Picture Treats!

Ok, so here are a few pics from Costa Rica...

These are from a little Waterfall hike we went on with Nathan, Amber, and Gordon.

The vast expanses of Chicagoland

Oh, Home! I can't express how wonderful it is to see everyone, and get notes from long lost friends and far away cousins! I'm really surprised how many people have been keeping track of us. It makes us feel loved. thanks. So...we've been in Chicago-land for the past two weeks...babysitting nieces and getting caught-up on such wonderful americanisms as YouTube and 24. So far the reverse culture shock has been mild...the hardest part is just remembering to throw your toilet paper in the toilet...not the trash can, like we've been doing for the past 4 months. It's weird how quickly you make new habits. Oh, and I still get thrown off when a cashier talks to me in English. Don't know why.
Anyway...we're gonna try and get on that picture thing now...kay? I'm serious.
Here...I'll prove it to you.



This is Scott's birthday at Volcan Irazu in Costa Rica!

Feliz Nuevo Año... eve

hey kids.
After another hellish bus adventure, Annie and I are back in Quito after three days on the coast of Ecuador at a beach town called Canoa. Another addition to a series of relaxing and pleasant places since our advenutres in Riobamba with volcanoes and ancient trains. If you haven't read the last entry (shame on you!) we are here to catch a flight to Chicago on Jan 3rd to wrap up this section of our travels and see our families... which have grown since we have been gone (in number, not in body size [well maybe in body size since Christmas])
As some of you may remember, today being New Year's Eve, this is our wedding anniversary. 2 years people... and no divorce -- in fact we love eachother (and love being together) more today than we did even 2 years ago. I know, that is amazing. Take that American marriage statistics! Apparently if we make it past three years our statistical chances of staying together for life skyrocket. And if we make it past five years we get an official certificate from the US government declaring us "awesome". So after sleeping off the misery of the domestic Ecuadorian travel system, we'll celebrate today with a gratuitous and embarassing American film at the movie theatre and enjoy a nice dinner out, although the novelty of eating out for a special occasion has lost some of it's luster in that we've eaten out probably more than 200 times in the past four months. Also, Ecuadorians celebrate the Nuevo Año by having a huge parade with paper mache effigies of various people. They are all different sizes and some of these effigies represent bad people (like George Bush Jr.) and some of them are a bit more random (like Spiderman) Anyway, Ecuadorians strap these things to their cars and drive around all day today, then march them in the streets tonight, and then, being filled with sawdust and fireworks, blow them up at midnight in a savage display of violence. What a sweet tradition. The meaning of course being to rid ourselves of the bad and begin fresh for the new year.
I wanted to say here that Annie and I will not be abandoning this blog site but will continue to update with news from your favorite action/adventure partnership. There is a lot more to come actually. This trip has been a very introspective for us, although we have devoted most of those topics to emails with our siblings. But, since you were wondering; we talked about starting our own business(es) ranging from a breakfast restaurant to a woodworking/furniture or a custom kitchen/remodeling busiess, to a small college town residential rentals business. We've also talked much about myself going to graduate school for sculpture or 3d design, and Annie maybe pursuing a new direction too. We have also, with some trepidation, discussed transitioning to California and different living arrangements near or alongside Judy and Mark in Berkeley (thanks to Mark for all his patient emails). Another popular topic is Ella Tienefe, our new sobrina whom we've yet to meet and Amora, our sobrina who has begun to walk and talk since we left Chicago in June. Speaking of those rascals, happy birthday to their beautiful mother Chasity! We look foward to celebrating with you (a few days late) soon. We have by no means allowed this trip to make us intellectually lazy -- we have spent countless hours discussing the meaning of every choice we can make about our present and our future. We have read almost 20 books between us, and have focused more intensely than ever about how to make this life we are living together meaningful and conscious. We look foward to spending time with each and every one of you soon. See you in the US.

Feliz Navidad!

Happy Holidays to all! We miss you so much! We have spent the last four days hiding out in a wonderful little hotel in Vilcabamba. It's a small bed and breakfast called Madre Tierra...it includes gourmet organic breakfasts and dinners, and they made us a beautiful Christmas Eve feast...complete with all the turkey and cranberry sauce. It has been a much needed break for us. Our Christmas presents to each other were massages at the spa. (only $25 for a whole hour!)So, we've been livin' in up...and recuperating.
So...recuperating from what, you might ask? Well, from Riobamba we spent 3 days in the mountains outside of town. We hiked El Altar...an amazing volcano with a bright green lake in the crater, and surrounded by the most magnificent jutting peaks... all around. There's no way to describe it! So, the hike was about 20 miles...we camped just below the crater. The next day we hiked out to the Hacienda where the hike starts, and waited for the bus...for 2 1/2 hours. It never came, and we ended up spending the night at the hacienda...no people...no heat...no food... We woke up early to catch the next bus at 5:30am. It turns out that the bus had been held up by a landslide, and the morning bus was now being held up by a broken down potato truck. We could see it down the valley...honking at the truck, but unable to get around it because of the steep cliffs! The only thing to do was start running. So at 6:00am, after 2 long days of hiking, and having not eaten since the previous morning...we ran with our packs the 3km to town (along with four little boys also trying to catch the bus to get to school) Luckily, the people could see us running along around the mountain, and held the bus up for us (probably for the school kids, actually). So that was adventure #1.
Adventure #2 started the next morning at 5:00am. We stayed in Riobamba that night, and woke up bright and early to catch the Gringo Train to Alausi!! This fabled train once ran from Quito to Guayaquil, but has suffered many floods and catastrophes, and most of the line doesn't run anymore...except this bit known as the Nariz de Diablo, "The Devil's Nose". It's a crazy little engineering manuever to get it down a really steep canyon, including a couple of switchbacks where the train runs backwards...very beautiful views, but not exactly a fully funtioning transportation system. Hence it is now exclusively a Gringo Train. I couldn't believe the masses of tall white people who assembled at the station at the crack of dawn! Everyone in hiking boots and zip-off pants...the hardiest travellers sit on top of the train...feet dangling off the edge as the train dangles off the cliffs. I only lasted for the first hour or so...It was so stinkin' cold in the cloudy mountain morning. Scott returned to the top at the end...when it's most dramatic. So, after the train ride, all the gringos hopped on a bus to Cuenca...and we followed.
Adventure #3...The buses. After a day in Cuenca (where we were delighted to witness several of their spirited Christmas Parades) we hit the road for Vilcabama. We were driven out by the intense pollution that made us both sick almost as soon as we got there. We had a 7 hour bus ride from Cuenca...and felt lucky to be assigned seats 1&2...they had a bit more leg room... But we soon found out that the extra room was intended to be used by the 20 extra people standing on top of us for the duration of the trip...full on bags on our heads and butts in faces. The second leg (2hrs from Loja to Vilcabamba)wasn't much better...but at least this time it wasn't bags and butts...they just put thier babies in my lap.
So. As I was saying. We were feeling a good bit overwhelmed and tired by the time we arrived in Vilcabamba. We knew it was time for a break when our usual patience and cross-cultural understanding were wearing thin. So, after a few days of resting up and healing (we've also been battling multiple stomach issues since Colombia), We bought ourselves one more Christmas gift. We bought tickets to Chicago for January 3rd. We will fly out of Quito, so we'll have to head back north from here, but when we looked into flying from Lima in a month or so as we intended, we found that tickets were nearly double (and there is a 20% tax on top of it.) So, we've got another week to relax and enjoy the mountains and warm weather before we plunge into Chicago Winter! AHHH! But we are really excited about being home and with our families! So to all of you who have been faithfully following this photoless blog -- you get to be the first to know that we are heading home. Our adventures are hopefully not over -- only this current leg in South America... we hope to see you all soon, and tell you all about it. (And maybe even show you a picture or two...)

News From the Bottom Half of the World

Alright...So, Ecuador.
Well we found out from Lindsay that there were a few roadblocks about a week early, and they were over in less than a day. No big deal. Mostly rumor. So we crossed the border with no problems, and then took a bus directly to Otavalo. It´s a little mountain town famous for it´s huge Saturday market where the indigenous people from the surrounding mountians bring thier colorful wares. The market is over 1000 years old. They carry everything in huge sacks literally tied onto their backs- usually with loads three times their size. They start setting up at 4am. It´s amazing to see a completely empty square the night before, and then by morning it has transformed into an overflow of color and people. It was also the biggest concentration of white people we´ve seen since landing in San Jose. We stayed at a wonderful little bed and breakfast 4km outside of town. Muy Tranquilo. But very cold!
Ecuador is interesting because the weather is so different everywhere you go. I think it´s the altidude, the huge volcanoes and mountain ranges, along with the close proximity of the sun, that make it confusing. I got really sunburned at the market, even though it was a really cold, cloudy day.
So, our trip to the Equator... As some of you know, the equator is about an hour bus ride north of Quito. There is an enormous neo-classical monument indicating the center of the earth. It´s surrounded by a pretend colonial town that is really just gift shops. It really was like a theme park. You had to pay two dollars to get in the park, and then another 3 dollars to go into the monument (which we did not do based on principle), and the museum and planetaruim all had entrance fees. So we were feeling a bit deflated...and bored really.
So we left the park and wandered over to the Museo Intiñan...directly next door. Turns out that they got the equator wrong, and it´s really about 200 meters north of the monument in the Museo Intiñan! It´s a quirky little place, but we got a tour, and they do a bunch of experiments with you...like water going opposite directions down a drain, balancing and egg on the head of a nail, and weird strength anomolies. Did you know that you´re super weak on the equator? seriously...something about the "forces"... Anyway, the quirky little local place was so much more interesting and fun than the huge imperialistic monument. We thought it was ironic.
Now we´re just hanging out in Riobamba. We´ll keep you updated! Love you all.

Quick! Quick!

Ok...there´s a bit of a line waiting for this free internet...so I´ll be brief. We are currently in Quito, Ecuador. We made it here just in time to see my dear friend Lindsay (who I traveled in Mongolia with, and who is now in the Peace Corps in Ecuador)before she flew home to New Jersey for Christmas! We had the most wonderful time with her...site seeing the Old City, taking a cable car up to the mountians above Quito, and drinking boiled wine on the roof of a building downtown. It´s so nice to spend time with friends...It makes us miss everyone all the more.
So, today, in celebration of Dad Heine´s birthday...we visited the official Equator! (more on that later) We´ve been in Ecuador for about five days now, and we're planning to travel south tomorrow to Riobamba. Hopefully, I´ll be able to write more later! We love you all & Happy Birthday, Dad!

clever blog entry title here

Hey team.
So Annie and I are in Popayan, Colombia; a relatively short bus ride away from Ecuador. We have in mind to cross that border in the next week here before some supposed road-blocks go up due to some kind of strikes that are rumored to occur. We have heard that the border town of Ipales is like most border towns, dusty and ugly, so we don´t want to be stuck there for a few weeks waiting for buses to run again. In all likelihood, it´s just a crazy rumor. We just wanted to let you know how we are... which is good. We stayed three days in San Agustin, some 7 hours by insane dirt road from here and some 12 hours from Bogota (where we spent nearly a week) This little ville was set at the edge of an absolutely heart-stopping huge gorge with multiple waterfalls. It was like a long and electrically green Yosemite. The area was dotted with plenty of pre-colombian indigenous archaeological sites with carved statues of crazy looking demons and various other fantastic creatures meant to scare people away from tombs. We took a day long jeep tour with some quiet Colombians to archaeological sites and waterfalls and did some of our own walking in farmland to more sites and overlooks the next day.
Great pictures!; of which I must tell all of you, may be prohibitively difficult to post. It takes forever to upload photos at the internet cafes available, and we need to somehow reduce their size to post anyway and we have no software for it. We´ll see... Anyway, we miss all of you and we´ve been thinking and talking about each of you consistently. We think we may be in Peru for Christmas so, you know, if anyone wants to hike Macchu Pichu for Navidid, email us-- we´ll meet up with you. Love you all--
Wish we could have seen the Slip with you Katie! good band.

Things to Be Thankful for...

Happy Thanksgiving to All!! (a week late).
We celebrated Thanksgiving by moving on from our beloved Cartagena to Santa Marta, another Coastal Caribbean city. We spend the majority of the day (after the 2hr bus ride) searching for a fitting Thanksgiving dinner. The best we could do was a pretty sub-par Chinese restaurant. It was a bit sad.
So, we decided not to linger any longer on the coast, and took a 20hr. bus trip to Bogota- the capitol of Colombia. We've been here in Bogota for 6 days now. We've really been surprised with Colombian cities. It's another beautiful colonial town, mixed with highrise office buildings, and huge cathedrals. Everything is cobblestone and brick with a very close-in European feel. It's very stlyish with great cozy coffee shops on every street. That's probably the real reason we've been hanging out here so long. We're just so thankful to have good coffee at such easy access!
We've spent three days in Museums... today at the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum), and two days at the free art museum. The art museum is mostly dedicated to Colombia's most famous painter, Botero, but it also had a few paintings by Picasso, Monet and Renoir...along with a lot of modern and colonial art.
Oh, and one other thing about the city...Bogota is built right up against the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes that runs through Colombia. It's on a really high plateau...higher than Denver...and I mean right up against the mountains. It makes Lookout Mountain in Golden look silly. So, yesterday we took a cable car up to a cathedral that is on top of one of the first mountains overlooking the city. It was probably 1500ft almost straight up out of the city. You can see the city directly below, and then spreading out in all directions across the plateau...to the Central Cordillera mountains in the background. We stayed there for sunset, and came down the cable car to the lights of the city at night.
So, that was nice.
And really, now that we've been in this country for almost two weeks, I feel obligated to defend it's reputation. There is a very well established tourist track here in Colombia. It's very safe, and we've met so many other people here who are doing the same thing we are. Most travellers here are on long term trips, a year or more...staying mostly in Backpacker hostels. It is such a beautiful country, the people are very open and friendly, and the cities are fascinating. I can tell that it is quickly becoming a big tourist destination...as it should be. The strange thing is that Colombia has been so shunned by Americans that locals never guess that we're American...usually English, German, or Swiss (for me, Annie). Whereas in Costa Rica or Panama, it was just assumed we were from the U.S.
Anyways, today we ran into another couple that was on the boat with us from Panama. We also met them previously in Panama City. Their names are Marco and Anna... Italians who live in Germany. They are taking a night bus tonight to San Augustin, and we're going to try to get on the bus with them.
So, that's the latest update! We love you all and hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Ella Tienefe...She Has Faith

Happy Birthday to our new neice, Ella Tienefe Mikal! Great name. We are celebrating your arrival today in the beautiful city of Cartagena, Colombia! We've decided to bring you and your big sister here when you're old enough. So, Congratulations Danny and Chas! We're so happy for you and so proud of our growing family!
As a side note: we need the Mikal Jr's phone number (email it to us, don't post it as a comment)

Ok... so we sailed to Colombia. Hazaa! Three weeks in Panama and now we are in Cartegena -- a colorful colonial city on the Caribbean coast. But let's back up and fill in the missing three weeks with a quick update...
From David, Panama we travelled via a long and uncomfortable bus ride to Panama City -- which everyone in Panama simply calls "Panama" as opposed to Ciudad de Panama, very confusing. There are a few different kinds of indigenous indians in both Costa Rica and Panama. They are allowed to travel freely between the countries but they appear (to us) to be on the receiving end of some discrimination (for all the boasting we hear of how progressive Central America is). I (Scott) traded seats with an indian woman on the bus who was removed from her comfy seat and forced to sit on a stool, although she was on the bus much earlier than many others.
We spent four lovely days in Panama City in a nice hotel with Uber-air-conditioning, watching episodes of Law and Order, eating Lebanese food, and with considerable shame, Dominos Pizza. We also got a dose of the US elections insanity on CNN. It was a nice treat for the crazy hot temperatures on the Pacific coast... much warmer than the mountains of Costa Rica. I liked all the graphics and reporting on CNN for the elections, it reminded me of John Madden explaining with a completely straight face about the supposed detailed intentions and strategies of a bunch of helemeted pituitary freaks jumping into a giant body pile on a the 30 yard line somewhere. X's and O's being guided around on a sreen with an invisible pen. Statistics and historical material and maps of blantanly, racially driven, redrawn districts in Texas. And yet all the same old white guys with clean Blue Blood last names.
I can hear the speeches now. "We will change nothing, and stick with this President and his honest and virtuous war" ... or ... "We will call this administration into accountability and grind this government to a halt for the next two years". Yeah for America.
I'm sure it will continue to be embarrassing...
So in Panama City (nice place, big and cosmopolitan) Annie and I began to research diffrent travel options to South America. For those of you who don't know -- there is no road between Colombia and Panama, not even the semblance of one. We knew this beforehand and had written Colombia off as a place that we had no intentions of travelling. Full of kidnappings and drug smugglers just like our the State Dept. says on it's website. (The State Dept's basic advice to American travellers is: everywhere and everyone is evil and corrupt, if you travel outside of this paradise you will probably die, why don´t you just take a weeks vacation at Universal Studios?) Anyway, we discovered flights to be expensive to Quito, Ecaudor and elswhere in South America except for Bogota, Colombia. We then researched other options, went to the Panama City Yacht Club (someone said they could take us by sail in December when the winds were better) and to the Cargo Docks for a cargo boat (which looked simply too sketchy) and then found out about a German sailboat that was leaving from somewhere on the northern coast of Panama east of Colon, in about a week... it would take 15 passengers for around the same price to fly -- $250 per person -- not terrible. We set out from the city to Portobelo, Panama on the Caribbean coast with a contact number to call to find out where and when exactly, because this boat was still at sea and out of communication. So we hung out in Portobello for two days, a rowdy Caribbean town with good spicy seafood, met some great Koreans and a Japanese guy trying the same thing as us. Finally we heard from our contacts that the German boat would be some 80 miles down the coast -- 40 miles of which we bused, stayed a night in a coastal ville called Miramar, and then took a wooden launch piloted by three Kuna indians from the San Blas Islands. 40 miles through open and somewhat rough seas to Porvenir, one man at the motor, one fishing, and the other perpetually bailing water from the leaking boat. Porvenir island is the capital of the northeasten most province of Panama -- I think called Kuna Yala. Maybe 15 people lived on the island. It had a single hotel, an airstrip about a hundred yards away and an immigration office. We stayed there for three days, one on a neighboring Kuna island (due to some shady hustling by a local [failed hustling]), one night at the Porvenir Motel, and one night on this beautiful tropical island sleeping in hammocks under a cabana... The next morning out of the misty rain on the sea materialized the Stahlratte; "the Steel Rat". 120 feet long, 103 years old, rusty, sails reefed and down, in the fog, it looked every bit a ghost ship. We were met by the captain Feite (Peter) at immigrations and motored out to the ship.
The next five days were fantastic. There was a total of 19 people aboard -- 16 travellers and 3 crew, and two motorcycles. There were four Americans, us and two girls from Oregon, three Kiwi, one Australian, one Austrian, four germans, two brits, two italians, one dutch woman, a frenchman, and a partridge in a pear tree. We had four awesome days of sailing, swimming, drinking, barbecuing, jumping off the huge boat, swinging like pirates, getting mildly seasick and more than mildly sunburned. We played crazy guitar, watched movies, cooked huge meals together, battled with the single hand-pump toilet, learned how to sail a tiny bit, read a book each (not as impressive as the Australian Penny's five and a half books). Best of all was the snorkeling. I snorkeled three days, one day for three hours on the reefs surrounding the 300 plus San Blas Islands. So fun. A couple people got stung by jellyfish, and one of our friends saw some hammerhead sharks. Goodtimes. Our last day was spent steaming (no wind) to Cartagena for nearly 40 hours straight. We had more fun than should be allowed.
So we are in this historic Spanish colonial city, a favorite target for pirates since the 1500's. Last night we got together with everyone from the boat, now scattered across the city, for pizza and drinks. Colombia by the way is very safe and friendly, with well travelled places needing only the basic precautions we would use travelling anywhere. (like Chicago, or Denver...) Cartagena is the most beautiful city we have seen yet and we are still slowly considering which direction to take next. Hugs all around...We miss you!

Exclusive Teen

We made it into Panama! we're in David, Panama right now...the border crossing was fairly painless. Except that today is Panama's Independance Day. Turns out that we're doing a Tour of Central American Independance Days! Which is fine...but the banks are all closed. So we've been thwarted again in our mission to exchange dollars for local tender. The one thing we do have going for us is that the Panamanian currancy...the balboa...is really just dollars. seriously. everyone here just has pockets full of American dollars. I mean i get some balboa in change (and it looks identical to pennies, quarters, etc.) and the exchange rate is actually pretty comprable. We are both confused.
Anyway, so far the consensus is that Panama is a bit more sophisticated than Costa Rica. They actually have a highway - like an interstate. We even saw strip malls and subdivisions outside of David. It looked a bit like Florida. That is until we got to our hotel. It's about to fall down. I mean, it looks big and has a restaurant in it and all, but I'm afraid I'm going to fall through the floor (which is on an extreme slope). And I can't explain why, but the shower felt like I was closing myself in to a refrigerator. (anyway, it only cost us $8.00).
So fear not! Panama is a success!