Bhangra Bash 2008

Last night I went with a small passel o' folks to see Bhangra Bash again. I went last year and was really inspired, and this year was just as good! I'm looking forward to going back to bhangra lessons in April.

I'm pretty blogged out with my last post, so I'll just leave you with some pictures. Our favorites were the guys in red and gold, and the gals in fushia and lime, but neither of those teams won. Oh well! Doesn't the first guy in blue look like Michael?
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Black Sheep Inn, Day Two

March 16, 2008. After our rain soaked beginning to our stay at the Black Sheep Inn, it was wonderful to wake up to a clear day on the morning of our second day. I got a nice panorama movie of the view from our room. Unfortunately, I didn't realize I needed to clean my lens until later in the evening.

Today's grand adventure is to be a trip to Laguna Quilotoa, a volcanic crater with an alkaline lake. March 16th is Palm Sunday, and as we drive through Chugchilán on our way to the volcano, we see many Ecuadorians carrying palms.I'm really shy about pointing my camera at people I don't know, so this photo is one of Colleen's. The roads are really bad, and as we slide over muddy undercut roadbeds on the side of a precipice, we sing songs to keep ourselves occupied. The boys seemed to really like Jenny Jenkins which I just learned from my banjo teacher. Colleen is a yoga teacher, and she sang a yoga chant; I got a kick out of the fact that Ian knew the words! When we finally got there, the view of the crater was amazing! Here Colleen, Ian, and Julian stand in front of the crater.

We had originally planned to hike around the crater, then down, do some boating, and mule back up. The driver said that the rains would start up again in the afternoon, and if we wanted a safe drive back we shouldn't take so long. So, we decided to just hike down into the crater and take mules back up. The views were fabulous the whole way down. A lot of tourists were heading down, and many Ecuadorians were going both ways carrying folded rubber rafts, herding sheep, and wrangling mules.

Julian and my Mom and I went slowly, since Julian has very little 2 year old legs. He did a great job though. It was pretty funny to see him encountering sheep along the way. Here's a video of Julian and my Mom, Diann, hiking down Quilotoa crater. You can see how soft and ashy the ground is. The mules you see carry tourists back up the crater.

Lake Quilotoa panorama:


It seemed to take forever to get down, although it was a mostly fun hike. At one point I almost fell off the crater! The muleteers take tourists up the crater on the mules, and then drive the mules back down the crater at a fairly fast clip. At one point a mule thundered around a corner, and I stood aside to let it pass. Just as the mule was passing me, another very rude mule thundered around the corner going even faster, and shoved itself between me and the other mule. I was already standing on the edge of the path, which was on the edge of a steep ravine. The rude mule actually hip checked me as he went by, and I fell. I teetered and managed to fall to the side. It was scary. The muleteer saw this happen, and I was surprised that he didn't say a word. Most people I met in Ecuador were very nice, but this guy seemed surly. That's probably why the mule was running!

After our hike and a nice lunch lakeside, we climbed up on mules for the trip back up. I made sure not to get the rude mule. The mules didn't have saddles, just blankets, and we all had a hard time not sliding back as we went up the steep slope. My jeans were still damp and muddy from the hike the day before, so I had on extra slippery sweat pants. Oh well! We really had a great time, and the boys loved the mules.
After we returned to the Black Sheep Inn from our crater and mule adventure, my Mom and I walked into Chugchilán. The streets were littered with palms and food garbage. It looked like quite a party had happened. The market was just closing, but a few stalls still sold food. The town has an old church in need or repair, and around the corner, the library! The library has computers and computer classes due to the largesse of the Black Sheep Inn. It was closed, but I of course took a picture! A Miguel Cervantes quote painted on the outside of the library says.

El que lee mucho y anda mucho, ve mucho y sabe mucho.
(Who reads much and walks much sees much and knows much.)

Wheeeeee!

Today is my birthday! I'm freakin' 40!

For my birthday, Michael got me a Wii! Wheee! I haven't tried it yet, but that will happen soon! Now I can say to my friends:
"Do you want to come over to my house and play with my Wii?"

Tonight Michael and I are gone to Hale's for the Moisture Festival Comedy/Varitè show.

Tomorrow some friends are coming with Michael and I to watch a punjabi dance competition, Bhangra Bash!

Black Sheep Inn, Day One

On Saturday morning, March 15th, we all piled into a rented car driven by Otto, and made the trek to The Black Sheep Inn eco lodge. The trip took about 4 1/2 hours. The first hour or so was on the Pan-American Highway, but we soon turned off onto some really bumpy roads. The road was sometimes cobbled, sometimes paved, sometimes muddy, and sometimes washed out with small landslides cleared away. This spring has been the rainiest in 25 years, and mudslides and road wash outs have been a major problem. The photo on the right is one my sister-in-law Colleen took. You can see the road winding through the mountains. We drove through Lasso, Toacazo, Las Manzanas, Yaló, Sigchos, and finally Chugchilán where we found the Black Sheep Inn. Black Sheep greeted us!

The Black Sheep Inn is pretty cool. They are an eco lodge, which means they try to have as little impact as possible on the environment. The food is vegetarian, water is collected by gravity and pumped and heated by the sun. Food is grown on site, guinea pigs eat veggie scraps, and the bathrooms are dry composting toilets. I was excited about the toilets since you could throw TP in; in modern plumbed Ecuador, you have to throw all the TP in a separate trash can, and that kind of grossed me out. The climb to our rooms was a bit of a challenge due to the hill and the thin air, but the views were wonderful. Our porch is in the photo on the left above, and my nephew Ian sits with a resident dog on the lawn in front of our door. Some of these photos are linked from my Flickr account, so if you click on them you'll get a large high quality image.

We arrived in the afternoon, and we decided to squeeze in a quick hike around the rim which surrounds the inn. We quickly met the resident llamas, and stopped for some great views of the surrounding village and farms.

Sounds great, right? Well, it started pouring. Ian is 6 and was great about the whole thing. Julian is 3 and was fine until he started freezing. His little hands were red and cold, and he was crying. Colleen and I took turns carrying him and fending off neighborhood dogs. My Mom had just had her jacket washed, and it started foaming in the rain. We plodded along, the fantastic views enclosed in clouds and rain. Eventually we got to the end of the ridge, and instead of a nice path down, we found we had to slip and slide our way through cow pies (and cows) down a very very steep hill. It was raining, it was muddy, it was cold, and it was quite literally shitty. There was a small line of trees that offered some hand holds, but they weren't consistently there. Mom and Ian went ahead, and Ian did a fantastic job. Colleen and I took turns hoisting Julian down, and he was just screaming. I totally don't blame him!

When we got back to the cabin, we all had hot showers, got into dried clothes, spread out our wet and muddy clothes, and cranked up he woodstove. It was lovely. We read books, the boys colored and painted, and I began to educate Ian in the ways of Dungeons and Dragons!

We ended the day with a fantastic vegetarian meal in the common room down the hill at the Inn. Tomorrow: Lake Quilotoa and mules!

Back in the USA

I'm back from Ecuador! My flights were delayed, and it took a long time, but I made it home. It's nice to be back!

I'm slowly editing my photos and uploading them to my Flickr account. I'm doing them in batches, and I'm now caught up to my last blog entry on the Basilica. Hopefully tomorrow I can work on the photos and blog entry for my trip to the Black Sheep Inn!

Basílica del Voto Nacional

Yesterday and today I went into the old Colonial part of Quito. It’s an easy ride on the EcoVia bus for 25 cents! I found it pretty interesting in general, with some very old churches and nice views. The eagle is from one of the churches. My absolute favorite was today when I went to the Voto Nacional Cathedral. It was built in the 1920s, and it is decorated with Ecuadorian animals. The gargoyles are fantastic! I posted just a few here, but I took tons of photos. Some of the doors also were Ecuador-specific, and one of them had a nice llama on it.

For $2 you can climb up up up into the clock tower. The climb went up about four flights of dark stairs, and then – you come to a gift shop! It was weird. The next floor had a café. After another flight of narrow stairs you come to several sets of even narrower metal spiral stairs that take you into the bell tower proper. And THEN you still have four rebar ladders to go up, if you want. The views were fantastic.

Halfway back down and on the same floor as the gift shop you can walk the plank. The boards go across the top of the main part of the church, above the ceiling, but below another peaked roof so it was enclosed. It was pretty cool to see the top side of the arches you usually see from the church floor. At the end of the planks was another set of three or four ladders on the outside that take you up to another tower. I loved the whole thing, but it was a good cardio and thigh workout, especially with the high altitude (of Quito, not the tower!).

I also visited my Mom’s school today, which was fun to see. Tonight we go out to dinner, and tomorrow to the Black Sheep Inn eco lodge!

Hola!

I finally made it to Ecuador! The trip was uneventful. So peaceful, in fact, that I managed to hide in an empty gate at SeaTac and play my banjo for a half an hour! I've played some more since I've been in Quito. There's nothing like getting away from the endless potential chores of home to get my practicing in.

On the airplane I saw Enchanted, which was fun, and Martian Child, which I hadn't heard of but was a sweet movie about a weird kid. The Cusacks were in Martian Child, and they were themselves as always, which I like.

My Mom's house is a pretty little house. The gardening around her neighborhood reminds me of Southern California. There were these enormouse hens and chicks (plants) the size of cabbages. I had my glare lens shield-thingy on, and for some reason in got in the way of my photos. I think that the "some reason" is because I didn't think I needed to put it on the way the instruction manual said to. I guess I do. I think I'll re-shoot the plant photos later, since they're in the yard here. Meanwhile, you get them in all their 007-is-shooting-you glory.

In pots around her house are these purple frondy things that remind me of sensitive plants, only they are not sensitive. They must be very uptight.

I'm hoping to catch a picture of the hummingbirds my Mom says are around here.

Tomorrow Colleen and I are heading out to the Old Town part of Quito, which is rife with Colonial architecture. One cathedral has a Hieronymus Bosch painting in it, but I don't think I'll have time to go in, as you have to take a guided tour which Lonely Planet says is as exciting as a Latin Mass. I'd really love to see it, though, so you never know.

The boys have been fun to be with. Here's Julian being silly, and the four of us (Mom, Julia, Collen, Ian) out to dinner.

I'm a Flaming Idiot

All set to fly out to Ecuador for two weeks, leaving from my house Saturday morning at 5am!

My very first Ecuador adventure! Is!

I'm still home.

Changing my flight from Saturday to Tuesday: $242
Emergency Passport update appointment: $160
The look on my face when I realized my passport had expired: Priceless

Friday night during a break in packing, I went to my computer to check in for my flight. I got to the part where I enter in my passport number: check. Passport expiration date: Madre de Dios! It expired in April 2007! How could I have overlooked this? I have absolutely no &%#$@ idea. I'm generally a really organized person. My only excuse is that I've had it for a long time, and passports only expire every ten years, so it's hard to remember ... The thing that kills me is that I got it out and looked at it several times in the last month to confirm details for my Mom. Why didn't I notice then? I'll never know.

So, first thing to do: panic. I decided I had to call my Mom right away and let her know I wasn't coming as scheduled, and maybe not at all. It was 11:30pm in Quito, so she'd be asleep, but it wasn't outrageous. Well, guess what: she gave me the wrong phone number! It wouldn't go through! I tried two operators, to no avail. I'd have to e-mail her and hope she gets it.

Meanwhile, Michael was researching info on expired passports. He was really helpful and supportive while I flailed around emotionally and literally. Although the first most helpful, supportive thing he said was "Well, I guess yer not goin'." I was secretly hoping I could just get the renewal gears in motion, hop on the plane anyway, and be renewed for re-entry into the US. No such luck. All research pointed to me being $#1t Outta Luck.

The US passport services have a 24 hour hotline, and I was able to talk to an actual human. She was very nice and sympathetic, but confirmed my SOL status. She said since I lived in Seattle I could get a same day renewal appointment for Monday, and be all renewed in a few hours, for the paltry fee of $160. Ouch. I went through a handy automatic appointment system, and got myself a 9am appointment.

Then I went online and changed my flight very easily from Saturday to Tuesday. The new flight wasn't too expensive, but the hefty change fee drove it all up to $242.

So, I got it all worked out. It's only money (a lot of it ...), and three days in Ecuador, but I'll still get to go. I'm really quite lucky. Here is what I'm happy about:

• I didn't discover this at the airport. Boy, that would have been embarrassing.
• I was able to take care of everything at 9pm on a Saturday night.
• There are only about 10 places in the US where I can do the same day emergency renewal, and Seattle is one of them. If I was still living in Maine, I would have had to drive to Boston.
  
• I've got a Monday morning appointment.
  
• I was able to realize that I had the wrong phone # for my Mom, and get that straightened out later.
• I have time to mow the lawn, scrub the shower and bathrooms, vacuume, get an emissions test for my car, go to Costco, run an errand for a neighbor, and basically do personal penance by gettin' $#1t done.
• The 8GB memory stick I ordered for my camera was late and I was going to have to travel without it, but now I've got it.
• This snafu doesn't really mess up anyone else's travel plans since we didn't have anything organized away from Quito until next week. If I'd been hooking up with a tour to the Galapagos or something, I'd-a been screwed.
• I'm only missing a shopping trip to Otavalo, and since I'll go back to Ecuador another year, I can still do that.
• I have plans to meet a friend in Quito, but that's not 'til Friday.
• I get to snug my bun, Squeaky, and Michael for 3 more days.
  

The Great Puzzle Saga

Four months ago, on November 6th, I ordered a Christmas present for my Grandma. I just received it this week. I'm kind of pissed at National Geographic, so I post here the letter I'm sending to customer service. Now, I don't have any delusions of grandeur that more that 5 people will read this, but I do get some satisfaction from posting it to the world.



Customer Service March 3, 2008
Attn: Supervisor
National Geographic Catalog/Online
PO Box 8728
Westchester, Ohio 45071-8728


Customer Service Supervisor:

I have recently received an item from your catalog. To receive this item required five telephone calls and a wait of four months. I ended up driving across town at one point to deliver a puzzle to another customer, because their puzzle had been delivered to me. The following letter documents the saga of my puzzle order.




1. 11/06/07 ordered by phone. Order #70151720. I provided all of the information that was asked for by your agent. Because this was a phone order, I never received confirmation via e-mail. If I had, I would have been able to see (above) that my address had been entered incorrectly.

2. 11/08/07 Visa charged $47.90.

3. 12/12/07 called about order. I was told it had shipped and delivery had been refused. I explained that I never got it; I have never had trouble receiving anything at my address in the past. I was told that there was no phone number on record for me, so I had not been called about the delivery problem. I gave my phone number, and I also very carefully confirmed my address; I even made sure to spell “two-five-tee-aich” (25th) for the street number so it could not be misunderstood. I was told that my order was re-placed.

4. 12/13/07 I received an obviously re-packaged box with a strange shipping label; another person’s name and my address had been scrawled on it in pen. I opened the folded up sheet of paper that was the shipping label, and on the inside was a packing list that showed the package was clearly for another person at 100 NW 79th St. I opened the package and examined the puzzle; it was the puzzle for 100 NW 79th St in Seattle. I drove the package to that person’s house. I didn’t trust them to ever receive the puzzle if I sent it back.

5. 12/13/07 I called about order and explained that a puzzle had been delivered, but it was not mine. I carefully reconfirmed my address and phone number. In this phone call I discovered that my phone number had been entered incorrectly into your database during my previous call on 12/12/07. I was told that my order was once again re-placed. I indicated that this was a Christmas present, and I had diligently ordered it two months before Christmas to be assured of delivery. I was cautious because last year I ordered the latitude & longitude T-shirt from National Geographic, and due to a problem with the supplier I did not receive it in time for Christmas. I indicated that I would be in Maine after 12/27/07, and if it was not going to come by then I would like to be notified so I could have it sent to Maine. The agent indicated this might be possible.

6. 1/14/08 I had not yet received my puzzle in the mail, and I had not received notification about my order from National Geographic. I had not been reimbursed for the item. I looked up my order online by order number, and the website indicated my order was shipped complete on 11/08/07; this page (above) also showed the wrong address for me. I called about the order. After very long pauses and hold time, I was told I would need to re-place my order. I gave the address for the puzzle, and was told I would receive it. I suggested to the agent we re-confirm my address, and I discovered that my address in your database was wrong. The address on my record was still 29th Ave NW. Remember that I gave my address during each call on 11/06/07, 12/12/07, and on 12/13/07.

7. 1/29/08 I called to check on the order. The agent right away began by confirming my contact info. We discovered that while there was the correct phone number on file, the wrong phone number was still there. The agent deleted the incorrect number. She stated that I was issued a refund on 1/12/08. This is interesting, because when I called on 1/14/08, no refunded charges were mentioned. This agent was very apologetic, and she asked if I would like to have the puzzle company contact me when the puzzle was shipped? I said yes, and appreciated that. She also stated that I would not be charged for the puzzle due to my inconvenience. After the call I looked at my bank statement, and I found that $39.95 had been credited to my account on 1/23/08. Too bad I had to pay for the shipping.

8. 2/26/08 The puzzle finally arrived in the mail. My incorrect mailing address was printed on the packing slip, and several corrections were scribbled in. The first correction kept the incorrect street address of 29th Ave NW, but for some reason someone had scribbled out the correct zip code 98117 and changed it to 98108-3791. The second correction was done with a big black marker, and the address was finally all correct, but it was nearly illegible. The address and postage indicated it had been sent from NJ on 2/20/08, but oddly enough, on the back of the package was a customs declaration form indicating it had been sent from Great Britain. Thankfully, the puzzle itself was correct this time. Now in March, I can finally send my 94 year old Grandmother her Christmas present that I ordered 4 months ago!


During each call the person on the other end was polite and professional. However, I was surprised that during my call on 1/14/08 the person was barely apologetic, although she was polite. At that time I was also quite surprised that after being a loyal customer for many years, a subscriber for decades (myself and my family), having paid for this item on 11/06/07, having had to make four phone calls, and having had my contact information mis-documented several times, I was not offered restitution of any kind.

My last call on 1/29/07 was very satisfactory. The agent clearly confirmed all details of the order, deleted erroneous information, seemed genuinely apologetic, and let me know that my money would be refunded. She also enabled me to feel a little less helpless by giving me the option of hearing from the puzzle company as to when I would be shipped my product. I said I would very much like that.

I never did hear from the puzzle company as to when my puzzle was shipped. I received it on 2/26/08.

My purpose in writing this letter is not to elicit any more restitution. I want someone there to know everything that happened, review your procedures, and hopefully ensure this doesn’t happen to someone else. There has clearly been a customer service breakdown somewhere within National Geographic regarding this order. The puzzle company was clearly at fault, but so were the customer service representatives who entered my information incorrectly, failed to fix the incorrect information when I repeated my correct address, and failed to indicate that I was being issued a refund (until the last agent). I think much of the fiasco could have been avoided if I could have just ordered the puzzle online and entered my own address and contact information. For some reason these special vendor items require that I phone in my order.

I have generally had good luck with ordering standard goods from National Geographic, but I will never again order a personalized product. At the end of 2006 I ordered a specialized T-shirt from National Geographic (latitude and longitude) and also did not receive that item until well after Christmas. I thought I was being very organized to order the puzzle this year two months before Christmas, but I was quite wrong.

Please review your procedures, and perhaps your vendors.

Thank you,

Julia Gibson

Bhangra night

Last night I went to a fund raiser for my bhangra dance school, and I got to dance a routine again! This time I got to wear the pretty purple costume instead of the orange. I don't have any pictures or videos of my performance, but I did take video of the senior dance students' performances. Enjoy!