During our stay in Salento, we met an American from Bend, Oregon, who had been running “Brunch”, a small restaurant with home base food like waffles, burgers and burritos.  He just happened to tap into the fact that Colombia has a serious peanut butter deficit.  Peanut butter can only be found very occasionally, and when it is, it’s usually something like Jiffy, or Peter Pan or some other hydrogenated oil filled representation.  Well, the owner of Brunch roasts Colombian peanuts and makes and sells muy excellente peanut butter…travelers to Salento should stop into Brunch and buy at least a few containers of Brunch’s peanut butter.

As soon as we crossed the border into Ecuador, we realized that overlanding in Ecuador would be much faster and easier.  The roads are smooth, fast, and seem much less curvy.  The roads’ life threatening thermometer has cooled off significantly.  In remembering Marco’s 4 episodes of throwing up in the car, we’re hoping to be puke free from here on out.

We let loose a bit and spent one night on Laguna San Pablo, outside of Otavalo, at a lake side lodge called Hosteria Puerto lago. We very much felt spoiled by the tennis court, paddle boats, fireplaces, and nice restaurant. My 4 mile run over to the lake seemed unusual in those parts, as a dozen people slowed down or stopped to snap a picture of my less than impressive running.

Considering that big cities haven’t been our favorite places to visit, objectively speaking, Quito has been the most beautiful city we’ve seen.  It’s old, warm, and it makes for excellent camera shots.

Our primary reason for going to Quito was that my mom was flying in for a 2 week visit and we were to fly to the Galapagos islands from the Quito airport.  We found a hostel named “The Secret Garden”.  It hosted a rooftop terrace that greeted us with panoramic views of the city which made us question if our eyes were playing tricks on us.

The decision to go to the Galapagos Islands was one that surprised us all.  Prior to coming on this trip, we hadn’t even considered going to the Galapagos.  As we’ve travelled through Columbia and Northern Ecuador, we’ve met person after person, mostly backpackers, who gleamed and glowed about their Galapagos adventures. 

Early the next morning, we headed south to spend what would be close to our favorite few days in 9 weeks.  We stopped in the small town of Machacha for provisions and of course, our daily galletas from a corner panaderia.  I say “our” galletas, but really they’re “my” galletas.  I think I’ve got some cookie monster DNA.

We left Cotopaxi and bounced our way along the cobblestone road back to the Panamericana.  Once we rolled onto the regular paved road, it took a while for the van’s cobblestoned rhythm of rat tat tat tat to fade itself out of the expectation of our senses.

We made our way down a very windy road, through lush jungle, sharp turn after sharp turn, with my mom white knuckling it and eating saltine crackers.  Our transition from the mountains to the coast took us through communal shrimp farms, where families, living in the nearby bamboo cabanas, mark their designated area with a colored t-shirt on a wooden stick.

I remember when our son, Marco contracted Dengue fever. We were in Puerto Engabao Ecuador, a fishing village largely populated by street fighting pigs and graced with a magical point break surf wave. It was here, in the middle of nowhere Ecuador that I realized that this fever, this illness was different and that it meant business.

He was 8 years old. After 4 days of high fevers, vomiting, lethargy and joint pain, I took him to the equivalent of an urgent care center/small emergency room in the neighboring town of Playas, Ecuador.

Marco is in top form again.  The area we were in had a prominent Dengue fever problem and we certainly got pummeled by enough mosquitoes to make this a likely culprit.

We woke up and I surfed Playas but never figured out the low tide mess of waves.

Once we crossed the border into Peru, we headed for the surf town of Mancora.  We’d been told it would feel like a smaller version of Ecuador’s Montanita.  The town’s main road (the Panamericana) was bustling with vacationers enjoying La Semana Santa, getting ready for the huge celebration of Easter.

We were told that the drive to Huaraz from the city of Chimbote, which serves as sort of a Huaraz jumping point, takes 5-8 hours by bus.  We didn’t really know what to expect since 5-8 hours is a pretty huge range and the buses here are maniacs on wheels.

As far having to spend the week without my main squeeze, Huaraz does just fine.  The beauty that surrounds this place seems to reveal itself little by little, once again, bringing out my inner cheese making fantasies.

There are peaks to climb and high elevation hikes everywhere I look.  Most of these temptations aren’t possible with the kids at this point, despite their trying to convince me to leave them with a bit of money, some snacks, and a few movies.

The kids and I waited with anticipation at the minuscule airport of Anca, just outside of Huaraz.  A few minutes before Darin’s scheduled landing, I tried not to show my concern as the airport’s only fire truck was geared and ready to go, spraying it’s hoses, firing some sort of canon and testing it’s ability to get a move on.

Well, the internet in Peru,  is to North Americans as a race is to a snail.  We feel the same way about our online connection speed that a snail feels about escargot.  Making postings on the blog has proven to be very difficult and we pretty much just post when the stars are aligned.

Before I start sharing the details of our return to the desert, I can’t write another word before I spend some time on “Tejas”.

Tejas are a Peruvian, handmade confection, specific to the region of Ica through Nazca.  I do a pretty good job at staying away from sweets but chocolate’s always been my achilles heel.  Tejas would, without a doubt convert me into an overweight diabetic with chocolate stained shirts.  They remind me of something like a “turtle”.  You know, the kind of chocolates your grandma pulled out of the box around the holidays and passed around in the flimsy plastic tray?

The water was beautiful and shared by only a few fisherman with small nets, fishing for what we think were clams (all in their underwear) and pelicans skimming the water and flying in formation.  We spend three days cooking, exploring the beaches, and taking in what we could of our last few moments of South American solitude.

We hope that our few days in Lima helped with the upcoming transition back to the normal world.  After four months of being focused on things like clean water, access to toilet paper, securing van sleeping spots, and everything else Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian, we’re now feeling like we live in a different sort of bubble.

We’ve come back to the U.S. feeling a bit tenderized.  We’re noticing that we’re moving at a different pace than those around us.  We came back to our nice house and everything in it, and all we wanted to do was take off and go sleep in our tent for a few days.

The tent therapy, combined with skiing and mountain biking helped quite a bit, but I still find myself sitting there, thinking of nothing but the present minute, and missing my kids when they’re at school.