The Adventures of the Albino Bowler » Chad Quesenberry

Hats off in Ecuador

Dan Thompson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:14:12 +0000

Kimberly and I took the bowler with us on a brief trip to Ecuador. Most of our time was spent in a town called Cuenca. It is the third largest city in Ecuador and rated #1 for the last three years by International Living as a retirement haven. It’s also been premiered on two episodes of House Hunters international. Although a fairly large city of over 500,000 Cuenca feels very small town. It is a Spanish colonial town built in the 16th century. It has great architecture, and since it’s on the equator at just under 9,000 ft above sea level, it also has great weather.

We arrived via plan in Guayaquil, Ecuador and drove to Cuenca the next day. It’s a 3 hour drive to Cuenca which takes you over the Andes Mountain range and thru El Cajas National Park which is breathtaking at over 12,000 ft above sea level. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in down town Cuenca that has been in the same family for over 150 years called Casa de Ordenez.

Our first brief outing took us to the village of Cojitambo including Cojitambo Mountain and Incan Ruins from 500b.c. The view from the top of the village below is great and the ruins were very interesting.

We also took the bowler to a small village nearby Cuenca where the "Panama" hat was first created. Strangely, it’s only called a Panama hat because the first Europeans to get them were told they came from Panama because that’s where they were loaded onto their boats. We watched ladies hand make these hats, bought several and even saw the worlds largest panama hat according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Ecuador is nearly 100% Catholic and there are plenty of beautiful Cathedrals to prove it. However, there are also so weird pictures and statues of Christ. Like the picture we took of Christ holding up a machete and the one of baby Jesus and Mary wearing Panama hats.

We really loved the area and the people, so much so that we plan to go back in the next month.

–Chad Quesenberry

Ecuador

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Athens, Greece

Dan Thompson — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:16:10 +0000

Greek people seem to think it odd that I take pictures of this action figure with their ancient ruins. They stop and just stare as if I’m doing something weird. Guess Flat Stanley didn’t make it here. The Bowler had a ball none the less. He stood on roads and buildings that were built in the 600 b.c. time frame. He stood where the Apostle Paul stood when he was at the judgment or bema seat in ancient Corinth as well as on the spot where Paul gave his famous speech to the Greek people about Jesus. (See Acts 17:22-31 and Acts 18:12-17)

On his journeys the Bowler visited Poseidon’s Temple in Sounion, Greece. He saw graffiti carved in ancient marble columns that dates from 200 a.d. to 50 years ago. Some of it from famous people like Lord Byron.

The next stop was the Acropolis in Athens which is where the Parthenon and several over temples such as Nike’s still stand. From the acropolis you can see all of Athens, a city of over 4 million people and not one skyscraper. He marveled at how they build the Parthenon without one straight line because they knew if they did they would look curved to the human eye, therefore all the lines are curved to make them look straight and the building look larger.

The last stop for the bowler was the ancient city of Corinth and the Acrocorinth which is Corinth’s acropolis, which apparently in Greek means a very large and high rock that was created for the building of temples. Today the Acrocorinth has a few ruins and fortress walls built in the 12^th and 13^th century a.d.

– Chad Quesenberry

If you’d like to see more pictures from this trip, go here: qberryfarms.com (thealbinobowler.com makes no guarantees as to the content of externally linked sites)

Albino Bowler visits fourth continent! (We have pictures)

Dan Thompson — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:02:22 +0000

It’s official! Chad Q has sent me a picture of the Albino Bowler in Greece, which means we have confirmation now of the Albino Bowler being on 4 different continents! I’ll let Chad tell the story when he gets back, but the picture he sent me is incredible (quite possibly the best picture we’ve had yet!). Stay tuned, this will be a good one!!

– Dan Thompson