Quite literally one volcano over from Quito, to the southeast, lies an expansive plateau valley nestled between similar giants. What we call volcano valley, and what the world calls Cotopaxi National Park, was a landscape unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We booked a trip with our hostel to their sister location, Secret Garden Cotopaxi. At …
Mindo, Mindo, Mindo!!! Any apprehensions we had about finding our bus were gone in an instant. Its clear that bus stations in Ecuador have dealt with too many clueless gringo’s so everything is very simple. Easier for us, I guess. The bus ride was a memorable one, quickly descending the country on small two lane …
This was a total whirlwind day trip out of Quito. So many things! Otavalo is a city two hours north of Quito. It is most famous for the indigenous market that goes on in the centre of the city every Saturday. Luckily for us, we went on a Saturday. We got on the tour bus …
Welcome to an entire new type of adventure! The South American kind! The Ecuadorian kind! Quito style! One 30 hour sleep in the airport till the security guard wakes you up travel day later, we arrived in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. Immediately we felt a different presence here than in Europe. English is no …
As we write this, we are in our second Porto hostel. Our first got filled up by some Italian catholic youth in town to travel to Lisbon for World Youth Day in their quest to see the Pope. Our writing sessions are interrupted by various youth groups breaking out into song in their various languages. …
Well, we just created a European tier list of stuff. You will see that after all the Europe blogs come out. A week or two probably. It’s 45 minutes until we head for the Porto Airport. We will spend our final night in Europe in the Barcelona Airport terminal. A rather unsexy location for the …
Pastel de Nata… the most ionic and delicious pastry in Portugal. Pastel de Nata is similar to a Chinese egg tart. It is a tart filled with a creamy custard filling. I will go into more detail on how it’s made in later but lets talk about it’s history. This is a very quick summary …
One whole week in one location? What a concept. We had RELAXATION days! What a concept. We slept in. We puttered. We chilled. Wow. Porto is straight up gorgeous though. The skyline of buildings working their way up the river valley is one of the best in the world. It’s phenomenal. The city itself is …
This is a little two tiered story about how port wine is created, and the friends we made along the way discovering how. At our hostel in Porto (Sandeman hostel, owned by a port company), we recognized our roommates from Lisbon, Ben and Alex. We were roommates again! They had rented a car and were …
This was a really good day. What a scenic place to be. Sintra is the classic historical day trip from Lisbon. A small sized town with all sorts of fantastic palaces and castles atop and alongside hills surrounding the old townsite. The walking through the town and hillsides gave wonderful panoramas to explore. We got …