From July 4th through July 16th, Rachel and I were blessed with family company. My sister and her family arrived July 4th and stayed through July 12th. My mom and dad got her on the 8th, and stayed until the 16th. We saw a lot of Quito and its surroundings. Here’s a bunch of pix from the trip:
Here’s the Rakes family at Plaza Foch in the Mariscal district of Quito. Rachel and I were strenuously corrected by a cabbie once, when trying to pronounce the plaza’s name. Evidently it’s pronounced “foash” … who knew.
Here’s the Rakes family in the market in Otavalo, along with their primary translator. When the primary translator wasn’t available, the secondary translator stepped in and did things like ask vendors whether this particular t-shirt was available in a more rapid clamshell, or whether their moccasins had angry moonbeams.
A little girl in typical Otavaleño get-up. She was cute, I took her picture, ’nuff said.
A vendor in the market at Otavalo tries to convince Gene that he needs garishly-colored, knee-high, crocheted socks for every member of his extended family.
Levi found a hat.
Levi found another hat.
Levi finally found a hat his folks would spring for. As did Josh. This may be one of my favorite pictures … ever.
When things got hectic in the apartment (particularly when there were 8 of us sharing space), Gwenda would calmly suggest that perhaps it would be a good time for the boys to go to the roof and play hackey-sack.
Levi on the rooftop.
Josh on the rooftop.
The boys threatening to drop the hackey-sack down ten flights of stairs.
Mid-afternoon snack. Did I mention how much I loved having my nephews here?
The boys in a tree at Mitad del Mundo.
Levi found it difficult to walk a straight line on the equator at Mitad del Mundo. We didn’t tell him that the real equator was several dozen meters to the north.
Some of the boys got a little carried away at El Ejido Park.
Josh had difficulty stayin’ on his feet at the bottom of the slide.
So did Levi.
More fun at El Ejido. Levi’s swing had bird poop on it, so he turned it upside down.
Guess how long that hat stayed white? Josh found a slide that didn’t throw him on the ground.
Christmas in July! Gwenda got a typical Ecuadorian tablecloth.
As did Mom. Wow, those Ecuadorian gift-givers were on a roll that day!
Jerseys from Ecuador’s national soccer team for the guys.
Mom wanted a picture of her manger scene.
Josh reacts upon finding out that Honey & Honey won’t put put their namesake condiment on his hamburger.
Dad gets a quick shot of some of the lovely ladies you can find at 14K feet, high about Quito.
The family at the top of the Teleferiqo. I think Levi’s ears were cold.
Dad’s either pretending he doesn’t know us, or mentally preparing himself for the cable car ride back down the mountain.
Dad scoping out great camera angles at the Basilica del Voto Nacional.
I’ve been up the tower twice, and opted to stay on the ground. Gene and the boys were not satisfied with such, and decided to climb.
Then they went higher.
And higher. I wish I had a shot to really show you how far up there this is. It’s majorly vertigo-inducing.
Otavalo, a market town to the north of Quito, is really something that has to be seen on a weekend. So, we made two trips. One for the Rakes fam, and one for the Sams’. Here’s Mom and Dad with their primary translator. After the previous week, the secondary translator had been fired.
“Wayne! Do they really live that close to a volcano?!”
Dad and Mom on the rooftoop, with Quito in the background.
Mom and Dad at one of our favorite local eateries, Bom K-fe. Breakfast is $2/person, lunch is $3.
By chance, Mom and Dad’s trip just happened to overlap with a missions trip that our good friend Ron Fischer was on. His son, Brian, had been down to see us over spring break. It was great to get to see Ron again. Here we are at another of our favorite places, a Colombian restaurant called “Crepes & Waffles.” (Bet you can’t guess what kind of restaurant it is.)
Mom and Dad at Mitad del Mundo.
Inter-hemisphere lip lock. Again, we didn’t have the heart to tell them that the French had misplaced the equator. We were just glad the kiss wasn’t French.
When the Sams fam was in Jamaica, they listened to HCJB, a Christian shortwave radio broadcast out of Quito. When Mom found out that HCJB’s headquarters were right across the street from our school, she really wanted a tour. Rachel and I learned a lot about this fantastic ministry, and hope to be able to volunteer with teams in the future. (I really don’t recall what had me so amazed in this picture, though.)
In the Mariscal district of Quito, there’s an artisanal market in the same vein as the one in Otavalo, howbeit on a much smaller scale. Here’s Mom trying out a finger puppet of an Andean condor, whose wingspans in the wild can hit ten feet. I think it woulda been much more interesting if the finger puppet had been life-sized.
Not that the backside of the primary translator is her best side, but I’m certainly not complaining.Hope you enjoy the pictures a fraction as much as we enjoyed having the company. We programmed a lot of free time into our schedule, and it was so amazing to have my whole family together in South America. (Even when the showers ran a little “luke-cool.”)
Oh, yeah. Happy birthday, Gwenda!