(CNN) – Tracy Ferrell looked at the boarded-up hotel in disbelief.
It was definitely closed. On top of that, it looked like it hadn’t been open in months.
“Okay, whatever,” Tracy thought. “Okay, we have a plan B.”
With an uncertain expression, she looked at her friend Monique, who was standing next to her with the backpack in her hand.
“Okay, let’s try the next one,” Tracy said cheerfully, trying to stay positive.
The two women put their backpacks on their backs and walked down the street. They were in Cuenca in southern Ecuador, a city full of cobblestone streets and colorful buildings.
When Tracy and Monique arrived at the next hotel, they found it was also closed. Not only was it locked, but the door was also securely padlocked. There was no sign that anyone was inside.
Tracy’s heart sank. He took the old “Lonely Planet South America” travel guide out of his backpack, leafed through it and consulted the hotel website again.
It was definitely the right thing to do. This was the alternative hotel. The one she and Tim had chosen, just in case the first one was closed. And it was closed too.
Tracy knocked on the door and thought it was worth a try. Nothing.
Oh no, Tracy thought. “I’ll never see him again.”
A meeting and a lunar eclipse
Tracy and Tim met in Ecuador in 1996. Their paths first crossed in Quito and then tried to meet again in Cuenca. Here they are seen later, in 1996, in the Peruvian town of Ollantaytambo. (Tracy Farrell)
It was September 1996 and Tracy was 26 years old. He had just completed his master’s degree in comparative literature at the University of Colorado with a concentration in Latin American literature. He had decided to travel through South America for a year and test his language skills.
Tracy’s first stop in Ecuador – before Cuenca – was the capital Quito. Suddenly I was in the Quito branch of the South American Explorers Club, a now-defunct organization founded in the United States and headquartered in cities across South America.
Sitting at a table in a quiet back room of the Quito clubhouse, Tracy pulled a few postcards from her purse. She spread them out on the table in front of her, ready to write and send to her family in the United States.
Tracy was distracted, trying to figure out how to summarize her journey so far, when she saw a boy across the room, his head buried in a book. Just as Tracy’s eyes landed on him, he looked up.
“Our eyes met across the table,” Tracy tells CNN Travel today. “I thought it was cute.”
Then a dog ran into the room: a German Shepherd who lived in the clubhouse.
The boy put down his book and began petting the dog enthusiastically.
“I love a man who likes animals,” says Tracy. “I started a conversation.”
It was Tim Zych, a 32-year-old New Zealander who had been teaching in London for several years.
When he met Tracy, Tim was enjoying a six-month trip and didn’t know what was next.
“When I was relatively young and motivated, I didn’t really have any plans for the future other than to travel,” Tim tells CNN Travel today. “I thought I would come back to live in New Zealand at some point.”
Tracy and Tim chatted for a while and both found friendly company, although Tim says he was “a little intimidated” by Tracy’s “obvious intelligence.”
“I found Tracy very attractive and confident,” he says.
“I liked his accent,” Tracy says. “As I recall, I invited him to dinner that night.”
Tim believes it was the other way around and that he was the one who asked Tracy out. What is certain, however, is that they were both looking forward to going out together that evening.
Tim and Tracy ate at a local restaurant, sitting outside and talking about their travels, families, careers and life back home (“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from New Zealand before,” Tracy recalls). So “I was very curious about New Zealand. “Zeeland and life there”).
“It was magical,” says Tim. “It really felt like something special, even though we obviously had no idea what the future would look like.”
They sat on a busy sidewalk, ignoring the cars, people, and hustle and bustle around them.
“There’s usually a lot going on in big cities,” says Tim. “I just turned all that stuff off. I just focused on Tracy and the conversation and everything else was a blur to me.”
“We got along well, we talked for hours,” says Tracy.
After dinner, Tim and Tracy returned to Tracy’s hotel and sat on the roof. They had heard rumors of a total lunar eclipse that night and ended up sitting under the stars and watching the moon turn a striking amber color.
“It felt special,” says Tim.
Tracy and Tim had a second date in Ecuador. Here they are photographed in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia in 1996.
The possibility of a second date was a fact. The next morning they took a bus to a place north of Ecuador, where the equator line crosses South America.
“There is a museum, a monument and a line on the ground where the equator is,” Tracy explains. “We thought it would be fun to try it out.”
As a tourist attraction it was a bit disappointing. But Tracy and Tim didn’t care.
“We strolled through the museum, but most importantly we got to know each other,” says Tracy.
The two ended their second date knowing they wanted to see each other again, but knowing they would part ways soon.
“We both already had travel plans and companions for the month,” Tracy says. “And he’s already been to the places I wanted to go.”
They decided to try meeting later in Cuenca, Ecuador. From there they would go to Peru together.
Before parting ways, Tim and Tracy consulted their copies of the Lonely Planet South America travel guide (“Everyone had it,” says Tracy. “We called it ‘The Bible'”).
They chose a hotel in Cuenca to meet. Then, almost as an afterthought, they decided on a replacement hotel “in case the first one didn’t work out for some reason.”
This was a time when cell phones, the Internet, and email were not yet widespread, and communication options were therefore limited.
Tim and Tracy’s plan to see each other again after the second date fails. Here they are both on a beach in Chile in January 1997.
And so it was that three weeks later Tracy found herself standing in front of an obviously closed hotel with the same thing lying in the background, wondering what to do.
He kept knocking on the door. Her friend Monique helped her.
Finally a man came. Tracy, who spoke Spanish fluently, told him they were looking for a place to stay.
“Is it open?” he asked. “We have to stay here.”
The owner said he was leaving town and closing the hotel for the weekend. But after some chatting, he agreed to let Tracy and Monique stay at his hotel while he was away, as long as they locked the door every time they left.
Excitedly, Tracy and Monique agreed to these terms. They went inside, dropped off their suitcases, and then went out into the night to explore.
Before she left, Tracy grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the hotel receptionist and scribbled a note that said something like this: “Tim, this hotel is closed, but Monique and I are staying here. If you see this, let me know where. “You stay!” You host!
As she and Monique closed the hotel door, Tracy placed the piece of paper on the doorframe. As they walked away, she looked back, hoping that the wind wouldn’t blow him away and that it wouldn’t be long before she was with Tim again.
A note on the hotel door
Tracy had the idea to write a note and post it on the hotel door. In the photo she is in Chile in February 1997.
Tracy didn’t know that Tim had arrived in Cuenca a few days before her. As planned, he went to the first hotel, then to the replacement hotel and found that both were closed.
Unlike Tracy, Tim couldn’t stay at hotel number two. Instead, he checked in somewhere else.
He was disappointed but tried to live up to his expectations.
“When you travel, you meet people who come and go, and sometimes you have a certain bond with them, and then you never see them again,” he says today. “So it wasn’t unusual for this to happen to me as a traveler, especially back then.”
Anyway, Tim couldn’t help but head back to the second hotel just in case he saw Tracy outside.
During one of these visits, Tim noticed the note on the door frame. He moved a little closer and saw that it was a message from Tracy. I couldn’t believe it at all.
She looked in her bag for a pen. He leaned against the hotel door and wrote a reply under Tracy’s message, detailing where he was staying.
When Tracy and Monique returned that evening and saw Tim’s answer, Tracy was amazed.
His note was “a shot in the dark.” He had been wondering all night, “Maybe I’ll see her, maybe I won’t.” Maybe she won’t come back. Maybe she’s not even in town anymore.”
I was happy that it worked. He took the note from the door and set off for Tim’s hotel, accompanied by Monique.
“We found him eating at the restaurant,” Tracy remembers.
Tim was very happy to see Tracy again. Here he is photographed in Colca Canyon in Peru in late 1996.
Although both Tracy and Tim had tried to accept the idea that they would never see each other again, they were happy to see each other again. Suddenly what they had almost lost seemed even more valuable.
Anxious not to get lost again, they decided to set off for Peru together the next day. From there they traveled to Bolivia and Chile. At first Tracy’s friend Monique joined them, then she returned home and Tracy and Tim traveled alone for the next three months.
“We had dozens of adventures, from 45-hour bus rides to mountain climbing and rafting in the Amazon,” says Tracy.
“We fell madly in love,” he adds.
Tim and Tracy loved traveling the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. Tracy says this photo, the first one they took together, is one of her favorite photos.
One of the most memorable moments of this time for Tracy and Tim was the beginning when they hiked together through the Cordillera Blanca in Peru and crossed the highlands.
“It was a point of no return for me,” says Tim about the Cordillera Blanca experience. “The mountains were incredibly beautiful and wild. Being with someone who valued it as much as I did and who was also very capable in this terrain made Tracy even more attractive to me.”
“It was wonderful. “It was just breathtaking,” says Tracy. “One of my favorite photos of the two of us was taken at the top of one of the hiking trails. We had the camera set up and crouched down to take the picture.”
In the photo, Tim puts his arm around Tracy. They both smile happily. It was their first photo together.
During the three-month trip, Tracy and Tim were rarely alone. It was challenging at times, but the difficult times brought them closer together.
Separated by continents
Tracy and Tim stayed in touch while they were apart.
But even though Tracy still had a few months left, the end of Tim’s journey was quickly approaching.
In February 1997 Tim had to return to London and work again. Tim and Tracy reluctantly said goodbye, leaving things unfinished between them.
“As we were both traveling and I didn’t have a fixed address, it took about a month before I received a letter from him. I thought he had forgotten me,” Tracy says.
Communication became a little easier when Tracy got a job in Costa Rica and settled there for a while. Tim sent letters to the American Express office in San Jose.
“It was difficult: I really missed being with Tracy, but I really wasn’t sure if we would ever see each other again,” recalls Tim.
They wrote to each other constantly and tried to talk on the phone whenever they could.
“Due to the time difference, the calls often came in the middle of the night and my roommates woke me up to say I had received a call from my girlfriend in America,” remembers Tim. “I was immediately awake and excited to talk to Tracy.”
In July 1997, Tracy’s year-long trip came to an end and she returned to Boulder, Colorado, where she lived before her trip.
It was around this time that Tim started thinking about returning to New Zealand. He decided to travel home via Colorado and pitched the idea to Tracy over the phone.
She was excited, so Tim bought two plane tickets: one from London to Colorado and one from Colorado to New Zealand.
“I was definitely curious to see how our relationship would develop,” Tim remembers.
He was excited to see Tracy, but once again tried to lower his expectations.
“I didn’t really know how it was going to happen because it looked like I wouldn’t be able to stay in America for long and I was pretty sure Tracy wouldn’t follow me to New Zealand,” he says.
But when he met Tracy at the gate at Denver International Airport, it was “like a dream,” Tim says.
“It was like we had never been apart. She looked as vibrant and beautiful as she did when we traveled.”
Tracy agrees. “We hugged each other. It was like we had never been apart,” he says. “We talked non-stop the whole way from the airport to the house.”
A spontaneous decision
Over the next few weeks, Tracy enjoyed showing Tim Boulder. He moved there to get his master’s degree and he liked it. Tim could understand why.
“We spent the first few weeks enjoying the summer outside around Boulder,” he remembers. “Neither of us had much money and we didn’t have a car, so we walked or biked everywhere. When it was hot, we swam in the stream and avoided the afternoon storms, or we hung out in the hammock in our apartment.” Tracy. It was wonderful.”
As the days went by, Tim and Tracy became more and more certain that they were part of each other’s futures. The prospect of Tim returning to New Zealand became less and less attractive. The date of his return flight came and went.
“We tried to think about how we could live together long-term,” says Tim.
They started looking for options. The idea of getting married arose.
At first neither Tracy nor Tim were sure. Neither of them had wanted to get married. But after discussing everything in detail, they came to the conclusion that they could marry on their own terms. They would keep their wedding day low key.
“We don’t have to plan it,” Tracy suggested. “One day we will go to court and that will be it.”
Tracy and Tim at their wedding in Colorado.
They did so in August 1997. The only person Tracy told was her boss, and that was just an anecdote. She asked for an afternoon off, and when she mentioned she was getting married, her boss insisted she take the whole day.
Tracy and Tim say their wedding was so special because of its simplicity. Colorado doesn’t require witnesses, so it was just Tracy, Tim and the judge.
“There were only two of us. And we didn’t even take any photos,” Tracy says.
After a few weeks, Tracy and Tim told some friends about their marriage. They then started researching how to get Tim’s visa and later told his parents.
“My parents were upset because I had always said I wouldn’t get married,” Tracy says.
Tim says his parents, thousands of miles away in New Zealand, are “very surprised by the situation but also very excited.”
Tracy started her PhD and Tim started the visa process. On their first wedding anniversary, the couple hosted a belated celebration for their friends and family in Colorado.
And aside from a brief stay in Boston, the couple has lived in Colorado ever since.
A “cosmic” coincidence
Tracy and Tim have been happily married for 26 years. In the photo they are celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary on Isla Mujeres in Mexico in 2017.
More than 26 years later, Tim and Tracy still live in Colorado. Currently, Tracy is an adjunct professor in the writing program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, while Tim works as a project manager for Boulder County.
While they are quick to point out that “no serious relationship is always easy,” Tracy and Tim claim they are “best friends” and believe that is the secret to their years of happiness.
The couple has a 17-year-old daughter to whom they enjoy telling stories about falling in love in Quito, almost getting lost in Cuenca and their unexpected reunions.
“We joked with her, ‘If it weren’t for that note at the hotel that Tim saw, you wouldn’t be here,'” Tracy says with a laugh. “For our family to exist, many things had to come together. I think that’s really cool. And I hope she thinks so too.”
A recent photo of Tim and Tracy with their 17 year old daughter.
Tracy and Tim have occasionally talked about returning to South America together. But while nostalgia appeals to them, as avid travelers they prefer to explore new places before revisiting their favorite places.
Also, it’s interesting to keep these memories sacred.
“It would be great in many ways, but at the same time I value the memories we have,” says Tim, who says he sees the moment he met Tracy as a “fork in the road.”
“The chance of us meeting was infinitesimal,” Tracy says. “And on the night of the lunar eclipse…”
“It’s like what had to happen happened,” says Tim. “A cosmic coincidence.”