Cuenca and Guayaquil

November 24th- 27th
Cuenca

We made our way south to Cuenca after a great day of climbing in Cojitambo.  Cuenca is a city in the south with a rich history, beautiful architecture and lots of expats, therefore plenty of opportunities for a true American burger! We checked into the hostel and immediately went out to find some "American" food.  Juan Gabriel had recommended some good places to find hamburgers, pizza, waffles and salads. We ended up at the Inca Lounge for chicken fingers, burgers, chicken parmesan and a ceaser salad.  We paid American prices, but were definitely satisfied! The next morning we were on the hunt for waffles and the cultural museum. We found them both, but the waffle place was closed so we ended up at Sports Planet.  Eli got his craving of a pulled pork sandwich satisfied. The museum was very interesting from what we could take from it- it was all in Spanish.  Unfortunately, Asa ended up getting  sick that afternoon so the next 48 hours we stayed low around the hostal.  The hostel we stayed at had a funky, happening restaurant on the first floor so Brad and I hung our for happy hour while the boys hung out in their room.

Eli finally getting some "American" food.

Churches are in abundance around Cuenca. The colonial architecture was beautiful.

Sights of buildings around town.

What kind of potato? Lots to choose from...

 Fresh fruit!  It's hard not to go crazy buying the fruit, but when you are moving every few days, you have to contain yourself!

It's a bit dark, but this is the restaurant below the hostal we stayed at.  This center room went up two floors and the rooms were on the second floor around the perimeter.

November 28th-December 1st
Guayaquil

Our friend's from New Mexico, Christine and Vince and their two children Marissa and Gabe, are living in Guayaquil for the year teaching at ESPOL, a college in the city.  We spent the weekend with them visiting and seeing some of the sites in the city. Guayaquil is on the water and much lower then we have been so we are back to warm weather and shorts! Christine, originally from Massachusetts, is also a Patriots fan so we paid for a subscription on NFL so we could watch the Patriots game.


From Cuenca to Guayaquil we drove through Cajas National Park.  Unfortunately we did not have time to hike around.  It was a beautiful place!

Lots of banana trees along the way into Guayaquil!

 At the soccer game.  Notice the police in the background.  They were ALL over.  It almost made you feel unsafe because there were so many!

Two professional Ecuadorian teams.

 

A visitor at our door one morning.

We rode from the city, across the bridge to Santay Island. It had a 4.3 km boardwalk along the north west side of it trhough swamp and mangroves!

Watching the Patriots game.

Cojitambo

Sunday, November 22- Tuesday, November 24

Climbing in Cojitambo 
By Eli

The other day  we arrived in Cojitambo to go rock climbing with a man named Juan Gabriel. We arrived at his house on Sunday night and got settled in our room. It was a pretty big room with 4 bunk beds and one double. The room is so big because he usually has climbers from other cities come and stay at his house to climb. The next morning we got up and it was raining so we decided to wait and go climbing the next day. There are Inca ruins on the back side of the rock so we went on a walk (not a hike because Asa quit hiking again) to the ruins. At the top, we walked around in the ruins. The ruins were cool except there was trash and broken bottles all over the place, also people had written their names all over the rocks. After exploring the ruins, we walked back into town and decided we would go to the big city that was only 15 minutes away to try and get food other than chicken rice and french fries. When we got to the city Asa wanted to go to the first pizza place we found so we got him a pizza and then went out to look for a place to eat. After walking around for 30 minutes and only seeing pizzerias and burger places we finally went to a place to eat. I ended up having chicken and fries...

The next day we woke up and it was hot and sunny. We decided that Asa and I would climb a two pitch 5.8 with Juan Gabriel, and mom and dad would climb a long one pitch 5.8 with one 5.10 move. On the approach Juan Gabriel warned us to always wear our helmet when around the rock because the locals threw rocks and glass bottles off the edge above. After Asa and I had started the climb I was two moves in on the hardest part and I heard a crack and dad yell. Sure enough I saw a broken bottle flying down and the small pieces rained down on all of us while climbing. That was the scariest part of the climb. The rest of the way up was fun. The rock had really good friction and was covered in finger pockets making it pretty easy. After we got to the top, we hiked over to a single pitch zone called VIP. I started out on a 5.10 C and made it to the last move which was the hardest part and had to come down. Asa went up that route after me and at the same move I was at he cheated and grabbed a bolt with a quick draw and used that as a hold and made it up. Although he made it up, it does not count because he used the bolt as a hold. So we are even. Then I climbed a really fun 5.10 A that was pretty easy with a really fun over hang move at the top. Asa also climbed that route. We heard thunder and when I was at the top of one of the climbs I could see a wall of rain and lightning headed towards us, so we decided to abandon the climbing and head back to the house. Right when we got back to the house it started down pouring. I thought that the climbing was really fun. However the climbs were a lot easier than at Yosemite and Moab. For example, we climbed a 5.7 in Zion that was twice as hard as the 5.10 A that we climbed here.

A view of the rock from Juan Gabriel's house.

Day 1 at the Inca Ruins- the enter, backside of the mountain

Looking down on the town of Cojitambo

Day 2- Climbing

A good day of climbing!

Banos

Banos
Tuesday, November 17th- Thursday, November 19th

Banos is one of Ecuadors busiest tourist towns and is known as the "gateway to the amazon". We all went to Banos for the first night.  Brad did a hike with us on Wednesday and then left to climb the volcano Illiniza.  The Tungaharua Volcano is South America's most active volcano.  The few days we were there it was definitely active.  In fact we learned on Wednesday night the government had raised the code to orange because of the amount of ash being emitted (see pictures below).  Once learning this, we decided to leave a day early.

Banos at night.

Looking down into Banos, you can see the green houses in the center.  Roses are Ecuador's biggest export.  You see these rows of greenhouses all over the country. The main importers are the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany and Canada.

We hiked up and over the hill on the left.

Asa checking in to see how much longer we had.

The popular avocado tree.

Rose bushes growing along the road.

You can see how the city sits right on the banks of the river.

The Tungaharua Volcano was fairly active while we were in Banos.

The route of the cascades is a popular tour in Banos. The road follows the canyon river and there are many waterfalls along the way.  There are a variety of ziplines across the river.

We took a hike down that followed the waterfall in the front left below.  There was another route on the other side that went all the way to the river below.

Two swing bridges got you down to the waterfall.

Sights from the bus: Banos- Riobamba

Notice how the land is farmed all the way to the top of the mountain.

Unlike the united states where we have huge areas of one crop, you can see all the different kinds of plants growing on each plot of land.

Bamboo Plants

Water containers that you see on many of the roofs.

Some of the towns we drove through were covered in ash from the eruptions of Tungaharua.

You can see a bit of the orange roof, but mostly it is covered in ash.

A view of