Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Gone to the Dogs

Current Day

So now that everyone is up to speed on most of the happenings of our 2 week trip, here's what's happening now : I'm having to figure out the best and least stressful way to ship Jethro to Ecuador. I cannot stress the 'least stressful' part enough. 

Some of you may be asking, "Who's Jethro?" Allow me to introduce you to the most spoiled bit of obnoxiousness you will ever meet:

Hi guys...
Jethro came into our lives on New Years Day in 2012. He was 6 or 7 months old when he found us, and, after a tense couple of months in the beginning (a whole OTHER post all in itself), he's settled in and become part of the family...mostly.

As you may have noticed, Jethro is a bluetick coonhound. Smart dog, really, but very stubborn and, did I mention, loud? Oh yes, he's very loud. He loves to yell when he gets excited but he'll also let us know if he's unhappy or anxious. And Jethro has been known to be very, very anxious. You see where I'm going with this?!

Anyway. Shipping him is probably going to turn into more of a nightmare for me than for anyone else. I'm going to be terrified the entire time that he's going to make such a nuisance of himself that they won't put him on the plane. Or worse, he'll make it through one leg of the flight (if we don't get a direct flight) and they'll kick him off at the halfway point because he's being too disruptive!

Speaking of halfway points and legs. I'd love to get a direct flight. However, my darn dog is also dictating this minor detail. As you can imagine, airlines can be veeeeeery picky about shipping animals and they have LOTS of rules that vary slightly by airline. The main rule involves crate size. Some airlines aren't super specific about the size, they just have to visually confirm that the animal has plenty of room to stand, sit and turn around (ie, not squeezed into a too small crate). Other airlines literally have measurement guides that dictate the crate size your dog must have. 

Jethro, darn his coonie self, is considered a medium/large size dog per his weight. He's somewhere between 55-60 pounds, which isn't very big. However, he's lanky and long. According to his measurements via the airline requirements, he'll need a crate big enough for a Great Dane. 

Why the furor about his crate size? Again, it will determine HOW he gets flown down to Ecuador. If we can get him in the smaller (but still big enough) crate, we can ship him as checked baggage (so no dealing with Customs) AND we can get a direct flight. If he's only able to fit in the larger crate size, he'll have to go as cargo, and I'm unaware of any airline we would use to ship him as cargo that has a direct flight from Atlanta to Quito. Most seem to be routed through Houston or Miami. 

And this is all  just the beginning. Thankfully, Ecuador doesn't have a quarantine requirement, and there really aren't a lot of requirements for bringing in pet dogs other than a vet checkup and booster shots. The only seriously obnoxious requirement they have is that he has to go to a certified vet for a physical exam, then the certification form has to go to Columbia to be signed off by the state veterinarian, THEN it has to go down to the Ecuadorian consulate in Atlanta to be endorsed. The kicker? It has to all be done - from exam to every signature and apostille - WITHIN 10 DAYS OF DEPARTURE. 

Let's be honest...who can resist that FACE?!
Sigh. I complain now, and it's definitely a lot to get done in a short period of time, but I don't mind all that much. I mean, leaving him isn't really an option, so we'll just do whatever we've got to to make sure he gets to Ecuador in (mostly) one piece. The biggest question though, is this - will airlines have a maximum noise limit by the time they get through with him?!

In other news, we've commenced clearing out our house. We started with our guest bedroom, which was actually pretty easy. Most of the stuff went into the trash and the rest is going into boxes. I meant to take before and after pictures but, A - I totally forgot and, B - that room wasn't too bad to begin with.

We're tackling the guest bathroom and the music room this weekend. That WILL warrant pictures because that room is absolutely stuffed to the gills with...stuff. As you might guess, we have a lot of musical accoutrements in the music room in addition to several larger pieces of furniture. It's also become the catch-all for gifts-in-waiting, papers to be filed, over-sized baby boxes  and random bits and pieces that don't really go anywhere else in the house.

All this to say, if you have packing boxes, I would love to get them from you. I'd love to pack as we go in addition to throwing away as we go. This way, all that's left in the rooms are necessities, furniture to be sold/stored and boxes to be stored. Huzzah for organization!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Journey's End : Cuenca, the Cajas and Guayaquil

Here there be Gringos

Let me just preface this entire post by saying that I truly enjoyed Cuenca. I loved the atmosphere, I loved the history, the people were kind, and overall, it was a 100% enjoyable experience.

However. After being in Ambato for almost a week, and not seeing a SINGLE tourist (or at least, a white one) in that entire time, it was really jarring to see them EVERYWHERE in Cuenca. And we were there in the 'off' season. Yikes.

Do I hate tourists? No. Clearly, I was/am one. But when I'm looking for places to live, maybe it's just me, but I tend to steer clear of the touristy spots. I love visiting Charleston and NYC. Would I want to live in either of those places? Probably not. That's pretty much how I feel about Cuenca.

So, in case you don't know, Cuenca has everything Ambato doesn't. It's absolutely steeped in history and culture and, as such, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage site 15 years ago. It's got practically as many churches as Greenville, SC. You can't hardly walk around a corner without seeing a church. There are museums left and right, beautiful squares every few blocks or so, oh, and did I mention - a river runs through the middle of the entire city, so it's got a very 'green' feel.

We spent the better part of an entire morning exploring both the Old and New Cathedrals. The Old Cathedral has a TON of history as well as some very interesting chapels and paintings to recommend it. It was also very well marked with lots of information blurbs on just about everything in there, so it was nice to get a sense of the history. Beware though, you have to be able to read Spanish.

From the front looking out
Front of the church
Private capilla (chapel)
Side of the Catedral Viejo
The New Cathedral was absolutely stunning. Very Notre Dame-esque which is interesting because you really don't expect to see that style of architecture in Ecuador, of all places. John and I paid a dollar to go up to the parapet and see the view of the city. We got some really great shots up there.

Facade of the Catedral Nuevo
Stained glass inside Catedral Nuevo

The blue cupolas of the Catedral Nuevo
Cuenca
At the top of Catedral Nuevo
 Markets are a dime a dozen, as well as various and sundry little tiendas selling specific wares - we saw a lot of stores geared specifically towards fabric and fancy detailing. There was a beautiful flower market every day right next to the New Cathedral. Vendors selling roses and other flowers as well as arrangements, all freshly picked.

Flower market
Street mercado
The weather when we were in Cuenca was absolutely gorgeous. The mornings were cool, but by 10 am or so, it was sunny and warm enough to warrant sunscreen to prevent sunburn! We were there for a grand total of 3 whole days - Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning - and this held true for Monday and Tuesday.

The day we left, Wednesday, we took a bus through Cajas National Park to get to Guayaquil for our flight to Quito (I'll come back to talk about this later). It rained pretty steadily for the entire 3 hour ride, but it made the Cajas that much more beautiful. It's the most stunning park I've ever seen, and it certainly blew my mind as far expectations. Ecuador was constantly surprising me with its views and vistas. The Cajas looked more like the Scottish Highlands than a national park in South American Ecuador - big, craggy mountains that dropped terrifyingly into valleys covered with low-growing paper trees. The vegetation looked like brown lichen, with patches of green grass growing around the myriad of small ponds and streams. With the rain and the harsh grey skies, it had a stern, austere feel to it, but it also felt wild. We saw llamas peeking around rocks and horses chasing each other on the valley floor.

John woke me up to take this picture...
Sadly, we didn't get a chance to actually get out and hike. We had planned to spend a day in the park, but due to some last minute bad preparation, we had to settle for the bus ride through it. Needless to say, it is at the TOP of my list of things to do when we get back in March.

So, to go back to why we had fly from Guayaquil and not Cuenca itself. Basically, we dilly-dallied too long on buying the flights so, in the end, our options were : take a 3 hour bus ride to Guayaquil for a 45 minute flight to Quito, or take the 10 hour bus ride, overnight, through the mountains, from Cuenca back to Quito. As enjoyable as the 7 hour bus ride from Ambato to Cuenca was, we had no desire to try a 10 hour overnight ride. Plus, I at least wanted to see the Cajas, and if a bus ride to Guayaquil was the only way to do that, then so be it.

Down to the Terminal we went and hopped on a bus for Guayaquil. Neither of us had had any interest in seeing the coast or jungle during our brief trip, but we were both kind of intrigued, now that we were going to be there, however briefly, to at least see what it was all about. So up we went into the Cajas, and then, very quickly, down we came to the coast. It was crazy how fast the descent was. You think about how high Cuenca is above sea-level, about 8200 feet, and the fact that Guayaquil is a port city, so literally, on the water, and the fact that we descended from 8200 feet to about 0 in roughly 3 hours...holy popping ears, Batman!

The change was amazing. We had been used to seeing these glorious mountains and adorable mountain villages for 2 weeks. The coastal areas that we drove through were, for lack of a better term, dirty. In the 45 minutes to an hour that we actually had that coastal feel and landscape, we saw more impoverished looking people and towns than we had in the entire time we'd been in the mountains.

Pulling into Guayaquil was actually sort of terrifying. It's huge, like, Quito-scale huge. But it was somewhat reassuring as well, because the small piece that I saw right on the harbor actually reminded me a little bit of Miami. Not sure why, but that's the impression I got.

So we pulled into the Terminal and the airport is literally a mile away. We could've walked, but there was no direct route that didn't involve crossing major roadways and the guidebook suggested we cacth a ride. Since we had experienced the adrenaline-inducing sport of being a pedestrian versus an Ecuadorian driver, we decided to take a taxi. A very nice policeman inside the terminal directed us to where the taxis where and said that we should pay absolutely no more than $2 to get to the airport.

Upon arrival at the taxi line, we were immediately charged $5. When I explained to the driver what the policeman said, he immediately started arguing with me about how the policeman didn't know what he was talking about, and the standard fare (for what was a 5 minute drive) was $5. Now, my Spanish is passable, but not good enough to argue over fare, so we merely started pulling our bags out of the trunk of his taxi. At which point, he immediately said he would take us for $3. I figured that, whether or not that was the actual price or not, it was a fair enough gringo rate, so we accepted and finally made it to the airport.

Once we made it into the airport, it was like a small step back into our old lives. There were amenities and cleanliness and people who spoke English all over the place. It was kind of a relief, but at the same time it was kind of sad to know that we were officially in the process of leaving. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Ecuador. Yes, I was happy to get back home to the things I'm used to, but I'm confident that, with a little time, I can make Ecuador my new normal and be totally happy doing it.