Lazy days of summer... well, almost summer.  I can't really tell by the weather down here.  Except for the wind, of course... there's this awful wind that starts at around 10 and gives up around 6, or pretty much the entire time the sun is blasting.  The kite surfers love it, the surfers hate it, and I'm definately leaning towards the latter.  I've been surfing the past two days on nice rolling breaks between a meter and 2 meters tall.  Great for beginners like me.  I've gotten over the steep learning curve of being able to catch the waves and stand up pretty consistently- now I'm working on riding the smooth face up and down as it breaks to the left.  It's terribly fun, and at around 10 dollars a day for a nice board and wet suit, it doesn't require spending too much time justifying the expense.

We had our first ceviche on the beach yesterday.  Ohhh... it was tasty.  Raw rish, squid, calamari, and shrimp mixed together in the staple lemon sauce, garnished with a strange type of potato and chile peppers, made a delicious treat.  Aside from the fact that my intestines are not in the best shape today, it was well worth the four dollars we paid for it.  For five they might leave out the parasites.

But I did find the cure to travelers' raw-anus condition that can result from a couple days of diarreha.  It's usually made worse by sitting down for long periods (busses), and maybe swimming in the ocean.  You'll know you've got in when wiping your butt feels like you're using sandpaper, even with the softest of tissue.  So here's the trick: alcohol wipes and Gold Bond baby powder.  Walla!  Keep it clean and dry and you're well on your way to anal relief.  If you plan on traveling, don't forget to bring these essentials!  Note: it d ...

We're in a small mountain town on the eastern cordillero next to the Orient, which is what they call the jungle portion of Ecuador.  Today it's raining, so there's not much to do other than sit on the computer and write.  Now we understand why this is the low-season... 

Yesterday was stupenderisiouly-magnifinormous.  We rented some bicycles for $5 and rode downhill through mountain ravines for 2 hours.  The sky was clear, the weather nice and cool, and the tourist traffic to a minimum.  The hills here are covered with jungle- everywhere there's green, except near the rivers rumbling below that are carving deep rifts through strange looking volcanic rock.  I wanted to take pictures of it all... to somehow save it, maybe hang onto the it's vast beauty for years to come- always remembering what it was like to be here.  But then reality told me that the photos can't do that for me.  Nothing can.  All that we see and do here is gone just as soon as we turn around and move forward.  Sadness accompanied the joy of it.

And then the people you meet wipe that sadness away, because they too are here for those fleeting moments of awe.  They know just as well as we did that this is a special place, and knowing that for the first time uplifts you, but ultimately we are destined to experience far more than one view of creation.  We must turn away, and move forward.  People share the same human experiences, understand the same limitations, and are blown away by the same vastly beautiful unknowns.  So stopping to forget with them all that we think is ours is a welcomed relief.  Two men we met along the way yesterday we're exceptionally pleasant distractions.  One was an ex-pat from Canada, who came here to tend a garden next to the rumbling Rio Verde.  The other was a restaur ...

There's a lake in the middle of an old volcano... around the year 1780 this mountain exploded, spewing fire and ash miles and miles, and when the smoke settled a giant hole was left where the mountain once was.  Over time the crater filled with water, forming what is now known as Laguna Quilotoa.  This is one of the most spectacular things I've seen in my 24 years.

We arrived at the summit of the crater before noon on Thursday.  After negotiating our sleeping arrangements, we packed our day hiking gear and went to see for ourselves what we had heard so much about.  And we weren't disappointed.  The 30-minute straight downhill slide to the bottom was a lot of fun.  We hung out near the clear green water for a few hours, ate some frutas and cliff bars, wrote, meditated, and told the local burros (donkey) guides that we were planning on walking back up... Strangely enough, we met an older couple from Decatur there too- Bob and Janice we a nice bunch of gringos on a planned tour.  They said that they weren't so stupid to try and walk back up.

Then for the next hour and 20 minutes we scrapped and dug our ways back up and out of the crater.  That was our first major excertion... we took a nap shortly thereafter.  Later that night we ate dinner with a local Quichua family huddeled around the wood stove heater- that was the best meal we had had yet on the trip.  Afterwards we had a beer or two and chatted with one of the younger girls about their traditions, culture, the world, music, etc. in a mix of german, belgian, spain, and quichua spanish.  That was a whole lot of fun.  Sleeping that night, though, was a bit d ...

We had to say goodbye to Quito today... too much to see further south to be hanging around the big city. 

I've said before that detailing all the events of my time here is more like work to me than fun.  And we left our work back in Atlanta... Besides, I imagine that that sort of writing is not nearly as enjoyable to read.  Pictures we have to show some of our high points, but in many cases you'll have to imagine the stories that go with them.

It suffices to say that we've had a lot of fun.  All the people we meet are nice, welcoming, and generous- both travelers and locals.  Ecuador is truly a wonderful little country on a spectacular strech of land.  We went to the equator, both the massive monument 200 ft away, and the actual 00º 00.000 line. They say you're actually lighter on the equator (less gravity)...  which might help explain why we had such a light-hearted time playing with the gimmicks that demonstrate the 'power' of the equator.  You've heard about the water in a draining sink spinning opposite directions depending on the hemisphere you're in, right?  Well, we got a demo of that.  After the guides left, another american couple, Lada, and I had a fun time trying to figure out how they did it.  We've got two theories now: the angle of the ground upon which the sink was set, and the way the water was poured in before the plug was pulled.  Then again is could be the power of the Line.  Any ideas?  We took video of it if you've no idea what I'm talking about.

Anyway, a lot has happened since then.  We checked out the South American Explorers group, joined and got our bearings, moved to another hostal in the new part of town, partied, slept, researched out next step, hoped in a taxi then in a hurried panic transferred to a bus, sat for 2 hours, lande ...