Only one day of rain out of 17 in the country. But what a rain it was. The river swelled and turned brown from run-off, everyone huddled under what little roofs and over-hangs there were around the town, and even the monkeys were nowhere to be seen. The monkeys? Yeah,…

The road to Puyo winds further down out of the Andes and through single and double lane tunnels. The rough hewn walls of which leave evidence of either blasting or manual excavation instead of modern boring machines. The longest of these measures almost 1km.  There is really not much here…

Our final night in Quito was the first time I have had decent pizza outside the US. The most rewarding part was what I did not receive from it: the shits – as has been the usual outcome of the formula: (me) + (pizza in other countries).  The next day…

Uh-oh Sarah is sick, maybe with a flu. She is the trip guide so if she is out then fun may not happen as easily. I will need to entertain myself for a few hours tomorrow before we leave for Baños. Hopefully I won’t get into trouble.  Quito is not…

One last, 2 hour, 5 am water taxi and we are back on the main (most inhabited) island of the Galapagos. Nothing too exciting today, just nominal tourist stuff: shopping, eating, hitting a beach. The beach was the reward after tough, 40 minute hike. At this point we are tired…

It is cold. And we are on the equator. Who would have thought? The temperature is completely driven by the currents and the sun and right now there is a cold current passing through. Oh, the sun. It is just a wee but strong. During mid day there is a…

White-knuckled and bone-jarring is how the Ecuadorians like their open ocean taxi rides. These water taxis are former 20-25′ day cruisers outfitted with huge engines to plane over the 10′ surf between the islands. Out of three rides two included a passenger vomiting (one was Sarah). Personally I find them…

I had always imagined the Galapagos as a series of damp rocks in the middle of the ocean – Darwin poised atop one like the Little Prince – with animals bursting out of every pore. But the islands are actually pretty dam big and the animal presence is nominal. The…

I’d like to take a moment to reiterate the importance of accents when using translation programs. The only English translation in El Museo Municipal replaced tenía (“did have”) with something much sillier.  I am not entirely sure what else to say about the city of Guayaquil. Being the largest city…