28 not so great. . .

At the beginning of June, Mike and I each celebrated our birthdays. Some say that bad luck comes in threes so we'll hope that this is true. It started with Mike's Dad letting us know that he would not be able to join us in Peru and would have to reschedule around 9PM very near when my actual birthday occurred. Although we both understood we were both disappointed. Thomas, Mike's brother, would still be coming down but I had lost my blue circle traveling buddy (in the skiing sense, not their airport security line skills). Whereas Michael and Thomas are more of black diamond travelers erring on the side of extreme and moving fast, Mike's Dad and I enjoy taking it all in. The next blow came the following day when our camera was stolen within 20 minutes of bus ride from Cuenca. The rest of the day was spent in the police station and then on a later bus replaying what things we should have done differently to prevent the theft. However, hindsight is 20/20 and there was nothing we could do- the camera was gone. We finally arrived around midnight on the other side of the border in Tumbes, Peru. Clearly it had been a long day and we were both looking forward to a good night's sleep and a hot shower. We arrived at the hotel and took out our Peruvian money. We handed the owner a 100 sole bill that we had gotten back in April and were told that it was counterfeit. Luckily he said we could just pay tomorrow since going to an ATM at that time of night would not be safe or fun. Well the first 28 hours didn't turn out so great but we're hoping for better luck now that Thomas will be with us to add to the fun.

From Banos

This being said our birthdays were quite fun before the bad luck began. For Mike's birthday we were in Banos, Ecuador enjoying the hospitality of Mary Beth's Ecuadorean family. They took us on a waterfall tour, to the hot springs, and Sarah made a birthday dinner complete with cake. The excitement of Banos was increased with the sounds of the exploding volcano nearby. Because of the volcano the town was a little less crowded than normal and it was nice to be with locals for a change.

My birthday was spent in the beautiful town of Cuenca. We stayed in a wonderful hostel and I awoke to find two dozen roses in our room that Mike had gotten from the local flower market early in the morning. Many of the roses in the US come from Ecuador and they were very beautiful. We spent the day exploring the city's churches, a mosaic exhibit, and shared a delicious piece of chocolate cake. That night we walked to dinner. We picked a restaurant on the second floor of the corner of the plaza. This turned out to be the perfect spot. We sat by the window and fifteen minutes into the meal a celebration began of Corpus Christi in the plaza below. Fireworks and floating candles were lit before our eyes. However, it was not uncommon for the fireworks not to go straight up and they seemed to land right in the crowds of people gathered below. We watched safely from our balcony and just enjoyed the moment. It was truly magical evening that we won't soon forget.

Ecuador & latest happenings

While we try to write our blog posts about Galapagos, I decided to give a quick update of what's been going on with us so far.  

We crossed into Quito from Bolivia after a grueling 4 day bus adventure.  We then enrolled in two different schools.  One was a Spanish school the other Salsa.  One of our goals with the trip was to learn Spanish and we decided that speaking English to each other and stammering out phrases to locals just wasn't cutting it.  So we had Spanish school in the morning and Salsa classes in the afternoon.  In the meantime we searched for last-minute deals to the Galapagos Islands.  We ended up finding a great deal on a first-class boat for the next Saturday for 8 days!  We're still going through those pictures and trying to keep them manageable for those who actually look at them all. :)   Both our schools were really fun.  Both Suzanne and I had private teachers for around 4 bucks an hour, 4 hours a day.  They really helped us out on learning all the grammar that we hadn't learned or mastered in school.  We're still by no means fluent but I can say proudly that I am 70 pages into the first Harry Potter in Spanish and besides some vocabulary, am understanding it pretty well. :)  Salsa was the same way.  I really like dancing it, Suzanne does too.  It's so fast, but sensual and fun too!  We are looking forward to perfecting our skills in the discotecas down here.  

After the Galapagos, we took another week of our schools and packed up and headed south.  My dad and brother were going to join us in June for a trip to Machu Picchu and we had a week before they arrived.  So we decided to hit a couple of the main tourist spots on the way down.  First on the list was Otavalo, a huge and giant market in Ecuador.  We took the opportunity to get a lot of gift shopping done!  

Next on the list was Banos, the top Ecuadorian resort town.  It is nestled in beautiful green mountains with a stunning volcano just 5 miles away which gives it plenty of hot water for springs and resorts.  There we met up with some good friends of Suzanne's sister Mary Beth who took us under their wing for the 2 days we were there and showed us an amazing time.  Oh and did I mention that the volcano was erupting!  :)  We would hear huge explosions during the day that would rumble down through the valleys towards Banos.  If you were in direct line of site of it, you got an even louder bang.  Standing outside our new friends house, we were able to see the shock wave push through the ash and water vapor and then wait for the thunder clap to reach us (I counted, 26 seconds roughly).  It was awesome.  Then I set up my camera (poor camera...) to do a time-lapse video and you can see it erupting.  At night, you could see some of the rocks glowing red that had just been expelled from the cone.  Sadly I didn't get a picture, but here's the video:  

From Banos

Then we headed south to Cuenca, a beautiful colonial town.  We enjoyed it a lot there.  The highlight was on Suzanne's birthday, which happened to coincide with the feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) in which the locals have fireworks and parties most of the night.  We walked down to the plaza and sat in a restaurant with a view and watched the fireworks go off.  It was amazing.  The cathedral was lit up and the fireworks would be set off just in front of it.  This was actually very dangerous (or so it seemed to us) because there were trees in the plaza and sometimes the fireworks went off into the tree.  Luckily no fires that we saw.  In addition to the fireworks they were setting off what seemed like little hot air balloons.  They looked like a candle in a big paper bag or something  but they would rise very slowly and then eventually start sinking (hopefully out).  And through it all we just sat and drank our wine on the balcony and had a blast.  

The next day began a rough patch for our journey.  As we left Cuenca to head south towards Lima to pick up my brother, my camera was stolen.  We were on the bus and we had put the camera on the luggage racks above us. About 30 minutes in, I got a funny feeling and decided to bring the camera down but when I got up it was missing. We think it was someone who had gotten on the bus to sell stuff or someone else who just got on to see if there was anything worth stealing.  They appeared to slide the case towards the back of the bus then took it down, took out only the camera and left the case on the floor.  When I looked up, case was gone then I started looking around the bus, then fell to the floor to see if it was there.  There I found the case under the seat of a young boy.  I took the case but felt my momentary joy fall as I realized the case was much too light.  Opening it up, the camera was gone.  :(  Not only that but the wonderful neck strap that our friend Julie had made for us was gone too.  We stopped the bus, got off and called the police.  He took us to the station and we filed a report.  Overall it was very sad.  We had insurance on it, and it seems like the claim will go through without a problem but it just sucked.   


So anyway, then we continued on, there was nothing we could do in Cuenca anymore (the police never find stolen cameras).  We arrived in the Peru border town of Tumbes tired and feeling a bit violated.  We eventually got to Peru and waited there for Thomas my brother to arrive.  We picked him up no problem and we are now currently in Cusco, the capital city of the Incan empire.  We're going to spend the next couple of days exploring the sacred valley and visiting Machu Picchu.  It's great to have a visitor with us and we're sure this month is going to be a blast!  


~Mike