I Love Little Baby Ducks

Posted on February 14, 2012

It’s true. It’s also true I’ve never met a baby anything I didn’t like. In honor of Valentines Day I thought I’d talk about the things I love. Jim gets top billing, but I don’t know a catchy song lyric that fits Jim, so baby ducks got pseudo top billing. Funny that I don’t have a tune for Jim as I usually have one in my head for every situation.

Lots of things to love – my family, all flowers, snuggling up with a kitty on my lap, sunrises (I usually only see these via light on the clouds while laying in bed), sunsets, mountains, clouds, and listening to music while catnapping – well really just listening to music, but catnaps are a special subcategory. A good book, building fires (I relegate them to fireplaces and campfires), laughing (I need to do this more often), the sound of waves, and entering a room full of the smells of cooking.

How could I forget the moment when a pilot gives full throttle to the engines, an airplane begins to move down the runway; feeling the force of the movement. You then lift into the air and are of f to another world. I never fail to marvel at this wonder.

Having lots of opportunities for this marvel lately. Although barely home from Ecuador – less than a month – we are headed to Florida for 10 days to celebrate Jim’s parents birthdays. Happy Birthday Liz and Bob!! They are both February babies – same year 11 days apart. A Crain family vacation – Jim’s first family vacation since high school graduation and a special treat for Jim’s parents. They winter in Florida and thus we are off to visit there mini-casa and do some tourist stuff around the state.

More things to love… birds chirping first thing in the morning, the patterns of light throwing a shadow, and tucking into bed at the end of a wonderful day. And it is that time. 3:40 rise this morning for out trip back east. Time for a little snuggle in bed.

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Babble-on

Posted on January 10, 2012

It’s raining cats and dogs right now in Quito and that fairly well describes my mood; nothing left to hold me up.  Last weekend Jim and I decided to head to the beach for a long weekend to escape the rain and get a bit of sunshine.  The weather had been pretty good for the past week, but it had started raining again and was forcasted to do so for the remainder of our time in Quito.  We needed a break and had not visited the coast of Ecuador in our time here.  We visited a lovely little town (Bahía de Caráquez or just Bahía)  on a narrow peninsula maybe 8 blocks wide – the ocean on one side and el Rio Chone on the other.  Quite relaxing, wonderful ceviche, mangrove swamps, beaches and great birding.

Uncle Bernie tuning our piano.

Unfortunately Jim received a call early on Monday morning that his Uncle Bernie had passed away.  Bernie who lived in Arkansas (he had moved back into the home he was born in which was so cool) had visited us in November, tuned our piano (a tuner and piano player par excellence) and seemed to be doing quite well for a spry 85.  We had a wonderful visit and he was so looking forward to another in the spring.   He lived a happy, long life and was not ready to go.  But, as I have so often learned recently, we do not get to pick our time.  He will be greatly missed.

Jackie - such a lover.


 

We returned to Quito late on Monday as planned and upon checking my e-mail found a note from our house sitter.  It was a reply to a previous correspondence and said that Jackson (our 15 year old black kitty) was not doing well today, would not eat or drink and was lethargic. Should she take him to the vet.  One would think that our traveling with 2 international cell phones and provision of multiple lists including our phone numbers, as well as that of the vet, would have been sufficient for a call or visit to the vet, but apparently not.  I called immediately and was informed that Jackson had died.  She had not taken him to the vet and his body was evidently still laying where he had died.  She was not willing to touch him but I am happy to say we have very special neighbors Mike and Cindy who came to the house and collected Jackson for us.  We are distraught at loosing Jackson, and at the inability of our house sitter to handle the basic skills of adulthood.  We have used many long term house sitters in the past and they have all been excellent.  We missed the mark here.

Needless to say these two events in one day, along with the loss of my Father in November has really thrown Jim and I for a loop.  So very hard to keep our spirits up and stay focused.  I won’t even go into the drive-by shooting at one of our rentals two weeks back.  Luckily no one was hurt and the bullet holes can be patched.  We have asked the tenants to move and they are in the process.  There appears to be something that is challenging Jim and I at every possible turn; even though I don’t believe in these sort of omens.  It is a twist to our lives we have never experienced.  We have both always been triply blessed.  As part of our knowing this, we also know that these difficult times too shall pass. (Just hard to feel it right now.)

Navigating the mangrove forest

 

We are on the home stretch of our Ecuador trip.  One week left tomorrow.  We are looking forward to being home, but have come to feel our little Quito apartment is our home and will miss being here.  It is also easier to hide our heads in the sand and pretend all the difficulties that lay ahead when we return are not real.  But, despite all the troubles, we have had a good trip, met some very nice people, got a good dose of living in a different culture and are better than ever at our Spanish.  We are not where we had hoped to be but are likely where we should expect.  Believe it or not (and I sometimes can’t), I can write a full page of text in Spanish on how I spend my time using multiple tenses and get it pretty close to correct.  I have had stimulating conversations daily on art, politics, life, death, food, travel, family, nature, work and history with my teachers.  Our Spanish challenge is to continue with it and not let it die on the vine.  Not a trivial goal.

Sunset in Bahía (almost as good as New Mexico!)

 

This coming weekend we have one last trip.  We’ll be heading north for a photo shoot.  I met a woman via the web who has a hacienda and trains horses (4volcanoes.com).  She uses her horses for therapy for disabled and disadvantaged kids.  She need pics of her working with her horses and I’ll be doing this in exchange for a stay at their place.  I typically don’t like doing this sort of gig – shooting for others, but occasionally I am willing.  So, I need to now get my head around this.  In the mean time, working on photos, listening to music and hanging around the apartment are doing a bit to restore my soul.

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Celebration

Posted on January 2, 2012

One of the things Jim and I love about traveling is visiting other countries during the holidays.  It provides a huge sense of the people and culture.  The New Years is truly a time of celebration in Ecuador and very much a family event.   3 years ago Jim and I were exposed to New Years in the country side of Ecuador.  Not as terribly different than one might experience in an Ecuadorian city.  On this trip we had an opportunity for three separate New Years events.  It is quite common for businesses to have a New Years party on the last day of work prior to the New Years.  First we had a party at our school – it was for the students but just as much for the professors as well.  Around town on Friday and Saturday we saw the activities of New Years at many businesses.

Jim, Carlos (a professor) and Carina (my profesora) cooking.

Different groups of students brought materials to build an Ecuadorian dish (fried plantains, juice of tomate de arbol (a tree tomato), potatoes, mote (ears of corn) and deserts).

Chicken and "dogs"

Jim and I did vegetables in foil and a couple from the Czech Republic made a lovely rice salad.  The school provide the meat (chuletas – beef stakes, pollo – chicken in cuts too hard to define and salchicha – read that hotdogs.)

Putting the last stitches in the body to hold the guy together.

While we were cooking, we also made our own muñeco.  You can buy then on the street corners, but it is much more fun to use old clothes and newspaper and make one.  Socks for feet and hands, a hoodie for the body and a pair of sweat pants for the legs.  All we need to buy was the mask.  After a lovely lunch, we had a costume contest (we won second place mostly on style points and because we were old….)

The Czech ladybug was part of the winning team. Her husband the pirate teamed up with another guy.

Jimbo

And me!

Carina (my professora) and Vinicio (Jim's professor)

Then it was time to burn the muñeco.  Out we took our life-size doll to the sidewalk.  Strike a match and away it burns.  The buses, taxis and people of the town continue on their ways, walking around us.  A few people gathered to watch or honked, but for the most part we were ignored.

The muñeco burning

Turns it it was a much more emotional experience than either Jim or I had expected.  After having lost both parents in the space of a year, Jim in his first full year of retirement and and many other changes in our lives, it really got to us.  Cultures have an amazing way of creating rituals to address all sorts of aspects of life and this is no exception.

Our second exposure was a visit along Avenida Amazonas – a major “new town” street not far from our casa.  We went early – around 7 as we had planned to then return home and cook a nice dinner.  We commonly find a New Years party at a hotel or restaurant (some have been quite entertaining) when we are traveling but were ready to be home.  We had heard there would be some very large muñecos (remember the dolls which are burned for New Years?) along the street which we wanted to see.  When we got there, were we in for a surprise.  We had thought it would be much too early for many people, but the streets were closed off for several miles and were wall-to-wall people.  Many people were in costume, there were bands, food stands and lots of people – many families and groups of friends.  All very safe and friendly and we enjoyed walking along with the crowds checking out the displays.  They were really more like stationary corporate and thematic “floats”, but interesting.

Out third New Years celebration was a surprise to us.  We had returned home, completed dinner and were just beginning to enjoy a bottle of champagne as the midnight hour approached.  It was starting to get quite noisy outside so we decided to investigate.  On the front of the apartment building is a big 2nd floor deck right along the street.   We took our champagne and grapes (don’t forget your 12 grapes leading up to midnight) and when we stepped onto the deck, we could see lots of fireworks.  These were not your average sparklers and an occasional bottle rocket.  Some of them are quite large – you think it must be a display put on by the city.  No so.  Everyone buys them in the days leading up to New Years.  There were also 5 or 6 separate families along our short street preparing to burn their muñecos and continue their parties in the street.  Turns out that many people go out for an early walkabout but return home to spend the midnight hour with family.  We have been told that Avenida Amazonas is deserted by 11PM.  A very rowdy street party with fireworks, music, family and in some cases a pretty good-sized fire.  We spent 45 minutes on the deck enjoying the festivities and finishing our champagne.  This video (12 1/2 minutes) probably best represents the neighborhood street scene.  As usual, my video is a bit rough and ragged, bu in this case it reflects the scene.  Perhaps some day I’ll learn how to edit…

I hope you had a wonderful and safe New Years celebration and that the coming year only brings you joy, prosperity and good times!

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Refreshing the New Year

Posted on December 31, 2011

Jim and I had a lovely 4-day Christmas holiday in Mindo – 2 hours northwest of Quito.  On the way there we opted for a driver and bird guide (Sandra) and spent 12 hours birding along the old Quito to Mindo road.  A very fun drive with a nice 2 – 3 hour walk in the Yanacocha Preserve.  Yanacocha is one of the volcanoes surounding Quito.   Here is a little video of us driving through the countryside.  Driving from Quito to Mindo on the Nono-Mindo road

Seems we were birding by fire-hose (just like Spanish).  On this day we managed to see around 70 different species of birds.   It is good that our guide could keep track of them for us.  They were all interesting, pretty and colorful but began to blend together.  “Look, another brightly colored yellow tanager.”  We must have seen 15 species of tanagers!

Roadside Hawk - yes, he was beside the road, but that *is* it's name.

It was quite a change from our 6 species in Quito.  Mindo has moved a bit upscale since our last visit three years ago.  Still a very rural town, but the tourists trade is beginning to bring more money and thus a better life for the people.  We spent all four days birding and hiking – three with a guide and one on our own.  All-in-all, we identified around 150 birds.  A pretty amazing number as in 10 days in Texas last Spring for the migration, we only saw 100 species.

Slaty-backed Whitestart - they were nesting in the cliff next to the road.

On our solo walk we saw a live armadillo!  Very cool!  This is the first live armadillo either Jim or I had seen.  Turns out there are two species around Mindo.

Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) is more of a big deal than Christmas day.  We had dinner (roasted leg of lamb, rice, potatoes and salad – not traditional) with the owners of the hostel  where we stayed (an Ecuadorian/US couple – Luis and Susan who lived in the Chicago for 15 years and moved to Mindo 5 years ago), their friends from Tuscon and Carmalita, a lovely woman from Mindo.  Carmalita spoke no English, talked very softly and has no teeth.  We sat with Carmalita and it was really hard for us to follow her Spanish.  But we had a fun and enjoyable Noche Buena.  The folks next door (not at our hostel) had an even better time.  They started partying around 10 PM and did not stop until around 10 the next morning.  Loud music, singing, talking and general drunkenness.  But, I guess they had fun.  Unfortunately we had a 6 am birding date with our guide Sandra.  A very short night for us.

The courtyard garden at CasKaffeSu our hostel.

After returning via bus – $2.50 a piece for a 2-hour bus ride on a pretty comfortable and empty bus followed for a 20 minute taxi ride that cost more than the bus ride (but still only $6.00), we are now back at school, studying and preparing for Nuevo Año.  Lots of activities and traditions around the new years.  Get your grapes ready.  The last twelve seconds leading to midnight, you have to eat twelve grapes, one at a time and make a wish for the new year with each one.  There is also a tradition of “año viejo” which is a managotas or muñecos – a doll of varying sizes, stuffed with straw or paper, clothed or painted and with a mask representing a well known person, either liked or disliked from the past year.

There are also some giant ones that line one street and can be seen on New Years Eve.  The tradition (much like Zozobra in Santa Fe) is to burn the effigy at midnight on New Years Eve to cleanse the bad and good from the past year and prepare for the new.  Last time we were in Ecuador, we also heard that you write your bad things on a piece of paper, throw it in the fire and then jump over the fire as a further cleansing activity.

Managotas in El Mercado Santa Clara

Lastly, everyone dresses up in costume for New Years Eve – evidently it is common to see men dressed as women – stop traffic and “request” money from people.  It is supposed to be in the name of the widows of the barrios.  Hum…  Last time Jim and I were in Ecuador, it was more like armed robbery.  But, I’ve been told the current government has cleaned things up a bit.  Jim and I have our masks (read that costumes – I have a nice blue feather carnival mask and Jim has a glasses/nose/tongue mask and horns) ready from New Years celebration at school…  Us who never dress up!  The pressure was great but we had fun shopping at the street vendors for masks.  (Stay tuned)

So very cute! Can you name the characters?

I’ll close with some more pics of various things and a couple of videos (for those of you really into them!)

Cloud Forest Trail (video)

Panorama view of cloud forest and Mindo (video)

 

 

Me thinks this is the Andean Emerald.

Long-tailed Sylph - Check out that rudder!

Oh my gosh, too hard to ID right now!

A local trout farm. It may be called trout or tilapia in the markets...

The terrain around Mindo. So beautiful!

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Brains of Mush

Posted on December 22, 2011

Twas our last day of class before the holidays (there is school tomorrow but we are skipping) and all through our brains there was only mush…  Actually, we are learning quite a lot.  I know my Spanish is now better than it has ever been; I’m starting to speak in past tense and I can actually send e-mails in Spanish to arrange activities.  How cool is that – or as they would say here, “que chévere.”  However, the oddest part  of fire-hose language learning is that Jim and I are constantly forgetting words in English.  No, this is not the problem of getting old.  Splitting the brain between two languages (perhaps age and alcohol do play a part…) and attempting to think in Spanish just makes words slip our mind  – expressionist art, patent leather  and Barcelona are just a few from the last couple of days.  Very frustrating and it makes you feel really stupid.  Speaking of learning, I have been playing with my new little point and shoot camera.  It has HD video so the other day we did a video of our walk to school from the old casa.  It is raw footage and if you listen closely, you can hear Jim and I jabbering away as we walk.  [The video is 20 minutes but at least Jim and I think it is kind of fun...]

Walking to School from Our Old Apartment

As I mentioned, we’ll be skipping class tomorrow and Monday to visit Mindo – a very cool birding spot 2 hours north of Quito where they have recorded well over 300 unique species of birds.  We have a driver and guide picking us up tomorrow at 7 am.  We’ll be birding for almost 12 hours; along the Old Nono-Mindo Road.   In a country with over 1600 bird species, Jim and I have managed to ID…. get ready for this… 6 species.  Quito proper is not where the birding activity lies and we have seen a few more, but it is really hard to ID these birds. We need lots more practice and a guide will provide much needed experience.   As reference, Ecuador is roughly the size of Colorado and has over 1600 unique species.  The US has not quite 900 species.  We are missing a lot of birds.  We do have one very cool hummingbird – a Black-tailed Trainbearer – that we see everyday from out balcony while having lunch.  Much more interesting than the hummers in New Mexico.

We are now ensconced in our final apartment in Quito.  Once we left the old place – we do miss the community sense of the street life – we spent a couple of nights in a temporary apartment as ours was still occupied.  We really prefer our current place.  It is smaller but much brighter,  warmer as it gets sun most of the day and has a little private balcony.  Our “original” casa had a balcony overlooking the street such that we could watch the world go by.  Our new place is at the back of a compound of maybe 10 apartments and a few hotel rooms.  Thus, we have no idea what is going on outside the courtyard.  It is hard to find the perfect place.   Here are a few pics of the latest apartment.

La cocina - note the "refri" to the left. So much nicer. And a micronda (microwave.) But, no oven. Check out the cool door!

The living room. The fireplace is to the right... you can barely see it.

 

El balcon con la mesita.

One thing that Ecuador does not seem to put a premium on is indoor lights.  Our kitchen/dining room is 11 x 11 feet.  In the middle is one, yes one, 60 watt bulb.  When you stand at the stove, it is in shadow.  Tricky cooking.  We do have 3 lights in the bedroom – twice a large as the kitchen/dining room plus two bedside lamps.  Thus, one of the bed lamps moves back and forth daily.  These pics are from our old apartment, but provide a sense for how the light seems…  All the lights were on when I took these from our old kitchen.

Looking out from the kitchen.

Looking into the hall from the kitchen

Supermaxi – Life in Quito would not be complete without a bit of discussion of Supermaxi.  Supermaxi is akin to a modern supermarket in the US.  You would definitely recognize it although some of the products and the mix of items is a bit different.  It does however have a few differences…  The isles are narrower and people have a very different sense of sharing them.  One example, although I could tell you many.  An empty isle.  I’m looking across at salad dressing (not a big selection).  At the end of the isle slowly comes a Nun towards me (but it could have been anyone).  I am ready to make my selection but decide to wait for her to pass.  She stops her cart directly in front of me and begins shopping behind her, seemingly unaware of me.  You either move the cart, reach over or around it, or wait.  We were the only two people on the isle.  A few other different things: when you empty your groceries onto the table, you then just leave your cart whee it is.  There may be lots of people in line and lots of extra empty carts in the way.  Eventually, an employee will come by and collect the carts – not an easy task with all the lines of people.  You cannot get the carts to the other side as the space is too narrow.  On the other side are the sackers with the old fashion upright carts to take your groceries to your car or taxi (with a tip please!)  Probably the most interesting part though is that the prices on the products are for “affiliates”.  The real price is maybe 5% higher.  Jim and I just yesterday became affiliates.  You fill out your form (including passport #) and a copy of your passport and get your temporary card.  We’ll get our permanent card in 15 days!

Well, this is getting way too long – I should publish shorter and more frequently.,  A couple of additional pics taken yesterday on an outing to old town.  Have a very Merry Christmas!

Lovely flowers

Outside the Iglesia

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The Whitehouse is Missing

Posted on December 17, 2011

Some may think the Whitehouse is a building in Washington DC. To Jim and I, it is the name of the computer network at the building we live in (go figure on the name). It just cannot be seen, no matter how hard we try, how much explaining we do (in Spanish,) or how many different computer devices we try. It seems that in the end, their router only accepts 4 devices – the number of devices that Philipe and Alejandro – Patricia’s sons have. The only way we have internet access is by sitting on our balcony and stealing a non-secure (very weak) signal, or by sitting on the couch at school. Not very conducive to managing our finances to say the least. Thus, we are moving.

For the past, week after school we have been looking at different apartments and have settled on one that is slightly closer to school (only 12 vs 15 minutes walk). We have decided to move into “luxury” – hot and cold water, with pressure, in both the kitchen and bath, purified water in the kitchen – the kitchen is in our apartment – a small fireplace and a shared courtyard with flowers. And, of course Internet. These luxuries will cost us quite a bit more money, but given the recent death of my father, Jim and I are both a bit off our game and think that an easier environment might help our souls. Saturday is the moving day so stay tuned for photos of the new casa.  Here is a pic I captured during our apartment search.  No, it is not one of the places we looked at.  Still under construction.

"Moving" into a building.

 

I’ve not talked about our Spanish classes. Although we left for Ecuador November 16, due to our return to the US we have only had 8 days of classes. They are going well and very poorly. This is Spanish by fire hose. We spend 4 hours each day, talking, writing, reading and listening in Spanish with our private teachers. Sooooo many new words – and old words to re-remember – and homework each evening. Some days we feel good about our progress and others we wonder what we are learning. The teaching is somewhat unstructured. We discuss everything from local and world politics, to culture (in the US and Ecuador), history, eating, traveling and just about any topic you can think of. (We are learning so much about life in Ecuador.)  We are both confident we understand Spanish better than we ever have and can likely communicate somewhat better, but we no longer have sponges for brains. The words just hit them and bounce off. So very hard to nail vocabulary. And, I must say my writing in English is now non-existent. I was never a good speller, but now I can’t spell in English or Spanish…! Here is a picture of my current professor Carina. Still need to get a pic of Vinicio, Jim’s professor.

¡Carina – mí profesora buena!

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, I realize this might be getting a bit long. However, two other things strike me which I want to talk about. Since our return, Quito has become more lively. Quito Days (the founding of Quito) was on December 6th. We just missed it but my sense is that it is the opening to the holiday festivities. Since our return, there have been fireworks every night. Some are pretty spectacular displays (we have a great view of much of Quito from our balcony), others just the neighborhood fun. The laws here don’t seem to preclude some pretty big and noisy displays in the barrios. For the past hour it has sounded like gunshots outside, but they are just fireworks – you can see the flashes from them reflections in the clouds. I can only imagine it will get more fun and spectacular as the month progresses.  Speaking of reflections in the clouds…

The fog on Thursday night. A real "pea souper."

 

The other interesting change is the weather. In my last post, I talked about how glorious the weather was when we returned and how comforting it was. Since Monday morning, the weather has gotten progressively cloudier, rainier and foggier. As the week has progressed it has been foggy in the valley in the morning (Quito is in a big valley but we are up a bit on the hill). This evening the fog has already settled on us. Visibility is definitely less than a half mile, it is quite damp as it rained all afternoon and it is getting pretty darn cool in our apartment.  Jim was heating the kitchen via the stove while we cooked dinner this evening  (but of course the kitchen is outdoors so it was for not!)  We are really looking forward to our little fireplace in the new apartment. Luckily we are always warm when we go to bed as the bed has three, yes three, dense, thick wool blankets along with a comforter.

 

We did manage last Sunday to visit the botanical garden near our home. They have a nice exhibit of live butterflies and insects so I’ve included a few pics of them. I took these with my new tiny point and shoot camera. I should have taken the “real” camera to the park but have been carrying the little camera for ease and safety. Now, if I would just use it more….

La mariposa.

Un bicho (insecto)... bug...

Un bicho (insecto)... bug...

 

Note that I wrote this last Thursday – December 15 but only now have the time and the internet to post. So, now that we have reliable internet at home, I’ll post again tomorrow with some thoughts on the new casa.

 

 

 

Hummmm. Not a butterfly or insect.

No es mariposa o bicho pero es muy interatante.

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