Seth (48), Eve (47), Rhys
(17) – Graduation and 18th birthday trip
A 7 am flight meant we had
to head for the airport at around 4 am. We had decided a long while
ago that we would be opting for first class on this trip so all 3
legs of our trip out to Ecuador were on 1st or business class. This
made the long trip much much better.
The flights were pretty
unremarkable from OKC to Charlotte – a surprisingly busy airport
where we only had less than an hour before we boarded the flight to
Miami. In Miami, we were able to locate the AA lounge where we had
some drinks and snacks (delicious enchilada soup) before heading to
board our last flight to Quito.
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| In the Charlotte airport - on our way! |
We arrived into Quito,
zipped through customs and immigration without any issues and were
met by a representative from ABD but he didn't seem to speak any
English. Our Spanish is passable in simple situations so this wasn't
an issue. We were the only ones from our flight in the car and it
took us well over half an hour to get to the JW Marriott. He offered
us each a bottle of water which was just perfect. Apparently we flew
into their new airport which is quite a distance from Quito. We
looked it up (using another Xcom wifi unit that I had rented for
South America) and found out that Quito had a population of around
2.6 million people, was about 150 square miles, at an elevation of
9400 ft. We found out later that Ecuador is the most densely
populated country in South America.
When we arrived at
the hotel, we were immediately met by our Adventure Guides, Lauren
from North Carolina and Robby from Ecuador. They showed us in and
took us to their welcome desk where we were offered a warm towel to
wipe off with and some fruity tea. It felt SO good to finally be at
our destination and what I really appreciated was that we weren't
rushed at all. We relaxed for a little bit while Lauren and Robby
just conversed with us about where we were from, how the trip was,
and about our past Adventures with Disney. They gave us a run down
of the schedule – we were free for the rest of the evening and
would be meeting for breakfast in the morning after putting our
suitcases outside our doors by 7:15 am and we received our first ABD pin.
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| First ABD pin - welcome to Ecuador! |
We were taken up to our
rooms – Rhys' was right next to ours. The accomodations were very
nice but since we were leaving first thing in the morning, we really
didn't bother to unpack. I just pulled out what I was going to wear
the next day and left the rest packed up. We had received a folded
up ABD duffel bag as well as a list of all the Adventurers in our
group (from what I could tell, there were about 6 families – with 1
large extended family of 10), some Ecuadorian chocolate which we
later found out had won many awards in the past, and the tip
envelopes for the Guides at the end of our Adventure.
We decided to go down to the
lobby to look around and to find a snack before going to bed. The
shops were closed since it was almost 9 pm. We wandered over to the
sushi bar where we were each offered a free sample of beer. The
waitress handed a glass of beer to Rhys without missing a beat (he's
still 17 at this point) which he rather enjoyed because it was at
this moment that he realized for the first time that the drinking age
here was 18. Up until now, he never even hinted at this although
drinking is not really high on his list of things to do. We ordered
a few half rolls: Quito Roll, Tropical roll (with plantains on
top!), and Spicy Tuna roll – they were delicious!
Following our snack, we
headed back to our room & went to bed immediately after a very
very long day but, unfortunately, I tossed and turned all night –
probably from the intermittent naps I had taken all day which I don't
normally do. I was up the following morning at 6 to take a shower
and get ready for the day.
We attached the ABD tags to
our luggage and left them by our door – they would be picked up and
taken to the bus for our trip to Puerto Lago. Since we really didn't
need our carry on bags, we went ahead and tagged/left those by the
door as well.
Breakfast was downstairs off the lobby in the "library" – it was a private buffet for just our Adventure group with breads, meats, cheeses, cereal, bacon, and omelets.
We met a family of 5 from Seattle, Gordon, Cindy and their boys Matt, Drew, and Jack, who had also been on
3 other Adventures in the past. Their boys ranged in ages
from around 7 to 12. When we finished up our breakfast, Lauren and
Robby re-introduced themselves and welcomed everyone. They went
around each table and had one person per family introduce their
family members and tell a little about themselves. There were
several families from Seattle, another from North Carolina, and a
mother/daughter from Houston. The large extended family group of 10
were on their first Adventure – the rest of us were Insiders and we
each received our Insider pins - #3 for Rhys and #4 for us.
After our orientation, we
were highly encouraged to visit the "Happy Room" and were
reminded that "using the bathroom when you can is better than
when you need". We had about 15 minutes to gather up the rest
of our belongings and head down to the lobby to board our bus.
A note about the hotel –
the fresh flowers were absolutely gorgeous. I just couldn't get over
the number of rose arrangements in the lobby. Roses are the #4
economical source for the country after taxes, oil, and shrimp. So
pretty much everywhere we went, roses were in abundance.
We boarded a very nice bus
and headed off. One of the families hadn't made it in yet and were
to meet us later in the day. Along the way, Robby gave us a very
nice run down of his country – the history, economy, etc. This was
when we ran into our snag of the day. After about 20 minutes or so
on the bus headed out to the Pan American highway, our Guides got
word of an accident that had shut the highway down. The bus made a
very impressive u-turn and we headed out of Quito via a different
route which probably added close to an hour to our total trip.
Fortunately, the bus stopped at a gas station along the way for a bio
break. Along the way, Lauren took everyone's lunch and dinner
selections.
And, of course, there was the infamous snack basket - we were offered snacks very often during this portion of our trip. There is no excuse to ever be hungry on an Adventures by Disney tour bus. I especially enjoyed the smaller bananas that had a much sweeter taste than our American versions. I also fell in love with the onion flavored plantain chips.
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| Lauren with the snack basket |
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| Small delicious Ecuadorian banana |
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| Onion flavored plantain chips - my new favorite snack |
Our first stop of the day
was, literally, the Center of the Earth. Rhys got to carry the
paddle of power (the orange Adventures by Disney paddle) as we
arrived at 0 degrees 0' 0" on the Equator. Straddling the
equator here is standing on both hemispheres at the same time. We
stopped for some family pictures and then listened as one of the
interpreters explained the significance of the sundial we were
standing on and the importance of this spot. We were just a couple
days past the solstice which is a big holiday in Ecuador and
celebrations or fiestas last for a week or longer.
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| Cool postcard Lauren air dropped to us |
After exploring for just a
bit, we re-boarded the bus and were each given a pocket sundial to
take home as well as our pin of the day: Middle of the Earth.
Our next stop was a rose producer, Rosadex. We met with a
tour guide who took us into one of the nurseries and explained about
the different types of roses they export as well as why roses grow so
well in Ecuador and is the 4
th biggest industry. Between
the constant temperature all year round, the constant sunlight for 12
hours per day, and the volcano ash in the soil, this produced
beautiful long-stemmed roses which grew straight up, and were
exported to the US (shorter stemmed), China (multicolor roses), and
Russia (very long stemmed roses). Next we headed over to the
packaging center but the day's shift was already over. We saw many
beautiful colored roses and our guide explained the pain staking
process of putting rose stems in dye that resulted in the petals
being a different color. They can dye a rose this way with up to 5
colors depending on which part of the stem is placed in which dye
color. The price of a rose is dependent on the length of the stem
with the longest stemmed roses running about $1.70 each and the
colored roses being about twice that much. I think some of the
colored roses were just gorgeous but didn't really care for the multi
colored ones. We were also told that to care for roses at home, the
stem should be cut at an angle every 2 days, change the water after
each cutting, and to just mix a tablespoon of sugar and white vinegar
to the water. Rose stems should last up to about 2 weeks this way.
We were taken to the home of
a musician who also made flutes. After a short demonstration of the
different types of instruments including ones from Peru and Brazil,
the musicians played some music for us and then it was our turn to
try and make some Andean flutes. The pieces of bamboo were already
cut for us and we were given plenty of string. Tying the bamboo
pieces of different length together proved to be a lot harder than it
looked. After we all finished making our new instruments, we all
gathered again for a large group picture.
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| Music demonstration |
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| Making our own flute |
Our last stop of the day was
at the home of a master weaver. He was sitting at his European loom
weaving without any sort of pattern – he was just using his own
memory. They gave us a demonstration of how they came up with all
the different colored yarns and let the kids try this activity.
First they took small cactus parasites that, when crushed, gave a
maroon sort of color. Adding some baking soda to the crushed worm
changed the color as did adding ash. There were several different
things added to the color to make a new color. The weaver also
demonstrated a traditional Andean weaving loom but told his he
doesn't really use it anymore because it's very complicated and
sitting on the ground using the loom was very hard on your back.
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| Traditional loom - a back breaker! |
We were given the
opportunity to do some shopping including woven products and alpaca
products. Most of us bought woven bracelets for $1 per piece.
Several of the ladies also bought some really nice alpaca sweaters
for around $120-$150 USD.
 |
| Our Ecuadorian bracelets |
I found it very odd that
they use the US dollar in Ecuador and they are basically in the central US
time zone so there was no time change for us. Both of these facts
made it very easy to adjust to this new country.
We boarded the bus one last
time for the day and in about half an hour, we arrived at the
Hosteria Puerto Lago which is an absolutely beautiful resort right on
the bank of the San Pablo Lake with wooden buildings – very unusual
in Ecuador. We were given our room keys as well as a tv remote and
were taken by staff to our room where our luggage was already waiting
for us. Ours was #48 located on the 2nd floor of a building that was
the furthest away from the main reception house but was really not
too far a walk. We entered our room and were just amazed at how
roomy it was – 2 beds, vaulted ceilings, fireplace, good sized
bathroom.
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| Hosteria Puerto Lago |
 |
| Hosteria Puerto Lago overlooking the lake |
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| Our room was 2nd floor on the far right |
 |
| Huge spacious room with fire place |
Lauren and Robby dropped by
our room to make sure everything was ok and also brought us a bottle
of wine.
We got ready for dinner and met back at the main
reception house/restaurant where we were serenaded by Andean music.
For dinner, I had a salad followed by the trout which was in a
delicious cheese sauce. Dessert was a plantain cake. We were
exhausted & after uploading some pictures to Facebook, I fell
asleep at around 9:30 pm. We had been given instructions at dinner
that breakfast was from 7-9 in the morning and that the bus would be
leaving at about 9:15 am so we had the opportunity to sleep in and
relax in the morning.
Our next stop was a rose producer, Rosadex. We met with a
tour guide who took us into one of the nurseries and explained about
the different types of roses they export as well as why roses grow so
well in Ecuador and is the 4th biggest industry. Between
the constant temperature all year round, the constant sunlight for 12
hours per day, and the volcano ash in the soil, this produced
beautiful long-stemmed roses which grew straight up, and were
exported to the US (shorter stemmed), China (multicolor roses), and
Russia (very long stemmed roses). Next we headed over to the
packaging center but the day's shift was already over. We saw many
beautiful colored roses and our guide explained the pain staking
process of putting rose stems in dye that resulted in the petals
being a different color. They can dye a rose this way with up to 5
colors depending on which part of the stem is placed in which dye
color. The price of a rose is dependent on the length of the stem
with the longest stemmed roses running about $1.70 each and the
colored roses being about twice that much. I think some of the
colored roses were just gorgeous but didn't really care for the multi
colored ones. We were also told that to care for roses at home, the
stem should be cut at an angle every 2 days, change the water after
each cutting, and to just mix a tablespoon of sugar and white vinegar
to the water. Rose stems should last up to about 2 weeks this way.
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