Ecuador- my pictorial history III: Girón, The Cajas

dusk

This post will begin and end with views from our main window... the cloud formations are impressive and change by the minute.

The Fam

w/Jett, a free-spirited friend from Colorado

Girón is a favorite destination for expats, locals, and visitors alike; the town itself is unremarkable, but only a few miles from the village there is an amazing waterfall that provides plenty of photographic moments.

Jett & Mike, a friend who has since moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

The waterfalls are also known as "El Chorro de Girón;" in Spanish, according to Google Translate, 'el churro' means 'the jet.'

















There is an area called 'the middle falls,' which is a short hike away; depending on your level of fitness, it's from 1 1/4 hrs. to 3 hours away, along a trail offering beautiful views of the mountainsides.  The hike along the trail is much more interesting than the destination itself.

Mike & Jett at 'the middle falls'

 When you arrive at the middle falls, there really isn't much to see.  You don't see the falls; everything is covered in green, and very peaceful, but when you're expecting to see a pair of huge waterfalls cascading down from the mountain, and you don't, it's a little disappointing.

Playing with time-lapse

I visited the waterfalls a second time with a group of Ecuadorians, two of whom worked for us at the time at our café (the guy taking the picture and the guy in the checkered jacket, standing to my right), and a third (the guy dressed in black standing to my left) who now is a security guard in my condominium building.  We arrived in Girón after two weeks of heavy, heavy rains, causing massive landslides including this chunk of land that separated from the mountainside and came to rest smack dab in the middle of the road.

piece of the mountain separated

me and my Ecuadorian buddies

one last shot of El Chorro

 I spent a Sunday hiking in The Cajas with three friends, on a spectacularly unique day in that in an area renown for clouds hugging the landscape and shrouding the land in a mystical fog, not a single cloud appeared in the sky that day.  By the end of the 7 1/2 hr. hike I had received the worst sunburn of my time spent in Ecuador.

 

 The cliffs are beautiful, some covered in shrubbery while others are completely bare.  Not much grows at this altitude (approx. 13,000ft); long grass, bushes, but certainly no trees.











Only 10 mins. into our hike we saw a rare sight indeed:  a red fox!  Very few people have seen these in The Cajas, and I was very fortunate to see one on my first hike, only after a few minutes.  He didn't stick around long... as soon as he noticed my taking pictures of him, he took off.

The trail we were walking led to a village way out in the middle of nowhere.  We passed many villagers on the trail riding horses to/from the roadway; on our trek to the village they were heading towards the highway with empty sacks.  On the way back from the village the horses were loaded down with supplies and provisions, heading to their village.

 Several of them stopped and asked us where we were going... we gave them the name of the village and they mostly just smiled and nodded.

The two horses in this shot are very small, appearing in the middle of the photograph.

Where the trail meets the highway we saw many horses tethered to the ground, boulders, or large shrubs... the villagers had 'parked' their horses and caught a ride into town on one of the buses that passes by with empty sacks, to return with their sacks filled with wheat, flour, sugar...

The trail extends along the side of the mountain, in the right side of the photo; way off in the distance, in the middle of the photograph, you can see a tiny cluster of buildings.  The village was just that:  a small cluster of buildings with farmhouses scattered around the valley.  We did not see a pond, creek, or river nearby, and hardly any cattle.  I could not figure out what the people out here do to sustain a living.

This is typical of the landscape in the Cajas:  tall grass in sloping hills, low-lying area that holds water, and rocky cliffs in the background.











That's Rick, not too far from the highway.  The lake behind him is a popular destination for hikers; the Cajas visitors center is just above its banks.

Another view of a sunset in Cuenca, taken from street level.

Ecuador- my pictoral history II: Cuenca

Tomebamba River

What drew us to our apartment was the abundance of light; one of the draws of Cuenca is the beauty of the city.  The Tomebamba is one of four rivers flowing through Cuenca, whose official name is 'Santa Ana de de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca.'

 Rio Tomebamba, just below our condo bldg.

The Tomebamba under a full moon.

These trees are found all over Cuenca; this particular one is my favorite, I think because of its crooked trunk.  Their yellow blossoms are bright and huge; this is also one of the smallest trees of its type I've seen.



                                                                                                                                                                             

My wife and The Cuchuflí at Paradise Park

There is an abundance of parks in the city, the largest of which is Parque El Paraíso, or Paradise Park, nestled between the confluence of the Tomebamba and Yanuncay rivers.  The park is enormous, hosting numerous fútbol matches on Sundays, features a large pond with paddle boats, and boasts the ugliest collection of ducks or geese you've ever seen.  It's a great place to hang out, picnic, people-watch, exercise, and enjoy the network of wooden bridges in the shade of eucalyptus trees near the rivers.

Michelle w/The Popa and The Cuchuflí on a portion of the wooden bridges network

stand of eucalyptus trees

pond w/paddle boats

something might be wrong with this duck or goose...

Or is it beautiful?

sunset

Back to the views from our apartment... while the sun sets behind us, it throws some stunning displays of light & color into our field of view.

The sunrise can be almost as spectacular.

Because the sun sets behind us, and it rains mostly in the latter part of the day, we often see rainbows during the 'rainy season,' which is normally January-May.  Last year El Niño paid a visit, delaying rainy season until March and extending it until July-August.  

I always receive a thrill when I see rainbows, deer, and trains.

                                                                                 

Ecuador- my pictorial history I: leaving Richmond, landing in Ecuador

Cuz & me

Cuz, me, John Miller

Before my wife, my step-daughter, and I began our new lives in Cuenca, Ecuador, I needed to visit my family and friends in Richmond, VA, many of whom I haven't seen since.  My most awesome cousin John and his lovely wife Ellen held an impromptu barbecue that day, which I'm not sure was for me or was just happenstance.  Either way I was most grateful!                    

w/Cuz (notice the sunglasses!)  He pretends to be a Ravens fan but as you can see in his heart he will always be a Dallas Cowboy!

(L-R:  Cuz, me, John Miller, boys L-R:  Jack, Max, Fisher)

John Miller, husband to my sister Anna Helen, of whom I wish I had 2% of his carpentry, wood-working, and building skills.  This man built a beautiful garden house for Anna Helen that will stand for centuries, and a jewelry box for his daughter that is as elegant as anything I've seen.

John & Ellen's sons have all sprouted since this photo was taken; Jack has grown about a foot, is quite the lady-killer, and is developing into a futbol and distance-running phenom.

Betsy, me, Aimeee

Betsy and Aimee have been my friends as long as I can remember; soon after I was born I was brought home to a house across the street from Betsy's, and not long after I learned to walk I began to chase Aimee around the pool and schoolyard.

That was Richmond--- this is Ecuador.  When you fly into Ecuador you're either going to land in Guayaquil, a city near the coast, or Quito, the country's capital located in the Andes Mountains.  We flew into Guayaquil; this photo was taken along the Malecón, where several of these extraordinary trees can be found.  

My lovely wife Michelle w/dogs (in the stroller)

Dogs are not allowed on the Malecón unless in a carrier or stroller.  

a truly magnificent tree

driving through the Cajas

The drive through the Cajas can be other-worldly, esp. when the clouds settle along the ground.  The Cajas National Park (Parque Nacional Cajas) is a protected area of the Andes Mountains, renown for the several hundred lakes and llamas found in abundance.  

                                                                           

Upon arriving in Cuenca we checked into an efficiency apartment for 30 days, the Hotel Apartamentos Otorongo http://www.hotelotorongo.com, while our condo was made ready to live in (we first had the countertops replaced with granite*, then major appliances delivered and hooked up (to natural gas).  The owner's wife of the Hotel Apartmentos Otorongo drove from Cuenca to Guayaquil to pick us up from the airport, a 3 1/2 hr drive; very cool!  

After about three weeks of living at Otorongo, we spotted this 8-legged fiend hiding under the couch... not poisonous, but definitely ugly!

 

      

  

The day our container arrived was a glorious day indeed!   Our container sat in customs in Guayaquil for over a month, accruing holding fees, until some customs official finally decided to address it.

While boxes filled nearly every room in our condo, we were ecstatic nevertheless to be able to unpack our home and put it back together again in our new country.

Me, coffee, & sunlight!

What really drew us in to this apartment was/is the light, and the view (mountains in the distance, beyond the city)... Michelle and I both remember the very moment the realtor opened the door and light spilled into the hallway.  That was it, we were sold.  Huge windows face the east; when clouds are sparse or nonexistent, sunlight fills the room, and raises the temperature.  It can actually be unbearable at times.  I didn't last much longer after this photo was taken.





*The stupefying condition of having granite countertops installed in your home is that your home becomes the workshop.  The pieces are cut so that they can be brought into your home, but then the measurements are made, and the granite is cut-to-fit right there in your house; and of course, so the buffing too is done in your home.  When the job was finished we, the homeowners, were responsible for clean-up.  We had to wash the walls, floors, and ceilings several times to remove all of the dust.  Un-friggin-believable.

Jumping ahead, when we had granite countertops installed in our café, I knew the process, so I "Dexterized" the restaurant, sealing off the area where the men were working from the rest of the café with floor-to-ceiling plastic, creating a plastic-enclosed workroom for the granite workers.  It kept approx. 90% of the dust from traveling into the rest of the café.