Oh boy. so much Ecuador, and so few blog updates...



So last time I wrote, all four of our intrepid adventurers were battling the Inca two-step... as Justin´s cynical travel doctor told him "your chances of getting travelers´ diarrhea on a trip like this... are about 100%". A week later, we´re all back up to speed and have thankfully regained our abilities to control our bowel movements.



Buses:


A whole new beast in Ecuador. In Chile, we were all extremely impressed by the low costs, efficiency, timeliness, and cleanliness of all the buses we took. Hell, Justin and I took a 12 hour overnight bus with Semi-bed seats and a provided snack for $35 each. When we arrived in Ecuador, we were all first excited about all prices being in US dollars (Ecuador officially switched to USD in the early 2000s), and then were all excited by the even cheaper costs -- you can figure on buses costing about $1/hour. Our first week of travel along the Ecuadorian coast set us back only about $12 a piece for roughly 12 hours of buses.

Things got a little more down to reality on our overnight bus from Guayquil to Loja when we were waylaid for 2 hours by a landslide. But we got stuck around sunrise (6:30am, everday) so the time was easy enough to pass while sleeping. During our next short bus ride (normally an hour) we ran into the other classic Ecuadorian bus experience -- a breakdown. This time it was actually a flat tire, which the driver and his assistant were deftly able to switch out in about 40 minutes. While down in Vilcabamba, however, a giant landslide actually cut all the town´s ties to the outside world for 12 hours. Rains washed a 30´tall pile of mud across 150´of the only road into the town, which also knocked out power for Vilcabamba and the other small villages further down the valley. So on our way out of town we had to take a taxi up to the landslide and then walk across the mud between two giant back-hoes in order to catch a bus on the far side. The road above the landslide was hardly better, though paved, the road was full of nature-made speed bumps, sinkholes, and small landslides -- one of each flavor every 100 yards or so for about 15 miles.

After a few days at Chris´s site, the four of us headed north up to the provincial capital of Zamora, where we were able to access the giant rainforest of Podocarpus National Park. We had a surprisingly bright and sunny day to wander around some of the park´s trails as its only visitors for the day. We had a classic Ecuadorian lunch of Pap y Pollo (Pappy Po-yo), french fries and fried chicken, before catching our evening bus back down to Guayzimi. As the bus arrived, Chris advised us to hold our ground and use our bodies to defend our spot at the front of the line to board the bus. A couple hipchecks to small children, elderly women, and a few teenagers later, we scrambled aboard the bus but still found no open seats. While this might pose a problem in the US or even Chile, here it´s merely an inconvenience. Us four Gringos stood along with about a dozen Ecuadorians in the bus´s aisle. This is totally normal on a subway or even a city bus, but our bus ride was a solid 3 hours. Luckily the driver decided to stop halfway so he could eat dinner for 45 minutes. Chris, Jon, and I took a new angle when we reboarded this time and decided to be the last people onto the bus before the assistant. It worked out great -- a little reshuffling of passengers and Chris and I got to actually sit down and even see out a window while crouching in the wheel well. haha. Oh well... according to Chris other Peace Corps kids had witnessed standing passengers for full overnight buses, which sure makes our couple hours of standing look weak.


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More updates to come...

Justin is currently on an 8 day boat-tour of the Galapagos Islands.

Jon and I now heading off to the airport, leaving south america. We have a flight tonight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Lima, Peru to Los Angeles, California. Jon and I will each get picked up by an Uncle in LA, and spend the next 3.5 days visiting with our extended families (Jon´s mom and my parents are also flying in) and regearing for winter. Justin escaped the cold, but Jon and I are headed back to the Southern Hemisphere for another two months in New Zealand. Our beards can´t wait, but it will be sad trade our shorts and sandals for fleece and insulation.