Ciao Ecuador, Hola Peru

Greetings -

When I wrote our first blog entry in early February, I mentioned that I'd be posting the next message by February 15ish.  Thank goodness I added the "ish". Time has raced by while we've been in Ecuador. There's a lot to talk about so to help keep things concise, I've included a list of stats & facts to give a flavour of the trip so far:

• Days in SA: 38
• Days in Ecuador: 34
• Days in Peru: 4

• # hours spent on overland Ecuadorian buses: 55
• # of zip-lines completed through the Mindo Cloud Forest: 10
• # of Galapagos marine iguanas sighted: 1428
• # of volcanoes climbed: 1
• # of minutes we swam in a murky amazon lagoon while being assured by the guide that the caimans, anacondas, and piranhas only stayed by the shores: 4

• # of miles of oil pipelines extending from the Ecuadorian rainforest: endless
• SPF # required to ward off the smoking-hot South American sun: 85
• # of times we've answered a question in english, using a spanish accent: still counting
• # of times Colleen thought the hostel caretaker might be a serial killer: 1 
• # of times Shane had to tell Colleen that the hostel caretaker wasn't a serial killer: 22
• # of days with weather above 30 degrees: 28
• # of times we've thought " we are so incredibly fortunate to be taking this trip: at least 4 times a day

And lastly, the number of times I thought to myself "I've got to get that next blog entry done": well, lets just say a lot.

So our time in Ecuador has come to an end.  If we were to rate our experience on a scale of 1 to 10, we'd definitely be pushing a 10.  Everything from  the activities and transportation to the overall beauty of the country, has been pretty fantastic.   While we’ve found every day of our trip to be interesting - in fairness, you might not - so we've opted to provide a few of the highlights of the trip: The Galapagos Islands, the jungle and Cotopaxi.

As we were promised, the trip to the Galapagos Islands was exceptional with stunning weather, landscapes, and a sea (pun intended) of opportunities to see marine life on the islands including scores of sea lions, lava lizards, marine iguanas as well as pink flamingos, penguins and blue footed boobies (and by boobies, I mean birds).  

After the Galapagos Islands we headed out to the jungle -  lots of monkeys, birds, and bugs...not to mention a whole 'lotta' vegetation.  We weren't overrun by insects, albeit one cockroach in our room.  We asked if it was ok to kill the cockroach but were advised that more would come in it's place .  We opted for a relocation program (the cockroach, not us).   Piranha fishing yielded a catch of 2 tiny razor-sharp toothed fishies with mouths big enough to chomp off your fingernail.  No room for bragging rights but interesting nonetheless.

Cotopaxi is the world's highest active volcano with an elevation of 5,897 meters (19,347 feet).  After hiking to the refuge site of the volcano, Shane encouraged me to climb to the summit.  He headed to Banos, 3 hours away, to complete a 30 km bike trip and I waited to acclimatize for a couple more days before heading up to the summit with a group of 10 other climbers from Germany, Canada and the US.

The weather was perfect and after climbing for 6 hours, mostly by moonlight over a massive glacier, we made it to the top at 6:30AM. Exhausting but exhilarating.

On Friday we left Ecuador and arrived in Peru, heading to the beach town of Mancora where I’m writing this entry now.  From here we'll make our way down to Lima, stopping in a number of cities along the way.  Like many other travelers that we've crossed paths with, we're trying to sort out when we can trek the Inca Trail and visit Machu Picchu.

With 5 weeks of travel under our belts, our trip has met and often exceeded our expectations. I can't remember the last time that I saw Shane so rested and relaxed.  We feel pretty fortunate to be here.

Well, that's all from us for now. Hoping this message finds you well.  Please feel free to send us an email or you can post a comment below. Of course we'd love to hear from you.

Shane & Colleen

Made it.

Well we’re here in Quito, Ecuador, learning to adjust without commutes, Blackberries, deadlines, and in Shane’s case, all-nighters at the office.

I've been designated as the trip blogger, responsible for documenting our travels. Shane has assumed the title of creative contributer.  He's also responsible for ensuring that my perfectionist ways don't result in 2 blog posts for the entire trip (wish him luck with that). Admittedly, this isn’t my first attempt at writing this entry. Anyone who has spent more than 2.5 minutes with me knows that I generally have a lot to say (I call it sharing). So, I'm going to attempt to capture  the interesting, funny and sometimes seemingly irrelevant elements of our trip in a short and sweet format.  A couple of notes about the blog:

- The word ‘passport’ in the blog title will change according to the language of the country that we are writing  from.

- The far, bottom-right area of the blog will not be trip-related.  Just an area where we can post funny, odd, interesting info (first installation - “Mambo Dog”).

It’s hard to believe how much planning was required to take this trip. A common question that people asked us was how did we prepare. The answer: organized, detail-oriented and above all, rational planning.  Pretty much.  But we won’t lie, in the days and then hours leading up to our departure there were moments where being rational just  didn’t seem possible. A simple travel soap purchase became an agonizing 20 minute discussion in Shoppers Drug Mart (at 11:30 PM) - soap bar vs. shower gel.  In the end we accidently bought Dove shower lotion.  It does nothing more than make you smell like a morning-fresh cucumber.

Setting all the decision-making aside, we made it to the airport, boarded our plane and after landing in LA, then Costa Rica, and then Quito, Ecuador we settled into our cozy, moldy hostel room.  Well actually damp and moldy.  We slept for about 12 hours and moved on from New Town Quito to Old Town Quito (no - ‘old’ doesn’t mean more mold).  As we were shown to our bunk-beds (just like camp!), our hostel attendant informed us that aside from having the reputation as the second highest capital city in the world, Quito also has the highest rate of robberies and pickpockets in South America (mom, close your eyes and pretend you didn’t read this).

So what have we been up to?? A bit of relaxing, a bit of visiting with other backpackers (yesterday we told an interesting diving accident story to an avid diver and made her cry...), a 5-hour trek & 1-hour nap in the mountains at 4300 meters, and planning our 11-day trip to the Galapagos Islands on Friday. The boat is really great and the itinerary looks fantastic. The bonus - no bunk-beds.

View of Quito
 4300 meters above sea level and a perfect place for a nap.

So that’s it for now.  The next time we check in with you will be February 15ish where I'm sure we'll have some interesting pictures and stories.

One important date that I want to note before I sign-off is February 6th - my dear friend Julie Rogal’s birthday. Thru and thru she is one of the most beautiful people that I know.  Happy Birthday Jna - for once I’m early...