Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

We took the bike to the shipper, for the final time. Turns out he is a rider (1100 Honda of some sort), which makes me more comfortable leaving it with him. He'll do the final prep- airing down the tires, disconnecting the battery, and draining some of the fuel. We left him with some clear hose and a 5-liter bottle to put the fuel in.

We also had to pay for it today, just over $1200 in cash. We thought we'd be able to put it on a card- nope. So we went to about 5 ATMs to cobble together enough money- most banks around here only allow you to remove $400-500 per day. We were able to get it out, though. It'll probably be an additional few hundred once things are finalized.

Also bought some big duffel bags today. They are heavy and have rollers on the bottom. They are big enough we should only need one or two, rather than having four smaller ones.

I booked a flight from Portland to LAX to pick up the bike. It is early on August 8. Hopefully I can fly to LAX and walk to the cargo terminal to pick up the bike. Then I can air up the tires, connect the battery, and ride to the closest gas station. Next is to ride to Matt's house, where I'll replace the bearings and rear axle spacer. From there, I'll ride home. Good times.

I got the bike packed up today, which means sorting through our accumulated crap to figure out what we want to hand-carry and what we want to ship with the bike. I decided to ship Tamara's gear on the bike, and hand-carry mine back. That way I can ride before I get the bike, and if anything happens to the bike and the gear, I haven't lost my nice, expensive gear. Maybe I'm just jealous of Tamara's normal-shaped face..

So we took the bike to the shipping office we decided to use- after a mad scramble to find our customs paperwork for Ecuador. I thought I'd lost it. Thankfully, there was one place I didn't look, and Tamara was smart enough to find it. The guy at the office, spouse of the woman whom we'd been talking to, was there and filled us in on things. He wants the gas tank nearly drained, battery disconnected, and, after a long confusing conversation, we realized they wanted to air down the tires. No problem- we couldn't tell what he wanted done.

He also wanted the bike washed. Imagine that! So we are supposed to bring the bike back tomorrow afternoon, washed and ready for them. No problem with that, either- we went and got it washed in a really weird way. The guy sprayed some sort of oily soap onto it, then washed the entire bike with a filthy rag that was coming apart. Basically it just smeared dirt everywhere. Next, he used a pressure washer to blow all of the dirt off. If the bike was in better shape I wouldn't have liked that (because of scratches), but it's pretty banged up anyhow.

We'll take the bike back tomorrow, which may be the last time we see it until it arrives in Los Angeles- and until I arrive in LA, for that matter.

I seem to be spending most of my time doing business. I did some writing today, otherwise I spent a lot of the day faxing things for our real estate nightmare, documents to the university, and some stock-related transactions.

Also, since today is Tamara's last day of language education, I gave her teacher a ride on the motorcycle. She'd never been on a bike before, and she's been looking forward to the experience. She is SHORT, maybe 4'10” at most. So she looked funny wearing Tamara's gear.

We went for a zip around town, doing some minor lane-splitting (legal!) and bouncing the bike off the rev limiter in second gear. It was as fun as that sort of thing can be when the city streets are full of cages.

We are still finalizing our bike shipment. It's about 95% likely it will go to LAX, which means I'll fly down to repair the bearings, then ride it back.

We had a quote for getting the bike to Portland for about $1000, but at the last minute they mentioned that not only would we need to drain all fluids (brake fluid, oil, gas, etc) but also would have to palletize it ourselves. Not gonna happen. So we are waiting for a quote back from another company.

In other news, the stars aligned so I can get in to PSU for the fall term- we thought it might not happen until winter. Tamara won't be able to take classes for a year, since she is working towards residency. (Residency helps for tuition, but also helps for admissions to OHSU).

Still flying from Quito to Houston on August 1, but then we are flying back to Portland the evening of the 4th, rather than the evening of the 6th.

San Gil to Bogota


Zipaquira Salt Cathedral (Catedral de Sal)


Bogota


Bogota to Santander de Quilichao


Santander de Quilichao to Colombian border

Labels: colombia, picture-post, pix

* Tamara posting*

We have three companies getting us quotes for the motorcycle shipping. Best news though was that we were able to redeem our airline miles to get business-class tickets from Quito to Houston (direct flight) on Aug. 1st, then we continue on from Houston to Portland on the 6th. We will spend the time in Houston visiting my sister and her family. Hi Candace!

It's a pretty good deal since we didn't have any luck finding flights from Quito to Portland when we tried earlier in the week. We will end up paying extra to have the bike sent to PDX instead of picking it up in LA and riding it back, but won't have as many worries about the bike's condition upon arrival (battery, starting, bearings, etc). And best of all we don't have to spend a bunch of money on airline tickets back.

In other news, I had to take the week off from volunteering at the clinic because I got Ted's eye infection. Since it is really contagious and requires antibiotics, I thought it would be best for me to not pass it on to the kids (especially as they can't afford extra medicines). I will start again on Monday and now I can make up this week later in the month since we don't leave right away.

We are still organizing the final details, but I think we are coming home before the end of July. We've spent the last several weeks trying to figure out college admissions, and we've settled on a plan that puts us in Portland. We are attracted to PDX because of some schools, a much better downtown core and transportation network, and somewhat cheaper rentals than other school options.

So, tomorrow I'll see if I can find *someone* who can transport the bike back to the States. And since there aren't any 'slots' using our frequent flier miles to come back to the states, we'll be paying our way- it won't be cheap.

Tamara's plan will be to do some medical-related work so she can gain residency in Oregon (not just for tuition, but to increase chances of getting into OHSU soon). I'll do part-time or full-time school, depending on some wrangling with the school, and certainly full-time by winter.

Good times!

The Cartagena page has 65 photos- it's a large page, with a large variety of topics.

Cartagena


Cartagena to San Alberto


San Alberto to San Gil

Labels: colombia, picture-post, pix

We had an interesting, scary, and miserable sailing voyage with our flaky captain Steve Robbins of the S/V Shenanigans. The best part of the trip was making new friends, Richard and Amanda from Sweden.

There are only two pages listed in this photo post, but they are very important. We're excited to have these up.

Portobelo to Cartagena Sailing Trip


Portobelo to Cartagena Sailing Trip: San Blas

Labels: panama-to-colombia, picture-post, pix, portobelo-to-cartagena, steve-robbins, sv-shenanigans

Tomorrow will be a very big, very important photo post. This is the last of the photos until that one.

Colon


Portobelo


Sailboat bike loading

Labels: photo-post, picture-post, pix

David to Panama City


Panama: Panama City


San Felipe (Casco Viejo)


Panama Buses


Rim dent and repair


Bike suspension repair


Panama Canal

Labels: picture-post, pix

My left eye has been bothering me for a couple of days. I assumed I got some dust in it last weekend, when we went up the teleferiquo. I checked for junk (like an eyelash) several times a day, but didn't find anything until yesterday, when I found a small eyelash. It took a while to extract, and my eye didn't feel better afterwards. In fact, during the night my eye produced a ton of goobers (technical term) and has been tearing like crazy.

So we researched ophthalmologists this morning, thanks to SAE's listings. Tamara shortened her language lesson and we went hunting for one of the doctors at about 10:30am. We didn't find the office, so we went to the second one. He was there, and was in an office with other doctors, which was nice. We explained we didn't have an appointment and asked if they could fit us in. Sure enough, it was only about 15 minutes before we saw the doctor.

The doctor was a very nice guy. His English was quite passable, which helped when we were talking about things like viruses, cornea transplants, and the like. He confirmed that my eye didn't have herpes (a big concern for me- I have herpes in my other eye), and that it was just conjunctivitis. He said it is common here because of the pollution and dry climate (which makes eyes more susceptible to getting a bacteria). He gave us a prescription for Vigamox, told us to come back early next week if it isn't better, and told us it was really contagious (which we knew).

So, hopefully things will clear up. The left side of my face is crusty from all the tearing. Sounds silly, I know.

(The flowers are some that Tamara bought yesterday. The entire bouquet was $6).

Labels: eye, health, medical

I took Tamara to the volunteer clinic on the bike today. That meant dealing with morning traffic to get cross-town- it was about the same as any other big city, I guess. Luckily, I was able to lanesplit quite a bit.

Actually finding the clinic was difficult. Tamara had marked it with the GPS, but it is on a steep hillside, so roads either don't go that far or they bypass it. With a couple of U-turns, we found it okay.

The road to the clinic isn't really a road. Even though the area is divided by normal blocks and has sidewalks, the road is really rough dirt. It is even rougher than an unmaintained road because of the steep hillside. Additionally, there are sewer covers in the center of it- one of them was at least 18” above the roadway.

I stayed at the clinic about 90 minutes with Tamara, as we waited for the doctor, dentist, and other volunteer to arrive. Tamara put me to work, helping her file the patient folders. It was interesting for several reasons. First, people keep their mother's name for a while. So, first imagine Tamara had a middle name (for simplicity, we'll call it “Middle”). In the US her name as a child would be Tamara Middle Cheney. In Ecuador it would be Tamara Middle Cheney Anderson. Once she got married it would become Tamara Middle Timmons Cheney.

When the doctor arrived Tamara asked her some questions for me. She sees at least 25 kids per day. That means about 20 of them are annual visits, and the remainder are tiraged emergencies- typically sick kids. I also saw the library, the computer center, and the doctor and dentist's offices.

When I was ready to go, I had Tamara come out to help me with the bike. I was parked facing downhill, basically in the middle of the 'road' because of all the softball-sized rocks. I wanted Tamara to help me stablize the bike if it got thrown sideways from the rocks.

Luckily, I didn't have any trouble. I went a block down the hill, past the sleeping mangy dogs that didn't care I was passing inches from them, then turned onto a paved street. I realized it was the wrong street, so I went to make a u-turn. Unfortunately the street was on a slope, and I dropped the bike. I spent a couple of minutes trying to lift it- finally someone came by and helped me.

By the time I got back to the apartment (a long ride), I could hardly walk. Obviously I wrenched my back to some degree. Hopefully it is just a muscle strain.

*Tamara posting*

Monday, 7/2:

I had the day off from volunteering today because there was some big meeting scheduled for the day. We took it fairly easy - Ted had a hard time sleeping last night. We just did some errands and I had my normal Spanish lesson in the afternoon.


Tuesday, 7/3:

At the clinic I spent most of the day in the filing room catching up on papers (some from back in 2004 that still needed to be filed!). I did make it into the consultation room for a couple hours.

Today there were some really cute girls about 9-11 - very shy but they had really cute smiles. One girl was really shy and timid, and I noticed that she would at times blink really fast. She had a habit of pulling in her bottom lip to the point that it had scabs under the lip. She got referred to a psychologist, but it made me sad because it seemed fairly obvious that she didn't get much attention at home. It makes me wonder if the family will actually follow up and get help for her or not (the referrals to other doctors are for services that are free, or nearly so).


Wednesday, 7/4:

I got to work all day in the consultation room today- I love that. My most exciting thing today was listening to a heart murmur- my first time with a stethoscope and what a cool thing to hear! This poor boy had lost both his parents (they died) and his grandparents were taking care of him and his siblings. He was malnourished and very sad. From what the doctor said, his heart condition was most likely due to the malnutrition and would correct itself once his diet got better, though she did order an ecocardiogram.

There were quite a few interesting cases today - Hepatitis A, Phimosis (narrowed foreskin - the doctor made the poor boy cry pulling it back to look it over), two cases of undescended testis, along with the normal cases of lice, parasites, allergies, and colds.

I gave an eye exam to one boy and didn't notice until the other volunteer, Laura, mentioned it - that he was saying the letters in English. He got stuck on the letter “Z” though and I had to tell him it was ok to say it in Spanish :) When we were done I told him that in English we call it “Z” (in Spanish it's zeta) to which Laura quickly responded, “only in America!” It cracked me up - she's right of course - elsewhere it's Zed.

As I was waiting for the doctor after the coffee/lunch break I let some more kids draw in my notebook. They really like it and as one girl was drawing another boy came up and wanted to draw as well. So this evening, Ted and I went and bought a special notebook (with non-lined pages) for the kids to draw in. It should be a hit. I got some stickers to give out as well which should be fun for me.

Ted was completely out of reading material, despite all the time he's spent editing photos and videos. So he went to an expat bookstore in town to trade in the one we were both done with for some new ones. He got some interesting topics- adolescent development, gender issues, and urban studies. He also checked for our long-overdue supply package- still no sign of it, even though it was shipped over a month ago.

Monteverde to La Fortuna


Santa Elena Bike Crash


La Fortuna


San Jose


San Jose: Bike Repairs


San Jose to Panama Border

Labels: picture-post, pix

Costa Rica Border to Monteverde


Costa Rica: Monteverde/Santa Elena


Monteverde: Butterfly Garden


Monteverde: Frog pond (Ranario)


Monteverde: Jungle Walk


Monteverde: Horseback Riding


Monteverde: Waterfalls



Monteverde: Zipline fun

Labels: picture-post, pix

El Salvador


Honduras


Nicaragua: Border to Leon


Nicaragua: Leon Viejo (includes Leon Viejo, modern Leon, and lots of flowers and trees)


Nicaragua: Leon to Grenada


Granada


Nicaragua: Granada to border

Labels: picture-post

This one took a while because we needed to make the video and get some photos scanned.

Dolphins

Labels: picture-post

We've been wanting to go up the teleferiqo (gondola) since coming to Quito. We finally did it today.

Part of the problem is just finding the damn thing. It's approximately marked on two of three maps, including their website, but nothing lists its exact location. I think that's because most tourists get there via taxi or bus.

We went on the most likely road, but it petered out into cobblestone, then dirt, then a cow path along a steep canyon. The whole thing is very steep, and our DL just doesn't care for that (since the gearing is lower and the elevation saps so much power). We turned around and headed down. Thankfully one can see the teleferiqo from some parts of town, so we knew that we needed to go north a little further.

A few turns later, we found it. The base is 1000 feet higher than our apartment, but it is still in town (or at least on the edge). In other words, it isn't a drive outside of the city or anything.

There was a wait to go up, but the trip to the summit is very quiet and scenic. It ascends over 3000 feet up the side of the mountain. About 1000 feet from the top, the trees give way to grasses- I didn't think about it, but Tamara realized we were above the tree line.

The top is quite windswept, as you might imagine. We walked along the spine of the ridge to a good vantage point. The trail continued upwards to the peak, but we were having enough trouble with altitude that we didn't even consider it. 14,500 feet is quite high. At least they had horses to rent (which made me wonder how they got the horses into the gondola..).

We took a lot of pictures, spent some time looking *down* on airplanes that were in the flight pattern, and generally enjoyed things. Quito is usually quite clear, you could see the whole city, sprawled across the plateau/valley/plain/whatever.

After we came down, we hiked down to the little amusement park. I knew they had go-karts, so we waited our turn and went out for a race. The gas karts were evenly matched, and there were eight karts out. I did quite well- passing the entire field (with only a bump or two) and having a blast. Tamara did well too- she passed quite a few and didn't get passed by anyone but me.

Friday 6/29

Ted went to see an English-speaking doctor today and was able to get a prescription for Ambien. It isn't horribly expensive (~$1/pill), even though the generic wasn't available. We hung out for the rest of the day - the both of us trying to feel better. I did run some errands and we did laundry, so that is nice.


Saturday 6/30

We left first thing this morning and went to Otavalo to check out the famous Saturday market. It was very busy and there were a lot of tourists, but also locals. We wandered around for a couple hours and bought a bunch of stuff for ourselves: alpaca blanket, alpaca sweater, cotton shirt & pants, painting, carved gourd.

There were a lot of cute kids and beautiful indigenous women in traditional dress. It was a cool market because all of the towns around Otavalo have a specialty handicraft, and most of the things being sold at the market are made locally.

We ran into a gal from University of Oregon who asked us the time. It was interesting to hear an American accent again and so we asked where she was from - she replied “Oregon” and we asked where, to which she replied “the United States”. Heh. We got it figured out, but it cracked us up. That is the state of mind you get in down here.

We also noticed a lot of red-headed white tourists with English accents - there must have been a tour group or student group from the UK. It was funny how much they stuck out. At least the both of us have dark hair & eyes!

We took a smaller highway back to Quito which was much less congested. At one point, though, it was a cobblestone road up the side of the mountain. No problem, we figured it was a nice view and the bike is much easier to handle without the luggage on. Then it turned to gravel, dirt, and mud. Ted was enjoying it, even though he hadn't been feeling well, and I was fine with it. It was pretty scenery with lots of trees and some good views over the valleys. We were totally alone on that road, which was a good break from the city.

We stopped at a small town, Cotacachi, which we had heard was the leather area. We didn't find any interesting leather, but ran across a sun festival. We had noticed a ton of police with full riot gear (shields, tear gas, etc) and had been wondering what was going on since there didn't seem to be many people. While we were eating our lunch the “parade” came down the street - men dressed in cowboy outfits (chaps & vest) with strange black hats. We were told it was a “sun fiesta” but we don't have any idea what exactly it was all about. Maybe my Spanish teacher will know.