Becoming Bionic and Being Thankful.

So you are working through a sports injury for a couple of months and in a matter of 3 days, you go from “hey, it is probably something that can be solved through cortisone shots” to “you need a total hip replacement”. Whaaa…..

The results came in before I had a chance to consult with the surgeon. I saw the MRIa (it’s a “special” MRI) report and while I couldn’t understand 50%+ of the words, any time you see the words ‘extreme’ and ‘severe’ in this context, it can’t be good. I decided to send it to 7 different medical professionals and they all independently came back with some form of “uh yeah, that’s a total hip replacement”.  Extra bonus for those professionals who were around me on a somewhat regular basis who made comments around the fact that I had no business functioning at the level I was in terms of hiking, weightlifting and cardio. Uhm, ok.

Lake Ollalie hike in between Christmas and New Year’s - 3 days before the news that I would be ‘becoming bionic’.

It took me about 12 hours to come to grips with this news, which included copious amounts of wine, frantic texts and manic web searches. I was fortunate to get an appointment with the person who is known as “THE” surgeon for hip replacements about a week later, and he was able to confirm that my hip was, in fact, in deep sh**. What was hysterical was that in the surgical consultation, he was trying to “sell me” on the replacement surgery with this gradual story and I just interrupted him to say “Hey, doc…. I’m already in. I talked to people and I know how bad it is. When can I go?”

[You can take the girl out of NYC….]

After some back and forth, I was able to get scheduled for surgery in 2 1/2 weeks. I am beyond fortunate that I work for an employer that was very supportive and has very established policies for taking time off for this kind of thing, and be fully compensated. So off to surgery we went and likely my inaugural step, in many to come, in “becoming bionic”. I did my research on devices - woohoo. I was fortunate to speak to a few people who had the surgery and I trusted. Two people in particular were a huge help. One is a cousin and one is a friend. Their feedback on the unwritten things was and continues to be so helpful. 

Torta Setteveli - if I only bought enough chocolate to cover the cake…. because enough chocolate wasn’t already included!

In between, we had to celebrate Marc’s birthday. I was trying to behave myself for 2 weeks in between the holidays and the surgery and that pretty much went to hell. Oh well, Marc’s birthWEEK celebration was fun and worth it, even with COVID - particularly on January 20th with a particular focus on the events of Washington, DC. PS - If you haven’t heard of Goldbelly, you should check it out. It’s not the same as going to that favorite restaurant for a special occasion, but it’s pretty awesome. I cooked and baked for Marc’s birthday knowing he was going to have to take care of me so here is my rendition of Prue Leith’s GBBO “Torta Settevelli.” Let’s give it up for finding a way to temper chocolate that didn’t make me insane.

January 20th - early am PT. If you don’t have anything nice to say….

Fortunately, no hiccups in any pre-op work (passed the COVID test) and I was rolled into the surgery suite where I saw lots of tools that you might see at a hardware store. They started “medicating” me pretty quickly so I didn’t have time to think about that…. Anyway they do the surgery and release you the same day. In between, they test you for walking and a few other basic life tasks. 

Enter stage left: Marc (aka Mr. WaterClown).

For the past month, Marc has been taking fabulous care of almost everything as I have recovered from surgery. And somehow I managed to NOT need to ring the literal cowbell to summon him to my beck and call (as opposed to ‘beckOn’) that we have from my running days. We were also so lucky to have a great support system to help the both of us - near and far with all sorts of “creative” gifts and food deliveries that made us laugh. Obviously with COVID, support is very different than under other circumstances. I put a strict no-chocolate/no sweets rule in place, but somehow that was circumvented because everyone figured Marc, the chocoholic, would need it since he was taking care of me. No comment.

One of the many crazy exercises that our Physical Therapist assigned me for rehab. Getting the left leg up is harder than it looks.

In the interim, I have been fastidious about rehab and rest, along with taking care of some Beck projects. I’m doing lots of cycling on the assault bike and making Rocky montage videos. (DRAGO!!!!!!!) OK, I have watched a ton of TV shows too, which is not a normal thing for me. But the comedy was a much needed relief for me so it was the right call (thanks, B(J)S, for keeping me on task there). We received so many well wishes along the way via text/email/DM from family, friends and colleagues — all of which were really appreciated. Some of the text threads have really kept me laughing in their absurdity… in a good way! We also have our outdoor COVID friendly set-up, which has helped a lot with people coming to say hi. 

I head to work on Tuesday with much to do from a rehab perspective, but THANKFUL that I was able to build a base on which to continue my progress from, as well as have the support of so many folks. Ups and downs will continue throughout the process. With respect to COVID, I hope that we are closer to the end than we are the beginning but if you know of someone going through a situation that would normally be helped with some hugs and human contact, also know that regular engagement also makes a huge difference when you can’t be together in person. Onward with a pic from a video that I recorded this evening for a good friend’s birthday.

Keeping it classy, as always.

Day 7: Mexico City, Mexico --> Seattle, USA.

Today we decided to just take it easy in anticipation of it being a travel day back to the States. We have had a pretty full-on agenda for the 6 full days, so it was good to just wake up and not have anything to do other than head to the airport mid-afternoon. Marc and I have t-shirts that have "Squats and Tacos" on them with a pic of a taco. Unfortunately the ratio of squats to tacos was not where it needed to be this week so I got up to workout to sweat out said carbs. I have probably had more tacos (or a variety of a taco) in the past week than I have had in my life.

I still had some homework to do for Lia, our trainer, but when I got to the gym, a true "bro-down hoe-down" was going down with a bunch of athletes from the aforementioned Maccabi Games. They took over the entire weights area, so I kind of just waited them out while knocking out a bunch of cardio. And then I got my accessory work in after they all did their thing this morning. After some breakfast, Marc and I decided to watch the 3rd place match of the Women's World Cup. I was cheering for England, but unfortunately I don't think they had any gas left in the tank. Sweden was the better side and they deserved to win for sure.

We grabbed lunch at one of the restaurants in the hotel and I got to have tacos one last time before we made our way to the airport because why not? Oh, apparently a taco shortage is impacting Taco Bell in the US. [Hey Taco Bell, I might know a place where you can find some!] 

Minimal traffic to airport. Amazingly the process of getting out of Mexico City is 100% easier than getting in and we breezed through security, although not sure if that is REALLY a good thing? The receptionist at the lounge told us we should get to the gate at a specific time, which was about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Well, we did that and we were the LAST people to board the plane! Jeez! A bit too close for comfort there!

The trek home was fortunately uneventful and we are glad to be back after having a really excellent time in Mexico City. The people were lovely, the country was very scenic and the city itself was cool. The only thing that was a drag was the pollution, which made it challenging to breathe when stuck in a non-air conditioned Uber or taxi. We would definitely go back. We're really excited to be home to watch the USA take on The Netherlands. Hoping for a fantastic outcome for the USA ladies! #LFG

Day 6: Mexico City —> Teōtīhuacān —> Mexico City.

We had a relatively early start this am to head out to the Pyramids, which are about an hour outside of Mexico City. Rodrigo, our guide, explained some basic things about Mexico City on the way out. For example Mexico has 32 states and you can see colors on houses, which represent political party affiliation. You’ll see pink, yellow, blue and red/white. The current President is a member of the National Regeneration Movement, which has a pink color. So it is why many of the taxis that we have seen have a pink trim on the outside.

We went out to first visit the Temple of the Feathered Serepent (aka Quetzalcoatl). It was incredibly impressive to see how much of the carvings are intact and how detailed they were. When we were at the Anthropology Museum yesterday, we saw the replicas. Now we were seeing the real thing. [Note to anyone thinking of visiting Mexico City: Hit the museum first before you hit the Pyramids.] So ‘quetzal’ means birds with beautiful feather and ‘coatl’ means serpent. We had time to climb to the top of the pyramid and take in views of the other two pyramids that were on tap for today. It was steep! Let’s just say these stairs wouldn’t pass US building codes in terms of slopes!

Rodrigo then took us to the entrance of the Pyramid of the Moon. Before getting to the pyramid itself, we walked through the Temple of the Butterflies (aka Quetzalpaplotl). We saw murals that were created in 100 AD. To say that this was really interesting is really not giving this enough credit. Much of the temple had been restored around the 1960s. We climbed up to as far as we could of the Pyramid of the Moon, which was also steep. Fortunately they had ropes to help you navigate the way up, and more importantly, the way down. The views were excellent and we had really good visibility in all directions.

After that, we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, where all of the governors lived. Believe it or not, citizens picked leaders based on actual intellectual knowledge in topics such as astronomy, geometry and geography. Ah, the good old days. It was incredible to find out that only 7% of all of the Aztec ruins have been excavated at this time. Lots of ruins, including pyramids, under grassy hills. We climbed up to the much taller top of the Pyramid of the Sun. It was crowded and step, but they had ropes to help navigate the climb up. And it was also a good workout, especially at that elevation!

Rodrigo then took us to a place where we learned about agave plants, which play a big role in mezcal production. These trees literally produce 2 liters of honey water 2x per day. The honey water is use for pulque. The tree we were checking out is 12 years old, and they typically live twice that time. 20 different kinds of agave are produced in the country of Mexico. We also learned how the worm in tequilla tends to add a smoky flavor, which I was able to smell. Finally learned about the different kinds of obsidian and how you can see through it!

We then headed off to lunch at Nico’s, which came recommended by a few sources, and said farewell to Rodrigo. The lunch at Nico’s was pretty insane in terms of the amount of food that came out. Tortillas of all kinds for days. I think I have eaten more tortillas in the past week than I have in my entire life. If you think I’m kidding, wait until you see the food photos on Dropbox. Excellent food and in a fun atmosphere. They did tableside salsas, guacamole and café de olla.

After that, we all headed back to the hotel and I went to the gym. The Maccabi Games are in Mexico City and throughout the week, more athletes and their families have been arriving at the hotel, and thus the gym. One person asked me while I was on the elliptical, “what event are you here for?” I responded with, “I’m here to eat!” Apparently I looked just athletic enough, I suppose. You can’t make this stuff up. I think I have a cousin who participated in these games a number of years ago, but I’ll need to check with my folks on that when we get back home.

We had the closing ceremonies with Rebecca and with Jason at Bistrot Maximo. Again, really good food and the sommelier really was into the fact that we were doing  only Mexican wines all week. So we talked about some different styles and were able to enjoy 2 more labels that we hadn’t tried yet. During dinner, we were recapping the worst meal of the week, which belonged to Rebecca. When we were at L’Opera watching the Women’s World Cup semi, she ordered something that ended up being “mayonnaise with a side of shrimp” as opposed to the other way around.

That led to the discussion of the escargot starter that we got. Rebecca then chimed in about how that dish really teetered along “the gross/goodness line” and she wasn’t sure where it would end up. This put Marc in stitches as he started crying from laughing so hard. As many followers of this space know, it isn’t a party until someone can get Marc crying from laughing too much. Well played, Rebecca. We ended the evening at the hotel bar, where more mezcal may have been consumed along with another Mexican wine.

Day 2: Mexico City —> El Nevado de Toluca —> Mexico City.

Since we had the extra 36 hours before our friends arrived, I thought it would be fun to go for a hike to mix up the itinerary a bit. I checked out some websites on fun day hikes and settled on one that is ~2 hours outside of Mexico City that reminded me a bit of when we went to Crater Lake.

Marc was not really excited when I told him that our guide for our hike was picking us up at 6am this morning. But we managed to get up on time and Marc got his pastries for the ride out to our hike. Crisis averted. He also promised to return when we got back to try the chocolate cake.

Our guide, Carlos, was on time and ready to go. It was still dark for most of the ride out but as we got closer, we were able to see lots of fog over in the direction we were slated to hike at. Admittedly, I was also a tad nervous about the hike. The duration was fine, but I experienced some altitude sickness on a hike at a similar altitude during Operation Cincuenta. I wanted to be careful (see that, DAD!) and smart. Carlos gave us a couple of options, so we took the easier one that was ~3 hours of hiking and about 5 miles.

Off we went and we started at 13,500 feet to climb to a max of 14,500 feet. Doesn’t

seem like a ton of elevation gain, but at this altitude, you feel it quickly. We took our time and got to the top where we could see both lakes, although one of them was covered in fog at that particular moment. Then the fog quickly dissipated as we walked down to the lakes.

First up was Lago del Luna, the smaller of the lakes. As we approached, it started to get sunnier and sunnier so it was time to shed some layers. The lake started to show different colors, which was really pretty. We continued on to Lago del Sol, which allowed us to get a close-up of the summit of Nevado del Toluca. The fog was moving around rapidly, so we were trying to be efficient in getting photos. What was great was that we had the whole circuit to ourselves. No one else out there. Carlos said that on the weekends that this trail is packed.

We made our way to the other side of the lake and decided to eat a little before the climb out of the craters. Marc and I told Carlos about Crater Lake, which is still one of my favorite places that I have visited in my time in the PNW. He definitely wanted to learn more as we were trying to compare both locations. The fog started to roll back in as we made our way back up. It was a workout, for sure, and then I wanted to see if we could hike to a higher lookout point to get a better shot of Lago del Sol, which is obscured at the top of the official trail loop.

Fortunately Marc and Carlos were game, and we hiked up a bit more because we needed more elevation, right? The fog was pretty thick but since it wasn’t windy, we stayed up there for about 5 minutes and guess what, the fog moved out a bit. More photos. After that, we headed back to the car and started the ride back to Mexico City. Along the way we were held up by a traffic accident (no injuries) and then we saw a government car of some kind in a drainage ditch in the middle of a major highway with a bunch of police around. Hmmmm. You can’t make this stuff up. I wish we could have stuck around to find out what happened there!

All in all, Carlos was a fantastic guide and we were lucky to have him. We made it back, Marc got his afternoon pastries and we just chilled for a bit waiting for our friends to arrive.

While waiting for our friends to get settled, Marc got his 1st mezcal tasting in at the hotel bar. Honestly, it smelled absolutely revolting to me but Marc seemed to enjoy it, so that’s good. Him and Jason sampled another mezcal at dinner. I’m sure Marc will have more to say on this topic as the week progresses. Later on, we had a great meal at a local restaurant that included duck buñuelos (SO GOOD), pork tacos, chicken with mole negro, manchamanteles and escamoles (look this one up - we have precedent on this one from Operation Cincuenta). On the dessert front, Marc had a whole page on the menu dedicated to chocolate. All in all a good day.

PS - We will have a later blog post on food. Have no fear.

Day 23: Bogotá, Colombia

After the chaos of the past few days, and yesterday in particular, Marc and I had a much needed ‘sleep-in’ day. We didn’t really have much planned for the day since we were originally supposed to be coming back from the Amazon, so we just kind of rolled with it. Fortunately for all of my travel in my previous job, I was able to use my status to get us a pretty late check-out time as our flight is not until 1:30am tomorrow.

The city of Bogotá does a number of cool things fitness-related on Sundays. They close streets for pedestrians, cyclists, etc. They also run fitness classes in the street. We were able to see one from our hotel window. It was entertaining to watch. The sun was shining and the temperature was very pleasant (mid-70s). Marc and I had some re-arranging of our clothes in our luggage to take care of, and then we wanted to get outside since the weather was nice.

Our friend, Marcelo, is a Bogotá native and happened to be in town with his family. We were meeting them later for dinner, but he texted me in the morning about a good local market near our hotel in the neighborhood of Usaquin. Marc and I walked through it and he said it kind of reminded him of the booths at Pike Place Market back home. It’s always fun to see what people sell in markets in other places. We also checked out a local mall called Hacienda Santa Barbara (Go Gauchos!).

On the walk to lunch, I saw a sign for a place that teaches English called ‘Wall Street English’. Hmmm. Do they teach students how to speak like Gordon Gekko? Or is it more like this scene (see #4) from the movie “Stripes”? We had lunch at Local by Rausch, and Marc had a rum and coffee concoction called an ‘Aroma Café’ that he seemed to enjoy a great deal. Plus we tried a local dish that we hadn’t had before called ‘mazorca desgranada’ with braised brisket. Very tasty!

We walked back and watched Red Zone as we packed everything up. Marc and I have been getting a kick out of the Spanish announcers doing Red Zone (they use 2, as opposed to 1 in the US) during our time in South America. Interceptado! That was my favorite line. LOL. Unfortunately the Giants defense couldn’t do their job.... again, so it was a loss for Big Blue to the evil Cowboys. The game between the Cowboys and the Seahawks next week is going to suck as I despise both teams. 

Anyway we checked out and stored our bags before heading over to dinner with Karin and

Marcelo. On the way, we saw some more Christmas lights in one of the squares. They really do a great job with the lights in Bogotá. When we met up with our friends, they said that Medellín does an even better job with the lights. Dinner was way entertaining as we recapped our South American adventure, and Marc had some more fish. The choice of having some wine may have been suspect as we had to stay up for our 1:30am flight that was still 3 hours away.... And so it goes. 

You can find more pics of our adventure HERE.

Day 22: Calanoa --> Leticia --> Bogota, Colombia

Plans change sometimes and flexibility is important.

It was muggier and warmer overnight than the previous night if that is even possible. At some point, probably 3-4am, I saw lightning across river taking a good 10+ seconds to hear thunder. It was dumping rain. It felt cooler and I rolled over back to sleep. I didn't know until we got up around 6:30 that the warmth/humidity was causing a lack of sleep for Jill. She mentioned that she wanted to see if we could get back to Bogotá a day early. I said ok but also felt very glad that she booked the Amazon. She likes to enhance travel itineraries. Galapagos was the base. Amazon was the spice.

I am glad we hiked 11k yesterday with two guides through the jungle. We saw some interesting stuff and sweated far more than any other hike of that distance and relatively slow pace with barely any elevation change. Just high heat and a humidity sweat box while walking through mud. But we've done that!

Calanoa staff and Ramiro our guide were super accommodating as they easily helped us get the flight a day early as well as a boat down the river to get to the airport. Ramiro came with us and since we left a little earlier than we would have the following day he said we'd hit one or two spots along the way with pink dolphins since we only saw the grey ones yesterday afternoon. After about 45 minutes we pulled into a calm area in shallow water and BINGO! Pink dolphins! They don't come out of the water as high as the greys so spotting and capturing on camera is more difficult. We hung there for 15 minutes and I took tons of photos that were late. But I got one that might show a bit despite dolphin being further away than desired.

We then finished journey to Leticia and went to the airport. Once there, Jill could communicate with the outside world again on her phone so we arranged extra night in Bogotá plus dinner.

Seated next to me on flight was Brazilian dude in green and yellow shirt who appeared to have purchased a scarf with Colombia colors and wording. He literally took dozens of selfies in this dual outfit before takeoff as well as halfway through the flight. He just kept adjusting something like the scarf or the window lighting or the phone angle. Then he threw on his jacket and did it even more. A lot more. Somewhat entertaining.

As we appoached Bogota airport, the plane suddenly turned up engines and aborted landing. They said something in Spanish and then another sparse announcement in English. Several minutes later they indicated that we were flying 30 minutes to Cali rather than circling for another landing.

We finally got explanation that there was something preventing landing so we were landing nearby and refueling and waiting to hear when we can fly safely to and land in Bogota. Once on the ground, we could look things up and found no issues on Twitter or Google. FlightAware was showing flights landing in Bogota. Not making any sense. THEN we got story from flight attendant in first class. There was a dog on the runway and they couldn't get it off. Our flight was "low" on fuel so had to land somewhere rather than circle indefinitely. Dog probably was cleared after it was too late for us to just turn around and go back.

When we walked out of airport the car we had the W Hotel hire for us wasn't there. Unsure if the flight issue caused this but after being unable to contact hotel we hired a taxi. They were quoting strange amounts and switching between pesos and dollars. We finally settled on 35,000 pesos which is just over $10.

We minimally unpacked and got our big bags we left there a week prior and Jill showered. We then went to a good dinner at El Chato and then back for some COOL AIR sleep (and I showered). Crazier day than expected...

Day 15: Galápagos Islands (Isla Baltra) —> Guayaquil, Ecuador —> Bogotá, Colombia.

Today is mostly a long travel day. Bags were pretty much packed for phase 3 of ‘Operation Cincuenta’ last night. Got up, had breakfast, enjoyed the last views of the islands, chatted with our new friends, and then we all took our final zodiac ride to land to head to the airport. The lounge at the Baltra airport was a hot, sticky mess. We were joking around with our fellow passengers. A few were continuing on with their adventures. Most were heading home. 

When we got to Baltra on 12/15, we were immediately told that the WiFi on the boat didn’t work. I got in touch with 5 groups of people immediately to tell them how to reach us in the event of an emergency and that was it. And when I was able to re-engage on 12/21 after we docked in town for a day of tortoise watching and an afternoon of shopping, nothing had changed in the world. 

I mean - the political situation is still a cluster. My New York Giants still suck. I’m still getting the crap kicked out of me in my weekly pick ‘em NFL pool. Nothing new. Yes, lots of drama going on in the world and stuff did happen this week that I would have normally kept tabs on, but did it matter when I reconnected 7 days later? The lack of internet also caused something amazing - people actually engaging with each other. WTF? Mind blown! Anyway.....

For Marc and I, the size of the ship was perfect. 40+ passengers — so not overwhelming in terms of lining up for excursions, food, or whatever. You were able to get to know your fellow travelers and also have your own downtime, if you chose to do that. We had a pretty social boat and people mingled about even if they came on with a group. The bar *MIGHT HAVE* been running so low on provisions that the crew needed to restock when we got to Santa Cruz on Friday to get us through the last night of the cruise. Don’t judge.

In addition to celebrating Marc’s 50th birthday, we had a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with their daughter and their son-in-law. Another couple was celebrating their 35th anniversary. All goes to show you that you should always embrace the positive and “eat the damned cupcake”. Good role models for the Becks’.

So we landed in Guayaquil, and had about 3 hours before our next flight to Bogotá. The lounge here was an utter oasis compared to the one in Baltra. Air-conditioning, plenty of chargers, decent WiFi to upload the 600+ pics we took in the Galápagos and a shower, which was lovely since we were literally landing in Bogotá and heading straight to dinner. 

When Marc and I landed in Bogotá and while taking the car service into the city, I was struck by the Christmas lights that were up all over the place. John, one of the guys from our trip, gave us a heads-up about this and he was right. It was really pretty. Based on what I was able to discern in the dark about the skyline, I was excited to see what the city looked like during the day knowing it is surrounded by the Andes.

We had dinner at Restaurante Leo, which came highly recommended. Let’s just say that

while the food was very good, it was definitely on the esoteric side. Literally bugs and worms esoteric. The kitchen offered Marc an opportunity to see the worms up close after he said the momojoy dish “wasn’t bad” and he politely declined. While at dinner, a couple got engaged and we applauded. Our server informed us that the gentleman is a regular at the restaurant and is a native English speaker. Most of the back of the house staff come out to congratulate the happy couple. His new fiancée speaks Spanish. Neither knows more than maybe 500+ words in the other language. Whatever works, right?

That said, Marc had a local coffee liqueur at dinner that we literally started investigating while still at the restaurant if we could get it at home. If not, clothes are going to be left in Colombia to make room in our luggage. Make no mistake about that! Tonight is also the night that we start the 15-day cycle for our malaria pills, which I am not looking forward to. I’ve heard nothing but unpleasant side effects when taking these pills. Let’s hope these are kept at a minimum for the both of us.

Day 13: Galápagos Islands (Isla Genovesa), Ecuador.

Marc and I found out last night that today was going to be our final day to snorkel. We had a couple of less than awesome snorkel sessions so many of us had high hopes for our last session this morning. But first we had a walk on Isla Genovesa, which one can call a mecca for birds. 

We were on the 1st boat out to shore and the “dry landing” was definitely an adventure. Actually many of the “dry landings”, which mean your feet aren’t supposed to get wet, have been very adventurous with balancing the tide and where the boat is letting off folks. This could be a variation of the boat being a foot under the landing or a foot over the landing depending on the wind. Today we had to be ready to go at the perfect moment for someone to grab you and for you to jump on land. Fortunately no injuries getting out of and back on to the zodiac when we were done with the walk.

Marc and I saw short-eared owls, blue-footed boobies (yes, you read that correctly), red-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, mockingbirds, frigatebirds, hawks and plenty of other birds to make ornithology enthusiasts go wild after we climbed Prince Philip’s Steps. We saw a small chick being protected by the mother as well as eggs that have been laid but have not hatched as of yet. The bonus was seeing those owls as they really blend well into the habitat.

After the walk and returning to the boat, we had our final snorkel. As the floor was rocky

as opposed to sand, we were hoping the conditions were better for seeing some cool wildlife under water. We did see sea lions (fur and common types), but we also got to see a school of golden cownose rays whizz by us. That was pretty awesome and Marc captured some great video until he was literally kicked in the face multiple times by another snorkeler in the area.

Marc and I decided to opt out of the afternoon activity and just napped/read. It was nice. While we were chilling, one of our fellow passengers saw a ‘hammerhead shark’, which is what I have really wanted to see on this trip, but I was too late. Looks like I won’t see them on this adventure but it was fun being on the lookout. We had a nightly happy hour and then dinner on the boat. But more hijinks awaited....

It was karaoke night on the Xperience. We had musical talents spanning the gamut of decent to, eh....., not so much. Note that I fall in the latter category. Most of the people in the room did contribute on at least one song, which was fun, but I think our guide leading the session was happy when the clock struck 10pm and called it a night for everyone. 

More pics posted HERE.

Day 11: Galápagos Islands (Isla Isabela), Ecuador.

Gosh. It was a full day even though the itinerary didn’t make it seem that way when we went through everything last night.

Because we have a decent amount to travel on the boat today, we got off to an early start with a walk around Urbina Bay on Isla Isabela to hopefully see some land iguanas and tortoises. Marc and I got out on the 1st boat so it meant we would be 1st on the trail before the other 3 boats. We had a wet landing for this morning’s walk, which means no dock, and while we were getting out of the zodiacs, we saw some more penguins and pelicans. 

Not 5 minutes into the walk, we see a tortoise come out of the brush. It was a “small” one and our guide guessed it weighed about 80 lbs. In last night’s briefing, they told us that if we see a tortoise on our walk that we needed to be very quiet so they didn’t get alarmed. But our guide was talking so loud because she was so excited, we were kind of worried that it would retreat. It actually kept it’s head out for a long time as we were standing there so we snapped a bunch of photos.

Along the way, Marc and I spotted a few land iguanas, which are more colorful than the marine iguanas. All in all, we ended up seeing about 10 of them on this hour long walk, which was pretty cool. Some of them were well camouflaged into the habitat so it was hard to get good pics of some of them. As we came around the bend, our guide saw a massive male tortoise walking away from us. She guessed that this one weighed about 400 lbs. 

This was one big dude. We knew we needed to get past the tortoise at some point to

finish our walk so we had to wait for an opportunity where we could pass on the side. Our guide was pretty stoked. We continued our walk, saw a couple more tortoises in the distance and then as we turned another corner we saw two tortoises walking towards each other - a huge male and a female. We didn’t know if this was going to be a mating thing or what, so we all were watching with a fair amount of anticipation.

As it turned out, the female wanted nothing to do with the male and just “scurried” past him. I didn’t know tortoises could move THAT fast but hey - we are learning. We definitely got lucky with how many tortoise sightings we had and our guide said that we were one short of her record. She was psyched at the different sizes of tortoises that we saw. It was really a great walk and it was only 9:30am when we returned to the boat.

After we got back, I decided to improv a workout on the top deck. Jumping rope on a moving ship is a bit of a challenge but I didn’t kill myself, so that’s a plus. Then they had a movie for us that is hard to explain called “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden”, which is based on a book. Somehow Marc and I got sucked in and then it ended at a weird part, so now we are committed for part 2, which they are showing tomorrow. This movie definitely falls into the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ bucket. 

After lunch, we had some time to relax so I finally started one of the books I downloaded to my Kindle - “The Bettencourt Affair”. So far, it has been an interesting read - it’s about the family who founded the L’Oreal company. Then we went out for a deep sea snorkel at Vincente Roca Point, where you jump in the water from the zodiac and not the beach. We saw more sea lions, turtles, penguins and tropical fish. Others saw sharks, but we didn’t see them unfortunately. Then we had a quick turnaround for a ride on the zodiac to see more wildlife. We were expecting to see more flamingos, marine iguanas, penguins, etc.

If we have an activity that mostly everyone opts into, we will have 4 zodiacs out on the water with a naturalist and a driver for each one. They do a great job at keeping us safe while ensuring that we have fun. As we are out on the water, they are typically communicating with each other in Spanish via walkie-talkie about timing, conditions, etc. It’s generally pretty measured in terms of tone..... until this afternoon.

All of a sudden, lots of loud chaos is coming over the radio and I’m trying to make it out since I was sitting right next to the naturalist. I thought I heard “orca” but I wasn’t sure but all I know is that in a few seconds that all 4 zodiacs were heading in the same direction past the boat. And then I saw why - we were in the vicinity of not just one killer orca whale, but two killer orca whales! 

The drivers of the boat did a great job getting us close, but “mostly” not too close. At one point, we were about 20 yards away from one of the orcas in some decent chop so it was not a dull 15 minutes by any stretch. We got some great pics and one of our fellow passengers captured an awesome video of a poor sea turtle and one of the killer orcas (watch carefully). 

Everyone was pretty much buzzing when we all got back to the boat after that whole

sequence of events! The way the guides were acting reminded me of this episode when we were in Tazzie on the Australian Walkabout in 2013. And we still had our official “Equator crossing”. Yep, we crossed over the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere before dinner and had the opportunity to watch it all from the bridge of the boat. Super cool. We had crossed the Equator a few times on this trip, but this time we were actually awake for it! After that, cocktails, wine, dinner, laughs and some more bevvies under some starry skies.

What a day. More pics posted here.

Day 8: Quito --> Galápagos!

The day we arrive for the primary purpose of this adventure Jill has dubbed Operation Cincuenta.

Despite getting up @ 6am to head to the airport, it's still mostly a travel day even when starting in the same country as the destination. The Galápagos National Park charges $100 per person when you arrive on the islands. This we took care of with our tour company long ago. We didn't know that each person also must get a transit control card for $20 that contains passport info and allows you to enter and leave based on when you say you are returning. Insane process that nobody at the airport in Quito seemed to understand. We got it refunded to us when we arrived because we had in fact already paid that too!

We got on a shuttle bus to board the plane. 3 open doors letting people on the bus. To get off though everyone had to plow through the middle door only as they apparently want to control deboarding chaos in some sinister manner.

It appears that all flights go to the Galápagos from Guayaquil, Ecuador so we had a quick stop over before heading out over some Pacific Ocean to actually get there. We stayed on with about 1/2 the plane full and then more joined us before departing for real destination.

Once we landed in the Galápagos I was so stressed about making our boat. Our flight was 30 minutes late and we had under an hour to "be checked in" (which felt nebulous). We had bags to collect and customs to go through and I didn't know how close it would get. We were the first two up the sidewalk to the airport and someone came out of the VIP lounge at the perfect time with our boat company sign. We walked in and were reassured that there was another plane still in the air so we were ahead of the crowd! I felt so much better immediately.

We then got word to contact anyone now because the boat has no internet. We were told just lots of time to enjoy nature for the next week. While sitting at airport waiting for later flight, we both wondered after an hour why our phones were still on mainland time. The Islands are equivalent to Central Time but are taking "island time" to switch... Our boat told us they just stay on mainland time by clock even though it isn't that time here. It's definitely light later.

We got on board and had "lunch" at like 4:20-4:45 then saw presentation of Black Turtle Cove - Santa Cruz Island. We were given 5-10 minutes to get hats, jackets, sunscreen, cameras and come back for Zodiac ride to see this. We were the first two people on the first departing Zodiac. I was READY!

We saw so many creatures in this cove area including the black turtles, Sally Lightfoot crabs, brown pelicans, rays, sharks, and blue footed boobies. Even though boat got a late start to the day, they pleased us before going over tomorrow's morning and afternoon walks/snorkeling and serving us dinner. They're going to keep us busy all week. They said we'll be tired by the end and need a vacation.

Black turtle cove by zodiac...

Day 7: Quito, Ecuador.

Today Marc and I got off to an early start because we were going to be heading south of Quito to Cotopaxi National Park to hike near the Cotopaxi Volcano. For context, Quito is situated at an altitude of 9350 feet so that’s pretty high for the Becks’. Our travel medicine clinic advised us to bring altitude sickness pills for this part of the trip and a future part of the trip. Due to some of the other meds we will be taking (i.e., malaria pills at a minimum), we were hoping that because our stay in Quito is relatively brief that we could skip them for this component of the trip. 

Marc and I met our guide, Carlos (wearing a Yankees hat so I knew we would get on just fine), at the park entrance and he took us to a few sites along the way to head up to where we would do our walk. The weather definitely improved from a viewing perspective as the morning progressed. We saw other volcanoes such as Rumiñawi and Sincholagua, as well as Laguna Limpiopungo. You can still see lava rocks from the 1877 eruption along the way to Cotopaxi.

Cotopaxi tops out at 19,347 feet and is the tallest active volcano in the world. It is part of the Andes mountain range. For comparison, Rainier tops out at 14,411 feet. The parking lot for the Cotopaxi Volcano itself is at ~15,000 feet. Maybe the highest altitude I had hiked previously was around 10,000+ feet.

Given how high the summit is, people who are climbing to the top generally get to the park a few days early to acclimatize themselves. We did not have that option. Our goal was to hike to the refugio from the parking lot. This refugio is the last point hikers can take shelter before they attempt to summit Cotopaxi. The hike was less than a mile and went up 1000+ feet.

The only catch for what seemed to be a short hike was that we were starting at 14,765 feet and hiking to 15,960 feet where the Refugio Jose Rivas was located. It was cold. I still had a decent amount of layers and felt slightly “Michelin-man” like. Truthfully, were not as properly prepared as we should have been from a clothing perspective. That added to the challenge of being at such a high altitude. 

I took lots of breaks, and did a fair amount of huffing and puffing but we made it there in roughly 50 minutes. I was gassed and I definitely felt the altitude. Of course, I forgot the aforementioned altitude sickness pills and left them at the hotel. DUH! Lonely Planet called this hike a ‘lung buster’ and, yeah, that would be an accurate way to describe it!

Fortunately we took plenty of pics on the way up because as we were coming down, Cotopaxi definitely started to hide behind some clouds. I also saw a guide with a Red Sox hat - glad he wasn’t our guide! We decided that we were going to skip lunch and have our driver, Mario, take us from Cotopaxi straight to the “Old Town” area of Quito. 

As Marc mentioned yesterday, traffic in Quito (and in Lima, for that matter) is pretty bad during the day, especially at rush hour. Since both cities do not have any kind of real mass transit, everyone drives or takes a taxi, which is essentially the same as driving. You also get to breathe in lots of toxic fumes while sitting in traffic. So we timed our return to Quito for the middle of the day to avoid traffic, which still was pretty bad by US standards (yes, even Seattle standards). 

Mario walked us around “Old Town”, which had some impressive architecture. We started at Plaza Grande, which has the Presidential Palace and the Metropolitan Cathedral. We then walked to the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, which had some pretty jaw dropping designs on the ceilings and the walls. Construction on the church began in 1605 and didn’t finish until almost 1800. We also walked through the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco.

Then we checked out Casa del Alabado. The focus of this place is around pre-Columbian

(not Colombian) artifacts. Some of them were made as far back as 4000 BC! The artistry and handiwork on these items really blew us away, especially the detail on the really small pieces (think the size of your thumb). We have all of the pics, along with some descriptions on Dropbox here.

Walking back to the car in the public garage, we kept hearing car alarms going off. I don’t even know if people really pay attention to car alarms anymore. I feel like 20 years ago (when I was living in NYC), they went off so much that people just were desensitized to them. But they go off constantly. As a matter of fact, we had car alarms going off constantly near our hotel until about 3am last night!

On the way back to the hotel with Mario, I observed that Quito has their own version of “squeegee guys” - anyone who lived in NYC in the 80s/early 90s knows what I am talking about. We saw lots of people selling various things like fruit and water along the side of the road, but then we saw one guy who was juggling machetes in a “very liberal way”, which was a Marc quote. Go figure. 

We did some laundry (yay for upgrades that have a washer/dryer in the room), packed and had dinner at Zazu. Excellent local ingredients that were well prepared and great service. Tried some wine from Ecuador, which was good and a first for us. I submitted my football picks for the next 2 weeks and hope that the lack of a working injury report won’t kill me any more than when I do have one to reference in my “pick’em pool”.

Marc and I are ready to head off to the next phase of our adventure, which is the main event for Operation Cincuenta - the Galapagos. We may have internet. We may not. In the event we don’t post for the next week, we will stockpile our posts and upload them when we are back on land. 

On The Road Again....

Mixed marriage time: Broncos vs. Giants in Denver

Well, gosh. It has been awhile. I mean, really. Much has happened. Since the last post, I took a job at a healthcare technology company called Change Healthcare, and have been on the road quite a bit. It is not an exaggeration between work and personal travel to say that I have travelled 150,000+ miles in the past year alone (mostly for work, but a couple of trips to Europe interspersed in there). Pro tip: Once you hit 40,000 miles on Alaska Airlines, they give you free chocolate. Who knew? 

So what else is new? Well I am anxiously awaiting Game 7 of the ALCS tonight where my Yankees are taking on the Astros. Really hoping CC Sabathia brings it along with the offense. We went to Denver last weekend to see Marc's Broncos take on my Giants, and the completely opposite outcome happened that we were expecting (Giants won). Speaking of Marc, I'm doing my best to make him a Yanks fan for this fall.

Yanks visit Seattle Let's Go Yankees!

I said farewell to Facebook on Thanksgiving, 2016 as I felt it was way too toxic for me from a political perspective. I felt all sides were too vitriolic for me and the time spent on the platform just left me feeling negative and pissed off. You can find me on Instagram though where I get to look at pictures of beautiful places, funny people doing great things and whatever else my peeps like posting - although anything political gets an unfollow. 

The business travel has been a lot. I know, many of you know me from when I used to do that a lot, but I was much younger. Plus I really like being home, spending time with Marc and keeping to a routine. It is really hard to eat well and keep working out at a regular cadence when on the road. I put some pretty hard rules in place for my business trips when I started the role around exercise in to mitigate the impact of eating out all of the time. Yay for being a runner and for doing CrossFit! Lots of #viewfrommyrun pics posted on Instagram.

On top of Mt. Si. with Rainier in background

Last summer was fairly insane with travel from Seattle to Augusta, Maine every other week, so this summer, I decided to wrestle some control back. This has led to Marc and I getting in some hikes in a number of gorgeous places. Some were pretty technical and on one of them, I was just dreading going down because of how treacherous the trail was [spoiler alert: I survived but it took longer to get down than to go up].

In other news, I continue to brush up on skills around R, Python and SQL because it falls into that whole 'trying to suck less and challenge myself more' thing? While I have no intention of becoming a software engineer, I find taking the time to focus on this kind of thing helps me as both a Product Manager and a Program Manager. I'm reading a book on Submarine Design because someone told me it would be a great way to understand multivariate design as a whole. I'll let you know how that works out but this might fall into 'you can't make this stuff up'.

Top of Lone Cone in Tofino, BC

Marc and I decided to dust off our golf clubs, and the best thing about that from my perspective is that I didn't kill anyone at the range.... yet. 

We will see how long it will be before I post again, but in the meantime, thanks for tuning in and GO YANKEES!

Should Harv Start Writing An Advice Column?

Dad has lots of Harvisms. We covered this previously a number of years ago in the blog with the always reliable "take a steam shower, you'll feel better" quote from Harv. It's basically his answer to anything when you are not having a good day. Try it before you mock it. 

This quote surfaced recently when talking to a friend about Harv's latest fundraising endeavor with his local CrossFit on raising money for Barbells for Boobs. She has followed his exploits when Lisa or I quote him on Facebook, and said that Harv should have an advice column. I sighed and said "oh boy", which was met with a response of "he probably has some real gems for advice".

More "oh boy". So this friend happened to be suffering from some allergies so I sent over the above mentioned blog entry as advice that she should take. Needless to say, it worked and now she wanted more Harvisms. 

"Do as I say, not as I do" - this one was generally used when he was driving 90mph in upstate New York going to Oswego.

"Those pants will come back in style" - although this pretty much referred to HIS entire wardrobe. In the case of the picture, we're talking about a sweater that was bought in the early 90s and was worn to a 40th anniversary surprise party in 2008. I am willing to bet that he still has this sweater in 2015. Unfortunately I have not been able to dig up a pic of him in the aforementioned pants. 

This sweater was so 'ancient' that it was featured in the picture collage that Lisa put together showcasing the fun times of Harv and Yvette over the course of their 40-year marriage (now we're at 46 and closing in on 47). 

Since Harv joined the community at CrossFit Rapture, he has come up with new Harvisms at a rapid clip. He actually has pretty much invented his own CrossFit nomenclature. Why call them kettlebells when you can call them 'kettles'? Pull-ups are 'chin-ups'. Hamstrings started as 'hammies' and then went to 'hams'. Perhaps Harv should have some bacon post-WOD? Or maybe he is referring to Hamm from "Toy Story"?

Harv also likes saying post-WOD that he thinks "there's a conspiracy" between Marc, the Brothers Arikian (Dad's coaches and owners of CF Rapture), Lisa, Jarrett and me. I don't know what he's referring to since we're all pretty upfront about what we're trying to achieve at CrossFit.

OK, I found another awesome sweater pic from the late 80s/early 90s thanks to Lisa (see below). Still can't find a pic of him in these infamous pants that probably have gone in and out of style multiple times since the early 70s. We'll get a pic in a future blog post. 

One of my all-time faves was when we were playing soccer and he would yell to one of us "work it, work it, work it" as the ball was being dribbled up the field. Well it turns out Lisa was still playing in Massapequa when 'Pretty Woman' came out. I happened to be home for the weekend to see Lisa play and watched Harv do his thing. So I went behind him and channeled Kit DeLuca with this gem (note you need audio turned on). It generated many laughs from the parents on our sideline. Of course Harv said, "Very funny, Jill! Very funny!" 

I would have bought dinner that night but that would have violated another Harvism. When I was delivering newspapers (before I was legally allowed to because you know...), I would meet him at the local greasy spoon after my route was done on Sunday. The check would come and he would always say, "Don't worry, Jill. I got this. I don't want to ruin your amateur standing." 

Yeah, that's my Dad. He's pretty freakin' awesome. I might consider renting him out for parties... for the right price.

If you have Harvisms to share, please do.... we know many exist.

Why I DETEST Buying A Car.

[This is a long one. And it's a rant. You have been warned.]

It’s fair to say that negotiating is a regular part of life. Some people do it for a living and some people avoid it at all costs. I’m probably somewhere close to doing it for a living based on different roles that I have had over my career, not to mention when I was negotiating for a later curfew in high school and in college.

Background

My Dad negotiated my first car purchase when I was 19. Before that, I drove a hand-me-down that varied between whatever car my brother trashed along the way. Then I moved into Manhattan and the need for a car ceased until I had a temporary stint in the Bay Area in 2000. I got creamed when I leased my BMW in Palo Alto. No doubt about it. Spanked. Hosed. Bamboozled. You name it. I didn’t know enough about the mechanics about how car sales worked. Fortunately, when my stint in NorCal ended prematurely, BMW wanted my car so bad that they essentially paid me to get the car back so they could resell it for an exorbitant price. Whatever.

Fast forward to 2003 when I moved out to Seattle and needed to acquire a car. I didn’t want a BMW because even though I loved it, I felt they nickeled and dimed on so many of the packages. I mean this is a luxury car brand and power seats weren’t included in the base?! So I went to Volkswagen. They assigned me a female salesperson and truthfully she was as much of a shark as anyone else, even with me reading “Car Buying For Dummies”.

I wanted to lease (mistake) and committed pretty much every other dumb error you could do (i.e., this is what I want to spend per month). The worst part was the signing process where they said it would take an hour and it took three. I had already returned my rental car and Marc had dropped me off at the dealer so I was on an island, or so I thought back then.

The Finance team at Carter VW in Seattle jerked me around with delay tactics and other BS. I would complain to Sales while I was waiting and I didn’t exist anymore. I was passed over the wall. I could tell you that I had my Jetta for almost 10 years. I LOVED that car and yet I still tell people that Carter VW sucks and doesn’t respect your time.

They would call, email, etc. I’d tell them why I’m not interested each time and they would say that things are different. Yeah, right. Car dealers are nothing if not predictable. They still use the same crappy tactics. And they are in denial that the model is changing…. Maybe they should talk to yellow cab drivers who thought their model was unassailable.

Trade-In Current Car

Fast forward to the past couple of weeks. We decided to trade-in our Ford, which had incredibly low mileage and was in top condition for a 2012 car. We sold the VW to a friend a few years ago who was in a bind. We received a letter from Ford, which I also verified with our dealer, that they were willing to pay up to 110% of Kelley Blue Book (KBB) for our vehicle.

I make an appointment and show up with the car. I did my research on KBB and NADA with conservative estimates for what Ford could offer me. I also had a trade-in value estimate from where we were buying our new car. I figured out the tax implications, etc. Bottom-line, I knew the number Ford had to give me to make the deal happen.

Of course, they lowball me. I expected that. What I didn’t expect and what caused me to just walk out with saying “thanks for your time” was that when Bill Pierre Ford gave me the number they wanted to pay, I grabbed my phone because I had NADA and KBB pulled up. The salesperson says:

"Don't bother getting the information from your phone. The info there is always wrong. What I have from Kelley from my machine is correct."

Oh really? I get that you weren’t going to go with the number that KBB said on the higher end but to call KBB’s website into question with the hopes I wouldn’t check it and just accept your number? Wow. I guess this intimidation tactic must have worked before? I tweeted at KBB and of course they politely said that the salesperson was full of crap.

The end result of that was that we didn’t dislike our Ford. We just wanted something different and until that salesperson, we had nothing but positive things to say about Ford. Yeah, not anymore. The trade-in happened at an attractive price where we bought the car, so all’s well that ends well - more on that in a bit. But Ford is dead to us.

Buying The New Car

I was pretty confident about what I wanted to buy – make, model and most of the options – but I wanted to test drive it obviously. One of our close friends recommended test driving a competitor so I did that first.

I went to BMW after making an appointment. The salesperson kept trying to tell me on the test drive that the options that I was interested in were not that important. Oh ok. Thanks. I guess I don’t know what I want at all because “you know what I want”. Maybe it’s because you have the perfect vehicle in the showroom for me to buy with the options already in place. Gosh, I'm so smart (not really).

I told the salesperson I would follow-up as I was checking out the nearest competitor. He responds by saying that the car I “want” is priced at XXXXX MSRP. Hmmm. I ask is that what he is offering the car at because his email is vague except for the dollar amount and MSRP. The response is “Oh, of course I wish I could sell cars at MSRP but that isn’t realistic so we sell the car at MSRP with X% discount.” Ah right. Make me pull stuff like this out of you. Don’t just give me a number to negotiate with. Now we’re done because you actually attempted to sell me a car at MSRP and you want to sell me a car with features that I could care less about. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE BUYING CARS. NO RESPECT FROM DEALERS SO IT’S CONTENTIOUS, DEFENSIVE, OFFENSIVE SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!

Now off to test drive the car I want. I had put in some data and was already quoted an “internet discount price”. It’s getting close to the “end of the year” where new models are coming in for 2016 plus we’re close to the end of the month. We get a price on the trade-in, which was probably helped by Ford’s “strong interest” in my car. Get some things negotiated and within 24 hours, we have a deal.

But it’s not smooth sailing because our salesperson tells me that even though we (THE CUSTOMER) have a time crunch that he may not be able to get us through Finance as quick as we would like because they can’t predict “end of the month” traffic. More BS. So then I go on Twitter to warn our new dealer what happened to VW when they screwed me on my signing time frame.

Magically, everything gets sorted but our dealer wants feedback and to make the survey say “10, 10, 10”. I say that when someone has an appointment and you don’t honor it that it is unacceptable. He gave me a bunch of excuses why that happens but ultimately it is the typical “You’re making your internal logistics problem MY problem. I don’t care. Fix it.” Stop worrying about your survey scores. It was almost as nauseating as a former manager at Microsoft telling the team how to fill out the annual MS Poll. Yes, this happened.

Takeaways

I still have a couple of things to sort out but ultimately this ended up pretty well for us. That said, I feel like buying a car is like signing yourself up to fight with someone because ultimately car salespeople aren’t interested in a win-win. They are interested in doing whatever they can to rip you off. That is what I learned. 

I'm not saying that I am an expert in buying/selling cars but I can tell you that the whole process was exhausting/frustrating and that's what these dealers count on. This time, I was more prepared, secured a better deal, etc., but these people just want to extort what they can from you. We encountered a bait and switch situation with Lexus in Bellevue, so we will never buy a Lexus from anyone again.

When Tesla and other companies like Beepi start gaining more momentum, I can’t wait for this business model to go down. Kind of like yellow cab drivers extorting passengers and having horrible customer service. J

3 Mar: Mendoza (ARG) --> Santiago (CHI) --> Equator

A rather long day ahead for us as we make the journey back home. It's been a great trip and I always say that a goal of any trip is not to get value for money on your travel insurance. So we succeeded.

We checked out of our hotel and went to the airport. We had some ARG pesos to spend and were offered a variety of options in the duty free shop such as below:

Marc and I ended up settling on a wine that we tasted yesterday but cannot obtain in the States, so we'll have to repack our bags again once we get to Santiago. Perhaps more clothes to be ditched?

The plan was to spend the afternoon touring Santiago with a driver, have a nice dinner and then head to the airport for our late flight back to the States. The constant and dramatic changes in climates covered on this trip have started to catch up to me and I was starting to feel a bit under the weather, which seemed like a fabulous way to travel home. Woo woo! Give me some Nyquil please.

Santiago is a pretty city, and is surrounded by mountains and smog. Lots of smog. Not as bad as Los Angeles, but it's there and it's constant per our guide. We had lunch in one of the local food stalls in the central area and we found out that the locals like to watch TV during this time so we were fortunate enough to catch an episode of "Glee" with Lea Michele singing "Let It Go" (our niece, Mollie, would have loved this). Then "Sex and The City" was on, but it was time to start our tour.

We went up to a lookout point to catch some nice views of the city and toured a museum that discussed hallucinogenic snuff kits from a long time ago. Apparently these were popular in our 1st destination, Atacama, but oddly no one offered us any. Hmmm.

After our tour, we went to the hotel that we stored our large bags at prior to Mendoza and re-packed. They were kind enough to let me use the gym to shower before the flights home, so I was happy. We had a couple of farewell cocktails, dinner and then it was time to head to the airport.

Our gate had people ready to go to DFW (our destination) but the sign said MIA. Right. Some confusion especially since we saw one crew board the plane and another crew was waiting to board the plane. It turns out the MIA crew boarded our plane, then were informed they were on the wrong plane, etc.

Somehow we managed to take off on schedule. As you can guess, we made it home safely and the journey was uneventful. Thanks for tuning in to another adventure of Marc and Jill. It was an exhausting journey but a worthwhile one. We appreciated all of your likes, comments, emails, private messages, etc. We were especially grateful for all of your well wishes for Marc when he wasn't feeling so well.

28 Feb: Insane Winery Lunch AND Chocolate Para Fanaticos

Crazy lunch that Jill created a slideshow for in an attempt to capture PART of it. And dinner later included the irresistible Chocolate For Fanatics.

So after the dinner last night that had us both practically falling asleep during the waning courses of the meal, we got up at 6am of course. This was so that we could head to the airport in Santiago and fly to Mendoza for the final stretch of the trip.

The flight was quick and our guide dropped us off at our hotel but our room wasn't yet ready. The road in front of the hotel was one way until last week but now is clearly painted with a yellow line for a lane to go the other way. As our driver turned onto the street to drop us off, cars were driving the wrong way straight at us and he had to honk and wave multiple times for them to move over to the correct side of the line. Ok. Since our room wasn't ready we hung on the free wifi for a bit until he returned to take us to/from Familia Zuccardi, a Bodega (winery) in Mendoza.

What a hilarious ride we had. Anything quoted is from him. "Good wine doesn't make you drunk. If you drink cheap wine, you'll get drunk." Later along the way he asked us to explain "white trash" which had us laughing quite a bit. He asked if "rednecks" was termed from being out in the sun unprotected.

He asked where we were from and when we said Seattle he said "Super Sonics" and he isn't the first to have that strong association. I had to explain that the team was sold and moved (not merged with another team like he thought at first when I explained things) to Oklahoma City. SHOCKED. "Oh My God! For me, Seattle is same as SuperSonics!!"

He asked more questions after the shock wore off. I explained that Howard Schultz sold the team to someone he knew would move the team. "I imagine people want to kill Howard Schultz!" (Re-emphasizing that this is not the opinion of Marc and Jill but of a fan who lives in Mendoza, Argentina) Then later, "Now that you tell me this, I can't take coffee at Starbucks anymore."

So he dropped us off and the insane lunch began. They did a traditional grill of many things with plenty of wine but words can only tell so much. They brought out some white wine (Torrontes and Chardonnay/Viognier) to start and some *amazing* empanadas to start. Then several huge salad plates with delicious food and the red wine started. We had Syrah, Bonarda, and Malbec along with this wonderful food that included them bringing out meat 3 times and they asked if we wanted more later on too. Since we were asking questions about the wine, the sommelier brought out some wonderful Tempranillo too.

After all of this, we got dessert and a dessert wine called Tardio. Keep in mind that this was our lunch for the day. I had a coffee because the food was so good that I figured the coffee would work and I've basically not taken coffee this trip because it has NOT been good. Those are the written words, but perhaps watching the slideshow of this lunch would be better.

Now, we ALSO got a tour of this winery and there was an Irish couple on the tour so we had a great tour with them along with the guide who is from the States but doesn't get to speak English very often anymore. Every winery tour still seems to teach us something. They are experimenting and several of the wines are really good.

We were taken back and given a break at our hotel. We walked around a bit and the city is so busy with locals and just a real town. It was fun to walk around.

Eventually we got taken to our dinner at a place called Francis Mallman 1884. We both were't quite sure where we were being dropped off, but once we walked into the courtyard, it was this amazing building that was impressively restored from the late 19th century. The dining areas were quite cool but I think only Jill (or perhaps some of our photos) can describe them. This meal was wonderful too so let's just say were both full from these two meals.

Jill asked for the dessert menu because she figured something would entice me. She tried to get me to go classic Argentinian with dulce de leche but I couldn't be talked out of Chocolate Para Fanaticos (Chocolate for Fanatics). Three chocolate things appeared on a plate untarnished by fruit as it should be. This plate was as wide as a fork or spoon and definitely longer and full of chocolate goodness.

The taxi home featured a driver who visited Atlantic City and won. He used the proceeds to drive across the country through Chicago ("cold!") and to Vancouver, BC.

23 Feb: Torres del Paine National Park (ARG).

In light of yesterday's wonderful discovery around having brown water at the hotel, my first words of the day to Marc were "do we have clean water yet?" Unfortunately the answer was no.

Today's hike was expected to be challenging as we were targeting a vantage point of the Paine Towers that had a final ascent similar to our Laguna de Los Tres trek last week. The weather was cloudy with light rain but anything can happen weather wise in Patagonia, which could be good or bad.

Marc hiked for the 1st 90 minutes to a great viewpoint of the valley and then returned down to the hotel to rest up and continue reading "Ready Player One". I continued on with the rest of the gang. The weather was toying with us for most of the trek out to the towers. Rays of sunshine, rain showers, wind gusts, etc.

Our guide didn't think it made sense to go to our initial target because of the conditions but he did want to take us to a spot to *MAYBE* see the towers without too much difficulty. Low and behold, we caught a glimpse of them in the clouds. Score for us.

Heading back to the Refugio for lunch, we saw the sun shining in the direction of our hotel but not in the direction of the towers. The Refugio is a place where campers stay, shower & eat. It also is a place for day hikers like our group to take a break. By the time we made it back there, we found 2 of our crew engaged in a serious game of Jenga.

The wind picked up quite a bit as the sun continued to come out in the Lake Nordenskjold Valley near the hotel. I went ahead as I wanted to see how Marc was faring at the hotel.

In case you are wondering, windy conditions at your tail as you are going downhill with narrow paths/large drop-offs are less than ideal. I was making progress when I saw the sign for a shortcut. Ahhhh..... Some other word was also on the sign but I knew our hotel had a campground, so I figured it was the same place......

About 10 minutes in, nothing looks familiar but I tell myself to stick with it. Another 10 minutes in, I see my hotel down in the valley but the path I am on is not heading in that direction. I should turn around, right? Sure, but I don't. Now I am almost 40 minutes into this "shortcut" and I am now assessing if I should continue on the path and hitch a ride to the hotel (probably not), head back up the trail to the sign and head down the right path (smart) or identify a way between both paths to see if I can cobble something together (hmmmm).

Note the handwriting in red on the map, which was my "foolproof" plan. :-)

Obviously I went for the brilliant plan of looking across a huge swath of land to see if I could trek down to the proper path without killing myself or getting eaten by a puma. When I started, I gave myself about an 80% chance of success. I immediately thought I was making some progress since I found some horse tracks (aka horsesh**). My logic was if a horse could walk this, so could I. Flawless, right?

I get about 60% across and I am bush whacking trees & branches. No more horse tracks though. I am walking on top of lots of bushes. More swashbuckling brilliance. I then run into a bunch of trees and can't see a thing, so I decide to get to a higher point (slightly going backwards).

I now see that I am about 85% across, so this is good. Progress. Now what about those fighting guanacos or the wild puma that could attack me? Hmmmm. Stay positive, Jill. The other hazard was that if there was an unknown chasm that made it impossible to cross but wasn't visible from my earlier vantage point..... Oh boy.

Fortunately I started hearing familiar voices, which ended up being one of the couples from our tour so I knew I was close. I find a spot to pop out of to get visual confirmation and I traverse some more bushes to get to them. When I yelled out to them, they said, "Where did you come from?" Ah yes....

So thanks to some literal horsesh** along with some schmuckitude, I saved myself from a very dumb move around a "shortcut". We got back and we're talking to a couple of Brits about fitness. She starts talking about burpees and I tell her that she should try CrossFit because why not? The discussion then shifts to me explaining the "shut the car door (with your tush)" as a way of improving squat technique. The gal loved it and then we went our separate ways.

I get back and see Marc. He is in good spirits and looks well rested. I immediately ask to see the map of the park. Then I really got to see what an idiot I was for taking a "shortcut" from a sign in a language that I didn't completely understand.

I guess I should've have listened to my Dad because had I followed his tried and true advice around "staying with the group", my little detour probably would not have happened. Oops.

22 Feb: Ranch --> Argentina/Chile Crossing --> Hike --> Hotel Las Torres

I am writing back-to-back entries because you really want to hear Jill's voice for February 23. Trust me...

We had to get up around 6am so we could eat something before a long day of driving with a departure at 7am. This surely pleased the other guests at the estancia who got to hear several rolling bags echoing through the accommodations but I guess this is something the tour company can manage. We drove 90 minutes on dirt roads to El Calafate where some business got taken care of including Jill mailing actual post cards to some lucky recipients.

The next adventure was crossing from Argentina to Chile via a bus of 12 tourists, a guide, and the driver. The approach to the crossing was gravel road for a while and we arrived at a couple of shacks to exit Argentina. We all filed out of the bus and into one of these shacks without power so we could get the exit stamp placed inside our passports. This wonderful facility lacked visible bathrooms (translation: bring your own TP and go behind the building) and power is from solar panels. But they've been overcast recently and today were working in the dark.

We then drove a couple of km to the Chilean facility which was a fairly modern building with bathrooms in full view of all people waiting to get the entrance stamp in Chile. In addition, we sent all of our bags through a screening machine so you know they had power. They also had some friendly dogs sniffing bags for fruit and other items. Finally, the road became paved beginning right here. The border crossings are definitely indicative of the current situations between Argentina and Chile. Go figure.

After lunch we got to Torres del Paine national park and were given a chance to walk about 4 miles (which took us about 1.5 hours) with some decent elevation gain and then loss along the route. Jill and I witnessed two guanacos fight each other about 30-40 meters from us and then one was chasing the other straight toward us. It avoided us and jumped a fence we were walking near and the chaser stayed on our side so we were pretty close to both of them at this point. Fortunately, they were staring at each other so we slowly walked away along the trail. We certainly didn't need another danger point where "animals were jumping us".

Jill asked about the consumption of guanacos because they seem to be similar in numbers to kangaroos in Australia. Our guide, Claudio, responded that hunting season for them is very limited and mostly not allowed in Chile.

My health meter was about 2/3 before the hike (lots of hacking cough) but dropped to about 1/2 by the end of this little journey. It took a bit out of me. I want to thank everyone for the well wishes in the past few days. I feel like I'm getting better, but I'm also on a strenuous hiking tour that is gonna take something out of even a healthy individual.

Jill brought some books with her (I went all digital on my tablet) and keeps offering them to me before she donates them to wherever we are staying or one of the other tour members. I've read the first chapter of a couple but she handed me "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline and I got enough to keep going. The number and detail of 80's references in this book is astounding and it's a pretty good read so far (I'm close to halfway today).

We got to the hotel and I decided I needed a shower before yet another late dinner. I ran the water for a while and it was basically light brown - lots of dirt in the water supply. Yay! I needed a shower too much so I just took one.

We had a decent buffet dinner with the group in the restaurant with a good variety of interesting stuff. And the Molten Chocolate Cake was pretty good too for a buffet.

Jill has two compartments locked on her suitcase on travel days and the smaller side compartment was locked but she could not find the key when we arrived here. She basically cleared out all bags and looked through everything trying to find it. After giving up, we asked the front desk if they had bolt cutters and they said they did.

Someone eventually showed up with something resembling pliers with a tiny area that might cut some wire, but not a bolt. The maintenance guy said "un momento" and walked out. This was a long moment (about 10 minutes) but he returned with a real cutting instrument about as long as human arms (NOTE: He was about 2 inches taller than Jill) and had to be careful to cut only the lock and not a good chunk of the entire bag. But he succeeded. And yet, another example of "you can't make this stuff up".

19 Feb: LONG hike to Laguna de Los Tres!

This will be short because we hiked all day and it wiped me out with back to back 1/2 marathon hikes. I also am getting sick, but didn't realize that until later in the day.

After breakfast, we got in the van just after 8am for a 30+ minute drive to the hike start point. This second "half marathon" hike back to back wiped me out. The main reason is the optional 2k up to a glacial pool and 2k back down to the trail.

Before this part, the hike was nice and sheltered in the trees. Once we got to the optional part, it was an easy 1k and the hardest upward 1k I have ever done. Jill was first in under an hour because she motored up and did not stop. I was next but only because "fit" Rocket Rick kept stopping to take in the views.

The view was outstanding and possibly worth the effort to climb this crazy hill. We ate up there while enjoying the view and then began climbing back down.

Once down, we still had 9k back to the town and I wanted it over. I slowed down a lot and eventually got there but I ended up drinking 2-3 more liters of water before, during, and after dinner.

Dinner was entertaining with explaining to one of our guides what the term "six pack abs" means. We learned that in Argentina, the terms people use to describe those kinds of abs are referred to as a "chocolate bar" or "ravioli". For the record, our guide prefers "mushy chocolate bars" in this context.

Given my job at Scout, people keep bringing up college football references. Tonight we learned that at Notre Dame, their library has a "Touchdown Jesus" mosaic on the outside that faces the football stadium.

Unfortunately a little cough that I had over the past few days has progressed into something more fierce. I hope this goes away soon because we have some long hikes coming up.