Ecuador 2

I'm not an adrenaline junkie (unlike Bella in New Moon) by any means, but one of my favorite aspects of traveling is doing things that I wouldn't normally do. Things that make my heart race and make me smile too big (which causes Danika to request a more ladylike smile as she captures my joy on camera).

Months after scuba diving in Australia I still could recall the sensation of floating endlessly underwater. Skiing also makes me dream in motion. Since my return from Ecuador I have been able to close my eyes and feel myself flying down dusty roads (be they freezing or humid) with my head poking over the top of an old truck's cab. This is what it looked like.



In an effort to avoid the dust (since a monkey had stolen and broken her sunglasses) Jet donned some goggles. Soon after she also had her head wrapped in a scarf and was probably a startling surprise to the local Andeans who hopped on our truck-taxi as we slowed for corners (still not very slow...we have no idea how they do it).

Continuing with my jumping-all-over-the-place story telling style, here are some more highlights. The theme is things that made me super happy.



Catching a dumbwaiter ride down to our lodge on a cushion of rubber boots!

Meeting a big happy family full of colorful characters. I blundered my way through my parents' testimonies and several of the kids who spoke varying levels of English translated. My two minute tangent became a ten second explanation that made me suspicious...

Getting really really filthy was terrifically fun! There is freedom in sweat, various colors of mud (which the locals cutely dubbed "monkey poo"), smeared war paint, mosquito bites, mosquito repellent and terminally damp clothes. We were smelly warrior princesses.

Watching my friends try to stay cool with monkeys crawling and jumping all over them was funny until it happened to me. Monkeys do not understand that "no means no".

More to come!