Jen and Rebecca Get Really High

R: Jen and I had a fun-filled, exhausting day in Quito. Quito is known for its high elevation in the Andes Mountains (¨high,¨ get it?) as well as all its churches and we made sure we experienced both today. As our hotel is in Old Town, we decided to focus our tourism attention on Old Town today and were able to see about three sites of interest to us within three blocks of the hotel. We started out at la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus. (I love that we have an ñ key!) This church has an ornate gold interior that, as one guide book put it, could raise Liberace from the grave. It was very pretty and very shiny.

J: Sadly, none of the churches would allow us to take photos inside the sanctuaries, so we can´t show you any of the golden walls or flashing Christmas lights on the altar. You´ll just have to trust us. The church had a small museum attached displaying a variety of scientific instruments that you all know we had to tour. And then I discovered something amazing- all of the signs in the museums were in Spanish which severely limited Rebecca´s ability to read them. She could only look at the objects and pictures (normally she reads every word printed - which takes considerably longer). We made it thru in record time! After the museum, we proceeded on the
Monastery of San Francisco. It also had an adjoining musuem of religious artifacts and artwork. Once again, we set a new museum speed record. However, we both got distracted by a collection of nativity scenes on display for the Christmas season. Granted, part of the distraction may have been due to the many settings on our cameras and our experimenting with our photography skills.

R: The Franciscan Museum had a nice courtyard (again good for photography) and I also made a new monk friend. See below:




R (cont.): Next, a quick stop at the Casa de Sucre before lunch. This is the home of one of the military leaders who helped Ecuador gain its independence. Too bad we couldn´t read all the placards to learn exactly what this dude did. Onwards to lunch. We picked out a lovely restaurant from the guidebook located near the Monastery, but it didn´t seem to exist anymore. We headed to the other guidebook-recommended restaurant instead, only later in the afternoon I realized that we´d eaten at an entirely different restaurant. It´s okay. The food at this one was good too, though we exposed ourselves as complete tourist morons by not ordering at the counter as we should have, causing much confusion for the poor waiter later. It turns out we don´t really understand much Spanish. Next we headed to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, or as Jen started to call it, the ¨scary church.¨ I told her all about how you can climb to the top of the clock towers, a jounrey which also included walking across a precarious wooden plank path. Since Jen has a bit of a fear of heights, she was a little apprehensive about this. I, however, insisted we go! Here´s Jen crossing the plank path which turned out to be the least scary part given all the skinny metal steep stairs that came next!

J: I was not nearly as excited to climb to the top of the belfry as Rebecca, but I made it most of the way. The photo below is where I chickened out and sent Rebecca on ahead:

J (cont´d): But, I´m glad I made it as high (hee hee...get it...high) as I did because the views were awesome. We could see almost all of Quito from the top, plus, if it hadn´t been cloudy and we knew exactly which direction to look, I´m guessing we could have seen Cotopaxi as well. The Basilica is different from most other churches (at least on the outside) because instead of gargoyles, it had animals carved into its walls (see the bird below):

R: The weather had been sunny and hotter than expected up til we got to the Basilica--yes I know we´re at the equator, but we´re also high in the mountains! And weather.com had me believing it would be 60 and rainy. But in the afternoon, the clouds rolled in and in a very beautiful way. But yet it never rained. Yay! After climbing back down all the Basilica steps, we took an over-priced taxi ride to the Parque Itchimbia for more over-the-city views. (Guide book said the ride shouldn´t be more than $2 and we were charged $7. But when Jen handed him a $20, he only gave us $10 back. Ack! Stupid language barrier again!) After wandering in the park, we headed to a recommended restaurant across the street (Cafe Mosaico)where we got to see the sunset behind the clouds.

R (cont´d): We had a more reasonably-priced taxi ride back to our hotel where we got our bags organized for leaving again tomorrow - we have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am, ugh! And we´re exhausted. But to add to the day´s excitement, Jen got the memory card of my brand new camera stuck in her computer. Good thing I take crafting supplies with me everywhere I go. We managed to get two sewing needles in the drive the pry the thing out. And all the pictures were intact! I think we were both too tired to realize the folly of putting the small memory card in. Oh well. It all ended well. And speaking of endings, we need to get to bed. After our long travel day yesterday, the 6:00 am unintentional wakeup call this morning and another early day tomorrow, we are exhausted! Next stop, Galapagos Islands!

Jen and Rebecca Cross the Equator

We made it to Quito, Ecuador last night, and finally arrived at our hotel around 1:00 AM after our flight from Atlanta left about an hour late. But we breezed through customs. We´re staying at a lovely hotel called Hotel de San Francisco in Old Town. We like that our room has a window into the hallway. We don´t like that some strange alarm went off at about 6:00 AM this morning. It may have been the fire alarm, but as we never saw any fire or smelled any smoke, I think it was just a false alarm. Or maybe it´s the Ecuadorian wake-up call?

Jen at our room´s hallway window.

We´ve just finished breakfast--eggs (Rebecca´s scrambled, Jen´s fried), rolls with butter and jam, watermelon juice and hot chocolate. This should be enough to fuel us as we head out to explore Quito! And despite weather.com´s predictions that we´d been checking for weeks before we left, it is NOT raining, and is, instead, shining bright equator sun down on us. (Can´t forget to bring our hats!)

Jen at breakfast

Tomorrow we head out early for our flight to the Galapagos. YAY! Can´t wait!

Jen and Rebecca Head for the Equator

R: Jen and I had intended to blog a reflection on our RAGBRAI experience, but as our many loyal readers may have noticed, it took me until last week to actually update the the blog with our last day of the ride, let alone actually think deep thoughts about it. So we'll just chalk that one up to, "Oh well!"

And now Jen and I are heading out on our next adventure--the Galapagos islands! After months and months of hemming and hawing about the expense, looking at all of the cruise options, we made the decision to go! I'm guessing our internet connection will be fair to non-existent while actually on the islands (though I could be surprised) but we're planning to update the blog as soon as we can, when we're back in mainland Ecuador, or, like RAGBRAI, perhaps in the weeks (months?) following the trip.

Mini-Darwin prepares to make a return trip to the part of the world he made famous:

Jen and Rebecca Finish! AKA Day 7 of RAGBRAI XXXVII

R: After our near-miss storm the previous night, and resulting later bedtime, we were still able to pack up the wet tent (for the last time!) and get on the road relatively on time. As they always make the last day a short one to get people done and on their way home, we weren’t too concerned with the 43-mile day ahead of us. But as a bonus, we had a tail wind!

J: Tailwinds are a beautiful thing. We made excellent time on our way to New London - the first stop of the day. The first two food vendors had long lines, so we rode in to the town square hoping for a better option. And we found one. One of the local restaurants (perhaps the only restaurant) was serving skillet breakfasts – scrambled eggs, sausage, cheese biscuits and juice or coffee for $5. I think the youngest waitress was 75. But the food was yummy and more than I could eat in one sitting. The ride was pretty flat today, so we didn’t need to stop and rest much, but we were making good time and so when we saw the signs for Peanut Butter Jam and Turkey Tom’s, we couldn’t resist stopping. There’s nothing quite like a glass of chocolate milk and pb&j after a day on the bike. I’m not exceptionally adventurous when it comes to my sandwiches, so I went with a plain peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I had the option to add marshmallow cream, potato chips, graham crackers, sprinkles, and a bunch of other odd things I never would have imagined putting on a sandwich before.

R: On a last minute impulse, I added the graham crackers, and it added a pleasant crunch. I might even do it again sometime! I was annoyed, however, that no one was actually jamming at the PB Jam. They have a tent set up with instruments for people to pick up and jam while they wait or while they rest before getting back on the bike. (Get it? “Jam” as in the spread to put on your sandwich with peanut butter and “jam” as in improvising on instruments? How clever! Plus they drive a hippie van. What’s not to like about this picture?) As we arrived, one woman was trying to tune a violin, but she was failing miserably using the metronome’s electronic A. So I hummed an approximation of an A (I’ve certainly heard enough of them in my life) and she STILL couldn’t get it tuned to an A (or to my approximation of an A). Then she apparently gave up and never even tried to play anything. Sheesh. Also while sitting in the shade, an ambulance went by with lights flashing. This had happened several times throughout the week (and, in fact, the day before we saw an accident happen right in front of us, stopped to help, and Aaron was the one to call the ambulance. Fortunately that guy seemed to be okay, just shaken and dehydrated.) But this ambulance may have held what turned out to be the only fatality of this year’s RAGBRAI. By this point, we had already gone up the only hills for the day (outside of downtown Burlington), and one of the down-hills was both steep and had a sharp turn at the bottom. We speculated that this might have caused at least one accident, unfortunately.

But on to happier things, like finishing! The rest of the ride to Burlington was so smooth, that we were at the end by 10:30 am. We had seen a bunch of signs throughout the day challenging us to “Rattle the Snake” in Burlington. I had no idea what this meant, despite the fact that my second RAGBRAI (XVIII) had also gone through Burlington. In my memory’s defense, this was 19 years ago. (Oh my God, that was 19 years ago! And upon reflection, I think we went DOWN the alley that year.) We eventually reached a corner near the river where there were a lot of people yelling at us. (Okay, one might call it “cheering.”) I had no idea what was going on, and sadly didn’t have time to realize that I had the CHOICE whether to ride my bike up the stupid, winding, steep cobbled “Snake Alley” or to bypass the thing entirely. So I went straight and up into the alley instead of turning like normal, rational people. Fortunately I didn’t fall over backwards. I was so winded, I had to take a break in the middle and let my heartbeat catch up. But I persevered and made it to the top without walking. And as a reward, I got a beer can cozy that says I rattled the snake in Burlington. So worth the effort for that can cozy...

J: I was following Rebecca into Burlington, heard a woman yell “You might want to rest a minute before you ride up” and another person say “You don’t have to do it,” so I turned right and headed downhill to the river. I didn’t earn a can cozy, but I’m okay with that. I spotted Aaron as I was headed down the hill and followed him into a big parking lot to wait for Rebecca. Once she was done rattling the snake, we took our places in line to dip our front tires in the Mississippi River (one last RAGBRAI tradition).


J (continued): We said goodbye to Aaron and headed off to find our own charter service to prepare for the trip back to Grinnell. We handed our bikes over to the guys from Bikes to You to be put on the truck, found our clothes bags and then headed off to find our final $5 shower of the week. Once we were cleaned up, it was time for our last guilt-free meal of the trip (we’ll talk about my snacks on the drive home later….). I think this time it was beer and brats. Finally, we boarded the bus for the trip back to Grinnell and I’m pretty sure Rebecca had Hawgs flashbacks since it took awhile for the driver to get the bus started. I have no idea if anything interesting happened on the drive because I slept the majority of the way back to Grinnell. Once my bike and bags were packed back into my car, I said goodbye to Rebecca, Matt and all of my other new friends and started my long drive back to Denver.

R: Jen forgot to mention that after a week of having to use the same towel that never quite got dry (by which I mean we each had our own separate towels that we each used for ourselves the entire week) plus mine had sat out in the rain the previous night, we were each going to splurge the extra dollar for a clean, dry towel from the shower guys. Only to learn that they were out of towels! Ugh. That was probably the point when I really was ready to be at home again! As we’d made such good time we had to wait several hours before the buses departed, but I concur with Jen that I don’t remember anything of the drive other than the candy bar I bought at the rest stop.

After saying good-bye to Jen (sad!) I had an only slightly more interesting evening than Jen’s spent in her car. Matt and I had decided to stay one last night in Grinnell as neither of us felt up to the task of a 5-hour drive. Grinnell sponsored a Pag’s pizza-feed for the alums still hanging around, after which we walked to the Dari Barn, in large part to keep ourselves from going to bed at 8:00. We managed to chat with our host for awhile before turning in (and, technically, Matt went out for drinks with a new lady friend he met on the team when I turned in).

Given how easy the ride was that day, it kinda made you ready to sign up for RAGBRAI XXXVIII already. But only kinda.