Bus, Walk, Bus, Walk and Some Airplane Action Too!

The title basically describes what I´ve done the past week and a half but without the beautiful scenary attached. No seriously, if the bus rides didn´t offer gorgeous views through a slew of diverse environments, I would have gone stir crazy. Just to give you an idea, the bus ride from Quito to Cuenca takes between 10 and 12 hours (no we didn´t go straight through). However, the wonderful airplane trip I took last night from Cuenca to Quito took all of 35 minutes! Oh the luxury of air travel (minus the pollution footprint I added to the planet)!

View of Cuenca from Banco Central Museum

Okay, so I digressed a bit. Back to business. Traveling with my mom has been quite fun. Of course we get on one another´s nerves occasionally. Over the months, I´ve become more chill about time, whereas my mom hasn´t had a chance to get into the no-rush travel mentality. Sometimes we bicker about safety and security too, but that´s to be expected. My mom´s been really flexible about what sites and cities we visit. She mainly wanted to have a chance to relax. And, while we´ve done that a bit (bus rides and a few massages), I´m afraid I´ve forced her to walk a fair distance in every city. If it wasn´t a nature walk in Vilcabamba or Baños it was a city walk through Riobamba or Cuenca. Many days we walked at least 3 hours and sometimes up to 8. After all the physical activity invoved in my 3 months of volunteering, it´s so hard to sleep-in and relax for an entire day.

On the most recent leg of the ¨Mom and Daughter Livin´Life to the Fullest Trip¨we journeyed to Baños, Riobamba, Cuenca and Vilcabamba. We both agree that Vilcabamaba and Cuenca top the list.

Coffee

In Vilcabamba we stayed at Izhcayluma, a hostal owned by two Germans. It sits 2 km up a hill outside of the main plaza, which makes for a wideswept view of the area. The food (always important) was feast-like every meal and perhaps more importantly, not salty! My mom loved the fresh-baked grain bread (hard to find in Ecuador) and German dishes while I stuck with inventive fresh and filling salads. Oh, I can´t skip over the pizza...the best I´ve had in Ecuador! Cheese that tasted more like mozzarella than queso fresco and what I believe was homemade crust. Vilcabamba has numerous walks and though my mom didn´t want to take a chance at some of the most difficult trails, we still got in a fair amount of fun exercise (the only kind worth doing!).

Vilcabamba

Going to Cuenca was like a step back in time but with more tourists than I remember. The city itself still has the good colonial feel that I loved back in 2004 when I studied at CEDEI. It was fun trying to find the churches, the parks, the restaurants and the grocery store from memory. I did well with everything except, believe it or not, our lunchtime hotspot, Moliendo Cafe. The mixto sans carne (veggies, chicken, beans and cheese on a Columbian corn tortilla) still hits the spot, and I had a sweet but not too sweet mora juice to go with it.

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Cuenca

Pots and Pans, Anyone?

Truly one of the best memories I will keep from my entire time in Ecaudor is the two days we spent with my Cuencan host family. When I told them that I was returning to Cuenca, they immediately offered their home as a place to stay. I was a bit nervous to accept because I knew it would mean constant translating between my mom and my host family. Since I haven´t used nearly as much Spanish here as I´d hoped, I knew my host mom, especially, would notice the downturn in my ability to communicate. However, per the usual, everything turned out better than expected (great how life normally works that way!). My host sister, Tati, took us to Cuenca´s Baños, to Turi (a great spot to view the sprawling city) and to get Cuecna´s famous peanut butter ice cream. One day we also went to Cajas National Park. The park is situated about an hour from Cuenca but much higher. It boasts over 200 lakes, according to Diego, my host dad. The rest of the time, mom and I spent touring the markets, chatting with my host family, or relaxing at the house. What a lovely way to end this part of our trip.

Diego, Clara and Me in Cajas

Ranger Station Lake, Cajas (I don´t know the real name!)

This morning, mom and I woke early and headed to Old Town where we toured some churches, museums and visited some shops. It was a great day to (guess what??) walk some more. I´m exhausted, but now it´s time to go pack for the next adventure. Tomorrow we will rise with the sun and hit the airport one more time to start our stint in the rainforest. Our journey to the Amazon starts with a plane ride, then continues with a 2 hour bus ride, a motor boat ride and ends with a canoe ride. My mom read somewhere that our lodge doesn´t have road access at all (pretty cool!). I´m thrilled to see what´s in store the next five days! Hopefully animal sightings, tropical food, night hikes, and a little ethnobotony too.

I am thoroughly enjoying my Nikon camera, so I got a little picture happy this time around. Unfortunately, I just realized I deleted about 50 photos from my camera without saving them! Grrr.

Until next time...

Becky