Category Archives: South America

The largest Carnival celebration in Ecuador is in the large city of Ambato. It is surprisingly large for how little you hear of the city, but yet, you understand when you get there because there is not much going for it really. Even for Carnival. We made a morning parade, which was flashy, wacky and colorful, but after that we were at a loss for what to do, as the only activity seemed to be drinking into oblivion. That and …

4 responses to “Ole!”

After Saquisili, the road heads up into the western Andes and a series of small, mainly indigenous villages popular with us gringos, the Quilotoa Loop. What’s great about the loop is there are small hostels in almost every town you can stop in where you can drop your things. So wherever you are when you decide you want to stop, well, you can stay there. It creates a real sense of comfortable adventure. And some adventures we had. If there …

4 responses to “The Loop”

Well, at least that’s why some people were there. We, not knowing international laws on transporting livestock, stuck to just browsing at the Saquisili market (though at only $1 each, Jeff was tempted to buy a chick, set it free, and see what happened). Held every Thursday, the Saquisili market is one of the biggest and most important markets in Ecuador. Along the Quilotoa Loop, a rural region home to primarily indigeneous families, the market is the main source of …

6 responses to “To Market, To Market To Buy a Fat Pig”

Banos, which pretty much sits smack in the middle of Ecuador, is a popular tourist town, both with gringos and Ecuadorians. People are attracted to the thermal baths from which it takes its name (no, it’s not named after the bathroom, though every time we saw the city name included in a sign, such as the one that read “Civil Registry of Banos,” we had a good chuckle), as well as the splendid scenery around the town, which includes an …

4 responses to “A Few Days in Banos”

During our years of thinking about, dreaming about, and planning for this trip, we came across many, many places that we wanted to visit. Some eventually got dropped. Some became maybes. And some became priorities, places we felt we just had to visit. The Amazon jungle was one of those places. If you recall, in an earlier post before we departed, we asked you all to vote on how and where we should experience the jungle. In the end, time …

7 responses to “Welcome to the Jungle”

I’ve been fortunate to snorkel in some pretty amazing places: off the coast of Hawaii, in the Red sea, over the reefs of Belize. I’ve seen amazing coral formations, swam through a swarm of non-stinging jellyfish, been brushed by huge rays, and shared space with a green sea turtle. But snorkeling in the Galapagos tops all of that. We were pleased in that during our 8-day tour, we were able to snorkel almost every single day, generally twice a day. …

4 responses to “Snorkeling in the Galapagos: Don’t Forget the Fish”

Reptiles make up an important part of the Galapagos population, with the two most well-known reptiles being the famed marine iguanas—which propel themselves through the water with long tails and then dive down to feed on underwater algae before returning to land to recover their body temperature with long rests on hot rocks—and the giant tortoises—which can live upwards of 200 years. Beyond sharing the commonalities of reptiles, the marine iguanas and the giant tortoises also share another feature: a …

7 responses to “Galapagos Reptiles: From Real Life to the Big Screen”

I’ve always sort of mocked birding. You walk for hours, trail whispers and sounds in the forest, only to catch the briefest of glimpses of a wing as it sails away from you. It never sounded like my idea of fun. Sure, I like hiking, and we tend to see a fair number of birds doing that, but to go out with the express intent of looking for birds has always seemed to me to be silly. But there’s nothing …

7 responses to “Birds of the Galapagos”