Why not to Peru?

On Saturday, the 20th of October, we spent our time with Laurence and Sebastien – two French backpackers passing by Cuenca. Talking for hours the topic changed to extending permissions of 90-days to stay in Ecuador. Most of foreigners are allowed to stay in this country 90 days with a possibility to extend this permission for another 90 days for free (max 180 days/year). French couple has already...[read more]

Reggaeton and Vallenato – music of Latin America

This time not much of text, but more sounds. As we promised in the previous message, this time we will present you two styles of music which are following us through our journey in Latin America. Firstly – REGGAETON As we understood, this type of music originaly comes from Puerto Rico island. It is kind of a mix of hip-hop, probably rap and everything else what has a rhythm. We do not really...[read more]

Che Guevara – hero of Latin America

We guess most of you have heard at least something about Che Guevara. He is, of course, already dead, but in South America his soul is still wandering around. Specially in revolutionary Venezuela, and also here, in Ecuador. Actually, there is a big friendship between the presidents of these two countries. The left-oriented Ecuadorian leader Correa is making political-changes similar to the ones made...[read more]

In search of the Escobar family

Unil, Gerson, Fernando, Ercilia photo for Fernando's brother During our five months stay in Copper Bank, Belize, we became good friends with one of the poorest families in the village. We shared joy and sorrow, and short before continuing our trip we found out that Fernando, the father of the family (originally from El Salvador), had lost contact to his family a couple of years ago. He did...[read more]

Colombian surprise

you see how happy they make Not long ago we had two wonderful visitors: Angelica from Colombia, and Cedric from France. One evening we all went to a gallery of alternative art here in Cuenca. It is called “El Prohibido” (“Forbidden”), which at the same time is a bar, where you can chill comfortably on different styled couches (i.e. in a coffin), and drink a beer. This gallery-bar...[read more]

Hard black walnut

Have you ever tried black walnut? It looks a bit like an ordinary walnut, but this one is really black and super hard. First time we heard about it one year ago in Guatemala, when Katja got diarrhea after brushing teethes with contaminated water. We found out that this walnut destroys the parasites in the intestine, and it really did after Katja treated her problem with pills made out of black walnut...[read more]

Our first earthquake

Yesterday night we experienced our first earthquake. We – us and two friends staying at our place – were already about to fall asleep, when the ground started moving, the bed jumping, and the walls shaking. We all ran fastly to the entrance door case, hoping it will save our four lives. Imagine, four guys standing in one door case… At the end, it was not too bad. It lasted only...[read more]

Wonders do happen

Originally written for CoolWorks.com There we were, sitting for hours on the tollgate short before Neiva, Colombia. We spent the previous night already here. Something seemed to keep us from getting further. About once every hour we stopped a car, which was not going further than Neiva. After five hours waiting and no result, I spoke out of my feeling: “Let´s go to Ecuador!” Francisco...[read more]

Chile – our first acquaintance

Well, we are not yet in Chile Our Chilean friend Sofia invited us to celebrate her country’s independance day together. Chile became free on the 18th of September, 1810. For this occasion, the honour council of this country in Cuenca invited local Chileans and their friends to a small fiesta. We bought a ticket for $7 which included 2 empanadas (traditional snack here and in Central...[read more]

No food for 3 weeks

Believe it or not, we fasted for exactly three weeks. We started on August 14. During fasting we “ate” nothing else but tea made of special herbs, honey, and apple vinegar. Three weeks only drinking tea. No eating, nor drinking anything else. How it came and why front view In Cuba we met a Russian couple sailing around the world for 15 years in their self-made sailing boat (www.saltysail.com)....[read more]