How to Eat Your Way Through Italy

I knew we had made the right decision fairly quickly.

It’s not often that I have turned down the “meat” portion of a meal, but by this point the clothes around my midsection were already feeling a lot tighter than just an hour earlier.

And I knew we weren’t finished yet.

Even when we were in Ecuador, I could not help but look ahead to our travels to Italy. Granted, it was generally when I was eating a mediocre piece of chicken with flavorless rice.

I knew that Italy was going to be almost entirely about two things: food and wine.

Sometimes, you call this lunch, especially in Bologna.

We arrived in Bologna, a city known by some as the birthplace of Kappa Sigma and by most others as a wonderful place to fill yourself to nearly comatose.

Bologna is a beautiful medieval town, paved with cobblestone streets and shadowed by the same towers that have stood for hundreds of years.

Our plan was to see the sites while occasionally stopping for a glass of wine. And with each glass, we also were given some crackers or cheeses or cured meats. It’s possible that you could live in Italy for years without ever needing lunch.

So by 8 p.m., when our dinner reservations finally rolled around, I kind of felt like I was getting called up to the Major Leagues.

Fran and our friend Karyn, who joined us in Bologna, had been here before and talked endlessly about a restaurant they’d been to.

Osteria Broccaindosso had a lot to live up to, so we were a little disappointed to see it fairly empty upon our arrival. They handed us menus, and we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do.

That’s when Karyn, who speaks at least a little Italian – much more than Fran or I do – told the server that we would prefer that they just start bringing us food.

It was something they knew how to do, and they did it well.

Before long, appetizers started appearing one at a time. There was salad, tomato with mozzarella, sausage with white beans, and squash flan.

The staff cleared our table and then quickly started delivering, among other things, tagliatelle with ragu, ricotta tortalini with butter and sage, and dry passatelli with zucchini.

It may go without saying, but there was far too much of each dish.

I was resettling myself in my chair, hoping some of the food would reposition and therefore open more space for more food.

That’s when the head server offered us the meat dishes.

Without a doubt, Fran saw the desperation in my eyes. I had been hearing legends about the desserts at this place. I knew it was either meat or sweets.

We hesitated, but in the end we opted to sprint straight to the finish.

Fran and Karyn (pictured) grabbed
a small share of each dessert.
I ate the rest.

Chocolate mousse was first, followed by a crème brulee. These were no individual portions. It was family style, and we were invited to take as much as we wanted.

A few minutes later, the servers pushed a nearby table up to ours. We had run out of space, and they still had more to deliver. There was apple pie, brownies with vanilla custard, chocolate cookies, and some sort of berry custard creation. There’s a very real possibility that I am missing at least 1-2 other desserts.

When we had been on a cruise through the Baltics a few weeks earlier, my entire family joked about ordering multiple desserts in the main dining room and then heading up to the buffet to get dessert. We thought we had reached some sort of new low – or high, depending on how you look at it.

In Bologna, I’m pretty sure we reached a new level.

Somehow I walked back to where we were staying, somewhat convinced I would never have to eat again.

That of course ended the following day, when we arrived in Tavarnelle and found a restaurant cooking up T-bone steaks on a grill in the town square.

It's amazing how easy charades becomes
when you are telling a butcher how big
you want your steak cut.

The waiter sent me next door to the butcher, who carved off a chunk that was at least two inches thick.

I’m pretty sure I will not go hungry on this leg of the trip.

From the London Underground

This blog has been quiet for a while now. Too quiet.

South America just inspired writing. In the past six weeks or so, we have road tripped to the Eastern U.S., gone on a cruise through the Baltics, and spent time in both Amsterdam and London.

All of that was perfectly lovely. But nothing strange really happened. And this blog lends itself to the abnormal.

I actually wrote a few blogs during that stretch, but none felt worthy of being published, and therefore I decided to kill them.

Things got more interesting when we left London on our way to Bologna, Italy.

It should have been an easy trip, really. There are direct flights from Heathrow to Bologna.

Of course, we chose a different route.

We left our friends’ flat (they were kind enough to let us stay with them in London) on Sunday morning. There was a train directly to King’s Cross, only three stops away, where we could switch from the Tube to the train system.

The Tube was waiting when we arrived, so we ran to jump on. It didn’t matter. We sat on an unmoving train for about 10 minutes before we left. At the next station, we did the same.

A stop shy of King’s Cross, we sat for 10 minutes before the conductor mumbled something into the PA system. It was completely incomprehensible. Finally, there was another announcement from someone who spoke clearly. The train was postponed indefinitely. We would have to change trains, go to another station, and switch trains again before finally getting to King’s Cross.

To be clear, switching trains on the London Tube system is not exactly simple. It involves exiting a train, running to a staircase, picking up our heavy bags, carrying them up, running more, picking up our bags again, carrying them downstairs, and running to a new platform. When the train arrived, we hoisted our bags on board and crammed into a train car that already held too many people. At new stations, repeat the process.

Three trains later, we arrived at King’s Cross, where we ran with our baggage hoping to make an early enough train. Throughout the station, there were delicious-looking pastries and plenty of coffee, just tempting us (especially me). We ran past, barely catching a good glimpse of what was just slightly out of reach.

Once we got to the train platform, we realized that the London train system card (the Oyster) worked for the train we were getting on, but not good as far as we were going, which was Luton Airport.

So I ran back upstairs, checked both of us out of the Oyster card and jumped in line for tickets. The line was not long, but the people just in front of me looked like they had never seen electronics prior to stepping up to the machine. They stared, then they stared more. I think they were hoping the ticket machine would correctly guess what they wanted and then pay itself. That didn’t happen.

Finally, I paid for two tickets and made it back to the platform just as the train was approaching.

We rode for about 40 minutes. The train system has made getting from London to Luton much easier than it was in the past. However, it’s still not a straight shot. The station is actually “Luton Airport Transfer,” where everyone one disembarks, picks up their suitcases, runs up a flight of stairs, crosses a bridge, goes down what seemed like 14 different escalators, and then jumps on an overstuffed bus that takes you 10 minutes to the airport.

Inside the airport, we waited in a long line for Easy Jet that more than rivaled most Southwest Airlines’ lines I have been in. After checking in, they sent us over to the customer relations desk. It seemed that we were among the few non-European Union members flying, so they had to double-check our passports.

At the desk, a man glanced quickly at our tickets and then our passports. He then scribbled something completely illegible on our tickets and sent us on our way. It seemed like the perfect way to ensure safety and compliance with visas.

Luton Airport is tiny and pretty strange, but it was also very easy. After security, there were machines where you could rate your experience using a variety of smiley and unsmiley faces. They were also at the airport restaurants. And the airport restrooms. Yes, I’m serious.

The flight to Pisa was simple. We chose it because it was quite a bit cheaper than flying directly to Bologna (when you’re unemployed, that is an especially important factor) and because we could rent a car there and return it to Rome nine days later.

FREE ADVISE THAT YOU DID NOT ASK FOR: If you ever find yourself flying within Europe, I highly recommend using small airports. Clearing customs at a place like London Heathrow, Paris or Frankfurt can be a nightmare. But clearing customs at London City or Pisa, if you have anything other than an EU passport, takes about 10 minutes.

We moved to the line for the rental car shuttle bus. It was almost endless. Fran looked at the sign, and mustering at least a little comprehension of Italian, she realized that the bus came once ever 15 minutes and that the rental car center was 400 meters away. Needless to say, we hoofed it.

The drive to Bologna took about two hours, maybe a little more because we stopped to see a certain leaning tower. Aside from congestion around Florence because of road construction, it wasn’t a bad drive.

However, after leaving at 8:15 a.m., we did not arrive at the flat we had arranged until 8:15 p.m. And it only took four trains, two buses, an airplane and around two miles of walking to do it.

There is no doubt that we earned the massive amounts of food that we were about to eat in Bologna.

That's a Wrap on the South American Leg

Galapagos Giant Tortoise

While sitting on a plane out of Quito, I considered writing about our time aboard a ship through the Galapagos Islands.

It was wondrous and jaw dropping. There were giant tortoises, magnificent birds and a few penguins.

I uttered, “Don’t step on that sea lion,” so many times that I lost count. And swimming with the playful critters continuously filled my mask with water because I simply could not help but laugh each time they buzzed by me.

The eight days left me nearly speechless, at least enough to admit that I simply cannot capture it in words. Instead I’ll sprinkle a few photos throughout this post.

Now we are heading back to Denver, and I’m thinking about a question that Fran asked me last night: What was your favorite part?

My favorite part of a month that started with a five-day trek to Machu Picchu, continued with a deliberately slow two-week trip from the southern tip of Ecuador through the delightful town of Baños, detoured to the bright blue and green Quilotoa Lake, stretched up to Quito, and finally ended in (with apologies to Mr. Disney) the most magical place on earth in the Galapagos?

If you’ve read my writing in the past, you probably have realized that I love the random quirky things in life.

Blue-footed boobies

I loved the fact that I woke up every morning to a glass of juice and almost never had a clue what type of fruit was in it. We drank everything from fresh pineapple to tree tomato to five or six fruits that I couldn’t pick out of a lineup and of which I still don’t know the English names, if there are any.

I loved the random stuff people were selling on the street. There was the ice cream that didn’t melt (it was made of egg whites, and I was smart enough to realize that trying it after it sat in the sun all afternoon was probably not a wise move). There was the wood board covered with remote controls that a woman was peddling while walking down a street in Cuenca. And there was the man standing in the middle of a town square offering his Burmese mountain dog to any tourist wishing to include said dog in his photos of the surrounding churches (for a fee, of course).

I loved that buses in Ecuador play terrible movies that almost certainly never saw the inside of an American theater before ending up on DVDs that are sold for a dollar throughout this South American country.

I loved that almost all hotels and hostels advertised free breakfast, followed by either HOT SHOWERS or FLUSH TOILET PAPER DOWN THE TOILET, almost inevitably in all caps and almost never offered together at the same hotel.

Magnificent Frigatebird

I sort of loved the fact that bed sheets in Ecuador are five feet long. Every night at bedtime felt like the old practical joke of short-sheeting someone’s bed. And it was always mine. Seriously, my feet and shoulders could not possibly be covered at the same time unless perhaps I slept diagonally or in a tightly-compacted fetal position.

I even loved that bathroom doors were usually about 5-foot-7. I nearly knocked myself unconscious during the Salkantay Trek, when I rushed into a bathroom and nearly split the top of the doorframe in two. Somehow I caught myself before falling to the floor (the thought of lying on that or most other bathroom floor kind of terrifies me) and continued in to take care of business. When I returned, the one girl who witnessed it looked me in the eyes, seemingly checking my pupils, and asked how I possibly survived that smack.

However, above all else, I loved the people we met along the way. There were just so many people who entertained us with their stories, amazed us with their generosity, and nearly always busted us into laughter.

I could not possibly describe everyone who made this leg of our journey so memorable, but here is a short list of a few of them (in chronological order).

-- Ruben: Our trek leader for the Salkantay Trail. A former accountant, Ruben quit his desk job and started leading tours to Machu Picchu. I think I can speak for our entire group (and likely every other group he has led) when I say that we are extremely grateful that he changed careers. He told our group of nine that we were a familia, and by the end of five days we were convinced of it. He kept us together on the trail with his, “Baby break, buddies?” And he kept us trucking along with, “OK, buddies, everybody good good?” I’ve had some outstanding group leaders in my life, but Ruben may have been the best. And I will forever recommend Wayki Trek to anyone who is even considering a hike to Machu Picchu. I cannot imagine any company could possibly do it better.

Land Iguana

-- Jerome and Stephanie: A couple who delayed their honeymoon until Jerome finished his master’s degree. Stephanie had a quick wit that consistently made me laugh, and the quiet Jerome was quickly nicknamed “The Puma,” because he silently and swiftly climbed up and down every hillside on the Salkantay (up to 15,000+ feet and down to just under 4,000 feet) without seeming to break a sweat. I’m pretty sure these two will return home and somehow take over Philadelphia. Just give them a little time.

-- Erin: The actress on our trek. It’s no wonder she chose her profession because she can easily entertain any room (or any trail). But the most refreshing part is that Erin refuses to take herself too seriously. When she first told us she was an actress, she quickly added that we might recognize her as a dead prostitute on one of those forensic detective shows. And she did the voiceover of animated body parts on a few commercials, a fact that will hopefully make the trivia section of her IMDB.com profile once she really hits the big time.

-- Tony:  A guy who, like us, left his job to travel. He thinks he will be on the road for about a year, most of which will be in South America. But he might hit Southeast Asia. He’s not sure. He went to Colombia and decided he loved it, so he stuck around for a few months. We met him in Baños, then strangely ran into him in the middle of the Galapagos Islands a few weeks later. In my opinion, he’s doing this right. He is letting the trip and his experiences dictate where he goes and how long he stays. I look forward to following the rest of his journey online.

Galapagos Penguins

-- Ruth and Will: Two people cycling from Rio to Buenos Aires to Los Angeles and over to New York. It’s a two-year ride. They are both former travel guide writers from the UK, a job that makes me infinitely envious. Their focus now is on their ride and enjoying the journey. You can follow along at http://www.contoursofacountry.com/.

-- Rene: The owner of MTS Adventures, a company that guides tours in Baños for rafting, canyoning and any number of extreme activities. Rene has long black hair that cascades from his helmet during canyoning trips, which he leads three times per day, seven days a week. He readily admits that he speaks Spanglish, although his English is remarkably good. Except when it came to the German girl whose English was in a British accent. Rene did not understand a word she said. Apparently, he only understands American. That’s probably due to his obvious love of American music, specifically Guns ‘n Roses. He’s got a Slash figurine above his desk, and he named his son Axl.

-- Robin: The woman from Virginia who was moving to Ecuador. Robin wanted to see the world, so she searched the internet for foreign places that were good for Americans. She settled on Ecuador, and we met her on her first trip to figure out where she wanted to move. It’s amazing to see someone make such a bold and life-changing decision, and it appears to be right for her.

-- Church Group from Germantown, Ohio: There were 15 passengers on our cruise in the Galapagos, and 11 of them were part of a church group from a small town in Ohio. They had finished a mission trip elsewhere in Ecuador and were finishing their trip with a few days at sea. Honestly, I was a little apprehensive at first. When you get a single group taking up the bulk of a tour like this one, the others can feel like outsiders and have little control over how things go. This group, though, welcomed us from the beginning. By the end of the first day, we were laughing over meals and sharing the wonders of the islands with each of them. They did not force their faith on us, but they welcomed our thoughts and opinions. We were on the boat for eight days, but the church group left after four. We were truly sorry to see them go.

Sea lions were literally all over the Galapagos

-- Simon: The safari guide from South Africa, who was one of the great people that replaced the church group for the second half of our cruise. One of the biggest joys of traveling is meeting people and talking to them about where they’ve been. It’s also one of the costly parts of traveling, because it often gives you more places to add to your list of future places to visit. Simon was a passenger in the Galapagos, just like us. But his stories about his regular job of leading safaris all over South Africa (and neighboring countries) had almost all of us ready to plan our flights to Johannesburg. It was easy to tell that Simon was a brilliant tour guide. And there was just something about the fact that he hadn’t worn shoes since a wedding at least a year ago. I look forward to Barefoot Simon taking us through Kruger National Park.

There were so many others, too. And all of them make me smile. I hope I showed enough gratitude for their kindness and their stories when I was with them all.

As we finish the South American leg of our odyssey, I’d like to thank all of those people we’ve met. And I can’t wait to meet many more in the U.S. and Europe.

Leg 2 starts later this week. 

Don't Tell Mom About Quito

There are certain blogs that won’t see the light of day until after we are free and clear. That’s mostly because I prefer when my mother doesn’t begin worrying unnecessarily. That’s the reason I’m setting this blog to publish tomorrow, when we’re in the air heading away from the Ecuadorian mainland.

We are on our fifth night in Quito, where we are staying in a B&B right in the middle of Plaza Foch, an overpriced and overly loud bar district that seems to be popular with 18-20 year olds. It’s fairly similar to Lodo in Denver, Westport in Kansas City or whatever the popular downtown district might be in your given city. I’ve yet to get the history of the name, but you can probably figure out how they use the name Foch as a not-too-creative play on words.

If someone can come up with rationale
about why you would name a restaurant
"G Spot," I would love to hear it.

It’s pretty clear that many of the bars want to sound American, and therefore they choose American-sounding names. Unfortunately, they don’t have anyone doing due diligence. That’s why one place is called Tijuana (I’m assuming that’s where you go if you’re looking to blackout and wake up minus a spleen), another called the G-Spot Bar & Grill (which would be a lot better if it was tricky to find), and the Dirty Sanchez (unless you’re my mother – or anyone’s mother for that matter – feel free to look that up on Urban Dictionary, if you want to make a scrunched up face and say, “Awwooo” or something along those lines).

The B&B is a pretty good deal. For both of us, we pay $38 per night and we’re within easy walking distance of hundreds of restaurants.

This place also gives us the freedom to make choices. For example, when showering, we can have either hot water or water pressure. It can be kind of a fun game in that “which form of torture would you choose if you had to” sort of way. When we booked, we thought each room had private baths, but we were mistaken. There are three bathrooms for the seven guest rooms, which has not been a huge issue. I heard that the upstairs shower has hot water, but it’s a tub and you have to have cold water splashing out of the spigot and onto your feet. Sounds fun, but I have yet to try it.

They keep the entire B&B remarkably clean, the rooms are large, and the owner is exceptionally friendly and helpful. He even acted as guide on a tour to a few towns north of Quito, an all-day excursion that was fun and included many places we never would have known about otherwise.

And, as I mentioned, it’s located right in the heart of the action.

If the mood strikes us, every other door leads to a karaoke bar, including one directly below our window, so we’ve got that going for us. You can’t help but hear them as you walk by, and I can tell you with complete sincerity that no one who is singing in those establishments will ever sing anywhere other than those establishments. If you’ve ever heard cats fighting, you’ve heard more tonality.

This guy was outside Red Hot Chili Peppers,
not the Dirty Sanchez. 

Yesterday afternoon, we tried to go to a bar that had the World Cup game between the Netherlands and Spain on their televisions. We got carded. We had been told by many people not to carry our passports and instead to take along a photocopy of it. We produced said photocopies, as well as our Colorado driver’s licenses. They turned us away. Considering everyone in the bar looked about 12 years old and drinking on bad fake IDs, I’m assuming we were too old to drink there. We wandered across the street to a dive bar. It was far better anyway.

Throughout Ecuador and Peru, I’ve noticed a lot of things that simply wouldn’t fly in the States. I’m not saying that the U.S. is right about everything, but I do appreciate that they don’t allow street crews to cut off pipes or rebar a few inches above the sidewalk, leaving them in perfect position to put an enormous hole in the bottom of your foot. You basically have to look down and carefully place each step, or the street might turn into a life-like cheese grater.

The B&B is also convenient to just about anything you need. There are two convenience stores within 50 feet, a couple pharmacies are around the corner, and there are 2-3 guys outside the door at all hours offering different items for sale.

Here’s how one such conversation went today.

Man with a beard and American accent: Hey, are you guys from Denver.

Me, a little surprised until I realized I was wearing a Denver Basketball shirt: Yes.

Man: Denver’s got some crack neighborhoods, doesn’t it?

Me, not sure whether he means “crack neighborhood” as in a hip way of saying “cool neighborhood” that I’d never before heard or “crack neighborhood” as in mucho drug dens (either way the answer would be the same in any city): Yes.

Man: You know this is a crack neighborhood, right?

Me (still thinking the answer is the same regardless of the definition of “crack neighborhood): Yes.

Man: Want any cocaine or marijuana?

Me: Nope. All set.

It was the fourth time we had received that question. Once was literally five seconds before he started talking to us. It happened twice more before we called it a night at 9:30 p.m.

Aside from getting to know the local dealers a little better than we would have preferred, nothing too bad has happened to us. For the most part, the worst we’ve dealt with has been pushy idiots on the sidewalk trying to convince us to go in just about every dance club. Since it’s usually been before 10 p.m., there has never been anyone in there – apparently they thought we were the answer to start getting the crowd in the door. Because nothing draws crowds like the 30-somethings wearing running jackets and sneakers.

Quito has a lot to offer. It’s got some amazing churches, including La Compania which has about as much gold as Fort Knox, and the restaurants have been far better than other places we’ve been in Ecuador (including Achiote, where we ate twice because it’s ridiculously tasty, close to where we’re staying and fairly inexpensive).

Quito also gave us our second viewing of a fistfight during this trip. The first was in Cuenca, when we were on a bus and saw two 20-something guys on the side of the street throwing haymakers at one another. The strange part was actually seeing 15 people around them, none of whom appeared to notice or pay any attention to them at all.

The one today was a little more interesting. We were drinking coffee in the oldest café in Quito, when we noticed a commotion outside. The police were talking to a group, much of which seemed completely confused.

That’s when two 70-something women started shoving each other and preparing to throw punches. A cop stepped in before it escalated, but it did provide us with something else we had never seen prior to that moment.

We leave for the airport and a flight to the Galapagos Islands at 6 a.m. I’m ready to leave Quito, but there are things that I’m sure I’ll miss. Plaza Foch just isn’t one of them.

Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

As some of you may know, one of the highlights of our plans was to volunteer at an animal rescue in the rainforest. We were looking forward to what was likely going to be rewarding and fun.

Unfortunately, due to a few major snafus by the company organizing it (like not telling us an actual name or location until about hours before we were scheduled to start), we were forced to make alternate plans.

Laguna de Quilotoa

That would have been this previous week, and by the time everything went down, it was too late to find another volunteer opportunity.

Therefore, we moved our plans up a week, going to the Quilotoa Loop on Tuesday and coming to Quito for five days. It’s been nice.

Since we started the South American leg with a must-see (Machu Picchu), we decided we might as well end it with another one.

So we’re heading to the Galapagos Islands on Sunday.

Needless to say, we are disappointed about not working with the animal rescue, but trips like this can change suddenly. And I think we made a great decision.

If you don’t hear from us between Sunday and Sunday, it’s because we’re floating about 600 miles off the coast of mainland Ecuador, playing with penguins, tortoises and sea lions. 

It's a Strange, Strange World

Every country is a little weird. Walk a couple of blocks in any American city, and I promise you that something will strike you as odd.

So it’s no surprise that we have been amused by certain sights in Ecuador. Here are a few of our favorites, in no particular order.

-- As I mentioned in previous blogs, the buses in Ecuador are a whole chapter of bizarre, including the people selling everything from potato chips to chicken stew (scooped from a plastic bag into a smaller plastic bag for consumption), and really bad movies that may or may not have made their way into theaters.

-- Every street in Cuenca (and certain places in Quito) seems to offer one particular item and only one particular item. There’s the street with only pharmacies, the one with only shoes and the one with only hats. I have no idea what you do if you need Advil, and you’re on the other side of town. I also have no idea how seven pharmacies can survive next to one another.

Let me know if anyone has been looking
for one of these.

-- There’s a shop in Cuenca that sells only girdles. Based on the previous observation, this isn’t particularly surprising. Even when we saw the man girdle, we just smiled a little. But when we saw the head girdle. Well, then we started asking questions.

-- We stayed at a lovely apartment in Cuenca. It was spacious and had just about everything we could have possibly needed and more. Like many apartments in the town, which is pretty loud, there were no windows to the outside, although there were several frosted skylights to allow natural light. Getting to the apartment, however, was a little odd. It was in an office building. We entered through the atrium, went up a flight of stairs, turned on a light, walked halfway down the hall, turned the first light off and another one on, walked the rest of the way down the hallway, unlocked a door, went down a flight of stairs, unlocked another door to a small hallway that led to a final door that we had to unlock and enter. It took about 2-3 minutes from the front door of the building to the front door of the apartment. There was one night where I got very little sleep because I started wondering whether there was an emergency exit, just in case. I never found one. Glad we didn’t need it.

-- There are A LOT of strays in Ecuador. We have passed 2-3 on almost every street, and there were dozens in the mountains above Latacunga. (For that matter, there was even a stray dachshund on the Salkantay Trail in Peru.) The strays are common place. The thing I find weird is that every dog that has an owner is wearing a sweater or jacket. And they all appear to be pretty nice garments. Even more strange: Fran has looked everywhere for one that she can give Scooby, her parents’ toy poodle, and we haven’t found a single shop that sells them.

-- Walking down a street in Cuenca, we saw a man standing on a corner holding just a car steering wheel, and there was a woman on a sidewalk trying to sell about 30 universal remote controls. While in Quito, the item of choice seemed to be small strainers, resembling tiny sombreros.

   

I couldn't tell if his cell phone was handmade, too.

-- During our jungle tour outside of Puyo, we rode in a canoe that was dug out of a tree. It seemed to be the genuine thing, which was pretty unique (albeit extremely uncomfortable). We floated through rapids and by indigenous villages. It was almost like we had been transplanted to another world, one you read about in books or see in Tarzan movies. Until the indigenous gentleman steering our canoe with a handmade paddle answered his cell phone.

-- In Baños, our rafting and canyoning trips included free photos (which will be posted when we get to a computer that can read them, because this one cannot). After our canyoning trip, we asked if we could also pick up the ones from rafting a few days prior. A bus full of rafters pulled up, and we were told to jump on. It took us in a large loop around the city before one of the guides told us to follow him. “Come in my house. It’s OK,” he told us. With that, we followed him upstairs in an apartment complex before he told us to wait in front of a door. He returned a minute later from the neighbor’s apartment with a large kitchen knife. “Sorry. I don’t have my keys with me.” He then used the knife to pick the lock and enter the apartment, where he spent about five minutes finding and copying our photos onto a CD. We thanked him and left him at the street, at which point the van full of rafters pulled back up and he jumped back in. Apparently, they circled a few blocks while we watched him break into his own apartment and get us photos. Now, that’s service (at least for us).

-- There are a lot of expats in Baños. We hadn’t had American food in a while, and I craved a burger, so we went to the Stray Dog Café, which was billed as a place with good American food and good beer (something that might not be commonplace in Ecuador). I won’t say I agree with either of the reviews, but everything was fine. When we went to pay, we started talking to the owner who is from Chicago (complete with snarky attitude), and the following conversation followed:

Fran: I hear you’re from Chicago. I grew up there.

Owner: What part?

Fran: Northbrook.

Owner: Calling that Chicago is pushing it a little, don’t you think?

-- Most of the bathrooms in Quito seem to be a single room with adjoining stalls marked “Hombres” and one marked “Damas.”

-- During our first cab ride in Quito, we stopped at a red light. A woman in a clown nose, jumped into the crosswalk in front of us and started a flag spinning routine. When the light turned green, every car around us started honking, and the woman looked completely confused about why nobody wanted to give her money following her “entertainment.”

-- You know those guys who dress up like statues and stand in tourist-filled locations around seemingly every city in the world? They stand perfectly still until some unsuspecting person walks by, at which point they scare the hell out of him? We saw one of those guys having what appeared to be a totally normal conversation with three members of the Quito Police Department. From what I could tell, they looked like old friends just catching up.

-- Finally, I have had very good luck using travel books like Lonely Planet and Rough Guide when going to various places around the world. In Ecuador, we have gotten some good ideas of what to visit and where to eat from both of those books, which I have on my Kindle. However, unlike most places, every address in both of these guides seems to be completely wrong. There was a restaurant in Baños that one guide said was among the best in town, and Trip Advisor (throw them in, although they have been a little more accurate with locations) seemed to agree, including reviews that were only a week or two old. We never found it. And I’m pretty sure we covered every street in Baños multiple times. We had lunch today at a place in Quito that we found in both books. It was delicious, but when we went to find it, we walked in the address mentioned in both books. The group of men sitting in a private courtyard did not seem to appreciate our intrusion. Then we found it two doors down. Next time, maybe I’ll knock first.

Adios, Baños, We Miss You Already

The look on Enrique’s face was heartbreaking. It looked like we gave him the worst news he’d ever heard.

What we told him was that we wanted to decrease our two-night stay in his hotel to one night.

You see, we spent the last six days in Baños, quite possibly the coolest town in Ecuador. We stayed a hotel called Casa Verde and absolutely loved it (and not only because it was the first hotel we'd found in South America that allowed us to flush toilet paper). It was one of those perfect, little traveler places. Not quite a hostel, but the kind of place where everyone gathers in the common area and shares stories over beers.

Have you ever swung out over a cliff in the jungle? 

And Baños, while not the quaintest towns I’ve visited, is nice with friendly people. However, the real draw is the rafting, canyoning, mountain biking, jungle exploration, waterfalls and any number of outdoor adventures, as well as various hot springs and countless spas. Did I mention all of those things are really, really cheap by American standards?

When we finally dragged ourselves out of Casa Verde for the last time, saying goodbye to the kind proprietors and fellows guests, we moved on to Latacunga. We knew we wanted to do at least part of the Quilatoa Loop, and we’d read that the obvious place to find a guide or tour was Latacunga.

Which brings us to Enrique.

After checking Trip Advisor, we found what looked to be a promising hotel. And it was. The place is central, clean, and the owner (Enrique) has gone absolutely out of his way to make us feel at home. He showed us the lounge on the top floor, overlooking a local church and Volcan Cotopaxi. There’s free wifi, and he even called our tour company because they had charged us $5 more than they should have.

The problem is not the hotel, and it certainly isn’t Enrique.

It’s Latacunga. Following a week or so in Baños, it didn’t stand a chance. But it’s also dirty and almost completely void of restaurants or anything to do.

Sorry, Enrique. That’s why we’re going to head straight to Quito after our visit to Laguna Quilatoa and its surrounding artist colonies tomorrow.

We’ve heard good things about Quito. Time to see if stands up to our expectations.