If you’re planning an international trip, you’ve probably asked yourself: Do I need to buy a SIM card when I land? For years, that was the default advice. Find a kiosk at the airport, swap out your SIM, and hope everything works. But that’s not what we do anymore....
We arrived in Alangasí on Good Friday with our friends from Texas and Jacquie, our friend and local guide, after spending the day in Quito’s Historic Center, where we watched the well-known procession named for Jesus del Gran Poder. Needless to say, we were tired but...
Last year marked my second time attending the Arrastre de Caudas in Quito—an unusual tradition for someone who isn’t Catholic. And yet, I keep coming back. There is something about Catholicism in the Andes that feels different from what I’ve experienced in the United...
Before visiting Karajía, we thought we had a pretty good sense of what we were going to see. Like most people, we’d seen the photographs: a small group of towering figures perched high on a cliff, their painted faces staring out over the valley. It wasn’t until we...
We’re long past calling ourselves beginner birdwatchers, though we still hesitate to say we’re professionals. Yet when I count how many years we've been doing this seriously, I was surprised. Birding became more than a passing interest when we lived in Quito, Ecuador,...
We respectfully acknowledge that the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuges sits on the ancestral lands of the Nisenan, Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok/Me-Wuk, and Patwin Wintun peoples. These communities have cared for and sustained this region for countless...
