The Wandering Enginerds

Top of Bartolome Island.  I-L-L... June 19 - Arrive via Bus in Quito, Ecuador We survived our exhaustingly long bus ride from Medellin and arrived in Quito around 1pm. After being cooped up for so long, I naturally went for a run and was able to find an awesome and very large park. It is quite possibly the best workout park I've ever found, complete with a half mile legitimate rubber track, a running/bike path around its perimeter, workout stations, sport fields, dirt bike course, skating park, etc. On my way back I noticed they have a Freshii restaurant along with several other brand name hotels and restaurants here. So Quito seems to be quite progressive. We found a little outdoor restaurant for "linner" (it was an awkward time in the afternoon/evening at that point) where a bunch of food trucks were gathered and there was outdoor seating. The food was finally flavorful and did not include rice and beans! We walked around a bit but ultimately had an early night a...

Traveling from San Jose, Costa Rica to Medellin, Colombia turned out to be a little more of an adventure than we hoped for. It started at the San Jose airport where Jenna was pulled aside at the gate waiting for our flight to Bogota to board. The gate agent and another individual took her to a separate area away from everyone else where she was informed that a small, camping gas canister was found inside her checked bag. That would be a slight violation as anyone flying agrees that no hazardous materials are inside their luggage, whether checked or carry-on…whoops! After about ten (10) minutes behind the scenes she popped back out just in time to get in line to board the plane. First mini-crisis averted. We may have taken off a few minutes late from San Jose and arrived a few minutes later than planned in Bogota, but that shouldn’t have been a big deal as we still had a little over an hour assuming the plane unloaded normally. Well, a few minutes passed before the plane was told the...