All you need is Ecuador

All you need is Ecuador is the tourism motto posted all over the country.  It is true. The jury is still out, but I think it is my new favourite country.  Being the first time in South America I was completely surprised by the brand new airports, bus stations, highways and general ease of travel. Ecuador has it together.  Their ability to positively use tourism as a way to manage national parks and to protect the Amazon basin, Galapagos Islands, and other natural areas is second to none.  We should all take a page out of their book.

Quito and Cuenca are worth a visit and they offer lots of parks as well as funky places to stay and a variety of restaurants.  But they are cities and Ecuador has so much to offer from an outdoors perspective that is where we concentrated our time. In fact, one of our three days in Cuenca we spent in nearby Cajas National Park hiking to a peak at 4267m.  Both cities are really high in elevation!

The two highlights of our time for me was a four day foray into the Amazon Basin (Cuyabeno Natl Park) and a visit to the Galapagos Islands; seeing so much life - much of it creepy and crawly. In Cuyabeno we spent days in the river canoes looking for life in the river and on land and then hiking through the jungle at day and night finding all sorts of unique and unusual insects, spiders (as big as your face), snakes  (such as enormous anacondas) and bugs; not to forget the stampeding herd of wild pigs and many types of monkeys. This was not for the feint of heart.  We'd get back to our open cabana and hunker into our mosquito net covered beds hoping they'd keep out the insects we had so longingly searched for all day!

The Galapagos Islands were absolutely stunning.  I had no idea! I knew it would be amazing, but until we were there I didn't realise how much the islands team with life in and out of the water.  We were lucky to find a last minute deal for the seven of us on a small Catamaran, Solitario Jorge, which made our cruise through the islands really personal and flexible.  The other five guests on our trip were lots of fun and truly added to our experience. We snorkeled 2 - 3 times a day and hiked at least once a day.   I could go on about everything we saw, but the pictures should be up soon and you can see for yourself.

Mattias can also add to his list of surfing destinations - Galapagos, as we all had a beach day at the incredible surfing and swimming beach Tortuga Bay yesterday. He is now with the Cosbeys heading to Banos, the adventure capital, and is sure to have some fun times and a nice break from his parents for a week.  Bernie and I head to a job fair in the USA and then I am off to spend time with Mima in England (yay GB's) and Paris while Bernie joins the Cosbeys and Mattias in Chile and they'll head out for what should be a fantastic Patagonia experience.

It has been a while!

Well this year is screaming by and without many updates to the blog!  There is so much to do and see and at the same time we are spending a lot of time on logistics that we didn't five years ago. With Mima in France and connecting with her daily and now traveling with our good buddies the Cosbeys, we are finding it hard to find time to write.

Travel in Nicaragua was incredible.  Definitely on the developing country list, but pretty easy to figure out. We lived with a wonderful homestay family in the sleepy fishing village of Gigante Bay while taking three weeks of Spanish classes and surfing ( well Bernie and Mattias surfed....). It was really nice to slow the pace and really get to know what daily life in Nicaragua is like.  We made some wonderful friends and had a chance to use our brains to learn something new. Though our Spanish isn't anywhere close to perfect, it certainly helped us to  manoeuvre our way through the rest of our time in Nicaragua.  From Gigante Bay we had a day in Granada checking out the colonial city and moved on to Little Corn Island on the Caribbean Sea.  Getting there is an event, but once on the island life slows right down.  We all took our diving certification and had some incredible dives.

We finished our time in Nicaragua in the old capital of Leon and were lucky to be there during a huge festival.  Lots of people, noise, events, and chaos made the few days exciting.  We decided the festival was a strange mix of Hallowe'en meets Christmas. It rounded out our Nicaraguan adventure nicely.

The people in Nicaragua were so kind and friendly.  This is a country I am really glad we spent six weeks in  and am glad we didn't try to visit other central American counties in the time as it would have significantly impacted our ability to see how much diversity Nicaragua has to offer.