While thinking
back on my travels, I’ve realized that there are a lot of lessons I’ve learned
with each and every trip I’ve taken. Now, that’s great for me, but then I
realized that it would be even more
beneficial if I shared them with others, so that they can also learn from my
mistakes. Of course, many of these will be included in my book*, but that
doesn’t mean you can’t gain from hearing them more than once. In light of this,
I’ve decided to start a new series called Live and Learn that you all can jump
in on and contribute to. In short, it’ll be one destination and things I’ve
learned from that trip that will stick with me on future journeys that you can
learn from, too!
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| Ali Shungu Hotel in Otavalo |
*Yup, Shereen Travels Cheap is going to be a budget
travel book soon, chock full of amazing money-saving tips, product and website
suggestions and packing information! I’m mostly done with additions and need to
get through edits. I’ve got an ISBN and I just applied to register a trademark
for my name, too. I am still on the
lookout for great quotes I can use from readers. If you’re interested in
getting a free copy of the book and seeing your name in print, send me a great
positive quote from you on how Shereen Travels Cheap saved you money on your
trips…or just to say how awesome it is!
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| Even though nothing went smoothly, we're still smiling |
I think we
learned enough things from our Ecuador trip to last a lifetime. It was just one
learning experience after another with some bouts of sobbing in between. Oddly
enough, it’s still one of the best trips we’ve ever had and we’ll have stories
for years. If there was a word to describe it, boring would not be on the list!
Frustrating, terrifying (at times), adventurous, frugal and enlightening would
top the long list of things the trip was.
Here’s what we learned and what mistakes we won’t make again when we travel to
Ecuador.
Take a taxi everywhere – Normally this is on my list of no-nos,
but in Ecuador, taxis are cheap like the bus is everywhere else. We took it 10
miles away and paid just $5 for the fare and tip. It cost us $1.50 to get from
one end of Quito to the other. If you can walk there, do it, but if it’s night
time or you have no clue where it is, just hail a cab. They’re everywhere. This
can probably be said for many South American countries as well. Do you research
before you leave (check sites like Lonely Planet for up-to-date info on
transportation costs), so if you can save money and not rent a car, go with
that option.
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| Getting the glass vacuumed out of the car after the new window was put in. |
Don’t park your car on the curb after
dark – This is probably
a great tip for almost anywhere you travel, because thieves like to steal stuff
out of cars. We rented a car and when we were in Quito we asked the hotel clerk
if it was safe to park on the street. We didn’t specify that we meant overnight
and she didn’t say “yes, but not after dark.” Unfortunately, our rental car was
broken into on that first night and it took us all day to get it taken care of.
Lucky for us, they only brok the window and stole my husband’s phone and some
random junk left in the back seat. We were able to put a hold on the phone
number and have the window fixed for around $30, but the filling out of the
police reports and getting an interim rental car while everything else was
being taken care of was a pain in the you know what. Spend the few bucks a
night it costs to leave your car in an overnight, secured parking lot or
garage. It’s cheaper than a new window and cell phone.
Rent a GPS – While I don’t recommend renting a car
if you are staying within Quito, do get one if you want to be on your own
schedule and do things in neighboring towns. You will almost never find a
useful map for guidance, even within a town, and many streets aren’t even
marked with signage anyway, so you can only guess as to what the name is in
order to navigate poorly given directions from someone that may or may not get
you partially to your desired destination. A GPS will at least tell you where
to turn and how far to go.
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| Most highways are 2 lanes |
Your blinker has two jobs – In America, and many other places I’ve
driven or been driven, your blinker is a request to get in another lane or
indicate a turn. In Ecuador it works very different. First of all, if you want
in another lane where there are cars, you put on your blinker and just start to
move over. Your blinkers tells people you’re coming and they will slow down enough
to let you in. If you wait for an opening, you’ll never get in. The other job
that your blinker does is let people know it’s safe to pass. This is pretty
awesome and was easy to understand after a bit of highway driving where there
was only one lane in each direction. If you saw that a car behind you was
hoping to pass you, you would turn your left blinker on when there was an
opening enough for them to pass you without getting hit by an oncoming car.
It’s efficient and courteous and I would love for America to adopt this “law”.
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| Toll Booths |
Carry small bills and lots of change – Ecuador is a country that is easy to
travel inexpensively in. Small bills will be good for everything and if you are
driving on highways, it will be necessary to carry a handful of random change
to make it through toll roads. We hit a lot of them, but I still think we only
spent a grand total of $3.00 the entire trip for toll charges. At least the
roads are nicely paved! (U.S. Dollars are the official currency of Ecuador, so
no need to even exchange your money.) This is a good idea in a lot of
countries.
Credit cards are not widely accepted – Hotels, restaurants and car rental
companies accept them, but there are many smaller shops that don’t, so don’t
plan to rely too much on them. We made a purchase at a jewelry store and for a
sale of hundreds of dollars, they required you to pay in cash. We had to make a
quick run to the ATM before we could complete the transaction. Also, Discover
Card is not accepted at all in Ecuador.
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| One of the many markets where you can haggle for goods |
Know a little bit of Spanish – Just the basics are enough to get you
by, like where is, how much, may I, excuse me, and so on. Numbers are a good
thing to know, if you are into haggling. You will find English speakers when
you least expect it and many more Spanish speakers where you thought catered to
tourists. We purchased My Spanish Coach
for the Nintendo DS and played for a month or so before we left. It helps you
learn pronunciation, construct sentences and more. The higher the level, the
more difficult the lesson, but it’s fun and really helped me to brush up on my
language skills and my husband to learn at least the basics for communicating.
I still did much of the translating, but we got by well enough. Of course
please and thank you will get you quite far in any language.
Bring your own ketchup packets – This may sound weird, but if you like
ketchup, you won’t find any in restaurants. The closest thing I ever got was
tomato paste. Maybe ketchup is an American thing? I don’t know, but they served
fries many places we went. Next time, I’ll load up on fast food ketchup packs
or bring a small bottle of ketchup bought on Minimus.
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| One of the many phone banks in town |
Know the telephone codes to call
in-country – You can’t
believe how important it is to know this until you realize you thought of
everything else except how to call someone if you needed help or directions. We
got lost trying to get to our eco-lodge and had to stop at a phone bank (a
place with several phone booths that charge people to make calls) and ask them
to dial for me…and pay them a dollar.
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| Common area of our eco-lodge in Mindo |
Eco-lodge might be another word for
electricity-impaired –
While I’m not opposed to people saving the world by offering lodging with no
electricity and low-flow toilets, it IS
a bit of a surprise when you don’t know when you’ve booked such a place before
you get there. Again, this wouldn’t be a big deal either, unless you don’t like
gigantic bugs and are planning to stay in such a lodging in the middle of the
rainforest. If I were to stay at such a place again, I would bring a lantern flashlight, so I could see my way back from the main seating area to my cabin without almost killing myself. A candle is not all that helpful.
Bring extra batteries from home – While I brought a couple pair of my
own batteries with me, it turned out not to be enough for the camera I had with
me. We purchased at least 3 or 4 packages of batteries from “convenience”
stores and they all worked for about 10 minutes and then were dead. No telling
how long they’d been on the shelf, so make sure you bring fresh ones with you.
Free WiFi does not mean everywhere – When you stay in a hotel that claims to have free WiFi, make sure you find out if that includes service in your room, too. Our hotel, while awesome, only had Internet in the common areas...sometimes. After dragging your laptop up and down 3 flights of stairs at high altitude with no luck, you finally just leave it in your room and go to the lobby and use the public computer. Unfortunately, 90% of the time we were there, the same male guest was sitting in front of it doing things for hours, so we just decided that Internet access was not something that was that important during our trip. We also had spotty wireless in Otavalo, since the bungalows were widely spread out from the main house. We could get access, but only in a chair in the back corner of the room with the curtain open. LOL!
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| When all else fails, go to lunch |
So, while we learned a lot and did a lot wrong, we still had a great time and was able to make the most of our trip. We put Ecuador on our list of places to return, so we can see things we didn't get to on our last trip and hopefully travel a bit more efficiently next time we get there. The trip was made special by being together and the people we met along our journey. I mean, I joke that we can have fun at the DMV, but it's really true. We know how to take a bad situation and turn it into something positive, so ultimately our trip was successful and totally memorable.
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