Our time in Ecuador has been a bit different than our time in Costa Rica. We’ve been in the city instead of on the beach, at altitude instead of at sea level, and in a different kind of program. So here is what has come in handy as we’ve moved through Ecuador:
- North Face fleece-lined jackets. Did you know that Quito is at 2900 meters (about 9400 feet)? And it sits in a valley between two sets of mountains, making the weather pretty predictable. Daytime temps range from 60-85 Fahrenheit, and at night it drops to about 40 or so. The TeleferiQo (a gondola that goes up one of the mountains) takes you up to about 4100 meters (~13,300 feet). At that altitude, it gets pretty cold pretty fast, and since you’re at the ridgeline, there is no mountain range to protect you from the winds. So we have been wearing our windproof, fleece-lined jackets a lot (stef every day).
- Stef and Matt business cards. With our picture, website, and email address, these have made it really easy to stay in touch with the people we’ve met. They are standard-sized white business cards with a picture of us, our first names, our website address and our email address. They are so easy to use! Every time we meet someone, we can just hand them a card, instead of writing down our contact info. It has also made Facebook connections a lot easier.
- Daypacks. These have been huge for us in Ecuador. We have two: an REI Lookout 30-liter pack and an ALTUS Drop 17 collapsible daypack. We picked up the ALTUS in Quito at one of the many outdoors shops. What do we use them for?
- REI Lookout: Serves as our storage daypack; whenever we travel from town to town, we keep our primary clothing and bathroom stuff in here. It makes it really easy to unpack when we get to a new hotel! This is also the pack we bring if we make a large grocery run or generally know that we need to pick up somethig bulky.
- ALTUS 17: this is our all-around daypack. It goes with us almost every day and carries sunscreen, books, water, and extra clothing (like hats or jackets). Stef loves this bag because it has it’s own built-in carrying case and folds up into something about the size of a fist.
Those have been the most useful things so far in Ecuador.
