Hello loyal friends! Its time for another exciting entry. This one is packed with travel pics! I usually spend hours and days writing the text and arranging the fotos so each picture coincides with the paragraph of text which corresponds to the image. SORRY! That isnt as likely to happen this time. Youll just need to scroll to the end to see all of the pics that didnt fit in with the text. I chose and captioned the photos weeks ago, but I cant seem to hold still long enough to finish writing and publishing it. How did I get so busy in retirement?
One of the reasons Ive been unable to work on this blog entry is that I am unable to I had a fall and am in quite a bit of pain. As I type this I am lying on my stomach with my neighbors heating pad on my low back. Well see how long my shoulders hold up in this position! I continue to do yoga three mornings a week, but my yoga practice has been severely limited lately as well. Poor CiCi is only
getting very short walks these days. Even standing to cook is painful. I wear a back brace if I have to stand or walk for any period of time. Its been challenging to work on the patchwork quilt project since were finally in the stage of laying out the design on the floor and it requires a lot of crouching and kneeling, getting up and down. What a drag it is getting old (cue music!)
In early March, I set off with my renter / friend / housemate Danielle on a two week driving loop over the Andes, up the coast and back down through the mountains. CiCi came along with us.The first photos showcase our adventures. Danielle will be staying in Baos with me for two more months and then she plans to move to the coast (somewhere warmer!) so this was an initial reconnaissance journey for her to start to check out some coastal towns. We spent our first few nights with my friend Amy who has a great apt a block from the beach in the peaceful town of Oln. She told me all about how she
pays her rent by teaching English online a few days a week for only a few hours each day. Gorgeous ocean views from her ample outdoor terrace!
Our first full day on the coast we took a long walk at low tide along the wide, flat beach. CiCi was sprinting and whirling and bouncing around like a crazy pooch. She absolutely loved the freedom and her wildness brought joy to everyone around! We walked all the way to the headland that separates Oln from the hippy dippy party town of Montaita. We visited the church up on the cliff and continued on down to Montaita for lunch. As we were hanging out waiting for the restaurant to open some came up and hugged me from behind, and there was Gabriel, a Venezuelan chef who had been living in Baos for the past years but is now running a restaurant in Montaita. Hes absolutely adorable and a total sweetie but too young for me to ever have considered him a romantic interest. Well, Danielle and Amy are younger than I am and they were both asking, hmm -whos that cutie?!
Fishing boats nestled at low tide in La Rinconada (The Corner Nook) - a village tucked in a coastline crevice between Manab and Santa Elena provinces.
From Oln we headed north up the Pacific coast stopping for at Benitos in La Entrada. I remembered that there was an Artisan Womens cooperative there which had been started by a Peace Corps Volunteer way back when. We asked around town and found someone who led us to the woman who had a key to their workshop. They make homemade paper (cards, photo albums, bags, boxes, etc), coin purses from candy wrappers, and they also crochet handicrafts made with plarn (plastic yarn made from recycled plastic bags). More and more women began to trickle in as we oohed and aahed over their lovely handiwork. We each bought several items and took numerous fotos with our new best friends!
Continuing on up the coast we picked up the bamboo blinds Id ordered for my bedroom window.
