The Land of Volcanoes

In Which, we get ashed on

Ecuador is incredibly diverse. There are few countries that I can think of that have a similar level of biodiversity or topographical diversity. Within roughly 110,000 square miles, there are four distinct regions: the Coast, the Highlands, the Amazon, and the Galapagos Islands. Within those regions are a multitude of biomes, from tropical highland areas to temperate desert areas. 

As you probably know by now, we live in Ambato. We're in the province of Tungurahua, which is smack in the middle of the country. The Andes mountains run N-S through the country, and we are smack in the middle of them. 

You might be sensing a theme here - we're in the middle, ok?

Ambato - that's us

Within the Andes are held all of Ecuador's volcanoes. Oh yes, Ecuador has volcanoes. And several of them are outstandingly and terrifyingly active. They like to call this chain the Avenue of Volcanoes. The road from Quito to Cuenca winds its way through the entire chain, and it's breathtaking. 

Avenida de los Volcanes

We happen to live within sight of two of these volcanoes. Cotopaxi, which we can see from our balcony, is to the northeast of the city, about 40 miles away. Tungurahua is about 20 miles southeast of us, and we can see her from our friend David's house.

If you want to get technical, you can say we live in sight of a third volcano, Chimborazo. We actually can't see him because he's to the southwest of us, over the crest of the valleyside that we live next to. Fun fact about Chimborazo, even though he's not the highest mountain above sea-level, due to the equatorial bulge his summit IS the farthest point on the earth's surface from the center of the earth.

Doing my best to help you win your next game of trivia

As far as Cotopaxi goes, even though he's pretty active these days, we don't worry too much about him. We're uphill so there's no worry of lahars (basically a giant mudslide caused by a volcano) and the wind typically blows from E-W or some other direction away from Ambato. So he's great to look at, but we don't worry about him so much.

Cotopaxi, from our balcony

Stock photo of Cotopaxi

Tungurahua is a slightly different story than Cotopaxi.  Affectionately called 'Mama T' by locals, she woke up in 1999 after almost 100 years of dormancy and she's been active ever since, famously erupting twice in the summer of 2006. Baños (of tourist fame) is essentially right at her feet, in the shadow of the volcano. 

Mama T from the north side of Ambato

Since we've been here (April of 2015) there have been several general announcements and alerts regarding Mama T, two that I can remember which were moderately serious. The most recent one has been since the beginning of November, with the IG-EPN (Instituto Geofisico Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Ecuador) putting out an orange alert on the 17th. Basically this means that people should start preparing for a volcanic event of some sort. 

Allllllll that to say...we woke up this morning to a significant coating of ash on everything outside. Some had even made its way just inside our balcony door.

Our terrace is normally white

Nice, even coating

Gathering in the grooves of the covering over our washer

It was interesting, to say the least. We have pretty constant winds here on the southwest side of the valley so even when there were other alerts, we didn't receive any fallout.

In the grand scheme of things though, heavy ash and dirty skies are generally the effects we'll feel here in Ambato. We're uphill so the threat of lahars is very minimal.

For now, we're doing our best to keep it out of the apartment and out of our lungs. Thankfully there doesn't seem to be anymore coming from this particular expulsion. John spent about an hour and a half sweeping up the stuff on our terrace with our downstairs neighbor.

I don't know the properties of volcanic ash in general, but what Tungurahua puts out has the lovely quality of drying into a hard, cement-like substance when it gets wet. So we had to sweep up as much as we possibly could before cleaning down the terrace with soap and water. Having dried cement blocking our water pipes seems like not such a great idea.

So that's our adventure so far! Mama T is still pretty active, so who knows what the coming days hold? More ash, probably. Hopefully not too much more though, because Jethro is just chomping at the bit to get back outside...

...not

Next up - our visas are coming up in the beginning of December, so next week we head to Quito to start the process to renew them. Oy vey.

V

Coming Back

In which, we revive our blog

So as you can see, we are absolutely TERRIBLE about updating this blog. The last post was July and we're now almost halfway through November. EEK.

While there's a lot that's happened, there's also a lot that's been normal. We've pretty much settled into a daily routine, with the occasional adventure. August was pretty tame, as we were trying to settle in after our June/July adventure to the beach. At the beginning of September, we met up with the proofreading guru herself,  my friend and sensei, Caitlin Pyle! She and her husband Ben were here in Ecuador for 3 months (they've since moved on to Argentina) so we met up down in Banos for a weekend trip. That was really fun and involved an afternoon trek to Pailon del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron) and the zoo! Check out their blog over at The Work Anywhere Life - they've got some really great pictures and videos of the weekend.

Taking a tarabita over the river valley

Pailon del Diablo - the actual waterfall is DIRECTLY to the right

On a bridge, looking back at Pailon del Diablo

After that, we spent the rest of September putting our lives together for our big trip home in October. That involved several weeks of prep for Jethro as well as a last-minute trip to Quito/Otavalo for some gifts.

Raw, local honey!

We also made a little side trip to Ibarra, about 45 minutes north of Otavalo, for el Caceria del Zorro, which is basically, the fox hunt. Only in this particular hunt, it's a rider dressed as the character Zorro, and everyone chases him down. We weren't able to stay for the actual race but we did get to see the parade. There were over 600 riders in the parade, which meant a LOT of horses, which made my inner 9-year-old girl so very, very happy.

There are actually several race categories, for both younger and older riders to compete and chase the Zorro. Seeing them all in the parade was exhilarating, with the variety of horses and riders. Some were beautiful, other were extremely talented and well trained. I really hope we get the opportunity to come back and see the race someday!

After this last trip, it was nose to the grind. The apartment needed cleaning and we had to ensure that our housesitters had all the information they needed to make their stay as easy as possible. We had made arrangements for a retired American couple living in Panama to come and stay in our apartment with Jethro so we didn't have to leave him at the vet for the entire time. Clyde and Terry were AMAZING and you can follow their adventures at Along the Gringo Trail. 

With those arrangements made, we headed home to good ol' South Kackalacky (South Carolina, for the uninitiated amongst us) for Will and Amanda's wedding in Charleston as well as a chance to visit with our friends and family.

Aren't they just ridiculously good-looking??

For those who don't follow me on Facebook or Instagram, I won't relive our ordeal to even get back home (TL;DR - it was a version of hell on earth), but at the end of the day we made it back. We had a great time visiting with everyone, catching up with our families and spending quality time with those we love. We were in the States for about 3 weeks, from October 7th - October 29th. We got in all the good Southern cooking we'd been missing and did some shopping for some of us (...me) to correct our wardrobe shortcomings.

That time my sisters and I were all on the same continent, in the same state, city, and room!!

It was a great time, and for those we didn't manage to see, we're sorry! We'll be in Ecuador for 7-8 more months though, so feel free to come see us!

We made it back to Quito on Thursday, the 29th, and the trip back was MUCH more pleasant than the trip home. Even so, by the time we pulled up to our apartment the next day, I was pretty much ready to never travel with checked luggage again. It's nice to have all those things when you settle in, but lugging two 50# duffel bags is no joke.

We had a bit of a snafu with Clyde and Terry's transportation to Quito, but they finally got underway at about 6pm. A little later than they hoped, but they made it there safe and sound and enjoyed several adventures over the holiday weekend.

Pan de guagua and colada morada

Oh yeah, did I mention we arrived back on a holiday weekend? November 2nd is Dia de los Difuntos, or Day of the Dead. They celebrate it here in Ecuador a little differently than what you might expect. There's special bread (pan de guagua) and drink (colada morada) that everyone makes based on their own family recipes. There's fireworks and parades, and here in Ambato they have one of the biggest fairs in the entire country. On November 2nd itself, many families go to the cemeteries to remember their loved ones. It becomes a family outing, with food and games abounding.

We didn't go to any of the cemeteries, but we did check out the fair since it was literally 3 blocks from our apartment. We went Saturday morning to avoid the crowds. It was a beautiful, bright sunny day and it was a perfect re-introduction back into Ecuador and Ambato. There are vendors and artisans from all over the country selling their wares. There's also a CRAP ton of food from all over the country, which is just another way of spelling happiness.

Basically, to keep MILs away... ;)

Since then, we've basically been settling back in, trying to adjust to the altitude and finding a schedule again. 

This past Thursday, Ambato celebrated the 195th anniversary of its declaration of independence from Spain. There were parades and commemorations and people all over the place. It also coincided with a South American World Cup Qualifying match between Ecuador and Uruguay. We went to watch the match at a small restaurant with our downstairs neighbor, Andrea, and had the pleasure of seeing Ecuador win! It was an exciting game, and it was fun to watch it with the locals. As you might imagine, they were VERY animated. 

So that's it. We're back and once we get fully acclimated to the altitude again, we'll start looking at some more adventures. Banos is in the books (always), as well as Quisapincha, Puyo, and Riobamba. Who knows, maybe we'll get really adventurous and try the beach again?

Swingin' at the Edge of the World

In Which, We Have a Swingin' Good Time

Soooooo cheesy, I know. But it works.

ANYway. On to one of the more exciting things we've done lately (ya know, other than spending a carefree week at the beach and learning to surf. Yeah...). La Casa Del Arbol is practically an INSTITUTION for extranjeros (foreigners) here in Ecuador...AND WE FINALLY WENT.

Thursday morning, while we were finishing our session of death at the gym, several of our friends said they wanted to go to the treehouse that afternoon. I was torn - I had work to do but MAN I wanted to go! After about .2 seconds of indecision, I threw responsibility to the wind and John and I were going along with them. The next few hours were a grammatical blur as I literally FLEW through my work. Fear not, intrepid readers, about the quality of my work during this rush. I actually went back and QC'd myself and did a better job than I typically do. There's something to be said for a deadline = better focus.

The crew! Minus David, he's hiding behind John

So we headed out around 3pm or so. La Casa Del Arbol is on the ridge above Banos so all in all, it took us about an hour, hour and 15 minutes to get there. The roads steadily became less and less developed...we went from paved roads to cobblestone roads with paving where the tires go, to straight cobblestone roads with HUGE potholes in them, until we finally hit the end and dirt roads. It was interesting, to say the least, especially since our friend Steffany (aka, Nena) drives an old VW Beetle, which has about a 1000cc engine. I was afraid we were going to have to get out and push her a few times, but Herbie came through.

We arrived at the top and it was great because it was towards the end of the day AND it was a weekday, so there weren't a lot of people there. We climbed up a trail about 1000 yards or so (no heavy duty hiking, just walking) and were greeted by this sight :

First (cloudy) glimpse

Yup. Clouds had rolled in, BIG time. We were literally in the middle of them.

Nevertheless, we continued up to the treehouse, where we were accosted by an obnoxious group of English travellers.

Ok, so maybe they weren't absolutely obnoxious, but they definitely made me see how citizens of 1st world countries have a bad reputation in other places - just generally acting a fool, not being considerate or polite without being prodded by your tour leader, etc...

So we did our best to ignore them and just enjoy the tree house and swing. We actually got some really cool shots in the mist and rain.

You can tell that it's a big tourist attraction because they've upgraded a lot of the space around it. They've put metal framing around the whole thing and the house itself actually looks like it's been rebuilt at some point. There's some nice landscaping to the side and down from the swings as well, so that people can get good pictures. 

There's also a little cafe where you can get coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, or just sit down out of the elements for a while. That's what we decided to do when it started to rain.

John was kind of grouchy at this point, saying it was underwhelming and kind of a let down. I had seen pictures and gotten a feel for it beforehand, so it was essentially what I was expecting, but I could see how it was a bit of a disappointment for him.

Thankfully, our friends were plenty happy to stick around and wait for the crowds to die down a bit so we could all take turns on the swings. There are swings on either side of the house, something else that I think is a new addition. It helps cut down on lines and wait times, that's for sure.

Happily, after about 30 minutes or so, we saw the clouds start to break up! It was just about 5:30, so right before sunset here, and the sky was beautiful! 

Nena checking out the clouds

Then, when we'd taken a bazillion pictures and gone on the swings MULTIPLE times, we found something else fun behind the cafe - a mini zipline! The seat was from an old tire and it got preeeeeetty close to the ground at a couple of points, but it was still a fun ride. Basic, but fun. Also, free. Can't beat that. 

There's David!

By this time, the sun had pretty much set, so we went back down the trail and headed to Banos to rustle up some food.

John saying 'bye' to his new friend

We walked around a bit and eventually settled on a place called Chevere. It had typical sandwiches from all over South America, which was pretty fun! Also, you're seeing the remains of a maracuya flan with brownies and rasberry sauce that John devoured. It was tasty.

It took David a while to realize there was a camera out...

We ended up back in Ambato around 9pm. We had a great afternoon and totally crashed. The rest of the weekend was relaxing and full of friends and fun. We actually did have hotdogs on the 4th of July, totally by accident, but we appreciated it nonetheless!

Oh, and I totally got all of my work done on time. Just thought I'd throw that in there for those of you who were concerned ;)

So in parting, next time you have the chance for an adventure but you're bogged down with responsibilities, take a chance. Swing away. It'll work out in the end.

Needed Some Clear Skies

Yeah, It Was Beach Time

         So the weather here in Ecuador is pretty constant as far as temperature goes. Mornings and evenings are a little cool and the day is warm to hot depending on the sun. The deciding factor of the temperature seems to be if the sky is cloudy or not. Being this high in the mountains we have a good bit of clouds roll through. After a week straight of cloudy weather both Vic and I were itching for a clear hot day. Consensus? Beach time. Vic and her geographically enlightened self has been looking at different beaches and places to go since we've been here. She loves that kind of research. As for me, if its sand, ocean, and relaxing, I'm all over it. She found a beach called Canoa that all the locals here speak very highly of. 

Getting There was Interesting

      Vic found a place that was literally on the beach and offered pretty good service and rooms for a very reasonable price. It was called Bambu and was the coolest ocean place I have ever been to. The tough part is getting there and getting back. Transportation is actually really convenient as long as you know which places to arrive/depart from. I had the expectation of a 7 hour bus ride that I had gotten from my friends here and Victoria. I was wrong. It was five hours on the first bus, which got us half way there. The next bus, another five hours. We left at Ambato at 9 in the morning and arrived at Canoa at 7:30pm that night. On the first bus we watched a clock that had a temperature gauge on it. They use Celsius here. We left Ambato and it was 17 degrees. It climbed rapidly when we came down the mountains to 32 degrees Celsius. Hahaha, and of course I am dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a button up shirt, and a throw over t-shirt hoody. Needless to say, I chip'n'daled myself down to just a t-shirt and jeans, and then loosened my shoes a little.

There is a big lizard next to the symbol of a fictional philosophy.

      The buses aren't that expensive, although, they just raised the taxes here in Ecuador. It turned out being $30 to get there. We arrive obviously at night and the bus didn't stop at a terminal. We got off on the side of the road with 2 carry bags and 1 big bag with our clothes. I have to say we did pretty good to pack light. We still could have done with less though. Walking down the road from the corner we were on, and we were practically standing on the beach. Our rented place? Just to the right sitting right there on the beach. Think tree house on the beach with full service meals at a cost of $25 a night. It was utterly delightful. 

      A Week of Fun and Sun

It was a massive beach.

       Beautiful weather is the only way to describe it. We woke up Thursday morning to clear skies and a really big beach. Some beaches go from water to sand to land in a matter of 20 yards or so. Not this one, it went on for about 60-70 meters and then dropped down at a gradual decline about 5 meters to the water. And it was HOT. Me being the white boy that I am was smart enough to bring SPF-Dark-Shadow-In-The-Corner sunblock. Which I kept at least two layers on at all times. And for the first time ever, I actually tanned and didn't really burn. The last day I got a little pink but it's all good. Both of us wanted to try surfing so we asked one of the people at Bambu. He told us to go to the beach and ask for Manuel. I was like," Manuel? That's a legit Spanish surfer name if I've ever heard one." I didn't know what to expect. 

       We found him sitting on the beach just watching the ocean. Told him we wanted to take some lessons and he busted out a tie-strap that you would use to hold something in the back of a truck. He wrapped it around two tree stumps sticking out of the beach and made a slack-line! We both practiced balance on the slack-line to get a sense of what it's like in the water. Manuel IS legit. He was doing acrobatics on the line, jumping around and lying down and standing up with one leg and one hand. Then he taught us form for getting up and we practiced on a little log on the beach. He would shake the log from side to side and we would have to maintain balance. Then the moment of truth came, he gave us each a board and said, "Vamos!" (Let's go)

. 

      Totally worth it! Started picking it up and being able to stand up and surf in a straight line. Vic is the best boogy-boarder I have ever seen! Hahaha, I'm kidding. She did great too, and had one really great ride where she stood up and surfed right up to the beach! We surfed on the last day as well, which was pretty much me finding every way to beat my self up with a board or drowning myself while standing up. It was really fun but took a toll on me since the waves were so rough and seemed to curl under. Our days there were packed with laying out, eating, and reading. 

Inside our little tree house.

      I am still taking Spanish classes via Skype and was able to continue at the beach since we had Wi-Fi at Bambu. I am currently reading 2 books. One for fun and one for study. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and Sola Scriputra. And yes, the Lord of the Rings is the one for fun. My nerd level has not gotten THAT high yet. We ate some good food but it didn't really meet the level of great seafood I had in my mind. None the less we were plenty well fed while there. Vic and I had great conversations and a lot of fun relaxing. We arrived on Wednesday night and left on Monday evening. Which leads to our next adventure...

The Trip Back Home Could Have Been Better

  Heard different stories from different people on when and where buses departed from. We wanted to find a direct bus that would go straight to Ambato if possible. We left Canoa at 5:30pm on Monday on a bus that we were told would go to Tosagua. And we were told from there we could take a direct bus to Ambato. He was right, which was great for the time being. Took 2 hours to get to Tosagua which put us at 7:30pm. Bought a ticket for a bus to Ambato which was supposed to get to Tosagua at 8:10pm. It comes sauntering in at 8:30pm. We board and take off. I was dressed in shorts, flip flops and my t-shirt hoody throw-over. You can probably see where this goes. I was thinking, "We're on a bus, so I can sleep and wont be cold or anything." The temperature dropped as soon as we started climbing the mountains. And it dropped FAST. The bus felt like the walls were made of tissue paper, and all of my clothes were underneath the bus. And we were lucky enough to get a direct bus to Ambato, so when/if we stopped it was only long enough to let someone board or get off. I don't know when it was that I lost feeling in my calves, but I do remember thawing in a taxi when we arrived in Ambato at 4:30am Tuesday morning. Lesson learned: never expect buses to be comfortable, and enjoy them more when they are. So instead of my expected 7 hour trip to the beach, it is every bit of 10 hours. But we had a great time while there, so praise be to our Lord for allowing us to enjoy our time together at a beach in another country and culture. 

Time to say bye to the beach.

Now it's back to the grind after our beach trip. Please pray, if I may be so forward, for Vic and I for these things:

 1.) To find a Protestant Gospel preaching church to plug into here.
 2.) That we would stay firm in the Faith and have His Word written on our hearts.
 3.) God would open the eyes and hearts of His people here.

soli Deo gloria