Vulcan Tungurahua.

You may remember hearing a few months ago (maybe April?) about a volcano that erupted in Ecuador? It was Tungurahua. Apparently, this volcano has been on yellow alert since 1999. Yellow alert is the equivalent of a pretty good risk that there will be an eruption. We've checked with our hotel and they have a pretty solid evacuation plan in place in case there is a lava flow. So, we feel safe.

Actually, it won't be the first time Rebecca and I have slept at the foot of an active volcano. When we visited Costa Rica in 2002 (a few months before Maya was born) we stayed at a hotel at the foot of Vulcan Arenal - one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. At night we sat on our porch and watched burning rocks and debris tumble out of the cone and down the sides of the mountain.

That hotel also had heated pools and water slides. The water slides were made out of concrete, so they were a bit rough on your backside and shoulders. But the water was warm!

Anyway, if you are wondering why there are no new posts this weekend, you now know the reason why.

In the meantime, here is a poem that I wrote, inspired by our recent trip to Mindo:

This Dog, That Dog

This dog said to that dog, I’ll take that little girl’s boot.
I’ll bury it in the yard right there. It’s what I’m gonna do.

That dog said to this dog, Do what you got to do.
But you’re a dog my friend and Man will kick you for his shoe.

This dog said to that dog, I got a flipty-flop.
I got it by the hot tub there. I just can’t seem to stop.

That dog said to this dog, Dog, you got to get a grip.
All it takes is one good kick and Man will break your hip.

This dog said to that dog, I got a lace-up type.
She left it by the doorstep when she came back from her hike.

That dog said to this dog, Well, that is a real nice shoe.
Mind if I just nuzzle in and get myself a chew?

That dog went to this dog and they chewed that shoe to pieces.
They left some lace, some rubber soul and a bit of lining fleeces.

Then this dog went around the grounds and that dog went there too.
They called some friends from here and there and forgot about the shoes.

And this dog trapped a nocturnal being underneath a car.
And that dog nosed a garbage can and sniffed around the bar.

And this dog called to that dog just to see what he was doing.
And that dog answered this dog back and talked about some new fun.

And because, of course, dogs sleep all day, and do not talk in whispers
All night long the hotel guests heard bark-bark, ruff-ruff, bark.

Adventure Girl

Here are some more pictures from our weekend in Mindo.


Rebecca on the first of 10 ziplines.

Paul on the last of 10 ziplines.

Maya and Rebecca getting ready for their joint ride. Notice that they´re wearing helmets, to protect their head should the line snap and they plummet the 300 plus feet to the bottom of the rainforest floor.



Here´s the video of Rebecca and Maya on the return from their zipline ride. They don´t call this a cloud forest for nothing. You couldn´t see them through the clouds until they were right there.



A post zipline juice at the local juice bar. We loved the swings and the yummy tropical juices. The best was Maya´s pineapple milkshake.

Here´s the ¨cable car¨ that we took across the jungle valley to the waterfalls.
You can´t really see the depth of the plunge down because it´s all green, but it was pretty far down.

Maya in Flight and on Foot

We spent a long weekend (Saturday to Monday) in Mindo, a small village about 1 and 1/2 hours drive from Quito. Mindo's climate is in a transitional area between high-altitude temperature zones and lower-altitude, humid, sub-tropical forests, so we had to pack both long sleeve and short sleeve shirts. Also, because Mindo borders these two climates, many species can thrive there, so it has hundreds of bird and butterfly species and over four thousand varieties of orchid in the area. There are also hammocks. Here is Jonah putting Mommy down for her afternoon nap.

If you are super into birdwatching, you can rent guides for $100 a day and go out into the forests and see hundreds of different types of bird species. We aren't that into birdwatching. Our idea of birdwatching was to look into the nearby trees as we sat in the hot tub. Just doing that we saw some very brightly-colored and oddly-beaked birds. I suppose a guide could have told us the names, but I would have just forgotten them anyway.

We were really excited to stay at the hotel that we did, El Carmelo de Mindo. We wanted to be in the forest (since we live in the city) and the hotel delivered on that count. It was set a few kilometers out of town, had hiking trails on the grounds, beautiful flowers, birds and butterflies, and you could hear the nearby river as you lay in bed. We wanted something fun for the kids to do there. It delivered by having three different pool areas (and a pool table). And the pools were not boring old rectangles. These were Caribbean-quality resort-type pools. And no, Opa is not sucking in his gut to puff up his chest.

And, to top it all off, you could rent a tree house as your room. When Rebecca and I went to India in the late 20th century, we stayed in a tree house at the beach in Goa, so I was thinking we'd relive that time (without the morning, noon, and night sex).

But alas, although we had planned to stay in a tree house (this one even had a satellite TV dish), we ended up staying in an alpine-style cabin. The tree houses didn't have much living space (big enough for a bed and table and toilet and sink) and anyone who has invited us to stay at their house knows that the suitcase we have vomits clothes all over the room as soon as we arrive. Plus, getting into and out of the tree houses several times a day wouldn't have been practical with Maya and Jonah. It sucks to be a grown-up and think about these things, but at this point in my role as parent, I am resigned to it. Oh well. We had a fun time in the cabin. Here is a photo of Maya and Jonah on the balcony.

And here is a photo of Opa giving Maya her first lesson in breaking and entering.



The town of Mindo itself turned out to have that third world look that makes you feel like you are living on the edge - even when you just put on clean underwear that morning. Because we were trying to save space on our camera's memory card, Rebecca deleted the photo I took of town. But despite it's muddy street and packs of wild dogs and chickens, it has an incredible amount of things going on. There are dozens of hotels and restaurants in the two or three block area that makes up the town center, as well as dozens of tour operators promoting various activities to keep you entertained.

The few restaurants we ate at were good. Though, I have to say, the place we ate lunch on Saturday, called El Chef, turned out to be the best. I was happy to discover a new meal that I can eat for the rest of the summer and can recommend highly - churrasco. Churrasco is thinly sliced beefsteak accompanied by two fried eggs, rice, fried plaintains or french fries, and vegetables or a salad. El Chef sells it for $3.80. Another place we lunched sold it for $4.75. The eggs were perfect and it came with patacones (which are thick-sliced, fried banana chips) but the steak was tough, rendering the meal disappointing.

We were joking that in a small place like Mindo, there are probably only a few good cooks, and probably only one is outstanding. So if you own a restaurant, the competition to hire the outstanding local chef is probably intense. If you miss out on hiring him or her, you may as well open a place that offers bird-watching or adventure tours. We guessed that the best cook in town worked at El Chef (and got the place named after him or herself).

As for activities other than eating, in addition to the birdwatching, butterfly-ing, and orchid-ing, you can go horseback riding, tubing on the river, four-wheeling, take a cable car to a waterfall hike, or go on a canopy tour on zip lines.

Zip lines are cables strung from tree to tree over a canyon, gorge or other valley-like place. You get yourself all geared up in a harness, lock yourself onto the cable in a few different places, and zip over this vast drop to the opposite platform, which could be 300 or 400 meters away. Then, hike up or down to the next launch point and do it all over.


Here is Rebecca on her way out of the first launch station.


Rebecca and I had never done zip lines before (Opa had done it as a day trip on one of the hundred cruises he has been on) and the first launch, as you sit suspended in the air hundreds of feet above the tree line, was pretty intense. After I got over the adrenaline rush of the first few launches, and could focus on the views, it was pretty outstanding. Rebecca needed an additional rush, so did something called the butterfly. The butterfly is when you hang upside down from the cable and flap your arms and legs like they were butterfly wings. Our camera battery was dead, so we didn't get a picture of Rebecca doing this enormously funny-looking stunt. But we did get a picture of a me and Opa looking serious and of a woman we were with doing the butterfly stunt.


Maya was pretty upset when we got geared up and readied to do our first launch. Her eyes were tearing and she was being very brave not to cry. I guess she thought we were going to plummet to our deaths (the thought actually crossed my mind as well). But, by the time we got back, Maya said she wanted to try it! It may have helped that a whole family of kids around her age were just getting set to take off.

Since it was getting late, Rebecca and Maya only did a launch out and back. Rebecca said Maya was smiling the whole time. And when she came back, you couldn't help but notice that she was glowing. We were really proud of her. And, she surprised us even more by saying that the two zips wasn't enough, she wanted to do all ten! So we went back on Monday so she and Rebecca could get the full monty. When we asked Jonah if he wanted to go, he said "No. Maybe when I'm five or six."

Because our camera was kaput for the weekend, Opa and PoPo took all the pictures. Since we've returned, we keep forgetting to ask them to bring their whatchamacallit so we can download the pictures they took of Maya in space to our computer. Also, they have all the photos of the following adventure on their camera as well. So, I'll post extra pictures to this entry in a day or two. Incidentally, I posted some pics to the "Religion, Brought to you by the City of Quito" entry tonight. So you may want to check them out.

Maya also wanted to do this thing called The Tarabita. The Tarabita is a cable car ride across a river valley, and then a variety of hikes to seven different waterfalls. The cable car turned out to be more scary to me than the zip lines. Picture the carriage-type thing from those old school swing sets that you and I grew up with hurtling three hundred feet in the air across a river valley, and propelled by a car engine. Then picture a guy that looks like Chong from Cheech and Chong at the controls. Then imagine your fear.

But, we made it across the valley and did the shortest hike (about 20 minutes) to a waterfall called El Narambillo. It was a small waterfall, but Opa and I had fun swimming in our underwear in the pool at its base. Maya, Jonah and Rebecca actually had their swim suits with them (well, Jonah had his birthday suit) but couldn't take the cold water so just stood around looking wistful. And, the most impressive thing was that both Maya and Jonah walked about ninety-eight percent of the hike (and it was fairly steep on the way back). The hike must have really worn Jonah out because he fell asleep on the car ride home at about 5 p.m. and slept through the night.

Religion, Brought to you by the City of Quito

There's nothing like a Spanish-conquered country to prompt an observant, thoughtful little girl to pose the questions that have puzzled intellects and caused countless wars and acts of violence through the centuries.

Earlier this week, Maya, Jonah and I were in Parque Alameda, which borders the old and new towns. There is a low promontory in the park that provides a nice view on the surrounding area (and a not-so-nice view of the surrounding rooftops). Here is a view of the park from the promontory.


And a few shots of Maya, Jonah, Opa and I having a pedal boat ride around the park.





From the promontory you can see a gi-normous church to the near southwest that sits roughly on the border of the old and new towns. Maya, of course, saw the church and asked what it was. We had some binoculars with us and could see people standing on the towers of the church. That looked cool, so we decided to go there.

It turns out the Basilica del Voto Nacional is the tallest church in Ecuador (115 meters to the top of the tallest tower - 115 meters is about 120 yards). The church was built around the turn of the 20th century and is in the typical neo-gothic style - flying buttresses, spires, arches, and statutes of saints and gargoyles. Inside it's cavernous and dark, with only candlelight and the natural light from the stained glass windows shedding any light on the situation. The windows have scenes from Jesus' life and Maya and I talked about that. It was cute that as soon as we entered, the kids started talking in whispers without any prompting from me. The size and solemnity of the place just evoked that reaction. Here is a photo of it from Parque Alameda.

To get into the towers you take an elevator to the attic of the church and then have to climb a few ladders that are about as perpendicular to the ground as you can get without tipping backwards. So, the kids chickened out. I was glad they did. I realized as we approached the first ladder that 1) this was no place for kids, especially a two-and-a-half year old, 2) the thought of them climbing the ladder was too much for me to take, so the reality would have been out of the question, and 3) I'm a little bit afraid of heights. Not curl up in a ball and die afraid, but definitely timid around ledges and drops. And I don't want the kids anywhere near ledges and drops.

We did manage to climb up into the clock towers on a long winding spiral staircase. Maya managed it by herself and I carried Jonah. I could see the staircase going up and up from where I decided was as high as we were going and finally disappearing through the ceiling into this glowing white light. Even if someone told me heaven was into the light, I would have decided we'd had enough. My heart and nerves couldn't take anymore climbing. I kept imagining Maya missing a step and plunging through the very narrow opening that there was no way she could have actually fit through. But even realizing that, I was still nervous. When we got back down to solid ground, Maya told me that she had wanted to go higher.

(Column Intermission I - The clocks in the clock towers of the Basilica actually were working and kept the correct time. We spent a few minutes of our lives there just watching the gears working and the minute hand moving. I have noticed that other clock towers in Quito, be it on churches, banks, other random steeples or wherever, all work and keep the correct time. Fairly impressive for a city that has bigger problems to worry about than making sure its public clocks keep the correct time.)

As it turns out the white light is not heaven. The spiral staircase just goes to the very top of the spiral tower that we first noticed from the park.

There were some balconies at the ceiling level where the elevator stops that we got some nice views from. I didn't have the camera with me that day, so no pictures. One of the things we could clearly see from one of the balconies is the statue of the Virgin de Quito on El Panecillo.

Here is the Virgin in all her glory.

El Panecillo is a hill on the south end of the old town. The Virgin de Quito is a thirty meter high statute of the winged virgin of Quito standing on an orb with a serpent curled around her feet and chained to her arm. Yesterday (Thursday) we took a taxi to the summit of Panecillo with Opa and PoPo, and then Maya, Jonah and I climbed the few flights of stairs to the platform at the base of the statute. That was fun for them - not so much for me as the platform is surrounded by this rusting, broken iron fence that has gaps large enough for an enterprising young one to squeeze him or herself through and plunge to his or her death.

The statute isn't really the attraction of El Panecillo, though. Though, Maya did want to ask a few questions about who the statute was (I told her it was Jesus' mother) and why it was there (a present to God).

The views of the city from the top of the hill and the platform are spectacular. Old town in the foreground is all low, fairly symmetrical white buildings, with a church spire poking up here and there. Then, not too far to the North where the new town begins, the low buildings give way to high rises of all shapes and sizes. It's pretty striking. I took pictures, but I am sure that they won't convey the emotions one feels when viewing the real thing. But, at least you can see where the old town and new town meet.



So, anyway, with the Basilica and the Virgin, Maya is getting a view of the willingness of a government to splurge on religious excesses and idols. And hopefully, she is getting non-biased answers to her questions that related to religion. I think her next religious experience will be art. There are some interesting sounding museums in Quito that house paintings from an era called the Quito School of Art.

Basically, after the Spaniards conquered the Incas, they used Catholicism to colonize the natives. To do this, they wanted to saturate the country with religious architecture and works of art. As part of the process, they made the natives start painting pictures of religious objects. Eventually, the Quitano natives developed their own style which involved lots of gold overlays and other decorative coloring - the Quito School of Art.

I'm not really into art (though, I do appreciate Jack Black movies) but these paintings sound interesting enough to at least get a look at some of them. And, I'm curious to see what Maya's reaction to it will be.

I already know what Jonah's reaction will be, "Poppy, I have to go poo-poo."

Nothing to Say, As Usual

I have nothing to say, as usual. But this time, I won't bore you by saying it in fifty or sixty lines of type. I was going through some pictures and decided to do a pictorial post. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

On an unrelated note, scroll to the bottom of the page to vote in our poll.

The pictures:
Here is a shot of Maya and Jonah at a post in the ground representing the equator. There is apparently another, more touristy, middle of the world that we are supposed to visit for the real Equator experience. This was just a quick pit stop on the way back from Otavalo.


Mommy and Jonah checking out the goldfish at one of the ponds on the Pachamama grounds.


Jonah on the ropes.




A hike through a Eucalyptus tree forest. You could really smell the eucalyptus.



A happy couple we saw in the park.



Roadside fruit stand - selling nothing but chilly-moyas (sp?). There was a whole street of these stands. We stopped because we thought they were avocados. A chilly-moya has the consistency of a pear, but this bunch that we brought was much sweeter than a pear. Others we have tasted have no taste. Guess they weren't ripe. The flesh of the fruit surrounds big black pits. Must have about twenty or thirty pits in it. But they are big and easy to spit out for us veterans of the by-gone days of watermelon seeds.



Rebecca and I out with two of her colleagues.



Maya on the zip line at Pachamama.



And for the grand finale, some photos of my beautiful daughter.