Travel-Stained Life

When we discussed our trip to South America, our big expense came down to a choice between hiking a week on the Inka trail in Peru or exploring the wildlife of the Galapagos in Ecuador.  Of course, the Galapagos won out.  While we were still in Quito, we booked a 5 day 4 night excursion [...]

On our way to the coast, we stop in the city of Guayaquil for two nights and are fortunate to be hosted by Alejandra, our first Couchsurfer in Ecuador. Guayaquil is drastically different from any other Ecuadorian town we’ve visited, but we find that having a host like Alejandra (and her family) make this transition [...]

Baños, a small town nestled in the Andes Mountains, is our 3rd Ecuadorian city stop. We find that it is swarming with tourists and ATV’s which curiously are only used on city streets. Of the many options for tourist entertainment, biking the road from Baños to Puyo sounded like a great idea. Deenaree loves biking and Ben is always up for a challenge. Neither of us knew what death defying events we would encounter along our route.

Ecuador was an exciting place for us for a lot of reasons.  It was our first time in South America and our first time in the Southern Hemisphere.  A week into our Ecuador stay, our Texas friends, Courtney and Thantcyn, arrive.  Because we are all mostly educators, we decide to make Mitad del Mundo one of [...]

Upon our arrival in Ecuador we were excited to start a fresh leg of our journey.  As our first time in South America, we were both looking forward to exploring new countries, continents and hemispheres.  Another highlight of arriving was the return of our close friends from Houston, Courtney and Thantcyn, a week after our [...]