We've had a lot of people ask us how we stay so fashionable while we travel. We're so excited to bring to you our first fashion post for all our great fanz 😉
There's truly not much goin on in Chicama besides surfing so we decided to go to a local school and give them our pens and pencils we brought from the states. A lot of times in traveling, little kids will ask for pens and pencils and we never had any with us. I wasn't going to be ill-equipped this time around so I brought a ton down. We asked around and someone told us about a school who was always hurting for money. Whatever happened to parents teaching children not to accept candy from strangers? But hey, I'm not complaining. We specifically packed candy to get kids to like us. Candy from 'Los Estados Unidos'...say those words and you basically gave them the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. The only problem with packing candy is that I like to eat it just as much as kids do. So when I came across Wesley and Luis I was praying I still had tootsie pops in my backpack. I'm practically shoving them in my mouth out here because apparently Kate can live on a power bar for every meal??? Heaven help me...I was stoked when my mom came because that meant we would actually eat some real food. And I thought I ate to live (not lived to eat)...Kate took that to a whole new level for me My best guy friend, Lance, served his mission in Peru. We grew up surfing together, water ballooning cars together...you know, normal best friend stuff. When he was gone for the two years, we wrote letters back and forth and he sent one letter I'll never forget. He said: "K8 the longest left in the world is in my mission, you have to go." For anyone who doesn't surf, you could probably care less about that statement. For me, it's the holy grail. I grew up surfing with the boys and I'm what they call "goofy foot"... it just means I surf with my right foot forward. Left foot forward is "regular", apparently the surf gods decided to discriminate. Most breaks in California are a right break, meaning goofy foot people like me are almost always surfing backside. It's a a little annoying but I never really cared, surfing is surfing. I learned how to surf when I was just a young-in and I have been hooked ever since. It still is beyond me how I got involved in a WINTER SPORT. It didn't take us long to find a place to stay on Isabela. We had maybe three choices. So Mama Fanny's hostel it was. Bring on the critters, geckos and cockroaches. I can do geckos. But cockroaches? Yeah no. Refer here if you'd like to see what I mean. There's really not much happening on this island. The main street is a dirt road and there were maybe four places to eat. We didn't see a ton of locals around, so we wanted to go explore and find them...there had to be a story somewhere. Every tourist was riding a bike and the locals had motorcycles. Obviously, we wanted a motorcycle too. And when one of us has an idea, we don't let it go untill we make it happen. We walked into a tour office and asked where we could rent a scooter or motorcycle. We got a big, fat NO before we could even say 'motocicleta'. We asked another office and got the same answer. So then Kate and I said, alright fine. We'll go find one ourselves. Kate asked me, "Where are we going to get one?" I said, "We'll ask someone who is riding one." Camera. Check. Passport. Check. Old clothes to give away. Check. Pop rocks. Double check. Yes, pop rocks. The candy that shaped so many childhoods and apparently they only make them in the U.S.? We try to bring these along with all sorts of other candy so we can make friends with little kids. Not creepy at all. Well one day, it backfired, at least Heidi will say so. We boarded a 3 hour bus ride and within 5 minutes of taking off, the CA-YUTEST little Ecuadorian girl walks right up to our seats. Blank stare. She was small, brown hair, tan, her face had some leftover lunch and some crusty boogs. Her arms had some dirt smeared around, she definitely looked like the kinda girl who ruled the neighborhood. But dang she was precious. We strike up a convo with our new friend. "Quieres dulces?" (First thing we learned in Spanish.) She nods. I pull out some of my tootsie rolls and hand them over. She instantly unrolls that puppy and runs back to her mom. 5 min later we meet again, we start asking her questions but she can barely answer cause she was sloshing that tootsie roll around. We ask her how old she is and she runs to the back of the bus and yells in her high pitch perfect voice, "CUANTOS AÑOS TENGO?" Half the people on the bus are now laughing cause everyone heard her. This little human runs back and holds up 4 fingers. I fell in love. Now I'm sitting on the window so I'm leaning over Heidi to talk to my new friend. I keep giving her candy and clearly we are buds. Heidi was over it, she was grossed out by the boogers and wanted to switch seats. We switch and this little niña wedges her way in front of me and next thing you know she standing between us, just staring up at us with her big brown eyes. She proceeds to push us aside and pop a squat in between us. This girl is a hustler. I'm laughing hysterically and Heidi is saying, "k8 k8 no seriously seriously? Do something. This is not happening". Homegirl starts touching Heidi and her camera, I mean she just wants to play. Heidi apparently needed her space and it just made me laugh harder. Once we arrived in the Galapagos, we were told we had to make at least one visit to another island. Everyone kept talking about Isabela and how beautiful it was. When locals tell us to do something, it's rare we turn down their advice. They said it was easy. We just had to buy a ticket to Isabela for the morning. Done. We showed up at the dock at 7 am. First we had to get on a water taxi which then took us out to the boat. Onto the boat we went, all chipper for the adventure that awaited us. Little did we know... We were sitting inside, closer to the front. I was stoked. I would be warm and not out back in the wind and getting splashed by the waves. One of the workers started handing out black plastic bags. I thought, oh that's sweet...it's to keep our stuff dry. But me? I wouldn't need that. I was inside! Literally everyone took a plastic bag except Kate and I. It's cool. People love to travel right? They travel for the food, for the sites, cheap mojitos, hot ethnic tour guides (guilty) but one reason why I adore traveling is for the opportunity to go to church around the world. I'm always keeping my eyes peeled for our church buildings and let's be honest, you know one when you see one. We checked online to see if there was anything in Galápagos that we could attend. Now let me tell you, these islands were kind of hard to get to. We took a flight, to another flight, to a bus, then a boat, finishing with another bus. This ain't no easy commute, so you can imagine our doubt when searching for a Mormon church. Lo. And. Behold. We found it. Started at 9am and it was 5 blocks from our hostel. Gold. We mustered up the nicest clothes we had and set on our way. I used to think that if you bought a hose, it means you've arrived. You've hit the stage where you most likely own a home and you're settling down enough to actually buy a hose...aka take care of a lawn and enter into the real stage of adulthood. But since a hose is nowhere in my near future (you know, because of the CA drought), I'm adjusting my definition of arrival. And after hitting up the beaches in the Galápagos Islands, I'd like to announce, I've arrived. These beaches. The ocean. And salty hair is just about all I need. We're still trying to figure out how we went from a morning of sitting in hot springs to an afternoon with six Ecuadorean grandpas--all the while sticking to the twenty words we actually know in Spanish. By the end of the day, we convinced ourselves we were fluent. Because how else in the world do you have hours of conversation with people who don't speak a lick of English? The gift of tongues is real people. We started out at the hot springs perfectly placed on the side of the mountain beneath a massive waterfall. The hot springs themselves were less than enticing, especially with dozens of people crowding the murky waters. Everyone's bathing suits were quite questionable in the areas of opaque material and physical support. But the swim caps. Those swim caps reallyyyyy did their job holding everyone's hair in place. And I'd argue we rocked ours pretty well. |
AuthorYou like people? So do we. You want to be friends? So do we.
Categories |