Fingers

The spring weather of six weeks ago has finally returned. Today Zane and I went for a long walk to get groceries. On the way back we stopped at the Boys and Girls Club to watch a baseball game, and we played on our first jungle gym. Zane and I went down the twisty slide together, and I slid Zane down a small straight slide by himself. We definitely need to go back to another play set soon. Then we got to spend time in the back yard on the grass. Zane is still a little weirded out by the grass, but he warmed up to it considerably today.

This week Zane has begun to refine his pinching grip, and as a result is starting to be a bit of a better eater. He can pick up Cheerios and put them in his mouth, and he now uses his teeth to bite on crackers. The crackers and Cheerios usually come out after sitting in his mouth for a while, though. I put some almond butter on a boring rice cracker, and he liked it much better. I put some of my milk in a shot glass and he practiced washing the cracker down with some milk from a cup. He liked that a lot! I have a feeling that the more he can feed himself, the better he'll do with eating.

He can now wave, too. Marie at daycare said all the kids can do this, so I think they work on it there. It's very cute! He holds his right hand up, palm flat out like he's saying "stop", and then he folds his fingers up and down. So far he does it randomly, not yet in the right context.

This week he's been having nice two hour naps right in the middle of the day. Ahhhh. I can get stuff done! Amazing. He seems much happier, too.

I finally got all my plans worked out for a summer trip to Maine! Traveling with Zane for the first time will be a bit of an adventure, but we have to do it some time!

New Orleans

In 2001, I went to New Orleans with my Cajun/Zydeco band Les Femmes d'Enfer. I thought it was my first time to Louisiana. Recently I've been scanning old family photos, and I found out I was wrong! Photographic evidence shows I was in fact crawling around on the New Orleans pavement in July or August of 1969! I can tell you, during my 2001 visit we started drinking Hurricanes from Pat O'Brien's at about 10am after a red eye flight which I did not sleep on. I was ready to crawl around on the pavement in 2001, too.

Ecuador Wrap Up

So there you are! All my Ecuador stories are told. I flew home on Easter Sunday. The trip started off with a beautiful view of Quito's Pichincha volcano out the window of my plane. I got to see it for the full three hours I sat in the plane on the runway! Yay! I eventually got home, which was a wonderful place to be.

I only brought home a few souvenirs: An alapca wool sweater, a nice white blouse embroidered with flowers, a blue hammock for the back yard, a small painting, and a little stuffed alpaca toy for Michael.

You can read all of my Ecuador posts on one page here or by clicking on an Ecuador tag at the bottom of a post.

I have finished loading Ecuador photos to my Flickr account, and you can view the full set here.

A few videos are loaded on my YouTube account.

On The Beach

March 19th -- March 22nd, 2008. We spent our final days in Ecuador in a muggy haze at the beach. The Hosteria Mandala was an absolutely lovely place. A multi-storied wooden building with open verandas all around served as the common area and restaurant. The surrounding cabins were all hidden from each other by lush gardens filled with birds. A walk of about 30 seconds from the common building got you to a beautiful sand beach with cabanas.

My Mom and I both had great expectations for ourselves. While in Puerto Lopez, we planned to traipse through Machalilla National Park seeing exotic flora, fauna, and archaeological ruins. We planned to go to Isla de la Plata, the poor man's Galapagos, and see some blue-footed boobies and other wildlife. Maybe we would also go to Los Frailes beach!

But it was really hot. And I was really sick with a bad cold. And the surf was so sooooooothing ... We spent the entire three days swinging in hammocks under our cabana, body surfing with the kids in the excellent waves, playing in the sand, playing games and drinking beer in the common building, and kicking back with three meals a day in the restaurant. It was tough. Really tough. Actually, I was pretty miserably sick and exhausted. My nose dripped constantly yet couldn't be emptied with a good blow. My nose started to peel from the tissues. The only time I really perked up was in the water. The Pacific Ocean was like a giant neti pot, and the crashing waves were exhilarating.


After the first day of total sloth, I did manage to explore a little bit around the beach. I was really excited to see frigatebirds wheeling overhead, as I've often read about them, especially in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. Watching them congregate around the fishing boats, though, I realized they were about as common as seagulls. Oh well -- they were still exotic to me! Vultures were also pretty common, but fun for me to see. Further on down the beach and away from most people, I managed to encounter a pair of Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons. Cool name, huh? Seeing them made me feel right at home, since Michael and I often go to Golden Gardens Park in our neighborhood and see Great Blue Herons on the beach. There were many pelicans, too. They would do this very cool thing of flying very low in a V formation over the breaking waves. I imagine they were scooping up yummy treats.


Ghost crabs scuttled around on the beach, disappearing the minute I tried to get close. I was walking while trying to video these guys. Sorry for the shaking.

Far down the beach were some really nice peaceful views of the surf, the clouds, the birds, and a weird starfish stuffed into a crevice. I actually thought the little guy was an octopus for a minute!

At the end of the days the sun would set in a blaze of glory. One of our hosts, Maja, said she'd seen the elusive green flash before, but we didn't get so lucky.

Happy Birthday, Julian!

March 18, 2008. Today my nephew Julian turns 3! Back in Quito in the Old City, Colleen and I had gone shopping for a piñata and small toys to fill it. No candy for the Henderson boys! Believe me, I can't imagine them hopped up on sugar. We managed to score a Lightning McQueen piñata and filled it with small cars, trucks, helicopters, and two LED-flashing fish. We managed to secretly drag the whole big bag of stuff with us into the mountains. This morning my Mom and I went to the Black Sheep Inn's yoga studio and set up the piñata and blew up some balloons while Colleen distracted the boys with an outing to hand feed salt to the llamas.

His first gift was a package of undies! You can see how excited he is! When you're three, and you've just graduated to underwear, getting a whole package of underwear emblazoned with cartoon characters is pretty great.

He also got two big trucks which were immediately coveted by Ian.

Next up was the piñata. Ian and Julian both got to whack at it. It took a little while to break, but it was pretty fun! The piñata was pretty much in one piece, so Colleen gave it to the staff and asked them to give it away.

After a birthday brownie, we piled into our rented car (with driver), and headed back to Quito. This time our driver was a Dutch ex-pat named Lex. He was interesting, but also a little volatile. His driving was pretty aggressive. At one point he was driving at a pretty good clip around a blind corner while gesticulating wildly with both hands off the wheel, and a truck full of people came right at us. He had to slam on the brakes and skid.

We made it back to Quito with several hours to spend at Mom's house before heading to the airport to fly to the coast. We got to exchange all of our damp and muddy warm clothes for clean beach clothes. It was really luxurious to know that the laundry would get done for us while we were gone!

We went to the airport in the evening and flew to Manta on Ecuador's coast. I had been developing a cold as we headed down the mountain earlier in the day, and by the time we flew I was thoroughly plugged up. The flight was pretty painful. I didn't realize just how bad my cold was getting, so I didn't load up on tissues. That was a pretty bad decision since my nose started flowing like a fountain, and the drive to Puerto Lopez took about 2 hours. I had to resort to whipping off my right sock and using is as a hanky. Luckily, it was a pretty clean sock, and I hadn't already been wearing it all day!

We got into Hosteria Mandala at about 10pm. It was really hot and humid compared to the rest of our visit in Ecuador, and I thought I'd never get to sleep, but I did ...

Black Sheep Inn, Day Three

March 17, 2008. Another beautiful morning! We're definitely getting the routine down of getting up early and having our adventures in the morning, and then sitting out the afternoon rain indoors by a toasty fire. Today we graduate to horses from yesterday's mules. I ride Pinta, Colleen and Ian ride Maria, Mom rides Campion, and Ian rides Bonita. Maria and Bonita both had foals following along. Our guide is 14 year old Alfredo, who turns out to be absolutely fantastic. We give him a hefty tip at the end.

Here's some short clips of our ride. I apologize for the Cloverfield-like camera handling, but I was on horseback and twisted backwards in my saddle ...


The trip is about 5 hours long and goes to a local cheese factory and an Andean cloud forest. Riding up through the mountains for an hour or so is fun, but the cheese factory is really a bust. It turns out to be a low ceilinged three room compound with one guy inside separating curds and whey. He won't allow us to take pictures. No cheese is for sale. Cheese sweat drips from the ceiling about 6 inches above our heads. It's interesting for about 5 minutes. Not much of a destination, but we welcome the chance to get off our horses.

After a snack break we head up to the cloud forest. We literally ride into the clouds, and the temperature drops. The vegetation changes from lush to scrubby and then to a short forest dripping with epiphytes and moss. We ride down some pretty slippery and muddy ravines, and the horses lose their footing with alarming frequency. The foals fall down. Luckily, we won't fall off a cliff, just into the mud, but nobody does. Alfredo ties up the horses and leads us on a walking tour of the cloud forest. It's pretty damn cool! The boys enjoy the gloomy wet scenery; Ian isn't scared in this picture, just hamming it up as usual. I love the plants! Beautiful flowers, orchids, mushrooms, and epiphytes. I don't have a flora and fauna guide book, so I can't tell you what any of these are. Aside from these exotics, most of the other plants I saw were very familiar: clover, buttercups, dandelions, lupin, grasses. I realize that I am in fact still in the Americas! I had kind of forgotten that since usually when I travel I end up on another set of continents.

I had really hoped to see a lot of exotic birds on my trip, but unfortunately that was my one disappointment. I think next time I come to Ecuador I won't travel with two small boys, and my bird sitings should improve dramatically! I did manage to get a photo of one pretty yellow bird that I think is a brush finch.

Our ride back to Chugchilán and the Black Sheep Inn was uneventful but relaxing and enjoyable. I think this was really my favorite Ecuador adventure! I've always loved horseback riding, and combining it with a nature hike is like icing on a cupcake.

In the afternoon I visited with the local llamas, and then attended a dance exhibition put on by local girls. The girls were really cute! They did one dance in formation, and then they did a May-pole type dance. They picked the tallest guy from the audience to hold the pole, and it was pretty funny to see him scrunch waaaay down to allow the tiny little girls to weave the ribbons around the pole above him.

Ian and Julian posed with a couple of dancers for a celebrity shot. And tomorrow Julian turns three!

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.)

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!