Get Thee To a Nunnery

If you are new to Quito, you may not realize that there is a whole spiritual world awaiting you via gluttony and debauchery handmade by, and purchased from, cloistered nuns.


To raise money for their churches and various charities, the nuns make all sorts of products which visitors can purchase either directly from the cloistered nuns themselves through a revolving door that keeps the nuns hidden, or in a front reception area.You can spend many a hour visiting the various nunneries around old town and sampling their homemade goodies.



The best things, in my opinion, are from Monasterio de Carmen Alto conveniently located a few blocks from my house on Calle Rocafuerte and Garcia Moreno.




They sell anise flavored liquor, cookies, de-soured lemons filled with caramel crème, wine, bee pollen, tiger balm, rose water, soap, hand and foot lotion, and many, many other culinary and body delights. The best thing about Monasterio de Carmen Alto is that they package everything beautifully and put their own little nun label on the front so everything here makes for a really good gift.




Around town you can find these religious bottle covers that are made to perfectly enclose the liquors and wines made by the nuns.



Tips: The nuns at Carmen Alto don't mess around with their liquor. This stuff is strong! Watch yourself.

The coca leaf tea is sold at natural food stores and isn't made by the nuns, but it is another great thing to try while you are here.

The Best Coffee In Quito

I'm a lethargic, angry, mean person without coffee and the thing they serve you here in Ecuador that is supposed to be coffee, but is actually Nescafe with hot water and milk, just doesn’t do it for me and it probably doesn’t do it for you either.

As a person who made a latte a part of her morning ritual before she entered high school and who has spent most of her free time since then socializing and writing in coffee shops, chosen apartments based on their proximity to a good java joint, and converted her tea drinking boyfriend into a coffee fiend, the little brown beans that we all know and love are almost a part of my self identity. Who am I without coffee? I don’t really want to know and I can assure you that my boyfriend definitely does not want to find out.

Of course you can find great, real coffee in the Mariscal, but I don’t live in the Mariscal - I live half an hour away by trolley and that is much too long a commute without coffee first - hence the dilemma. After sampling the java in a two block radius all around my house in Centro Historico and always being served Nescafe, I finally decided that I needed to make it at home to make it how I want it. Since then I have tried numerous coffee brands and had almost settled on the organic Mindo Cloud Forest when the sweet, rich aroma of roasting beans lured me into this little tienda near Plaza Grande where my coffee dreams were realized.






They have dark, medium, and light roast, but like a true junkie I went straight for the strong stuff and bought a bag for $5.50.



This morning I sampled it for the first time and it is good! Strong, bold, rich with an earthy flavor and enough caffeine to wake me up after a single cup, but not so much that I’m shaking after two. I can say, hands down, this is the best coffee I have had in Ecuador. Café Aguila de Oro is located directly behind the President’s house on Benalcazar between Chile and Espejo.

Vacationing in Vilcabamba Ecuador

Vilcabamba is where wealthy new-age hippies come to die. Lucky bastards. Vilcabamba is spectacularly gorgeous with ideal weather and a cute little town with a talented affordable masseuse, more spas than you can frequent, and a few good restaurants.


It’s known as the valley of longevity because supposedly the inhabitants live to be over 100 and according to a creepy expat man we met in a hot tub who kept staring at my boobs while my boyfriend gave him the evil eye, it has some "special magnetic healing energy" which "flips your isotopes" and lies along some special imaginary line on the Earth.


I’m not really prone to believing things like this, especially coming from a man who claims his best friend is the CEO of Domino’s Pizza who is now leaving the pizza business to coach a college basketball team.

I’m more the type of person to believe the people here live a long time because they breathe fresh unpolluted mountain air and do things like eat vegetables and get plenty of exercise via building their homes, tending their animals and gardens, and hiking up the freaking Andes with 60 pounds of wood strapped to their backs, but hey, to each their own.

I wanted to tell this expat hot tub man this same thing, but I didn’t want to destroy his belief that he could live here in exactly the same sedentary way he did in the US, except with access to cheap labor composed of people who would do his cooking, cleaning, gardening, and maintenance work, eat steak and potatoes for dinner every night, smoke cigarettes and drink too much alcohol and somehow he’d miraculously live 30 years longer.

Anyway, Vilcabamba is full of this type of man and also full of older glamorous divorced or widowed women living there with their imported pedigreed dogs. And, I’m not knocking it! Seriously! I love Vilcabamba.

Well, I did after our first night anyway.

We arrived in Vilcabamba around 4:00 in the afternoon and found our hotel El jardin Escondido (The Secret Garden) and tried to check in. The receptionist was out and the really young girl who was covering for her had no idea where to find our reservation. No big deal. We decided to have a seat at the restaurant and wait, but nobody came to take our order. And they were open, we checked. We then asked the receptionist if we could just have a room, but she said no. After about half an hour someone finally took our order, an hour after that we got our food and still no receptionist.

Finally a man who had been there the entire time, and ended up being the owner, gruffly showed us to a room as if it was a huge inconvenience for him and we were obnoxious to have even arrived at all. The room had mold on the walls, a saggy bed, and was full of mosquitoes. We walked around the hotel and it looked as if he had given us the worst room in the place and most of the other rooms were empty. None of the staff was friendly or welcoming and the two owners were downright hostile. And we were honestly being extremely polite. Maybe it was because we are in our mid-twenties and they are ageists, but I would never recommend it to anyone.

The next morning we checked out and went to Madre Tierra, an old run-down resort about a kilometer outside town and stayed there for five nights in paradise.



The owners live in the states, but the people they have hired to run it are so friendly and helpful and nice we just loved them. The girl at the front desk is incredibly awesome and so is her brother.

The food is delicious - $5 for filet mignon for example. Here is a picture of the dining room.




The gardens are gorgeous and overgrown, the cabins are private with spectacular views, they scatter rose petals all around their spa and hot tub, the pool is refreshing, the pool table is cracked and bent and we played on it anyway, and…wait for it…they have wifi.




We didn’t want to leave, truly. It was just lovely and I highly recommend it. Thank you to all the staff at Madre Tierra.

Tips for Vilcabamba:

Stay at Madre Tierra and try to reserve a cabin on the hill. The owners were trying to sell it when we were there so it may have changed hands. Hopefully the new owners will keep the same people running it. If there's a super cute 17 year old girl at the front desk - be assured you will love it.

Right off the main square in town is a hair and nail salon and the woman who owns it does hour long massages for $15.

There is a restaurant called Timothy’s that has awesome burgers. Try the one with pineapple and barbeque sauce. Yum!

Do the horseback ride up to the top of the mountain peak early in the morning for spectacular views.

This is really a place to relax so bring lots of books, a laptop, and your ipod.

There’s a Tema office in town where you can buy plane tickets from Loja to Quito if you don't feel up to bussing it back up North.

Entonces Entiendo

Despite, or perhaps because of, the lazy paradisiacal vibe in Canoa, my boyfriend and I signed up for two hours of Spanish lessons per day with Pamela, one of the two sisters who jointly run a restaurant a few blocks from the beach.


During our first lesson Pamela was teaching us conversational skills and she had us play a game to make it more fun. The premise was that there was a magical island called Tonces and we were supposed to practice both our reflexive and regular verbs by saying what we liked to do in this mythical land. She would say things like “En Tonces, me gusta nadar con los delfins.” Then we would copy the format but change the verb and say things that we liked to do in Tonces such as, “Me gusta ire a la playa.” For homework she asked us to write five sentences about what we liked to do in Tonces.




After dinner, when we sat down to practice what we had learned, we each wrote our sentences and then read them to each other. I read mine first and Zach looked confused and asked me why I was saying so before every sentence.


Apparently En Tonces does not mean in the magical land of Tonces, but rather entonces means so, and it was a verbal tic of our teacher’s to use this as a filler word. So here I was ridiculously proud of myself for understanding everything in my first ever Spanish lesson when really I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Now it’s an inside joke and we say things like “Yeah, well, I may not have any friends here, but in Tonces I’m hot shit,” or “I don’t know if you know this, but in Tonces you can actually make a good living drinking cuba libres and eating mangoes.”

Oh the joys of learning a new language.

Canoa Tips:

Pamela and her sister Andrea run a very good restaurant called Café Flor with fresh food and an innovative menu that changes every few weeks. Spanish lessons are $6 per person per hour or $10 per hour for a couple. They both speak English and are very helpful with things like bus schedules, etc.


The Surf Shack has real coffee, good food, strong drinks, and nice young owners. It’s where all the tourists hang out and is a good place for meeting people.

The first two nights we were there (in March) we stayed at Hotel Bambu which is cute, clean, and affordable. However we were unbearably hot - like get up three times in the night to take cold showers and still couldn’t sleep hot. Wusses? Maybe, but we switched to Canoa Wonderland, a new hotel at the opposite end of the beach (right side if you are ocean gazing) with air-conditioning and a swimming pool and we were much more comfortable. We got a double for $40, including breakfast, because we stayed multiple nights. That was still out of our budget, but worth it for sweet, sweet, uninterrupted sleep. Normally it is $50 per night. The buffet breakfast is much better if you get there right when they serve it.



The only direct bus that leaves from Canoa for Quito leaves at midnight. If you prefer to travel by day the best option is to leave Canoa around 6:30am and head to San Vicente via taxi, then take a water taxi to Bahia, and then another taxi to the bus station. A bus for Quito leaves around 8 or 8:30am. These buses are nicer than the others, have air-conditioning, and drop you off at a small station near the Mariscal which is much more convenient than the South station way outside of town. They also stop at a great, cheap, roadside buffet for lunch. We ate there and didn’t get sick, however I stupidly left my backpack on the bus, and predictably my ipod was stolen. Be smarter than me and take everything with you when you eat. Although, I hear that in Tonces you can leave your backpack on the bus and people will actually stuff presents into it rather than take your shit.

Building a House in Ballenita, Ecuador

This is the house my father is building in Ballenita, Ecuador near Salinas. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and coastal views from every room in the house. It’s still about a month away from being finished, but you can see the general idea here.

He has incorporated a lot of natural materials into the home like rustic stone walls and beautiful wooden beams in the ceilings.


This particular house is designed with high ceilings and large windows to let in tons of natural light, but also built to catch the sea breeze so the house will be kept cool naturally and keep the air conditioning costs at a minimum.


When it's finished it will have an outdoor oven and bar to enjoy the perfect Ecuadorian weather, which I’m pretty much all about. Margaritas, anyone?

Wired in Quito

These photos were taken near Parque Carolina in the North of Quito.





They are just too crazy to keep for myself.




Believe it or not these people are discussing a future lunch date and not the very real threat of electrocution or imminent death.

Ecuador chooses not to drill for oil!

Check out this cool article about how Ecuador is choosing not to drill oil. Yay for Ecuador!

Review of Montanita, Ecuador

I was expecting Montanita to be the kind of place that I wouldn’t want to leave. I had heard it was a young, fun, and cheap place and as I like to believe that at least two of these adjectives could be used to describe myself, I thought I would fit right in. Instead I discovered that really I’m only cheap. I am no longer young and fun, at least by Montanita’s standards.

The first disappointment was the beach. Since it is regarded as THE beach party town in Ecuador I was assuming that the beach would be a destination in itself with a large expanse of fine sand full of lithe, tan, mostly naked bodies. There were the bodies, as I described, but the beach was kind of blah. It had yellow, grainy sand, was actually kind of small, and lacked the high bluffs which make Canoa so beautiful. Also, it was really dirty and there were dead jellyfish everywhere.

The second disappointment was the town. It feels really artificial and forced with what looks like pre-fabricated tiki-style restaurants and hostels. Even worse, it wasn’t really that cheap. The restaurants were similar in prices to the US, but without really good flavor. Sure you could get pancakes and eggs or whatever, but for the same price as a night in a hotel anywhere else in Ecuador.

The third, and most disturbing disappointment was that I felt old. Everyone seemed like they were either in late high school or early college with the white girl dreads and hemp necklaces and gypsy skirts. People were braiding hair and offering massages and it was all a little too much for me. I felt like this was where I had fantasized about being when I was 13 and now that I was finally there, I was too old to enjoy it. You know what it was? It was Reggae on the River, or any of the other hippy festivals, except on the beach and without anyone over 25.

We stayed at Hostel Ricky, which was the cheapest place we could find with two big beds and a private bathroom and it was $15 per person. It looked into an interior lounge room without any natural light, our toilet broke, and people partied a few feet from our heads into the wee hours of the morning. Although, on a high note, the fan they gave us was so incredibly loud (seriously sounded like an outboard motor) that it did mostly drown out the shrieking of drunk young women and the laughter of young stoned men.

We didn’t stay long, but what I will say is if you are between the ages of 17 and 23 and fancy yourself a hippy, or want to sleep with someone who fits that description, you will have fun in Montanita. When we went out to breakfast at around 8am, half the town was still raging from the night before. I wish I still had it in me, but I don’t. I so don’t it’s sad.

Nightlife on La Ronda Street, Quito

La Ronda Street used to have a bad reputation and outdated guidebooks still warn tourists away from the street at night. Unfortunately, this also means they are warning tourists away from the only street in Centro Historico that has some good nightlife. Don't listen to them!




In fact, the best time to go to La Ronda is on Friday and Saturday nights at around 7:00. The pedestrian-only street becomes full of people strolling along listening to live music flooding out of trendy restaurants and bars, eating skewers of chocolate-covered strawberries, and sipping steaming cups of homemade canelazo (sugar cane alcohol) or blackberry wine sold in vats on every block.



The streets are incredibly well-lit, crowded, and have policemen on either end who will help you call a taxi when you want to leave, if you feel the need. We walk home. There are families with little kids, teenagers too cool to walk close behind their parents, kissing young couples, and cute grouchy elderly couples. Street performers pop up in intersections...

...and dancers twirl through the streets. Sometimes there are firecrackers and magicians.

Everywhere you look there is either a musician or a street performer.



All the art galleries and stores are open so be careful...




as the more canelazo you drink...




the more you just have to have one of these bizarre paintings of old people you see everywhere.

Like these.

Medical Care in Quito

I have a bone disease and need to test my blood every 3 months or so. In the USA the test is $529 or more depending on the lab I use. During a typical visit to the lab I often wait in the waiting room between 2 and 5 hours for my turn and then the doctor calls me with the results in about a month.

In Quito, I go to Hospital Voz Andes de Quito near the Y trolle stop. The same test costs $3.63, I normally wait about half a second for my turn, and get this, they email me the results of the test THE SAME DAY! It's pretty freaking awesome and saves me close to $2,000 per year. It would seriously be cheaper to fly to Ecuador from the US and do my big six-month checkups here.

I had some hesitations about moving to Ecuador since my disease is very rare and there are only 3 specialists in the entire United States with experience treating it. Fortunately, it has been very easy for me. In order to manage my disease while living abroad in a country where I don't speak the language I got a copy of a Universal Test Requisition from my wonderful doctor, a copy of a prescription for my medication, and just showed up at the hospital and mutely handed them the Test Requisition. 5 minutes later I was out of there! 2 hours later and I had already read my results myself and forwarded them to the specialist at Georgetown.

Next up I have to refill my prescription and get a bone density test. Once I'm finished I'll post the differences in cost.

Hospital Voz Andes de Quito
Av. Villalengua OE2-37 Y Av. 10 de Agosto
Tel: 226-2142

The Faces Of Centro Historico

This woman sits in front of Santo Domingo selling candles every single day.

Rain or shine.

Faces in the crowd.

When it's warm he sells ice cream and when it's cold he sells cotton candy.

Candied apples - only to be found during holidays.

A bag of oranges for $2!

4 avocados per $1

La Policia

Restaurant Review Hotel Real Audiencia

A few blocks from my house, in the lovely Plaza Santo Domingo, is a fairly nondescript building which encloses Hotel Real Audiencia and its upstairs restaurant with spectacular views.


It's a pretty low-key dining experience as my boyfriend and I and two old ladies who arrived halfway through our meal were the only patrons on a Tuesday night.


However the views are absolutely gorgeous. It is one of the best spots in old town for watching the day turn to night.




We each had filet mignon, beer, and a dessert and the bill was around $20. Another plus is it's literally blocks from La Ronda street so after dinner you can take a stroll down there to peek in the galleries and have some hot canelazo or blackberry wine.