02/26/2010 Quito in the afternoon

On the road to Quito

Carol and Connie in the park

We got to Quito around 2:00 and checked into the Hilton. Some of us went into old Quito for a little shopping while other (myself included) decided to hang around the hotel. A little later in the afternoon Connie and I went for a walk in the big park across the street with Dave & Carol Tivoli. Then back to the room to wait for our dinner. We went to The Red Crab Restaurant - we also ate at the same restaurant (in Guayaquil) last year for a spectacular seafood meal. I can;t explain how good this seafood is! This is Luis and Chio's favorite restaurant and we had some of their delicious sangria to wash it down. Back to the Hilton to write this up and prepare for tomorrow's trip to the Amazon for 3 days. This wil be the highlight of the trip in my mind. I seriously doubt I will have internet access until we return so I'll report on the Amazon trip when I can.

Adios, amigao y amigas!

02/26 Tinlandia Eco Lodge

The group meets with Sergio for our nature walk

High up on the Tinlandia Eco Lodge

Papayrus plants and some nice lily pads on the grounds

Here is a trio of toucans that came to eat papaya set out for them just ouside where we ate our breakfast. Tinlandia Lodge has been in existance since 1935 - started by the current owner's father. Purported to be the first eco lodge in South America, the relatively small privately owned preserve has more species of birds than are in the United States.

We arrived in the dark last night and took a single bag from our bus and had it transported .7 of a mile up to where our cabins were. We then walked up the steep slippery road with our lights to get to where we slept. Sergio, the owner had a nice dinner for us before we headed up to sleep. He arranged to meet us at 6:30 to go on a nature hike - to see birds. The birds were in pretty short supply but we saw quite a few interesting trees and types of plants. The cabanas we stayed in were pretty rustic - not up to the standards we had established previous to this stop. We decided to pack it in early and they prepared a box lunch of chicken sandwiches and vegetables for our bus trip to Quito. We hit the road for a 3 hour trip up up and up and then doen into Quito in the early afternoon.

02/25/2010 Kashama Lodge and Tschilla tribe

Luis is going to buy bananas - Note the girl on the left washing hair from rain gutter.

"We sell salt" - with ducks in the back! This is in Valle Hermosa next to Kashama Lodge

Kashama Lodge - Our rooms are all going up the hill

During the red hair dying ceremony

Harvey and a Tschilla tribesman - after he applied the red dye to his hair

A leisurely day at Kashama Lodge mostly spent lounging around their pool. I got up in the morning to have a short walk into the town of Valle Hermoso for a quick look around. Got to see small town life as their day was beginning. I found an internet café but didn’t think to bring any $ with me so no go there. I also saw what I didn’t think existed in rural Ecuador. A garbage truck. There seems to be quite a bit of trash everywhere you look in these small towns, and it’s a bit sad to see it strewn everywhere. In this town an effort was being made to dump trash and all the store owners on the main street were out with their bags for the truck.
The school kids were out on the corner with their mom’s waiting for a bus to take them off to school. A few were rough housing in the park, just like kids back home. All the people were nice saying good morning or honking their horns as they passed in cars or motor bikes. Nice to have a peaceful walk and see what goes on in a town early in the morning.
We swam and tubed in the pool actually taking an inner tubes under the waterfall. Pretty cool, but slightly scary at the same time. It was real hard to get the tube up to and through (actually around) the waterfall. Once around it there was about a 6 foot cave behind the falls were the current was perfectly smooth and calm. Then it was time to try to paddle through the falls. Not pretty! The cascade was extremely strong and I couldn’t force my way through it. Eventually I was pushed out of the tube and was way under water and still being pounded by the falls. I got back to the surface and swam out without the tube. I got away from the falls and David Morse pushed my tube back to me and all was well. He actually left his tube in the eddy behind the falls and swam back. After lunch we went back to the room and packed and I didn’t have time to get back to the town for the internet. Tomorrow night I’ll have it for sure in Quito so I’ll update then.
At 4:00 we went left for our visit to an indigenous tribe about an hour away. We got off the highway and bounced our way down some pot holed dirt roads to where the Tschilla tribe has a village. We met the shaman of the village and he told us about his community and their attempts to preserve their way of life. The shaman greeted us in their native tongue, literally “Welcome it’s a rainy day” He explained that unlike Spanish where you say Buenas Dias or Buenas Tardes depending on the time of day they always comment on the day itself. Makes sense to me. This community consists of 88 families with a total of about 880 people. One of the tribe members showed us how they use the dye from seeds to dye their hair bright red. This is really a religious ceremony as 300 years ago they used this seed in a crushed form to treat smallpox and actually save their tribe from extinction. They wear their hair in the red color to honor the cure. All male members of the tribe wear black and red wraps and the women colorful “skirts” that mirror the rainbow. Several others played us some traditional music and some cute little kids danced for a while. After that we purchased some items that they had made and were selling and made a donation to the tribe. I should also mention that we also met and talked with a Peace Corp member names Ryan who has lived with this Tschilla community for the past 2 years. He is attempting to develop a more sophisticated way for eco tourism for the tribe and teach them about diet and farming. He will be leaving the tribe in April and says he’ll miss them.
Back in the bus for a short trip (by Ecuadorian standards) to Tinlandia Eco Resort which is along the way to Quito. We met the owner and heard his story about how his father emigrated from Russia 1n 1935 and started the 1st eco preserve in South America. We took a bag from the bus and hiked up the hill for about 700 meters to our cabins. He’s going to lead those who are interested on a bird watching trip at 6:30 tomorrow. So, it’s off to bed and like I said internet tomorrow for sure. Adios, amigos y amigas….

02/24/2010 White water rafting and Kashama Lodge

Here's the waterfall at Kashama Lodge in the morning

Here's the waterfall after the downpour. The water's real brown

Here we are rafting - duh

Here's the "wheelie, just moments before we went over!

Everyone slept in last night after our travels from Puerto Lopez. At 10:00 the guides for our rafting trip showed up at Kashama. We took our bus as it had more room and the guides led the way to the Baba were we commenced our rafting trip. It took us about an hour to get to the place where our rafts would be placed into the river. Along the way I struck up a conversation with Gregory, one of the guides for the trip. It turns out that he took the bus yesterday from The Amazon (12 hours) just to be there today for us. Not only that, he was leaving right after our excursion for a bus ride BACK to The Amazon for another trip there tomorrow. Think about that commute to a job – it sort of makes me think that our trip (long as it was yesterday) wasn’t really that bad. Gregory was born in The Amazon, is 24 years old and studied to be a certified nature guide in Ecuador. He is a world class rafter – he competed in South Korea for the title of Best White Water Rafter. I didn’t ask him how he did but obviously he knew what he was doing. We went through all of the usual rafting checks about commands and then WE pumped up the raft before we put it in the water. They made it seem that it would a good warm up exercise before we started up. Pretty Tom Sawyerish to me – I think they were just hot from pumping up the first raft.

Gregory was quite entertaining and he made us feel at ease in the water (literally). At one point he said “Alright, everybody in the water”. And we did it! The other raft apparently wasn’t as agreeable as they didn’t go in the drink on command. They did go in a couple of times by falling out of the raft though. I don’t know too much about the categories of white water rapids but these were purported to be 2-3. They seemed pretty robust to me! At another point he asked if we wanted to do a “trick”. Everybody got at the back end of the raft and Gregory attached a rope to the front and stood at the very end of the raft. He had us all lean forward and then back as much as we could. The end result was the raft doing a “wheelie” with the front end of the raft straight up in the air. Eventually we wound up past 90 degrees as we went completely over and wound up under the raft. It was no problem, we just relaxed and one by one we were pulled back into the raft after he righted it. Pretty cool and I must say I never did that one before.

Somewhere about 2 hours into the float a storm came up and it POURED! We were already pretty wet but it actually got a little uncomfortable after a while. We had agreed to extend our trip a little longer down the river after we had stopped for a break. Each time we thought we were through (a bridge would appear) marking a logical end point we were told it was just 30 more minutes. And of course this was Ecuadorian time so 30 minutes became much more. We finished after 4 hours and they told us we went 14 miles on the river. This was BY FAR the coolest rafting trip I’ve ever been on and how often do you get to raft in a river where the water’s not freezing and the rain wasn’t really a problem. The only thing from my view point was that the trip was a little too long.

Back to the Kashama Lodge where we just finished our dinner with the rain still crashing down. There’s little doubt that the waterfall that flows into the Kashama Lodge is a real one! When we got home the waterfall was flowing twice as much as it had in the morning. Plus the water is completely brown from all the mud and silt that is coming along with all the water. I have images from the morning and then later after the storm had started. Pretty amazing!

Ok, tomorrow is supposed to be a day at leisure until we check out at 4:00. I’ll believe that when I see it! After we check out we’re supposed to visit a indigenous tribe’s village (The Tschilla) known as the red haired people for the dye they apply to their hair. We thought we could do that after we checked out as it’s on the way to Tinlandia Resort, our next stop. By the way, sun burn is still pretty bad – it hurts to touch it and I feel pretty stupid. As usual, I’ll report more later - whenever that is. I hope to have internet access tomorrow – if not we will certainly have it in Quito the next night. Until then, Adios amigos y amigas!

02/23/2010 Frailes Beach and the LONG road to Santo Domingo

Signboard at Hosteria Mandala showing direction and distance to cities around the world

Whale carving on front gate of Hosteria Mandala in Puerto Lopez

Our little corner of Frailes Beach - About 20 people there

Luis is shopping for juice mangos - something I had never heard of - delicious!

Here's a family in a little town we passed through with a hammock under the house

We started off the day with our only beach day the whole trip. We used our Ecuador National Park pass purchased on the Isla de la Plata trip for admission to the beach area. Frailes means The Friars (after the missionary priests) although it’s not clear to me why! The day was a bit of a fooler as there was quite overcast in the morning through noon. Most of us enjoyed refreshing swims and Luis and I walked to the top of a hill at the right side of Frailes Beach to see the beach from an observatory tower. The other side of that hill was another long beach, this one with black sand. We walked from the tower and went a little way on the black sand beach before returning to the others.

Everyone enjoyed a lunch of sandwiches fruit and snacks that we purchased yesterday evening in town. By the time lunch was over the sun was out with a vengeance. Connie and I suffered quite a sun burn as both of us tried a spray suntan lotion. You could see where we sprayed properly and the areas we missed got toasted. I guess some practice is needed or just stick with the lotions. By the scheduled 2:00 departure time I was ready to hit the road. Overdid the sun a bit I reckon.

About an hour into our scheduled 6 hour transfer to Santo Domingo our bus seemed to be suffering some sort of transmission troubles. We were only able to crawl upwards on the inclines. Luckily, we were pretty close to the highest point to that time and did much better on the down slopes. We were able to get the bus into a little town called Jipi Japi (pronounced “hippy happy”) nice name! We were guided to a local mechanic who eventually replaced a hose and a clamp to get us on our way an hour later. We were pretty luck for this to happen close to a town. I shudder to think what might have happened later on in the trip.

So, we were back on the road and eventually to the “area” around our next stop – Kashama Lodge. I say the area because the directions to the place were not very exact (to say the least). This place is kind of in the jungle and the address given didn’t help much. Eventually after several phone calls and double tracking we eventually arrived (gratefully) at around 10:00. So, the 6 hour trip became 8 (although the mechanical difficulties couldn’t have been expected). My premise that Ecuadorian time differers from ours held true. Everything seems to take s little longer that expected. The place looks pretty spectacular in the dark and the staff was waiting to prepare us our dinner at the late hour. Tomorrow is rafting in the morning and an afternoon to relax around their magnificent pools. I asked and they told me (unfortunately) no internet access in the jungle. So, I’ll write up the journals each day and post when I get the time. Adios, until later……..

02/22/210 Isla de la Plata

Richie next to steps with location of Hosteria Mandala. Pretty close to the equator (Ecuador)

On the grounds of Hosteria Mandala

The whale skeleton at Hosteria Mandala

Apparently my new version of Photoshop does this when I use the straightening tool.

The infamous Blue Footed Boobie - 1 year later. I assume you'd like another look!

The Silver Island. Named for the silver that was purportedly biried on the island by pirates in the way back when. A 1/12 hour boat ride delivered us to the island just in time for the high noon sun. It never fails to amuse me that the tour groups seem to get you somewhere at the hottest moment in the whole day. We were told that there was a good possibility that we would not be able to get up close to any birds as the season was wrong. I asked why this was so as we were on the Galapagos EXACTLY a year ago and the mating season was in full force. Amazingly, we were told that the 600 miles that separate the Galapagos from the mainland of Ecuador changed their bird's mating behavior. For whatever reason their season starts in February and Isla de la Plata not until the end of March or early April. Needless to say poor Rich was dissapointed again, as he was among the unfortunate 3 who missed the best day of our entire trip last year. We walked up over a hill (400 steps) and down to the other side of the island where we saw some Blue Footed Boobies from A F A R. We then trapsed back along the same route to return to the spot the boat dropped us off at. Right there (perhaps 100 feet away) were some Blue Footed Boobies. We all walked over right next to them (q0 feet or so) and got some shots. So, RIch got to see some up close this time. However, no frigates, no land iguanas basically a long hot walk for nothing.

We then got back in the boat and were transported back to a snorkeling spot. We were in the water and it was pretty murkey but saw some fish and had a chance to cool off. Then the 1/12 hour trip back to Puerto Lopez. Dave Tivoli, Luis and I then went into town to purchase groceries for tomorrow's lunch at Frailes Beach. A pretty neat experience - we went to a little tienda (sort of like a convenience store back home). We spent about $23 for lots of food, certainly way more than enough for the 15 of us.

Just finished another fine dinner at Hosteria Mandala and it'll be off to sleep pretty soon. I hope it's a little better than last night - it's really pretty hot in these cabanas.

A little about the place we're staying. There is a real green movement here with a specific focus on saving the whales. On the grounds is a full sketeton of a whale that died 40 kilometers from here from stomach cancer. Imagine an autoposy on a whale! There are many informational signs telling you of the importance of species preservation and I've learned quite a bit about whales in general. Once again, no chance to see them while we're here - not the season. Apparently you can see them real close to the shore when the calves are born. Another time.....

Tomorrow it's pack up the bus and go 1/2 hour north to Frailes Beach (part of the Ecuadoran National Park system. We plan to swim and have our picnic until 2:00 and then back in the bus for a 6 hour drive to our next stop. I just assume that 6 hours will get to 8 but who knows,, maybe not. We'll be heading towards Quito and the elevation is much higher than the oceanside. I assume it will be cooler to - I hope so. Going from 20 degrees to 95 degrees in a matter of 24 hours is a bit of a shock to your body. Plenty of sunscreen and we're all in good spirits and ready for the next stop along the trail. Again, I'll try to report more tomorrow but don't know about internet access. I hope the snowstorm wasn't too bad back home - I guess 95 looks pretty good when you're digging out! More later, adios, amigos y amigas!!!!!

02/21/2010 Guayaquil and Puerto Lopez

We're heading up to that tower on top of Las Mesas - The Cliffs

The view from Las Mesas - after a meandering walk of "a few" steps

Lunch at Luis and Chio's house

Sunset near Puerto Lopez

Day one on the ground. We slept in and had a wonderfully slow breakfast at the Hampton Inn this morning. Around 10 Jose arrived with our bus and we loaded all our stiff on it. We then went for a long walk along the Malacon in Guayaquil. There is a long promenade that runs along the Rio Guayas with many, many landscaped parks. We then took ALOT of steps up to the top of a hill where there is an observation tower. Plenty of steps and let me tell you it was HOT and HUMID. The view was pretty sensational after all of the sweating and heavy breathing! We than walked back down to where Jose had the bus waiting for us (nicely airconditioned).

Then, off to Luis and Chio's house where a wonderful lunch had been prepared for us. A scrumptious meal with way too many courses. We ate it all I have to and and we certainly appreciated it. Their son Richie (who is studing to be a chef) had quite a bit of input but I'm sure Chio put in many hours of preparation. We got to see Chio's newly renovated kitchen and the progress that had happened on the master bedroom and office project on the 3rd floor. The dedication of Rediker Software's South American headquartes is not far off! Alot of progress but not quite finished yet.

We were all presented with another shirt with the logo "Rediker Ecudor Trip - 2010" that along with the hat from last night gives us a complete outfit. We plan to all wear the shirts when we have a fancy seafood dinner later on in the trip in Quito! We'll take a group picture to add to our "Ecuador Trips" collection.

After the lunch we piled back into the bus and headed for Hosteria Mandala for the night in Puerto Lopez. We expected a 4 hour trip but as it seems to happen in Ecuador it stretched out a "bit" longer. We stopped several times along the way to admire the ocean views and arrived aroud 8:00 in the evening. A Dorado dinner completed another day's adventure.

Tomorrow is an all day boat trip to Isla de la Plata (The Silver Island) 1 1/2 hours off the coast of Ecuador. We wil have a walk along the island seeing Blue Footed Boobies and who knows what else! After a lunch we have some snorkeling time and a return back to the mainland around 5:00. That;s the plan - I'll report on the day tomorrow evening......

Adios, for now......

02/20/2010 Ecuador Redux (The Beginning - Arrival in Guayaquil)

In the lobby at the Miami International Airport Hotel waiting for the rest to land

Meeting up with the East Coast Crew out in the sunshine in Miami

We're here! Guayaquil, Ecuador - at last!

Connie gets the rose from Chio

Here's the group (or as many as I could get to pay attention) with our new caps!

Hello there back in snowy and frigid Chicago. We JUST landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador and walked out into a wall of HOT, HUMID air! We landed at just after midnight and it's 80 degrees. Luis and Chio were at the airport to greet us with a rose for the ladies and a new cap for everyone. The cap says "Rediker Tour Ecuador - 2010" and is quite a nice touch. Thanks so much Luis and Chio. You guys are the host and hostess with the mostest!!!

It's been a real long day, not quite as eventful as last year's blizzard adventure and we'll be off to sleep land shortly. We had a little over an hour delay in Miami waiting for a crew to arrive to fly us down to South America. Because of the late arrival we've decided to start a the day's activities with breakfast at 9:30 and then ITS ON!!!!!!!!!

So, we're here and we're safe and sleepy! More later........

Ecuador Redux - 2010 trip

We're off to Ecuador, Saturday February 20th almost exactly 1 year from the last excursion. Into the Amazon and up into the high Andes. Returning on Sunday, March 7th, so stop in whenever you think of it. as always, I'll update as much as humanly possible. Enjoy........