Visiting a Bird Reserve in Southern Ecuador

For a Christmas present, Mark Turcotte (aka: Grandpa T) took us to one of his most favorite bird reserves here in Southern Ecuador. He is a hobby orinthologist. Always studying and learning about our feathered friends we share the earth with. We took a bus up into the highlands (6000 plus feet) in a cloud forest. It was raining rather hard when we arrived. Not a problem, because they have bird feeders set up so we could view 6 different species of humming birds up close and personal. We watched for about an hour and a half and then we ventured onto the trails. We missed out on viewing the rarest species of birds on the reserve due to the rain but we spent several hours just exploring the diversity of the cloud forest. Thank you grandpa T!

A view of the cloud forest we spent a few hours hiking in. Lots of biodiversity!

A pair of the beautiful hummingbirds that entertained us for about an hour and a half while the rain was pouring down.

Flora and fauna of the cloud forest.

CHRISTMAS

Even in Ecuador we can scratch up a batch of Christmas cookies.Sure, some ingredients like colored sugar, powdered sugar, and small candies are hard to come by. But raisins, almonds and white sugar are just the thing to make those eyes and noses on snowmen cookies. Lids to jars and bottles can be instant cookie cutters when you are in a pinch!

Stuffed lions and horses. Finally Nootch has something to cuddle again since she left Dasher the reindeer back at Lake Titicaca (the hazard of traveling with favorite stuffies).

Could it be a truck or a digger?

Paper Christmas Decorations

Nootch is showing off her Land of Sweets. We have now added real Christmas lights to the wall. There are all kinds of paper dolls bordering the whole room. The kids like to interact, play, and pretend with their decorations. They are also in the process of making a paper creche. Nativity scenes are very popular here in South America. Christmas does come without all the jingle balls and foo fluff you buy in the store!

The Kids are GOING Bananas!

This week we laid low. The kids spent time making all the Christmas decorations for our house. It is amazing what paper, markers, scissors, and glue can make. We decided to skip the Christmas tree this year. Nobody had an interest to kill a yucca tree, banana tree, or buy a phoney pine tree that we wouldn´t keep anyway. The wall decorations seem to be enough to draw up the festive spirit. We are having a go at cooking a few traditional treats. Tonight we are planning a yummy feast with Grandpa Mark. We have a slew of the ol Christmas movies to watch on the computer tonight.

The big event this week is potty training! Nicholas has finally jumped on board.

Seasons Greetings From Vilcabamba Ecuador

Team T has crossed the border. We are kicking back in Vilcambamba Ecuador for a month. This is a picture of the kids in front of our rustic little rented home. The yard is sure the perfect playground for the imagination. They sure enjoy making rivers and houses in the yard. We have banana trees, coffee bushes, limes, avocados, mandarins, and some unique Ecuadorian fruits all growing in our yard. We kicked out the cucarachas and settled in. All of our holiday decorations are made out of paper but enjoyed just the same. We are just glad to be able to decorate some place. Its amazing how much fun you can have with paper, markers, scissors and glue.

Grandpa Turcotte lives up the street. We are visitng a lot with him and meeting some of his friends here. Many of his friends are into the Raw food diets. Justin is hoping to learn more about it.

Feliz Navidad

Safety in Peru ????

Just an example of one of the many unidentifiable holes in the pavement that one may walk into if they are not paying attention.

Safety standards are very different in Peru. There are no airbags in cars. Seat belts are rare except in the front seat. What are carseats??

Pisco, Peru. three years after the earthquake and there are still structurally unsound buildings all over the place. Notice...no barriers (cones, fencing, nothing) to the passerby.

Loose wires hanging in streets are quite common around here! What do you think of that?

PERUVIAN FOOD

So everyone seems to be wondering what we are eating these days.
Our favorite Peruvian delicacy was ceviche, hands down.

Here is a photo of a typical ceviche dish.

Raw fish marinated in a lime sauce served with choclo (large kernal corn) sweet potato or yucca, and lots of red onion.


We ate lots of ceviche at the beach. In Mollendo (southern Peru), ladies brought ceviche right to us under our umbrella. Delicious!

Ceviche is often the first course selection on the menu of the day at the beach. We ordered the menu of the day for lunch and dinner. It usually came with soup/ceviche for the first course and a choice of chicken, fish, beef with french fries, rice, and a salad for the second course.

Typical grilled fish menu.. notice the Inca Kola in the background

The Best Peruvian Playground
.... was found in Cusco!The 3 story green dragon slide was the best!!! The snake slides were fast too!

Getting Caught Up On Old Posts We Missed

....Back in November, after we left Cusco, we traveled 8 hours by bus to Puno. This was our Peruvian stop for Lake Titicaca. We spent a couple of days visiting some islands. We stayed in a homestay on one of the islands. Anika is showing our little adobe hut we spent two nights in. We also visited the touristy Uros islands for a few minutes. These are floating islands created with tortora reeds. Everything is made out of these reeds. It´s like a reed disneyland!

Still at the Beach??? Yep!

I was laying awake thinking about the reality of life back in Vermont this time of year. Yes the holiday magic would be in the air. After all Vermont at Christmas is the picturesque New England Calendar photo...Norman Rockwell picture. However, as a living working Vermont teacher I would be so swamped with assessments and report cards I could hardly enjoy the festive holiday spirit.

But ahhhh... today I´m just leisurely enjoying the pacific coast. Not alot of stress here. The sunsets are wonderful. I posted a picture of the fishing boats created from tortoa reeds that Huanchaco is famous for. We are clocking in some good beach time. The kids like the old fashioned playground with see saws! No accidents today and everyone still has all their teeth! I need to remind myself to just do a special entry on safety in general....

Tomorrow we may leave Huanchaco maybe not. We´ll see how we feel. Everyone is getting excited to go to Ecuador. So we will probably start moving in that direction.

Beach Bumming in

Huanchaco, Peru

This week we are hanging out on the beach. The ceviche is fabulous, the cart food delicious, and the sunsets are majestic. The kids are loving the hammocks. They are hours of entertainment...boats that go all over the world without parents.

Happy Holidays!

TRAVEL DAYS!!!

Team T packs on lots of bus mileage. Just 2 days ago we took a four hour bus to Lima and hung out in Lima for 6 hours. We found a great park with little T´s favorite activity...Feeding the birds! Our Lima stop involved menu and of course helado (ice cream). At 9pm we boarded an overnight bus for Trujillo. We got in about 7:30am. The kids well rested...parents not. It was quite a hair raising ride!!!

Isla Ballestas

We took a speed boat to these islands off the coast of Pisco. They are colonized by birds and sealife only. The kids got some great close ups of penguins, cormorants, pelicans, and sealions. Nootch thought it was the best part of the trip so far.

Justin Flies Over the Nasca Lines

After a grueling bus journey we arrived in Nasca late at night. Imagine no air circulation, windy roads and a kid with a bout of motion sickness early on in the journey. So feeling pretty gross, we welcomed the idea of staying put for a few days. While we were in Nasca we made Christmas decorations (Bendaroos and paper doll cutting were big hits). Meanwhile Justin took to the skys. He fullfilled his dream of seeing the Nasca lines from the air. This line is the hummingbird. It is one of several images made in the desert, viewed only from the air. Just who made these lines and why? We are left to ponder.

Huacachina, Peru
Sandboarding and rolling in the dunes !

Nic in the Dunes For sunrise this morning

Chillin in Cusco

After our week trip through the Sacred Valley we were ready for some rest and relaxation.

We kicked back at our friend Kris´s apartment while he was off with Doug and Kevin trekking around the Andes. We had our first Peruvian Ceviche...yum! It was time to stop and buy some art supplies. The kids made masks out of old cereal boxes. These particular masks were of giraffes. We got to know the neighborhood quite well. The best find was this awesome playground just a few blocks away. It had a 3 story dragon slide and 2 two story snake slides! It also had a closed in trampoline that was a big hit. We frequented this park several times.

This was a great week to watch some bad TV, do our laundry in a real washing machine, and get some reading in. Amy Porier asked me what we might do in Peru before I left. I told her I imagine we´ll get up, drink some coffee, and just enjoy the days with our kids. That is exactly what we did that week.

We ended our stay in Cusco with quite a Ceviche lunch with Kris, Doug, and Kevin. Justin pulled an all nighter and ran around the city with the boys that night and we were off on an 8 hour bus trip to Puno (Peruvian port on Lake Titicaca).

Machu Picchu!

Team T does not always opt for the easiest most direct route to anything! With that being said, we set off to the famous Machu Picchu in a let´s say round about way. We decided to take the train one way... that would be at the end. We started off in a little town called Urbamba. After waiting a couple of hours we got on the wrong bus. The bus pulled over for us let us out and we hiked back to the bus station. An hour later the ¨right¨ bus came and we found two seats. The kids sat on our laps. Our bus climbed high up the Andes range. An hour of steep switchbacks straight up to the glaciers. Then we turned straight back down the backside and switchbacked right into the jungle. It was a total of about 5 hours on the bus. The kids did great. The parents had a spectacular scenery for the whole 5 hours.

After getting off the bus in Santa Maria, we took a taxi along these cliffs on some ramshackle thing they call a road. This was a true roller coaster ride.... better than anything at Six flags. Anika said that it was like the real Matterhorn ride! We safely made it to Santa Teresa our place of departure to Machu Picchu. We over nighted here and fueled up for our big hike.

The next day we hired a taxi along with our Ecuador Amigos for again another hairy riaising ride to a hydro electric damn. Then we got out and hiked to Aguas Caliente (the Machu Picchu Tourist ghetto). This was about a 4 hour walk for Team T along the river and railroad track around the Machu Picchu mountains. We saw all kinds of interesting birds and bugs. Nicholas walked all of about 10 minutes. Thank goodness for the Ergo carrier or we would have never made it.

We stayed over night in the tourist ghetto and the next day we joined the caravans of tourists up to the sight. It was amazing! We had breakfast up there and took it all in. The best part was running into our friends Doug and Kevin from home. We´ll write more about it soon!

Sacred Valley- Inca Citadel Pisac

Today we left Cuzco for the Sacred Valley. Wow! How beautiful the mountains are here. We were quite taken back at the spectacular scenery. It ranks right up there with the Himilayas. Our first stop was an llama farm with several different types of llamas, alpacas. We all got to feed them some grasses. Then we learned how they dye the wool with natural dyes and what to look for in the authentic colors and weaving. After checking into a guesthouse in Pisac and some lunch with Kris and his friend, we got in a taxi and drove way up to the tops of the mountains. We were dropped off at an Inca Citadel. This was a definite N. in the Ergo carrier hike. We were not totally prepared mentally for these cliff ruins. But we endured. Our little Nootch T is an awesome hiker. She´s quite a sure footed little thing! Again, the scenery was fantastic, the views amazing, the altitude crazy. We are glad to eat some tastey empanadas and relax tonight. Tomorrow we will move on further through the valley.

Days In Cuzco

We are quite behind on filling in the details of our trip so far. We haven´t been as successful at loading photos and posting as easily as we did in the states. It is also very difficult to use the internet with impatient children in tow. But we have had a lovely time in Cuzco. We spent about a week at our friend Kris´s apartment. It had great views of the city from his roof top. We just scratched the surface of exploring the center of town. Feeding the birds was the top activity for the kids. That went right along with eating ice cream. Kris took us to ride the neighborhood go carts. That was one of N. most favorite activities. Then we walked up several flights of stairs to the terraced fields and overlooked the whole city. That was our first glimpse. There were many more spectacular views in the following days.

We purchased our tourist tickets for the Sacred Valley and started exploring the Inca ruins. The little T´s have done so well hiking around. We are all so grateful for the Ergo Carrier. It´s been one of those best packed items yet. N. likes to be carried around and we have discovered for safety this is a good thing. We will be exploring the Sacred Valley throughout the next week and plan to be at Machu Picchu by the weekend.

The little T´s get quite a bit of attention. They are getting used to it. Their blue eyes and N´s chubby thighs are often commented on. One thing Team T noticed right away is that this is the land of old school punch bugs (VW cars) We now play escarabajo instead of punch bug. We are always on the look out.

LANDED IN LIMA
Well, Team T has arrived in Peru! We had a stop over in Florida for a night and flew into Lima on Saturday. I am trying out the internet cafe and I have 2 active kids crawling all over me right now. This will have to be a quick post. We spent a day in Lima and then we flew to the beautiful city of Cuzco (11,000ft) on Monday. The last two days we have spent acclimating and resting from all the travel. This is the first day we have ventured out into the city.

We will fill in the details soon.

Packing For An Indefinite Amount of Time?

A family of four.....
Back packs
Ergo Carrier
Water Filter
Swim suits
Cameras
Shorts
T Shirts
Fast drying pants
Rain Gear
Portable Pharmacy
Tevas and crocs
Reading Material (lots of it)
Spanish dictionary
Team (Equipo) T attire

PASSPORTS LOCATED
AND UP TO DATE

This is it... just a few more days until departure.
Paperwork is in place