Flambé

     I made my first flambé dish tonight. I was complimented that I did no appear nervous. I will make it again too. Easy pan roasted pork tenderloin with bourbon-soaked figs from Serious Eats. 

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/11/pork-tenderloin-bourbon-soaked-figs-weeknight-dinner.html

Paella again

     I made paella again last night and I made it better. We (my family, my sister-in-laws family and an extra cousin for a total of 9) spent the weekend on The Sound camping. We hiked (a little, 2 year olds don't tolerate longer), went to the beach, played cards under the tarp while it rained and ate pretty well despite the campfire ban. 

     After all that I had to cook with fire so I turned to my usual paella recipie on Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/grilled-lobster-paella-366437). This time I added clams which opened up in about 10 minutes and spilled their tasty juice all over the dish. 

     Most importantly I held back from adding liquid during the grilling which increased the socarrat at the bottom of the pan. I also made sure keep my grill at 400°. I believe that I can make the socarrat a bit fuller if I cook a bit longer. The recipie called for a total of 40 minutes and I probably did about 45. Next time 50-55. I wish there was a way to check without disturbing the dish. Everyone agreed that it was delicious and my niece from the Midwest tried clams for the first time. Super win!

Grilled Potato Salad

Grilled Potato Salad

1 bag mixed new potatoes chopped in at least quarters

1 medium yellow onion chopped about the same size as the onions 

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup cornichons chopped

     Toss potatoes and onions with olive oil, salt and pepper. Nuke for 5 minutes. Grill in grill basket in medium direct heat tossing every 4 minutes until done, about 16 minutes. Pull off grill and allow to cool for a little while. Toss with mayo and cornichons. Serve warm. 

It is the season for Gelato!

     I made my favorite Gelato today due to a request from my co-workers. I also remembered to take pictures during the process. The recipe is here. First you can see the simple tools and ingredients.

     You take the lemons, zest one of them and juice all of them. Keep the pulp. Chop up the zest.

      Discard the seeds and the membranes. You may need to put the pulp in the food processor but just for a second or two, you don't want to loose the texture.

      Add the juice & sugar and dissolve.

      Whip up your cream a bit.

     Put all in your ice cream maker.

      I run it for 30 minutes until starting to firm up. Make sure the freezer in the machine is good and cold and has been freezing for at least 24 hours or it won't set up very well.

      Put in a shallow wide, freezer safe Tupperware. It freezes quicker if it is spread out. It usually takes a day to get really frozen.

I smoked a pork butt today

     You can can do it on your webber! I smoked a 7 pound pork butt for 6 hours loosely following this recipie (http://howtobbqright.com/pulledporkrecipe.html). I had less time than I wanted so I had to crank the temp up near the end to reach the nirvana temperature of 195° F. 

     First I injected the roast with an apple juice brine then let it sit I that juice over night. Then I used Apple wood chips at about 250° F. The little smoker box sat right on the flavor bars on one side with the heat and the roast sat naked on the grill on the other side with a drip pan under neath. I mopped with soy sauce once and drippings the other. After 4 hours of smoke I put the roast on a pan with all its drippings and sealed it. I increased the temp to 350° and let it ride till I got to 195° F. It was delicious. I would use less salt and more sugar for my taste and I would use all the time and bring it up to temp slower. The meat was mostly falling apart with the deep interior still very tender. I wish I had a picture of the end product. 

Paella

     Paella is actually pretty easy to make. There are very few exotic ingredients, a special pan but the cooking is quite easy. What is hard is making it great. I would say that less than half of the times I have made it I have achieved socarrat. Socarrat is when the rice makes a tasty crust that caramelizes the rice and makes it crunchy and sweet. Last time I added to much water during the cooking and it stayed too wet. Another time I am sure that the grill was not quite hot enough. When I was in Spain in 2012 we went to the fantastic restaurant in the Mercado de la Boqueria. We had a wonderful meal. However we had three kids and a very short attention span and had to hurry their paella. They were horrified and now I understand. Triste.
     I used Gourmet's Grilled Lobster Paella recipe but I replaced the lobster with shrimp. I think is looks great and tasted good but not great. I will do better next time. I still have lots of summer left.

Thanks Alton Brown

I love Alton Brown's simple dietary list. Well I love lists and hate the idea of diets so this looks like a great plan. He lays it down nice and simple. Not like I can follow all of it.

Daily: whole grains, green tea, fruit, nuts.

Three times a week: oily fish, tofu, yogurt, sweet potato.

Once a week: alcohol, desserts, red meat, white starch.

Never: soda, canned soup, “diet” anything, fast food.

http://lifehacker.com/simplify-your-diet-with-alton-browns-four-lists-method-1699651847

Waffles from scratch

     It's not often that I have buttermilk around the house. When L requested waffles this morning I was happy to oblige. I also am usually a prepared mix kind of guy, going all the way back to bisquick. This recipe for Buttermilk Belgians in the Big Yellow Gourmet Cookbook did the trick nicely. Much better than a mix. I made a 1/3 batch and I used canola instead of butter. 1/2 a cup of batter did not quite fill my waffle maker. They were delicious. And they were gone before I could take a picture.

I got a picture this time. Special chocolate chip waffles for L's 6th Birthday!

Cake part one

     We make our nieces and nephews birthday cakes and my wife's sister makes our kids birthday cakes. We have made some pretty grand creations in the past. Today I started the 'How to Train Your Dragon' cake. It will be three layered and checkered chocolate, mint and buttermilk cake with Toothless on top. It we will be awesome but probably not a Pinterest moment. See phase one.

Chocolate cake tomorrow, then the building. Did you see that rainbow cake video in face book? We are trying a scaled down version of that. Go see our older creations on our Flickr site, see Birthday Cakes Album.

Last trip to the Boat Street Cafe

     Back in 1999 Stephanie and I got engaged at the lovely Boat Street Cafe just north of the ship canal. It has since moved to a grander spot but is now closing. The chef wants to pay more attention to her other reasurants.

      We went this last Friday for my birthday dinner and were blown away by the delicious food and great service. See my dinner below. Not my photo. 

     We look forward to going to The Whale Wins in Fremont. I have heard great things. 

Ceviche por la Madre de Ivonne y Luis

Our Spanish teachers, the sister and brother team of Ivonne and Luis, brought in their Mom to show us how to make traditional ceviche. This is the recipe. Here are pictures of the class.

Trumpet fish (small and white)
juice of 10 key limes. Key limes are small so maybe 5 normal limes are equivalent.
1 1/2 red onions
three tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 2 oranges
2 T olive oil
Black pepper
Green plantains thinly sliced

Debone and devein fish, cut small and put in juice of  7 limes with salt for 2 hours. Thinly slice (picar) red onions, wash onions with salt to reduce acid then squeeze in 3 limes, soak for ten minutes. Thinly slice tomatoes. Combine all with olive oil, cilantro, orange juice, and fish. Black pepper to taste.
Meanwhile fry sliced plantains in oil to make chifles.

Serve soup with chifles. Popcorn works too.

For shrimp, boil shelled and deveined shrimp for 5 minutes then soak in lime and salt for 2 hours.

Tortillas de Verde

The first recipie posted from our Ecuador trip. They taste like plantain latkes. Made by them given to us by our friend Anna who says she can't cook. Wrong.

4 plantain
50 ¢ queso fresco
2 eggs
1 onion (white)
Salt (one salt-spoon-ful)
Cilantro

=makes 10 quite large (could possibly be 12 smaller.
Fry in deepish oil, not as much as chips but nearly.

Anna Milsom

Home

     We are home. Have been for two days now.  The trip home was not entirely smooth but we made it safe and sound. The kids handled the trip better than expected and our house and people are in good shape. They went back to school today and Steph and I will go back to work in a couple of days. Tonight the kids are spending with family and friends. This is the first night without them near by in over 88 days.
     Thank you all so much for following us. At the highest we had 61 views of one blog post. Our most viewed photo was this one at 164 views for some reason.
     Thanks Martha Rustad for the most comments. Thank you Charlie from Central Market. Charlie is one of the culinary people who we love and has developed a great teasing relationship with Lumia. Upon our first trip to CM he saw us walking in he called us out as the Intrepid Explorers. He has been reading our blog and looking at our photos and was able to talk with us immediately about our adventures. That is why I did this blog and will continue. Back to commentary on my latest grilling or picking adventures.
     Look here very soon for our top lists of our adventures.
     Keep Traveling

Otavalo

     The other days in Quito we wandered, saw some more churches, ate food, hung out at home. I'm having a hard time getting motivated to elaborate so I will skip to the good things.

     On a side note, complete strangers have approached us in the street and told us to hold onto our kids. Quito is kinda creepy.

     Friday night 3/6 we had ice cream with a wonderful Ecuadorian family that we met back in Baños. They live in Quito and they took us to a modern suburban mall for ice cream. They even found a boy cousin to join us so Cael would have someone to play with. The kids ran around laughing and got sweaty and Steph and I had coffee with their moms. We all needed some same age entertainment. 

     Saturday 3/7 we did our last road trip. We had a nice Ecuadorian driver take us up in to the hills to Otavalo. It is touted as the largest outdoor market and it did not disappoint. The area is known for its woven, colorful tablecloths and wool wall hangings but there are many other crafts too. The main square and many roads leading up to it are packed with vendors, many in traditional garb. You weave in and out of the maze of cloth draped stalls and haggle them down, they will all eventually go down in price a bit but the prices are usually not too high to begin with. On the way we stopped at a national park at a salt lake but the weather was a bit socked in and we did not get a great view. Then we went to the much applauded Parque Condor where they rescue raptors of all kinds. We just made it for the raptor show. The center is up on top of a big hill and they let two big eagles loose to soar while the presenter talked about them. They got so far away that you would think that they will never come back but then the presenter whistles and they come right back and land on the arm of the keeper right in the middle of the crowd. It is a very nice presentation and you feel the birds are getting to get out and stretch. On the way back our driver loosened up and played his favorite American music for us, the Bee Gees. 

     Drivers in Ecuador are crazy. Stop signs are usually optional. Passing warnings are ignored. The steeper and windier the road, the faster you go, especially if you are a bus. It is okay to honk in exasperation when you are in the middle of a long line of non-moving traffic. We have had many white knuckled moments over these three months. As of this writing we have three more days and I hope for no more adventures, just a smooth ride home. See you back in Seattle in March 11!

Quito 3/3 and 3/4

     For the last stage of our Ecuadorian adventure we are in Quito, the capitol. It is a high elevation city on a plateau surrounded by mountains, a volcano, and valleys. Just east of the city you are in the Amazon river drainage.

    It is sprawling and it has many very different parts. We are just outside of the old town which has many beautiful old churches, the presidential palace and many older colonial building. Riding around town we have also seen newer neighborhoods, some ugly from the 70s to 80s and some more modern. There are also many big poor neighborhoods but we have not ventured into those. We have been warned away from them. 

     Our apartment is a little tucked away oasis and hard to leave. But first on 3/3 we went to the presidential palace and saw the changing of the guard. There were soldiers dressed up fancy and midevil like, some in horses but most on foot with spears or sabers. There were some more serious soldiers in BDUs and machine guns and secret service. Security is a big business here in Ecuador. The President and Vice President made an appearance from the balcony. Ecuadorians are divided and opinionated on their current president but he sounds like a guy I would support. 

     After that we wandered through a couple of churches and wound up sitting outside for lunch in the Plaza de San Francisco. The people watching was fun. The church on the square was very pretty with lots of gold and a traditional craft store in their basement was almost as cool as the museum we went to the next day. Then we found a grocery store and went home for spaghetti. 

     A note on typical Ecuadorian food. Aside from the coastal seafood, which I already covered, most Ecuadorian meals out consist of 1) soup, usually with some potatoes. 2) grilled or fried or stewed meat. 3) Potatoes fried or baked or rolled into a pattie or rice 4) a small salad of lettuce, tomatoes and pickled red onions. 5) a shared bowl of large baked corn kernels. It is good food but not great. This is not a culinary country. That is one of the reasons we are eating at home most nights.

     Day two in Quito, 3/4, we started off in a native ancient tribal art museum. Casa del Alabado is in a beautiful restored colonial building and has a great collection of mostly pre Incan native art going back 5000 years. The art is more intricate than I expected. I got the kids to stay interested by having them pick which peace was their favorite in each room then we would discus. 

     Lunch was typical Ecuadorian faire except some of the food was delivered by a waiter in a full purple gown and pointed hood. This is in preparation for the upcoming Good Friday celebration.

     We ended our days touring at Quito's most famous church Iglesias de la Compañia de Jesus. We were not allowed to take pictures of this church dripping with an estimated 7 tons of gold but I snuck one of the central dome. Lumia was accosted by a gaggle of school girls on school tour who were entranced by her hair. I got pictures of that. Lumia was very patient with her fans. It was like a scene from 'A Hard Days Night.'

     Two more days on the next post. 

     

Our favorite Ecuador guide book

If we keep at pace we will have done 14 of the top 21 things to do in Ecuador in the Rough Guide.

http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guide-Ecuador-Melissa-Graham/dp/1409363848

It's not called a rain forest for nothing

     On Februaury 26 we got up from our hotel in Quito and met our tour guide Chris who drove us down to the Amazon. We did not know that we would have a personal guide. We thought we would be in a bus of Amazon goers. Our guide started the tour the second we got in the car. He has a degree in tourism and therefore knows a lot of history and flora and fauna facts about Ecuador. Just east of Quito you are on the east side of the Andes that drain into the Amazon. We drove through a high pass, cloud forest and then into flatter rain forest. We stopped at a lovely thermal springs at Termas de Papallacta for a soak and lunch. They had 15 or more pools from ice cold to almost scalding in depths of 1 foot to six feet. Each pool had seats, some were made of natural rock and others of blue patterned tile. The place was many leveled with nice trees and bushes.

     We continued our drive and it got warmer and much more humid. We stopped for a few minutes in the first town along the Napo. We wandered around until we could see the monkeys that lived in the city park and feed them raw eggs. 

     We then stopped a few more villages down the Napo where we got into a skinny river boat with Hector (we had this same boat and pilot the whole time) and cruised the rest of the way to Casa del Suizo Lodge, which was super fun. It is a palm covered house that sits up on a bluff beside the Napo. It is in the last little town that has road access in this part of the jungle. Further east requires a boat.

     The lodge is really nice with clean accommodations, great food, a fantastic view and nice people. However, any extra thing is separate including drinking water and Internet. So watch your dollar. Otherwise I would suggest this place. There are fancier places and places deeper in the jungle; this place is a nice middle road.

     That afternoon we went into town to see a local who carves balsa wood into animals. The lodge has hundreds of them as fish and birds. Then we watched a heated soccer match between local teams on a covered concrete pitch. The guy who was bad mouthing the ref got a yellow card. Later he was the bartender at the lodge! Then the kids played in the pool while Steph and I had piña drinks at the swim-up bar. I always wanted a drink at a drive-up bar. At night bats come out for laps over the pool eating bugs attracted to the lights.  

     The next morning 2/27 we took our river boat and hiked up to the top of the forest. We saw old and recovering (primary and secondary) rainforest. Every day we also have a local guide Jairdl (pronounced Heidle) who described the flora, fauna and people. There are many different palm plants with many different uses. There are tons of bugs. One type of termite can be crushed and used as bug repellant. I tried this. We should have tried it on Lumia, who has at least twenty bites per leg right now! We did not see many animals except bugs as they are usually hiding or have moved further into the forest. 

     Then we went to an animal rescue center where we saw lots of animals - tapirs, macaws, monkeys, cayman, rodents, snakes - and it started to rain, heavy fat rain, and we had left our rain gear in the boat. It's not called the rainforest for nothing as it cleared by noon but we still got soaked. 

      Animal rescue centers are usually pretty sad but even sadder when given the tour by a grumpy German volunteer. It is quite sad to hear about animals that were only fed rice their whole lives or see macaws with their wings cut off. Moral of the visit is this: don't buy exotic animals for pets. You don't need them and can't provide them the enviroemt they need. Please don't even think about it. If you do, call us up and we'll tells you the horror stories to convince you differently!

      The best animals we saw were a cayman, monkeys and a lost flock bird that did not have a flock so followed us around. Now very soaked we headed back to the lodge for lunch. 

     In the afternoon we went to a tiny rainforest village up on stilts where we met Carlotta who showed us how to make chicha, a drink of fermented yucca. We tried it and it was meh, we tried the aged version and it was much better and stronger. We were shown many of the traditional things that made up her house, her village and her family. We got our faces painted with acheote. Then Jairdl showed us how to use the blow darts. Cael was the best and hit the target twice. (He might have had a little help from Jairdl with the aiming.) We went to the town by the lodge where a woman showed us the traditional pottery The rest of the afternoon was spent at the lodge swimming pool. We think the kids might recall the pool as their biggest experience in the rain forest...

     It rained overnight but the next morning 2/28 we were up for another hike. We hit the jungle and saw many more plants and bugs. We saw a huge centipede and leaf cutter ants. We rode on a little zip ine for fun. Lumia was starting to love our guides and walked with them. We tried the lemon ants, which tasted just like lemons (and, truly, you can only find limes in Ecuador). Then we build a raft of balsa wood and rafted back to the lodge. This was super fun. The kids took turns jumping off the raft. It was also nice to just drift down the river quietly. That afternoon we panned for gold and found a couple of tiny specks then we went to a butterfly farm. The coolest had bright blue insides of their wings but when they sat still, they closed their wings. I did not get the perfect pictures but I got some pretty good ones. Then we walked through the school but they were not in session so we did not see the kids. We went back for more pool time and a good grill dinner. There was a group there from North America, so we talked to some of them.

     The Amazon was great. You don't see as many things that you see in a Hollywood movie about the Amazon but it was beautiful and fun to learn about. I think the whole family would vote the boat rides up and down the Napo as our most fun part, including the raft trip. The next morning we headed back to Quito for part 5, the final part of our adventure. We are all getting pretty ready to be home. See you in less than two weeks. 

Packing for three months

     We have faced challenges during our adventures one of the most daunting is the packing and repacking of our gear. Packing to come hear was pretty easy but we had to pack for more climates than you might think at first glance. At the beach it was hot and we needed little but up in the mountains it is cold. Not only that we are going from hot to cold to hot and back one more time to cold. And a different kind of hot.

     After the beach we left two big bags at the hotel that we will fly out of full of beach gear and a few souvenirs that we did not want to lug all around Ecuador. That was pretty easy. Now that we are done with the Avenue of the Volcanoes we will go down to the Amazon. We will go one day to Quito and drop off bags full of heavier clothes and bulky stuff that we will not need in the jungle. 

Cotopaxi volcano 'zen park' and the Hacienda

     Today 2/22 we took a road trip to our next destination, part 3C. Our driver Oswaldo for the waterfall tour took us. We went around a couple of cities and had awesome helados de Salcedo, a special layered ice cream treat from the town of Salcedo. It is a wide layered popsicle with cream flavor around a bit of guanabana jam then mora, ron pasas, fruitilla, and taxo in stripes. The highways were nice and modern until we turned off for the last 20K to our hacienda. 20k on big gravel is a bit grueling but the place here is worth the ride. Hacienda Los Mortiños is a beautiful big house with attentive staff. All the guests for the weekend left and we are apparently the only people here so we got two rooms for the price of one. We are way up here, past 3600 meters, on the shoulder of Cotopaxi which tops out at 5900 meters. Upon our arrival, Cotopaxi peaked out of the clouds but then it turned to heavy rain then hail during during our first walk. The hacienda is alone in a rocky shrubby field with big hills and four mountains around. The haciendas up here are big old farm buildings from when the Spanish took over the farming and indebted the natives. A couple are still farms but most are now hotels.

     On 2/23 we woke up to a hearty breakfast then had a horse back tour of Parque Nacional Cotopaxi. I rode a horse once over 30 years ago. Steph rode some on her farm long ago. That is our level of experience. Our great baquero/cowboy Patricio rode the only skittish horse and led Lumia. The rest of us had a short lesson on stop, go, left, and right and we were off. My horse Castaña/Chestnut seemed content to follow the pack and would only hurry about every fourth time I urged him forward. Steph's horse was Moro, Cael's little horse was Petufo (Spanish for Smurf), and Lumia's was Dorado. Cael was a quick study and managed his morse well with some guidance from his Madre. 

     Up here we are in alpine meadow with flowers and shrubs but all the grass is pretty short as there are herds of wild horses and cows. Weather comes quickly with mostly clouds but Cotapaxi and its two lower neighbors Rumiñahui and Sinchalagua poked their heads out of the clouds a couple of times. It was pretty cold to start but got warm. The hacienda lunch was hearty. 

     We spent the afternoon hanging out at the hacienda blogging and journaling, doing homework, watching the weather go by, and playing games. The horseback ride was a frequent subject and Cael named our current location the Zen Park after playing that word in Quiddler. Lumia could not stop talking about the ride at bed time. I think we will need to do it again some time after my buttocks recover. 

     2/24 first thing this morning we woke up to a really clear day and got great pictures of Cotopaxi. Then the kids tried the climbing wall but the spots were made for adult hands and they did not get very high. I'll doctor the pics so they look like they are floating. Then we finally got the kids to hike. We hiked up the old lava flow into the national park by a little stream. There was the remains of a small pine forest but we had found out previously the the pine trees were imports from California and have been cut down so they don't contaminate the national park. We saw little water falls, wild flowers and cows. In the park we went up a hillock where all four mountains were out. We got a great Intrepid Explorers photo. The wild horses stared at us as we wandered around up and down hillocks over lava and pyroclastic flow. We got back for lunch and homework and family time. We have had very good meals here. Tomorrow we will go to Quito for one night then into the Amazon. I packed up my computer so you will have to wait four more days before photo updates. See you soon. 

Kids traveling

     It is not always easy to travel with kids. Our children are usually awesome. Some times however they argue, hit, scratch, throw a fit. They are just kids and we have taken them way outside of their comfort zone for a long time.

     However they will be forever marked by this trip we have undertaken. This is Cael's fourth trip outside of North America and he is very sure about the next two places he wants to go: Paris and Athens.

     Cael has mastered Spanish numbers which helps us pay a cabbie and he keeps us laughing. He also has good pronunciation. He has been very willing to try new things, especially odd fruit at the markets. He doesn't always like them but neither do I. He keeps me busy with talk about nerdy things like the Avengers or Lord of the Rings. We are currently discussing the Silmarilion. 

     Lumia is ever the friend maker. She has made friends now with two sets of little girls which has led us to making friends with two families. She also made friends with our neighbor back at the beach which helped facilitate our weekly neighborhood BBQs.

     We planned this as a family trip hoping that they would have a good time. It has been wonderful to spend this time as a family. We are still working up to long hikes.

Baños

     On 2/18 we took a regional bus from Ambato to Baños. It was a beautiful ride through the valleys around the local volcano. It was one dollar each. We hit our B&B and then walked up to town to find the Mercado. We shopped, headed home, had a small meal and hit the hay.
     On 2/19 we woke up at Casa Verde, a very nice Eco B&B in Baños. It overlooks the Rio Pastaza and is a little out of town. It is beautiful here. We got up and went for a hike up the side of a hill to see the closest water fall. As previously discussed traveling with children can be hard. Making them walk up hills can be hard. We made it up the road and then up the side of the hill to Cascadas de Chamana. We only did one water fall. Baños has 60-70 depending on who is counting and they are not really close to each other. We watched while a tour group of mostly Ecuadorians repelle down the falls and then we had lunch at a tiny place with a German host called Regine's Cafe Aleman. Good goulash.
     Bed and Breakfast living is very different then how we have been living. Sharing space and being quiet can be a challenge but meeting more people can be very fun. Casa Verde is run by a family of Aussies/Kiwis who put a great deal of thought into keeping green. Their son is working out well as a play mate for Cael and Lumia. They started out swinging crazily in the hammocks then Cael and the boy played a couple of games of chess.
     On 2/20 we went to one of the thermal bath sites as you should do in Baños since it is named for the baths. It is just up the road from our house and we were the only Gringoes. There are multiple pools not all of which are filled every day from hot to freezing. I prefered the warm to cold and we switched back and forth, and chatted with the Bañosians. We took a taxi way up the hill above Baños to a cafe for lunch and some spectacular views of the town. We thought about hiking down, but it seemed pretty step, so we just taxied back home and looked for another hike. That hike did not work so well partially because we did not have the directions with us so we missed the turn for the bridge across the river. By that time we realized we had missed our turn, our kids were already grumpy. And, now looking up at the hike from town we were previously looking down on during lunch, we decided that we had been too ambitious and simply finished our walk into town. We saw some crazy people jumping off the bridge for sport, got our laundry and later returned to downtown. We had a great meal at Casa Hood (do not confuse with Cafe Hood) where we met a nice family from Quito. Their girls and Lumia danced to the duo playing French accordion and ukulele. They are called Leleswing. If you want to look them up on Facebook, I posted a video to their page.

     Today (2/21) we did the required waterfall tour. Most of the waterfalls fall into the Rio Pastaza so we drove down river and stopped at three main waterfalls and other sites. First was a hydroelectric dam just down from Baños. Then we saw the first of a number of places where you can zip line across the valley. Maybe I should explain. The river gorge we are on is VERY deep. The cliff that Baños sits on is easily 100 meters and that is just the last drop. Then the hill and more cliffs soar up hundresds of meters eventually to the volcano which is 1000 meters higher than Baños. These are not little hills. 

     Next stop we saw the Bridal Veil falls. Lumia, Steph, our driver and John (the son of out B&B hosts and Lumia's boy friend) took a cable car across the gorge and back. Cael and I declined. They said it was awesome. Next we saw what people claim is the face of Jesus in the raw rocks looking over the gorge. You have to be a just the right angle and have just the right light. Lots of Ecuadorians were taking pictures and crossing themselves. Last and best was the Pailón del Diablo, Devil's Cauldron. It was on the close side of the gorge so we had to walk down a very steep path and a steeper suspension bridge to get a good view of the many leveled falls. We all got wet and it is quite awesome. My pictures do not even come close to showing you how cool it was. 

     Afterwards we had a mellow afternoon back at the B&B and the kids played with John. Cael is getting homesick and a bit weepy in the afternoon especially if he is hungry. If you are Cael's buddy, he could use a note or two of encouragement right now. We went out for American pub food and he had fish and chips so the rest of the evening was great. Tomorrow we head out to Hacienda Los Mortiños up on the side of an even bigger volcano Cotopaxi. There is no internet there so see you in four days. Love from the Intrepid Explorers. 

Rope is cheaper than fences

     We left Cuenca for Ambato on Domingo (2/15). The drive was beautiful. We went as high as 11,600 feet. We passed through wet mountains bathed by misty air from the coast, dry high sierra that looked like Winthrop, and then verdant farm land higher than 8000 feet. They farm on the steepest land - I'm not sure how they get up there. At first we could barely see the road in front of us from the clouds but then it cleared enough for us to see the surrounding hills but it never cleared enough to see the mountains of the volcanos. Stephanie noticed that all the cows were pinned with rope leads, not kept behind fences. Our driver said that rope is cheaper than fences.

     We arrived to our hotel in Ambato in time to see the parties in the streets after the Carnaval parade. We planned this so that we could be in Ambato for Monday night's Ronda Nocturnal, the Carnaval Night Parade. I'll get to that later. We had a fair night in our tiny room after the street revelers were run out by the police for drinking in the streets. Then a good breakfast and hit the town. (2/16) Ambato is working class and much newer then Cuenca. In fact it has been leveled by earthquakes within the last century so all of the buildings are relatively new concrete, not very attractive construction. The people were in party mode. The main square by the cathedral was full of Ecuadorians eating street food, listening to music, buying crafts and seeing flower exhibits. Ambato's Carnaval is themed as the Festival of fruit and flowers. Have any of you readers ever been to a Carnaval city? Flowers were everywhere from the cathedral altar, business windows, and the parade floats. 

     Oh the parade! It passed immediately in front of our hotel down a tight two lane street with every space of side walk taken up by Ambatoens of every age. The parade was floats made of fruits and flowers made with actual fruit and flowers and grains. Each had a Carnaval princess waving from the top. Then there were bands and dancers from all over the area and representatives from many other Latin countries - Mexico, Columbia, Brasil. Stephanie was grabbed to dance with first a Mexican dancer then to join a group of retired merenge dancers.  Our kids bought caroche, cans of spray foam which is used to spray people for fun all during Carnaval. They were both excited to use them because they had seen the locals spray each other both in Cuenca and Ambato.  But, when it came to the end of the parade, they were a little reluctant to spray others. When they got started it was hilarious. Go see our pictures of the parade and epic foam battle. 

     I should point out that our children are a constant source of interest from open stares to little ladies patting their heads to kids wanting pictures taken with them. 

     The next day (2/17) we were slow to get up after a late night at the parade. We headed to a little town (Quinsapincha) way up a steep hill to see their leather goods. I tried on a bunch of leather jackets but never found the right one. Steph got a nice backpack. On the way back to town we stopped at a big family park overlooking Ambato. For the way home, we waited for a bus. Ecudorians have little concept of waiting in a line. When the first bus got there everyone shoved past us and got on that bus filling it up. So we waited. Along came a taxi and I waved it down. Unfortunately a girl totally ran past me to jump in. So next bus I did the shoving and got the Scanlon/Hillmans damp seats for a hair raising switch back bus ride. And that's not by far the craziest road in Ecuador. We are skipping that ride.

     Today (2/18) we caught a bus to Baños. Baños is snug in a valley on the side of an active volcano. Yes that is right. Tungurahua is as big as any volcano you see in the Cascade mountains but here near the equator 8000 feet is a great place to put a town. It is hot, there are over 60 waterfalls, the gorge is beautiful and there are lots of sporting opportunities. Tomorrow we will hike. Tonight we enjoyed our bed and breakfast at Casa Verde. Their son is a seven year old Aussie crazy kid. Just what our kids needed especially Cael. We are off to bed to sleep with the sound of a river, peepers and maybe volcanic grumbling. Tomorrow? Adventure. Have any of you ever slept on the side of an active volcano?

Items I will not forget to travel with from now on

Can opener

Multi tool

Rope/string

Sewing kit

Padlock

WD40

Glasses fix kit

Superglue

Luggage strap

Lighter

Tiedowns

Bandana

Pepper spray

Probiotics 

Tummy temple tonic

Incan Ecaudor

     Once the Incan Empire stretched from Columbia to Argentina. It was as big as any European empire at the time. In Cuenca we have seen three different sites now with Incan ruins. Unfortunately the Empire of the Sun was destroyed by arrogant Europeans who brought smallpox and war.
    On 2/11 we saw a hint of the Incan Empire when we went to Todo Santos, a beautiful church/convent complex. The site has been the home of three religions/people: first a Cañari (indigenous people who lived in Ecuador before the Incans) religious site as old as 800 years; then an Incan religious site with two mummies that are currently being excavated which is around 500 years old; and then a chapel that was first built by the Spanish and was the first Catholic church in Cuenca in the 1550s. We were given a tour including the sites I just told you about plus the church, gardens and bakery. Six nuns still live at Todo Santos. We passed one as she was taking her figs up into the main building.

     We hit a couple of previously viewed artisan shops. I wanted to get some tin work. A little old guy cuts and beats tin into shapes from religious icons to mirror frames to Cuencan scenes. Stephanie wanted to get a special silver filagree necklace by Andrea Tello, a third generation Ecuadorian jeweler who has found international recognition. Purchases made.

     Then we went back to our favorite park - Parque de la Madre. The kids ran around and we met a family from Washington D.C., who work at the US embassy. This was a mellow day but still fun. 

     On 2/12 we journeyed to the Temple of the Sun. The Incan Empire stretched from Argentina to Columbia. The best preserved site in Ecuador is at Ingapirca. We were accompanied by our previous tour guide from way back in December when we got to Ecuador - Priscila. This time her partner and driver was her father-in-law Rolando. They are both proud Cuencans and Ecuadorians who love to show off their homeland. Rolando has been to Ingapirca 5 times. The drive took us up over 3500 meters and down just a little bit. Rolando took us on back roads allowing us to see farms, little towns and a Carnaval Parade. The paraders were decked out in native and Incan costumes and were making music and noise. They squirted us with shaving cream, laughed, gave us a shot of the local hooch and kept in their merry way. 

      Shortly after that we arrived at Ingapirca. I cannot fully describe how cool this site was and the pictures do not quite show you, but I will do my best. We had a tour guide with nothing but enthusiasm for the site and its history. He brought the place to life with his stories and information. 

     The Incans built Ingapirca to have control over the local Cañari people. There was some cooperation because the construction has obvious Cañari influences. The Cañai worshiped the moon and were matriarchal. The Incans worshiped the sun and were patriarchal. The archaeological site has two temples. The Cañari Temple to the Moon and the Incan Temple of the Sun. The sun temple had the prototypical Incan precisely cut and carefully placed rectangular stones that didn't require mortar. Different from all other Incan sites, here they used an oval for their religious building, likely due to Cañari influences. A small building was built on top of the oval structure to let in the rising sun in on one side and the setting sun in on the other. It faced directly east and west. At the equinox, the sun shone onto a golden statue set in the wall and at the solstices, the sun shone onto a niche with an altar.

     Across the complex, the Cañari temple dedicated to the moon stands - this one in a half moon shape. As more evidence of their moon worship, the Cañaris had a big (4 feet tall, three feet on the face) stone carved with 28 holes with slightly different angles. They were filled with water and used to observe the moon's reflection. One hole for each day of the lunar month. 28 times 13 months plus one day to worship the moon equals 365. Their entire agricultural calendar depended on the cycle of the moon, and still does. Seeds are planted on the fifth day after a new moon. 

    To the side of the site is a field of rectangular stones that people have been returning to the site from their farms and houses over the years. Maybe some day they will figure out where they go. 

      All of this site, with the two temples and well-organized outer buildings, is perched on the top of a hill near the top of a ridge looking out over a beautiful valley now dotted with little houses and farms. During our trip, one end of the valley was shrouded with clouds from the warmer wet air from the coast. Llamas walk around the site keeping the grass short. I can say no more about the place - it was an incredible experience. 

     On the way home our hosts took us to a pig place on the side of the road where the locals cook a whole pig out in the open. It was super yummy but not for the faint of heart. 

     2/13 our time in Cuenca is drawing near to an end. Today was mellow. We made the kids sleep in. We did homework and went to the park. We had an all-meat lunch at an Uraguayian place with Priscila and José Luis. Then we wandered into town and saw a couple of sites again. Word of advice for traveling with familie: kids do not get hanging out and people watching. We had a final Maracuya Mojito and headed home for dinner. Tomorrow we will pack, go into old town for a few more sites and get some rest for Sunday when we have a six-hour drive through the mountains. I must remember to see if we have enough Dramamine. 

Can openers

     There is an ongoing issue with can openers in our trip that I must share. Back, long ago, when we arrived at the beach we got a mess of groceries including canned goods and commenced to unpacking.

     A day or two later two things happened. Our fridge died and we realized that our can opener was rusted shut. Our nice new neighbor Tony offered his fridge. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. It was hot there and we needed to cool many things. We had to wait three days for the fridge, I don't know why they can't deliver on Christmas. We looked at the small grocery and around town and there were no can openers to be found. There was even a traveling kitchen store (they set up shop in the town square) where we bought a kettle and a nice frying pan, no can opener. The grocery stores in town sold canned goods and some of them were pull top but not all. Fortunately we could wait for our canned goods, they were not going to go bad. Tony offered to pick up a can opener when he was off in the big town (an hour away). He did not find a can opener in town so he offered his second can opener. He was such a nice guy. His second can opener was also rusted beyond use. 

     Finally a week later we made the trip to the big town and looked for a can opener at their equivalent of Target. How do you say can opener in Spanish? After asking and wandering the isles we finally found the last can opener on the west coast of Ecuador and it was electric. We got it anyway. I'm sure it will rust out in a season. The story is not over. 

     Weeks later we have moved from Olon to Cuenca, an actual city with multiple places to shop including a big grocery store. After settling in and doing a great shopping trip to a close grocery store, we discovered that the apartments can opener's gears were stripped. I settled on using it by popping a bit then opening it and moving a bit then popping a bit more all the way around the can slow but it worked. You would think it would be easy to find a can opener in a big city like Cuenca. You would be wrong. First we tried the big grocery store. Steph got berated for not knowing Spanish and they did not have can openers. We looked at a couple of other places including a nice kitchen shop with brands we knew. No can opener. One place suggested Su Casa. Was that a store or were we invited to her house every time we needed a can opened? Finally in the middle of the old town we found a small department store with two kinds of can openers. Of course the kids wanted blue but Steph and I picked orange because it matches the apartment decór. I suggested we get the whole stock, move to the coast and retire on the profits. Is this story over?

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Chocolate - thrice in a day! (okay, maybe four times, but who'scounting?!)

     Hi, All, Stephanie here. I had such a lovely birthday with Paul, Cael and Lumia and got to do some teleconferencing with the BEAM team; Janna, with cameos by Gpa Steve and Gma Jody; and the Zimmers. Thanks for making the time to keep in touch - it helps all of us deal with homesickness, that's for sure. I also had many greetings via the book of faces and felt well-loved!
     Okay...I'm sure you're wondering exactly how we could possibly enjoy chocolate three times in one day. When I traveled with Andi, Kay, Missy and Martha in Germany, the Czech Republic and to Sweden, we made sure we had multivitamins (aka chocolate) and calcium (aka ice cream) as much as possible. Well, my friends, we fulfilled our quota today!
     Our first stop was the Fatima Chocolate factory. We have been using this brochure for walking tours around Cuenca. The descriptions aren't super accurate, so we've encountered some issues. (And, they all say to start at 9a, which really has just not happened too often. We are up by then, certainly, but fed, sunscreened, dressed and out the door...not so much) Back to our day...we got to the factory to take a tour and there was no one around. But, there was a cute old lady with four buckets full of liquid chocolate outside the door. My goodness did that smell wonderful. We debated and walked around the block to see if there was a "real" entrance, which there wasn't so we just went in. Someone graciously gave us a tour (in Spanish so we understood about 10% of it) and sold us some pure chocolate. She showed us the bags that the cocoa beans come in, the ovens where they are baked, the ladies who painstakingly shake the nut out of the shells and the processors that create the liquid cocoa. One of the ladies working on separating the meat from the shells was stomping on the beans with her shoes. I suppose that's a bit like how wine was once made...that's chocolate #1. Bitter, as it were.
     We walked into town via upscale artisanal shops featuring an Ecuadorian photographer's Iceland photo exhibit, Ikat (the local weave in this region) scarves, ceramics and a silver filigree shop. Everyone was hungry and lunch was had. I again had the menu del dia, which today included vegetable soup, German sausages and potato salad and the postre was chocolate ice cream. I shared #2 chocolate and calcium with the other family members.
     Things shut down between about 1 and 3p so we were looking for something to do while it was quiet, and we found a museum showing the renovation of a convent. Questions flew at us: what does a nun do, could we be nuns, why did they kill Jesus, what's the difference between a nun and a priest, why is this baby Jesus laying on a pink bed in a frilly dress?
     Chocolate #3: Tutto Freddo. I'm not sure why we waited this many days for this one - their helado (ice cream) is Out. Of. This. World. Especially the maracuya (passionfruit). I, of course, had chocolate with nuez (nuts) along with the maracuya. Lu had a chocolate cone, Cael and a chocolate shake and Paul had lime and maracuya. Enough of those multivitamins...
     We wandered around town a bit more and went through the CEMUART, which was similar to the market Paul described earlier with vegetables on one floor, meat on another and various and sundry other items in the back hallways. And, I guess this would now be Chocolate #4 because one of the vendors gave us a piece of milk chocolate to try when we bought some of the fruit and nut nougat she was selling.
     Now, we're at home awaiting stir fried vegetables with rice. We are looking forward to road trips on Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday to village artisanal towns and Thursday to the Incan ruins. Sunday begins two weeks of touring up the avenue of volcanos - Ambato for Carnaval, Banos near a live volcano, a hacienda near Cotapaxi and then the Amazon for four days. We finish off our time with a week in Quito.  Looking forward to our continued adventures. We love to hear from you, please drop us a line and let us know how you're doing!
     Love from SPCL

Traditions

     Today (2/10) we took at tour of the little towns up in the hills near Cuenca where some of the traditional crafts come from. Traditional people are there too. The tribal customs are prevalent and you see, especially the old ladies, dressed in straw hats, colorful velvet skirts with sequined and metallic embroidery. These women can be seen all over town selling produce, making crafts (crocheting or hand weaving Ecuadorian sombreros), or walking with kids,
     Our tour started with Emilio picking us up in his taxi. He speaks great English having lived in Minneapolis for years. He took us east and then south and commented on local history and landscape along the way. We passed Incan ruins that were atop a distant hill. We went to the towns of Gualaceo, Chordeleg and Sisig. Our first stop was at a weaver called Casa de la Makana. The owner, at least fourth generation, showed how the traditional cloth was made from spinning, dying and weaving. He demonstrated that the dies are made from single natural ingredients such as crushed bugs for red, then add some lime for orange and baking soda for purple, to clay for grey. Then he got on the floor and showed us the looms and how they put the patterns in such as humming birds. The finished work was wonderful.
     Then in an unexpected stop we toured a orchid botanical operation. Ecuagenera grows, breeds, studies and shows thousands of types of orchids. Their garden was beautiful. The orchids come from Ecuador but also from all over South America. They take themselves very seriously. Go check out their website and see our pictures.
     We then made our way to the town known for silver jewelry. Most notably for silver filigree. The silver originally came from the area and was mined back to Incan times but I don't know if it still is. The town Chordeleg is cute and kind of Bavarian looking up the mountains. However the street is lined with jewelry stores with all sorts of garish things but the traditional work is still beautiful. They are proud of their one very well know design (see below) work by the natives and it is represented in their street decorations, carved doors and other public art. They take the finest silver wire and wrap it into simple to very complex shape from spiral circles to life size orchids.

   We had a filling meal in Chordeleg and made our way further to see a Ecuador hat making Co-op. The weavers were not there but we go to see their fine work. Every other woman we passed on this day was weaving one of these hats by hand even as they were walking along. We also got out and walked along a local river park where preparations are underway for Carnaval. We also got squirted through window by a local rapscallion.

     We wound further up the hills until we came to our driver's favorite destination. The Route of the Guitars. There are at least 7 guitar making shops way up here where the guys build guitars from scratch and make the most beautiful inlaid wooden decorations. Rene showed us how they make the inlay by planing paper thin strips of wood, dying them, gluing them together in a pattern.  They the cut them in tiny pieces and put them together in beautiful patterns. He does not have a website so you will have to go look at my pictures. Then his son played El Condor Pasa which was made famous by Simon and Garfunkel.

     The pride shown in the faces and the fingers of the people we met. I hope they are able to continue these traditions. We passed up over the hills and back down in Cuenca. Our driver will also take us to Ambato this coming Sunday for the next leg of our adventure.

4 days of blogging

     Two days ago I almost finished a great blog post them I lost it somewhere in the internets. I fell behind. Now I have four great days to tell you about.

     2/5 we got up and hurried to open market just near our house. I wish I had taken pictures but too many people have warned us of thieves We have not yet been robbed. I should have just taken pictures. Anyway it was a market building but on Thursdays the mountain ladies come in and bring lots of beautiful produce. They also had cheese, meat and the Andean delicacy of Guinea pig. We got some yummy smoked queso fresco. I'm munching on some right now. Then we went into town for the bus tour. We saw many of the places we have already seen while walking and the tour was mostly in Spanish, so I/we did not learn much. However it was a beautiful day and we did get up to the top of the hill near our apartment for a spectacular view of the city - Mirador de Turi. You must go see those photos. Afterwards we had lunch right next to the new cathedral at Raymipampa and ate Ecuadorian, which is really economical. You ask for the Menu del Dia and they bring you a bowl of soup, an entree, juice and a dessert. Stephanie had it and it was a pork/potato soup, a chicken and pepper with rice entree, pineapple juice and a guava sauce with a biscuit. Very yummy. We walked around the cathedral to the flower market and Steph got some loverly salmon gladiolas and white tuberose. Cael and I got hair cuts from a gay Columbia who knew everyone that walked by his shop. I was a little worried that he would lop off an ear while looking out the window to see who was walking by. Freshly shorn and with two ears we walked back home stopping by a wine shop. The sales guy gave us a number of local recommendations so we would be sure to enjoy his city.
     We put our flowers in water and went to the little park just down the street. Cael played basketball with us then with a local kid named Ben, Stephanie talked with his mom Margot. Lumia played with a girl who lived right next to the park and they chased around a little boy. It was nice to meet people. The men from the neighborhood who had just finished work for the electric company nearby got out the volleyball net and played. It in a popular sport here with the guys. They were playing in Olon too. However there are a few things that make it very different. For instance they are all short and they put the net way up high. There is no spiking. They also almost hold the ball while passing it. Either way they are having fun and being macho.

   
     2/6 we walked back into town. First we walked around our neighborhood a bit and found a square where the school was showing off for their version of field day. The kids were doing dances for their families. There was lots of kids in uniform and costumes and loud distorted music. Everyone was having a great time. We then walked thought the University of Cuenca. It is a small pretty campus. We walked up a great set of steps that were decorated with murals. There are lots of murals all over town from trippy psychedelia to historic figures to folk art. At the top of the hill was a good restaurant we had heard of for lunch.

     We looked at the Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno but decided to do the museum later during the hottest part of the day. We then had lunch at great spot on the Plaza de San Sebastián called San Sebas. The owners are from Austin, Texas, and called it Cuenca's Diner. They had started it as a coffee shop and now it's a great little cafe that seems to focus more on gringo style food, including big breakfasts and salads. (They also had a banana peanut butter chocolate chip cake...that we didn't order. However, I'm still thinking about it this many days later...maybe we'll have to go back before we leave!)
     After lunch we walked up the street to Casa de la Posadas, one of the oldest buildings in Cuenca. It is a great example of simple colonial style that has been spotlessly renovated. Now it is an art gallery with two courtyards of natural art. The art is paintings of a type of Ecuadorian tree, Guayacanes, that blooms bright yellow around this time of year. The guard showed us around.
     Next we went to the mostly empty Museum of Modern Art. There was one really good Ecuadoran artist that we liked, Luis Crespo Ordóñez. His early stuff was pretty representative but his later stuff was like Matisse. 

     This whole day's activities were around the wonderful Plaza de San Sebastián. We kept coming back to it. Blue skies with fluffy white clouds against the plaza's big trees, a beautiful old church, light traffic, and other old buildings make for my favorite square. We ended the afternoon with a Belgian beer and jugo (mora is a favorite but this one also tasted a bit of garlic) while watching the locals come and go. Four kids started a water fight and Cael and Lumia chased pigeons.
     Water and flour fights are a common occurrence at Mardi Gras in Ecuador. We have been squirted from moving cars and I have seen water balloons being thrown.
 
     2/7 This day we really did two things: the zoo and pizza. The zoo was quite an experience. In the guides, it said it was not for the infirm. That is an understatement. It is a hike up the side of a steep hill with dirt paths and log stairs. We were often out of breath. This is however a nice zoo. Family favorites were the Andean Condor which landed right in front of us. It is a huge ugly bird but in flight it is amazing. The lions (not from Ecuador) were fed horse pieces (probably from Ecuador) right in front of us. There was lots of growling and fighting for choice pieces then lots of bone crunching. There were also alpacas, crocodiles, caymins, macaws, dart frogs, eagles, and a lone Galapagos tortoise.
     Then we went home and did some homework. Did I mention before that the kids are keeping up with school work? We want to get as much done here in Cuenca because out next four stops are very touristy and we will have little down time.
     Pizza was back in town at a frequently suggested Argentinian pizza place called Marea. It was thin crust pizza. The kids got the usual but Steph and I got the fig, blue cheese and honey. Oh man was that good. It was gone before I got a picture. We will make it for you soon.
 
     2/8 HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE! The weather looked ominous. The kids made birthday cards and Steph had fruit, granola and yogurt in bed. We got dressed up and went out for a wonderful English Roast. The cook used to work at St Paul's in London and the host was properly British. We had house-cured lox on potato pancakes, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes and carrots, and creme brulee. Cael, Lumia and I snuck a candle to the hostess and Stephanie was pleasantly surprised when we all sang her happy birthday and she got to blow out a candle. Lumia had barely been able to contain herself with that secret but we pulled it off.
     Then we took a long walk to a park that we heard had gringos and their kids playing. There were plenty of people in this huge multipurpose park and we got some playing in but then it started to rain. home again with some more homework then a birthday dinner of Salad Niçoise.

Cuenca

     I love this town. I should tell you a little about it and then tell you what we did these last two days, Cuenca is at 8200 feet in the Andes. It is in a high green valley where four rivers come together. It is along the old Incan road that connected the empire's northernmost reaches in Ecuador to its capitol Cusco in Peru. However it was a Canari town before that starting in 500 AD. It was called Tomebamba by the Incans and one river running through town is still called that. They also called it Pumapungo. Then the Spaniards came in the 1550s and claimed it thinking it might be El Dorado but the Incans burned and ran. It became independent in 1820. Much of the Colonial period architecture is still there and much of the newer construction in the old town is colonial style.
     Yesterday (2/3) we went to the Homero Ortega hat factory. There is no such thing as a Panama hat. Teddy Roosevelt named them that because he saw them in Panama but they were imported there from Ecuador and then to the world. Ecuadorians have been making palm leaf hats long before the Spaniards came and only changed their style. "The history of toquilla straw shows deep ancestral roots.  When the Spaniards disembarked centuries ago, they saw natives covering their heads with a strange woven article similar to “vampire wings.” In 1630 Francisco Delgado persuaded them to convert them into brimless hats, or “toquillas,” and in 1796 Charles the V promoted the creation of craft guilds, among them was the “straw hat” guild. This article is the legacy and fusion of two cultures, which has lasted until today in all its splendor." -Homero Ortega Website. Go check it out here. Homero Ortega uses native weavers and shapers, The finishes for the hats in done in Cuenca and then shipped all over the world. They employ over 150,000 (i think this might have been a cultural gap - maybe 15,000) Ecuadorians. It can be a long process. The hats Cael and I got were probably super quick, woven in 2-3 days, the highest quality hats are had woven by palm strands at thin as thread, take 5-8 months to weave and fetch thousands of dollars. We learned all this on the tour, go see the pictures. We had a super friendly tour guide and were fitted personally in the store. One of Homer's sons came in to personally see that we had good pictures taken of our whole family with their great hats.
     We lunched with the kind lawyer couple who helped us when we were out in Olon - Grace and Nelson. They are friends of Sandra's and they made sure the house was ready to go when we arrived in December. Nelson was at the beach house when we arrived helping with some of the finishing work and keeping the "architect" (aka contractor) honest. They also stopped by the house mid-January, but that was also a bit strained, as we had a punch list of things the architect might have paid better attention to and then there was the small issue of water leaking out of the back of the house. So, having a quiet, relaxed lunch when we talked about their favorite parts of Ecuador, their families and their business was a nice connection not strained by topics such as septic tanks and internet hookups! They are quite accomplished as lawyers with 80% of their clients being expats. Nelson did say during lunch that not many Ecuadorians needs lawyers...so, it's probably a wise business decision to engage the foreigners as clients.
     Afterwards we made our way back home but stopped at the Parque de la Madre in our neighborhood. The kids climbed and zipped lined. Lumia was followed around by a little girl and Cael got to play soccer for a little bit.
     Today (2/4) we tried to go to one museum but it was closed. That's okay, the museum we did go to was awesome. The Museon Pumapungo had a standard art exhibit of a local guy James Pilco. He is a doctor and a painter. Some of his art is creepy but his paintings of kids are great, full of emotion and action. There was a whole floor showing a little bit about 15 or so native groups all in Ecuador from jungle headhunters to tropical fishers to mountain crafts people. But my favorite part was the combination archaeological Incan ruins of Pumapungo with a garden of native and Ecuadorian domesticated plants. It sat perched on a hill looking over half the city. Down at the bottom below the Incan terraces was the native gardens and a recovering native bird program.
     Then we had a very american meal of hamburgers with Ecuadorian cocktails at the INCAN Lounge and Bistro. Afterwards we headed home for a movie night. Buenos Noches.

And now for something completely different

     Now we are more on the tourist side of our trip. We did a day walking Cuenca and saw some of the sites.

     First in just our neighborhood we found a great deli and a flower shop. We also found where our friend from Olon, Andy Cox, will be working starting next week. He will be the new head of the Cambridge Spanish Teaching School. It is just down the road. 

     Next we walked into the old center of town and stopped by our the office for Grace and Nelson, with whom we have communicated a lot while in Olón as they are lawyers and represent our friend Sandra whose house we stayed in. We worked with them when we ran into any issues. They suggested a great Italian place for dinner. We were greeted by and waited on by the owner. 

     This morning at the ecuador tourism office we got a map of Cuenca that suggested 5 walking tours so we decided to do number 4. It started at the center of the old town at the 'new' cathedral. Very pretty with blue painted domes. The square across the street was full of families, school kids and business people. On the same square is the 'old' cathedral where theybare slowly peeling off years of plain paint to show the old frescos underneath. There was a beautiful attached courtyard with a very nice artisan store. Lumia picked out a purse in which she put her pennies and our map. They had lovely alpaca sweaters that reminded Steph of the finer Icelandic sweaters she has seen. They had them in a rainbow of colors. The scarves, hats and gloves were all very gorgeous. They also featured more of the tagua (vegetarian ivory) jewelry. 

     Then we wandered around old town looking at cool old buildings and made it to the big food market. On the bottom floor was meat, middle floor produce and the top floor were places to eat lunch. The comida a consisted of tiny little kitchens with an island and a bench or a few chairs in front of them where people squeeze together and fill their bellies. I think we need to go by around 1-3 to fully grasp the atmosphere. We walked by a place with a group of old (cute - steph's edit) gentlemen and asked what they were eating. They kindly gave up their seats for Steph and we ate their suggested corn pancakes and yucca cakes with cheese. 

     By now our dogs were tired so we wandered back through town stopping by an artisanal market to check out the goods. Got Lu some ice cream and went grocery shopping and got Cael some Skittles. (Channeling Marshawn?) We got these great little sour fruits, supplies (wine) and dinner then we took a cab home. The kids were tired and crashed. Go see all the great photos. 

Travel adventures again and arrival at part 2 of Intrepid ExplorersEcuador Tour from Steph

Hola amigos y amigas!
     We are safe and sound in Cuenca. We had a lovely send off from our friends in Olón. Thank you Anna, Lily, Karin and Dave for your sweet goodbyes. Lumia started crying hard as soon as we got about a kilometer out of town.
     But we had another crazy travel day! We arrived in guayaquil just fine and got our extra luggage to the hotel. Then, we made our way to the van center and ended up getting a ride with a guy in a pickup instead of a van with more people. So, it was just the four of us, which made me a little nervous to be on our own with him instead of in a van. But, we settled into being comfortable after exchanging names and getting some crop information. I did have to ask him why it looked like we were on empty and he told me the gas gauge didn't work.
     Then, sitting at a stoplight all of a sudden there was a pickup careening diagonally toward us after squeezing its way between a stopped regional bus and another lane of cars. It slid past us and into the ditch. Disaster avoided by a couple of feet. Armpits sweaty and hearts a-thumping we drove away. Our driver Juan crossed himself when we went by the very next church. Certainly that could happen anywhere. Thank goodness it ended well for us.
     But then...we made our way up into the mountains thorough the rain and curvy roads. All of a sudden when we were near the top of the pass, Juan said, "uno memento," grabbed his things and another guy Carlos jumped in to drive! Another person to get used to and wonder about. Luckily, the skies cleared and we were able to enjoy the beautiful drive down from the mountains and to our apartment where our very kind landlord was waiting for us. I had informed him too of our sketchy transport situation so he could be on the lookout for us. All ended well.
     Julio took me to the grocery store and we are now watching the super bowl eating hamburgers! And the Hawks just tied it up!  Go Hawks.
     We are here for two weeks with wifi and a very stocked grocery store. It will be an adjustment from the heat - we will handle it.
     Let us know how you're doing and thank your favorite deity for our safe arrival to Part 2.

Food in Ecuador

     I know this blog used to talk about food all the time. How I make it. Yummy food I had. I have not spent much time reflecting on that here because there have been many challenges. I've been tinkering with this post for days and have not really said anything partially because there has not been much to say. Today however we had our first great cooking experience.

     Our language/surfing school offered cooking classes and we finally booked a class with them. Ivonne and Luis, the language teachers, brought their mother and sister in to teach us how to make ceviche. It was great to see this Ecuadorian family make one of their frequent (weekly) dishes. They grew up just two towns down the coast and had ceviche every Sunday with arroz and chifles. It was very fresh with vegetables we chopped up there. I was allowed to help chop and Luis said 'Paulo es bueno chef.' Madre also made her own chifles, plantain chips, from scratch that the reasurants serve store bought from a bag. Her children were surrounding her helping; her son was smiling ear to ear especially when he ate the ceviche. What a wonderful experience. The recipe is pretty simple but we got some great tips from the source and we will make it for you when we get back. 

     Now back to the post I have been working on.

     We are still learning how to get the ingredients that we are used to cooking with. There are a couple of great fruit and vegetable stands here but the produce is ripe enough that it has to be used that day or the very next because they don't use any preservatives. I'm not used to broccoli going bad after a day. The mangos, limes, pineapples, papayas, strawberries, cherries, and watermelons are yummy and everything seems to be in season. The veggies are okay but not what we are used to, except the tomatoes, peppers and avocados, they are great. Our produce bill is equal to how much I spend on just apples in Seattle. 

      Groceries are much harder to get. On our first big shopping trip we got some canned goods like beans, tomatoes and tuna however there are no can openers to be found in this little town. Two weeks later in the big city the big grocery store had only one can opener and it was electric. We will see how long it lasts since everything metal here starts to corrode. 

     There is no fresh protein at the grocery store except eggs. All animal proteins are sold on the street each morning because most people don't have a fridge. We have seen many a man chopping up chickens and filleting fish on the back of their tricylcles. We have done what we can with frozen chicken and packaged ham. The best chicken, fish and pork we have eaten is at restaurants owned by the locals. They know where to get chicken and pork. Beef is not part of the typical food in this region. This may change when we move up into the Andes. 

     Seafood is becoming easier now that we know how to do it. Just hang out in town in the morning and someone with a big bucket of fish or shrimp or langoustines will eventually drive by.
     One of our new friends who has been here for a couple of years has picked up a few recipies. She know how to make fresh limeaide and tortilla de verde, green plantain fritters, or Ecuadorian latkes as I think they taste. 

     We are learning that we are indeed first world people. As much as we are trying to assimilate we are not fully making that happen. So we will continue to do the best we can. But man do I miss Central Market.