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.

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.