South America Trip - Day 7, 8, 9 - Guayaquil

Our bus reached Guayaquil terminal around 5 PM and we took a taxi to Hostel Suites Madrid. We got a map of the surrounding area from the hostel front desk and headed out to the malecon (boardwalk). We spent some time at the malecon, then headed to the main street called 9 de Octubre for dinner. It was Sunday and a lot of shops were closed. We had dinner at Pizza Hut and headed back to the hostel for the night.

The next morning we had breakfast at Sweet and Coffee, a chain in Guayaquil, and went back to the hostel to plan the rest of the day. There was a vegetarian restaurant Krishna Express just two blocks away so we went there for lunch. After lunch we walked to Parque Simon Bolivar. It is a small park surrounded by busy roads. As we were entering the park we saw a bunch of people staring at something on the ground - a land iguana. We couldn't see anymore iguanas from that spot but as soon as we walked into the park a little more we saw a lot more. There must have been more than 50 iguanas at that park. Several iguanas had climbed up on trees but a lot of them were roaming around the park freely with the people. One of the park visitors started feeding bananas to the iguanas and got a lot of the iguanas gathered together. Some of the iguanas even climbed up on her! We spent some time there taking pictures of the iguanas and then walked to the Malecon 2000 shopping mall.

Iguanas at Parque Simon Bolivar

South America Trip Day 7 - Quito to Guayaquil

We decided to go to Guayaquil from Quito by bus. Busses to Guayaquil all start from Quito's southern bus terminal in Quitumbe. The terminal was pretty awesome - very clean, big and also had free wi-fi. There wasn't a whole lot of rush at the terminal and we were able to get tickets by reaching there a little early. There are two reputed companies - PanAmericana Internacional and Transportes Ecuador - which have frequent busses to Guayaquil every day. We took the PanAmericana Internacional bus which was scheduled to leave at 8:20 AM from the terminal. While loading our luggage onto the bus, the conductor tagged the luggage and we had to hold on to the tags to get the bags back later. The bus stopped at several locations along the way and we got to see some very interesting sights as the bus took us through the Andes into the western plains.

Inside Quitumbe terminal

South America Trip Day 5, 6 - Mindo

Mindo is a small town in Ecuador's last remaining cloud forest area. A cloud forest is characterized with persistent cloud cover over forests. Mindo is 2 hours away from Quito and most day tours that are offered  felt crammed since there is quite a bit to see and do there. There were some overnight tour options but the price was quite high. After some online research we found that there are buses going from Ofelia (Quito's north bus terminal) to Mindo. The bus schedule varies by day and there are usually only 3-5 buses per day. So we decided to take a morning bus from Quito to Mindo, spend the night there and take an evening bus back the next day. We also made reservations for the night at the Bio Hostal.

Mindo Cloud Forest

South America Trip Day 3 - Otavalo Market

On the third day of the trip, we decided to visit the world famous Otavalo Market near Quito. We were not looking to buy anything specific, but wanted to go and check out the market. The market is supposed to be big on Saturdays, but we were going to be in Mindo Cloud Forest on Saturday, so decided to visit it on a weekday.

Again the most suggested way to visit this market is with a tour (approx. $60 per person), but we decided to do it ourselves because the tours were quite pricey. We started from hostel around 8.30 AM and first headed to Carcelen (another bus terminal in the north of Quito) from where there are direct buses to Otavalo town. We took a feeder bus from Parque El Ejido to Carcelen bus station. As usual, we missed our stop and ended up going couple of stops further than where we wanted to go. So we got down and walked back to the Carcelen bus terminal. Took tickets from the ticket counter for Otavalo for $2.20 per person. $2 is the bus ticket and $.20 is the Carcelen terminal fee.

South America Trip Day 2 - Mitad Del Mundo

We decided to go to the "Line of Equator" on Day 2 in Quito. The most commonly proposed option was to take a day trip with any of the local operators - the day trip would include a tour of the old town and a trip to Mitad del Mundo. We had already wandered around the old town the previous day so instead of taking the tour, we decided to go to Mitad del Mundo ourselves by bus. Mitad del Mundo is not too far away from Quito but the bus ride is about 2 hours. We researched about the different ways to get there and found out that there is a bus to Mitad del Mundo from Ofelia (Quito's north bus terminal).

At the Equator

South America Trip Day 1 - Quito's Old Town

At Basilica del Voto Nacional

Getting to Quito

Quito was the first city we were visiting in South America. We had booked our tickets on LAN Ecuador and were set to fly from New York's JFK airport. Our flight was just a few days after hurricane Sandy and airports were still recovering. Luckily everything went smoothly and the flight left on time. We had exit row seats so the hostess came by to check on us and started speaking to us in Spanish. Neither of us understood a word of what she said and simple gave her blank stares. The moment she stopped speaking, I blurted out "No habla espanyol". She smiled and explained to us in her broken English and left. We looked at each other and just could not stop laughing and wondered how we would manage the entire trip without Spanish.

Planning the South America trip

Both of us had been wanting to go to the amazon rainforest and river. We were also planning to quit our jobs in Seattle, USA and move back to India. It just seemed to be a good idea to combine the two and visit the amazonas on our way back to India. The more we thought about it, the more we were leaning towards extending our amazon visit beyond the reach of the river alone. One by one we added countries to the list.

There were several things we considered when shortlisting the countries we wanted to visit -

• visa - We both have Indian passports and several countries require visas for entry. Some are easy and quick to get and some are a lengthy process.
• variety - We wanted to cover different kinds of landscapes and also have the opportunity to see different wildlife.
• budget - We had set a budget for ourselves and some of the choices we made were based on the budget.

Road trip to Yellowstone National Park

We did a week-long road trip from Seattle to Yellowstone National Park during the last week of August 2012. We started on Saturday morning, Aug 26th, from Seattle. On our way, we stopped at the Snoqualmie falls on I-90. The waterfall was an amazing sight - green surroundings, a huge drop, and a hotel-with-a-view by its side. The mist generated by the falls was so dense that we could see multiple rainbows. From what we have heard, the hike to the bottom of the falls is a must do, but unfortunately it was closed at that time due to some construction work.

Snorkeling at Molokini

One of the reasons we decided to go to Maui, Hawaii and not any other beach destinations was Snorkeling. We did some snorkeling in Mexico couple of years back and really enjoyed it and always wanted to do it again. It is so intriguing to watch life under water in its pristine form.

We did some research about the best snorkeling spots on Maui and waters near Molokini were highly recommended. Molokini is an island to the west of Maui. It is a restricted island and no one can step on or touch the islands. There are several half day tours to Molokini starting from Wailea. The tour can cost you anywhere from $50-$100 and includes lunch. It takes about an hour to get to Molokini on a speed boat. The water level near Molokini is not shallow but you can still see the bottom very clearly. We saw tons of colorful fishes, eel and corals. We also saw couple of turtles. If you don't already have an underwater camera, you will probably have the option to rent one from your tour operator.

Road to Hana, Pipiwai Trail

Kaanapali and Hana are on opposite sides of the island. Since we had quite a drive ahead of us we decided to take the faster route to Kahului through the south-west instead of the north. After a quick pit stop at Cafe Mambo in Paia for some smoothie goodness, we continued on the Road to Hana.

When we were looking into things that we should be doing in Maui, the Road to Hana was one of the most often mentioned activities. And it lived up to our expectations. The long and windy road provided several beautiful lookout views.

The first waterfall of several on the Road to Hana was the Twin Falls. The fall itself wasn't that great, but the trail to the falls was quite interesting - there were several interesting flowers, banana trees, a water tunnel.

Iao Valley

We drove along the northern coast of Maui from Kaanapali to the Iao valley state park. The drive had some amazing sights. We stopped at several view points, the most notable one being Honolua bay. It had a great view of the bay below. The water looked quite calm in the bay area and it seemed like an excellent snorkeling spot (although there were only a few people snorkeling there).