Tour de Baňos

Anu was itching to get out for some adventure as she was fully recovered by the time Manish got back. Le tour de France was on we wanted to join in on the fun and have our own little bike ride. We rented two mountain bikes and decided to ride down from Baňos to Pailon del Diablo (featured in the movie A Proof of Life) after debating Manish’s stomach situation for some time. We started seeing signs of rain for the first time on our trip as we were at the bike store, but the store owner assured us that it should clear up soon as the rain in the area doesn’t last for too long. We took his word, got the bikes and started following the map.

Most of the ride was downhill with just a few uphills that tested our legs and lungs. The rain started to come down hard within 15 minutes of our ride which made some parts really muddy. The views however were spectacular with many large waterfalls and some new ethereal ones springing up by the side of the road. We went through a crazy tunnel which was pitch black, wet, muddy and leaky. Luckily the next few tunnels had beautiful detours on the side of the mountain for bikes.

 

We reached Pailon del Diablo after two hours of riding completely drenched, but luckily it was warm and we were excited to be there. We visited two lookout points one of which had a nice restaurant and a botanical garden and the other one had a hanging bridge which was reached by a short hike which looked directly on to the waterfalls. The rain actually made the area look magically misty with low clouds hanging on the verdant mountains.

The ride back was exciting… we put the bikes and ourselves on the back of a pickup truck along with a french couple. Trucks seemed to be the choice of short rides for the locals.

Climbing Cotopaxi

While Anu was recovering and relaxing, Manish was obsessing over climbing some high mountains. Ecuador is a great place for climbing as there are several peaks around 6000 m (about 18,000 ft) which can be climbed without too much of technical ability. It is still pretty difficult to climb at these elevations it because of the need for serious acclimatization. The mountain of choice for most people is the beautifully cone shaped Cotopaxi (5800 m). It is supposed to be still mildly active with some fumaroles of smoke coming out occasionally. Many tour companies offer this trip with a two day or a three day option. I decided to go with Rainforestur’s two day package. I was in a group with a young French couple who had been preparing for this climb by climbing some of the nearby mountains and staying in Quito to acclimatize. I was in Banos with its low elevation (6,000 ft) with not too much physical conditioning. However, I really wanted to take the chance to learn about alpine climbing and if I could make it, fine.

The tour guide was supposed to start from Banos at 9:30 am to give us enough time to reach the refuge parking lot at 4500 m, climb up to the refuge at 4800 m have lunch and then do some training on the nearby glacier. The plan was to then have an early dinner and then go to sleep. We were supposed to start climbing at midnight, giving us eight hours to get to the top and then turn back.

Unfortunately it did not turn out that way. We left Banos only by 11:30 am, reached the parking lot at 4:30 pm, and up to the refuge only by 5:30 PM. This was too late for lunch and technical training so we just had dinner and tried out our crampons. We went to sleep and my stomach started acting up due to the lack of food and some local snacks that the guide had fed me to stave off the hunger pangs. In any case, I felt horrible and did not sleep all night. Woke up at 11:00 pm and got ready to climb. We started at 12:45 am and it was rough. The elevation was getting to me and I felt very weak. I made it up to 5200 m (the highest i have ever been) when my guide suggested that we turn back. I think I could have made it up to the top if I stuck to my guns, but climbing back under severe exhaustion would be dangerous for me as well as the guide who was strapped in with me. So I returned back to the refuge and rested. I felt a severe bout of diarrhea coming on!

I somehow made it back to Banos after flagging down a bus outside the Parque Nacional Cotopaxi, where the guide dropped me off. As soon as I reached the hotel I started firing on both ends. The upside was that we had learnt from Anu’s bout with diarrhea that the antibiotic Cipro is widely available and works great for stomach bacterial infections. I immediately started a course and rested all day and was good as new the next day.

I fully intend to go back and do Cotopaxi in the future. I know what to do to prepare now!

Relaxing time at Baňos

By the time we got to Baňos it was dark and we found a hostel to stay at which was run by the tour company Rainforestur.  It was a relatively new building with very clean and tastefully decorated rooms… the best place we’ve stayed at so far.  So we decided to chill out and have Anu recover completely before more active days.

Baňos is a gorgeous little town sorrounded by green mountians and is completely set up for tourism… not in crazy touristy way, but very laid back and helpful way… like the Ecuadorians themselves.  There were very few pushy people, which was a big contrast to most of Peru and we really enjoyed that.

We explored the town, took advantage of the hot baths which is supposedly curative with its high mineral content, and had couple of laid back days which helped us recover and restore our spirits.  Baňos has some excellent restaurants… our top picks are Cafe Hood, Casa de Hood and Rico Pan for breakfast.  The restaurants have a good international selections and some good local tastes as well.  We visited Rico Pan religiously every morning and fell in love with their Jugo de Mora (Blackberry juice).

Hola Ecuador!

We were sad Peru leg of the trip was over, but were looking forward to seeing Ecuador. Unfortunately we didn’t get seats together (the stop at Vivanda took a little too long and reached the airport a little late)… Manish was on the west side of the plane and got to see some spectacular views of an erupting volcano and the Cotopaxi mountain. Anu was stuck in a middle seat with not so great views.

Quito is one of world’s highestm capital cities at 10,000 ft. Once we reached Quito we got some lunch and spent some time trying to decide what to do. We had originally planned on spending at least a day in Quito and then going to Baňos, but after contemplating for some time decided to head directly to Baňos. Ok, for those of you who know Spanish and are thinking we’re talking about the bathroom, stop snickering Baňos (which means baths) is a little town south of Quito named for its hot baths.

The taxi driver who took us from the airport to the bus terminal ripped us off. Charged us $10 for a trip that should’ve cost us just $5 as we found out later on. Oh well, it was our first day in Ecuador. We were surprised to see so much greenery at such high elevation… guess being close to the equator has its perks. Quito is a beautiful city sorrounded by mountains and we got to see a beautiful majestic cathedral from a distance on our way to the bus terminal. The bus ride was absolutely beautiful. So much greenery on the rolling hills, lot of cattle, and even some llamas.

 

A look back at Peru

Peru is a beautiful country and we’ve had some wonderful experiences there. Here are some things that stick out in our memory…

What we’ll miss:

• Llamas and their cousins (Alpacas and Vicunas)
• Friendly people
• Being free and traveling around
• San Luis (the refreshing bottled water that we were dependent on)
• Open horizons
• Little ones on their mom’s backs
• Colorful native outfits
• Inexpensive shopping (we should’ve done more)
• Coca tea!
• Govinda restaurants
• Rosy cheeked (sun burnt) kids
• Some of the beautiful Plaza de las Armas (Cusco, Arequipa, Pisco)
• Special attention we got for being from India

 

What we won’t miss:

• Aggressive restaurant greeters
• Some of the long and dusty bus rides
• Alpaca meat
• Being sick
• Vistadome ride on Perurail
• Touristiness of certain locations

We’ll post more as we remember them…

Adios, Peru!

Our flight from Cusco to Lima was uneventful. The highlight of our last day in Peru was resting all day, fighting the fever, and dreaming about the breakfast the next morning before our flight. Anu was in love with the pan de leche (a type of sweet bread) from this supermarket (Vivanda) in Lima and Manish liked their coffee. So we woke up bright and early, packed up and stood in front of the restaurant about half an hour before their opened. The workers were in there setting up for the day and Anu tried to sneak in before the official opening time. They were looking at us like we were crazy. Eventually we got in, had our full of pan de leche and left for the airport. The taxi drive to the airport was fun as we had a rock star driver who was intent on playing loud “musica del rock” and jamming along.

The day of rest in Lima did Anu some good and the fever was gone!  We were worried that she had caught some exotic disease and we’d have to fly back to LA.  We love all things exotic, but when it comes to diseases it’s a different story.  But luckily it turned out to be just a fever that lasted a couple of days with some cold as after effects.

Ride back to Cusco on the vistadome train

As we mentioned earlier we had to take the more luxurious train back to Cusco as the basic one was sold out.  It was definitely a different experience, but we’re not saying it was better.  The extra windows sure did add some extra viewing pleasure for a couple hours while the sun was still out, but other than that we had the unenviable pleasure of experiencing an awkward fashion show put on by the cabin crew.  But we did get “snack de la tarde” that Manish was so looking forward to!

A day in Aguas Calientes

We spent the next day doing a little shopping in town, hiking and resting.  Aguas Calientes is a very small beautiful town built around the river Urubamba and the railroad. Tourism seems to drive the economy there and maybe is the reason for its existence.

In the morning we were walking around and saw a trail leading into the forest marked “montana Putukusi”.  Somebody had told us that from the top you can get a good free glimpse of Machu Picchu.  So we decided to explore the mountain.  After about half hour of hiking we reached a vertigo inducing 300 ft vertical ladder that found part of the “trail”.  A fellow hiker told us there are more of these.

At this point Anu decided to stop and wait as she was still not feeling too well.  Her fever was still around and she was starting to get a cold also.  Manish decided to keep going through the heavily forested trail.  After about 40 minutes the vegetation gave way to shrubs and here you could see the activities in Aguas Calientes.  It took a total of about hour and 15 min to reach the top (8000 ft) from where you could get a beautiful distant view of Machu Picchu.

After lunch we hung out in the main square watching a colorful church festival where men wore scary masks and they were drinking something that made them very happy

The llamas of Machu Picchu and our ride back

Tylenol kicked in and we really wanted to stay till the sunset. Manish discovered a room where all the llamas were moving into slowly and they were licking something off the walls that seemed like lime. Manish was entranced by the llamas and we spent rest of the evening catering to his new passion of “llama love”. He got tons of pictures, some of which turned out awesome and we have the pictures on flickr that you can access through the sidebar.

We had some entertainment on the ride back that was totally unexpected. We kept hearing cheers at every bend in the road. We finally figured out there was a young Peruvian kid dressed up in traditional clothes racing the bus by running through the hiking trail that cuts across the roads at the switchbacks. He beat the bus at the end and got in the bus to do some Inca chants and collect his well earned tips from us. It seems that this would be a good income for him totalling at least $20 per day. The kid must have some lungs to run so fast at 6000 ft!

Machu Picchu!

The Bus ride to Machu Picchu climbed steeply over some moutnains that blocks Aguas Calientes’ view of it.  It took about 20 minutes and it seemed like forever because we kept expecting the ruins to pop up at every corner.  When we got there we panicked a little bit because the lady said we had to buy the tickets in AC and we did not know this.  In any case we did not have enough money (S/ 80 each) on us.  We had to change money through one of the guides there and we were left with no money to get a guide for the trip.  Anyway after some anxious moments we started our trek into the ruins.  

The first glimpse of Machu Picchu was kind of interesting.  We had read that there is place where you could get a good shot of the ruins with the distinctive mountains in the background.  So Manish took this one detour and ran smack into a llama framing two walls looking onto the spectacular ruins.  He had enough sense to click this picture and we really like this one.  After some more pictures we did a short hike to an ancient Inca bridge and saw some beautiful tropical flowers on the way. 

By this time Anu was not feeling too well, she felt a fever coming on. So we sat down for a little bit on one of the terraces.  We moved some more and reached a small enclosed areas which was very cool and had kind of a stone bunk that Anu felt like resting (near some ancient fountains).  Manish ventured out solo and some some more of the ruins and reached a point where you could hike up to the ruins up in the mountain in the background of Machu Picchu called Wayna Picchu.  It takes about 3 hours to hike this and you could start this at 8 am in the morning or 1 pm.  We did not have time but anybody who makes the trip out there should definitely do this hike.  We have heard it is awesome.  Here is a great aerial shot of Machu Picchu from Wayna Picchu.

Manish went back to get Anu and she was feeling even worse and had a temperature.  After taking some tylenol we decided to head back slowly.  As we were walking out of the stone bunk a nun and her friend saw us and gave Anu some rubbing alcohol to sniff.  The smell was so strong that she was feeling nauseous from it and after couple of quick sniffs she held her breath and pretended to sniff more.  They were very concerned and nice and told us take care very sincerely.

Train ride to Aguas Calientes

The taxi dropped us off at around 5:30 am for our ride on Perurail.  The backpacker train was almost completely full, and provided a good ride.  The train went along rio Urubamba, and the view was spectacular with Inca ruins and some snow clad peaks on the way contrasting with the lush greenery in the valley.  It took us about 4 hours to reach Aguas Calientes which is about 12 kms from Machu Picchu.  We got a hotel (hostal Joe, S/40 per night) ate lunch, and got on the bus to Machu Picchu which was $12 each.

Beautiful day in Cusco

Cusco is a great city to hangout and we decided to spend the next day making travel arrangements to Machu Picchu and lazing around in the fantastic main square. The main square was a short walk from our hotel, which was a basic double room with private bathroom. Cusco is a charming town with cobblestone walkways, historic buildings, cute restaurants and endless number of souvenir shops – they sure do know how to milk the tourists.

The next day we went to get our train tickets and were shocked at the prices. Peru Rail has monopoly over transportation to Machu Picchu, and they sure do set their prices knowing that! We were lucky enough to get backpacker seats one way but had to settle with the Vistadome (luxury class) on the way back.

After getting breakfast and the tickets we spent the morning in the plaza. The antibiotics we got in Puno seemed to be working wonders for Anu´s stomach. We spotted an Indian lady in a salwar handing out some cards. She came over and started chatting to us in Hindi, and Manish was happy to chat with her. She told us that she got married end of 2005 to an Indian restaurant owner and chef in Lima. They moved to Cusco because they liked it so much (we can see why). They opened a restaurant (Maikhana Namaskar) in the San Blas neighborhood to Cusco where most of the gringo backpacker hotels are. We were excited at the prospect to eating real Indian food that night!

After getting lunch and ice cream (stomach feeling much better by now) at an Italian restaurant we walked around a bit more and settled in the plaza again for some more people watching. A little girl in her school uniform came over and started chatting with us. Anu was excited to practice her Spanish. The girl seemed to want something, but wouldn’t tell us what. We finally did what she’s been waiting for – pulled out the camera and took a picture of her. Soon she asked for a tip, and ran to her mother with it.

We visited the South American Explorers b/c we were looking for a Peru guidebook. It is an organization that coordinates volunteer activity and in general provides services to travelers in South America. An Australian lady showed us around and tried to get us to sign up ($80/yr). It is a good service for folks traveling for a long time b/c you can get internet access, get books for discount, coffee, information and a good place to hangout. The volunteer activities sounded good but it seemed strange that you have to pay for some of it.

After a scrumptious meal at the Indian restaurant we called it a night as we had to get up early for the train ride to Aguas Calientes the next morning. The guy who run the restaurant was interesting… he has been all over southeast Asia and somehow ended up in South America.

Arriving in Cusco

The bus ride to Cusco was another one from hell. It was supposed to be a ¨direct bus¨that was to take 5 hours, but it stopped at every single town on the way and took us 8 hours to reach Cusco. But the views were spectacular with great mountains and lush greenery as we got closer to Cusco.

After we got to Cusco with hungry stomachs, Anu decided that she was through with the Peruvian food experience (her stomach was still a mess) and we decided to eat somewhere familiar. Govinda is a chain of restaurants run by the ¨Hare Krishnas¨and this became our default dinner place as they are quite prevalent in most cities in Peru.

Lake Titicaca and the floating islands

The next leg was the town of Puno, a 5 hr bus ride away from Arequipa. Puno lies on the shore of Lake Titicaca (the proper local spelling is Titikaka, which we learned later). Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at an altitude of 12,500 ft and stretches between the countries of Peru and Bolivia. It is here that we realized that we were very close to Bolivia. If we had thought of this earlier we would have definitely planned Bolivia into our trip as well. One thought that was growing in our heads was that we could cover the length of South America by road from Ecuador to Peru to Bolivia to Chile in a couple of months – what a trip that would be! We bumped into a lot of people who were doing something similar.

We had made friends with a girl from Korea during the Colca canyon trip who wanted us to deliver some camera equipment to a friend who was in Puno via the backpackers´ route. This worked out really well as we could get the package to him by leaving it at our hotel’s front desk.

As our bus got close to Puno a guy came up to us asking if we need a hotel in Puno. He presented us with what seemed like a good deal (S/30 per night for double w/ bathroom) and we decided to go with it. As soon as we got to the hotel he wanted to know if we would like to get on a cruise to the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. We spent a pleasant evening on the lake. The cruise consisted of transportation to the floating islands on the lake inhabited by the natives who build these islands out of reeds that grow on the lake. They depend of fishing for sustenance even though they are increasingly dependent on tourists for income these days. Their culture is eroding slowly with most of the new generation leaving for larger cities (such as Lima and Arequipa). An interesting side note is that of the 27 million people in Peru, about 10 million live in Lima. We had a brief information session on the island (Uros) about how these were built. Many people from our tour group were jumping around on the soft reed islands. It was fun. We then took a reed boat to a neighboring island and bought some more handicrafts. We went back as the sun was setting and it was beautiful!

Cañon de Colca

We woke up early the next day and got on the bus to Colca Canyon.  This was (surprise, surprise) 5 hour bus ride that reached a high point of over 15,000 ft.  Anu was feeling worse and to top it off we did not get seats together.  Manish sat next to a nice lady from Mexico City who is a professor of linguistics.  She was very friendly and gave Manish tons of good advice on the academic life and invited us to stay at her place if we ever visit Mexico City.   

During this trip we went through some awesome landscape.  We stopped briefly at high elevation grassland where a herd of vicuñas were grazing peacefully.  Vicuñas are the delicate cousins of llamas and their wool is very highly priced at $10,000 per meter in Europe.  We also saw an active volcano from a distance at this location. 

Next was a total tourist but delightful stop at about 15,000 ft.  We got some alpaca wool gear and hot coca leaf tea.  Seeing all the brightly clothed women and children and the strategically placed llamas made Anu feel a bit better for the time being.  Manish thinks this was probably due to some high altitude shopping.   

We then headed down to the town of Chivay where we had some lunch.  Anu grazed listlessly on her Alpaca meat and immediately went to bed for the next few hours.  Manish went out to enjoy the
hot springs and made some friends.  We met for dinner where there was a traditional band and dancers for our entertainment.  The Chivay women dress in beautiful brightly colored clothes.  There are tailors on the street that custom make these elaborate dresses for them.   

The next morning Anu was still not feeling well.  So Manish headed out early with the group to visit some local villages, the canyon and the viewpoint for sighting condors.  The local villages are completely set up for tourism and the guide was explaining that the work pattern is shifting from agriculture to tourism.  The first small town we visited had little children dancing in the main square all morning and collecting tips.  It seems that during the tourist high season about 3000 people visit colca canyon per day.  We found out that the children’s outfits cost about $600 each because of all the intricate work on it.  We stopped at several places along the way for some pictures and to buy handicrafts.  We reached the condor viewpoint at about 10 am and spent about an hour there watching these majestic creatures soaring above our heads.  It is estimated that there are about 200 condors in the area, of which about 25 were out that day.   

Meanwhile Anu woke up around 8 am and decided to go out and walk around the town before she was struck with another abdominal emergency.  She made it to the pharmacy and explained her situation with some funny gestures, but got some good medication.   

After lunch we headed back to Arequipa and decided to take the bus to Puno the next day.

The White City

The bus ride to Arequipa started at 5 am and was 11 hours too long. We were told it would be only 8 hours. It was also the most uncomfortable, crowded and smelliest ride so far. But it was also one of the most scenic drives by far. Deserted beaches on the west and beautiful mountains and sand dunes at times to the east of us. We knew we’d be climbing to over 12,000 ft getting there, so we had started taking our altitude medication (Diamox). The bus stopped for breakfast and biobreak at a scenic location by the ocean. The locals chowed down some appetizing rice and curry looking dish. However we decided to wait to eat till the lunch break which never happened. Luckily we had some bread and jam and some bars for snacking.

By the time we reached Arequipa we were totally pooped. We decided to get a hotel and reserve a trip to the Cañon de Colca for the next two days. This is the second deepest canyon in the world (163 meters shy of the nearby cañon de Cotohausi). The price for this guided tour was steep but we wanted to relax and be led by somebody else as Anu was not feeling too well at this time.

We had dinner where Anu felt even worse and could not finish her meal. It must have been due to a combination of high altitude, not having eaten all day, and some sort of food poisoning. The host was concerned and treated us with some Coca leaves in anis (alcohol). Coca leaves seem to be the sinecure according to highland Peruvians as we would repeatedly hear the rest of the trip. According to them it cures a long list of maladies including but not limited to altitude sickness, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, weakness, indigestion, headaches…

The main square in Arequipa (plaza de las armas) was beautiful and bustling with activity. However, we were not in too good of a shape to enjoy it all. We gave our laundry to the hotel manager, it cost us S/4 per kilo – not too bad to have it washed, dried and folded.

What to do next?

After our exciting afternoon in Huacachina we decided to head further south to the town of Nazca which is famous for its ¨Nazca Lines¨.  The bus ride was not too bad, it was about 4 hours long.  The Nazca Lines are lines on the sand that stretch several kilometers and make shapes of monkeys, lizards, condors, etc. These could only be appreciated by flying over them as they cannot be seen in their entirety from any specific location on land.  We were planning on doing the flight, but once we got into town we felt a little unenthusiastic about it.  Plus we were told by another tourist that the lines are relatively unimpressive from the air.  So we decided to just walk around town and head out to Arequipa the next day. 

After dinner we updated our blog, and on our way out forgot our guidebook in there!  The book was our sole source of independent information, and losing it turned out to be a great inconvenience the rest of the trip.

House of Saud

Our next stop was Huacachina, which is famous for its enormous sand dunes.  We took a bus from Pisco to Ica (2 hours) and then a taxi to the oasis of Huacachina.  

As soon as we got there our host convinced us to hop onto a dune buggy and spend our afternoon in the desert 4-wheeling and sand boarding.  This was by far the most adrenaline pumping experience we’ve had on this trip.  The dune buggy driver was loco and took us on a rollercoaster ride up and down and around what seemed like sheer walls of sand.  We were going down 70 degree angle slopes at breakneck speeds.

We also tried sand boarding which was fun but we wish we had more time to improve our skills.  It is similar to snowboarding but slower and it’s much difficult to switch sides.  It is also much slower as you tend to get stuck in the sand if you’re on one edge for too long.  Manish thinks that he can design a better board that is lighter and more efficient (the engineer spiel).   

On our way back we saw a group of people walking and waving at us.  Apparently their buggy was stuck in the sand.  We drove over to see what was up and it seemed like the front tire was buried in the sand.  Our driver helped deflate the tire and enlisted our muscle power to push the buggy out.  We felt like super heroes.   

The final stop was at a spot overlooking the oasis and the lagoon which is on the back of the S/50 bill. 

House of Saud, with it´s obvious reference to the great nation of sand, was the name of one of the dune buggies which Manish found funny… the engineer sense of humor  

Continuing Southward (Pisco)

Next was the slightly touristy town of Pisco, 3 hours from
Lima.  The major attraction here was the Islas Ballestas which houses many species of birds and animals.  The birds include the Peruvian Boobies, Penguins, Pelicans and many others.  The Peruvian Boobies are economically significant because they produce a Nitrogen rich excrement (guano) which is harvested by the Peruvian Government.  At one point in time this was a very valuable product and famous internationally until synthetic fertilizers were developed.  Dolphins came out to say goodbye to us as we were finishing the cruise – that was cool!

         

Away from Lima (Pucusana)

We decided to go to Pucusana, a small fishing village just 2 hours south of Lima as our first trip while waiting for our bags.  The plan was to purchase basic necessities and keep going in case we didn’t hear about the bags that night.  Pucusana turned out to be a beautiful coastal town with absolutely no other tourists.   

When we got off the bus on the Panamericana sur highway Anu panicked a little because we were in the middle of nowhere with a Martian landscape all around us.  But of course the taxi drivers let us know soon enough that we were in some kind of civilization.  We decided to skip the taxi and take a coletivo into town which was about 6 km away.   

We decided to go with Lonely Planet’s recommendation for lodging and made an uphill trek of about 600 ft following signs for El Mirador (the watchtower).  An older lady named Elizabeth came to greet us at the gate (after a vociferous dog announced our presence).  She was pleasantly surprised and excited (this seemed to be the theme in many places) that we were from India and was extremely hospitable.  The living situation was a little weird since the place under renovation and had no running water but we decided to go with the place any way since we loved the location and the host.  We negotiated a piddly price of S/25 ($8). 

We watched the France vs. Portugal semi-final with Elizabeth´s grandchildren.  We also got to meet and know her daughter Erika who gave us the grand tour of the Marine museum where she works.  She was so passionate about her work with saving endangered marine life through education and public awareness that both of us were very impressed.  Apparently a lot of the endangered species end up on dinner plates at restaurants.  

Erika was very interested to see our wedding pictures so we promised to send her the pictures from India.  She really wanted to visit India one day and showed us a new looking book on India which we later found out was from 1979.  We extended her an invitation to stay with our parents when she got a chance to visit. 

Walking around town was fun experience… we met some energetic kids and experienced the unmistakable smell of a coastal fishing town.  The fishermen were just coming into town and wanted to know if we wanted to go back out with them. 

We finally were able to get through to TACA on the phone that night.  And they actually called us back!  It was a call with some good news – our bags were at the airport!  We were in business again.