Hello Blog Fans,
I just returned from Mindo and was surprised to find that the blog entries I did in Mindo did in fact get posted: ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!!!
There is a story from my time in Mindo that I didn´t try to write while Iwas ther because of the problems with the internet, so now that I am back in the big city, I can tell it.
Thursday in the early afternoon I was strolling through the streets of Mindo (there aren´t that many) looking for a place to have lunch, hoping to find something a little better that the pizza places that line the main drag. I turned a corner to go down a side street and saw a sign that caught my eye. It was for a restaurant and the building looked like the kind of place I was looking for. I went in and found that it is owned by a couple in their late thirties, she is American and he is Ecuadoean. It turns out she was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, went to college at the U of A, and got a nursing degree and joined the Peace Corp. She was sent to Columbia, part of the last Peace Corp group to go there. While she was there she met an Ecuadorean musician, who toured the world playing the flute, and similar instruments. They married and after a few years in Chicago where he studied music and she worked as a nurse, they decided to pursue their real dream, which was to open a hotel/restaurant in Mindo, Ecuador. They bought a lot in Mindo, designed the bilding themselves, had it built and opened about a year ago. It is the most fabulous place and this couple is absolutely wonderful. I had lunch there and went back for supper and they were the best meals I had. They gave me two CDs of their music (she learned to play stringed instruments and the two of them peformed every weekend at a restaurant while they were in Chicago. The type of music they play is South American jazz, that´s the best I can describe it.
If any of you ever go to Mindo theirs is the place to stay, first class everthing for $15 a night and the food is impeccable. What a coincidence !!
Well, I need to go to the grocery store, the bank, wash come clothes and fix a Stouffers frozen dinner and get a good night´s sleep. I am meeting Chris at 7:30 in the morning for a day trip to to Pululaua, with a stop at Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Earth) which is supposedly the actual Equator where you can stand with one foot in the northern and the other in the southern hemisphere, my next adventure.
Adios for now,
Glenn+
.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
I will try again
Howdy everyone,
It is Thursday afternoon in Mindo and it is raining. That is not news, but it is the explanation whay I am on the internet.
Since my blog entry yesterday didn´t seem to get posted for some unknown reason, I will try to recall what I said yesterday an fill you in on the events of last night and today.
I did catch my bus to Mindo, but it was more of an adventure than I had expected.
I called the bus company on Tuesday afternoon to check the schedule. I got no answer, only a ¨leave a message¨ message. So I left earlier than I had planned on Wednesday and took a taxi. I told the driver I wanted to take the bus to Mindo, and showed him the address of where to catch it. He informed me that they closed that station last Saturday and now they were located at the central bus depot of Quito and he took me there.
The central bus station of Quito is slightly larger than enormous. I hunted around and eventually found the bus, bought my ticket for $2.50, ran to the bathroom (there is no bathroom in the bus and it is at 2.5 hour ride. I bought a bottle of water and got on the bus.
The bus was very comfortable. I just put on my iPod, leaned back and relaxed and enjoyed watching the scenery gradually change from mountgain to jungle.
Mindo is at about 5000 feet in elevation and it is in the middle of the jungle.
I quickly learned that part of the reason it is a jungle is it rains every day from about 1:30 through the night and stops about 8.00 the next morning. It is just a constant shower, not a hard rain at all, but mud is the main carpet of the area.
I found a place to stay quickly and it is a very nice little room, hot water in the shower (but not the sink). It is very clean , a few blocks off the main street and only $16 per night.
I found a place on the main drag to get a pizza and a beer, $2.50 and walked around until it started to rain. Fortunately I had with me the pancho Dick and Marilyn gave me for Christmas. It is perfect. I went back to my room and found that off the back patio of the main building they have hummingbird feeders that attract literally dozens of humming birds. Sounds like a photo op to me, so I sat on the covered patio and took photos all afternoon of hummingbirds.
When it was time for supper I looked for a place Chris had recommended called ¨Out of Babylon¨. I found it easily and it is the most fascinating buliding I have ever seen. The owner built it himself over a six yer period. It is a work of art. And he has no formal training in art or architecture. The dinner was great and I went back to my place and went to sleep about 8:00 PM listening to the rain in the reoof.
Earlier I had made arrangements with a guide to take me out early in the morning to see and shoot photos of birds. I woke up at 4:00, (a solid 8 hours of sleep) and got up, had my prayer time and got my camera and lenses ready.
I had a small breakfast of cheese, bread, jam and juice and we were off to find birds. We saw Tucans (several specie) and a number of other birds that I don´t know the names of, even though the guide told me. A couple of the phots are OK, but the birds were far away.
After I returned, I looked for a place to have lunch and found a neat place with anglo owners. It turns out the lady is from Tucson, met her husband while she was in the Peace Corp and they started this restaurant. I will go there for supper and get to know them better. Well I had better stop and get some supper.
Hasta mañana folks,
Glenn+
It is Thursday afternoon in Mindo and it is raining. That is not news, but it is the explanation whay I am on the internet.
Since my blog entry yesterday didn´t seem to get posted for some unknown reason, I will try to recall what I said yesterday an fill you in on the events of last night and today.
I did catch my bus to Mindo, but it was more of an adventure than I had expected.
I called the bus company on Tuesday afternoon to check the schedule. I got no answer, only a ¨leave a message¨ message. So I left earlier than I had planned on Wednesday and took a taxi. I told the driver I wanted to take the bus to Mindo, and showed him the address of where to catch it. He informed me that they closed that station last Saturday and now they were located at the central bus depot of Quito and he took me there.
The central bus station of Quito is slightly larger than enormous. I hunted around and eventually found the bus, bought my ticket for $2.50, ran to the bathroom (there is no bathroom in the bus and it is at 2.5 hour ride. I bought a bottle of water and got on the bus.
The bus was very comfortable. I just put on my iPod, leaned back and relaxed and enjoyed watching the scenery gradually change from mountgain to jungle.
Mindo is at about 5000 feet in elevation and it is in the middle of the jungle.
I quickly learned that part of the reason it is a jungle is it rains every day from about 1:30 through the night and stops about 8.00 the next morning. It is just a constant shower, not a hard rain at all, but mud is the main carpet of the area.
I found a place to stay quickly and it is a very nice little room, hot water in the shower (but not the sink). It is very clean , a few blocks off the main street and only $16 per night.
I found a place on the main drag to get a pizza and a beer, $2.50 and walked around until it started to rain. Fortunately I had with me the pancho Dick and Marilyn gave me for Christmas. It is perfect. I went back to my room and found that off the back patio of the main building they have hummingbird feeders that attract literally dozens of humming birds. Sounds like a photo op to me, so I sat on the covered patio and took photos all afternoon of hummingbirds.
When it was time for supper I looked for a place Chris had recommended called ¨Out of Babylon¨. I found it easily and it is the most fascinating buliding I have ever seen. The owner built it himself over a six yer period. It is a work of art. And he has no formal training in art or architecture. The dinner was great and I went back to my place and went to sleep about 8:00 PM listening to the rain in the reoof.
Earlier I had made arrangements with a guide to take me out early in the morning to see and shoot photos of birds. I woke up at 4:00, (a solid 8 hours of sleep) and got up, had my prayer time and got my camera and lenses ready.
I had a small breakfast of cheese, bread, jam and juice and we were off to find birds. We saw Tucans (several specie) and a number of other birds that I don´t know the names of, even though the guide told me. A couple of the phots are OK, but the birds were far away.
After I returned, I looked for a place to have lunch and found a neat place with anglo owners. It turns out the lady is from Tucson, met her husband while she was in the Peace Corp and they started this restaurant. I will go there for supper and get to know them better. Well I had better stop and get some supper.
Hasta mañana folks,
Glenn+
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Hola from Mindo Ecuador
Well here I am in Mindo. It was an interesting trip from the very beginnng. Yesterday afternoon I called the bus company to be sure the schedule had not changed. I got a message saying that the number I called was no longer available. I wasn´t sure what that meant for me, but I knew it meant I wasn´t going to talk to anyone.
So this morning I left my apatment an hour early to allow for complications. It is a good thing I did. When I told the taxi driver that I wanted to take the bus to Mindo and gave him the address of where to get the bus, he told me that last Saturday they had changed to location for the bus to Mindo and fortunately he knew where to take me. I got there and found it is the central bus station for the city of Quito, an enormous and very busy place. I asked around and finally found where to go and I got the bus.
The ride here was fantastic: very, very relaxing. The bus was comfortable, I listened to my iPod, and the scenery was fantastic as we dropped from 10,000 feet to about 5,000 feet in elevation where Mindo is located. What that means is we went from this enormous valley among the Andes, down to the jungle, and I do mean JUNGLE. The vegetation here is so thick an ant couldn´t penetrate it.
I easily found a place to stay: a small room, but it is clean and the bed looks very comfortable. It costs $16 per night. The town is the epitome of what you would think a small rural town in the jungle of South America would be. The streets are mud. The buildings are in varying degreees of quality from ¨OK¨ to ¨I don´t think I want to go in there¨, to ¨under construction or destruction¨ I can´t be sure which. It is quaint and laid back and peaceful. The beauty of the town is in the location and in the people and they are fantastic and so kind. What I quickly learned upon arrival is that every afternoon it rains and rains all afternoon, every day. The time for activities is in the morning. So I found a little Pizza place and had lunch, $2.50 for a pizza and a large beer, and as promised it started raining.
I will make arrangement for a guide to take me looking for birds tomorrow morning. That is the only way you can do it. To do that you have to get up and eat breakfast at 5:30 and leave at 6:00. That should be no problem for me. You do have to walk a lot, so we´ll have to see how that goes. I will be OK unless we have to climb a lot of hills. Let us Pray!!
The rain is slowing down and I am hoping I can scout out the town a little. I have a rain pancho Scottie´s sister gave me for Christmas and it is perfect for this adventure.
It will be a quiet and relaxing afternoon for sure and that is fine. Chris recommended a restaurant for supper so I will go there and see what I find.
Well, I am here, it is terrific and I am off to explore, even in the rain if necessary.
Hasta Mañana, Amigos.
Glenn+
So this morning I left my apatment an hour early to allow for complications. It is a good thing I did. When I told the taxi driver that I wanted to take the bus to Mindo and gave him the address of where to get the bus, he told me that last Saturday they had changed to location for the bus to Mindo and fortunately he knew where to take me. I got there and found it is the central bus station for the city of Quito, an enormous and very busy place. I asked around and finally found where to go and I got the bus.
The ride here was fantastic: very, very relaxing. The bus was comfortable, I listened to my iPod, and the scenery was fantastic as we dropped from 10,000 feet to about 5,000 feet in elevation where Mindo is located. What that means is we went from this enormous valley among the Andes, down to the jungle, and I do mean JUNGLE. The vegetation here is so thick an ant couldn´t penetrate it.
I easily found a place to stay: a small room, but it is clean and the bed looks very comfortable. It costs $16 per night. The town is the epitome of what you would think a small rural town in the jungle of South America would be. The streets are mud. The buildings are in varying degreees of quality from ¨OK¨ to ¨I don´t think I want to go in there¨, to ¨under construction or destruction¨ I can´t be sure which. It is quaint and laid back and peaceful. The beauty of the town is in the location and in the people and they are fantastic and so kind. What I quickly learned upon arrival is that every afternoon it rains and rains all afternoon, every day. The time for activities is in the morning. So I found a little Pizza place and had lunch, $2.50 for a pizza and a large beer, and as promised it started raining.
I will make arrangement for a guide to take me looking for birds tomorrow morning. That is the only way you can do it. To do that you have to get up and eat breakfast at 5:30 and leave at 6:00. That should be no problem for me. You do have to walk a lot, so we´ll have to see how that goes. I will be OK unless we have to climb a lot of hills. Let us Pray!!
The rain is slowing down and I am hoping I can scout out the town a little. I have a rain pancho Scottie´s sister gave me for Christmas and it is perfect for this adventure.
It will be a quiet and relaxing afternoon for sure and that is fine. Chris recommended a restaurant for supper so I will go there and see what I find.
Well, I am here, it is terrific and I am off to explore, even in the rain if necessary.
Hasta Mañana, Amigos.
Glenn+
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Second Note for today
Hi Yáll,
I thought I´d add a quick second note today as I am not sure if I will have internet for the next couple of days.
My appointments for tomorrow was cancelled and I decided to take a short trip by myself out of Quito, in part to see how it goes and what I lean about taking such trips, and second to visit what I am told is a great location with lots to see and do.
I am going to a town about 2.5 hours west of Quito called Mindo. It is renown for its bird watching, butterflies and orchids. It sure sounds like a great place to take photos to me. I will catch a bus that leaves Quito at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning and get there about 10:30 and look for a place to stay. If I don´t find one I´ll come back on the 2:00 PM bus, but I cannot imagine there will be any trouble. The bus costs $2.50 each way. Places to stay run from $5- $16 per night. It is the middle of the week so the locals aren´t going to be there and it is not tourist season.
Mindo is about 5000 feet in elevation, so it wil be a little warmer than here. I plan to stay 2 nights and return Friday afternoon. On Saturday Chris and his uncle and I are going to another place called Pululua. That is just a one day trip. I have to read up on it so I can´t tell you much, but Chris says it is a great place and that is enough for me.
BIG DISCOVERY: I found some frozen dinners in a grocery store and picked up a couple. I am getting a little tired of eating out each night. So tonight I´ll stay home and have Stouffers frozen elbow maceroni and beef. Bon Appetite!!
I will probably be able to find an internet cafe in Mindo, but just in case I have a problem I wanted you to know I didn´t fall into a volcano or something.
Love,
Glenn+
I thought I´d add a quick second note today as I am not sure if I will have internet for the next couple of days.
My appointments for tomorrow was cancelled and I decided to take a short trip by myself out of Quito, in part to see how it goes and what I lean about taking such trips, and second to visit what I am told is a great location with lots to see and do.
I am going to a town about 2.5 hours west of Quito called Mindo. It is renown for its bird watching, butterflies and orchids. It sure sounds like a great place to take photos to me. I will catch a bus that leaves Quito at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning and get there about 10:30 and look for a place to stay. If I don´t find one I´ll come back on the 2:00 PM bus, but I cannot imagine there will be any trouble. The bus costs $2.50 each way. Places to stay run from $5- $16 per night. It is the middle of the week so the locals aren´t going to be there and it is not tourist season.
Mindo is about 5000 feet in elevation, so it wil be a little warmer than here. I plan to stay 2 nights and return Friday afternoon. On Saturday Chris and his uncle and I are going to another place called Pululua. That is just a one day trip. I have to read up on it so I can´t tell you much, but Chris says it is a great place and that is enough for me.
BIG DISCOVERY: I found some frozen dinners in a grocery store and picked up a couple. I am getting a little tired of eating out each night. So tonight I´ll stay home and have Stouffers frozen elbow maceroni and beef. Bon Appetite!!
I will probably be able to find an internet cafe in Mindo, but just in case I have a problem I wanted you to know I didn´t fall into a volcano or something.
Love,
Glenn+
Catching Up
Greetings everyone,
I have a lot of catching up to do. Saturday I got back too late and the internet cafe was closed, It was closed on Sunday also, and again yesterday I got back too late again. It has been an action packed time and I have lots to share.
Beginning with Saturday afternoon, I did go to the Botanical Garden and the Chapel of Mankind. The Botanical Garden was fabulous. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and perfect for such a trip. It is located in Parque Carolina, the largest inner-city park which I had visited the other day. The flowers were gorgeous, everything from roses to orchids and many the other flowers that grow in the Andes, and the Amazon. All of the plaques with info about the flowers were in Spanish, so I will have to get a book of regional flowers in English to be able to tell what I took photos of. I spent at least two hours or more there.
Then I took a taxi to the Chapel of Mankind. It is an art collectiion of the works of a famous Ecuadorean artist, Guayasamin. The collection at the Chapel is dedicated to the pain and suffering of the indigenous people of Equador experienced from the various conquests and dominations over the centuries. The art is not pretty, but it is very powerful and the Chapel is a must see if you want to have any understanding of the indigenous people,
I got back in time to go to dinner and had a good night´s sleep.
Sunday I got early, had my prayer time, and got ready to go to church at the Cathedral. I got there pretty early and met Padre Angel, the priest in charge, the same one with whom I was to stay after I arrived. He was very nice and very apologetic and asked me if I´d like to take part in the two masses that morning. He got me an alb and chasuble and, bingo, bango, bongo, I was put to work. The Cathedral is a pretty large building, that probably seets three hundred or more people. there were about 40, maybe 50 people max, at the first mass and 20 at the second. We con-celebrated at the first mass and they had a renewal of baptismal vows at both masses and I helped with that also. It really was a great experience.
After church I started walking down the street, hoping to find a place near by where I could get some lunch. No luck! Every place was closed. I had made arrangements to go to Chris and Trish´s house that afternoon, so I just called them to say I was on my way and got a cab and went there. Trish had lunch ready and I was so grateful. I used their Skype to call Christie and Mike and it was terrific talk with both of them. While I was there, Chris and I made up a calendar of places he and I can visit together while I am here and we set some dates for those trips. We have some very exciting things planned.
When I got back to the apartment I got a call from the Bishop asking if I would like to join him on a trip on Monday. I didn´t quite understand exactly where we were going, but he said bring your bathing suit. I told him I didn´t bring one and he said he had an extra, not to worry.
I met the Bishop and his wife, Marilina, who is absolutely delightful, at the diocesan office and off we went.
What I soon discovered was that it was his day off and we were headed for for one of his favorite get-aways, a place called Papallacta. It is a spa, resort about an hour and a half from Quito high in the mountains. When I say ¨high¨, keep in mind I am starting at 10,000 feet and high means much higher than that. We went up to about 13,000+ and arrived at this fabulous resort with a whole bunch of hot spring pools, each a different temperature, nestled in amoung these mountain peaks that rise up into the clouds. In fact at times the clouds would come down and suddenlt you are engulfed in them as you swim in these marveloulsy hot waters. It costs $17.50 for the day, can you imagine? We took a break later in the afernoon and went for a fabulous lunch at the hotel. A full, dinner-size meal for $7.95. The next surpirse was Marilina introduced me to a local drink called, Camelasso. It is a hot alcoholic (or non-alcoholic) drink make with juices and cinnamon. With alcohol is definitely better. You sip it and it is so relaxing. I must get the recipe!!
We went back to the spa and we each had a full hours massage. That costs only $40, and it is a FULL MASSAGE, even your skalp and face. The hard part was leaving. The traffic coming back to Quito was horrible and we didn´t get back until 8:00 PM, too late to go get some supper, so I made do with some peanut butter and bread and a couple of glasses of wine. I fell asleep by 9:30 and slept the sleep of the just.
Today I plan to take it easy and catch up on a few things I need to do: get caught up on my blog, get some groceries, get a haircut, go to the bank and I will call Padre Angel and try to arrange to meet him sometime this week.
I appreciate the comments some of you have sent saying you are enjoying the blog. I wish I could share the tastes of the marvelous foods, the smells of the local area--some wonderful, some not quite so wonderful, but they are part of the expericnce too. I wish I could share the cool, moist high mountain air, and the views of the sharp peaks of the mountains and volcanos that are absolutely everywhere. I have to pich myself every once in a while and realize I am actually in the Andes, those same mountains I have seen so many times on the National Geographic channel and other places so many times. The same places I studied in 5th and 6th grade in school It is absolutley breath-taking.
Well, Adios for now.
Love to you all and I´ll have more to share tomorrow.
Glenn+
I have a lot of catching up to do. Saturday I got back too late and the internet cafe was closed, It was closed on Sunday also, and again yesterday I got back too late again. It has been an action packed time and I have lots to share.
Beginning with Saturday afternoon, I did go to the Botanical Garden and the Chapel of Mankind. The Botanical Garden was fabulous. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and perfect for such a trip. It is located in Parque Carolina, the largest inner-city park which I had visited the other day. The flowers were gorgeous, everything from roses to orchids and many the other flowers that grow in the Andes, and the Amazon. All of the plaques with info about the flowers were in Spanish, so I will have to get a book of regional flowers in English to be able to tell what I took photos of. I spent at least two hours or more there.
Then I took a taxi to the Chapel of Mankind. It is an art collectiion of the works of a famous Ecuadorean artist, Guayasamin. The collection at the Chapel is dedicated to the pain and suffering of the indigenous people of Equador experienced from the various conquests and dominations over the centuries. The art is not pretty, but it is very powerful and the Chapel is a must see if you want to have any understanding of the indigenous people,
I got back in time to go to dinner and had a good night´s sleep.
Sunday I got early, had my prayer time, and got ready to go to church at the Cathedral. I got there pretty early and met Padre Angel, the priest in charge, the same one with whom I was to stay after I arrived. He was very nice and very apologetic and asked me if I´d like to take part in the two masses that morning. He got me an alb and chasuble and, bingo, bango, bongo, I was put to work. The Cathedral is a pretty large building, that probably seets three hundred or more people. there were about 40, maybe 50 people max, at the first mass and 20 at the second. We con-celebrated at the first mass and they had a renewal of baptismal vows at both masses and I helped with that also. It really was a great experience.
After church I started walking down the street, hoping to find a place near by where I could get some lunch. No luck! Every place was closed. I had made arrangements to go to Chris and Trish´s house that afternoon, so I just called them to say I was on my way and got a cab and went there. Trish had lunch ready and I was so grateful. I used their Skype to call Christie and Mike and it was terrific talk with both of them. While I was there, Chris and I made up a calendar of places he and I can visit together while I am here and we set some dates for those trips. We have some very exciting things planned.
When I got back to the apartment I got a call from the Bishop asking if I would like to join him on a trip on Monday. I didn´t quite understand exactly where we were going, but he said bring your bathing suit. I told him I didn´t bring one and he said he had an extra, not to worry.
I met the Bishop and his wife, Marilina, who is absolutely delightful, at the diocesan office and off we went.
What I soon discovered was that it was his day off and we were headed for for one of his favorite get-aways, a place called Papallacta. It is a spa, resort about an hour and a half from Quito high in the mountains. When I say ¨high¨, keep in mind I am starting at 10,000 feet and high means much higher than that. We went up to about 13,000+ and arrived at this fabulous resort with a whole bunch of hot spring pools, each a different temperature, nestled in amoung these mountain peaks that rise up into the clouds. In fact at times the clouds would come down and suddenlt you are engulfed in them as you swim in these marveloulsy hot waters. It costs $17.50 for the day, can you imagine? We took a break later in the afernoon and went for a fabulous lunch at the hotel. A full, dinner-size meal for $7.95. The next surpirse was Marilina introduced me to a local drink called, Camelasso. It is a hot alcoholic (or non-alcoholic) drink make with juices and cinnamon. With alcohol is definitely better. You sip it and it is so relaxing. I must get the recipe!!
We went back to the spa and we each had a full hours massage. That costs only $40, and it is a FULL MASSAGE, even your skalp and face. The hard part was leaving. The traffic coming back to Quito was horrible and we didn´t get back until 8:00 PM, too late to go get some supper, so I made do with some peanut butter and bread and a couple of glasses of wine. I fell asleep by 9:30 and slept the sleep of the just.
Today I plan to take it easy and catch up on a few things I need to do: get caught up on my blog, get some groceries, get a haircut, go to the bank and I will call Padre Angel and try to arrange to meet him sometime this week.
I appreciate the comments some of you have sent saying you are enjoying the blog. I wish I could share the tastes of the marvelous foods, the smells of the local area--some wonderful, some not quite so wonderful, but they are part of the expericnce too. I wish I could share the cool, moist high mountain air, and the views of the sharp peaks of the mountains and volcanos that are absolutely everywhere. I have to pich myself every once in a while and realize I am actually in the Andes, those same mountains I have seen so many times on the National Geographic channel and other places so many times. The same places I studied in 5th and 6th grade in school It is absolutley breath-taking.
Well, Adios for now.
Love to you all and I´ll have more to share tomorrow.
Glenn+
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