Leaving Ecuador’s green and warm Mindo Valley, we ascend to the town of Cotacachi to celebrate Eric’s birthday. Alas, because of Eric’s settings on Google Maps, we accidentally take the adventurous route. How adventurous? You’ll have to see for yourself in our latest video.
After Cotacachi, we explore the largest and most impressive mercado in the whole country of Ecuador. It seems to take up the entire town of Otavalo! Block after block filled with everything from snails to jewelry to colorful grains to woven ponchos.
Following the excitement, we spontaneously land on a lakeside camping site. What a view!
Watch it all here:
What’s new?
In real-time, we are next to the Cordillera mountain range of Peru. We have enjoyed all our time in the Peruvian mountains, despite roads much more chilling than the one on our way to Cotacachi.
We did decide to hit the coast, but we regretted it quickly. The coastal route through Peru is the Pan-American Highway. It is well-paved, multi-lane in many places, and the quickest way to get down the country. But sadly, it is also a heap of trash and apocalypse-level dusty. We haven’t seen anything like it since leaving the United States.
So after just four nights out of the mountains, we decided to abandon the coast for a more restorative environment. In just three hours, we climbed 10,000 feet in elevation. We are in the town of Huaraz for a week, staying in one place mostly so Eric can work on YouTube editing.
Each of our videos takes two to three days to edit and upload properly. But despite all the effort, we deeply believe our videos are one of the best ways we fulfill the fourth component of our family mission statement: Love. Explore. Study. Share. Through your comments, we know sharing our adventure has inspired and encouraged others, so we are invested to continue.
Thanks to all of you who continue to tag along for the journey.
-B
Loved the video! Way to stay positive, Eric! “It’ll be a slow roll.”
It means so much that you would take time to watch, Patty! Thank you. What made that drive remarkable was that we did not expect it at all. It wasn’t until a few days later (to be shown in our next video) that Eric realized his Google Maps settings were incorrect. Too funny.