Ecuador 2006

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July 14^th: Maquipucuna

We spent the last few days in the Maquipucuna Ecological Reserve, an area in the cloud forest on the western slope of the Andes, about two hours west of Quito. The Nature Conservancy purchased it to preserve the land; the Maquipucuna Foundation runs a small rustic lodge there for visitors. Volunteers do a variety of tasks including helping the local community prosper in sustainable ways (i.e. without clear cutting the forest for cattle). The reserve has miles of trails through the cloud forest, providing a haven for bird watchers as well as those interested in wild orchids and other exotic plants.

Our guide in Maquipucuna was Andres, a bilingual Quito native who is a full time guide in various eco-lodges around the country and who is something of a bird expert. His English was so good that we didn’t stick with our Spanish for most of the time, particularly when talking about natural history of the area and about the birds and plants we were seeing. Although we have not been “bird people” before this, we discovered the fun of sighting new species (in our case, ALL were new!). We rose both mornings before 7am (when the birds are most active) to go for a 1-2 hour walk before breakfast, binoculars in hand. Later we either went on a longer hike or visited one of several beatiful bathing places in the rivers. We saw lots of lemon-rumped tanagers and several other colorful tanagers; on our second early walk, Andres was able to identify the calls of woodpeckers and toucanetes and then attract individuals with recorded calls that he broadcast from his portable music player. Even Daniel loved it!

The food at Maquipucana was excellent, and the accommodations were rustic. One issue we had was the abundance of insects that inhabited our bathroom – the cockroaches enjoyed exploring our toothbrush/soap holders, and we discovered a very large spider which required much problem solving to remove from the premises (read kids’ pages for more details). All in all, our brief trip there was a welcome change of pace from Quito’s air pollution and crowds.

July 10^th: Back to La Capital

We’ve returned to Quito and have had 24 hours of life in a hotel and checking out one of Quito’s shopping malls—as Bruce says, he feels like we’re “cheating” since everyone in these places is most willing to speak English with us, which interferes with our attempts to speak Spanish.

Our last day in Otavalo included a short but spectacular hike at Laguna de Cuicocha, aka Laguna de Los Dioses, a crystal blue-aqua lake in a former volcanic crater. The indigenous peoples of old considered it sacred, thus its godly name, but the Spaniards named it for the rodent that once populated its steep shores—“cuy” for guinea pig, and “cocha” as the Quechua name for lake. We saw no guinea pigs or the spectacled (anteojo) bears that supposedly today live there, but we did take a boat ride around its two islands and saw the bubbles that still come up from underground places and make the water on one side of the lake warmer than the other side.

After the hike, we returned to our family’s house for our final almuerzo (lunch) and then watched La Copa Mondial soccer final, with our ride to Quito (Washington) willing to wait for the final penalty kicks. Very dramatic. See Spanish page re: good-byes—hard!

One highlight today: Maggie found the 6^th Harry Potter book in English at Quito’s most famous bookstore (it took her a while to decide that it was worth the hardcover price—too bad she’s not ready for the Spanish softcover version available at half price, but not even Bruce and Sara can make it through Book 1 in Spanish faster than 30 minutes per page). She did not YET get her cheeseburger, but we think that will happen tomorrow…

July 8^th: Beauty Contest

The Technical University of the North (Universidad Tecnico del Norte) is a public university in Ibarra with something like 5,000 students. There are five schools – engineering, health sciences, agriculture, applied sciences and business/economics. The university’s goal is to train “capable professionals” in technical fields. Señor Washington received a degree from UTN, and his daughter Estefania is currently a student in the engineering school there. When Washington told us that Estefania had been chosen to represent the engineering school in the competition for Queen of the University, we thought at first that it was an academic competition. But, it turned out to really be a beauty contest. We asked Washington if we could attend, and he very graciously invited us.

The competition was held in a large auditorium building on the university campus. Groups of students from each of the schools had banners, drums and other acoutrements to demonstrate their (loud) support for their school’s candidate. Each candidate appeared in a traditional Ecuadorian costume, a formal dress, and an outfit representative of her school – for example, the health sciences candidate wore a skimpy nurse’s uniform, the agriculture candidate wore a midriff-baring cowgirl outfit, and Estefania wore a tool belt. During the periods when the candidates were changing their clothes, there were other interesting acts such as traditional Ecuadorian dancers, several solo singers whose performances were in the vein of ‘American Idol’, and an extremely loud (read: deafening) band with electric guitars, piano, and a charismatic lead singer. Overall, the talent level was impressive.

In the end, Estefania came in 3^rd and the woman from the applied sciences school won. We went back-stage where Washington introduced us to his daughter. She’s pretty of course, and also intelligent and ambitious – when she graduates, she is going to use her environmental/ecological engineering training to start an eco-tourism business that will bring visitors to the cloud forest we visited last week. She plans to build a guest lodge there using only local native building materials (e.g., thatched roof made of local palm fronds), that will accommodate only a small number of people in order to minimize the ecological impact of her business. Buena suerte Estefania!

July 6^th: The scenes

Today dawned sunny and clear, after several mostly cloudy and cool days in the last week. Who would have thunk it (we think we figured out how to say THAT in Spanish!), that we are chilly in mid-summer at the equator?? Of course, this helps us remember to cover up from the sun’s intensity too…Otavalo is in a valley among several beautiful formerly-volcanic mountains. The views are spectacular, with much of the slopes of the lower mountains dotted with green pastures and farmland, reminiscent of the Alps. The more up-close view of course is dramatically different than Europe. This is a country full of contrasts, rich in natural beauty but with such poverty both in the towns and in the countryside. The structures we see most commonly are half-finished cement-brick small houses, with dusty frontyards where scruffy dogs and chickens and sometimes pigs hang out, along with barefoot children. Amazingly, amidst the drab gray cement blocks and peeling paint, many buildings have extremely fancy carved wooden doors. Other striking contrasts: walking along the main street, we pass on every block at least two internet cafes, side-by-side with alley-way outdoor cooking grills where an indigene is selling french fries; the young Otavalena women dressed in their traditional richly colored and decorated clothing, crowding the internet café to surf the web to Match.com; another young Otavalena on the corner near our school, again in her traditional garb, but with a backpack much like the kids’ school ones slung over one shoulder, in the way of any norte-americano teenager; a tiny elderly indigene woman in HER traditional dress, with a large bag of disposable diapers slung over her back (Daniel says, “what other kind of diapers are they supposed to have?”); the pony-tailed Otavaleno young men, hanging in jeans outside the video arcade that is near one of the ubiquitous internet cafes; the indigene men in ponchos and sombreros, walking unperturbed on the side of the Pan American highway (the largest highway around here) while smoking diesel busses and tractor-trailer trucks zoom past; the indigene women selling in the market who know all the English sales-clerk words…

The sounds:

Part of our experience here is impossible to put into words or photos—the sounds! We wake each morning to the next-door rooster, who seems to like to crow steadily from about 5am until 8am (earplugs have been EXTREMELY useful). That natural sound combines with the roar of traffic on the Pan American highway which our house is next to. The traffic actually does quiet down at about 2am, but starts up again before dawn. The local busses with their diesel engines zoom past, often with lots of quick honks of their squawky horns to warn other traffic or pedestrians of their presence. We’re all learning to immitate the cadence and rollin ‘r’ of the men who call ‘Ibarra Ibarra Ibarra’ in order to solicit passengers for their busses. The kids enjoy immensely the irony that the town garbage truck plays a melody to mark its arrival that sounds like the ice cream truck at home! Daniel thinks he heard it at 4am once. The absolute silence of the hike at Laguna Mojanda was astonishingly wonderful!

July 5 ^th: Behind the scenes

We’ve been pretty wrapped-up in our studies for the past couple of days. Sara and I got through all the ‘basic’ grammar with our teacher, and now all that remains is to be able to apply it without thinking for 30 seconds before uttering each word (let’s see – this verb needs to be in the imperfect subjunctive; that’s formed by taking the 3^rd person preterite, cutting it at the final ‘r’ and adding the special ending, depending on whether it’s 1^st person, 3^rd person, singular, plural, etc. Oh yeah – this verb is irregular in the preterite, so add a few seconds more of brain time to figure that part out). Our teacher says that we just need to practice – we’re sure he’s right about that. Our taxi drivers say we speak well, but they always say that before we give them their tip.

The kids seem to be enjoying their classes with their teacher Patricia, although I doubt you will ever hear that directly from them. During our classes, we hear peals of laughter coming from their room – something interesting must be going on there!

We bought a cake for the 4^th of July and had “Feliz 4 de julio” written on it in icing. We shared it with our host family and a bunch of their relatives; we were going to shoot off some fireworks too, but discovered that they are illegal in Ecuador. So, we settled for singing “Feliz Cumpleaños a Los Estados Unidos” with our hosts instead.

Some of you may have noticed that this website isn’t always available, or has problems from time to time. That’s because I have to go through an elaborate and fragile process in order to post updates. It goes something like this: 1) Update web site on ancient laptop computer that we have brought with us to Ecuador à 2) Transfer web files to memory stick using flaky USB interface à 3) Go to Internet café (dump fussy children with their mother) and transfer files from memory stick to computer à 4) Attempt to upload files to U.S. web hosting server using FTP protocol on internet café computer. 5) Check to see if web site ‘worked’ -- there are sometimes problems with the steps above, or with the fact that I have different versions of the web site software on the various computers in the chain, or with the fact that the operating system in the internet cafes is in Spanish (which changes all the filenames). And then there’s the challenges with the photos… So, anyway, please bear with me as I go through the learning process and get my webmaster skills ‘perfected.’

July 2^nd: Pollo del Campo

Today, our host family prepared one of their special dishes for us – Pollo del Campo, which is a chicken dish made with birds that were raised in the countryside. Señora Pilar told us that these chickens have a more intense flavor than the ones that you buy in the store. However, with this dish it is necessary to perform a few extra steps, as shown in the photos. Maggie: So there were these chickens in the kitchen and I’m like cool -- chickens. Then I was like wait, why do they have chickens here? and my mom was like uhh for dinner?, and I’m like uhh no way I’m eating that!

We didn’t know we were in for this treat until Sara walked into the kitchen and noticed that a sack on the floor was moving occasionally. When we inquired about its contents, Carolina opend it up and inside were two country chickens! Hola pollos – vamos a comerles!

Señor Alfredo performed the next step very deftly in the kitchen sink with the help of a neighbor, since Sra. Pilar was a bit squeamish about it. You all know what happens to a chicken after it’s been killed – Sr. Alfredo’s interpretation of the final flapping was that the chickens were saying goodbye to us. He also dipped them in hot water and plucked their feathers. I purposely did not watch this step but I had the misfortune of walking by the kitchen a few minutes later to see the end. Believe me, I don’t know how much chicken I’ll be eating afer this.

Sra. Pilar took over from there, with the results shown in the final two pictures. Despite our hesitations (having seen the birds clucking in their bag only hours before), we all very much enjoyed the meal. Sara is getting the recipe from Sra. Pilar, but we’ll have to try it out on our store-bought chickens instead of the country-raised kind. So, I ate the chicken but I was sorta squeamish about it ‘cause I had seen these chickens live. The chicken was good though, so I ate half of it at lunch and the rest at dinner but still after we leave here I might never have a bite of chicken again.

We’ve decided to reciprocate our host family’s generosity by sharing a 4^th of July cake with them. Don’t worry – we won’t be killing any live wheat or sugar plants to do it!

July 1^st: Compramos todo el mercado

Friday our morning Spanish classes included the kids teaching their instructor to play Uno (en espanol, por supuesto) and the adults facing the rest of the past tenses and then trying them out. We both have homework involving reading short novellas en espanol—Bruce’s has the English translation next to it, and Sara’s is longer, so reading it has become a great cure for insomnia. After lunch we took a bus ride with Washington, the school director, to Ibarra, the largest city of this province, and visited its vista point to see all the surrounding volcanoes and the valley below. Beautiful! After picking up Washington’s family, we went to the world-famous heladeria de Rossalie Sanchez where fresh fruit sorbets are handmade. We loved the guanabana-morra combination. We then experienced computer crashes (and thus long register wait—Ecuadorians are more patient than Americans!) at the shoe store where we stopped to get a new pair of hiking boots for Daniel, as his other ones are having a wonderful summer in his closet in Northboro, oops. Finally after a few other stops we made it back home for a late dinner.

Today we slept in and then headed to the crafts market in the center of Otavalo to do some shopping. Bruce went back and forth to the ATM a few times as we made our way through hundreds of stalls featuring tapestries, knitted goods, embroidered blouses, blankets, shawls and ponchos, toys and games, t-shirts with everything from Che Guevera to Galapagos turtles, etc. We became experts at bargaining, and even Daniel tried “Cuanto cuesta?” at a couple of booths. We returned after lunch for a few more items, but the market was already breaking up by then, and we were more tired of the whole process than we’d realized. Besides, we had pretty much bought the whole market up anyway! Luckily we have another Saturday in Otavalo, when we plan to get up really early to go see the live animal market as well, and then beat the tour buses from Quito to the crafts stalls.

Tomorrow we visit some mountain lakes and make an attempt on the summit of Fuya Fuya, which is a small volcano nearby.

June 28, 2006: Las cascadas

Yesterday was quite an adventure! We went on an excursion to a ‘cloud forest’ about 100km from Otavalo. We just missed the “autoferro” train at the station in Ibarra, but caught it at an intersection just before it left town--our hasty and tardy boarding of this bus-turned-into-train meant that our choices for riding on the top were limited to the seatless part in the front. Let’s just summarize the experience this way—Sara thinks it’s not something she’d want to tell her mother about (photos at left). We rode for almost two hours without handholds, thru tunnels, overhanging tree branches and across bridges with precipitous dropoffs. Hair-raising, or at least hair-whitening. Daniel loved it. Mercifully, we got off half-way at a village called Salinas (famous right now as the birthplace of one of Ecuador’s World Cup players) where the school van took us the next two hours to the cloud forest. After this long and adventurous journey (the last hour-plus on rutted dirt road through many villages with banana trees all around), we arrived at the “casa del campo” to begin our hike to two lovely waterfalls. The trail hardly deserved that name, but we saw some beautiful butterflies, flowers, and carrier-ants carting huge leaves across our path. At the second waterfall we dunked ourselves thoroughly—que rico! (see photo). On return to the casa del campo we had a hot meal with soup and chicken and ever present papas (potatoes). The long trip back home included a stop at a roadside stand to buy up what seemed like all the tangerines in the world, which now we’re enjoying as fresh-squeezed juice or snacks.

Needless to say, after that day, the kids were NOT that happy about going back to school this morning, but they seem to be making progress—Maggie claims to understand everything so far, and Daniel has actually put two Spanish sentences together (in a row) in a way that makes sense. Their favorite part of class today was learning different adjectives to hurl at each other J. They also played Go Fish and Old Maid in Spanish. Bruce and I on the other hand are struggling with the subjunctive and the preterit. Whew. We feel like we’ve taken two steps forward and one step backward, but we’re having fun trying out our new verb tenses on our very gracious hostess who gently corrects us when needed.

June 26, 2006: Otavalo Spanish Institute

Today we had our first classes at Otavalo Spanish Institute. The kids have one teacher, Patricia, and Washington is our teacher. In the morning the kids learned some household vocabulary (bed, table, spoon, etc.). Maggie is a little bit ahead of Daniel due to the classes she took with Senora Wilkinson, but Daniel is catching-up. Sara and Bruce studied the present subjunctive, the imperative and the preterite. They practiced by forming sentences like “I beg that you cook lunch for me,” and “I am displeased that you haven’t completed the chip on time.” We met some of the other students at the school – they’re all English speaking young people from the U.S., England and New Zealand. After lunch (the largest meal of the day in Ecuador) back at the house, we returned at 3pm for more classes. Whew, our heads are now really spinning with verb tenses! Maggie and Daniel are happy to hear that they will be spared the mile walk to and from school tomorrow as we´re going on a full day excursion to the Cloud Forest, with swimsuits in tow as Washington promises waterfalls to swim in (I mean under). We may not be able to update for a few days as the internet café technology is a bit cumbersome. Nos vemos!

June 25, 2006: Bienvenidos a Ecuador

Many travelers to Ecuador don’t feel completely welcome because they have problems with the altitude, but we were fine thanks to the medicine that we took beforehand. Yesterday, we did a walking tour of the old city, and visited the main church as well as some very busy markets and one of the main plazas. In the evening, we had dinner with some Ecuadorian friends of one of Sara’s medical colleagues at their apartment in Quito. Ritha is a family doctor in Quito and explained to us all the challenges faced by the Ecuadorian health system (photo at left). Ritha’s family is from the countryside, and she cooked some authentic dishes for us that were delicious. Her version of Ecuadorian potato soup was particularly good. Ritha and her husband Raol gave us quite a few contacts (all medical people) to look up in our later travels.

This morning, of course, we watched the World Cup match between Ecuador and England along with everyone else in the country. The Ecuadorians put up a valiant effort, but couldn’t quite prevail against Beckham and his teammates. Interestingly, the people took the loss quite well – they are very proud that the team from their small Andean country made it to the final 16 in the world cup. We watched the game in our hotel along with a bunch of other foreigners including a British guy who kept telling us “Beckham’s famous for that kind of shot – he does it all the time” Yeah, right. Here is a photo before the game of Sara with one of the typical Ecuadorian fans. He was shouting “Viva Ecuador, mi pais!” during the photo. Walking through some of the market areas, all we saw was curtains of yellow jerseys hanging from floor to ceiling.

This afternoon, we were picked-up by Washington (that’s his name), the owner of the Otavalo Spanish Institute, who turns out to also be a mountain guide. He started the school when some of his climbing clients asked him to teach them some Spanish. He’s climbed all the volcanoes in Ecuador and pointed some of them out on the drive from Quito to Otavalo. They’re incredibly dramatic – like having five Mt Rainiers (only half-again as high) in one state. Washington said we might be able to climb a ‘really small’ one during our stay in Otavalo – apparently, he doesn’t want us to be distracted from our homework! We are staying with a family in an apartment in the city. Pilar (the mom) is a homemaker, and Edwin works for a local beer distributor. They have two children Jorge Luis (age 8) and Mabel (aka Mabelita, age 5 with big dimples) who are very interested in video games (an international language—see photo).

We sure have had lots of opportunity to use our Spanish! In addition to the waiters, museum workers, taxi drivers etc. who we’ve come across, Ritha, Washington and our host family here in Otavalo have spoken nothing but Spanish with us (only Washington knows English). That doesn’t mean our Spanish is getting any better, though; Sara and I shake our heads after each of our encounters with a Spanish speaker and commiserate in our mutual grammatical mistakes. Nevertheless, it’s rewarding to know that we can communicate a lot of ideas even with just present tense and limited non-medical vocabulary.

June 24, 2006: Los gringos han llegado

The gringos have arrived! Our trip was fairly uneventful, except for a braces malfunction in the limousine to Logan airport, which required Bruce to cut and remove a wire from Maggie’s mouth (photo at left) while we were waiting on the sidewalk outside the arrivals terminal. The patient survived! The flight from Miami to Quito was completely full of Americans – mostly high school students from evangelical church groups traveling to Ecuador for missionary work. There were also several teen adventure groups coming for hiking, rafting, etc., and of course a bunch of people on Galapagos tours. Very few Ecuadorians or solo travelers like us. The pilot had a very limited command of Spanish, but that didn’t stop him from using it frequently to tell us all about the unique attributes of flying a plane into Quito, which at 9200ft has a lower air pressure than the inside of the airplane cabin during flight. While we were waiting on the runway in Miami, he came into the main cabin and gave his captive audience a pop quiz on 1)How high is Quito? 2)What is the highest airport in the world where American Airlines flies (Quito is second)?, and 3)What ‘altitude’ is an airplane cabin normally pressurized to? The Fishbein/Shields team was probably the only group on the plane to get all three correct (Quito is about 9200ft, La Paz is the highest airport, and airline cabins are pressurized to about 6500ft).

Once in Quito, we passed smoothly through customs baggage claim and then transport to our hotel, which is in the old part of the city. It has an attractive central courtyard, and a nice restaurant (photo at right). The rooms are very comfortable and the kids are delighted that the television receives several U.S. stations. Unfortunately, the computers have some problems that require us to use a local internet café for getting our photos onto this web site.

Everyone here is gearing-up for the big game (Ecuador vs. England) on Sunday, and there’s a huge television set up in the restaurant for watching it. In fact, everyone is totally obsessed with soccer and is watching all the matches (Mexico vs. Argentina today)

Today, we will get our bearings and maybe do a walking tour of the old city. Tonight, we’re visiting friends of friends (medical people) who have a house outside the city.

June 22, 2006: Showtime!

Tomorrow’s the day! OMG I’m sooo not excited (Well I guess I sort of am). Anyway, tomorrow the limo picks us up at 8:00 which means I have to wake up at 7:00 which is way too early. Then we have to ride In the limo for an HOUR before we get to the airport. Once we get there, my father is going to make me carry my large duffel bag all the way through the airport -- hello sore shoulders! Then we sit in a plane for 3 hours. Once we get to Miami, my mom promised me a cheeseburger but I doubt that will happen because our flight is likely to be late so we’ll probably be rushing and I was sick yesterday so my mom wouldn’t let me have a cheeseburger today and I really wanna cheeseburger and I hope they have a Burger King in Quito or something because I can’t go a whole summer without a cheeseburger! And right now I’m really mad because last night my brother got to go to the Red Sox game and they won and Big Papi hit a grand slam and I didn’t get to go because I had the stomach flu! URGH! Also I had to miss the last day of school. And to make matters worse I recently found out that basically my whole summer will be spent In Spanish school, not like I need it (wink,wink) I mean I already knew I was going to Spanish school but I didn’t know It would be the whole time so instead of lying on the beach and getting a tan I get to sit in a stuffy classroom learning a language that was completely unknown to me until this year!

Mom’s version of last day before departure:

S (frantically moving papers around on kitchen counter): “where was that list I made for this morning’s trip to CVS? Maybe it’s under the list from last night’s trip there….”

D (having been torn from Game Cube to eat breakfast, which included crushed Diamox pill to prevent altitude sickness on arrival at 10000 feet from sea level): “I’m NOT taking that. Why do I have to take that? Why do we have to go to Ecuador?” but more cheerful later in the day when friend’s birthday party start time loomed nearer.

M (stuffing way more skinny T-shirts into overstuffed duffel bag than will fit/be lugged by 12 year old thru airport—see above—or worn): “Mom, I need conditioner…” S groaning as this announcement is AFTER this morning’s CVS trip…

B (calling on cell phone for 3^rd or 4^th time this morning): “We have so much to do. We are never going to be ready. This house is a mess. We need to focus…”

Kathy (dogsitter, after large bill from vet this week for blood tests to find out why Rudi is not eating): “See, look at him eat the OLD food! He didn’t like the new food!”

June 17, 2006: Things come undone

The boys in the family decided to get well shorn for the trip. Maggie’s pronouncement was: “Dad, you looked bad before and you still look bad. Shave it all off!” What a nice comment from my daughter on Father’s Day eve. Well, at least she noticed, and I did finally coax out of her that I am moving in the right direction. Daniel was too busy playing video games with his friends (he’s having a birthday sleep-over tonight) to have any idea there was a change until after his sister’s comments.

In addition to our tonsorial adventures, we are of course continuing to pack. Here’s a snapshot that accurately represents where we are in this process. As you can see, we have a way to go. The good news, though, is that all of Sara, Bruce and Maggie’s stuff fits in the corner of the room. There may actually be hope for that 4 duffel-4 daypack-1 laptop goal after all.

Now that Sara’s actually done at the office (except for going in Monday morning to finish mopping up), she’s started to pay attention to the fact that Ecuador has won its first two games in the World Cup (La Copa Mundial). We’re anticipating great futbol fervor there so now we need to brush up on soccer vocabulary (la tarjeta roja, por ejemplo).

June 14, 2006: Un perro loco

While the term “mad dog” sometimes describes a rabid animal, in our case it refers to a neurotic dog; at least that’s how Rudi was diagnosed by our veterinarian, who says that the trauma he suffered as a young puppy in Tennessee is responsible for his unusual behaviors (e.g., eating only when we eat, whining but never barking, howling whenever a musical instrument is played, etc.). More specifically, the vet says that Rudi can sense our imminent departure for the summer, and is getting particularly anxious about it. The vet has offered to prescribe him Prozac, telling us “dogs do really well with this.” We’ve decided to skip the anti-depressants, mostly because we’re very confident that Rudi will have a great summer with his caregiver, Kathy, who he sees and plays with several times a week when she comes to clean our house. Over the summer, she’ll be living in our house with Rudi, and she’s even taking him on a vacation to Mt. Desert Island in Maine!

Besides the Rudi excitement, we are busily preparing ourselves for departure, although there’s a long list of events and activities between now and then: Daniel’s 10^th birthday, a family outing to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play the Washington Senators, several work events for Sara and Bruce, and the last day of school for the kids.

June 7, 2006: Our state of affairs

Are we ready to go? Well, that depends on whom you ask. Maggie and Sara clearly are – here they model some of the new clothes they got for the trip during our recent shopping spree. We loaded-up on wrinkle-free, sun-blocking stuff that will dry quickly and is generally easy to take care of. Sara’s also modeling her new haircut, which has caused her to be mistaken by some of her more generous colleagues as “Sara Shields’ younger sister.” Maggie, meanwhile, has had plenty of time to perfect her modeling pose, since she dropped out of Spanish classes this week. This is the first class in her educational career that she has flunked (due to no-show as opposed to poor performance). Not even the enticement of an ice cream sundae could get her back into Senora Wilkinson’s class between now and E-day. As for Daniel, well – this picture pretty much sums it up: “I’m not going to Ecuador”. In fact, Daniel has concocted an elaborate plan to abandon his family in Miami during our stop-over there. His intent is to get in touch with Bruce’s uncle Eddy and aunt Bonnie, and then throw himself at their mercy with the hope of being taken-in for the summer.

Bruce has been busy trying to disengage at work and of course fulfill his role as the new webmaster. He has also refurbished an old laptop computer we have, so that we can bring it with us and use it to make our web updates.

June 4, 2006: The Beginning

Today we started our trip diary. Our planning has been in full-swing for the last two months in anticipation of our departure on June 23. We’ve been finalizing the details of our itinerary—when and where we’re staying in each place, how we’re getting from place to place, contact information, etc. We’ll be sending that out soon to family and friends. Other details include getting all our medications ready, including a battery powered nebulizer and two months’ of asthma medications for Daniel, and including a large bottle of Immodium, motion sickness tablets, altitude sickness prevention medications, malaria prophylaxis, etc. We had all our shots in March—yellow fever, typhoid, and Hepatitis A. Luckily we’re all set for rabies after our summer 2005 rabid bat exposure!

This weekend we’ve been making the final push with packing supplies. A three-hour shopping spree at REI helped. Maggie has refused to take any of the pants-that-zip-off-into-shorts (“too ugly” in the tone that only a 12 year old can really use), but the rest of us have a couple of pairs each now, as well as other “travel friendly” (quick dry, wrinkle free, sunproof, etc.) clothing items, and Teva sandals and Merrell hikers for all. Bruce has convinced us all to take soft duffels with very efficient packing, so we’re trying hard to fit all we’ll need for 2 months into one duffel and one day pack each, gulp.

We’re working on details on the home front, too, with lists of tasks and emergency information for our house/dogsitter, Kathy. It’s a bit like the “Maggie and Daniel Care Instruction” binder that we left for grandparents last fall when we left for a week…but at least there’s no soccer practice involved…

And then there’s the VERY important matter of the web site!