Hacienda Zuleta Imbabura

... have in common?

Well any other visitors to Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world), should know the answer as they will have also witnessed the glorious poster showing that they have both visited and are possibly the only īcelebritiesī to have done so. Iglesias in the 70s and Bill as recently as 2002 (you could practically still smell the cigar smoke). Alas we have not quite got out of the habit of only ...

... of the few places in the world where you can see both the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross constellations in the night sky at the same time. I of course had no problem finding the Southern Cross... however my American counterparts didnīt hold up their end of the bargain and could not locate the Big Dipper. I blame it on their education system (:-P)

The family we were staying with, even though we were in the middle of nowhere, had sort of a hostel - they ...

... 50) where we buy our freshly-baked bread and dulces (sweets). A couple of days ago I bought two wonderful breads shaped like croissants but baked with cheese, and paid .12 each for them. Cream horns filled with lemon curd and topped with chocolate are a bit more expensive - .25 each. There's every kind of bread imaginable just waiting to be taken home, and it's all amazingly inexpensive. We buy produce at the bus terminal, of course, but there are a bunch of tiny ...

... and there were very few people around, it was perfect. later on, we found the street markets where they sell all the traditional clothes and shoes we see everyone wearing, as well as the fruit, vegetables and meat stalls. Some sample prices so far- 1. Cup of coffee 50-80c 2. 1.35 litre bottle of Coke - 0.79c 3. Set lunch 1.50 usd (soup, meat with rice, beans, plaintain, lemonade) 4. sweet buns from panaderia 0.12c each 5. empanadas, coffee and fruit ...

... 8220;Let’s hurry,” she said, and we quickly flagged down the nearest taxi coming towards us.

We ended up staying at Residencial Madrid, which was within the center of the town. “This is so much better,” I said, when we settled into our room. I was thankful that we wouldn’t have to sleep with our eyes open that night. We wandered the Ibarra streets that night, taking in the peacefulness of the city, and delighting in the ...

July 9th


We get up this morning for one last day in Otavalo. We heard there was few sites just outside of town and we decided we might as well completely exhaust everything there is to do here as we would unlikely head this far north again in our travels. We bought a few waters, grabbed a couple of walking sticks (to ward of the more aggressive rural dogs), double checked our directions and started hiking out of town.


Our first destination was a small tree of ...

... the Ecuadorian lady suggested a bunch of things for us to see and do during our time in Ecuador. She also showed us where her sister lived in town, and where her mom lived, and showed us where it was in relation to the town church so we could find her mom’s house on our own. She told us that if we needed anything, or had any problems with anything, we could go to her mom’s or sister’s houses and that they would help us with whatever.

Latinos ...

... we didnīt have many clothes coming from the jungle so we froze most of the time. After dinner the guide took us into the forrest and told us a myth about a knomb that could turn its head 360 degrees and had its feet on backwards was pretty unnerving. On one of the hikes up into the mountain I got altitude sickness and felt awful. None of us slept well that night and all woke up with headaches.

... while Joel ran his new toy car along the wall, and Dina did a goofy dance to the song being played by the trash truck as drove along behind us. Later that evening, I had another joyful reunion with another branch of the Morales family. Jose Manuel and Lucila came over for dinner with their kids, Lidia, Brian and Cristofer, and of course their were more gifts and lots of reminiscing. So nice to see the persistence and growth of these wonderful relationships, which ...

... The Amazing Tania was there to introduce us to our guide, Santiago. We also had a driver, Jesus. He didn't speak English but Santiago's was excellent. We had spent some big bucks on this tour, Imbabura Trails, about $300, so I was relieved that the altitude combined with getting my land legs was manageable. We were out for eleven hours, enjoyed hiking and lots of neat sites, and picked Santiago's brain about ...