Quito Ardiente: January 2009

Tobin, Me, Seth, and Dana

Having just arrived back in Conocoto after my 3-week vacation from Manna Project, I feel refreshed and ready to get back to work. That being said, I fully enjoyed my time away, first by traveling back to Dallas for the holidays, filling my time with family, friends, and food (and plenty of it, especially tex-mex). Just after New Years, I headed south again with Tobin to meet up with a couple of friends in Lima, Peru to made our way back to Quito via bus. Tobin, Seth, Dana, and I had a great (but exhausting) week that included an enormous amount of bus traveling and great Peruvian ceviche. Since our travels included little random stories, I thought I'd once again recount our adventures in a list-worthy fashion. Enjoy and look out for many more entries in the New Year as MPI-Ecuador revs up our programs once again!

Highlights...

- Seeing the largest pre-Columbian ruins in the Americas, some dating back some 1200 years
- Riding 4 overnight buses in 7 nights (not including an additional overnight flight)
- Watching Tobin eat his still-moving crab ceviche
- Visiting "mudbaths," which ended up consisting of one 10 by 10 foot mudhole filled by 9 Peruvians
- Making friends with 3 old Peruvian fisherman, one of whom would talk only about how much he loved to smoke eucalyptus leaves
- Touring mangrove forests, a crocodile reserve, and bird island by boat
- Discovering that Peruvian cabs drivers honk when angry, lonely, passenger-less, passenger-filled, worried, or maybe even just because
- Learning that Peruvians lose their right to vote at age 60
- Seeing not a single street dogs in the Miraflores sector of Lima (I'm convinced there's no such neighborhood in all of Ecuador)
- Staying in a $10 a night bamboo bungalow on the beach
- Magically being handed a first-class seat on our flight from Guayaquil to Quito
- Getting off the bus 3 separate times in the middle of the night at the Peru-Ecuador border
- Scornfully realizing aspects of Peruvian culture than are far superior than their Ecuadorian counterparts (food, buses, hot sauce, beer, cheap cabs, THEY SELL REESES PEANUT BUTTER CUPS HERE!)
- Nostalgically thinking about those things which are better in Ecuador (green landscapes, proximity of travel destinations, price of almost everything, having a firm grasp on local slang, QUITO)