After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here.... 
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Banos, cable cars, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, hiking, manto de la novia, pailon del diablo, tarabitas, tours, Travel, waterfalls | 
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After a week in 9,350-foot high Quito I was no longer huffing and puffing as I trekked up and down the city’s ubiquitous hills, so I was totally unconcerned about altitude as I headed for the central highlands of Ecuador, home to spectacular volcanoes and some of the best hiking in the country. The dust-caked brakes of my rickety bus squealed to a halt in the center of Chugchilan, where indigenous Quichua had gathered in droves to celebrate Dia de Difuntos (Day of the Deceased). Anxious to photograph the event, I double-timed up the hill to Hostal Cloud Forest, dumped my luggage and headed back out, surprised that I was breathing heavily after such a short distance.
Iliniza Bus delivered me to Chugchilan
Though I had observed Quichua women in their distinctive bowler hats in Quito, this was my first opportunity to mingle with the indigenous population. My initial excitement quickly faded when my repeated requests to take photos were rebuffed with shakes of the head and turned backs. Crowds parted like the Red Sea as I walked down the main street and my smile was met with suspicious looks. Stone-faced vendors sold me snacks without so much as a thank you.
Locals in Chugchilan eye me with suspicion
Young Quichua girls in traditional dress in Chugchilan's central plaza
As the late afternoon light faded to twilight and temperatures dropped to bone-chilling levels, I finally convinced two beautiful young Quichua girls in the main plaza to pose for a photo before fleeing back to the warmth of the hostel’s wood-burning stove. When my shivering subsided I nosed around the facilities. The dining room was furnished with rough wooden tables and benches and a cavernous below-ground common area room held only a lone computer and three plastic lawn chairs. With no comfortable place to relax I retreated to my unheated room after a tasteless dinner, hoping to catch upon email, only to discover that the Internet was not working. I tried to write but my frigid fingers fumbled on the keyboard and when my throat grew raw from the cold I stood under a scalding hot shower and jumped under a mound of woolen blankets, hoping to ward off the sinus infection that threatened.
Early the next morning I threw open the curtains to brilliant sunshine that rapidly warmed up my room. Anxious to investigate the area, I teamed up with two backpackers from France and Australia for a trek to a cheese factory located in a tiny village, high in the surrounding mountains. The hostel owner drew a crude map on a scrap of paper and assured us the round-trip hike would take about four hours, so we headed out early in order to avoid the fog that rolls in every afternoon.
Church and Plaza Principal in Chugchilan, Ecuador
Just past the church we turned right on a dirt road that climbed steeply and within minutes I was gasping. On the pretense of oohing and aahing over a baby sheep staked to a patch of grassy hillside, I stopped to regain my breath. “How high do you thing we are?” I asked Jerome. He whipped out his altimeter. “We are almost at ze 11,000 feetz,” he declared in his delightful French accent. My brow wrinkled; this was the highest I had been so far in Ecuador. Still, I hadn’t felt any major effects in Quito so I pressed on, grateful that my two young companions were happy to let me rest every so often. Continue reading
Posted in Daily Photo | chugchilan, cultural travel, culture, Ecuador, hiking, photography, Quilotoa, Travel | Leave a comment
Posted in Videos | Adirondack Mountains, Adirondack Park, AuSable Chasm, cultural travel, culture, hiking, lakes, New York, NY, Plattsburgh, rafting, rivers, Travel | Leave a comment
The weather-rounded mountains of upstate New York undulate between hundreds of lakes that dot Adirondack Park like an enormous sea serpent. Anchoring its dusky blue-black tail on the horizon, the creature dips its shimmering green coils into one cobalt pool of water after another as it slithers down the mountains. I followed its serpentine route to the village of Tupper Lake where I dipped my toes into the lake of the same name and stopped to visit The Wild Center, a natural history museum that focuses on one of the world’s critical issues: the coexistence of people and nature.
Fascinated by trouts in the Living River at The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, Adirondack Park
Clear-cut by loggers in the mid-19th century, the Adirondack Mountains may be the nation’s prime example of the negative impact that man can have on the natural world, as well as a rare example of human actions that have helped nature stage a comeback over the past 100 years. The Wild Center encourages that relationship with interactive exhibits like its Living River Trail, a trout stream that culminates in a waterfall where river otters cavort. One young boy knelt on the floor and pressed his nose to the glass, laughing with delight each time a trout darted by. A giant mound of ice at the Glacial Wall demonstrated how glaciers carved out the Adirondacks at the end of the last ice age. The icy stalagmite was pitted where visitors had pressed their fingers into it; I touched an unblemished area, assuming I could easily leave an impression of my fingertips. Sixty seconds later I withdrew my numb fingers without having made the slightest dent, giving me new perspective on those two-mile thick sheets of ice that disappeared from the face of the earth.
Lake Flower in the village of Saranac Lake
Later that afternoon I drove down the serpent’s spine, past Lower Saranac Lake, Lake Flower, and Lake Placid, emerging at the city of Plattsburgh and the crown jewel of the Adirondacks, Lake Champlain. I dipped down into the Champlain Valley and pulled into Point au Roche Lodge as the setting sun was igniting clouds in shades of pink and mauve. Because I’d arrived at the B&B after normal business hours, owners Karen and Creston Billings had left a note with directions to my suite and a reminder about their gourmet breakfasts. Tired from a long day of traveling, I dragged my luggage to the end of the hall and stopped dead in my tracks. Continue reading
Posted in Daily Photo | AuSable Chasm, AuSable River, cultural travel, culture, hiking, Keeseville, New York, NY, photography, Plattsburgh, rafting, Travel, tubing | 2 Comments
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