At an elevation of 8500 feet (2560 meters), the historic colonial and cultural center of Cuenca is the cobblestone on the cake to what is already a gorgeous and livable city. Like nearby areas in Colombia, Cuenca is tucked into a cool Andean valley and known for its eternal spring temperatures. For this, and so many other reasons, it inched into…
With rugged Scottish Highland resembling landscape and mystical forests, entering the trails of Las Cajas National Park is like penetrating another world. It has lush beds of moss and succulents, rolling green peaks, countless reflective lakes, and knobby gnarled trees that fell out of a storybook. And, at only 45-minutes from Cuenca, it’s easily accessible by any bus from the main…
Although many people head to Ecuador solely for an excursion to the Galápagos Islands, we knew that it wasn’t in the wallet cards for us…this time. Thus, we happily settled for Isla de la Plata which is known on the backpacker circuit as “Poor Man’s Galapagos.” The tour agencies say, “Here you can see a small (more like teacup-sized) sampling of…
Montañita is blanketed with cocktails ….and twenty-somethings…peacocking. This Ecuadorian beachside village is described by Lonely Planet as a party place with a surfing problem, which is probably a pretty accurate assessment. Fortunately we didn’t see party mode in full throttle, but I’m sure it’s somewhere we would have appreciated twenty years ago. The main town included heaps of tourist infrastructure…
Although we found some charm, most people don’t swoon over Guayaquil, which is Ecuador’s second largest city of 2.7 million people and the commercial heart of the country. Instead, it’s more functional with an international airport which often serves as the jumping off point for tourists heading to the Galapagos Islands. The city, which is perched on the edge of…
It was so amazing to share this exceptional place called the Azuero Peninsula with our good friends, Kristin and Ondra, who we met while living in Prague in 2008. And...since we were not catering to an attention-demanding wild cat baby this time, it also seemed like a great opportunity to strap on our Panamanian sea legs and take a fishing boat…
After a night in Panama City due to circumstance not desire, our friend Carol picked us up (in a car!) from our hotel to whisk us to our next destination of Valle de Antón, two hours away. The “Valley” is a pueblo tucked inside the heart of an ancient crater and surrounded by mountains and lush cloud forest. Because of…
We landed in DC for a few reasons… 1) Greg, believe it or not, had never been and January seemed like an ideal time to hole up in the plethora of free museums and sites, 2) it was easy to get a centrally located housesit for a couple of weeks so we didn’t have to pay for accommodation, 3) it…
