Why do all donkeys look so sad?

While living in Quito, Ecuador I had a friend who was very passionate about motorcycles.  In fact he rode a dirt bike all around North and South America on his own.  This is his website (it’s all in Spanish but you can translate it on his site to English if needed).  He had befriended a few people in Venezuela on his trip and later they decided to come to Ecuador on their own bikes and ride through.  So I got lucky and was able to tag along with them for a few days snapping photos.

One of the places we took them was to Quilotoa (click here to see photos of the lake).  If you want to see some of the best views of the hills in Ecuador, then make this trip, as it looks exactly like the photo above pretty much the whole time.  I snapped this shot off while riding on the back of a big BMW 1200cc motorcycle, doing about 50mph.  I just loved how the donkey was standing along the road doing his own thing.

One thing you will see in Ecuador is cattle standing in the ditches eating grass.  Some are tied to random posts, other just walk around freely but it always got me to laugh because where I am from if you see a cow out of it’s fence, you would stop and put it back in.  In Ecuador you would be yelled at for this as then the poor farmer would have to go back out and put him back out where the “free grass” is.  Smart don’t you think!

I'm still kicking and chilling like a villain!

Contrary to what you might have heard I am in fact still alive believe it or not.  You might not believe it from my lack of posts, as it’s been since March of last year since I wrote anything and it might be another year before I get the next post up but I’m finally getting this out.  In fact I started this post 2 months ago once I got back home and only got the first sentence wrote and title before I hit “Save Draft” and forgot about it.  I wish I had a better excuse then I’m lazy but that would be a lie.  So what have I been up to in the last 11 months?  Well I’ll give you the cliff notes and keep it short.

February: Last I checked in I was in Colombia for the first time.  I visited Colombia for 3 weeks for a visa run and got to spend a few days each in: Cali, Bogotá, Medellin, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Barranquilla and Tyrona National Park.

On the border of Ecuador and Colombia. I look like I have black eyes from fighting but it's just a really bad sun burn.

March: I got back to Ecuador and my girlfriend and I broke up.  Don’t want to talk about it but it kind of left me shell shocked a little.  Wasn’t planned and had to find a new place to stay in Quito, so I moved into a hostel in La Plaza Fosch.  Stayed in Quito on my own and basically drank a lot the first month, then got my act together and moved to Ambato for a month to take some much needed Spanish lessons.  I lived with a local family who charged me $210 USD for a month.  It included a huge private bedroom with private bathroom and 3 meals a day.  They rocked and miss them all so much!  Wish I could report the Spanish lessons helped but that is a whole post in its self.

Andrea, the youngest daughter to my host family I stayed with in Ambato, Ecuador

May: I moved to Medellin, Colombia.  I had to decided on what to do after my visa finished and basically only had two choices.  1) keep traveling and try and see the rest of South America for 6 months or 2) find a country and stay more grounded.  I chose option 2 because I had acquired so much crap while living in Ecuador that getting on a bus with 2 backpacks, plus my huge camera bag every other day wasn’t possible.

While in Medellin I just chilled and loved every minute of it. I had planned to start writing again but to be honest I just didn’t feel like it.  I did a few trips to Bogotá, a trip down to the coffee region and one trip to Cartagena and Cali while there.  I can’t say enough about my time in Colombia and really fell in love with it.

Having beers with Dave from GoBackpacking.com and friends in Medellin, Colombia

October:  My 6 months were up in Colombia and so I had to leave.  I didn’t want to go home yet so I bought a ticket to Cancun, Mexico and held up there for 3 weeks seeing the Yucatan.  Didn’t care much for Cancun but the Yucatan is a place I’d love to go back and see more.  So many Mayan ruins and caves there to explore that I felt like I could have spent 4 months there and not seen it all.  I also dropped down to Belize for 4 days and gorged myself on fresh lobster everyday while sun soaking it up.

Eating tacos on the streets of Mexico. I paid for a week eating this taco. Diarrhea, the gift that won't stop giving!

November:  The Prodigal Son returns home finally after almost 2 years of being gone.  To the constant nagging of my oldest sister who requested I show back up home before my nieces and only nephew started driving cars (their all under the age of 5) I decided it was time to see home, as I was feeling a little tired.

So here I am, back home in good old Licking, Missouri, heartland USA, gun-totting, bible carrying, God fearing, redneck central!  The first friend I met up with asked me if I wanted to go do something.  I said “Sure, what do you got in mind man?”  His response was, and this was 12 o’clock noon time, “Want to get a pint of hooch, a gun and drive some back roads?”  Yeah you know your back in the Ozarks when everything has to be done with homemade booze and a weapon!

So like a good boy I did Thanksgiving and Christmas with the family and didn’t bail.  I even took a trip out to Vegas with a good friend for a few days, which was awesome that I still have at least one friend from home who is down for taking off last minute for a crazy hair-brained trip somewhere.  By 07January I won’t lie I was itching to get moving again.

My good friend Brigette from home, who was down for a last minute Vegas trip

Which brings me to my next point and the most important one, what am I going to do now and where am I going?  One word, India!  I leave 31Jan for New Delhi and will be meeting Christine and Drew Gilbert from www.AlmostFearless.com up in Goa.  I will be taking a train ride with Drew for 2 weeks all around the outer rim of India.  It will be one of my biggest adventures to date and I’m really looking forward to it.  After that we’ll return to Goa, relax, recoup for a few weeks, then plan on taking off in a tuk-tuk road trip.  If you don’t know what a tuk-tuk is, it’s a little taxi looking ride that has one seat in the front for a driver and two seats in the back for passengers.  We plan to buy a cheap one, drive the crap out of it for a few weeks, then sell it back to someone to recoup a little money back.

After that I plan to travel around Southern India on my own and at some point make a trip out to Nepal for a month.  Their is a hike I would love to do there, called the Annapurna Circuit.  It’s a 17 day hike from village to village in the Himalayan Mountains, plus hope to make it up to Everest Base Camp at some point.   After India I will fly to New York City and spend a full week there exploring the city.  I’ve never been to New York City, other then the airports, and I’m really excited about seeing the city for the first time.  After that, it’s a quick flight back to Colombia.

So now you have it and at the rate I’m writing I guess I’ll get back in touch with you next year!  Joking but I do have a plan to start writing more once I get on the road again.  Oh, expect lots of type-o’s and bad grammar from here on out.  Sorry but the ex was proof reading my stuff before and now that I’m solo… it’s how I roll!

I went out a few Saturdays ago to eat out.  The price for this meal was a little high by Ecuadorian standards but it’s good to splurge every once in a while.  At the end of the meal I asked for the check and the total was $29.96.  I put two $20s in the bill holder and waited for the waitress to come back with the change.

In Ecuador there really isn’t a need to tip because all bills will have government tax (10%) and service (12%) included in the cost.  That being said I still leave a tip most times when dinning out and have no reason to other than I’m gringo and it’s in our nature to do so.  It’s how we were raised you know.

The waitress finally brings back my change and when I opened it to make sure all was good all I see was this $10 bill.  Do the math for a second ($40-$29.96 = $10) and tell me how that adds up?

So now I’m in this situation of do I ask for my $0.04 that they owe me or do I let it slide?  For me personally, it’s like stealing and the principle of this gets me going to no end.  If I ever get worked up fast over something it usually involves money.  Ask me sometime about getting punched in the nose by a Thai Taxi driver over a penny (alcohol was involved in this case which didn’t help).

Now this isn’t the first time this has happened to me in Ecuador, in fact I can recall at least 4x this has happened and it’s not always in Mom & Pops places either.  The time before this it happened to me at KFC and the girl didn’t bother to give me back my nickel.  When I asked her about it she just shrugged and said she didn’t have the change.  Told her that wasn’t my problem and that she owed money and should pay what is due.  She handed me my food and said if I went and sat down that she would get the change and find where I was sitting to give it to me.  I never seen her again and didn’t bother pushing the issue.

So the real question is:

1. Do Ecuadorians not know how to do math?
2. Is it a cultural thing and people think it’s no big deal?

I believe it’s #2 and is typical Ecuadorian.  They just don’t think it’s a big deal as it’s only a few cents.  Me being gringo I’m sure makes it worse but my gringo ass will stop and pick a penny up off the street.  A penny is a big deal to me and feel if you said something was “this” price, then it should be “this” price when I give you good money.  Then again I’m not in America anymore and this is TIE land.

TIE: This Is Ecuador

This photo was taken at a wedding in Quito, Ecuador.  I wasn’t the official photographer for it but I did try and get some good photos of the event to give back to the bride and groom later.  To see more photos of my first “non-official” wedding event click on the links below:

• Mathias and Maria Fernanda Baekbo: The Wedding Day
• Mathias and Maria Fernanda Baekbo: The Wedding Day II
• Mathias and Maria Fernanda Baekbo: The Wedding Day III

This photo wasn’t Photoshopped and used Adobe Lightroom only to edit it.  I used the adjustment brush (my favorite tool in Lightroom) to highlight all the area around the flowers.  Then I turned down the saturation all the way to give it the Black & White feel, leaving only the flowers in color.  This is a very simple way to add a different perspective to your work and people really like this style.  It can be a little hard depending on the photo you take, as this one took a little more time as I had to zoom in around the flowers to clean it up.

After I got everything desaturated that I wanted, I then highlighted again around the flowers to add more clarity and contrast to give the background more depth.  In total this took me about 15 minutes of editing, most  of which was spent on zooming in around the flowers.  If you have tried this technique and have a photo you want to share, please leave a comment with a link to show us.  Would be great to see what others have done.

Click here for more Photography Lessons on FOGG Odyssey!

After we took the bikers around Quito the night before, they decided they wanted to see Quilotoa the next day and finish the day in Banos.  This would ultimately change 10x before the day was over, as we never made it to Banos and instead we stayed in Ambato.

The ride out of Quito was quick and fun.  I somehow lost the cover to my iPod Nano while riding on the back of the bike doing 90 mph on the Panamerican Highway.  I was praying it wouldn’t rain that day and thank God it didn’t but it came close at one point with a slight drizzle when we were leaving out of Quilotoa.  Other than the wind burn on my face and red eyes from not wearing any goggles the ride was pretty comfortable.

When we got to Quilotoa, the bikers walked up to the edge of the crater and looked around for about 10 minutes.  Then turned around and said “Lets eat!’ and that was that.  We were gone in 30 minutes heading to Ambato.

The only time we stopped that day was when we would go through the military check points along the highway.  Either they would wave us through or make us pull over just because we were a bunch of bikers.  When they did make us pull over for a check, the cops never checked anything and instead just wanted to talk with us.  They asked where we were going, from and had been.  Pretty much they were bored and wanted someone to talk with, which cracked me up.  Also, we got a lot of people who would honk at us when we passed them on the highway.  We never got flashed but I guess everyone digs bikers in large groups no matter where you’re at in the world.

Just before Quilotoa there was a dirt road you had to take. I changed up the white-balance on this picture to give it that dirty feel of the road.

Group shot in front of the crater lake in Quilotoa, Ecuador.

Edgar entering the town of Quilotoa, Ecuador

A few weeks ago a friend in Ecuador, Julio, asked me if I wanted to ride some bikes with a bunch of Venezuelans.  I didn’t have anything planned and said “Sure, why not!”  This all came about because a year ago my friend Julio had been riding his own motorcycle around South America when he ran into one of these guys in Venezuela.  He had his own hotel and told my friend to stop by and he’d give him a place to stay, food and any advise needed.  Fast forward a year and now that nice Venezuelan is one of the riders and my friend was helping them see the sites in Ecuador as a favor back.

They started in Venezuela on January 4th and rode through Colombia, picking up another rider.  They only spent 3 days in Ecuador total as these guys had big bikes and love to ride fast.  Their trip will be 90 days and countries visited will be (in order):

• Start: Venezuela
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Peru
• Chile
• Argentina
• Paraguay
• Brazil
• Finish: Venezuela

These guys were all business owners or made men somehow back home.  All but two of them had 1200 cc BMW bikes (avg cost in the US $23,000).  When I asked them why they were making this trip I was really surprised by the answer I got.  Since Chavez has been in power in Venezuela he’s been converting the country over to communist control.  One of the big things that he’s pushing now is for the government to buy up businesses and this will directly affect almost all these guys.  They all stated that more than likely in a year or two they all would lose their business to the government.  Because of this they all decided to forget it and take off, henceforth a motorcycle journey around South America to forget the problems back home.  You got to totally admire that and in a way it does make them outlaw bikers!

This photo was taken south of Quito, Ecuador in a small town know famously for it’s indigenous market.  The town of Saquisili, Ecuador is well worth a stop if your in Ecuador.  The market is open every Thursday and you will find things sold here that you wouldn’t anywhere else; from rabbits, pigs, cows and guinea pigs to cheap vegetables, exotic fruits and handicrafts.  The best part of being at an indigenous market is it’s full of indigenous people and the worse part about being at an indigenous market is thats it’s full of indigenous people who hate having their photographs taken.

I’m serious when I say people here in Ecuador are really sensitive about being photographed.  I took this photo about 60ft (18m) away and when I lifted my camera to take it (thinking I was all sneaky) she turned her head away and down.  How she seen me I don’t know but I knew she did as I held and was waiting for her to look up.  She did once to see if I had put the camera down and quickly put her head down.  I snapped one shot and walked away as you never want to make a local mad.

The original photo was way over blown and didn’t know if I would be able to recover any of the highlights because so.  I decided to crop it as well as I wanted to focus the image on the indigenous lady surrounded by her produce.  The light was actually pretty striking, as there was lots of dark shadows and highlights everywhere in this photo.

I started first with highlighting the lady.  I wanted to lighten her blue jacket and hat some.  Then I highlighted the background around her to darken it some, thus brining more attention back on her and the produce.  Last I highlighted the ground in front of her to blur some stuff out and to darken it just a tad.  This left a circle of light directed on her which brought your focus to the middle of the frame.

Again, you can see below on the sidebar where I brought the contrast and clarity up.  Notice though I pulled the Recovery tool all the way up to bring it back within range.  This shot was seriously over blown at the start and is a good reason why one should shoot in RAW all the time.  If it had been captured as a .JPEG I might not have been able to recover those highlights without adding a bunch of noticeable noise.

Click here for more Photography Lessons on FOGG Odyssey!

“This large and modern building is located in the north-central part of the city. It gathers together the best of Ecuadorian art. Each room or space reflects a different theme, such as ethnography, sculpture, music or painting. From time to time there are shows and exhibitions featuring local and foreign artists. This museum has facilities for artistic performances, exhibitions, film screenings, dance shows and other types of events. It is permanently open to the public and allows the visitor to enjoy a wide range of shows in one place.” ~ Yahoo

1. What is your first name: Darrel
2. What city are you from: Revelstoke
3. What country are you from: Canada
4. What do you do: Communications for the Canadian Park Services for 12 years.
5. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why: Bhutan because it hasn’t been commercialized like the rest of Asia and has very little tourists.
6. What’s your dream and why: To work in every continent in the world.  I still have Antarctica, Australia and Europe to complete for this.

FOGG Notes: I met Darrel through a writing course for a travel book company here in Quito, Ecuador.  He really is a textbook world traveler as he’s been to 20+ countries.  What makes him different than most is that he works 6 moths on then takes 6 months off to travel.  He’s able to do this because the Canadian Parks are closed during the winter and when they are he’s out exploring new countries.  He’s not the type of traveller who spends a week in a country and is gone but rather takes his time and tries to see the small towns more than the big cities.

He has also spent a year teaching English in each of these countries:  South Korea, Bolivia and Morocco.  He’s climbed to Mt. Everest Base camp and his highest climb to date was in Huaya Potos in Bolivia (6,088 meters).  He recently just tried to climb Cotopaxi Mountain (the world’s highest active volcano, ice capped though) but couldn’t make the summit because of high winds and snow.  He’s got a knack for languages as well, as he speaks English, Spanish, French and some Arabic.

Darrel is what I hope to be when I’m his age… still traveling and not looking back!

Creaky and Vegetarian Rolls in Plaza Fosch: Quito, Ecuador

Went and ate Sushi a few weeks ago in Plaza Fosch.  One thing Ecuador isn’t known for is its Asian food (Peru had some of the best Chinese Food I have ever had) but was surprised when I seen a place in Plaza Fosch that had all you could eat sushi for $12.99 +tax.  You could order anything off the menu but they would only keep serving you as long as you had finished the plate before.  If you didn’t finish something before and asked for something else they would charge you a separate fee for it.

The sushi was pretty good and was so stuffed by the time I left.  I ended up getting the following:

• Creaky Roll: vegetables, cream cheese, carrots and zucchini
• Vegetarian Roll: avocado, asparagus, cucumber, carrots, cream cheese, apple
• Toki Sushi: salmon wrapped over shrimp

We also got some Thai noodles, stir-fried vegetables and were served complimentary wontons.

Toki Sushi in Plaza Fosch: Quito, Ecuador