Chautauqua 2017: A Breath of Fresh Air

I’ve recent­ly returned from the beau­ti­ful Ecuador where I spent a week in par­adise at the Chau­tauqua! For those of you who don’t know what a Chau­tauqua is, the orig­i­nal def­i­n­i­tion comes from the book Zen and the Art of Motor­cy­cle Maintenance:

“…an old-time series of pop­u­lar talks intend­ed to edi­fy and enter­tain, improve the mind, and bring cul­ture and enlight­en­ment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer.”

In this case, the Chau­tauqua was me hang­ing out in Ecuador with new and old friends. After hear­ing pre­sen­ta­tions from Cheryl, Bran­don, Pete, Jim, and Paula I can tell you I was edi­fied, enter­tained, my mind improved, and cul­ture and enlight­en­ment was brought to my ears and thoughts! Wow that’s a mouth­ful. Let me try again.

THE CHAUTAUQUA WAS AWESOME SAUCE!

Now, this was­n’t my first trip to Ecuador. My first trip was in 2015 and I wrote a post about the lessons I learned while there. Sim­i­lar to the lay­out of those posts, I’ll write a gen­er­al overview of the week in this post and a sep­a­rate post of the lessons I learned. Mayyyybbbeeee even two les­son posts if I get long-winded.

Going on my sec­ond Chau­tauqua meant I thought I knew what to expect. I’d have a great time hang­ing out with friends, eat deli­cious food, and learn about FI stuff. While all of those occurred in abun­dance, it was hard not to com­pare to the first trip. Me being human, I did any­ways. I think the most inter­est­ing aspect was see­ing how much I’ve changed as a per­son and blog­ger in two years. We nev­er real­ly get to see the changes in our­selves in our day-to-day life until we return to a sit­u­a­tion lat­er. For instance, hang­ing out with my boyfriend’s teenage sis­ters real­ly high­lights how far I’ve come emo­tion­al­ly in the 15 years since I was their age.

Going back to the Chau­tauqua high­light­ed how far I’ve come on my own FI jour­ney. The first one I went to meet peo­ple and get con­fir­ma­tion I was on the right path. I was the youngest per­son there by a sol­id 2 years and peo­ple treat­ed me as such. This time, I was not the youngest per­son there (by a year-ish) and I’ve been blog­ging for 2+ years. Instead of being the star-struck attendee, I was one of the peo­ple the oth­er atten­dees want­ed to meet. Instead of attend­ing my one-on-one and get­ting advice, sev­er­al peo­ple sat down with me for a one-on-one to get advice. Don’t get me wrong, I still had one-on-ones with peo­ple for my own rea­sons (which were super use­ful and incred­i­bly valu­able to me!) but the fact peo­ple want­ed to talk to me was awe­some and slight­ly unsettling.

The loca­tions were also dif­fer­ent. We stayed at a lux­u­ri­ous resort the first night in Quito and had a lot of fun while there. Kick­ing around a rock hard soc­cer ball, enjoy­ing the spa, and play­ing around on a play­ground set were all things I did­n’t do the first time and real­ly enjoyed this time.

Our main loca­tion was an old and beau­ti­ful hacien­da in Ibar­ra. Instead of being in the mid­dle of a cloud for­est on the equa­tor, we were high up in the Andes moun­tains. The days were warm and the nights chilly. I espe­cial­ly loved com­ing in my room at night to find a hot water bot­tle tucked under the cov­ers. I might have to get one for the cold win­ter months ahead here at home! The grounds were beau­ti­ful­ly laid out and well tak­en care of, while the activ­i­ties offered were too numer­ous to list. I will say while the hot tub was still slight­ly luke­warm, the sauna and steam rooms were amaz­ing, espe­cial­ly after a long day of walk­ing and mov­ing around!

The activ­i­ties we did were once again dif­fer­ent. Shop­ping at the world-renowned Otava­lo fiber mar­ket, hang­ing out on the equa­tor, and hik­ing around a vol­canic crater lake were some of my favorites. The hike around the lake was breath­tak­ing, in the lit­er­al and metaphor­i­cal sense. (ba-dum-ching!)

 

I am some­one who lives 860 feet above sea lev­el and am def­i­nite­ly not accli­mat­ed to moun­tains. My first day in Quito I nursed a rag­ing headache from the alti­tude. I thought I was accus­tomed but doing a 7.7 mile hike that start­ed at 10,000 ft and went to 11,000 ft rapid­ly proved me wrong. The hike would­n’t have been that stren­u­ous at sea lev­el, but throw in the alti­tude and I strug­gled hard-core. I’m very proud I not only fin­ished the hike, but did it at the fair­ly rapid pace of 4 hours! I’m not sure I’d do it again, but once was so worth it.

I’m run­ning out of ways to say ‘dif­fer­ent’, but just know the peo­ple on the trip were also not the same (obvi­ous­ly). The first trip I went com­plete­ly by myself and did­n’t know any­one at the begin­ning (a fact that ter­ri­fied my mom. Sor­ry Mom!). This time, I met up with peo­ple at our lay­over stop in Pana­ma (both overnight in Pana­ma and at the air­port before our flight). Not only that, but I came back to hang out with old friends for the week and to make new friends. Laugh­ing so hard we cried over dessert, mak­ing rum dis­ap­pear in the jacuzzi, and hav­ing 50 peo­ple sing me Hap­py Birth­day will remain some of my fond­est mem­o­ries about the week.

I tru­ly enjoyed the chance to sit back and relax for a week. I got an immense feel­ing of smug sat­is­fac­tion know­ing I was sway­ing gen­tly in a ham­mock on a Tues­day morn­ing while peo­ple were back home stuck at work. I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly good at tak­ing relax­ing vaca­tions so this was a nice reminder of what it’s like to sllooooowwwwww things down and just take a while to enjoy what was in front of us.

All in all I had a mag­i­cal time! I can­not stress enough how much I rec­om­mend going to one of these events. If you can’t make it to Ecuador and the Chau­tauqua, try to find like-mind­ed peo­ple in your own com­mu­ni­ty or go to a domes­tic event.

Side­note: I am orga­niz­ing a week-long Camp FI in Min­neso­ta next year! Stay tuned here for more details!

Hav­ing a sup­port­ive group of peo­ple on your FIRE jour­ney changes every­thing for the bet­ter. You get advice, guid­ance, and the knowl­edge you are not alone. After attend­ing mul­ti­ple Chau­tauquas, I am any­thing but alone on my jour­ney. Thank you friends for the won­der­ful trip!