Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands - Chris Hardie

After a long day and a half of travel that took us through the markets of Otavalo, back through the beautiful mountains to Quito, through long lines and paperwork at the airport, and then to Atlanta and Dayton, Kelly and I are back home in Richmond. Ecuador already feels far away, but we'll soon have a chance to revisit it through photos, video and stories. Thanks so much to everyone who followed along on this blog, and who cheered us on as we traveled. It was an interesting experience to share...

We might have mentioned that Banos is located at the base of a volcano, Tungurahua (which means "throat of fire" in the local tongue). Well, literally at the moment we were pulling out of town this morning, that volcano erupted. As in, the road we were on closed as we were on it, police cars and ambulances sped by, and we saw the ash cloud forming behind us. The locals pretty much dropped what they were doing to line up along the road to watch, so we knew it was a big deal. Exciting! The...

The spoiling of ourselves continues.  After our "perfect day" we decided it was time to challenge ourselves a bit, so we'd signed up for a whitewater rafting tour on the nearby river Pastaza.  We were a little nervous about it (okay, mostly Kelly) - was it going to be safe, would the guides speak enough English, were they REALLY going to be class III-V rapids as advertised? - but we took a leap of faith. It paid off - we had some of the best rafting that either of us have ever experienced.  It...

In our last post, we were obviously a little travel weary, thus the declarations of permanent residence in Banos, Ecuador.  The travel weariness has worn off, but we're still ready to declare Banos a prime destination for other reasons: it's truly a bit of paradise.  We came here with the intention of staying two nights and then working our way north, but we ended up staying four nights, and we're still sad to go. As I mentioned before, Banos seems to be the Ecuadorian equivalent of Boulder,...

We are currently at the foot of an active volcano in Banos, a small town deep in the Andes that is part Santa Fe, part Boulder, and part San Luis Obispo, with an Ecuadorian twist. We're so glad to be here after the most ridiculously harrowing (but incredibly beautiful) 3.5 hour bus ride through the mountains that we've decided we can't stomach the idea of ever leaving. Perhaps this beer at this cute little cafe will take the edge off, or perhaps one of the many leisure activities offered on every...

Hi there! We're back at our "usual" hotel in Quito, preparing for our final week in Ecuador. It's pretty wonderful to be back on land after eight days on a boat - more about that in a moment. Our time in the Galapagos islands was phenomenal. Words here won't do justice to the things we saw and experienced there, and even the tons of photos and video we're bringing back with us can't fully capture it. But a few highlights: The main theme of the encounters with the land and the animals of the Galapagos...

Having finished our time on the motorized yacht Eric, our home for the last week, we're just laying around with the local sea lions at the beautiful waterfront park on San Cristobal Island. Our flight back to Quito departs shortly. More details, including sea sickness horror stories, coming soon.

Chris and Kelly with a giant Galapagos Tortoise:

Okay, we're back in Quito for the night, let's try this blog post again. On Thursday morning we met up with Guillermo Valencia a local driver/guide recommended by our hotel.  He did a great job of narrating the landscape of Quito - physical, political and otherwise - as he took us out toward Mindo.  We stopped along the way to stand on the equator (Chris tried to balance an egg on a nail and failed, Kelly successfully verified that water swirls in different directions on different sides of the line,...

This WAS a fairly detailed post about the amazing experiences Kelly and I have had the last few days in the cloud forests of Mindo, but the internet connection and computer in this Internet cafe were flaky enough that this update is now gone, and this very short update will have to suffice. We´re about to get on a bus back to Quito (two and a half hours on winding dirt roads in the mountains - wish us luck!) and then tomorrow we´re off to the Galapagos. I´ll try to recreate the longer post later...