Unmaintained caches .... sometimes the better of two evils

Ecuador doesn't have much geocaching going on. At least not compared to the movement that takes place in North America and Europe. There are a few cachers there but the majority of

Metro Park SE

caching done there is by tourist visiting the country. While there one of my favorite activities was placing tourist-friendly caches. By this I mean caches that are easily accessible to tourist who have a limited amount of time to get to a cache between one of their tours and going to the airport to head to the Galapagos Islands or on to Peru.

The best place I found to place geocaches that tourist could easily find was in Parque Metropolitano. We placed the second one in the park but the longest standing cache there to date back in 2007. It is Metro Park SE (GC15JCC). This cache has proven difficult for many for many because it is well-hidden and because, if you don't have much time, like many tourist, it is a good walk to the far end of the park and takes some time. The elevation doesn't help as you huff and puff to get there in the thin air.

Reforestation

The next long-lasting cache I placed is one called Reforestation (GC168M3). When I placed it the area was cut back and had just a few bushes in ankle high grass. Dispersed throughout the area were small saplings that were recently planted to replace Eucalyptus trees that had previously been cut down. Now, as you can see from the photo, it's a jungle out there.

Karen's Caper Travel Bug Hotel (GC182AC) and Brandon's TB Boarding House (GC1K4MD) are two of the tourist-friendliest TB hotel caches in the country. They are both placed very near the entrance to the park so that the tourist can get out of their taxi right at the entrance gate and make a short one-minute trek into the woods to claim their prize, drop

Looking up while at Karen's Caper

their trackables and still get back to what they have waiting for them.

What makes these, plus a number of others we have placed, so special to us is that we no longer live in Ecuador but have been able to leave a gifts that keep on giving. The choice that obviously faced us upon departing from Ecuador was whether to archive these caches or simply leave them for folks to find and then archive them when they finally play out. With no one to call on to maintain them (there were no active geocachers nearby who were able to maintain them) we knew that they would deteriorate over time. We left them. They have proven to be gifts that have truly kept on giving, both to those who come to Ecuador and geocache as well as to me. I have been joyfully watching the messages come in as tourist and a few Ecuadorians alike, have continued to find them. We've had some go missing, requiring that we archive them.

It's been almost three years since we left our beloved Ecuador behind. We feel just a little bit closer to our home-away-from-home when we revisit the caches there on geocaching.com!

Check out these interesting caches!!!!

Here's a few interesting caches I've come across in my travels. I won't say where so as not to create a real soiler.

Gate intercom cache

This one had us looking. We drove up to a gated area with a garden all around. There was a large rock on each side. The GPSr pointed to one of the rocks. That's where we began our search. We looked and looked. We had a time schedule and were getting in the car when I decided that maybe that wasn't a real doorbell/intercom box. Sure enough, it was the cache.

Another cache that caught us by surprise was one of those electrical-type caches. I've seen them before but just wasn't thinking along those lines the day I looked for this one. I was the driver so three others were already at the GZ looking all around the sign. I came up and joined the search, looking in all the obvious places they had looked before it dawned on me that I ought to look at the fake box. There it was!

Some of the caches we find are nothing more than attractions to some strange art. This one seems to represent an angel of some kind. It's located at Guilford Technical Community College near Jamestown, NC. We had to spend a while dodging muggles and turning over stones to find the "one" stone we'd have to turn over to find the cache.

A Great Christmas Gift from some special friends!

One of the nicest gifts I received for Christmas, right there along side my Kuerig Coffee Maker, was my one-year membership as a Premium Member of Geocaching.com. Two really good friends, Chickenlvr413 and Chanak80, were so kind to give this to me as a Christmas gift. It has opened up more caches right close to home!

My new job is keeping me in the office and hard at work. I'd really like to get out and hit the trails to find some caches but am held back right now. I'm hoping that this kind gift will motivate me to get out and find some more caches!

Granny Codine and her neice Modean

Geocaching puts you in touch with lots of nice folks. Here's a case to prove my point. After learning about geocaching I had the pleasure of introducing it to a special friend. She just has to be my most favorite geocaching friend for 2013! Her name is Granny Codine. She's a character to say the least. She gets around to visit the folks in the nursing home and is sometimes invite to help friends roast other friends. Granny Codine is right funny to listen to. For that reason I thought it appropriate to place a cache in honor of this friend. It turns out that Granny Codine has a neice or something. She's a dental technician and goes by the name Modean.

Modean

While out in the country near where Granny Codine goes to find her roadkill, I placed a micro in her honor sometime back. It goes by her name and is GC445AX. Several folks have ventured out to find it.  So far none of them have seen Granny. Thank goodness! As I understand it she dresses up like a normal person and goes geocaching on those double days like January 1st (1/1), February 2nd, (2/2), March 3rd (3/3) and so forth. So be on your lookout when out in the woods south of Greensboro, NC.

 When our church has the wild game dinner, even though it's just for men, I'm going to invite Granny for sure. She'll probably provide most of the take.

Recently Granny was so kind. For Christmas she gave me a premium subscription to geocaching.com. I appreciate her and wish her a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I went out and placed a another geocache in her honor, only to have it disapproved by my reviewer. He felt it was too close to a major highway and that geocachers would park along this Interstate to get to the cache. I've seen thousands of caches just like mine but its not worth the time to argue it. I went back to move the cache to another nearby location and hope it gets approved. 

Granny Codine