How Old Do You Have to Be to Paraglide?

This week we were curious how old you had to be to paraglide in Ecuador.  Our hosts drove us to the most popular spot for paragliding locally so that I could try the sport for the first time.  But of course our adventure-seeking children wanted to know if they could try too.  Well. . . .

Lift off for Marshall.

And a calm flight over the ocean.

Shelly joins the fun.

And she flies with the birds.

The view from her lap.

Baxter excitedly waves to Mom and Dad overhead.

Atticus catches the attention of a TV cameraman when he tries on some gear.

Why not hook him up all the way?

And send him on his way!

All smiles.

I guess five is old enough!

And of course Baxter is too!

Baxter sails above it all.

Double thumbs up!

And a fourth safe landing for our family.

Of course about six seconds later we heard, "Can we do it again?"  Perhaps another day.  One flight each was a pretty good start.  So if the boys are flying at ages five and seven, it causes us to wonder what Shelly mused out loud: "What are they going to be doing as teenagers?"

It's possible our boys will have a warped sense of "normal" and of "adventure" later in life.  But for now, we're enjoying making the most of this unusual year that is our sabbatical sojourn.

The People You Meet

When we stayed in Guatemala for seven weeks, we loved the local people we met.  We wrote a bit about our teachers but mostly about our wonderful host family.

After nearly four weeks on the Ecuadorian coast, our interactions have been much more frequent and substantial with gringos than with local Ecuadorians.  Our hosts here, Marsha and Shell, hail from Arkansas but moved here 4 years ago to retire.  As they built their beach house with extra guest rooms for their visiting family and friends, they realized they could add another floor and use the house to host paying guests.  And so this bed and breakfast was born.

Shell is a former bank president who likes to keep busy with projects.  In addition to overseeing the building of this beach house he has bought, remodeled, and sold other property along the coast.  He's a story-teller and willing guide for his guests.

Marsha holds the stronger command of Spanish and helps direct the day to day operations of the house, which includes managing a staff of two housekeepers and two groundskeepers.  Her background as CPA helps her keep the finances of running this business and of the other real estate ventures in the black.

Our three hosts: Shell, Marsha, and Choco.

Above all, Marsha and Shell are consummate hosts.  They anticipate needs, continuously improve the experience, and go well beyond what's expected.  We've been impressed by their subtle generosity.  It manifests in many ways such as when Shell dropped by our room to ask the boys if they had left two LED light sticks in the yard.  The boys said no, but Shell said they could have them anyway.  It was clear to Shelly and me that Shell had gotten the light sticks for the boys but just didn't want to make us feel indebted.  Classy.

Because of these great American hosts, many of the other people we've met here have been Americans as well.  We've met many expatriates living nearby as Shell and Marsha seem to be a central part of that community.  Most of these expats have chosen to retire on the coast in Ecuador though some still live in the U.S. or Canada six months of the year for professional reasons.

We've met entrepreneurs from the States who have started businesses in Ecuador.  Most of the younger entrepreneurs live in Ecuadorian cities like Guayaquil and Cuenca where there's a bigger population base and access to resources like quality education.  Coastal visits are vacations for these people.

Another batch of people we've met are paid by you--American taxpayers.  DEA agents, consular staff, and security officers enjoy hitting the coast and the familiar warmth of the hosts at our B&B.  With fascination we've listened to their world-travel stories, their perspective of Ecuador, and details of their careers we'd guess most Americans have no idea about.

Also funded by you, even if at much less expense, are the peace corps workers we've met--fourteen in all so far.  Only one volunteer, Pam, is assigned to this village but she has twice hosted other volunteers from around the country for workshops.  Pam's assignment is to educate and empower women in La Entrada to build viable businesses of their own.  Her first venture is a collective in which she taught the local women how to make and market recycled paper goods.

What we've discerned through these interactions is a kind of "third culture" that's neither Ecuadorian nor American.  It has elements of both brought in and at the same time seems to create a fantastical culture that doesn't really exist--a culture where people take what they like from two different cultures and try to have the best of both worlds.  This third culture is quite alluring, but we suspect it's elusive to many.

Interspersed among all of these foreigners, we have met and engaged many Ecuadorians too--the staff here, Ecuadorian guests, our surf instructor, shopkeepers, and villagers.  We've used those opportunities to practice our Spanish.  Hopping on local buses, hiring guides, and navigating menus has been much easier thanks to our intensive time in Guatemala.

But in all candor, this stretch of weeks is less about cultural immersion and more about taking in what this locale has to offer.  And it's a cornucopia!

Deciding What's Next

We have one week left on our original booking at the lovely bed and breakfast in La Entrada, Ecuador.  What then?

It feels like we lost some time here with Atticus contracting the chicken pox virus.  With him not able to go in the pool or to be around other vulnerable people, we've created a bit of quarantine for him.  We've used the emailed guidelines of our home doctor to create a safe regimen.

Swinging in our hammock.

A very literal oatmeal bath.

Cruising the empty beach on the Huffy.

Playing in the sand.

And hanging out with his buddy Choco.

In a few days, Atticus will enjoy being able to eat meals with other people, swim in the pool, play with kids, and visit nearby attractions.  We'll relish that freedom too.  But all in all, it's not a bad place to have had to recuperate!

So what to do. . . .  Should we extend our time here so that we can resume surfing lessons, visit local sites we've not yet seen, and continue to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere?  Or should we spend a few weeks and more of our sabbatical budget exploring altogether different places like Peru or the Galapagos Islands?  Travelers have to use their time and money either to cover a lot of ground or to soak up more fully what a few places have to offer.

Though making decisions like these isn't easy, it's nice when the choices are all good ones.  

Despite the urge to explore more of the continent, Shelly and I have chosen to stay put using La Entrada as our home base for the next 30 days.  Would you have chosen the same?

Here's choosing to "live deep and suck all the marrow out of life" on the Ecuadorian coast!

Problems in Paradise

Oh the sunsets are still as beautiful and the weather just as warm as when we posted Paradise Found.  

But for any who might begrudge us escaping the horrible winter back home, you might find some small satisfaction knowing there are problems in paradise too.

Though it didn't materialize and isn't a likely future event, the tsunami scare earlier this week opened our eyes to a possible challenge of beachfront living.

And of course there are critters in the ocean that can ruin a day of wave-jumping.  While boogie boarding with Baxter, Shelly felt a sting in her foot.  By the time she walked back down the beach to the house, the sting had become an unbearable pain.  The locals recognized the symptoms: Shelly had stepped on the barb of a stingray.

With the Internet service temporarily offline at the house, we didn't have a way to look up remedies so we went with our instinct: put ice on the red, swollen area on her foot.  You can imagine our surprise when the gardener we summoned for help told us we were doing it exactly wrong.  He said heat was the key and fetched for us mentholated balm, a candle, and matches.  Together, he and I probed the wound for any remnant of the barb.  Then we rubbed on the balm and lit the candle.  We dripped hot wax onto the whole swollen area, let it cool, then peeled it off.  

I repeated this process for 2 hours until Shelly's perceived pain reduced from a 10 to a 2.  Currently, she has negligible pain and only a weeping blister on the site.  We now know to shuffle our feet in the ocean to scare off other stingrays.

Now, it is Atticus with the malady.  He awoke with chicken pox.  

Unfortunately, his newfound love of floatie-free pool swimming will have to go on hold for the next 10-15 days while this virus runs its course.  The rest of us in the family have already had the pox, but we still have to keep him away from staff and guests at the B&B.  I think there'll be lots of games of Uno in store!

Surf's Up! Video of the Family's Best Surfer

We couldn't resist renting some boards and taking some lessons for the whole family!  As might be expected, the boys have picked it up the fastest--standing on their boards to ride the short waves in their second hour of instruction.  Shelly and I are still aspiring to achieve the same ease. . . .

Baxter makes riding the wave look easy. . . .

And our youngest really makes it look like nothing at all:

Tsunami

Life continues as normal for us this morning despite tsunami warnings from the Chilean earthquake last night.

Thanks for many who emailed or called to ensure our safety.  Yes, our hosts made us aware of the warning and made sure we had some basics covered (like flashlights and water in case of power outage).  None of us was terribly concerned as the tsunami off the coast of Chile was about six feet tall and the ground floor of our bed and breakfast is about three times that high above the sea.

Before we went to bed, we were able to see that the tsunami warning was canceled for Ecuador.

Though earthquakes are fairly common in Chile, the country is roughly 2,000 miles from where we are and the shape of this continent protects Ecuador from most tidal reactions to such earthquakes.

Time to go back to the pool for a morning dip!