Homeward Bound

On July 21, 2014 after 7 months on the road we started the 30+ hour journey home from Ecuador to work for 3 three months. We left Dolores, our van safely covered under a tarp at Finca Sommerwind with her trusty German guardian Hans.

After a 3-hour bus ride from Ibarra to Quito, sleeping in the airport until our 3am flight departed, an overnight in Bogota and a hellacious customs welcome in Fort Lauderdale, we were SO excited to be on the same flight to Colorado as our friends Breena & Spencer! They were making their way home from Guatemala and their newly acquired sailboat. We chatted and drank gin and tonics the whole flight – it was delightful to catch up with them since we had last seen them in Guatemala.

At the Denver airport we were welcomed home by my amazing brother Jake and his sweet girlfriend Dawn.

From there we worked the summer away; attended my cousin Kortney’s beautiful wedding, celebrated my grandmothers 80th birthday, our friend Metzler came to visit and help us catch the bat that made it’s way into my dads house, George was a last minute stand in at a 24 hour bike race, Rachel had knee surgery, George continued the tradition of dude weekend, we watched 5 kittens for two weeks and kept two for my dad, celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary, celebrated new life in California with girlfriends, voted, enjoyed time with family and friends, had a great time at FriendsGiving in the desert, skinned with my dad and his new knees, and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my grandparents before we packed up and flew back to Ecuador.

Paperwork, Mountains & Miradors

July 5, 2014

From Popyan we made the wild and beautiful drive into Ecuador. The road was cut into steep green hillsides that reveals something new at every turn. We were headed to Ibarra where we got wind the owner of a campground there could help us with long term storage of our beloved Dolores. Work had contacted Rachel to see if she could help out while a colleague was out on maternity leave. We would be headed back to the states for 3 months and needed to work through the logistics of leaving a car in a foreign country.

Turns out, most governments, don’t like this idea one bit so it takes jumping through hoops and ultimately figuring out which country has the least efficient way of tracking you with your car (i.e. your vehicle permit isn’t indicated in your passport). For us Ecuador was this country. But that wasn’t all. To legally leave the car, without explaining that we were leaving the car we had to get paperwork showing that car could be there past the typical 90 day limit that we would inevitably exceed traveling home and back. This meant that George was going to have to get a special visa that allowed him to stay in the country for 6 months (it’s the only time extension option) and then we’d have to get paperwork for the car that matched that amount of time. Why go through all this hassle? If our paperwork wasn’t in perfect order, the Ecuadoran government has the right to take Dolores from us and never give her back.

If you’re interested in the gory details of this process, click here. In brevity it takes about a week and you run from government office to government office to stand in line. Once you file for the visa you have to wait four days before you can do anything else so we took this time to explore the central part of Ecuador.

We drove the Quilatoa Loop. Amazing landscapes, checkered hillsides, and fields of flowers – it was like taking a drive back in time.

From there we motored to Cotopaxi where we met this awesome guy Remy from France, drove Dolores to 14k feet, hiked to the Refuigo, and George and Remy climbed Ruminahi.

We ventured to the Papallteca Termas and soaked in the warm water and drove to miradors that were so unimpressive that George got upset.

We explored Quito.

At the Equator we played along with all the fun gravity games.

After the painful process getting our paperwork in order was complete we had to book it back to Ibarra where we would prep Dolores for 3 sunny months without us. But time was of the essence – our flight back to the states was only 3 days away.

Covering Ground

June 20, 2014

From Bogota we made our way to the coffee district of Colombia, specifically Manizales. Here we delighted in delicious free coffee all day, which might have been a strong catalyst to us finding the motivation to give Dolores a new floor. We tore out the carpet and put in some classic linoleum wood flooring. A much needed change in the humid climate.

We stayed on a fully operating coffee farm so we took a tour of the process from - berry to bean to buzz.

Since the World Cup was still going on, everyone was trying to find a place to watch the came, ourselves included. The owner of the place we were staying offered his grand viewing screen – huge projector under a nice palapa. We drank entirely too much of his nice agardiente (the local liquor) and cheered the Colombians to another exciting win!

The warm sun, cool nights, good company, free coffee and hammocks held us for too long before we made our escape to seek out hot springs. After a day soaking in the Termales de Santa Rosa we made our way to Valle de Corora.

Valle de Corora unexpectedly stole our hearts with its crazy tall high elevation wax palm trees. We crossed paths with our German friends and were excited to explore the area with them. A hike through these lofty giants also promised a humming bird viewing area – but after our birding adventure, which you might remember from here, we felt pretty fulfilled in the birding department. However we were impressed with the variety and number of humming birds we saw while we enjoyed our hot chocolate. The views of the trees continued to impress. We made it back just in time to watch the Colombia game – and another win!

A stop in Buga in search of good beer resulted in an over night in a parking lot.

A stop in Silvia at the colorful market to stock up on our way to National Natrual Park Purace, was a delight with many of the people in traditional dress. I loved their top hats and colorful panchos. Purace was windy, rainy and cold and after attempting to hike to the volcan we set our sights on Popoyan.

In Popoyan we received word that the FARC would be closing the roads for the weekend. So we put our plans to cross the boarder into Ecuador on hold and explored the city. We toured a former presidential palace, with interesting historical artifacts like letters to and from Bolivar and pictures of President Roosevelt (that the guide made sure to point out to us). Here we also watched what would be the final game for Colombia. We shed a small tear and expected riots in the city. To our surprise the reaction of the city was pure excitement and pride that their team had done so well. Hats off to your sportsmanship Colombia!