Our Trip: By the Numbers

It's Tuesday evening in California, and we've been home now for 72+ hours. Clothes have been washed, groceries have been bought, the dog has been picked up (God bless you forever and ever and ever, Donna and Steve!), children have returned to school, a Target run has been made, and hair has not been cut (but that's a story for another day). 

We're adjusting to "normal" life, marveling at our potable water and the fact that we can place toilet paper in our toilets. Oh, America!

We're missing our breakfasts of bread and fruit and eggs. We're missing hearing Spanish all day, every day. We're missing saying, "Buen dia!" We're missing the frenetic sounds of tuk-tuks and taxis scurrying about. We are not missing all the stray dogs.

By next week, Tim and I anticipate that our family will be clamoring to be back in Ecuador and Peru. The excitement of being home will wear off, and we'll all want to be in South America again, minus the bug situation, of course. 

I promise not to wax poetic here; we'll save that for the family reflection post, which will come in a few more days -- maybe over the weekend.

Buuuuut, we do want to deliver on our promise to write up our 'by the numbers' piece. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the final stats from our trip:

Number of days traveled: 55

Number of places visited: 18

Number of flights: 16

Number of guides: 9

Number of bus rides: 3

Number of van rides: 4

Number of train rides: 2

Number of tuk-tuk rides: 22

Number of dune buggy rides: 1

Number of female taxi drivers: 1 (and we took a lot of taxis)

Number of female tuk-tuk drivers: 0 (although we saw two)

Number of police bribes: 1

Number of jugos naturales (natural juice) imbibed: Too many to count, and you'd better believe we'll be making these at our house from here on out

Number of alpaca dinners: 2

Number of piranhas eaten: 8

Number of Amazon grubs eaten: 1 (by Tim)

Number of Amazon jungle candies eaten: 2 (by Wyatt)

Number of times we spotted an animal in the Amazon that the guide missed: 3

Best customer service in hotels, restaurants, etc.: Machu Picchu Town

Number of days Tim surfed: 11

Number of days Sarah ran: 37

Number of upset stomachs: 4

Number of hospital visits: 1

Number of hours kids spent on the iPad: 0 (and we probably watched 27 minutes of TV the entire trip)

Number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited: 5 (Quito, Cuenca, Lima, Nazca Lines, Machu Picchu)

Number of times we saw fellow guests from the Secret Garden in Cotopaxi outside Cotopaxi: 2 (we saw two fellow travelers in Montañita and two on San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos...how wild is that?!) 

Number of times we ate chicken and rice: Easily 537

Number of nights (streak) in the same hotel, excluding the Galápagos and Amazon: 5 (we stayed at the Wyndham Lima Airport and at Casa Barco in Mancora, both for 5 nights)

Number of hostels we stayed in: 1

Number of hotels we stayed in: 13, excluding the Galápagos and Amazon

Number of mosquito bites collected: 1,372,984 (ok, maybe I'm slightly exaggerating here -- but only slightly!)

*****

And now I just want to go back! [Frantically searches flights to Santiago. Cruises Amazon (the other one) for DEET repellent spray. Gathers passports...]