The Holidays

After landing in Guayaquil on our return flight from the Galapagos, we had a little more than a week to make it to Lima. We spent Christmas in Cajas National Park – it was a lovely day adjusting to the altitude, hiking around the largest and closest lake and pulling together what we could for Christmas Dinner.

After a few days in Cajas, we made our way to Cuenca, what was supposed to be our last stop in Ecuador before crossing into Peru.

We got a late start leaving Cuenca, and had the impression that the border was closer than it was, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Now we’ve known since extending our temporary permit that canceling our vehicle permit out of Ecuador was an important step to avoid fines if we ever wanted to enter the country again later. So when we arrived at the border we knew we needed to find the Ecuador Exit Aduana. At the Ecuador side we asked a guard and he told us that it was at the next set of buildings about 5k ahead. When we arrived there we looked around, asked a few people and then waited in a line to get our stamps to, we thought, exit Ecuador. Turns out it was the line to enter Peru, from there we asked someone else and they told us we needed to go back to the other set of buildings 5k back. We jumped in the car, drove back to the first set of 5k buildings, and there they told us we needed to go to another building another 5k back. We drove another 5k to a set of ramshackle buildings and asked yet another guard if we were in the right place. He confirmed that we were and so George waited in another line. When he got to the window, they told him he needed a copy of his paperwork. So he ran across the street and made a copy and then came back, the guy then told him that he was in the wrong place and needed to go to the buildings 5k ahead.
At this point it was getting late and close to dark. We were running the risk of getting stamped out of Ecuador and not being able to check-in to Peru, thus leaving us parked on the side of the road in no-mans land for the night. We opted to find a place to stay close to the border, for which options are never good. First try was a gas station, it ended up being under construction which we decided was dangerous. Then we both saw it at the same time; a love hotel.
Since Mexico, on the outskirts of every town we have been seeing love hotels. They have great names like Casa de Amor, Corazon, Tiempo por Amor and the classice, Love Hotel. They were all private and secure looking. They have big walls around them, all the views from the road are blocked, and each “accommodation” has a garage that the client pulls into. The fancy ones have a bedroom attached to the front of the garage with a bathroom and a shower, the not so fancy ones have only a bathroom. At first I was horrified at seeing them, thinking it meant that everyone had a mistress and therefore every town needed them, but then the more we learned about family structure and families all living together, we understood that was the only place many people could go for privacy. Either way it wasn’t on the top of my list for places to stay, but we laughed back in Mexico that it would only be a matter of time before we had to stay at one. Our card was up, and thankfully this one fit the van inside and was tall enough for us to pop the top. Since they charge by the hour, this would be our most expensive campsite to date.

We were almost asleep when throughout the entire building the sound track to porn started playing. It was so loud and so terrible that all we could do was shake our heads and laugh. Chalk it up to another day living in a van, driving through South America.

We departed first thing in the morning, on our way out the little old lady that worked there gave us a gift of a huge bowl of mangoes, she clearly understood that we were not the typical customer.

We made it through the border and the insane traffic in Tumbes and pulled into crazy Mancora. With the loads of people in Mancora for the holidays we decided to check out Lobitos, on our way there we came across a surf competition and talked to a few people that convinced us to head back to Mancora. We were stoked to run into our friends AdventureOnTap that we met back in Ecuador and that night we had a great dinner out on the town with them.

We motored across a crazy desert, stayed at a farm with seven dogs, and spent New Years in Huanchaco. We enjoyed amazing ceviche and met a fabulous British family of four driving around in Mercedes 508D – an ex-German military ambulance, you can check out their amazing tumbler feed here. We cheered the New Year with them, went to bed, and attempted to sleep while the party raged on around us.

The next morning all the locals urged us not to drive, they told us that there were too many drunk people on the road and that it was very dangerous. Weighing our options, it seemed more dangerous to stay right where we were, in the middle of the drunken party. Turns out the whole country got the “don’t drive memo” and we had the roads to ourselves as we made our way to Canon del Pato. No hangover and the open roads to ourselves - it looked to be the perfect start to 2015!

Galapagos Islands

We knew it would be a tight/long drive from Ibarra to Guayaquil but we didn’t really think that we’d arrive to the airport just a few hours before our flight without time to search for cheaper parking than the airport parking lot, but that is exactly how it went down. In my memory it was a little like us sliding into the parking lot wheels and breaks squealing and smoking and sprinting for the departure gate, but it wasn’t quite that bad. But let’s not let that shadow the point of this blog post, The Galapagos Islands.

Oh man, so where to start with the Galapagos. Talk about amazing. Each day there was like walking through a National Geographic magazine.

For me this part of our trip fulfilled a long time dream that I had planned countless spring breaks and vacations around since I was 15. Being from the land locked state of Colorado, I have always wanted to swim with sea turtles. Well within the first hour of arriving on the island of San Cristobal we saw one swimming off shore and I was so excited I couldn’t believe it. The next morning we went snorkeling at Kicker Rock and I saw more than 5 sea turtles. At one point I couldn’t believe my luck swimming just feet above one, and before I could explain what was happening, there were 5 sharks just swimming in a circle around it. Almost speechless, I looked to my left and saw a pair of sea lions headed right for me. One of them nudged my hip with his nose gave me a grin and kept on swimming.

Keep in mind we didn’t have a zoom lens but we were still able to capture so much - I’ll let the photos below speak for themselves.

Back to Vanlife

The three months we had planned at home to work had turned into four and almost five, as each day passed, surprisingly we noticed we were torn between the comforts of home and the open road. Nonetheless, excited for what lay ahead and packed up and ready to go we started our 30+ hour journey from Denver, Colorado back to Ibarra, Ecuador where we had left Dolores safely at Finca Sommerwind.

We were delighted to find her safe and sound!

Getting right into it we found a place to do the work that needed to be done to the van. A shop had agreed to let us replace the water pump in their space. While George was removing the timing belt pulleys a terrible thing happened – one of them slipped and fell to the concrete below. Upon impact, one of the teeth broke off.

Since we were in a country where Subarus are not sold this was an extremely unfortunate twist of fate. The likely hood of us being able to get access to this essential part for our motor in Ecuador for the right year and make was about 2%. So George gave it a Hail Mary and installed the broken tooth part. With everything back together it was exciting when the motor turned over for the first time. However, after running for a few minutes and sputtering to silence, and then not turning over again despite our persistence, the actuality of the 2% was all over our faces.

Hearing our trouble the jefe mechanic came over to see what we silly gringos were doing wrong. When we explained the issue to him, without hesitation he pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a call. He told us he had a friend with two Subaru motors and that we’d have the part tomorrow morning. We couldn’t believe our luck and kept asking questions to make sure we understood correctly, “You have a friend that has Subaru motors here in Ecuador? It’s the EJ 2.2 motor? It’s from the 90’s?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Sorry he can’t bring it now, but he has to go to Quito tonight.”

At that moment Hans, the owner of Finca Sommerwind campground where we were staying, walked up. He said he had seen the van as he was driving by and wanted to make sure everything was ok. Since Dolores was in no shape for driving, he offered us a lift back to his place where he made sure we were comfortable in one of the beautiful bungalows they have on site. Despite our predicament, we couldn’t help thinking about how much we loved the people in Ecuador.

After a hot shower we fell asleep mid conversation about what to do if the part didn’t show, it wasn’t correct, etc. That 2% was still dancing around in our heads.

The next morning after yet another lift to the van from Hans we barely had enough time to make coffee before the part arrived (all those times waiting around in Mexico had us super impressed with the Ecuadorian timeliness). Giullermo, the jefe mechanic, his team and George got right to work. First they all celebrated because the part looked exactly the same as the broken part, but it had one extra tooth. 3 is better than 1 right? Upon install, sadly the answer was no. But not to worry, George had a Dremel tool and was excited to use it. After a few short minutes, with a large crowd of excited hombres using power tools 3 teeth turned to 2 and the modified part was back in the engine. A quick turn of the key reveled success!

The next day, the van was running but still overheating – grrr. While George, at a different shop specializing in radiators, flushed our radiator I hung out with the kids before they headed off to school. That night we tore apart the dashboard and installed a new blower fan, only to discover that there was a problem at the fuse relay. We had crossed 2 of the 4 mechanical projects off the list and we were 3 days behind our anticipated schedule. Right on par for vanlife.

That night we found a special on plane tickets to the Galapagos. Normally tickets run about $1000+ for two people, during this time of year the average was about $2000. We found tickets that were just under $500 for both of us. Only down side, the flight left in two days in the morning from Guayaquil, about 450 miles on Ecuadoran roads away. If we wanted to make it we would have to leave early in the morning and do a big long day of driving that would likely spill into the morning our flight departed. We decided the remaining van projects could wait, bought our tickets and packed the van for an early morning departure.