Mindo, Ecuador: Birdwatchers Paradise (and not much else)

E.J. here.
We left Quito yesterday and took a 2 hour bus ride up and down some winding mountain passes to a small town to the northwest of Quito, known for its birdwatching.
We (or I...not sure what Mago knew), didn't realize this, but Ecuador in general is quite the "birder" destination, and Mindo, this village in the cloud forest, is one of the best places for it.
https://www.google.com.ec/maps/@-0.0488491,-78.7754357,10z?hl=en

We finished our 2 weeks of language school in Quito and I think we're both becoming more competent in at least talking like toddlers in Spanish. I'm remembering new words every day.

We made friends with one of the volunteers at the hostel, where we stayed for our last 9 days in Quito and made a plan to travel with her for a little bit. We're going to meet her on Tuesday for the Quilotoa Loop (which will probably be its own post next week), but she had a tour scheduled first, so we came up to Mindo for 3 days before we rendez-vous with Emily.

Mindo was a sleepy little village until some point in the not-so-distant past, when bird-watchers started coming in bigger and bigger numbers and eventually they built up a little tourist infrastructure.
I should note that neither of us is an avid 'birder' per se, but the town is cute and it really is amazing how many birds you see, just walking down the street. We're still in the mountains, but at a lower elevation and hundreds of streams run into this valley from the surrounding mountains.

All the restaurants and hostels (including Casa de Cecilia, where we're staying) set out bananas and other fruit on stands to attract birds. You see hummingbird feeders everywhere, too and the hummingbirds are EVERYWHERE!

The hostess in the restaurant where we had lunch told us there are over 40 species of hummingbird in Ecuador and over 20 in this area alone. While we were eating lunch, we sat and watched this feeder set-up and she pointed out 3 or 4 different types of hummingbirds just while we ate, among a lot of other songbirds. The only one I remember was the Blue-grey tanager. I got a mediocre (ok, crappy!) picture of some at lunch:

One of the things we were told to do was go check out the 'cascadas' (waterfalls). We took a bumpy truck ride out of town, up a mountain, where we took a cable car across a valley and hiked down the other side of the valley to a series of waterfalls. The waterfalls themselves didn't blow my mind as much as the flora going down the mountain did. Now, we're not in the rain forest yet. I'm not sure where the line between jungle and forest is, but we're in whats called the cloud forest, which from what I understand is a far-cry from the amazon. But that being said, I've never seen anything like this. Bamboo stalks 40' high, ferns towering over us and fronds of other plants bigger than my torso. I'm told there are tree sloths and toucans in the region but we haven't spotted any yet. But the hike, in my gringo mind, felt like something out of Indiana Jones, which I don't want to sound reductive or tacky. Its just where my under-exposed brain went for a frame-of-reference. That and Jurassic Park. Fortunately, we didn't spot any raptors, either.

It was a nice day hike. The town itself is quiet though and after dinner there isn't much to do. We've both been reading a good bit, which before dusk, was quite nice to do on the patio hammocks:

We're trying to take on some of the attributes of the types of people we think are able to travel for dozens of weeks and hundreds of miles. I decided that we should get good at playing cards. A deck of cards takes up little space or weight in a backpack but might provide hours of entertainment. We've never played cards together because Maggie has always claimed that she has a thing where she is incapable of remembering the rules specifically of card games. Last night we put that to the test and played several rounds of Rummy. I won handily but she definitely remembered the rules. 

Te rest of the time, we lounge about with the two hostel dogs, Manchas and Luna. 

All in all, I've enjoyed getting away from the hustle of the city. Quito cast its spell, but its nice to not worry about pickpockets on the buses or exhaust fumes. Car alarms and barking dogs at all hours. From outside our window we can hear the gurgling of a stream at the edge of the property. I think I might get bored here after a while, but Mindo has been a refreshing change of pace and a helpful reminder that we are completely in control of making this vagabonding jaunt whatever we want to make it. We want to stay a few months in La Paz, Bolivia and live the city life? Done. We want to spend that time in the rain forest or the mountains, way off the beaten path? Done. 

After Quilotoa, we're planning on doing about 2 weeks on a farm further to the south. We shall see.

Rucu Pichincha and Traveling Mode

As we hit our two week mark in Quito, I'm starting to get an idea of what unplanned, unscheduled, slow travel feels like. And I feel so incredibly lucky to have this experience and this time.

In general, I am a planner. I love a good checklist, I remember when I have made plans with friends weeks in advance, and I regularly check out my retirement savings progress. I find that researching and planning a vacation ahead of time is a huge part of the pleasure of the trip itself (anticipation is a wonderful thing). 

But when it came to really making the leap to a 6 month trip, it was clear that it couldn't be planned. There was so much coordinating and organizing to be done to get us out of Austin that there wasn't much more I could do other than occasionally skim a page in our Lonely Planet South American book. We had two weeks of Spanish classes in Quito set up and our Machu Picchu trip in September booked. And that was it.

The best part of travel for me is being reminded about all that is out there that is different than my very small little life. In addition to being fun, confusing, exciting, delicious, and beautiful, seeing the world helps me grow a bit more as a person every time I head out of town. Taking on a trip this big for me came with the hope that I would let go of some more neuroses and get a little bit better at embracing the unknown and the serendipitous in life. 

On Sunday, we took the Teleferiqo (a cable car/funicular) halfway up a dormant volcano on the west side of Quito called Rucu Pichincha. We had been told that it was a few hour hike from that point up to the top of the mountain, and even though we wore our hiking boots we were still pretty unprepared for the challenge of getting to the summit. The peak is at an altitude of 15,000 feet and so as we climbed further and further up we found ourselves having to stop every 5-10 minutes to catch our breath. But the views kept getting better, the plants kept changing and getting more interesting, and the top was in sight so we kept going. 

3 long hours later we just about reached the summit when a huge bank of clouds rolled in and limited our visibility and we decided to turn around (and frankly, I was exhausted and we had run out of water). And we hiked 2 hours back down. 

In addition to the peace I felt way up there surveying the city, I also had one of my first tastes of how quickly people start to bond when traveling and experiencing things together. On our way up we chatted with a few different groups of travelers, including a group of 3 young American women who had a friend that had gone on ahead to the peak while they hung back. They'd been waiting for her a while and were getting worried and so we headed upwards with instructions to look for a "blonde girl with a green backpack". On the way we chatted with an Australian couple, a couple of French guys, lots of local Eucadorian families out for a Sunday hike, and an American horticulturist who was collecting seed and plant samples to try to propagate in Seattle, all of whom were keeping an eye out for this missing young woman.

When she turned up a few hours later (she'd made it to the peak in her Chaco sandals as you do when you're 22 years old) there was some general rejoicing. As the group ended at the cable car around the same time, we gathered for a group photo and exchanged names to find each other on Facebook. Then we split a taxi with 3 strangers/new friends and took our tired legs home. 

That energy has stayed with me this week, as I've continued to meet new people at our hostel and in school and we've started to scheme where our next stops will be after Quito. Suddenly, I've got friends in New Zealand, and we've got plans to hike around a volcanic crater lake with a woman from the US who went to college with someone I went to high school with (because the world really is that small). Rolling with it feels pretty amazing thus far. 

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1st week of Spanish School in Quito done

E.J. here.

I was just lying in a hammock in the dark, in the back courtyard of our new hostel, listening to the many dogs of Quito bark into the night. Maggie was lying in the other hammock, a few feet away. I looked over to her and said "What happened that this is now my life?!" There are moments when everything seems so surreal. And then despite that, we've gotten adjusted and acclimated and oriented and then I look up and say "Huh. This is my life now." 

This past Monday, we started our language school here in Quito (http://www.yanapumaspanish.org/). We're signed up for 2 weeks. We had originally talked about starting off with a month, but I think by the end of next week, we'll be ready to go travel and explore a bit. 

We had a class of 5 students and a teacher, so the small group instruction has been great. Class goes from 9am to 1pm. We go over a thematic chunk of vocabulary, talk about verb conjugation and practice creating sentences. A lot of the class is very informal back and forth with the teacher. It felt a bit overly-informal at first. I felt like I should be getting quizzed on irregular verb conjugation or something, but in time I came to see that we're getting real-time feedback and in this setting, I'm learning very organically.

Wednesday, the teacher listed off a number of fruits that you can get in the market here, which don't exist much elsewhere. Each student picked one, and our homework was to go to the market, buy the said fruit and bring it in the following day. 

We came in on Thursday and each student sliced their fruit up with enough portions for the 2 classes and had to tell the group about their "show and tell". Its pretty amazing all of the flora in Ecuador that I've never heard of before. We went around the table and sampled all of the fruits, from most tart to sweetest. One of the most fascinating (to me) was called Taxo. 

They were these stubby little guys that looked like tiny yellow squash. But when you cut them open, they were filled with juicy seeds with a bright, tart citrus-y flavor.

Maracuya was a sub-species of passionfruit and ovillas were these little orange cherry tomato-looking things that are actually fruit and have a bright, citrus-y explosion of flavor. My very favorite, though was the Tomate-de-Arbol, which means tomato-of-the-tree. They look just like roma tomatoes, but they grow on trees and have a fleshy, tart taste. Tomates-de-Arbol are used as the base for the national salsa, called aji, which are a kind of hot sauce that people put on everything. You cook town the "tomates" with onion and hot chiles. Delicious.

I'm really enjoying how the classes allow us to explore Spanish as a conversation instead of passive learning (memorization). There's a big focus on how it can be applied. How will this be of use for me? What will I need to know to get around? What tools will I need to be able to learn more and continue moving forward? The teacher spent a bunch of time introducing us to free learning modules and curricula online that we can use moving forward. No hard sell that we should be signing up for a month of classes instead of 2 weeks. No selling us books or access to restricted sites. There's an appreciation for us simply wanting to be able to communicate more effectively and I love the hell out of that. 

We're going to go on a day trip tomorrow and then ride out this next week of classes before out into greater Ecuador. And I'm going to try to speak for myself and let Mago blog her thoughts in her own time, but I think I can get away with speaking for both of us in staying that we're excited to go see some of the sights. There are something like 40 volcanoes in Ecuador, something like a dozen of them active so some degree or another at this time. Many of those have created different sets of hot springs around the country, a couple of which we hope to visit. On a clear day, you can see one of them (Cotopaxi) in the distance from Quito. Coffee plantations, llama farms. Rain forest. Cloud forest. Some of the best bird-watching in the world. Incredible hiking. We've been in Quito for 8 days now and while I have absolutely fallen in love, I'm getting excited to see whats next. 

Day 3 in Quito

Happy to report that the South American leg of our journey is finally underway (bet you thought it would never happen). 

In Parque Carolina

We arrived in Quito Thursday night and got a ride into the city from our AirBNB hosts. Pablo and Gabriela have been great, he runs a small tour business and has been eager to share local recommendations and potential itineraries for our upcoming travels.

We've been taking it easy  as we adjust to the high altitude and close proximity to the sun. The air is dry and cool and the sun is intense. Quito is surrounded by mountain peaks and volcanoes - as you walk along and look up streets to the east or west you see the green hills with houses crawling up their sides. 

We've done a little bit of exploring in the Centro Historico of Quito - full of colonial facades, cathedrals, and pretty plazas. The language school we will start tomorrow is in that area of town so we will explore it much more. Also enjoyed strolling through Parque Carolina yesterday and Parque Ejido today with our host Gabriela and her mom where there was an artisan's market going on. 

Graffiti near "our" mercado

Everyone we've interacted with in Quito has been incredibly kind and patient - from the taxi driver to the woman in the mini-market to the guy trying to get me to tell him if I wanted lentils or beans with my meal today (I really need to learn a lot more food related Spanish, stat). We have seen fewer tourists than I expected so far, I think Cuenca may have more of an expat scene than Quito does - although there IS a bar nearby called Finn McCool's if we decide we need a Guinness. 

Basilica del Voto Nacional perched above Old Town

Unintentionally ordering whole fish in the mercado

We've had some good introductions to being out of our element - finding a bank to get smaller bills at, pushing on to an insanely crowded bus, ordering food and buying our veggies at the lovely Mercado Santa Clara nearby. As E.J. said last night as we were laughing about having to go in 4 different entrances before we found the correct part of the bank - "We are definitely not in a rut".

On the cusp

E.J. here.
Well, we leave tomorrow.
The laundry is just about all done, the packing is just about all done. The auto-pay is set up on all the bills, the shopping is (hopefully) done and an unbelievable amount of loose ends seem to be tied up.
And i find that this is a very surreal precipice to be standing on. There are so many unknowns looming and its funny to look back on everything that we have just walked away from. Its hard to explain the drive to go. I (we) have/had a very good life in Austin. I love my little house, the neighbors are nice, we live in a great location. I have in the past year, cultivate a golden era of the best, most entertaining, sincere and supportive cadre of friends that I have ever had. I had a good job, that I was not horrible at and to top it off, they pay me more than anyone else ever had. I've learned how to survive the summers in Texas without dying of heat stroke and coast through the modest winters. I've always got enough to eat and drink and we have netflix on the t.v.
All the makings for a pretty good life. So why walk away from all of that?
Well for starters, most of that will probably still be true when I get back. A few friends will have left Austin by the time we return, which I lament. And I might not get the same job back, which I accept. But as I plunge headlong into my late 30s, I can't help but feel that the window of opportunity for doing something huge and reckless like this is drawing to a close. Its not true. But it feels true. We can always drop everything and hop on a plane to Cambodia. Or Zimbabwe. But compared to going to the Czech Republic in 2000 or the Republic of Armenia in 2010, preparing for this trip has been soooo much harder. And it seems like these things will prove more and more difficult as I age. Not impossible. But more difficult. Not the sleeping on floors and cliff diving and hitchhiking (although those are not getting easier). But the tying up of the loose ends and getting of the affairs in the orders that they are supposed to get into. I feel like I am embedded in life a little deeper and it has been a lot of work to get ready to go. So in that sense, if we don't go now, then will we? Maybe not.
I have an elderly dog. Her name is Lilly. She is half bulldog and half boxer and she is going on 14. As I write this, she is chewing away at a kong that she will surely destroy. She wiggles when I walk in the room and she poops twice a day like clockwork. But its getting really hard for her to get up or get down or climb the three stairs into my mother's condo after a walk. I've had her for about 10 years and we're pretty well bonded to each other. I say this because I sit here, typing, and I know that leaving tomorrow, she may not be around when I get back. That's some serious life, right there. That's life happening to me. When I was in my mid 20s, I decided I wanted a dog and about a year later, I decided I might be responsible enough for a dog. I told myself that if I could keep a vegetable garden alive for a growing season, remember to water it every day, then I was responsible enough to take care of a dog. Which I feel was a pretty responsible decision in itself. I did, so I did and now here I am 10 years later with Lilly and I realize that my relationship with her was probably my transition into adulthood. Real, honest-to-God adulthood, where I am responsible for the care of another being.
Maggie and I talk about kids someday. Part of this trip is that you can't put off kids forever and so if we want kids someday and we want to do this (especially with Zika) then maybe you have to go and do this shit and get it over with before you have the kids.
So here I am on the cusp of this grand adventure and I'm thinking about the possibility of kids someday and I'm thinking about the imminent mortality of this wonderful little dog who has helped me become a responsible adult.
So yeah, I'm having some heavy thoughts today.

But all that heaviness aside, its been such an amazing time, getting to this cusp. The road trip was a singular experience, all the moreso because its been our "victory lap", where we got to see family and celebrate the fact that this lady said yes when I told her I wanted to spend the resto f my life with her. I got to see one of my best friends, 8 months pregnant and ready to bring a life of her own into this world.

We got to hang out with Mago's amazing sister in Brooklyn and hang out with my family on the South Shore of Boston.
I've eaten like a king for 2 weeks now. Lobster rolls and scallops wrapped in bacon. Louis CK once said that "It doesn't matter who the President is when there's bacon in your mouth" and while that may be true, its even more true when that bacon is wrapped around a scallop.

So yeah, I'm on the cusp. and its been wonderful getting here.
When I think about all of the things that might happen in the coming months, I feel dizzy with the possibilities. Goat farms and coffee plantations in the Andes. Chilean vineyards. Patagonia and Macchu Picchu. My head spins. So strangely, instead of surveying the landscape ahead of me, I find myself looking back on my life, from here on the cusp of the next chapter.

One of my favorite moments of this whole trip happened in New York. We went to the MET because Mago wanted to see some new installation on the roof and take in the skyline view from up there. She has the photos of that moment, so I'll leave them to here. But we walked through the Impressionists room and I got to see the Monets. And I find it a little strange, but Money is still my facorite. Ever since I went on a class trip to the Boston MFA in 7th grade and saw his paintings that first time. For some reason, my taste in art hasn't really gotten much more sophisticated in the 20 years since. Something about how he captures the essence of a thing my not using any of its details. I'm not an art historian. I just like what I like. But I was so happy to see those haystacks again.