Moving on

Jonathan:
Our final days in Quito were a hectic mix of cramming in as much quality time with our Ecuadorian family as we could, and checking off the last few museums and sites around town we'd somehow managed to neglect throughout our time there. One of the highlights was an afternoon we spent exploring the museum & gallery of world renowned Ecuadorian painter and sculptor Guayasamín. We were fortunate enough to be accompanied by a thoughtful and articulate guide who provided fascinating insights into the haunting style, and politically charged subject matter of his work.

Our last afternoon was spent at home with our family making homemade humitas - a rich and flavorful Ecuadorian version of the tamale, and something Guadalupe (our "mom") had been promising to teach us to make since we arrived. We shucked corn, cranked grinders, laughed and played together, savoring the final few hours we had to enjoy each other's company. Megan's and my departure that night brought with it a heavy mix of tears, hugs, fond wishes, and heartfelt promises to stay in touch.

After a long trip on a rough night bus, our first stop was the southern Ecuadorian city of Cuenca. We enjoyed exploring the richly textured cobbled streets, and we did our best to readjust to finding restaurants and hotels again after almost six weeks of not having to fend for ourselves. The primary reason for our stop in Cuenca was to allow a trip into Las Cajas national park - a wildlife reserve that is home to some 2000 lakes and a surreal landscape of high Andean tundra.

From there we made brief two-day stop to bask in the lush greenery and supremely laid back warmth of Vilcabamba, before heading down across the border and onto the northern coast of Peru. We've spent our past few days in the northern coastal town of Trujillo, giving ourselves a break between long overnight bus rides and a little time to check out the pre-Inca ruins that abound in this part of the country.

It's been interesting to move on from Quito. We had been there for so long, I think in a lot of ways it was starting to feel like home. We had work, we had a schedule, we enjoyed nights at home with our family - we gained a real sense of familiarity with everything we were doing there, and it was comfortable. It was great to let ourselves dig in, but at the same time I think that sense or regularity left us with a lot of space for our thoughts wander onto the things we desperately miss about home. The things we usually rely on to help us ground ourselves and regenerate are tough to find down here - downtime and happy hours with friends, Saturday mornings at home making coffee and breakfast in our pajamas, my bike... We are elated to be doing what we are doing, and we feel a great sense of appreciation for the adventures and challenges that each new day brings, but it is starting to sink in that a year is a long time to be away from the people and places we hold closest to out hearts.

So, with a mix of fond recollections of our time in Quito and subtle sense of longing for the things we love about home, we are continuing to make our way south through the Andes. Our next stop is the mountain town of Huaraz which we plan to use as a base camp for exploring the dramatic glaciated peaks and jade valleys of the Peruvian Cordillera.

A month at the middle of the world

Jonathan:
Somewhere in between the studying, volunteering and an amazing jaunt to the Galapagos, we did end up with a little bit of time to explore Quito, and get to know this town a little better.

One of the highlights was a stunningly beautiful day hike up to the top of Mount Pichincha--a 15,600ft peak that towers over downtown Quito. Accompanied by our Dutch friend Angelique, we set out on the trail from the top of a sightseeing gondola that connects the town center with a breathtaking mirador overlooking the sprawling city. We spent the day basking in the high-altitude sun, and trying to get our lungs to remember how to work at that elevation. Aside from a few exotic plants and some crazy volcanic rock formations, the trek felt just like home.

No time in Quito would be complete without a trip to the "Mitad del Mundo" (middle of the world) complex where the line of the equator streaks through the visitors center as a highlighted row of yellow bricks. There aren't too many metropolitan areas in the world where you can stand with one foot in each hemisphere, so we were glad to have checked that off our list. Evidently the complex was built before modern GPS was available, and the line is about 200 meters south of where it should be. Fortunately there's another museum with the "real" line next door, so we made a point to visit both. The smaller museum had several experiments set up to exhibit the affects of the strange gravitational pull at the equator—a tub of water with a drain to demonstrate how the water spins clockwise on the southern side of the line, and counterclockwise just a few steps away; a place to practice balancing an egg, which I guess is supposed to be easy there (Megan did it but I didn't have the patience); and a few other tidbits of gravity trivia. A quick trip to Snopes.com and we found out that most of the experiments were fixed, but it made for a fun afternoon anyway.

Another highlight of our time here has been basking in the warmth and good company of our host family, la familia Enriquez Pazmiño, whom we have grown increasingly fond of throughout our extended time in this town. Their thoughtfulness and generosity have provided us with the sense of home that felt like it was sorely missing from so much of our transient time in Central America. Our evenings and meals with our family have been spent sharing stories, our thoughts about the world, and our hearts. The connection that we've made with these wonderful people is one that will surely last for years to come. We feel extremely fortunate and grateful to have gotten to know them, and we will look forward to staying in touch in the future.

After spending more time in Quito than anywhere else on our trip, I think we're both feeling ready to move on. We'll be departing tonight for Cuenca, a smaller town in southern Ecuador, where we are looking forward to some hiking in the nearby Parque National de Las Cajas.

The Galapagos Islands

Megan:
Where to begin? I think Amazing would be a good start. It truly is a place unlike any other - a wildlife paradise. Jon and I decided that if we were going to take the financial plunge to visit the Galapagos Islands then we wanted to do it right - on and eight-day cruise with an impressive itinerary to the islands with some of the best wildlife. After visiting a number of travel agents, we decided the Nemo II would be our vessel of choice. And what a good choice it was - a beautiful 14 passenger catamaran sailboat complete with a sun deck, three gourmet meals a day, bedrooms you could stand up and walk around in, each with a private bathroom. This yacht was leaps and bounds beyond anything we could have imagined based on our other two boating experiences this year. And yet again, we were lucky to be paired with a great group of international travelers.

Most days we would begin with a delicious breakfast and a briefing on the day's activities from our knowledgeable guide, Mauricio. Our mornings would typically consist of a casual guided hike on whichever amazing island we had woken up at that day, followed by some snorkeling. After lunch (and usually a nap) the crew would navigate to our next destination and we would explore a new island and a new snorkeling site in the afternoon. I know...pretty tough life.

Most of the islands are uninhabited and all of them have evolved independently from the other each with their own unique variations of cactus, mangrove, iguana, tortoise, or whatever species happened to evolve there. It's no wonder Darwin used the islands to develop his theories on evolution - adaptation is everywhere you look. The park service and the Darwin Research Center has been working for decades to cleanse each island of the influences of humans, which in most cases mean irradicating any introduced plants and animals so that only the original endemic species remain. Due to the reasearch work and vigorous protection programs, the animals in the Galapagos have developed a level of comfort with the presence of humans. They have not been given any reason to fear us, so we were able to get incredibly close to them. From just inches away we were able to watch blue footed boobies engaged in courting rituals, magnificent frigates sitting on a nest of newly hatched chicks, iguanas basking in the sun, and baby sea lions crawling across the beach probably on one of their first solo adventures.

Although our time on land was fascinating and quite beautiful, I think the highlight of this trip for both Jon and I was our time in the water. Unlike the corral reefs we became familiar with in the Caribbean, all of the islands in the Galapagos are formed by volcanic activity so most of what we saw underwater were hardened lava formations. This created a more subtle backdrop for the spectacular animal activity we were able to witness. Swimming with playful sea lions was an unbelievable sensation. We made a game out of imitating each other twisting and turning or blowing bubbles while coasting through the water. The sea lions seemed to be just as excited as we were to have new underwater playmates. We also got to watch Humboldt penguins soar through the water and blue footed boobies (a unique bird that is famous in the Galapagos) powerfully dive into the water for their next fish dinner. Colorful fish, eagle rays and sting rays were abundant as were white and black tip sharks, Galapagos sharks, and Jon had to opportunity to swim with some menacing 3-meter hammerhead sharks as well.

We both feel so grateful to have been able to experience such a magnificent and unique part of the world.

Learning to give again

Jonathan:
It's hard to believe that we've been in Quito for over a month now, especially since we both feel like we've barely had time to get to know this city. Between studying Spanish, volunteering with local kids, two hour-long bus commutes every day, and few hours of homework each night we've found ourselves using every spare moment to either catch our breath or sleep.

After our first week of classes, which was the last time we wrote, we started a volunteer program with a local organization that cares for children whose parents are either in jail, or otherwise unable to care for the kids on their own. After completing a week's worth of paperwork and an extrememly organized orientation process with the program coordinater at our school, we arrived at the project on our first day almost assuming there would be name badges and t-shirts. I don't know what we expected really, but what we found was that the project site looked deserted, the office was locked, and there wasn't a kid in sight. After knocking on doors of the individual houses to see if we could find anyone who might be expecting us, we managed to find a group of about 6 kids who we were able to spend the next few hours with. For the rest of the morning we asked everyone we saw, including the janitor, if they knew what we were supposed to be doing. We ended up leaving our first day wondering the same thing I'm sure they were--- what the hell these two gringos from the States were doing there.

Despite the vigourous efforts of our project coordinator to encourage the project staff to pull it together, our whole first week seemed to follow that suit-- broken plans, missed connections, and a frustrating array of failed group project attempts. After only two days of pulling our hair out trying to work with the organization (or lack of), we began discussing our options for getting out. It wasn't until I was genuinely considering ditching the whole project without notice that I realized maybe my attitude was in need of an adjustment. I was supposed to be there for the kids-- doing whatever I could to support them, care for them, and help them in any way that I could. Instead I was so wrapped up in my own failed plans and expectations that I was missing the point. The kids didn't care how smoothly things were going or whether our "program" was following the appropriate schedule. They didn't care about the art projects or the poorly explained games. All they were looking for was a little affection from a grown-up-- something that has been sorely missing from the majority their time on this planet. I'm not sure what it was that got me feeling so rash, but I think after six months of struggling to take care of myself, I had forgotten how to give.

After that little realization sunk in, the rest of our time in the program ended up being much easier to handle, but not because everything was running smoothly. We still had the missed connections and awkward changes of plans to work around, but we were always there to be with the kids. The rest didn't seem to matter much. Somewhere in there we managed to pull off a day where we all made paper snowflakes, something the children had never seen before--the paper or the real ones; we taught them how to make smores, the only "traditional" American food we could think of; and on our last day we left each of them with their own smiling plastic flower souvenir which we had diligently crafted the night before with a little help from our host family and a hot glue gun.

Overall the process turned out to be an important and rewarding learning experience for us both. After such a long period of only looking out for ourselves, it was refreshing to learn how to give again. We are very much looking forward to the next opportunity we might have to find something we can offer, and some way to give a little bit of ourselves.

Our time at school was a wonderfully rewarding experience as well. Megan and I were both paired with fantastic teachers and were able to pick up right where we left off after finishing our classes in Antigua over three months before. We still seem to have good days and bad with our Spanish-- sometimes we are impressed by how fluidly we can communicate, and other times we feel frustrated that we still struggle to follow simple conversations-- we rely on the moments of feeling impressed with ourselves to stay in good spirits and motivated.