Crazy Ecuador.

One of the many photos of Francesca and I running through one of two churches with no one around.
The blue-footed boobie mating!
The view from our ocean front cabana eating breakfast every morning in Peurto Lopez.
The other church we ran through uninhabited like a jungle gym.

Fat, poor woman in a plastic chair... Ecuador.

If I give each country a category so far then Brazil would be hot and drunk, Columbia would be safe and quick and Ecuador would be random. In no real order I am going to list these random events for you in keeping with the idea that this is Ecuador.

1. Filming TV commercials to teach Ecuadorians English.
2. A seven year old waiter and six year old food runner.
3. Being asked out by our tour guide what we assume for is to grab a drink at a bar only to be led to the beach at night and be questioned why I am not drinking... ummm I am not a dumb girl.
4. A family of four on a motorcycle.
5. A father and his three kids on a bicycle.
6. Motorcycles converted into Taxis.
7. Buses picking up hitch hikers.
8. Four dollar four hour bus rides.
9. Beret wearing bar owners.
10. Red Kabala strings.
11. Running around churches with no one there...
12. Ringing the bells in churches.
13. Stumbling upon monks rooms accidentally, while roaming around a museum then being asked to leave that same museum.
14. Djs preforming in a theater with everyone sitting and no one dancing.
15. Cab drivers chasing down buses.
16. People coming on buses selling everything from hamburgers to coconut water.
17. Karaoke bars singing, "Sexo!"
18. Stairs and hills.
19. Don Cherry the tour guide, who actually never was our tour guide.
20. Nineteen year old boys.
21. Grandma's cooking us dinner and feeding us dusty empanadas.
22. Cockroaches in our cabana.
23. Sleeping under mosquito nets.
24. Surfing and getting stung by jellyfish.
25. Seeing a dead sea turtle, blow fish, birds, snapper and hamster.
26. Ecuador's black outs.... cities having the electricity turned out for hours at a time everyday because they are poor or lack of energy.
27. Sleeping on the beach.
28. Thousands of sand dollars.
29. Children of the corn escorting us to our tour boat.
30. Jumping of a boats roof into the ocean to snorkel with huge fish.

I am positive there is more, but that is what stands out.

Getting to Quito

So, I was only in Columbia for a short amount of time. But It was the safest city so far and I found out the men with guns in our neighborhood where there cause the president lives there, which makes sense. Our trip to Ecuador though was a 35 hours adventure in itself.

It started with a 30 minute cab ride through Bogota in a cab playing all of Mariah Careys greatest hits. After purchasing our tickets and stuffing our faces with food we entered our bus. It was comfortable and it was fine for the first leg winding through mountains that literally broke through clouds. Then we stopped. A man with a mchine gun came on and told us to get out. At this point I thought we were being robbed. I started to feel better as one of the men grabbed my hand to help me of the bus and smiled at me. I thought at very least if the other guuy was planning to shoot us all maybe this guy would have my life spared. Of course Francesca and I started walking to the male line and then they started to laugh at us. Then we walked over to the female line with a man with a large gun was waiting for us. He just wanted to check our bags for cocaine. Soon we were aloud back on the bus and we carried on our way.

We stop for an amazing dinner with mixto rice and chicken and everything seemed fine. Until about an hour into being back on the nus passing all these amazing little villages that I wish I could have photographed we stopped again. This time for nearly two hours. The light outside quickly became dark and we weren{t going anywhere. Apparently, a car over turned up the road. Eventually we started moving arond seven and the bus driver apparently thought it would be agood time for us to go to bed. He turned off the lights and turned the air up and we were forced to sleep. Which would have been fine, besides the fact that it was unbelievably cold. Everyone else was prepared with blankets and jackets and Francesca and I tossed and turned snuggling at some points trying to warm our convulsing bodies because we were shivering so badly at some points. Morning finally came and it warmed the bus up. We stoppped again i the morning for breakfast and I passed out. When I awoke we were at our destination in Ipiales. We grabbed a cab to take us to this amazing church built over a river and then to the border. People were everywhere offering taxis, money exchange everything. It was overwhelming. As we got our exit stamp from Columbia and where walking towards Ecuador we were stopped again by armed men who were nice enough. One searched Francescas bag and another checked mine. He kept talking to me and I didn{t know what he didn{t understand about me not being able to speak spanish. Then an armed women came over and felt me up looking for drugs. We were obviously clean and then allowed to walk into Ecuador.

Yes, you guessed it we were stopped again. This tiem by an armed Ecuadarian Policia. We went into aroom, where he really only checked my things. He went through my wallet and asked how much cash I had. Francesca translated around one fifty. Appareantly, I had more. At first I thought Heas going to keep what I didn{t say I had, but know he really wanted me to count with him in Spanish. It was kind of ridiculous. He picked up one of my tampons not really knowing what it was, as well. He didn{t even go in Francescas things. Then we headed to immigration to get our stamp and then off for another taxi ride.

Our taxi driver was amazing. It was less then three dollars for less then a half hour drive. Ecuador is on the US dollar, too. He chased down a bus for us in his car to take us to Quito. The people from the bus ran up grabbed our luggage and Francesca and I ran down the street after them. We got on the bus where we stood out so badly. About ten minutes in to our trip we were stopped again. The bus driver guy came over to us and escorted us off to yes another armed man smoking a ciggarette. He asked for our passport and said oh, americanos... we grabbed our bags and he searched them going through my dirty underwear.

We then got back on the bus for another five hour ride through mountains and towns. At every stop people came on the bus trying to sell you anything from hamburgers and fries to water and plantain chips. At one point a passenger came on and put his chickens underneath the bus. We got to watch Fast and the Furious in Spanish and after that was over some up beat Spanish music. The bus trip seemed endless. Eventually, we pulled into the bus terminal and grabbed another cab. Our cabby told us the area we were at was kind of dangerous. It{s inbetween the new and old town.

Our hostel itself is great. The guy is so helpful and told us where to go and when. How much we should be charged for cabs and everything. He lives there with his family and me and his dog are best friends already.

Quito has been amazing. The curches are like playgrounds. No one is in most of them and we are free to climb and discover as we wish. I will tryo to post pictures soon.

Fucking Cristo

So, I am finally in Columbia in this amazing hostel. It is a series of open air courtyards with haammocks and rooms circling. Unfortunately, I am unable to upload pictures with the computer I am using at this hostel. We spent out first day here drinking the best coffee for thirty scents and three course meals for less then five dollars a piece. It´s ridiculous. It is a very different change of pace from Brazil.

In Rio you would just here music all the time. You could here it from our bedroom window. It is so peaceful and quiet here. The weather alone adds to that. It´s about sixty degress compared to Rio´s nearly hundred degree temperature everyday.


Everybody says how dangerous Colombia it is and yes I think at a particular moment in time back in the 80´s it was. But I feel safer here then in Brazil. I thought I was continuously going to get robbed by the ten year boys. One threw something at me when I didn´t give him money. Obviously, it isn´t America safe here. There are police everywhere and soldiesr with machine guns, but in caomparison this is safer.

Rio was also crazy just cause the blending of culture. Everyone was a different color and size. Unlike America where we label blacks: African American asians: Asian Americans and so on. They are just Brazilian and proud of it. And there are not Giseles and Adriana Limas runing around everywhere. The majority of the women are very plus size and they all where the smallest bikinis ever. It´s kind of gross. There are signs on the bus that says give your seat up for heavy people. I think people ar emore obese there then in the USA.

We hung out a lot on the streets in Lapa and Santa Theresa, where you colud drink outside and dance. The only problem is I can´t samba, but I tried and everytime you danced with someone they tried to make out with you. When I would be look, ¨Sorry, no¨ they didn´t understand why. Everyone here makes out everywhere. I watched a helicoptor and life guards pull someone out of the water and right near this whole scene at the beach, people are standing in the water going at it.

All in all Brazil was a lot of fun, but I am glad to be out of there. Even though leaving was such a process. We went to the wrong airport, had to take a taxi to the other airport, where we had to wait in a vestibule (which we could havve been robbed at anytime). We had to watch out for huge cockroaches and finally when the airport open they were giving Francesca shit about not having a ticket out of South America. It was just ridiculous. But everything about Brazil is ridiculous.

South American Adventure

Pictures are soon to come, but as of now let me brief you on my current situation. I came home from Korea in June and went to taiwan right before I came back (I will when I return home post the ast of my Korea and Taiwan pictures). I camehome ultimately because of the stress of my job and the fighting with them over money and because I knew my boyfriend was going to break up with me. So after many months of couch surfing (thanks Kate) and 90 hour work weeks I treated myself to this one last adventure to meet my friend Francesca in Brazil.

I can´t be more clear when I tell you no planning was put in this trip. One random day in June she asked me to go with her and I worked my ass off until I got on the plane to afford it. So when the day came to leave it was slightly surreal. I slept bascially the whole flight becasue it was at night and in the morning I opened the window and was like holy shit I am in Brazil. This is the fourth country I flown to by myself and you still get that uneasy feeling of like where the hell am I going. But I made it to the hostel in Sao Paulo, where Francesca was waiting for me. Our hostel was great; clean, accomandating and everything was free to use. We knew we were being spoiled to what we are probably going to encounter on the rest of our trip.

Sao Paulo is a huge city. The first night was pretty tame ending up in their china town and eating at there equivilant of Thai Lake (late night chinese food place in Philly). The we had a night cap of capíhrina´s. The sceonf day we explored the city which is endless, covered in graffiti (some beautiful and some ugly) and full of women wearing really tight clothing with their guts hanging out. The downtown/ historic area is kind of poor and at night we went to a more upscale part of town to go to dinner at an over priced sushi restautant. We did go to a total expat bar called OMalley´s: Your Home Away From Home. The Phillies game was and we met to really nice Braziliam men. Afterwards I got something to eat with the one and we went for a small tour of Sao Paulo.

We just got into Rio and getting to out hostel was a bitch. All the ATMs to get money out were broken and the taxi´s would not accept credit cards. In the midst of this I realized I left a bag with ahlf my clothes on the bus. Half out of the basically 14 items of clothing which I brought leaves me with practically nothing. Finally we found a working ATM, made it to the hostel and now am going to start my Rio adventure with a friend of a friend back in Philadelphia.