Visiting Tourists

Gracious!  Has it really been this long since I've posted?  Well, let's rectify that right now.  Part of the reason I haven't gotten around to it in the past bunch of days is what happened Wednesday night and then Thursday.  We'll start with Wednesday night and what led up to it and continue on as the week goes by with lots of photos.

A while back, maybe as much as a month, I met Sarah, a woman who brings people on tours of Ecuador and part of that includes lovely little Cotacachi.  She likes to have local people speak to her groups about various aspects of the town and the surrounding area.  Would I be willing to do that?  Uh, DUH!  Me, being asked to talk to people--not exactly a hardship.

Last Wednesday she and her little group arrived in Cotacachi at between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. and we met at 6:30 for our little gathering. 
I wish I'd thought to take photos of the group but, well, I missed that photo op.  Here, though, are three of the people who were there:

Sarah is on the left, that's Roger in the middle, and (forgive me for butchering the name) Suzy on the right.  Sara, Suzy, and Jonathan were from the tour company (I don't think I managed to get a photo of Jonathan).  The local folks were Roger (above), Gary, Dale, me, and Michael got tossed into the mix at the last minute.

Roger is a former Peace Corp volunteer who stayed on here in Ecuador.  He bought house and a little land about 3/4 hour bus ride north of Ibarra (about a 30 minute bus ride from here) and absolutely loves it there.  He shared information about his life in Ibarra before he bought his home and what it's like living in the campo (country).  He also has a wealth of information about plants and farming so he helped with telling people about that as well.

Gary, Dale, and Michael spoke more to the real estate aspect of the local area, each with a slightly different viewpoint but all of them complementary.

We all had a great time and didn't get out of there until about 8:30 with everyone seeming to be quite pleased with what they had learned.  Sarah took Roger and me out to dinner (bless her little heart) and then she asked if I would like to join them the following day.  They would be finishing up their stay in northern Ecuador in Ibarra and I could hop on a bus to come back here when we were done there.  I'm so glad I took them up on their offer.  I have oodles of pictures to share with you in the coming days.