Adventures with the Clio!

Our plan was to spend the weekend at the Secret Garden near Cotopaxi, a nice relaxing weekend outside of Quito.  I was looking forward to relaxing in the jacuzzi, hiking to the waterfall, enjoying the inclusive meals, not having to cook or clean up.  It would be such a nice weekend!

Hoping also to get some better pictures of Cotopaxi!!

The trip started off so well – I mean the car didn’t even have any flat tires (rare for our car that has them about weekly, even 2 at a time sometimes)!  And we (to my surprise) easily manage to shove camping equipment for 4 of us along with a guitar and 4 not so small people into our teeny tiny little Renault Clio – without strapping anything to the roof!  We head on out into Friday afternoon traffic and I opt to get out and walk to the ATM instead of continuing to drive to it in the car.  I get to the ATM, get money out (without any issue!) and walk back to the car just a few minutes after they arrived at the corner.  We soon arrive at bumper to bumper traffic we find out 20 minutes later that it was caused by a lane ending a mile or two up the road.  We get through that and are on our way to Machachi!  20 minutes later we again arrive at bumper to bumper traffic caused by construction that would result in one lane for each direction on the Pan American highway – at least we still had a lane and it wasn’t one lane to be shared by both directions! 

We get through the traffic, get some gas, stop at Tia for some beer and snacks, and finally start up the cobblestone road, it was 17 kms on this road to the Secret Garden.  The road probably should be only for higher clearance vehicles but Sung carefully makes his way up the road while drinking some Club (Ecuadorian beer).  We bottom out a couple times and then while going up a steeper section the car completely dies, I mean, the engine cuts out.  I assumed that he had stalled it accidentally and initially I thought nothing of it.  He starts it up and we continue and it dies again.  We repeat this a few more times until the car won’t start at all.  We all get out and are thinking about the options – do we try to make it to Secret Garden?  Can we make it to Secret Garden?  How far to Secret Garden?  Should we go back to Machachi?  Can we coast back to Machachi?  Is there a place to stay in Machachi?  Should we camp here?  Can we leave the car here?  Where are we?  So many questions, it was tough to tackle all of them at once.  But first we need to put on some warmer clothes.

We add layers and then Phil calls the Secret Garden and they tell us that we’re about 30 minutes away by car but they offered to pick us up.  Sung and I weren’t so sure about leaving our car and then having to deal with it from the Secret Garden the next morning.  We decide we better cancel the reservation and attempt to coast the car down the hill back to Machachi.  We push the car to turn it around and the car continues to die every 5 seconds which means that Sung has to use all his strength to get the brake pedal to work and he has no power steering either which makes it even more exciting.  He gives up about 10 minutes later and says that this is just not going to happen.  He pulls the car over as we finish off the 2 6 packs.  We get out again and kind of look at each other not sure what to do.  There is a farm house right there so we push the car into the driveway which completely blocks it.  We know we can’t leave it there so we walk toward the house at which point the dogs start barking and lights start turning on (it is now pitch black outside).  We talk to two ladies and a guy about our situation and they give us permission to leave our car in front of their house for the night.  We push the car into the spot and then stand there, not quite sure what to do.  We have no plan from here.  How are we going to get to Machachi?

We ask the owners if someone could take us to town.  They say of course and the guys pile into the back of the truck and I go in the cab with Jorge.  Jorge explains that he is a dairy farmer and he also raises crops like potatoes.  The two women are his sister, he is single without kids - I was shocked, I don't think I have met a single Ecuadorian who is his age who doesn't have kids.  He asks all about us, where we are from, if I’m married, if I have kids, we talk about food, the usual questions and chit chat.  We finally arrive at Machachi and he drops us off in the back alley of a hotel where there are already two Ecuadorians waiting to be let into the hostel, one of whom is wearing a ski mask.  We hope that the ski mask is for the cold and not for some kind of robbery that they were planning!!!!

We wait and wait for about 10 minutes and finally this really young girl lets us in the gate and we go upstairs and are finally shown a couple of rooms by an older lady who is not in a night gown.  Our room smells of sewer and had a bunch of really weird stuff in it.  I avoided the bathroom unless it was an emergency because the smell in there was worse than the room itself.  Just outside our window was a bar that had pumping music and yelling people until all hours of the morning.  Between the smell, the sounds, and the worry over how we were going to get the car off the mountain, I got very little sleep that night.

The bar outside our window the kept us awake the entire night before:

The weird stuff in our room:

The piglets and the shoe???  This should be a nursery rhyme or something, maybe I missed it as a kid?

Of course, the room would not have been complete without the kissing swans!

Next morning we eat breakfast and the older lady offers to drive us to her mechanic to ask him about the car - so nice of her - it is amazing how nice everyone was to us!  Of course before we leave we have to load a bunch of really heavy bags into the back of her pick up truck.  No problem, we're happy to help, but it's just funny it's so Ecuadorian.  We head to the mechanic (luckily his shop is at his house) who tells us that we need a tow truck but that he didn't know of one in Machachi.  But next thing I know he's on his phone calling someone and then he tells us to wait at our hotel, that the tow truck would arrive at noon.  After that we dropped off the cow feed or salt or whatever it was in the bags and headed back to the hotel.

We wait, and wait, and wait, and 2:00 PM rolls around and we are sick of the sewer smell and have to at least leave the hostel.  I'm starting to get anxious because all the mechanics close on Saturday by noon (if they're even open) and Sundays they are all closed.  This tow truck is probably never going to show up.  And I still have no idea how we are getting the freaking car down the mountain.

Sung hanging out in the hotel:

We finally give up on this tow truck ever arriving and head out to eat some lunch and as we're eating our chancho (pig roasted on a spit), potatoes, mote, and salad mixture feeling pretty helpless I suddenly remember that our insurance comes with roadside assistance!!!  Sung texts our insurance lady who responds and says that the tow truck will meet us in the plaza in 45 minutes!  Horray!!!  We were SHOCKED that when we got to the plaza an actual tow truck DID SHOW UP!!!  Amazing.  We rode with our savior up the mountain 45 minutes to the farmhouse where he expertly hooked up our car and secured it.

We head down the mountain and the car is shaking all over the place, alarm going off from all the movement, Sung constantly hitting the alarm button to shut the thing off.  After a LONG ride down we finally got off the cobblestone road and into town.  We brought it immediately to the mechanic that we had met the day before and OF COURSE! he wasn't there!  But his dad was and he allowed us to leave the car and he assured us that he would be able to fix it.  In all other car repair scenarios in the past we've had to go to the Renault parts place and buy the parts and bring them to the shop before they'd even think of doing the repair.  So I'm thinking my next week was going to be running to Machachi a bunch of times.  But the dad said they would get the parts and fix it so we'll see!!

Monday Update: the car is ready!  There was a crack in the oil reservoir (probably from us bottoming out) and they repaired it and added new oil - $100.  I'll be on my way back by bus tomorrow morning with the cash - hopefully it's as simple as handing over the money and driving the car back home to Quito!

'Robbery - just outside our door

So around 10:00 PM Sung and I were just relaxing in our apartment when we heard a whole bunch of yelling outside, commotion that we aren't accustomed to hearing.  Sung went to the window and said - "Michael is being robbed"!  Michael is our downstairs neighbor and my heart started pounding through my chest. We rushed outside but it was too late, the car was speeding away.  I guess there was a group of 5 of them all standing outside of our front gate and a car had passed by them and circled the block and then came back.  As soon as it came back two guys jumped out, one with a knife.  The two girls and one other guy ran away and Michael and another teacher Greg got the brunt of it.  They started beating on them and demanding their phones.  Greg didn't have a phone or anything so they hit him even more to see if they could get something out of him.  Michael gave them his phone which I guess made them happy enough and then finally took off.  The girls had run to get the police (who are a block down the hill) and they arrived on the scene about 2 minutes after the car had taken off.  Michael and Greg conveyed the story to the police who listened but didn't offer any kind of further action.  It makes us re-think a lot of decisions we've made in the past.  No more walking up the hill at night when it's dark.  No lingering outside our front door even if it's for only a few minutes.  This city really is pretty crazy.  I hear a new robbery story every week and I try not to let them get to me too much but this one was way way way too close to home.

A Microwave - Finally!

We finally broke down and bought a microwave last night.  In the morning I like to make my tofu breakfast which consists of toast, peanut butter, sliced bananas, warmed tofu, topped off with a spice mixture of cinnamon, sugar, curry, and cayenne.  Without a microwave I have to saute the tofu which means more dishes to wash!  I already do enough dishes (no dishwasher of course) and just warming up the frying pan takes a while and then the tofu sticks which means using oil which changes the taste of the tofu.

The other night Sung and I were warming up pizza in the toaster oven and I lined the tray thingie with aluminum foil so that cleaning it would be a little easier.  And the pizza ended up sticking to the aluminum foil - ugh!  I think that was the last straw, we both looked at each other and said - let's get a microwave! It will mean less dishes and it will be so much easier and faster to warm stuff up.  It takes 20-30 minutes to warm up leftovers in the toaster oven and now it will take 2 in the microwave!!  With no extra dishes!

So now the problem is that we only have one available plug for the microwave, toaster oven, and washing machine and even with the extension cord we can only run one at a time.  This works out more or less okay since the microwave is super fast!!

Our $91 microwave, cheapest we could buy at Mega.

The tofu breakfast - I love it because I don't get hungry half way through the morning, it's the best sustaining breakfast ever in my opinion.

AND last night we found CRUNCHY peanut butter which we're both really excited about!!!  First crunchy in 7 months!  $5.20 for a 16 oz container, expensive but not outrageous.  I tried to bring some back from the US for Sung a couple weeks ago but my checked bags were overweight so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff out of them and stuck them in my carry on bag and of course the peanut butter got confiscated by TSA!

 

And I just made curry cauliflower in 10 minutes - delicious!  With the stove the water would just about be boiling in 10 minutes!  Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.  :)

 

Safety in Quito

I should preface this by saying that I have only been in Quito for a couple months and am no means an expert on safety here – these are just some of my anecdotal stories and things that I’ve heard about and experienced in my time here so far.  I am hoping this doesn’t change anyone’s travel plans or scare anyone away from coming here.

View from the upper part of our garage gate/fortress

Where to begin…well, the safety issues and concerns started early before we even moved here.  People forwarded us emails from the embassy about foreigners being targeted in robberies involving scopolamine, a hallucinogenic drug that causes the victim to feel very sedate and when under the influence they can be coerced to do pretty much anything including showing the robber around the house and giving them all their valuables.  The victim usually wakes up afterward and has to piece together what happened.  The scariest part is that the drug simply has to be blown into the victim’s face, in one case it was on the robber’s map as they asked the victim for help with directions.  So there’s not a ton you can do to prevent it except refuse to accept anything anyone is trying to give to you.  Watch for people trying to distract you with something on the street but other than that I’m not sure what else – short of someone inventing a scopolamine detector device that can be worn on your person.

Okay, so being drugged with scopolamine was the first big thing that I remember being freaked out about.  Next was the general pickpocketings.  We read story after story online about people being pickpocketed in Quito and all over Ecuador.  There was one story about a woman who walked with a cane who was wearing a gold chain and they stole her chain from her neck!  She fought back with her cane and eventually got it back! After reading all these stories I remember second guessing my decision to go – did I really want to put myself into such an unsafe environment?  I’m so safe in Denver, I can leave my purse on the back of my chair, I can accidentally leave my garage door open and the door unlocked to the house and have no issues (okay, there was the mountain bike incident right before I moved out but they still didn’t come in the unlocked house).  Anyway, I was nervous that I would be completely locked inside our apartment here.

So now that we’re here I can see how it really is and hear about everyone’s experiences with safety in Quito.  We’ve heard stories about corrupt ATM machines where they steal your account number and PIN and proceed to empty out your account.  And then there’s the petty robberies – pretty much everyone I know has one or more stories about themselves or people they know being pickpocketed.  One moment they have their camera, phone, money, and the next moment it’s gone.  I’ve heard about backpacks being slashed and all the robber got was a soccer ball, someone else had their phone and camera stolen on the same night, someone else had hundreds of dollars in his left pocket along with a macbook pro in a briefcase held in his left hand, and his wooden hostel key chain in his right pocket and what did they steal?  Yep, his wooden key chain because it had the shape of a wallet.  Lucky for him.  And that was in the touristy area where we visit at least once a week.  (Knock on wood) Sung and I have been okay in this respect.  We rarely carry our cell phones and only carry as much money as we think we’re going to need for that trip.  We only carry our credit card or ATM card if we know we’re going to buy something using it or stop at the ATM.  And ATM trips are also carefully planned and we go home immediately after we get our money.

If we do carry anything with us we are super vigilant on the Ecovia, the bus, in markets, anywhere in Centro Historico.  I am so vigilant that sometimes it is exhausting constantly walking around being so aware of everyone around you, looking over your shoulder, pressing my hand against my pocket at all times.  There is no down time when you are out of the house and you have any money on you.  This past Saturday we were in Centro Historico and we stopped to eat and when we went to leave I realized my zip pocket on my jacket was open and it was the pocket where I had my money.  I started to have a heart attack when I remembered that I had switched pockets after paying for our food.  The energy expenditure thinking about safety, changing my plans around it, worrying about it, this is probably the hardest part about living in Quito.  And being blonde haired and blue eyed I am no doubt the biggest target out there.

And then there’s physical safety overall.  I think this might be a larger hazard than pickpocketing.  In the US when there is work being done there is careful thought into how to block off the area so that pedestrians, bikers, cars, everyone can stay safe.  Here that is definitely NOT the case.  There are huge gaping holes in the middle of the sidewalk that if you aren’t watching for you could just trip right into.  And then there are the wires hanging down, the ankle breaking sidewalks that are at an angle, cobbled, and some with ceramic tile that is super slippery when wet!  And Latinas love their high heels and walk through all of this unscathed – this completely amazes me!  I am here in my sneakers trying not to twist my ankle and I’m watching them in their 4” heels in front of me – wow.  Oh and I can’t forget to mention the hundreds of stairs everywhere that are generally not level, have lots of holes, and are of varying heights (read: lots of tripping and ankle twisting possibilities not to mention trying to huff and puff your way up hundreds of them with 20 pounds of groceries, in the rain).  Ah, but I digress.  Safety, back to safety.  The houses near where we live are all fortressed with high walls and above the walls there are several parallel wires that are flowing with electricity.  In fact you can hear the periodic spark of the electricity as you pass by (comforting, very comforting).  And then if that wasn’t enough there are large shards of glass with only the sharpest of points sticking directly upward out of the ledge at the top of the wall.  Needless to say the old people here don’t sit on their front porches all day and watch the world go by.  In fact any exposure from the house to the outside world is carefully fortressed with metal bars so that thieves can’t just smash them and get in.  Even some stores you can’t get in unless you ring a bell and then they have to buzz you to get in.  If you’re too unsavory looking I imagine that you don’t get granted access.  Each block here has its own security guard who stands watch all day (and sometimes all night) to make sure the residents and businesses are safe.  Somehow for me, the more guards the more scared I feel overall.  I’m always glad when it’s the weekend and our guard isn’t there – he actually kind of creeps me out a little bit.  Maybe it’s because of all the weird security guard stalkers I’ve had over the years.  I am a creepy security guard magnet apparently.

Just found out that the apartment next door was robbed this morning at 11:00 AM.  Somehow their gate was left unlocked and the robbers got in.  This is despite the fact that our block has a guard who I know was there this morning.  And this robbery took place while I was playing the ‘flag down the gas guy’ game where every time I hear a horn I sprint as quickly as I can outside and try to flag down the gas guy with the goal of getting a full gas canister.  It’s exhausting and took most of the day.  Anyway, I can’t believe I didn’t notice anything.  Now I’m really wishing I hadn’t forgotten to pack my Valentine’s present from Sung – runner’s mace – so I would be ready for these robbers.  I also need to figure out the number for the police and set it to a speed dial in my phone.

I haven’t even touched on the safety of walking overall.  This can be highly dangerous, and I’m not kidding!  Just crossing the least trafficked road you can think of can result in being run over by a quiet moped or a mountain biker flying down a hill at top speed.  And then there’s the intersections with lots of cars – these require Frogger like skills that must be honed over time.  When I’m trying to cross a street I generally find an Ecuadorian who is trying to do the same thing and try to cross when they cross, and even then sometimes it seems too dangerous and I wait until there are less cars.  The other day Sung and I were crossing when we had a chirping crosswalk sign (meaning – go) and this lady tried to mow Sung down in her SUV!  He had to run to avoid being hit at the very last second.  Cars have the right of way here, not pedestrians.  Drivers use their cars like weapons and the pedestrians are the targets. 

Sung has a book that describes all kinds of hikes around Ecuador.  So a couple weeks ago when our maid arrived I decided I would try one of the hikes on my own.  I took the Ecovia until it ends at La Marín, a major transportation hub.  At that point I had to find a bus that had a couple specific words on it (along with about 20 other words that I had to read as they were breezing past).  I finally manage to get on the right bus and an hour bus ride later I arrive at the cross street where the ‘hike’ was supposed to begin.  Of course it was an urban start – I was walking up into the hills from town and so I was passing all the locals.  At first it was no big deal but then after a while I started to get more and more strange looks.  And the book had terrible directions on how to get to the trail so I kept back tracking and trying new roads to the trail.  I finally found the right road and I hear a few people calling after me in somewhat nervous/serious voices: “Senorita, senorita” – so I walk back down to where they were and they start speaking quickly to me, something about something that happened to a couple people over the weekend.  But I couldn’t understand what – so I clarified – and it sounded like they were robbed while they were hiking.  They were telling me that I shouldn’t go up by myself, that it was too dangerous.  So I heeded their advice and turned around, disappointed.  But I’m sure they’re right, and I need to be smart about it.  Frustrating because I’m home during the weekdays when everyone else is working and I feel kind of trapped.  I spend my time studying but I don’t have the option of going to a coffee shop to study – it’s too much of a risk to carry my laptop anywhere, and if I’m in a coffee shop with the laptop out then robbers know I have it and when I leave I’ll be a huge target.  So most of the time I end up staying home.  I know once I do move back to the States I’ll never take my safety for granted again. 

Bici Nueva!!

Went to Bike Stop on Eloy Alfaro/cross street Granados last Saturday - great shop!  We talked with the owner/manager who ended up speaking perfect English (he went to Colegio Americano for high school), great guy.  He had just come back from Denver where Orbea was introducing their new 2013 line.  We asked him if he had any mid-range bikes for me, used preferably, for use at Parque Metropolitano and on Sundays for the Ciclopaseo.  He showed us a Felt RXC Team hardtail - very lightly used, really a nice looking bike, decent components (much better than some of the other bikes we'd been looking at over the past few weeks)!  I took it out for a one minute long ride and realized right away that it rode amazingly well and was a great climber!  We went back and bought it this week after several strategic trips to the ATM over the course of this week to collect the pile of cash I needed to buy it. Of course, cash only.  I wanted to buy it this past week but was nervous about walking a mile with a ton of cash on me.  So today we split up, Sung with half the cash, he rode his bike, and then I took the other half and jumped on a bus for the short trip down Alfaro.  Learned yet another lesson after the first bus rushed past me without slowing down - you have to signal to them that you want to get on otherwise they won't stop!  Despite the fact that I'm standing in the bus stop and staring them down!!!

Anyway, back to the bike...so I researched it a bit more online and it looks like it's made for cross country riding and racing, nothing super technical, it's definitely perfect for me! Frame is scandium (which I had never heard of) and a tiny piece is carbon in the back.  The other components aren't super high end but this bike should be perfect for me.  Who knows, I might even ship it back to Denver when we're done!  Super psyched for Ciclopaseo mañana!!

A Visit to Cumbayá

We decided a day trip to Cumbayá might be nice for a Saturday afternoon.  On our way there we stopped at Bike Stop and I found a really nice used Felt hard tail that I'm going to buy on Monday.  The sales guy spoke perfect English - turns out he had gone to Colegio Americano!  And he had been in Denver to see the new Orbea 2013 line a few weeks ago.  I'm psyched for my new bike, I can tell from a super short test ride that it's gonna be a great climber.  I might even take it back to Denver at the end, we'll see!

So after test riding my bike we hop on a green bus heading to Cumbayá from the corner of Eloy Alfaro and Granados.  We had no idea where to get off so we stayed on thinking we would see the reservoir and know that it was time to get off.  Nope, that didn't happen.  Sung asked a couple of teenage kids and they told us that we were way beyond Cumbayá so we immediately got off.  But as we got off the dude that we were supposed to pay had disappeared so we handed the driver some money.  We weren't sure how much it was so we gave him $0.75. He drove away so we figured it was close enough.  As he drove away the guy who was collecting money ran and jumped back on, who knows where he had gone?  Things like that always seem to happen here.  So we cross the street and decide we should just grab a cab back to Cumbayá since we didn't want the same thing to happen twice and end up back in Quito.

Of course the cab that pulls up is unmarked so we're a little hesitant to get in.  He says $2 and we say sure, okay.  Turns out he had lived in San Francisco for 25 years but was originally from Ecuador.  He gave us a free tour of Cumbayá and was super friendly.  He showed us the rails to trails path that I'm planning on using for some of my longer runs.  He also showed us the park and finally brought us to 'La Esquina' which is this open air place with a bunch of restaurants, coffee shops, and of course a pirated DVD store.

This is the trail head of the Chaquiñan (means 'trail' in Quechua), it's located right near the parque central which is surrounded by bars and restaurants. They rent bikes right there ($5 for an afternoon).

We also stopped by the park - nice open space, it was a beautiful sunny day!  With just enough breeze to keep us cooled off.

We were thirsty for some dark beer (as we always are) so we headed into the English pub for a pint.  It was PRICEY!!!  $6.25 for a pint, $13 for a burger.  Happy hour is 2 for 1 on 'cerveza de barril' (which I think is their microbrewed beer) and coctails, starts at 4, not sure how late it goes though...

Dark beer!  It was decent, not as good as Turtle's Head in Quito though.

European football

Turtle's Head was closed even though it was after 5 when they were supposed to open.

We headed to La Esquina to a sushi restaurant called 'Yoshi San' which turned out to be just okay.  The spicy tuna roll was good but our specialty Kamikaze roll was really bad, the crab was all watery and the outside wrap was some mysterious green leafy plant that didn't resemble the normal seaweed outside.  Strange!  The gyoza was disappointing also, it was deep fried and again - strange!

We had a super easy time getting home, jumped on a green bus heading back to Quito and paid the guy $0.35 each when we got on.  We successfully jumped off at Eloy Alfaro and got on another local bus who dropped us right at the bottom of our stairs.  We were proud of ourselves for navigating that! 

Below is a map for reference on Cumbayá, it should help with knowing when to get off the bus.  We couldn't find a single tourist map of Cumbayá online so I figured I'd create my own mini one.  So the bus will descend down and down and down into the valley.  The bus will probably stop at the Megamaxi and then it will keep going past the large traffic circle.  After the traffic circle get off at one of the next stops.  This will get you close to the park, the trail head, and to La Esquina.

Overall I liked Cumbayá, people were super friendly, it seemed safer (I know, that's exactly when pickpocketing happens, when you let your guard down), a great little day trip.  Excited to do my long runs and then finish with a dark beer at Turtle's Head, I'll just have to time it right so I finish well after 5!

No Ordinary Run in Parque Metropolitano

A run in Parque Metropolitano Guanguiltagua - try saying this 5x fast - this is how we have to ask cab drivers to get us home every single time since we live about a block from the park entrance - it's quite the challenge!  Anyway, notice the llamas on the sign - but I'll get to them later...

But first - fires.  Fires have been the theme as of late here in Quito.  This past Sunday I was running down the trail when it started to get really smoky and I spotted a wall of flames burning about 100 yards from me.  I ran full speed in the other direction and didn’t stop running until I got home.  And then last night the park was burning yet again and this time it was much bigger because the entire city was covered in a cloud of smoke and there was ash raining down on us as we walked to go climbing.  The smoke was strong and thick in the air.  We watched as a water truck filled up from a city hydrant and headed back up the hill toward the park.  We hoped that they would contain it soon so that there would still be trees left in the park!  Based on today's run it looks like they got it under control. I didn't get a chance to see the damage that it caused but over the next couple days I will get back to that area to check it out.

So today before I headed out for my run I noticed the smoke smell in the apartment again but I looked outside and it was clear.  So I figured the fire must be further off and not in the park today.  As I’m running I start to hear helicopters overhead and I notice that the helicopter has a basket hanging from it.  As I continue my run I get over toward the water treatment plant and realize that they are filling the basket with water from the plant and then somehow dumping it on the fire, wherever the fire was.  I was taking pictures through a chain link fence so they aren't the greatest but you get the idea...

Fighting forest fires in Quito:

Helicopter with basket

They were literally just dunking the basket into the water and letting it fill and then flying off again

I realized where it was as soon as I started heading back down toward my house – it was on the other side of the city nestled in the opposing hills from where I was.  Thankfully it looked like it was contained solely in the woods and wasn’t super close to the houses.

Now for the llamas...I brought my camera on the run so I could take some pictures of the llamas – Sung still has yet to see them!  Maybe they’re only out during the day which is why I see them almost every day I’m there.  I didn't see the shepherd guy today but I'm sure he was there, he carries a staff and herds them all around the park so they can have fresh grass to graze on. 

The baby has to be my favorite - so soft and fuzzy!!

I decided to go to all my favorite places within the park since I had my camera with me:

The Mirador of Cumbayá - beautiful views to the nearby suburb of Cumbayá, a lot of American expats live there, it's supposed to be safer than Quito

Random dog walker - that's a lot of dogs!

This rock/grass/dirt sculpture reminds me of the pictures in the Andy Goldsworthy book - they call this sculpture apacheta which means cairn:

Zipline!  I need another person to hold the rope thingie while I climb up on the platform though - Brandon and I tried it when he was here visiting - it's fun but you get jerked pretty hard at the end.  They would never allow this in the US for liability reasons!

 

This is my outdoor gym.  It's not the best but it's something!

Sculpture with tortoises crawling toward a giant chair!  Kinda strange!

Stores where you can buy snacks and of course - ice cream!!

 

 
After a month of running after 3 years off my legs are FINALLY feeling springy again.  By the end of 2 years hopefully I'm hoping to be good at running uphill!

The beginning of the up and up and up...

This might be the only flat trail at the park!  At the end of this trail there's a random set of pull up bars (in the middle of the woods!) that I like to attempt at least once a week.  This is definitely my outdoor playground.

Beautiful day for a run - and lots to distract me!  My mom will be happy now - she'll be able to envision where I spend about an hour of each day.