Recap of December - March

Hello loved ones:)

It has been a while since I have written anything (which I think everytime I sit down to write).  But happy March!  (I had to pull up the calendar to check that one..)  

Just a quit recap of the last couple months:

November 24- We left Colombia and crossed into Ibarra, Ecuador to visit a family friend, Maricela.

Novemeber 25 - Took a bus 1 hr south to see Otavalo Market, a huge, daily indigenous market with everything you could imagine.  Then took a bus one more hour south to the capital city of Quito.

November 26 - We started work as receptionists at Vibes hostal in Quito.  We loved exploring the city of Quito every day after work.  It was our first experience in higher altitude (2,580 meters) and it was nice to be in cooler weather for once.  We got to be there for the Festivities of Quito (celebrating the foundation of Quito with parades and parties all over the city).  We also took the cable car up the mountain to the west of Quito to climb Volcano Pichincha, which was absolutley beautiful.

December 8 about - We bussed to Banos, Ecuador, a small town in the Andes known for its adventure sports.  We went to see our friends Hannah and Adam (the couple we met way back when we started) and ended up working at the same hostal, Backpacker Balcones.  It was a beautiful stone and wooden three-story house about a 10 minute walk from the town on the edge of the river.  We cleaned the rooms and living rooms in the morning, leaving us free the rest of the day, which we mostly used for day hikes.  We found plenty of good look outs around Banos and got to ride bikes to El Pailon del Diablo (Devil’s Caldron) which is honestly just as beautiful as the pictures.  We made great friends with our coworkers, Agustina and Luis from Argentina, and have loved meeting up with them after Banos as well.  

December 19 - We bussed to Quilotoa to do a 3 day trek and see the crater lake, but after arriving too late the first day and in the rain, we decided to just do a 3 day trip around the lake (rather than follow the trek and hike away from the lake and into the valley).  We walked one hour the first day, about 5 hours and climbed the highest peak on the 2 day, then finished on the third day and hiked down into (and unfortunately, back up) the crater.  Absolutely beautiful and fairly relaxing three days; waking up at sunrise, praying it would rise faster to thaw us out, watching the women herd their sheep across the surrounding hill sides and getting to use our wonderful new tent for the first time (thank you so much Brendan)!

December 22 - We bussed to the southern coast of Ecuador to Montanita, a small fishing village now know for its surf and party.  We started our job at Kamala Hostal, a beautiful property right on the beach and a 20 min walk from the craziness of the town (thank god).  Our job was to bartend or work in the kitchen, depending on the day.  Skylar and I also did several art projects here.  We got to celebrate Christmas, New Years and Australia Day (January 26) with our coworkers and guests of Kamala.  We met so many wonderful people and feel like we really made the most of our last spot on a warm coast, at least for a bit.  Between the lack of Spanish (not good for our practicing but comforting to hear a lot of English again), a change up in the food (the hostal cooked things like pesto pasta, chili and breakfast burritos, none of which we’ve seen much of since leaving home) and a much slower pace for a longer amount of time, Kamala felt like a vacation from traveling.. which was so nice.

February 4 - After we extended our timeline, several times, we Finally left Kamala!  A day to be remembered by all those who stumble across it.  We spent a long night and day crossing into Peru and bussing down the coast to Huanchaco, a small fishing village just outside of one of Peru’s biggest cities, Trujillo.  

    This is the first time that we arrived in a town without a job.  Luckily, we found a hostal the next day that was in the need of two more workers.  We worked five hours a day, six days a week at La Gringa Hostal, located in the center of the town right across from the pier.

February 10 - We arrived Huaraz, Peru, a smaller town in the Andes (3053 m) known for its trekking and beautiful mountains.  It sits in a valley between the Cordilleras Blancas (snow capped range) with over 722 glaciers, the Cordilleras Negras (not snow capped range), and the Cordillera Huayhuash, the same range Joe Simpson wrote about in Touching the Void, to the south.  Completely surrounded by beauty and you can feel it.  Altough people say that the town of Huaraz is nothing special, we really enjoyed the town and would have loved more time.  We went on day hikes to Laguna Wilcacocha, Laguna Llanganuco, and Laguna 69 to help acclimatize ourselves before attempting a longer trek.  With two friends we had met at Kamala and a guy we had met two days before at our hostel, we bussed five hours to Vaqueria to start the Santa Cruz trek.  This was by far some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.  I can’t say or even show enough to do it justice.  I will try to write a post on it sooner or later and go into detail, but at the very least, Skylar has pictures on facebook.  

February 19 - We bussed to Lima with a plan to start at a hostal in Miraflores district, but that fell apart when we got there so we stayed with a couchsurfer for the first four days.  It was our first couchsurfing experience and we lucked out with an awesome guy.  By the fourth day we found a job at a different hostal in Barranco district and have been working here since the 24!  We have mostly been painting walls and ceilings, trying to cover up mold and stains.  I also painted a big wooden sign of the hostal’s name, Cozy Wasi (“wasi” is the Quechua word for “house”; Quechua is an indigenous language spoken in parts of South America).

We will work here until the 6th, when Skylar’s mom and step-dad, Heather and Jake, come to visit us.  We are sooo excited to see them and show them a bit of what our life has been like for the past year!  We have been spending every day as of lately planning what we want to show them, tell them, and cook them.  The date couldn’t come fast enough!

As always, I hope everyone is doing well and know that we think of you all often.  

Much much love,

Maddi and Sky