Greg's Ecuadorian Adventure

Summer vacation had just started ( July 4th for me ) and it is just about over. Since you are reading the blog of a teacher, I get the duly right to complain about how short my vacations are. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. I also love being able to think and talk about anything other than work, seeing as I put in HOURS of work after work hours during the school year. You can call me one of the hardest workers you know. At least just do it for me 😜 Puerto Lopez In all honesty, as written before, my vacation did not feel much like a vacation. As one of my beloved colleagues ( who just happens to be in Venezuela now ) likes to spend at least some of her vacation— I just need time being alone. Teaching is my contribution to parenthood. I do not want children of my own, and all my students will tell you I say this often enough. Why? Children require so much attention and time and love... I would just rather spend those on myself. Call me selfish, but I feel it makes m...

Biking through the Andes Mountains, from Quito to Mindo I had a little less than a week between MKE having visitors, which is when I went to the Quito Zoo and Botanical Garden. My friends Anne and Ande planned a few months in advance to come visit me while in Ecuador and I tried my best to prepare them for what they would experience here... which involved more of what they would need. For example, in the USofA you can easily pay for something with a $20 bill or credit card. In Ecuador, especially the places we would be going, that wouldn't be so simple. So I made sure to let them know to bring plenty of small bills. I told them what kinds of clothes to bring based on the three different environments we would be visiting ( Sierras, Cloud Forest, and Coast ). I guess I didn't quite prepare them for everything, like the quantity of street dogs that we would find. Crossing the street when you have any opportunity. Coping with the winding roads and stop-go jerking driving. For...

Visiting the location of a scuffle, that led to Screech getting arrested I've been back in for a couple of weeks, after my visit back to the USofA... I would hardly call my time there a vacation because, although it was great to spend time with my family and friends, I found it the-opposite-of-relaxing. The first and most superficial reason why it was stressful: having a car. I greatly appreciate life without a car. My life in Quito offers reliable, affordable and frequent public transportation. The week after I got back from 'Merica, for example, I took two buses out to the Quito Zoo and two buses back-- costing me a total of $1.60 and less than five minutes of waiting for transportation. And the taxis are incredibly affordable too, if I am feeling fancy. Either way, I'm able to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Sooooo I know that at least my first two years I kept saying "I'm going to get a car," but that option is out of the window as long as I ca...

Where has the time gone? I have officially finished my third year of teaching and living in Ecuador. It feels less like I am "somewhere else" and more like I am home, though. That isn't to say that my life has been a bed of roses. I know my "online presence" makes it seem like I am globetrotting but really I am focusing on the immediate things around me and living as normally as I can. In fact, this has been the single most difficult year of my life, so far. Sure, I've been busy working. I began a Master's program last Autumn. I also got accepted to be an IB evaluator, which has helped me understand the program I teach better. And aside from my "normal" responsibilities, I performed a blitzkrieg to renew my Wisconsin teaching license. Less superficially, I've also had to deal with a lot of personal issues or matters. Last Summer, during that incredibly long and challenging solo-trip, I had to confront a lot of things from my past and fi...

The entrance to reach the refuge. At the end of each quimester (made up word... "Semester"), we take a well-earned break. The last two years, my parents and their spouses came to visit, giving me an opportunity to revisit places in or around Quito, Otavalo and Mindo. In the first year, we had two consecutive weeks so I ended up going to Panamá with Kara and her friend, Boxer. This was my first quimester break without visitors. ( Mind you, my only visitors so far were my parents and their spouses. Do I need to guilt trip some of you to visit me? Ecuador ama la vida! ) This break, I had to dig a little bit for motivation. It is so easy for me to tell myself I am going to stay home during breaks, especially when I get the apartment all to myself. This doesn't make for good stories. If I were to write about these times, the entries would read something like this:  I woke up at the same time I do for work, but without an alarm. After trying to fall back asleep for an h...

Machu Picchu... Tourist Trap Hell of my Life This was, by far, my least favorite part of my entire trip. Again, I felt obliged to do this since I was going to be in Perú and was passing it on the way to Copacabana, Bolivia. This was the single-most arduous day of my travels. After getting a few short hours of sleep, I woke and gathered my prepacked gear and waited for an eternity for my morning pickup. After calling my tour agent a couple of times, because his instructions stated I would be picked up at 2:30 A.M. whereas I was picked up after 3 A.M., I was relieved that I hadn't been scammed out of a couple hundred dollars for something of which I was less than enthused already. The van delivered us to the train station, which is the only form of transportation aside from walking to reach Aguas Calientes. And the only way to visit Machu Picchu is to end up in Aguas Calientes. For those of you planning this adventure, do your research ahead of time. It is possible to do a ful...

By now, if you have read my blog at any point and for any duration, you know I always encounter some type of drama. Travel-related drama. Not necessarily brought on by myself but not prevented by myself either. I don't necessarily mind it, because it creates experiences that end up becoming the more memorable moments of my trips. Heck, they even get majority of the attention of my posts sometimes. This trip was no exception and I foresaw it from the start. Leaving El Salvador for Honduras When I arrived in Roatán at the start of my trip, I had sufficient time to make it to the  Útila Dream ferry office to purchase my ticket. When I arrived, I purchased a round-trip. I was handed the two tickets ( thankfully never lost ) and looked at the return time. "The return time is 10:10?" "Yes," replied the Ticketmaster. "I have a flight at 12:10 that day. I don't think that will be enough time." "You should be fine," with another positivel...

Growing up in Wisconsin and the Midwest has its perks. Access to the world's best cheeses, beer, and sausages. The World's Largest Music Festival , America's largest waterpark  and the world's greatest concentration of them . The proximity to the Great Lakes. The changing of the leaves in Autumn, which also lends itself to restocking on delectable venison. Being a short drive from urban centers like Chicago, and even closer to natural wonders, like Kettle Moraine forest for hiking through a stunning evidence of the last Ice Age. The pace of life is slow and the people are friendly ( even if it is a display of passive-aggressiveness ). The sendero to Pumpkin Hill It has its drawbacks, too. The pace of life is slow, for someone with a thirst for knowledge and experience. It's regularly viewed as a flyover zone and doesn't gain much national or international recognition; I almost always have to reference Chicago or Canada while describing its relative p...