A boring update

Dear Mom and Dad,

Please thank Ruby for her wonderful comments. I didn't know she was so bilingual. Yes, we have been traveling many miles and Charlie has figured that we have spent over 20 hours riding a bus around Ecuador, which means we average at least one hour a day on a bus.  He also has figured that we have averaged spending $30 a day, so we should be good with money and buying small things for gifts. We can't mail them because it is so expensive to mail overseas. Currently, we have asked three different post offices and the price is between $55 to $75 dollars to mail a small package. Since the gifts combine don't equal that much, we are waiting upon our arrival to distribute them. Christmas will have to come late.

Riding the Devil's Nose train was very exciting and scenic. I loved looking and enjoying the landscape. To be honest, we snuck a bottle (or two) of wine on the ride, and enjoyed it that much more. Here are a few pictures of us riding the train, and some of the landscape in the background.

These next two pictures are of the indigenous people dancing their tradicional dance. Yes, Charlie and I joined them. We were the only ones from the group to do so. Shocker.

The next picture is of Charlie and I in front of the "Devil's Nose" The mountain in the background is supposed to be it, but I didn't really see it. It looks like a mountain. Maybe if you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the right?

 More train pics....

This next picture is of Charlie messing around in the "Children's Park." This was taken in Alausi, which is a pretty quiet town if you can't tell from the picture. I feel bad for the children that have to use this as a park.

These next two photos are of the San Pedro monument. The ONLY monument in Alausi, and we thought it was a Jesus the entire time.

We have bused from Alausi to Riobamba and now are in Guayaquil. It is HOT and HUMID here. Not complaining. :)





I may never leave the coast. This is where I'm supposed to be. Tomorrow we are taking off to another coastal town because it's pretty expensive here. Hopefully we will find nice beaches and beautiful waters for me to tan my white body. I'll keep you updated on where we are headed.

Love and miss you,

Matti Jo and Charles Dale

PS. Charlie has now requested that I sign his name as well because even though I am the one writing it, he's taking the pictures so the posts are equally from the both of us.

Still surviving

Dear Mom and Dad,

I just want to say one thing about the Hawk loss. W.T.F.? It still hurts even being this far away, but at least I don't have to listen to anyone say "Go Big Red." Ugh.

White water rafting was a BLAST! I started the morning by drinking my first cup of coffee ever. I only put 4 large spoonfuls of sugar in it. I sure do miss having diet coke. Rafting was so much fun because the guides got everyone involved. We had to paddle most of the time, which actually was really fun. To be honest, I sat in the very back and screamed more than I paddled, but I'm sure my efforts were somewhat useful. Here is a picture of us before getting on the raft. Don't worry we did have lifejackets and you can see helmets. There was 18 of us that went, and I talked some into getting ice cream afterwards. :) It's not my fault that there is an ice cream shop across the street from the rafting place. Also, it was really cheap at $30 a person and it included a meal. I had chicken and Charlie at fresh trout.

After our rafting trip, we bused down to Riobamba for a night. I HATED that town from the moment I stepped off the bus. Our hostel was only $5 a night per person, which is half as expensive as the other ones. The bathroom wasn't clean and the beds were HORRIBLE. Also, Charlie and I walked around in the rain for over an hour trying to find somewhere or something to eat and wine to drink. I'm convinced there is not a single bottle of wine in that town. We ended up finding a place with overpriced fried chicken and had to deal with no wine. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It smelled funny, and the people acted as if Charlie and I were aliens. I did like this one sculpture, and that's about the nicest thing I can say about Riobamba. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and you'll see me in the front.

We are now in Alausi for one more night, and tomorrow we will be riding on devil´s nose train. Our hostel is decent, but the owner was so nice that when we asked if there was a kitchen for us to use, he led us to his kitchen and is letting us cook in his house. He must be hard up for money or just super sweet because it was the only hostel in the area that has a kitchen for us to use. We know, we checked every single one. Last night, Charlie and I played poker with q-tips for our chips. Remember dad when Mallory and I were little, we would use matches when we camped on rainy nights? That's what it reminded me of. We are so resourceful when we need to be. 

I have one more funny story to share. Someone stole Charlie's boxers. Straight up stole them. He had them hanging in the window to dry and they blew down onto the street. When Charlie went down to retreive them, they were gone. Who takes someone else's boxers? We joke that some twelve year old boy is really happy with his new quick-dry undergarments. 

Love always,

Matti Jo

Over the food poisoning

Dear Mom and Dad,

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving despite my absence. I sure did miss the tradicional homecooked food, but don't fret; I didn't go hungry. I am feeling much better and was even able to enjoy some wine yesterday. Charlie is now recovering from food poisoning himself.  I think today he will almost be fully recovered. Don't worry, I nursed him back to health as he did for me. He's a lot more functioning when he's sick then I am. We ate out for two meals yesterday. (Surprised by Charlie's willingness to splurge.) The first meal we had was at a cute little Italian restuarant. Pizza is huge here. It's probably because it's so cheap to make, and Charlie says  they have the biggest profit margin from it. I was ready for a glass of wine at this point, so before we sat down we asked the server if they had wine because we didn't see it on the outside window. He said yes, but later we realized that one of the staff members quickly went to the nearest liquor store to purchase our request. It's amazing what they will do here to aquire customers. Here is a photo of us after dinner. (Charlie puked shortly after.)

For dinner, we dinned at a cute little sushi place. I was skeptical at first, not wanting another round of sickness. I was pleasently surprised by the quality and service. It's only been opened for three weeks and the place actually had a proper chef. Most places have a server, who doubles as the "chef." Charlie and I split a platter of sushi to enjoy multiple rolls. Of course, we had dessert: fried ice cream. It was phenominal! Here we are enjoying ourselves. (Charlie kept this meal down.)

We moved hostels to one with a TV. Charlie is enjoying this because they do have English channels for him to watch while he recovers. I like it because it's next to the ice cream store. :) We made dinner yesterday, and for the life of us, we CAN'T figure out how to make white rice. It may be the hardest thing to cook properly. It's either too crunchy and not cooked all the way through or it's sheer baby food mush. I WILL figure this out before I leave. There was an Asian in the kitchen watching me make food and asked to sample the stir-fry vegetables. The second he put it in his mouth he ran to spit it out and acted as if I gave him battery acid. His response was "needs more salt" then rolls his eyes. Dude, chill out. I didn't even ask for your opinion, and thank goodness you didn't try the rice because you really would have been offended. How rude.

We went go-carting here, which was a blast until we almost died. No joke. The carts are able to go on the main roads as well as dirt paths, which makes them perfect for touring all the waterfalls in the area. Well, as we were finishing up our safe three hour drive, we go through one last tunnel through the mountains. For whatever reason, this tunnel didn't have any lights to light up the path and our carts don't have lights. Fifty feet into the tunnel we realize we can't see a thing, and there's no way to turn around in a one way hole without lights. I start screaming and quickly panick. My first thought was a semi was going to come up from behind us, not see us, and blast us into a million pieces. Just as I was about to get out and press myself against the wall of the tunnel and run/feel my way out, take the $3,000 cart cost, a bus came up behind us and lit up the path for Charlie to drive out. Who the hell makes tunnels without lights? Especially when we went through 10 other ones just fine and the last a death trap. The least they could have done is make a warning sign about this one.  No more motorized vehicles for us.

We are going white water rafting today! Super excited.

Love always,

Matti Jo

Things that annoy me

Dear Mom and Dad,

Things that annoy me:

1. Beggers. Old ladys that hang on you wanting money. Get your filthy hands off me. If I gave everyone a $1, I would spend $15 a day on them alone. I'm sorry, but I need to eat too.

2. Story tellers. They get on the bus and yell some sad story that I barely understand. It usually goes how their parents abandoned them and they don't want to sell drugs on the street. Then they try to bully you into giving them money to help provide for their wife and kids. When they start yelling, Charlie and pretend to sleep.

3. Stray dogs. They are EVERYWHERE. At first I thought they were cute, but now they're just annoying. They bark all the time, get into fights; plus, who knows what diseases they carry.

4. Paying 15 cents to use a pulic bathroom. What am I even paying money for? They are disgusting and not clean. They don't even have soap to wash your hands afterwards. Thank you Germ-X.

5. Teenage boys. I'm sick of them talking shit about me thinking I can't understand them. Some gringos do know Spanish.

6. Street walkers. I move out of your way when you're coming at me. Don't hip/elbow check me when all you have to do is step to the side.

7. Shop owners. I want to take my time and look for things on my own. Hovering over me while I look won't make me buy more things. Give me some damn space and maybe I'll purchase something. Showing me the same thing in 12 different colors isn't being helpful. It's chasing me away.

8. Budgers. Everyone budges. If you're clearly waiting in line for the bathroom, bus, to buy tickets, buy desserts, anything, they WILL budge if you're not posted up with your bows out.

Two things I enjoy:

1. Pop in glass bottles. Fanta, 7-up, and coca-cola all taste better out of a glass bottle.

2. Ice cream being sold at every bus stop. You don't even have to get off. They come to you. NOW that's the service I want.

We have been in Baños for three days now. We bused three hours from Otavalo to Quito, one hour across the town of Quito, and what seemed to be 6 hours from Quito to Baños. This place seems really cool with white water rafting, lots of hiking, go carts, horseback riding, zip lines, but the only thing I've seen is the baño. Food Poisoning. Bad. Out both ends. I even pooped my pants once. The traveler´s life isn't so great at times, and I have found the downfall. How does this happen to me before Charlie? I mean he's the one with all the stomach problems. Let's hope for a better day today...I'm sick of being confined to my room.

Love always,

Matti Jo

Last bit of Otavalo

Dear Mom and Dad,

One thing I've noticed about other travelers is the size of their packs. They are HUGE. Ours are 38 liters. The smallest one I've seen so far is a 50 liter pack. Many have packs that are 65 liters but extend to 80 liters. That just sounds painful to carry around. Charlie and I really did a great job in picking our our packs. I love the quick dry towels we have, and I absolutely love my boots. I might just start making dirty looks towards the girls with high heels first, so they know how it feels. I also love our S.A. books. We use them daily when deciding things to do or places to eat. Last night we had a delicious meal that the book recommended. Charlie's trout still was in whole fish form with eyes and all. Disgusted me a little.

Our hiking experience was well an experience. That's for sure. We had to first bus to Quiroga and then taxi to Lake Cuicochi. I don't know how long the hike was supposed to be, but it was sooooo long. I'm not kidding when I say we walked up hill both ways. There was no downhill stretches, and if there were then there would be three more uphill stretches to follow. Here are a few pictures from this experience.

This first picture is terrible of me, but whatever. It's hard to look extra fly without any makeup or a standard shower. I forgot to mention that our water never worked in the morning for some reason and we could only shower at night. This is us in the taxi riding to the lake. It was a truck taxi and was really fun until we realized how fast he would go the entire way. I had white knuckles at the end of the ride from hanging on so tight.

Here are a few pictures of us at the beginning of the hike. We thought it was going to be easier then it actually was. Thank goodness we didn't take any pictures at the end of the hike because all I would have done is flip off the camera. I have never swore so much in my life until this experience. Did I mention we got lost? Somehow we ended up on a dirt road, which was not part of the hike. I thought we were going to die.

I still got sunburned even with SPF 50 on, so now I know even more that I need to re-apply and then re-apply some more. We ate lunch on our hike, and it was the best PB&J I have ever had. It's amazing how good some small things taste when you are famished.

I had my first "homesick" breakdown yesterday morning. The shower wasn't working, I had huge itchy bug bites, my sunburn killed, tired from the hike, and to top it off I was missing S.L. play in the state championship. I broke down and started bawling. Nothing a little shopping at the market couldn't fix. :)

We also ran into Eric, a fellow traveler whom we met in Quito. We ate dinner with him and had drinks afterwards. It was really cool seeing him again and going out for drinks for the first time was nice as well. Don't worry, we still were in our hostel before 12 am.

One minor mishap, I washed our laundry with paper still in our pockets. Even after washing them a second time with just water, there is still small amounts of paper all over some of our clothes. Opps. Nobody is perfect.

We are busing to Baños today and will probably stay there for four nights before going to Riobamba. I'll keep you updated, dad, so you can map us out.

Love always,

Matti Jo

Things to note

Dear Mom and Dad,

1. I´m so excited for the Spirit Lake football team! WIN THE DAY!!! I remember when it was a big accomplishment to not get 50 pointed during a game. What a great football program S.L has. I bet dad and his friends call the plays and/or flags before the anouncers. I wish I could be there.

2. Always wear pants when hiking. Charlie and I are miserably scratching our legs from our waterfall excusion. I bet we have 20 bites a piece from where our legs were bare. These bites itch worse then any mosquito bite I've ever experienced. Our only saving grace is the anti-itch spray our good friend Susan gave us. She is such a sweetheart and  really took the time to think about us when giving us our going away present. We use some of the items DAILY.

3. We visited Cotacachi yesterday. It was a cute little town with far fewer people then Otavalo. The people seemed to be from indian decent because they wore the typical dress. The men all had long hair in braids and this town is known for their hand made leather. Charlie bought a couple gifts for his mother and sisters, and then poked fun at me because the first two gifts I bought were for me. He says it's because he is the youngest, so he is more giving, and I'm the oldest, so I'm more selfish. This could be true or I think it's because I'm a girl and I just love shopping. :)

4. Charlie is officially developing a sweet toothe. :) I would like to take credit for that. We finished dinner yesterday, and it was HIS idea to get dessert. I even said I was too full to eat anything, but he said he wanted a small piece of chocolate cake. Don't worry, I didn't let him eat it all himself and managed to find room to eat a few bites.

5. We have been joking nightly about the woodwork in our room. If you look close enough in a picture from my last post of the hostel. Look at the one with the TV and round door. You can click on the picture to enlarge it. We really like the woodwork and think the arch in the doorway is really pretty; however, it isn't a perfect arch. The left side isn't as round as the right side. I laugh and joke about how this is NOT up to "Tim Mitchell standards." I even do the tapping on the wood like dad does. Mallory and Mom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The small things make me miss home the most.

6. Today we are venturing to Cotacahi Vocano. We have to take a bus to the town Quiroga, and then a taxi the rest of the way. It should take about 4 hours to hike around it, and we are really looking forward to it. I'm sure Charlie will take too many pictures, and I'll want to bomb the internet server for not letting me upload them fast enought again. I promise though to update the next post with the pictures no matter how frustrated it makes me.

Love always,

Matti Jo

Departed from Quito

Dear Mom and Dad,

I first want to say that I love your comments and everyone elses! It helps bring a piece of home to Charlie and I. We laugh and talk about each one, so keep them coming!!!

We have offically left Quito and are staying in Otavalo. Originally we were only going to stay here for two nights, but we love it and our hostel. It's $9 a night per person, which makes it $18 for the two of us. This is cheaper then in Quito. We were paying $11.25 a night per person. In fact, everything here seems to be cheaper and safer for that fact. Our hostel is awesome! We have our own room again, but this time we have our OWN bathroom! This is so nice to shower when we want and not have to wait for the other guests to finish up. We do not have our own kitchen, but I'll take the change anytime. We also have our own TV in our room. This is ok except the only thing we understand is the soccer games. SOOO MUCH SOCCER. The beds are softer here then at the Vibes, but the pillows are harder. You just can't win. Maybe our next hostel will have both. One can only be hopeful. Roberto is the owner, and he really took the time to explain everything there is to do here. We didn't realize how many activities there are, which is why we decided to stay a little longer. I'm guessing we will be here until Sunday.

Getting to Otavalo was realatively easy. It cost 25 cents to ride the public bus to the main bus terminal in Quito. The public bus was super crowded and watching our packs seemed every lasting. The only time I've been nervous about traveling is when I have had everything on me at once, but in broad daylight, there really isn't any danger. There was an incident on the bus when the driver closed the door too quickly on an old man and the old man fell. When the old mad got off the bus, he straight up smacked the driver in the face and yelled some profanity. Way to stick up for yourself! I was impressed. The second bus was like a charter bus to Otavalo. That cost $2.20 a person and the ride was about 3 hours long. While we were driving we saw and smelt pine trees. A little weird if you ask me because we were crossing the equator, but yes there are pine trees here. Here is a picture of us hott and sweaty on the bus.

Here are a few pictures of the sights we saw as we traveled to Otavalo. The mountain looking pics are actually active volcanoes.

I forgot to mention that Charlie and I had to walk 45 minutes to the first bus station, and once we arrived there, we realized that we had the key to our first hostel. We felt so bad that we walked all the way back to return it to Santiago. Such good people we are. :) On our way back to the bus station, we stopped at Charlie's favorite place to eat. It had the chicken wraps that I previously mentioned. We were the last customers the night before and the first customers in the morning. They hooked us up fat with our last wrap. Thank you, Ali Baba.

Today we walked one hour to one of the most beautiful places I have seen Cascada Peguche. It's a beautiful waterfall with lots of hiking. Here are some of our favorite pictures.This first picture is of the scene we saw walking to the waterfall. Cows everywhere, and I'm an Iowa girl. I was still surprised by the number of cattle roaming around. A little bit intimadating. The pictures with the cement are called trenches. Charlie gave me a lesson on them, but they are used to carry water to the town.

We also visited an Inca Museum. It was soooo cool. You walk into a cave and see where the Inca king resided. There were many artifacts, and it was lead by one of the ingenious people. It's a good thing I could understand Spanish because he didn't really speak any English. For the most part, Charlie could follow along, but it was nice for me to translate in English the parts he didn't understand.We weren't able to take pictures or sneak pictures for that matter because it was a one-on-one tour. I would say 75% of the population would not be able to tour this museum because at times we were literally rock climbing to get to the next sight. There were small crawl spaces that required us being on our hands and knees. The old, obese, and unwilling would not have made it through. Safe to say, it also wasn't handicap accessable.These pictures are of the outside of the museum and of the sign that describes some of the things we saw.




We spent a great deal of yesterday hunting for peanut butter. All we wanted was to bring our own lunch on our hike in the waterfall with peanut butter sandwiches. Do you know how hard it is to ask for something that you don't remember how to say in Spanish. We looked, and I tried describing the creamy brown stuff that goes on bread but isn't butter.We finally gave up thinking that there was no peanut butter in Otavalo until we went for our nightly wine run. Can you believe it? The LIQUER store had peanut butter and knew exactly what I was trying to describe. I kissed the jar I was so happy at that point.

The food market, where one can buy anything from fruit to vegetables to warm meats, was incredible. I could have easily gotten lost in it. The market seemed to be at least six blocks in radius. Of course we did not buy any of the meats because they don't believe in refrigeration. We did buy hot dogs that were so disgusting that there is no way I could even swallow one bite. I ended up eating a vegetarian dish of white rice, carrots, green peppers, and onions last night. At least we bought two pieces of cake: chocolate and white. I'll suffer through any gross meal if it means a delicious dessert at the end. The hot dogs did not faise Charlie, and he ended up eating five of them. Yes mom, I am sharing the responsibilites. I made the entire meal by myself. :)

Today we are going to a small town named Cotacachi. It's a really small town that Roberto recommended to us to visit at least once. They are known for their hand made leather and good cheap food. Our legs need a rest from all the walking we did, and tomorrow we are hiking around a volcano. This should take at least four hours and Roberto said the town is expensive to buy food. With our peanut butter, we now have no problem in packing our lunches. :)

Love always,

Matti Jo

PS. This post may be a bit confusing to read because it took me a full two days to write it due to the horrible internet service. I´m so frustrated that I don't even care to proof read it. Ugh.