The Oregon Trail

We're home sweet home! Enjoying all that our homeland has to offer: drinkable tap water, toilets that flush paper, food that you can eat without second-guessing; not to mention family and friends! We will have our cell phone on Saturday, the 28th, (same number) so feel free to call us and we'll hang out!!

Thank you for all the love and support throughout our traveling!

Two of us Sunday driving, not arriving, On Our Way Back Home

We are coming home! We just bought our tickets! We will be arriving in San Francisco on the 21st of February! That's only 9 days from now! We will visit some friends in California and be making our way north shortly after that! So unreal! The Beatles song is running through my mind... We're on our way home! On our way home! We're going home! ... You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out of them.....

Can't wait to see everyone!

Today we went on a hike to the top of a hill in panama city called Cerro Ancon and it was really hard and long, but it paid off because we saw an armadillo and four tiny and cute monkeys and some weird jungle animal that we couldn't recognize. There were amazing views, but we didn't have a camera. :( We've decided not to buy a camera because the next camera we buy will probably be the 'baby camera' so we are going to want it to be really really good, with video and all that.
The other day we saw a crocodile in a river! Also, the other day, I saw a sea snake while we were snorkeling and almost jumped out of my skin.
The hostel people here offered us a free room if we would promise to conceive our first child in the hostel and if it was a girl, name her Luna. The hostel is called Luna's Castle. We did not agree. But we did chuckle. I miss you guys. I miss family a lot. And friends. A lot a lot. A lot of travelers aren't homesick at all and it makes me think that they must not have the amazing and supportive family network that we have. hmm....
I want to take a roadtrip across the US this fall, or next spring. Being away has made me realize how little I know about my own country. I know almost nothing! Southeast Iowa and Oregon. A little Washington, a little California. That's IT. I want to see the south, DC, Arizona, the grand canyon, Maine, Toronto, Canada...that's not in the US, but I still want to see it.
The hostel is playing Creedence right now.

Panama

We flew from Cartegena to Panama yesterday. It was an hour long flight. Now we're going to hang out in Panama for a while, eventually we will go to the San Blas Islands for some more snorkeling and relaxing. After that, who knows!

Story:
We went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Cartegena. It was a little weird, but cool to feel like we were sitting in a little slice of the US. Most of everything was in English, except the waiters. There was a woman with a group from a cruise ship in there. She was trying to order some nachos, or something like that. She was trying to convey to the waiter the level of spiciness that she wanted for her food. She was doing the whole thing where she was speaking English to the waiter, only louder and slower, as if that was going to help him understand. She would say something, and then he would repeat what he thought she said, only in Spanish. She wouldn't understand, so she would just repeat what she had said before. This would make the waiter think he had gotten it wrong. She was basically yelling by the end of the whole thing... For some reason, I just watched instead of going to help.
When the waiter left she turned to her other cruise friends and said something like "Well, who knows how spicy it will be!!? It might be really spicy, or maybe not at all! Who knows! ... But that's why we're out here! For the adventure!" A lot of chuckling and adult humor followed.

I felt like yelling, "You are at a Hard Rock Cafe! That is NOT an adventure!!! You are on a cruise ship!!" Luckily, my filter happened to be on at that moment and my brain told me that what was on my mind did not happen to be the best thing to say at the moment. I held back. But I kept thinking about it. For a few days.
I realized how horrible I was for wanting to say that. Obviously, the HRC in Cartegena IS an adventure for her. Why can't I just back off and let her have her adventure? Why do I need to cut her down for it? I was taught a wise lesson.

Story #2:
My bag was being searched at the Colombian airport by a member of the Colombian military. He was making small talk as he went through all my stuff, including sniffing my shampoo. He asked me if I was traveling alone, and I told him I was traveling with my husband. Then he asked me if my husband spoke Spanish. I told him, only a little Spanish. Then we talked for a little while more about where we had traveled, and then he asked me if he could have my email address! I was so flattered. I told him I didn't have one. He didn't seem to believe it, but I didn't want to outright turn him down because he could delay our plane! I was really flattered and told Jason as soon as we were out of earshot. He laughed...Ahh.. Goodbye Colombia

Story #3:
Panama rocks. We're really stoked to be here.

Cartegena

Here we are in lovely Cartegena! We spent six days and five nights hanging out on the beach, eating fresh-from-the-ocean fish and snorkeling whenever we felt like it.
The first day we were there, we were on a completely deserted beach. The local who dropped us off assured us that everything would be great here, a completely safe beach. We had arranged with some local fisherman to bring us our food everyday, and whatever else we would need. We started to get really excited. We hid our bags behind some rocks so that no passing boats would see them, and went for a swim and a snorkel. Ten minutes later we came back and our camera was gone. BIG BUMMER. Almost 6 months of photos gone, besides the ones we have uploaded here and on facebook. At first I was really upset. I was sitting on the beach throwing rocks and being angry. It was obviously the fisherman, they were the only ones who knew we were there, and no boats had come or gone. I was really upset.
Then another dive boat came and we told them about what happened. The leader´s name was Nene. He said that this beach we were at was not the safest. We should come with him to the next bay over. There is a place we can set up our tent under nice thatch huts and the people who live there are really nice. They weren´t home at the time, but we took his word for it. We weren´t feeling too comfortable at the other beach after that had happened.
The people´s place we stayed at was amazing! Benches overlooking the water, beautiful flowers, two kittens, four puppies, and three dogs (Jason´s heaven). Four Colombians were living there taking care of the place for some Doctor who lives in another town. Their names were Jymie (Hi-may), Pipi, José, and Rubiella. They were so nice! After we cancelled our food from the fisherman, Rubiella cooked for us. We went fishing with the boys. I caught a four foot eel straight from the ocean! They use nothing but a piece of fishing line with a rock tied on and with a hook attached with some fish meat on it! You throw the line out and just hold it and wait for a bite! I couldn´t believe it worked! But because we didn´t have a net, my huge eel got away. They were all very impressed with me. "Ella cojé una grandisima morena!"
Rubiella was an amazing old lady who talked to me about her life in Colombia. It made me feel very pathetic to be sad about my stolen camera. After all, she reminded me, they didn´t take passports, or money or anything else, so we were very fortunate. And we are safe, which is the most important part. Jymie went over to the fisherman´s camp and yelled at them for a while, but they didn´t give it back, and then he bought a fish from them. Colombia.

Now we´re in Cartegena. Don´t really know what we´re doing. Going to try and find some more good snorkeling. We´ll keep you posted. But unfortunately there won´t be any more pictures! Aah!

Hey Everybody!

Just wanted to give an update. We´re having a blast on the Carribbean coast of Colombia. Tomorrow we´re going on a snorkeling trip all around some cool areas. Then we will choose a cool spot on one of the deserted beaches and set up our tent and campsite. We will be in the Tayrona National Park. We plan on staying around a week. We hope to work out a deal with one of the fisherman where he brings us food and water everyday. It´s totally safe, just fisherman and us and the beautiful sea. So we´ll be out of contact for a few days!

We´ll take photos!

To Colombia!

This is Jason with Jolly, the Cotopaxi sheep. She never seemed very jolly. Here is me going on the zipline tour! I conquered my fear of heights and was soaring 250 yards above the ground in a river valley! It was amazing! I had to go with these two other ladies because they needed a Spanish translator to do the trip. I was really proud that my Spanish was good enough to be a translator! It was kind of intense, though, translating life or death information! I don't know why that text is blue.
This is Martin, 2 1/2 years old, with Mash, 5 months old, the weiner dog puppy.
Some flowers I saw.
This is Martin, me, Thomas, and Jason on our last day at Cotopaxi.


We are leaving Quito today and heading North. We will most likely be in Colombia tomorrow or the next day. Now, don't everyone worry- we're going to be fine. We've met heaps of travelers who have come from Colombia without any problems. Actually, of all the people we know who have gotten robbed or something like that (which is about 20 people) 99% of them were robbed in Quito. Quito is pretty dangerous, actually, and we've survived that, so we're feeling pretty good. We're heading to Bogota where we're going to try and meet up with the wife of one of my dad's childhood friends. Then we want to head to the Carribean coast to do some snorkeling and hit the beaches! We're really excited!

More Pictures

These photos are of the bull lassoo-ing competition we went to on New Years Day in the nearby village of Loreto. It was amazing. An Ecuadorian New years tradition is to burn the Año Viejo, the Old Year. They take old clothes, and stuff them with sawdust and then burn the doll at midnight. Everyone is encouraged to put something in the guy that represents something they want to burn away from the old year. One guy put his business card in to represent how he wants to quit his job when he returns from traveling. I wrote down some things that I have learned this past year that I am ready to let go of. Here he is burning.

We love you all! Hope you all had a safe and happy New Year! Wow! 2009!

Happy New Year, Feliz Año!

Me at a cool rock near the top of Rumiñahui.

Our view from the hostal. Seriously.

The beeks´with the little Christmas tree I made out of a branch.

Me and Carlos, our guide, nearly at 4900 meters on Cotopaxi.

Cotopaxi in all it´s wonder and glory. I wake up to this every morning. No joke.

Wow! So much to say! In the last week or so, we´ve celebrated Christmas and New Years! Amazing! It was really hard being away for Christmas, but we got to talk to our family, so that was nice.

On the way down from hiking up Rumiñahui, a local mountain, I almost got attacked by some fighting bulls because I was wearing a yellow emergency rain poncho. We didn´t realize that they were following after us because of the poncho at first. When we finally realized, they were like 2 feet away from us and every once in a while were starting to charge a little. I had to take off the poncho and throw it at them so that they would leave us alone. They started eating it! It was terrifying, but everyone was safe.